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Effective safety management is a key aspect of managing construction projects. Current safety management practices are heavily document-oriented that rely on historical data to identify potential hazards at a construction job site. Such document-bound safety practices are prone to interpretative and communication errors in multilingual construction environments, such as in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Applications of Building Information Models (BIM) and Virtual Reality (VR) are claimed to improve hazards identification and communication in comparison to 2-D static drawings by simulating job-site conditions and safety implications and thus can interactively educate the job-site crew to enhance their understanding of the on-site conditions and safety requirements. This paper presents findings of a case study conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of 4-Dimensional (4-D) BIM and VR in simulating job-site safety instructions for a multilingual construction crew at a project in the UAE. 4-D BIM-enabled VR simulations, in lieu of the Abu Dhabi Occupational Safety and Health Center (OSHAD) code of practice, were developed and tested through risk assessment and safety training exercises for the job-site crew. The results showed a significant improvement in the job-site crew’s ability to recognize a hazard, understand safety protocols, and incorporate proactive risk response in mitigating the hazards. This study concludes that 4-D BIM-enabled VR visualization can improve information flow and knowledge exchange in a multilingual environment where jobsite crew do not speak a common language and cannot understand written safety instructions, manuals, and documents in any common language due to linguistic diversity. The findings of this study are useful in communicating safety instructions, and safety training, in the UAE, as well as in international projects.
Muneeb Afzal; Muhammad Shafiq. Evaluating 4D-BIM and VR for Effective Safety Communication and Training: A Case Study of Multilingual Construction Job-Site Crew. Buildings 2021, 11, 319 .
AMA StyleMuneeb Afzal, Muhammad Shafiq. Evaluating 4D-BIM and VR for Effective Safety Communication and Training: A Case Study of Multilingual Construction Job-Site Crew. Buildings. 2021; 11 (8):319.
Chicago/Turabian StyleMuneeb Afzal; Muhammad Shafiq. 2021. "Evaluating 4D-BIM and VR for Effective Safety Communication and Training: A Case Study of Multilingual Construction Job-Site Crew." Buildings 11, no. 8: 319.
Background: Implementation of Building Information Modelling (BIM) has proven to deliver major performance improvements in Program efficiency, design quality, constructability, waste reduction, environmental performance, and capital & operational cost management of built environment projects. Yet BIM implementation in low BIM maturity markets, such as the UAE, is limited to technology applications which fail to deliver the full potential of BIM benefits to client originations. Objective: The purpose of this paper is to investigate BIM implementation from a client’s perspective and to present a case study that exhibits a level 2 BIM implementation process in a traditional procurement environment. Methods: The study has used a case study approach combined with a literature review. A critical appraisal of relevant literature is presented to highlight key issues hindering BIM implementation for client organizations, especially in developing BIM markets, such as the UAE. The research is collected using an action research approach within a case study, including project document audit, participation in project collaboration meetings and extensive communication with the project stakeholders. The case study is presented in a practice-oriented research format describing the project details, procurement approach, BIM development & management process and benefits achieved for the project client. Results: The paper presents a structured approach to strategically introduce BIM within a low BIM maturity market, creating partnering relationships, empower the supply chain partners and achieving significant BIM benefits with minimum disruption to existing work practices. The paper highlights that although BIM requires a step-change in the work practices of the construction industry, yet it is possible to successfully implement BIM with traditional procurement settings, which may be a critical feature in a certain market or a client requirement. Conclusion: There is a need for case study based, practice-oriented research work within the domain of BIM implementation. Construction clients in low maturity BIM markets are concerned about the perceived benefits of BIM and its practical implementation within existing business practices, which is addressed in this paper. Overall, the findings of this study are useful for construction industry clients and academia in redefining the existing work practices to incorporate BIM-enabled processes and applications.
Muhammad T. Shafiq. Client-Driven Level 2 BIM Implementation: A Case Study from the UAE. The Open Construction and Building Technology Journal 2021, 15, 129 -140.
AMA StyleMuhammad T. Shafiq. Client-Driven Level 2 BIM Implementation: A Case Study from the UAE. The Open Construction and Building Technology Journal. 2021; 15 (1):129-140.
Chicago/Turabian StyleMuhammad T. Shafiq. 2021. "Client-Driven Level 2 BIM Implementation: A Case Study from the UAE." The Open Construction and Building Technology Journal 15, no. 1: 129-140.
