Proceedings

PROCEEDINGS
TH
THE 5 WORLD CONSTRUCTION SYMPOSIUM
2016
Theme:
Greening Environment, Eco-Innovations &

Entrepreneurship
Editors
Dr. Y.G. Sandanayake
Dr. G.I. Karunasena
Dr. T. Ramachandra
Building Economics and Management Research Unit (BEMRU)

Department of Building Economics
University of Moratuwa
Edited by Dr. Y. G. Sandanayake, Dr. G. I. Karunasena and Dr. T. Ramachandra
ISSN: 2362-0919
Ceylon Institute of Builders - Sri Lanka
The papers published in this proceeding reflect the opinion of the respective authors. Information contained in this proceeding
has been obtained by the editors from sources believed to be reliable. Authors of specific papers are responsible for the
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We would like to express our appreciation towards the Ceylon Institute of Builders (CIOB) for
inviting Building Economics and Management Research Unit (BEMRU) of the Department of
Building Economics, University of Moratuwa to jointly organise this symposium for the fifth
consecutive time and assigning us the major task of paper administration. We also extend our
sincere gratitude towards the main sponsor of the symposium, the International Council for
Research and Innovation in Building and Construction (CIB) and the associate partners:
Liverpool John Moores University, United Kingdom, Centre for Innovation in Construction and
Infrastructure Development (CICID), The University of Hong Kong, Indian Institute of
Technology Madras (IIT Madras), Auckland University of Technology (AUT), New Zealand,
Northumbria University, United Kingdom, Robert Gordon University, United Kingdom and
Colombo School of Construction Technology (CSCT) for their constant support.
We are very thankful to the authors who have submitted papers for this symposium, as if not for
them, we could not hold this event. Our special thanks go to the eminent international and local
scientific committee members for reviewing and offering constructive comments to make the
papers more meaningful and contextual. We would like to extend our gratitude towards the chief
guest, keynote speaker, session chairs, session coordinators, paper presenters, members of panel
discussion and investor forum, awards selection committees, BEPAM Journal Editor-in-Chief,
Emerald Publisher and the committee and other invitees for their commitment and contribution to
the symposium.
We are also thankful for the organisations that have provided sponsorships. Last but not least, all
our colleagues in the organising committee and symposium secretariat are especially thanked for
devoting their time and effort to make The 5th World Construction Symposium 2016 a success.
Editors
The 5th World Construction Symposium 2016
Colombo, Sri Lanka
July 2016
PREFACE
The 5th World Construction Symposium jointly organised by the Ceylon Institute of Builders
(CIOB) and Building Economics and Management Research Unit (BEMRU), Department of
Building Economics, University of Moratuwa is held on 29-31 July 2016 in Colombo with the
partnerships of Liverpool John Moores University, United Kingdom, Centre for Innovation in
Construction and Infrastructure Development (CICID), The University of Hong Kong, Indian
Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras), Auckland University of Technology (AUT), New
Zealand and Northumbria University, United Kingdom, Robert Gordon University, United
Kingdom and Colombo School of Construction Technology (CSCT), Sri Lanka. The symposium
is co-sponsored by International Council for Research and Innovation in Building and
Construction (CIB). The symposium provides a special forum for academic researchers and
industry practitioners to share their knowledge, experience and research findings on the main
theme of Greening Environment, Eco-Innovations and Entrepreneurship.
The sub themes of the symposium covers a wide spectrum of areas such as: Green Buildings;
Sustainable Urbanisation; Sustainable Construction Practices; Procuring Sustainable Built
Infrastructure; Cost Management; Process Improvement; Building Information Modelling and
Information Management; Innovative Green Technologies; Sustainable Procurement Strategies;
Public private partnerships (PPPs) and Green Innovation; PPPs for a Sustainable Built
Environment; Environment Economics and Management; Affordable Sustainability; SocioEconomic Sustainability; Sustainable Materials/Green Building Materials; Green Rating and
Certification; Energy Management; Legal Aspects Relating to Sustainable Construction;
Sustainable Facilities; Education of Sustainable Construction; Linking Design and Construction
to Operation and Maintenance; and Disaster Management.
We received number of abstracts and full papers for the symposium and all papers went through a
rigorous double-blind peer-review process by locally and internationally renowned reviewers
with respect to the originality, significance, reliability, quality of presentation and relevance, prior
to selection. After the rigorous double blind review process, 58 papers were selected for
publication, covering thirteen countries, i.e. Sri Lanka, India, United Kingdom, United States of
America, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Turkey, Qatar, Oman, United Arab
Emirates and Egypt. Priority was given to the quality and standard of papers rather than the
number of papers presented at the symposium. It is our firm belief that the publication that
emerged from this symposium is the result of the tireless effort of all authors, reviewers,
symposium organising committee members, associate partners, sponsors and that it would pave
way for advancement of knowledge in sustainable development in built environment.
SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE
Scientific Committee Chairs
Dr. Yasangika Sandanayake
University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka
Dr. Thanuja Ramachandra
Dr. Gayani Karunasena
Scientific Committee Members

Prof. Andrew Ross
Liverpool John Moores University, United Kingdom
Dr. Anupa Manewa
Liverpool John Moores University, United Kingdom
Prof. Arun Chandramohan
National Institute of Construction Management and

Research, India
Associate Prof. Daniel W.M. Chan
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong
Dr. Dave Moore
Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand
Dr. K.A.K. Devapriya
Prof. Edwin H. W. Chan
Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong
Prof. Florence Y.Y. Ling
National University of Singapore, Singapore
Dr. Gamini Weerasinghe
Prof. Guillaume Habert
ETH Zurich, Switzerland
Associate Prof. Hwang Bon-Gang
National University of Singapore, Singapore
Ch.QS. Indunil Seneviratne
Dr. James Rotimi
Dr. Jamie Mackee
University of Newcastle, Australia
Dr. Janaka Wijesundara
Prof. Jay Sanjayan
Swinburne University of Technology, Australia
Prof. John Tookey
Dr. Kanchana Ginige
University of Northumbria, United Kingdom
Ch.QS. Kanchana Perera
Prof. Koshy Varghese
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras India
Assoc. Prof. Lalith De Silva
Prof. Manu Santhanam
Prof. Mark G. Alexander
University of Cape Town, South Africa
Prof. Mohan Kumaraswamy
University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Dr. Mohan Siriwardena
Robert Gordon University, United Kingdom
Dr. Motiar Rahman
Institut Teknologi Brunei, Brunei
Dr. Nayanthara de Silva
Dr. Nirodha Fernando
University of Northumbria, United Kingdom
Dr. Primali Paranagamage
University of Lincoln, United Kingdom
Dr. Queena K Qian
Deft University of Technology, The Netherlands
Prof. Rohinton Emmanuel
Glasgow Caledonian University, Scotland
Dr. Sachie Gunathilake
Prof. K. N. Satyanarayana
Dr. Sepani Senaratne
University of Western Sydney, Australia
Prof. Srinath Perera
University of Western Sydney, Australia
Prof. Steve Rowlinson
The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Ch.QS. Suranga Jayasena
Dr. Thayaparan Gajendran
University of Newcastle, Australia
Dr. Thilini Jayawickrama
Dr. Udayangani Kulatunga
University of Salford, United Kingdom
Associate Prof. Umberto Berardi
Ryerson University, Canada
Prof. Vanderley M. John
University of Sao Paulo, Brazil
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
PREFACE
SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE
CONTENTS
KEYNOTE SPEECH
CONTENTS OF PAPERS
PAPERS
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
PROF. GEORGE OFORI
BSc (Building Technology) (University of Science &
Technology, Kumasi, Ghana), MSc (Architecture) Building
Economics and Management (University of London), PhD
(University of London), DSc (University of London)
Professor
Department of Building
School of Design and Environment
National University of Singapore
George Ofori received both his doctoral degree and a higher doctorate degree from the University
of London. He is a Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is currently a
Professor at the National University of Singapore, and Director of the multi-disciplinary MSc
(Environmental Management) programme. He is also a Chair Professor at Tsinghua University,
China. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Building, UK; Fellow of the Royal Institution
of Chartered Surveyors, UK; and Fellow of the Society of Project Managers, Singapore. He is the
Deputy Chairman of the International Board of the Construction Sector Transparency Initiative
(CoST).
His main research area is strategic construction industry development, focusing on the
improvement of the construction industries of developing countries. He has also undertaken
research on sustainable construction, international construction, productivity and leadership
development in construction. He has authored several papers which have been published in
international refereed journal, conference papers, books, chapters in books, and published reports.
He has been invited to deliver some keynote papers at many international conferences. He is a
member of the editorial boards of many leading international peer-reviewed journals. He was the
Founding Co-ordinator of the CIB Working Commission 107 (W107) on Construction in
Developing Countries of the International Council for Research and Innovation in Building and
Construction (CIB).
The subjects he has taught at the under-graduate and graduate levels include Construction and
Development Economics, Development Management, Environmental Management, International
Project Management, and Research Methods. His experience in the construction industry has
been as a senior quantity surveyor, mainly in Ghana. He has also been a consultant on
construction industry development to many governments and international agencies since 1978.
The countries where he has undertaken assignments include: Bahrain, Ghana, Indonesia, Malawi,
Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, South Africa, Swaziland and Tanzania.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION SUSTAINABLE BUILT

ENVIRONMENT: A RESEARCH AGENDA
George Ofori*
Department of Building, School of Design and Environment, National University of Singapore, Singapore
ABSTRACT
What is new in green built environment? In considering this question, it is necessary to explore two
others: why is it necessary to seek to attain a green built environment? What has been achieved in the
efforts towards attaining it? What are the persisting challenges and problems? Thus, what else needs
to be done? Again, in considering the question of what else needs to be done, it is necessary to
investigate the full range of sustainability in the built environment - i.e., to go beyond green. Such an
investigation shows that whereas some headway has been made in formulating policies, strategies,
regulations and actions in industry to enhance environmental performance in the built environment,
much more needs to be done under that pillar of sustainable development. Moreover, the other
elements of sustainability: economic, social and governance have not been given much attention.
Focus has also been put on building at the expense of other elements of the built environment. A
more appropriate conceptualisation of the subject is explored.
After discussing key features of a sustainable built environment, entrepreneurship is considered. Eco
innovation in building is next discussed. The definition of innovation is analysed, again, focusing on
the current understanding. Innovation and entrepreneurship as they relate to a sustainable built
environment is considered. The link between innovation and entrepreneurship is subsequently
analysed. The relevance of these two processes to the process of planning, design, construction and
management of the built environment today is discussed.
The main theme and each of the 23 sub-themes of the conference are then briefly considered
individually. In each case, the current state of knowledge on, and special relevance of, the subject is
discussed, followed by consideration of implications for further research. Some other points which are
relevant to a sustainable built environment are also highlighted. It is found that there is scope for more
work under each of the sub-themes, and that, together, the points highlighted constitute a research
agenda for innovation and entrepreneurship in the built environment.
Keywords: Innovation; Entrepreneurship; Sustainable Development; Built Environment; Research.
1.
INTRODUCTION
1.1
WHAT IS NEW IN GREEN BUILDING?
The theme of this conference is: Greening Environment, Eco Innovations and Entrepreneurship. Some
23 sub-themes are outlined. It is pertinent to consider the need for a green built environment, and what has
been achieved in this endeavour. If there is more to be done, and obstacles to overcome, then the role of
innovation and entrepreneurship in the effort to make progress can be explored.
The creation of sustainable constructed items (which make up the built environment) is one of the key
issues in all countries today. It is because it is recognised that construction plays a critical role in putting in
place the foundation for sustainable socio-economic development by building place the needed physical
assets (HM Treasury, 2011; National Infrastructure Unit, 2015). Considering sustainable development, it
is pertinent to highlight the unique features of construction which make it possible that construction
activity and constructed items can have a potentially negative impact on sustainable development (Ofori,
2015), and which also enable them to offer the possibility of making a significant positive contribution to
efforts to address the effects of inappropriate economic development - for example, the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (2007) suggested that the building stock offers the most cost-effective
means of addressing climate change.
Corresponding Author: E-mail - [email protected]
Much has been achieved in many countries in the effort to attain a sustainable built environment (see, for
example, a global survey of trends in green building McGraw-Hill Construction, 2013). Four examples
from the arena of statutes and policies may be outlined. First, in some countries, laws and codes have been
introduced which require appropriate action in attaining green construction. Second, a few countries, such
as Singapore (BCA, 2014) have launched green building master plans. Third, in many other countries,
such as Malaysia (CIDB, 2015) and the UK (HM Government, 2013), green building is a major element of
national construction industry improvement strategies and subsequent policies. Finally, green building is a
major component of the programmes in national sustainable development strategies - an example is
Singapore where the target is to attain 80 percent green buildings in the building stock by 2030 (InterMinisterial Committee on Sustainable Development, 2009).
Developments in terms of the response of the industry (at the macro level) can also be outlined. The first is
the formation of green building councils which bring parts of the industry together to pursue progress in
green building. For example, the Singapore Green Building Council (SGBC), with membership from all
sections of the construction industry, was formed in 2009. Its mission is to propel the Singapore building
and construction industry towards environmental sustainability by promoting green building design,
practices and technologies, the integration of green building initiatives into mainstream design,
construction and operation of buildings as well as building capability and professionalism to support wider
adoption of green building development and practices in Singapore (Singapore Green Building Council
[SGBC], 2016). The vision of the Green Building Council of Sri Lanka (GBCSL) is: to transform the
construction industry in Sri Lanka with green building practices and to fully adopt sustainability as the
means by which our environment flourishes, economy prospers and society grows to ensure the future
wellbeing of our Motherland (Green Building Council of Sri Lanka [GBCSL], 2016a).
Second, professional institutions and trade associations have formulated green building manifestos (such
as Royal Institution of British Architects, 2000; Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB), 2013) and guides
(such as Singapore Institute of Architects, 2013) for their members. Green building assessment and
benchmarking tools have been developed in some countries by government agencies such as in Singapore
(where the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) launched Green Mark (BCA, 2012)), by groupings
in the industry such as in Malaysia (where the Green Building Index (GBI, 2009) was formulated by
architects and consulting engineers and in Sri Lanka where the GreenSL Rating System for Existing and
New Buildings was set up by the GBCSL (GBCSL, 2016b). At the company level, design and
construction firms in many countries now use their capability and track records in green building as a
strategic tool. An example of the periodic development of a UK company in the consideration of
sustainability in corporate practices is provided by Whitehead (2015).
1.2.
AIM AND OBJECTIVES
The aim of the study is to investigate the potential role of innovation and entrepreneurship in the effort to
realise a green built environment. The discussion is focused on consideration of the main theme and subthemes of this conference.
The objectives are to:
consider the need for a green built environment, the progress which has been made in the effort to
attain it, and the remaining issues, challenges and problems,
consider the meaning of innovation and entrepreneurship today, and analyse their potential to
facilitate the efforts towards creating and managing a sustainable built environment, and
present a research agenda for a sustainable built environment by considering the 23 sub-themes of
this conference.
2.
SUSTAINABLE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
2.1.
WHY DOES MORE NEED TO BE DONE TO REALISE SUSTAINABLE BUILT ENVIRONMENT?

WHAT REALLY NEEDS TO BE DONE?
More needs to be done in the effort to attain a sustainable built environment, not only to ensure net-neutral
impact of the process of creating and managing the built environment on sustainable development, but to
maximise the potential positive impact. As a manifestation of the need for more work, some of the
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which outline what is to be achieved to bring about
improvements in the quality of life of people around the world, relate directly to the expansion,
improvement and better management of the built environment. These include (United Nations, 2015):
Goal 6. Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all
Goal 7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
Goal 9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialisation and foster
innovation.
(Goal 11, on cities, is considered below.)
Some examples of how the built environment can address all the pillars of sustainable development are
now considered.
1. Environmental ... minimisation of land use change; conservation of resources - using fewest (in
number) and least (in volume or weight), maximising recycling/reuse; minimising all forms of
pollution
2. Economic ... creation of jobs, enhancing of incomes; integration of (and deriving synergies among
inter-linkages among) elements of the built environment; enhancing productivity of production
processes in organisations using the built items; saving of costs in built environment firms own
production; incentives
3. Social ... cultural suitability; lifestyle changes possibilities - examples include design for crime
reduction and personal safety, and provision of leisure and sports facilities
4. Institutional policies and programmes, regulation, enforcement, incentives and awards.
Another issue worth considering here is that of governance. In construction, corruption and
mismanagement is responsible for the leakage of very high proportions of the funds which are meant to be
invested in public construction projects (Transparency International, 2005; Hawkins and McKittrick,
2012). The factor of project governance, as well as governance at the national level concerning the
administration of projects are key in sustainable development (Ofori, 2016). Thus, it is possible to
reconsider the concept of project governance in construction as the effort to attain sustainable
development in the construction process, through the construction process, from the constructed item.
2.2.
WHY ARE CURRENT DEFINITIONS INADEQUATE? WHAT WOULD AN APPROPRIATE

CONCEPTUALISATION OF THE SUBJECT BE?
Viewed through the prism of sustainable development, the current focus on "green building" which has
seen translation into policy and practice, and the formation of "Green Building Councils" and assessment
systems in many countries, is inadequate. There is often some confusion on the subject. For example, the
mission of the GBCSL is: to develop the sustainability of the built environment by transforming the way
it is planned, designed, constructed, maintained and operated and drive the adoption of green building
practices through market-based solutions, while helping to forge a new partnership between government,
industry and other stakeholders (GBCSL, 2016a). Thus, the mission (which refers to the built
environment is wider than the vision (which mentions green building and the construction industry).
The attempt by some authors to equate green building with sustainable building, or to use expressions such
as "green and sustainable construction" (Office of the Federal Environmental Executive, 2003) are not
satisfactory. The existing definitions of sustainable construction do not go far enough; an example is
that offered by the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) (2008). An attempt by the SIA
(2013) to offer elements of a sustainable built environment goes much further than most of the existing
ones.
Appropriate definitions of sustainable construction are needed. These should go beyond green building
and consider the inter-linkages among the components of the built environment, well as the economic,
social-cultural-historical and institutional-governance pillars of sustainable development. Ofori (2013)
considers a sustainable building as:
one which has been designed and constructed with due consideration of aspects relating to
sustainable development including: preservation of land and effective decision making in answer to
the fulfilment of the clients need for space (for example, is a new building needed?); resource
conservation, and maximisation of utilisation of renewable resources; utilisation of existing natural
factors such as daylight, wind direction and sunlight; prevention of pollution all types; protection
and preservation of natural ecosystems; effective management of waste; enhancement of the

durability of the built facilities including safeguarding the fabric of the built facilities in changing
atmospheric conditions; promotion of the health and well-being of the workers building the items as
well as occupants of nearby buildings (during construction), and of users of the built facilities (upon
completion); and development of environmentally conscious lifestyles of the users.
It would be appropriate to consider, analyse and improve upon this definition. The appropriate definition
would: consider all appropriate elements of sustainable development; seek to cover, and be relevant to, all
types of constructed items; consider the lifecycle of the constructed item; seek to explore and exploit
possible contributions of construction; and inspire and challenge the industry to perform to a higher level.
2.3.
WHAT ARE SOME RECENT DEVELOPMENTS?
Some recent developments can be outlined. The Open Building Institute in the US has launched a crowd
funding campaign to allow anyone the chance to create his or her own affordable eco-house. The open
source platform has a free library designs for structures, furniture and utilities contributed by designers
whose buildings met the (Quirke, 2016). However, many of the items have not been prototyped. The Low
Emissions Intensity Lime and Cement consortium (LEILAC), which includes Heidelberg Cement of
Germany, Mexicos Cemex, Tarmac of UK (a materials firm) and Calix of Australia (a mineral-processing
and carbon capture technology company) was set up to exploit carbon capture technology developed by
Calix, which may enable Europes cement and lime industries to slash their carbon emissions without
significantly increasing their costs (Rogers, 2016). The consortium is building a plant in Belgium which
could capture more than 95percent of CO2 emissions from lime and cement manufacturing.
3.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND ECO-INNOVATION
3.1.
WHAT IS THE POSSIBLE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND SUSTAINABLE

BUILT ENVIRONMENT?
There is a huge volume of literature on entrepreneurship (Shane and Venkataraman, 2000), and there are
many myths, misunderstandings and arguments with entrenched positions on many aspects of
entrepreneurship, and issues relating to it (Carlsson et al., 2013). There is general agreement that, as
Schumpeter (1934) suggested many years go, entrepreneurship is important in all economies. For
sustainable development, entrepreneurship could be considered to be crucial.
Today, the appropriate definition of "entrepreneurship" would have the following elements: (i) the ability
to identify opportunities, often in a field or operating environment involving risks; (ii) the capability to
assess the potential of these opportunities and determine that they are viable; (iii) the decision to enter into
business or other activities to take advantage of these opportunities, a decision others might not have
made; and (iv) the ability to build upon these opportunities to create other opportunities to apply, and
hence, create additional wealth. Also, it is pertinent to state that there is a consensus today that
entrepreneurship is not limited to business; it can be involved in any activity, and can also an involve
individual, a group or an organisation.
The importance of entrepreneurship is even more evident today, with Schumpeterian disruption in many
areas of endeavour which have taken many firms, including those which thought they were agile and
competitive, by surprise and threatens to make whole segments of industries redundant. In the built
environment field, it is necessary to pay attention to these possible developments in entrepreneurial
disruption: (a) possible empowerment of small companies by easily available data and computer power
(via the cloud); (b) rise of companies able to utilise new technologies such as BIM more effectively during
development and in management of built items; (c)companies which will come up with the next
technological innovation after BIM; (d) new production approaches and working methods such as greater
automation; (e) new organisational working arrangements, lifestyles and shopping habits and their impact
on the volumes of built items in different segments which will be needed; and (f) nature and volume of
infrastructure which will be required to enable and support renewable energy, its basic unit of production
and necessary aggregation, and the new methods of transportation.
Two other areas where disruptions will occur in the way the built environment is planned, designed,
constructed and managed could be considered. First, there will be greater stakeholder involvement, as
users and beneficiaries, empowered with computers and smart telephony, and emboldened by the social
media, will show greater interest in the process of creating the components of the built environment. Thus,
there will be the need for more effective stakeholder management in the planning and design process, in
monitoring of projects, and in feedback during the operation of the facilities. The second disruption will be
in the forms of ownership including community ownership of large-scale infrastructure. Thus, the local
community could replace national government in public-private partnerships. These developments make a
new understanding of entrepreneurship in the built environment necessary.
3.2.
HOW CAN INNOVATION CONTRIBUTE TO ATTAINING SUSTAINABLE BUILT ENVIRONMENT?
It is suggested that innovation and value creation are among the key sources of economic growth today. A
committee set up by Singapores government to formulate new strategies for the future highlighted this
factor (Committee on the Future Economy Secretariat, 2015).
Innovation has many definitions. It can be considered as a new idea, method or item of equipment; a new
way of using an existing idea, method or equipment; or the opening up of new ways of providing goods or
services, and so on. An innovation should be of direct use, and should have an impact on society. It is
helpful to consider Schumpeters (1934) idea of creative destruction, and suggest that businesses,
governments and individuals should continually find better ways of doing things, whether in the form of
more effective processes, better inputs, better products (improved quality, durability, service, price), or
better ways to reach the clientele (choice, waiting time, convenience). The link between entrepreneurship
and innovation is often highlighted. For example, to Drucker (1985), Entrepreneurship is the act of
innovation involving endowing existing resources with new wealth-producing capacity. The strong link
between entrepreneurship and innovation is evident in the many major global companies which were startups a few years ago.
It is pertinent to note that innovation does not only involve the application of new or more sophisticated
technology. It includes new or smart ways of using existing or simple methods. Thus, it is often pertinent
to explore traditional (old) approaches.
There are many possible areas where innovation is relevant to sustainable built environment. It should be
noted that, in the context of sustainable development, the full range of innovation should be explored for
possible application, rather than focusing on the eco dimension, as in the theme of this conference. Some
examples are: (a) planning and design approach - innovative planning to maximise use of space and
preserve land; (b) passive design to create appropriate indoor environment with human comfort and
productivity; (c) novel materials and their production methods; (d) high performing plant and equipment,
installations and fittings; and (e) attention to social-community and personal-psychological aspects.
4.
THE FUTURE
4.1.
THE CONFERENCE THEMES AS FURTHER RESEARCH AGENDA
The 23 sub-themes of this conference are presented below. Under each sub-theme, some comments are
first made on its relevance and current state of knowledge on it. The implications for further research are
then presented, with a focus on new considerations which will push the frontiers of knowledge and also
lead to progress in the practice of sustainability in construction.
1.
Green Buildings
As discussed above, the concept of green building should be extended beyond building to cover
construction and ultimately, the entire built environment; and beyond green to cover other elements of
sustainable development other than the environmental module. It would be pertinent to study the concept
of sustainable construction which includes green building. Other relevant elements of this broad
subject should also be institutionalised in order to set up appropriate headings for research. Arguably key
among these is governance (as discussed in section 2.1).
2.
Sustainable Urbanisation
Urbanisation is a critical issue in many countries, especially in the developing nations. The merits and
disadvantages of urban areas and their growth have been debated for several decades (Hall, 1996). It is
now realised that cities offer possible arenas for developing and instituting solutions in sustainable
development (Bouteligier, 2013; United Nations Human Settlements Programme, 2014). However, it is
also evident that there are major problems in the cities in developing countries where millions of people
live economically precarious lives in unsafe and unhealthy built environments (United Nations, 2015). A
particular SDG, Goal 11, concerns cities, as it states: Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe,
resilient and sustainable. Making cities work, through effective planning and management, is a current
major task in practice, administration and research. Sustainability across the urban area involves dealing
with the inter-connection among built items. Much more work is needed in this important area.
3.
Sustainable Construction Practices
The construction industry in each country has a range of practices, based on history, tradition and law.
Reviews of the construction industries in many countries have found that the industries prevailing
practices have a major impact on performance (Construction 21 Steering Committee, 1999; HM
Government, 2013). For example, the allocation of the roles of the participants tends to constitute an
obstacle to effective integration, co-ordination and value chain management. It is suggested that wholeindustry approaches to establishing progressive and performance enhancing practices, procedures,
contracts and relationships should be developed and instituted (Bernstein, 2003). It is also pertinent to
consider the international variations in practices, sieve out good practices, and seek their effective
dissemination for application, while recognising context specificity in each case.
4.
Procuring Sustainable Built Infrastructure
Sustainable procurement has the potential to provide direction, guidance and incentives to practitioners
and companies. Ofori (2000) suggests that procurement can be used to influence appropriate decision
making in enterprises, and by individuals, throughout the value chain of construction firms. Some
pertinent research questions include: (a) How different should the procurement arrangements for items of
sustainable infrastructure be from those for 'regular' items? (b) What would be the appropriate assessment
and bidder selection criteria for awarding these projects? (c) As environmental assessment is currently
usually done at the design stage, what would be the relevant project success criteria? and (d) How can
government set the example in procurement of sustainable built infrastructure, considering the differences
in main considerations of public and private-sector clients during procurement.
5.
Cost Management
Cost comes first when considering the performance parameters of construction projects, even in the socalled iron triangle (Association for Project Management, undated). The importance of the management
of the cost of the constructed item is perhaps signified by the fact that a particular profession (Quantity
Surveying or Cost Engineering) has been developed to practice it. Cost is also important in the context of
sustainable development. It relates to the economy pillar of the concept. It is necessary to progress from
the persisting focus on cost in decision making on built environment projects. It is also necessary to
enhance knowledge and application of life-cycle consideration of cost and related aspects of projects. This
has relevance to sustainability with its stress on inter-generational equity and relevant considerations
(Drexhage and Murphy, 2010). Studies are also needed on how best to balance cost with value, and then to
relate cost to the other project performance parameters.
6.
Process Improvement
Process improvement is important in the field of sustainable built environment as the industry uses
massive volumes of materials. Thus, such concepts as Sustainable Consumption and Production (UNEP,
2015) are especially relevant to that field. Process improvement should be extended upward and
downward beyond the construction process to include the extraction and production, transportation,
storage and handling of materials; management or disposal of wastes during construction; continuous
management of materials, components and installations in the facility during its operation, and appropriate
reuse or recycling of its materials and components upon demolition.
7.
Building Information Modelling and Information Management
From the perspective of a sustainable built environment, BIM offers the possibility of: effective
collaboration in planning, design and construction; experimenting with various patterns and components;
simulating the long-term performance of various materials and components; avoiding errors, rework and
waste. Information management would help in the capturing, processing, dissemination and application of
key information and data relating to aspects of the construction project and constructed items. Further
research in BIM and information management should also consider the legal and other obstacles. Work is
also required in integrating BIM with other technologies such as virtual reality and augmented reality, and
the application of drones in various aspects of construction; and the post-BIM era in construction
(Thasarathar, 2016).
8.
Innovative Green Technologies
Innovation, in green technologies, in relation to the built environment, should not mean advanced, most
mechanical technologies. Technologies should be explored and applied in construction in the most
fundamental and widest sense, including equipment, methods, materials, processes, procedures, and so on.
The technologies explored should be on the entire continuum, from the most advanced such as
nanotechnology in the study of materials, and non-mechanical technologies as in passive methods.
Contextual local relevance is key. Also worth exploring are the life-cycle cost implications of the new
materials, components, techniques and tools.
9.
Sustainable Procurement Strategies
The comments on this sub-theme are the same as on sub-theme 3.

The adoption of a strategic approach to procurement would be most useful. Sustainability here also refers
to long-term, continuous development of strategies, policies and approaches, with stakeholder feedback.
10. Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) and Green Innovation
PPP is being increasingly used for various projects. It has merits and demerits, and while it has led to the
realisation of some critical projects around the world, it has also resulted in projects which have involved
problems and failures (European PPP Expertise Centre, 2015). It is appropriate to continuously innovate
in the effort to apply PPP to constructed items and the urban infrastructure and rural built environment.
11. PPPs for a Sustainable Built Environment
Considering the increasing importance of PPP in the realisation of the elements of the built environment,
further study of the effective application of PPP in this segment is necessary. Community level (instead of
national level) PPP application is worth exploring.
12. Environmental Economics and Management
The subject of Environmental Economics and Management has not yet become established as a research
area in construction. This requires key attention.Some possible topics in Environmental Economics with
respect to the built environment include: (a) modelling life cycle assessment incorporating all dimensions
of sustainability; (b) valuation of the priceless in built items; (c) what price premium to charge reasonably;
and (d) what should the value of relevant incentives be, and for what duration. The possible research
topics in Management are: (a) sustainability management as a project management knowledge area; and
(b) managing the delivery of the sustainable built item.
13. Affordable Sustainability
Affordability is not given sufficient attention in construction. It is applied in practice without much
analysis. This is a fertile area for further research.
14. Socio-Economic Sustainability
The focus on the environmental pillar of sustainable development in built environment practice has been
discussed above. This fixation even exists in research. Work on the other pillars is required. The
expression socio-economic should be rendered more appropriately in its two component parts social
and economic, in addition to their combination to determine possible synergies.
15. Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship is relevant to the effort to pursue sustainable development, as discussed above. However,
it should be reiterated that entrepreneurship should not only relate to individuals and businesses; it should
also be applied to administrators, and organisations outside the business sector.
16. Sustainable Materials/Green Building Materials
Research on materials from the perspective of sustainable development should go beyond green to cover
the other pillars, in order to explore the full range of sustainable development in the development,
production, installation or fixing and maintenance of construction materials. Affordability is also a
relevant aspect to study in these respects.
17. Green Rating and Certification

The development of rating and benchmarking tools, and their application in certification is considered an
important step in the pursuit of green building. These tools require further development in many regards,
including: the contextual appropriateness of the tool; the theoretical basis of the segments of the tool; and
the further development during use of the tools. Most important is the extension of the tools from
green to sustainable (see, for example, CEEQUAL (ICE, undated)), and from building to the entire
range of constructed items. Other issues to consider are: (a) the stage at which the assessment should be
done - design stage versus post-completion, and one-off assessment versus periodic re-assessment; and
possibility of involvement of clients and users in the evaluation of performance. Finally, studies into the
theoretical bases of the indicators and scores of assessment tools are required (Jayawickrama, Ofori and
Low, 2014).
18. Energy Management
It is estimated that energy management in buildings can make a major contribution to the efforts to
mitigate against climate change. In many countries, such as Singapore and the UK, reducing energy
consumption in buildings is the main plank of national sustainable development. This big area of research
should go beyond technology to cover social and community factors.
19. Legal Aspects Relating to Sustainable Construction
The legal aspects of sustainable construction include legislation as well as civil and contract law. The
statutes provide guidance; codes and standards provide help with good practice; and the norms of
professional negligence keep practitioners mindful of their responsibilities. The various aspects of the law
should be co-related and continually studied, with focus on ways of realising synergies among various
elements in application.
20. Sustainable Facilities
The design and construction process might result in the creation of a sustainable constructed item.
Systematic management of the item in its operation is of paramount importance. The concept of Strategic
Sustainable Facilities Management, which is proactive, long-term and comprehensive, should be
formulated and continually developed.
21. Education on Sustainable Construction
The inculcation of appropriate practice, attitude and behaviour among practitioners and companies in the
construction industry to pursue sustainable development has been highlighted. It is important that this
education is continuous, and the principles covered are appropriate. Students should be given a love for
life-long learning, and an interest in, and commitment to, the pursuit of sustainability.
22. Linking Design and Construction to Operation and Maintenance
The importance of considering the construction and operation and maintenance stages during the design
stage has been highlighted for several decades. Technology, such as BIM, will facilitate and enable the
optimisation of the pre-consideration of
23. Disaster Management
The impact of human activity, including construction, on the environment is deemed to be a major cause
of disasters. These range from the events of global warming such as floods and sea level rise; and droughts
which affect food security. Munich Reinsurance (2016) reported that losses caused by natural catastrophes
in the first half of 2016 were US$ 70bn, compared to the previous years US$ 59bn. The main loss drivers
were powerful earthquakes in Japan and Ecuador, storms in Europe and the US, and forest fires in Canada.
Disaster management and resilience in the built environment are major research areas.
Disaster prevention should also be considered in research. The impact of disasters on lives and livelihoods,
beyond physical infrastructure and other assets is also worth investigating. Capacity building in resilience
and disaster management, including industry preparedness and effective systems for marshalling resources
are also relevant.
24. Other Possible Topics

24a. Time Management and Productivity
It is necessary to incorporate the sustainability dimension among the generic project performance
parameters, so that it is not considered to be an optional extra. For example, it is necessary to balance it
with many other aspects, and whereas the trade-off with cost is usually done, the possible impact on time
and other parameters is also worth considering. Time should be built in to allow for comprehensive
evaluation of the negative and positive environmental impacts of the proposed project.
Productivity should also relate to the workers in the completed facility. This puts into focus the impact of
the indoor environmental conditions on worker performance.
24b. Safety and Health
These performance parameters should also be balanced with the sustainability dimension. The health
implication of innovative materials is one key issue. The health and productivity of users is another.
24c. Logistics
It is often suggested that one of the elements of sustainability is to use local materials as much as possible.
However, this is usually unrealistic as not all materials required on any project can be obtained from local
sources. There is also the question of what is 'local'. For a large country, obtaining the material locally
(from within the country) might involve a lot of travelling. Thus, in the era of globalisation, sustainable
logistics should be a research area, especially in a field which uses such large volumes of heavy and bulky
items.
24d. Technology and Sustainable Built Environment
It is suggested that the future of construction is technology. Thasarathar (2016) outlines technological
trends in construction including: 3D printing, the Internet of Things (IoT), robotics, drones, cloud
computing, infinite computing, reality capture, augmented reality, gaming engines, crowd-funding, crowd
sourcing, generative design, big data and artificial intelligence. Beyond the building scale, there is the
concept of smart cities and districts. It is necessary to explore the possible exploitation of the whole range
of technologies, including the new and emerging ones, in the effort to attain a sustainable built
environment. The possibilities of synergistic integration of technologies could also be studied.
5.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
Entrepreneurship can enable built environment organisations and practitioners to produce more with less,
with higher quality and sustainability awareness, and to constantly seek to innovate. Thus,
entrepreneurship can act as a spur to the contributions of each participant in each project. Entrepreneurship
could also replace legislation and clients cost-revenue considerations in the decision making on the
planning, design, construction and management of the built environment. Entrepreneurship, risk taking
and innovation are relevant to the need for balance among aspects of the development project in the built
environment, and the need to explore new materials, methods, practices and procedures in order to attain
sustainable built and managed items.
A personal characteristic of long-term entrepreneurship and constant innovation. Another notion is
sustainable entrepreneurship, one which is long-term and enduring, and which grows and improves over
time. That of sustainable innovation can also be perceived. It is pertinent to seek to develop such
characteristics and aptitudes among built environment organisations, agencies and practitioners.
There have been debates on whether both entrepreneurship and the capacity to be creative and innovative
can be developed. Whereas the discussion continues, it is pertinent to consider the role of education and
training at least in creating awareness of knowledge on, and possibly, capability in, these two processes, in
order to enable each nation to realise the potential of its citizens in these regards. It would be appropriate
for tertiary educational institutions to build these into their curricula. The various professional institutions
in the industry should also explore the possibility of setting up networking, coaching and mentoring
schemes for the continuous development of entrepreneurship.
6.
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CONTENTS OF PAPERS
3R.6R Extended Water Hierarchy Model for Sustainable Use of Water during
Construction
K.G.A.S. Waidyasekara, Lalith De Silva and R. Rameezdeen
A Review of Construction Safety, Challenges and Opportunities - Oman Perspective

Tariq Umar and Sam Chris Wamuziri
14
A Review of Safety Climate and Risk-taking Propensity in Occupational Health,

Safety and Well-being in the Construction Industry
Steve Rowlinson, Yuzhong Shen and Tas Yong Koh
23
A Study of Delays in Procurement of Engineered Equipment for Engineering,

Procurement and Construction (EPC) Projects in India: A Mixed Method Research
Approach
Srikar Kalidoss Sandilya and Koshy Varghese
34
Adoptability of Green Lease in Developing Countries: The Case of Sri Lanka

N.C. Hettige, B.A.K.S. Perera and Harshini Mallawaarachchi
44
Adopting Net Zero Energy Building Concept to Reduce Energy Cost of Commercial
Buildings in Sri Lanka
Iresh Weerasinghe, Harshini Mallawaarachchi and Lalith De Silva
53
Applicability of Green Human Resource Management Concept to Achieve

Sustainable Goals of Green Buildings in Sri Lanka
R.L. Weerasinghe, Lalith De Silva and Harshini Mallawaarachchi
62
Approaches to Foster Green Building Constructions in Sri Lanka

R. Thalpage and Gayani Karunasena
70
Behaviour Change in the Sustainable Built Environment

Yousef Al Horr, Martha Katafygiotou, Esam Elsarrag, Mohammed Arif, Amit Kaushik
and Ahmed Mazroei
79
Black Swan Effects on the Real Estate Environment: A Conceptual Framework

Treshani Perera and David Higgins
88
Capacity of Information Technology Infrastructure in Sri Lanka to Support Building

Information Modelling Systems
G.W. Nadith Kalhara and Himal Suranga Jayasena
98
Carbon and Cost Critical Elements of Office Buildings: A Case Study

Michele Victoria, Srinath Perera, Alan Davies and Nirodha Fernando
106
Coastal Zone Adaptation in Trinidad and Tobago: A Review of Literature

Carianne Johnson and Udayangani Kulatunga
115
Construction Management Practices Influencing Productivity in Building Projects

Argaw Tarekegn Gurmu, Ajibade Ayodeji Aibinu and Toong-Khuan Chan
122
Critical Success Factors for Construction of Governmental Projects in Egypt

Nael Y. Zabel, Ghadeer R. Alfandi, Yasser W. Eraky and Moheeb E. Ibrahim
133
Developing a Framework to Ensure Safety of Maintenance Workers in Sri Lankan

Commercial Buildings
S.H.M.I. Udani, P.A.P.V.D.S. Disaratna, R.P.N.P. Weerasinghe and H.W.N.
Madhusanka
141
Development of a Professional Doctoral Programme in Built Environment to Enhance

Societal Resilience to Disasters
Solomon Babatunde, Kanchana Ginige, Onaopepo Adeniyi, Srinath Perera and
Dilanthi Amaratunga
153
Dispute Avoidance Model for Sri Lankan Construction Industry

Isuru De Alwis, Mahesh Abeynayake and Mathusha Francis
162
Effectiveness of Alternative Dispute Resolution Methods Used in the Highway

Construction Projects in Sri Lanka
C.M. Gammanpila and Mahesh Abeynayake
174
Emerging Competencies within National and Local Government for Societal

Resilience to Disasters in Sri Lanka
S.S.L. Hettiarachchi, H. Goonasekera, S. Gunatilake and S. Weeresinghe
186
Energy from Waste: A Solution for the Garbage Crisis at Meethotamulla,

Kolonnawa, Sri Lanka
R.A.G. Nawarathna and S. Joyce
194
Establishment of the Most Common Ground on which Local Arbitral Awards

Become Unenforceable in Sri Lanka
Manathunga D. Hemantha and L.D. Indunil P. Seneviratne
203
Factors Affecting the Indoor Environmental Quality in Sri Lanka: Green vs.
Conventional Hotel Buildings
L. Gayathri, B.A.K.S. Perera and D.M.G.A.N.M. Sumanarathna
210
Framework for Mitigating Contractual Disputes in the Sri Lankan Construction

Industry
A.P.J.N. Thusharika and Mahesh Abeynayake
221
Gaps in Public Procurement Process in Sri Lankan Construction Industry

K.A.P. Gunawardhane and Gayani Karunasena
231
Implementation of Building Information Modelling within Construction SMEs

Anupa Manewa, Tanisha Blake, Andrew Ross, Dianne Marsh and Mohan
Siriwardena
241
Improving Collaboration Between Academia and Industry Through Use of the

Knowledge Transfer Partnership
Finlay Mac Beath and Michael Dignan
249
Incorporating Tacit Knowledge in Performance Measurement System in a Sri Lankan

Hotel
Haja Alawdeen Mohamed Aashik and Sepani Senaratne
259
Industry Attractiveness of Outsourced Facilities Management Services in Sri Lanka

R.P.N.P. Weerasinghe, D.M.P.P. Disanayake and A.K. Andarawera
273
Integrating Disaster Management Perspective into Architectural Design Education at

Undergraduate Level - A Case Example From Turkey
Emrah Acar and Fadime Yalinkaya
284
Interactional Analysis for Two-Party Risk Assessment in Public Private Partnerships

(PPP)
Rana Khallaf, Nader Naderpajouh and Makarand Hastak
294
Involvement of Construction Management Professionals in Property Level Flood

Adaptation
Azom Uddin and Gayan Wedawatta
301
Is Construction Getting Quicker?

Andrew Ross, Rebecca Norman, Anupa Manewa and Dianne Marsh
312
Legal Framework for Effective Implementation of ADR Methods under the

Construction Industry Development Act
Jayarajan Jeyavernee and Mahesh Abeynayake
322
Managing Occupational Stress of Professionals in Large Construction Projects in Sri

Lanka
Rasika Samanmali and Nayanthara De Silva
334
Occupant Productivity and Indoor Environment Quality Linked to Global

Sustainability Assessment System
Yousef Al Horr, Martha Katafygiotou, Esam Elsarrag, Mohammed Arif, Amit Kaushik
and Ahmed Mazroei
342
Optimisation of Project Performance in Post-Disaster Building Reconstruction

Projects in Sri Lanka
Maheshi Hulugalla and Nirodha Fernando
353
Potential to Implement BIM Project with Sri Lankan Professionals

A.P.N.Y.K. Pathirana and Himal Suranga Jayasena
362
Re-directing Conservation Risks to Disaster Risks in Conserving World Heritage

Sites in Malaysia
Dodo Mansir, Narimah Kasim and Indera Syahrul Mat Radzuan
370
Re-Thinking Post-Contract Cost Controlling Techniques in the Nigerian Construction

Industry
Temitope Omotayo and Udayangani Kulatunga
380
Review of Strategies to Improve Workplace Safety through Ethical Climates

Uthpala Rathnayake and Gayani Karunasena
389
Review on Lean Construction and TPS Approximation with BIM

M.Z.M. Zuhair, Himal Suranga Jayasena and M.R.M.F. Ariyachandra
399
Risk Allocation between Main Contractors and Subcontractors in Building Projects in

Sri Lanka
K.R.S. Perera, S. Gunatilake, D.T. Vijerathne and N.N. Wimalasena
408
Risk Associated with Facilities Management Outsourcing and its Impact on Service
Performance
K.K.G.P. Somarathna and Nayanthara De Silva
420
Risk Management Strategies for Facilities Managers in Sri Lanka

N.S.D. Abeysinghe and A.K. Andaraweera
430
Saving Energy in Office Buildings without Compromising Their Indoor

Environmental Quality
R.A.D.K. Akalanka, B.A.K.S. Perera and N.H.C. Manjula
439
Stakeholder Management in Road Construction Projects in Sri Lanka: A Contractor

Perspective
K.H.N.P. Jayathissa, Aparna Samaraweera and K.A.T.O. Ranadewa
448
Strategic Approach to Ensure Process Safety in Apparel Manufacturing Industry

Using Total Productive Maintenance (TPM)
H.W.S.N. Denipitiya, Nayanthara De Silva, S.D.A. Soorige and H.W.N. Madhusanka
458
Strategies for Tactful Time Management for Quantity Surveyors

Sivakumar Abiramy, Vijitha Disaratna and Nishadi Anuruddika
467
Suitability of Package Deal Contracts for Residential Building Construction

U.S.C. Bandara, H. Chandanie and Lalith De Silva
479
Sustainable Construction Practices of Sri Lankan Contractors

Kushani Athapaththu, Gayani Karunasena and E.M.A.C. Ekanayake
489
Synergy Between Lean and Value Engineering Concepts: Sri Lankan Construction
Industry Perspective
E.M.A.C. Ekanayake and Y.G. Sandanayake
498
The Adoption of Integrated Project Delivery in Public Sector Projects in New

Zealand: The Way Forward
Nicola Naismith, John Tookey, Ali Ghaffarian Hoseini and Rahul Kekreja
507
The Loopholes of Evacuation Process in the Sri Lankan Healthcare Sector

Thanuja Ramachandra and Achini Weerasinghe
517
Towards Facilities Information Management Through BIM

K.A.D.N.C. Wijekoon, Anupa Manewa, Andrew Ross and Dianne Marsh
527
Use of Provisional Sums in the UAE Construction Industry: An Empirical Study

Krisanthi Seneviratne, Ahmad Feras Arar and Hagir Hakim
534
Using Safety Climate as A Tool for Improvement of Safety Performance in

Construction Organizations
Tariq Umar and Sam Chris Wamuziri
545
Win-Win Settlement: Applicability of Negotiation Principles for Dispute

Negotiations in Construction Projects
Samurdi Baduge and Himal Suranga Jayasena
555
PAPERS
`
The 5th World Construction Symposium 2016: Greening Environment, Eco Innovations & Entrepreneurship
29-31 July 2016, Colombo, Sri Lanka
3R.6R EXTENDED WATER HIERARCHY MODEL FOR SUSTAINABLE

USE OF WATER DURING CONSTRUCTION
K.G.A.S. Waidyasekara* and Lalith De Silva
Department of Building Economics, University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka
R. Rameezdeen
University of South Australia, Australia
ABSTRACT
There is a broad consensus in literature that effective utilisation of natural resources in any industry
greatly influences sustainability of built environment. Hence, better management strategies of water
began to emerge in all sectors; thus, different dimensions are in need to assess different industries.
With this scenario, water sustainability on construction sites is one significant area, which demands
the attention of construction stakeholders. Today many construction projects survive on potable water,
and many strategies are available that can reduce the amount of water consumed by the construction
industry. Water hierarchy is one strategy proposed for construction sites to reduce potable water
consumption and encourage alternative water sources within the site. Literature and preliminary
interviews further support identification of new 3R principles: Regulations, Responsibility, and
Rewards that can influence on better water management on construction sites.
Therefore, purpose of this paper is to examine the applicability and implementation of 3R principles in
conjunction with six stages (6R) of water hierarchy to improve efficient water use on construction
projects in Sri Lanka. The study adopted triangulation convergence mixed method approach, and data
collection involved case studies and a structured survey. Qualitative data is presented as narratives
and quotations while quantitative data is presented as descriptive statistics. The results revealed that
all factors were considered as applicable and the possibility of implementing them on construction
sites. Reuse and recycle were identified as the least applicable, and are rarely practised on sites, if it is
not initially identified as a mandatory process. Experience and commitment of individual staff and
costs are identified as important drivers on implication of each 9R principle. New 3R principles were
recognised as supportive policies to implement all six existing stages of water hierarchy. Finally, the
paper discusses the extended water hierarchy model developed for construction industry.
Keywords:
1.
Construction; Extended Water Hierarchy; Sustainability; Water Efficiency.
INTRODUCTION
Previous studies have extensively addressed adverse environmental effects from construction activities
such as energy consumption, waste generation, noise pollution, water discharge, misuse of water
resources, water wastage, consumption of non-renewable natural resources, dust and gas emission, and
land misuse (Chen et al., 2000; Shen et al., 2007). Kibert (1994) explained that all these issues are
interconnected and embraced under the heading, sustainable construction. Abidin and Powmya (2014)
stressed that the approach to sustainable construction will enable construction practitioners to be more
responsible towards the need of environmental protection. This emphasises the necessity of sustainability
criteria for construction to achieve a more environmentally sound built environment. Simultaneously,
rapid decreasing of freshwater resource availability directly threatens 1.1 billion people around the globe
(UN, 2006). As stated by Ramachandran (2004), construction is a water intensive industry. Thus, water
shortage severely affect construction sector. This implies the requirement of sustainable strategies for
better management of water resource in construction industry. As Hart (1995) emphasised, how
environmentally oriented resources and capabilities can yield sustainable resources of competitive
advantage, is one challenge that demands attention in construction industry. This reveals the requirements
*
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and establishment of sustainable approaches to sustain water for a long-term benefit. However, Strategic
Forum for Construction (SFfC) identifies that to date, relatively less work is performed on water
sustainability in construction sites, and water use receives a relatively low priority in comparison to the
focus made on reducing energy, waste, and improving the carbon footprint (Waylen et al., 2011). Further,
it revealed that many construction sites located in urban areas enjoy potable water at subsidised rates for
construction work due to issues in alternative water source availability (Waidyasekara et al., 2012).
Moreover, it was observed that construction stakeholders in Sri Lanka pay less attention to water use in
construction sites. Singh et al. (2010) mention the need of new approaches for long-term water planning
and management that incorporate principles of sustainability and equity. Waidyasekara et al. (2012);
Waidyasekara et al. (2014) stated a vacuum exists with the body of knowledge in water management in
the construction industry, compared to other industries in Sri Lanka. Frequently, construction activities
have a potential to have a negative effect on the surrounding environment. Meanwhile, Dharmaratna and
Parasnis (2012) and Deveraja (2013) predicted that if water resource management is not sustainable, a
water crisis is possible within the next ten years in Sri Lanka. Therefore, with the help of real case
scenarios, this paper presents perception of construction professionals on the applicability and
implementation of 9R principles and sustainable use of water during construction. The study refers to
sustainable use of water, meaning the optimum use of water resources in construction sites with
minimum wastage and misuse, while causing minimum damage to the ecosystem and preserving that
scarce resource to meet the needs of the future generations.
The paper is organised as follows: First, a literature review, which include water in the context of
sustainability, sustainable water usage in construction industry, and water hierarchy and R principles, is
presented. This is followed by a justification of data collection methods used and the results of the study.
2.
WATER IN THE CONTEXT OF SUSTAINABILITY
Water is precious and many scholars define water as a finite resource. According to Leonardo da Vinci,
water is the driver of nature; even if one can live without energy, nobody can live without water (Luan,
2010). The common explanation for available freshwater is either 2.5% or 3.0% of the total water, from
which only 1% is easily accessible; the balance is stored as ice caps or deep ground water. According to
United Nations (UN) estimates, more than 1 billion people living on the earth face water scarcity, and this
number could increase up to 1.8 billion by 2025 (Economist, 2008). According to OECD (2008), 47% of
the worlds population will live in regions with severe water stress in 2030. Difference between the
increasing demand for water and the limited water availability creates a gap that is transformed into water
scarcity (Joyce, 2012).
Biswas and Seetharam (2008) recognise the importance of formulating policies and regulations.
Accordingly, over pumping results in declining ground water levels, and alternatively, more energy is
required to pump the same volume of water. Another problem faced by the water sector is that
universally, the prices and tariff are almost below the full cost of supply (Rogers et al., 2002). Therefore,
low-priced water encourages excessive consumption, and hence, services provided at a higher price
would encourage water conservation and a better service. Currently, the demand for potable water is
constantly increasing with population growth, industrial developments, and climate change (Johnston,
2003; Economist, 2008; Goodrum, 2008; Sala and Wolf, 2013) mentioned that at present, many services
and industries depend on continuous availability of freshwater; however, freshwater is heavily subjected
to spatial and temporal variability of its own quantity and quality. Many scholars identified limited
freshwater is a major constraint on sustainable development (Khalfan, 2002; Horne, 2012). Smith et al.
(2006) recognise that when actual amount of water extracted was below the sustainable level of extraction
is not a problem, but over-extraction and subsequent overuse of river systems create undue pressure.
Figure 1 depicts the investment on water infrastructure, wastewater treatment, desalination, and recycling
expects to rise steadily over the next five years. It is apparent from Figure 1 that the demand for water
grows further, which claim necessity for more sustainability applications.
`
9.40%
10.00%
8.60%
9.00%
7.80%
8.00%
7.00%
6.50%
6.00%
5.00%
4.00%
3.00%
2.00%
1.00%
0.00%
Capital expenditures on Water and wastewater Capital expenditures onCapital expenditures on

water infrastructure
treatment equipment
desalination
water reuse
for industrial use
Figure 1: Growth in Global Water Industry Spending in Next Five Years

Source: Adapted from Rosegrant et al. (2012)
3.
WATER USAGE IN CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY
Construction industry is regarded as one of the largest users of water along with energy and material
resources (Guggemos and Horvath, 2006). All construction work requires water from the inception to
completion but the water quantity varies according to the site. In the past, the criteria for energy and water
resources were not connected to one another, to materials selection, or to other issues of sustainable
construction (Kibert, 1994). Water was merely considered as another input in construction projects
(Kibert, 1994). At construction project level, water serves several purposes; it is not limited to mixing
mortar and concrete, but also an essential component in curing work, dust controlling, soaking materials,
vegetation establishments, geotechnical borings, pipe flushing, pressure testing, and washing and cleaning
(The Workplace Health and Safety Queensland, 2007; Green roads TM manual, 2005; Utraja, 2010).
According to Ramachandran (2004), use of contaminated water for mixing mortar and concrete, and
curing will drastically reduce the structure life. However, many builders still do not realise the importance
of such valuable processes and has not given the necessary priority during the practice. Alternatively,
amount of water consumed by the construction is unknown and the extent of water consumption by the
construction industry has not been adequately measured (Goodrum, 2008). While an enormous amount of
water is utilised to operate buildings, a considerable amount is also used for extraction, production,
manufacturing, delivery of materials to site, and for the actual on-site construction process (McComack et
al., 2007). As stated by Biswas (2008), water resource management attempts to optimise water usage and
minimise the environmental impacts associated with its use.
Biswas and Seetharam (2008) recognise the importance of formulating policies and regulations for water
construction activities; for instance, over pumping results in declining of ground water levels. Gleick
(1998) mentions that sustainability criteria layout specific social goals that could, or should be attained,
and it offers some guidance for future water management. As Ramachandran (2004) and Utraja (2011)
stated, change of water quantity and quality in high or low degree greatly impacts on the product strength,
but careless builders do not realise this in practice. This indicates the importance of adhering to design
specifications and standard norms. According to Gonzales-Gomez et al. (2011), lack of intensive
activities is one cause for poor water management practices. Responsibility, monitoring and supervision
are other factors that influence sustainable use of water, as identified by many scholars. Based on the
available literature, the Strategic Forum for Construction (SFfC) water sub-group, Waste and Resource
Action Programme (WRAP), and Construction Industry Research and Information Association (CIRIA)
are the main research bodies conducting research on water use on construction sites. SFfC mentioned that
3
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water use between construction sites and how water is consumed on a construction site varies over time.
Aim of the above organisations is to work towards identifying and promoting water efficiency practices to
reduce water consumption on construction sites in a sustainable manner. SFfC and WRAP emphasis the
use of water technology, techniques and strategies actively influence a behavioural change, the work
environment, and value for money (Waylen et al. 2011; McNab et al., 2011).
4.
WATER HIERARCHY AND R PRINCIPLES
Water hierarchy is another area that supports efficient water use. The joint government and industry
strategy for sustainable construction published in 2008 identified water usage on construction sites as a
priority area and included many targets pertaining to the more efficient use of water (McNab et al., 2011).
Waste hierarchy (prevention, re-use, recycle, recovery, disposal) (DEFRA, 2007), 3R (Reduce, Re-use,
Recycle), and avoid, reduce, reuse, recycle, and treat (Mirata and Emtairah, 2011) are some common and
popular hierarchies available in literature to reduce wastage and enhance efficient use of resources.
Similarly, Silva and Pimentel (2011) mention that water efficiency can be achieved through 5R principle,
which incorporates Reduce consumption, Reduce loss and waste, Re-use water, Recycle water, and
Resort to alternative sources. Meantime, Strategic Forum for Construction (SFfC) water sub-group
introduced a water management hierarchy for construction industry as depicted in Figure 2.
Eliminate
Is the process or activity necessary? Is

there a cost effective alternative to water
Alternative sources
Eliminate inappropriate use of drinking

water. Can you use rainwater or grey water
for the activity/process?
Reduce
Explore options to improve efficiency. Can

fittings or processes updated?
Reuse
Can water be treated /filtered for reuse in a

process or activity?
Recycle
Can water be recycled for use?

Dispose of excess water legally and
responsibly to ensure there is no flooding,
pollution or inconvenience to others.
Disposal
Figure 2: Water Hierarchy

Source: Adapted from Strategic Forum for Construction (SFfC): McNab et al. (2011)
Potable water standard is not always needed for all construction activities (McNab et al., 2011; Waylen et
al., 2011). It is apparent in Figure 2 that water hierarchy encourages alternative water sources for potable
water. This is proved further with the findings of Waidyasekara et al. (2014) that potable water must be
specified only where necessary and other options must be allowed in the contract. Tam and Lee (2007)
suggested that it is necessary to encourage and educate the staff on monitoring water usage, water reusing
and recycling systems, and the use of wastewater treatment during construction. As McNab et al. (2011)
stated, creating a culture within the construction sector that changes staff attitudes and behaviour to
accept ownership of water efficiency is fundamental to improve the use of water efficiently.
As discussed, literature bears evidence that 3R, 5R and 7R principles are introduced for water stages of
existing water hierarchy for the construction industry by SFfC. Therefore, in relation to this study, the
definitions adapted for each step of hierarchy are presented in Table 1 with the proposed R principle.
`
Table 1: Stages of Water Hierarchy with the Proposed R Principles

Proposed Term
with the R
Review
No.
Existing Term
Definition Adapted for the Purpose of Study
01
Eliminate use
02
Alternative nonpotable water

source
Replace
Find cost effective alternatives to potable water
03
Reduce
Reduce
04
05
06
Reuse
Recycle
Disposal
Reuse
Recycle
Removal
Explore options to improve water efficiency. Basically,

applying water efficient technologies, techniques, and strategies
Water reuse elsewhere without treat (as it is)
Water be recycled for reuse elsewhere during construction
Dispose of used or excess water legally and responsibly to
ensure no flooding, pollution, or inconvenience to others
Check whether the process or activity is essential for potable

water
Holmes and Hudson (2000), Cole (2005), and Pahwa (2007) identified the necessity of conditions or
regulations to protect natural resources and environmental impacts due to construction. As Byrne (2011)
explains, in water consumption, fit for purpose approach should be adopted using potable water for all
purposes. As discussed in the background study and literature findings, many researchers identified it is
necessary to formulate new policies and review the existing ones (Rosegrant et al., 2012; McComack et
al.,2007; Houser and Pruess, 2009). The study conducted by Houser and Pruess (2009) justifies utilising
appropriate best management practices in construction projects yield a minimal impact on overall water
quality of surrounding water bodies. Tam and Lee (2007) suggested that it is necessary to encourage and
educate the staff on monitoring of water usage, water reusing and recycling systems, and the use of
wastewater treatment during construction. This is the responsibility of top management staff, since
inappropriate incentives and institutions often hinder the effective use of water during construction
(Houser and Pruess, 2009; Sala et al., 2013). This simply explains promoting rewards and incentives for
water use efficiency practices and the importance of rewards discussed by the preliminary interviewee
personnel. Similarly, Boberg (2005) identified incentives as a mechanism to promote water conservation
and efficiency.
Therefore, in addition to the stages of 6R (refer Table 1) of the water hierarchy, literature and the
preliminary interviews support to identify three (03) new R principles, which will impact on the
sustainable use of water during the construction phase. These are Regulations, Responsibility and
Reward. Table 2 presents the new 3Rs and definitions adapted in this study.
Table 2: New 3R Sustainability Principles for Water Efficiency
New 3R
Definition Adapted
Regulations
Adhere to project and environmental specific rules and norms during water consumption
Rewards
Remuneration towards positive attempts to reduce water consumption and innovative ideas
Responsibility
Actions towards environmental and social conservation and preservation of natural resources
As stated by Waylen et al. (2011), all such sustainability concepts depend on user behaviour and attitudes.
Further, Sala et al. (2013) mentioned that human consumption and their behaviour greatly affect
sustainable consumption styles and environmental consequences.
5.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This research is exploratory in nature. Creswell (2007) explained that exploratory research is more
suitable when previous work on the subject area is limited. In Sri Lanka, water sustainability in
construction industry is one of the less acknowledged areas by the industry practitioners. It is vital to
understand the acceptance and effective implementation of 9R principles during the construction phase
5
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for efficient water management. The study adopted triangulation convergence mixed method approach,
and case studies and structured survey were employed during data collection. A robust questionnaire was
developed based on the factors identified in the literature review and using a purposive sample, 160
questionnaires were administered among project managers, civil engineers, quantity surveyors, and
architects having over ten years working experience in the industry. The respondents were given a 5-point
Likert scale (refer to Table 3) to indicate the level of applicability of 9R principles on construction sites
based on their professional judgement. In addition, four (04) ongoing construction projects located in
Colombo were selected to explore and examine the implementation of each R on construction sites.
Multiple sources of evidence were employed during the case study data collection. Qualitative data is
presented as narratives and quotations while quantitative data is presented as descriptive statistics, i.e.
mean, standard deviation, frequencies, and percentages were used appropriately to analyse data originated
from the survey.
One-way ANOVA is used to determine the presence of a significant difference between the mean values
among different groups: project managers, civil engineers, quantity surveyors, and architects at the 95%
confidence interval. As the next step, based on the central tendency, a benchmark-mean score of 3.40
helped to identify the applicable factors, while a benchmark of 4.2 was used for highly applicable
factors (Kazaz and Ulubeyi, 2007).
Table 3: Likert Scale for Level of Applicability
Scale
Level of Applicability
6.
1
Not applicable
2
Less applicable
3
Neutral
4
Applicable
5
Highly Applicable
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
One hundred and five (105) usable responses were received, which made the response rate a formidable
65.6%. Out of the 105 respondents, over 27% had over 25 years, 23% between 20-24 years, 23.8%
between 15-19 years, and 25.7% between 10-14 years of experience respectively. The total sample
consisted of 21% project managers, 30.5% engineers, 28.6% quantity surveyors, and 20% architects.
Results of one-way ANOVA indicated no significant difference between mean values on each variable,
since significance level for each factor was greater than 0.05. This laid a solid basis to analyse data,
considering all participants as one sample.
As stated in Table 3, participants were requested to rate the applicability on a scale of 1 (Not applicable)
to 5 (Highly applicable). Detailed distribution of responses in terms of applicability is summarised in
Table 4. According to Table 4, all factors were considered as applicable for construction industry by the
respondents since the mean value of each concept received more than 3.4. Among them, Reduce, Review,
Responsibility, Replace, and Regulations scored as the top five factors. The results further indicated that
less applicability of Re-use and Recycle for construction sites received the 8 th and 9th ranks
respectively. Alternatively, the combined results of Applicable and Highly applicable were reported
more than 70% for Reduce, Review, Responsibility, Replace, and Regulations as applicable for
enhancing water sustainability practices on construction sites. When compared with all other stages of
water hierarchy reuse and recycle received less percentage, which was 50.4% for each case. This
reveals builders are certainly not willing to pay for wasted water in addition to treated water.
`
Table 4: Applicability of R Principles to Enhance Efficient Use of Water during Construction Phase
9R
#2
%
1.9
#3
%
19.0
#4
%
40.0
#5
%
39.0
Mean
Score
4.162
Std. Dev.
Effect Level
Rank
Reduce
#1
%
0.0
0.798
Applicable
Review
0.0
5.7
10.5
47.6
36.2
4.143
0.825
Applicable
Responsibility
3.8
4.8
13.3
32.4
45.7
4.114
1.059
Applicable
Replace
1.0
3.8
18.1
41.0
36.2
4.076
0.885
Applicable
Regulations
1.0
4.8
22.9
41.0
30.5
3.952
0.903
Applicable
Removal
1.9
4.8
27.6
36.2
29.5
3.867
0.961
Applicable
Reuse
3.8
13.3
31.4
29.5
21.9
3.524
1.093
Applicable
Reward
3.8
7.6
23.8
40.0
24.8
3.743
1.038
Applicable
Recycle
7.6
12.4
28.6
29.5
21.9
3.457
1.185
Applicable
1.00 Not Applicable 1.80; 1.80 < Less Applicable 2.60 ; 2.60 < Moderately Applicable 3.40;
3.40 < Applicable (A/R) 4.20; 4.20< Highly Applicable 5.00
Review: This is the first stage of the water hierarchy, which checks whether potable water is compulsory
for construction activities or processes. It revealed that none of the site documents clearly mentioned the
water source required according to the construction activity. However, it was noted that the contractor
holds the responsibility of making arrangements to obtain water for construction.
Replace: The case study findings revealed that Replace is practiced by the four construction sites.
Project manager of Case 2 stated that, if potable water is used on construction sites, water hierarchy will
provide more benefits. At present, we have looked for alternative water sources before using potable
water. Similarly, initially Case studies 1, 3 and 4 implemented this stage (Replace). However, it
revealed that ground water contamination was a main barrier faced by construction sites during the
attempts to obtain water from tube wells as an alternative source of potable water. Limited space
availability on sites was identified as the main barrier for implementing rainwater harvesting by Cases 3
and 4.
Reduce: Monitoring, supervision, assigning responsibility, worker awareness through meetings and
posters were implemented in Cases 1, 2, 3 and 4 to minimise water wastage due to construction activities.
In addition, pressure gun hoses were employed during vehicle washing and cleaning the site, to reduce
water and minimise unnecessary water wastages. Project manager of Case 3 stated, If curing components
are applied on concrete walls, columns, and slabs, it reduces water usage. This is more expensive than
the usual pond system but if water is a scarcity this is a very good solution. As stated by project
managers of Case 1 and Case 4, all these applications totally depends on the cost, which is the
responsibility of the contractor and the client, and prioritised within that context. Curing agents were
already in practise in Case 4.
Re-use: It was observed that the implementation of Reuse concept was successful in Case 1, which had
a proper system to collect rainwater and use for dust controlling, vehicle washing, and for fire emergency.
As stated by the project manager, Environmental Management System (EMS) was the main reason to
implement above strategies on the site (Case 1). Case 3 used dewatering water during the construction of
pile foundation. The engineers stated that the project did not have a predetermined plan for water use
efficiency during the construction stage; however, such practices were implemented through staff
experience. Further, the project manager of Case 3 stated that during construction, it is possible to re-use
water that is used for water proof testing. It can be used for mixing mortar for the tile bed in the same
floor if it is planned in advance. However, interviewees believed that the re-use of water is rarely
accomplished on construction sites unless it is identified as a mandatory requirement during project
initiation.
7
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Recycle: EMS of Case Study 1 was greatly conducive for the implementation of recycle during the
construction stage. As stated by the project manager, it saved usage of potable water significantly. This is
the only site, which adopted Recycle concept for water resource. The interviewees revealed that none of
the sites practised Recycling if the requirements were not identified initially. It was noted, to get more
benefits from them in a cost effective way, the intention should be communicated during the tender stage.
Removal: Removal means disposing the excess water legally with the responsibility of ensuring no
flooding, pollution, or inconvenience to others due to disposal of excess or wastewater. The findings
revealed another step of water hierarchy, which is in practice by the four construction sites. All sites
adhere to current regulations with wastewater disposal. It is noted that this is one of the successfully
implemented regulation on construction sites, since relevant authorities conduct inspections on regular
basis.
Regulation: Regulation is one of the policies acknowledged in literature. Most interviewees agreed that
firm establishment of certain regulations for water use in construction is required to enhance water use
efficiency practices in construction sites. It was observed that regulations on wastewater disposal were
well practiced on construction sites, mainly due to regular inspection and monitoring as claimed by the
interviewees. Project manager of Case 4 stated that rainwater harvesting should be implemented on sites
and it is important to find ways to enrich ground water than just disposing wastewater to the municipal
waste drain. If these aspects (re-use, recycling) are strictly implemented as shown in regulations initially,
the contractor will be more responsible. Another important point highlighted by the project manager of
Case 1 was, city water usage per day is unlimited, and no rules and regulations established for extracting
ground water. The engineer of Case 3 stated, Regular check on quality of water is rarely practiced on
construction sites. On many construction sites, city water is used for all direct and indirect activities.
Therefore, the use of potable water must be monitored constantly; excess use of potable water needs
investigation and strict control to make consumers realise the need for conserving potable water. Thus,
regulations are vital to use potable water intelligently.
Reward: Interviewees of Case study 1 claimed, Rewarding is a good policy, which encourage both
organizations (can be considered for contractor grading and awarding) and workers (incentives for
innovative work) who strictly adhere to practice sustainability approaches. Similarly, engineer of Case 3
mentioned, If the contractor is rewarded for practicing innovative and sustainability practices during
the annual award ceremony and during contractor performance grading, there is a high tendency to
popularise water use efficiency measures including maintaining water hierarchy among contractors.
These aspects will be well established in the construction industry. However, project manager of Case 2
stated, to implement water hierarchy, first it is important to educate management level, and these
practices should begin at the director level or chairman level. Otherwise, planning and achieving his
requirement becomes a massive task for the project manager. The project manager of Case 4 stated, Not
only rewards but also penalties should be introduced with the system; then only people feel the value of
taking steps on water saving measures.
Responsibility: Responsibility of industry stakeholders and actions towards environmental and social
conservation and preservation of natural resources on construction site are primarily important to achieve
sustainable use of water. It could be observed that in all cases, Responsibility of tasks is already
determined and well-practiced. The project manager of Case 2 stated, We have already assigned persons
and given responsibility on different tasks on water management on the site (e.g. recording daily water
meter readings, site inspection on water collection areas, and report on leakages). Many interviewees
reported it is important that top management do monitoring, although others have assigned
responsibilities.
Case study results showed that it is possible to implement re-use and recycle on construction sites;
however, it should be communicated before starting the construction work.
Below is a previous experience on implementing water management strategies (stages of water hierarchy)
on construction sites, shared during the empirical survey.
`
This is an interesting exercise and a highly rewarding practice on the economics of the
monthly cost overhead cycle of a contractor. I have personally practised this when working
for ICC at the Pallekele Cricket Stadium site in 2003/2004. The labour accommodations had
long tanks filled with potable water for bathing and washing. I did away with them and
introduced showers and taps. The water bill reduced by over 70%. The ordinary toilet cistern
used in female toilets and the male Water Closet flush down 6 litres each time. We introduced
one litre plastic water bottle in the cistern and saved a litre of water on each flush. The runoff
water from batching plant and the truck wash water was passed through sedimentation and a
settling tank, and a filtering process. This water was subsequently used for curing work. It
was so cost effective and interesting. Ultimately, it changed the attitudes and wrong practices
of the workers as well.
According to my research, water curing is more effective than membrane curing. Water
curing delays the initiation of corrosion more than membrane curing.
In addition to the comments made on each R by interviewees, i.e. project managers and engineers, few
made general comments on 3R as follows:
None of the regulations work out properly without a proper monitoring system.; Not only
rewards but also penalties should come with the system. Then only people feel the value of
taking steps on water saving measures; Even assigning responsibility among the parties,
acknowledgement of attempts of each individual is crucial for better achievement.
Furthermore, interviewees stated that, win-win sustainability situations are achievable and a close
relationship exists among each other. For instance, monitoring is essential in responsibility and
rewarding policies are in place. Consequently, if the job is performed in a more responsible manner, the
rewards are offered automatically in return.
7.
EXTENDED WATER HIERARCHY MODEL
Information collated from findings of case study, questionnaire survey, and from literature findings,
formed following conclusions in this study:
The original six stages of sustainability strategies of water hierarchy (6R) of SFfC in the UK were
statistically proved and accepted for the Sri Lankan construction industry.
Case study results bear evidence that certain are followed in construction projects at present, but
there is no proper way to establish such systems.
New 3R principles (Responsibility, Regulations, and Rewards) were also accepted and identified as
supportive to implement all six existing stages of water hierarchy; i.e. new 3R principles influence
on receiving successful results from each strategy of existing water hierarchy.
Based on the above conclusions, the study presents 3R.6R extended water hierarchy model for efficient
water use during construction phase, as illustrated in Figure 3, 3R principles represent the three vertical
sides of the inverted pyramid that support each 6R principle This proposed extended water hierarchy
model ensures excellent control of water resource and potential uses under the sustainability agenda and
requirements may vary according to the unique characteristics in the construction projects and its goals.
Thus, implementation of these concepts provides a positive indication of establishing water efficiency
practices within construction sites.
`
Figure 3: 3R.6R Extended Water Hierarchy Model for Construction Industry
In addition, interviewees from case studies and questionnaire survey suggested that cost has a major
impact on the implementation of water hierarchy other than challenges that may have to overcome
initially, such as introducing at the design and tender stage, showing competitive advantages by
implementing the system, and support from the authorised institutes. It revealed that the additional cost on
attempting WEC measures and sustainable values in-use should incorporate into the contractual
documents. Therefore, recognition of builders capacity to deal with water use efficiency should integrate
with pre-qualification and contractor selection criteria.
8.
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The applicability of each R was explored with case studies and examined during the questionnaire survey.
Thus, the study sought the views of construction professionals representing Project Managers, Civil
Engineers, Quantity Surveyors, and Architects with over ten years of experience in building construction
projects, on the acceptance of the applicability of 9R sustainability behaviour policies for water
sustainability during the construction phase. In addition, four (04) ongoing construction projects were
examined during the data collection process. Quantitative and qualitative approaches were employed
during collection and analysis of data.
The study revealed that among the 9R principles, certain Rs in the hierarchy of SFfC, such as replace
with alternative sources, reduce, reuse, recycle, and removal are in practice in construction sites.
Similarly, the Strategic Forum for Construction (SFfC) in United Kingdom identifies that reducing water
use on construction sites as an important aspect. However, idea of the majority of respondents was that
reuse and recycle are rarely followed by construction sites, if not identified as a mandatory process.
Conversely, the literature shows that Re-use and Recycle contribute positively to sustainability/ green
concepts and to waste management processes. Interviewee personnel accepted the applicability of each R,
and identified the importance of new 3R, i.e. Regulation, Responsibility, and Rewards. It denoted that all
9R are applicable, but actions taken by client/consultant during the design and tender stages and
contractor (top management) during construction stage will inevitably propel the construction industry
10
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towards water sustainability. On the other hand, few respondents commented that application of certain
9R on construction sites totally depends on the experience and commitment of the individual staff. Cost
was identified as an important driver on the implication of each R. New 3R attributes are identified as
supportive principles to implement all six existing stages of water hierarchy. Based on empirical findings,
the 3R.6R extended water hierarchy model was developed and that can be applied for sustainable use of
water in construction industry.
Recommendations can improve the implementation of environmental policies on natural resources, and
assigning responsibility and targets among the site staff. Concisely, sustainable use of water during
construction phase is still in its infancy. Therefore, this research recommends that the relevant authorities
in Sri Lanka, i.e. Construction Institute of Development Authority (CIDA), Central Environment
Authority (CEA), Urban Development Authority (UDA), Road Development Authority (RDA), and
National Water Supply and Drainage Board (NWS&DB) should formulate policy measures to promote
and establish water sustainability policies during construction. The study will provide a platform for
future builders, who shall be environmentally responsible and plan to implement water efficiency and
conservation measures in practice. Finally, the study findings revealed that initiation of correct actions is
necessary to bring sustainability or green concept in construction industry to the forefront of the
development agenda of the country.
9.
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A REVIEW OF CONSTRUCTION SAFETY, CHALLENGES AND

OPPORTUNITIES - OMAN PERSPECTIVE
Tariq Umar* and Sam Chris Wamuziri
College of Engineering ASharqiyah University, Oman
ABSTRACT
Data from a number of industrialized countries show that construction workers are 3 to 4 times more
likely than other workers to die from accidents at work. In the developing world, the risks associated
with construction work may be 3 to 6 times greater. Construction is one of the worlds biggest
industrial sectors, including the building, civil engineering, demolition and maintenance industries
and in Oman it account 10% of the total GDP. Statistic indicates that a total of 723,000 residents were
working in construction industry in 2014. Construction workers build, repair, maintain, renovate and
demolish houses, office buildings, factories, hospitals, roads, bridges, tunnels, stadiums, docks,
airports and more. During the course of their work they are exposed to a wide variety of hazards on
the job, including dusts and vapours, asbestos, awkward working positions, heavy loads, adverse
weather conditions, work at heights, noise, vibration from tools, among many others. In most
developed countries, organizations have significantly reduced the risk of injuries and fatalities by
understanding the impact of construction safety on their performance. This involves the development
and implementation of construction safety rules and laws by the organizations itself and by authorities
responsible for this purpose. Such safety rules and laws are based on the studies of organization safety
cultural and post-accident investigations. Statistics indicates that worker deaths in America are down
on average, from about 38 worker deaths a day in 1970 to 12 a day in 2014 and worker injuries and
illnesses are down from 10.9 incidents per 100 workers in 1972 to 3.3 per 100 in 2013. This paper
presents the challenges and opportunities available for Oman to improve the construction safety
performance of the organization by developing and implementing standard safety rules and laws. The
research methodology includes the comparison of existing construction safety in Oman with some of
the developed countries. The paper further describe how Oman can improve construction safety by
developing specific safety rules and regulation and their enforcement through inspection of
construction site under an independent authority of health and safety.
Keywords:
1.
Construction Industry; Risk; Worker; Safety Performance; Safety Rules and Laws.
INTRODUCTION
Statistic published by International Labor Organization indicates that at least 108 thousand workers are
killed on construction site every year, a figure which represents about 30 percent of all occupational fatal
injuries. Data from a number of industrialized countries show that construction workers are 3 to 4 times
more likely than other workers to die from accidents at work. In the developing world, the risks
associated with construction work may be 3 to 6 times greater. Many more workers suffer and die from
occupational diseases arising from past exposure to dangerous substances, such as asbestos. Construction
is one of the worlds biggest industrial sectors, including the building, civil engineering, demolition and
maintenance industries. It accounts for a large proportion of GDP for many countries for example, 10
percent in the U.K., 17 percent in Japan, and 10 percent in Oman. Statistics published in daily Times of
Oman dated June 09, 2014, a total of 723,000 residents were working in construction industry. In most
developing countries, construction is among the fastest growing areas of the labor market, continuing to
provide a traditional entry point for laborers. It is, however, one of the most dangerous
*
14
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industries. Construction workers build, repair, maintain, renovate and demolish houses, office buildings,
factories, hospitals, roads, bridges, tunnels, stadiums, docks, airports and more. During the course of their
work they are exposed to a wide variety of hazards on the job, including dusts and vapours, asbestos,
awkward working positions, heavy loads, adverse weather conditions, work at heights, noise, vibration
from tools, among many others. The causes of accidents and ill-health in the sector are well known and
almost all are preventable. A report published in Daily Times (2015) states that there is no official
statistics of how many company workers get hurt in the course of their duties but according to the
individual Health and Safety Environment's (HSE) records of top 10 contractors, more than 3,700 of them
needed medical treatment in 2014. The injured workers who get hospitalized made up nearly 10 per cent
of the total workers on this list. Sadly, about 18 percent of them died either at the sites or in hospitals last
year. In comparison to the previous year, 246 more workers got injured in 2014 but for obvious reason,
company directors do not want this part of the record to be made public. According to the results of the
occupational safety and health (OSH) review study conducted by the ILO and the ILO Regional Office in
Beirut at the end of 2007, Oman has not ratified any of the core OSH Conventions, notably Conventions
No. 155 (Occupational Safety and Health Convention, 1981) and No. 161 (Occupational Health Services
Convention, 1985), nor the latest Convention No. 187 (Promotional Framework for Occupational Safety
and Health Convention, 2006). Traditional measures of safety are after-the-fact measures; namely, that
safety is measured after injuries have already occurred. These measures are labelled reactive, trailing,
downstream, or lagging indicators because they rely on retrospective data. Focusing on these measures
e.g., accident rates and compensation costs often means that the success of safety is measured by the
levels of system failure (Cohen, 2002).
In recent years, there has been a movement away from safety measures purely based on retrospective data
or lagging indicators, such as accident rates, toward so-called leading indicators such as site
investigation and measurements of safety climate (Flin et al., 2000). In view of the importance of
Occupational Health and Safety (OHS), countries such as the United Kingdom (UK), Singapore and
Hong Kong (HK) have adopted a self-regulatory approach to safety, whereby proprietors (including
contractors) are required to develop, implement and maintain safety management systems (Rowlinson,
1997; Wilson and Koehn, 2000). The practice of safety in construction in the USA is regulated by
governmental agencies such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and in UK it
is regulated by Health and Safety Executive (HSE) which provides strict rules and regulations to enforce
safety and health standards on job sites. Some construction companies realize the importance of reducing
their accident rates not only for humanitarian reasons, but also because of the many financial benefits
which flow from the safe conduct of the work. Other companies do not have a strong belief in safety. This
has serious repercussions when any unfortunate incidents occur. Good management should always insist
that every engineer, supervisor and laborer must be familiar with all basic safety aspects and practices that
guard those around the sites from accidents and injuries.
This paper present a thorough review of construction safety in Oman, focusing on the current status of
safety, regulation of health and safety, enforcement and recommendation how the safety can be further
improved by establishing a health and safety regulatory authority involving all stakeholder.
1.1.
CONSTRUCTION PARTIES SAFETY RESPONSIBILITIES
The responsibility for safety on any construction project should be shared between all the parties involved
in the project, namely, the owner, the designer or architect and the contractor. The owner, as part of his
safety responsibilities, must ensure that the designer designs a safe project. He must also ensure that the
contractor has a safety program. The owner should include the safety program as an element of the
bidding technicalities. The architect or designer contributes towards ensuring the safety of the project by
properly designing the temporary and permanent work from the safety point of view. The temporary
works must be designed so that they provide a safe means of access to and about the construction work.
The permanent work must be designed so that it is stable and safe for the users. Contractors should
provide a safe environment for workers by meeting all safety requirements during construction processes,
beginning with site preparation and ending with completion of the work. Regulatory and contractual
requirements place the primary responsibility for construction site safety on the constructor (Behm,
2006). For instance, the federal OSHA regulations place the responsibility for worker safety on the
15
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constructor as the primary employer. Project owners who make safety a priority also place the
responsibility for construction site safety directly on the constructor, by showing preference for prequalified contractors who have good safety records, lower insurance rates, and comprehensive safety
programs.
Research into the root causes of construction accidents has also focused on the role of the constructor.
Abdelhamid and Everett (2000) evaluated construction accidents in the United States and developed a
model for tracing the root causes of accidents. Their research addressed activities and conditions at the
construction site but did not consider potential root causes in the project concept and design phases. The
authors attributed unsafe conditions to four main causes: management action/inaction, unsafe acts of
workers and co-workers, events not directly human related (such as equipment failure and natural
disasters), and unsafe conditions that are a natural part of the construction site (such as uneven terrain and
concealed ditches). Abdelhamid and Everetts approach is consistent with conventional accident rootcause analysis, focusing solely on the actions and inactions of the constructor, rather than adopting a
broader view of accident causality that looks at upstream influences, including the design process.
One recent study of causal factors in construction accidents looked at the designers role. Haslam et al.
(2003) studied the causes of 100 construction accidents in the United Kingdom, and found that permanent
works designers (synonymous with design professionals in the United States) could have reduced the
risk associated with the accidents in almost half of the cases. The authors also developed a construction
accident causality model that described immediate causes, shaping factors, and originating influences in
construction accidents. They concluded that the permanent works design influences the workers
activities, the site, and the materials and equipment specified for construction.
2.
STATUS OF HEALTH AND SAFETY
Research conducted by Smallwood (2004b) in selective construction project measuring different projects
parameter found that health and safety is the least important project parameter among five different other
as shown in Table 1. It should be noted that the perceived importance of H&S is likely to influence the
adopting of H&S as a value, as opposed to a priority. The adopting of H&S as a value is important as
priorities change, and hence the importance of the status of H&S. However, the adopting of H&S as a
value is a prerequisite for addressing and optimizing the other constituents of H&S culture. Giving less
priority and importance to health and safety by construction organization shows the unawareness of cost
of accidents and such action can lead the organizations to high number of accidents. The cost of accidents
can be categorized as being either direct or indirect. Direct costs tend to be those associated with the
treatment of the injury and any unique compensation offered to workers as a consequence of being
injured and are covered by workmens compensation insurance premiums. Indirect costs which are borne
by contractors include reduced productivity for both the returned worker(s) and the crew or workforce;
clean-up costs; replacement costs; costs resulting from delays; supervision costs; costs related to
rescheduling; transportation, and wages paid while the injured is idle (Hinze 1994). Recent research
conducted in the United Kingdom (UK) determined indirect costs to be 11 times the direct costs - 11:1
(Movement for Innovation, 2003). Research conducted in South Africa determined the indirect costs to be
14.2 times the direct costs (Smallwood, 2000). Research conducted in the United States of America
indicates the total cost of accidents constitutes, inter alia, 6.5 % of the value of completed construction
(The Business Roundtable, 1995) and in the UK approximately 8.5 % of tender price (Anderson, 1997).
Rowlinson (1997) maintains H&S performance cannot be measured in economic terms, but only in social
terms. Consequently, the appropriate level of expenditure on H&S should be based upon economic,
political and social considerations. However, various authors quantify the cost of prevention. The
Business Roundtable (1995) cites research conducted in the USA, which determined that the cost of
administering an H&S programme usually amounts to 2.5 % of direct labour costs. Based upon two
projects undertaken by a South African general contractor and given that direct labour costs typically
constitute 25 % of the total project, the cost of administering an H&S programme was estimated to
amount to 0.65 % (25 % x 2.5 %) of the total project cost (Smallwood, 2000a).
Research conducted by Lai (Tang, Lee and Wong, 1997) in Hong Kong revealed that most contractors set
aside an amount of less than 0.5 % and some even less than 0.25 % of the contract sum for investing in
16
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H&S on their contracts. During recent research conducted among a group of best practice H&S general
contractors the question: On average, approximately what percentage does the cost of H&S constitute of
total project cost? was asked. Eight general contractors responded. Two GCs (25 %) recorded
percentages, namely 3 % and 0.5 %, and six (75 %) identified ranges: three (37.5 %) 0 1 % and three
(37.5 %) > 1 2 % (Smallwood, 2004a). The health and safety statistics for 2014-15 mentioned the
Health and Safety Executive (HSE, UK), indicate that a total of 27.3 million working days were lost due
to work related ill health or injury. This further result to an estimated cost of 14.3 million. Although the
contribution of construction industry towards the total GDP value for Oman and Great Britain are the
same, however such analysis are not available in Oman since there is no such organization to deal with
this.
The cost of prevention is of relevance to designers, particularly where they are the principal agent,
because of the following. First, in terms of the Construction Regulations, clients may appoint designers or
other consultants as their agents to fulfil their responsibilities. Given that clients are required to ensure
that principal contractors have made adequate allowance for H&S, the cost of prevention is important. A
further issue is that should the allowance for H&S be inadequate, based upon the negative effect of
inadequate or the lack of H&S on the other performance parameters, overall project performance could be
impaired.
Table 1: Degree of Importance of Various Parameters
Un-Sure
Parameter
Project Quality
Public Health
and Safety
Schedule (Time)
Cost
Project Health
and Safety
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
3.1
Response (%)
Not Important . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Very Important
1
2
3
4
5
1.0
0.0
3.1
26.8
69.1
2.1
3.2
12.8
21.3
60.6
1.0
2.1
3.1
0.0
3.1
5.2
15.5
10.3
13.4
38.1
35.1
36.1
45.4
49.5
39.2
II
3.63
3.35
Rank
1
2
3.27
3.27
2.97
3
4
5
Source: Smallwood (2004b)
3.
HEALTH AND SAFETY IN OMAN
Construction is a major industry of Oman contributing a major portion towards the total revenue and
approximately 10% to GDP which is similar as of the United Kingdom construction industry. Currently a
total of 100,000 are registered as contractor with a workforce size of 700,000 consisting of a major
portion of expatriate workers. Construction industry is attractive for most of the international companies
because of the high profit with low taxes and cheap workforce. The work carried out by these companies
are normally of good quality because mostly it one of the consideration for their future awards, and a
strict compliance from the clients. However, most of the companies do not maintain the required level of
the worker safety due to several reasons including unawareness of benefits in terms of cost and
productivity, lack of relevant rules, regulation and laws and enforcement of such laws by government or
independent authority. Safety is further given less priority from client and designer as the primary
responsibility of workers safety lies on employer i.e. contactors and normally these organizations (client
and designer) save themselves by putting all safety responsibilities on contactors. A report compiled by
Behm and Michael (2006) for the Centre to Protect Workers Rights wherein he analyzed 450 reports
(post-accident) of construction workers deaths and disabling injuries and found that in 151 cases (about
one-third of those studied), the hazard that contributed to the incident could have been eliminated or
reduced if design-for-safety measures had been implemented. Although the contribution of construction
industry to economy is similar to the developed countries, however the health and safety measures are
comparatively poor. The analysis of one Daily Newspaper (2015) shows that 9 construction workers were
died and 25 were injured in Oman. The public Authority of Social Insurance (2014) which registered only
Omani nationals reports shows that 401 cases of work related injuries were disbursed which cost a total
amount of 406,000 OMR (US$ 1,051,540). The number of active insures in the Social Insurance System
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was 197,510 in 2014; if a similar ratio is applied to the total workers working in construction industry of
Oman will give the cost involves in construction accident of 1,428,571 OMR (US$ 3,700,000) per year.
3.1
HEALTH AND SAFETY LAW (RULES AND REGULATIONS) IN OMAN
Since the 1970s, Oman has been witnessing steady progress in the political and socio-economic fields.
However, the country has had to rely on expatriates to implement its ambitious socio-economic programs
of the five year consecutive development plans due to the limited number of qualified Omanis in these
areas. The Ministry of Manpower is facilitating the issuance of permits for foreign workers, especially in
the sectors that witness shortages in the number of qualified national workers. Expatriates work in
different economic sectors; unskilled and semi-skilled expatriates are concentrated in the construction
sector, which represents 32.5 per cent of the total expatriates in the private sector, according to the
statistical bulletin of 2007. Articles 27, 40, 41, 87, 88, 89, 90, 98 and 99 of the Ministry of Manpower
Labor Law stress both the workers and employer to abide the health and safety regulation mentioned in
these articles. Oman has further four decrees; Sultanate Decree No. 40/1979: Occupational diseases and
accidents compensation law, Ministerial Decree No. 10/1982: OSH regulations, Ministerial Decree No.
19/1988: OSH Act and Ministerial Decree No. 286/2008: Regulation of Occupational Safety and Health.
3.1.1.
REGULATION OF OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH (MINISTERIAL DECREE NO. 286/2008)
Based on the stipulation of the Labour Law, which entitles the Minister of Manpower to issue regulations,
occupational safety and health has been regulated under the Ministerial Decision No. 286/2008, namely
the Regulation of Occupational Safety and Health for Establishments Governed by the Labour Law. This
Regulation is regarded as the framework legislation in OSH at the level of the Sultanate. It supersedes the
Occupational Health and Industrial Safety Precautions issued by Ministerial Decision No.19/1982, which
address general provisions regarding safety at work and the protection of the health of the workers in
private-sector establishments. The Precautions consist of two chapters and fourteen Articles which cover:
General provisions;
Dangers of machinery;
Working conditions (lighting, ventilation, drinking water, eating places, toilet facilities, sleeping
quarters, fire);
Health hazards;
Safety supervisors for establishments employing 100 or more workers;
Accidents;
Construction work;
Hoisting and hauling machines;
Mines and quarries
Apart from presence of OHS laws which need to be updated as agreed in the memorandum of
understanding between ILO and Oman (2010), there need to be specific rules, regulations relevant and
applicable to construction industry and a regulatory authority to review and update and implement those
rules and regulations in Oman.
3.2.
OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
In recent years, governments, enterprises and international organisations have all been giving greater
attention to the need to adopt systematic models for managing OSH. The so-called OSH management
systems approach provides a promising strategy for augmenting traditional command and control
approaches with performance improvement tools, more effective health and safety auditing concepts, and
schemes for management systems.
The need for a global approach to OSH management was recognized as a logical and necessary response
to increasing economic globalization, while the benefits of systematic models of managing OSH became
apparent as a result of the impact of ISO standards for quality and the environment. Current management
science theories suggest that performance is better in all areas of business, including OSH, if it is
measured and continuous improvement sought in an organized fashion. Drawing from the principles
defined in the ILO Guidelines on occupational safety and health management systems, 2001, Convention
18
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No. 187 applies a similar approach to the management of national OSH systems to ensure they are
improved through a continuous cycle of policy review, evaluation and action for improvement. The
different steps in the OSH Management Cycle of continuous improvement are illustrated in Figure 1.
Small construction organisations normally dont have awareness of safety and health management
systems and its benefits, therefore the possibilities of risk and accidents are more. Many researcher claims
that small enterprises have special problems with work environment which lead the organisations towards
high risk with a lower ability of controlling the risk (Hasle and Limborg, 2006). In Oman, 6,000
companies which employed a work force of 310,000 are registered as grade one and above are having
company, staff ratio of 1:52. These construction organizations are carrying 95% of major construction
projects in the country if assumed are having awareness of safety and health management systems and it
is applied in their organizations, is not enough to reflect that the whole country workforce safety and
health performance. The problem still exists with the 94,000 organisations that are registered as grade two
and below and having a workforce size of 389,000, which gives a company, staff ratio of 1:4 only. This is
the major challenge to ensure proper safety and health systems in such organisations. The government
along with concerned stakeholder needs to develop strategies for implementation of safety and health
systems in these small construction organizations to improve safety performance.
Figure 1: Guidance on Occupational Safety and Health Management Systems

