The World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic on the 11th of March 2020, but the world is still reeling from its aftermath. Originating from China, cases quickly spread across the globe, prompting the implementation of stringent measures by world governments in efforts to isolate cases and limit the transmission rate of the virus. These measures have however shattered the core sustaining pillars of the modern world economies as global trade and cooperation succumbed to nationalist focus and competition for scarce supplies. Against this backdrop, this paper presents a critical review of the catalogue of negative and positive impacts of the pandemic and proffers perspectives on how it can be leveraged to steer towards a better, more resilient low-carbon economy. The paper diagnosed the danger of relying on pandemic-driven benefits to achieving sustainable development goals and emphasizes a need for a decisive, fundamental structural change to the dynamics of how we live. It argues for a rethink of the present global economic growth model, shaped by a linear economy system and sustained by profiteering and energy-gulping manufacturing processes, in favour of a more sustainable model recalibrated on circular economy (CE) framework. Building on evidence in support of CE as a vehicle for balancing the complex equation of accomplishing profit with minimal environmental harms, the paper outlines concrete sector-specific recommendations on CE-related solutions as a catalyst for the global economic growth and development in a resilient post-COVID-19 world.

A critical analysis of the impacts of COVID-19 on the global economy and ecosystems and opportunities for circular economy strategies

https://pure.hw.ac.uk/ws/files/6700255/Tracking_MEP_Works_v2.pdf

The value of integrating Scan-to-BIM and Scan-vs-BIM techniques for construction monitoring using laser scanning and BIM: The case of cylindrical MEP components

Exploring environmental and economic costs and benefits of a circular economy approach to the construction and demolition sector. A literature review

Performance evaluation of ultra wideband technology for construction resource location tracking in harsh environments

Vision-based action recognition of earthmoving equipment using spatio-temporal features and support vector machine classifiers

Large productivity drawbacks have been historically related to the inefficient flow of site resources. Increments in accrued costs and time and safety incidents result from the flow or movement of resources across the job sites. Even though the importance of this problem, there is not data to characterize the unnecessary movement of site resources. This fact is a consequence of the overwhelming burden that such characterization would give rise to with traditional control techniques based on human observations and paper based records. Currently, though, large contractor organizations have started to take slow but seemingly decided steps towards a more visible control of their site resources with infrastructure-less tracking approaches that result in low-accuracy locations. Efficiently identifying the movement of site resources throughout the job site with low-accuracy location estimates results in a non-trivial problem that cannot be properly solved using deterministic or classic probabilistic approaches. Instead, the author proposes an innovative approach based on the adoption of belief reasoning functions. In this approach, a resource is believed to actually be in a new set coordinates if and only if t he sum of conflicting values as a result of intersecting pairs of confidence circles centered in the last and predecessor coordinated estimates exceeds a pre-defined threshold of uncertainty. The quantitative approach is validated against empirical observations. The results indicate that the proposed method efficiently detects the actual movement of resources on the job site and correctly filters location uncertainties.

/pdf/a-framework-to-automatically-monitor-the-position-of-site-5651nx7qkf.pdf

A Framework to Automatically Monitor the Position of Site Resources with Low-Accuracy Estimates

Hiring Native American Faculty in Engineering and Construction: Challenges from an Institutional Perspective

In order to improve the effectiveness of an uncertain process _the outcomes of which cannot be predicted, key players need to unfold the variables that hide behind it and measure their impact on the process. Currently, the process of relocating non-bulk materials on storage yards mostly falls under this uncertainty domain. While the fact that pre-fabricated items need to be repositioned for purposes other than those strictly productive is widely assumed by industry organizations, there is a lack of detailed research to understand these non-value-added relocations. This research relies on a case study to analyze and to quantify the non-value-added relocation of steel components. The analysis of their daily position coordinates coupled with the characteristics of these steel components is used to characterize their relocations on a typical yard. Preliminary results indicate that the percentage of components unnecessarily repositioned is much larger than actually perceived by industry organizations.

Characterizing the Non-Value-Added Relocation of Non-Bulk Components on Storage Yards

This manuscript reports the findings of a research endeavor that has characterized the process to deliver detailed workshop and erection design documents for steel structures when outsourced to offshore design service providers, and has assessed the influence of these design processes on construction operations. The study has considered all aspects (organizational, transactional, and resource-based) of the structural design process among the key participants, i.e. owner, contractor, designer, and manufacturer. However, only the findings at the interface between design and construction are presented in this manuscript due to space constraints. An exploratory case study methodology was undertaken and ethnographic data from US client and Indian vendor companies was collected. As part of this ethnographic data collection, interview data comprising 23,000 words was coded to identify the constructs that characterize offshore outsourced structural design processes. Several shortcomings currently characterize these design processes. For instance, the inefficient use of design technologies penalizes the communication of design information between the involved participants. These inefficiencies frequently result in undetected clashes between the structural members and facility/building components (such as building services) that need to be identified and resolved at the job site at the expense of increased construction costs and extended completion times. In addition, the inefficient exchange of design information among participants result in excessive and time consuming design revisions that frequently extend design and construction schedules. To this date, past research efforts have investigated primary (architectural) offshore outsourced design processes but have, for the most part, omitted offshore outsourced structural design processes.

Influence of offshore outsourced structural design processes on construction operations

David Grau is an Assistant Professor at The University of Alabama. Recently, his work in the field of engineering education has focused on investigating the barriers and opportunities for the integration of best construction engineering practices into the curricula of higher education colleges and universities in North America. In addition, Dr. Grau has investigated the impact of a continuous training program in the discipline of construction engineering on the learning and work behavior of practicing engineers in the construction workforce. Currently, he investigates the effect of a novel program to increase the retention of first-year undergraduate students enrolled in an engineering college. The program also aims at increasing engineering student success, enhancing the sense of community and belonging by the students, and improving the transfer of knowledge in the engineering disciplines. In order to succeed in his research endeavors, Dr. Grau frequently collaborates with social scientists and educators. Prior to his academic career, he worked for more than seven years both leading an engineering department and managing complex industrial projects in South and Central America, and Europe. He is a registered Industrial Engineer in Spain and holds both a M.S. and a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin.

https://www.asee.org/public/conferences/1/papers/2621/download

David Grau

Papers

A Framework to Automatically Monitor the Position of Site Resources with Low-Accuracy Estimates

Hiring Native American Faculty in Engineering and Construction: Challenges from an Institutional Perspective

Characterizing the Non-Value-Added Relocation of Non-Bulk Components on Storage Yards

Influence of offshore outsourced structural design processes on construction operations

Lessons learned on the redesign of content and learning strategies for an introductory course to construction in civil engineering