The construction industry in Pakistan is experiencing a surge in public sector projects due to major investments in infrastructure projects. Project delays and cost overrun are common features in public sector construction projects in Pakistan. Therefore, an understanding of the causes of time and cost overrun in public projects is essential. This paper investigates delay and cost overrun factors within the context of public sector projects in Pakistan. This study identifies 48 potential factors from existing literature and semi-structured interviews were used to refine the identified factors into ten categories. A questionnaire survey was used to establish a hierarchy of factors using descriptive statistics. The results showed that the major causes of time overruns in public projects were (1) legal issues, such as court stay orders, land acquisition, relocation of public facilities; (2) technical errors leading to low-quality drawings, rework, and errors at bidding stage; and (3) Poor project management. The findings of this research contribute to understanding the causes of project delays in public sector projects in Pakistan.
Shehryar Idrees; Muhammad Tariq Shafiq. Factors for Time and Cost Overrun in Public Projects. Journal of Engineering, Project, and Production Management 2021, 11, 243 -254.
AMA StyleShehryar Idrees, Muhammad Tariq Shafiq. Factors for Time and Cost Overrun in Public Projects. Journal of Engineering, Project, and Production Management. 2021; 11 (3):243-254.
Chicago/Turabian StyleShehryar Idrees; Muhammad Tariq Shafiq. 2021. "Factors for Time and Cost Overrun in Public Projects." Journal of Engineering, Project, and Production Management 11, no. 3: 243-254.
With the advancement of digital design practices in the global construction industry, different aspects related to the project lifecycle are extracting their benefits, including making improvements in safety. The objective of this paper is to ascertain the awareness of these technologies, their potential, and any barriers related to the use of different virtual design construction (VDC) tools, such as building information modeling, virtual reality, augmented reality, and geographic information systems, to improve job-site safety in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. The paper presents an overview of the GCC construction industry and highlights current safety management practices and problems in the region. The potential of VDC tools for improving job-site safety is discussed and presented. The study has used a questionnaire survey to identify the drivers and barriers of using VDC tools in improving job-site safety management in the GCC region. The results indicated that “designing emergency and evacuation plans” and “fall-hazard prevention strategies” are the two best safety applications of these tools if used proactively. Similarly, “lack of knowledge about return on investment for VDC tools” was considered as the predominant barrier, preventing stakeholders from using these technologies to improve construction safety. These results will help the GCC construction industry to build a strategy for the digitalization of proactive constructability analysis techniques for improving job-site safety. Overall, due to the multilingual dynamics of this region, it is recommended that VDC tools should become more prevalent so that the transfer of safety information and hazard prevention becomes easier, mitigating safety risks.
Muhammad Tariq Shafiq; Muneeb Afzal. Potential of Virtual Design Construction Technologies to Improve Job-Site Safety in Gulf Corporation Council. Sustainability 2020, 12, 3826 .
AMA StyleMuhammad Tariq Shafiq, Muneeb Afzal. Potential of Virtual Design Construction Technologies to Improve Job-Site Safety in Gulf Corporation Council. Sustainability. 2020; 12 (9):3826.
Chicago/Turabian StyleMuhammad Tariq Shafiq; Muneeb Afzal. 2020. "Potential of Virtual Design Construction Technologies to Improve Job-Site Safety in Gulf Corporation Council." Sustainability 12, no. 9: 3826.
The paper highlights the problem of Industry Foundation Classes (ISCs) model comparison in a platform-neutral collaboration of Building Information Models (BIMs). A critical issue in the IFC model comparison is establishing the right candidates for comparison, which typically depends upon using Globally Unique Identifiers (GUIDs). GUIDs are criticised for inconstancies that result because of complex modelling operations and nature of BIM authoring tools that are used to exchange IFC data. This paper presents a signature-matching approach that advocates using dynamic object identities, calculated from the characteristics and attributes of IFC objects, using hash keys that can create a unique signature for an object. Exemplars of creating IFC object signatures are presented. The proposed methodologies for creating IFC object signatures are implemented in a custom-built tool, xBIM Signatures exporter, and are verified using a test case. This research is limited to discussing signatures for IfcBuildingElements and has not considered a level of details and signature weighting of various object characteristics to formulate a robust solution. The proposed signature matching approach can benefit model comparison functionality for model servers and cloud-based collaboration tools.
Muhammad Tariq Shafiq; Stephen R. Lockley. Application of signature-based matching for IFC model comparison. International Journal of Construction Management 2020, 1 -10.
AMA StyleMuhammad Tariq Shafiq, Stephen R. Lockley. Application of signature-based matching for IFC model comparison. International Journal of Construction Management. 2020; ():1-10.
Chicago/Turabian StyleMuhammad Tariq Shafiq; Stephen R. Lockley. 2020. "Application of signature-based matching for IFC model comparison." International Journal of Construction Management , no. : 1-10.