Source: ILO-OSH (2001)
4.
ENFORCEMENT
The ultimate purpose of the enforcing authorities is to ensure that duty holders manage and control risks
effectively, thus preventing harm. The term enforcement has a wide meaning and applies to all dealings
between enforcing authorities and those on whom the law places duties (employers, the self-employed,
employees and others). The purpose of enforcement is to:
Ensure that duty holders take action to deal immediately with serious risks;
Promote and achieve sustained compliance with the law;
Ensure that duty holders who breach health and safety requirements, and directors or managers
who fail in their responsibilities, may be held to account, which may include bringing alleged
offenders before the courts in England and Wales, or recommending prosecution in Scotland, in
the circumstances set out later in this policy.
19
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The compliance with OHS standards will result in the elimination and reduction, of work-related illness
and injury. The UK Health and Safety Commission envisages the purposes of enforcement as ensuring
that duty holders deal immediately with serious risks; promoting and achieving sustained compliance
with the law; and ensuring that duty holders who breach statutory provisions are held to account
through prosecution. Since its establishment in 1970, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA) have been responsible for the enforcement of workplace safety and health
standards in the United States. Between 2001 and 2010, OSHA conducted nearly a quarter million
(247,997) federal inspections in construction. The proportion of construction establishments inspected by
federal OSHA fluctuated, but generally showed a small upward trend. Even so, the proportion of
construction companies inspected by OSHA is still low. OSHA has approximately 2,200 inspectors,
including state-plan inspectors, for 8 million worksites and 130 million workers in all industries
nationwide; this is equivalent to one OSHA inspector for every 3,600 worksites or 59,000 workers.
Moreover, the number of construction worksites visited can be much lower than the number of
inspections since multiple employers are usually working at one construction worksite. In addition, only
7% of the inspections in construction were health inspections, which is significantly lower than 20% of
inspections for all industries. The number of OSHA inspections varied by construction subsector. In 2010,
the majority (62%) of inspections occurred among Specialty Trade Contractors while 26% were
conducted among General Contractors and 13% in Heavy Construction. Although the number of
inspections was small in Heavy Construction, the proportion of establishments inspected in this sector
was higher than the other two construction subsectors, considering that establishments in Heavy
Construction only accounted for about 5% of the construction establishments with payroll. The health and
safety statistic annual report for 2014-15 compiled by HSE (UK) indicates that there were 586 cases were
prosecuted by HSE in England and Wales. 70 cases were prosecuted by Local authorities in England and
Wales. 72 cases were prosecuted by the Procurator Fiscal in Scotland. 12,430 enforcement notices were
issued by all enforcing authorities.
Oman labour law empower the ministry of manpower to ensure the health and safety standards through
ministry inspectors and in event of the existence of any danger which threatens the safety and health of
the Workers, the Ministry can take necessary measures to close down the place of work wholly or
partially, or to stop the operation of one or more machinery until the elimination of the causes of such
danger. The ministry can further improve the process of inspections and penalties by benchmarking it
system with OSHA (USA) and HSE (UK).
5.
RECOMMENDATION FOR IMPROVEMENT OF SAFETY IN CONSTRUCTION IN OMAN
Based on the literature review and fact related to construction industry of Oman, the following
recommendations are made.
Oman need to establish an independent Safety and Health regulatory authority to develop and
enforce rules and regulations for improved safety and health for all industrial organizations
including construction.
More research is needed to be conducted to understand the current safety status.
Construction organizations registration including renewal of registration is need to be linked with

the safety and health performance of organization.
Construction organizations specially small and medium organizations are need to be educated on
safety and health benefits.
Regulatory authorities are required to ensure appropriate safety and health system in all
construction organizations.
Construction workers are needed to be having adequate safety and health training before they are
allowed to work in construction organizations.
Construction organizations are needed to develop programs for assessment their safety and health
performance.
20
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A proper procedure for inspection of safety and health is required to be defined for self-inspections
and external inspections by regulatory organization.
Old rules and regulations for safety and health are needed to be revised and further needed to be
review periodically.
Construction accidents are needed to be properly investigated both by construction organizations

itself and externally be safety and health authority to know the root causes of the accidents and to
develop strategies to minimize the accidents in future.
Based on the above recommendations, a safety model for construction in Oman is suggested as shown in
Figure 2.
Occupational Safety and Health
Authority
Safety Rules and Regulations

Awareness of
Safety Benefits
Participation of
Stakeholder
Inspection and Enforcement
Improved Safety
Performance
Figure 2: Safety Model for Construction
6.
REFERENCES
Abdelhamid, T. and J. Everett., 2000. Identifying Root Causes of Construction Accidents. Journal of Construction
Engineering and Management, 126(1), 52-60.
Anderson, J., 1997. The Problems with Construction-John Anderson, once HSE's tunnelling expert, builds on the
Latham Report. Safety and Health Practitioner, 15(5), 29-33.
Behm, M., 2006. An Analysis of Construction Accidents from a Design Perspective. The Center to Protect Workers
Rights. USA: Rockville.
Cohen, J. M., 2002. Measuring safety performance in construction. Occup. Hazards, 64(6), 4144.
Flin, R., Mearns, K., OConnor, P., and Bryden, R., 2000. Measuring safety climate: Identifying the common
features. Safety Science, 34(3), 177192.
Haslam, R., Hide, A., Gibb, D., Gyi, S., Atkinson, T., Pavitt, R., Duff and Suraji, A., (2003).Causal Factors in
Construction Accidents [online]. United Kingdom , Health and Safety Executive. Available from:
http://www.hse.gov.uk/research/rrpdf/rr156.pdf
Hinze, J.W., 1994. Quantification of the indirect costs of injuries. In: R. Issa, R.J. Coble and B.R. Elliott, eds. 5th
Annual Rinker International Conference on Safety and Loss Control,Gainesville: University of Florida, 357
370.
International Labour Organization (ILO) and Oman, (2010). Memorandum of understanding between International
Labor Organization and Oman on Decent Work Country Programme [Online]. Geneva: International Labor
Organization. Available from: http://www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/program/dwcp/download/bahrain.pdf
ILO-OSH, 2001. Guidelines on occupational safety and health management systems. 2nd ed. Geneva: International
Labour Office.
21
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Movement for Innovation.

(2003). A commitment to people
www.rethinkingconstruction.org/rc/publications/reports/rfp_report.pdf.
our
biggest
asset
[online].
Occupational Safety and Health Convention, 1981. Convention concerning Occupational Safety and Health and the
Working Environment (Entry into force: 11 Aug 1983). Geneva: 67th ILCsession.
Occupational Health Services Convention, 1985. Convention concerning Occupational Health Services. Geneva:
71st ILC session.
Public authority of Social Insurance, 2014. 21st annual report 2014, Oman: Public authority of Social Insurance.
Hasle, p. and Limborg, H. J., 2006. A review of the literature on Preventive Occupational Health and Safety
Activities in Small Enterprises. Industrial Health, 44, 6-12
Promotional Framework for Occupational Safety and Health Convention , 2006. Convention concerning the
promotional framework for occupational safety and health (Entry into force: 20 Feb 2009). Geneva: 95th ILC
session .
Rowlinson, S, (1997). Hong Kong Construction - Site Safety Management [online]. Asia, Sweet & Maxwell.
Available from: http://hdl.handle.net/10722/120267.
Smallwood, J. J., 2000a. A study of the relationship between occupational health and safety, labourproductivity and
quality in the South African construction industry.Unpublished thesis (PhD),University of Port Elizabeth.
Smallwood, J. J., 2004a. Optimum cost: The role of health and safety (H&S). In: J.J.P. Verster, ed. International
Cost Engineering Council 4th World Congress, Cape Town 1721 April 2004.
Smallwood, J. J., 2004b. The influence of engineering designers on health and safety during construction. Journal of
the South African Institution of Civil Engineering, 46(1):28.
Tang, S. L., Lee, H. K. and Wong, K .,1997. Safety cost optimization of building projects in HongKong.
Construction Management & Economics, 15(2):177186.
The Business Roundtable, 1995. Improving construction safety performance report A-3. New York: The Business
Roundtable.
Wilson J. R. and Koehn, E. E., (2000). Safety management: Problem encountered and recommended solutions.
Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 126(1), 77- 79.
22
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A REVIEW OF SAFETY CLIMATE AND RISK-TAKING PROPENSITY IN

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH, SAFETY AND WELL-BEING IN THE
CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY
Steve Rowlinson*, Yuzhong Shen and Tas Yong Koh
Department of Real Estate and Construction, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong S.A.R.
ABSTRACT
Studies which take safety climate as a safety monitoring tool are rarely reported. This study reports a
benchmarking program to identify prominent safety management issues in three ongoing railway
projects using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. In the quantitative aspect, the
research team conducted a safety climate survey with three random samples, one sample from each
ongoing project. A robust 11-factor structure of the safety climate questionnaire emerged after factor
analysis. Most of the mean scores of safety climate indicators for subcontractors were below 3 (out of
4) and specific indicators were identified as in need of urgent attention. The main contractors direct
labour scored similarly with subcontractors. Two main contractor management teams had to do more
to take on the leadership role. The major weaknesses were the following indicators: work procedure
for safety, safety compliance, safety priority over work pressure, safety cooperation and involvement,
and appreciation of risk. In the qualitative aspect, the research team sought respondents comments on
current safety management practice and suggestions as to further improvement in safety performance.
Content analysis showed that conflicting safety rules and inadequate training were common in the
three projects, and increased supervision was proposed as the way to improve safety performance.
Keywords:
1.
Safety Climate; Risk-taking Propensity; Occupational Health, Safety and Well-being.
SAFETY CLIMATE
Based on a diversity of cues in the workplace, employees develop consistent sets of perceptions and
expectations about behaviour-outcome contingencies and act accordingly (Zohar, 1980). These sets of
perceptions are organizational climate when they are shared by individual employees. Safety climate is a
special case of organizational climate, i.e. the organizational climate for safety. In a safety climate, the
workforce is expected to carry out their tasks in a safe manner (Shen et al., 2015a). Relevant literature
from Zohar (1980); Seo et al. (2004); Shen et al., (2015b); Choudhry et al., (2009); Christian et al.,
(2009); Beus et al., (2010); Zhang et al., (2015); Cheyne et al., (1998) shows that safety climate reflects
employees perceived importance of safe conduct in their occupational behaviour, correlates with safety
initiative effectiveness, and serves as a predictor of safety activity and a leading indicator of accidents in
the workplace.
More importantly, as safety climate reflects safety management practice in an organization, measuring
safety climate can diagnose the organizations temporal state of safety at a point in time (Cheyne et al.,
1998; Huang et al., 2013). In this sense, safety climate serves as a safety monitoring tool, which informs
management of areas to be improved. However, rarely reported are studies which take safety climate as a
safety monitoring tool, with a notable exception of Mearns et al. (2001). Through benchmarking nine
North Sea oil and gas installations in terms of safety climate at two different points in time, Mearns et al.
(2001) raised awareness of safety climate issues across participating organizations and prompted poor
performers to take efficient improvement measures.
*
A score of 2 or less indicates disagreement with a safety climate indicator, such as safe behaviour for example. The
eleven indicators and the items comprising them are listed in Appendix 1.
23
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2.
THE PROBLEM
Benchmarking organisations safety performance with safety climate as a monitoring tool has special
implications for the construction sector. At the industry level, the construction sector is plagued with a
much higher than all-industry average accident rate across the globe. In order to contain the situation,
researchers and practitioners have been continuously proposing safety initiatives from management,
organization and technology perspectives. An important way to measure the effectiveness of these safety
initiatives is through safety climate survey, which can provide cues for improvement. At the organization
level, through comparing different construction projects in terms of safety climate indicators can help the
organization make informed decisions regarding development and implementation of safety initiatives.
This has special implications for XXX Corporation (XXXC) which oversees multiple projects
simultaneously.
A seemingly plateaued project safety performance prompted XXXC management to identify predominant
safety management issues in ongoing projects, and hence develop effective and efficient safety
improvement initiatives. For this purpose, XXXC worked with a research team led by the first author to
carry out a study. Based on prior research experience and relevant literature, the research team decided to
use a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods to gather information. The quantitative method
was used to measure project participants perceptions of current safety management practice. The
qualitative method was used to seek project participants comments on current safety management
practice and suggestions as to further improvement.
3.
METHODS
3.1.
SURVEY INSTRUMENT DEVELOPMENT
Although the definition which defines safety climate as shared perceptions with regard to safety policies,
procedures, and practices by Zohar (2003, p.125) is well accepted, operationalization of the construct is
often subject to the context in which it is to be used. In consultation with the XXXC management, the
research team decided to devise a safety climate questionnaire to accommodate unique characteristics of
XXX projects.
A widely-used method to develop safety climate scales is that, a set of themes are obtained through
reviews of the safety literature, and after that interviews and focus groups are conducted to customize the
instruments to the sponsoring organizations requirements (Flin et al., 2000). After a review of the
construction safety literature of Pousette et al. (2008); Zhou et al. (2011); Cigularov et al. (2010);
Choudhry et al. (2009); Glendon and Litherland (2001); Molenaar et al. (2009) and consultation with the
XXXC management, the research team proposes a consistent profile of a perceived pro-safety workplace.
In this perceived pro-safety workplace,
a) the project personnel are competent to deal with risks through training and education;
b) the project personnel are conscious of what is going on in a timely manner through a flow of
information;
c) the project personnels colleagues are safety-conscious and hence provide a supportive
environment for inducing and sustaining the project personnels safe conduct;
d) the project personnels supervisors take safety seriously and never turn a blind eye to employees
breaking safety procedures;
e) the project personnel are sensitive to work pressure and would prioritize safety over production
pressure;
f) the project personnel are sensitive to and would act against those work procedures which contradict
safety requirements;
g) the project personnel are compliant with safety rules;
h) the project personnel can sense the effectiveness of safety measures;
24
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i) the project personnel are cooperative and involved in safety management;

j) the project personnel are able to appreciate risks in their work;
k) the project personnel are willing to behave in a safe manner, instead of taking risks.
Three to four questions to reflect each aspect of the perceived pro-safety workplace were adapted from
similar studies, including Lingard et al. (2010a); Lingard et al. (2010b); Mearns et al. (2003). In total, 40
items were incorporated into the questionnaire. These items were short statements, soliciting respondents
agreement with them on a 4-point scale (1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = agree, and 4 =
strongly agree). Some items were negatively worded, whereas the others positively worded. The
psychological measurement literature suggests that in completing a questionnaire, respondents exhibit
two tendencies (Barnette, 2000). One tendency is for respondents to generally agree with survey
statements more than disagree. The other tendency is that respondents provide responses in a manner that
is related more to their general feelings about the subject, instead of the specific content of the item.
These negatively worded items were used to guard against these tendencies.
There were three sections in the questionnaire. The first section was to gather respondents demographical
information. The second part was a safety climate scale to measure respondents safety climate
perceptions. The last part using open-ended questions was to seek respondents comments and
suggestions. After pilot study, with the finalized questionnaire the research team conducted three random
sample surveys on three separate ongoing projects.
3.2.
SAMPLE
With assistance of the main contractors, the research team secured 336, 157 and 414 valid responses
respectively from three projects. Among the respondents were both management and frontline staff.
3.3.
DATA ANALYSIS
With the safety climate scale, the research team carried out exploratory factor analysis (EFA), and found
a rather robust 11-factor structure. With the 11 indicators the research team made comparisons between
projects and organizations involved in each project using ANOVA and t-test procedures. The
questionnaire also elicited respondents comments on current safety management approach and
suggestions for further safety improvement. Conventional content analysis procedures of Hsieh and
Shannon (2005) were used to analyse the comments and suggestions, and find out common issues across
projects and peculiar issues specific to each project. The next section is to present the results in sequence.
4.
RESULTS
4.1.
THE EMERGENT 11 INDICATORS OF THE SAFETY CLIMATE SCALE
EFA was conducted with the aggregate sample, and 11 factors (indicators or dimensions) emerged,
including competence, communication, safety supportive environment, pro-safety supervisory leadership,
safety priority over work pressure, work procedure for safety, safety compliance, safety effectiveness,
safety cooperation and involvement, appreciation of risk, and safe behaviour. They were in accordance
with the 11 features of the perceived pro-safety workplace as mentioned earlier.
The indicator of competence refers to respondents feeling that they are competent to deal with risks
through training and education. The indicator of communication refers to the phenomenon that
respondents are informed of what is going on in a timely manner through the free flow of information.
The indicator of safety supportive environment refers to respondents feeling that their colleagues are
safety-conscious and hence provides a supportive environment for inducing and sustaining project
personnels safe conduct. The indicator of pro-safety supervisory leadership refers to respondents feeling
that their supervisors take safety seriously and never turn a blind eye to employees breaking safety
procedures. The indicator of safety priority overwork pressure refers to the phenomenon that respondents
are sensitive to work pressure and would prioritize safety over production pressure. The indicator of work
25
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procedure for safety refers to the phenomenon that respondents are sensitive to and would act against
those work procedures which contradict safety requirements. The indicator of safety compliance refers to
the phenomenon that respondents are can recognize and follow safety rules and procedures as proper. The
indicator of safety effectiveness refers to respondents realization that safety measures are effective in
bringing down unsafe behaviours. The indicator of safety cooperation and involvement refers to the
phenomenon that respondents are cooperative and involved in safety management practice. The indicator
of appreciation of risk refers to respondents acknowledgement that they have to do some jobs with taking
risks. The indicator of safe behaviour refers to respondents feeling that they would behave in a safe
manner, instead of taking risks. The 11 indicators and related measurement items are shown in
Appendix 1.
4.2.
RATING OF ORGANISATIONS IN TERMS OF SAFETY CLIMATE INDICATORS
The research team compared the main contractor and subcontractors in terms of the 11 safety climate
indicators. Table 1 shows the results and mismatches among project personnels views on safety
management practices on site. Specifically, the main contractor management scored significantly higher
than the main contractors direct labour in terms of five indicators (i.e. competence, communication,
safety effectiveness, safety cooperation and involvement, and appreciation of risk). This suggests that
across the three surveyed projects, the main contractors frontline staff felt less competent to deal with
safety issues, and were less likely to feel the effectiveness of safety initiatives. To the main contractors
frontline staff, there is insufficient communication about safety matters, their involvement in safety
management is limited, and they are not confident that they can recognise and identify hazards as proper.
The main contractor, including management and direct labour, scored significantly higher than
subcontractors in terms of five indicators (i.e. competence, safety supportive environment, safety priority
over work pressure, safety effectiveness, and appreciation of risk). This suggests that future interventions
to upgrade subcontractors safety performance should focus on strengthening their self-efficacy in dealing
with safety issues, instituting a buddy system at the work crew level, reducing progress pressure, building
up their capacity to identify risks. Through these measures they are more likely to feel the effectiveness of
safety initiatives.
Table 1: Comparison between the Main Contractor and Subcontractors based on the Mean Values of Safety Climate
Indicators
Indicators
Competence
Communication
Safety supportive environment
Pro-safety supervisory leadership
Safety priority over work pressure
Work procedure for safety
Safety compliance
Safety effectiveness
Safety cooperation and involvement
Appreciation of risk
Safe behaviour
Average
Sample size (n)
Main
contractor
(management)
Main
contractor
(workers)
3.3
3.1
3.4
3.0
3.0
2.8
2.9
3.0
3.0
2.8
3.1
3.0
171
3.1
2.9
3.2
2.9
2.9
2.9
2.8
2.8
2.9
2.6
3.0
2.9
117
Main
contractor
(management
+ worker)
3.2
3.0
3.3
3.0
2.9
2.9
2.9
3.0
2.9
2.7
3.1
3.0
288
Subcontractors
3.1
2.9
3.1
2.9
2.8
2.8
2.8
2.8
2.9
2.6
3.0
2.9
631
Note: Indicators were measured on a 4-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 =
agree, and 4 = strongly agree).
In order for XXXC to grasp the difference in perceptions of safety management practice between
organisations, the research team rated organisations in terms of each of the 11 emergent safety climate
indicators. Specifically, the top 30% organisations on each indicator were labelled as can improve, and
26
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accordingly assigned green traffic lights. The next 20% organisations were classified as need to
improve, and assigned yellow traffic lights. The remaining 50% organisations were labelled as urgent
improvement needed, and assigned red traffic lights. Table 2 shows the ratings of organizations on
Project YYYY against other organizations in other projects.
In general, most organisations were at a similar performance level in terms of two indicators (i.e.
competence and communication), and their scores were around three. However, in terms of other two
indicators (i.e. safety supportive environment and pro-safety supervisory leadership) there was a clear
divisive line between good and poor performers. In other words, these two indicators are more capable of
differentiating good and poor performers than other indicators. This also suggests that pro-safety
supervisory leadership and safety supportive environment are key weaknesses of the poor performers,
consonant with findings in other studies in Hong Kong and Australia where the role of the supervisor was
found to be crucial in promoting safe behaviour (Lingard et al., 2009; Choudhry et al., 2008). In terms of
the indicator of work procedure for safety, more organisations were labelled as need to improve than
those labelled as can improve, which is contradictory to the expected outcome. This suggests that most
organisations gave it a lower rating, i.e. most organisations would follow work procedures even though
these work procedures contradict safety requirements. The trend can be seen in Figure 1, which features
the number of traffic lights across safety climate indicators.
27
Table 2: Rating of Organisations on Project YYYY against Other Organisations

Indicators
Sub5
Sub1
Sub8
Sub4
Sub9
Maincontr
managemt
Sub2
Sub6
Maincontr
labour
Sub3
Sub7
13
69
25
53
20
Safety
values
Competence
Communication
Safety
priority
Safety supportive
environment
Pro-safety supervisory
leadership
Risk-taking Engagement Procedures
Safety priority over

work pressure
Work procedure for
safety
Safety compliance
Safety cooperation and
involvement
Safe behaviour
Sample size (n)
Note:
Urgent improvement needed;
Need to improve;
Can improve.
28
Figure 1: Number of Traffic Lights across Safety Climate Indicators
5.
RESPONDENTS COMMENTS ON CURRENT SAFETY MANAGEMENT APPROACH
Respondents were asked for comments on current safety management approaches on XXXC construction
projects. 14 categories emerged across conventional content analysis of comments from the aggregate
sample, and they were rules, training, pace of work, engagement, blame culture, supervision, leadership,
resources, tight programme, bureaucracy, safety priority, communication, incentive and penalty schemes,
and practicability of safety interventions. Table 3 shows the convergence and divergence in respondents
comments on safety management approach on their sites, based on the emergent categories.
Table 3: Respondents Comments on the Current Safety Management Approach
Projects
Convergence
Divergence
YYYY
Rules
Training
Pace of work
Engagement
Blame culture
Supervision
Leadership
VVVV
Rules
Training
Resources
WWWW
Rules
Training
Tight programme
Engagement
Bureaucracy
Safety priority
Communication
Incentive and penalty scheme
Practicability of safety interventions
Across the three projects, project personnel were complaining about inconsistent rule enforcement regarding
safety policies. For example, respondents in YYYY reported that at least two safety standards are in
operation, i.e. XXXCs safety standard and the main contractors safety standards. The clash between these
two standards and associated work practices often frustrated frontline staff. Besides, respondents were of the
opinion that more safety trainings can improve safety performance.
Unlike respondents in other two projects, those respondents in Project VVVV expected allocating more
resources to safety management, from PPE to monetary incentives. Respondents from Project YYYY and
WWWW attributed poor safety performance to tight programme and limited engagement in safety
29
management practice. Respondents in Project YYYY reported that there is a blame culture in accident
investigations, and a lack of frontline supervisory leadership and supervision. Respondents from Project
WWWW complained that safety management practice has been bureaucratized, safety is often sacrificed in
case of tight programme, and there should be a communication channel between management and frontline
workers. Impressively, they reminded management that only those interventions which meet the needs from
the bottom can be effective.
6.
RESPONDENTS SUGGESTIONS FOR SAFETY PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT
Respondents suggestions as to how safety performance could be improved were noted. 14 categories
emerged from conventional content analysis of suggestions regarding safety performance improvement from
respondents, and they were supervision, rules, training, engagement, leadership, pace of work, resources,
management commitment, communication, human resource management, incentive and penalty schemes,
tight programme, safety priority, and near miss reporting. Table 4 shows the convergence and divergence in
respondents suggestions with regard to improving safety performance.
Table 4: Respondents Comments on the Current Safety Management Approach
Projects
Convergence
Divergence
YYYY
Supervision
Rules
Training
Engagement
Leadership
Pace of work
Resources
VVVV
Supervision
Rules
Training
Engagement
Management commitment
Communication
Human resource management
WWWW
Supervision
Tight programme
Resources
Communication
Human resource management
Safety priority
Near miss reporting
Respondents in all the three projects suggested that more supervision should be strengthened if safety
performance is to improve.
Unlike respondents from other two projects, respondents in Project WWWW noted the importance of near
miss reporting in safety performance improvement. Respondents in both Project YYYY and VVVV regarded
consistent rule enforcement and increased worker engagement as the key to further improving safety
performance. Unlike respondents in Project VVVV who were anticipating more commitment from the main
contractors top management, respondents in Project YYYY expected to strengthen supervisory safety
leadership. Progress pressure and resources, PPE in particular, were mentioned by respondents from both
Project YYYY and WWWW as primary hurdles to safety performance improvement. Respondents from both
Project VVVV and WWWW suggested increased communication about safety matters, more incentives, and
employment of experienced project personnel.
7.
CONCLUSION
Safety climate refers to employees shared perceptions of safety policies, procedures and practices. It reflects
the value of safety in organizations daily operations and organizations temporal state of safety. From this
perspective, it serves as a safety monitoring tool. Through safety climate survey, an organization can detect
areas to be improved. If the safety climate survey is carried out across comparable organizations, the results
can help their superior organization formulate organization-specific effective and efficient safety initiatives.
This has special practical implications for clients overseeing multiple projects simultaneously in the
construction sector, which is notorious for poor safety performance.
This study reports a benchmarking program to identify prominent safety management issues in ongoing
XXXC projects using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. In the quantitative aspect, the
30
research team conducted a safety climate survey with three random samples, one sample from each ongoing
project. A robust 11-factor structure of the safety climate questionnaire emerged after factor analysis. Most of
the mean scores of safety climate indicators for subcontractors was below 3 (out of 4) and specific indicators
were identified as in need of urgent attention. The main contractors direct labour scored similarly with
subcontractors. Two main contractor management teams had to do more to take on a leadership role. The
major weaknesses were the following indicators: work procedure for safety, safety compliance, safety priority
over work pressure, safety cooperation and involvement, and appreciation of risk. In the qualitative aspect,
the research team sought respondents comments on current safety management practice and suggestions as
to further improvement in safety performance. Content analysis showed that conflicting safety rules and
inadequate training were common in the three projects, and increased supervision was proposed as the way to
improve safety performance.
The limitation is that, this study used a cross-sectional design. It was unable to reveal changes in safety
climate indicators before and after a project implement safety initiative, although it could show weaknesses
of one project against others. Furthermore, objective accident data at both the project and organization levels
had not been collected, which makes it impossible to link subjective safety climate perceptions to objective
accident rate.
Despite the limitations, this study makes contribution in using safety climate as a monitoring tool, which
helps clients formulate project and organization specific safety improvement measures across ongoing
multiple projects.
8.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The work described in this paper was partially supported by a grant from the Research Grants Council of the
Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China, (RGC Project No. HKU17206514).
9.
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32
Appendix 1: Indicators of the Safety Climate Scale
Risk- Engagement Procedures

taking
Safety priority
Safety values
Indicators
Competence
Communication
Safety supportive
environment
Pro-safety supervisory
leadership
Safety priority over work
pressure
Work procedure for safety
Safety compliance
Safety cooperation and
involvement
Safe behaviour
Items
I am clear about what my responsibilities are for health and safety.
The induction training I have received at the Project covers all the health and safety risks associated with the work for
which l am responsible.
I fully understand the health and safety risks associated with the work for which I am responsible.
I am satisfied with the way I am kept informed about what takes place on the Project.
Workers at the Project site are consulted about safe work methods.
Workers are told when changes are made to the working environment on a job site.
Main contractor management provides safety training when employees change their work tasks.
Safety comes from worker co-operation.
As long as there is no accident, the supervisor doesnt care how the work is done.
The supervisor only keeps track of major safety problems and overlooks routine problems.
As long as work remains on schedule, the supervisor doesnt care how this has been achieved.
There is sometimes pressure to put production before safety at the Project by main contractor.
Under pressure I need to ignore normal safety requirements at the Project for the sake of getting the work done.
Around here, there are lots of safety procedures that dont really apply to the particular areas or circumstances in which
they are supposed to be used.
There are so many procedures that interfere with doing a job safely.
On this Project, people are often uncertain about what the safety procedures are for the work they do.
Safety procedures tend to be too vague and general to apply in specific situations.
Our daily routines don't show that safety is an important value.
I am not given enough time to get the job done safely on the Project.
At the Project main contractor management officially encourages open communication, but in reality most people know not
to speak up and 'rock the boat'.
Some employees may hesitate to speak up about safety concerns for fear of retaliation.
Some jobs here are difficult to do safely.
Sometimes it is necessary to take risks to get the job done.
If I didnt take risks, the job wouldnt get done.
33
A STUDY OF DELAYS IN PROCUREMENT OF ENGINEERED EQUIPMENT

FOR ENGINEERING, PROCUREMENT AND CONSTRUCTION (EPC)
PROJECTS IN INDIA: A MIXED METHOD RESEARCH APPROACH
Srikar Kalidoss Sandilya* and Koshy Varghese
Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology-Madras, India
ABSTRACT
The supply chain of the EPC industry operates predominantly in an engineered to order manner. Most
of the equipment procured are specially made for the project as per the technical specifications laid in
the contract. Due to this the lead time of these equipment are generally higher than products that are
out of the shelf. Any delay in procurement of these equipment can have a cascading effect on the
overall construction schedule. There is limited literature available on the procurement in the EPC
industry. This paper thus presents a comprehensive review of the existing systems and practices for
procurement of engineered equipment in EPC projects in India. The practices are analysed separating
them into two segments, i.e. pre-order and post order procurement cycles. An exploratory sequential
mixed method of research has been adopted for the purpose by taking inputs from Subject Matter
Experts from different industries in the EPC sector. These inputs were in the form of semi structured
interviews, which were analysed using the qualitative data analysis package NVIVO 10. A
triangulation methodology has been attempted to validate the qualitative data collected. Finally a
framework for improving the most significant of the delays in these projects has been presented.
Keywords:
1.
Procurement; EPC; Engineered Equipment; Mixed Method; Delays.
INTRODUCTION
EPC is an acronym for Engineering, Procurement and Construction. It is a form of contract agreement in
the construction industry. The engineering and construction contractor is usually responsible for the
detailed engineering design of the project, procurement of materials and equipment and construction of
the facility for the end customer (EPC Engineer, 2016). The scope of work in an EPC project varies under
different project settings. In some complex engineering projects, the scope of design is distributed
between the client and the EPC contractor. Construction of certain critical components may also be in the
scope of the client.
EPC projects are one of the most challenging construction models. This paper deals with the problems
associated with the procurement of engineered equipment for large EPC projects in India. The main
procurement and logistics activities in any construction industry include sourcing, purchasing, contracting
and on site materials management. The supply chain of the EPC industry operates predominantly in an
engineered to order manner (Cagno and Micheli, 2011). That is to say most of the equipment to be
procured by the EPC contractor are not readily available with suppliers. They are specially made for the
project abiding to technical requirements as laid in the contract. Due to this the lead time of these
equipment are generally higher than products that are out of the shelf. Procurement of these equipment
is significantly different from bulk material procurement (Yeo and Ning, 2006). During the procurement
cycle there is enormous flow of information between stakeholders. Also, most of the large engineering
and construction firms have very elaborate processes laid for placing orders to suppliers. All this makes
the process of procurement more complex than the traditional material procurement existing in the
construction industry. Thus the objective of this study is to understand the existing systems and practices
for procurement of engineered equipment in EPC projects in India and to analyse the various attributes
causing delay in the process.
*
34
2.
BACKGROUND
Procurement is defined as the acquisition of goods, services, or construction, from a third party at the best
possible price, in an appropriate quantity, at the right time and place. There is less clarity of procurement
as a process in the construction industry (Ruparathna and Hewage, 2013). The scope of procurement is
not only limited to the purchase of equipment/material but also to source any resource (like manpower)
utilized in the project. An EPC project is a type of contract agreement made up of a large number of
interconnected subsystems consuming considerable human effort (Yeo and Ning, 2002). There is limited
literature available on the procurement in the EPC industry (Azambuja, 2014). Most of the available
literature focuses on bulk material procurement, i.e. mandatory construction materials like cement, sand,
concrete, etc., common to all construction projects (Yeo and Ning, 2006). EPC procurement is an extreme
case of engineered to order environment operating under a high degree of complexity and value (Micheli
et al., 2009). Engineered to order materials have more complex requirements which influence their design
and construction (Neuman, 2015). The same authors echo the concern that a majority of owners and their
representatives accept the cheapest price as the most economical long term solution. Project material cost
represents a high proportion of the total cost of EPC projects (Cagno and Micheli, 2011). This highlights
the need for timely completion of procurement within cost.
Figure 1: Procurement Process in an EPC Project

Source: Yeo and Ning (2006)
3.
METHODOLOGY
Due to lack of available literature specific to EPC procurement in India, an exploratory sequential mixed
methods approach has been adopted (Creswell, 2014). The purpose of qualitative study is to get a better
understanding of the procurement process and to identify the bottlenecks in the execution. Quantitative
analysis has been used to quantify findings from the qualitative study and to identify the most significant
of the issues causing delay to the process.
To understand the procurement of engineered equipment for EPC projects in India a case study approach
was adopted. Two large EPC projects from an engineering and construction major in India had been taken
for the study. Procurement manuals and opinions of subject matter experts were sources of input for
understanding the process.
To get a detailed understanding of the process and issues, subject matter experts were interviewed. These
experts had vast experience in the field of EPC and procurement. A total of seventeen respondents
35
comprising of directors, general managers, buyers, original equipment manufacturers were interviewed.
The interviews lasted about half an hour to one hour depending on the extent to which the participants
shared their experiences about the various questions put forward to them. The interviewees shared their
opinion to a semi structured set of questions asked to them. The attributes causing delay were obtained
after transcribing and analysing the interviews using the NVIVO 10 software. These attributes were
attempted to be validated using a triangulation method. A purchase order (PO) instrument was utilized
for this purpose. A purchase order instrument is a questionnaire that is specific to a purchase order (of a
company) and aims to track and validate the factors from the interviews with the purchase order data.
These are filled by the respective buyers (procurement personnel) associated with the order. Finally a
framework for improvements has been suggested.
4.
CASE STUDY
Two large power projects (EPC) were studied to comprehend the process of procurement of engineered
equipment. This helped understand the pre-order and the post-order procurement cycles involved in this
process. The inputs for the case study were the procurement manuals and interviews with subject matter
experts conducted in that organization.
4.1.
PRE-ORDER PROCUREMENT CYCLE
Pre-order procurement cycle begins in a project with a Shopping list. These are the items that need to be
procured under the scope of work of the project. Once the list is available, a procurement plan is prepared
in synchronization with the project execution plan and the milestone completion dates. These
procurement plans are prepared keeping in mind the criticality of the equipment and the lead time for
manufacturing. Once this is done the Request for Quotes are prepared by the design team and floated
by the buyers to the respective approved suppliers. The client or the contractor himself has a list of
approved suppliers from whom these items are to be procured. These suppliers are shortlisted on the basis
of their manufacturing capabilities and their past performance. The list of these suppliers may be provided
by the client as a part of the contract or the EPC contractor has his own list of suppliers.
Once the RFQs are floated a two stage sealed bidding process (technical followed by commercial) is
followed. All the approved suppliers are first evaluated on the basis of the technical offers submitted by
them. Any queries or comments are clarified to all the bidders and a technical compliance sheet is
prepared. This sheet will have the compliance status of all the bidders. Once this is completed the
commercial offers of the qualified suppliers are only evaluated. Contractual terms, payment terms and
delivery schedules are discussed with the qualified bidders. Commercial negotiations are done with the
suppliers if need be. After this process the lowest price bidder (L-1) is finalized and approvals are taken.
Finally a Letter of Intent is issued to the L-1 bidder followed by a computerized purchase order. The
flow of activities may vary slightly across firms, but the overall framework for operation more/less
remains the same. The flow of activities is very similar to that shown in Figure 1 (steps 1-6). A schematic
diagram of the pre-order procurement cycle as understood in this study is represented in Figure 2.
A purchase order is a document that is issued to the supplier for the scope of work to be completed by him under
the order.
36
Figure 2: Pre Order Procurement Cycle
4.2.
POST ORDER CYCLE
Once the order is issued to the supplier a kick off meeting is held in the presence of the contractor and the
client (refer to Figure 3). The major deliverables, schedule of work are discussed and documented in this
meeting. A project specific expediting team consisting of engineers, procurement personnel and quality
assurance engineers from the contractor/PMC side are made responsible for these item(s). This team is
usually specific to a project. Detailed engineering and post order documentation as per the scope of work
of the supplier is carried stage by stage. After the entire process is completed the manufacturer is given
the clearance for manufacturing. Depending upon the quality assurance plan, stage inspections are carried
out. Finally the supplier completes the manufacturing and the material is inspected before it is dispatched
to project site. Logistics may or may not be in the scope of the supplier.
Figure 3: Post Order Procurement Cycle
This case study helped understand the elaborate process of procurement and the various stakeholders
involved in the process. It also helped apprehend the issues put forward by the respondents in their
interviews.
37
4.3.
DELAY DEFINITION
Currently, there is no standard definition of delay in the pre order procurement cycle. For the post order
period this study has considered as any excess time taken from the specified purchase order duration as
delay in this stage.
5.
QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS
A total of seventeen interviews were conducted to understand the issues relating to the procurement of
engineering equipment for EPC projects. The respondents were primarily from petrochemical, oil and
gas, nuclear and electrical EPC projects. The interviews were analysed using the qualitative data analysis
package NVivo 10 (QSR International, 2016). This software package was used to transcribe the
interviews and to find patterns from the transcribed data. Standard reports available on the software were
used for reporting the data. The data obtained after coding the transcripts is shown in Table 1. Count
represents the number of times an issue pertaining to that category has been highlighted. Number of
issues are the total issues highlighted under that category. A word frequency search in the transcribed
interviews is shown in Figure 4. The word vendors was used the most number of times by all the
respondents. The issues in Table 1 were categorized on the basis of their nature and on the experience of
the authors of this paper.
Table 1: Nature of Issues
Nature of Issue
Count
Number of Issues
Significance
Procurement Planning
21
13
24.1%
Information Management
19
21.8%
Procedural Hindrances
11
12.6%
Supplier Related Issues
9.2%
Contractor-Organizational Issues
8.0%
Technical Issues
6.9%
Working Capital / Payment Issues
5.7%
Client Related Issues
4.6%
Contractual / Order Issues
3.4%
Others
3.4%
Figure 4: Key Word Search from Nvivo 10
38
5.1.
FINDINGS FROM STUDY
The key issues causing delay from the qualitative data collected are discussed below:
Procurement planning - This was seen as the most significant type of issue. Issues such as unrealistic
project completion dates, lack of a defined procurement lifecycle time, lack of engagement of suppliers in
the initial stages of procurement, lack of accurate in-house cost estimates, lack of a project procurement
plan and improper supplier pre-qualifications were highlighted here. Ideally planning forms the backbone
of any process and it is evident that this supply chain faces problems in it.
Information management - Due to the involvement of a large number of stakeholders, the quantum of
information shared and processed in the supply chain is very large. In this scenario the respondents agreed
that there were delays in receiving, sharing information and document approvals.
Procedural hindrances - Most of the respondents were from very large EPC firms and had a very well
laid work flow for the activities. As highlighted by a few respondents this proved to be a hindrance as
well. Some of the government contractors for example felt stringent purchase procedures time consuming
leading to delay. Allocation of some minimum orders to MSME (Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises)
suppliers was also seen a hindrance. Another significant delay was observed in getting new suppliers
qualified.
Supplier related issues - Delay in initiation of the contract post the award of the order, non-compliance
at crucial stages and lack of control over the sub-vendors were some of the issues leading to delays in the
procurement process.
Contractor/Organisational issues - Indecisiveness and incompetency can lead to delays in the
procurement process. Delay in taking decisions, lack of applied oriented qualified engineers and lack of
role clarity were the main issues highlighted by the respondents
Technical issues - Unclear and ambiguous specifications was the only issue that was repeatedly
highlighted by most respondents. Lack of clarity in the specifications, often leads to delays both during
the pre-order as well as the post-order stage of the purchase order
Working Capital/Payment issues - Delay in payments to the suppliers and delay in payments by the
clients leads to significant delay in the supply chain. Once the supplier is not paid, he will not have the
necessary funds to pay his sub-vendors and the effect cascades throughout.
Client related issues - Lack of cooperation of the client to inspection calls and inadequate staff to
provide approvals in time were some of the main issues highlighted.
Others - Lack of proper raw materials, lack of certain testing companies are some of the issues grouped
under this category.
6.
DATA VALIDATION
A triangulation approach has been attempted to validate the findings from the qualitative data collected. A
purchase order instrument has been used for this purpose.
6.1.
PURCHASE ORDER INSTRUMENT
This is a questionnaire specific to a purchase order completed by the respective buyers (procurement
specialists) associated with the order. This instrument aimed at checking the impact and significance of
the issues from the qualitative survey against purchase order. A total of six purchase orders were taken
and the respective buyers were asked to complete the purchase order instrument. The purchase orders
were of mechanical, electrical and instrumentation equipment taken from a large EPC firm. The buyers
were initially asked to indicate whether the issues (from qualitative analysis) led to delays in a particular
purchase order and if so the impact of those issues on the order. These impact scores were added to
identify the most significant issues.
39
Figure 5: Significant Issues from Purchase Order Instrument
Delay in getting documents approved and delay in receiving information from the client were indicated to
be the top two significant issues that buyers faced in purchase orders (refer to Figure 5). Almost all the
buyers had given an impact rating of 5 (maximum) to Delay in getting documents approved which
highlights the importance the process of document approval plays in a purchase order.
6.2.
CHALLENGES FACED
The lack of actual documented delay data had proved to be a hindrance in validating the findings from the
qualitative data obtained in this study. In most EPC firms, the buyer is responsible for the equipment from
start to the end. Due to this the opinion of the buyer was taken into consideration. But because the opinion
of the buyer was only taken the element of bias in the output could not be eliminated. Due to this the
results from the PO instrument were not sufficient to validate the findings from the qualitative study. But
this has opened up the need for new and innovative means of validating qualitative data where the actual
documented delay data is not present.
7.
MITIGATION MEASURES
Four areas for improvements have been suggested to improve the most significant of the issues:
7.1.
PROCUREMENT PLANNING AND MONITORING
Partnerships
Tie-ups and partnerships with equipment and material suppliers can help address the starting hiccups and
reduce the procurement the lifecycle time. These suppliers are to enter into an agreement with EPC
contractors for the supply of specialized equipment for their projects. This will help save time for detailed
engineering as the supplier will be conversant and may not have to tweak the design completely. Due to
the nature of this collaboration, the supplier should be in a position to address any fluctuations in demand.
Activities like background checks and commercial negotiations can be avoided which significantly reduce
the process time. This model will be successful provided the EPC contractor has enough projects in the
pipeline.
40
Figure 6: Mitigation Measures
Robust Monitoring Metrics

One of the initial findings of the study were the absence of any robust procurement monitoring metrics in
the EPC industry in India. The practice was to follow the purchase order dates as a guideline for
measuring delays in the lifecycle. New project specific metrics such as the productivity of the design team
(time taken to given technical compliance), productivity of the procurement team (time taken to place an
order) etc., depending on the complexity need to be framed.
Activity based Costing
A method of capturing the total cost of a product by including the overhead costs (on the basis of the
amount of resource consumed) is used in manufacturing (Accounting Coach, 2016). Such a decision
support is required in the procurement process to capture the overhead costs associated with every
equipment procured. It will help bifurcate the products which require more time to the ones that can be
easily procured, thereby reducing the cycle time significantly.
Procurement Planning
A project specific procurement strategy taking both the upstream suppliers and the downstream clients is
required in order to ensure the materials are received at site in time.
7.2.
INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
Early Identification and Detection

Most of the delays in document approvals occur due to incomplete or incorrect information submitted by
the supplier/contractor. This is partially due to the abundance of documents that are transmitted to and
from between the stakeholders. The success here is to ensure that these issues are detected in the early
stage of the order and corrected either by having a robust document management tracker or by clearing
the documents along with the suppliers team in the first place itself.
Collaborative Planning and Execution
A major cause for delays in the procurement process is the lack of synergy between the stakeholders. It is
essential that the client and the prospective suppliers are together involved in the process of procurement
planning to ensure that all the information is equally disseminated. The same applies for the
interdepartmental information exchange within the EPC contractors organization.
41
7.3.
ORGANIZATIONAL RESTRUCTURING
Decentralized Decision Making

In order to get a cost advantage most EPC firms have a centralized procurement and overseeing team.
Though this process helps achieve that purpose, the orders are inadvertently delayed due to the long chain
of approvals. To add to this the buyers, the client and the material suppliers are usually not stationed in
the same vicinity. Due to this the amount of communication is extremely large. An ideal situation would
be to transfer a few decision making and purchasing operations to the project site. This will help bring the
buyers and the client on one platform and ensure a faster approval process.
Accountability and Responsibility
One of the causes of delays in procurement as observed in this study is the lack of a single point of
responsibility. Due to the wide-spread nature of the activities having one person responsible (say a buyer)
for all the activities may not be feasible as he may be involved simultaneously in multiple projects. It is
thus essential to have project specific expediters who will be earmarked for a particular project and will
be responsible for the end to end execution.
7.4.
WORKING CAPITAL MANAGEMENT
Reducing the Cash Conversion Cycle (CCC)

CCC is the liquidity of the working capital of a firm (Investopedia, 2016). The lesser the CCC, the more
liquid cash available to be spent. In the context of this study, CCC cycle can be kept low by ensuring
appropriate payment terms by the client and to the supplier at the starting of the contract. Studying the
cash conversion cycle helps understand the working capital requirements in advance so that appropriate
action can be taken in time.
8.
SUMMARY
EPC projects are one of the most challenging construction models. Procurement in EPC operates
predominantly in a made to order fashion with material costs representing a major proportion of the
total project cost. In such a scenario any delay in the procurement process has a cascading effect on the
construction process and in turn on the overall project schedule. There is limited study done on
procurement in EPC industry specific to an Indian setting. This study thus aims to understand the
procurement process specific to engineered equipment and identify issues that lead to a delay in the
process.
An exploratory sequential mixed method approach has been adopted in this study. A case study was done
to understand the procurement process. A qualitative analysis was carried out to understand the process of
procurement and the issues during execution. Subject matter experts were interviewed to understand the
same. Quantitative analysis of the data was carried out to quantify and rank the findings from the
qualitative study. An attempt to validate the findings using a triangulation method was carried out.
The case study helped understand the stages of pre-order and the post-order procurement cycles in a
typical EPC procurement life-cycle. An analysis of the issues form the qualitative data collected was
presented in this study. The data from the interviews were broadly classified into ten categories of which
procurement planning and information management were the top two most significant issue areas. A
framework for improvement of these issues focussing on procurement planning, information
management, organization restructuring and working capital management has been presented.
While this study followed a structured approach from start, the absence of documented delay data proved
the biggest challenge in validating the findings from the study. The results from the purchase order
instrument were not sufficient to validate the findings and this calls for an extension to the current work
and identifying new and innovative means of validating qualitative data where the actual documented
delay data is not present.
42
9.
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43
ADOPTABILITY OF GREEN LEASE IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES:

THE CASE OF SRI LANKA
N.C. Hettige, B.A.K.S. Perera and Harshini Mallawaarachchi
ABSTRACT
The concept of Green Buildings is now being promoted as there is an increasing requirement for
energy efficient buildings. With the boom of Green Buildings, Green Lease concept has become
significant. However in Sri Lanka, presently Green Lease is not practiced very much. Nevertheless,
attempts at adopting Green Lease cannot be ignored as there are clauses relevant to green buildings
even in the existing lease agreements. Therefore, this research was carried out to investigate the
adoptability of the Green Lease concept in Sri Lanka. Firstly, a literature synthesis was carried out to
understand the Green Lease concept and its significance. Semi structured interviews and a
documentary review were done thereafter to further identify the importance, and enablers and barriers
of Green Lease. Subsequently, the findings were validated through expert interviews. The analysis
revealed the significance of the Green Lease concept which provides a healthier work environment,
lower utility charges and a good reputation for both the tenant and the landlord. However, there can
be enablers and barriers of Green Lease. The contribution from the Green Building Council of Sri
Lanka (GBCSL), the Governments attempts to promote sustainable activities and conducting of
business in Green Buildings are few of the enablers. Factors such as lack of policies and government
rules, and poor awareness of the community about Green Lease are the significant barriers. The
Governments positive influence and the promotion of the Green Lease within the community will be
beneficial towards adopting Green Lease. Several suggestions to minimize the identified barriers also
have been made through the developmentof a framework.
Keywords:
1.
Green Building; Green Lease; Sri Lanka; Adoptability.
INTRODUCTION
The concept of Green emerged at the time the industrial revolution took place with the history of the
concept going back many years (Stone, 2011). A Green Building enhances both the environment and its
occupants well-being (Mendis, 2013). According to WGBC (2013), there are two major parties that have
interest in Green Buildings, i.e. tenants and the landlords. Sharp (2009) has reported that each party has
his/her own interests in Green Buildings. According to Welsh School of Architecture, United Kingdom
(WSAUK, 2009), clauses on rental property can be included in a lease agreement with the mutual consent
of the tenant and the landlord. Early action on the part of the commercial leasing market is essential to
address global warming (Brooks, 2008). The incorporation of environmentally favorable practices in a
commercial lease may enhance building performance (WSAUK, 2009).
A Green Lease is a lease agreement between a landlord and a tenant that ensures sustainable operation
and management of Green Buildings (Hughes and Melia, 2010). Commercial leasing of Green Buildings
enhances building performance and improves the relationship between the landlord and the tenant
(Dingwell, 2010). Green Lease also enhances the efficiency of resources, increases the asset value,
reduces the operating cost and heightens the occupants comfortability and health (Kaplow, 2009).
Kremer and Nicholas (2012) have pointed out that both the landlord and the tenant may benefit through a
Green Lease. Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency (2012a) has stated that a Green
Lease may help to reduce Green House Gas Emissions (GHG) as well as enhance the energy efficiency of
a building. However despite its benefits, it is not easy to introduce a fresh concept to landlords and
tenants (Sharp, 2009).
44
The clients of recent building projectsin Sri Lanka have made considerable effort to pursue the Green
Building concept towards optimizing building performance. The worlds first green factory is in Sri
Lanka (Sri Lanka Export Development Board, 2012) and the first Leadership in Energy and
Environmental Design (LEED) certified building in the world and the first LEED certified building
outside the United States of America (USA) - the Heritance Kandalama is also in Sri Lanka (Sri Lanka
Business and Bio diversity Platform, 2014). Still, Green Lease is a new concept to Sri Lanka. Therefore,
it is important to identify the adoptability of Green Lease in Sri Lanka in which most of the researchers in
the past have not been interested.
Eventhough, there have been studies to ascertain the requirement, risks and the applicability of Green
Lease in developed countries, no attention has been paid to the adoptability of this novel concept in
developing countries. There is therefore a need to investigate on How to adopt Green Lease concept in
Sri Lanka? Hence this research aims to investigate the adoptability of Green Lease concept in Sri Lanka.
The study set the following objectives to achieve the aforementioned aim.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Review the Green Lease concept

Identify the importance of the Green Lease concept
Investigate the enablers and barriers of the adoption of the Green Lease concept in Sri Lanka
Make suitable suggestions to minimize the identified barriers
2.
LITERATURE SYNTHESIS
2.1.
GREEN BUILDINGS AND EXISTING LEASE PRACTICES RELATED TO GREEN BUILDINGS
Buildings were identified by Kibert (2004) as having a direct, complex, and long lasting influence on the
environment. According to USDE (2009), buildings are in the highest energy consumption sector. Green
Buildings have been recognized worldwide as a solution to mitigate the inefficient energy usage while
contributing to the reduction of global GHG (Howe, 2010; Brown and Southworth, 2006; Berardi et al.,
2013). Basically, Green Buildings minimize resource usage (Vancouver Economic Commission, 2009).
Green Building is not just the assembling of environmentally friendly elements or just retrofitting existing
buildings (Karolides, 2002). According to Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA, 2015), the
concept should include designing, constructing, operating, maintaining and demolishing a building.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), one of the reputed agencies in USA, defines Green Building as
the practice of creating structures and using processes that are environmentally responsible and resourceefficient throughout a buildings life-cycle starting from its siting to its design, construction, operation,
maintenance, renovation and deconstruction. This practice expands and complements the usual building
design concerns on economy, utility, durability and comfort. A Green Building is also considered as a
sustainable or high performance building (EPA, 2014).
Atputharajah and Bombugala (2010) state that even though Green Buildings cost 20 - 25% more than a
conventional building, their benefits can be ten times more than those of conventional buildings. Baier
(1999 cited Heerwagen, 2000) has reported that Green Buildings will lead to a higher demand for space
when renting or selling that space. The study therefore considers only rentable green built space. Existing
leasing practices basically fulfill the goals of the landlord and the tenant independently (WSAUK, 2009).
None of the common objectives can be met through existing lease agreements. This is a major
disadvantage. Furthermore, Brevard (2012) reports that the existing leasing practice is not contributing to
the active participation of both the tenant and the landlord.
Dingwell (2010) considers a well-established Green Lease as a step towards achieving energy efficiency
as well as obtaining the commitment of stakeholders for ensuring sustainability. Thus, a Green Lease goes
beyond an existing lease and provides for optimum resource utilization with a higher environmental
responsibility while eliminating barriers of the existing lease practices (Kaplow, 2009).
2.2.
GREEN LEASE CONCEPT
Green Lease is an agreement between a tenant and a landlord (Green Building Alliance, 2013). Up to
now, there has been no accepted definition for Green Lease. A Green Lease can be defined as a
45
collaborative agreement between a landlord and a tenant to ensure sustainability and to achieve both
shared and individual objectives.
The involvement of the government in Green Lease is an important enabler of Green Lease (WSAUK,
2009). However, implementing Green Lease is not an easy task since it gets obstructed by its barriers. As
stated by the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency (2012b), the following costs incurred
by the tenant are the major barriers for implementing Green Lease.
Costs associated with administration, e.g., record keeping, participation at meetings etc.
Costs related to changing the behaviour and the attitudes of tenants - tenants have to adjust their
behaviour in order to achieve the targeted energy efficiencies.
Other than these barriers, a few other categories also were identified, viz., process related barriers,
organizational related barriers, and economical and other cost related barriers and social related barriers.
Accordingly, USDE (2009) has reported that the low commitment of tenants and their lack of awareness
on the costs and benefits of Green Lease practices are barriers for implementing Green Lease. EMW
(2015) has identified the following challenges for Green Lease:
Longer time duration

Higher initial cost
Lack of awareness on the importance of energy efficiency and Green Lease
Disagreements among landlords and tenants
Barriers of Green Lease have to be avoided to enable its development as there are merits in adopting
Green Lease such as lower operating and maintenance costs, achievement of environmental objectives of
landlords, tenants and good reputation for them (James, 2010). It is essential to identify the possibility of
introducing the Green Lease concept in Sri Lanka. Therefore, Green Building practices in Sri Lanka as
well as Green Lease need to be discussed. According to Mendis (2013), in Sri Lanka there is an
increasing tendency to convert existing buildings into green buildings. Therefore, the requirement for
adopting the Green Lease concept in Sri Lanka is quite clear.
3.
In this study, the qualitative research approach was selected as Green Lease is not practiced very much in
Sri Lanka as at present. Since numerical data cannot be taken to analyze the adoptability of Green Lease
in Sri Lanka, three case studies were selected to verify the strength of the data. Since when there are many
cases, similarities and differences need to be understood, it is better to go for multi-case studies (Yin,
2003). The researcher selected semi-structured interviews and a documentary review as data collection
techniques for the selected case studies. In addition, viewpoints of industry experts were considered in
arriving at conclusions. Data was collected through three case studies, interviews and a documentary
review. From the data collected, the importance of the Green Lease concept was identified fulfilling the
second objective of the study. The third and fourth objectives were fulfilled by identifying the enablers
and the barriers of Green Lease and from suggestions made based on the case study findings. Ultimately,
the findings were consolidated with an expert interview. Figure 1 shows how the case study contributed to
data validation.
Case Study
Validation
Semi-structured interview
Out put
Documentary review
Figure1: Research Methodology
46
Expert interviews
Two respondents (see Table 1) were interviewed for each case.

Table 1: Respondents
Case
Respondents
Case A
Senior Manager (Facilities Management)

Legal Manager
Chief Engineer
Case B
Legal Manager
Administrative Executive
Case C
Manager (Facilities Division)
Table 2 gives details pertaining to the expert interviews conducted to consolidate case study findings.
Table 2: Expert Interview Details
Agency
Designation of the Expert
Sector
E1
E2
E3
E4
E5
Professor
Chief Executive Officer (CEO)
Legal Consultant
Manager (Administration)
Chief Executive Officer (CEO)
Government Sector (Academic)

Private Sector
Private Sector
Private Sector
Private Sector
4.
Number of Years of
Experience in the Field
22
11
24
12
30
RESEARCH FINDINGS
The research considered Green Buildings that have been identified as being energy efficient and rentable
since the research was to focus on the adoptability of Green Lease.
4.1
IDENTIFYING THE IMPORTANCE OF THE GREEN LEASE CONCEPT
It was important to study existing lease agreements before analyzing the requirement for Green Lease in
Sri Lanka. The pros and cons of existing lease agreements were presented at the interviews and most of
the respondents agreed on the need to have a Green Lease concept in Sri Lanka, considering the
deficiencies of the current leasing practices. The following were studied to gather the required data:
Rent and other utility charges stated in the existing lease agreements
Split incentive barriers stated in the existing lease agreements
Clauses relevant to Green Lease in the existing lease agreements
Benefits of adopting Green Lease
There are no special provisions in Sri Lanka regarding the payment of rent and other utility charges of
Green Buildings. In general, the operating cost is borne by the tenant. Therefore in most of the cases, a
split incentive barrier was provided in the existing lease agreements. The developer does not have to
invest on energy efficiency systems, as he will not reap the benefit of energy reduction. This is one of the
major deficiencies of the existing lease agreements.
Although Green Lease is not currently practiced, there are clauses relevant to it in existing lease
agreements as indicated below which the tenants are bound to adhere to:
Abstaining from covering or obstructing window sky-lights and ventilation shafts

Keeping all trash and garbage in suitable receptacles and arranging their proper removal from the
premises
Ensuring a pre-defined water efficiency level and obtaining permission from the facility
management before installing new fixtures
Abstaining from installing new air conditioning equipment as it will affect the pre-defined energy
efficiency level
Abstaining from using CFC based refrigerants
47
The benefits of the Green Lease concept indicated below underline the significance of the concept.
Lower operating cost

Attraction to foreign customers
Independence from energy
Independence from water
High impact the use of recycled material has on the cost of both the tenant and the landlord.
Good reputation available for both the tenant and the landlord. Easy marketing of the leased space
and the lower carbon emission that positively affects the building
Good interior and exterior appearance and pleasant environment
After studying the existing lease agreements, the respondents agreed on the adoption of the Green Lease
as a concept. In Sri Lanka there are both enablers and barriers to the adoption of Green Lease.
4.2.
ENABLERS, BARRIERS AND SUGGESTIONS TO ADOPT GREEN LEASE CONCEPT
The findings convinced that in Sri Lanka there are national as well as organizational enablers of Green
Lease. Categories identified from the literature were further developed by the respondents as indicated
below. Accordingly, enablers, barriers and suggestions that will minimize the identified barriers were
grouped into six categories as indicated below.
4.3.
Process related barriers connected with the Green Lease process

Organization related barriers connected with organizations
Economical and other costs related barriers connected with the economy
Government and other legal related barriers connected with the Government and the legal system
Socially related barriers connected with individuals and the community
Others
ENABLERS OF THE GREEN LEASE CONCEPT
Most of the respondents agreed that there are enablers of the Green Lease Concept in Sri Lanka that
promote the implementation of the concept in the country. Table 3 presents these enablers.
Table 3: Enablers of the Green Lease Concept
Category
Identified Enablers
Process Related
Organizational Related
Economy Related
Government and Legal Related
Social Related
Others
Not many restrictions to incorporate new clauses

Tendency to go green
Carrying out business in a Green Building
Ease with which it can be adopted by rich tenants
Low cost of natural resources
Attraction of foreign tenants
Absence of restrictions on Green Lease
Support of the Government to enhance sustainable activities
Peace prevailing in the country in the absence of the civil war
Young and knowledgeable crew
Contribution from the GBCSL
Availability of natural resources
Presence of a non-profit oriented organization to encourage Green Lease
According to Table 3, there are six types of enablers identified from semi-structured interviews. These
enablers were further verified through experts in Green Building and construction law. The Green Lease
process being not stringent, it is not difficult to incorporate new clauses in the existing lease agreements.
Even though according to case studies, conducting a business within a Green Building is an enabler, the
experts did not totally agree with this as the trend of constructing Green Buildings is not satisfactory.
However, because of the significance of the Green Lease concept, the experts considered the conversion
of a proposed building to Green as an enabler.
48
The Government indirectly influences sustainable activities. Training programmes conducted by the
Green Building Council of Sri Lanka, a non-profit oriented organization motivated by the Green Building
concept, is also another important enabler.
4.4.
BARRIERS OF THE GREEN LEASE CONCEPT
Barriers impede the adoption of the Green Lease concept and based on case study findings, they were
categorized as indicated in Table 4.
Table 4: Barriers of the Green Lease Concept
Category
Identified Barriers
Process Related
Difficulty in adopting the concept immediately as it comes from overseas

Difficulty to adopt new clauses at once
Long time taken by the process
Need to conduct meetings
Need to conduct internal auditing
Need to conduct awareness and training programmes
Need to maintain proper documentation
Need to bear the cost of meetings, training programmes etc.
Lack of financial support from the organizations concerned
Other administrative costs
The fact that Sri Lanka is a developing country
Difficulty in competing in the foreign market
Absence of government policies, rules and regulations on Green Lease

Absence of encouragement from the government to adopt Green Lease
Lack of understanding of the value of Green Lease

Lack of concern on the environment and the sustainability
Lack of awareness on Green Lease
Lack of commitment by the management
Use of less manpower
Considering the concept as an additional financial burden
Organizational
Related
Economy and
Other Cost Related
Government and
Legal Related
Social Related
Others
The identified barriers were further verified through experts. E1 was of the view that it is not easy to
incorporate sustainable clauses in a lease agreement, since the tenant may not like them. Even though
administrative barriers were identified through the literature and case studies, experts did not consider
them as barriers.
The fact that Sri Lanka is a developing country has also been identified as a barrier. However, the experts
were of the view that although there are certain areas that need to be developed, a considerable progress
has already been made by Sri Lanka. They were of the view that the status of the countrys economy
cannot be a barrier and that there is a need to adopt the concept. The absence of government policies,
rules and regulations was also identified as a barrier by experts. However, the lack of awareness of the
Green Lease concept and the lethargy in implementing sustainable concepts were considered as other
important barriers.
4.5.
SUGGESTIONS TO MINIMIZE THE IDENTIFIED BARRIERS
Since all the enablers and the barriers were verified through expert interviews, suggestions were
developed through case study interviews and through expert ideas and opinions. Suggestions that will
minimize the identified barriers were grouped into six categories which respondents tabulated as given in
Table 5.
49
Table 5: Suggestions to Minimize the Identified Barriers

Category
Process related
Barriers
Difficulty in adopting the concept
immediately being a concept that
comes from overseas
Difficulty to adopt new clauses at
once
Long time taken by the process
Organizational
related
Need to conduct meetings

Need to conduct internal auditing
Need to conduct awareness and
training programmes
Need to maintain proper
documentation
Need to bear the cost of meetings,
training programmes, etc.
Lack of financial support from the
organizations concerned
Other administrative costs
Difficulty in competing in the
foreign market.
Centralized electricity supply
Increased cost of products
Economical and
other cost
related
Government
and legal
related
Absence of government policies,

rules and regulations to adopt
Green Lease
Lack of encouragement from the
government to adopt Green Lease
Social related
Lack of understanding of the value

of Green Lease
Lack of concern about the
environment and the sustainability
Lack of awareness on the Green
Lease
5.
Suggestions Proposed
Should explore advantages and disadvantages
of adopting Green Lease
Should incorporate standard clauses relating to
sustainability, energy efficiency, waste
management and emission reduction
Should make both parties aware of sustainable
clauses when incorporating them
Should promote awareness among main stake
holders.
Should conduct awareness and training
programmes for employees.
Should encourage Green Lease within
organizations
Should transfer the benefits of energy
efficiency system implementation to tenants.
Should decentralize the electricity supply

Should introduce alternative energy solutions
Should offer tax benefits to green followers
Should offer subsidiaries to the companies
Should increase private sector involvement
Should lower interest rates for the building
sector to motivate it to adopt the Green Lease
concept
Should develop a policy framework

Should introduce rules and regulations that
empower Green Lease
Should amend the law to ensure sustainability
of Green Lease
Should incorporate clauses relating to Green
Lease in construction law, condominium law
etc.
Should conduct awareness programmes to
make the public aware of the value of
sustainable living
Should develop correct attitudes in the public
Should conduct awareness and training
programmes
Should develop positive mindsets on Green
Lease
Should make tenants aware of the benefits of
Green Lease
Green Buildings provide the most comfortable environment to their occupants and increased profits to
their developers. Green Lease is therefore required to enhance the efficiency of Green Buildings. The
Green Lease is a significant concept that should be adopted early by the construction industry in Sri
Lanka as the rapid development of the building industry can damage the environment. Both the enablers
and barriers of Green Lease as applicable to Sri Lanka were recognized organizational wise as well as
national wise. Enablers have to be further developed while barriers have to be eliminated.
Suggestions were made to minimize the identified barriers, e.g., introduction of a policy framework, rules
and regulations, conducting awareness programmes, provision of tax benefits and subsidies to Green
50
followers, and the promotion of the private sector. It is recommended that the Government and the Green
Building Council of Sri Lanka take action to conduct suitable awareness programmes to promote the
Green Lease concept in Sri Lanka. Through workshops and seminars, construction industry stakeholders
should also be made aware of this concept.
6.
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Case_For_Green_Building_Report_WEB_2013-04-11.pdf [Accessed 06 June 2015].
Yin, R.K., 2003. Case Study Research: Design and Methods. 3rd ed. California: Sage Publications.
52
ADOPTING NET ZERO ENERGY BUILDING CONCEPT TO REDUCE

ENERGY COST OF COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS IN SRI LANKA
Iresh Weerasinghe, Harshini Mallawaarachchi* and Lalith De Silva
ABSTRACT
Fulfilling energy demand has become a major challenge faced by most of high rise buildings today as
it creates high utility cost to the organization. Hence, most of the organisations, especially in
commercial building sector seek better options to fulfil their energy demand as a major energy
consumer among the other building facilities. Hence, several energy management practices have been
introduced to enhance energy efficiency. In the governing concern on less energy and less
environmental impact, Net Zero Energy Building concept has received attention. Net Zero Energy
Buildings have a greatly reduced energy demand by an equivalent generation of energy from low-cost,
locally available, non-polluting, renewable sources. However, the adaptation of this concept has
become a major challenge due to various barriers. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to
identify the barriers to adopt Net Zero Energy Building concept to commercial buildings in Sri Lanka
for proposing probable solutions. As this research required a detailed investigation, case study
approach was selected under qualitative phenomenon. Three cases were conducted in three selected
commercial buildings to collect the data. Cross-case analysis technique was applied as the
appropriate data analysis technique. Nvivo and Decision-Explore softwares are used to analyse and
present the data. As the focal point of the research, barriers to adopt Net Zero Energy Building
concept was determined relating to five major categories, such as, financial, legal, policy, social, and
technical barriers. According to case study findings, this concept is more suitable for new building
constructions than the existing buildings, as it is more effective to adopt it at the early stage of the
building. Further, major barriers include limitations of organisational internal policies, preference of
organisations for short term profits, unawareness and government rules and regulations. Accordingly,
a framework is developed to propose probable solutions. The developed framework gives a value to
the research, as it could use as a firm base in both organisational and national levels to adopt Net
Zero Energy Building concept to reduce energy cost of commercial buildings in Sri Lanka.
Keywords:
1.
Net Zero Energy Building; Commercial Buildings; Energy Conservation; Barriers;

Solutions.
INTRODUCTION
With the rapid development of the world, more and more buildings are constructed by creating an ever
increasing energy demand. This has raised serious environmental problems such as global warming, air
pollution and acid rain (Iwaro and Mwasha, 2010). Therefore, various building energy regulations, energy
standards, codes, taxes, and subsidies have being introduced by most of the countries to reduce energy
consumption of buildings (Iwaro and Mwasha, 2010; Balaras et al., 2007). According to Laustsen (2008),
both building codes and energy standards provide a guideline to maintain minimum energy requirements
for energy efficiency in buildings. However, energy standards are subjected only to minimize energy cost
of buildings which is not optimally reducing the effect on environment. From several years, Net Zero
Energy Building (NZEB) concept has been received attention. The core idea of NZEB is that NZEB
buildings can meet all their energy requirements from low-cost, locally available, non-polluting,
renewable sources (Torcellini et al., 2006).
According to Kneifel (2010), NZEB has several benefits compared to other types of buildings. NZEB
needs least cost for maintenance and operation. NZEB generates not only financial benefits from energy
efficiency improvements, but also it reduces carbon footprint. This reduction is average 16% carbon
*
53
footprint which greater than countries energy generate using coal and oil. Similarly in Sri Lankan energy
context, commercial sector consumes about 23% electricity. Pathmasiri (2010) mentioned that 77.54% the
energy is used for air conditioning, 15.97% is used for lighting, where 2.17% and 4.32% of energy are
used for lift and office equipment respectively. After several attempts, the national policy and strategies
are adopted by Sri Lankan Parliament to face the energy challenge in Sri Lanka (Munasighe, 2010).
However, the NZEB concept is still new to Sri Lankan energy sector. Hence, the adaptation of this
concept has become a major challenge, as most of the buildings are fulfilling their energy demand from
national energy grid. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to identify the barriers to adopt NZEB
concept to commercial high rise buildings in Sri Lanka. To fulfilling the above purpose, the rest of the
paper is structured to present the secondary data gathered through literature, key research findings and
solutions proposed with the framework developed.
2.
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1.
NET ZERO ENERGY BUILDING (NZEB) CONCEPT AND ITS IMPORTANCE
As the definition given by National Science and Technology Council (2008, P.48), net zero energy
(commercial) building is a high performance commercial building, that is designed, constructed, and
operated to require a greatly reduced quantity of energy to operate; meets the balance of energy need from
sources of energy that will result in no net greenhouse gas emissions; and is economically viable. The
US Department of Energy (2015, p4) defines the NZEB is an energy-efficient building where the actual
annual energy consumption from sources is balanced by on-site renewable energy. At net zero source
energy, building is produced as much energy as it was consumed. When total source energy is calculated,
both imported and exported energy are considered. As Crawley et al. (2009) by using renewable energy
with the building footprint, within the site, energy sources available off site and energy generation within
the site and purchase off-site renewable can be achieve for the net zero source energy building. Building
owners are interested in net zero energy cost buildings because this method tend to use energy efficiency
strategies and renewable energy as part of their business plan. In this method financial credits were
received for exported energy (Torcellini et al., 2006). As Crawley et al. (2009) mentioned, by using
renewable energy with the building footprint, within the site and energy sources available off site and
energy generation within the site can achieve net zero cost building. Among those definitions Net Zero
Site Energy definition given by Torcellini et al. (2006, P.7) is used in this research: Net Zero Site
Energy: A site zero energy building produces at least as much energy as it uses in a year, when accounted
for at the site.
As Li et al. (2013) stated, NZEB helps to reduce use of conventional energy resources and the
deterioration of the environment. Further, NZEB plays important role in sustainable development.
According to Sesana and Salvalai (2013), more than 80% of the operation cost of the slandered building
can reduce by this NZEB concept. Further, researcher pointed out that, more than 75% of life cycle cost is
determined by the operation and maintenance cost. Accordingly, NZEB can be used to reduce the 60% of
life cycle cost of buildings. NZEBs have a greatly reduced energy demand by an equivalent generation of
energy from low-cost, locally available, non-polluting, renewable sources such as, wind, biomass, solar,
hydro-electric, geothermal, and ocean energy (Boyle, 2004; Doty and Turner, 2013; International Energy
Agency, 2014). To become a net zero energy building, two main strategies are available. One is to
minimizing the energy need for buildings from more energy-efficient measures whilst adopting renewable
energy to meet the minimum energy needs is the second option available (Li et al., 2013). According to a
study by Torcellini et al. (2006), on site and off site supply options are available to use renewable energy
sources to become a net zero energy building. As Torcellini et al. (2006) further mention, use of
renewable energy sources available within the buildings footprint and at the site are onsite supply options
where off site options include purchasing and using renewable energy sources which are available off site
to generate energy on site. However, mostly in NZEB, enough renewable energy is generated on site to
equal or exceed its annual energy use. NZEB needs two main strategies to minimize the energy need for
buildings from more energy-efficient measures, and by adopting renewable energy to meet the minimum
energy needs (Li et al., 2013).
54
2.2.
ISSUES IN CURRENT PRACTICE
The adoption of NZEB has become a major challenge faced by buildings due to various issues. According
to previous literature reviewed, various categories of issues were identified to adopt NZEB concept. A
study by Lindkvista et al. (2014) has founded out key issues as technical, financial, social, organization
and legal related issues. As per the study by Brostrom and Howell (2008), technical, financial, policy and
training are the key issues to adopt NZEB concept. Accordingly, five major categories of issues are
identified (refer Figure 1).
Technical
Legal
Financial
Barriers
to adopt
NZEB
concept
Policy
Social
Figure 1: Barriers to Adopt NZEB Concept

Source: Lindkvista et al. (2014); Brostrom and Howell (2008)
2.3.
ENERGY MANAGEMENT PRACTICE IN SRI LANKA
Currently, Sri Lanka also moves towards the energy efficient building concepts. According to Sustainable
Energy Authority (2009), Clause 36 (g) of the Sri Lanka Sustainable Energy Authority Act No. 35 of
2007, it empowers the Sri Lanka Sustainable Energy Authority (SLSEA) to specify and enforce a code of
practice for buildings on efficient energy utilization. This code was applied to all commercial buildings,
industrial facilities and large scale housing developments. As per the preliminary investigation, NZEB is
a newest concept to Sri Lanka.
As the major renewable energy sources used, high proportion has been obtained by the hydroelectricity,
wind energy, solar power and bio mass. However, in Sri Lankan renewable energy sector, it has mainly
focused on grid and off grid power generation. Hydroelectricity is the most popular method used in grid
power generation. Solar power, wind power and bio-mass are also used for the grid electricity generation,
however not optimally. Hence, there is a less concern on adopting newest energy efficient building
concepts. Further, few buildings have been concerned to adopt NZEB as a newest concept however; it has
limited to use solar power due to several issues.
Therefore, as the focal point of this research, barriers to adopt NZEB concept were determined with
special prominence to commercial high rise buildings in Sri Lanka. Accordingly, a theoretical framework
is developed based on literature findings as illustrated in Figure 2. This was considered as the basic
framework to evaluate the adoptability of NZEB concept in commercial buildings in Sri Lanka. As per
the framework developed, current energy management practice in high rise commercial buildings was
examined in order to identify existing practices and barriers to adopt NZEB concept to reduce energy cost
of the building. The key categories of issues identified in literature, such as; financial, legal, policy,
technical and social issues are acclimatized to evaluate the current practice.
55
Figure 2: Theoretical Framework
The Section 3 describes the methodology adopted in this study.
3.
The research was designed as two stages. Literature review was conducted as the first stage by reviewing
key research papers in the area of energy management with special emphasis to net zero energy buildings.
As this research required conducting a detailed investigation into the energy management practices in
commercial buildings and, its qualitative outcome, the research was conducted by case study method
under qualitative phenomenon. According to Yin (2009), case study approach is more appropriate to
bringing an understanding of a complex issue or object. In the case study design, three cases were
selected under multiple case study approach. Hence, three high-rise commercial buildings were selected,
those who have high energy consumption and have a concern on modern energy management practices.
Both direct observations and semi-structured interviews were selected as suitable data collection
techniques. Eight semi-structured interviews were conducted among industry professionals who have
involved in the field of energy management and net zero energy management practice in commercial
buildings in Sri Lanka to collect the data. The interview profile is illustrated in Table 1.
Table 1: Interview Profile
Case
Designation
Case A
A1
Senior manager Operation and maintenance
Case B
A2
A3
B1
Manager Mechanical and MVAC

Project Manager
Maintenance Engineer
Case C
B2
B3
C1
Mechanical Engineer
Assistance Maintenance Engineer
Consultant Engineer
C2
Assistance Consultant engineer
Code-based content analysis was used to analyse the case study data. QSR. NVivo and Decision Explorer
softwares are used to analyse and present the data. Cross-case analysis was conducted under two major
headings as, barriers to adopt and solutions proposed. Figure 3 illustrates the coding structure developed
to analyse the data.
56
Figure 3: Coding Structure
Section 4 presents the case study data analysis and key research findings.
4.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
4.1.
CURRENT ENERGY MANAGEMENT PRACTICES IN COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS
According to the case study data, most of commercial buildings are fulfilling their energy requirement
thorough Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) grid power generation. However, most of buildings have been
implemented the various active and passive mechanisms to save energy and to reduce energy cost such as,
passive design of the building, building orientation, building automation, Building Management System
(BMS), installation of Variable Speed Drives (VSD), etc. At the present, use of renewable energy is still a
newest concept for most of commercial buildings. As most of the interviewees responded, there is a
management commitment to introduce renewable energy options to cater their energy requirement.
Therefore, introducing NZEB to high rise buildings would be more effective to utilize their own
renewable energy sources for reducing energy cost.
4.2.
BARRIERS TO ADOPT NZEB CONCEPT
As the case respondents interviewed, high initial cost is a major barrier to adopt NZEB concept. As it
proved by the Assistance Consultant Engineer in case C Initial cost is high in these renewable equipment
such as solar panels, invertors Maintenance Engineer in case B also verified that The problem is the
initial cost. Cost of renewable energy generation equipment is relatively high. One of the other barriers
identified was these projects are not aligned with the internal policy. It was clarified by Senior Manager
Operation and Maintenance in case A as As our internal policy project which has payback period more
than 2-3 year it was not viable project. However, as argued the Consultant Engineer in case C We will
have to find fund to installation solar system. Marginally it is nearly about 220 million so we have to get
the approval but the recovery payback period is nearly 6 to 7 years. So this project is not a viable
project as per the internal policy. Among these eight participants, only two members were knowledgeable
about the concept. Senior Manager Operation and Maintenance in case A has an idea about the concept
however it is not total understanding. It was clarified by his statement as We have heard about it, but no
clear idea. Can you brief on it? Most of them were not aware about this concept. For an example
Mechanical Engineer in case B mentioned that Especially I havent any experience in this concept.
Manager Mechanical and MVAC in case A also pointed out that unawareness of the concept is a key
barrier to adopt this concept. Furthermore, less government and organizational policies, lack of space and
lack of technology are also identified as barriers to adopt NZEB concept. As the key research findings
acquired through cross-case analysis, key barriers are determined as shown in Table 2.
57
Table 2: Barriers to Adopt NZEB Concept

