Value management (VM) has become a useful tool for achieving sustainability in many countries. This paper aims to assess VM implementation and its activities towards achieving sustainable building projects in Egypt. Data were obtained from the literature, followed by a qualitative approach through a semi-structured interview and a quantitative approach via a questionnaire survey. In Cairo and Giza, data were collected from a sample of 200 building professionals using a questionnaire, while exploration of the country’s VM activities practice was completed using exploratory factor analysis (EFA), including descriptive statistics such as “frequency analysis” and ”measures of central tendencies”. The results show that VM awareness was demonstrated by 64% of the sample, which means that they know about VM. On the other hand, most respondents, 85.3%, did not adopt VM and did not receive any VM training. The results also show, through EFA, that the correlations between these activities show five main components: an information phase, a function phase, a creativity phase, an evaluation phase, and a development/presentation phase. This study will help building professionals to eliminate unwanted costs and enhance project sustainability by adopting VM in building projects in developing countries. Finally, the results of this study will enhance building management through the implementation of VM elements, with a view to ensuring value for money and meeting sustainability goals.

https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/21/9143/pdf

Identifying and Assessing Sustainable Value Management Implementation Activities in Developing Countries: The Case of Egypt

Agency roles and responsibilities for contract administration depend on the contracting method. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has encouraged agencies to consider alternative con...

/pdf/comparing-contract-administration-functions-for-alternative-2cemn0fru5.pdf

Comparing Contract Administration Functions for Alternative and Traditional Delivery of Highway Projects

Offshore structures are mainly associated with the oil and gas industry given that globally, nearly one-third of the oil and gas extracted worldwide comes from offshore sources. This situat...

Fatigue Assessments of a Jacket-Type Offshore Structure Based on Static and Dynamic Analyses

Several approaches have been used in the past to predict fatigue crack growth rates in T-joints of the offshore structures, but there are relatively few cases of applying structural health monitoring during the non-destructive testing of jacket platforms. This paper presents an experimental method based on the sensing of the piezoelectric sensors and finite element analysis method for studying the fatigue cracks in the offshore steel jacket structure. Three types of joints are selected in the current research work: T-type plate, T-type tube-plate, and T-type tube joints. The finite element analysis model established in the current study computes and analyzes the high stress and high strain regions in the T-type joints. The fatigue damage in the T-type joints was successfully detected by utilizing both the finite element analysis and experimental methods. The results showed that fatigue cracks of the three types of joints are prone to appear at the weld toe and spread in the welding direction. The fatigue damage location of T-type plate and T-type tube-plate joints is more concentrated in the upper weld toe area, and the fatigue damage location of the T-type tube joint is closer to the lower weld toe area.

Fatigue Crack Monitoring of T-Type Joints in Steel Offshore Oil and Gas Jacket Platform

Delay causations in infrastructure projects are well reported in normative literature. However, very little is known regarding the environment-related causations which can assist in developing mitigation strategies. This study aims to examine critical causations of overruns in marine construction projects.,A total of 73 delay factors, grouped into 16 themes, were identified from literature. Data relating to the significance of each factor were collected through a questionnaire survey administered to 151 respondents. A total number of 126 valid responses were retrieved. Reductionist methodology was used to identify the statistical significance of each delay causation.,All 73 variables analysed in the study are significant, including communication issues amongst stakeholders, inadequate planning, safety issues, deficient technical instructions and inappropriate management approaches. Others include design and construction issues, issues with project organisational structures, political and cultural factors, environmental uncertainties and complexity in resource management. The study also found estimation errors, owner's attitude, financial issues, delay in approval processes, construction strategies and unavailability of appropriate technologies for the work as influencing factors. These findings are consistent with earlier studies on other forms of projects, but they further confirm that they are very relevant to marine projects.,Due to the diversity of marine projects, overrun factors are likely to manifest in different ways in varying project circumstances. In addition, economics, technologies and local legislation often influence project situations differently.,The implications of these findings will assist in growing the practicality of scheduling and contract administration theories in marine projects. Although delay causations that have been reported in normative literature are relevant to marine construction, however, some of the causations are more severe in marine projects. It is important that planners and project stakeholders are mindful of this such that they can develop their expectations to tolerate variability rather than trade impracticable blames.,Determining delay factors specific to marine construction projects assists stakeholders and project management community in developing dedicated strategies applicable in scheduling to prevent and correct obstructions caused by overruns. Since projects are different in types and sizes, delay observations cannot be generalised.

Critical overrun causations in marine projects

This paper examines the potential of value engineering (VE) as a problem-solving tool for addressing various challenges in the marine construction industry. Through a review of large numbers of challenging engineering problems in the marine environment, the authors identified various complications caused by dynamic and uncertain marine environments in both the prebid and postbid stages of construction projects. These unexpected challenges required the project team to identify optimal solutions in a comprehensive and efficient manner. In past construction projects, a 10-step approach was designed and used by the authors to identify solutions for unexpected engineering problems. The approach has three limitations: (1) it is an informal and time-consuming process involving possibly redundant communications and coordination; (2) it is not specific and detailed enough to ensure that the optimal solution is in fact considered and selected in a comprehensive and efficient manner; and (3) it does not integrate standard metrics other than the estimated cost that can be used to quantitatively evaluate the performance of a solution in terms of productivity, quality, safety, and environmental impact. This paper first presents the current 10-step process for solving marine construction problems and limitations of this process. The paper then describes the VE seven-step process and highlights how the VE process and the 10-step approach share the same structure. All steps in the VE process can find correspondences in the 10-step process, whereas VE methodology formalizes the value of a solution and quantitative performance metrics to harvest and evaluate ideas from groups of engineers in a more systematic manner. Based on this shared structure, the paper discusses how to augment the 10-step approach with the VE methodology to achieve more comprehensive and efficient problem solving. Using a case study, the authors explain how such augmentation can effectively integrate the knowledge and experience of groups of engineers with diverse backgrounds in marine construction. Finally, the paper suggests future directions for using VE for marine construction projects.

Robert B. Bittner

Papers

Use of Value Engineering to Develop Creative Design Solutions for Marine Construction Projects