Barriers identified
Key
categories
Financial
Legal
Policy
Technical
Social
Case A
High initial cost
Longer payback period
Resent of the investors
Converting of old building is
not economical
High maintenance cost of the
renewable power plant
High transportation cost of
biomass
No clear rules and regulation
for off-site energy generation
Less national level regulatory
framework
Getting approval is difficult
Restriction from
organizational policy
Management concern about
core business
Less government policies
Lack of space
Lack of expert knowledge
Lack of suitable renewable
resources
Lack of technology
Architectural designs
Inadequate land raw material
and other facilities
Unawareness
Case B
High initial cost
High transportation cost of
biomass
High maintenance cost of the
renewable power plant
Case C
High initial cost
Converting of old
building is not
economical
No clear rules and regulation

for off-site energy generation
Getting approval is difficult
Less national level

regulatory framework
Management concern about

core business
Less government policies
Restriction from
organizational policy
Less government
policies
Lack of space
Lack of suitable renewable
resources
Lack of space
Lack of expert
knowledge
Lack of suitable
renewable resources
Lack of technology
Unawareness
Unawareness
Less management
commitment and
support
In order to adopt this newest concept to commercial buildings, these barriers are required to be
eliminated. Hence, according to the different views and opinions of experts in energy management field,
probable solutions are proposed to overcome the above barriers.
4.3.
SUGGESTIONS TO OVERCOME IDENTIFIED BARRIERS
To overcome financial barriers, experts have given some practical suggestions. One of the suggestions is
to reduce the equipment cost by reducing government tax levels. It was pointed out by Manager
Mechanical and MVAC in case A as Solar panel price can reduce by reducing tax level on this solar
panel and other equipment. Not only that Maintenance Engineer in case B also suggested introducing a
new loan system. As he indicated in his statement There should be loan system with the low interest rate
for organizations to for this kind of projects, as most of organizations are suffering from the lack of
financial initiatives and resources. According to case analysis, less management commitment and
support was identified as a major social barrier to adopt NZEB concept. To overcome this barrier,
respondents suggested making the working environment more flexible where it gives a way to explain the
situation to the management and to get their support. It is further proved by the Consultant Engineer in
case C as So basically we have to explain as the technical manager to the finance manager and top
managers about the short term and long term benefits of these energy management projects and should
ask them to consider the present situation because, this the latest and energy saving solution. Further,
maintaining energy saving building is important otherwise there is no profit from this building. In my
idea technical team should get together and convince to them to implement energy saving methods in this
58
building. Not only the Consultant Engineer, but also Project Manager in case A further reinforced it as
If we can go ahead with the solar energy and thought the management, the gain is this much through
this much of period. By convincing them we can go for next step. This is very practical if we can
implement it then of course it will beneficial for the organization end to country. According to the case
analysis, converting existing building to adopt this concept was not identified as an economical option. To
overcome this barrier, respondents proposed to adopt this concept since the design stage of buildings.
This has clearly indicated by the Assistance Maintenance Engineer in case B as For commercial high
rise buildings, it should be come from the design stage. It should be advised to the design team including
architects at the design stage. Then the building can use maximally for the use of solar lighting, at least
one side of building which has maximum sunlight can set for the solar panels, such things should be
considered at the design stage.
Accordingly, a framework is developed for implementing NZEB concept for reducing energy cost of
commercial high-rise buildings in Sri Lanka by combining the key barriers identified and solutions
proposed (refer Figure 4).
5.
SUMMARY
Fulfilling total energy requirement is a major challenge today, especially in high rise buildings.
Commercial buildings are a major energy consumer who has faced this vital challenge due to high energy
demand. Accordingly, most of the organizations seek better options to fulfil their energy demand and to
reduce their energy cost without generating serious threat to environment. Net-zero energy building
concept has gaining momentum in this regard, as it contributes greatly to reduce energy demand by an
equivalent generation of energy from low-cost, locally available, non-polluting, renewable sources.
However, the adoption of NZEB concept is a greater challenge, as most of the organizations have faced
several issues to adopt this new concept. As the purpose of this study, the barriers to adopt the NZEB
concept was determined through comprehensive literature survey and case studies conducted in three
selected commercial high-rise buildings in Sri Lanka. Key barriers are identified as technical, financial,
social, policy and legal related barriers to adopt the concept. High initial cost is a major barrier where less
government and organizational policies, lack of space and lack of technology, etc. are also identified as
key barriers to adopt NZEB concept. Accordingly, a framework is developed by proposing probable
solutions to overcome the identified barriers. Reducing equipment cost, facilitating flexible working
environment, introducing the concept at building design, national regulations for renewable energy
generation, conducting awareness programs are some of the solutions proposed. Hence, the developed
framework could be used as a firm base in both organisational and national levels to adopt Net Zero
Energy Building concept to reduce energy cost of commercial buildings in Sri Lanka.
59
Figure 4: Framework to Adopt NZEB Concept
60
6.
REFERENCES
Balarasa, C. A., Gagliaa, A. G., Georgopouloub, E., Mirasgedisb, S., Sarafidisb, Y. and Lalasb, D. P., 2007.
European residential buildings and empirical assessment of the Hellenic building stock, energy consumption,
emissions and potential energy savings. Building and Environment, 42(3), 12981314.
Boyle., 2004. Renewable energy Power A Sustainable Future. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press Inc.
Brostrom, M and Howell, G., 2008. The Challenges of Designing and Building a Net Zero Energy Home in a Cold
High-Latitude Climate [Online]. In: 3rd International Solar Cities Congress, Adelaide 17-21 February 2008,
South Australia: ICLEI.
Crawley, D., Pless, S., and Torcellini, P., 2009. Getting to Net Zero, National Renewable Energy Laboratory Drury
Crawley [online]. U.S: Department of Energy. Retrieved from http://sullivanarchitect.com/wpcontent/uploads/2013/08/NREL-Getting-to-Net-Zero.pdf
Doty, S. and Turner, W. C., 2013. Energy Management Handbook. 8thed. Lilburn: The Fairmont press, Inc.
International Energy Agency, 2014. Technology Roadmap Solar Thermal Electricity [online]. France: International
Energy
Agency.
Retrieved
from:
http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/technologyroadmapsolarthermalelectricity_2014ed
ition.pdf
Iwaro, J. and Mwasha, A., 2010. A review of building energy regulation and policy for energy conservation in
developing countries. Energy Policy, 34(12), 77447755
Kneifel, J., 2010, Life-cycle carbon and cost analysis of energy efficiency measures in new commercial buildings.
Energy and Buildings, 42(3), 333-340.
Laustsen, J., 2008. Energy efficiency requirements in building codes, energy efficiency policies for new buildings,
International Energy Agency [online]. France: International Energy Agency.
Retrieved from;
http://www.energie-cluster.ch/ecweb5/de/wissenstransfer/innovationsgruppen/ig-peg/forschung-undentwicklung/efficient_buildings_iea_2008.pdf
Li, D. H. W., Yang, L. and Lam J. C., 2013. Zero energy buildings and sustainable development implications - A
review. Energy, 54,1-10.
Lindkvista, C, Karlssonb, A, Sornesc, K. and Wyckmansa, A., 2014. Barriers and challenges in NZEB projects in
Sweden and Norway. Energy Procedia. 58, 199-206.
Munasighe, M., 2010 . Energy Management Guide version 1. Colombo:Sustainable Energy Authority.
National Science and Technology council, 2008. Federal Research and Development Agenda for Net-Zero Energy,
High-Performance Green Buildings [Online]. US, National Science and Technology council.Retrieved from:
The
National
Institute
of
Standards
and
Technology.
Retrieved
from
http://www.bfrl.nist.gov/buildingtechnology/documents/FederalRDAgendaforNetZeroEnergyHighPerformance
GreenBuildings.pdf
Pathmasiri, M. M. R., 2010. Code of practice for energy efficient buildings in Sri Lanka [online]. Colombo:
SLEMA. Retrieved from: http://www.slema.org.lk/news_events/03082010/Presenation-on-Building-Code.pdf
Sesana, M. M. and Salvalai, G., 2013. Overview on life cycle methodologies and economic feasibility for NZEBs.
Building and Environment, 67, 211-216.
Sustainable Energy Authority, 2009. Code of practice for energy efficient buildings in Sri Lanka [Online].
Colombo,
Sustainable
Energy
Authority.
Retrieved
from:
http://www.energy.gov.lk/pdf/Building%20CODE.pdf
Torcellini, P., Pless, S., Deru, M. and Crawley, D., 2006. Zero Energy Buildings: A Critical Look at the Definition,
National Renewable Energy Laboratory Drury Crawley [Online]. US: Department of Energy. Retrieved from:
http://www.biomassthermal.org/programs/documents/118_ZEBCriticalLookDefinition.pdf
U.S. Department of Energy, 2015. Energy Efficiency Trends in Residential and Commercial Buildings [Online].
US:
Department
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Energy.
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from:
http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/publications/pdfs/corporate/bt_stateindustry.pdf
Yin, R. K., 2009. Case study research: design and methods [Online]. California: Sage publications. Retrieved from:
http://www.amazon.com/Case-Study-Research-Methods-Applied/dp/1412960991.
61
APPLICABILITY OF GREEN HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

CONCEPT TO ACHIEVE SUSTAINABLE GOALS OF GREEN BUILDINGS
IN SRI LANKA
R.L. Weerasinghe, Lalith De Silva and Harshini Mallawaarachchi*
ABSTRACT
Nowadays in world, construction of green building becomes a new trend. Many studies noticed that
there are considerable amount of investments to the green buildings than conventional buildings. Since
in last decade, the world has concerned about green building concept as one of the solutions to reduce
environmental impacts. In achieving such foremost benefits of green buildings, human resource plays
a vital role, especially to achieve sustainable goals of green buildings. Green Human Resource
Management came into practice as a newest concept to create green responsive employees who make
a significant contribution to environmental sustainability. However, Human Resource is not utilized in
effective and efficient manner in most of the organizations. Therefore, the intention of this research is
to investigate the applicability of Green Human Resource Management concept to achieve sustainable
goals of green buildings in Sri Lanka.
As this research required an in-depth investigation, the research problem was approached through
three case studies which are conducted in three selected green buildings in Sri Lanka. Content and
cross case analysis techniques are used to analyse the data. QSR. Nvivo software is used to simplify
the data analysis. As key research findings derived through case analysis, in Sri Lanka, existing green
buildings have not been implemented the proper Green Human Resource Management process. Hence,
the gaps in existing Human Resource Management process in green buildings are identified in relation
to the job analysis, recruitment, selection, induction, training and development, performance
evaluation and discipline management. Improper job designing, not including green competencies, use
of traditional Human Resource Management process, unawareness, no proper performance evaluation
criteria are identified as major gaps in Human Resource Management process in green buildings.
Accordingly, a framework is developed to propose various strategies to fill the gaps in existing process
to effectively utilize the Human Resource for achieving sustainable goals of green buildings in Sri
Lanka as the main implication of this research.
Keywords:
1.
Green Human Resource Management; Green Buildings; Human Resource Management

Process; Gaps; Sri Lanka.
INTRODUCTION
During the last 30 - 40 years, the world has to face some major environmental problems, such as, global
warming, ozone diminution, resource diminution, energy scarcity, environmental toxicity, human
toxicity, and acid rains. These indicated to change the way they operate on the earth. In response to the
severe and irreversible climatic changes, the world concerns more towards sustainable development to
reduce the impacts on people and the environment (Khalil and Husin, 2009). In such governing concern,
green building movement is rapidly becoming a necessity. It aims to fundamentally change the built
environment by creating energy efficient, health and productive buildings (USEPA, 2014; United States
Green Building Council, 2009 cited Gou et al., 2013).
Green building is refers to the practice of creating structures and which are using processes that are
environmentally responsible and resource-efficient practise throughout a buildings life-cycle from
inception and design to construction, operation, maintenance, renovation and deconstruction. This
*
62
practice expands and complements the classical building design concerns of economy, utility, durability,
and comfort (USEPA, 2014). Nowadays in the world, there are considerable amount of investments to the
green buildings than conventional buildings. It is more important to adapt the green concept in
construction of buildings to achieve the benefits of sustainability (Mallikage, 2012).
According to the Rinkesh (2015), more benefits can be achieved through the green building concept.
Those benefits can be categorised as environmental benefits, economic benefits and social benefits.
Human Resource (HR) is the most significant factor in an organization to attain those benefits. Human
Resource play a vital role in organizational success and it constitutes a significant source of competitive
advantage by using their collective skills, abilities and experience, coupled with their abilities. To achieve
organisational goals and objectives effectively and efficiently, Human Resource practices, procedures and
systems should be developed and implemented based on organisational needs (Ogedegbe, 2014).
Specially, the whole context of Human Resource Management is currently being considered in achieving
sustainable goals of green buildings.
Green Human Resource Management (GHRM) is referred to all the activities involved in development,
implementation and on-going maintenance of a system that aims at creation of green employees. GHRM
is concerned with transforming normal employee to green employees to achieve environmental goals of
the organization and finally to make a significant contribution to the environmental sustainability (Opatha
and Arulrajah, 2014). As Opatha and Arulrajah (2014) further mentioned, employees may play four roles
for becoming a green employee such as, preservationist, conservationist, non-polluter, and maker.
Therefore, to achieve sustainable goals of green organisation, GHRM system is important to implement.
Further, all the employees must be encouraged, empowered and trained (Sudin, 2011). Hence, the
intention of this research is devoted to investigate the applicability of Green Human Resource
Management concept to achieve sustainable goals of green buildings in Sri Lanka.
2.
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1.
GREEN HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT (GHRM) AND ITS IMPORTANCE
According to Lewis (2015), when organisations move towards green, it mainly affects to its profit.
Further, 73 percent of consumers consider that companies have good environmental records. Customers
seek a company which has low environmental footprint. Therefore, companies try to make their
employees green. As Mandip (2012) stated, there should be a proper sense of balance between
organisational growth for wealth design and protection of natural environment. Past decades people
concern only about the profit and wealth of the shareholders of the company. Thus, each and every
industry is currently paying more attention toward minimization of environmental footprints plus
improving awareness to social and environment phase.
In this regard, GHRM refers to using every employee to support sustainable application and increase
employee responsiveness and commitments on the problems of sustainability. At the same time, GHRM
is frequently refers to the concern of managing people by leading them towards a broader corporate
environmental schedule (Mishra and Rani, 2009). GHRM implements environmental friendly HR
initiatives while enhancing efficiencies, lower costs and better employee engagement. It will benefits to
decrease the employee carbon footprints by electronic filings, car sharing, job sharing, teleconferencing
and virtual interviews, recycling, telecommuting, online training, energy efficient office space (Scribd,
2015). GHRM initiates the organisation to find alternative ways to bring down cost without losing their
talent and it also gives assistance to create a culture of having anxiety for environmental defence (Prasad,
2013). Organisations provide much attention towards sustainability and corporate social responsibility.
Sustainability provides the basis of long lasting solution for the business and it helps to improve the socio
economic background of the organisation that connects with society. Therefore, sustainability plays a
vital role in HRM (Mishra and Rani, 2009). Most of the organisations use human resource and
environment management integrated approach to achieve sustainable goals (Mandip, 2012). Further,
when implementing the sustainable goals for green building, it should be measurable and should be
considered about energy efficiency, water conservation, on-site treatment of rain water and storm water,
material and resource management. Nevertheless, it should be based on best practices where it further
63
requires appropriate resources to achieve those goals within the given time frame, there should be time
bound and should be based on best practises (USEPA, 2015).
2.2.
GREEN HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PROCESS
Green Human Resource is most often used to refer to the contribution of HRM policies and practices
toward the broader corporate environmental agenda (Scribd, 2015). The GHRM process generally
includes, green job analysis, green HR recruitment, selection, induction, training and development,
performance management and discipline management (Renwick et al., 2013; Opatha and Arulrajah,
2014).
Green Job Analysis
A number of environmental protection related task, duties and responsibilities can be used to specify job
descriptions of employee (Wehrmeyer, 1996; Renwick et al., 2013). Job description could include at least
one duty related to environmental protection and also specifically includes environmental responsibilities.
Job descriptions and person specifications may include environmental, social, personal, and technical
requirements of the organizations as far as possible. For example, environmental protection duties should
be included, along with the allocation of environmental reporting roles and health and safety tasks
(Wehrmeyer, 1996).
Green HR Recruitment
Retention/recruitment and satisfaction is one the most vital benefit scopes of HR and sustainability. So
gaining reputation as a green employer is an effective way to attract novel talent. Green recruitment can
be defined as the process of hiring individuals with skills, knowledge, approaches, and behaviours that
identify with environmental management systems within an organization. Green recruiting is a system
where the focus is given on the importance of the environment (Wehrmeyer, 1996). As stated by Opatha
and Arulrajah (2014), there are four categories of green HR recruitment, such as, green competencies,
green attitude, green behaviour and green result.
Selection
Environmental concern and interest is the major focused context of selecting candidates for the
organization. When interviewing candidates or assessing them for selection, environmental-related
questions are asked by the selection panel is becoming a frequent factor. Certainly, these are some of the
worthy green selection practices any organisation can adopt to select environmental friendly people
(Opatha and Arulrajah, 2014).
Induction
For fresh employees induction give the first impression about what needed to understand and approach to
their corporate environmental culture in a thoughtful way (Wehrmeyer, 1996). After selecting the
candidates for the posts, these companies provide necessary basic information about the corporate
environmental management policy, system and practices. Subsequently, organizations should ensure that
new recruits understand their environmental responsibilities, become familiar with health and safety
arrangements, appreciate the corporate environmental culture, adopt the company's environmental policy
and practices, and know given relevant contact persons within the organisation (Wehrmeyer, 1996;
Renwick et al., 2013).
Training and Development
Providing environmental training to the organizational members (non-managerial employees and
managers) to develop required skills and knowledge is an important function of green HRM. This will
helpful to implement corporate environmental management programs of the company. In the green
training program, employee should be able to develop and acquire the knowledge regarding the
environmental management, green skills and attitudes (Prasad, 2013).
64
Performance Management
Green performance management consists of issues related to environmental concerns and policies of the
company. It also concentrates on use of environmental responsibilities. When HR managers integrate
environmental performance into performance management systems they safeguard environment
management against any damage. Further, environmental incidents, usage of environmental
responsibilities, reducing carbon emission and the communication of environmental concerns and policy
can be covered by Performance Appraisal (Prasad, 2013).
Discipline Management
In green discipline management, it is required to enforce rules to carry out greening policies and practises
and to establish a system to maintain a progressive disiplinary system within the organisation (Opatha and
Arulrajah, 2014).
Accordingly, the applicability of GHRM is investigated in relation to HRM process which is practiced in
green buildings in Sri Lanka. Therefore, the gaps in existing practice are identified relating to green job
analysis, green HR recruitment, selection, induction, training and development, performance
management, reward management and discipline management in order to propose probable strategies.
Section 3 describes the methodology adopted in this study to achieve the above aim.
3.
In order to achieve the research aim, qualitative research approach was identified as the most suitable
method for gathering and analysing data. As this research required conducting a detailed investigation in
HRM process in green buildings, case study method was applied. Three case studies were conducted in
green certified office buildings in Sri Lanka. Eight semi-structured interviews were conducted with HR
professionals and other employees in selected case buildings to collect the data. The interview profile is
illustrated in Table 1.
Table 1: Interview Profile
Case
Case A
Case B
Case C
Designation
A1
Director (Geology)
A2
A3
B1
B2
B3
C1
Assistant Administrative Officer

Maintenance Supervisor
HR Manager
Assistant HR Manager
Maintenance Manager
Branch Manager
C2
Assistant Manager
Code-based content analysis and cross case analysis techniques, together with QSR. NVivo software are
used to analyse the data. In the data analysis, a coding structure is developed as illustrated in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Coding Structure
65
Section 4 presents the case study data analysis and key research findings relating to applicability of
GHRM in green buildings in Sri Lanka.
4.
The existing human resource management practice in green buildings was investigated and gaps are
identified.
Job Analysis
According to case analysis, designing job without intention of sustainable goals of organisation and, not
including green competencies into job specification are identified as major gaps in job analysis. as it
further revealed, Director (Geology) in Case A stated that In the existing Human Resource Management
process there is no clear work areas proposed for the job and this created confusion in work line. And the
most important thing is job is not design to achieve sustainable goals in green building. Further, in Case
Assistant Administrative Officer mentioned that It is a government error, for not having a proper way to
attach sustainability goals in government job analyzing procedure. In case B both Assistant HR
Manager and HR Manager said that In current situation we do not apply tasks to achieve sustainability
goals.
Recruitment
In recruitment process according to the maintenance supervisor in case A, government did not apply any
statement in order to achieve sustainable goals in Green HRM concept. Both Assistant Administrative
officer and Director (Geology) in case A also mentioned that the government sector is still following the
traditional method in recruiting people and it needs a change which will focus on green recruitment.
Also maintenance supervisor of case A stated government have to focus on the abilities of protecting the
environment. In case B, Assistant HR Manager, HR Manager and Maintenance Manager said that we
didnt apply Green HRM concept in recruitment process. And yet we dont have any idea of applying
Green HRM concept with recruitment process. In case C, both Branch Manager and Assistant Manager
said that we did not concern about linking green HRM and sustainable goals with the process of
recruitment. Accordingly, less concern on green and use of traditional recruitment process especially in
government sector are identified as gaps in existing recruitment process in green buildings.
Selection
In the existing selection process, there are no evaluation criteria for green competencies. Assistant
Administrative officer of case A mentioned that, there is no step which links the procedure with Green
Movement. In case B Maintenance Manager also said that we dont evaluate their knowledge in Green
Competencies. Assistant HR manger and HR manager confirm that statement as we dont judge their
awareness on Green HRM concept in selection process. Further, Assistant HR Manager said that we
dont evaluate their knowledge regarding Green HRM concept as because they should adopt to protect
environment and achieve the sustainable goals while they engage with their work in the company.
Furthermore, there is no rewarding system for achievement of sustainable goals by green employees.
Induction
No any case organisation has linked green concept to induction program of employees. In case A both
Director (geology) and Assistant Administrative Officer said that it is still unaware that this step can
link with Green HRM in order to achieve Sustainability Goals. In case C, both Branch Manager and
Assistant Manager said that we did not link induction process with Green HRM concept Further, the
development of green abilities of employees is also not considered in the induction program.
Training and Development (T&D)
According to Maintenance Supervisor in case A, they are not following any kind of training programs to
improve knowledge of employees on green concept. As Director (Geology) said we have training
programs for employees but they dont improve their knowledge regarding Green HRM and sustainable
goals. Further, Assistant HR Manager and HR Manager in case B said that we dont practice green
competencies of employee in training and development programs.
66
Performance Management
According to Maintenance Supervisor in case A, It is vital to include some criteria to evaluate
environmental protecting performance of the employees. In case B according to Assistant HR Manager
he said that every department in the company has a particular zone to grow trees and the functioning of
the process is evaluated by them. Both HR manager and Maintenance Manager confirm the statement of
Assistant HR Manager. In case C both Branch Manager and Assistant Manager said that we dont have
any evaluation procedure to analyse the knowledge on green HRM concept of their workers.
Discipline Management
In case B there is no rules in discipline management process. Assistant HR Manager said that we are
strictly observed how they maintain their zone which the company allocate to grow trees According to
Branch Manager and Assistant Manager in case C said that we dont have green concept on discipline
management . Assistant Administrative Officer (AAO) in case A expressed that implementing rules and
make it to work in the institutions should be a must, and that will be very important fact in functioning the
green human resource management in the institute. Hence, no rules and function to control the employee
behaviour regarding Green performance and no proper procedure regarding the green behaviour of the
employees are identified as gaps in existing discipline management process. The identified gaps in
existing HRM process are summarised in Table 2.
Table 2: Gaps in Existing Process
HR practice
Job Analysis
Recruitment
Selection
Induction
Training and
Development
Performance
Management
Discipline
Management
Gaps
Job is not design to achieve sustainable goals
Green competencies has not been included in to job specification
Use of traditional method for the recruitment process
Less concern on green concept
No evaluation criteria for green competencies of employees
No rewarding system for achieving sustainable goals
Fewer knowledge to adopt green concept into induction
Less concern on developing green abilities of employees
Not facilitating training programs to develop green competencies
No criteria to evaluate environmental protecting performance of employees
No any procedure to evaluate achievement of sustainable goals
No rules and function to control the employee behaviour regarding green performance
No proper procedure regarding the green behaviour of the employees
As per the different views and opinions of the HR professionals and key literature findings, probable
strategies are proposed to apply GHRM concept in green buildings to fill the gaps in existing process.
Accordingly, a framework is developed as the final outcome of the research and illustrated in Figure 2.
67
Gaps in existing process

Job is not design to achieve sustainable
goals
Green competencies has not been
included in to job specification
Recruitment
Use of traditional method for the

recruitment process
Less concern on green concept
No rewarding system for achieving

sustainable goals
No rules and function to control the

employee behaviour regarding green
performance
No proper procedure regarding the
green behaviour of the employees
Performance
management
Discipline
management
No criteria to evaluate environmental

protecting performance of employees
No any procedure to evaluate
achievement of sustainable goals
T&D
Less knowledge to adopt green concept

into induction
Less concern on developing green
abilities of employees
Induction
Selection
No evaluation criteria for green

competencies of employees
Not facilitating training programs to

develop green competencies
Job analysis
Suggestions to overcome
Adding green competencies into job specification
Introducing environmental defence connected task,
duties and responsibilities
Introducing new recruitment criteria concerning the

green concept
Recruiting people who aware about green concept
Introducing criteria to evaluate green competencies of

employees
Environmental concern and interest should be checked
Knowledge and ability of green should be checked
Green awareness program for new employees
Training program for employees to aware about

sustainable goals of organization
Special training programmes by expertise in green sector
Criteria to evaluate the achievement of green goals

Level of achieving green competencies should be
evaluated
Introducing environment protecting performance
Introducing rules and policies for environmental
protection
Organizing awareness programmes on green behaviour
Green Human Resource Management
Achieving sustainable goals of green

buildings
Figure 2: The Framework Developed
68
5.
SUMMARY
In improving organisations environmental performance, people factor is one of the key factors. To
create, practice and maintain environmental related innovative behaviours of employees coupled with
right attitude of greening, green HRM practices are critical. Without proper green HRM practices, it is
difficult to create and maintain sustainable environmental performance. Hence, as this research aimed, the
applicability of GHRM was investigated in green buildings in Sri Lanka. Through the case analysis, gaps
in existing HRM process are identified. As investigated, there is no proper HRM procedure in green
buildings to convert employees to green employees in order to apply them effectively to achieve its
sustainable goals. Further, no any step in HRM process has been considered about the green building
concept. Therefore, several strategies can be applied to incorporate green concept into HRM process in
green buildings. Hence, as the main implication of this research, the gaps in job analysis, recruitment,
selection, induction, training and development, performance management and discipline management are
identified. Accordingly, a framework is developed by proposing probable solutions to fill the gaps
identified. Further, it can be used as a basis to effectively utilize human resource for achieving sustainable
goals of green buildings in Sri Lanka as the main implication of this research.
6.
REFERENCES
Gou, Z., Prasad, D. and Lau, S.S., 2013. Are green buildings more satisfactory and comfortable?. Habitat
International, 39 (1), 156-161.
Khalil, N. and Husin, H.N., 2009. Post occupancy evaluation towards indoor environment improvement in
Malaysias office buildings. Journal of Sustainable Development, 2(1), 186-191.
Lewis, J., 2015. Ways to encourage employees to go green [online]. Houston, Hearst Newspapers. Available from:
http://work.chron.com/ways-encourage-employees-green-4470.html [Accessed 3 July 2015].
Mallikage, S.T., 2012. Green building concept and its Sri Lankan Context [online]. Sri Jayawardanapura, University
of Sri Jayewardanapura. Available from: http://www.sjp.ac.lk/sites/forestry/2015/04/02/green-building-conceptand-its-sri-lankan-context/ [Accessed 25 July 2015].
Mandip, G., 2012. Green HRM: People management commitment to environmental sustainability. Research Journal
of Recent Sciences, 1(1), 244-252.
Mishra, K. and Rani, S., 2009. Green HRM: practices and strategic implementation in the organizations.
International Journal on Recent and Innovation Trends in Computing and Communication, 2(11), 3633-3639.
Ogedegbe, R.J., 2014. Achieving organizational objectives through human resource management practices.
European Journal of Business and Management, 6(6), 18-22.
Opatha, H.H.D.N.P. and Arulrajah, A.A., 2014. Green human resource management: simplified general reflection.
International Business Research, 7(8), 101-112.
Prasad, R.S., 2013. Green HRM- Partner in sustainable competitive growth. Journal of Management Science and
Technology, 1(1), 15-18.
Renwick, W.S., Redman, T. and Maguire, S., 2013. Green human resource management: a review and research
agenda. International Journal of Management Reviews, 15(1), 1-14.
Rinkesh, K., 2015. What is a green building? [online]. Conserve Energy Future. Available from:
http://www.conserve-energy-future.com/green-building.php. [Accessed 04 April 2015].
Scribd, 2015. Creating high performing HR systems: green HRM [online]. UK, Scribd Inc. Available from:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/61220598/Green-HRM#scribd [Accessed 1 July 2015].
Sudin, S., 2011. Strategic green HRM: a proposed model that support corporate environment citizenship. In:
International Conference on Sociality and Economics Development, Kuala Lampur 4-5 June 2011. Singapore:
IACSIT Press, 79-83.
US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), 2014. Green building [online]. US, US Environmental Protection
Agency. Available from: http://www.epa.gov/greenbuilding/ [Accessed 04 April 2015].
US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), 2015. Sustainability. [online]. US, US Environmental Protection
Agency. Available from: http://www.epa.gov/sustainability/basicinfo.htm [Accessed 17 April 2015].
Wehrmeyer, W., 1996. Greening people: human resources and environmental management. England: Greenleaf
Publishing.
69
APPROACHES TO FOSTER GREEN BUILDING CONSTRUCTIONS IN

SRI LANKA
R. Thalpage* and Gayani Karunasena
ABSTRACT
With worlds trend, though the Sri Lankan government has taken a substantial effort for local green
building movement, still it has not become as a major and pressing concept in Sri Lanka due to several
barriers. Those barriers could be identified under five key areas as financial barriers, regulatory
barriers, social barriers, knowledge/skills barriers and industrial barriers. Thus, the purpose of this
study is to recommend the probable approaches to foster green building constructions in Sri Lanka by
overcoming the existing barriers.
A qualitative research approach was adopted for attaining the research aim while conducting semi
structured interviews with 15 local professionals who are in local regulatory bodies for green
buildings and sustainable constructions, who are involving with green building constructions as well
as who have not still involved with green constructions but expect it in future. The findings were
analyzed with content analysis technique. It was recommended to follow simple and primary green
strategies, take the correct consultation, implement mandatory regulations, make collaboration
between existing authorities, increase public awareness, correct common misconceptions, provide
knowledge and education, promote research and development, government takes the leadership and
take the support from organizational managements as few major approaches to overcome the
identified barriers for Sri Lankan green building constructions. The recommended approaches can be
followed by industry players in order to foster green building constructions in national level, local
level or organizational level and it will provide a basis to achieve the sustainability goal of Sri Lanka.
Keywords:
1.
Barriers; Foster Green Building Constructions; Green Building Concept; Probable

Approaches.
INTRODUCTION
The Green Building has become as a salient concept in global construction industry in regard to protect
the environment through sustainable development (Chan et al., 2009). According to the World Green
Building Council in California (World Green Building Council, 2013), there are more than 140,000 green
buildings registered globally. The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green
building rating system has been applied to more than 72,500 projects in the world (USGBC, 2015). In
Asian context, Singapore is at the top among 62 surveyed countries worldwide (McGraw-Hill
Construction, 2013) and India is the third best country in the world on LEED (Astarini, 2015).
Equally, Sri Lankan government also has taken a significant effort for local green building movement.
However, Waidyasekara and Sandamali (2012) revealed that still there is no significant result on local
green building practices and there are many challenges to achieve the sustainability goal of Sri Lanka.
There are only 16 LEED certified buildings (Sri Lanka Business and Biodiversity Platform, 2014) and 15
certified buildings under GREENSL Rating (GBCSL, 2015). McGraw-Hill Construction (2013) identified
the higher initial cost, lack of public awareness, lack of policy and governance, lack of coordination, lack
of market demand and lack of trained green building professionals as barriers for green building
movement in Asian countries.
Further, the improper understanding and misinterpretations within the society are the reasons for less
embrace of sustainability concept (GBCSL, 2010 cited Waidyasekara and Sandamali, 2012). Therefore,
*
70
this study aims to recommend the probable approaches to foster green building constructions in Sri Lanka
by overcoming the existing barriers. Next section of the paper presents compressive review on Sri Lankan
context of green building constructions.
2.
SRI LANKAN CONTEXT OF GREEN BUILDING CONSTRUCTION
With rapid growth of construction activities, adoption of green concept has become as a quick need in Sri
Lankan construction industry (Waidyasekara and Fernando, 2013). Already there are several government
rules and regulations in Sri Lanka that support the local green growth. The National Environmental Act
established in 1980 and the Central Environmental Authority, Environmental Council as well as the
District Environmental Agencies that were established under above act govern the environmental impact
of local industries including construction industry with several rules and regulations (National
Environmental Act, 1980). Additionally, the Sri Lankan government has introduced several national
policies which indirectly drive the local green building movement as National Environment Policy
(2003), National Energy Policy (2003), National Climate Change Policy (2011), National Air Quality
Management Policy (2000), Cleaner Production Policy (2004), National Forestry Policy (1995), National
Solid Waste Management Policy (2008) and National Bio safety Policy (2005) (Ministry of Environment
Sri Lanka, 2012). The Green Building Council of Sri Lanka (GBCSL) works as the principal association
by giving the foremost commitment in developing sustainable buildings in Sri Lanka (GBCSL, 2015).
Thus, Ratnasiri (2012) identified several drivers for Sri Lankan green building constructions under three
main categories (Refer Figure 1).
Government regulations & polices
DRIVERS
Regulations &
Encouragements
Government/ Non-government
encouragement
Clients/ Tenants demand
Stakeholder support
Contractors support
Environment sustainability
Ecology/Social
responsibility
Social responsibility
Figure 1: Drivers for Sri Lankan Green Building Construction
With above drivers, Sri Lanka already has LEED certified buildings as well as the buildings which are
expecting to have the LEED certification in future (GBCSL, 2015). Sri Lanka has carried off the First
LEED certified Green Hotel in the World; the Heritance Kandalama (Seneviratne, 2014). The other
modern and innovative green construction in Sri Lanka is MAS Thurulie factory at Thulhiriya (MAS
Holdings, 2015). Brandix Causual Wear Ltd. in Seeduwa is another highly recognized manufacturing
company in Sri Lanka for its great environmental and social standards (OECD, 2012). Further, Jayalath
(2010) mentioned the Hatton National Bank in Nittambuwa, CKT Apparel (Pvt) Ltd. in Agalawatte,
Ulagalla Walawwe in Anuradhapura, Vocational training Centres in Ahangama and Ampara as other
most identified green buildings in Sri Lanka.
Above mentioned green building practices are the evidences for the statement by Seneviratne (2014) that
the Sri Lankan green buildings have a higher completion rate than other countries. But as per
Waidyasekara and Sandamali (2012), this concept has been limited only for few buildings in Sri Lanka.
Thus, it is important to identify the barriers for Sri Lankan green building constructions and search how to
mitigate such barriers in order to foster green building constructions in Sri Lanka.
71
2.1.
BARRIERS FOR SRI LANKAN GREEN BUILDING CONSTRUCTION
Many studies have identified various barriers and implementation difficulties of green building
construction in many countries (Arif et al., 2009; Pedini and Ashuri, 2010; Bond and Perrett, 2012;
Djokoto et al., 2014; Ametepey et al., 2015). Geelani et al. (2012) identified the higher initial cost as a
major challenge associated with green buildings. Jayalath (2010) revealed that, there is 20 - 25%
increment in construction costs of green buildings in Sri Lanka. It is substantiated by the fact that, the
initial construction cost of Thurulie green factory building in Sri Lanka is 30% higher than a conventional
factory building (Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction, 2009 cited Waidyasekara and
Fernando, 2013). This financial barrier for green buildings is lifted up by the fact that, most of the
benefits from green buildings can be achieved in long run with a high payback period (Kats 2003). Thus,
Ametepey et al. (2015) identified the long Pay-back period as another barrier towards green building
movement. On the other hand, Abidin et al. (2012) argued that, the government actions and guidance may
be resulted for a pressure on the construction activities towards a better environmental safe guard. Though
there is an adequate number of regulations and policies concerning the environmental protection, there is
no any specific regulation or policy that directly focuses on the green building practices in Sri Lanka. As
well as, lack of enforcement in existing government regulations and policies is another barrier (Hewage
and Mallika, 2011).
There are common misconceptions of general public as green buildings are much more costly than
traditional buildings and it is somewhat a difficult task to reach by middle or low class people (Azizi et
al., 2015). Therefore, Djokoto et al., (2014) identified the lack of awareness as a serious barrier for green
building constructions. Additionally, there is a resistance of people to change as they think that the
change is always a challenge (CEC, 2008). Lack of professional knowledge is identified as another barrier
for green constructions (Abidin et al., 2012; Ametepey et al., 2015). It is emphasized by the fact that the
scarcity of professional knowledge may lengthen the green building development time frame (Choi,
2009). On the other hand, the inexperienced or untrained workforce may threaten the green building
industry by increasing the risk (CEC, 2008). Further CEC (2008) revealed that averaged funding for green
building related researches in United States of America (USA) is representing only 0.02% from the
estimated annual value of USA building constructions. Thus, there is a lack of research investments on
green building practices. Additionally, Financial Risks, Market Risks, Industry Risks, Performance Risks
and Legislative Risks are identified by Pedini and Ashuri (2010) when going for a green building
construction. Ametepey et al. (2015) identified several other technical barriers for sustainable
constructions as lack of special materials that are environmentally sustainable, lack of demonstrations and
lack of technology. Other than that, Ametepey et al. (2015) stated that the implementation of green
building concept may be very difficult with the lack of support from management and leadership of the
organizations.
By considering above exposed facts, the barriers for Sri Lankan green building constructions can be
categorized as financial barriers, regulatory barriers, social barriers, knowledge/skills barriers and
industrial barriers (refer Figure 2).
72
Higher initial cost

Long pay-back period
Financial barriers
Lack of specific rules and regulations

Lack of specific policy
Lack of enforcement
BARRIERS
Regulatory
barriers
Social barriers
Lack of public awareness

Common misconceptions
Resistance to change
Knowledge/skills
barriers
Lack of professional knowledge

Lack of education
Lack of research investments
Lack of skilled labour force
Green building materials

Risk and uncertainty
Lack of technology
Lack of demonstarctions
Lack of support from organizational
management
Industrial barriers
Figure 2: Barriers for Sri Lankan Green Building Construction
With identification of the reasons behind, it creates a further need of finding out the approaches to
mitigate the identified barriers and next presents the methodology adopted.
3.
To verify the identified barriers and to recommend the probable approaches to mitigate those barriers, a
qualitative research approach was adopted by carrying out the expert interviews. Semi structured
interviews were selected as the mode of data collection with fifteen local professionals covering who are
in local regulatory bodies for green buildings and sustainable constructions, who are involving with green
building constructions as well as who have not still involved with green constructions but expect it in
future (refer Table 1).
Table 1: Profile of Expert Interviews
Category of Experts
No. of Interviews
Local regulatory bodies
02
Experts involve with green building constructions
10
Experts not involve with green building constructions
03
Code-based content analysis technique with NVivo software was adopted to analyze the findings from
interviews in order to recommend the probable approaches for existing barriers under five key areas as
financial barriers, regulatory barriers, social barriers, knowledge/skills barriers and industrial barriers.
73
4.
RESEARCH FINDINGS
As findings from expert interviews, it could be identified the severity of each identified barrier within the
practical Sri Lankan context and various probable approaches to mitigate the each could be recommended
under key five areas (refer Table 2).
Table 2: Recommended Approaches to Overcome the Identified Barriers
Key Area
Financial Barriers
Identified Barrier
Higher initial cost
Long pay-back period
Regulatory
Barriers
No specific rules and

regulations
No specific policy
Lack of enforcement
Social Barriers
Unavailability of a
responsible authority
Lack of public awareness
Common misconceptions
Resistance of people
Knowledge/Skills
Barriers
Lack of professional
knowledge
Lack of education
Approaches to Overcome the Barrier

Follow simple and primary green strategies.
Select a suitable and honest green building consultant.
Buy green products from a reputed company for a
reasonable price and warranty.
Achieve a majority of green features during design
stage.
Follow the best design strategy as to achieve a shorter
payback period.
In determining the payback period, weigh on intangible
benefits also.
Consider the buildings life span when applying green
components.
Reduce the cost of green buildings with low cost green
strategies.
Amending a provision in existing acts.
Implement mandatory regulations for green buildings.
Apply more green building concepts into existing
policies.
Make collaboration between existing policies.
Take acts and regulations into the action with hard rules.
Take political support to implement and enforce the
rules.
Carry out a proper inspection for implemented rules.
Appointing an authorized body for green buildings.
Make collaboration between existing authorities.
Conduct exhibitions, seminars and workshops.
Conduct award ceremonies for green buildings and
green professionals.
Organize competitions within schools and offices.
Give the publicity and awareness by media.
Practice green concept within government buildings and
other public places.
Form social clubs for green buildings.
Give the correct awareness for clients by professionals.
Give the correct publicity by media.
Make more green building demonstrations and publish
them.
Explain to the people about the danger of ignoring this
concept.
Make peoples minds with religious concepts to think
about others and nature.
Conduct training programs for individual professionals.
Conducts training programs for professionals as
company wise.
Consider the green certification for a professional as an
important qualification.
Conduct CPD programs for professionals.
Include green concept related modules into university
courses.
Include green concept related subjects into school
74
Lack of research investments
Lack of skilled labour force
Industrial
Barriers
Lack of green building

materials
Lack of demonstrations
Lack of support from
organizational managements
4.1.
syllabus.
Give the knowledge in all 3 main languages of the
country.
Convert the schools, universities and other educational
institutes into green.
Universities can play a significant role.
Focus on green concept related R&D by private
companies.
Organize district or provincial training campaigns for
construction labours.
Integrate the green concept with industrial training
courses in technical colleges.
Allocate some amount from the contractors fees of
renewing their grades, to train labours.
Introduce green production methods as self-occupations
for village people.
Encourage manufacturers who follow green production
methods.
Government takes the leadership in converting buildings
into green.
Give rewards for the management of green
organizations.
Introduce a green services certification system.
FINANCIAL BARRIERS
Financial barriers cant be identified as a major challenge to go for green buildings. The initial costs of
green buildings are not always high. It may depend on several factors as building design and the
technology used. That initial cost can be basically reduced by following simple and primary green
strategies instead of using more advanced green technologies. As examples, to conserve energy, the
buildings can be designed as to acquire the natural light and ventilation as much as possible with
principles such as correct orientation, more openings and cross ventilation. As water conservation
methods, it can be used advanced fittings for appliances which use low water amount with high pressure,
used pipelines with small diameters and used rain water harvesting methods. As materials, it can be used
green labeled materials which used a low energy consumption production process, used salvage materials
after recycling and minimized the distance of material transportation. Further, the green concept promotes
using of brown field lands instead of using vegie lands and also minimizing the material wastages. Thus,
such primary green strategies actually reduce the unnecessary costs of constructions. Using advanced
technologies such as solar panels is the next step for going green and they are not compulsory for
buildings to be green.
Sometimes the costs of green buildings are unnecessarily increased by some parties by purposely.
Therefore, the client should always be careful to select a suitable and honest green building consultant as
major responsibility of reducing the cost is having for the consultant. A major part of the green concept
can be achieved in the design stage of building without any additional cost. Thus, if the building design
has been done well with a majority of green features, it can be achieved a lower initial cost as well as a
shorter payback period.
4.2.
REGULATORY BARRIERS
When it comes to the Sri Lankan context, the regulatory barriers identified from literature can be
modified as no specific rules and regulations, no specific policy, lack of enforcement and unavailability of
a responsible authority. Further, they are one of the major challenges in Sri Lanka to go for green
buildings. It is better to amend a provision for green buildings in any existing act as National
Environmental Act, Construction Industry Development Act or Urban Development Authority Act.
Implementing mandatory regulations for green buildings is an essential approach in Sri Lankan context.
As examples, it can be implemented the mandatory regulations to have the rain water harvesting in all
75
buildings, to have the green roofs with solar panels for buildings in which the roof area is more than a
certain limit, to convert the building walls into green, in which the vertical area is more than a certain
limit or it can be imposed high tax for buildings in which have higher monthly electricity and water bill
than a certain limit. On the other hand, it should be applied more green building concepts into the existing
policies as National Environment Policy, Energy Policy, Climate Change Policy, Air Quality
Management Policy, Cleaner Production Policy, Solid Waste Management Policy and Bio safety Policy.
Most of the acts in Sri Lanka are limited only for their names. Lack of political support also is one of the
main reasons in Sri Lanka for the low enforcement of rules and regulations. Therefore, the existing acts
and regulations should be taken into the action with hard and fast rules with the support of all political
parties. Mainly the National Environmental Authority, Construction Industry Development Authority,
Green Building Council of Sri Lanka and Urban Development Authority have to collaborate with each
other to implement and enforce the regulations related to green building concept.
4.3.
SOCIAL BARRIERS
Social barrier is another major challenge to implement the green concept in Sri Lanka. Through
exhibitions, seminars, workshops, competitions and award ceremonies, the green building concept can be
carried into the close with general public. The public media can play a responsible role to attract the end
users to adopt the green building practices. The consultants and other professionals should give the
correct awareness for clients in order to correct the common misconceptions of general public. It can be
made more green building demonstrations and publish them with their benefits in order to reduce the
resistance of people to go for green buildings. It should be given an urgent explanation for people about
the danger in front of them if they ignore this green building concept. Additionally, it can be formed some
social clubs for green buildings in order to promote this concept among youths.
As per the experts opinions, it should be made a mental revolution in our people at first. Most people are
going to the green concept by looking for their personal benefits as awards, certificates, reputation or
profits. Thus, peoples minds and attitudes should be changed as to go for green concept voluntarily with
an intention of saving our Mother Nature and future generations.
4.4.
KNOWLEDGE / SKILLS BARRIERS
Overcoming knowledge/skills barriers is very important for fostering green constructions in Sri Lanka.
Producing knowledgeable professionals by conducting training and CPD programs is essential because
they are the people who can carry this green concept into general public. It can be done in individually or
in company wise. If the certification as a green professional is considered as an important qualification,
then the professionals always try to get the knowledge and to be certified as a green building professional.
To give an education on this concept, green related subjects can be included into the university courses,
technical college courses and school syllabus. It is very important that, the knowledge should be given in
all 3 main languages of the country as in Sinhala, Tamil and English. Then only the knowledge is spread
to all levels of the society. Promoting green research and developments is a further important approach. In
there, local universities and privet sector companies can play a significant role.
There is a responsibility on local contractors and on Construction Industry Development Authority
(CIDA) to train the construction labors on green practices. It can be organized some training campaigns
for those labors in district or province wise.
4.5.
INDUSTRIAL BARRIERS
There are no industrial barriers as risk and uncertainty and lack of technology in Sri Lankan green
building constructions and they are only our mental barriers.
Introducing green production methods as self-occupations for village people is a practical solution to
increase the green construction materials in local market. Further, it can be encouraged the green product
manufacturers by giving incentives, interest free loans, tax reductions and other benefits. The local
government is the major party who should understand the importance and take the leadership in
76
converting buildings into green. Therefore, it should be started from government buildings as schools,
universities, hospitals, public libraries, government offices and other public places as train stations, bus
stands, cities and parks. To motivate the organizational managements, it should be introduced some
reward systems with high recognitions for those who go for green within their organization. The services
sector of the country can be promoted to practice this green concept by introducing a green service
certification system.
As highlighted by experts, fostering green building constructions in Sri Lanka cant be done by one party.
Thus, every one such as the government, political parties, public media, general public, professionals,
schools, universities, industry players, organizational managements and all other parties have to play a
significant role in the green building movement of Sri Lanka.
5.
CONCLUSIONS
Since many nations have identified the importance of going for green buildings, there is an emerging
trend in global green building practices. In Sri Lankan context also there are several drivers for green
building movement as regulations and encouragements, stakeholder support and ecological goals and
social responsibilities. With those drivers, Sri Lanka already has the green certified buildings with higher
completion rates but, it has been limited only for few buildings. Many studies show that still the green
building has not become as a major and pressing concept in Sri Lanka.
Literature findings revealed that there are several barriers for Sri Lankan green building constructions
under five key areas as financial barriers, regulatory barriers, social barriers, knowledge/skills barriers
and industrial barriers. Hence, this paper recommends the probable approaches to mitigate the identified
barriers in order to foster green building constructions in Sri Lanka.
6.
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78
BEHAVIOUR CHANGE IN THE SUSTAINABLE BUILT ENVIRONMENT

Yousef Al Horr, Martha Katafygiotou and Esam Elsarrag
Gulf Organisation for Research and Development (GORD), Qatar
Mohammed Arif and Amit Kaushik*

School of Built Environment, University of Salford, United Kingdom
Ahmed Mazroei
Qatari Diar Real Estate Development Company, Qatar
ABSTRACT
Humans are always driven by their sensation for adequate comfort. Occupants behaviour is important
in the built environment as it affects the building performance and the indoor comfort requirements.
The built environment industry is moving towards high-performance buildings. However, highperformance buildings often fail to achieve as designed performance. It is due to occupant
behaviour. The purpose of the paper was to investigate the theoretical background of behavioural
economics and its relevance in developing sustainable human behaviour in a buildings lifecycle.
Behaviour Economics uses the combined knowledge of psychology and economics to analyse and
understand human behaviour. It has been successfully used to influence human behaviour in consumer
markets, healthcare and insurance policies. This study explains six behavioural anomalies along with
their applications in different industries. Behavioural anomalies such as Status Quo Bias, Incentives
and Social Norms have been applied in consumer industry to create a positive impact on human
behaviour. It concludes by highlighting the potential of applying behaviour economics in built
environment and influencing occupant behaviour towards eco-friendly behaviour. This research study
is a part of a research endeavour to develop strategies for office buildings operation to change human
behaviour towards more eco-friendly behaviour. It will be useful for built environment professionals to
use these literature findings in design and operation strategies of an office building. It also provides a
good initial research note for researchers working in the field of sustainable human behaviour.
Keywords:
1.
Behavioural Economics; Energy Consumption; Occupant Behaviour; User Energy

Behaviour.
INTRODUCTION
Energy crisis in the built environment can be traced back from the 1970s. The research focused on the
energy crisis in the 1970s highlights the relevance of consumer behaviour, lifestyle and attitude in the
analysis of energy issues (Katzev and Johnson, 1983). The human dimensions of energy conservation
focusing climate change and sustainability were further established in the 1990s (Sweeney et al., 1997;
Stern and Dietz, 2002). Human behaviour and its consequences on the environment have attracted
researchers from sociology, psychology and economics towards energy research (Osbaldiston and Schott,
2011; Abrahamse et al., 2005). The occupant behaviour can influence the building energy usage across
the globe hence impacting the 40% of the worlds annual energy consumption (Omer, 2008). Workplace
occupant behaviour can lead to considerable amount of money. 1E (2009) suggest that US office workers
waste 2.8 billion dollars annually by bad practice of not shutting down computers when they leave the
office. It also suggests that single company with 10,000 computers spends $260,000 along with 1.871
tons of CO2 in the environment due to computers left switched on during the night and the weekend (1E,
2009; Yun et al., 2013). The paper aims to explore behavioural economics literature to identify
behavioural economics anomalies that can be used to influence occupant behaviour in the built
Corresponding Aauthor: E-mail - [email protected]
79
enviornment. The paper has used latest references in a multi reference sentence in order to adhere to
conference format and guidelines.
2.
OCCUPANT AND BEHAVIOUR CHANGE
Human behaviour and behaviour change literature is very vast and extensive (Maio et al., 2007). The
paper limits its focus on behaviour change relevant to the built environment. Occupant behaviour can play
a substantial role in reducing greenhouse gas (CHG) emissions and energy use (Frederiks et al., 2015).
There has been a rise in research interest focusing the occupant behaviour in the built environment and
sustainability (Wolfe et al., 2014). Behaviour change is crucial for high-performance buildings as these
buildings often fail to achieve their as designed performance due to occupant behaviour. The highest
energy use buildings are driven by the energy loads of occupant activities as contrary to basic building
system (Turner et al., 2008; Wolfe et al., 2014). The building performance is highly influenced by
occupant behaviour and can vary a lot. A study of 121 LEED-rated buildings (Leadership in Energy and
Environmental Design) reflects that 30% of the buildings perform better than expected, and 25% perform
worse than anticipated and few have serious energy consumption issues (Turner and Frankel, 2008;
Hauge et al., 2011).
Energy-related behaviour has numerous models. These models on energy behaviour suggest that overall
there are two types of behaviour; the first one is the high-frequency behaviour involving activities that
influence daily energy usage. It includes activities like operating appliances, lights and setting thermostats
on a daily basis. The second is the low-frequency behaviour that involves activities that influence energy
consumption in the long timeline. It includes activities like buying energy using appliances (Van Raaij
and Verhallen, 1983; Stern and Dietz, 2002; Laitner et al., 2009, Karatasou et al., 2014).
The literature focused on energy usage theory identifies three theories that relate to individual decision
making involved in energy consumption (Wilson and Dowlatabadi, 2007; Moezzi and Lutzenhiser, 2010;
Karatasou et al., 2014).
Conventional and behavioural economics
Social and environmental psychology
Sociology
This paper seeks to understand behavioural economics to understand human behavioural traits and
anomalies around decision-making process.
3.
BEHAVIOURAL ECONOMICS
Behavioural economics uses the combined knowledge of psychology and economics to analyse and
understand human behaviour at individual and group level (Thorgeirsson and Kawachi, 2013). It agrees
with the standard economics models that markets and incentives play a significant role influencing human
behaviour. However, it departs from the standard economics model in three behavioural traits; bounded
rationality, bounded willpower, and bounded selfishness (Mullainathan and Thaler, 2000). It seeks to
provide accurate explanations regarding the emotional responses and cognitive abilities of humans in an
efficient decision-making process. It analyses both organisational rules and norms of social interaction,
also considering unique circumstances (Schwartz, 2007; Gradinaru, 2014).
Behavioural economics questions the traditional economics theory base, its human behaviour modelling
and principles of utility and rational choice (Darnton, 2008). Economics is a social science with its core
point derived from its understandings of humans and their behaviour (Paula-Elena, 2013). The standard
economics uses a rational choice model that assumes that humans make behavioural decisions based on a
rational calculation of the expected cost and benefit. It follows neoclassical models of assuming human to
be homo economicus or economic man or Econ. The Econs are forward-looking and perfectly informed
and take fully rational decisions without any influence of external or contextual factors (Wilkinson and
Klaes, 2012). The rational choice model has been challenged and criticised by social scientists and
80
economists (Sen, 2009; Stiglitz, 2002). Behavioural economics combines the knowledge and research of
psychology and economics to identify irrational behavioural patterns and anomalies in human behaviour.
Herbert Simon was one of the early scientists to work on behavioural economics. He postulated that
economics and psychology should be reunited to develop a better understanding of human behaviour and
decision-making process. He proposed the concept of bounded rationality of human nature and
challenged the main assumptions of rational choice theory and traditional economics (Simon, 1955).
Bounded rationality concept advocates the limited capability of rationality in humans and their
behaviour. It states that humans adopt thumb rules or mental shortcuts, also called heuristics to solve a
problem or take a decision (Schwartz, 2007). These heuristics are useful but can lead to errors and
wrong decision in some situations depending on the context and complexity of the problem (Thorgeirsson
and Kawachi, 2013). Many behavioural anomalies are considered as an outcome of bounded rationality.
Some of these are anchoring, status quo bias and loss aversion.
Tversky and Kahneman jointly researched on effects of heuristics on human judgement, human choice
behaviour under risk and framing effects and their implications for rational-agent models (Tversky and
Kahneman, 1973; Kahneman and Tversky, 1979; Tversky and Kahneman, 1992; Kahneman, 2003). The
primary research focus of Tversky and Kahneman was psychology. Economist Richard H Thaler worked
towards theorising and applying behavioural economics concept in economic hypothesis and research
(Thaler and Sunstein, 2008; Thaler, 1980). The principles and concept of behaviour economics have been
implemented in consumer markets, policy development of sustainability strategy and governance.
Thaler and Sunstein proposed choice architecture as a primary tool of applied behaviour economics
(Thaler and Sunstein, 2008). The choice architecture uses framing effects to nudge humans to make a
better choice. Choice architecture follows a movement known as Libertarian paternalism. It applies
knowledge about how humans make their decisions and frame the choice situation in such a way that
most people will make right choices (Leonard, 2008). A good choice architecture uses six principles to
nudge human behaviour towards better choices. These are incentives, understanding mappings, defaults
(status quo Bias), giving feedback, and expect error and Structure complex choices (Leonard, 2008,
Thaler et al., 2014). The next section explores different behavioural anomalies and how they can be used
to influence occupant behaviour.
4.
BEHAVIOUR ANOMALIES
Humans exhibit very poor rational behaviour and demonstrate a broad range of cognitive biases and
behaviour anomalies in their daily behaviour and less general behaviour. This part reviews different
behaviour anomalies that are related to principles of behaviour economics and behaviour change. It also
explores various strategies to implement these anomalies to change office occupant behaviour towards
more sustainable behaviour.
4.1
STATUS QUO BIAS / DEFAULT SETTING
Most decision-making processes have default option in a spectrum of other choices. This option comes
into force when there is no active choice. This behaviour is due to individuals inertia that makes them
defer a decision making an effort and go with the pre-set options. It increases when the amount or
complexity of information increases (Kahneman et al., 1991). A structured default option can help to
maximise the benefits of individuals as it can influence behaviour without regulating individual choices
(Dolan et al., 2012). The default option strategy has been used in the various industries and settings by
policy makers. The policy makers usually provide a default option with a prompted or required choice
to avoid a scenario when individuals are not choosing any option. Evidence suggest that reception of
energy related programmes and initiatives adoption can be raised using the automatic enrolment for all
the customers and disinterested customers can opt out from the suggested default option. This strategy has
been used to boost the usage of green electricity by offering it as a default option rather than grey
electricity (coal or atomic) as the default option (Pichert and Katsikopoulos, 2008). The literature also
indicates that interventions can influence consumers daily behaviour. The interventions can directly
target daily energy-related practices like dishwashers default option as cold water and washing
81
machines default programto short cycle (Frederiks et al., 2015). Similar interventions can be used to
influence consumer behaviour at workplaces by setting least energy using option as the default option for
various electrical appliances. Sensor operated lights can be used as default option for office occupants. It
provides occupants with default option that is convenient, non-intrusive and helps to save energy.
4.2
THE FRAMING EFFECT
The rational man in the traditional economics has consistency in this choice behaviour, and it is not
affected by the framing of the choices. This view was challenged and invalidated by the formulation of
prospect theory. The theory states that individual assesses options and changes on their reference point
(Kahneman and Tversky, 1979). The framing effect means that frame of reference may be influenced by
how a choice is presented and thus affecting the payoff decision (Miller, 2006; Gowdy, 2008).
The informed feedback affects the individuals behaviour. Energy behaviour of a person may be
influenced by feedback (Tetlow et al., 2012). However, the way feedback information is framed can have
an enormous influence on the decision-making process of the individuals. The framing effect can be used
in the feedback of energy behaviour and paper usage of office employees. Office management can
monitor the energy and paper consumption of each department and use the information to provide
monthly feedback using departmental ranking. By framing the ranking in the feedback would motivate
the employees to use less energy and paper.
4.3
INCENTIVES
Incentives have been central to economics and human behaviour. They have been used in different
policies and strategies to influence human behaviour. Behavioural economics has highlighted various
aspects that affect how individual respond to incentives at decision-making situation. This paper
highlights few aspects that are relevant to energy behaviour.
RISK AVERSION
Behaviour research suggests that humans prefer to avoid risk even with given prospect of positive gains.
Humans are more risk averse when faced with the high probability of gains or uncertain losses whereas
they become more risk-seeking when confronted with certain losses or uncertain gains(Tversky and
Kahneman, 1992). The long-term, low-frequency energy behaviour on investment in energy-saving
products has been influenced by highly unreliable electricity supply, market prices and long-term
financial payoffs (Kuliasha and Zucker, 1992; Hirst and Brown, 1990). The household energy market
provides offers like discounts, rebates and money-back guarantees for financial risks in the market. Time
risks are reduced by quick delivery and installation whereas effort risks are reduced by providing
simplified product design and helpful customer service. Other perceived risks are tackled using free
samples, trials, extended warranties and different safety certifications (if required) (Lantos, 2015).
LOSS AVERSION AND REFERENCE FRAME
Human behaviour research suggests that individuals dislike losses than they like gains of the same
amount (Kahneman and Tversky, 1979). Literature suggests that individuals brain and emotional system
mediates decision biases based on fear of loss (De Martino et al., 2006). The fear of loss has a higher
effect on decision-making process than the probability of gain (Kahneman et al., 1991). Behaviour
economics studies also highlight the importance of reference point. The value of something depends on
the reference point of view. The change is large or small based on the reference point of an individuals
perspective (Kahneman and Tversky, 2000; Dolan et al., 2012).
Studies suggest that feedback to the consumer on energy saving messages can have higher memorable
and motivating effect if they are framed to highlight individuals loss in environmental and cost
parameters. The messages have more impact if they indicate a future loss to individual than highlighting
benefits or payoffs (Cheng et al., 2011). The communication messages have a higher impact on
consumers if they reflect the energy or monetary loss in the messages rather than potential gains by
82
changing their energy behaviour (Gonzales et al., 1988). Office management can use print and electronic
medium to highlight the loss of energy due to occupants actions and communicate the energy loss in
terms of bonus money. The management can use framing technique to relate the energy wastage, water
wastage to money loss in their bonus budget to motivate employees to save water and electricity.
4.4
SOCIAL NORMS
Individuals are influenced by the behaviours of other humans. They make social comparisons and follow
the behaviour of others to conform to social norms to meet socially acceptable and expected the
behaviour of a group or society (Cialdini, 2003). Social norms may be behavioural expectations, rules or
standards within a group or society. An individuals conformity to a certain groups behaviour can be
triggered simply by merely observation and communication (Cialdini and Goldstein, 2004).
A research study used social norm approach to increase seatbelt usage by the citizens of Montana, USA.
The initial data collection suggested that 85% used seatbelt but reported a perception of 65% seatbelt
usage by a fellow citizen. A state wide social campaign leads to an increase in self-reported seatbelt usage
(Linkenbach and Perkins, 2003). A study focusing towel recycling behaviour of hotel room guest
indicates that when a sign was used to request guest to recycle towels led to 35% recycling. When the
sign used social norm to indicate the most guest recycled their towels at least once resulted in the increase
in compliance (44%). The sign was then changed to indicate that the previous guest recycled the towels at
least once during their stay led to an increase in compliance up to 49%. This result indicates the simple
yet focused social norm can influence human behaviour to a great extent (Cialdini, 2003). Research
suggests that continuous reminder of the about individuals performance among the society can help to
influence the behaviour. It has been proved in an energy behaviour experiment where only 2%
improvement was observed at the beginning of the experiment. However, the intervention effects
indicated slump between the communications and then rose again upon receipt of next feedback (Allcott,
2011). The research on social norm also highlights that descriptive feedback on above-normal
performance can backfire. In a social norm experiment focusing residential energy, households with
above average energy usage decreased their energy usage after receiving the energy feedback. However,
the household with below average usage increased their energy usage after a detailed energy feedback.
This boomerang effect was avoided by using an injunctive norm (smiley face emoticon). It is due to the
human behaviour tendency to shift their behaviour towards the social norm (Ayres et al., 2013). Office
management team can use social norm technique to influence the office employees. The team can place
posters with messages that relate to office staff. These messages could highlight the social norm of
energy, water and paper conservation, and waste management in the organisation. Office management
can monitor energy, water and paper usage at company and departmental level. The feedback could use
smileys and colour themes to indicate the performance benchmarked at office, country or global level to
motivate employees to change their behaviour. The monthly feedback would help to reinforce the
message and continue the behaviour change momentum.
4.5
AVAILABILITY HEURISTICS
Behaviour research suggests that individuals draw decisions based on readily available information in the
brain (availability bias). This information is usually from the family/friends and recent and frequently
heard examples (Tversky and Kahneman, 1973; Gabrielcik and Fazio, 1984). This readily available
information influences individuals decision-making process and its outcome. Energy saving behaviour
can be influenced by providing or placing energy saving behaviour messages at places that are highly
visible to the target audience. These messages can be favourable customers testimonials, common energy
saving habits and simple prompts associated with energy conservation. Simple visual and auditory
reminders and prompts can have considerable positive impact on pro-environment behaviour (Bekker et
al., 2010; Tetlow et al., 2014). Thaler and Sunstein highlighted the use of Ambient Orb that provides a
simple signal of electricity usage by the intensity of glow and colour change to indicate the energy usage
lead to a decrement in peak energy consumption by 40% (Thaler and Sunstein, 2008). Similarly, visual
and auditory reminders can be used to indicate water, energy and paper usage. The monthly feedback
sometimes creates a boomerang effect. The employees that perform well once would be less careful
during the next month. Instead, office management could motivate the teams/department at weekly
83
frequency by an e-mail or weekly announcement about company and departmental targets. The readily
availability of feedback on performance could help to avoid the boomerang effect in employee behaviour.
This strategy can be used as an active method to influence occupant behaviour rather than providing
information to create a reactive action after the monthly behavioural energy performance.
4.6
PRIMING
Priming means activating of knowledge in memory to make it more accessible and influential in enabling
new stimuli effect (Gabrielcik and Fazio, 1984; Richardson-Klavehn and Bjork, 1988; Dolan et al., 2012).
Primes could be perceptual, action and semantic (LaBerge and Buchsbaum, 1990; Strack and Deutsch,
2004). Human behaviour can be altered if their senses are exposed to words, views and sensation
(Williams and Bargh, 2008; Bargh and Chartrand, 1999). The literature suggests that sound and words
can be used as prime to influence individuals behaviour. People were observed to walk slowly and
exhibited poor memory of the experimental room when they were exposed to elderly related words. They
words related to old age had primed the subject to behave in an associated manner (Dijksterhuis and
Bargh, 2001). In another experiment, subjects were primed with subjects like collaborate, trust, and share
before a public goods game. The results indicated an appreciation of the public good contribution by the
subjects (Drouvelis et al., 2010). Similarly, sights and views also play a significant role as priming agents
and influence individuals behaviour. A happy face presented to a drinking subject influenced then to
drink more than those subjects exposed to a frowning or angry face. Regarding smell, research indicates
that air quality and the smell of air can act as prime and change individuals cleanliness perception of the
surrounding and influencing behaviour to conduct them to keep surrounding clean as compared to their
normal behaviour (Holland et al., 2005; Dolan et al., 2012). Priming can be used to influence occupant
behaviour using various strategies. Indoor surfaces (walls, partitions) can be used to develop a collage of
pictures and messages to influence occupant behaviour. For example, kitchen (pantry) and washroom
walls can be used to install photographs of water scare areas or situations to prime occupants to use less
water. Words and motifs related to scarcity of water, energy and motivational words related to
sustainability can be placed to prime occupant behaviour.
5.
CONCLUSION
The research study outlines an understanding of occupant behaviour and its importance for achieving
sustainability in the built environment. The energy crisis in the built environment and its relation to
human behaviour can be traced back from the 1970s. Occupant behaviour plays a substantial role in
energy usage in the built environment. The aim of the paper was to investigate occupant behaviour
theories and their effect on building operation and energy usage in the building. Literature highlighted
different types of energy-related behaviour. These are investment and habitual behaviour, purchase usage - maintenance behaviour, efficiency and curtailment behaviour. The research study investigated the
anomalies in human behaviour. Behaviour economics has been an area of interest for many research
scientists in the field of psychology and economics. Behaviour economics has helped to explain many
human behaviour tendencies that dont follow the rational human behaviour principles. The study
reviewed behaviour economics and six behaviour anomalies that help to demonstrate a broad range of
cognitive biases in human behaviour. The status quo bias is used to influence highly frequent decisionmaking processes by providing default option to humans and change their behaviour. Insurance and
software companies have used this anomaly widely to influence human behaviour. Similarly, the framing
effect has been used to frame choices/options to change the target audience/consumer behaviour.
Incentives have been used in all the industry to change human behaviour. Behaviour economics also
underlines the importance of social norms and various public policies are designed to use social norm to
alter the conduct of the mass public. Similarly, availability heuristics and priming have been used in
various individual and group level activities to influence the human decision and behaviour. The study
has highlighted these anomalies that affect human behaviour. There is an enormous potential to apply
behavioural economics to influence or nudge occupant behaviour in the built environment to promote
energy saving action. The researcher aims to use this literature review as a base for developing behaviour
change strategies to promote eco-friendly and sustainable behaviour for occupants in the office
environment. This paper can also act as a good starting point for future researchers who seek to develop
84
an understanding of behaviour economics and its application for occupant behaviour change in the built
environment.
6.
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87
BLACK SWAN EFFECTS ON THE REAL ESTATE ENVIRONMENT:

A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
Treshani Perera* and David Higgins
School of Property, Construction and Project Management, RMIT University, Australia
ABSTRACT
Unpredictable events can have a major impact on real estate, yet they are often overlooked in many
property decisions. This research looks at linking property market analysis to Black Swan (BS) Event
theory, a term made famous by Taleb (2008) as those unpredictable disastrous events which have three
key characteristics: rarity, extreme impact and retrospective predictability. The research takes the
form of a narrative synthesis applying a literature review approach to define an extensive range of BS
events into a conceptual framework so as to measure the impact on property markets with reference to
risk and uncertainties.
For property asset managers, this is important as BS events can be related to the impact on
Place/location and Space/operation. To improve the resilience and reduce vulnerability towards these
events, property strategies can embrace new disaster management research and so lower the impact of
Place risk, although improved connectivity makes global organisations more vulnerable to space risk
failure after a major BS Event. In this paper, BS management models are funnelled to the antifragility
concept, as a positive sensitivity to increases in volatility. Finally, the study offers a conceptual
framework of illustrating the relationship between BS effects and its respective fragile and antifragile
strategies.
Keywords:
1.
Antifragility; Black Swan Effects; Black Swan Management; Randomness; Real Estate
Environment.
INTRODUCTION
In the past, key underlying macroeconomic indicators have been the driving forces behind the trend in
real estate performance. This has implications of modelling property market performance using
macroeconomic variables as systematic risk factors. Further, property market modelling is based on
standard assumptions of mainstream economics: stable preferences are acting on a perfect market,
accessible information, and homogenous products that derived from historic data. Thus, they can fail
when stable assumptions cease to hold and extreme volatility occurs, as featured by the recent severe
price swings associated with Global Financial Crisis (GFC). Hence, most investors accept the fact that
their future performance predictions are imperfect and their investment activities will, inevitably, involve
risks (Hargitay and Yu, 1993; Higgins, 2014b; Mandelbrot and Hudson, 2004; Ohman et al., 2013).
These major downside risks are often outside the regular expectations and commonly referred as
statistical outliers (outside 2 standard deviations) and also termed as risk associated with the lower tail
in the normal distribution (Granger, 2010; Higgins, 2014b). Taleb (2008) coined Black Swan to describe
these unexpected random events that form part of our lives. Similarly, Brooks and Tsolacos (2010)
identified such unpredictable, short lived events as noise in the market. Further, these shocks extended
into a broader depth that cover natural, man-made and hybrid disasters. Hence, this research paper aims at
conceptualising BS theory in a property environment by bringing forth different authors interpretations
to a single platform.
The structure of this paper begins with a background of defining the BS concept. Section Three identifies
different types of BS events along with the respective categorisation in the model/data dichotomy and
natural and non-natural disaster classification. Section Four elaborates the phenomena of rare and extreme
*
88
events aligning with two types of randomness. Then the literature review extended into analysing the
impact of BS events linking into the possible management strategies on real estate environment. The last
section provides the conceptual framework with concluding remarks.
2.
THE BLACK SWAN: THE IMPACT OF THE HIGHLY IMPROBABLE
Unpredictable events are labelled as a concrete and precise category of knowledge named unknown,
improbable or uncertain, but according to Taleb (2008), it is simply the lack of knowledge. For
instance, before the discovery of Australia, elsewhere in the world convinced that all swans are white.
The sighting of the first BS illustrates the fragility of knowledge. Taleb (2008) coined the term Black
Swan to describe these random events which have the following three key characteristics:
First, it is an outlier, as it lies outside the realm of regular expectations, because nothing in
the past can convincingly point to its possibility. Second, it carries an extreme impact. Third,
in spite of its outlier status, human nature makes us concoct explanations for its occurrence
after the fact, making it explainable and predictable (p. xvii).
These three characteristics of BS events can be summarised as rarity, extreme impact and retrospective
predictability. The exposure to BS effect is having a membership in the extended disorder family: (i)
uncertainty, (ii) variability, (iii) imperfect, incomplete knowledge, (iv) chance, (v) chaos, (vi) volatility,
(vii) disorder, (viii) entropy, (ix) time, (x) the unknown, (xi) randomness, (xii) turmoil, (xiii) stressor,
(xiv) error, (xv) dispersion of outcomes and (xvi) unknowledge (Taleb, 2012).
Similarly, Aven (2013) defines BS as a surprisingly extreme event relative to ones belief/knowledge.
This surprising aspect must always be understood in relation to by whom and when. The following Figure
1 illustrates this. Let C denotes the consequences of the activity in relation to the values such as life,
health, environmental, assets and the like. Risk assessment of the activity is conducted at present and as
the time goes by C may be realised. If the consequence deviates from the risk assessment then it has
become a surprise as illustrated in the Figure 1. Such surprising accident is a BS event which the risk
analyst had not predicted before.
History
Now
Time interval considered
Future
Activity C
History
Now
Time interval considered
Future
Activity C
Surprise,
Black Swan
Figure 1: The Black Swans Surprising Aspect: Micro Perspective

Source: Aven (2015)
In a macro perspective, looking at a large number of such activities, for example, a risk assessment is
conducted and it is concluded probable consequences. Subsequently, one cannot say that it is a BS if such
an event which included in the list of probable consequences, actually occurs. Therefore, one must be
carefully interpret the perspective when discussing whether an event is a BS event.
Earlier, these rare and extreme consequences associated with BS events are included in the definition of
89
disaster. The Oxford dictionary (2011) defines disaster as: A sudden accident or a natural catastrophe
that causes great damage or loss of life, an event or fact that leading to ruin or failure (p. 407). Similarly,
Asian Disaster Reduction Center (2003): A serious disruption of the functioning of society, causing
widespread human, material or environmental losses which exceed the ability of affected society to cope
using only its own resources.
3.
TYPES OF BLACK SWAN EVENTS
The term BS is used to express any of these types of events, tacitly assuming that it carries an extreme
impact (Aven, 2015). There are a number of different approaches, strategies and measures that can be
used to confront such events. Aven and Krohn (2014) identified three main types of BS events along with
the definition by Aven (2013) as:
i.
Events completely unknown to the scientific environment,
ii. Events not on the list of known events from the perspective of those who carried out a risk analysis
but known to others, and
iii. Events on the list of known events in the risk analysis but judged to have negligible probability of
occurrence and therefore not believed to occur.
These three types of BS events can be grouped into the three existing forms of knowledge and nonknowledge associated with risk which made famous by U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Higgins (2013) formed a framework of uncertainty surrounding BS events together with examples of such
events as illustrated in Figure 2. The framework separates BS events into known knowns, known
unknowns and unknown unknowns based on the availability of model and data.
Known knowns
Model and data
Famine
Y2000 computer bug
No uncertainty
Known unknowns
Model but no data
Unknown unknowns
No model and no data (No idea)
Earthquake
Terrorism (historical)
Global financial crisis
Uncertainty
can be
quantified
Uncertainty
cannot be
quantified
Continuity between past

and future
Asteroid attack
Biological warfare
Uncertainty
cannot be
quantified
Critical consequences that

will change the future
Level of awareness
Figure 2: Distinguishing the Knowns and Unknowns: Black Swan Event Framework
Source: Higgins (2013)
The known known is where it is exactly known what could happen and when, for example year 2000
millennium bug can be measured and the disruption can be forecasted. Known unknown events can be
quantifiable for example structures can be designed to withstand strong earthquakes (e.g. Structural
design of the Taipei 101 tower) but when it will occur is unknown. The unknown unknown events are
difficult, if not impossible to model. For instance, there was no quantifiable information prior to the
terrorist attack to the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2011. Consequently, the level of awareness is
increased and such events are included in the known unknown category. As a provision, new building
design features can limit the impact of airborne terrorism (Aven, 2015; Higgins, 2013; Taleb, 2008).
These known and unknown BS events can be again categorised into three types: natural, man-made and
hybrid disasters according to the definition of disaster (Shaluf, 2007).
90
4.
WILD VS. MILD RANDOMNESS OF BLACK SWANS
This low predictability and large impact has made the BS event a huge puzzle. However, what is more
surprising is not the magnitude of the forecast errors of the impact, but the absence of awareness of such
events. There are two possible ways to study the phenomena of rare and extreme events with the use of
two mutually exclusive types of randomness. The first is to rule out the extraordinary events aside as
outliers and focus on the normal which is the mild or Gaussian approach. The second approach is to
consider the extremes, particularly if they carry an extraordinary cumulative effect which is the wild,
fractal or scalable power law approach (Mandelbrot and Taleb, 2010; Taleb, 2008).
4.1.
MILD RANDOMNESS AND REJECTION OF NORMALITY
In a population that follows a mild randomness; one single observation with large deviation from the
normality may seems impressive by itself but will not disproportionately impact the aggregate due to
averaging. The bell curve has thin tails where large events are too rare to be consequential. Having a
closer look at the tails of the bell curve, the probability of exceeding multiples of (sigma, standard
deviation) are obtained by a complex mathematical formula and the following values in Table 1.
Table 1: Probability of Exceeding Multiples of Sigma
0
1 in 2 times
1 in 10*108 times
1 in 1.63 times
1 in 78*1010 times
1 in 44 times
1 in 16*1014 times
1 in 740 times
1 in 89*1017 times
1 in 32*103 times
10
1 in 13*1022 times
1 in 35*105 times
20
1 in 36*1087 times
Source: Mandelbrot and Taleb (2010)
With a mild type of randomness such as height and weight, this type of probability is reasonable. It
should be emphasised that the ratio varies with respect to a scale in the Gaussian model where the
frequencies drop rapidly in an accelerating way. Thus, Gaussian model is termed as non-scalable. On the
contrary to orthodoxy, the possibilities of unpredictable large deviations are simply marginalised in the
definition of normal distribution and are considered as statistical outliers. Taleb (2008) devised this
normality assumption as the Great Intellectual Fraud. A concern is the frequent misuse of Gaussian
distributions as it misses many risk characteristics including asymmetries in downside distributions and
fat tails of loss distributions representing low-probability, high-consequence outcomes. In simple words,
using the Gaussian model is like focussing on the grass while missing out the gigantic trees (Mandelbrot
and Taleb, 2010). In the real terms, price changes are very far from following the bell curve where the far
edges flare too high with too many big changes. Thus, the normal bell curve tails do not become
imperceptible but follow a Power Law with a fat tailed distribution that can cover higher probabilities of
extreme values (Casti, 2011; Higgins, 2014b; Mandelbrot and Hudson, 2004; PateCornell, 2012).
4.2.
REAL WORLD WILD RANDOMNESS OF BLACK SWANS
Whereas, wild randomness is an environment in which a single observation or a particular number can
impact the total disproportionately. Those that are susceptible to wild randomness can only be expressed
accurately using a fractal scale. Technically, fractal distribution defined in equation 1 where > the
probability of exceeding a variable x is and is the asymptotic power law exponent. Mandelbrot and
Taleb (2010) demonstrates the fractal distribution of wealth in Europe as an example given in Table 2.
(Eq: 01 The Fractal Distribution)
91
Table 2: A Fractal Law with a Tail Exponent () of 2

Richer than 1 million
1 in 62.5
1 in 250
1 in 1,000
1 in 4,000
1 in 16,000
1 in 64,000
1 in 6,400,000
= 1/62.5 2
= 1/62.5 8
P
P
P
P
Source: Mandelbrot and Taleb (2010)
= 1/62.5 4
= 1/62.5 16
= 1/62.5 32
= 1/62.5 320
The can be changed to generate additional scenarios: lowering the means increasing the probabilities
of large deviations and increasing will reduce the chance of occurrence. For example, if the is one, the
probability of exceeding a variable will be decline by half in the above scenario. Since scalable laws do
not yet yield precise forecasts, an alternative methodology should be modelled where large deviations and
stressful events dominate the analysis instead of relaxing on bell curve (Mandelbrot and Taleb, 2010).
4.3.
WILD DOMINANCY OF BLACK SWANS AROUND THE GLOBE
BS events are increasingly dominating the environment. In the first half of 2015, there were 510 natural
catastrophes according to July 2015 presentation by Munich Re and the Insurance Information Institute.
The five largest natural catastrophes in the first half of 2015 are earthquake in Nepal (25.04.2015), winter
storm in US (16-25.02.2015), flash flood in Chile (23-26.03.2015), winter storm in Europe (30.0301.04.2015) and sever storm in US (07-10.04.2015). Table 3 compares the natural catastrophes against
the average and the top year. Amount of losses in 2015 is lower than the average but there is an increasing
number of events. The highest amount of losses is marked in 2011 caused by the earthquake in Japan
whereas the earthquake in Haiti in 2010 resulted in the highest number of fatalities.
Table 3: The Comparison of World Natural Catastrophes
2015
Jan-June
Average of the
Last 10 Years
Average of the
Last 30 Years
2005-2014
1985-2014
Top Year
1985-2014
Number of all the events
510
440
330
620 (2012)
Overall losses (USD m)
35,000
95,000
64,000
302,000 (2011)
Insured losses (USD m)
12,000
27,000
15,000
82,000 (2011)
Fatalities
16,200
46,000
27,000
230,000 (2010)
Source: Munich Re (2015)
5.
BLACK SWAN EXPOSURE ON REAL ESTATE
The pricing of property is based on conventional property valuation techniques as risks are commonly
pooled to provide a measurement of value. Thus, property valuation techniques fail to notice the aforesaid
outliers. Therefore, property decision should incorporate sufficient understanding of possible occurrence
of known BS events to make a viable corporate property decision. For property asset managers, the
impact of BS events can be related to the impact on place/location and space/operation. Firstly, place
risks can damage the physical buildings. Secondly, the space risk associated with the economic loss for
the space occupier that may spread across several unrelated locations (Higgins, 2015). The known
unknown BS events relating to place and space risks are shown in Table 4.
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Table 4: Place and Space Risks of Black Swan Events
Natural Disasters
Form
Seismic activity
Weather related
Infectious virus
Man-made Disasters
Investment strategies
Armed conflicts
Violence (Terrorism)
Technical (Infrastructure)
Cyber attacks
Place
Risk
Space
Risk
Location with factors of urban growth and limited

planning and building policies
Comments of Vulnerability
Highly localised impact, coastal areas (hurricanes) and

low lying areas (floods)
Variations in relation to disease, environmental
condition and treatment capability
Insecurity
of
scientific
unpredictable markets
approaches
within
Interwoven with religion, social instability and

economic poverty
Normally, specifically focussed relating to perceived
compensation and rewards
Failures in design, operation and management

Critical internet infrastructure
providing failure of systems
can be
attacked
Source: Higgins (2014a)
However, the increasing complexity of the world made up of a tangled web of relationships and other
interdependent factors. This complexity not only increases the incidence of BS events but also makes
forecasting even ordinary events impossible (Taleb et al., 2009). Due to the connectivity, risks can reach
systemic dimensions which in the worst case result in a domino effect. The modern world may be
increasing in technological knowledge; in return, it is making things a lot more unpredictable.
Subsequently, the role of BS is increasing due to the increase of artificial which moves away from
ancestral and natural models and the loss in robustness and resulted in complications. Further, these
advances making secondary space impact significantly more after a major BS event (Buhl, 2012; Higgins,
2015; Higgins, 2014a; Taleb, 2012).
6.
PROPERTY STRATEGIES FOR BLACK SWAN EXPOSURE
6.1.
BLACK SWAN MANAGEMENT TOWARDS ANTIFRAGILITY
Accurate predictions can be conducted in a situation where there is a strong knowledge base with a fewer
uncertainties and statistical methods can be employed for standard risk analysis. However, in the real
scenario, surprises and BSs may occur and therefore it is obviously not straightforward to assess and
manage the BS type of risks. Hence, different approaches are recommended (Aven, 2015).
Traditionally, the most common referred approach is to use of precursors of serious events through a mix
of alertness, quick detection and early response. The underlying assumption of precursors is that the
reliable predictor of the future backed up by past information. However, this assumption works well only
when the change is slow where there are a less presence of BSs and the elements of the system are not
tightly connected. Further, it raised a question that judgements about the errors could be derived from
false negatives (i.e. no indication of risk situation when one is actually present) and false positives (i.e.
erroneous signals indicating some risk situation when it is actually not) (Aven, 2015; Walker et al., 2010).
The limitations of the traditional approaches for dealing with the uncertainty recommended new
approaches under the conditions of deep uncertainty. The literature offers three overlapping (not mutually
exclusive) approaches of dealing with deep uncertainty (Leusink et al. 2009 cited in Walker et al., 2010):
93
i.
Adaptation: change the policy in response to the change in conditions,
ii. Resistance: plan for the most pessimistic future scenario, and
iii. Resilience: make the assurance of quick recovery after a future occurrence.
In another perspective, Snowden (2003) mapped four different new approaches in the Cynefin framework
to decision making in complex social environments: simple, complicated, complex and chaotic. The
proposed decision making strategies are summarised below.
i.
Simple/Known >> Sense, Categorize and Respond>> Best Practice
ii. Complicated/ Knowable >> Sense, Analyse and Respond>> Good Practice
iii. Complex >>Probe, Sense, Respond>> Emergent Practice
iv. Chaotic >>Act, Sense, Respond>> Novel Practice
However, a mechanism is required by which the system regenerates itself continuously rather than
suffering from random events, unpredictable shocks and volatility. The focus on improvements leads to
the concept of Antifragility. According to Taleb (2012), Antifragility is beyond robustness or resilience.
The resilient resists BSs and remains the same but the Antifragile gets better and better as a convex
response to a stressor, leading to a positive sensitivity to increase in volatility as opposed to fragility
which suffers from the variability of its environment beyond a certain pre-set threshold. Figure 3
illustrates the nonlinearity of the fragility and the Antifragility. Nonlinearity comes in two kinds: concave
(curves inward) and convex (curves outward). Smile is a better way to understand these two differences
as expressed by Taleb (2012) where the happy face is the Antifragility with the positive convexty effect
and the sad face is the fragility with the negative convexty effect (concavity).
Figure 3: Nonlinearity of the Fragility and the Antifragility

Source: Taleb (2012)
This property is behind every major shift with the time such as evolution, culture, revolutions, political
changes, technological innovation and likewise. The Antifragile is seen as a blueprint for living in a BS
world, the key being to love randomness, variation and uncertainty to some degree, and thus also errors.
Antifragility has a singular property of building a systematic and broad guide to non-predictive decision
making under uncertainty where the unknown preponderates, any situation in which there is randomness,
unpredictability, opacity, or incomplete understanding. For instance, the process of discovery or
technological progress depends on Antifragile tinkering, aggressive risk bearing rather than formal
education. Thus, Antifragility is not mere antidote to the BS; understanding Antifragility makes us less
intellectually fearful in accepting the role of these events (Taleb, 2012).
6.2.
PROPERTY STRATEGIES FOR BLACK SWAN EVENTS
Research on Information Technology (IT) project planning has identified the devastating impact of BSs
and the requirement for more precise analysis of the outliers. Flyvbjerg and Budzier (2011) found that one
of six IT projects outruns the budget by about 200% which highlights the true pitfall of IT initiatives. In
94
order to mitigate the BS effect, stress testing that covers statistical outliers and extreme values is
recommended. Even if the company successfully passed through the stress test, smart mangers take
additional steps to avoid BSs. They split big projects into ones of limited size, complexity, and duration;
implement contingency plans to deal with unknowns; and reward themselves of the best possible
forecasting techniques. For example, reference class forecasting a method based on the Nobel Prize
winning work of Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. These techniques, which take into account the
outcomes of similar projects conducted in other organisations (Buhl, 2012; Flyvbjerg and Budzier, 2011).
For the BS Management in real estate environment, reference class forecasting can be undertaken to
provide prediction-based disaster indices based on the information on similar occurrences (Higgins,
2015). In mapping place risks, the World Health Organisation (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Research
on the Epidemiology of Disasters has maintained an Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) assess
various types of natural catastrophes and man-made disasters (primarily those relating to industrial and
transport accidents and avoids armed conflicts and acts of terrorism) above an estimated US$100,000
since 1988. Based on the EM-DAT data, Hollnagel et al., (2007) designed a prediction based Disaster
Risk Index (DRI). That demonstrates the statistical evidence of the vulnerability of countries locations in
which six of the top ten countries are in Africa while remainder is located in Asia.
However, according to Taleb et al. (2009), instead of trying to anticipate these BS events, the most
appropriate response is to reduce the vulnerability to them. Risk management should be about lessening
the impact of these events instead of developing sophisticated techniques that perpetuate illusions of the
environment. Further, research on IT project planning can assist as to identify requirements for more
precise analysis of the outliers, and suggested establishing risk management tools to reduce the
complexity and decrease the variability of performance. Higgins and Perera (2016) demonstrated this by
the following real estate examples within the Antifragile outlook.
i.
Designing for flexibility: Rearrangement of global organisations structure and efficiency brings the
workplace flexibility through through modularity, agile planning approaches and limiting the
project financing multiplier. If a BS event occurs in one location, the system can be maintained in
the alternative location to maintain the continued existence.
ii. Implementing safety barriers: Simple approaches to standardise language and reporting, offers a
framework to avoid place risk. This one framework toolset and single vocabulary can improve
knowledge sharing across multinational organisations. Another strategy is the recognition of
leading cities resilience to adverse events. This forms part of Grosvenor (2014) report on resilient
cities. The resilience derives from the interplay between vulnerability and adaptive capacity. Taleb
(2012) coined this new disease as neomania that makes us build BS-vulnerable systems.
iii. Corporate real estate partnership: As technical innovations create lower fixed costs, and advances
in digital networks improve communications, corporate real estate strategies are changing to offer a
consistent integrated service delivery with sophisticated property management IT for global
coverage. The creation of operational teams that transcend geographic and temporal boundaries can
offer lower costs and turnaround times. The shared information is also advantageous with improved
management knowledge.
7.
BS events have the characteristics of rarity, extreme impact and retrospective predictability across
different classes of risk categories from known to unknown. The risk management and decision making
drive exclusively on known knowns. However, a large fraction of real-world risk management challenges
fall in the domain of known unknowns and unknown unknowns. Due to the growing significance of these
risks, BS events cannot be ruled out as outliers in the Gaussian distribution as per the mild randomness.
The normal bell curve tails do not become imperceptible but follow a Power Law with a fat tailed
distribution that can cover higher probabilities of extreme values. Hence, it can be emphasised that real
world BS challenges are fall into the wild randomness following fractal or scalable power law approach.
The impact of BS events in real estate environment can be related to the impact on place/location and
space/operation. As the strategies for these downside risk in the real estate environment, reference class
95
forecasting can be undertaken to provide prediction-based disaster indices based on the information on
similar occurrences. As per the Antifragile outlook, the rearrangement of global organisations structure
and efficiency through the designing for workplace flexibility, implementing safety barriers and corporate
real estate partnership can be implemented. The concept Antifragility is also made famous by Taleb
(2012) which has a positive convexity effect between the size of event and the benefit from the event
rather than suffering from random volatility. The aforementioned key literature finding are summarised
into a conceptual framework as illustrated in Figure 4. It illustrates the relationship between BS effects
with its respective strategies in the distinctiveness between fragility and Antifragility.
Figure 4: The Summary of Key Literature Findings
For corporate real estate decision makers, BS research embraces to identify the favourable and adverse
effects on real estate decision making. BS management research agenda should be more focused on
lessening the vulnerability beyond the quantitative forecasting judgements to anticipate low-probability
and high-impact events.
8.
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97
CAPACITY OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY INFRASTRUCTURE IN SRI

LANKA TO SUPPORT BUILDING INFORMATION MODELLING SYSTEMS
G.W. Nadith Kalhara* and Himal Suranga Jayasena
ABSTRACT
Building Information Modelling (BIM) is a concept, improved with Information Technology (IT) to
upgrade construction, maintenance and operation of a building or an infrastructure project.
Information Technology Infrastructure (ITI) is a crucial aspect in implementing BIM. Rapid
improvement of ITI has benefited mostly to AEC and FM industry while enhancing the accessibility to
more numerical dimensional BIM modelling such as scheduling (4D), costing (5D), operation (6D),
sustainable design (7D) and safety (8D). Therefore, it is necessary to investigate on ITI in Sri Lanka
for successful implementation of BIM in Sri Lankan construction industry. Thus, this research is aimed
at identifying the capacity of information technology infrastructure in Sri Lanka to support BIM
systems. A qualitative approach to the research methodology was proposed in order to carry out an indepth investigation on subject matter.
Major five BIM systems and minimum ITI requirements for each BIM systems were identified through
a comprehensive literature review. Existing ITI in Sri Lanka was identified from various organizations
which represent IT, construction, banking and apparel sectors. Further, risks and challenges in each
infrastructure were identified. By combining the literature findings and existing knowledge which was
obtained through a deep analysis. Then a framework was developed to indicate the capacity of ITI in
Sri Lanka to support BIM systems. From the findings of the study, the conclusion was made that the
BIM implementation in Sri Lanka is possible even there are several risks and challenges bound with
ITI. Ultimately, it was recommended that Sri Lanka has enough capacity to implement BIM with
minimum ITI requirements.
Keywords:
1.
Building Information Modelling (BIM); Construction; Information Technology

Infrastructure (ITI); Sri Lanka.
INTRODUCTION
Now a days, Architects, Engineers, Contractors (AEC) and more professionals who involve in the
construction sector adapt information technology for their day today works and businesses. Main reason
of this rapid change, is the development of new software and applications that built up to cater the
individuals or companys works and businesses. Jayaratna (2012) explained that IT could be used more
sufficiently to design buildings as well as to minimize the cost and wastage in construction sector. In
addition, Munasinghe and Jayawardena (2003) stated that Sri Lanka had been far more behind in the
information technology, even the technology advanced rapidly in the world.
Similarly, Hartmann and Fischer (2007) mentioned that technology seems to be a major obstacle to
widespread of utilization of BIM. Mitchell and Parken (2009) further explained the technology
implications affect to the current practice of BIM and such implications were introduced such as software,
hardware limitations and implementation of new technologies like Web portals, Geo-graphic Information
Systems (GIS) and laser scanning. However BIM had been revised through a series of regular editions,
focusing on conflicts which arise in the industry, via the application of BIM processes and supporting
technology (Malow, 2009). However, Bernstein and Pittman (2004) stated that the technology was well
advanced to implement BIM in the world and predicted that new approaches of BIM would create more
benefits to enhance the qualities in the construction industry.
*
98
However, information technology in the modern era is limited to some countries for a certain period of
time which create some encumbrances in implementing new innovations such as BIM. Hence, it is much
useful as well as much more worthy to recognize the capacity of information technology infrastructure in
Sri Lanka to support BIM systems. Therefore this research focused to identify the capacity of information
technology infrastructure in Sri Lanka to support BIM systems.
2.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Literature review can be presented through five key areas viz. BIM, technological aspect of BIM in
project implementation, BIM systems and ITI cater with BIM.
2.1.
BUILDING INFORMATION MODELLING
BIM platform had been developed with the support of Information Technology Infrastructure (ITI) to
compete with the conventional systems rooted in the construction world. Thus, nowadays BIM systems
mainly depend on the capacity of the Information Technology (IT). But Witty (2008) expressed that the
construction industry had been reluctant to embrace the benefits of IT due to the lack of technology to
some regions. Further, Jayaratna (2012) stated that the construction industry really depends on the
technological development and all the people were happy to join with the modern era that revolutionized
by the new technology. But Smith (2014) stated that BIM implementation was relatively slow in the
construction industry compared to the other industries like manufacturing and engineering even the
technology underpinning BIM has been around for well over a decade.
BIM digital modelling concept consist more information rather than in conventional method. Therefore,
simply BIM allows to develop an in detail design of a building virtually which is going to be truly
constructible at the site. However, BIM based project delivery was not practically exist before 21st
century due to immature technology and lack of will towards its development (Tulenheimo, 2015). In the
beginning BIM has been acknowledge as an active, three-dimensional computer program that formed to
increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the building in terms of design and construction in real time
basis (Rodriguez, 2015). Subsequently, with the improvement of IT infrastructure BIM unveil the access
to more numerical dimensional modelling to provide more services on a construction project. Therefore
the development in IT infrastructure benefited mostly to trot out the full potential value of Building
Information Modelling towards AEC and FM industry.
2.2.
TECHNOLOGICAL ASPECT OF BIM IN PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION
Basically the construction team should determine the way of implementing BIM on the particular project,
based on the overall strategies, weaknesses, opportunities and threads they have (Bryde et al., 2013).
Therefore the construction team plays a major role in making decisions on implementing BIM for a
project, such as deciding the suitable BIM system, gathering and generate project information during the
course of the project, way of communication, data analysis and etc. (Arayici et al., 2012). Hence it is
critical to consider the entire life of a facility when making decisions to implement BIM for a construction
project. Therefore it is a must to understand the reaction of stakeholders in all facilities on implementing
BIM. Hence it is important to understand how the facility owners use BIM at the initial stage and how
they apply BIM for the design and construction (Kreider and Messner, 2013).
Arayici et al. (2012) explained the main focus of implementing BIM was to find out the most appropriate
BIM technology for the particular project. Because some of the organizations/firms/companies have their
traditional or conventional information technology infrastructure system based on their nature of the
industry and ongoing business. Therefore, it is very important to recognize and understand the project
stakeholders information technology infrastructure and ensure that the required information technology
infrastructure for BIM can be assisted by the project stakeholders as it drive the implementation of BIM
directly (AEC (UK) Standards Committee, 2012).
Figure 1 elaborates the necessity of the technology to implement BIM for a project.
99
Figure 1: BIM Implementation Concept Map from Finland

Source: Arayici et al.( 2009)
According to the Porwal and Hewage (2013), BIM maturity changes from the organization to
organization and with the project basis. This change happens because of the complexity and various scope
levels in a project. In comparison to the six storey building project and construction of an airport or
harbour, harbour project can be much more difficult than the building project. Complexity cant be
decided, even the building project can be much worse than a harbour project. It occurs mainly due to the
design concept of the architect/designer. Further, cloud service is not mandatory for the BIM
implementation, but cloud service can be constrained for maturity level of BIM. Sometimes, BIM
maturity is also constrained by technology itself. Consequently, technological aspect of BIM is very
important factor in project implementation.
2.3.
BUILDING INFORMATION MODELLING SYSTEMS
Companies had developed specific software to perform each specific tasks separately that can work under
BIM platform, a framework. Archi CAD, Tekla Structures, and Vector works had the design capacity to
allow additional further information such as time, cost and facilities management to the building model
(Sabol, 2008). It was the reason that many of the stakeholders tend to use BIM software packages rather
than traditional architectural drafting tools such as AutoCAD (McNell et al., 2013). At the beginning,
developed technique in the BIM was three dimension (3D) and then the scope of the framework was
developed more comprehensively to much broader areas like scheduling, cost, life cycle management and
sustainability (Czmoch and Pkala, 2014). Therefore BIM system can be introduced as a broader
technology rather than traditional software packages such as AutoCAD.
With the improvement of new technology, various companies come up with incorporating BIM tools. As
a result, a wide market had been opened for the developers who are seeking BIM tools for the betterment
of construction industry as well as for the BIM world. Now, BIM based consultant companies are also
established as a third party developers who provides solutions for the BIM tools through developed
applications. Therefore the aggressive development in the BIM sector improves the necessity of many
software packages which provide more sophisticated services that incorporate with the scheduling and
cost (Smith, 2014). Hence, more software packages, applications and tools relevant to BIM can be found
in the world.
100
Table 1: Major BIM Software Developers

BIM Handbook
Autodesk
Bentley Systems
Graphisoft
(Bought by Nemetschek AG)
Common Point Inc
(Bought by Bentley systems)
Innovaya
Synchro ltd.
VICO Software
AEC Bytes Survey
Autodesk
Bentley Systems
Graphisoft
Gehry Technologies
Tekla Corporation
Nemetschek
AGC BIM Guide

Autodesk
Bentley Systems
Graphisoft
Nemetschek Vectorworks
BIM Wiki
Autodesk
Bentley Systems
Graphisoft
Nemetschek SCIA
Onuma
Solibri
Tekla Corporation
VICO Software
Gehry Technologies
Source: Ruiz (2009)
Further, comparing to the Eastman et al. (2011) and McNell et al. (2013), five major BIM systems can be
selected from the aforementioned Table 1, which mostly exercised in the BIM world. Therefore, Revit,
Bentley systems, Archi CAD, Tekla structures and Vector works were selected as the BIM systems to
continue the research. Thus, only those five systems will be focused in this research afterwards.
2.4.
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY INFRASTRUCTURE CATER WITH BIM
People want information technology besides fuel, water, electricity, clothes and gas. IT infrastructure is a
combination and integration of all the elements in computing technology. BIM also require four major
coherent components to operate and function fully as explained in follows:
Hardware: BIM system also requires various hardware components to its operation. Servers to
store and share information, computers for individuals and switches, routers to interconnect each
user.
Software: Common BIM software can be identified in BIM market, developed by various
companies for different purposes. BIM 3D phase Architectural and Structural software are
heavily used to make the models. Tekla structures is the best identified software for the structural
works.
Network: Networking in the BIM is done though the BIM Cloud service. Cloud is the common
word or just a metaphor used instead of internet. Cloud service help to interconnect varies BIM
software applications and it is a way of storing, accessing data over the internet instead of your
local storage and computing.
User: An experienced, and skilled person who can manage system administrating, system
developing, analysing and programming is significant.
101
3.
Research was mainly based on developing a framework to analyse the capacity of ITI in Sri Lanka to
support BIM system and map the ITI in Sri Lanka with the requirement of BIM ITI. Descriptive personal
opinions, perception, observation and views were very helpful to have an in-depth understanding on ITI
in Sri Lanka. Moreover, research approach should be fitted to seek new ITI in Sri Lanka. Therefore, data
had been collected relevant to the ITI in Sri Lanka from different IT professionals engaged in different
industries. Hence facts led to justify the research approach as qualitative approach.
Semi structured interviews were conducted from various industries representing IT, construction, banking
and apparel sectors which exercise the centralised database management system in their organisation.
Transcribed interviews were analyzed using content analysis method with the aid of computer software,
NVivo version 10.0 developed by QSR (Qualitative Solutions and Research Limited).
4.
RESEARCH ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS
Following sections, discuss research findings of the study under the broad headings of capacity of ITI in
Sri Lanka and identified risk and challenges.
4.1.
CAPACITY OF IT INFRASTRUCTURE IN SRI LANKA
IT infrastructure in Sri Lanka is discussed in this section focusing on main nine elements. Information
received from the IT professionals in various industries in Sri Lanka was considered for this analysis.
4.1.1.
OPERATING SYSTEM
Organisations use Windows platform to run their co-business. Windows platform creates lot more
privileges and services to its customers. It is the main reason behind such usage in Sri Lanka. Further,
companies had to move with the new operating systems in the market, as old versions of Windows get
outdate. Additionally, companies use open source operating systems such as MAC, Linux and Ubuntu.
4.1.2.
CENTRAL PROCESSING UNIT
Sri Lanka is using Intel Core i processor technology in many different industrial levels. They have no
issues with the central processing technology due to the warranty period provided by the agent or
supplier. Therefore most of the organisations shift into new technology without hesitation.
4.1.3.
MEMORY
Sri Lanka practices up to 16GB, as they are satisfied with the memory capacity which can utilise their
system implementation. However, the default memory capacity was identified as 4GB. Therefore
companies use only the default memory coming with the system other than the special occasions.
4.1.4.
GRAPHIC CARD
Organisations are not that much depend on the graphics as they can manage their works with integrated
graphics. Additionally, dedicated graphics are highly required for the professionals who deal with the
designing. Other than that dedicated graphics will only be supplied at the special occasions when such
requirement is required by the employees.
4.1.5.
DISPLAY
Optimum display sizes use in the current industries, having high resolution. Since, display requires more
space when its size gets bigger, create some encumbrances to purchase large display sizes to the
companies. But now companies are more towards to purchase large displays as increases the viewing
angles comparatively.
102
4.1.6.
HOSTING METHOD
Most of the companies are practising dedicated server hosting while few of the companies adapt cloud
hosting. Main reason behind adapting cloud hosting was huge space allocation for the servers and high
expenditure in maintaining them annually. But when it comes to the cloud hosting, companies have to
bear particular cost annually which will be the service charges agreed with the agent who provides the
particular service.
4.1.7.
BACKUP SYSTEM
BIM dealt with the information which is necessary to be protected from being loss. From the findings,
sufficient backup system technology practises in Sri Lanka to facilitate implementation of BIM. Now Sri
Lanka is more towards to the cloud backup and online backup which are working with the help of internet
facility. It is a major point to enhance the quality of practising internet service practising in Sri Lanka.
4.1.8.
INTERNET SERVICE
Internet facility in Sri Lanka is at an eminent stage to facilitate BIM and companies are satisfied with the
current band width which provided by the each service providers in Sri Lanka. Companies are more
acknowledge of getting a better service as internet is that much critical with its nature of the organisation.
Mainly companies are dealing with more than one company, as they need another backup service
provider at the time of a breakdown.
4.1.9.
COMMUNICATION METHOD
Organisations used several methods for internal as well as for the external communication. Most
companies communicate through email service. But implementing video conferencing compared with
bandwidth in Sri Lanka is now not a matter to be worried.
4.2.
RISK AND CHALLENGES
Processors, memory sticks and graphic cards are also very complex to repair. Therefore those items will
be replaced for a new one even a single problem occurred during the warranty period. Otherwise those
items will be sent to the mother company for repair. The technology behind the processors, memory
sticks and graphic cards are complex to understand to a general person.
Extra items were supplied by the manufacturing companies to replace the defects. If the item get damaged
in the warranty period, seller will look after all the incurring cost to recover the damaged item. It is the
responsibility of supplier towards the customer to make the replacement accordingly at any cost. Thats
the support given by the seller and significance of having the warranty. Otherwise customer has to handle
the issues at his own cost. Thus purchasing a product without a warranty, automatically generates a huge
risk, customer has to bear. Suppliers will only transfer the warranty given by the main agent in Sri Lanka
who deals with the manufacturing company. Therefore extending the warranty will not be done by the
each supplier due to the high risk impact. Mainly suppliers will not provide alternative hardware to that
defect ones at all. Only thing that will be done by the supplier and the agent is sending it to the main agent
asking company warranty.
On the other hand, internet is also one of the main infrastructures identified in ITI comprising with risks
and challenges. Internal failure may be either external or internal, internal failure is manageable while
external failures are not manageable within inside.
5.
INFRASTRUCTURE FRAMEWORK
Infrastructure framework was mainly categorised under three sub sections such as minimum requirement
of ITI for BIM implementation, identified BIM systems and identified ITI in Sri Lanka. Main purpose of
the framework was to build up a supporting ITI in Sri Lanka for identified BIM systems.
103
5.1.
REQUIRED ITI FOR BIM IMPLEMENTATION
Required ITI for BIM implementation was identified through literature review. Basically, required ITI for
BIM can be categorised in to three sub sections as user system requirement, server requirement and cloud
service requirement.
5.2.
BIM SYSTEMS
Five major BIM systems were identified through the literature review. They were Revit system, Bentley
system, Archi CAD, Tekla structures and Vector works.
5.3.
IDENTIFIED INFRASTRUCTURE IN SRI LANKA
Infrastructure in Sri Lanka was identified from semi structured interviews.

5.4.
SUMMARY OF THE FINDINGS
Through the literature review minimum requirement for each BIM systems were identified. Then analysis
was used to identify the infrastructure level in Sri Lanka to cater with each BIM systems. Finally,
supporting ITI in Sri Lanka for each BIM systems were established through the Infrastructure
Framework.
6.
CONCLUSION
From the findings of the study it can be concluded that, capacity of ITI in Sri Lanka suitable with the
minimum requirement of ITI in BIM. Moreover additional infrastructures identified in Sri Lanka also
support to implement BIM effectively and efficiently. There are suppliers and agents to supply
infrastructures. But there are several risks and challenges identified in ITI which are not that much critical
to implement BIM. In a case of service interruption, customer who purchases the infrastructure has to
bear more risk. In such situation risk of idling time is considerably high. Though risk factor mainly deals
with the system efficiency and breakdown, infrastructures are readily available in Sri Lanka which needs
to implement BIM. Therefore combining the findings of the research with existing knowledge it can be
concluded that Sri Lanka has the enough capacity to implement BIM in Sri Lanka.
7.
RECOMMENDATION
According to the conclusion, Sri Lanka has the required ITI capacity to implement BIM without any
critical problems. Even though there is no critical problems, risks and challenges with regard to the
Service interruptions and Idling time are unavoidable as they are associated with technology. Mitigation
and reduction are the only available solutions that can be used to overcome risks and challenges.
Sri Lankan ITI is updated with the new technologies innovated in modern era without any delay.
Therefore ITI in Sri Lanka is not a significant issue to implement BIM. Moreover, implementation should
be planned in respect to mitigate identified risk and challenges. It should be planned to have an adequate
backup option at the system designing stage for the available risk and challenges. We cant operate only
the required system. Because operating that system create the same risk identified. It affects to the whole
system, due to any single failure. Therefore a contingency plan should be established to install adequate
backup system when designing the system.
8.
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Wilts, D., 2013. Building Information Modeling [Online]. USA, InfoComm BIM Taskforce.
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construction projects. Automation in Construction, 31, 204-214.
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105
CARBON AND COST CRITICAL ELEMENTS OF OFFICE BUILDINGS:

A CASE STUDY
Michele Victoria*, Srinath Perera, Alan Davies and Nirodha Fernando
Architecture and Built Environment, Northumbria University, United Kingdom
ABSTRACT
Buildings emit two types of carbon (and greenhouse gases) namely Operational Carbon (OC) and
Embodied Carbon (EC). Operational carbon is regulated in the UK as it contributed up to 70-80% of
total emissions. On the other hand, EC started gaining attention with the rise of zero carbon buildings
and due to the fact that the EC is unregulated at present. However, estimating EC is not completely
standardised and there is room for improvement. EC can be controlled only by vigilant building
designs. Studying building closely will provide better understanding of the carbon significant elements
and enable designers to make informed decisions. Accordingly, a case study of an office building
located in London in the UK is selected for the study. Capital cost (CC) and EC estimates were
prepared using detailed cost plan of the building. Then, the building elements were classified as per
NRM1 (New Rules of Measurement 1) element classification and the most carbon and cost significant
elements were identified in the case study building. Not all of the identified carbon significant elements
are identified as cost significant but Substructure, Frame and Services are identified as both carbon
and cost critical elements while Stairs and Ramps, Internal Doors and Fittings, Furnishings and
Equipment were identified to be the least carbon and cost significant elements. Findings of the case
study building inform designers about the elements that has a vast reduction potential and worth
investing their time on experimenting. However, the findings are based on single case study and,
hence, cannot be generalised but to be seen as an exemplar for further research.
Keywords:
1.
Carbon Hotspots; Capital Cost; Cost Hotspots; Embodied Carbon; Office Building.
INTRODUCTION
Climate change is the most serious threat to human society. It is a threat that human society has created
itself. Global atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHGs) have increased since 1750.
Notably the carbon dioxide (CO2) is the most pre-dominant greenhouse gas by volume. Emissions of CO2
from fossil fuel combustion in conjunction with that emitted from manufacturing are responsible for more
than 75% of the increase in atmospheric CO2 since the pre-industrial 18th century (Solomon et al., 2007).
The construction and occupation of buildings is a substantial contributor of global CO2 emissions, with
almost a quarter of total global CO2 emissions attributable to energy use in buildings (Metz et al., 2007).
The UKs commitment to reduce carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions is now a matter of legal
obligation. Under the Climate Change Act 2008, emissions are targeted to fall by 26% by 2020 (by
comparison with a 1990 baseline) and by no less than 80% to 2050 (Committee on Climate Change,
2013). The UK to reach its legal obligations of greenhouse gas emission reduction, a low carbon
transition plan has been put into place. The plan covers the next 40 years and the transition to low carbon
can almost be read as a business plan for construction, bringing opportunities for growth (HM
Government, 2010, p.4). Still, the focus of the UK Building Regulations has been on operational energy
use to date with embodied energy absent from legislative attention (Densley and Davinson, 2011).
However, in the action plans more focus was given to reduce carbon emissions during the operation of the
building (known as 'operational carbon') which contributed to nearly 70-80% of total emissions from
buildings until the zero carbon agenda for buildings was introduced. Eventually, zero carbon agenda
implicitly emphasises the need to control the other component of the building sector emissions, namely
Embodied Carbon (EC). EC is driven by process and affected by the supply chain, thus, it is difficult to
*
106
manage. However, dual currency approach of clients and consultants highlights the importance of EC
estimating and management. Therefore, it can be expected that the knowledge of cost and carbon
relationship will become a valuable asset for the construction practices in the near future. Hence, the
paper intends to identify the carbon and cost significant building elements in office buildings in the UK.
2.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Carbon and other Green House Gases (GHG) are emitted directly and indirectly during the development
and construction of buildings and the construction industry is accounted for emitting half of the UKs
carbon dioxide (UK-GBC, 2016). Such emissions are primarily classified into two types such as
operational carbon and EC (also known as capital carbon). Operation carbon is the carbon (and GHGs)
emitted during the operation of the building (or infrastructure) as a result of fuel consumption while EC is
the carbon (and GHGs) emitted during the production (includes raw material extraction, material
manufacturing, transport, construction of the project), repair, replacement and demolition of the buildings
(or infrastructure). The contribution of the two in total emissions varies depending on the type and the
features of the building. Generally, operational carbon emissions are higher than the embodied emissions
in most of the building types while there are exceptions like warehouses (RICS, 2014). Understanding the
relationships between embodied carbon and operational carbon can assist in determining the overall
optimum carbon reductions.
2.1.
OPERATIONAL CARBON IN BUILDINGS
Operation carbon can be divided into two parts such as regulated and unregulated. Regulated emissions
covers heating, ventilating, air-conditioning, lighting and the like and unregulated emissions includes
emissions from ICT equipment, cooking and refrigeration appliances and the like. Part L of the Building
Regulations of the UK has provisions to control the regulated operational carbon in buildings as the
unregulated emissions are influenced by the behavior of the building users. The operational carbon
emissions are expressed in mass of CO2 emitted per year per square meter of usable floor area of the
building (kg/m2/year). As per the Part L of the Building Regulations, the operational carbon or the Target
CO2 Emission Rate (TER) for a notional building design is benchmarked and the Building CO2 Emission
Rate (BER) of the proposed building should be less than the TER for the building design to be approved.
Therefore, any building should pass the regulatory requirement to be developed on a site.
The low carbon agenda in the UK demands the new building developments to be low and zero carbon by
employing renewable energy sources. Low and zero carbon refer to the low and zero operational carbon
(regulated) which leaves unregulated operational carbon and especially EC unattended. In fact, the UK
government requires all newly built domestic buildings to be zero carbon from 2016 and non-domestic
buildings from 2019 which is considered to be ambitious targets and still under debate. Yet, the UK is
becoming more stringent towards operational carbon. This has increased the concern on EC because
emissions from a zero carbon building will be equal to total EC emissions. As shown in Figure,
operational carbon will contribute up to 70-80% of total emissions in a typical building. Then, in a low
carbon building operational carbon will immensely reduce which increase the EC contribution. Further,
all of the emissions result from EC in a zero carbon building (yet, it should be noted that a portion of
carbon can also be emitted from unregulated operational carbon if the energy is not supplied from
renewable sources). Therefore, EC emissions require special attention in a low and zero carbon building.
107
100%
80%
60%
Embodied Carbon
40%
Operational Carbon
20%
0%
Typical
Building
Low Carbon Zero Carbon

Building
Building
Figure 1: Significance of EC
Source: RICS (2012)
2.2.
EC IN BUILDINGS
The EC is the carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) or greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with the
non-operational phase of the project. This includes emissions cause by extraction, manufacture,
transportation, assembly, maintenance, replacement, deconstruction, disposal and end of life aspects of
the materials and systems that make up a building. Few scholars (Chen et al., 2001; Ramesh et al., 2010)
categorise EC into three types such as Initial EC (raw material extraction, manufacturing, transport and
construction), recurring EC (in-use EC such as repair, maintenance and replacement) and Demolition EC
(EC during demolition). Further, EC can be saved due to recycling efforts of scrap materials or products
after demolition which can be accounted in the carbon footprint calculation of the project; however, not
all projects have this phase.
Figure 2: Classification of EC
EC can be calculated from cradle (earth)-to-gate (manufacturing factory gate), cradle-to-site (construction
site), cradle-to-end of construction, cradle-to-grave (demolition), or even cradle-to-cradle (recycle, reuse
and recovery). Hammond and Jones (2011) and Sansom and Pope (2012) noted that many EC datasets
available are cradle-to-gate and fail to include emissions from latter stages of life cycle (such as
construction, operation and maintenance and demolition and disposal) as they are project specific
emissions. However, transport of materials to site can be significant for materials with lower EC
emissions in other phases (Hammond and Jones, 2008). Furthermore, lesser transport distance not
necessarily means lesser carbon emissions; mode of transport and type of fuel also plays a significant role
other than the distance of travel (RICS, 2014; Sundarakani et al., 2010)
Measures to minimise EC of the building has to be taken during the early stages of the design to yield
greater savings as the carbon reduction potential is very high during the early stages of design (RICS,
2014). The reduction potential decreases more carbon is committed into the project as the possible design
108
solutions are constrained by previous design decisions. Then, during construction phase the reduction
potential can be regarded as nearly zero unless there is a design change. Further, the design becomes
static as the project progresses and changing the design at a later stage will result in loss of time and
money. Therefore, it is crucial to identify possible EC saving options before the design develops to a
greater detail. In fact, RICS (2014) states that investigating EC in different types of buildings is a
completely new research avenue and there are limitations in regulatory standards or academic researches
to aid the decision making at the initial stages of projects. Nevertheless, carbon hotspots are identified as
an ideal way of dealing with this issue.
2.3.
HOTSPOTS
Hotspots can be defined as the most critical or significant elements in a building which has enormous
impact on project cost or EC. It can also be interpreted in this study as the building elements that are
responsible for 80% of Capital Cost (CC) or EC which is derived from Pareto 80:20 rule. RICS (2014)
further extends the definition by saying that the hotspots are not merely the significant elements but also
the elements for which measurement data are readily available and reduction measures are possible.
Hotspots vary for buildings with different functions and this knowledge can lead to greater carbon and
cost savings or optimisation. Generally, foundations, frame, roof, walls, and floors are considered as
carbon hotspots. Though, it is reported that the building services contribute approximately 15% of total
EC, it is not widely regarded as a hotspot as measuring services at early design stages is a complex
process and reduction potential may be limited (RICS, 2014). However, a study found that cladding
finishes and services are to be the biggest component of recurring carbon emissions of an office building
(Cole and Kernan, 1996). Hence, services and finishes cannot be disregarded when taking initial design
decision as the contribution is significant. Therefore, it is important that the indication of likely EC of
building services and finishes are revealed at the early stages of design to understand the carbon
accountability of the project.
Table presents comparison of different studies on EC profile of office building in the UK. Accordingly,
previous studies suggest that Substructure and Superstructure contributing up to 90% of the total EC. The
major culprits of EC are the concrete and steel and apparently, concrete and steel are manifested in the
Substructure and Superstructure of the buildings, identifying both as carbon hotspots. However, it is not
possible to assert that all the superstructure elements are carbon significant as sub elemental breakdown is
not given and the findings of Victoria et al. (2015) substantiate this claim. Frame, Upper Floor and
External Walls were identified as the carbon hotspots in an office building in the study conducted by
Victoria et al. (2015). Further, incomparability of literature findings due to the difference in element
classification system adopted in presenting the results (for example, NRM, SMM/BCIS - older version,
British Council of Offices 2011, own classifications) calls for a uniform classification system.
Table 1: Carbon Profile of Building Elements of Office Buildings from Published Studies
Victoria
et al.,
(2015)
Substructure
43.79%
Superstructure
54.66%
Halcrow and
Yolles
(Average of 3
case studies)
89% (some
elements are
combined)
Internal Finishes
0.57%
Fittings and
Furnishings
0.05%
Not given
Services
0.93%
3%
Others
Sturgis
Associates
8% (External
works)
25%
18.3%
56%
58.24%
Fit-out (shell and

core) - 8%, Fit-out
(Cat B) - 8%
8.619%
4% (Waste)
Source: Victoria et al. (2015)
109
WRAP
Davis
Langdon
from Clark
(2013)
Structure 45%-85%,
Facade - 5%25%
Not given
4%-25%
(Internal walls
included)
11.96%
2-25%
2.9%
(External
works)
Increasing significance of dual currency appraisal - cost and carbon - in construction projects drives the
development of knowledge with regard to cost and carbon comparisons. For instance, if cost and carbon
hotspots are the same then both can be attended at the same time and an optimum solution can be
achieved based on the project objectives (if client is concerned about the carbon footprint of the building
then choose low carbon option which might compromise on cost).
3.
RESEARCH METHOD
A building case study is presented in this paper to understand the distribution of EC and CC among
building elements and to draw insights in to the results. EC and CC of the building was estimated using
the Inventory of Carbon and energy (ICE) version 2.0 (Hammond and Jones, 2011) which is an inventory
of EC and energy data of common construction materials, UK Building Blackbook (Franklin and
Andrews, 2011) which is a book containing itemized cost and EC data as per Standard Method of
Measurements and manufacturers data where necessary. Estimates were prepared using the detailed cost
plan of the building applying relevant cost and carbon values per unit quantity of each item obtained from
UK Building Blackbook. However, Blackbook data were based on the 2010 2Q (218) prices and a
location index of 100. Subsequently, the cost was updated to 2016 1Q (276) and location index kept
unchanged. Even though adjustment for price was made adjustment for EC data was not made as EC is
affected by the process of manufacturing of the building materials. Unless and until the process is
changed adjustment is not required to the EC data. Therefore, a crucial assumption is made in terms of the
EC data that the manufacturing process considered when developing the database has not changed
radically.
Then, each item was mapped as per the NRM 1 element classification, which is the latest measurement
standard prevailing in the UK, as shown in Table. Afterwards items were grouped into elements such as
Substructure, Frame, Upper Floors and the like. However, there were some shortcomings with the data.
Cost plan of the building lacked detailed measurement of most of the services and Black book did not
contain data for all services. However, benchmarks were obtained from Spons price book (Davis
Langdon Consultancy, 2014) (cost benchmarks) and an in-house carbon data from a UK consultancy
practice for other services to make the estimate complete and present a holistic analysis of the building.
The CC and EC values used for the other types of services are roughly 386 per m2 GIFA and 163 kgCO2
per m2 GIFA respectively.
Table 2: Mapping Items for Finishes as Per NRM Element Classification
Item Description
Quantity
Masonry paint; to blockwork walls

Dry lining and paint
Entrance matting
Carpet tiles
Painted soffit
Suspended plasterboard ceiling 1 x 12.5mm
500
55
17
100
74
37
Unit
m2
m2
m2
m2
m2
m2
NRM Main
Element Group
3
3
3
3
3
3
NRM Sub Element

Group
3.1
3.1
3.2
3.2
3.3
3.3
Carbon and cost hotspots were analysed by sorting the CC and EC of the building elements separately
form the highest to the lowest and a hierarchy of elements was produced. Then, the cumulative
percentage was calculated and the elements that contribute up to 80% towards the CC and EC were
identified as cost hotspots and carbon hotspots respectively.
4.
DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
Case study building is an office building located in central London and the profile of the building is
presented in Table. The building is a hybrid framed building with raft foundation comprising concrete flat
roof. Faade is made of pre-engineered stone concrete and glass. Combination of brick, block, dry lined
partitions and glazed units forms the internal partitions of the building. Building is finished with moderate
110
type of finishes and installed with highly sophisticated services including Building Management System
(BMS). The estimated total CC of the building was 14,157,600 and the EC was 8,806,100kgCO2.
Table 3: Case Study Building Profile
11,320 m2
8
1
148 m
3.6 m
29.7 m
4,410 m2
Gross Internal Floor Area (GIFA)

No of floors
No. of basements
External girth
Average storey height
Building height
Wall area
The CC and EC breakdown of the main elements are presented in Figure. Accordingly, it can be noticed
that the superstructure of the building contributes equally towards CC (44%) and EC (49%) and
superstructure is the predominant carbon and cost hotspot among the others. In terms of substructure, it
contributes more than twice as CC (10%) towards EC (23%) and substructure is the second most
significant carbon hotspot.
100.0%
90.0%
80.0%
70.0%
Services
60.0%
Fittings, Furnishin
gs And Equipment
50.0%
Internal Finishes
40.0%
Superstructure
30.0%
Substructure
20.0%
10.0%
0.0%
Capital Cost
Embodied
Carbon
Figure 3: CC and EC Contribution by Elements
Services are the second most significant cost hotspot in the case study building contributing up to 36%.
On the other hand, services and substructure both contributes almost equally towards the EC of the
building. Internal finishes contributes up to 10% and 5% towards CC and EC, respectively. Fittings,
furnishing and equipment are the least significant in terms of both CC and EC contributing less than 1%.
Table presents the hierarchy of cost and carbon hotspots of the case study buildings. The elements that are
coloured in greyscale are the elements that contribute up to 80% of the CC and EC. The Carbon and cost
hotspot analysis revealed that not all the identified cost hotspots are carbon hotspots and Substructure,
Frame and Services are identified as both cost and carbon hotspot at different significant levels - Services
111
being the most cost significant and the Frame being the most carbon significant. On the other hand,
Fittings, Furnishings and Equipment, Stairs and Ramps and Internal Doors are found to be the least cost
and carbon significant in the case study building. The findings inform the designers that more attention is
needed when designing Substructure, Frame and Services for this kind of office buildings. EC can be
reduced by sourcing materials that are recycled or with lower carbon content which again needed to be
compared with the cost to arrive at an informed decision of the optimum solution for the project
considered.
Table 4: Carbon and Cost Hotspots of the Case Study Building
Cost Hotspot Hierarchy
Cumulative %
Carbon Hotspot Hierarchy
Cumulative %
Services
36.4
Frame
26.2
Frame
61.8
Substructure
49.3
Substructure
71.8
Services
72.1
Windows and External Doors
77.6
Upper Floors
84.6
Ceiling Finishes
83.0
Internal Walls and Partitions
89.0
Upper Floors
87.1
External Walls
91.8
External Walls
89.8
Ceiling Finishes
93.9
Internal Walls and Partitions
92.5
Roof
96.1
Floor Finishes
94.9
Floor Finishes
97.9
Roof
96.8
Windows and External

Doors
98.6
Wall Finishes
98.5
Wall Finishes
99.3
Fittings, Furnishings and

Equipment
99.1
Stairs and Ramps
99.8
Stairs and Ramps
99.5
Internal Doors
99.9
Internal Doors
100
Fittings, Furnishings and

Equipment
100
In addition to that CC per GIFA and EC per GIFA were also calculated for individual elements to get
insights in to the findings and presented in Figure. Even though CC and EC demonstrate a similar patter
when analysing at main elements level, differences can be noticed at individual element level. Clearly,
Services is the most Significant cost hotspot in the building followed by Frame and Substructure while
Frame is the most carbon significant element followed by Substructure and Services. This showcases that
the Substructure, Frame and Services are the most carbon and cost critical elements in the case study
building. Further, Figure also clarifies that not all Superstructure elements are cost and carbon significant.
For instance, contribution of Stairs and Ramps and Internal Doors are almost negligible. While Windows
and External Doors are found to be cost significant, EC contribution of the same is very low. The reason
for this is CC of timber is high while EC of timber is very low making this enormous difference. Hence,
specification of the building elements plays a major role in dictating CC and EC of the building and their
relationships. In terms of Internal Finishes, Ceiling Finishes are the most carbon and cost significant and
Wall Finishes are the least carbon and cost significant of the three following a similar rhythm. Fitting,
Furnishing and Equipment are found to be insignificant in terms of both cost (0.51%) wise and carbon
(0.04%).
112
Building Elements
Services
Fittings, Furnishings & Equipment
Ceiling Finishes
Floor Finishes
Wall Finishes
Internal Doors
Internal Walls & Partitions
Windows & External Doors
External Walls
Stairs and Ramps
Roof
Upper Floors
Frame
Substructure
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
450
500
CC per GIFA (/m2) OR EC per GIFA (kgCO2/m2)

EC per GIFA
CC per GIFA
Figure 4: CC per GIFA vs. EC per GIFA by Elements
The significance of this analysis is that it informs the design team about the elements whose design has
greater impact on the CC and EC of the building. For instance, in the case study building, Substructure,
Frame and Services are identified as both cost and carbon critical elements. Hence, it is possible to select
the optimum design solution from various possible alternatives, which does not compromise the function
and aesthetics of the building element, when designing those elements in the future. Hotspot analysis also
demonstrates that certain building elements are not worth investing time in optimising cost and carbon as
its contribution to total EC and CC is almost negligible. Therefore, it is important that this kind of
knowledge is developed and utilised during design development. However, this is based on a single case
study and hence, no inferences can be drawn from the findings. Nevertheless, a foundation is laid in this
paper to expand this type of research with a larger sample to arrive at generic prepositions and
recommendations.
5.
SUMMARY
The aim of the study was to identify the cost and carbon critical elements in the case study office
building. Even though there is a general say that foundations, frame, roof, walls, and floors are to be
carbon hotspots it cannot be taken for granted without thorough analysis. Also hotspots will vary for
buildings with different functions and design features. Subsequently, an office building located in London
was studied in detail to identify and draw insights about the cost and carbon significant elements in the
building. Accordingly, the case study findings reveal that both CC and EC are significant in Substructure,
Frame and Services. The Frame is identified as the most carbon significant element in the superstructure
followed by Substructure, Services and Upper Floors while Services is identified as the most cost
significant followed by Frame, Substructure, Windows and External Doors and Ceiling Finishes. Further,
some elements impact hugely than others and some elements like Fittings, Furnishings and Equipment,
Stairs and Ramps and Internal Doors have minimal impact on CC and EC compared to other elements.
The implication of this analysis is that it enlightens the design team with the knowledge about the
elements whose design has greater impact on the CC and EC of the building. Hence, it is possible to
select the most optimum design solution from various possible alternatives which does not compromise
with the function and aesthetics of the building element when designing building elements in the future.
113
6.
REFERENCES
Chen, T., Burnett, J. and Chau, C., 2001. Analysis of embodied energy use in the residential building of Hong Kong.
Energy, 26, 323-340.
Cole, R. J. And Kernan, P. C., 1996. Life-cycle energy use in office buildings. Building and Environment, 31, 307317.
Committee on Climate Change., 2013. Fourth Carbon Budget Review Part 2: The Cost-Effective Path to the 2050
Target. UK: Committee on Climate Change.
Davis Langdon Consultancy., 2014. Spon's Mechanical and Electrical Services Price Book 2014. 45th ed. London:
Taylor and Francis.
Densley T. D. and Davison, B., 2011. Design for deconstruction and material reuse. Energy, 164, 195-204
Franklin and Andrews., 2011. Hutchins UK Building Blackbook: The Cost and Carbon Guide : Hutchins' 2011:
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Hammond, G. and Jones, C., 2008. Inventory of Carbon Energy (ICE). UK: University of Bath.
Hammond, G. and Jones, C., 2011. A BSRIA guide Embodied Carbon the Inventory of Carbon and Energy (ICE).
UK: BSRIA.
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Metz, B., Davidson, O.R., Bosch, P.R., Dave, R. , Meyer, L.A., 2007. Climate Change 2007: Mitigation of Climate
Change: Contribution of Working Group III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ramesh, T., Prakash, R. and Shukla, K. K., 2010. Life cycle energy analysis of buildings: An overview. Energy and
Buildings, 42, 1592-1600.
RICS., 2012. Methodology to Calculate Embodied Carbon of Materials. 1st ed. UK: RICS.
RICS., 2014. Methodology to Calculate Embodied Carbon. UK: RICS.
Sansom, M., and Pope, R. J., 2012. A comparative EC assessment of commercial buildings. The Structural
Engineer, 38-49.
Solomon, S., 2007. Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis: Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth
Assessment Report of the IPCC [Online]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Available from:
Sundarakani, B., de Souza, R., Goh, M., Wagner, S. M., andManikandan, S., 2010. Modeling carbon footprints
across the supply chain. International Journal of Production Economics, 128(1), 43-50.
UK-GBC., 2016. Key Statistics: Construction Industry and Carbon Emissions [Online]. UK, UK Green Building
Council. Available from: http://www.ukgbc.org/resources/additional/key-statistics-construction-industry-andcarbon-emissions [Accessed 05th July 2016].
Victoria, M., Perera, S., and Davies, A., 2015. Developing an early design stage embodied carbon prediction model:
a case study, In: A. Raidn andE.Aboagye-Nimo. eds. 31st Annual ARCOM Conference, Lincoln 7-9
September 2015, UK: Association of Researchers in Construction Management.
114
COASTAL ZONE ADAPTATION IN TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO:

A REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Carianne Johnson and Udayangani Kulatunga*
Centre for Disaster Resilience, School of the Built Environment, University of Salford, United Kingdom.
ABSTRACT
Empirical evidence supports that anthropogenic activities have brought about significant changes in
our climate. In the instance of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) there is a potentially significant
impact from the effects of climate change as the majority of the population resides within the coastal
zone, thereby increasing potential loss of life and damage to property during climate related events.
Determining vulnerability can provide an assessment of the factors that place communities at risk to
the potential loss of life and property and assist in the creation of solutions towards increased
resilience and adaptation.
This paper explores the literature on the coastal zone vulnerabilities of Trinidad and Tobago with
particular focus on the Caroni River Basin, the most populated basin on the island. In addition to the
population growth in the coastal zone, key sectors of subsistent agriculture, fisheries, cottage
industries, oil refineries and manufacturing are located within the coastal zone. Therefore, this paper
also highlights the myriad of vulnerabilities of Caribbean SIDS and outlines environmentally sensitive
design solutions for coastal zone adaptation.
Keywords:
1.
Caribbean SIDS; Vulnerabilities; Climate Change Adaptation; Trinidad and Tobago.
INTRODUCTION
Empirical evidence supports that anthropogenic activities have brought about significant changes in our
climate. Global results of these activities include the melting of the solar ice caps, sea level rises,
increased magnitude of storms, and warmer temperatures in our urban centres. In the instance of Small
Island Developing States (SIDS) where the majority of the population resides within the coastal zone, the
potential of loss of life and damage to property increases greatly. In Small Island Developing States
(SIDS) more than 70% of the population live within 100 km of the shoreline (Creel, 2003) and population
figures are expected to rise exponentially as more people move from to cities to increase their access to
economic activity and government services.
Expanding coastal cities in SIDS are now resulting in the challenge of finding sufficient land to meet the
needs of inhabitants, ensure their safety and prevent potential loss of property assets due to flooding and
coastal erosion. In the midst of these challenges, the issue of vulnerability becomes more relevant and the
limited geographical area and access to information and economic resources are central to the discussion.
In Caribbean SIDS, there are gaps in information sharing which has limited the regions ability to develop
a comprehensive response to climate change. Each country within the Caricom network has been keen to
develop its own appropriate response, and to create a detailed regional course of action, including
contingency planning, where larger islands can assist the citizenry of smaller islands.
Determining vulnerability can provide a method of assessment of the factors that place communities at
risk to the potential loss of life and property. A vulnerability index is an attempt to attain a measurement
of vulnerability, based on the particular demographic factors that impact the capacity of the area to
become resilient. Due to the underlying qualitative nature of demographic research, these numerical
indexes have inherent flaws, as averages or estimations can never completely relate the entire story of a
community. They do, however, provide a guide to the conditions that may impact the vulnerability of a
*
115
given community and should be used in conjunction with visual observation and expert interviews.
Comprehensive assessment of the community can then determine the solutions towards increased
resilience and adaptation.
This paper explores the coastal zone vulnerabilities of Trinidad and Tobago with particular focus on the
Caroni River Basin, the most populated basin on the island. Although Trinidad and Tobago is seen as the
most affluent nation in the Caribbean, its various vulnerabilities are not uncommon to SIDS in the region.
Through a comprehensive literature review, this paper highlights the inherent vulnerabilities of Caribbean
SIDS and recommends the development of a comprehensive coastal adaptation strategy that includes
environmentally sensitive design solutions from built environment disciplines.
2.
CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACT ON COASTAL ZONES
Coastal zones can be roughly defined as the area within 200 kilometers of the shoreline (Creel, 2003).
During the period of 1961 to 2003, the observed sea level rise was about 1.6 mm/year with contributing
factors including ocean thermal expansion and the melting of glaciers, ice sheets and ice caps (Church et
al., 2007). By 2100, the global sea level rise is expected to be between 0.5m to 2.0 m (Nicholls et al.,
2011). SIDS, where there is an inherent vulnerability to sea-level rise, could be severely impacted by a
rise of 1m (Nicholls et al., 2011).
The warming of the earths temperatures is also likely to cause changes in precipitation. A more active
hydrologic cycle is a result of an increased atmospheric water holding capacity (Easterling, 2002). This
increase of the water vapour holding capacity will not only result in increased precipitation during storms,
but could also contribute to larger storm surges and surface waves. It is noted that warming of the climate
may not necessarily increase the frequency of these storms, but an increase in storm severity will have a
significant impact on coastal regions (Church et al., 2007).
As a Caribbean SIDS, Trinidad and Tobago has distinct physical and demographic characteristics that
contribute to its vulnerability, particularly the high concentration of infrastructure and industry in the
coastal zones. Shown in Figure 1, the centers of industry (oil, manufacturing) are in coastal zones and the
impacts of climate change could therefore weaken the viability of these industries. In terms of the
infrastructure, by 2100 Trinidad and Tobago could experience damage to a significant part of its GDP in
terms of the damage to infrastructure at a cost of $1,892,000 (Bueno et al., 2008).
Figure 1: Coastal Industries in Trinidad and Tobago

Source: Morrissey (2007)
116
In Trinidad and Tobago, the Caroni basin has been identified as the most vulnerable to the impact of
climate change. The Caroni basin is the largest on the island; it is a densely populated area with the
growth of development encroaching on mangroves and swamp land. Concurrent development in the
surrounding hills exacerbates the effect of flooding in this basin and leads to the potential damage of
property and infrastructure. In addition, this area also has the largest concentration of arable land on the
island, which often experiences the loss of crops due to frequent water logging of farms. Currently,
flooding often impedes access to the capital city of Port of Spain, forcing the closure of government
offices.
3.
VULNERABILITY
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) defines vulnerability as the degree to which a
system is susceptible to, or unable to cope with, adverse effects of climate change, including climate
variability and extremes (IPCC, 2007). This definition describes vulnerability as a function of exposure,
sensitivity and adaptive capacity where exposure is the extent to which a system is exposed to an extreme
event, sensitivity is how affected the particular system is to this event and adaptive capacity is the ability
of the system to adapt to the effects of the extreme event (Engle, 2011). SIDS are particularly vulnerable
to the impacts of climate change as the majority of industry, development and infrastructure are
centralized in these hazardous zones.
However, the links between coastal management, sustainable livelihoods, and the value in building
resilience to climate change effects continue to provide a significant challenge for SIDS. Higher income
nations are able to develop adaptive measures at a faster rate than the middle to low income nations
(Berrang et al., 2010). SIDS are more likely to develop reactive measures to climate change impacts as
their understanding and resources to address climate change is largely limited (Amundsen et al., 2010).
Developing adaptive measures to climate change is an increasing challenge for SIDS as policy and
development trends are centred on building economic capacity. This challenge of coastal zone
management in SIDS must be met with a combination of proper assessment and adaptive measures.
3.1.
VULNERABILITY INDEXES
Scientists have made attempts to determine the vulnerability of coastal areas through a variety of means,
the most significant method in terms of calculating the vulnerable physical characteristics of coastal
regions is the Coastal Vulnerability Index (CVI) (Birdwell, 1994). It classifies vulnerability based on a
numerical analysis of the tide range, average wave height, geomorphology, coastal slope, relative sealevel change and shoreline accretion. This index, however, does not account for the socio-economic
vulnerabilities of coastal communities. Concurrently, the Social Vulnerability Index solely explores the
demographic factors that may make communities vulnerable to the impacts of climate change (Cutter,
2006). There has even been an attempt to integrate the two vulnerability indexes to attempt to determine
the risk to communities. The basis of analysing the vulnerability of coastal communities must
comprehensively outline the built environment vulnerabilities and review the economic vulnerabilities in
the global context.
Unfortunately, the SIDS are at increasing risk of the impacts of climate change due to their inherent
physical, social and economic characteristics. As a result of the available land in SIDS, the urban and
peri-urban and rural communities are all located in low elevation coastal zones. In 2000, 67% of the
population in SIDS lived along coastal zones (McGranahan et al., 2007). The risks to emergency response
management are greater in coastal urban centres where limited service infrastructure is prone to frequent
interruptions, particularly in electricity and water. Based on current projections, it is estimated that by
2050, the sea level would be an additional 8.9cm high and by the year 2100, this would be 18cm (Bueno
et al., 2008).
117
3.2.
PHYSICAL VULNERABILITY IN SIDS
In low lying areas where the geological subsidence is an integral part of development, sea level rise and
frequent flooding can lead to groundwater saline intrusion; impact the tidal range, increase the volume of
sediment in bays and estuaries, and change the details of the shoreline (Doornkamp, 1998). The cost of
providing protection from the sea level rise could be approximately 0.02% of the Gross Domestic Product
(GDP) (Nicholls et al., 2011) and higher in nations where the infrastructure has yet to be upgraded.
Increased flooding can severely reduce the service life of the existing infrastructure resulting in early
deterioration or complete failure (Mills and Andrey, 2002). Although infrastructure can be built to
withstand certain environmental occurrences, the aspect of climate change that promises an increased
threat of these environmental hazards, makes building for expected conditions an increasingly difficult
task (Mills and Andrey, 2002). Mills and Andrey note that gradual changes in sea level may be expected
to damage or render inaccessible, low-lying coastal infrastructure including road and railway beds, port
and airport facilities, tunnels and underground rail / subway / transit corridors (2002). Increased
precipitation can also directly impact the frequency of slope failures and landslides while flooding can
exacerbate issues related to riverine and urban storm water management.
3.3.
SOCIAL VULNERABILITY IN SIDS
It is noted that connectivity is key to disaster response and adaptation (Dunno, 2011). Limited
infrastructure disconnects rural coastal communities in SIDS from their urban centres. The higher
transportation costs to these areas also restricts access to external markets and the flow and quality of
access to information (Pelling and Uitto, 2001). Isolation from global networks and limited access to
services insulate these rural communities and increases their vulnerability (Dunno, 2011). In the SIDS
there are discussions around increasing ICT technology to provide stronger emergency management
frameworks, but with the vulnerability of the existing infrastructure, these systems are still largely
unreliable.
3.4.
ECONOMIC VULNERABILITY IN SIDS
Small economies, that are heavily dependent on access to natural resources, are another feature of SIDS.
In the Caribbean, the gross domestic product is dependent largely on fisheries, agriculture and tourism.
Economic vulnerability increases as a result of natural disasters, since it impacts on the countrys gross
domestic product, thereby hindering economic growth (Dunno, 2011). In light of the globalized
diversified markets, Caribbean economies have remained specialized in areas of tourism, offshore finance
and agriculture (Pelling and Uitto, 2001). Since the population has historically relied on certain industries,
the transition towards economic diversity is slow. As a result, these islands are also dependent on imports.
Limited exportation impedes economic growth and decreases the countrys ability to access international
funding, which in turn limits its ability to invest in social development and efficient infrastructure
(Dunno, 2011).
In light of globalized economies and connectivity of world markets, an economic crisis in one country can
quickly impact the GDP of others. Economic vulnerability is becoming an increasing concern as
countries economies are more open and vulnerable to international markets. For example, high food
imports make developing countries less food secure when coastal regions are under threat of the impacts
of climate change (Broad and Cavanagh, 2011). In the Caribbean, the vulnerabilities are more significant,
as noted by Achim Steiner, as 99 percent of Caribbean tourism is along the coastline (Caribbean 360,
2014).
Due to these pressing changes, Trinidad and Tobago developed adaptation strategies centered on data
collection, policy development and environmental protection-seen as an integral part of coastal
adaptation. To date, these strategies are mainly focused on building capacity through citizen awareness
programmes and disaster preparedness policies. The work towards adaptation, however, falls short in the
active protection of natural coastal resources, managing coastal development and strengthening the
capacity of industries in the coastal areas. The need to protect coastal resources and assets while
developing comprehensive measures to manage growth, provides the framework for sustainable
118
development; yet adaptation is the missing link. Case studies of the most effective ways to approach
adaptation can provide guidance and strengthen Trinidad and Tobagos ability to address the impact of
climate change.
4.
LESSONS FOR CLIMATE WISE URBAN DESIGN
Based on the increasing vulnerabilities to climate change adaptation, countries must consider climate wise
strategies to reduce vulnerabilities (Tong, 2012) to their coastal built environment. Strategies that warrant
further investigation for use in Trinidad and Tobago are Elevated and Floatable developments Living
Shorelines and Green Infrastructure (Tong, 2012; Erdle et al., 2006; Benedict and McMahon, 2002).
Floatable development, also known as Aquatecture, allows for structures to float on the surface,
reducing the vulnerability during instances of flooding or varying tides (Tong, 2012). The creation of
floatable cities has even been explored to address the need for housing for growing populations in coastal
zones. It also encouraged the revival of Chinampas (floating gardens) as the practical need for
agricultural landscapes in these aqua-communities.
Elevated developments are constructed at predetermined heights (Tong, 2012). This form of
development was historically used for residential structures in rural, low-lying communities of Trinidad
and Tobago and provides lessons for commercial development. The usability of elevated commercial
structures and/or elevated connectors between existing buildings is also an option.
Living shorelines is the process of restoring coastal natural environments to reduce the impact of
flooding and erosion (Erdle et al., 2006). This method utilizes environmental engineering strategies to
rebuild natural coastal zones and maintain the integrity of shorelines. Environmental engineering is still
an emerging field in Trinidad and Tobago and strategies are not widely utilized.
Green Infrastructure is defined as an interconnected network of green space that conserves natural
ecosystems values and functions and provides associated benefits to human populations (Benedict and
McMahon, 2002). This network provides connections in three forms: a corridor, patch and matrix. The
corridor is an extended connection of green space throughout urban areas, providing a reduction of the
urban heat island impact. The patch integrates green spaces within the urban fabric to provide more
infiltration of green space in hard surfaces. While the matrix, as its name suggests, is a mix of the
aforementioned systems. The particular green space options include, but are not limited to, green roofs,
private gardens, public parks, street trees and the retaining or replanting of the natural environment (Gill
et al., 2007).
5.
CONCLUSION
The strategy for determining the best way forward for Trinidad and Tobago through the extension of the
region is currently centered on the recommendations for the existing strategies for coastal zone
management, although local coastal management documentation reiterates the need for the creation of
adaptation strategies to address the adjusting needs to climate change. However, these methods are not
clearly defined and the recommendations have suggested that new policies should bolster current
development trends. Based on the informal growth of communities in the Caribbean, new policies at the
national level will not translate into controlling existing development trends. The general population
should be provided with accessible solutions for building in vulnerable areas and reduce the vulnerability
of people living in the danger zones of the coastal regions. The solutions developed in this research will
be disseminated through the distribution of a pamphlet to local developmental agencies, construction
companies and professional organizations within the study area to increase the populations
understanding of viable methods to adapt to the impacts of climate change.
The way climate change is understood within the nations socio-economic structure has a profound
impact on assessment and adaptation. Ultimately, proper assessment can lead to a comprehensive
adaptation strategy, which will encourage the preservation of natural resources and manage the impact of
future development. In light of climate change impacts, environmental management and adaptation is an
important consideration (Doornkamp, 1998). As a small island state, Trinidad and Tobago must consider
119
comprehensive coastal zone adaptation solutions for the population living in such vulnerable areas as the
Caroni River Basin.
6.
REFERENCES
Amundsen, H., Berglund, F. and Westskog, H., 2010. Overcoming barriers to climate change adaptation - a question
of multilevel governance? Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, 28(2), 276-289.
Benedict, M.A. and McMahon, E.T.,2002. Green infrastructure: smart conservation for the 21st century. Renewable
Resources Journal, 20(3), 12-17.
Berrang, F.L., Ford, J.D. and Paterson, J., 2010. Are we adapting to climate change? Global environmental change,
21(1), 25-33.
Birdwell, K.R., 1994. The development of a coastal risk assessment database: vulnerability to sea level rise in the
US southeast. Journal of Coastal Research, 12, 327-328.
Broad, R. and Cavanagh, J., 2011. Reframing Development in the Age of Vulnerability: from case studies of the
Philippines and Trinidad to new measures of rootedness. Third World Quarterly, 32(6), 1127-1145.
Bueno, R., Herzfeld, C., Stanton, E. and Ackerman, F., 2008. The Caribbean and Climate Change: The Costs of
Inaction [online]. USA: Tufts University. Available from: http://sei-us.org/Publications_PDF/SEICaribbeanAndClimateChange-08.pdf.
Caribbean 360, 2014. Caribbean Small Islands will be First in Region to Suffer from Rising Sea Levels
UN[online]. Barbados, Caribbean 360. Available from: http://www.caribbean360.com/news/caribbean-smallislands-will-be-first-in-region-to-suffer-from-rising-sea-levels-un.
Church, J., Wilson, S., Woodworth, P. and Aarup, T., 2007.Understanding sea level rise and variability.Eos,
Transactions American Geophysical Union, 88(4), 43-43.
Creel, L., 2003. Ripple Effects: Population and Coastal Regions. Washington, DC: Population Reference Bureau.
Cutter, S.L. and Emrich, C.T., 2006. Moral hazard, social catastrophe: The changing face of vulnerability along the
hurricane coasts. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 604(1), 102-112.
Doornkamp, J.C., 1998. Coastal flooding, global warming and environmental management. Journal of
Environmental Management, 52(4), 327-333.
Dunno, C. 2011. Measuring Social Vulnerability to Natural Hazards: An Examination of the United States Virgin
Islands. Greensboro, North Carolina: University of North Carolina.
Easterling, D., 2002. Observed Climate Change and Transportation.In: The Potential Impacts of Climate Change on
Transportation, Washington 1-2 October 2002. Washington: DOT Center for Climate Change and
Environmental Forecasting, 49-57.
Engle, N.L., 2011. Adaptive capacity and its assessment. Global Environmental Change, 21(2), 647-656.
Erdle, S., Davis, J. and Sellner, K. 2006. Management, Policy, Science, and Engineering of Nonstructural Erosion
Control in the Chespeake Bay. In: The 2006 Living Shoreline Summit, Virginia 6-7 December 2006. Virginia:
Chesapeake Research Consortium.
Gill, S.E., Handley, J.F., Ennos, A.R. and Pauleit, S., 2007.Adapting cities for climate change: the role of the green
infrastructure. Built Environment, 33(1), 115-133.
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McGranahan, G., Balk, D. and Anderson, B., 2007. The rising tide: assessing the risks of climate change and human
settlements in low elevation coastal zones. Environment and Urbanization, 19(1), 17-37.
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Mills, B. and Andrey, J., 2002. Climate Change and Transportation: Potential Interactions and Impacts. In: The
Potential Impacts of Climate Change on Transportation, Washington 1-2 October 2002. Washington: DOT
Center for Climate Change and Environmental Forecasting, 77-88.
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CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT PRACTICES INFLUENCING

PRODUCTIVITY IN BUILDING PROJECTS
Argaw Tarekegn Gurmu*, Ajibade Ayodeji Aibinu and Toong-Khuan Chan
Melbourne School of Design, The University of Melbourne, Australia
ABSTRACT
The adverse effects of management related problems affecting productivity in construction projects
can be reduced by implementing best management practices that are suitable for a specific project
type. Previous studies identified the best practices for infrastructure and industrial projects. However,
these practices could not directly be used for building projects as the management practices might
vary from project to project and from country to country. Moreover, a little research has been
conducted on what the best practices might be in the context of building projects in Victoria, Australia.
Face-to-face in-depth interviews were conducted with nineteen experienced professionals in the
construction industry and forty-seven context specific best practices for building projects such as long
lead materials identification, machinery productivity analysis, short interval planning, incentive
programs, dynamic site layout plan and safety policy are identified. The study revealed that some best
practices that are applicable to infrastructure and industrial projects are not suitable for building
projects. Therefore, implementation of the best practices identified in other contexts could not improve
productivity in building projects and principal contractors involved in building construction should
adopt context-specific practices to enhance the productivity of their projects.
Keywords:
1.
Australia; Best Practices; Building Projects; Management Practices; Productivity.
INTRODUCTION
Construction productivity improvement is essential for economic growth of a country. Productivity

growth is also important for increasing the profit margin of contractors. Previous studies confirmed that
management practices and technology are among the most important factors that have the potential to
increase productivity in construction projects (Rojas and Aramvareekul, 2003). For principal contractors
involved in the management of many subcontractors, the implementation of best management practices
plays a vital role than the use of technology in delivering building projects within the contract time. The
Victorian state construction industry is characterised by numerous subcontractors and a few principal
contractors (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2016). Multi-storey building projects in the state are managed
by a principal contractor that engages various subcontractors. Thus, the use the best practices can help
principal contractors to manage their subcontractors and to hand over their projects within agreed time
framework. Moreover, the implementation of best practices can reduce the adverse effects of the
construction productivity problems such as shortage of materials, equipment and tools; rework;
breakdown of machinery; disruption of utilities; changes in design and specifications; turnover; and
accidents (Makulsawatudom et al., 2004; Rivas et al., 2011; Ghoddousi and Hosseini, 2012; Hughes and
Thorpe, 2014).
A review of the literature shows that management practices having the potential to improve the
productivity of construction projects can be classified into six categories: materials management,
equipment and tools management, execution approach, human resource management, construction
methods, and safety and health practices (CII, 2013b; CII, 2013a; Nasir, 2013; Caldas et al., 2014).
However, as these practices are identified for industrial and infrastructure projects, they might not be best
practices for building projects. Moreover, since projects are unique in nature management practices that
are considered best in other countries might not be best in Australia. Furthermore, there is a little research
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done on what the best management practices could be for building projects. Therefore, the objective of
this research is to identify the best construction management practices that have the potential to improve
productivity in building projects in the context of Victoria, Australia.
2.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Best practices are defined as the most efficient ways of doing something (Helms, 2006). In construction
industry context, the best practices are processes that lead to enhanced project performance when they are
executed effectively (CII, 2016). Productivity is the ratio of output to input (Park et al., 2005). In this
study, output represents the value of a completed building project in dollars and input refers to the project
duration in days. Materials management, equipment and tools management, execution approach, human
resource management, construction methods, and health and safety practices are reviewed in this section.
Previous researchers suggested numerous materials management practices that have the potential to
improve productivity in construction projects. Bell and Stukhart (1987) suggested the implementation of
efficient materials management practices such as materials planning to enhance productivity. Olomolaiye
et al. (1987) recommended regular review of the principal contractors cash to ensure a continuous supply
of materials. Lim and Alum (1995) suggested the use of just-in-time materials delivery techniques in
urban Singapore. Arditi and Mochtar (1996) found that improvement in procurement practices could lead
to enhanced project productivity. Abdul et al. (2005) mentioned the influence of the planning of critical
materials on productivity. Makulsawatudom et al. (2004) proposed careful inspection of the construction
materials as one of the areas where productivity improvement could be obtained in the construction
industry of Thailand. Moreover, the authors emphasized the importance of initiation of materials
management meetings as a means to improve coordination between head office and site team. Jergeas
(2009) suggested that the availability of both critical and non-critical materials should be ensured to
improve productivity in oil and gas capital projects in Alberta, Canada. Grau et al. (2009) assessed the
impact of materials tracking technologies on crafts productivity and quantified the impact of automating,
identifying and localizing engineered components on productivity in industrial projects. The results of the
study indicated that materials tracking technologies can significantly improve productivity. Nasir (2013)
investigated the importance of construction materials procurement team and preservation of materials in
construction sites to increase productivity in infrastructure projects. Caldas et al. (2014) identified
monitoring materials status database as the best productivity practice for industrial projects. Some of the
above materials management practices might not be applicable for building projects in the context of the
Victorian building industry as the majority of principal contractors are not directly involved in purchasing
construction materials.
Productivity improvement can also be achieved by implementing good equipment and tools management
practices. Wheeldon (2012) mentioned effective tools management systems such as the use of tools
tracking technology and regular inventory of tools to enhance productivity. Arditi and Mochtar (1996)
identified maintenance of machinery as one of the possible areas where productivity gain could be
obtained in the construction industry of Indonesia. Stewart (2002b) suggested that to fulfil the short term
equipment demand, renting is the preferred procurement option. Stewart (2002a) recommended leasing
option when there are many construction projects in an industry. Marquez and Herguedas (2004)
described that good record keeping helps contractors to analyse the performance of the equipment and to
take corrective actions. Wireman (2005) justified the benefit of training the machinery operators in
improving productivity and saving costs. Prasertrungruang and Hadikusumo (2007) suggested adopting of
suitable construction equipment acquisition strategies such as renting, leasing and buying based on
project scope and construction markets. Procurement procedures and plans for equipment and tools were
found to be the best practices in improving roductivity in industrial projects (CII, 2013a). Conducting
onsite tool maintenance was found to be one of the best practices for infrastructure projects (Nasir, 2013).
The author also described that identifying tools which need maintenance, planning the time when they
will be repaired, and assigning qualified personnel are important tool management practices. In the
context of Victoria, since principal contractors sublet most of the construction works, some of the
equipment and tools management practices might not be important to improve the productivity of
building projects.
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The preparation of detailed project execution plan is another potential area for productivity improvement.
According to PMI (2013), a project plan is a formal and approved document used to guide project
execution and control. It is used to document any assumptions and decisions about a project, facilitate
communication among stakeholders, and document approved scope, cost and schedule baselines. Hadavi
and Krizek (1993) concluded that higher construction productivity is obtained by implementing shortinterval goals instead of long-interval goals. Arditi and Mochtar (1996) suggested that the use of the
construction management (CM) project delivery system is significant to increase productivity. Jergeas
(2009) found that defining clearly the scope of a project and reducing conflicting issues among contract
documents are good practices to enhance project performance. CII (2013a) identified Construction Work
Packaging (CWP) as the best practice for industrial projects. Construction Work Package (CWP) is an
executable construction deliverable which defines a specific scope of work in detail including its budget
and schedule (COAA, 2013b). COAA (2013a) recommended the assignment of a dedicated planner to
improve construction productivity. Nasir (2013) suggested identification of permitting requirements and
alignment of utilities such as water and power as the potential areas for productivity improvement in
infrastructure projects. Caldas et al. (2014) identified the utilization of software in generating work
packages and in developing 3D models as one of the best productivity practices for industrial projects. ElGohary and Aziz (2014) suggested that increasing the constructability level of design is the first step in
improving productivity in the construction industry of Egypt. In the Victorian construction industry, as
there are numerous regulatory requirements for building projects, preparation of detailed project
execution plan might be important. For instance, the practice of the identification of the type of permits
could be significant for principal contractors. Thus, the implementation of some of the above practices
might help the contractors to improve productivity in their building projects.
The use of good human resource management practices could also lead to improvement of construction
projects productivity. Maloney (1983) mentioned that team building practice is one of the approaches
which enhance the forces acting to increase the productivity of the labour. Liberda et al. (2003) suggested
emphasizing on team building or crew composition as important human resource management practice.
Fagbenle et al. (2004) concluded that the productive time of bricklayers who received non-financial
incentive was improved significantly. Kazaz and Ulubeyli (2007) mentioned that incentive payments, the
adequacy of the workers payment as compared to others who are working on similar projects, the
effectiveness of the remuneration on time and the arrangement of social activities are the most important
factors that could increase workers motivation. Wang et al. (2010)found that training for craftsmen
increased construction productivity by 5%, and decreased absenteeism as well as turnover by 2.5% and
10% respectively. Hewage et al. (2011) concluded that the construction productivity might not be
improved by only working hard and fast. According to the author, the companies should also develop the
social skills of their workers. Tabassi et al. (2012) described that a well-organized human resource
development program is an essential strategy for construction firms as human capital plays a significant
role in the success of an organization. According to Hong et al. (2012), effective human resource
management practices such as employee empowerment, training and development, appraisal system, and
compensation are the principal factors for employee retention. Nasir (2013) identified the clarification of
the responsibilities of employees as one of the best practices for improving productivity in infrastructure
projects. Caldas et al. (2014) concluded that maintaining the stability of the organizational structure is the
best management practice for industrial projects. Some of the human resource management practices
mentioned above might not be applicable for principal contractors in Victoria. For instance, crew
composition for each trade of work might not be important for principal contractors involved in managing
the works of subcontractors.
Construction methods related practices are also identified as the critical factors that could enhance
productivity in the construction projects. According to PMI (2013), project management methods are
defined as a system of practices, techniques, procedures, and rules used by those who work in the
discipline. Dynamicsite layout which refers to a sequence of layouts, each is used for a discrete time
interval or certain project phase, and together covering the entire duration of a construction project is one
of the techniques for productivity enhancement (Tommelein and Zouein, 1993). Arditi and Mochtar
(1996) found that integration of management functions could increase construction productivity. The use
of Critical Path Method (CPM) in controlling and integrating various schedules is significant for
monitoring project performance (Neil and Knudsen, 1990). The project schedule controlling technique
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include the methods used in measuring work progress such as units completed, incremental milestone,
start/finish, and manager or supervisor judgment (Attalla, 1997). The technique also includes analysing,
reporting and corrective action approach. Zhang et al. (1999) developed a computer model to optimize the
location of a group of tower cranes. Hanna et al. (2008) suggested that the use of second shift schedule is
effective as compared to overtime and overmanning in reducing the project duration. Nasir (2013) found
that project start-up, project completion, traffic control and site security plans are the best practices for
enhancing productivity in infrastructure projects. Investigation of new technologies for construction
methods is recommended as one of the mechanisms to increase construction productivity (CII, 2013a).
Caldas et al. (2014) suggested that the implementation of the integrated schedule is the best management
practice for improving the productivity in industrial projects. In cities such as Melbourne, Australia,
building construction projects are carried out in confined spaces. Thus, some of the above-mentioned
practices such as machinery positioning strategy might be important to enhance productivity in building
projects.
Finally, health and safety practices could also improve productivity in construction projects. Sawacha et
al. (1999) found that organizational policy on safety is the most significant factor that could influence the
safety performance of construction projects in the UK. Hinze and Wilson (2000) confirmed that
conducting alcohol and substance abuse program is one of the mechanisms to achieve zero accidents on
construction projects. Dai et al. (2009) mentioned the impact of health and safety training on productivity.
Jergeas (2009) found that neat and clean work environment and safety training are essential to ensure
safety and productivity in construction projects. Preparation of the workplace health and safety (WHS)
management plan according to the relevant code of practices is essential for productivity and safety of
construction workers (Safe Work Australia, 2012). Safe work method statements (SWMS) or job safety
analysis for each task is the practice that could ensure the safety of workers and leads to enhanced
productivity. According to Safe Work Australia, SWMS sets out the tasks in a logical sequence, identifies
the potential hazards and describes the measures to control them (Safe Work Australia, 2012). The
occurrence of accidents in building projects in Victoria could lead to the closure of the site and
productivity could be influenced. Thus, adopting best practices for safety and health might help principal
contractors to increase their projects productivity.
3.
Interviews were used to investigate the context-specific best management practices since they could vary
from country to country and from project to project. Constructivist paradigm is adopted as there is no
single best management practice that is accepted universally. Different construction industries have their
own best practices which can be investigated by collecting qualitative data that helps to understand how
each practice is implemented, why some of the practices are not suitable in some industries and other
related issues. Accordingly, in-depth face to face interviews which took an average of one and half hours
were conducted with nineteen professionals having construction industry experience ranging from five to
forty years in Australia. The participants have been working as a general manager, construction manager,
project manager, project coordinator, project engineer, site engineer, contract administrator, supervisor
and cost manager. Semi-structured interview questions were prepared for sixty-nine management
practices which were identified from the literature. The questions include: Does the practice exist? How
do local contractors practice it? Is this practice best in improving the productivity of building projects?
What other practices enhance the productivity of building projects? The interviews were audiotaped,
transcribed and analyzed. Data analysis reached a saturation point and best practices for building projects
were identified. Saturation refers to the point where a new respondent provides a similar reason for
accepting or rejecting a particular management practice.
According to Rose et al. (2015), qualitative data analysis consists of three concurrent flows of activity:
data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing. Data reduction is a form of analysis that sharpens,
sorts, focuses, discards, and organizes data in such a way that final conclusions can be drawn (Miles and
Huberman, 1994). Writing summaries, coding, and making clusters are common methods used in the data
reduction process. The latter two methods of reducing the collected data are more suitable when the
research is entirely inductive nature.In this research context, writing a summary is used as it is suitable to
sum up the responses of the interviewees regarding a particular management practice. The reduced data is
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displayed using matrices, graphs, charts and networks (Miles and Huberman, 1994; Rose et al., 2015). In
this study, matrix technique is used as it is convenient to exhibit the summaries of the responses in matrix
boxes. Once the data is displayed, theconclusion from qualitative data is drawn by noticing the patterns of
similarities and differences between categories and/or processes, clustering, making contrasts and
comparisons and noting relations between concepts (Rose et al., 2015). According to the author, the final
three approaches are more appropriate if the researcher attempts to develop a theory from qualitative data
only. However, in this research context, qualitative data was collected to be used as an input to the
quantitative research and the first strategy that is noticing the pattern of similarity between the
interviewees responses about a specific construction management practice is used to drawn a conclusion.
An Excel spreadsheet in the form of a matrix was prepared to match the responses of an expert and
management practices (refer Table 1). A summary of what each respondent has described about a
particular management practice was written in boxes and a conclusion was drawn. Similar iterative
procedures of qualitative data analysis such as transcribing, summarizing and concluding were used for
all the interview results. The succeeding interview was not conducted until the previous one was analysed
using the three procedures. The similarity between the successive summaries was identified to find a
saturation point. After analysing the outcome of the fifteenth interviewee, similar explanations for the
management practices were observed. Although the saturation point is reached at fifteenth interviewee,
additional interviews were conducted until the nineteenth participant for the sake of confirmation. Finally,
the practices that were described as suitable were included in the list of best practices for building
projects. For the sake of brevity, all the data is not included in this paper. Sample data analysis for the
practice machinery positioning strategy is indicated in Table 1 below. In the Table, the last two
respondents R18 and R19 described that construction machinery positioning strategy is a best practice and
explained similar factors such as the weight of materials, the floor area of a building, and the presence of
nearby objects to determine the optimal location of a crane. Similar reasons were providedafter the
fifteenth participant, and the practice was concluded as applicable for building projects in Victoria,
Australia. By using similar techniques, forty-sevencontext-specific best management practices were
identified and twenty-two practices are excluded from the list of the best practices.
Table 1: Interview Data Analysis Template
Construction
Management
Practices
Respondents (R)
R1
S C
52.
Construction
Machinery
Positioning
Strategy
... R17
S
Respondent(R18)
Summary(S)
Respondent(R19)
Conclusion(C)
Summary
Final
Conclusion Conclusion
We sit down and work through

The critical machinein our site
a site layout details.It is
is a crane, and its location is
interrelated with many things
planned by considering the
such as traffic control plan;
weight to be loaded, the street,
access points; the way materials
distance of placement and the
could easily get into the site; the
nearby buildings. The crane
The
The practice practice is
size or the footprint of the job; The practice is needs to reach the street; it
applicable
crane types and number
needs to reach the heaviest lift; is applicable applicable
requirements; and the location
it needs to reach the entire site.
of the cranes and other
There might be another building
issues.We locate cranes for the
that is taller than the building
maximum flexibility; we
under construction, and the
position them to get as much
crane should not hit that
coverage as we can. Thus,
building. All these factors are
integrating and developing a
taken into account when
strategy for positioning cranes
positioning a crane and it is a
is critical for productivity.
best practice.
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4.
4.1.
MATERIALS MANAGEMENT PRACTICES
Six best practices for construction materials are identified. These include procurement procedures and
plans for materials, long-lead materials identification, monitoring materials status database, materials
delivery schedule, material inspection process, and material inspection team. However, practices such as
procurement team, on-site materials tracking technology, and post receipt preservation and maintenance
are considered to be not significant to improve the productivity of building projects in Victoria.
The interviewees described that formation of a procurement team is entirely the responsibility of
subcontractors and the practices is not significant for principal contractors. This could be due to the
characteristics of the Victorian construction industry which is dominated by a few large contractors and
numerous small companies that could supply and install construction materials. According to Australian
Bureau of Statistics (ABS), at the end of 2015 financial year, the proportion of companies involved in
building construction were 99.15% for firms employing 0-19 workers, 0.78% for firms employing 20-199
workers, and 0.06% for firms employing over 200 workers (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2016).
On-site materials tracking technology is not considered as a best practice for building projects. There are
different reasons provided by the respondents. The first one is that construction materials are not usually
stored on building project sites due toshortage of storage spaces in the cities such as Melbourne,
Australia. The materials are brought to the sites when they are required and placed near their installation
areas. The other reason is to reduce the damagedue to multiple handling. The respondents described that
they preferred to bring materials one day before their installation date. Thus, the tracking system is not
required as the materials are not kept on building sites and the probability of missing their location is low.
Preservation and maintenance of materials are not considered as the best practices for construction
materials in the context of building projects in Victoria. The participants described that it is the last option
to choose this management practice. They explained that the practice is recommended for projects that
have sufficient on-site storage spaces. However, as most building projects in cities such as Melbourne are
carried out in restricted spaces the practice is not suitable to increase productivity. Some respondents also
described that contractors could incur additional cost due to the loss of productivity if they implement this
practice.
4.2.
EQUIPMENT AND TOOLS MANAGEMENT PRACTICES
Three best practices for construction equipment and tools are identified. Procurement procedures and
plans for construction equipment, construction equipment productivity analysis, and construction
equipment maintenance are found to be applicable for building projects. However, tools related practices
such as site tools management strategy, tools tracking systems and on-site tools maintenance are not
considered as best practices.
The interview results indicate that tools management practices have less importance for building projects
from principal contractors point of view. This could be due to the nature of the industry in which smaller
firms execute activities that involve tools. According to Australian Bureau of Statistics, 78% of the
building construction works are executed by small and medium firms (Australian Bureau of Statistics,
2013). The principal contractors employ a few laborers and purchase a fewtools. The interview
participants described that they do not usually employ skilled workers such as carpenters, plumbers,
electricians, plasterers and other tradesmen. They have a few laborers that do ancillary works such as
cleaning the site for the sake of safety and other minor works that could not be subcontracted. According
to the interview, on some projects, from a total of two hundred skilled and unskilled labourers only
twenty of them belong to a principal contractor. The number of the principal contractors labourers could
be as low as five based on the scope of the building projects. Thus, there is no need to implement
management practices which are related to tools.
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4.3.
EXECUTION APPROACHES
Ten best practices for project execution approaches are found for building projects. These are short
interval planning, well-defined scope of work, use of software for planning, dedicated planner,
construction work packages, design readiness for construction, utilities alignment, contract strategies,
model development, and permitting requirements.
The interview results revealed that the decision to prepare short interval plan is important for
productivity. The plan shows the details of daily activities and the resources required for their execution.
Some respondents described that short interval plan helps to focus on specific tasks that should be
executed on a specific date. Furthermore, the respondents discussed that a well-defined scope of works
which has references to drawings, specification, and other contact documents also has a positive impact
on productivity. Some of the interviewees suggested the preparation of templates for the scope of works
based on the previous work experience.
The employment of dedicated planner also has a positive influence on the productivity of building
projects. However, the level of complexity and scope of a project determine the need to assign a dedicated
planner. Some respondents explained that certain construction companies assign a dedicated planner for
large projects such as hospital buildings. Others described that a project manager is responsible for
planning tasks and dedicated planner is not required for small building projects. However, all
interviewees explained that dedicated planners have sufficient productivity data which helps them to
prepare better construction schedules. Thus, assignment of the dedicated planner is considered in a list of
best practices.
Reviewing designs for construction purpose is found as one of the potential areas where productivity gain
can be obtained. Interview participants described that for some items, how much time it takes to install
can be more important than the actual cost of the material. They suggested that if principal contractors
focus on design management and conduct constructability reviews, extra costs will be minimized and
productivity can be improved. Utility alignment is also becoming an important practice for building
construction projects in Victoria, Australia. According to the interviewees, utility adjustment is a
significantissue because of the restrictions set by local authorities in connecting to old networks such as
water, electric, sewer and other infrastructures. Contractors operating in the City of Melbourne are
required to prepare Construction Management Plan that addresses issues such as public safety, amenity,
and site security; operating hours; noise and vibration controls; air and dust management; storm water and
sediment control; waste and materials re-use and traffic management (City of Melbourne, 2005). Before
commencement of any construction activity, the plan should be approved. Thus, the practice of
identification of regulatory requirements is important for building contractors to reduce initial project
delay.
4.4.
HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PRACTICES
The finding of this study revealed that crew composition, skills assessment and evaluation, employees
training,career developmen, non-financial incentive program, financial incentives programs, social
activities, maintain stability of organization structure, clear delegation of responsibility, retention plan for
experienced personnel, and exit interviews are the best productivity practices for building projects.
Interviewees explained that since most principal contractors do not employ skilled labourers focusing on
the composition of crews for different trades of works is not significant. However, the formation of good
management crew which comprises of project manager, site manager, supervisors and others is important
for principal contractors. Some respondents described that certain construction companies include the
name of key personnel in the subcontract agreements. Skill assessment and evaluation is another
important element that could influence productivity in building projects. Some of the interview
participants described that before the commencement of any construction activity, a project manager
should organize the project crew by assessing the skills and experience of the employees. They suggested
that the project managers should be able to understand the strength and weakness of the crew members.
Some interviewee explained that the site staff could also be assigned directly from a head office.
Respondents described that the principal contractors project manager or other project team member
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could check the skill and experience of a particular subcontractor. These can be done by requesting the
recommendation letters from the previous employers and assessing other evidence such as pictures of the
previously completed projects.
Employee training is also an important practice for building projects. Some respondents described that
there are various changes such as new safety and health regulations in the construction industry and
workers should be trained before starting to work in construction projects. Others added that employees
can acquire technical skillsthrough practice, but they need to get training since legislations and
regulations could change from time to time. Thus, training is considered as an important practice in the
context of building projects in Victoria. The interview participants discussed that maintaining the stability
of the organizational structure of a project is also an essential practice. They explained that unstable
project organization could lead to loss of knowledge about a specific project. Therefore, controlling the
staff turnover by using different motivation techniques is essential.
4.5.
CONSTRUCTION METHODS
Ten elements under construction methods category are identified as best practices for construction
methods to enhance productivity in building projects. These are integrated schedule, work schedule
strategies, schedule execution and management, dynamic site layout plan, traffic control plan, site
security plan, machinery positioning strategy, project start-up plan, project completion plan, innovations
and new technologies.
Construction schedule which integrates works, materials, equipment and financial schedules has a
positive impact on the productivity of building projects. Integration of the program is essential to monitor
the material delivery, to evaluate the type of equipment to be used for a particular task, to assign the
number and type of crew, and to organize any information that is required for execution of an activity in
one place. Interview participants described that if more information is gathered in one place, the project
team will have a better chance of understanding the project details. The research participants also
explained that best-performing contractors link all the schedules together. These contractors integrate
procurement, long lead materials delivery schedule and project status to the main work schedule.
Developing working hours strategy is another important management practice that influences
productivity. There are various working hour restrictions imposed by the authorities in Victoria and
contractors are required to develop a strategy to reduce project delay. For instance, the Environment
Protection Authority of Victoria (EPA) has a guideline to control noise from building projects.
Accordingly, the normal work hours are restricted to 7:00am to 6:00pm during weekdays and 7:00am to
1:00pm on Saturdays (EPA, 2016).
Dynamic site layout plan is found to be one of the best practices for construction methods. Some of the
participants described that although the practice of adopting dynamic site layout is necessary, it should be
planned ahead to be effective. They explained that experienced contractors include their site logistics plan
in a tender document. The proposed changes in the site layout plan are communicated to the prospective
subcontractors. Construction machinery positioning strategy is another important practice that influences
productivity in building projects. According to the interview results, the location of the critical machine or
crane is determined by considering the major factors such as the maximum weight of an object to be
lifted; distance from the street and nearby properties; and the floor area of a building. Some interviewees
described that the crane needs to reach the street; it should lift the heaviest material; it has to cover the
entire site; it should not hit the existing building or other property while maneuvering. Thus, careful
analysis of the position of a crane using either 2D drawings or 3D models is an important practice to
conduct the constructionworks smoothly.
4.6.
HEALTH AND SAFETY
Based on discussion with interviewees, formal health and safety policy, task safety analysis,
housekeeping, hazards analysis, zero accident techniques, health and safety training programs, and
toolbox safety meetings are found to be the best practices for health and safety in building projects in
Victoria. However, substance abuse program is not considered as a best practice. All respondents
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described that drug testing program is not practiced in most projects. Some participants suggested that for
building construction sites, it is not necessary to have drug and alcohol testing policy as the program is
not included in the employment agreement.
Safe Work Method Statement (SWMS) is found to be the best practice for safety and health in building
projects. Interview participants described that SWMS is prepared by conducting safety analysis for a
particular task. Accordingly, the task is broken down into manageable activities; potential hazards are
identified; controlling techniques for minimizing or elimination of the risks are proposed and the
responsible person is assigned. Moreover, preparation of SWMS is a regulatory requirement in the
Victorian construction industry. According to Occupational Health and Safety Regulations 2007, any
contractor must not perform high-risk construction works unless a safe work method statement is
prepared and the works should be executed according to the statement. The regulation stipulates that if
there is non-compliance with SWMS, the contractor must stop the work immediately which leads to loss
of productivity. Moreover, the interviewees described that safety training needs to be carried out as
regulations might change and employees need to be updated with the latest information. According to
Work Safe Victoria, all persons performing construction works require proof that they had completed
construction induction training regarding occupational health and safety issues in construction projects
(Work Safe Victoria, 2016). Thus, preparation of clear safe work method statement is an important
practice for principal contractors in Victoria. Toolbox safety meeting is also found to be the best practice
for safety and health. Some respondents described that the meetings are typically conducted regularly in
the presence of subcontractors employees. Other interviewees explained that on some building projects
the meeting is not scheduled. It is conducted when executing risky tasks such as lifting heavy precast
panels and erecting of tower cranes. However, there is a short daily pre-start meeting and employees are
briefed about the nature of activities on a particular day.
5.
CONCLUSION
From the findings of this study, it is concluded that building projects have their own specific best
management practices. Forty-seven context-specific best practices that are categorized under materials
management, tools and equipment management, execution approach, human resource management
(HRM), construction methods, and health and safety are identified for building projects in Victoria,
Australia. Most of the tools and equipment practices that are obtained from the literature are not suitable
for building projects where as the majority of the practices under HRM categories are found to be
applicable in the context of Victoria. This study contributes to the body of knowledge by identifying and
verifying best management practices for building projects from the perspectives of principal contractors.
Based on the finding of this research, the authors are investigating the relationship between productivity
and management practices using quantitative data. Researchers in other countries can prioritize the best
practices for building projects in a different environment based on the findings of this study. Best
practices from subcontractors perspectives need further research as this study focuses on principal
contractors management practices only. Finally, the principal contractors in Victoria, Australia can
implement the identified practices to improve productivity in their building projects.
6.
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132
CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS FOR CONSTRUCTION OF

GOVERNMENTAL PROJECTS IN EGYPT
Nael Y. Zabel*
Worley Parsons Engineering Consultancies Co, Al-Khobar, Saudi Arabia & Institute of Higher Engineering &
Technology - Fifth Assembly, Egypt
Ghadeer R. Alfandi
Civil Engineering Department, College of Engineering, Design, and Physical Science, Brunel University, United
Kingdom
Yasser W. Eraky and Moheeb E. Ibrahim

Structural Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University, Egypt
ABSTRACT
The identification of Critical Success Factors (CSFs) for construction projects enables appropriate
decision making to achieve the project objectives. Limited studies focused on the CSFs in previous
researches particularly in Egypt. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the CSFs necessary to achieve
Governmental Projects objectives in Egypt. A number of CSFs have been determined through a
comprehensive literature review. These factors were grouped under five main groups: project aspects,
owner, contractor, consultant, and environment. A questionnaire was developed to facilitate systematic
data collection in this study. Experts with an overall average of 20 years of experience in the
construction industry were invited to participate in the survey. The results of this survey were ranked
based on their degrees of importance in relation to success using the relative importance index. The
results can be used as a guideline to successfully handle construction projects in Egypt as well as in
other developing countries.
Keywords:
1.
Construction Management; Critical Success Factor; Egypt; Governmental Projects.
INTRODUCTION
Different types of construction projects have been achieved in Egypt with extreme delay or cost overrun
which mainly considered unsuccessful projects. On the other hand, many projects in a broad range of
sectors have been successfully achieved. Deep investigations in construction projects in Egypt were
performed by the authors during May 2014 to December 2014 concentrated on construction of the
governmental projects. The investigation includes 85 projects of different types such as: Infrastructure,
residential, and commercial about 29% of the projects were succeeded finished on time within specific
budget. However, 20% of projects failed to achieve budget, and 51% failed to achieve the planned
schedule, as shown Figure 1.
A number of factors combine to determine the success or failure of an infrastructure project in terms of its
objectives (i.e., cost, time, and quality) (Zhang, 2005). The identification of key success criteria in the
construction industry would allow construction executives and project managers to appropriately plan
resource allocation (Chua et al., 1999; Toor et al., 2008). Consensus on key success criteria will allow
monitoring of project outcomes effectively and provide an ongoing framework to assist in tracking key
project results (Chan et al., 2001; Toor et al., 2008). The CSFs can be identified based either on
quantitative measures (Chua et al., 1999) or on expert opinions (Chua et al., 1999).
133
The aim of this paper is therefore to identify CSFs related to the construction of Governmental Projects in
Egypt. It is worth mentioning this paper greatly benefited from literature and the immense data collected
through questionnaire surveys that were administered to a large group of qualified experts in construction
projects in Egypt.
Following the introduction to this paper, the second section provides the background information relating
to the CSFs in construction projects. In the third section, the research methodology is described. Then, the
fourth section presents the results of this paper. After that, the results and findings are discussed in the
fifth section. Finally, the sixth section draws summary of this study.
2.
CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS IN CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS
CSFs have been traced back to the 1960s (Rockart, 1982) and since then, it has been widely applied by
many authors to identify CSFs in construction management. CSFs describe a procedure that attempts to
make explicit the key areas that are essential for management success (Boynton and Zmud, 1984).
Rockart (1982) defines Critical Success Factors (CSFs) as: those few key areas of activity in which
favourable results are absolutely necessary for a manager to reach his/her goals. Several studies have
been conducted in literature to explore critical success factors (Chan and Kumaraswamy, 1996; Hwang et
al., 2013; Andersen et al., 2006; Toor and Ogunlana, 2009), thus highlighting the importance of CSF
study. For instance, Hwang et al., (2013) explored the CSFs for public-private partnership (PPP) projects.
Yong and Mustaffa, (2013) identified 46 critical success factors in the local Malaysian construction
industry. Tang et al., (2012) investigated the CSFs for international market entry.
Qiao et al, (2001) established eight independent CSFs in BOT projects in China such as appropriate
project identification; stable political and economic situation; attractive financial package; acceptable
toll/tariff levels; reasonable risk allocation; selection of suitable subcontractors; management control; and
technology transfer. While many CSFs have been identified, in literature theirimportance relative to one
another has received less attention. All are nominally regarded as critical but, as some must be more
important than others, it is sensible to attempt to rank them, particularly in terms of the attention that
should be given to them in the development stages of projects. Chua et al. (1999) maintain that success of
a construction project is determined by four aspects, namely: project characteristics, contractual
arrangements, project participants, and interactive processes. Among the earlier, project characteristics
the most common in literature. Project characteristics include external (e.g., political and economic risks,
impact on public efficiency of technical approval authorities, adequacy of funding, and site limitation and
location) and internal characteristics (e.g., constructability, pioneering status, and project size). Project
characteristics contribute to certain project risks, including financial risks and schedule delays (Diekmann
and Girard, 1995). Despite the enormous literature on CSFs, there are very little mentioned studies to
identify CSFs in the Egyptian construction industry, particularly governmental projects.
3.
In the first stage, a comprehensive literature review was conducted to establish the foundation of this
paper. In the following stage, extensive historical data has been reviewed and investigated of 85 succeed
and failed governmental projects in Egypt. Based on the aforementioned stages; a list of CSFs has been
developed in order to get the opinion of the experts in the Egyptian construction industry.
In the following stage, a questionnaire survey was demonstrated to collect the opinion of experts in the
construction industry. Questionnaire survey has been recognised as the most cost-effective and most
popular means of collecting information (Gravetter and Forzano, 2012). The questionnaire consisted of
two main sections. The first section included questions about general background of the respondents. In
the second section, the respondents were asked to rate the relative significance of the CSFs using a scale
of 0-5, where, 0 being not applicable, 1 being not significant, 2 being fairly significant, 3 being
significant, 4 being very significant, and 5 being extremely significant. The five-point scale has been
widely used in construction management studies (Shen et al., 2001; and Sun et al., 2008) because it yields
better dispersion than the three-point scale (Curtis and Carey, 2012).
134
A total of 114 questionnaires were sent out, between January and April 2015. All potential respondents
were contacted before hand to make sure that they are willing to take part. A total of 50 complete
questionnaires were returned, representing a response rate of 43.8 %, which is acceptable according to
(Moser and Kalton, 1971; and Ott and Longnecker, 2010). About 28 of the responses were from
contractors, 14 responses were from consultants, and 8 responses were from governmental authorities.
Figure 1: Distribution of Percentage Success and Failed Projects
4.
SURVEY RESULTS
The main purpose of the aforementioned investigation is not to just identify a list of CSFs but to ascertain
the key CSFs that can significantly influence the delivery of construction governmental projects in Egypt.
Hence, in many researches which seeks to determine the most important factors, only the top ten ranked
ones were chosen as key factors (McIntosh and McCable, 2003; Tam et al., 2004). In this research it is
assumed the most CSFs based on the calculated relative significance index. Fourteen CSFs were
considered as significant, where SI > or = 80%, following section explain how the relative significance
index were calculated for each CSF.
4.1.
SIGNIFICANCE INDEXES OF CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS
It is useful to analyze the relative significance of the CSFs (Zhang, 2005). The relative significance
indexes of the each CSF are calculated separately. The following simple formula is developed to convert
linearly the 0-5 scale used in the questionnaire survey to a 0-100 scale with 0 representing the lowest and
100 the highest significance. This means that 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and 0 have significance indexes of
100, 80, 60, 40, 20 and 0 respectively.
Significance index
Figure 2: Number of Most Significant CSFs vsTotal Number of CSFs in Each Group
135
Where Si = significance index for the ith factor;

Ri0= number of responses as 0 for the ith factor;
and Ri5= number of responses as 5 for the ith factor.
The significance indices and the rank of the CSFs were based on the responses appear in Table 1. Out of
45 CSFs, only 15 CSFs are considered as most significant 33% as shown in Table 1. Figure 2 is showing
number of most significant CSFs versus total number of CSFs in each Group.
Table 1: The Significance Indexes and Rank of the CSFs
Success Factor
SI
Rank
Overall Rank
87.2
78.4
1
2
5
19
78
20
Clarity and determine the scope of work of the project

Suitablecontract for the project type
Place implementation of the project (easy access - the availability
of basic materials - Security ... etc.
The application of technology or implementation of a new style
for the first time applied
54.4
52.8
4
5
35
36
48.4
41
46.8
42
The existence of the project next to sensitive sites and as

important as the military districts, embassies, sovereign bodies
46.6
43
How over the public accept the project
34.8
45
96.8
Continuous monitoring and effective control

Harmony and good coordination between the departments
involved in the project to achieve the project objective
Flexible policies to manage the project
Relative power and authority
86.8
86.4
81.2
80.8
4
5
12
13
Capability to change subcontractors in case of backwardness
77.2
21
70
31
52
37
51.2
38
50
10
39
100
99.6
85.6
1
2
3
1
2
8
80
14
Group1 : Project
Accuracy of the contractual duration of the project
Clarity terms of the contract
The existence of detailed study of the project to ensure there are
no conflicts or differences between the various project documents
Group 2 : Owner
The availability of project budget and easily extracts exchange
procedures.
Continuity and poise organizational structure during the period of

implementation of the project
Independence from the regulators.
The relative importance of the project for the top-level decisionmaking
Ease of communication between the different levels have Owner
Group 3 : Contractor
Availability of financial capacity
Sufficient experience and capability of technical personnel
The ability to provide adequate raw materials required quickly
Adequate plant and equipment to do the work properly
136
Success Factor
SI
Rank
Overall Rank
Ability to control and organize the contract

Adequate of labor skill and labor's Experience
80
75.2
5
6
15
22
Good assessment of pre-qualification
75.2
23
Cost overrun due to planning estimation
72.8
25
Capability to manage subcontractor.

Capability of Trouble shooting
Performed projects of the same type and scale
72.4
72
64.8
9
10
11
26
27
32
The ability to respond quickly to change order of the project
60
12
33
The familiarity with owner procedures

Group 4 : Consultant
Competency and commitment of consultant proposed team
Relevant experience in the implementation of projects
57.2
13
34
84.8
84
1
2
9
10
The ability to good communication between the contractor and the

owner through the implementation of the project
79.6
16
Technical background
78.8
17
Ability to coordinate and trouble shooting
74.4
24
72
28
70.8
29
70.4
30
88
83.2
78.8
49.6
41.6
2
3
4
5
11
18
40
44
Undelay in performing testing and inspection by the consultant

The ability to respond to changes that occur during project
implementation
Continuity and poise organizational structure during the period of
implementation of the project
Group 5 : Environment
Political environment
Economic environment
Technical approval authorities
Technological environment
Social and physical environment
5.
RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
The result of survey questionnaire from the project parties perspectives (owner, consultant, and
contractor) which listed the most CSFs in the construction of governmental projects in Egypt imply that;
CSFs related to owner group: This group percentage the high percentage group of success group with
total percentage 50%.The results showed that the availability of project budget and easily payment
procedures is the most important success factor under the owner group. This was due to, in case of
unavailability of project budget, it will directly affect on the contractor cash. Consequently, it may cause
negative impact on the project performance or sometimes work suspension.
The second CSF under the owner group is Continuous monitoring and effective control. Therefore the
owner should have sufficient technical staff with extensive experience enabling them to manage and
control in all project stages. In addition, the owner should have adequate monitoring and control system.
The monitoring and control system could produce reports, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and dash
board, all can provide the decision maker a precise status that enabling to take effective decisions.
The third ranked CSF is Harmony and good coordination between the departments involved in the
project to achieve the project objective. It is mandatory for the owners entity to maintain the
performance of the project. Also, any conflict between different departments will lead to a decrease in the
project performance. Furthermore may lead to work suspension.
137
The fourth ranked CSF is Flexible policies to manage the project. Internal regulations in the
governmental authorities have to be adequate to facilitate the low interpretation to solve and clarify the
misunderstanding issues, thereby avoid any losing or waiting time.
The fifth ranked CSF is Relative power and authority. Most contracts states that acquiring the required
approval and permits are the owners responsibility. The approvals and permits risk in a matter of concern
for the contractors working in the Egyptian construction industry (Orabi, 2003). The owner may have
adequate relative power and authority to avoid the delay of those approvals from the governmental
authorities.
CSFs related to Environment group: This group represents the second highest percentage success group
with total of 40%. The results showed that Political environment is the highest CSF in this group. This
factor is out of project parties control but it affects the project success. Many causes related to the
political environment may lead to a project failure such as: political instability, revolution, strikes,
corruption, regional war, and civil war. Furthermore, the economical environment is vulnerable to the
political environment. Hence, instability of political environment will lead to instability in economical
environment.
The second CSF under this group is Economical environment. Likewise this factor is out of project
parties control and may cause failure to the project. There are many causes related to economical
environment such unexpected inflation of construction material, unavailability of foreign currency,
unexpected increasing in currency exchange, and implementing additional taxes, etc.
CSFs related to contractor group: This group represents the third highest percentage success group with
total of 38%. The results showed that Availability of financial capacity is the highest CSF under
contractor group. The contractors working in construction projects suffer from lack of cash which could
affect their ability to finance their acquired projects and thus affect their performance (Zabel, 2007).
The second CSF under this group is Sufficient experience and capability of technical personnel. The
contractor should have sufficient experience in similar type of the projects. In addition, the competent of
contractors staff that will enable the contractor to carry out the works properly and effectively. Hence, if
a contractor cannot provide adequate experience, the project performance will be extremely affected.
The third ranked CSF is The ability to provide adequate raw materials required quickly. The contractor
should have solid database of credible supplier to provide him the required material on time and with
required specifications. Any delay of material procurement will cause negative impact on the project
performance.
The fourth ranked CSF is Adequate plant and equipment to achieve the work properly. Construction
projects in Egypt are suffering from equipment quality risks. This is due to inadequate equipment
management plans, inefficient equipment, and unqualified equipments operators (Zabel, 2007). Hence
contractor should have sufficient equipment/plants that required to achieve the project properly.
The fifth ranked CSF is Capability to control and organize the contract the contractor has to develop
proper monitoring and control systems that will enable him to monitor the performance of the project. In
addition the contractor could implement quality assurance and control that lead to effective decision
making and proactive management.
CSFs related to consultant group: This group represents the fourth highest percentage success group with
total of 25%. The results showed that Competency and commitment of consultant proposed team is the
highest CSF under the consultant group. The consultant should have extensive experience and relevant
technical background to enable him to solve the technical issues properly. Furthermore the consultant
could direct the contractor to the right way. In addition, the consultant has to lead the relation with the
client in a proactive way.
The second CSF under this group is Relevant experience in the implementation of projects. The
consultant should have relevant extensive experience to the same type of the project, to enable him to
solve the technical issues properly. Therefore, it will help the project owner to identify the potential
significant risks relevant to the project.
138
CSFs related to project group: This group represents the fourth highest percentage success group with
total of 11%. The results showed that Accuracy of the contractual duration of the project it is the most
of CSF under the group. The under estimation of project duration lead to develop a tight project schedule
contains high percentage of critical activities. Thus, it will cause cost overrun and will affect quality of
the performed work. Moreover, it may cause disputes between project parties and may lead to a project
failure.
6.
SUMMARY
Deep understanding of CSFs is essential in order for construction governmental projects to take proper
success management strategies. This research paper has systematically examined CSFs affecting the
construction of governmental projects in Egypt. In this paper, 45 CSFs were evaluated and ranked
according to their significance index. Forty five CSFs have been identified through literature review,
questionnaire survey, and historical review of construction projects in Egypt.
These CSFs are further analysed, distilled, coded, and finally categorized into five main CSF groups: (1)
Project, (2) Owner, (3) Contractor, (4) Consultant, and (5) Environment,
The performed analysis shows that fifteen CSFs have S.I 80%, which considered most significant CSFs.
Brief discussion for each factors of the most significant CSFs were presented to help the decision makers
of the construction governmental projects in Egypt to recognize the root causes of the most significant
CSFs.
7.
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140
DEVELOPING A FRAMEWORK TO ENSURE SAFETY OF MAINTENANCE

WORKERS IN SRI LANKAN COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS
S.H.M.I. Udani, P.A.P.V.D.S. Disaratna, R.P.N.P. Weerasinghe* and H.W.N. Madhusanka
ABSTRACT
Maintenance is one of the most important and critical activities in every high rise commercial
building. Maintenance activities often comprised of risk increasing factors and different kinds of
potential hazards. Significant numbers of maintenance workers may be exposed to a variety of risks
when doing their job. The safety of the maintenance workers should be prioritized in every
maintenance work. It is mandatory to provide a safe working environment for their workers.
Organisations and maintenance workers are not adhering appropriate safety practices to safeguard
their lives and properties. Initiated regulations and standards are not specifically designed for the
building maintenance activities. Therefore, this research intended to address this issue by developing a
framework to ensure safety of maintenance workers in commercial buildings. Initially, a
comprehensive literature review was carried out on the subject matter. Based on the nature of the
study, data collection was carried out in two phases. A case study approach was used to gather
existing information on maintenance works carried out under different categories, their related
hazards. Semi structured interviews were conducted with a professional who is in the management
level of the maintenance department in each selected case study. Expert survey was then carried out
with three industry professionals to gather information about appropriate suggestions to ensure the
safety of maintenance workers. The study highlighted key categories of maintenance works as confined
space works, hot works, works at height, works involve with electrical equipment and works involve in
using dangerous substance. These activities involve with different kinds of potential hazards such as
physical, chemical, biological and psychological. The exposure level of the maintenance workers to
the hazards is significantly high in this work environment. The study identified safe procedures to
follow during different maintenance tasks.
Keywords:
1.
Maintenance Works; Occupational Safety and Health; Safety and Health Measures.
INTRODUCTION
In recent years, maintenance of a building has considered as one of the vital functions within any
organization (Milczarek and Bienko, 2010). A proper maintenance is necessary for reducing its life cycle
cost and for achieving expected life time of assets within its optimum performance (Hon et al., 2011).
According to Booty (2006), maintenance of facilities and properties in any organization has a direct
influence on the effectiveness of its functions. Maintenance can be considered as the most essential
activity to perform required function from any physical item effectively (Blaise et al., 2014).
Maintenance associates with different types of work tasks in various sectors, different work phases and
different kinds of working environments (Milczarek and Bienko, 2010). According to Vatn and Aven
(2010), maintenance can increase the reliability and hence the safety of the equipment though failures and
accidents often occur while execution of maintenance activities. Accordingly, workers who carry out
maintenance operations in any work environment may directly interact with various hazards (Blaise et al.,
2014). Grusenmeyer (2014) reported that the accidents exposure level of maintenance staff is higher than
the production staff. European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (2010) emphasizes that
maintenance activities has been contributed to the 10%-15% of fatal Occupational accidents from the
15%-20% of all accidents in Europe in 2006. Inappropriate walking or working surface, working while a
machine is in motion, dangerous working practices, misinterpretation of instruction and accidental engine
*
141
start-up are some of the causes for severe and fatal accidents in maintenance operations (Lind and
Nenonen, 2008).
The safety of the maintenance should be prioritized in every industry and as well as it is mandatory to
provide a safe working environment for their workers and subcontractors (Hadidi and Khater, 2015).
Safety is ensured by the combination of management, workers and equipment (Raouf, 2004).
International and local legislation and standards have been introduced for different work conditions.
There is less attention for applying safety procedures in different maintenance works in buildings.
Although maintenance is treated as a critical and risky operation according to occupational Safety
viewpoint, the risk towards maintenance workers have been much less examined (Lind and Nenonen,
2008). Hence this study aims to develop a framework for ensuring safety of the maintenance workers in
commercial buildings. The following objectives are set to reach the above aim,
1. To identify the different types of works carried out by maintenance staff,
2. To identify the health and safety hazards involved in maintenance works, and
3. To identify suitable safety procedures for maintenance work.
2.
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1.
MAINTENANCE OF BUILDINGS
Success and continuity of the organization is influenced by efficiency and effectiveness of its
maintenance functions (Cooke, 2003). According to Lai et al. (2008), it is essential to conduct properly
organized operation and maintenance services for ensuring proper building performance and for
preserving the economic rent pay for the buildings. The British Standards Institute defined maintenance
as, A combination of all the technical and associated administrative activities required to keep
equipment, installations and other physical assets in the desired operating condition or to restore them to
this condition (Muchiri et al., 2010, p.8). Reason (1997) described the term maintenance as activities
including unscheduled repairs, inspections, planned preventive maintenance, together with calibration and
testing. Different types of maintenance are used by organizations based on their need. Dhillon (2006)
categorized maintenance as,
Preventive maintenance - actions carried out according to a schedule which is planned, specified
and in a periodical condition to keep equipment and items in a required working condition by the
process of reconditioning and checking.
Corrective maintenance - unscheduled and unforeseen maintenance or repair to equipment and

items to return them to the required state, carry out when after maintenance persons or the users
identifying the failures and deficiencies.
Predictive maintenance - correctly diagnosing the present condition of the equipment and items
during its operations by using modern measurement and signal processing techniques.
The nature of the maintenance work has changed in recent times with variety of tasks, working conditions
and technologies (Cooke, 2003). Lai et al., (2006) noted a wide range of maintenance works of building
components such as roofing, faade and internal finishing as well as engineering services such as
electrical, air conditioning, plumbing, fire services, lifts and escalators and drainage. Southwark Council
(2008) categorized work activities take place in maintenance with consideration of safety aspects where
the special attention should be there for the safety of maintenance workers and can be summarized as
follows,
Confined space works - totally or partially enclosed place which is not suitable to workers
occupancy, entrance and exit is restricted due to the location and means, consisted with risks to
safety and health of the worker because of the work to be carried, materials used, location and
hazards (Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety, 2012)
142
Hot works - operations which have the possibility of producing heat, flames and sparks (Ontario
Ministry, 2006). Hot work include the works such as welding, chipping operations, works with
spark introducing tools and cutting operations (Weissman, 2008)
Working at height - working at height is a situation which any person is carrying out the work at
aheight of more than two meters/six feet: due to that height there is a possibility to fall if
necessary safety precautions are not provided (The Employers' Federation of Ceylon, 2015).
Excavation works - works carrying out with the purpose of creating an open face, cavity or hole
with the use of any tool, machine or another thing for removal of soil or rock from a site to form
an open face, hole or cavity. Machinery or explosives can be used during excavation works (Safe
Work Australia, 2015)
Maintenance works on lifts, conveyors and hoists
Works on high voltage electrical equipment or on other electrical equipment
Works involving the use of hazardous/dangerous substances
Work tasks, work period and working environment vary in maintenance works according to the jobs
carried out (Vinnem et al., 2012). It is obvious that maintenance activities always comprise with risk
increasing factors (Kelly and McDermid, 2001). According to nature of the work, maintenance can be
identified as a high risk activity as the work is consisted of several hazards (Lind and Nenonen, 2008). In
addition, a significant number of accidents are related to maintenance activities and especially to
corrective maintenance (European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, 2010). Accordingly, the next
section discusses the prevailing hazards and risks of maintenance works.
2.2.
EXISTING HAZARDS IN BUILDING MAINTENANCE
Lind et al., (2008) described hazards in work place as hazards relating to the working methods, working
environment and machinery. Both British Standard (2004) and OSHAS 18002 (2007) identified the term
hazards in a similar way as, Source or situation with a potential for harm in terms of death, ill health or
injury, or a combination of these. In British Standard 8800 (2004) hazards are categorized under
following four categories,
Physical hazards - any factor existing in the environment which has the potential of causing the
harm without necessarily touching it (Sutton, 2015).
Chemical hazards - any mixtures, substances, and materials which are categorized as dangerous
and having risk (Marshall, 1987).
Biological hazards - any biological substance or organic matter which affect in a bad manner to
the health of human (Stitt-Fisher, 2015)
Psychological hazards - the workplace stressors and other violence (Pryor and Capra, 2012)
Table 1 shows the identified hazards in all four categories. Lind et al. (2008): Neitzel, et al., 2008: Zhao,
et al., 2015; Cowles (2001); Phoon (1997) and Sedlatschek (2011).
Table 1: Existing Hazard in Maintenance Work
Type of Hazard
Physical Hazards
Chemical Hazards
Existing Hazards in Maintenance Work

Electrical: capacitors, high voltage, static
Mechanical movement: rotating elements such as flywheels, unexpected startups,
computerized auto-start
High pressure fluids
Oxygen deficient atmospheres, Radiation
Fire/explosion; Extreme heat/cold, Noise, Vibration
Work at Height; Weather, Ergonomics
Slipping, tripping, falling
Lifting and holding heavy loads
Dusts and Fibers such as asbestos, silica, respiratory sensitizers
143
Type of Hazard
Biological Hazard
Psychological Hazards
Existing Hazards in Maintenance Work

Dangerous substances such as chlorine, hydrogen
Toxic, oxidizing, explosive, flammable, corrosive substances
Hydraulic fluids, oils, acids, alkalis, organic solvents
Pathogenic bacteria such as salmonella and legionella
viruses, parasites, moulds and fungi
Time pressure; Long hours; Shift work
Poor work organization; Unsocial working hours
Moreover, solid, gas or liquid which have the possibility of occurring harm to the persons can be
identified as hazardous substances (Work Safe Victoria, 2015). The hazards which worker is exposed
may lead to risk of causing work related injury and accidents. The factors affecting for increasing the risk
of injury is wider than simply unsafe acts and unsafe conditions existing in workplaces (Keyserling and
Smith, 2007). Hadidi and Khater (2015) mentioned that the occupational risk from the potential hazards
in maintenance work is much higher than other sort of routine work, in-house workers, outsource parties
and sub-contractors involve in maintenance work and they expose to variety of risks. Raouf (2004) noted
that maintenance policies and safety performance has direct impact on the effectiveness of functions.
Companies need to adhere appropriate health and safety management systems to prevent and diminish
accidents by identifying and selecting the most essential hazards and by managing the hazards and the
preventive measures (Vinnem et al., 2012).
2.3.
OCCUPATIONAL
MAINTENANCE
SAFETY
HEALTH
LEGISLATIONS
AND
STANDARDS
INFLUENCE
TO
Some of the international and local standards and polices are initiated to eliminate the hazards by
providing appropriate safety procedures.
International Labour Organization (ILO) Conventions
ILO deals with all labour issues by providing guidelines on Occupational Safety and Health management
systems. ILO - OSH (2001) has provided conventions for radiation protection, occupational cancer,
working environment; (noise, vibration and air pollution), exposing to asbestos, using of chemicals at
work and prevention of major industrial accidents.
BS Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series (OHSAS) 18001:2007
BS OHSAS 18001 (2007) standard emphasized the requirement of occupational health and safety
(OH&S) management systems in workplaces. The standard enables organizations to establish an
Occupational Health and Safety policy, planning (for identification of Hazard, risk assessment and
determining controls, Legal and other requirements) implementing and operation, checking and obtaining
corrective actions under the management responsibilities and their commitment to OH&S management
system. OHSAS 18001 aims to confirm a firm's Occupational Health and Safety Management System
(OHSMS) which helps to develop and sustain a safe workplace while securing workers from accidents
and illness (British Standards Institution, 2013). The objective of the OHSAS 18001 standard is to uphold
the good practices in the area of occupational health and safety through the methodical and planned
management systems support (Chang and Liang, 2009).
Factories Ordinance No. 45 of 1942
Factories Ordinance has made provisions for ensuring the safety, health and welfare of persons working
in the factories and other workplaces which the provisions of this ordinance apply. According to The
Employers' Federation of Ceylon (2015) below mentioned provisions are most affecting to maintenance
works.
Requirements of building services Examination and reporting the results of examinations

Regulations for accidents notification and dangerous occurrences notification
Requirements for providing effective and suitable PPE such as screens, shields, goggles or
spectacles as necessary.
144
Requirements for notification of industrial diseases occurring in any factory

Requirements to securely fence the flywheel or prime mover
Requirements for fencing, using driving belts of the transmission machinery
Regulations for the use of other machines
Requirements to provide suitable ear defenders for those who are exposed to noise above
upper limit
Investigation into case of death by accident or industrial disease
Provisions for protection from radiation and vibration
Even though the ordinances and standards exist, those have given a less attention for the specific task of
maintenance. Hence the intention of this study is to investigate the safety procedures of maintenance
workers in buildings.
3.
An extensive literature review was conducted to identify the types of maintenance works and existing
safety and health hazards of the maintenance works. The study needs to investigate the existing
maintenance works, its associated hazards and appropriate safety procedures for the maintenance works
in Sri Lankan commercial buildings. The study used a qualitative approach. Naoum (2013) described that
the type of the research approach selected for any research is determined on the type of the study, purpose
of the study and information availability for the study. By using a qualitative approach the researcher will
be able to study whole population as individuals or groups and could be able to identify beliefs,
understandings, opinions and views of people (Fellows and Lui, 2003). Naoum (2013) mentioned that the
qualitative research approach includes experiments, case study research, surveys, enthnography, ground
survey and action research. Based on the nature and purpose of the study, data was collected through two
phases.
In first phase, data were gathered to investigate existing maintenance works and hazards of the
maintenance works. According to Crowe et al. (2011), when there is a need to do an in-depth
investigation of an issue, phenomenon or event of interest, in its natural real-life context the case study
approach is specifically useful to employ. Hence, the case study approach was used with the aid of semi
structured interviews. Five case studies were selected and a professional who is in the management level
of the maintenance department in each selected case study, were interviewed. The selected five high rise
commercial buildings were located in the western province of Sri Lanka. Selected buildings have more
than twelve stories and have more than 15 workers as maintenance staff. The details of the case studies
are presents in Table 2.
Table 2: Details of the Case Study
Criteria
Years of establishment
Stories of the building
Number of
maintenance workers
Details of the
interviewees and
experience
Case A
20
37
Case B
30
32
Case C
13
23
Case D
21
12
Case E
4
12
55
60
25
17
15
Senior
manager,
facilities
management
20 years
Maintenance
Manager
6 years
Senior
manager
operations and
maintenance
8 years
Engineering
manager
7 years
Maintenance
engineer
2 years
The data were gathered under following topics and are presented in findings section.
i)
Maintenance works in commercial buildings
ii)
Related hazards of maintenance work
In second phase, the objective was to determine suitable safety procedures for the maintenance workers in
identified maintenance tasks. Hence, experts opinion was required. The data were collected through semi
145
structured interviews by focusing the experts for the purpose of obtaining suggestions to enhance the
safety of maintenance workers. Three experts were interviewed. Interviewees were selected based on their
experience and their knowledge on the Occupational Safety and Health. The details of the experts are
presented in Table 3. Collected data was subjected to the content analysis.
Table 3: Details of the Experts
Criteria
Expert A
Expert B
Designation
Formal Chief Factory

Inspection Engineer
Director General: National

Occupational Safety and Health
Occupational Safety and

Health Consultant
Work experience
Over 40 years
Over 20 years
Over 20 Years
4.
DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS
4.1.
MAINTENANCE TASKS OF COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS
Expert C
This section identified existing maintenance tasks of commercial buildings. Gathered data were
categorised according to the literature findings of Southwark Council (2008). Figure 1 shows the
maintenance tasks of commercial buildings in Sri Lanka.
Figure 1: Maintenance Work of Commercial Buildings
It was revealed that many maintenance works carried out in confined spaces in commercial building are
common to each other. Majority of the interviewees have mentioned that maintenance works of water
storage tanks, diesel storage tanks, generators, Air Handling Units, chillers and lifts can be considered
under confined spaces category. The interviewees have mainly emphasized welding work and grinding
work under hot work category. It was identified that welding work is done very frequently by the
maintenance staff in commercial buildings. As selected buildings are high rise buildings, gondola work
146
became a major one of the significant and risky maintenance works in commercial buildings under height
category. Further, ceiling works, painting, CCTV maintenance, split Air Conditioning (AC) maintenance,
maintenance of fire protection and detection systems, duct works are classified as working at height. Also
pipe and valve replacing maintenance works can be categorized under the maintenance works carried out
at height. According to the findings, excavation work are very rarely carried out in commercial buildings.
The escalator and elevator servicing and maintenance come under the category of maintenance works on
lifts conveyors and hoists. All the respondents agreed escalator and elevator servicing and maintenance as
their main maintenance activity which is done by an outsourced party. Further, maintenance of hoists like
faade lift is included in this category. Maintenance work relating to medium voltage switch gear,
maintenance of transformers, maintenance of capacitor banks, motor control panel, bus duct, oil circuit
breakers, distribution boards, High Tension (HT) and Low Tension (LT) panel board maintenance such as
cleaning and testing, and UPS maintenance are categorized by all respondents as the maintenance of high
voltage electrical equipment and other electrical equipment. Chemicals usage for corrosion cleaning,
chemical treatments of HVAC system, painting, fogging and pest control were highlighted as
maintenance works involved in hazardous and dangerous substances. Five commercial buildings which
were selected conducts similar maintenance activities as their daily operations.
4.2.
MAINTENANCE RELATED HAZARDS
The hazards which related to above identified maintenance works have been analysed. Finally the
relationship between maintenance works and their related hazards were summarized. Table 4 shows
maintenance works and the potential hazards.
Electrical hazard, high pressure fluids, fire, explosion and extreme heat, vibration, falling, ergonomics
were highlighted as physical hazards by the interviewees. All five case studies come up with dust, fibres
and respiratory sensitizers, Dangerous substances, explosives, flammable and corrosive substances, acids,
and alkalis and organic solvents as chemical hazards in their work place. Pathogenic bacteria such as
legionella and fungi highlighted as biological hazards. Time pressure and long hours work were indicated
as psychological hazards of the maintenance workers. Interviewees highlighted the number of work
related hazards in their context, giving various examples.
Table 4: Maintenance Works and their Related Hazards
Maintenance Work
Specifically Related Hazard
Common Hazards
Confined space works

Hot works
Oxygen deficient atmospheres

Fire, explosion and extreme heat
Working at height
Falling
Maintenance work on lifts, conveyors, hoists

Work on high voltage electrical equipment or
other work on electrical equipment
Falling
Electrical hazard
Noise, vibration, Dust,

Ergonomics, time
pressure, long hour
works, biological
hazards
Work involving the use of

hazardous/dangerous substances
All chemical hazards
4.3.
SAFETY PROCEDURES FOR CARRYING OUT DIFFERENT TYPES OF MAINTENANCE WORK

CATEGORIES
According to the statements of experts appropriate safety procedures should be taken when carrying out
maintenance works in confined spaces, works relating to hot works, works on lifts, conveyors and hoists,
works in high voltage electrical equipment or other electrical equipment and works involving the use of
hazardous or dangerous substances. Safety procedures for aforementioned areas are described in
following sections.
Maintenance Works in Confined Spaces
According to the findings, three experts highlighted the requirement of work permits for carrying out
maintenance works in confined spaces. As an example expert A stated that as these confined spaces are
147
high risk areas; should have a work permit form to fill before working in confined spaces. Expert C
stated some organizations use a general risk assessment form for the confined spaces also and if there
are many confined spaces there should be a risk assessment form which is specific only for confined
spaces. According to the findings, this work permit is issued by the health and safety officer of the
organization based on the usage of the space, PPE requirements, lighting levels and etc. Expert B
indicated that the location of the confined spaces, exit routes, emergency escape procedures power supply
to the equipment are important to consider in such spaces. Further, expert C indicated that there should be
a pre-determined way to communicate in an emergency situation. Moreover, findings emphasised that the
work permit is issued for particular individual work and when the work is completed the permit should be
closed. It was indicated by expert C as due to the changes such as working environment, worker and
time, each and every work carried out in confined spaces need to have a separate permit to work.
Maintenance Works Relating to Hot Works
The experts emphasized that obtaining the work permit as a safety and health measure for carrying out hot
works. Expert B added as if the hot work is a routine maintenance work that work can be carried out
according to Standard Operating Procedure (SPO) or if the hot work is carried out as non-routine work,
work permit is required. Gathered data indicated that when carrying out maintenance work relating to
the hot works it is essential to make sure that the work is carried out by a competent worker. Further,
suitable fire extinguishers should be available at a nearest place and the working environment should be
continuously ventilated. Further, gathered data indicated that the workers should use all the PPE required
for carrying out hot works such as face shield, insulated gloves or gauntlet gloves and cotton cloths. In
addition, expert A indicated that before starting the work, all the equipment and tools should be inspected
and tested for leakages to ensure whether those are in good condition or not. Further, the respondent
indicated that working environment also should be inspected to make sure that the area is free from
combustible materials. Moreover, expert B specified that workers should have a clear knowledge about
emergency precautions and emergency escapes in case of fire.
Working at Height
The experts emphasized the requirement of training and competence for the maintenance workers who
involve in the maintenance works at height. Experts described that it is necessary to consider the nature of
the work and workplace in which work is taken place at height, duration of the work, frequency of the
work and height of which the worker works. These factors help to select means of access to the work
place and to recognize the hazards involve in working at height. As an example expert B stated that if the
duration of the work at height is short and if the risk level is low for that kind of works ladders can be
used. Further, expert C emphasized that if the work is taken place in the outside of the building it is
necessary to consider about the weather condition. In addition, three experts have highlighted the
importance of using proper PPE such as safety harness, safety helmet and eye protections according to the
nature of the work. Workers use permanent and temporary equipment as means to access to high working
areas. Findings of data emphasized that those equipment should be in good condition and if those
equipment are temporary they should be tight well at the bottom and the top to prevent from any
movements. Moreover, expert A indicated that if the size of the workplace at height is small it is required
to provide fall protections such as a guard rails, fall arrests or safety nets.
Maintenance Works on Lifts, Conveyors and Hoists
The experts emphasized that the maintenance work should be carried out by trained and competent
workers. Further, they highlighted the necessity of conducting a risk assessment and identifying the
possible hazards. Further, findings revealed the importance of proper power supply to the lift, conveyor or
hoists. Experts A and C emphasized the requirement of lock and tag out the switches. If the maintenance
work is carried out in a confined space such as in a lift core, sufficient ventilation and illumination should
be provided. Here also findings indicated the requirement of using proper and relevant PPE according to
the type of work such as safety helmets and body harnesses.
Work on High Voltage Electrical Equipment or Other Electrical Equipment
Two experts described about maintenance works on de-energized electrical equipment and energized
electrical equipment. Expert B emphasized that sometimes it is not possible to de-energize the electrical
148
equipment for maintenance works. According to the experts opinion, it is essential to identify whether
the electrical equipment can be de-energized or not before starting the maintenance work. If the
equipment can be de-energized power supply should be disconnected and have to lock and tag out. If the
equipment cannot be de-energized it should be ensured that safety precautions have been taken. And also
it is essential to do a risk assessment and identify the possible hazards. Further, experts emphasized
specially that a competent person should be appointed to the maintenance works on electrical equipment
and relevant PPE have to be used such as non-conductive gloves, clothes and protective shoes. Further,
tools and equipment used for the maintenance work should have non-conductive handles. Finally the
work should be carried out according to the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) or should obtain a
work permit.
Work Involving the Use of Hazardous or Dangerous Substances
Expert B highlighted if possible, eliminate the use of hazardous or dangerous substances or substitute
them with the substances which are not highly hazardous. According to the experts, chemicals in the
work place should be labelled by indicating the type of chemical and Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS)
should be available for each chemical. In addition, expert A indicated the necessity of record keeping of
hazardous substances. Moreover, findings revealed about the need of risk assessments and preparedness
for the emergencies. The experts opinion is that all workers should aware on hazards related to the work
and its safety procedures. Further, experts indicated that if the work is highly hazardous, a work permit
should be obtained for the work and if not the work can be carried out according to the SOP.
5.
FRAMEWORK TO ENSURE THE SAFETY AND HEALTH OF MAINTENANCE WORKERS
According to the findings of the research, a framework was developed for enhancing the Safety and
Health of maintenance workers. The framework mentions the safe procedures of carrying out the
identified six major maintenance tasks in commercial buildings. Mainly it is important to state that the
framework is developed by indicating the most important and fundamental safety and health actions to be
taken when carrying out maintenance works. The developed framework is illustrated in Figure 2.
149
Figure 2: Framework toEnsure the Safety and Health of Maintenance Workers
6.
Maintenance in the buildings has received high importance as a non-core activity which mainly affects to
the core business of the organization. Maintenance works are often exposed to hazards that can be
harmful to the maintenance workers as well as work environment. The study highlighted key categories
of maintenance works as confined space works, hot works, works at height, works involve with electrical
equipment and works involve in using dangerous substances. Aforementioned maintenance activities
involve with different kinds of potential hazards such as physical, chemical, biological and psychological.
The exposure level of the maintenance workers to the hazards is significantly high when comparing to the
other working population in buildings. As a result of that a considerable number of fatal accidents, nonfatal accidents and other health and safety issues are occurring through maintenance works to the
maintenance worker. Therefore, the study identified health and safety procedures to follow during
different maintenance tasks. It was identified the fact that most of the organisations have given less
priority for the health and safety of maintenance worker. On the other hand, maintenance workers
themselves are ignoring the safety practices while conducting their maintenance operations. This will
result in great risks to their lives as well as the organisation.
150
7.
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152
DEVELOPMENT OF A PROFESSIONAL DOCTORAL PROGRAMME IN

BUILT ENVIRONMENT TO ENHANCE SOCIETAL RESILIENCE TO
DISASTERS
Solomon Babatunde, Kanchana Ginige* and Onaopepo Adeniyi
Department of Architecture and Built Environment, Northumbria University, United Kingdom
Srinath Perera
School of Computing Engineering and Mathematics, Western Sydney University, Australia
Dilanthi Amaratunga
School of Art, Design and Architecture, University of Huddersfield, United Kingdom
ABSTRACT
Integrating disaster resilience into education is a key factor for reducing the adverse impact of future
disasters. This paper in this context presents the methodology of developing an innovative professional
doctoral programme (DProf) that integrates professional and academic knowledge in the built
environment to enhance societal resilience to disasters. The DProf programme addresses the career
needs of practicing professionals, particularly those in, or who aspire to, senior positions within the
construction industry and caters for the researching professional. In developing the DProf
programme, a detailed market needs analysis for built environment stakeholders to increase societal
resilience to disasters was conducted capturing inter-disciplinary needs across a range of stakeholders
and countries. A series of semi-structured interviews on current and emerging market needs with
members of six built environment related stakeholders, namely, local and national governments;
community; NGOs, INGOs and other international agencies; academia and research organisations;
and private sector facilitated the aforementioned analysis. Qualitative data analysis techniques were
employed in analysing the interview data. The findings of the interviews revealed the current and
emerging needs and skills of the six stakeholders related to built environment professionals towards
enhancing social, economic, technological, environmental and institutional dimensions of disaster
resilience of societies. These findings were used to develop the appropriate learning outcomes and the
content of taught and research components of the DProf programme.
Keywords:
1.
Professional Doctorate; Disaster Resilience; Built Environment.
INTRODUCTION
The need to improve the capacity and capability of the built environment professionals in enhancing
disaster resilience of societies was highlighted by Siriwardena et al. (2013); Thayaparan et al. (2015);
Perera et al. (2016) among others. They suggested the need of continuously updating the skills and
knowledge of construction professionals, in order to contribute effectively to disaster resilience. The
professionals in the construction sector play an important role in disaster resilience and management and
it is, therefore, important to design educational and training courses to enable them to successfully fulfil
this role (Witt et al., 2014). This is corroborated by Bosher et al. (2007) that risk and hazard awareness
training needs to be integrated systematically into the professional training of architects, planners,
engineers, developers, among others. In addition, the Sendai framework for disaster risk reduction (20152030) has identified the need for enhancing the capacities of relevant stakeholders and industries. The
framework suggested to build the knowledge of government officials at all levels, civil society,
communities and volunteers, as well as the private sector, through sharing experiences, lessons learned,
good practices and training and education on disaster risk reduction, including the use of existing training
and education mechanisms and peer learning (UNISDR, 2015).
*
153
Thus, the role of Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) in enhancing the disaster-related knowledge and
skills of construction professionals is highly recognised (Thayaparan et al., 2015). For instance, HEIs are
expected to contribute to both theory and practice in the development of societal resilience to disasters
through the development of curricular and modules to update the knowledge and skills that employees
have obtained in the past. Against this backdrop, doctoral education is identified as one of the methods in
upgrading the knowledge of the construction professionals in this regard.
Professional doctorates emphasise the importance of a connection with practice through the research topic
(Lee et al., 2000). For instance, UKCGE (2002) describes professional doctorate as a programme of
advanced study and research which, whilst satisfying the university criteria for the award of a doctorate,
is designed to meet the specific needs of a professional group external to the university. Council of
Australian Deans and Directors of Graduate Studies (1999) describes the professional doctorate as a
program of research and advanced study which enables the candidate to make a significant contribution to
knowledge and practice in their professional context [and] more generally to scholarship within a
discipline or field of study. Fenge (2009) asserts that central to the heart of the DProf is professional
practice, which encompassed the developing of professional knowledge and a focus on developing
practice. Thus, professional doctorates can be distinguished from other types of doctoral degrees based on
its specific focus on knowledge-in-use for professional practice (Lester, 2004).
Doctoral degrees have been part of HEIs ever since the first was conferred by the University of Paris in
the middle of the twelfth century (Noble, 1994). Thereafter the doctorate was adopted at universities
across Europe (Bourner et al., 2001). For six centuries, professional doctorates in theology, law and
medicine were pre-eminent. By contrast, the modern Doctor of Philosophy, the PhD (or DPhil),
originated at Berlin University in the early part of the nineteenth century. It then spread across the
German universities, attracting students from many other countries, notably the USA (Gregory, 1995).
The 1990s was the decade when the professional doctorate came to England (Bourner et al., 2001). In the
USA, the first Doctor of Philosophy was conferred in 1861 (Yale University). About 60 years later, the
Doctor of Philosophy degree finally came to Britain (Simpson, 1983; Winfield, 1987). In 1920, the first
Doctor of Philosophy degree was awarded by an English university (a DPhil in science by the University
of Oxford). At about the same time, the first professional doctorate (a Doctor of Education-EdD)
appeared in the USA, being awarded at Harvard University in 1921 (Bourner et al., 2001).
In 1990, the Australian Higher Education Council of the National Board of Employment, Education and
Training advocated that Australian universities should develop professional doctorates. By 1996, 29
universities had introduced professional doctorates, and over half of Australias 38 universities had
developed EdDs (Bourner et al., 2001). As at 1996, professional doctorates were available in education,
business, law, psychology, health sciences, humanities, design, and architecture (Poole and Spear, 1997).
In 1992, England introduced professional doctorates about 60 years after the USA at a traditional and
research-oriented institution, the University of Bristol (Westcott, 1997). The same 1992, the Doctor of
Engineering (EngD) was started in the UK, at the University of Warwick, the University of Manchester
Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) / the University of Manchester and the University of Wales
(Bourner et al., 2001). The 1990s saw English universities offering professional doctorates in a range of
subjects, as presented in Table 1.
Table1: Trend of Professional Doctorates across Subjects at 1 January 1998 in the UK
Subject/Title of Award
Short Form of the Title Most

Often Used
Number of
Universities
Number of
Programmes
Doctor of Education
EdD
24
29
Doctor of Medicine
MD
18
20
Doctor of Clinical Psychology
DClinPsy
17
19
Doctor of Business Administration
DBA
Doctor of Engineering
EngD
Doctor of Psychology
DPsych
154
Subject/Title of Award
Short Form of the Title Most

Often Used
Number of
Universities
Number of
Programmes
Doctor of Educational Psychology
DEdPsy
Doctor of Musical Arts
DMA; AMusD
Doctor of Architecture
DArch
Doctor of Veterinary Science
DVet Med; DVSc
Doctor of Dental Science
DDSc
Doctor of Public Health
DrPH
Doctor of Counselling Psychology
DCounsPsy
Doctor of Occupational Psychology
DOccPsych
Doctor of Clinical Science Psychotherapy
DClinSci Psychotherapy
Doctor of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy
DPsychPsych
Doctor of Theology
ThD
Doctor of Fine Art
Dart
Doctor of Work-based Learning
DProf
1
Total
109
Source: Bourner et al., (2001)
As shown in Table 1, 109 professional doctorate programmes in 19 subjects were available in English
universities at the start of 1998. Since 1998, there has been a continued growth in the most popular areas
for professional doctorates including education, clinical psychology, and business administration together
with new additional professional doctorate programmes in finance, pharmacy, social work, humanities,
and built environment. It can be deduced that the growth in professional doctorates has not been confined
to a few subjects but has encompassed a wide and growing range of subjects.
The proliferation of professional doctorates has been remarkable in the USA, UK, and Australia. In the
last decade, it has begun to attract the attention of higher education scholars and researchers (Kot and
Hendel, 2012). For instance, a number of studies have been published on professional doctorates in the
UK (Winter et al., 2000; Bourner et al., 2001; Hoddell et al., 2002; UKCGE, 2002; Scott et al., 2004;
Lester 2004; Park 2005; Powell and Long, 2005). In Australia (Maxwell and Shanahan, 1997; Maxwell
and Shanahan, 2001; Evans, 2002; McWilliam et al., 2002; Maxwell, 2003; Neumann, 2005; Stephenson
et al., 2006; Lee et al., 2009). However, no studies have been conducted across the globe to present a
broader picture on the expansion of professional doctorate programmes in disaster resilience in the built
environment. It is against this backdrop that a major initiative on a professional doctorate in disaster
resilience in the built environment was launched by the EU-funded research project, CADRE
(Collaborative Action for Disaster Resilience Education) aims to develop a professional doctorate to
integrate the professional and academic knowledge of the construction in developing societal resilience to
disasters.
This present study builds on the work by Malalgoda et al. (2015); Malalgoda et al. (2016); Perera et al.
(2015); Perera et al. (2016) that identified the current and emerging needs and skills, and knowledge gaps
of construction professionals and other stakeholders including communities affected by disasters towards
enhancing social, economic, technological, environmental and institutional dimensions of disaster
resilience of societies. This study, therefore, presents the methodology of developing an innovative
professional doctoral programme (DProf) that integrates professional and academic knowledge in the
built environment to enhance societal resilience to disasters. It is believed that this study would be of
great value to HEIs considering in offering a professional doctorate programme in disaster resilience.
Also, the methodology used to develop the professional doctoral programme (DProf) in this study can be
applied to any professional doctorate programme in HEIs and thus, benchmark future studies.
155
2.
THE NEED FOR PROFESSIONAL DOCTORATES IN DISASTER RESILIENCE

ENVIRONMENT
IN THE
BUILT
Disaster resilience and management is a multi-disciplinary subject area and multi-stakeholder efforts are
required for successful implementation. The main stakeholders include national and local government
institutes; NGOs, INGOs and other international organisations; academia; the private sector; and
community. These stakeholders demand a certain level of knowledge and skills to fulfil their
organisational needs in developing societal resilience to disasters. Thus, it is important that capacity is
developed for modern design, planning, construction and maintenance that are inclusive, interdisciplinary,
and integrative. In achieving this, it is proposed to develop an innovative professional doctorate to
integrate professional and academic knowledge in the construction industry to enhance societal resilience
to disasters. By developing a professional doctorate (DProf) programme, it is expected that issues such as
complexity and multi-disciplinary nature of the subject; lack of industry involvement; and lack of
research and development activities on disaster management by built environment professionals could be
successfully addressed. This section highlights the significance of DProf programme to construction
professionals in developing societal resilience and therefore several salient features are identified as
follows:
Contribution to theory and practice: Within the context of disaster resilience and management, more
applied research is required in order to develop the construction industry with necessary capacities to
plan, design, build and operate resilient structures to increase societal resilience to disasters. One of the
aims of a DProf programme is to integrate professional and academic knowledge in the selected
discipline. It will provide opportunities to the candidates to undertake the research in the workplace and to
select a topic, which has a direct effect on improving the professional practice, related to the host
organisation where successful completion normally leads to professional and/or organisational change. It
will, therefore, strengthen not only the academic knowledge and cooperation between the universities and
industries but also the concerns, capabilities, and expectations of the relevant stakeholders related to
disaster resilience and management. As such, professional doctorates are very much appropriate to the
construction sector in developing societal resilience to disasters. It will make a research-based
contribution to practice within the context of upselling construction professionals with disaster resilience
expertise.
Career needs of practicing professionals: One of the main disadvantages of traditional doctorates is that
it is not very attractive to the practicing professionals. For instance, traditional doctorates more often
contribute to the theory of knowledge and as a result, is not much popular with the practicing
professionals in the construction sector. This is corroborated by Bourner et al. (2001) that professional
doctorates are attractive to those who aspire their own personal development and a commitment to
furthering the cause of their profession. Therefore, developing a professional doctorate will address the
career needs, and will upgrade the knowledge and skills of practising professionals working to make
societies more resilient to disasters. It is expected that DProf programmes will attract learners from the
construction industry to develop solutions to their labour market demands through doctoral studies.
Collaboration: DProfs promotes collaboration between HEIs and industries, which are key stakeholders
in disaster resilience and management. The collaboration is further supported by facilitating crossinstitutional supervisory teams and working groups. It is expected to improve the quality and relevance of
DProf programme through active cooperation between HEIs and partners from outside academia,
including construction professional bodies, local/national/international bodies, and social partners.
Customisable: In serving the needs of various stakeholders, it is proposed to develop a professional
doctorate with a generic framework, which enables a wide range of professionals from the public, private
and voluntary sectors to negotiate programmes that are customised to the needs of their own professions
and organisations (Doncaster and Thorne, 2000) serving to reduce the risk of disasters. It is expected that
all construction professionals serving all of the stakeholder groups attached to disaster resilience and
management will benefit from the developed programme.
Lifelong learning and continuous professional development: The DProf is intended to be a form of inservice professional development. Construction professionals will, therefore, benefit from the proposed
professional doctoral programme, which will provide opportunities for learners to access lifelong,
156
learning in increasing societal resilience to disasters. Therefore, developing an innovative professional

doctorate will address the requirements for lifelong learning and will enhance not only academic
knowledge but also the concerns, capabilities, and expectations of the relevant industries and
communities. In turn, this will create the necessary intra Industry, Community, and University feedback
and feed-forward mechanisms to enable effective lifelong learning.
3.
PROGRAMME DEVELOPMENT METHODOLOGY
Development of the programme involves a substantial level of research activities to study and analyse
market needs in order to capture the labour market requirements for disaster resilience and its interface
with the construction industry and its professionals. The first phase of research involved capturing the
needs of five stakeholder groups associated with disaster resilience and management as well as current
and emerging skills and ultimately competencies, applicable to built environment professionals towards
enhancing societal resilience to disasters (Malalgoda et al., 2016; Perera et al., 2015; Perera et al., 2016).
The data collection and analysis framework of the study is presented in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Framework for Data Collection and Analysis
As shown in Figure 1, the initial framework is a three-dimensional framework consisting the following
parameters.
Built environment stakeholders: National and local government organisations; Community; NGOs,
INGOs, and other international agencies; Academia and research organisations; and Private sector.
Dimensions of resilience: Economic Resilience; Environmental Resilience; Institutional Resilience;
Social Resilience and Technological Resilience.
Stages of property lifecycle: Preparation Stage; Design Stage; Pre-Construction Stage; Construction
Stage and Use Stage.
The framework was developed through an extensive consultation process and was refined with the
emerging literature findings and with the opinion of stakeholders who has been interviewed to capture the
labour market demands in the construction industry to increase societal resilience to disasters. Eightyseven semi-structured interviews were conducted with national and local government organisations;
community; NGOs, INGOs and other international agencies; academia and research organisations; and
157
the private sector in all five partner countries. The details of the interviews are presented in Table 2. The
interviews were aimed at capturing the needs of five stakeholder groups associated with disaster
resilience and management as well as current and emerging skills and ultimately competencies, applicable
to built environment professionals towards enhancing societal resilience to disasters.
Table 2: Interviewees Profile
Stakeholder group
Number of
Interviews
Nature of Interviewee
National and local government
20
Managerial level employees at government agencies

and council employees engaged in disaster
management and resilience planning
HEIs and research organisations
21
Senior academics and researchers working in the field

of disaster resilience
Private sector
19
Senior employees from private sector companies such

as directors and managers of insurance companies and
construction companies
Community
15
Community representatives comprising disaster

affected community members, recovery coordinators,
and former and current council members
NGOs/INGOs
12
Representatives of Disaster Management related

INGOs and NGOs such as programme managers,
research officers and technical advisors
Total
87
Separate interview guidelines were prepared for each stakeholder to match their circumstances. The
interview guidelines were prepared to capture the above issues and the guidelines and a study brief were
sent to the interviewees prior to the interview. At the start of the interview, the interviewer introduced the
research topic and the aims and objectives of the study in order to give a clear picture of what is expected
from the interviewee. This allowed the interviewees to answer the questions more appropriately.
During the interviews, the interviewer asked questions based on the interview guideline, however, the
process allowed the interviewee to elaborate on the other issues which were relevant to the study. This
process allowed interviews to progress in a more proactive manner where the interviewer was able to
capture data more relevant to the study. The interviews lasted between 55 minutes and 80 minutes. Most
of the interviews were audio recorded using a digital voice recorder with the consent of the interviewees.
Audio recording helped the researchers to transcribe interviews accurately and provided the opportunity
to fully concentrate on the interviewee during the process. In addition, all key points were written down
during the interview in order to avoid any issues arising from technology failure. All the interviews were
then transcribed using MS word and this process allowed the researcher to use direct quotations from the
interviewees when presenting the data; all of which increased the reliability and validity of the research
findings.
The data gathered from respective interviews were subsequently analysed by the CADRE project partners
that conducted them. The analysis was done using NVivo (version 10). The themes that emerged from the
interviews conducted within each stakeholder group were collated. Similar nodes were merged after
combining all the nodes created by respective partners. The themes were presented under two main
headings i.e. Needs and Skills. The category Needs covers the stakeholder requirements that emerged
from the interviews as well as the demands specifically made by interviewees. Also, what the
interviewees believe should be in place while professionals relate with them to enhance societal resilience
were categorised under the heading Needs in the analysis. During the interviews, some set of skills
were displayed by professionals while serving to reduce the threats posed by natural and human-induced
hazards, and some that are desired by interviewees emerged. These set of skills were categorised under
the heading Skills (See Malalgoda et al. (2016); Perera et al. (2015); Perera et al. (2016) for details).
158
The interviews generated a long list of needs and skills with respect to the property lifecycle stages under
the respective dimensions of resilience. Finally, the identified needs and skills were combined like-forlike to produce the broader level of knowledge gaps in disaster resilience.
4.
DISCUSSION
The knowledge gaps identified through the interviews could be broadly categorised into two groups.
They are built environment specific knowledge gaps and knowledge gaps which are commonly related to
any discipline in disaster resilience. Some of the key knowledge gaps identified are, Governance, legal
frameworks and compliance; Business continuity management; Disaster response; Contracts and
procurement; Resilience technologies, engineering and infrastructure; Knowledge management; Social
and cultural awareness; Sustainability and resilience; Ethics and human rights; Innovative financing
mechanisms; Multi-stakeholder approach, inclusion and empowerment; Post-disaster project
management; and Multi-hazard risk assessment.
These knowledge gaps form the basis for the initial programme specification for the proposed DProf
programme. Based on these, a structured DProf programme will be developed to reflect how the
construction sector and its professionals can contribute to achieving resilience. In addition, these study
findings will be used to develop the appropriate learning outcomes and the content of taught and research
components of the DProf programme in disaster resilience.
5.
CONCLUSIONS
The professional doctorate in disaster resilience in the built environment is designed for practitioners
associated with disaster resilience in the built environment. The programme is offered to learners from the
construction industry, to develop solutions to their labour market demands through doctoral studies. This
is an alternative form of doctorate, which allows students to contribute to knowledge and practice without
undertaking a traditional research degree. The degree will facilitate students to reflect on a different
element of their professional career while making a substantial contribution to the improvement of their
professional practice. Successful completion of the degree will lead to professional and/or organisational
change that is often direct rather than achieved through the implementation of subsequent research
findings. The programme will address the career needs, and will upgrade the knowledge and skills, of
practising professionals working to make communities more resilient to disasters, and particularly those
in, or who aspire to, senior positions within their profession. The education and training delivered will be
more relevant to the world of work, which is vital for the labour market and for people's employability. It
will further broaden and deepen the employees' understanding of the disciplines in which they are
studying, upgrade their skills, promote inter-disciplinary working, and provide them with appropriate
transferable skills. It is believed that this study would be of great value to HEIs considering in offering a
professional doctorate programme in disaster resilience. Also, the methodology used to develop the
professional doctoral programme (DProf) in this study can be applied to any professional doctorate
programme in HEIs and thus, benchmark future studies.
6.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The research leading to this paper received funding from European Commission under the Lifelong
Learning Programme (Project number: 540151-LLP-1-2013-1-UK-ERASMUS-EQR). Any opinions,
findings, conclusions and recommendations expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not
reflect those of the European Commission. The authors would like to acknowledge the contributions
made by academics from partner institutions in the area of general discussions that formed the basis of
this paper as well as data analysis.
159
7.
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161
DISPUTE AVOIDANCE MODEL FOR SRI LANKAN CONSTRUCTION

INDUSTRY
Isuru De Alwis, Mahesh Abeynayake and Mathusha Francis*
ABSTRACT
Construction disputes have become a major hindrance for the performance of construction projects.
Most of the practices in construction projects have contributed to avoid disputes while serving its own
purposes. It is still hard to find a construction project with no disputes due the existence of root causes
for disputes. Many steps have been taken to introduce effective dispute resolution mechanisms giving
more concern on cost, time and enforceability of the solution, which still contain many drawbacks in
practical applications. This ways to prevention is better than cure and thus the concept of dispute
avoidance being emerged. The research therefore aims to develop a dispute avoidance model for Sri
Lankan construction industry.
Primarily, literature review was done in order to find the issues related to dispute and factors
contributing to dispute avoidance. The review revealed that risk allocation, selection of contractors,
quality of documentation, time management, and procurement method could contribute to dispute
avoidance. A survey research approach was adopted and questionnaires were issues to the
professionals who have experience in dispute management in Sri Lanka. The collected data was
analysed statistically using t-test. The research proposed Dispute Forecasting Session (DFS) as
dispute avoidance model for Sri Lanka. The research revealed that DFS need to be carried out middle
of the briefing stage, in between pre and post contract stage and beginning of post contract stage of
the project. Further the research identified the participants to DFS in terms of each stage of
construction project; in briefing stage client and consultant; in pre contract stage client, consultant
and neutral third party; in post contract stage contractor, consultant, nominated subcontractor and
neutral third party. In addition, the research participants identified the activities to be performed in
each stage of projects in order to avoid deputes. Finally the research suggests to utilise the DFS
dispute avoidance model which will forecast construction disputes, thereby avoiding the foreseen
construction disputes in Sri Lankan construction industry.
Keywords:
1.
Disputes; Dispute Avoidance; Dispute Forecasting; Dispute Resolution.
INTRODUCTION
The Construction projects are identified as one-off endeavors consisting of many unique characteristics
(Zou et al., 2007). As depicted in Emson Eastern vs EME Developments (1991) case, it is not virtually
possible to achieve the same degree of perfection due to the said unique nature. Complexity nature of
construction industry creates disputes which affects detrimentally on the construction projects (Edwin and
Henry, 2005). According to Fenn et al. (1997), an incompatibility of interest leads to a conflict and it will
turn as dispute. To avoid the conflicts or to minimise the conflicts, it is a must to identify the causations
of the construction disputes thoroughly. Common categories in causes for disputes can be classified
broadly as, owner related, contractor related, design related, contract related, human behaviour related,
project related and external factors (Cakmak and Cakmak, 2014).
Ineffective management of disputes may cause project delays, undermine team spirit, increase project
costs, and thereby damage business relationships (Cheung and Suen, 2002). Kumarswamy (1997)
convinced that separation of the destructive conflicts and constructive conflicts could minimise disputes
caused by unresolved conflicts. However, industry practitioners utilise Alternative Dispute Methods and
*
162
litigation process for resolution of those disputes once they occur. With the emergence of the Alternative
Dispute Resolution methods, the construction industry marked a significant preference instead of
litigation due to the principal reasons of speed, cost, expertise, privacy and practicality (Jannadia et al.,
2000). Stipanowich (1997) demonstrated that ADR procedures are established prior to the emergence of
the disputes and therefore the rules must be more flexible while giving them more freedom to handle
conflicts. Such revolutions in the subject of construction dispute management have lead the way to the
new era which is in concern of dispute avoidance rather dispute resolution
According to prevention is better than cure, a growing awareness could be witnessed in the construction
industry on the proactive rather than reactive measures (Gerber, 2000). This trend has led to utilise
several models for dispute avoidance. Accordingly Gerber (2000) identified three main Dispute
Avoidance Procedure models currently being practised in the industry namely; Dispute Resolution
Advisor, Dispute Adjudication Board and Dispute Review Boards.
Many researchers convince that preparation of construction contracts should incorporate techniques
which avoid disputes. Jannadia et al. (2000) emphasised that dispute avoidance methods in terms of
contractual administration are namely; allocating fair contract risk, drafting dispute clauses, team
building, provision of a neutral arbitrator and binding arbitration. Key areas in the scope of construction
dispute avoidance are discussed as risk allocation, selection of contractors, quality of documentation,
roles of the parties, cost management, nominated sub-contractors, time management, variations, claims
administration, dispute resolution, alternative contract strategies, quality assurance and training (National
Public Works conference and National Building and Construction Council, 1990). Even though several
DAP models are in practice, it is important to develop a dispute avoidance strategy applicable for the Sri
Lankan construction industry. Most of these key areas are yet to be investigated in order to develop a
convenient dispute avoidance strategy under Sri Lankan context. Therefore the research aims to develop a
dispute avoidance model for the Sri Lankan construction industry.
2.
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1.
DISPUTE AVOIDANCE IN CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY
Over the time owners, contractors, design professionals and other stakeholders in the industry who are
engaged in construction claims, have realised the hours and dollars involved in attorney and expert fees,
court costs, loss of staff time and additional overhead expenses incurred due to dispute resolution do not
improve the value of the project. But they result in reduced bonding capacity, loss of good will, loss of
privacy and other opportunity costs associated with it (Adems, 1996). In support of this, a survey carried
out in Australian construction industry emphasised that, most of the industry practitioners are not satisfied
on the dispute resolution methods used as they are not effective in terms of cost, outcome, time and
process (Australian Constructors Association, 2006). Adems (1996) further highlighted that most of the
construction disputes are predictable and the consequences of the dispute resolution processes are
undesirable. This circumstance emerged the question, can more effective methods be found to avoid the
disputes?.
Avoidance of disputes has been addressed throughout past several years in both industry and project
specific levels. This concept is supported by the basic maxim that prevention is better than cure
(Cooperative Research Centre for Construction Innovation, 2007). Further it is identified that the industry
has been repeatedly encouraged to embrace modern concepts of dispute avoidance. The reason because,
these techniques has placed an emphasis on early involvement to the decision making process by the
stakeholders. The fundamental principle with respect to dispute avoidance being that the likelihood of
occurring disputes will be significantly reduced if a pro-active environment can be created in which
change management an accepted tool (Cooperative Research Centre for Construction Innovation, 2007).
It was revealed that any construction contract begins with many dispute preventive measures which has
made the topic dispute avoidance a vast area of study. It was stated that all most all contractual practices
in a construction project serves the consent of dispute avoidance while serving their own purpose.
163
2.2. FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO DISPUTE AVOIDANCE

This section mainly focuses on developing the activities for the conceptual framework in developing
dispute avoidance strategy.
Risk Allocation
Construction projects are subjected to many risks from their nature. The key driving risk which causes
disputes is the construction related risk. Accordingly in any building construction project, buildability
exists on the underground conditions. Disputes arising as a result of underground conditions hinder the
progress of the project at the very initial stage of the project, hence leading to damage the relationships
throughout the construction period. All possible risks need to be identified at the initial stage of the
project and allocate them in advance not to the party who has the obligation to bear it, but to the best
party who can bare the risk.
Selection of Contractors
It was identified that assessing the past performance is mandatory while giving a same weight on the
market trends. Even though the tender evaluation process comprises of the said activity, fore seeing the
attributable conflicts must be done when selecting the contractor. Market pattern here referred is, how the
industry has identified the contractor in performing the cost, quality and time targets of past projects. So it
is better to identify the concern of the client among the three pillars of cost quality and time, thereby
selecting the suitable contractor for the evaluation criteria.
Selection of Nominated Contractors
A standard form of contract for subcontracting has not yet come in to practice in Sri Lanka. Further
existing subcontract agreements which are in practice have major drawbacks which are contradictory with
the main contract. It is better to allow the Main contractor to nominate the list of subcontractors that they
prefer along with the tender document. It can be considered in the tender evaluation. Also, getting the
main contractor involved in the selection process of nominated subcontractors would be a practical
solution to avoid disputes.
Roles of the Parties
All the standard contracts in practice have given a higher emphasis on roles of the parties which have
already contributed to dispute avoidance in large. It was emphasized that the fact that in many
circumstances such as in variation handling and claims management, if Engineers role is played
absolutely in an impartial manner, disputes can be further avoided. Many disputes tend to occur directly
and indirectly as a result of delayed payments by the Employer. Therefore the Employers role also
significantly contributes to dispute avoidance.
Quality of Documentation
A significant root cause of disputes is quality of documentation. Need to specify a quality standard from
the inception stage of the project was identified as a key success factor of a project. Contribution of
inaccurate Bill of Quantities also cause construction disputes in projects. However, claiming the loss
through litigation or through professional indemnity insurance is not in the Sri Lankan practice. This
results in construction projects to allocate such risks to the contractor. Therefore, the contractor tends to
price that risk in a higher rate as a variation. Such situations are the dispute causing factors, which needs
more concern. The industry practice of copying and pasting the set of particular conditions in the contract,
could also lead to disputes. Moreover it reduces the quality of documentation while creating unexpected
disputes in a project.
164
Time Management
It was identified that time management must be considered since the briefing stage of a project. Therefore
realistic planning and programing is to be done at the pre-contract stage by the contractors when
submitting the tender documents. Time management should also engage in reviewing the work
programme in shorter intervals and thereby ensuring the key milestones are not affected.
Quality Assurance
Quality in construction context refers to the capability to establish requirements with conformance to the
pre defined quality standard. Requirements will be predefined by client in contract agreement and the
requirements consist of characteristics of products, processes, and services (Leong et al. 2014).
Further according to Leong et al. (2014), it is evidenced that implementing quality management system to
ensure quality, also can improve communication problems; minimize mistakes, rework, and material
wastage while having better control of subcontractors and suppliers.
Procurement Method
Procurement method is a factor which is identified as a crucial factor in dispute avoidance. The decision
taken on the key procurement approach leads to the success of the project. Employers take the decision on
payment method as lump sum having less accurate set of drawings and specifications in their hand which
will be a major cause of disputes, while some others go for measure and pay having far accurate and
complete set of information about the project and unnecessarily take risk of disputes. Therefore, major
concern on procurement method must be taken before the design stage in order to determine the
requirement of design detail at the tendering stage. However, the approach selected at the inception stage
must be reviewed once the design stage comes to an end.
Team Building
Team building is another dispute avoidance approach in construction projects, which can be instituted at
the very beginning of the project (Jannadia et al., 2000). Team building as a management strategy would
reduce adversarial relationship among project participants. Moreover budget overruns and the schedule
extensions are identified as two common problems, which can be greatly influenced by team building
(Williams, 1998).
3.
METHODOLOGY
Initially, a comprehensive review of dispute avoidance in construction industry was carried out using
existing journals, book and conference articles. The literature review fulfils the purpose of gaining depth
knowledge in causes of disputes, prevailing dispute resolution techniques and contract administration
methods in dispute avoidance and contributing factors of dispute avoidance. Using the comprehensive
review of literature, questionnaire was developed. Questionnaire survey was conducted among the experts
in dispute management in the Sri Lankan construction industry in order to identify the parties to DFS,
stage of project in which DFS to be performed and the significant activities for DFS. A total of 35
questionnaires were issued and 32 were returned. Out of 32 respondents, 39% are from contracting firms
and 61% are working in consultancy organisations. Questionnaires were issued to twenty (20) Quantity
Surveyors, eight (08) Project Manager and four (04) Arbitrators. In terms of experience of the
respondents, 59% are with 6-10 years of experience, 23% of them are having 11-15 years of experience
and the rest are with more than 15 years of experience in handling disputes in Sri Lankan construction
projects.
t-test was used to analyse the collected data. The t-test was used to find the significant activities, which
are to be performed during Dispute forecasting Session. In order to determine the most effective set of
activities,t test was carried out. t values were calculated and the respective P values were obtained
(see Table 1).
t values were calculated according to the Eq: 01, and the P values were derived from the t table.
The test statistic was calculated as:
165
(Eq: 01)
t is a Student t quantile with n-1 degrees of freedom

x bar is the sample mean
s is the sample variance
n is the sample size
is the specified population mean
Decision Rule
H0 - Sample mean less than or equals 4.
H1 - Sample mean is greater than 4
Considering the above null hypothesis (H0) and alternative hypothesis (H1), the decision rule is developed
as follows.
df = n - 1
df - Degree of freedom
n - Sample size
Hence, df = 32-1, df = 31.
Using a 95% confidence level with a single-tailed test with 31 degrees of freedom (df), it was expected
the distribution to look as follows.
P- Significance of calculated probability
0.95
Rejection region
0.05
t
Accordingly, if P > 0.05, the decision was taken to accept null hypothesis (H0) and if P < 0.05, the
alternative hypothesis (H1) was accepted.
4.
DATA FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS
4.1.
DISPUTE FORECASTING SESSIONS AS A STRATEGY
Dispute Forecasting Session is expected to be developed as the dispute avoidance model applicable for
the Sri Lankan industry. The respondents were asked indicate Yes where they agree with dispute
forecasting sessions as a strategy for dispute avoidance and No where they disagree. All the respondents
agreed that dispute forecasting sessions can be implemented in order to avoid disputes in Sri Lankan
construction industry.
166
4.2.
SEQUENCE TO CONDUCT DISPUTE FORECASTING SESSIONS
A project can be identified in three major stages namely; briefing stage, pre-contract stage and postcontract stage. Respondents were asked to suggest the stages in which dispute forecasting need to be
done. Each stages of project again divided in to four; beginning, middle, in between two and periodical.
Figure 1 shows the sequence of conducting dispute forecasting session against the stages of construction
project.
Stages to conduct DFS
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Briefing
Beginning of Stage
Pre-Contract
Middle of Stage
Post-Contract
In Between Two
Perodically
Figure 1: Sequence to Conduct DFS
According to Figure 1, 75% (24 out of 32) of the respondents proposed that Dispute Forecasting Sessions
need to be conducted at the middle of the project briefing period and 18% of the respondents proposed to
conduct in between briefing and pre-contract stage. Only two professionals indicated that DFS should be
conducted periodically throughout briefing stage. Majority of the respondents indicated that DFS should
be carried out beginning of the pre-contract stage and in between pre and post contract stages. Few
respondents (3 out of 32) preferred to carry out DFS periodically during pre-contract stage. In terms of
post-contract stage, all the respondents indicated that DFS need to be done at the beginning of the stage.
88% and 50% of the professionals revealed DFS should be performed middle of the stage and
periodically respectively.
4.3.
PARTICIPANTS FOR THE DISPUTE FORECASTING SESSIONS
The research intended to find the participants for the dispute forecasting sessions at the main three stages
of a construction project. Thus, the research participants were asked to suggest the parties important for
the particular stage among the parties to contract; client, consultants, contractor, nominated subcontractors. In addition to parties to contract neutral third party was also included in order to determine
whether employing an external party other than the parties to the project is essential for the success of the
Dispute Forecasting Sessions or not. The data gathered are presented in Figure 2.
167
Participants to the DFS

18
PostContract
23
14
0
0
Pre-Contract
23
23
12
23
23
0
0
0
Briefing
0
Client
23
23
10
Consultant (Eng)
Neutral Party
15
Contractor
20
25
Nomn Sub Contr
Figure 2: Participants to the DFS
According to the responses it is highlighted that participation of both client and the consultants are
mandatory for the DFS at the briefing stage. None of the respondents indicated a neutral third party as a
participant at briefing stage. In terms of pre-contract stage, client and the consultants are expected to
participant in DFS by the majority of respondents (72%). 37% of the respondents indicated a neutral third
party as a participant for DFS during pre-contract stage. Since the activates in the pre-contract stage
significantly contribute to disputes, getting the viewpoint of a third party will attain better results in
forecasting disputes. However, the results show that the dispute forecasting session can be conducted
without the presence of a neutral third party according to 63% of the respondents.
Participation of the client, the consultants and the main contractor are depicted an equal importance
during post contract stage by 72% of respondents of each. Nominated subcontractors are also been elected
by 56% of the respondents which figures a significant importance. A total of forteen (14) respondents
suggested a neutral third party for the sessions at the post-contract stage, which has an increase level of
important compared to the pre-contract stage. According to the research participants, the impartial role of
the Engineer to the project can be used as a substitution to the neutral third party. This will reduce the
additional expenditure on the Dispute Forecasting Sessions.
4.4.
PROPOSED ACTIVITIES TO THE DISPUTE FORECASTING SESSIONS
Factors leading to dispute avoidance are identified through the review of disputes and the related issues
across the construction industry. The factors were then developed as activities. These activities were
developed focusing dispute avoidance and proposed as a framework to be followed in the Dispute
Forecasting Sessions during the stages of a construction project. A total of twenty nine (29) activities
were proposed to be performed as 5 in the briefing stage, 12 in pre-contract stage and 11 in the postcontract stage. Activities were in line with each factor leading to dispute avoidance shortlisted in the
literature review.
Mean values of the 32 responses for each variable were calculated to identify the hypothesis mean for the
variables, which was then considered as the null hypothesis. Most significant variables were recognised
with the t test values with reference to the above null hypothesis. Distribution of the mean values are
shown in Figure 3.
168
Means distribution
6.0000
5.0000
4.0000
3.0000
2.0000
1.0000
0.0000
0
10
15
20
25
30
35
Figure 3: Distribution of Means
According to Figure 3, means of the data set have behaved more in a similar nature. 72% of the means
were more towards 4 and between 4 and 5. Considering the spread of the means of the variables, it was
decided to obtain 4 as the hypothesis mean of the population.
Table 1: Corresponding t Values and 'P' Values
Factor Leading
to Dispute
Avoidance
Risk Allocation
Quality of
Documentation
Selection of
Contractors
Selection of
nominated subcontractors
t'
value
Activity
P'
value
Significant
Activity
(a) Give more priority on financial risks due to

changes in government policies
(b) Identify the construction risks of the
project, giving key concern on sub-soil
conditions.
(c) Allocation of the risk to the best party who
can mitigate it.
(d) Suggest alternatives solutions to avoid or
mitigate risks
(a) Specify a quality standard to be followed
throughout the project.
(b) Recheck the accuracy of major cost
significant items in the BOQ.
(c) Tailoring the Particular conditions of the
contract according to the project rather copying
and pasting from a similar project.
Briefing stage
4.31
0.000
Pre-contract
stage
8.25
0.000
4.91
0.000
Post-contract
stage
Briefing stage
3.73
0.000
4.18
0.000
Pre-contract
stage
-13.93
1.000
10.52
0.000
(d) Check the compliance with the

documentation quality standard.
(e) Review the documentary errors which may
lead to disputes.
Post-contract
stage
-18.06
1.000
6.73
0.000
(a) Give emphasis on market patterns

(b) Evaluate work in hand of the bidders
(c) Evaluating recently completed projects
with proof.
(a) Propose alternative designs and
specifications to have a variety of subcontractors without getting limited to few
specialised work items.
(b) Propose the list of potential sub-contractors
in the tender document by the Employer.
Pre-contract
stage
0.00
5.56
4.91
0.500
0.000
0.000
Pre-contract
stage
1.53
0.068
-9.10
1.000
169
Factor Leading
to Dispute
Avoidance
Selection of
Procurement
Methods
Roles of the
Parties
Quality
Assurance
Time
Management
t'
value
P'
value
Significant
Activity
5.29
0.000
5.92
0.000
Briefing stage
-2.36
0.988
Pre-contract
stage
3.23
0.001
Post-contract
stage
Briefing stage
7.18
0.000
-4.19
1.000
Pre-contract
stage
7.69
0.000
Post-contract
stage
5.23
0.000
6.73
-2.82
0.000
0.996
-4.47
1.000
4.67
0.000
3.21
0.002
3.69
0.000
5.63
0.000
Activity
(c) Evaluating the main contractor's suggested
list of sub-contractors to be nominated by the
Employer.
(d) Getting the Main Contractor involved in
the selection process of the nominated subcontractors.
(a) Get the decision on the key two payment
approaches, measure and pay or Lump Sum
basis
(b) Check the extent of the design details
available and review the applicability of the
decision taken on measure and pay or lump
sum basis.
(c) Preparation of a realistic cash flow forecast
(a) Suggest and appoint an individual to handle
the project
(b) Set out a guideline for the Engineer to get
decisions without consent of the client.
(c) Highlight the impact of Engineers
impartiality
(d) Evaluate the effect of timely payments by
the Employer.
(a) Specify the Methodology to be used for
quality assurance
(b) Review the applicability of the Quality
assurance criteria on practical situations.
(a) More precise decision on project key
milestones.
(b) Evaluate the reliability and build ability of
the project plan.
(c) Monitor Planning and programing in
shorter intervals
(d) Review and reset the new project
milestones if necessary
Post-contract
stage
Pre-contract
stage
Post-contract
stage
Briefing stage
Pre-contract
stage
Post-contract
stage
The activities which obtain a positive t values and which lies on the 0.95 region of the curve shown in
methodology are selected as the most significant activities. The activities carrying a value less than 0.05
for the P value lies on the range of marked 0.05 on the curve. Therefore using 95% confidence level that
the population means of the selected activities through the statistical test is equal or more than 4.
According to the above decision rule, activities identified as the most significant and ticked () in above
Table 1.
Finally the research developed a dispute avoidance model in terms of DFS for Sri Lankan construction
industry as showed in Figure 4.
170
Dispute Forecasting Sessions

Briefing Stage
With
Whom
Client
Consultants
Pre-Contract Stage
Client
Consultants
Neutral Expert ( if necessary)
When
Middle of the Stage
What
activities
-Assessment on financial risks

due to changes in government
policies
-Specify a quality standard to
be followed throughout the
project.
-Forecast more precise
decision on project key
milestones.
Beginning of the
stage
Periodically as
agreed by the
Participants
-Identify the construction risks of

the project, giving key concern on
sub-soil conditions.
-Allocation of the risk to the best
party who can mitigate it.
-Tailoring the Particular -conditions
of the contract according to the
project rather copying and pasting
from a similar project.
-Evaluate work in hand of the
bidders
-Evaluating recently completed
projects with proof.
-Propose alternative designs and
specifications to have a variety of
sub-contractors without getting
limited to few specialised work
items.
-Check the extent of the design
details available and review the
applicability of the decision taken
on measure and pay or lump sum
basis.
-Set out a guideline for the Engineer
to get decisions without consent of
the client.
-Evaluate the reliability and
buildability of the project plan.
-Review and reset the new project
milestones if necessary.
Post-Contract Stage
Client
Engineer to project
Neutral Expert (if necessary)
Main Contractor
Nominated Sub Contractors
(when needed)
Beginning of the
stage
In between Pre and
Post Contract Stages
-Suggest alternatives solutions to

avoid or mitigate risks.
-Review the documentary errors
which may lead to disputes
-Allowing the main contractor to
suggest a list of sub-contractors to
be nominated by the Employer.
-Getting the Main Contractor
involved in the selection process of
the nominated sub-contractors.
-Preparation of a realistic cash flow
forecast
-Highlight the impact of Engineers
impartiality
-Evaluate the effect of timely
payments by the Employer.
-Monitor Planning and programing
in shorter intervals.
Figure 4: Dispute Forecasting Session Model
The finding of the study finally presented the model for Dispute Forecasting Session in Figure 4. The
model addresses three major aspects; the details of parities to be involved in DFS, the stage in which DFS
need to be carried out and the activities for DFS. A Dispute Forecasting Session is first to be held at the
middle of the briefing stage with the participation of the Client and the Consultants. The key concerns of
the members of the DFS at this stage shall be the Risk Allocation, Quality of Documentation and Time
management. Figure 4 indicates that during pre-contract stage of the project DFS should be conducted at
the beginning. Client and Consultants remain in the DFS while a neutral expert can be appointed if
necessary. The concerns at the briefing stage drags up to this stage. In addition, the selection of
171
contractors, nominated sub-contractors, and procurement method and roles of the parties are also
considered in pre-contract stage. During the post-contract stage, the parties such as Client, Engineer, main
Contractor, nominated Sub-Contractors and a neutral expert are involving in the process of DFS. The
sequences of conducting the DFS are, at the beginning of the post-contract period and periodical Dispute
Forecasting Sessions depending on Engineers decision. The concerns which are looked at the briefing
stage and the pre contract stages are continued to this stage except the selection of the contractors. Thus,
the model proposes DFS as a strategy to diagnose the dispute causing symptoms of the project process
and taking relevant remedial actions to overcome them in order to avoid disputes with Sri Lankan
construction projects.
5.
Disputes are widespread in the construction industry. The review of literature identified the factors
contributing to dispute avoidance such as risk allocation, selection of contractors, selection of nominated
contractors, roles of the parties, quality of documentation, time management, quality assurance,
procurement method and team building. The research found that developing a dispute avoidance model as
Dispute Forecasting Sessions could help to minimise disputes in Sri Lanka. The model includes the
details of stages of project, participants for DFS, activities to be performed during DFS. The research
participants revealed that DFS need to be carried out middle of the briefing stage, in between pre and post
contract stage and beginning of post contract stage of the project. Further the research identified the
participants to DFS in terms of each stage of construction project; in briefing stage client and consultant;
in pre-contract stage client, consultant and neutral third party; in post-contract stage contractor,
consultant, nominated subcontractor and neutral third party. The research developed activities to be
performed in DFS using the contributory factors of dispute avoidance found in literature review. For
example under the factor risk allocation, Give more priority on financial risks due to changes in
government policies identified as significant activity to be performed during briefing stage. Finally the
research provides a model as Dispute Forecasting Session in order to avoid dispute effectively in Sri
Lanka. Therefore the research recommends that the industry practitioners could adopt this model during
the stages of construction projects and thereby dispute could be minimised in Sri Lanka.
6.
REFERENCES
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International Conference, Texas. USA: SAVE International, 1-7.
Australian Construction Association, 2006. Scope for improvement; a survey of pressure points in Australian
construction and infrastructure projects [online]. Sydney: Blake Dawson Waldron. Available from:
http://www.constructors.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2006/06/ACA_Scope_for_Improvement_2006.pdf
Cakmak, E. and Cakmak, P.I., 2014. An analysis of causes of disputes in the construction industry using analytical
network process. Social Behavioural Sciences, 109, 183-187.
Chan, E.H. and Suen, H.C., 2005. Dispute resolution management for international construction projects in China.
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Cheung, S. and Suen, C., 2002. A multi attribute utility model for dispute resolution strategy selection. Construction
Cooperative Research Centre for Construction Innovation, 2007. Dispute Avoidance and Resolution; A Litrature
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Fenn, P., Lowe, D. and Speck, C., 1997. Conflict and dispute in construction. Construction Management and
Economics, 15(6), 513-518.
Gerber, P.A., 2000. Dispute avoidance procedures - The changing face of construction dispute management. In:
Construction law 2000 conference, London 5 June 2000. London: The King's college construction law
association, 123-129.
Jannadia, O.M., Assaf, S., Bubshait, A. and Naji, A., 2000. Contractual methods for dispute avoidance and
resolution. International Journal of Project Management, 18(1), 41-49.
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Kumarswamy, M.M., 1997. Conflicts, claims and disputes in construction. Engineering, Construction and
Architectural Management, 4(2) 95-111.
Leong, T.K., Zakun, N., Saman, M.Z., Ariff, M.S. and Tan, C.S., 2014. Using project performance to measure
effectiveness of quality management system maintenance and practices in construction industry. The Scientific
World Journal, 2014, 1-9.
National Public Works conference and National Building and Construction Council, 1990. No dispure; Strategies
for improvement in the Austrailian building and construction industry. Austrailia: National Public Works
Conference.
Stipanowich, T.J., 1997. At the cutting edge: conflict avoidance and resolution in the US construction industry.
Construction Management and Econmics, 15(6), 505-512.
Williams, T.L., 1998. Use of team building on construction projects to reduce cost growth and schedule growth.
Thesis (PhD). Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
Zou, P.X., Zhang, G. and Wang, J., 2007. Understanding the key risks in construction projects in china.
173
EFFECTIVENESS OF ALTERNATIVE DISPUTE RESOLUTION METHODS

USED IN THE HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS IN SRI LANKA
C.M. Gammanpila* and Mahesh Abeynayake
ABSTRACT
Effectiveness of dispute resolution affects immensely for success or failure of construction projects.
This document consists of a literature review about alternative dispute resolution (ADR) methods
including negotiation, mediation, Dispute Adjudication Board (DAB), ad-hoc adjudication, arbitration
and ten critical factors affecting to effectiveness of ADR methods such as cost, speed, relationships,
fairness etc. After decades of use there is no clear detailed analysis about used alternative dispute
resolution in highway projects for their effectiveness and efficiency. In order to fulfil this gap, this
research is conducted to evaluate effectiveness of used ADR methods regarding ten critical factors.
The research methodology adapted was qualitative within multiple case studies from disputes arisen in
Expressway Construction projects. The primary data collection techniques used in this study were
ADR documents and semi structured interviews. Content analysis was used to analyse these documents
and cross case analysis to compare cases findings to each other. The research findings revealed that
ratings for critical factors fluctuate from case to case significantly. In the discussion of research
findings, key attributes identify which was the cause for fluctuations. So one cannot simply say this or
that factor affects most to the success and this ADR method is best way to deal with disputes.
According to study its not fair to deal with every dispute in the same manner, so categorization of
disputes concerning key attributes needed for improved efficiency of ADR methods.
Guidelines developed include steps, tables and flowcharts for using ADR methods effectively. These
findings and guidelines are presented in a logical, systematic and a sensible way to identify the ideal
ADR method for a given dispute rather than relying on subjective decisions. It is hoped that these
findings and guidelines will be useful to the stakeholders in future highway projects and can be
adapted to the whole industry.
Keywords:
1.
Alternative Dispute Resolution; Critical Factors in Dispute Resolution; Expressway

Construction Projects; DAB;Cross Case Analysis.
INTRODUCTION
Harmon (2003) the intricacy and magnitude of the construction work often lead to complex disputes.
Highway construction in last decade in Sri Lanka was huge leap in road construction creating high
magnitude construction work. Since highway construction projects are multibillion projects with very
complex infrastructure developments, there will be disputes which cannot be settled without more formal
methods such as Mediation, Arbitration and Adjudication. In FIDIC (1987) which was Bidding Document
of Most Expressway projects in Sri Lanka speaks about arbitration while FIDIC (1999) focused about
DAB for resolving disputes. Both suggest strict steps to follow for every kind of disputes.
Cheung et al. (2002); She (2011); Gunasena (2010) identified ten factors to evaluate effectiveness of
ADR methods which can be adopted to Sri Lankan highway sector to identify problems in used ADR
methods and evaluate effectiveness of the process. The aim of this study is to identify critical factors
affecting to effectiveness of the ADR methods. Further, research intends to evaluate attributes of Disputes
which affect to critical factors in order to make necessary suggestions to improve.
174
1.1.
NEED OF SEPARATE STUDY FOR HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS
Road network should be efficient in order to maximize economic and social benefits of a country. These
infrastructures play a primary role in achieving national development and contributing to the overall
performance and socioeconomic well-being of the community (Sengupta et al., 2007). Highways play a
significant role in the any countrys economy. Hence, developing countries like Sri Lanka tend to
construct many highways (Priyantha et al., 2011).
Priyantha et al. (2011) identify increasing number of highway construction in Sri Lanka and related
problems like conflicts, variations, claims and disputes are multiplying in those projects. Our nearest
country, India faces huge lockdown in highway sector according to Parikh and Joshi (2013). 123
highway projects out of a total of 406 awarded so far by the National Highways Authority of India
(NHAI) since 2000 are caught in the arbitration tangle. 103 cases are being settled at the DAB formed by
the NHAI, while the rest are under various courts. In Sri Lanka its important to produce effective ADR
methods before such situation arrive.
2.
ALTERNATIVE DISPUTE RESOLUTION METHODS
According to Fenn et al, (1998) success and general acceptance of these ADR methods had been so
refreshing that the courts themselves are now encouraging to modifying their rules to allow ADR methods
to be incorporated into their range of resolution options. Wimalachandra (2007) further mentioned
numerous advantages of ADR like flexibility, confidentiality, time saving, cost savings, informality and
low antagonism between the parties. Cheung (1999) demonstrated the relationship of ADR methods and
level of cost and hostility escalations by stair step model as given in Figure 01. The rising steps in the
model imitate the Increasing levels of cost and hostility associated with the various forms of ADR.
Figure 1: Stair Step Model for Dispute Resolution Process in Construction
Highway construction projects in Sri Lanka used ADR methods like Negotiation, Adjudication, DAB and
Arbitration and rarely use Mediation, Ad-Hoc Adjudication, etc.
2.1.
CRITICAL FACTORS AFFECTING TO EFFECTIVENESS OF ADR METHODS
ADR methods in dispute resolution are among recognised key input for success in highway Projects. In
order to evaluate effectiveness of above mention ADR methods, factors affecting to effectiveness have to
identify first. Previous researchers internationally (Cheung, 1999; Cheung et al., 2002; She, 2011) and
locally (Arsecularatne 2011, Gunasena 2010) have identified several factors and attributes which
critically affect the ADR practices. Among above studies Cheungs (1999) article is considered as
important because he identifies twelve critical attributes which are affecting ADR methods. Cheung
(1999) in same article allocates those attributes into five different Critical factors. Cheung et al. (2002) in
his late studies firmly identified ten factors that are used to test the performance and selection of dispute
resolution methods namely cost, speed, outcome, enforceability, privacy and confidentiality, open and
fairness, control, flexibility, creative remedies and relationships. She (2011); Gunasena (2010), etc. used
these 10 factors to evaluate effectiveness of ADR methods. Researcher selected these 10 factors of
Cheung to evaluate effectiveness since its the latest, widest and most famous.
175
3.
Since study is done to evaluate how critical factors are affected to ADR from existing examples, most
suitable approach for the research was qualitative approach and case study method.
Identification of unit of analysis - Disputes arisen in highway project in Sri Lanka.
Defining number of cases - three numbers of cases selected.
Criteria for selection of cases - The cases were only selected from Expressway projects due to the
fact they were the most notorious in generating disputes with highest impact. Every case was
different to each other in many ways.
Data Collection - Document review and semi-structured interviews.
4.
RESEARCH FINDINGS
The case studies were extracted from two expressway construction projects which were using ADR
methods. Cases were selected from vast pool of cases after preliminary study so these three cases are
different to each other in many ways but carrying very significant value inside which worth a
comprehensive analysis.
Table 1: Details of the Selected Cases
Case
Case A
Case B
Case C
Dispute
Additional Payment due to

Legislation Changes to
VAT on Bitumen
Payment for
Environmental control &
Protection
The Viaduct Foundations

claims due to changed
ground conditions
Claim amount (Rs.)

ADR
Settled by
3 million
Negotiation, DAB
DAB failed. Amicably
settled Before Arbitration
70 million
Negotiation, DAB
DAB decision Entitled,
Claim Granted
120 million
Negotiation, DAB
DAB Decision
No
Entitlement, No additional
Payment
Payments for DAB
525,000
906,500
900,000
4.1.
PROCESS OF PRESENTING RESEARCH FINDINGS
Findings were present relating to sequence of questions asked from interviewees. As shown in interview
transcript, every interviewee had to rate criticality of factors affecting to the whole construction industry
first. For every case minimum four interviews conducted.
Table 2: Description of Interviews Distribution
Case
Case A
Case B
Case C
Total DAB Participants in hearings
12
DAB Members Interviewed
Members Interviewed from Contractors, Consultants, & Employers
Total Interviews Conducted
Table 2 represents the allocation of interviews for cases. Before moving onto cases, findings from data
collection regarding the whole of construction sector are presented. Introduction for document analysis is
presented afterwards, and finally followed by findings from cases.
176
4.2.
CRITICAL FACTORS AFFECTING TO EFFECTIVENESS OF ADR METHODS
In the interviews, interviewees were asked to rate the criticality of factors affecting to effectiveness of
overall ADR methods. These factors were derived from the literature based on studies of Cheung et al.
(2002) ten factors and modified according to Sri Lankan context. For this study participants idea about
both overall ranking for factors and which were critical to selected case were recorded separately. Hence
there are two separately rated tables for each case for each interviewee.
Overall criticality ranking table was commonly marked once by interviewee but criticality ranking of
each case marked separately hence there are a total of four tables for three cases. This section presents
ranking of criticality and analysis of the data presented using checklist matrix analysis method.
4.3.
RATINGS FOR FACTORS AFFECTING TO EFFECTIVENESS OF ADR METHODS - OVERALL
All the interviewees ratings were obtained one time for below table which represents their view of
criticality ranking in identified factors relating to the whole construction industry disputes.
Table 3: Ranking of Factors Overall
Factors
Cost
Openness, Neutrality & Fairness
Speed
Outcome
Privacy and Confidentiality
Enforceability
Preservation of Relationships
Flexibility
Creative Remedies
Degree of Control
Total Mark
Rank
30
36
40
29
32
27
36
22
34
29
06
02
01
06
05
09
02
10
04
06
Figure 2: Rating for Critical Factors
177
4.4.
CASE A IN BRIEF
Before the commencement of contract, sales of bitumen were subjected to value added tax (VAT) of 12%
but afterwards the government removed VAT on bitumen. But price reduced after three months, with
somewhat similar value for VAT removing. In the face of it, this shouldnt have affected the contractor
because the project was excluded from VAT. But problem arises with regard to price fluctuation clause.
Because of the drop of market price for bitumen, ICTAD indices which were used to calculate price
fluctuation also reflected a fall. Due to that, the payment contractor received for bitumen was reduced. In
other words VAT removal did not affect the cost of bitumen to contractor, but it lead to a reduction of
contract price paid to the contractor. So changing of litigation resulting with additional cost to the
contractor which was not redeemable.
Employer argued that contractor cannot prove changing of VAT resulted in fall of price. Also employer
used a previously given Arbitration award related to exemption of VAT from diesel which was given in
his favour. DAB decided price fall was a result of removing VAT from bitumen and most importantly
relying on confidentiality argument and said they are not considering arbitration award because
arbitration awards are confidential unless revised by the court. So DAB decided that the employer is not
acting according to conditions so instructed to redeem the contractor for additional cost by paying it.
Employer wasnt satisfied with this decision and issued notice of dissatisfaction and prepared to go to
arbitration procedure. According to contract provisions both parties willingly and amicably settled before
going to arbitration for a win-win situation.
Table 4: Ranking for Critical Factors in Case A
Factors
Cost
Speed
Outcome
Enforceability
Flexibility
Creative Remedies
Degree of Control
Total Mark
Rank
19
15
13
12
15
11
20
8
18
14
02
04
07
08
04
09
01
10
03
06
Figure 3: Ratings for Critical Factors Case A
178
4.5.
CASE B IN BRIEF
Case B was occurred at a initial stage of the construction due to the difference in contention on the
payment for Environmental Control and Protection which had to be carried out by the Contractor as
specified in Sub section of the Specifications. The Contractor contended that the Cost of Environmental
Control and Protection should be paid under Provisional Sum.
The Employer contended that Environmental Control, Protection and Monitoring were included in the
scope of works in Contractor's Site Establishment and that the Contractor wasnt endued for payment for
this activity under Provisional Sum. Additionally Employer thought in tendering, Provisional Sum was
for any additional matters which can be popup at construction, security and maintain. But due to delays
Engineer gave permission and instructions for test to be started which was recorded as unqualified
approval by engineers representative.
This dispute had effect to testing procedures and contractor withheld the second set of testing carrying out
which included important details. Withheld testing was affected the critical path of the program and
speedy decision was required in order to minimize risk for the work and environment. DAB decided the
Contractor is entitled for payment under "Provisional Sum" for carrying out environmental control and
protection required by the specifications, but confined to the scope in specifications with some
adjustments done using actual cost occurred for expensive testing. This decision was somewhat creative
remedy for both parties where, everyones happily walk away with quick decision.
Table 5: Ranking for Critical Factors in Case B
Factors
Cost
Speed
Outcome
Enforceability
Flexibility
Creative Remedies
Degree of Control
Total Mark
Rank
4
16
20
14
13
16
20
10
19
13
10
04
01
06
07
04
01
09
03
07
Figure 4: Ratings for Critical Factors in Case B
179
4.6.
CASE C IN BRIEF
Dispute was occurred at latter stages of the construction due to contractors belief to entitlement of
additional payment and extension of time for re-design and additional works for bridge foundations due to
change in ground condition. Contractor prepared the detail design based on the tender design based on
such design approved by the engineer. The contractor stated that during the execution of work they
encountered different site conditions at site. Due to this the contractor had to redesign the foundations.
Contractor relied on to some sub clauses in condition of contract and data provide by employer, in
addition, the claimant had cited Unfair Contracts Terms Act No.26 of 1997.
The engineer stated that the contractor was responsible for the detail design prepared by them (for
bridges) and also interrelation of the ground conditions since there was provisional sum for additional soil
investigation. Employer relied on a document "Data provided by the Employer and the "disclaimer
stipulated therein. So employer argued contractor cannot rely on initial document and had to prepare
detail drawings with his findings from testing.
DAB decided there was sufficient time from submission of bid. In documents there was uncertainty stated
in the date together with provision to carry out additional soil investigation. So experienced contractor
had foreseeable physical conditions and was completely responsible for the final design of structures
which specified in the contract as detailed design is an obligation of the contractor. DAB also rejected
Unfair Contracts Terms Act stating about significance of an extra contractual exemption clause. DAB
rejected the contractors claims but agreed to instruct to issue two variations for some additional work
carried out by contractor.
Table 6: Ranking for Critical Factors in Case C
Factors
Cost
Speed
Outcome
Enforceability
Flexibility
Creative Remedies
Degree of Control
Total Mark
Rank
8
22
18
17
19
19
19
15
18
15
10
01
05
07
02
02
02
08
05
08
Figure 5: Ratings for Critical Factors in Case C
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4.7.
WORD FREQUENCY RESULTS CONSIDERING ALL CASES
Documents of cases were run through independent word frequency queries to get an idea about what
words most frequency used. Techniques like Stop word List and customizing query were used to select
results. Words with similar meanings and words related to similar factors added to primary value to get
more accurate results. Using Excel functions list shortlisted to 10 factors and query result is shown below.
Table 7: Frequency of Critical Factors in All Documents
Word
Weighted Percentage (%)
Similar Words
Other
93.72
Cost
2.38
cost, payments, cash, amount, sum, fee
Speed
1.41
speed, time, period, program
Creative
0.54
remedies, creative, negotiation
Control
0.47
control, degree
Relationships
0.35
relationships, connection, Preservation
Privacy
0.29
privacy , confidentiality
Outcome
0.26
outcome, satisfaction
Enforceability
0.21
enforceability, binding
Flexibility
0.20
flexibility, flexible
Fairness
0.17
fair, fairness
In above table, all ten factors obtain considerable weighted percentage. Considering these findings its
clear than in ADR methods these factors are used in ADR documents. Case study results establishes
literature about 10 critical factors existence and their affect to effectiveness of ADR methods.
4.8.
FLUCTUATIONS IN RANKING OF CRITICAL FACTORS
Considering all three cases there were many fluctuations in ranking among the factors about their
criticality. Below Table 8 elaborates most eye-catching differences between cases regarding criticality
Table 8: Fluctuations in Ratings
Factor Affecting to ADR
Industry
Case A
Case B
Case C
Cost
10
10
Speed
Outcome
Privacy & Confidentiality
Enforceability
Flexibility
10
10
Creative Remedies
Degree of Control
One thing is clear when you look at this table which is criticality ranking of the factors are changing from
case to case significantly. One can not simply say this or that factor affects most to the success. So it is
not fair to deal with every dispute in the same manner.
181
4.9.
EXAMPLE 01 - ANALYSING FLUCTUATIONS IN SPEED FACTOR
Table reflects discrepancy in ranking for speed factor. She (2011), Gunasena (2010), etc. described speed
is the most critical factor, highest rated. But cases A and C ratings show different story.
In Case A
Dispute had no direct effect to construction progress or program so it is not a critical event and it does not
cause any disturbance to work or cash flow of contractor. Contractor already getting paid for fewer
amount due to drop in ICTAD indices as described. Case was about additional payment due throughout
the construction period and it is clear without this payment contractor can work according to contract. So
speed of dispute resolution had less impact comparing to other factors.
In Case B
Speed of decision given (time taken for DAB) has much more importance because dispute was critical
event and it cause disturbance to work. Contractor stopped carrying out testing procedures and some
danger was there. Dispute did not affect cash flow but it stops the work so near maximum criticality was
there.
In Case C
Contractor submitted claim after construction was finished and it had no direct effect to construction
process ongoing at that time. As described current program did not affected much but considering
financial value (120 million), contractors cash flow and interest payment on demand, criticality of speed
factor has to be more than case A but less than case B.
Fluctuations in rating are due to impact to current program and cash-flow so criticality of factors is
dependent on impact to construction program and cash-flow of the parties.
4.10.
EXAMPLE 02 - FLUCTUATIONS IN COST FACTOR
Table reflects discrepancy in Rankings considering cost factors when comparing Cases A, B and C.
Considering cases, case A obtained high rating than B and C. Accordingly claim in case A was the
smallest as shown in Table 8 comparing to B and C cases. Additional cost (payments) for DAB was very
high comparing to dispute (1/4 of claim amount) value. In case A, DAB paid for additional 2 hearings,
meeting and daily fee for studying dispute pulse document charges which sums up near at half a million.
But B and C cases cost for DAB were higher but its percentage-wise less percentage of claim,
respectively 1.41% and 0.8%. So lesser rating for B and C cases was justified comparing to Case A.
Its safe to decide that low ratings for B and C were due to significance of disputes monetary value
when comparing to payments paid for ADR. So high ranking for A was due to less dispute value.
Criticalities of factors are depending on disputes monetary value (claim amount).
4.11.
KEY ATTRIBUTES IMPACTED TO CRITICAL FACTORS
As emerged from this Case study criticality of factors depend on some very key attributes related to each
Case. Each case is Unique in Nature. According to these key attributes ranking for critical factors are
changing from case to case significantly. Using findings from cross case analysis above, key attributes
can be identified as below.
Disputes monetary value - amount of dispute / claim
Construction Program - as build program to identify affect to critical path
Cash-flow of the parties - disputes resulting cash block down
project duration - long term or short term (time left for Completion)
Importance of parties to each other - authority and future opportunities
Availability of grounded arguments - validity entitlement to both parties

182
Speedy solution requirement - parties requirement to get decision quickly
Nature of Client - government, semi government or private, etc.
But some factors had no effect from these attributes. As an example Openness, Neutrality and Fairness
factor which will not change its criticality across the cases. Fairness has to be there for every case
similarly, without being affected by anything.
There are interconnections between ten critical factors affecting to the effectiveness of ADR methods.
Changes in one factor rating can be affected to others positively or negatively. Person cannot isolate one
factor and describe how critical it can be for final outcome. We have to consider all these factors and
attributes as a whole and then it will give a crystal clear image why that factor got a higher ranking and
why ADR methods are successful for particular case.
4.12.
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
Above findings leads to the conclusion that critical factors identified in literature review are affects to the
effectiveness of ADR methods. But one cannot put a finger on speed, cost and say that factor has highest
impact for success. Criticalities of the factors change from case to case significantly according to the
attributes of the cases. So it is not fair to deal with every dispute in the same manner.
As emerged from this study criticality of factors are dependent on disputes monetary value, construction
program, cash-flow of the parties, nature of the project, importance of parties to each other, availability of
grounded arguments and speedy solution requirement. Also analysis found that, critical factors are
interconnected and can be affected to each other either positively or negatively. Participants stated that
low value disputes had issue when going for contractual DAB methods regarding cost factor. So, they
tend to be negotiated or neglect those disputes rather than complaining to DAB.
4.13.
PROPOSED IMPLICATION TO THE HIGHWAY PROJECTS
The study showed that critical factors identified in literature were affecting to effectiveness of ADR
methods. Criticalities of the factors are changing from case to case significantly according to attributes of
the cases. So it is not fair to deal with every dispute in a same manner. But in whole construction industry
including highway projects disputes are dealt with same manner. The study disclosed that some key
attributes impacted to critical factors effectiveness. So according to those attributes, applicable ADR
methods have to be varying to counter fluctuations described above. Considering findings of this study as
the base, the below mechanisms are suggested as recommendations to improve effectiveness of ADR
methods and this implication is directly applied to highway sector
Divide disputes into ranges according to impact it causes to program and considering disputes
monetary value.
Considering effect to critical factors from two key attributes, namely monetary value and construction
program, ADR methods have to be changed. Parties need quick and binding result in critical path event
and cost is less significant considering high value dispute. First establish ranges in these two elements and
calculate where the dispute stands in predetermined ranges. Each range has different ADR methods.
Table 9: ADR Methods for Different Ranges
Criticality
Dispute Amount
ADR method Suitable
Yes
High
DAB
Arbitration
Yes
Less
DAB
Arbitration
No
High
DAB
Arbitration
No
Less
Mediation
Ad-Hoc Adjudication
Example - Didnot go to DAB for less than a million, non-critical disputes
183
Include Mediation ADR method to contract document for used only for low monetary value non
critical path disputes. If Mediation fails to arrive at agreement, sole ad-hoc adjudication will
commence rather than contractual DAB or Arbitration considering high cost.
Main recommendation in this study is a guideline for using Alternative Dispute Resolution Methods in
Highway Construction shows using Flow Chart method. Guideline recommended for Expressway and
Highway construction projects but can be successfully implemented in other areas too.
Figure 6: Proposed Guideline for using ADR Methods in Highway Construction
5.
SUMMARY
This document indicates a new way of dealing disputes according to scenarios rather than following
Contractual ADR procedures indicated in contract documents like FIDIC. It is not fair to deal with every
dispute in a same manner because Criticalities of the factors are changing from case to case significantly
according to attributes of the cases. So, best suited ADR method has to be determining after considering
effect from key attributes to dispute.
184
6.
REFERENCES
Arsecularatne, H. H.,2011. Dispute Resolution Strategy Selection Model for Construction Industry. (Unpublished
undergraduate Dissertation). University of Moratuwa.
Cheung, S. O., 1999. Critical factors affecting the use of alternative dispute resolution processes in construction.
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Cheung, S. O., Suen, H. C. H., and Lam, T.I., 2002. Fundamentals of alternative dispute resolution process in
construction. Construction Engineering and Management, 128(5), 409-417.
Fenn, P., O'Shea, M., and Davies, E., 1998. Dispute resolution and conflict management in construction: an
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FIDIC, 1987, Condition of contract for work of civil engineering construction. 4th ed. Geneva: FIDIC World Trade
Center.
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Harmon, K. M. J., 2003. Effectiveness of dispute review board. Journal of Construction, Engineering and
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185
EMERGING COMPETENCIES WITHIN NATIONAL AND LOCAL

GOVERNMENT FOR SOCIETAL RESILIENCE TO DISASTERS IN
SRI LANKA
S.S.L. Hettiarachchi
Department of Civil Engineering, University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka
H. Goonasekera
Federation of Sri Lankan Local Government Authorities, Sri Lanka
S. Gunatilake
S. Weeresinghe*
Coca-Cola Beverages Sri Lanka Limited, Sri Lanka
ABSTRACT
Emerging competencies for societal resilience to disaster within the built environment domain of Sri
Lanka were analysed in the aim of developing a professional doctoral (DProf) course through the
CADRE (EU-FP7) project. Competencies were compiled following the amalgamation of both
emerging market needs and skills within the built environment domain of Sri Lanka. In its
investigation, qualitative and quantitative data collection was facilitated through a literature review.
Data collection was conducted in respective to all stages of the construction cycle (i.e. Preparation,
Design, Pre-construction, Construction, Use). The analysis was conducted using resilience themes for
five thematic areas (i.e. social, technological, environmental, economic and institutional) in relation to
each stage of the construction cycle.
Despite local and national government bodies affecting a central role in policy, planning and
implementation of land use changes and construction, built environment professionals with specialised
expertise was minimal. Parallels were drawn regarding the gaps within the private sector and local
and national government, such as a critical need for skills development programmes to ensure a viable
skilled labour force and job security. Finally, it is critical for national and local government to enforce
existing certification systems and standards for skilled workers to ensure a safe, viable and
competitive construction industry.
Keywords:
1.
Professional Doctorate; Disaster Resilience; Built Environment.
INTRODUCTION
Emerging competencies for societal resilience to disasters were explored, with a focus on the key
stakeholder constituents national and local government in Sri Lanka. The compilation of competencies
followed the amalgamation of emerging market needs and skills within the built environment for societal
resilience to disasters. The literature review was explored through all thematic areas of Resilience I.e.
Social, Technological, Environmental, Economic and Institutional. The aim of this paper is to provide
guidance for the key stakeholders national and local government to facilitate built environment
professionals in their continuing professional development through a professional doctorate (DProf)
programme facilitated by the CADRE (EU-FP7) project. The knowledge exchange and training within all
thematic areas of Resilience would ensure a holistic, multidisciplinary approach to disaster resilience
construction, urban planning and other such activities to provide societal resilience to disasters.
186
2.
METHOD
The literature review was supplemented by qualitative, primary data collection of in-person interviews for
each stakeholder group.
Altogether, 10 interviews were conducted with respondents from local and national government
institutions. This includes 05 interviews with respondents from national level government organisations
directly involved in disaster resilience in Built Environment (including 02 Divisional Secretariats) and 05
interviews with respondents from local government bodies (including both Pradeshiya Sabhas and local
municipal councils). All of these local government bodies were selected from areas in the country that
have been identified as being prone to disaster risks.
All of the respondents indicated that they play some role in all three phases (i.e. disaster
mitigation/preparedness, relief/ response, recovery/ reconstruction) of the disaster management
3.
THE CONTRIBUTION OF THEMATIC AREAS OF RESILIENCE TO SOCIETAL RESILIENCE
Oxfam (2005 cited Maguire and Hagan, 2007) states that in order to truly understand the social impacts
of disasters, and to manage and prevent adverse consequences, we must understand the impacts of
disasters on particular groups within communities. Accordingly, developing a proper mechanism to
identify the potential fracture points or social cleavages within a community and the impacts of disasters
on these groups is useful to facilitate the prediction of future breakdowns in social resilience in disasters,
and to design preventative initiatives (Maguire and Hagan, 2007).
There is also no systematic means for obtaining valid and timely information that is required to address
the myriad of human recovery needs before, during, or after a disaster (Acosta et al., 2011). This is a key
issue as in order to achieve significant improvements in social resilience all stages of a disaster cycle need
to be considered in emergency management planning (Maguire and Hagan, 2007).
Carrying out vulnerability mapping, including local level assessment of structures, occupations, living
patterns, cultural practices, etc., (National Disaster Management Authority, 2010) could act as a useful
tool in allowing these human needs to be addressed, thereby increasing social resilience.
Differences in communities in terms of their socio-economic status, their degree of geographic isolation,
or vulnerability to psychological trauma mean that different groups within the one society can be more or
less resilient to a disaster (Maguire and Hagan, 2007). Vulnerable social groups, such as the elderly,
children, or the economically disadvantaged, may be particularly susceptible to impacts of disasters as
they have fewer resources available to cope. Hence, it is important to ensure that the needs of these
vulnerable groups are addressed in designs during design approval.
As described, engaging local contractors and suppliers are an important means of restoring social
resilience. The government could facilitate this by stating a preference to local contractors and suppliers
during tender processes.
Promoting community-driven and locally managed processes during construction can promote local
decision making and ownership (FEMA, 2011).
It is understood that governments cannot prevent all disasters from occurring, or alternatively, shield
people from all their consequences (Osterholm, 2005 cited Maguire and Hagan, 2007). Hence, the
priority of government should be on strengthening the resilience of communities and addressing this
through research, policy and program development, as well as in crisis management and education
initiatives (Maguire and Hagan, 2007).
Local governments also lead the community in preparing hazard mitigation and recovery plans, raising
hazard awareness and educating the public of available tools and resources to enhance future resilience
(FEMA, 2011).
Promoting food security is also an important aspect that can ensure the resilience of communities to
hazards as disasters such as droughts, floods and cyclones can disrupt agriculture-based livelihoods
(UNISDR, 2005).
187
Conducting multi-hazard mapping, including development of hazard maps at community levels and
collating them for district and national levels, using technologies such as GIS-based community
information systems (National Disaster Management Authority, 2010), can provide an accurate source of
information on the resilient requirements to be addressed during design and construction phases. Such an
activity could be complimented with capacity mapping, which would involve identifying capacities
(including those of NGOs) from community level upwards.
It is also necessary to review and change the building regulations and codes so that they can be used to
more efficiently facilitate improving the structural integrity of buildings and infrastructure (Mannakkara
and Wilkinson, 2013).
The inadequate structural capacity of the Built Environment has been highlighted as a primary reason for
extensive damage from natural disasters (Mannakkara and Wilkinson, 2013). The government has a key
role to play in balancing the use of the land and ensuring that structures are designed and built taking into
account the disaster risks for that local area through the proper implementation of Land use planning and
building regulations. The majority of mitigation measures are adopted, codified and enforced at the local
level. While there are national standards, it is often up to the local governments to adopt and enforce these
(FEMA, 2011).
Non-structural mitigation is also a significant aspect of building safety, and can result in avoiding a large
percentage of losses and casualties. This may include, inter alia, avoidance of heavy and hazardous
building content, avoidance of storing or using hazardous materials in buildings, and avoidance of
material with the potential of falling, dislodging, flying or floating that can cause injury and damage
(National Disaster Management Authority, 2010).
Care should be taken not to let the obvious time pressures in the recovery process and expectations for
fast results to result in hasty design and construction without due regard for building codes and resilience
(Mannakkara and Wilkinson, 2013; Bosher and Dainty, 2011).
Special training needs to be provided to service providers, including Built Environment professionals,
construction workers, local emergency response agencies and support volunteers on addressing
technological resilience.
Having a database of skilled builders who are willing to participate in post-disaster reconstruction during
the pre-disaster phase would also assist in guaranteeing construction quality (Mannakkara and Wilkinson,
2013) and in turn technological resilience.
Hence, the importance of regulative authorities conducting periodic inspections to ensure that
constructions are being done according to the specified guidelines has been stressed (Mannakkara and
Wilkinson, 2013). Without this, it is difficult to ensure proper implementation of building regulations
increasing the technological resilience of structures.
Promoting the retrofitting and maintenance of Built Environment in ways which will reduce vulnerability
to future disaster impacts (FEMA, 2011). It is particularly important that governments address this in
relation to critical public facilities and physical infrastructures such as schools, clinics, hospitals, water
and power plants, communications and transport lifelines, disaster warning and management centres, and
culturally important lands and structures (UNISDR, 2005). The vulnerability of the existing Built
Environment should be continuously assessed throughout the use stage (Witt et al., 2014).
At the same time, ensuring the future safety of new houses and public buildings will require research,
documentation and communication of appropriate materials and technologies for disaster-resistant
construction.
Proper land use planning at national and local government levels is central to increasing environmental
resilience. In Australia, land use planning and building codes (developed by taking hazard risks into
account), have been identified as the single most important mitigation measure in preventing future
emergency losses in new developments (National Emergency Management Committee - Land Use
Planning and Building Codes Task Force, 2012). Land use planning of the Built Environment, as noted by
the National Emergency Management Committee - Land Use Planning and Building Codes Task Force
(2012), is a complex process that must consider the various interests of multiple stakeholders with
188
respect to physical, social, environmental and economic constraints. The planners and other involved
professionals should be equipped with the necessary competencies for collecting and analysing large
amounts of data in order to produce robust strategic plans and to competently assess development
applications (National Emergency Management Committee - Land Use Planning and Building Codes
Task Force, 2012).
The government has a key role to play in influencing land use planning, building codes and property
resilience ratings through legislative and policy changes to increase the resilience of a nations Built
Environment.
As FEMA (2011) notes resilience, sustainability and mitigation need to be incorporated as part of the
design for infrastructure systems and as part of the communitys capital planning processes (FEMA,
2011). According to Mannakkara and Wilkinson (2013), the damage from the 2004 Indian Ocean
Tsunami could be partly attributed to the lack of consideration of coastal risks in the design of structures.
Mannakkara and Wilkinson (2013) further suggest the introduction of monetary incentives to promote the
adoption of risk reduction strategies, thereby encouraging the use of hazard resilient designs, materials
and specifications.
Various indicators aimed at increasing environmental resilience can be incorporated into the tendering
process as contractor/ supplier selection criteria. Use of Green Public Procurement (GPP) criteria, such as
the criteria for construction projects developed by the European Commission, could also facilitate
addressing environment resilience related issues during reconstruction (SCI-Network, 2007).
Schemes for providing training to building practitioners; conducting inspections; and not compromising
quality for speed are some of the key areas highlighted in relation to increasing technological resilience
during construct stage. National Disaster Management Authority (2010) emphasises that special skill
training on disaster resistant technologies should be provided to construction workers.
Technological resilience during this stage could be adversely affected by poor regulative powers and the
lack of strict enforcement building regulations/ codes leading to sub-standard structures. For example,
Mannakkara and Wilkinson (2013) observe that during the time the Indian Ocean Tsunami struck,
enforcement of building codes was mainly restricted to urban and suburban areas in Sri Lanka resulting in
magnified damages to rural and coastal areas, where strict structural standards were lacking.
National and local government bodies need to carry out regular supervisions to ensure that the principles
of sustainable and disaster-resistant communities have been adhered to throughout the construction phase
through the protection of natural resources such as coastal barriers and zones, floodplains, wetlands and
other natural resources critical to risk reduction (FEMA, 2011).
Awareness of end-users of Built Environment facilities, including house owners, families, students,
teachers, decision makers, etc., on disaster resilience, should be increased prompting them to take local
action to reduce risk (National Disaster Management Authority, 2010).
Although costs vary across nations and within regions in a single nation a number of authors have
highlighted the need to a national standard for estimating recovery costs. Acosta et al. (2011) note that the
lack of guidance on procedures for estimating the costs of recovery has led to inconsistent estimates being
prepared which threaten the credibility of reimbursement of costs. They go on to highlight developing
such a standard could benefit national and local governments, by providing them with a more accurate
figure on associated costs, as well as NGOs, by ensuring that their appeals to donors are consistent and
appropriate.
Extra costs incurred by adopting new technologies and materials to improve structural resilience have
been noted to discourage compliance with new building codes (Mannakkara and Wilkinson, 2013). As
mentioned, introducing monetary and other types of incentives for construction stakeholders to
incorporate disaster resilience could be addressed.
Where the upfront budget for construction work is restricted, it is useful to promote the setting of
minimum standards together with higher aspirational targets in relation to incorporating disaster resilience
(SCI-Network, 2007).
189
During pre-construction areas of potential financial challenges need to be identified (FEMA, 2011). In
instances, where these costs can go beyond the capabilities of local governments, necessary funding
should be arranged from the national government and/or other sources (e.g. NGOs) (IFAS, 1998). Focus
should also be given to promoting financial risk-sharing mechanisms (e.g. Insuring against disasters) as
well as developing and promoting alternative and innovative financial instruments for addressing disaster
risk (UNISDR, 2005).
Mannakkara and Wilkinson (2013) further suggest the following strategies that governments can
undertake to help increase economic resilience: i.e. taking the responsibility for funding the extra cost
required for improvements not covered by insurance; restricting construction on high-risk lands requiring
improvements which are too costly and time-consuming; introduction of Buy-back or Land-swap
schemes for those lands on which construction costs cannot be covered by insurance or government
funding (here the high-risk lands are either bought by the government, or exchanged, allowing occupants
to settle into lower risk lands).
Promotion of indigenous technologies during construction with appropriate adaptation and promotion of
local materials and skills, and low-tech, low-cost technologies is important in increasing economic
resilience (National Disaster Management Authority, 2010).
Promoting diversified income options for populations in high-risk areas is important to reduce the
vulnerability of these community groups to hazards. Care should also be taken to ensure that their income
and assets are not undermined by development policy and processes increasing their vulnerability to
disasters (UNISDR, 2005).
Ensuring that disaster risk reduction is a national and a local priority is necessary to provide the strong
institutional basis needed for addressing disaster resilience (UNISDR, 2005). The 2009-2011 mid-term
review of progress against the Hyogo Framework for Action has highlighted weak capacity in many local
governments, which in turn affects their ability to accurately account for disaster risk in investment and
development decisions (Hall et al., 2013). Competencies should be developed particularly in relation to
identifying hazards and assessing risks and vulnerabilities (FEMA, 2011).
National platforms should also facilitate coordination across sectors, including by maintaining a broadbased dialogue at national and regional levels for promoting awareness among the relevant sectors
(UNISDR, 2005). At national government level, steps should also be taken to avoid duplications of effort,
lack of alignment between systems and legislation, lack of common standards, lack of clarity about
various roles and responsibilities of different agencies involved as well as lack of leadership, teamwork,
political will and commitment (National Emergency Management Committee - Land Use Planning and
Building Codes Task Force, 2012; Malalgoda et al., 2014). Herein, UNISDR (2005) suggests the
importance of national integrated disaster risk reduction mechanisms, such as multi-sectoral national
platforms that lay out the responsibilities at the national through to the local levels to facilitate
coordination across sectors. This is also important to overcome the complexities and long durations taken
to resolve issues due to the involvement of the large number of organisations (Malalgoda et al., 2013).
At the same time, Hall et al., (2013) maintain that a clear demarcation of responsibilities is needed at
national, provincial and local government levels, whilst establishing strong linkages between local and
national government levels with national policies being aligned with local needs. The latter is important
since some researchers have found that certain information at the national level was misinterpreted at the
local level (Karunasena and Rameezdeen, 2010).
Flexibility (for example in staffing and management structures) is needed at organisations at all levels of
government to facilitate the application of laws, regulations and policies in the context of disasters, so that
the governments adaptability to govern in unforeseen incidents is enhanced (FEMA, 2011).
Malalgoda et al. (2014) highlight that amending policies so as to provide municipal councils with more
authority and power to engage in resilience building. The authors go on to stress the importance of
raising awareness of council officials on disaster risks and resilient practices, engaging council officers
in national level decision processes that affect their local areas and establishing proper communication
channels to exchange decisions and information related to resilience. The national government should
190
also ensure that the necessary resources to address disaster risk reduction are allocated to the local
governments (Hall et al., 2013).
It is also important to develop and strengthen partnerships with other stakeholders such as universities,
professional associations, the private sector and NGOs to facilitate recovery capacity-building activities
and expansion of resources available for planning and decision making (FEMA, 2011).
A strong legal framework and consistent regulations are needed to ensure the enforcement of building
codes and regulations aimed at increasing building resilience. Witt et al. (2014) stress that regular review
(and tightening) of urban planning policies and building codes and the continual re-assessment of design
guidance and the vulnerability of existing assets are necessary to ensure Built Environment resilience in
the increasingly hazard prone and dynamic future.
Functional and effective intergovernmental relations (FEMA, 2011) are necessary at this stage to
influence the efficiency pre-construction stage activities. Transparency in the tender process is also
important to minimise corruption or wrongdoing.
PublicPrivate Partnerships can be promoted to better engage the private sector in resilient construction
activities (UNISDR, 2005).
As discussed, greater emphasis needs to be placed on establishing and implementing monitoring and
accountability instruments to ensure enforcement of available laws and regulations.
Capturing after-action recommendations and lessons learned during this stage can help all government
levels to evolve, adapt and develop new skills and capacities to address the changing landscapes (FEMA,
2011). UNISDR (2005) also highlight that this phase should be used to develop capacities that reduce
disaster risk in the long term, including through the sharing of expertise, knowledge and lessons learned.
4.
DISCUSSION
National and local government have a crucial role in the process of planning, designing and approval of
housing and infrastructure making a significant contribution to making the Built Environment more
resilient. In this respect, it holds a central position in all three phases (i.e. disaster mitigation/
preparedness, relief/ response, recovery/ reconstruction) of the disaster cycle.
The literature review highlighted that Government has a key role to play in developing hazard maps,
carrying out risk assessments and influencing land use planning, building codes and property resilience
ratings through legislative and policy changes to increase the resilience of a nations Built Environment.
However, to accurately account for disaster risk in investment and development decisions competencies
need to be developed particularly in relation to identifying hazards and assessing risks and vulnerabilities.
The research found that at present the national and local governments lacked the resources (in terms of
technical assistance, finance, equipment and human resources) needed to identify high-risk zones,
buildings and other structures, assess risks and carry out resilient designs.
Most of the activities such as identifying risk locations, conducting awareness programmes, preparing
construction estimates, overseeing construction process to ensure compliance with guidelines, etc. were
mainly carried out by Technical Officers (TOs). The involvement of Built Environment professionals in
these activities was not at a satisfactory level. Respondents highlighted that whilst there was only a
limited number of TOs available to carry out all these activities, their knowledge and skill level was also
not up to the standard that may be expected from Built Environment professionals with specific expertise
in these areas. More training and education for current employees was highlighted by national and local
government respondents as a vital need to close this competency gap. Not being able to match the
lucrative wages offered by the private sector to Built Environment professionals was seen as one of the
main impediments to retaining them as permanent staff and hence, most of the government departments
resort to retaining them on contract on an as-needed basis. Some of the respondents also highlighted that
Built Environment professionals showed a lack of awareness of local contexts (e.g. local climate,
lifestyles, geographical location, etc.) and did not give proper attention to selecting materials suitable to a
specific location and climate and identifying the needs of local communities.
191
Being a developing country, there was also consensus that the funds allocated to disaster management
were insufficient compared to the associated expenses. The use of public-private partnerships is one
suggestion highlighted in literature to engage the private sector in sharing some of these costs. Political
interferences from higher levels was also an issue in allocating the available funds.
In relation to reconstruction, national and local government respondents noted that they were involved in
all stages of the property life-cycle except the physical construction stage. Requiring TOs report and
NBRO recommendations in granting permission for construction projects, site visits by TOs during
construction to ensure compliance to aforementioned, providing guidance on resilient designs, conducting
awareness programmes, providing funds for rebuilding under the supervision of TOs and conducting risk
assessments are some of the actions carried out by national and local government bodies in order to
facilitate Built Environment resilience. Respondents also highlighted that more attention should be given
to ensuring construction quality, with a professional institute with relevant expertise in the field assessing
each construction.
Funds provided for victims not being sufficient to address resilience in design and construction, lack of
knowledge on the concept of disaster resilience, lack of technical advisors, not using sufficient risk
reduction methods in planning and design of disaster reconstruction were some of the challenges
government bodies have experienced in practically implementing disaster resilience. For instance, some
of the respondents noted that despite NBRO recommendations being needed to provide building approval,
some of the recommendations given by them could not be practically addressed within the budgets
available to owners. Respondents also noted that better coordination with private sector institutes could be
used to overcome some of the resource requirements.
5.
CONCLUSION
Local and national governments have a key role to play in developing hazard maps, carrying out risk
assessments and influencing land use planning, building codes and property resilience ratings through
legislative and policy changes to increase the resilience of a nations Built Environment.
The involvement of Built Environment professionals in these activities was minimal with most of the
activities such as identifying risk locations, conducting awareness programmes, preparing construction
estimates, overseeing construction process to ensure compliance with guidelines, etc. being carried out by
Technical Officers (TOs).
More education and awareness should be given to Built Environment professionals, on considering local
contexts (e.g. local climate, lifestyles, geographical location, etc.) in designs, selecting materials suitable
to a specific location and climate, and identifying the needs of local communities.
Enforcement laws and regulations should be strengthened. At the same time, laws should be revised and
updated to meet the present demands in relation to resilience.
There is lack of funds available for disaster management as well as lack of transparency in allocating
funds to victims
Funds provided for victims not being sufficient to address resilience in design and construction, lack of
knowledge on the concept of disaster resilience, lack of technical advisors, not using sufficient risk
reduction methods in planning and design of disaster reconstruction were some of the challenges
government bodies have experienced in practically implementing disaster resilience.
6.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This research was supported by the Collaborative Action towards Disaster Resilience Education
(CADRE) project funded with support from the European Commission. The findings and opinions
reported in this paper reflect the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held
responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained in it.
192
7.
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Bosher, L.S. and Dainty, A.R.J., 2011. Disaster risk reduction and built-in resilience: towards overarching
principles for construction practice. Disasters, 35(1), 1-18.
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Disaster Recovery for the Nation [online]. United States: Federal Emergency Management Agency. Available
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Hall, S., Critcher, C., Jefferson, T., Clarke, J. and Roberts, B., 2013. Policing the crisis: Mugging, the state and law
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Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS), 1998. The Disaster Handbook. Florida: University of Florida.
Karunasena, G. and Rameezdeen, R., 2010. Post-disaster housing reconstruction: Comparative study of donor vs
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Maguire, B. and Hagan, P., 2007. Disasters and communities: understanding social resilience. The Australian
Journal of Emergency Management, 22(2).
Malalgoda, C., Amaratunga, D. and Haigh, R., 2014. Challenges in creating a disaster resilient Built Environment.
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Victorian bushfires. Journal of business continuity & emergency planning, 6(2), 164-173.
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Tsunamis. India: National Disaster Management Authority, (978-93-80440-06-4).
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193
ENERGY FROM WASTE: A SOLUTION FOR THE GARBAGE CRISIS AT

MEETHOTAMULLA, KOLONNAWA, SRI LANKA
R.A.G. Nawarathna*
S. Joyce
School of Chemical Engineering and Advanced Materials, Newcastle University, United Kingdom
ABSTRACT
Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) generation and management is a continually growing problem at global
level, and is becoming more complicated day by day. Sri Lanka as a developing country also confronts
the issue of increasing solid waste. Its major conventional solid waste management practice of open
dumping is being challenged at present due to its negative impacts on environment and public health.
Therefore, there is a necessity to look at this problem from a new perspective. Being identified the
Energy from Waste (EfW) technologies as one of the best solutions to solve MSW problem, this paper
aims at assessing the viability of setting up an EfW facility to get rid of Meethotamulla, Kolonnawa
Garbage Mountain which has become a pressing issue today. The data gathered from secondary
sources such as government publications, journal articles, newspaper articles, and other published
reports intensifies this analysis. Based on the analysis, it is identified that mass combustion is the best
possible technology to treat about 1300 tons of waste per day in order to make the Meethotamulla
garbage site hazard free zone by 2040 and to generate 14MW of electricity per day as a by-product of
waste combustion. And eventually, the PESTE analysis identifies the opportunities and threats that can
be affected when implementing such a capital intensive facility.
Keywords:
1.
Energy from Waste; Municipal Solid Waste; Meethotamulla Garbage Dump; Sri Lanka.
INTRODUCTION
Current global Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) generation rates are expected to be increased steadily,
challenging the environmental and public health management at global level. A recent estimation done by
the World Bank (2012) reveals that world cities generate about 1.3 billion tonnes of solid waste per year
at present, and estimates that this volume will be increased to 2.2 billion tonnes by 2025. The main causes
to accelerate the generation rate of MSW are made known as increase of population, changes in life
styles, rapid economic growth and rapid urbanization (Minghua et al., 2009 cited in a Guerrero, Maas and
Hogland, 2013).
Waste generation is unavoidable. The main issue associated with MSW in low-middle income countries,
is inefficient collection and disposal which contributes to natural disasters such as flooding, erosion, air
and water pollution and public health issues (The World Bank, 2012). Therefore, most of the countries
have now begun to search for long term solutions to dispose of their solid waste in a proper and safe
manner. With that, the interest for the concept of recovering Energy from Waste (EfW) has increased all
over the world as a long term solution for waste management. In this concept, the waste is considered no
more a waste but, as a renewable energy source (Rogoff and Screve, 2011).
Sri Lanka as a middle income country also confronts the issue of managing the increasing solid waste.
The most common method of disposing waste still remains as open dumping (Bandara, 2011). Though it
is a pressing issue impacted on the environment and public health, particularly in the most urbanized
areas such as Colombo, Dehiwala-Mt Lavinia and Kandy, more than 95% of final waste are disposed in
open dumps.
*
194
When taking all districts of Sri Lanka into consideration, this is most grave in Colombo district where
about 1500 tons of solid waste are collected and disposed in open dumps per day (Bandara, 2011 and
Perera, 2003). Almost all these dumpsites are located in environmentally sensitive areas and in the
vicinity of residential, commercial or institutional establishments. None of them have designed to
minimize or control pollutants released from the decomposition of waste. Therefore, the high moisture
content in the MSW have led to excessive leachate generation and produce methane about 72kg/t, causing
numerous problems to the environment and public (Gunawardana et al. 2009 and Basnayake et al. ,2007).
Further, exposing these dump sites to waste scavengers and insects such as mosquitoes, flies, etc., the
surrounding residents face many health related issues, nuisance, air and water pollution (Gunawardana et
al. 2009).
Though this issue has been curtailed to some extent by means of land filling, anaerobic digestion,
composting and 3R concept, still the most common method of solid waste management remains to be
open dumped in a more or less uncontrolled manner (Basnayake and Visvanathan, 2013 and Bandara,
2011). Therefore, the existing disposal sites in Colombo area have now become unmanageable with
increased quantities of collected waste at present (Basnayake and Visvanathan, 2013).
Among approximately 58 garbage dumping sites in Colombo area, it was evidently identified that an
immediate solution needs to be taken to treat Meethotamulla Garbage Mountain as it is almost filled to its
capacity and more complains on various health hazards and frequent disasters such as flooding and
explosions are being received by Kolonnawa Urban Council. It has turned out to be a common sight
nowadays to see frequent protests organised by Kolonnawa general public against this dumping site. In
view of that, this paper intends to identify the viability of implementing an EfW facility as a long term
solution for waste management.
Accordingly, a desk study is presented in this paper. The data gathered from books, reports, paper articles,
journal articles and other published documents on waste management in Sri Lanka as well as global and
EfW technologies synthesises in order to identify the existing condition of the Meethotamulla garbage
dump site, quantify the existing waste and the waste anticipated to be dumped at Meethotamulla garbage
dump site, select an appropriate EfW technology and estimate the plant. Finally, the PESTE analysis
identifies the external environmental impacts on implementing an EfW facility to treat this garbage dump.
2.
FEASIBILITY STUDY
2.1.
INTRODUCTION TO MEETHOTAMULA GARBAGE DUMP SITE
Figure 1: Meethotamulla Garbage Dump Site

Source: http://www.sundaytimes.lk/140706/news/authorities-promises-stink-as-much-as-garbage-mountain105967.html
195
The Meethotamulla garbage dump site is located in Dahampura Grama Niladhari Division of Kolonnawa
Divisional Secretariat Division in Colombo District of Western Province. The geological co-ordinates are:
6 0 56/ 6.4// N and 790 53/ 13.9//E. This has been existence for over 20 years and as shown in Figure 1, it
spreads over 18-acre where 4700 families in eight villages live clustered around it. In addition to the
residential places, three schools and few religious places are situated around it.
More than 50% of waste generated around Colombo and its suburbs are dumped by nearly 200 lorries in
this site daily (Karunarathne, 2015). Though its capacity has almost exceeded, still the garbage is dumped
there due to the lack of land filling sites. As a result, the residents of the surrounding area has become the
worst victims of various environmental and health hazards. Residents have launched number of protests
to draw the attention of relevant authorities to find a long term solution for the issues created by this
garbage dumpsite.
Despite promises, none of the authorities have taken any action over the years to remove garbage from
this site (Karunarathne, 2015). An interview conducted by Karunarathne (2015) with surrounding
residents of this site reveals the following dreadful issues for which they seek immediate solutions.
Haphazard dumping without a proper segregation process
Unbearable stench which now has become part of their lives
Breathing toxic air emitted from the waste
Cracked houses as a result of the weight of the disposal and gas emissions from the rotting refuse
Uncontrolled surface emissions of LFG into the air which contains carbon dioxide, methane,
volatile organic compounds (VOCs), hazardous air pollutants (HAPs), and odorous compounds that
can adversely affect public health and the environment
Crows and other birds flying around the garbage dump seeking food
No clean water due to the contamination of ground water with waste leachates
Most of the houses close to the canal often get flooded even after a brief shower
60% children in this area suffer from skin related diseases, respiratory problems and viral diseases
The area is a breeding spot for rats, crows, cockroaches and other types of insects and reptiles
2.2.
ANALYSIS OF WASTE STREAM
The initial sizing of an EfW plant is mainly depend on the volume of waste, its composition and energy
content. Therefore, the main objective of this waste stream analysis is to estimate both the volume and
composition of MSW that is currently being disposed and expected to be disposed in Meethotamulla
garbage dump site in future.
It is to note that this analysis was carried out based on the data gathered through secondary researches due
to the absence of a proper record keeping system on waste disposal.
2.2.1.
QUANTIFYING THE WASTE VOLUME
As it is identified in section 2.1, the age of the dump site is about 22 years for 2015, dump area is about
18 acres and height of the mountain is about 250 feet. Accordingly, it is estimated that the existing waste
volume of this site is averagely 4,900,500 tonnes.
With the population growth in urban areas, Basnayake and Visvanathan (2013) estimates that the annual
growth rate of waste generation in Sri Lanka as 1.2%. Further, the same authors reveal that about half
(750 tonnes out of 1500 tonnes) of municipal waste generated from Colombo area are disposed in
Meethotamulla garbage dump site daily. Based on this information, the expected waste quantity to be
dumped at this site for next 25 years was calculated and is shown as in Figure 2.
196
800,000
700,000
600,000
500,000
400,000
300,000
200,000
100,000
0
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
2026
2027
2028
2029
2030
2031
2032
2033
2034
2035
2036
2037
2038
2039
2040
In tonnes
Years
Expected amount of waste generated in Colombo
Expected to be disposed in Meethotamulla Garbage Dump
Figure 2: Expected Amount of Waste to be Generated in Colombo Area and Disposed in Meethoatmulla Garbage
Dump
2.2.2.
QUANTIFYING THE WASTE VOLUME
A study done by Waste Management Authority - Western Province in 2010 provides a detail analysis of
composition of waste generated from Colombo municipal area. According to that, 75% of total waste is
biodegradable while other 25% distributes among plastic, rubber, glass, metal, e-waste and clinical waste.
The average moisture content of the MSW has been revealed as 40-45% (Waste Management AuthorityWestern Province, 2010) and as a result, Asian Productivity Organisation (2007) mentions that the
calorific value is between 600 kcal/kg and 1200 kcal/kg in this waste. Therefore, it is considered
900kcal/kg as the average calorific value of the waste dispose in Meethotamulla garbage dump.
2.3.
SELECTION OF APPROPRIATE EFW TECHNOLOGY
Reduction of the existing volume of waste mounted in Meethotamulla and simultaneously discontinuing
dumping in this site mainly depends on the selection of an appropriate EfW technology. Accordingly,
Table 1 summarises the results of the extensive analysis carried out in order to select the appropriate EfW
technology for this particular case. Eventually it is selected mass burning over other EfW technologies
as the most appropriate technology.
Table 1: Justifying the Selected Technology
Technology
Anaerobic Digestion
Anaerobic digestion allows
microorganisms to work on
the feedstock available in a
low temperature plant in
order to recover carbon
dioxide and methane that can
be combusted to generate
electricity, heat or bio fuel
(Renewable
Energy
Association, 2011)
Justification
This technology is best suited for the treatment of wet organic waste such as,
food waste, high moisture agricultural biomass and animal wastes including
manure and domestic sewage (Renewable Energy Association, 2011).
Therefore, it cannot be used as a MSW treatment method as it leaves all other
waste materials except wet organic components which still requires disposal.
Further, the waste dump in this particular site are not segregated, it may require
additional strategies and resources to get sorted only the wet organics.
197
Gasification and Pyrolysis

The waste transforms into
energy without burning.
Instead, the waste is heated
to produce syngas which
can be used to recover
energy as steam, heat,
electricity or bio fuel by
creating a chemical reaction
(Gasification Technologies
Council, 2013).
Gasification and pyrolysis are suitable for substantial reduction in the total
quantity of MSW after an extensive pre-treatment process.
They are attractive alternatives for combustion.
However, when comparing with combustion technology, thermal energy
production in these systems is significantly low due to the reduction of the
temperature of the residual heat in the steam (Murphy and McKeogh, 2004).
Further, its a more complex and an emerging technology with high capital and
operating cost compared to the combustion (Belgiorno et al, 2003).
In general, there is a very limited track record of commercial scale pyrolysis
plant accepting municipal derived wastes in the world due to the problems
related to tarring. The deposition of tars cause blockages and other operational
challenges associated with plant failures and inefficiencies (DEFRA,2013)
Therefore, Sri Lanka as a country which suffers from lack of institutional
capacities and financial support for solid waste management projects
(Vidanaarachchi et al, 2005), this technology would not be the best option.
Combustion
Combustion is the most
dominant EfW technology
which uses widely due to its
simplicity and relatively low
capital
cost
(Themelis,
2003). It is functioned in an
Energy from Waste (EfW)
plant, in which the waste is
burned at 1000 0C and
recover steam, heat or
electricity as energy.
The most common methods
used to combust solid waste
are mass burning, modular
combustion, fluidized bed
and refuse derived fuel
(RDF). Among them, the
two most widely used and
technically
proven
technologies
are
massburning,
and
modular
combustion. Fluidized-bed
and
refuse-derived-fuel
combustion
technologies
have been used to a lesser
extent
(United
Nations
Environment
Programme,
1996).During the last 30
years
of
period,
the
development
of
EfW
facilities have increased
significantly and there are
about1300 combusting EfW
facilities worldwide (Rogoff
and Screve, 2011).
RDF Burn
In this method, all waste is sent through a pre-treatment process

prior the combustion. It is removed all non-combustibles such as
metals, glass, rock, concrete, and sheet rock and hazardous
materials. With this minimal sorting, it has the capability of getting
a high average calorific values and achieving higher energy
content. The ash production and the GHG emission is lower than
in mass burn mode (EnviroPower Renewable Inc, 2013). Further,
an extra income can be earned by selling sorted recyclable and
non-combustible materials.
Although RDF processing gives the above advantages, its
complexity has increased the operating and maintenance costs and
reduced the reliability of RDF production facilities around the
world (UNEP, 1996). UNEP (1996) further mentions that capital
costs per ton of RDF combustion are higher than mass burning.
Therefore, this technology is also set aside for the same reason of
disqualifying gasification and pyrolysis technologies.
Mass
Burning
Mass burning is the predominant and simplest method of

combusting waste to generate energy (Hasselriis and Mahoney,
2013). This is one of the best technologies to reduce the volume of
waste too. In this technology, all types of MSW are burnt as
received, after the removal of hazardous and non-combustible
materials such as metal and glass. Therefore, it requires less labor
power for sorting, so that it is cost effective (EnviroPower
Renewable Inc, 2013). When comparing with gasification and
RDF technologies, mass burning is a simple process with
affordable capital and operation cost. Though it has a high impact
to the atmosphere through emission of greenhouse gases, it can be
reduced by using an extensive flue treatment system. Further, it is
identified, mass burning process generates high volume of ash
(Hasselriis and Mahoney, 2013). However, they can be used in
making eco bricks or in concrete mixtures.
Thus, in consideration of simplicity, affordable capital and
operation cost and disposition of by-products, mass burning would
be the suitable technology for handling waste in Meethotamulla
garbage dump.
198
2.4.
PLANT CAPACITY AND ITS POWER GENERATION CAPACITY
It is to note that the estimation of plant capacity is based on the plant life time of 25 years. It is assumed
that the first four years (2016-2019) of the project life cycle will be taken for the preparation and
implementation and then the facility will be operated from the 05th year for 21 years ahead (2020-2040).
Considering both existing and expected waste as calculated in section 5.2.3, it is assessed that there is a
waste volume of 4,900,500 tons already in the dump site and expected to be dumped during the 20162019 period of facility preparation as 1,127,226 tons. Accordingly, there is a total amount of 6,027,726
tons. Among them, it is assumed only 65% of waste can be used for the EfW process, while 30% is set
aside as almost composted in the dump it self and remaining 5% is put aside as non-combustible
materials.
The expected waste quantity to be dumped during plant operation period (2020-2040) is estimated as
6,894,029. It is assumed that only 90% can be used for the EfW process, while 10% is set aside as noncombustible materials.
Based on above data and assumptions, the amount of waste that can be combusted daily from year 2020 is
calculated as follows.
Waste from Meethotamulla
= (4,900,500 + 1,127,226) *0.65/ (21*365)
Garbage Dump
= approximately 510 tons/day
Waste from daily collection
= 6,894,029 * 0.9/ (21*365)
(From 2020)
= Approximately 800 tons/day
(Eq: 01)
(Eq: 02)
Accordingly, the facility has to be designed to process average 510 tons per day from exiting volume in
Meethotamulla garbage dump and 800 tons per day from daily collection from Colombo area from 2020.
Eventually, it requires to treat averagely 1300 tons of waste per day. Thus, the plant capacity is estimated
as 1300tons/day
With the identification of daily combustible solid waste quantity and net calorific value, net power
generation capacity of the plant is estimated as 14MW as in Eq: 03.
Total combustible solid waste quantity (W)
= 1300 tons/day
Net calorific Value (NCV)
= 900kcal/kg
Energy Recovery Potential (kWh)
= W x NCV x (4.184 x 1000 /3600)
(Eq: 03)
= 1,359,800 kWh
Power Generation Potential
= 1,359,800 /24
= 56,658 kW
When producing electrical power only, World Bank mentions that (1999) it is possible to recover up to
35% of the available energy in the waste as power. Therefore, it was considered the conversion efficiency
of waste collected from Colombo as 25%.
Thus, total net power generation per day of operation is estimated as 14 MW
3.
PESTE ANALYSIS
With the identification of appropriate EfW technology, plant capacity and its net power generation
capacity, PESTE (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal and Environment) analysis identifies
the opportunities and threats that can be considered prior making strategic decisions on implementing an
EfW facility for this particular case.
199
3.1.
POLITICAL
Sri Lanka is a developing country which still has an unstable political condition and less political
commitment on developing public infrastructure projects.
There is no provision for energy recovery from waste in existing national waste management
strategy, other than avoidance, reduction, reuse, recycling, and final disposal. Therefore, it may
take considerable time to convince the advantages of this kind of a project to Sri Lanka.
Though, the National Energy Policy 2006 has identified municipal solid waste as a renewable
energy source and a Feed in Tariff has been introduced to be effected from year 2012, there is no
an incentive or subsidy scheme to encourage investors to invest in EfW facilities.
3.2.
ECONOMIC
This is a capital intensive project.
Generally, waste incineration experts mention that it is required to have an incinerator that burns
at least 1000 tonnes of garbage each day to have an economically viable operation (Alternative
Energy news, 2006). In view of that, this proposed plant possibly will make an economically
viable operation by burning 1200 tonnes every day.
This kind of a project will contribute to the local economy by creating both direct and in-direct
employment opportunities in the form of officers, operators, technicians, labourers, and drivers.
The main income source of this plant is selling electricity to the national grid. If it operates
without major failures throughout its lifetime, it would be a profitable investment.
Selling scrap metal and bottom ash will also create a considerable income from the project.
3.3.
SOCIAL
The proposed project will help to make the Meethotamulla garbage dump site as hazard free zone
by 2040.
It will cause to improve the local sanitisation by eliminating harmful fauna such as mosquitoes,
flies, rats, cockroaches and other disease-causing vectors.
No more bad odours will generate from the decomposition of organic waste in the dump.
Further, the negative impacts such as frequent disasters (floods and explosions), ground water
contamination with leachate, emission of toxic gases to the atmosphere and spoiling of the quality
of soil due to leaching of salts and heavy metals will be nullified.
The project will be a real example to increase the awareness on EfW facilities, so it will cause to
widen the EfW plants throughout the country as a long term waste management strategy.
In general, it is unavoidable the oppositions raised from the public and environmental
organisations regarding this kind of an infrastructure project in Sri Lanka. Therefore, necessary
actions have to be planned at the initial stage to face them.
3.4.
TECHNICAL
Generating energy from waste combustion is not a proven technology in Sri Lanka yet.
Therefore, the project will lead to share and transfer the technical knowledge and the technology
between Sri Lanka and other countries from where the equipment are imported.
200
3.5.
LEGAL
Compliance with all statutory requirements is highly essential prior setting up the project.
However, the approval process possibly will take considerable time due to the poor coordination
among relevant government agencies such as Central Environmental Authority, Sustainable
Energy Authority Sri Lanka, Ministry of Mahaweli Development and Environment and Ceylon
Electricity Board.
3.6.
4.
ENVIRONMENTAL
This is an eco-friendly project which generates electricity using a clean energy source.
It will reduce the amount of garbage piled in the Meethotamulla dump site and avoid methane
emissions from the site.
This will further help in reducing the future need of open landfill sites and decreasing the
disasters and health hazards associated with them.
However, it requires an effective air emission control system to avoid emitting harmful pollutants
to the air generated through waste combustion.
SUMMARY
The aim of this paper was assessing the viability of setting up and EfW facility to get rid of
Meethotamulla, Kolonnawa Garbage Mountain which has become a pressing issue. After a
comprehensive analysis of several EfW technologies, it was identified mass combustion technology as
the best possible option to reduce the waste heaped in Meethotamulla garbage dump. Based on the waste
stream analysis, it expects to treat about 1300 tons of waste per day in order to make that garbage site
hazard free zone by 2040 and it is anticipated to generate 14MW of electricity per day as a by-product of
waste combustion. The PESTE analysis carried out on political, economic, social, technological, legal and
environmental aspects identified that this project has a considerable capacity to contribute to local
economy by managing solid waste to a certain extent, generating electricity from clean energy source and
creating more job opportunities for the locals.
5.
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202
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE MOST COMMON GROUND ON WHICH

LOCAL ARBITRAL AWARDS BECOME UNENFORCEABLE IN
SRI LANKA
Manathunga D. Hemantha* and L.D. Indunil P. Seneviratne
ABSTRACT
The parties select more adversarial arbitration process over other alternative dispute resolution
methods mainly due to the enforceability of the arbitral award. If the arbitral award becomes
unenforceable due to any reason, the selection of arbitral process is useless. In this scenario,
aresearch was conducted specially to find out the most common ground on which local arbitral
awards become unenforceable in Sri Lanka and to explore the reasons to occur the unenforceability
under that most common ground with the expectation that this improved knowledge would assist to
minimize the unenforceability of local arbitral awards.
The research was conducted under the quantitative research approach. A cross-sectional,
retrospective and non-experimental study design was adopted. The local arbitration cases registered
at the High Court-Colombo during 2009-2012 for the setting aside or for the enforcement of the
awards and the courts had completed the proceedings were selected as the convenient sample. The
sample contained 910 cases.
The data collection process was a two tiered process. In the first tier, a cross sectional survey was
carried out at the High Court-Colombo to find out arbitral awards become unenforceable due to
setting aside or refusal of the enforcement by the High Court. If the judgment of the High Court was
appealed to the Supreme Court the judgment of the Supreme Court was also considered. Through the
first tier of data collection, it was found that non adherence to the enforcement procedure is the most
common ground on which local arbitral awards become unenforceable in Sri Lanka.
During the second tier of data collection, semi structured interviews were conducted with the parties
who failed to enforce the arbitral award due to non adherence to enforcement procedure, those parties
were mainly financial institutions and contained 16 organizations. Through the interviews it was found
that performance defects of the legal counsel and the performance defects of the officer in charge of
the case are the main reasons for the unenforceability of arbitral awards under the most common
ground. Therefore it is recommended to establish proper reporting and monitoring systems within the
organizations dealing with arbitration.
Keywords:
1.
Arbitration; Setting Aside; Enforcement; Unenforceability.
INTRODUCTION
According to Arbitration Act No.11 of 1995 of Sri Lanka, there are two broad reasons which make local
arbitral awards unenforceable in Sri Lanka. The first is the setting aside of arbitral awards by local courts
under section 32 of the Arbitration Act. The second is the refusal to enforce the arbitral award by the local
courts. The courts may refuse enforcement on non-adherence of the parties to the procedure laid down in
section 31 or section 40 of the Act.
This paper presents the findings of a research conducted to establish the most common ground which
leads to the unenforceability of local arbitral awards in Sri Lanka and to find out the reasons to occur the
most common ground leading to unenforceability.
203
2.
BACKGROUND
Mustill and Boyed (1989) described that misconduct of arbitrators, error on the face of the award, excess
of jurisdiction by arbitrators, patent defects in the award, misunderstandings of one of the parties which
prevented that party to present his case effectively, mistakes by arbitrators and fresh evidence which was
not available at the hearing stage, leads to remit the award or to set aside the award by courts. The Court
has the discretion to decide whether the setting aside of the award or the remitting is most appropriate
remedy and to decide which part of the award to set aside or to remit. The court has to consider all the
circumstances of the case, when exercising this discretion. A serious error or miscarriage of justice, in
most of the cases will lead to setting aside of the award.
When considering the arbitration law in Sri Lanka, the grounds for invalidity or setting aside of an arbitral
award are stated in section 32 of Arbitration Act No. 11 of 1995, and correspond generally to the
provisions of the New York Convention 1958 (Amerasinghe, 2011). Kanag-Isvaran (2011) pointed out
that as per Section 32 of the Act, an arbitration award made in Sri Lanka may be set aside by the High
Court only on very specific, limited grounds.
Section 31 of Arbitration Act 1995 enacts that an application for recognition and enforcement of an
arbitral award to be made to the appropriate High Court within 1 year of the expiry of 14 days period
from the making of the award (Amerasinghe, 2011). In addition, s.31 of Arbitration Act No.11 of 1995,
requires that the application to enforce the award to be accompanied by the original of the award or duly
certified copy of the award and original of the arbitration agreement or duly certified copy of such
agreement. If a document or part of a document above mentioned is written in a language other than the
official language of the court or other than in English, a certified translation of the relevant document or
such part to be submitted along with the application.
Further s.40 of the Arbitration Act No.11 of 1995 provides that every application to the High Court under
the provisions of the Act is to be by way of petition and affidavit and all the parties to the arbitration other
than petitioner should be named as respondents and shall be given the notice of the application. Therefore
if the applicant does not adhere to the above described procedures required for the enforcement, the courts
have the discretion to refuse the enforcement of the arbitral award.
Recognition and enforcement are essential elements in arbitration. If the wining party is not able to
enforce the award, the whole process of arbitration is pointless (Nacimiento and Bamashov, 2010).
Nacimiento and Barmashov (2010) further added that the parties will only recognize arbitration as a
viable alternative to litigation, only if the arbitral award can be enforced with the equivalent effects as a
state courts judgment.
In any of the events of setting aside or refusal to enforce the arbitral award, the effort given on the arbitral
process will be in vain. Therefore it is important to identify the most common ground which leads to
setting aside or refusal to enforce the arbitral awards in Sri Lanka. After identifying this most common
ground it can be searched for the reasons to occur this most common ground.
By identifying the reasons for the most common ground leading to unenforceability of arbitral awards in
Sri Lanka, it would be easy to find ways to minimize such adverse effects on arbitral awards. It would
facilitate to save the value of resources spent on arbitral process and to uphold the arbitration practice in
Sri Lanka.
3.
AIM AND OBJECTIVES
The aim of the study was focused to establish the status of enforcement of local arbitral awards in Sri
Lanka. To achieve above aim, following objectives were set.
1. Determine the most common ground which leads to setting aside or refusal of enforcement of the
local arbitral awards by local courts, where the arbitral proceeding were conducted under the
purview of Arbitration Act No.11 of 1995.
2. Find out the reasons to occur above most common ground which leads to setting aside or refusal
enforcement of local arbitral awards.
204
4.
A preliminary investigation revealed that it is difficult to find out old arbitration case records at the High
Court. Further it was found that enforcement and setting aside proceedings of arbitral awards at the High
Court and Supreme Court take a considerable time. Therefore considering the access to data and
finalization of the law suit on arbitral awards, it was decided to select a convenient sample. The
convenient sample of the study was selected as arbitral awards based on arbitral proceedings commenced
in Sri Lanka after the appointed date of the Arbitration Act No. 11 of 1995 and falling within the purview
of the Arbitration Act and the arbitration cases registered at the High Court Colombo during 2009-2012
for the setting aside or for the enforcement of the arbitral awards and such arbitration cases were finalized
by the courts. The sample contains 910 arbitration cases. To achieve the objectives, quantitative research
approach with a retrospective, cross-sectional, non-experimental study design was adopted.
In addition, to achieve the second objective, semi structured interviews were conducted with the parties
who failed to get the arbitral award enforced due to non-adherence to enforcement procedure. Interviewed
parties were mainly financial institutions and banks and contained 16 organizations.
5.
DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
5.1.
AN OVERVIEW OF THE DATA COLLECTION
Table 1 gives a summary of completed arbitration cases by the High Court on local arbitral awards.
Table 1: Summary of Completed Cases by High Court on Local Arbitral Awards
Year
Completed
cases on
local
arbitral
awards
Applications
for setting
aside
Awards
set aside
Applications
for
enforcement
Awards
been
refused
to
enforce
Awards become
unenforceable and
percentage of
unenforceability
2009
204
203
1.96%
2010
405
401
0.99%
2011
196
193
4.08%
2012
105
105
14
14
13.33%
Total
910
902
27
30
3.30%
As indicated in Table 1, 30 numbers of arbitral awards become unenforceable from 910 arbitral awards,
either due to setting aside or refusal to enforce by the High Court. The percentage of unenforceability is
very low in 2009 and 2010 with 1.96% and 0.99% respectively. The percentage is moderate in 2011 and
recorded as 4.08%. However when considering the year 2012 the rejection rate is high and recorded as
13.33%. The overall result indicate that the percentage of unenforceable award as 3.30%.
5.2.
ANALYSIS OF ARBITRAL CASES BASED ON INDUSTRY
It is important to analyze the composition of the sample and how awards become unenforceable with
respect to the relevant industry. Table 2 shows that 95.93% cases from the sample are belonging to
financial and insurance industry. The contribution from construction industry is 1.87%. When considering
the percentage of unenforceable awards, only 3.09% of awards become unenforceable in financial and
insurance industry. However the percentage is considerably high for the construction industry, which is
recorded as 11.76%.
205
Table 2: Categorization of Arbitration Cases Based on Industry

Industry
5.3.
Total cases
from 2009
to 2012
Percentage
contribution of
the industry
Awards
become
unenforceable
Percentage of
unenforceable
awards
Financial and insurance
873
95.93%
27
3.09%
Construction
17
1.87%
11.76%
Whole sale and retail
0.44%
0%
Real estate activities
0.55%
0%
Electricity, gas, steam and air

conditioning supply
0.44%
0%
Transportation and storage
0.22%
50%
Manufacturing
0.11%
0%
Other
0.44%
0%
ANALYSIS OF ARBITRATION CASES BASED ON THE GROUND FOR REJECTION
One of main objectives of this study is to find out the most common ground on which local arbitral
awards become unenforceable. Table 3 provides a categorization of arbitral cases based on the ground for
rejection of the arbitral awards.
Table 3: Grounds Leading to Unenforceability of Arbitral Awards
Ground for setting aside or refusal to enforcement
Total for the

category
Non adherence to enforcement procedure
17
Violation of due process
Excess of authority
Irregular constitution of the arbitral tribunal or irregularity

of arbitral procedure
Award conflicts with the Public Policy
As per Table 3, it is clear that non-adherence to enforcement procedure is the most common ground
which leads to unenforceability of local arbitral awards. From 30 numbers of unenforceable awards, the
above ground is responsible for 17 awards to become unenforceable. The result given in Table 3 is
graphically presented in Figure 1.
A close look at Figure 1 shows that 57% of unenforceable arbitral awards are belonging to non-adherence
to enforcement procedure while public policy grounds lie next corresponding to 27% of unenforceable
awards. Therefore the former is more than twice the size of latter. Violation of due process constitutes
10% of unenforceable awards while other two grounds constitute only 6%.
206
Award conflicts
with the Public
Policy
27%
Irregular
constitution of the
arbitral tribunal or
irregularity of
arbitral procedure
3%
Excess of
authority
3%
Non adherence to
enforcement
procedure
57%
Violation of due
process
10%
Figure 1: Grounds for Setting Aside or Refusal Recognition and Enforcement
The primary grounds to refuse the enforcement under non adherence to enforcement procedure are given
in Table 4. This categorization is corresponding to the Arbitration Act. Figure 2 graphically presents the
results of Table 4.
Table 4: Categories of the Default in Enforcement Process which Lead to Refusal of Enforcement
Category of the default
Number of cases
Not adhering legal principles or court procedures outside Arbitration Act
Not submitting arbitration agreement as required
Not submitting arbitral award as required
Not submitting a formal affidavit
Delay in application for enforcement
Not adhering legal

principles or court
procedures outside
Arbitration Act
6%
Delay in
application for
enforcement
47%
Not submitting
arbitration
agreement as
required
35%
Not submitting
arbitral award as
required
6%
Not submitting a
formal affidavit
6%
Figure 2: Refusal of Enforcement due to Non-adherence to Enforcement Procedure
207
5.4.
FINDING OUT THE REASONS TO OCCUR THE MOST COMMON GROUND LEADING TO
UNENFORCEABILITY
During the second tier of data collection, the data collection process was aimed to find out the reasons for
the most common ground leading to the unenforceability of arbitral awards. Table 5 summarizes the
results of the interviews carried out. Figure 3 gives a graphical representation of the contribution of the
reasons which leads to non-adherence to enforcement procedure.
Table 5: Result of the Interviews
Reasons for non-adherence
Numbers of cases
Performance defects of legal counsel
Not understanding the requirements of s.31of the Arbitration Act
Failure of the company strategy on the award
Performance defects of the officer in charge of the case
Relevant officers are not knowing the actual reason
Performance
defects of the
officer in charge
22%
Performance
defects of legal
counsel
64%
Failure of the
company strategy
on the award
7%
Not understanding
the requirements of
s.31
7%
Figure 3: Reasons for Non-adherence to Enforcement Procedure
Figure 3 indicates that 64% of arbitral awards belonging to non-adherence to enforcement procedure
become unenforceable due to the performance defects of the legal counsel. Performance defects of the
relevant officer in charge (to follow up the case) are responsible for 22% of arbitral awards to become
unenforceable in the category. Another 7% of arbitral awards become unenforceable due to failure of the
company strategy on the arbitral award. Lack of understanding of the requirements of section 31 of the
Act is responsible for 7% of arbitral awards to become unenforceable under this category.
Further as per Table 1 and Table 3, from 30 unenforceable arbitral awards, other than 3 arbitral awards
been set aside and 17 arbitral awards become unenforceable under non-adherence to enforcement
procedure, there are another 10 unenforceable arbitral awards. Those 10 arbitral awards become
unenforceable due to refusal of enforcement under section 34 of the Arbitration Act. Further in the total
sample of 910 cases only 8 cases are registered under section 32 and from those 8 cases only in the 3
cases above mentioned the arbitral awards have been set aside. Therefore it can be concluded that though
there are ground for setting aside of arbitral awards, the parties involved in arbitral process do not obtain
the precise usage of the provisions in section 32 of the Act for challenging arbitral awards. A close
scrutiny of the data collection revealed that all the 10 cases where the arbitral awards were not challenged
208
under section 32 are from financial and insurance industry and the lessee or the borrower had not utilized
their rights.
However in a recent case Hatton National Bank vs. Sella Hennadige Chandrasiri (2015), the Supreme
Court of Sri Lanka set aside the High Court judgment on the arbitration case HC/ARB/388/2011 whereby
the High Court refused to enforce an arbitral award on the grounds mentioned in section 34 of the Act. In
the Supreme Court judgment, it was held that section 34 of the Arbitration Act is for foreign arbitral
awards and cannot be applied to local arbitral awards. This makes more pressure on the parties involving
in arbitral process to exercise their right under section 32 of the Arbitration Act more vigilantly and
promptly.
6.
Non-adherence to enforcement procedure is the most common ground which leads to the unenforceability
of local arbitral awards in Sri Lanka. Performance defects of the legal counsel and officer in charge of the
case are the main reasons for the non-adherence to enforcement procedure. These two reasons are
responsible for 86% of the unenforceability within the non-adherence to enforcement procedure.
Therefore it is important to establish proper reporting and monitoring systems within the organizations
dealing with arbitration to follow up arbitral cases properly.
Borrowers and lessees of financial industry do not properly utilize the provisions in section 32 of the
Arbitration Act, when the awards are having grounds for setting aside. As the Arbitration Act does not
provide any other opportunity to prevent enforcement of unfair local arbitral awards, it is very important
to utilize section 32 for setting aside. Therefore an awareness programme is to be carried out aiming the
relevant strata of the society to improve their knowledge on the impact of arbitration agreement they sign
when they obtain financial facilities and to improve their knowledge on the repercussion they would face
if they do not utilize the provisions in Arbitration Act for their good. This is very important to uphold the
arbitration practice in Sri Lanka as the financial and insurance industry constitutes around 95% of the
arbitration cases referred to the courts.
During the interviews with finance companies and banks, most of them expressed that enforcement
proceedings at courts become cumbersome and very time consuming. Due to these reasons one bank and
one finance company have removed the arbitration clause from their loan and leasing agreements. This
difficulty in enforcement process is a considerable drawback in the arbitration sphere in Sri Lanka.
Therefore it is highly recommended that the government should take some steps to smoothen and speedup
the enforcement proceedings of arbitral awards in the courts.
7.
REFERENCES
Amerasinghe, A.R.B., 2011. The Sri Lanka Arbitration Act No. 11of 1995 A presentation. In: K. Kanag-Isvaran
and S.S. Wijerathne. Eds. Arbitration Law in Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka: ICLP, 9-30.
Arbitration Act, No 11 of 1995, 1995. Colombo: Government publication of Bureau.
Hatton National Bank v. Sella Hennadige Chandrasiri, 2015. SC Appeal 63/2013(LK) [Online]. Colombo: High
Court of Sri lanka. Available from http://www.supremecourt.lk/images/documents/sc_appeal_63_2013ed.pdf
Kanag-Isvaran, K., 2011. The new law on arbitration. In: K. Kanag-Isvaran& S.S. Wijerathne. Eds. Arbitration law
in Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka: ICLP, 31-46.
Mustill,M.J., and Boyed, S.C., 1989. The Law and Practice of Commercial Arbitration in England. 2nd ed. United
Kingdom: Butterworth.
Nacimiento, P., and Bamashov.A., 2010. Recognition and enforcement of arbitral awards in Russia. Journal of
International Arbitration, 27(3), 295-306.
209
FACTORS AFFECTING THE INDOOR ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY IN

SRI LANKA: GREEN VS. CONVENTIONAL HOTEL BUILDINGS
L. Gayathri, B.A.K.S. Perera and D.M.G.A.N.M. Sumanarathna*
ABSTRACT
The hotel building sector is now using sustainable design and construction practices thereby helping
to prevent environmental pollution. Green building practices are capable of promoting a healthy and
comfortable indoor environment for hotel occupants (including guests and staff). Some criticism has
been made by occupants of green buildings on the accuracy of the certification process and the
performance of LEED certified buildings. Therefore, this study is aimed at identifying the key factors
affecting the Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) of green buildings compared to that of conventional
hotel buildings by evaluating building performance. Firstly, a literature survey was conducted to
identify the importance of IEQ in green buildings and the methods of evaluating IEQ performance.
Subsequently, key and sub factors relating to IEQ performance identified from the literature review
were validated through expert interviews. A questionnaire survey and semi structured interviews were
used as data collection techniques by making use of two green buildings and two conventional
buildings. The data was analysed using Mann-Whitney U-test and Nvivo 10 software. The analysis
revealed that green hotels provide an overall IEQ performance that is higher than that of conventional
hotels. However, factors such as lighting, acoustics and the degree of personal control that occupants
have on the indoor environment were comparatively less satisfactory in green hotels. The paper also
discussed the reasons for the low satisfaction of IEQ in respect of these factors. Finally this study
confirms that the hotel industry needs to consider a climate responsive design to ensure a better IEQ
and pay attention to post occupancy evaluation throughout the life cycle of a building.
Keywords:
1.
Green buildings; Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ); Occupants Satisfaction;

Sustainability.
INTRODUCTION
IEQ refers to the quality of a buildings indoor environment in relation to the health and wellbeing of
those who occupy the space within it (Mallawaarachchi et al., 2012). Indoor air quality, thermal comfort,
acoustics, day light and lighting quality are the factors that determine the indoor building performance in
the building sector (Parkin, 2000). Industrial, commercial, residential and hospitality sectors are
responsible for polluting the environment as they satisfy the occupants and end users of their buildings to
reap economic and financial benefits (Tzschentke et al., 2004). These industries are adopting green
building practices to generate a healthy environment for the occupants of their buildings, increase the
quality of indoor environment and improve social, economic and environmental sustainability for the
benefit of both present and future generations (Walker et al., 2007). The hotel industry plays a vital role
in the economy and sustainability and is gradually becoming an issue with business and guest interests
(Chan and Chan, 2004). The comfort of the guests and their willingness to return are factors that have a
significant impact on the success of the hotel sector and the have to adopt green design and construction
practices to save energy, water, and other resources thereby helping to prevent the pollution of the
environment at increasing costs, and with economic, social and environmental responsibility (Schor,
2008).
The hotel industry being an environmentally responsible industry, the evaluation of its building
performance is essential to identify how their services and buildings assist to achieve the business goals
and occupants needs (Fischer, 2009). According to Mallawaarachchi et al. (2012), most of the industries
*
210
use several assessment tools and techniques. Among them, the U.S. Green Building Councils LEED
rating system act is leading green certificate rating systems. LEED certification has progressively
contributed to decreasing IEQ and increasing energy savings during the year 2009 through new
construction practices. According to Krik (2005), the reduction of credits in the IEQ category can increase
to ensure resource conservation, which could be a reason for a conflict between guest comfort and green
building practices in hotels. Therefore occupants of green certified buildings has low satisfaction and
comfort (McLennan, 2004; Boecker et al., 2009). IEQ experts state that to create healthy spaces in LEED
certified green buildings, industries need to look forward to appropriate and applicable green practices. It
is derived that there is necessary to improve green building practices that can be implemented throughout
a building life cycle to minimise environmental impact, increase social and economic benefits and
enhance guest satisfaction and comfort (Cassidy, 2003).
In both developed and developing countries, the previous studies have majorly examined on office,
university and factory buildings, and there has been almost no studies on the user satisfaction of other
buildings. In Sri Lanka, a previous research has focused on IEQ evaluation in green certified office and
factory buildings (Samaranayake and De Silva, 2010) to identify the key factors that affect the indoor
environmental quality of green buildings and appropriate and suitable green building practices that will
facilitate the highest LEED rating while providing a comfortable and a healthy environment for the
occupants in the hospitality sector. Considering the statistics on hotel sector in Sri Lanka, the economic
indicators expect a growth of 22.3% (Central Bank of Sri Lanka, 2013). Maintaining guest satisfaction
and creating a healthy work place are major considerations of the hotel buildings. Nowadays, a majority
of hotel buildings in Sri Lanka have been able to attain the LEED certification (Green buildings) which
governs the standards of the facilities, especially the higher environmental responsibility. Still, a proper
comparison between Green hotel buildings and conventional hotel buildings for maintaining better indoor
environmental quality has not been done. Hence, this research study focuses on identifying the key factors
that affect the indoor environmental quality of green hotel buildings compared to conventional hotel
buildings through the evaluation of building performance. Further, identifying the key factors implies the
importance and the impact on the quality of indoor environment of hospitality green buildings. In order to
achieve the aim, the following objectives were formulated.
2.
To identify evaluation methods of IEQ performance of hotel buildings in Sri Lanka

To identify significant key and sub indicators relating to IEQ performance in green and
conventional hotel buildings in Sri Lanka
To evaluate the current performance of IEQ in relation to the identified significant indicators in
green and conventional hotel buildings
To propose strategies to enhance IEQ of green hotel buildings in Sri Lanka
THE CONCEPT OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Buildings have a huge effect on climate change, generation of waste, indoor and outdoor environmental
pollution (Zimmermann et al., 2005). According to Douglas (1996), the term Sustainable Development
can be explained as a mode of improving the quality of life and allowing people to live in a healthy
environment under enhanced social, economic and environmental conditions. Green building is a new
trend in the construction industry (Kubba, 2012). According to USGBC (2009), the key features of green
buildings are sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, indoor
environmental quality and operation and maintenance. A green building has to have high efficiency in the
use of energy, water and materials, and a reduced impact on the health of its occupants and its
environment throughout its life-cycle.
2.1.
INDOOR ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
The concept of IEQ is a major factor of concern for ensuring sustainability (Catalina and Iordache,
2011). Increased positive health effect is a priority in the design of buildings as people spend on average,
90% of their time indoors. The effect of indoor air on people is hundred times more than that of outdoor
air. Air, thermal, lighting and acoustic qualities significantly affect IEQ (Mahbob et al., 2011). A good
IEQ performance will enhance work place conditions and this in turn will reduce complaints from end
211
users (Catalina and Iordache, 2011). Apart from physical and environmental factors, performance factors
such as office layout, amount of space, privacy, office furniture and furnishings, cleaning and
maintenance, access and ability of having personal control over indoor air quality have a greater influence
on IEQ performance (Lombardi, 2011). In any type of building overall occupancy satisfaction is quite
important, as otherwise there can be building sick syndrome, absenteeism and high turnover and low
occupants comfort (Lai and Yik, 2009). Thus, buildings have a responsibility to facilitate better indoor
environmental quality for their occupants and therefore the maintenance and evaluation of IEQ factors
over a life cycle of building has become very necessary.
2.2.
IEQ EVALUATION METHOD
Preiser (1995) has stated that for the evaluation of environmental performance of buildings, several
environmental methodologies and methods are presently in place. Potbhare et al., (2009) have stated that
Sri Lanka has adapted to the sustainable building culture and green building rating systems for the built
environment are recognized as a standard for sustainable building design and construction practices. The
primary goal of LEED is to support green building practices in order to deliver environmentally
responsible healthy environments for building occupants. According to Amarathunga and Barldry (1998),
there are objective and subjective measurement evaluation techniques. Among those, Post Occupancy
Evaluation (POE) is the appropriate technique to evaluate occupants satisfaction and comfort. POE is a
measurement of building performance throughout the life cycle of a building from its initial to end
phase. Marans (1984) has stated that POE is a formal evaluation of a building by its occupants after it
has been completed, in order to identify areas that do not meet users requirements.
2.3.
AN OVERVIEW OF HOTEL SECTOR
The hotel industry is playing a key role in the economic development of Sri Lanka (Bocker et al., 2009).
The main goal of hotel buildings is the improvement of the guests satisfaction which will lead to the
productivity of the workers. Most of the guests and customers arrive from foreign countries and there are
guidelines regarding the provision of health, safety and welfare of the workers. As a result of this, most of
the hotels in Sri Lanka have good ventilation systems and the IEQ is regularly monitored by health and
environmental officers of the Government (Saheed, 2005). However, issues relating to IEQ performance
can be seen in large and luxury hotel buildings as a result of improper lighting, acoustic, thermal factors
and IAQ (Birt and Newsham, 2009). Some of the visitors have complained about IEQ related issues.
Dustiness of the indoor environment is still there. Dust is normally generated by fabrics and there is a
probability of dust being inside the hotel due to the low number of exhaust fans used (Samaranayake and
De Silva, 2010).
2.4.
IMPORTANCE OF IDENTIFICATION OF IEQ EVALUATION FOR HOTEL BUILDINGS
Several sectors are seeking to be environmentally responsible due to both economic and financial
requirements, and to satisfy their own personal ethics they tend to introduce green building practices
(Tzschentike et al., 2004). The hotel industry plays a major role in the economy of the country and issues
of sustainability in the hotel industry are becoming increasingly relevant to business and consumer
interests (Chan and Qian, 2009). Guest satisfaction, intention to return, and the likelihood to recommend
hotels are important factors for the success of the hotel industry. Hoteliers are increasingly motivated
towards adopting green design and construction and investments in environmental technology can have a
direct positive impact on guest experience and occupancy (Schor, 2008). Consequently to meet the
requirements pertaining to the targeted tourist arrivals, hotel buildings are expected to increase their green
features and capacity to achieve this targeted number of tourist arrivals. Hotel buildings can increase their
potential by creating guest comfort and a stable indoor environment. Thus, the evaluation of IEQ
performance of hotel buildings is very important (Levin, 1995). Considering the outcome of previous
studies, some proponents argue that a green building will enhance indoor environmental quality and
improve occupants productivity to a higher degree compared to conventional buildings. On the contrary,
some researchers have found that in green buildings air quality is very satisfactory while other three
indicators are same and that there is a low satisfaction level compared to conventional buildings due to
212
the use of sustainable practices and products as well as poor rating of some of the green building IEQ
variables. When past research is reviewed, mixed questions such as whether green buildings provide a
comfortable, satisfying and productive work environment to their users arise. The following hypotheses in
respect of green building performance, relative to conventional buildings was therefore developed.
H0: The occupants satisfaction with IEQ performance in the LEED certified hotels is similar to that of
non-LEED certified hotels.
3.
METHODOLOGY
In order to attain the aim of identifying the key factors that affect the indoor environmental quality of
green buildings compared to conventional buildings through the evaluation of building performance, the
case study approach was followed. Initially, a preliminary interviews series were carried out to analyse
and identify the main and sub indicators relating to IEQ performance of hotel buildings. Subsequently, a
detailed survey was conducted through a questionnaire survey to identify the satisfaction and comfort
level of guests and staff occupying a set of selected green buildings and conventional buildings in Sri
Lanka. Interviews with key professionals were carried out to identify the problems and complaints
regarding IEQ performance in buildings.
3.1.
SELECTION OF CASE STUDIES
Table 1 presents the details of selected cases.

Table 1: An Overview of Different Categories of Buildings
Conventional
Building (Part I)
Green Building
(Part II)
CASE A1
CASE A2
CASE B1
CASE B2
Type of building
Hotel
Hotel
Hotel
Hotel
Duration
6 Years
5 years
5 years
8 years
Number of stories
5 stories
11 stories
5 stories
6 stories
Floor area
40,300 m2
36,025 m2
100,000 m2
90,000 m2
Star rating
Gold
Silver
Description
Green Building
(Part I)
Conventional
Building (Part II)
In order to measure users satisfaction with respect to the indoor environmental performance of each type
of buildings, a survey was developed based on the expert interviews and literature review survey. The
POE tool was used for measuring occupants opinions and satisfaction with the IEQ performance of
buildings. Building users across the two types of buildings were asked to rate their satisfaction levels for
each indicator on a 5-point Likert scale (1 being very dissatisfied to 5 being very satisfied). Participants
were selected randomly from each pair of buildings (green and conventional) for the paper based survey
and to identify the complaints and causes, interviews were conducted with six key professional working
in two green certified hotels.
3.2.
QUESTIONNAIRE SURVEY
Mann Whitney U test was used to identify the difference between the occupants satisfaction with IEQs of
the two buildings. The IEQ performance of the two types of buildings was compared using median and
average median of factors. To determine whether the null hypothesis can be rejected or not, the decision
rule was applied. This contributed to the hypothesis that occupants satisfaction related to green buildings
(x) is equal to that of non-green buildings (y). This assumption will be confirmed, at a 95% confidence
level, for the null hypothesis (H0) or its rejection (H1):
213
H0: x = y if p-value is greater than 0.05 in which case the occupants satisfaction with IEQ is similar
for both hotels.
H1: x y if p-value is less than 0.05 in which case the occupants satisfaction with IEQ is different for
the two hotels
3.3.
SEMI-STRUCTURED INTERVIEWS
The semi-structured interview was expected to compare the questionnaire survey results of occupants. A
cross case analysis was carried out separately for green hotels in order to compare complaints about the
IEQ factors. The factors identified under each theme were structured and supported by NVivo 10
computer software.
4.
RESEARCH FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS
4.1.
SIGNIFICANT KEY AND SUB INDICATORS RELATED TO IEQ IN GREEN AND CONVENTIONAL
BUILDINGS
Respondents identified eight (8) indicators in addition to the IEQ indicators identified from the literature
review and removed six (6) of them while, combining four (4) of them to make in to two (2) and
modifying another two (2). In addition, the indicator odour was dropped as the respondents were of the
view that it was covered under the indicator smell. Further, relative air velocity was modified as air
movement. The day lighting factors that came under the key indicator lighting were removed by the
respondents and glare that also came under lighting; was divided into two as natural light glare and
artificial light glare. At the expert interviews, blinds/shutters that are effective in blocking natural light
were added as a sub factor. Surface temperature and thermal resistance of clothing that were grouped
under the key factor thermal comfort were dropped. The sub factors overhearing private conservation
and equipment and mechanical noise were modified as background noise. The respondents also
wanted to revise outdoor traffic noise as noise from outside. In addition person control was added as
a factor which could influence the IEQ performance and view to outside, provision of ventilation,
cleaning and maintenance, sufficient and comfortable furnishing and sleeping quality were
considered as important key factors of IEQ in the green buildings of the hotel sector.
According to the findings of the expert survey, there are forty five (45) IEQ sub indicators. Most of the
IEQ experts agreed that the post occupancy evaluation method has a higher preference in evaluating
occupants satisfaction of IEQ performance of green hotel buildings.
Table 2: Evaluation of the Current Performance of IEQ in Green and Conventional Buildings
Evaluation
Methods
Physical
Measurement
Post Occupancy
Evaluation
214
Figure 1: Distribution of Occupants Satisfaction on Identified IEQ Factors Relating to Buildings: Part I
215
Figure 2: Distribution of Occupants Satisfaction on Identified IEQ Factors Relating to Buildings: Part II
Figures 1 and 2 indicate the distribution of occupants satisfaction on identified IEQ factors relating to
buildings coming under Part I and Part II categories. The average median scores of the air quality, thermal
comfort, work layout, sufficient and comfortable furnishing, view to outside and regular cleaning and
maintenance have positive signs in both green and conventional hotels, which means that on average
216
these factors are satisfactory in both types of buildings. However the median of each factor is higher for
green hotels. The key professionals working in green buildings indicated that green buildings specifically
exhibited lower air pollution and higher air filtration, avoided the use of volatile organic compounds for
cleaning purposes and maintained preventive maintenance schedules. BMS had been installed to control
CO2 and RH levels and the main key feature of LEED certified hotel buildings is the implementation of
IAQ management, temperature recording and low admission of heat through walls from outside, windows
and electronic light appliances due to good thermal design. Therefore the null hypothesis is rejected and
the alternative is accepted which means that green hotels have higher levels of IAQ than conventional
hotels.
On the other hand in both the green and conventional hotels, the average median scores of the acoustic
quality, lighting quality and the ability to have personal control on the indoor environment have positive
signs, which means that on average these factors are satisfactory for both groups. However the median of
each factor is slightly lower for green hotels than for conventional hotels. Also 50% of the representatives
of the management of both buildings when interviewed stated that there was too much darkness, lack of
artificial light and reflections on the computer screens caused by lower levels of ambient electric lighting,
faade glass and ineffective blocking of natural light by blinds/ shutters and requested more daylight.
Eighty three percent (83%) of the respondents of both buildings stated that there is a lack of privacy for
conversations, excessive echoing of voices or other sounds making occupants to complain, because of the
low partitions that allow day light and opening of windows to allow natural ventilation. Therefore the null
hypothesis is rejected and the alternative is accepted which means that green hotels have lower levels of
IAQ than conventional hotels.
Table 3: Identification of Occupants Satisfaction of Well-Being
Part I
Part II
Never
Occasionally
Often
Never
Occasionally
Often
Common cold/
running nose
GH
75%
25%
00%
82%
18%
00%
CH
60%
28%
00%
72%
28%
00%
Headache
GH
53%
47%
00%
83%
17%
00%
CH
36%
64%
00%
64%
36%
00%
GH
76%
24%
00%
76%
24%
00%
CH
78%
14%
00%
86%
14%
00%
Difficulty in
concentrating
GH
69%
25%
04%
25%
69%
04%
CH
62%
38%
00%
38%
62%
00%
Fatigue
GH
64%
24%
04%
62%
38%
00%
CH
27%
77%
00%
23%
77%
00%
Nausea
GH
76%
18%
00%
76%
18%
00%
CH
80%
20%
00%
65%
35%
00%
Itchiness/ eye
irritation
GH
84%
16%
00%
53%
35%
00%
CH
82%
18%
00%
60%
40%
00%
Dry throat/coughs
GH
82%
18%
00%
82%
18%
00%
CH
76%
20%
00%
76%
24%
00%
Influenza
According to Table 3 with regard to occupants satisfaction of well-being in the Part I and Part II
categories of buildings, headache, influenza, nausea, eye irritation, common cold, dry throats/cough, sick
building syndromes are at satisfactory levels in both types. However occupants stated that due to high
level of back ground and outside noise there is occasional health issues. This implied that the occupants
of green hotels were concerned about perceived healthiness. Also the management of the green buildings
have not received any complaints regarding headache, influenza, nausea, eye irritation, common cold and
flaking/itchiness. This implied that occupants of green hotels had a high perception of healthiness.
217
Figure 3: Comparison of Part I and Part II: Distribution of Occupants Satisfaction on Identified IEQ Factors
Relating to Buildings
This statement was validated by the questionnaire survey that provided the average median of overall
satisfaction of IEQ in Part I (GH=5, CH=4) and Part II (GH=5, CH=4) buildings. Green buildings
exhibited higher levels of overall satisfaction of IEQ. Even though the occupants of green hotels have a
slightly lower level related to acoustic quality and lighting quality when compared to conventional hotels
it will not affect the overall satisfaction of IEQ in the hotels. On other hand, the occupants are highly
satisfied with fresh ventilation and temperature, aesthetic appearance, size of workspace, and access to the
view of outside. Occupants of green buildings were less likely to prefer a change in thermal conditions,
and took fewer actions to improve their thermal comfort. Green building occupants had higher ratings of
satisfaction with access to the view of outside. The result of this study suggest that, on the whole, both
green and conventional hotels deliver an indoor environment that was acceptable to most people (with the
exception of acoustic quality), although however the indoor environments in green hotels were of higher
quality.
5.
DISCUSSION
H0: The occupants satisfaction with IEQ performance in the LEED certified hotels is similar to noncertified hotel buildings.
H1: The occupants satisfaction with IEQ performance in the LEED certified hotels is higher than that in
Non-LEED certified buildings. Furthermore it was found that even though the building met the
recommended standards, occupants occasionally complained about noise and lighting quality.
Both the green and the conventional buildings provide an environmental quality which can be accepted by
most of the occupants according to the research. It is apparent that certain factors are not much
satisfactory. The differences between green and conventional buildings could be identified here with the
help of the factors that have been used in the research. Comparatively the IEQ in green hotels was higher.
However this does not mean that there is no necessity to enhance green buildings further. Certain factors
of IEQ were superior in green buildings. This may indicate that there is no necessity for a simple causeand-effect while considering the results of the individual design credits and the post occupancy
performance. As mentioned earlier, acoustics and lighting should be ensured at the design stage. It is
recommended that an acoustics and lighting credit be created to counter balance design choices affected
by other credits. There are acoustic credits in some green rating systems, and suggestions for a LEED
credit. However, these existing and proposed credits do not place specific emphasis on reducing the
spread of acoustics related issues.
6.
SUMMARY
The aim of the research was to identify by evaluating building performance the key factors that affect the
indoor environmental quality of green buildings as compared to conventional buildings. Air quality,
thermal, lighting and acoustic qualities, external view, provision of ventilation, cleaning and maintenance
and furnishings were identified as these key factors. Furthermore the ability to have personal control on
218
the indoor environment and blinds/shutters effective in blocking natural light were identified as key and
sub factors affecting the IEQ in buildings. Overall satisfaction, job satisfaction and wellbeing of staff
were high. As far as environment/ physical factors were concerned, air quality and thermal comfort were
at a high level, and performance factors such as the view of outside, cleaning and maintenance, work
layout were also at a high level. In LEED certification, air quality and air quality management and
maintenance are the factors that are mostly considered. In green hotels there is good ventilation, glass
walls are made available to enable viewing outside and, more space is provided for occupants to work and
live. On the contrary in green hotels when compared to conventional buildings, lighting quality is at an
average level and acoustics are at a very low level which according to the key professionals are some of
the causes and problems of dissatisfaction related to IEQ factors in green buildings. Complaints made by
those who were dissatisfied with lighting point to problems with day lighting and electric lighting levels
which could be due to inadequate provision of controls over lighting. Complaints made by those who
were dissatisfied with the acoustic quality in their work places point to problems with sound privacy, and
distracting noise arising from peoples conversations and telephone ringing. According to the occupants
and experts who were interviewed, there are certain design decisions and operational practices that are
generally known to affect IEQ which are commonly used in green buildings. These strategies include
improving ventilation, removing indoor pollutants, using green material, giving occupants personal
control over operable windows, air-conditioning, or under floor air distribution systems, employing
daylight, and reducing ambient light levels by using task lighting.
It is recommended that a modification to these credits that enhance the importance of a particular
reduction be justified. In order to do that, the joint design process has to be as important as specific and
creditable actions, suggesting that a credit be developed that improves such action. Perhaps this credit
could reward documented interdisciplinary design team meetings, or record of all implemented measures
intended to enhance the building performance, credit-eligible or not, or a particular mechanism that
facilitates on-going accomplishment review and continuous improvements. Hence, the Hotel Buildings
can achieve a green rating with very few specific IEQ credits.
7.
REFERENCES
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220
FRAMEWORK FOR MITIGATING CONTRACTUAL DISPUTES IN THE

SRI LANKAN CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY
A.P.J.N. Thusharika and Mahesh Abeynayake*
ABSTRACT
Dispute is defined as any contract question or controversy that must be settled beyond the jobsite
management. Most of the construction disputes related to the contractual matters. The aim of the
research was to develop a framework as a strategy that could mitigate to the occurrences of
contractual disputes in Sri Lankan construction industry. Literature synthesis aimed at adapt the
nature of contractual disputes by establishing critical attributes of contractual disputes, causes of
contractual disputes, strategies used to avoid contractual disputes, Alternative Dispute Resolution
methods and attributes in ADR methods. The five Semi-structured interviews and thirty five detailed
questionnaire surveys were aimed at detailed studying of practical situation in Sri Lankan contractual
disputes, identifying the areas, causes, effects, avoidance strategies of contractual disputes and
attribute in Alternative Dispute Resolution methods and behaviour of the attributes in ADR methods.
The research findings revealed major areas of contractual disputes named as general causes,
contractor and owner related causes. Major causes of contractual disputes are ambiguities in contract
documents, delays in work progress, design errors and major effects identified as cost overruns,
project delays and damage business relationships. Contract documentation, proper coordination
between contract documents and proper contract administration are the major contractual dispute
avoidance strategies. Furthermore, major attributes in ADR methods are identified as duration of the
proceeding, obtaining fairness decision and binding of the decision. Further research findings are
revealed that arbitration require highest duration of the proceeding, mediation provide the more fair
decision and arbitration decision is more binding and enforceable.
Keywords:
1.
Sri Lankan Construction Industry; Contractual Dispute Avoidance; Contractual Dispute

Resolution.
INTRODUCTION
Construction project is defined as the process which having a certain time period from start to finish of
inter-related activities and involves no of parties, who must work in unison within temporally time period
(Jayalath, 2010). Within last two decades nature of the construction projects become more complex. The
complex, lengthy and relational construction a process virtually ensured disputes (Jaffar et al., 2011).
As explained by Jaffar et al. (2011), a dispute is defined as an argument about an issue concerning
project operations, usually resulting from a debate over differences in two or more parties understanding
of situation. Causes of disputes in a different section like standard of workmanship, applications for
extensions of time not being granted, contractor delay and subsequent deduction of liquidated and
ascertained damages and sometimes the meaning of contractual terms (Adriaanse, 2007). Most of the
construction disputes arise related to the contractual matters including variation, improper management
and administration, lack of available information, quality of technical specification and unrealistic client
expectations and tenacity in the construction industry (Jaffar et al., 2011).
2.
NATURE OF THE DISPUTES IN THE CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS
Construction industry has higher uncertainty and involves more unknowns and due to that high possibility
to rise contractual disputes (Kumaraswamy, 1997). According to Armes (2011), manufactured products
*
221
are fully designed and build models before begin the production and performance are tested and
established the durability and buildability. Construction project have less possibility to fully design before
commencement the contract. Disputes are always costly to the projects (Armes, 2011). As average 50%
of the legal costs borne by the construction industry are related to the contractual disputes. Disputes waste
time and money, deflect energy away from construction projects. The resources that could have been
spent on the dispute resolutions can be invested in the same project to better performance of clients and
users. Importantly contracts may be viewed as the compulsory evil for the project to minimize the
contractual dispute (Grunwald, 2001).
2.1.
CONSTRUCTION CONTRACTS
Construction contracts can be defined as legally binding written agreement signed by the contracting
parties. Contract defines the obligations, responsibilities of each and every party and relationship among
contracting parties in a particular project (Broome and Hayes, 1997). Standard forms of contacts are
always used by the construction stakeholders to communicate the procedures to be adopted in executing
the project including regulate their contractual obligations and expectations during the execution of the
projects. There are number of independent professional organizations developed internationally
recognized standard forms of contract such as FIDIC, SBD, ACE, NEC and JCT and these are used in
different contractual arrangements such as design and build, traditional procurement method and turnkey
(Rameezdeen and Rajapakse, 2007).
2.2.
CAUSES OF CONTRACTUAL DISPUTES
Contextual point of view that disputes may arise due to misunderstanding, disagreement, poor
relationships or escalated conflicts between parties. Most of the disputes arise due to errors and omissions
in the contract documents (Gukert and King, 2002). The contract documents prepare using the standard
documents that is produced is considered to be poor and in many instances erroneous due to inadequate
adjustments and those lead to a delay work progress, and claim for loss and expense by the contractor,
scope changes and a claim for loss of productivity (Davis et al., 2008). The other major cause to arise
disputes is interpretation errors in conditions of contracts and misunderstanding of construction contracts
(Chong and Zin, 2012). When contract parties enter in to contract, both parties undertaken the risk and
they are well aware of the risk. Additions, alterations, omissions or changes in the nature of the work lead
to the excessive contract variations. Most change orders are happen at the request of the client and are
generally in the form of design changes (Zeitoun and Oberlander, 1991). Poor contract administration and
progress delays by the main contractor have been identified as important causes to arise disputes
(Ayudhya, 2011). In addition to that Waldron (2006) explained extension of time (EOT) claims, late
issuing of incomplete substantial information, variations to scope, contract interpretations are also cause
to the arise disputes. Thus Mitkus and Mitkus (2014) revealed poor management, inadequate design,
unrealistic tendering, unrealistic client expectations and inadequate contract drafting also are the causes of
disputes.
2.3.
EFFECTS OF CONTRACTUAL DISPUTES
When a dispute arises during the execution of the project, it can affect to fulfill objectives and the
business relationships between the contract parties to the project (Fernandezsolis, 2008). If the
constructions disputes are not properly manage, those are cause to the project delays, increase project
costs, undermine team spirit and damage business relationships (Cheung and Suen, 2002). According to
the Cheung et al., (2000) disputes need resolve through dispute resolution methods. Lengthy duration of
the dispute resolution process, suspension of works due to contractor or client faults affect to project
delays (Cheung, 1999). He further stated huge cost required as professional fees for dispute resolution,
locations for dispute resolution process, administration charges, prepare submissions and other legal
costs. Further Armes (2011), he revealed through findings of the research, prevention cost is lower than
remedies to the disputes. Therefore final solution is use avoidance strategies at early stage of the projects
to avoid disputes.
222
2.4.
CONTRACTUAL DISPUTE AVOIDANCE STRATEGIES
Clearly hindsight only the solution to mitigate contractual disputes is used dispute avoidance strategies
betterment for the anticipated problems during the construction (Armes, 2011). The dispute avoidance
techniques create the team work and harmony, by that prevents arising disputes (Cheung, 1999). However
contract administrators and project participants need to identify the contractual dispute avoidance
strategies to success the project (Kumaraswamy, 1997). Some forms of contract includes provision to
formalize risk register which can be help to decision making in the event a problem arises (Armes, 2011).
Risk register identify the risks associated with the project, then set out how those risks might be managed
and identify the time and cost associated to managing those risks (Blismas et al., 2008). According to the
CRCCI (2009), the dispute avoidance check list can be used to elimination or minimisation of causes of
disputes and avoid the risk of disputes and wasted effort at the beginning of the projects.
American Arbitration Association [AAA] (2009) explained most of the disputes arise due to ambiguities
in contract documents and then proper contract documentation use as important dispute avoidance
strategy. Armes (2011) explained contract administrators can use good programme which is regularly
updated can help to administrate the construction process and always avoid the disputes. Different forms
of procurement methods allocate risk in different ways. The selection of appropriate procurement method
which is most satisfactory for the work to be undertaken and by considering the aspirations of the
Employer and the likely aspirations of the Contractor, some disputes can be avoided. Dispute
Adjudication Board (DAB) or Dispute Resolution Board (DRB) is a full time standing board normally has
a duty to monitor the project in ways that enable the warning signs of possible disputes to be recognized
(Armes, 2011). The On-Site Neutral is selected at the commencement of the project by the contract
parties to facilitate timely resolutions and to minimize the arisen of disputes during the execution period
of the project (AAA, 2007). On-Site Neutrals assists in identifying on-site problems which deal with the
day to day activities of the projects by contract parties and advice risk assignment and risk management
strategies.
2.5.
ALTERNATIVE DISPUTE RESOLUTION (ADR) METHODS
Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) is general term circumscribe various techniques for resolving
disputes outside of court system (Teo and Aibinu, 2007). This statement was supported by Hedemann
(1991) stating that the ADR includes dispute resolution processes and techniques that act as alternatives
for disputant parties to come to settlement apart from litigation.
Negotiation is the first and informal method to resolve disputes and does not involve third party in the
process of resolution (Marzouk and Moamen, 2009). In negotiation disputant parties attempt to
communicate the grievance and negotiate for a settlement. The most disputes are resolve by this process
due to the disputants preference (Cheung et al., 2000). The mediation procedure starts normally
negotiation process becomes unsuccessful or otherwise with the mutual agreement of disputant parties
before conduct negotiation (Cheung and Yiu, 2007). Mediation is a process in which a neutral person
facilitates communication between the disputant parties and, without deciding the final decision or
imposing on the parties enables them to understand and to reach a mutually agreeable resolution to their
dispute (Marzouk and Moamen, 2009). Turker (2005) have recommended referring to the adjudicator for
decision which cannot be resolved first by the disputant parties by themselves. The neutral third party
called as adjudicator refer the dispute and resolve by the adjudicator. Adjudicator decision is binding on
the parties (Newman, 1999). Arbitration process involves a neutral and independent third party or parties
appointed by disputant parties to hear the disputes with evidences and arguments present by the parties
involved in dispute. The decision given by the arbitrators called as arbitral award and decision is binding
(White, 2008).
2.6.
CRITICAL ATTRIBUTES IN ADR METHODS
Alternative Dispute Resolution is a contractual dispute resolution mechanisms and selection of

appropriate method depends on the agreement level between the contract parties (Bekele, 2005). The key
is to understand the proper application and relevant benefits of each ADR method understand the
223
attributes of the dispute resolution. The ADR methods characteristics are duration of the process,
involvement of neutral, confidentiality of the process, binding or non-bonding of the decision,
confidentiality of the process, enforceability of the decision, cost of the process, preservation of business
relationship and higher degree of control by parties differ from method to method (Goldberg et al., 1999).
Similar to above findings Cheung and Suen (2002) identified critical attributes are cost, time duration,
degree of control by the parties, flexibility, confidentiality, voluntariness, enforceability, binding decision
and privacy. Cheung (1999) supports those attributes by presenting summarized five main attributes
identified from thirteen attributes named settlement agreement, benefits, nature of the proceedings,
outcome of the process and process of proceedings.
3.
The research initiated with a literature synthesis to mitigate contractual disputes in the construction
industry. It was discussed in detail the survey approach which was selected as research approach of this
research. The reason was nature of the particular topic of the research set as what is the framework to
mitigate contractual disputes in Sri Lankan construction industry. Semi-structured interviews were
conducted as the preliminary study and questionnaire survey were conducted as detailed survey. Semistructured interviews conducted to gather details of practical situations of the contractual disputes in the
industry and content analysis were used to analyses data. Questionnaire survey was used to rank the
details gathered from interviews and literature survey. Questionnaire was MCQ type and data recorded
using likert scale. One tailed t-test, RII and mean rating were used to analyses data collected through the
questionnaire survey.
4.
RESEARCH FINDINGS
Data was collected through questionnaire survey conducted among contract administrators practicing in
Sri Lanka and semi-structured interviews were conducted among practitioners having expertise with
Dispute resolution. Presented data was analyzed from various perspectives to understand the inter
relationships between variables and underlying truths to demonstrate a clear understanding on the
research findings.
4.1.
CHARACTERISTIC OF THE SURVEY SAMPLE
The profile of the respondents of the questionnaire survey are classified according to the type of
organization they are attached to, their working experience, working sector respectively in Figures 1, 2,
and 3 for further analysis to be interpreted.
17%
46%
23%
31%
46%
54%
37%
Client
consulatnt
contractor
46%
more than 15 years
10-15 years
Public
Private
below 10 years
Figure 1: Respondent Profile Based on Type of Organization, Based on Experience and Based on Working Sector
224
4.2.
RESULTS OF ONE TAIL T-TEST
Areas, causes and effects of contractual disputes, dispute avoidance strategies and attributes in alternative
dispute resolution methods were analyzed using statistical tool t-test. In order to identify the significance
a one tailed t-test was carried out with the following hypothesis. Hypothesis involves the phrase greater
than, and with a specific direction of values distribution, one tailed t-test was used. To the t-test, Null
hypothesis; H0 :u uo against the Alternative hypothesis; H1 : u>uo, where uo, is the neutral point in
likert scale. In the analysis of all the data sets uo was fixed at 3 because, by definition, Likert scale
distribute from 1 to 5 and given in the rating scale 3 is neutral.
Since this is one-tailed t-test, factors which have obtained more than critical t-value 1.6955 (from the
table of critical t-values) and less than 0.05 significance level and degree of freedom (df) of 34 from tvalue table. Thus in the analysis factors, if the observed t value is greater than the critical t-value are
considered as very significant, then the null hypothesis is rejected and alternative hypothesis is accepted.
This can also be proven by maintaining a lower significance (p-value) than 0.05. Results of the test on
questionnaire survey are tabulated as follows. Data collected from interview are incorporated into the
research findings.
Table 1: Areas of Contractual Disputes
Areas of contractual disputes
Mean
Rating
3.914
Std.
Dev.
1.422
t-Value
Significance
Rank
3.80
0.000
Contractor Related Causes
3.657
1.305
2.98
0.003
Owner Related Causes
3.629
1.308
2.84
0.004
Consultant Related Causes
3.514
1.358
2.24
0.016
Third party Related Causes
3.457
1.559
1.73
0.046
General Causes
Table 2: Causes of Contractual Disputes

Causes of contractual disputes
Mean
Rating
Std.
Dev.
t-Value
Significance
Rank
Ambiguities in Contract Document
4.343
1.083
7.33
0.000
Delays in Work Progress
4.000
1.111
5.32
0.000
Design Errors and Omissions
4.057
1.187
5.27
0.000
Change of Scope
3.914
1.147
4.72
0.000
Inadequate Contract Drafting
3.857
1.141
4.44
0.000
Improper Administration
3.771
1.114
4.10
0.000
Subcontractor problems
3.800
1.208
3.92
0.000
Any Rejected Claim
3.686
1.051
3.86
0.000
Excessive contract variations
3.829
1.294
3.79
0.000
Different Interpretations in conditions of

contract
Claim validity Absence of Notice requirements
3.771
1.262
3.62
0.000
10
3.457
0.817
3.31
0.001
11
Payment Delays
3.629
1.165
3.19
0.002
12
Late Giving of Possession
3.600
1.143
3.11
0.002
13
Inadequate or Incomplete Specification
3.543
1.197
2.68
0.006
14
Availability of Information
3.514
1.147
2.65
0.006
15
Entitlement and Quantification of EOT
3.371
1.003
2.19
0.018
16
Adverse Weather
3.400
1.090
2.17
0.019
17
225
Causes of contractual disputes
Mean
Rating
Std.
Dev.
t-Value
Significance
Rank
Entitlement for Price Escalation
3.343
0.968
2.09
0.022
18
Quantification of Liquidated Damages
3.314
0.932
1.99
0.027
19
Market Inflation
3.343
1.027
1.97
0.028
20
Risk Allocation
3.314
0.993
1.87
0.035
21
Time for issuing Taking Over Certificate
3.371
1.239
1.76
0.042
22
Changing Government Codes
3.286
0.987
1.71
0.048
23
Determine Defect Liability Period
2.943
1.027
-0.33
0.628
24
Technical inadequacy of the Contractor
2.771
1.262
-1.07
0.854
25
Contractors Financial failure
2.600
0.736
-3.22
0.999
26
Table 3: Effectsof Contractual Disputes

Effects of contractual disputes
Std.
Dev.
1.269
T Value
Significance
Rank
Cost Overruns
Mean
Rating
3.914
4.26
0.000
Project Delays
3.829
1.294
3.79
0.000
Costly Dispute Resolution Methods
3.514
0.818
3.72
0.000
Damage Business Relationship
3.371
1.165
1.89
0.034
Cancellation of contracts
3.343
1.162
1.75
0.045
Reduce the Performance of the project
2.457
1.12
-2.87
0.996
Table 4: Contractual Dispute Avoidance Strategies

Contractual dispute avoidance strategies
Mean
Rating
4.257
Std.
Dev.
0.95
T Value
Significance
Rank
7.83
0.000
Proper Coordination Between contract

documents
Proper Contract Administration
4.143
1.004
6.73
0.000
4.057
1.187
5.27
0.000
Select most appropriate procurement method
3.857
0.974
5.20
0.000
Early Notification and Resolution of dispute
3.771
1.060
4.31
0.000
Negotiation in an event of Differentiate in

matter
Equitable Sharing of Risks
3.629
1.262
2.95
0.003
3.400
1.193
1.98
0.028
Proper Contract Documentation
Table 5: Attributes in Alternative Dispute Resolution Methods

Variable
Std.
Dev.
0.912
T Value
Significance
Rank
Duration of the proceeding
Mean
Rating
4.143
7.41
0.000
Obtaining fairness decision
3.857
0.974
5.20
0.000
Binding and enforceability of the decision
3.743
0.919
4.78
0.000
Confidentiality of the process
3.686
0.900
4.51
0.000
Cost for the process
3.571
1.008
3.35
0.001
226
4.3.
RESULTS OF RELATIVE IMPORTANT INDEX AND MEAN RATING
Questionnaire survey was indicated the five attributes in the Alternative Dispute Resolution methods and
respondents were asked to rank those attributes in separately considering the significance to the
negotiation, mediation, adjudication and arbitration process, considering the five attributes in Alternative
Dispute Resolution methods.
Table 6: Behaviour of Attributes in Alternative Dispute Resolution Methods
Duration of
the
Proceeding
Arbitration
Obtaining
Fairness
Decision
Mediation
Binding and
Enforceability of
the Decision
Arbitration
Confidentiality of
the Process
Cost for the

Process
Rank
Negotiation
Arbitration
Negotiation
Negotiation
Adjudication
Mediation
Adjudication
Mediation
Adjudication
Mediation
Adjudication
Mediation
Adjudication
Arbitration
Negotiation
Arbitration
Negotiation
4.4.
FRAMEWORK TO MITIGATE CONTRACTUAL DISPUTES IN SRI LANKAN CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY
In accordance with the literature findings, it was identified six stages to mitigate the contractual disputes
in construction industry. Those are establish context, identify potential contractual disputes, analyse
potential contractual disputes, evaluate potential contractual disputes, threat the causes of contractual
disputes, contractual dispute resolution using informal resolution methods or dispute resolution using
formal resolution methods. According to the research findings most critical causes of disputes, effects,
dispute avoidance strategies and resolution methods were identified.
4.4.1. ESTABLISH THE CONTEXT
This is the first and basic step of the dispute mitigation process. In this step external project environment
(Areas of third party related causes), internal project environment (Areas of general causes, Areas of
owner related causes, Areas of consultant related causes, Areas of contractor related causes) and the
dispute mitigation strategies (proper contract documentation, proper contract administration, proper
coordination between the contract document, negotiation in an event of differentiate in matter, early
notification and resolution of issues, select most appropriate procurement method and equitable sharing
risks) needs to be clearly identified at very beginning of the project. This is the foundation step for other
six steps and this step implement to achieve following key drivers of the project.
Clearly and equally share the risks of the project

Enhance the problem solving before escalate to dispute
Implement the keep business relationships
Complete the project on time with estimated budget
Establishing the context weaknesses and strength of the project can be identified. Then set up the
mitigation strategies at early stage of the project.
4.4.2. IDENTIFY POTENTIAL CONTRACTUAL DISPUTES
This is the second step of the dispute mitigation framework. This categorize into three sub steps.
I.
Method of identify potential disputes
As identified in the literature findings (CRCCI, 2009) it can be used dispute avoidance checklists, risk
registers and expert opinions such as contract administrators and project managers to identify the
potential disputes exist within the project.
II.
III.
Identify the areas of potential contractual disputes

Identify the causes of potential contractual disputes
227
4.4.3. ANALYSE POTENTIAL CONTRACTUAL DISPUTES

This is the third step of the dispute mitigation framework. Under this step analyze the effect of potential
contractual disputes accordance with the identified findings.
4.4.4. EVALUATE POTENTIAL CONTRACTUAL DISPUTES
This is the fourth step of the dispute mitigation framework. This categorize into two sub steps.
I.
Compare potential contractual disputes identified and evaluate with criteria
In accordance with the research questionnaire survey findings areas of potential contractual disputes,
causes of potential contractual disputes, effects of potential contractual disputes should be compare and
evaluated using the criteria which are based on the rankings of the particular contractual disputes.
II.
Set priorities
In accordance with the research questionnaire survey findings areas of potential contractual disputes,
causes of potential contractual disputes, effects of potential contractual disputes should be prioritized
based on the rankings of the particular contractual disputes.
4.4.5. TREAT THE CAUSES OF CONTRACTUAL DISPUTES
This is the fifth step of the dispute mitigation framework. In this step need to prepare plans how to treat
the root and proximate cause of contractual disputes and existence dispute avoidance strategies need to
take place accordance with their significance identified in the research findings.
4.4.6. CONTRACTUAL DISPUTE RESOLUTION
This is the sixth and last step of the dispute mitigation framework. If the potential contractual disputes are
could not mitigate then needs to resolve the disputes using dispute resolution methods. This categorize
into two sub steps.
I.
II.
Identify the factors affect to the selection of Alternative Dispute Resolution methods
Selection of Alternative Dispute Resolution methods according to the attributes of the ADR
methods.
While conducting the above steps project participants need to be communicate, consult, monitor and
review the progress of the process to success the contractual dispute mitigation process.
5.
CONCLUSIONS
Disputes have become an inherent feature of the construction industry. Most of the disputes arise due to
contractual matters in the construction industry. However in Sri Lanka, there have not been conducted
dispute avoidance and settlement procedure together and this study anticipates to fills that research gap.
As a recommendation before project commencement contractual dispute mitigation needs to be
implemented and throughout the project duration hole the process continuously needs to be process.
6.
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230
GAPS IN PUBLIC PROCUREMENT PROCESS IN SRI LANKAN

K.A.P. Gunawardhane* and Gayani Karunasena
ABSTRACT
Procurement Process is back bone of the country to achieve the economic development. Accordingly,
since 2006, government of Sri Lanka has made significant efforts toward to reform and develop the
Public Procurement Process (Public PP) in construction industry with the assistance of the Ministry of
Finance and Planning (MOFP), the Construction Industry Development Authority (CIDA), foreign
funding agencies, and relevant institutions and practitioners. Current regime is in process of
formulating a sustainable framework to the Public PP not only to the construction industry but also to
the entire industries.
Thus aim of this paper is to carryout comprehensive diagnosis to identify the gaps in Public PP in Sri
Lankan construction industry and propose remedial measures to bridge the gaps in order to facilitate
the government endeavour. Paper is based on secondary data and opinions of experts. The gaps are
identified as absence of procurement strategy and legislative framework, lack of integration with
governance, unavailability of procurement regulatory body, and Incapable Capacity Development.
Further paper presents the remedial measures and provides recommendations to bridge the gaps that
will enable to the GOSL to initiate the Sustainable Public Procurement Process (SPPP) to the
construction industry. Findings revealed that establishment of procurement strategy and legislative
framework, integration with governance, establishment of procurement regulatory body, and capacity
development as the remedies in line with the short term, medium term, and long term measures to
initiate and implement contemporary version of Public PP to the Sri Lankan Construction industry.
Keywords:
1.
Public Procurement Process; Construction Industry; Sustainable Public Procurement

Process; Gaps; Remedies.
INTRODUCTION
Public Procurement Process (Public PP) identified as integral part to achieve the sustainable development
(World Bank, 2012). The activities of the Public PP identified as continues processes from planning and
risk assessment, selection of source, evaluation of alternative solutions, contract award, payment, and
management of a contract up to the end of defect liability period (Murray, 2009; World Bank, 2010;
Zheng et al., 2008). However, late delivery, cost overrun, low efficiency and poor quality have been
discovered as widespread challenges in existing construction projects of developing or developed
countries as a result of gaps and deficiency of the activities of the Public PP (Weisheng et al., 2013).
Absence of procurement strategy and legislative framework, lack of integration with governance, absence
of procurement regulatory body, and incapable capacity development are the main gaps in Sri Lankan
context for these challenges (World Bank and Asian Development Bank, 2012). To bridge these gaps
governments of Sri Lanka is searching for innovative solutions that can help construction projects in a
more efficient way to achieve the value for money thus truly deliver value to society (World Bank and
Asian Development Bank, 2012; Brammer and Walker, 2011).
Accordingly, in order to bridge the gaps, contemporary version of the existing procurement process is
identified as cost effective alternative solution that link with requirement of external environment as per
the global needs and which identified as sustainable procurement. Hence, Sustainable Public Procurement
*
231
Process (SPPP) is in line with the triple bottom line indicators of economic, environmental and social to
achieve the present global needs and uplift the economy and living standards of the country (Brammer
and Walker, 2011; World Bank, 2012). However, government of Sri Lankan still try to initiate
preliminary actions to bridge the gaps of the Public PP by formulating Legal and Regulatory Framework,
enhancing capacity of Institutional Framework and Management, and establishing Electronic Government
Procurement (e-GP) System to the Sri Lanka not only to the construction industry but also to the entire
industries in the country through the 19th amendment of the constitution of Sri Lanka.
Thus, aim of this paper is to identify the gaps in Public PP in Sri Lankan construction industry and
propose remedial measures to bridge the gaps through the literature and opinions of the experts in the
field of procurement. Five numbers of procurement experts having more than 15 years of experience of
the funding agencies, government ministries, and private institutions were interviewed. Consequently,
scope of this paper includes Public PP in Sri Lankan construction industry, prevailing gaps of the existing
Public PP in Sri Lankan Construction industry, remedies to the gaps of the Public PP in Sri Lankan
Construction industry, and conclusion and way forward.
2.
PUBLIC PROCUREMENT PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY IN SRI LANKA
The reigning political party has taken major steps to regularise the procurement process of the country in
line with the 19th amendment to the constitution. This involved several inter related initiatives to enhance
the procurement process of the country by increase the transparency and accountability of the Public PP,
improve its effectiveness and efficiency in the delivery of projects, strengthen ability to incorporate public
participation in policymaking, and reduce opportunities for corruption in Public PP. Accordingly Public
PP in the country has been shown transition features since 2015 (CIDA, 2015a).
The government investment for major projects through the Public PP in the field of infrastructure has
directly contributed to economic growth in Sri Lanka. In the early period of 1948-77, there was
insufficient investment in infrastructure. During 1956-77, it was the public sector that undertook most of
the investments. A number of state owned enterprises established proper procurement process to produce
manufactured goods, including steel, mining, and chemicals. Hence, the incentives for private investment
were limited, and public investment was restricted by resource constraints. However, in Sri Lanka overall
investment rate was only 6.2% (Central Bank of Sri Lanka, 2014) of Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
during the period from 2009 to 2010. Following the liberalization of the economy in 1977, investment
was raised from 14.4% of GDP in 1977 to 33.8% in 1980, with an average of 27.6% during 1978-84 and
in 2010 to 2012 the average of 30%. This was due to the ambitious of Public PP accompanying with
reform after the 30 years of war (Central Bank of Sri Lanka, 2012; Central Bank of Sri Lanka, 2014;
World Bank, 2010).
Further statistical figures of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (2015) revealed that total expenditure of the
government increased by 7.6% to Sri Lankan Rupees (Rs.) 1,796 billion in 2014 from Rs.1,669 billion in
2013. Furthermore, real gross domestic production (GDP) grew by 7.4% in 2014, in comparison to the
growth of 7.2% in 2013. Moreover, Public Procurement expenditure is approximately 10 % of the GDP.
Specially the construction sectoral growth, 20.2% of the GDP in 2014. Hence, Public PP in construction
industry of the country will be an integral part in order to achieve desired aim of the economy. Therefore,
enhancement and improvement of the activities of Public PP in Sri Lankan construction industry will be
directly benefitted to the nation in order to achieve the economic development of the country.
Central Bank of Sri Lanka (2014) found that the Public PP in construction sector was the main driver of
economic growth in Sri Lanka. Further author mentioned that it makes the most significant contribution,
reflecting the massive public investment programmes and several private sector projects. Furthermore, it
was identified that Public PP of construction industry in Sri Lanka hold major share of the Gross
Domestic Products (GDP) as developing country. Moreover, noted that interest of the stakeholders has
grown to moderate the existing process. Hence, contemporary version of the Public PP of the construction
industry should be substantiated and will have to be met by both the public and private sectors
requirement to optimum alignment with the vision of the medium term development plan of the country
in line with the global needs (Central Bank of Sri Lanka, 2014). Accordingly, improvement of existing
232
Public PP in line with the global needs and requirements has positive impacts on the sustainable
development of the country.
Administrative process of the Public PP of the country is implemented under the three authority levels: (i)
Central Government, (ii) Provincial Councils, and (iii) Local Government in order to ensure effective
public expenditure. Hence, effective and efficient improvement of activities of the Public PP positively
affected to uplift the economy of the country (Central Bank of Sri Lanka, 2012). Elaborating in this
regard further emphasised that government is major client and regulator in the construction procurement
in Sri Lanka (CIDA, 2015b).
Therefore, the Public PP in construction industry should give equal weightage not only to the dimensions
of time, cost and quality but also to the dimensions of social, environmental and economic when
acquisition of goods, works and services with consideration of value for money in line with the
requirements of the stakeholders and the global needs (Mohan, 2010). Accordingly, establishment of
Legislative and Regulatory Framework, enhancement of capacity of Institutional Framework and
Management, and establishing Electronic Government Procurement (e-GP) System will facilitate to
bridge the existing gaps (World Bank and Asian Development Bank, 2012).
Accordingly, Institute for Construction Training and Development (ICTAD) was restructured and
established as Construction Industry Development Authority (CIDA) as the prime institution to facilitate
to the activities in construction industry in Sri Lanka. Further, Chamber of Construction Industry (CCI)
Sri Lanka and Institute of Engineers in Sri Lanka (IESL) play assistance role in order to facilitate to
streamline the procurement activities in construction industry (CIDA, 2015a).
Towards that vision, the government development policy framework expressed that procurement process
in national and provincial should be upgraded inter alia with formulate Legal and Regulatory Framework,
enhancing capacity of Institutional Framework and Management, and establishing Electronic Government
Procurement (e-GP) System (World Bank and Asian Development Bank, 2012).
3.
PREVAILING GAPS OF THE PUBLIC PP IN SRI LANKAN CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY
Many authors have identified gaps in the Public PP in deferent ways. The key areas of identification not
limited only for the construction industry but also valid to the entire industries of the country. However,
in this paper findings mainly focus to the Sri Lankan construction industry.
3.1.
ABSENCE OF PROCUREMENT
STRATEGY
AND
LEGISLATIVE
FRAMEWORK
TO
THE
The country does not have the well-defined national public procurement strategy to measure the
performance of the questions of what, when, how procure in terms of economy and efficiency. Further the
absence of mechanism to identify the staff professionalization and capacity development needs.
Furthermore, policy and regulatory framework not available to monitor and evaluate the performance
other than the general accounts and audit aspects. Moreover, some important provisions of the
government Procurement Guidelines are not enforced in the absence of a procurement act or law of the
country. Accordingly, lesson learnt through the previous activities in construction sector will not be
practised (World Bank and Asian Development Bank, 2012). However, developed countries clearly
articulated the governments vision and long-term objectives for the implementation of national
activities in sound, transparent and efficient manner. The existence procurement strategy not contributes
to a sound Public PP to the construction industry and also to a more positive image to the foreign
investors to invest in the country (Ey et al., 2014; Eriksson and Westerberg, 2011). Thus, absence of
national and public procurement strategy for the country is identified main gaps in the industry. Further,
the Public PP in Sri Lankan construction industry is not regulated by a law. Accordingly, Legal and
Regulatory Framework in line with the global standards shall be enacted.
233
3.2.
LACK OF INTEGRATION WITH GOVERNANCE
In global context, Governance will be a crucial part of the Sustainable Development Goals of the country.
However, there are also different ways of integrating key aspects of governance into the construction
industry. Good governance (the processes of decision-making and their institutional foundations),
effective governance (the capacity of countries to pursue sustainable development), and equitable
governance (distributive outcomes). These three different aspects have a number of inter connections
between each other and require separate political efforts to achieve the outcome (Foresti et al., 2014;
Sustainable Development Solutions Network, 2014). Accordingly, when consider the Sri Lankan context
it was revealed that the integration of procurement reform actions were not being conducted between
relevant public and private institutions. Activities for reform the industry had been conducted in ad-hoc
manner including planning, budgeting, implementation, delegation, approval, monitoring and evaluation
of activities in construction projects (CIDA, 2015a). However, good governance refers broadly to a set of
qualitative characteristics relating to processes of rulemaking and their institutional foundations in
construction industry. The good governance encapsulates values such as enhanced participation,
transparency, accountability, and public access to information. It also helps to combat corruption and
secure both basic human rights and the rule of law (Foresti et al., 2014). Accordingly, activities of the
construction industry and relevant institutions in national and provincial level shall be interlinked to
formulate the broad agenda of the good governance in construction industry.
3.3.
UNAVAILABILITY OF PROCUREMENT REGULATORY BODY
National Procurement Agency (2006a, 2006b); World Bank and Asian Development Bank (2012) noted
that Ministry of Finance and planning (MOFP) is conducting prime role of the country regulating
procurement actions. The CIDA, CCI, IESL facilitate to the MOFP to formulate the procurement
regulations in construction industry. However, the country doesnt have regulatory framework between
the MOFP, CIDA, CCI, and IESL effective and sustainable reform of construction industry except issuing
supplements to the procurement guidelines and manuals with some procurement activities in the Public
PP, develop Standard Bidding Documents (SBDs) and technical specifications, and conduct training
programmes and workshops for the activities in construction industry (CIDA, 2015b; World Bank and
Asian Development Bank, 2012). Hence, initiate and develop the sustainable network between regulatory
bodies in construction industry in line with the good governance agenda is one of the prevailing gap.
3.4.
INCAPABLE CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT
Available human resources with up to date knowledge of current trends in procurement in construction
industry and support from the top management also identified as major gaps to implementation of
activities of the Public PP in line with global needs requires reforms in the areas of policies and
investments in technology, research, education and information. Further functions of the public
procurement process not yet professionalize and officers involved in the activities of the procurement
process does not fulfilled the requirement of procurement professionals in construction industry (World
Bank, 2010; Biller and Nabi, 2013). Further, need assessments and formulating the capacity building
strategies in construction industry are not identified by the any of the government institutions other than
the ad-hoc trainings of the Sri Lanka Institute for Development Administration (SLIDA), Ministry of
Public Administration (MPA), Academy of Financial Services (AFS), CIDA, CCI, and IESL.
Accordingly the funding agencies have taken actions to analysis the existing Public PP in Sri Lanka in
order to upgrade and enhance the process in line with global needs. Thus the actions are revealed by the
government and funding agencies to bridge the existing gaps of Public PP in Sri Lankan construction
industry (World Bank and Asian Development Bank, 2012; Biller and Nabi, 2013).
E-Government Policy approved by the cabinet of ministers in Sri Lanka by 2009 in order to facilitate to
upgrade the infrastructure capacity of information technology to improve the efficiency and effectiveness
of Public PP. However, Lee et al. (2007) pointed out that valid Information Technology act and Law
should be in acted in advance to implement the procurement activities of of e-procurement. Accordingly,
implementation of e-Government procurement actions are limited to publish the invitation for bid (IFB)
234
on the website in addition to the paper advertisement published in national newspapers (World Bank and
Asian Development Bank, 2012).
Thus literature revealed that number of gaps of the Public PP in construction industry as obstacles to
deliver the desired outcome of the stakeholders in compatible with the global needs and requirements.
Moreover it was identified that the interest to upgrade the Public PP in construction industry has been
increased by the stakeholders in line with the 19th amendments of the constitution of Sri Lanka. Further,
the funding agencies has given consent to provide financial assistance to upgrade the existing
procurement system together with the capacity development of the industry.
4.
REMEDIES
INDUSTRY
4.1.
ESTABLISHMENT OF PROCUREMENT STRATEGY AND LEGISLATIVE FRAMEWORK TO THE

TO THE
GAPS
OF THE
PUBLIC PP
IN
SRI LANKAN CONSTRUCTION
Establishment of a national public procurement strategy for procurement reform in construction industry
that sets out the goals of social environment and economic those to be achieved in line with the national
strategy is vital requirement of the sustainable development of the economy. Hence, it is imperative to
formulate clearly defined national and provincial procurement strategy on public procurement in
construction industry. The procurement strategy shall clearly articulates the governments vision and long
term objectives for the implementation of a sound, transparent and efficient public procurement system
in construction industry. However, in accordance with the 19th amendments of the constitution initial
actions are being taken to formulate the strategy which contributes to a sound procurement system and
also to a more positive country business image toward foreign funding agencies and investors.
Accordingly, implementation of initial actions are identified as remedies to establish the national
procurement strategy (CIDA, 2015b; World Bank and Asian Development Bank, 2012).
The enactment and implementation of procurement law for the construction industry is the remedy on
establishment of legislative framework as described by the World Bank and Asian Development Bank,
2012. Review the existing bidding documents in construction industry and extend the procedure for
construction dispute in line with the enhancement of procurement law and build-up relationship between
the relevant institution and authorities are the key remedies to formulate the legislative framework for
construction industry (CIDA, 2015b).
4.2.
INTEGRATION WITH GOVERNANCE
Good governance, effective governance, and equitable governance were identified major elements of the
developing path of the economy (Raymond, 2008). Further Raymond (2008) and World Bank and Asian
Development Bank (2012) explored that internal and external arrangement shall be made to address the
gaps of the existing Public PP to achieve the desired outcome. Accordingly, actions are being identified
by the government of Sri Lanka to integrate the governance under the 19th amendments to the constitution
as remedy the existing gaps of the procurement process in construction industry (CIDA, 2015b). Hence,
better integration of procurement reform of the institutions in line with the broader governance reform
agenda that shall link with the external environment of public administration, civil service reforms, and
audit is identified as possible remedies to bridge the gaps. Further, actions for integrate the activities of
the individual institutions on procurement planning, budgeting, delegation, and approval mechanisms in
line with broad objectives of the institution also identify remedies for the prevailing gaps (Raymond,
2008; Williams et al., 2007; World Bank, 2012).
4.3.
ESTABLISHMENT OF PROCUREMENT REGULATORY BODY
Since 2008, the procurement regulatory body has not been existed in the country from the date of
dissolved the National Procurement Agency (NPA). Further World Bank and Asian Development Bank
(2012) noted that Procurement Department of the Ministry of Finance and Planning (MOFP) need to be
235
strengthen in terms of both status and capacity, in order to effectively perform as a regulatory body. Biller
and Nabi (2013) highlighted that establishment of regulatory body will facilitate to provide advice to the
institutions in construction industry, to make improvement to the legislative and regulatory framework, to
monitor and review the public procurement performance, to provide information and reports to the
relevant parties, and to provide support on training and capacity development of procuring entities.
Accordingly, the actions are being explored to established independent authorised body by the
government of Sri Lanka under the purview of national procurement commission as a remedy in
collaboration with the foreign funding agencies (CIDA, 2015b; World Bank and Asian Development
Bank, 2012).
4.4.
CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT IN LINE WITH NATIONAL PROCUREMENT STRATEGY
CIDA (2014) revealed that lack of sufficient human resources and organizational capacity in construction
industry for ensuring the efficient and effective implementation of the rules, regulations, and procedures
of the procurement process shall be addressed through sustainable capacity building programmes.
Moreover World Bank and Asian Development Bank (2012) noted that strengthening the government
institutions for initiate and implement capacity building programmes on construction industry policy and
public procurement regulatory function facilitate to formulate the public procurement development
agenda in line with the construction industry policy. CIDA (2015b) noted that establishment of
independent national commissions will stream line future activities of capacity development as a remedy
to the existing gaps of the procurement process in construction industry. Accordingly national strategy on
capacity development in the field of procurement is formulated by the government of Sri Lanka with the
coordination of MOFP, MPA, SLIDA, AFS, CIDA, CCI, and IESL.
4.5.
CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND INTRODUCTION OF EGOVERNMENT PROCUREMENT
Brammer and Walker (2011) highlighted that e-government procurement used by the countries as
successful tool to bridge the existing gaps of the procurement process and it will facilitate to take
initiatives towards the sustainable public procurement process (SPPP) in construction industry. Egovernment procurement process to be considered by the government of Sri Lanka to implement with the
assistance of the foreign funding agency with the approval of the cabinet of ministers on e-government
policy in 2009 (World Bank and Asian Development Bank, 2012).
Hence literature revealed gaps and remedial measures to the Public PP in construction industry under the
key elements to identify the initiatives to take appropriate actions to bridge the gaps in order to facilitate
to formulate the SPPP to the Sri Lankan construction industry. Moreover, it was identified that the
interest to upgrade the Public PP in construction industry has been increased by the stakeholders in line
with the 19th amendment of the constitution of Sri Lanka and concept of sustainable development as per
the global needs and requirements. Hence, findings of the literature revealed that implementation actions
of formulation of SPPP shall be done through the short term, medium term, and long term measures by
bridging the gaps of the existing Public PP towards the development objectives of the country with the
assistance of the funding agencies.
5.
DISCUSSION
As a result of the findings through the opinions of the experts justify and reconfirm the significant gaps of
the existing Public PP in the Sri Lankan construction industry in line with the 19th amendments to the
constitution of Sri Lanka. Though, the findings through the literature confirmed by the experts to bridge
the gaps through the short, medium, and long term measures.
The experts in the construction industry pointed out that the construction industry is an open system,
hence, which is very sensitive to change with the needs and requirements of the stakeholders; further, its
characterisation throughout the world is determined by the operating external environment, which
consists of subsystems such as economic, political, financial, legal and technological. Further, emphasised
236
that this has leaded the industry to be in a challenging state in addressing the gaps of the subsystems in an
efficient and effective manner to achieve the target of contemporary version of the Public PP.
Thus, the practitioners pointed out that the construction industry in Sri Lanka is striving to tackle current
improvements of the 19th amendments of the constitution of Sri Lanka through the innovative ways of
construction, efficient resource utilization and better organisation of projects to bridge the identified gaps
through the explored remedies of the literature.
Consequently, the findings through the literature and opinions of the experts confirmed that; the Public
PP in the Sri Lankan construction industry also subject to changes resulting in adopting many newly
innovated procurement systems through the short, medium, and long term measures that could be used to
meet contemporary requirements. Further, the experts explained that the governments should take the full
range of economic, social and environmental costs and benefits of public procurement into account for
the sustainable improvement of the economy. Sustainability means the capacity to maintain the entity,
outcome, or process over the period of time. The concept of sustainability came to public attention after
the 1972 based on the report of Limits of Growth that issued by the international think tank Club of
Rome. The SPPP is contemporary version of the existing Public PP and affected to potential saving of
costs of the procured goods, works and services (CIDA, 2015b; Brammer and Walker, 2011; World Bank
and Asian Development Bank, 2012). However, the experts argued that enactment of sustainable national
procurement strategy to the country and change the attitude of the officers and stakeholders will be
critical tasks to establish the SPPP.
Moreover, findings revealed that well regulated Public PP has direct impact to expedite the sustainable
development of the country since the Public PP contribute to the budget of the developing nations is often
large (about 20% of the GDP). This will be expanded and visible in terms of short, medium, and long
term measures as shown in Figure 1.
According to the findings through the literature and opinions of the experts following recommendations
are offered to implement the short term, medium term, and long term measures in order to initiate the
activities of the contemporary version of Public PP to the Sri Lankan Construction industry as shows in
Figure 1.
Establishment of regulatory and legislative framework shall be initiated through the preparation of
national procurement strategy and update the procurement guidelines and manuals, bidding documents,
rules and regulations in line with sustainable elements as short and medium term measures in line with
Figure 1. Further as highlighted in Figure 1 introduce and implementation of sustainable public
procurement act also identified as long term measure in accordance with the point of views of the experts,
Integration with Governance shall be done by introducing the initial activities of the good governance,
effective governance, and equitable governance to the construction industry as short term. Further as
medium term measures integrate the internal and external strengths to implement the activities of the
good governance, effective governance, and equitable governance to the construction industry.
Furthermore, as long term measure establish the institution to sustainable reform the procurement process
of the country in line with the broader governance reform agenda that link with the perspectives of
external environment of public administration, civil service reforms, and audit in line with the
identification of Figure 1.
Establishment of Procurement Regulatory Body shall be implemented by initiating preliminary actions to
establish the independent authorised division or department under the Ministry of Finance and Planning
to inspect, monitor, and control the procurement activities of the construction industry in national and
provincial levels under the purview of national procurement commission as short and medium term
measures in line with Figure 1. Moreover, Figure 1 shows as long term measure to carry out an in-depth
review and analysis on entire institutions involved in activities of procurement and establish sustainable
integration between the institutions and authorities. Further establishment of empowered independent
authorised national body as main pillar to initiate and implement the SPPP to the country.
237
Absence of
procurement
strategy and
legislative
framework
Preparation of national
procurement strategy
Update the procurement
guidelines and manuals, bidding
document, rules and regulations
Establishment
of
procurement
strategy and
legislative
framework
Introduce and implementation of

sustainable public procurement Act
Lack of
integration
with
Governance
Introduce and implement

good governance,
effective governance, and
equitable governance
Integration
with
Governance
Integrate the internal and external

strengths to bridge the gaps
Establish the institution to sustainable
reform the procurement process of the
country
Unavailability
of
Procurement
Regulatory
Body
Establish the
independent Body to
inspect, monitor, and
control Public PP
Establish the independent Body to
inspect, monitor, and control Public
PP in National and Provincial level
Establishment
of
Procurement
Regulatory
Body
Establishment of empowered
independent authorised national body
as main pillar to integrate, initiate and
implement the SPPP to the country
Incapable
Capacity
Development
Strength the relevant

institution to build
the ongoing training
capacity
Review and identify the training
needs and design sustainable
training programmes by integrating
all the relevant institutions
Capacity
Development
in national
procurement
strategy
Establishment national body build the

capacity of the stakeholders through the
sustainable method
Insufficient
Information
Technology
to the Public
PP
Identify the strengths,

weaknesses,
opportunities, and threats
to the e-procurement
process
Introduce and implement possible
preliminary activities and identify
the areas to be developed
Capacity
Development
in Information
Technology and
introduction of
e-Government
Procurement
Introduce e-government procurement

process
Short term
measures
Medium term
measures
Long term measures
Figure 1: Short, Medium and Long Term Measures to Reach the Contemporary Version of Public PP
Capacity development in line with national procurement strategy shall be executed by strengthening the
institutions of MOFP, MPA, SLIDA, AFS, CIDA, CCI, and IESL to provide regular capacity building
programmes to cater the demand of the industry and identify the training needs through the diagnosis
review of the existing Public PP to avoid the repetitions and minimise the waste of government funds as
238
highlighted in Figure I under the short term measures. Further as long term measure to establish national
body to build the capacity of the stakeholders in the field of procurement, and finally.
Introduction of e-government procurement shall be commenced by conducting the diagnosis review to
identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats towards introduce and implement the eprocurement process to the construction industry as short term as shows in Figure 1. Further as medium
term measures introduce and implement possible preliminary activities on e-government procurement
process and identify the areas and infrastructure to be developed to implement entire framework of egovernment procurement process. Furthermore, Figure 1 indicates that introduce e-government
procurement process to the construction industry as long term measure as per the opinions of the experts.
6.
CONCLUSION AND IMPLEMENTATION
The aim of this paper is to identify the gaps in Public PP in Sri Lankan construction industry and propose
remedial measures to bridge the gaps. The objective of the paper is to discuss critically on prevailing gaps
with special attention to the areas on policy and practices, and government of Sri Lankas (GOSL)
ongoing efforts for the future development of Public PP in line with the identified remedial measures
towards the desired achievements of the 19th amendments of the constitution of Sri Lanka in order to fulfil
the requirement of the stakeholders of the Public PP in Sri Lankan construction industry in line with the
global needs.
As mentioned, Figure 1 findings revealed that how to address the identified gaps through the short term
(within 03 years), medium term (within 05 years), and long term measures (more than 05 years) to
implement the contemporary version of Public PP to the Sri Lankan Construction industry. Hence through
the literature and the opinions of the experts in the field of procurement identified the feasibility of
adopting those measures to the Sri Lankan construction industry. Further, measures to bridge the gaps
were explored through the in-depth analysis in line with the identified data.
7.
REFERENCES
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Central Bank of Sri Lanka, 2012. Annual Report 2014. Colombo: Central Bank of Sri Lanka.
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Construction Industry Development Authority (CIDA), 2014. Construction Review. The Chamber of Construction
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Construction Industry Development Authority (CIDA), 2015a. Construction Review. The Chamber of Construction
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performance: A conceptual framework. International Journal of Project Management, 29, 197208.
Ey, W., Zuo, J. and Han, S., 2014. Barriers and challenges of collaborative procurements. International Journal of
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Foresti, M., Wild, L., Takeuchi, L.R. and Norton, A., 2014. Governance targets and indicators for post 2015: an
initial assessment. London: Overseas Development Institute.
Lee, C.P., Lee, G.G. and Lin, H.F., 2007. The role of organizational capabilities in successful e-business
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Mohan, V., 2010. Public Procurement for Sustainable Development. In: Seul: IPPC4, Colombo 2010. Colombo:
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Murray, J. G., 2009. Improving the validity of public procurement research. International Journal of Public Sector
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Procurement Agency.
National Procurement Agency, 2006b. Procurement Manual 2006 Goods and Works. Colombo: National
Procurement Agency.
Sustainable Development Solutions Network, 2014. An Action Agenda for Sustainable Development. New York:
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Weisheng, L., Liu, A.M.M., Hongdi, W. and Zhongbing, W., 2013. Procurement innovation for public construction
projects: A study of agent-construction system and public-private partnership in China. International Journal of
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Williams, S., Chambers, T., Hills, S. and Dowson, F., 2007. Buying a better world: sustainable public procurement
[online]. London: Forum for the future. Available from: www.forumforthefuture.org/sites/default/files/.../buyingbetter-world.pdf.
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Bank.
World Bank, 2012. Turning Sri Lankas Urban Vision into Policy and Action. Colombo: The World Bank Colombo
office.
World Bank and Asian Development Bank, 2012. Public Procurement Modernization and Reform Assessment
Report. Metro Manila: Metro Manila Asian Development Bank.
Zheng, J., Roehrich, J.K. and Lewis, M. a., 2008. The dynamics of contractual and relational governance: Evidence
from long-term public-private procurement arrangements. Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management,
14(1), 4354.
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IMPLEMENTATION OF BUILDING INFORMATION MODELLING WITHIN

CONSTRUCTION SMES
Anupa Manewa*, Tanisha Blake, Andrew Ross and Dianne Marsh
Department of Built Environment, Liverpool John Moores University, United Kingdom
Mohan Siriwardena
Scott Sutherland School of Architecture and Built Environment, Robert Gordon University, United Kingdom
ABSTRACT
Building Information Modelling (BIM) is promoted as a requisite to improve construction project
performance. In the UK, the Government has set the construction industry targets to attain with
timescales, such as achieving the BIM Level 2 for all government projects by the year 2016. In terms
of the UK construction sector, over 86% of employees work within small and medium sized enterprises
(SME), and are responsible for 75% of the turnover. However, BIM implementation within the SME
sector is considerably low. As such, SMEs may be left behind in the BIM journey, thereby hindering
the policy level targets.
This research was aimed at identifying the key barriers to the implementation of BIM within the
construction SMEs in the UK. The data were collected through a literature review, questionnaire
survey and four semi-structured interviews.
The findings reveal lack of investment and commitment to resource to skill development in relation to
BIM, and the absence of incentives within the government procurement processes as significant among
the several barriers to the implementation of BIM within the UK construction SMEs. Despite the UK
governments intention that at least 25% of all central government contracts should be awarded to
SME businesses by 2015, many construction SME firms are finding it difficult to win public sector
work. Therefore, the research findings highlight implications for both policy and practice. For the
macro level policy makers, the non-consideration of the diversity and the market dynamics the
construction industry may lead to unrealistic policy level targets being developed. For the construction
industry and its firms, it is high time to reflect on their current practices and the level of commitment
to resource skill development and continuous improvement.
Keywords:
1.
BIM; SMEs; Barriers; Construction Industry; United Kingdom.
INTRODUCTION
The construction industry contributes in average of 100 billion per annum to the UK economy, which
represents 7% of GDP (Rhodes, 2015). With the industry being such important and complex (engaging
number of stakeholders with different influence and interest), it is important that new methods are
constantly developed to respond to the increasing complexity of the construction industry (Bryde et al.,
2013). The latest technology introduced to the construction industry is Building Information Modelling
(BIM) which has a significant potential to bring positive impacts to the effective delivery of project goals
(Poirier et al., 2015). BIM provides a robust platform to share and reuse project information, which
highly benefit in through-life project management. There are variety of definitions for BIM, however this
study adopted BIM as a set of interacting policies, processes and technologies generating a methodology
to manage the essential building design project and data in digital format throughout the buildings lifecycle (Bryde et al., 2013, p. 971) as it is closely focused on construction context.
Although BIM is new to the construction industry, its concept has been around since 1970s, dominantly
in the manufacturing and engineering sector (Cain, 2003). Construction is always blamed for poor
*
241
performance (Latham, 1994; Egan, 1998). However, it has high potentials to improve as manufacturing
and production industries, where there is a clear system in place that visualises the production flow, in
which everything is scheduled in advance with all work carried out to an agreed time table, resulting in
reduced waste (Bossom 1934 cited by Cain 2003). The report Construction 2025 (HM Government,
2013) emphasises the desperate need to restructure the industry through adopting modern methods to its
products and processes to make the industry more smart, competitive and efficient. As a result, the UK
government has now mandated for a fully collaborative 3D BIM as a minimum by 2016 to be used in all
government procured projects.
However, as an industry it is lacking knowledge and experience of how the adoption of BIM can be
helped to fulfil the visions of Construction Strategy 2025 (NBS, 2015). Lack of knowledge and
understanding on BIM is identified as a key barrier, making it incredibly hard for organisations to get on
board; in particular small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) (Open BIM Network, 2012). SMEs
contribute over 99% of the 3.7 million trading businesses in the UK, accounting for two thirds of the
construction industry. 52% of these employees are employed by organisations of less than 115 employees
and 96% are thought to have less than 8 employees (Federation of Master Builders, 2013; HM
Government, 2013). Many researchers and practitioners are still unclear why BIM should be adopted
and what are the factors that influence BIM implementation, resulting in its acceptance and use
remaining a central concern (Azhar, 2011). Current statistics show the limited implementation of BIM
within the construction SMEs UK. This paper aims to identify the significant barriers for implementing
BIM within construction SMEs.
2.
ADOPTED RESEARCH METHODS
Several methods were adopted to collect data for this study. A literature review was conducted to identify
the principles and practices of BIM and further to understand its current application within construction
context. An online questionnaire was designed through survey monkey software and distributed among
100 construction industry professionals whose industry experience varies from less than 5 years to over
30 years. The respondents were from different disciplines (architecture, quantity surveying, construction
management and engineering disciplines) who workin large to small construction organisations. The
response rate to this online questionnaire is 31%. Survey data were analysed through descriptive statistics.
In addition, four semi-structured interviews were undertaken among two quantity surveyors, one
construction manager and a facilities manager who have already adopted BIM within their practices.
3.
BUILDING INFORMATION MODELLING
Building Information Modelling has given number of definitions in the current literature. Eastman et al.
(2011) explain it as a novel approach to design, construction, and facilities management, in which a
digital representation of the building process is used to facilitate the exchange and interoperability of
information in digital format (Eastman et al, 2011). With reference to Smith and Tardif (2009), BIM is
an enabling technology with the potential for improving communication, quality of information available
for decision making, improving the quality of services delivered, reducing cycle time, and reducing cost
at every stage in the life cycle of a building. Having identified the holistic nature of BIM, Bryde et al.
(2013) explain that not only is it a useful software for geometric modelling of a buildings performance,
but also it assists in the management of construction projects with potential to improve collaboration
between stakeholders. On average, 70% of the life-cycle cost of a building is established through the
decisions made during the design phase (Sebastian, 2010). BIM therefore enables knowledge integration
from various project participants who would traditionally work in different phases of the building process
to interact and regularly update a central model of the building, therefore producing beneficial project
outcomes.
The aim of adopting BIM within the UK construction industry is to maximise client value by increasing
benefits with little or no extra cost, by contributing to achieve the goals set out in the Construction
Strategy 2025. This relies on integrated design which has also been an important subject in the
Construction industry in the UK for the past few decades. The success of BIM rests on the ability of the
supply chain changing the processes and culture, work collaboratively to produce such information rich
242
models (RICS, 2014). Having studied the available definitions for BIM, it is clear that there are some
uncertainties as to whether BIM is a new way of working or whether it is highly reliant on merely the
software. However, International BIM implementation guide (2014) states BIM, when combined with
issues pertaining to people, processes and organisations, has the potential to significantly impact the
industry (RICS, 2014, p.5). In fact, this confirms that BIM ensures both a new ways of working and also
its associated software, so when in practice it is important that both considerations are taken into account
in order to gain maximum benefits.
3.1.
APPLICATION OF BIM IN MANUFACTURING AND SERVICES INDUSTRIES
BIM has been used for ages in manufacturing, production and services industries. For example, the
visual-based product development process, Oobeya (which is a Japanese word for big room)
developed by the Toyota Motor Company in 1990s to manage information and on the spot decision
making (Patrick, Mustapha and Howard, 2012). The tool significantly helped to shorten the product and
process development time by managing information, co-ordinate and accelerate cost improvements,
monitor progress and bring decisions forward much earlier in the lifecycle (QV System, 2012). This is all
done by creating more communication between the people in the different divisions (Frank, 2009).
Similar to BIM it manages the entire projects workings of a system through lifecycle.
Similarly, Rolls Royce (car and aero-engine manufacturing company, UK) also introduced Optimised
Systems and Solutions (OSyS) mechanism to reduce risk, increase asset availability and improve
revenue for their customers, which has been so successful in recent past. For example the system (OSyS)
predicts when operationally critical equipment may require out of schedule inspection or maintenance
(Rolls Royce, 2010). It also enables proactive resolution of potential issues, improving asset availability
and reliability with much better visibility of quality data through a central database which will result in
overall savings (Rolls Royce, 2010). Moreover, the OSyS solution is enabled the company to generate
and update business plans, achieve growth in the services with 20% fewer staff and 80% reduction in
queries. It also provides an opportunity to make informed business decisions to achieve other operational
savings (Patrick et al., 2012).
3.2.
BIM IN CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY
Being the principal client in the construction industry, the UK Government holds over 40% of the
construction output. Therefore, it is important that the Government commit themselves to finding a way
to galvanise the industry by exploring modern methods, which will improve the industry performance. In
this regards, the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) attempted to integrate BIM in their Plan of
Work 2013. It provides a shared framework for organisations and management of building projects which
has been widely used as both a process map and a management tool, reflecting the robust principles in
best practice guidance. The RIBA recognises assembling of right project teams as one of the most
important considerations of any BIM adopted project, which clearly reflects who does what, when and
how (Sinclair, 2013). As BIM creates a robust platform for projects to commence as early as possible, this
requires a greater degree of clarity to ensure that roles are clearly understood.
BIM enables three-dimensional (3D) models to be created, taking the industry from the drawing board to
the computer and ultimately into the digital age (NBS, 2015). BIM levels change emphasis of a project,
having all information contained in a single, continuously updated database with the model being the
primary tool for documentation (Bryde et al., 2013). With the government recognising that the process of
moving the construction industry from independent working to collaborative working involves a lot
of dedication and guidance, with clear defined milestones (NBS, 2015). As previously noted, BIM is not
only a new technology for the construction industry, but also a new way of working that will change the
way in which the stakeholders engage in their role. BIM maturity levels considers stakeholders
contribution throughout the project lifecycle.
Literature argues if BIM is managed correctly, it can become a key enabler of the integrated process,
giving unique opportunities for reducing time and cost whilst increasing value. BIM can contribute to
effective decision making at the early design and preconstruction stage, involving all parties of the supply
chain. The integration of the different parties contributes to reduce both costs and time as errors are able
243
to be identified during the early stages. It also enables three-dimensional models to be created, providing
opportunity for variety of benefits throughout the project lifecycle (Azhar et al., 2009). This takes the
guess work out of design intent and enables better collaboration which in result improves buildability and
innovation (RICS, 2014). On the other hand, early visualisation of the model allows the team to enhance
the quality of the project by displaying any weaknesses (Build Offsite, 2013). The project team is able to
virtually see how all the systems integrate; architectural, structural, mechanical and electrical. It gives the
design team the ability to eliminate duplications of design and a lot of the risks by the detection of
clashes; enabling for corrections to be made easily with automatic low level correction through the use of
the parametric relationships between objects before construction physically takes place on site (Build
Offsite, 2013). The building information model acts as a single source of data. Data from the model can
be easily extracted and manipulated. For example being cost estimates which can be done off exact
quantity take-offs. This will therefore generate accurate cost estimates of a project before construction
stage enabling for fewer overruns (Jayasena and Weddikkara, 2012; NBS, 2015).
3.2.1.
BIM IN CONSTRUCTION SMES
Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) account for two thirds of the UK construction industry,
contributing 99.9% of the UKs trading businesses, with 52% of all employees employed by firms of less
than 115 people, 96% are thought to have less than 8 employees (Federation of Master Builders, 2013:
HM Government, 2013). Although SMEs dominate the industry in terms of both output and employment,
BIM is still not a welcoming practice within the construction SMEs. Many barriers have been identified
potentially preventing SMEs from growth, hindering their contribution to the development of
sustainability (Open BIM Network, 2012). It can be argued that the desire to raise standards of delivering
projects in a much shorter time scale at a higher standard has been at the expense of SMEs (Local
Government Task Force, 2007).
Literature explains that the lack of access to funds and modern technology, market conditions and the
government regulations as key barriers to the adoption of BIM with in construction SMEs (Miller, 2009).
Pickford (2015) highlights that the main challenge for SMEs is not actually spending money on software,
it is about them investing their time to truly understand what BIM means to them so that they can have a
better understanding of what BIM can do for them. In addition to the results from a pilot survey of one of
SMEs concludes that SMEs engaged in small-scale projects, can adopt relatively simple working
methods with basic BIM for direct tangible impacts, without having to radically change their ICT systems
or putting their business organisations at stake (Rizal, 2010, p. 105). Moreover the same study
recommends that in order for SMEs to benefit from BIM they need to first establish a sustainable strategy
to manage the processes, by optimising the benefits of integrated design and engineering and encourage
clients to adopt an integrated procurement method that facilitates a transparent and high-performance
collaboration.
SMEs are ideally suited to adopting BIM as they can make decisions and adapt to client/project/industry
needs much quicker as they have less employees to catch up on, especially if they have learnt how to use
BIM before it really matters on a live project. This could be done by trailing BIM alongside a current
project in order to learn without the risks (Pickford, 2015). The National Building Specifications (NBS,
2015) states that they intend to ensure that their programme is well understood and can be adopted by all
(irrespective of company size) without barriers. Key to this is the creation of regional hubs which
intended to help professionals within the construction industry to learn about BIM and its benefits. Its
purpose was to also get valuable feedback from professionals around the world, both using BIM and
interested in BIM (Philip, 2012). Alongside the running of the Regional hubs is BIM4SME. BIM4SME is
an organisation which is responsible for providing resources, best practice and knowledge to SMEs within
the UK to get them ready for the government BIM mandate by 2016 (BIM4SME, 2015). BIM is proving
a catalyst for growth for the SME community, helping them to move into new and bigger markets by
unlocking new, more efficient ways of working (Smith, 2015).
244
4.
The preliminary data was collected through an online questionnaire survey and four semi-structured
interviews among two quantity surveyors, one construction manager and one facilities manager. The
response rate for the survey was 31%. The respondents are from construction backgrounds (55% quantity
surveyors, 19% contractors, 13% consultants/directorate, 10% engineers and 3% architects). Having
analysed the type of organisation that they are working, the result explains that 81% of them work for
SMEs and 19% are from the large scale construction organisations. Further analysis says that 55% are
private sector organisations, 39% represent public sector and 6% from other or freelance practices. 58%
of them are using BIM in their current practices.
The majority of respondents understand BIM as information rich 3D model, which enhance
collaborative working and improves project performance (in terms of time, cost and quality). More
importantly, 62% of respondents agreed that the construction SMEs face number of difficulties when
adopting BIM in to their projects. In contrary one of interviewees argues as long as SMEs are planning
long term and not short term, they will find it just as easy as larger companies, if not easier. SMEs are
usually used for short term projects, so they will have the opportunity to use BIM on so many different
projects in a short space of time which will boost their experience, of cause depending on if the larger
contractor or whoever is employing them are using it. Those challenges mainly appear in the areas of
financial support procurement arrangements, engagement, trust and support and knowledge and
practice. Supportively, other three interviewees believe SMEs will struggle more as they dont have the
required resources specially finances to help them if they get into any trouble during the adoption, also,
they tend not to think long term and BIM is definitely something where you need to have a longer term
perspective. Trust is a very big issue in the construction industry and without it you cant really expect
BIM to work.
Having identified the challenges of implementing BIM within construction, the respondents were asked
their opinions on how these challenges influence construction SMEs. The study uses 5 scale Likert Scale
(0-not sure, 1- strongly disagree, 2-disagree, 3-neither agree nor disagree, 4-agree, 5-strongly agree). The
findings explain in Figure 1.
Lack of clients'
demand
5.00
Change in
procurement
methods
4.00
3.2
3.00
Lack of capital
investment
on BIM
4.2
software and
2.9
2.00
1.00
Increase in
framework
arrangements
0.00
3.4
Lack of standards
for BIM adoption
3.7
Reluctance to
change and risk
3.7
3.6
Limited public
awarded work
Figure 1: Challenges of Implementing BIM within Construction SMEs
The findings explain lack of capital investments on BIM software and training as the most significant
challenge that construction SMEs face when adopting BIM for their projects. Supportively, all the four
interviewees explain that financial aspects have huge implications of whether SMEs will find the adoption
of BIM easy or not. Although, again if they plan long term and find that they can adopt it they will be able
to have huge benefits. Moreover reluctance to change from the traditional methods/practices and less
engagement is public projects seem as the two of second best challenges. Interviewees identified
245
reluctance to change as a whole industry problem, however two of the four interviewees agreed that
SMEs who are working for larger organisations so maybe this is due to them not being awarded their
own projects which can be risky, if it is only the public sector that is pushing for BIM unless the private
sector too start pushing it. In most cases, large scale contactors are delivering complete work packages
without providing any opportunity for SMEs engage with them. However, one respondent to the survey
noted that SMEs find BIM adoption easier as they can be much leaner and have less staff to work with;
which should ensure that all members are on board and up to a set level of skill. Also stating that due to
the amount of work they get from larger contractors at once, they may find it much easier to access many
BIM projects, gaining more experience with BIM than larger organisations. Importantly another
interviewee highlighted SMEs are now winning more public work than they did in the past so hopefully
that wont be too much of a problem to them now. In addition, that lack of standards for BIM adoption
in construction SMEs, increase in framework arrangements and change in procurement method
identified as influential challenges. With compares to other challenges lack of clients demand was
given a least impact. Presumably, this will be a positive sign for BIM adoption within construction by
assuring the clients awareness on benefits of BIM. In addition to aforesaid challenges, few respondents
were noted main contractors self-delivering, unrealistic expectations, no clear direction and lack of
expertise as other influential barriers to implement BIM within construction SMEs.
Moreover, the findings highlighted financial concessions, support on BIM training and awareness
programmes, opportunities for winning more public projects, incentive-penalty schemes as the way ahead
for encouraging SMEs to adopt BIM in their practice.
5.
CONCLUSIONS
The barriers preventing construction SMEs to adopt BIM were revealed through this paper.
BIM has been described as a new way of working in the 21st century, which will bring many benefits to
the construction industry. However, it has been widely argued that there are number of challenges, when
it comes to implement within the construction SMEs. The results noted that the construction SMEs lacks
the required knowledge and competencies on BIM, however until they gain such maturity they are
reluctant to implement BIM within their practices. The key challenges appear in the lack of capital
investment on software and training, limited public awarded work and reluctance to change.
The results explain SMEs are not being completely aware of BIM, and the cost implications, could mean
that they have yet to implement a strategy to finance the adoption, so decisions could be prone to change
when this awareness does reach the surface. Although not all SMEs have adopted BIM, it is important
that they plan long-term and set targets to put themselves in a position to adopt BIM within their
practices. It is highly recommended that the government should take initial actions on supporting the
SMEs (through training, awareness programmes, standards and reforms) in hope to encourage them to
integrate BIM within their professions. However, as SMEs contribute to the vast majority of the
construction industry, it is highly unlikely that the government will fully endure such expenses but the
concession schemes can be introduced. On the other hand, the limited public awarded work for SMEs is
also identified as a key barrier to implement BIM within their practices. Therefore, it is worthy if future
studies could focus on whether new reforms to the PQQ (pre-qualification questionnaire) have
contributed to SMEs gaining more work within the public sector.
6.
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IMPROVING COLLABORATION BETWEEN ACADEMIA AND INDUSTRY

THROUGH USE OF THE KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER PARTNERSHIP
Finlay Mac Beath and Michael Dignan*
The Scott Sutherland School of Architecture and Built Environment, Robert Gordon University, Sri Lanka
ABSTRACT
Collaboration between the construction industry and academia has always been difficult. Both sides of
the equation have different wants, needs and requirements and these are seemingly at odds with each
other. However, it is well documented that, despite the challenges involved, the outputs of such
collaboration are seemingly very successful. It is against this backdrop that the United Kingdom
Government has recognised the importance of facilitating opportunities and helping in the
development of models to assist in overcoming the gap between industry and academia. One of these
models is the Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP). The KTP model specifically allows businesses
to solve issues they have by accessing knowledge and expertise held by academic institutions that
otherwise may be out with their reach. In this paper we demonstrate how the Scott Sutherland School
(SSS) and Abertay Housing Association (AHA) fostered a partnership with the aid of KTP funding to
test/ monitor a solution to upgrade some of their non-traditional housing stock. We found that a deep
relationship developed during the initial stages of drafting the funding proposal set the foundation for
the rest of the project to date. The partnership has allowed both parties to benefit - AHA has new
found knowledge of the performance of their existing housing stock, whilst SSS has added knowledge
of steel house behaviour to its expertise of other house types.
Keywords:
1.
Collaboration; Funding; Knowledge Transfer Partnership.
INTRODUCTION
It is well known that there has been a historical disconnect between the construction industry and
academia (UKCES, 2013). Today, in what has become a global market, industry research and
development has moved away from traditional in-house research (Lambert, 2003) while it is
acknowledged that industry needs to become innovative in order to remain competitive (Jachimowicz and
Umali, 2000). This has resulted in a need for both industry and academia to collaborate so that research
outputs can be successfully translated into industry practice (Blismas et al., 2009). Benefits of
partnerships which cross this divide are not the sole preserve of the industry partner - the academic
partner also gains from collaboration in the receipt of funding, fostering relations with industry, published
outputs and the potential of tangible output of their research.
However, the challenges faced with bridging the gap cannot be downplayed. Jones and Clulow (2012)
found the following obstacles:
lack of trust over issues such as intellectual property;

uncertainty about the potential benefits of working together;
difficulty on both sides of finding the time for initial exploratory conversations;
disparity between types of outputs that would make such collaborations seem worthwhile;
businesses may be seeking saleable products, academics prize excellent research outputs and
publications;
universities may not find industry problems interesting enough to address;
industry ascertains if a university could help them solve their business challenges.
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This paper describes one method available in the UK which promotes and funds collaboration between
industry and academia - the Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP). The paper will be set out in three
distinctive sections:
a description of the KTP strategy and process,

the development of a project where the Scott Sutherland School(SSS) has collaborated with
Abertay Housing Association (AHA) in Dundee, Scotland
brief analysis of initial outcomes of the project
The project in question evolved from a challenge AHA faced in the thermal upgrading of existing
properties. They made an initial approach to SSS with a view to developing and testing innovative
methods/ materials which would improve building performance without compromising the structure and
fabric of their properties.
2.
KTP PROJECT BACKGROUND
2.1.
KTP BACKGROUND
The KTP is an initiative administered by Innovate UK, which facilitates the application of new
knowledge, technologies and skills to improve a companys productivity and competitiveness. Innovate
UK is an executive non-departmental public body, sponsored by the Department for Business Innovation
and Skills (BIS). The Department for BIS is the Department for Economic Growth (BIS, 2016). The
department invests in skills and education to promote trade, boost innovation and help people to start and
grow a business. In 2015 Innovate UK celebrated its 40th year since its first project. The projects aim to
develop innovative solutions to industrial challenges in order to aid a companys growth within their
market.
Essentially the initial role of Innovate was to facilitate the bringing together of two disparate parties
(industry and academia) so that each party could clearly see the many benefits that collaboration would
bring.
Within each project there exists a trilateral relationship between; a KTP research associate, the knowledge
base partner (academic institute) and the company partner. The KTP associate facilitates the transfer of
knowledge from the knowledge base partner to the company, and they tend to be a recent university
graduate. The knowledge base partner supplies the associate with the relevant knowledge for the project
and assists in the development of research. The company partner, through facilitation of the project, is
able to provide the knowledge base partner with raw data for research outcomes. Both parties provide the
Associate with supervision throughout the project period. The company partner tends to be a business but
can also be Local Authority, environmental or educational body. A fourth party, Innovate UK, oversees
the process to ensure all parties are fulfilling their obligations and the project is progressingtowards
agreed outcomes (refer Figure 1) (Innovate UK, 2015a).
There are over 800 partnerships running at any one time and over 900 associate projects (Galvez-Martos,
2016). These projects cover a broad range of industries, from the public sector, service industries to
manufacturing plants.
2.2.
KTP FUNDING PROCESS
The KTP is funded by the Innovate UK along with 12 other funding organisations. These funding
organisations include Research Councils and a number of other Government departments (Innovate UK,
2015b). The KTP is designed not only to increase productivity and profit for the company partner but also
to highlight opportunities, disseminate knowledge and bring together academia and industry, although it
is expected that there will be a financial benefit to the company.
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Figure 1: Diagrammatic Representation of KTP Relationships
Small Medium Enterprise (SME) projects can secure funding up to 67% from Innovate UK while large
companies can secure up to 50%, in addition to a number of other funding streams within associated
sectors (Galvez-Martos, 2016). It is often the case that the company partner will fund the remainder of the
project. It is expected that there will be a financial benefit to the company whether it be through increases
in profit, reduced production costs, introduction to new markets and/or an improved product. These
benefits tend to outweigh the financial input from the company.
For a company to qualify the company it must employ more than 4 members of staff and the proposed
project last between 12 and 36 months.
2.3.
BENEFITS TO THE PARTIES INVOLVED
All of the parties involved in the trilateral agreement are expected to benefit from the relationship.
The associated benefits from structured training and experiential learning. There is access to a 4,000
training budget which allows the associate to acquire a variety of on and off the job training, also
benefiting from two compulsory modules covering; management, finance, leadership and teamwork.
They can also benefit from professional qualifications which vary depending on their area of expertise.
Associates are also encouraged to undertake a higher degree during the term of the project. 41% of
associates register for a higher degree, of which 67% pass their chosen degree (Galvez-Martos, 2016).
Finally they gain professional experience in their chosen sector from being exposed to a variety of
different work situations. 60% of associates are offered and accept a post at their host company upon
completion of the project (Galvez-Martos, 2016). The KTPs focus on training and hands on experience
equips the associate with an impressive skill set that will vastly increase their employment prospects.
The company partner benefits from the knowledge brought by the associate and knowledge base partner
to solve a problem in an innovative way. The process of this may result in the production of new
products, technologies, or processes that improve productivity and/or profitability. For every 1m of
government spend the average benefits to the company amounted to an 4.25m annual increase in profit
before tax (Galvez-Martos, 2016). The company benefit from the knowledge base partners expertise and
awareness of the funding streams available for projects such as this. Therefore they benefit from external
funding that otherwise would not have been available. The knowledge developed during the project is
disseminated to the company staff through training sessions, improving their expertise and the way they
carry out their jobs. Once the knowledge is transferred to staff it will remain in the company and become
part of the standard operating procedures ensuring the long term benefits. The associate is encouraged to
become involved with the daily running of the business as well as their project which can improve the
efficiency of the business. In addition to all of this, there is a clear expectation that the company partner
will see financial benefit from the project outcomes - IT WILL MAKE PROFIT!
The knowledge base partner gains further insight and research into their existing body of knowledge and
expertise. It is expected that the knowledge base partner will disseminate findings through academic
journals conference papers, trades journals etc. Funding pays for academic input to the equivalent of half
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a day per week. It is also expected that new knowledge will feed into undergraduate and post graduate
learning. On average, each KTP Associate project produces 3.6 new research projects and 2 research
papers (Galvez-Martos, 2016). This adds to the existing catalogue of data already possessed by the
Knowledge Base partner and accommodates continued research to be conducted. The production of high
quality research in innovative sectors enhances the reputation and standing of the knowledge base partner
among other institutions and potential industrial partners.
To summarise, there are a number of possible benefits to each party in the agreement. The associate gains
expertise, knowledge, experience and improved employment potential. The company partners primary
benefit is expected to be profit gain, however there are also possible benefits from; better informed staff,
new technologies, new products, funding and a generally more competitive business. The knowledge base
partner benefits from further research and publications in one of their areas of expertise. As a result of this
the academic reputation of the institute is elevated and becomes more attractive to future industrial
research partners and prospective students.
3.
EVALUATIVE CASE STUDY
3.1.
PROJECT TEAM
This KTP project team includes; The Scott Sutherland School of Architecture and Built Environment
(SSS) as the knowledge base partner acting as academic advisor, Abertay Housing Association, Dundee
(AHA) as the host company acting as company supervisor and the associate, a recent graduate (BSc
Hons. Building Surveying) of the School. In addition to this, the project has been appointed a
representative from Innovate UK who oversees all of the KTP projects in the North East of Scotland.
3.2.
PROJECT ORIGIN
The Scott Sutherland School of Architecture and Built Environment at Robert Gordon University has
been involved in applied research in the field of building fabric upgrades for a number of years (AbdelWahab and Bennadji 2013; Buda et al., 2013;Gutirrez-Avellanosa and Bennadji, 2013). It was while
presenting their findings from one such project at a Scottish Federation of Housing Associations (SFHA)
conference in Scotland that it came to the attention of AHA. AHA were aware that the Energy Efficiency
Standard for Social Housing (EESSH), which places a legal obligation on social landlords to achieve a
minimum Energy Efficiency (EE) rating in their entire housing stock, was due to be enforced in 2020.
The EE rating is measured in the Energy Performance Certificate (EPC). Many of the newer properties
will already meet the new EESSH targets, which require an EE rating of between 65 and 69 depending on
the house type and fuel source, while some of the older and non-traditional housing stock will struggle to
meet these targets. With this in mind AHA identified a number of non-traditional steel frame houses that
require a more innovative improvement solution to meet these targets. It was at this point AHA
approached SSS and together they developed a research proposal to submit to innovate UK for
consideration.
3.3.
FUNDING APPLICATION
The process of securing funding for this project involved the incremental development of the proposal
and this resulted in AHA and SSS meeting frequently to discuss the challenge, develop the research
question and understand how working in collaboration will facilitate the development of a resolution.
This formed the basis for the development of the research proposal.
Having identified the problem, the type of solution they would require and how they could achieve this in
their research proposal, AHA and SSS then begin to explore the funding options available to them. SSS
highlighted multiple funding streams available to a project of this nature to AHA and they began
assessing their options. The result was, together AHA and SSS found that the KTP initiative was the most
applicable to the needs of both parties and project itself.
252
A project proposal was developed by both parties collaboratively which included:
A description of the project

The project aims and objectives
Proposed project outcomes
Intellectual Property agreement
And, a full breakdown of the project costs.
The project costs included; associates salary, project consumables, any required software and hardware,
associate training budget, the knowledge base supervisors time and travel and subsistence. It also had to
outline where profit would be made on the successful delivery of the project. It was very important to
demonstrate the financial benefits to the company in order to secure the funding. It was then a question of
presenting the proposals to Innovate UK and waiting to hear whether they had been successful.
The project secured 67% of the funding from Innovate UK and the remaining 33% was provided by
AHA. Once the funding had been secured the project was ready to begin. An associate was appointed in
August 2015 with slightly modified project outcomes to take account of progress made by a previous
associate. The project is now nearing the halfway point of the 21 months program and the initial findings
from a pilot scheme have begun to be collated and analysed.
A significant (but indirect) outcome of the funding application process was the development and
cementing of the partnership between SSS and AHA. The application required substantial amount of
details and both partners had to work together to ensure that the application was worthy of submission.
By the time the funding bid was submitted, the partners knew each other extremely well and a close bond
had been formed before the project had begun in earnest.
3.4.
PROJECT DETAILS
The project is an investigation into the performance four types of steel frame dwellings in Dundee,
Scotland. The properties in question are of non-traditional steel frame construction, built in the period
between 1926 and 1928. Four types of steel frame properties have been identified on the site, although
findings from the project will be pertinent to a wide variety of steel frame properties in many locations.
Due to the nature of these properties there are a number of risks to building performance when applying
standard wall insulation to them. AHA did not have previous experience of carrying out improvement
measures to properties of this type, or the technical knowledge to effectively analyse the available
options. AHA sought to acquire this knowledge through collaboration with SSS.
The initial project phases included for full surveys to be undertaken of each property type to identify
design and defects specific to these properties. This information was gathered by the associate and added
to the existing knowledge of the construction type in question. This provided a platform of knowledge
from where to start the process of designing and analysing various insulation methods.
AHA, in conjunction with a third party designed three Internal Wall Insulation (IWI) solutions. The
process of designing these solutions involved close collaboration with SSS and it was agreed that a period
of testing and monitoring should be undertaken on a selection of pilot properties before the full
implementation of a solution.
The pilot properties allowed the project team to strip the properties back to reveal the primary structure
and identify the construction and condition. This process would prove invaluable as more properties were
accessed and common defects noted. This added to existing research undertaken by the Building Research
Establishment (BRE, 1989) which had also discovered similar construction and condition. As a result of
the findings, changes were made to the three IWI solutions to make them more appropriate to the
buildings.
The research/ testing strategy involved in-situ monitoring of a number of parameters and included:
Air Tightness Testing (ATT),

Infrared Thermography (IRT),
Internal air quality measurement,
253
Relative Humidity (RH) measurement,

Air Temperature (AT) measurement,
Heat flux measurement,
Surface temperature measurement.
By measuring these factors over a period of over 12 months the effectiveness of each solution could be
tracked and compared against alternatives.
Once the monitoring data has been analysed the most suitable option or options can be selected. As there
are four types of steel frame properties in this area it is possible that more than one option will be required
and in some cases it may be necessary to use more than one system in an individual property. As the
works rollout for the full program of 90 non-traditional steel frame buildings the monitoring will
continue. Then a maintenance plan can be designed around the findings to ensure the properties have the
greatest life span possible.
3.5.
BENEFITS TO THE PARTIES INVOLVED IN KTP PROJECT
There are many benefits to the parties involved in KTP project specifically; SSS, AHA and the associate,
some of which are clear and others are more subtle.
AHA has benefited from the knowledge base partners substantial knowledge of similar projects and
detailed analysis of proposed building fabric upgrades. The academic partner has brought a scientific
approach to the investigation and identification of defects. This will ensure that, not only, are the
upgrades providing the greatest improvement of life span of the properties but also in tenant comfort,
health and reduced utility bills. AHA has also gained invaluable information from the monitoring process
that has been undertaken throughout the pilot stage. This will allow them to create more effective
maintenance programs to get the most out of these properties over the coming years. They have had the
benefit of an additional member of staff dedicated to working on the project. The solution and, more
importantly, the process of designing a solution can be disseminated by AHA as this problem is not
restricted to homes in Dundee, but the UK and broadly speaking, the world. There is also potential to
patent one of the insulation systems and sell the intellectual property rights to this.
The associate has gained a large amount of industrial experience and has been exposed to a wide variety
of scenarios improving his understanding of the sector. The level of personal responsibility is far greater
to that which would be possible in private practice and has developed the associates skills in areas
pertinent to the project and his future career. The associate has the benefit of a training budget of 4000
as well as two 2 tailored training programs organised by Innovate UK. To date the associate has
undertaken training in Air Tightness Testing (ATT), infrared thermography, project management,
finances, leadership and team working. The associate has been encouraged to and has submitted an
application for an MRES degree on the subject of the project, which will add to his academic
competencies.
SSS have been involved in research on building performance improvement work for a number of years. It
is expected that the outcomes of this project will add to the knowledge already developed at SSS. It also
allows the research to be added to the universities course syllabus, disseminating the information to the
next generation of young professionals.
Both SSS and AHA have benefited from the publicity that a project such as this attracts. To date both
organisations have been involved in presentations about the project. In addition there has been attention
from local and national MSPs and local radio stations.
4.
INITIAL FINDINGS
4.1.
BACKGROUND TO MONITORING
The monitoring strategy within each of the pilot properties is outlined in section 3.4. The underpinning
theory behind the selection of the specific elements being monitored is as follows: the temperature and
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RH measurements across the wall fabric allow to ascertain if condensation is occurring within the cavity,
the ATT undertaken before and after shows the improvement in the buildings air tightness, the air quality
measurements allow to ensure, the building is not made detrimentally air tight, IRT surveys allows the
visible improvements in the properties heat retention, and the heat flux allows a comparison between
theoretical and actual U-value measurements of the wall fabric.
The combination of in-situ and one-off monitoring methods allows to build a picture of how each of the
IWI wall systems is performing and measure the level improvement each has on individual properties.
This means that a critical analysis of each option can be undertaken, ensuring the most effective solution
and can resolve any issues prior to the full works being carried out. The cavities within the pilot
properties were free from ventilation in order to assess whether there is a need for it before undertaking
the works in the remaining properties.
For the purposes of this paper, initial findings from one property within the pilot phase are presented.
Figure 2: Pilot Study Property (Dundee, Scotland)

4.2.
RESULTS FROM INITIAL IN-SITU MONITORING
It is known that most species of fungi cannot grow unless RH exceeds 60% therefore maintaining an
internal RH between 40-60% minimises the risk of adverse health effects (Arundel et al., 1986). In Figure
3, the results gathered over the first three months show that the average RH level lies within this
parameter. It should however be noted that the max RH does exceed these parameters at isolated points.
This shows that, despite the improvements in the air tightness of the building fabric (see section 4.3),
there is still sufficient ventilation to maintain safe and comfortable indoor RH level.
The RH within the cavity is exceptionally high in this property, with the average values exceeding 90%,
as can be seen in Figure 3, for almost the entire three months period. It must be noted that the cavity has
not been vented so that the project team to assess its requirement. Exposed steel will corrode at 60% RH
(Roberge, 2000).Therefore the very high values indicate that there is a high probability that corrosion will
occur. With such high RH levels it is likely moisture will occur on the internal face of the steel, as a result
internal timbers and exposed areas have been covered in protective water resistant membranes.
Figure 3 shows the average external RH ranges between 70-98%, this exceeds the 60% threshold required
for steel to corrode. With this in mind the requirement for ventilation becomes immaterial, as potentially
exposed steel will corrode at the levels naturally occurring externally. The process of installing ventilation
could also increase the likelihood of exposed cut edges to this effect.
The internal air quality within the property is being monitored to assess the impact of the upgrades we are
carrying out. CO2 was chosen as the parameter to measure, this can be used as a benchmark for the levels
of other gases present within the property. CO2 at very high concentrations (e.g. greater than 5000 ppm)
can pose a health risk (ASHRAE, 2013). As seen in Figure 4, the average CO2 level does not exceed
1500ppm. This shows that the CO2 level is not dangerous to occupants. It can be observed from the range
of 90% of the data that the CO2 level does peak and trough from this level. This is expected as the
monitors were situated within bedrooms, where the CO2 levels build overnight and clear during the day.
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We are reassured that at no time does the CO2 level exceed 3500 ppm. This suggests, as with the internal
RH, that despite the thermal improvements the occupants health or comfort within the property has not
been jeopardised.
4.3.
EPC AND ATT RESULTS
An EPC was completed for the property before any works had been undertaken. The result was an EE
rating of 55 which placed it at the bottom of the D band. Once the IWI, new triple glazed windows and
new external doors had been installed within the property the new EE rating was 79. This placed the
property in the top of the C band and well surpassed the target EE rating of 65 required for this type of
property in the EESSH. This is a vast improvement for properties of this type and by exceeding the
EESSH targets help to ensure the properties will meet future EE targets set by government.
The EPC improvements are supported by ATT results from the tests undertaken before and after the
completion of the works in the property. The pre-works ATT showed the property had an air permeability
at 50 Pascals of 12.9 m/h/m. This is a poor air permeability rating, however due to the age and
construction of the property is in line with what would be expected. The post-works ATT show a
reduction in air permeability of almost half, with a new air permeability at 50 Pascals rating of 7.6
m/h/m. This is a great improvement especially given there has been no detrimental impact to the internal
air quality, section 4.2.
Average of RH INT Average of RH CAV Average of RH EXT
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
Values
Average of RH INT
20
Average of RH CAV
10
Average of RH EXT
Figure 3: RH Readings over the Months of Dec 2015 to Feb 2016
Figure 4: Internal CO2 Readings over Dec 2015 to Feb 2016
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29/02/2016
26/02/2016
23/02/2016
20/02/2016
17/02/2016
14/02/2016
11/02/2016
08/02/2016
05/02/2016
02/02/2016
30/01/2016
27/01/2016
24/01/2016
21/01/2016
18/01/2016
15/01/2016
12/01/2016
09/01/2016
06/01/2016
03/01/2016
31/12/2015
28/12/2015
25/12/2015
22/12/2015
19/12/2015
16/12/2015
13/12/2015
10/12/2015
07/12/2015
04/12/2015
01/12/2015
Comparison of the before and after EPCs demonstrate the real cost savings within this property.
Providing the same quality of finish and level of improvement within the remaining 89 properties, there is
not only a cost saving benefit to individual tenants but to the local community as a whole. The real cost
saving in heating and electricity to each tenant within one of these properties is 591.00 a year. Over the
90 properties in question this amounts to 53,190.00. With these tenants having an additional 591.00 per
household a year, there is more disposable income to be spent in the local community. This results in a
more affluent community with better local amenities. In addition to the financial benefits there are also
environmental benefits, there is a reduction of 51 kg CO2/m2/year per household. Across the entire 90
properties in our project this amounts to a total carbon saving of 4590 kg CO2/m2/year. As environmental
change becomes an increasingly important national and global issue, it is vital that improvements such as
these are made to all underperforming properties.
5.
SUMMARY
The KTP project between SSS, AHA and the associate is proving to be a success. Strong relations have
been forged between the knowledge base partner and company partner. This has been the case from the
early inception of the project which required them to come together to address the problem they were
facing, through to the full implementation of the agreed project. All of the parties have learned in the
progression of the project and that knowledge has been and continues to be successfully communicated
between the whole project team. The knowledge being developed is innovative in its nature and of great
benefit both academically and to the commercially. In addition to this the associate is acquiring a wealth
of new skills, training and industry experience. This project has been a good demonstration of
collaboration between industry and academia which has resulted in positive outputs for everyone
involved.
5.1.
WAY FORWARD
The project is due to conclude in April 2017 and the intention is to continue to collect and analyse data
and communicate this to AHA. It is expected that results of the in situ tests will be disseminated through
journal papers and conferences. On completion of the project, each party will report back to Innovate
explaining how the outcomes have been met. The associate has commenced an MRes degree based on the
project and will be expected to complete by the end of 2017.
When the project is at completion, it is intended to investigate the consequential benefits that the house
upgrades have brought to the occupiers and to the local community. It is expected that there will be a
reduction in energy consumption and associated costs and improved quality of life brought about by
living in a warmer, healthier environment and without the strain of fuel poverty. There may be a knock on
effect to the economy of the local community as the populace will potentially have more available
spending money.
6.
REFERENCES
Abdel-Wahab, M. and Bennadji, A., 2013. Skills development for retrofitting a historic listed building in Scotland.
International Journal of Low-Carbon Technologies, 10(4), 347-353.
American Society of Heating Refrigerating and Air-conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), 2013. Ventilation for
Acceptable Indoor Air Quality, Atlanta: ASHRAE.
Arundel, A.V., 1986. Indirect Health Effects of Relative Humidity in Indoor Environments. Environmental Health
Perspectives, 65, 351-361.
Blismas, N., McCoy, A. and Lingard, H., 2009. Academic arrogance or industry intransigence: Innovation inertia in
the construction industry. In: J. McCarthy, ed. Global Innovation in Construction Conference 2009,
Loughborough 16 September 2009. United Kingdom: Loughborough University, 481-491.
Buda, G., Taylor, B. and Bennadji, A., 2013. The nature of mass masonry granite walling and the potential for
retrofit internal wall insulation strategies. Journal of Building Survey, Appraisal & Valuation, 2(1), 36-43.
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Building Research Establishment (BRE), 1989. AthollSteel-Framed, Steel-Clad Houses. United Kingdom: Building
Research Establishment, (BRE Report 148).
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from:
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Galvez-Martos, J., Sterling E.M., Biggin, J.H. and Sterling, T.D., 2016. An Introduction to KTP. Scotland: North of
Scotland KTP Centre.
Gutirrez-Avellanosa, D.H. and Bennadji A., 2013, Energy efficiency improvements in historic buildings:
Developing an assessment methodology for the Scottish built heritage. In: International Conference on
Conservation, Restoration and Reuse of Architectural Heritage, Madrid.
Innovate UK, 2015a. Knowledge Transfer Partnerships: what they are and how to apply [online]. United Kingdom,
Gov.UK. Available from: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/knowledge-transfer-partnerships-what-they-are-andhow-to-apply [Accessed 08 May 2016].
Innovate
UK,
2015b,
Funding
[online].
United
Kingdom,
https://connect.innovateuk.org/web/ktp/funding [Accessed 08 May 2016].
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Jachimowicz, F. and Umali, J., 2000, Industrialacademic partnerships in research: Working for mutual benefit.
Chemical Innovation, 30(9), 1720.
Jones, S. and Clulow, S., 2012. How to foster a culture of collaboration between universities and industry [online].
United Kingdom, Guardian News and Media Limited. Available from: http://www.theguardian.com/highereducation-network/blog/2012/aug/02/the-value-of-research-collaborations [Accessed 12 May 2016].
Lambert, R., 2003. Lambert review of Business-University Collaboration. London: Crown.
Roberge, P.R., 2000. Handbook of Corrosion Engineering. New York: McGraw-Hill.
UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES), 2013. Technology and Skills in the Construction Industry:
Executive Summary. United Kingdom: UK Commission for Employment and Skills.
258
INCORPORATING TACIT KNOWLEDGE IN PERFORMANCE

MEASUREMENT SYSTEM IN A SRI LANKAN HOTEL
Haja Alawdeen Mohamed Aashik*
Sepani Senaratne
Western Sydney University, Australia
ABSTRACT
Performance Measurement (PM) has been received an increasing attention over the past 20 years in
the hotel industry. It is critical for the development of strategic plans and for evaluating the
achievement of organisational objectives. A growing understanding of the limitations of financial
measures has led the development of integrated systems and frameworks. Among the conventional
models, Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is widely accepted and implemented in organisations. However,
identification of Critical Success Factors (CSFs) and formation of BSC model into a practical context
is based on several assumptions that could lead to failures. Tacit knowledge addresses the value of the
experts knowledge and specifies techniques to capture current context and changing needs of the
organisation. However, the extent of literature on PM has failed to incorporate tacit knowledge into
the PM models using any of the externalisation techniques due to several reasons.
Therefore, this study explored the method to incorporate experts tacit knowledge for PM in the Sri
Lankan hotel industry. The research problem was approached through a single case study with an
action research phase in a five star hotel that successfully practice Performance Measurement System
(PMS) in Sri Lanka. Semi-structured interviews were conducted among the experts in the hotel and
combined three methods namely; archival analysis, ethnographic analysis and experts participation to
extract experts knowledge in to CSFs identification process.
The case study findings revealed that hotel staff subconsciously carries out activities for externalising,
preserving and developing their tacit knowledge. However, there is no evidence of considering tacit
knowledge in the process of CSFs identification for PM in Sri Lankan hotel industry. Action research
phase affirmed, at minimum, either the ethnographic or the interactive method could be used along
with archival analysis method to represent both the explicit and tacit knowledge of the organisation to
produce an effective PMS. The approach used in this study for incorporating tacit knowledge into
performance measurement is adaptable to Sri Lankan hotel industry.
Keywords:
1.
Hotel Industry; Sri Lanka; Critical Success Factors; Performance Measurement; Tacit
Knowledge Externalisation.
INTRODUCTION
Kollberg et al. (2005, p.98) define that, performance measurement system is a process of collecting,
computing and presenting quantified constructs for the managerial purposes of following-up, monitoring
and improving organisational performance. Hence, establishing proper PMS for an organisation is
important. In terms of discovering the importance of PM, Kagioglou et al. (2001) state identifying and
implementing PM has become a vital aspect in order to attract future investment, to increase share value
and to attract high quality employees. Further PM enables the managers to make decisions based on facts
rather than on assumptions and faith (Parker, 2000). It assists the managers to move towards the correct
direction, to revise the business goals and to re-engineer the business process if needed (Kuwaiti and Kay,
2000; Hoek, 1998). With the above outlook, PM could be identified as a vital aspect for a company to
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identify the weaknesses of the organisation, to implement performance and to step forward for new
directions. The next section discusses the application of PMS.
2.
PMS PRACTICES: GLOBAL HOTEL INDUSTRY
Olve et al. (1999) categorise PMS into two groups as where first group adopts historical financial
measures from accounting while the second group includes contemporary integrated systems that
combine financial with qualitative and non-financial measures. Banker et al. (2005) for instance, mention
that financial measures are used in the hotel industry because of their ability to reflect the effectiveness of
current and former activities. According to Keown et al. (2008), one of the best ways to measure financial
performance is to use financial ratios or metrics. Such ratios should reflect standardised accounting data
in order to allow managers and financial analysts to identify the weaknesses and strengths of a companys
performance. These accounting data include the Profit and Loss Account (Income Statement), the Balance
Sheet Performance Measurement Systems Statement and the Cash Flow Statement.
However, some authors clearly identify problems and disadvantages of using only financial measures.
Ghalayini and Noble (1996) found that such instruments are not related to business strategy and are
unable to quantify improvement efforts (e.g. time reduction, customer satisfaction). In addition, Ittner et
al. (2003) found that financial measures tend to be backward-looking, lack the ability to explain future
performance and offer results about functions within the organisation rather than cross functions. Hence,
the hotel industry could suffer from the limitations of financial Performance measures and may need to
consider integrated PMS. The changes in internal and external environment have led to development of
integrated systems and frameworks for measuring performance. The literature on PMS (Otley, 1999;
Epstein et al., 2000; Ittner and Larcker, 2001) offers various modern integrated models to measure the
performance of the organisations, which generally include Balanced Scorecard (BSC), Business
Excellence Model (BEM), Key Performance Indicators (KPI) and Capability Maturity Model (CMM).
Banker et al. (2005) explain how integrated PMS could be used in the hotel industry and introduce nonfinancial performance indicators that measure variables such as seat turnover, average stay per guest and
occupancy rate. Also, Denton and White (2000) assert that strategic performance measurements for hotel
organizations should be comprehensive enough to consider the disparate goals of owners and
management, and factors such as customer and employee satisfaction can be used as potential
performance measures. According to Wood et al. (1998), a primary success factor of hotel operations is
assumed to be related to employee motivation, attitude and performance. Huckestein and Duboff (1999)
regard the BSC as the systematic measurement tool that may align owners and managers goals, assess
managements effectiveness in a service operation and adequately measure both financial and nonfinancial results. Thus, it is clear that the demand for integrated performance measurement systems has
grown as they help to capture the contribution of intangible resources to organisational performance in
global hotel industry.
2.1.
PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT IN SRI LANKAN HOTELS
De Mel (2002 cited Sunderalingam, 2003) states, in Sri Lanka, PM has become a certainty in public
sector organisations and Charted Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) has already suggested the
use of BSC in public sector organisations. Moreover, workshops have been conducted on BSC
performance measurement by Sri Lankan Government and Distance Learning Centre. Taj Hotel is a good
evidence of using BSC with the addition of employee satisfaction survey in PM in the Sri Lankan hotel
sector (Avkiran, 2002). Further for hotel operations, White Lodging Services (WLS) and Hilton have
modified the basic BSC framework for their organizations (Denton and White, 2000; Huckstein and
Duboff, 1999). White Lodging Services Corporations is a corporate entity that manages Marriotts limited
service franchises comprising Courtyard, Fairfield Inn and Residence Inn. The company started to
implement its Balanced Scorecard system both at the corporate and property levels in January 1997. Not
only that, the Hilton Colombo became the best hotel in Asia in the Balanced Scorecard category and the
BSC of Hilton measures hotels performance in team member satisfaction, team member training, guest
service feedback and Hilton Internationals Hilton honours loyalty members feedback (McPhail et al.,
2007).
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Aforementioned researches reveal that BSC has been successfully applied to the Sri Lankan hotel
industry to measure the performance. It further enhanced the application of BSC to the hotel industry and
emphasised that BSC is an appropriate evaluation method for service performance. Since, BSC
practitioners are available in Sri Lanka and plenty of workshops have been conducted in Sri Lanka
promoting performance evaluation tool, more research on PMS using BSC model in Sri Lankan hotel
industry will be worth and useful. Hence, next section describes BSC as a PMS, bringing both generic
and hotel sector literature.
2.2.
FEATURES OF BSC SYSTEM
The balanced scorecard is one of the most influential frameworks for organisational PM (Evans, 2004).
Kaplan and Norton (1992) introduced this tool as a PMS comprising a set of different perspectives to
provide a comprehensive insight into organisational performance. The BSC measures financial
performance in conjunction with performance in relation to customers, performance on learning and
growth and finally, the performance of internal business processes. The hotel literature highlights and
appreciates the BSC system as a tool to measure the success of the organisation and to offer a road map
that can tell managers how a strategic vision can be accomplished. In general, several studies of the hotel
industry have found the BSC to be a valuable measurement tool (e.g. Brown and McDonnell, 1995;
Hepworth, 1998; Harris and Mongiello, 2001; Phillips and Louvieris, 2005; Evans, 2005; Phillips, 2007).
Further, several Authors developed BSC for the hotel industry using several CSFs which is discussed
next.
2.3.
CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS AND PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT
BSC and critical success factors are intrinsically intertwined. When discussing this relationship, Kellen
(2003) argues that at first, appropriate CSFs need to be identified in order to provide focus for
performance measurement by using BSC system. Further, Haktanir and Harris (2005) pointed out the
noticeable link between CSFs and performance measurement. Therefore, primarily proper CSFs are
needed to be identified in order to use BSC model to measure organisational performance. Further, Key
performance indicators (KPIs) also used in this model, which represent a particular value or characteristic
that is measured to assess whether an organisation's goals are being achieved. Kellen (2003) states that
KPIs reflect the CSFs (stakeholder needs and the expectations of the organisation) and KPIs to be
effective, the organisation's CSFs need to be specific, measurable, agreed, realistic and time-based
(Haktanir and Harris, 2005). Hence, the concept of CSFs in the context of PM and the hotel industry,
which are considered necessary for organisational prosperity because of the impact they have on the
organisations potential performance. Several studies (e.g. Louvieris, et al., 2003; Bourne et al., 2003 and
Flanagan, 2005) identify CSFs using BSC model to measure the performance of the hotel industry, such
as customer focus, staff, quality of service, profitability, budgetary control and customer relationship
management. Once these have been identified, it is possible to develop methods of measuring the
performance of these factors.
However, despite of high availability of literatures to identify CSFs using BSC model to measure the
performance of the hotel industry, they seems to be inconsistent and fail to capture the changing nature of
hotel sector over the time. However, one could raise the question that then how Hilton hotel Colombo
became the best hotel in Asia under the BSC category if it is inconsistent in nature?. That was a
comparative award rather than absolute award. Actually, Hilton hotel was given the award for BSC
practices by comparing other hotels BSC practices, which does not mean that Hilton hotels BSC
practices are perfect. Because, practically it is extremely complex to identify proper CSFs for BSC model,
and to ease this task, BSC is developed with several assumptions that ultimately force to add some
limitations over this model and these are discussed in next section.
2.4.
LIMITATIONS OF BSC AND CSF
A key assumption in a BSC model is that an organisations strategy can be articulated and communicated
openly throughout the organisation (Akkermans and Oorschot, 2002). It is also assumed that clear
knowledge from archival sources represent the overall knowledge of the organisation (Porac et al., 2002;
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Rucci et al., 1998). Further, this model fails to demonstrate how CSFs are identified and how the
relationships among them are articulated (Rucci et al., 1998; Malina and Selto, 2004).
Overall, although BSC model is widely accepted and implemented in organisations, identification of
CSFs and formation of BSC model into a practical context is based on above mentioned assumptions that
could lead to failures. The key limitation of BSC model is that it identifies CSFs using archival records
and does not capture current context and changing needs (Porac et al., 2002; Rucci et al., 1998). This
research argues that CSF should be revised in an organisation from time to time and should include not
just the knowledge from archival sources but also the knowledge and experience from the experts within
the organisation. To build this argument this research brings insight from Knowledge Management (KM)
literature into Performance Measurement (PM) next.
3.
KNOWLEDGE RESOURCE IN THE ORGANISATION
According to Blackler (1995), knowledge is a fluid mix of framed experience, values, contextual
information and it originates and is applied in the minds of experts. Nonaka and Takeuchi (1991)
expressed that knowledge can either be tacit or explicit. Herrgard (2000, p.358) stated, Organisations
knowledge resources can be described as an iceberg. The structured, explicit knowledge is the visible top
of the iceberg, which is easy to find and recognise and therefore easier to share. Beneath the surface,
invisible and hard to express, is a momentous part of the iceberg. This hidden part applies to tacit
knowledge resources in organisations. Hence, knowledge within an organisation often becomes
embedded not only in documents or repositories, but also in organisational routines, processes, practices
and norms. In order to explore how this tacit knowledge could be externalised, it is important to
understand the nature of tacit knowledge.
3.1.
TACIT KNOWLEDGE AND ITS EXTERNALISATION
Polanyi (1966) described tacit knowledge as knowing more than we can tell or knowing how to do
something without thinking about it, like riding a bicycle. According to Sigala and Chalkiti (2007), tacit
knowledge is mainly in two categories namely; cognitive knowledge and technical knowledge. Cognitive
knowledge comprises of beliefs, perceptions, ideals, values, emotions and mental models that are so
ingrained in experts, which they are taken for granted. While technical knowledge encompasses the kind
of informal and skills often captured in the term know-how and highly subjective and personal insights,
intuitions, hunches and inspirations derived from bodily experience fall into this dimension.
Externalisation is the translation of tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge. A process of externalisation
includes conceptualisation, elicitation and ultimately articulation thus that a portion of a person's tacit
knowledge may be captured in explicit form. Externalisation (tacit to explicit) requires knowledge
codification and abstraction and it can happen via interactions such as brainstorming and experts
interviews and activities (e.g. by reflecting on lessons learnt from a project).
Senaratne and Sexton (2008) argue that certain tacit knowledge could be useful and deliver competition
edge if externalised. Because when the person who possesses tacit knowledge leaves, the firm will lose its
knowledge capital if fails to retain such knowledge within the organisation. The most significant work
elaborating the management and measurement of tacit knowledge externalisation processes is the work by
Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995). Their model illustrates that tacit knowledge is turned into explicit
knowledge and vice versa in the externalisation stage in their SECI (Socialisation, Externalisation,
Combination and Internalisation) model.
3.2.
TACIT KNOWLEDGE EXTERNALISATION TECHNIQUES
Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) suggested that tacit knowledge becomes explicit using techniques such as
metaphors, analogies, cognitive map, hypothesis or models. One effective method of converting tacit
knowledge into explicit knowledge is the use of metaphor. According to Lakoff and Johnson (1980),
metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but also in thought and action. Metaphors can
communicate meaning when no explicit language is available, especially in regard to complex ambiguous
experience. Analogy is another method of externalising tacit knowledge that reduces vagueness by
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highlighting the commonness of two different things. According to Nonaka (1994), analogy allows the
functional operation of new concepts or systems to be explored by reference to things that are already
understood. In this sense, an analogy enables to know the future through the present by assuming an
intermediate role in bridging the gap between image and logic. Metaphor and analogy are often confused
and the association of meanings and metaphor is mostly driven by intuition, and involves images.
A cognitive map is another technique that represents the individuals personal knowledge and own work
experience (Bougon et al., 1977). The in-depth questioning allows the knowledge that goes unspoken in
the organisation to be mapped. Cognitive maps visualise such knowledge and communicate the
visualisation to individuals, groups or organisations, thus converting tacit knowledge to explicit
knowledge (Eden, 1992). Further, several methods are used in the literature to combine cognitive maps to
visualise the knowledge of the organisation. Bougon et al. (1977) used an average of individual maps,
Smith (1992) used participant group discussion and Abernethy et al. (2005) used multi method approach
to build maps. All these authors created the final map by combining all the maps which generated through
their respective methods to ensure all elicited knowledge are retained in the final map (Clarke et al.,
2000).
Despite of having several techniques to externalise the tacit knowledge to make it explicit, each technique
has its own merits and it is important to use appropriate techniques to externalise tacit knowledge based
on the application. However, the extent of literature on performance measurement as described above
only captures explicit knowledge of the organisation and fails to capture tacit knowledge into the
performance measurement models using any of the externalisation techniques. Therefore, it is argued that
incorporating tacit knowledge into CSFs identification process will lead to better performance
measurement. However, the question of how to identify the CSFs by externalising tacit knowledge in
addition to already available explicit knowledge is the challenge. As a result, this research attempts to
address this challenge by exploring the method to incorporate experts tacit knowledge for PM in the Sri
Lankan hotel industry. Because, international hotel chains have been growing and most recently global
chains have emerged. Moreover, competition has increased, which require more effective operational and
business decision-making activities. This has led Sri Lankan hotels to increase their attention on PM and
strategic implementation. In addition, literatures indicate that BSC is practicing in Sri Lankan hotel
industry and plenty of award schemes available to determine the best PM practitioners. Hence, this
research chooses the hotel industry since awareness of PMS will be immense in this particular industry
than any other industry. Consequently, the research question that emerged from the above literature
findings is that how to incorporate tacit knowledge in performance measurement in Sri Lankan five star
hotels?
4.
RESEARCH METHOD
Case study approach was selected for this research since emerged research question was centred on
existing event where the relevant behaviour cannot be manipulated. However, researcher extended the
case study with an action research phase when approaching the final output. Researcher incorporated
three methods such as archival analysis, ethnographic analysis and experts participation to develop
causal performance maps to create a change for the organisation. Creating a change while doing a
research is termed as Action Research. However, this research not following a pure action research but
it has stepped into an initial phase of action research study. As per research question, the unit of analysis
or case for this study was critical success factors. In order to avoid complexities associated with the
experts who are employed in five star hotels, a single five star hotel was considered and four experts who
involved in building PM system for the hotel were considered.
Selected hotel belongs to internationally well recognised hotel chain where Hotel Group operates
approximately five hundred and twenty seven hotels in seventy six countries. Selected hotel is a five star
hotel which is considered as a city hotel as well as a business hotel and located in Colombo Sri Lanka. As
this hotel operating under the shadow of international chain, PM procedures are immense. Hence, this
research selected this hotel as a case and relied on the experts who directly involve in PM related
activities in this hotel. The first contact in the field was the Director HR of the hotel. He approved the
research project and provided the resources needed to undertake the task. The Director HR also provided
263
the research team with background information concerning the history and the internal structure of the
hotel and provided access to relevant archival data (e.g. Dash Board, budget reports and routine operating
statistics). He identified four key experts for the study who directly involve in PM related activities. The
experts include the HR Manager, the Director Operations, the Revenue Manager and the Marketing and
Business Development Manager. All of the experts are directly involved in formulating PMS for the hotel
and have significant roles in resource management in the hotel function.
The goal of above mentioned method is to create one causal performance map for the hotel function.
Several methods are used in the literature to combine maps. Bougon et al. (1977) used an average of
individual maps, Smith (1992) used participant group discussion and Abernethy et al. (2005) used multi
method approach to build maps. All these authors created the final map by combining all the maps which
generated through their respective methods as it ensures all elicited knowledge are retained in the final
map (Clarke et al., 2000). In this vein, researcher used few features of these methods and predominantly
followed the research work and the approach of Abernethy et al. (2005) to develop a new method to
extract experts knowledge in to CSFs identification process.
4.1.
ARCHIVAL STUDY
Yin (2003) mentions that the archival records can be used in conjunction with other sources of
information in producing investigation. Hence, the current research used this method to collect all the
performance measurement related data, which enabled to identify explicit CSFs in a five star hotel. After
identifying CSFs, then factors were arranged based on the developed preliminary conceptual model (see
Figure 1) to develop a causal performance map.
4.2.
ETHNOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS
Interview guideline was used based on a common performance model where inputs are converted into
outputs through a transformation process to achieve the objective of this research. Figure 2 illustrates a
simple performance model with outcomes classified as either effectiveness or efficiency outcomes.
Effectiveness Outcomes
Human and Physical
Inputs
Business
Processes
Efficiency Outcomes
Figure 1: Preliminary Conceptual Model
The model illustrated in Figure 1 was motivated the questions in the interview protocol. Questions were
designed to elicit stories of performance, because stories are vivid, contextual devices for relating
personal knowledge and experience. By telling stories of how the organisation functions and the factors
leading to success, participants made explicit what might have remained tacit knowledge about goals,
processes, performance and outcomes (Boje, 1991). Based on the interview outcomes, CSFs were
identified, and then it was arranged based on the developed preliminary conceptual model to develop a
causal performance map.
4.3.
EXPERTS PARTICIPATION
The third map-building method used the participants to map causal relations among CSFs. Thus,
researcher met with the participants individually for a second time, and undertook the following steps to
extract the experts knowledge for the links between the CSFs:
provided each participant with a set of cards indicating CSFs which were developed from the transcripts
of their prior interviews,
explained that these represented CSFs or activities based on their comments in the prior interview,
carefully defined each factor by using specific comments and examples from their prior interview,
established mutual understanding that the specific comments reflected the particular CSFs, and
264
requested their input on how these factors were inter-related (e.g., look at these factors or activities, see
how they fit together, whether there are relationships among them and position them in time sequence,
is there something that you do at one point in time that influence other factors later).
Each participant positioned the cards on a piece of paper and placed or drew arrows between them as
appropriate to reflect their causal knowledge. At the same time, note was taken down for the
accompanying discussion to capture the rationale behind the relations discussed. Participants were able to
revise their positioning of the labels and causal arrows as often as they wished during the interviews.
Researcher made no attempt to finalise any map until the participants were satisfied and declared it
finished and a good representation of the relationships among the CSFs.
4.4.
DATA ANALYSIS
Study used the three complementary methods to analyse qualitative data collected from the interviews in
order to create causal performance maps to explore the method to incorporate tacit knowledge into
performance measurement in the hotel. All three methods started with performance stories collected in the
first round of interviews. The first method relied on the archival analysis of the collected performance
measurement related data. The second method reflected the traditional, ethnographic interpretation of first
interviews and interview context. The third method used the experts themselves to visually build causal
performance maps with cards containing CSFs that had been extracted from their interview transcripts. In
the first and second methods, researcher used the data to develop the causal performance map. In the third
method, experts were involved in building and validating their own maps. Then, as shown in Figure 2, all
three methods were combined to create a final causal performance map to represent the overall
knowledge of the organisation. This approach insured that all obtained CSFs and linkages are retained in
the final map, which enabled to demonstrate the influence of tacit knowledge towards building of
performance measurement system. Hence, Content analysis was used to achieve the final outcome of the
research.
CSFs Identification
methods
Building causal
performance map
Method 1
Archival analysis
Developing a map
(represent explicit
knowledge)
Method 2
Ethnographic
analysis
Developing a map
(represent explicit
and tacit knowledge)
Method 3
Interactive
participation
Developing a map
(represent explicit
and tacit knowledge)
Representing
overall knowledge
Building a final map

with CSFs identified
in previous 3 maps
Figure 2: Process of Case Study with a Phase of Action Research Approach
As a data reduction method, code-based content analysis was used in this study to capture important
concepts from the transcripts and for effective interpretation. This study selected the software program
NVivo 7 for coding function to simplify the works relating to content analysis. Cognitive mapping, which
is a network technique, was selected for data displaying process within this study. Cognitive maps
visualise knowledge and communicate the visualisation to individuals, groups or organisations that helps
to convert tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge (Eden, 1992). One type of cognitive map that captures
judgments about the link between actions and outcomes is a causal map. Building a causal map is a means
of converting individuals tacit knowledge to a model of explicit CSFs and their interrelations. In causal
maps, the nodes are the constructs that the individual feels important and the arrows show the relations
among the constructs (Atkinson and Bowman, 2001). A causal performance map can be viewed as a
cognitive map of organisational success. CSFs and arrows represent the links among inputs, processes
265
and valued outcomes. In this manner, cognitive mapping provided data to support the development of a
PM system for the fulfilment of this research. By tapping the knowledge of individuals within an
organisation, a causal performance map described the CSFs and relations among them. This map made
possible to define measures that are potential candidates for inclusion in a PMS system.
5.
RESEARCH FINDINGS
Method 1: Archival Analysis

The first causal performance map derived in this study results from the currently identified and practicing
CSFs in the selected five star hotel. Currently identified and practicing CSFs in the hotel represent the
explicit knowledge of the organisation (refer Table 1 for CSFs). For the confidentiality, researcher did not
include the BSC of the selected hotel and only CSFs are extracted in this research with the permission of
the hotel management. Each observed linkage was evaluated by reading the relevant transcript sections to
subjectively assess whether the observed linkage is coherent or spurious. Only those links with at least
seven logical links are retained in the map (refer Figure 3).
Table 1: Critical Success Factors of the Hotel
Communication
Recruitment
Performance Reviews
Department Status
Retention
Networking
Department-level Financial Outcomes
Teamwork
Process Constraints
People and Technology Constraints
Training
Satisfaction
Employee Satisfaction
Empowerment
Leadership
Figure 3: Process of Case Study with a Phase of Action Research Approach
Method 2: Ethnographic Analysis of Interview Data

Figure 4 describes a more complex map that reflects interpretations of the importance of expressed causal
linkages beyond the more restrictive method 1. This includes nine additional CSFs such as Leadership,
Communication, Performance reviews, Networking, Customer profiling, Service contributions, Staff as
drivers of innovation, Department Status and Hotels financial position. These are recognised in the
model where at least one interviewee expressed as important but hotel fails to identify and practice none
of these CSFs hence, they were not captured in method 1. Customer profiling is one of the nine additional
266
CSFs is unique to the map that is included in the production processes category in method 2 but not in
methods 1 or 3, which follows. Finally, Figure 4 identifies four additional external factors such as Quality
staff unavailability, Downfall in tourism, Location advantages and Market segmentation that are outside
the span of control of the hotel function that influence performance.
Figure 4: Ethnographic Analysis of Interview Data
Consistent with Figure 3, Figure 4 exhibits relations among CSFs within each category. Also consistent
with Figure 3, human and physical inputs affect production processes and effectiveness outcomes while
production processes affect effectiveness and efficiency outcomes. Unique to this causal performance
map is the bilateral relation between production processes and efficiency outcomes. The causal
performance map generated using ethnographic analysis of interview data is consistent with the map
generated by archival analysis method. Additional CSFs were identified and a recursive relation was
found between two categories.
Method 3: Interactive Mapping by the Experts
The overlaid individuals map into one causal performance map is shown in Figure 5. As in Figure 4;
Figure 5 represents the most general inclusion of CSFs and relations obtained from participants. In
addition, individual map expressed in participants own terms were combined into one common map
when definitions clearly matched. The level of complexity of Figure 5 undoubtedly reflects the number of
cards provided to the participants. Participants were provided with a set of cards (18 on average)
reflecting the most commonly cited CSFs in their own initial interviews. This purposeful research design
judgment makes the task descriptive but also keeps the cognitive complexity of the task within reasonable
limits, although the maximum feasible number of cards for the task was not apparent. Participants were
free to create additional CSFs cards beyond those provided by the researcher and three participants each
added only one. Participants appeared to be comfortable working with the cards provided; whether they
could have worked effectively with more cards is unknown. Figure 5 adds several important features to
the previous maps. One CSF that is unique to this map is Occupancy rates. Even though it was not
mentioned during the first round interviews, participants created this CSF during the map building
process. Two additional bi-lateral causal relations were added in this map. When building the map,
participants noted recursive relations between human and physical inputs and production processes and
between human and physical inputs and efficiency outcomes. Participating in Service contribution
programs affects employee training, communication and peer reviews while efficiency outcomes affect
the departments ability to recruit employees. Figure 5 introduces a feedback loop from outcomes back to
inputs which demonstrates that result of the efficiency outcome feeds to human and physical inputs to
maximise the efficiency of the organisation and it becomes a continues process.
267
Figure 5: Interactive Mapping by Participants
5.1.
INCORPORATING TACIT KNOWLEDGE INTO CSFS IDENTIFICATION PROCESS BY COMBINING

THREE METHODS
Once again, the most general combined map is created, effectively layering Figures 4 and 5 upon Figure
3. Figure 6 displays this combined casual performance map, which reflects the full set of counted,
contingent and elicited CSFs and their relations (Clarke and Mackaness, 2001). The causal maps;
archival, ethnographic, or participant interaction are complementary. The archival analysis method
created a map of causal links defined in the hotel BSC model and it reflects the explicit knowledge of the
hotel. This map served as an objective core. The ethnographic approach expanded the map to include
more CSFs and recursive causal relations. The participant interaction method again added a new CSF and
two additional recursive causal relations. While this is not the same as cross validation from independent
data, the combined method uses three assessments of the causal relations reflected in the data. This
method results in a more inclusive extraction and articulation of the causal linkages implicit in the
participants initial causal performance maps than any single approach. Combined method enhances the
possible descriptive validity of the map in Figure 6. This complex causal performance model reflects the
complicated nature of the hotel function studied here, which (like most business units) is a complex
entity. Figure 6 has clearly shown the impact that tacit knowledge made to this CSFs identification
process. Hotel managed to identify only 11 CSFs and 2 external factors with its explicit knowledge but
after the influences of tacit knowledge, the research managed to identify 21 CSFs and 6 external factors.
Figure 6: Triangulated Causal Performance Map
268
However, one may raise the question that by identifying more CSFs, will it lead to better performance
measurement? Actually, these 21 CSFs were identified based on the causal relationship where each
factor contributes towards achieving the primary objective of the organisation. For example, Training is
one of the CSF that identified by the hotel however it fails to identify the employee performance review
factor which is a vital CSF to determine whether particular employee require training or not and it
contributes to check the effectiveness of training as well. Fortunately, with the inclusion of experts tacit
knowledge, employee performance review factor is identified in Figure 6. Similarly, 21 CSFs identified in
the final map carries value reasons for the selection and it will certainly lead to better PM.
6.
CONCLUSIONS
Researcher found out the method to incorporate tacit knowledge in to PM in the hotel industry which was
the primary aim of this study. To achieve this, researcher used interviews as a common source of mental
data but combined three independent approaches to the analysis of the data to enhance the validity of the
causal performance map. With inclusion of tacit knowledge in to PM, 21 CSFs were identified based on
the causal relationship where each factor contributes towards achieving the primary objective of the
organisation. However, explicit knowledge managed to identify only 11 CSFs where some are not
frequently practiced by the organisation. Therefore, it could be concluded that it is effective to incorporate
tacit knowledge in PM in a Sri Lankan five star hotel and tacit knowledge externalisation techniques such
as stories, discussions, metaphors, analogies; etc. could be used during data collection process and
cognitive map could be used to represent the tacit knowledge of the experts. To ensure an effective PMS,
perhaps, at minimum, either the ethnographic or the interactive method could be used along with archival
analysis method to represent both the explicit and tacit knowledge of the organisation. Therefore, it is
important to develop guidelines to facilitate how tacit and explicit knowledge can be practically used to
develop PMS and enhance the overall performance of the hotel industry. The approach used in this study
for incorporating tacit knowledge into PM is adaptable to Sri Lankan hotel industry. It is also noted that
the findings in this study was consistent with the findings of Abernethy et al. (2005).
However, there are several potential limitations to the study. Researcher used limited numbers of experts
to develop the causal performance map to incorporate experts tacit knowledge for identifying CSF for
PM in the Sri Lankan hotel industry. It is thus possible that the map is not truly representative of the hotel
function (or similar programs) but only reflects the views of the respondents selected. The model is built
on qualitative data and may thus be subject to both interviewee and interviewer bias. Researcher
attempted to address these data limitations by adopting three alternative methods to extract the causal
model. Data also collected until the fulfilment of the research and the stories from set of experts were
consistent. The developed causal performance map might not be generalisable outside the hotel function.
However, the prime objective of the research study was not to develop a generalisable map but rather to
identify the method to incorporate tacit knowledge in performance measurement in Sri Lankan hotel
industry to prove the effectiveness of knowledge externalisation in developing PMS. Furthermore, all
such maps are idiosyncratic to specific settings. It is possible, however, that the basic elements of the
causal performance map are generalisable across hotel programs.
Further research can be directed towards assessing if this is the case. This would enable the development
of a more general hospitality causal performance map for use in multiple programs within the hotel
industry. The outcome of such research has the potential to make a significant contribution to the
management of the hospitality services. Three steps are required to develop such system. First, it is
necessary to identify suitable measures (KPIs) for each CSF in the causal performance map, thereby
converting the causal performance map into a performance measurement system. Second, the statistical
significance of the CSFs needs to be established. This will enable an identification of the most critical
performance drivers among the array of CSFs. Third, top management needs to assess the costs and
potential accuracy of on-going measurement of these CSFs. While there are costs associated with the
design and implementation of a performance measurement system based on causal performance mapping,
the process in itself ensures that the tacit knowledge impacted in core operating units is converted to
explicit organisational knowledge. This is an important way the organisation can build its organisational
capabilities.
269
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INDUSTRY ATTRACTIVENESS OF OUTSOURCED FACILITIES

MANAGEMENT SERVICES IN SRI LANKA
R.P.N.P. Weerasinghe* and D.M.P.P. Disanayake
A.K. Andarawera
Integrated Facilities Management, Jones Lang LaSalle Lanka Pvt Ltd., Sri Lanka
ABSTRACT
Buildings should be habitable, safe, durable, energy efficient and adaptive to use though it is expensive
to manage. The specialized team of Facilities Management (FM) is thus invited to create a comfort
built environment that strongly supports the core business of the organization. The emergent trend of
outsourcing FM services has become widespread topic in the field of built environment though it is
relatively new to the Sri Lankan context. Hence, this study aims to examine the attractiveness of the
market for FM services in Sri Lanka as a primary step. Porters five forces analysis was developedat
the line-of-business industry level to analyse the existing market. A comprehensive literature review
was carried out on a broader perspective with the purpose of getting familiarise with the research
phenomena. In order to examine the attractiveness of the outsourced FM market two FM
professionals; one from an International FM company and the other from a Local FM company,
employed at the strategic level were interviewed. The research findings revealed that the market for
FM services in Sri Lanka is long been considered as a niche market with a slower growth and is still in
its infancy. Two companies, a local and a global company are dominating in the industry. The Porters
five forces indicated that average bargaining power of client; less bargain power of suppliers; less
substitutes; lower level competition thus there are few barriers to enter the market. However, it is
clear that the boundaries of the market have not been defined yet; hence the new entrants have the
freedom to define their own market share. This study urges to define the market for outsourced FM
services and further, FM companies can get the benefit of this analysis in order to formulate successful
business strategies to enter and sustain in the market.
Keywords:
1.
Market Competition; Outsourced Facilities Management; Porter's Five Forces.
INTRODUCTION
The ever-increasing competition for new construction works, increased number of aged buildings and the
changing need of building occupants have created a vacuum for efficient and effective management of the
built environment. Buildings owners or users are hunting for favourable solutions of lower operational
costs and less risks through effective and efficient management of building related support services,
without compromising their business performance (Shohet and Lavy, 2010). Thus, the buildings owners
used to delegate or outsourced their building management operations to a specialised Facilities
Management (FM) team. The practice of outsourcing FM services has been encouraged mainly by the
promise of getting better service at lower costs compared to producing the services in in-house
(Ventovuori and Lehtonen, 2006). It is therefore a massive demand for the outsourced FM industry has
been created and it has been gradually broadening its capabilities with a rapid growth around the world.
The market for outsourced FM services is large and growing, estimated at more than $500 billion
globally. The market is segmented by provision of services to include single service (65% of the global
market), bundled services (23%), and Integrated Facilities Management (IFM) service (12%) (Little,
2016). The market for outsourcing bundled and Total Facilities Management services were valued at just
over 18.5 billion in 2013 in UK (AMA Research, 2016). Jensen (2010) report cited that 53 billion for
the total potential FM market in the five Nordic countries. The Swedish, Finland, Norway, and Denmark
*
273
FM market was 23 billion, 12 billion, 9 billion, 8 billion, and 0.7 billion respectively. Tan et al.,
(2014) mentioned that the building maintenance is becoming a major market in Hong Kong due to the
declining investment in new construction projects, investment in maintenance and repair work in recent
years in most developed countries.
According to Raghunathan and Bera (2014), the concept of outsourcing FM is at its emerging stage in Sri
Lanka. There is a slight growing trend towards outsourcing FM services over the traditional in-house FM
departments in Sri Lankan business organisations. Numbers of local and global FM companies are
evolving in the industry. Some of the companies have survived in the market while some companies have
retreated and some more companies are aiming to establish. The recent developments in FM industry
have heightened the need for analysing FM outsourced market in Sri Lanka which has not paid attention
by the recent researchers yet. The study is therefore aims to assess the prevailing competitiveness of FM
outsourced industry in Sri Lanka to identify whether the outsourced FM industry is attractive or
unattractive to invest.
2.
LITERATURE REVIEW
This section explores the relevant literature in the research arena with major focus is given to four areas;
FM in general, FM in a business context, FM market in Sri Lanka and finally Porter's five forces theory.
2.1.
FACILITIES MANAGEMENT
Facilities Management is a profession that has ascended as a significant proponent in the built
environment. According to Alexander (2003), FM entails the integration of people, technology, and
support services to achieve an organizations mission.Wiggins (2010) defined FM as a management
function concerning three interrelated elements of business, i.e. premises, support services and
information technology. FM covers an extremely wide field of activities including physical issues of built
space, services, technology, maintenance, modification and adaptation; the human and business concerns
of facility purpose, function and use, security, safety, comfort and environmental health; it covers the
financial issues of property investment, asset value, the costs and benefits of occupancy (Nutt, 1999).
Followed by Nutt (2000) revealed the primary function of FM as the resource management, at strategic
and operational levels of support. The same report stated that the management of financial resources,
human resources, physical resources, and the management of the resources of information and knowledge
identified as the generic type of resources that are central to the FM functions. Thus, FM is an integrated
approach of maintaining, improving, and adapting the buildings of an organisation in order to create an
environment that strongly supports the primary objectives of the organisation (Barrett and Baldry, 1995).
There are common themes and approaches to FM including outsource, in-house or partial outsource
or in-house, regardless of the size and location of buildings (Atkin and Brooks, 2009). The arrangements
of FM functions may relate to the particular personality, needs, circumstance and environment of the
organisation at the time (Chotipanich, 2004). An effective FM encompasses multiple activities under
various disciplines, combine resources, and it is vital to the success of any organization (Noor and Pitt,
2009). In the beginning of 21st century, when the property is recognized as a cost-center that can
contribute to profit (Shohet and Lavy, 2010), the novel strategies or approaches of FM were highly
demand driven. In global context, FM is identified as a most mandatory function within the building
industry so that it spreads widely transforming its traditional shapes into most demand function catering
to contemporary business environment. The next section discusses the evolvement of FM in business
context.
2.2.
FM IN A BUSINESS CONTEXT
The ever-increasing competition for new construction works, declining investment in new construction
projects, high investment and focus on maintenance and repair work, need of maintaining those existing
buildings that are still in good conditions and many other factors have created to emerge and continually
stay FM market around the world (Tan et al., 2014). FM has established itself as a key service sector,
with a diverse and highly-competitive market of FM contractors, in-house FM teams, FM vendors, FM
274
consultants and professional FM institutions (Tay and Ooi, 2001). Accordingly, FM has been
transforming its role and functions to respond building industry vacuums at any given time. According to
Alexander (2003), a market for facilities service is developing rapidly, with increasing emphasis on
management roles. FM companies and consultants are developing new value added services with the
growing need of clients. Sustainability and energy management solutions, customer satisfaction, maintain
better environmental conditions, measuring key performance indicators, different types of contracts for
risk sharing are few prospects of clients from the FM outsourced companies (Tan et al., 2014; IFMA,
2011). In addition, International Facility Management Association (IFMA) (2011) reported that trends
towards FM service providers have been recently changed primarily due to the global economic
recession.The trends are to lower the FM contract price due lowest rental rates, use of performance based
and gain sharing structure and change suppliers to make pricing concessions due to pressure on client
cash flows and etc. Further it was revealed that client prefers to sign flexible and short term negotiated
contracts allowing to re-position it with the future growth (IFM, 2011). However, FM has to incorporate
sustainability, innovation and intelligence to provide a high standard of living and working environment
for people in future context (Tan et al., 2014).
With the demand driven growing trend, firms have moved to the FM market using different strategies or
approaches. Tan et al., (2012) proposed that the contractors could sustain business in long-term by
entering to the FM market. The contractors shall reconsider the share of the maintenance in their business
as there will be more opportunities in building maintenance, repair and renovation than new construction.
Further, a single service supplier could expand their business towards bundled services and further to IFM
service providers as shown in Figure 1 (Denali Group, 2013). The Figure 1 illustrates the growth of IFM
suppliers and other industry profiles. The growth in the single service has moderated due to high
outsourcing rates and pricing pressures while IFM demand is expected to remain strong as companies
continue to consolidate their FM services (Little, 2016).
Figure 1: IFM Supplier Progression

Source: Denali Group (2013)
According to AMA Research (2016), the development of FM market has been positively influenced by
the trend to outsource an increasing array of services, with a gradual shift towards bundled service and
Total FM contracts adding to contract values. PFI/PPP (Public Private Partnership) schemes have
provided significant impetus for growth over the last decade with Design, Build Finance Operation
(DBFO) schemes commonly incorporating long-term in UK. According to the Denali Group (2013),
USAFM industry remains highly fragmented and competitive and highlighted the following factors of the
competitive market.
Price and the quality of service: The low cost of entry in the facility services business intensifies
the marketplace,
Large number of service providers: A large number of regional and local owner-operated
companies, located mostly in key cities in US.
Low product differentiation: the scope of service offerings

275
Competition from building owners
Availability of a large pool of labour
Moderate growth in prices of materials and purchases for facilities management services
Service providers have been looking to expand their service offering to attract new customers and
increase the opportunity of extending their present contracts
The Denali Group (2013) further highlighted the key demand factors of FM services industry:
Economic Activity: Positive trends in macroeconomic indicators induce investment by both

government and private sector, drive corporate profits, and widen service sector growth, directly
driving facilities services demand.
Occupancy: Improvement in office absorption and decrease in office vacancy rate indicates
growing demand for offices, and thus affects facilities services demand.
Employment: High unemployment rate impacts facilities management industry negatively as

bankruptcies and shutdowns impact the demand for facilities management
KPMG (2015) highlighted competitive characteristics of Real Estate and Facilities Management (REFM)
outsourcing market as follows,
Many firms prefer to bundle their REFM services under the fewest number of service providers
and operate under an integrated model to further reduce costs, drive consistency, and improve
governance, controls, service level agreements, KPIs, and performance reporting.
The key for buyers defining outsourcing goals is to ensure that their scope and level are practical
and achievable given the nature of the outsourcing effort and in the context of buyers own
outsourcing skills and capabilities.
Tactical REFM services (e.g., workplace and facilities services, lease administration, facilities
management) are the activities most commonly outsourced.
A growing number of service providers are demonstrating advanced capabilities to integrate into
existing business operations to provide more high-value and strategic services in terms of
services offered
Organizations are increasingly seeking bids for services and considering alternative providers
rather than simply renewing the contract with existing providers to ensure that buyers are getting
the best price available for the services in scope and are best leveraging the current capabilities
in the market.
A most REFM outsourcing contracts are three to five years in length to provide buyers the
flexibility to swap out providers
A variety of factors affect service provider profitability including deal scope, transition costs and
time frames, exchange rates, wage inflation, and buyer pricing sophistication
The biggest factors impacting contract profitability are buyer pressure on pricing and aggressive
competitiveness between providers, along with some buyer pull-back on more profitable
discretionary services and an increased focus on cost cutting over process improvement work
A growing competitiveness within the FM service sector raised a necessity among FM providers to
differentiate the services they provide from their competitors, which can be achieved by giving attention
to the specific needs of their clients (Cardellino and Finch, 2006). Tay (2006) discovered that both
hardware, i.e. facilities and software, i.e. business philosophy of the organisation are important to enhance
its competitive position with the FM. Tan et al. (2014) highlighted the fact that clients satisfaction,
certification of company, reliability of service, quality of service, and company reputation as critical
success factors of FM service organizations. Jensen (2010) noted that the combination of internal
(corporate function under constant reformation in accordance with the development and the changing
needs of the core business) and external market (outsourcing and the business strategies of a range of
different types of provider companies) give strong dynamic forces for the field of FM practice.
276
Furthermore, AMA Research (2016) highlighted the fact that there has been a trend for large FM
companies to make strategic acquisitions in order to increase their range of services and competitive
position, the more difficult trading conditions have also influenced this trend to consolidation. This trend
has accepted with the national or global coverage favouring larger multinational FM providers. The key
to advancement will be maintaining high standard of services in core activities whilst adding value by
offering enhancements and differentiated services. Although, these concepts are still novel to the Sri
Lankan context, FM market is evolving steadily in Sri Lanka. The next section discusses how FM market
has been evolving in Sri Lankan context.
2.3.
FM MARKET IN SRI LANKA
Sri Lanka is proactively investing in various infrastructural projects, from improving transport networks
to telecommunications and electricity generation. This has resulted the construction sector steadily
increasing its stake in the Sri Lankan GDP from 7.6% in 2009 to 10.3% in 2013 (Raghunathan and Bera,
2014). According to Mayank and Robin (2009), there is a healthy demand for office and residential space
in the Colombo real estate market with the growth in the textiles and apparel industry finance, insurance
and information and communication technology hotels and restaurants sector. These sectors may look for
a quality space environment. Raghunathan and Bera (2014) cited that, not only Colombo area, but also in
out of Colombo areas have high demand for quality space environment with the growth of new real estate
projects. With real estate costs being the second largest cost component after human resources for the
services industry, awareness for it amongst office occupiers and developers regarding various cost-saving
opportunities is important (Raghunathan and Bera, 2014). Thus, Sri Lankan property market seeks for
specialised teams cater to the growing demand of FM.
According to Raghunathan and Bera (2014), the concept of outsourcing FM is at its nascent stage in Sri
Lanka. Companies have historically adopted more of an in-house model with an out-tasking approach in
which single services such as cleaning, catering or maintenance, are delegated to external providers. The
FM industry is still evolving in Sri Lanka, the shortage of qualified talent, benchmarking data and highquality service providers and suppliers could create challenges in the quality and consistency of services.
So far, also, there has been little attention paid on this. It is therefore assessing the competiveness of the
FM outsourced market in Sri Lanka together with its strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats is a
timely requirement. In this context, Porters five force theory is suitable to assess FM outsourced market
competitiveness. Accordingly, the next section briefly elaborates underlying principle behind, Porters
Five Force theory and how it is used in this study.
2.4
PORTERS FIVE FORCE THEORY
In 1980, Michael Porter introduced five basic competitive forces that defined the competition in an
industry as shown in Figure 2. According to Porter (1980), the collective strength of these forces
determines the ultimate profit potential in the industry, where profit potential is measured in terms of
long run return on invested capital. Not all industries have the same potential. They differ
fundamentally in their ultimate profit potential when the collective strength of the forces differs. In
2008, Porter has updated the five forces by mentioning that the five forces framework is to
understand strategic implications for individual firms within an industry (Porter, 2008). Various
authors have interpreted the theory favourably and adversely. However, this study applied the theory
in order to assess the outsourced FM industry in Sri Lanka in terms of customers, suppliers,
substitutes, potential entrants and competitive rivalry.
277
Figure 2: Forces Driving Industry Competition

Source: Porter (1980)
3.
The study was structured in several steps. A comprehensive literature review was carried out on a broader
perspective with the purpose of getting familiarize with the research phenomena. This was mainly taken
place to identify the outsourced FM industry and its growing trends in both local and global arena.
Interview guidelines were developed based on the findings of the literature review. The interview
guideline mainly consisted of two stages; namely; general information, existing FM industry. In order to
examine the attractiveness of the outsourced FM market, the two expert interviews were carried out with
experienced industry professional. The selection of experts was screened to the organisations which
outsourced total FM services. It was found that few local and foreign companies exist in Sri Lanka.
Corporate level persons from both local and foreign companies were selected for the study (refer Table
1). Semi structured interviews were carried out with them to assess the existing outsourced FM market in
Sri Lanka. Finally, content analysis was used to streamline the findings of two respondents into five
forces of Porters theory.
Table1: Respondent Profiles
Respondent
Year of Experience
Company Profile
Respondent 1
(R1)
23yrs
The respondent employed in a premier property development and

investment holding organisation based in Sri Lanka. They are
mainly delivering FM services to two of Colombos most iconic
developments. In addition, they manage facilities ranging from
commercial, retail to residential.
Respondent 2
(R2)
16yrs
The respondent employed in a global real estate services firm

specialising in commercial property and investment management,
providing comprehensive services for real estate management,
which has recently established in Sri Lanka.
4.
DATA ANALYSIS
The findings from two expert interviews were discussed under Five Forces introduced by Michel porter.
Those will be the basis for following discussion. There are five headings, namely; Threat of new entrants,
Threat of substitute, bargaining power of buyers, bargaining power of suppliers and finally competitive
278
rivalry. The aim of this study is to analyse the existing FM outsourced industry in Sri Lanka in terms of
its competitiveness. Michel Porter introduced five forces that would determine the competitive position
within the market. This section discusses the prevailing market of outsourced FM in Sri Lanka.
Threat of New Entrants
Various strategies have been used to enter the Sri Lankan FM market by local and international
companies. R1 employs in an organisation which is managing and operating one of the largest high rise
buildings in Sri Lanka for more than 15 years. Having seen the opportunity in the industry and their
potentials to survive in the industry, the company expanded its operations as a FM services provider. The
very first FM business of the company was a residential property which was invested by the company
itself. According to one of the respondents (R1), the reputation that was built over the years, competent
human resources and physical resources have supported to enter the industry easily. R1further mentioned
that entering to this industry was very easy as we have proven our capacity over past years by
maintaining the largest building which enables to maintain the trust for the client. R2 employed in a
foreign company which is new to the Sri Lankan FM industry, mentioned that being a multinational
company with competent resources make easy to enter the market. This company has used a Greenfield
investment strategy where the company was originated by itself while bearing risks associated and cost to
enter the market. R2 mentioned that we didnt face any challenges or issues to catch the Sri Lankan
market since there is no government restrictions, or rigid legal framework or political interventions.
This view was accepted by the R1 as well. However, both respondents explained that companies have to
possess huge financial resources to enter the market. R2 is uncertain about the economic stability of the
country. Thus, R2 is doubt about the exchange rate risk, inflation rates and other price fluctuations from a
point of view of an international company. However, both organisations are currently satisfied with the
return, company growth and success in the FM market. Moreover, both respondents accepted that the
industry is not matured and it is in growth stage whereas it is easy for new companies to enter the market.
There are huge opportunities in the market for both international and local companies.
Threat of Substitute
It is obvious that the property owners have three options to obtain FM services; either in-house or
outsource or partial in house or outsource. According to respondents, most of the buildings are allocated
in house staff to carry out FM services. The respondents believed that this will be changed in near future
where there will be a huge growing demand for outsourcing FM services among all building sectors. R2
stated that who likes to bear the burden or take responsible of the burden, thus, most are looking for a
company to delegate their FM services for a reasonable price. This was very similar to the idea of R1
where R1 was of the opinion that considering my past few years of experience, more buildings are
interested to outsource FM services to a specialised team. This is profitable than employing in-house
staff. Hence, it can be safely concluded that there is a less threat from the substitute service of in house.
Bargaining Power of Buyers
The outsourced FM market is relatively small in Sri Lanka. Buyers of this industry are property owners or
clients who wish to procure FM services. In Sri Lanka, there is a large pool of clients in different property
categories such as hotels, retail, hospital, residential and other and these clients have different
expectations. According to the R1, property owners in residential buildings or condominiums are mostly
outsourcing their operations comparing to other property owners. This is also proved by the fact that most
of the clients of R1 and R2 are from residential sector. R2 serves for the clients of office buildings,
manufacturing, corporate and other commercial properties. R2 further mentioned that we got lot of
business by word of mouth, and when some reputed organisations accept outsourcing prior to in house,
there is high tendency to follow the same trend by other companies well. Accordingly, both respondents
are expecting growing future demand from the different client categories due to transformation of clients
perceptions or trends as well as the new constructions. Hence, it is apparent that there are huge customers
for this industry though less number of FM outsourced companies exists in the industry.
The discussion revealed that the FM services are provided through the contracts of minimum one year
period. The parties can negotiate the contract terms according to their preference. Trust and performance
of the service provider may directly stimulate to break or renew the contract period. Client can switch to
different contractors after a prior notice. Further, client and service provider mutually decided the contract
279
price. Determining the price is critical for both parties. Respondents highlighted that client has a higher
ing power in deciding the contract prices.
According to respondents, Sri Lankan clients are not well aware of the concept of FM. R2 mentioned that
clients request different levels of services and they have different expectations as they do not have any
idea on what is FM. Thus, FM service providers generally explain their services, capacities and service
outcomes to their clients about the benefits in addition to their business. The study revealed that both
companies of R1 and R2 are very selective on deciding the clients. R2 said I don not want troublesome
clients. Thus we focus mostly on genuine customers where we can negotiate. This demonstrates the fact
that the service provider is more powerful within an environment of uneducated clients about FM.
However, when it comes to a selective approach, client has high bargaining power for obtaining FM
services than the service provider.
Bargaining Power of Suppliers
Current practice of the industry is FM companies subcontracting some of the services to suppliers upon
winning the main contact. In this industry, suppliers are single service providers such as security,
cleaning, pest control, building maintenance, office equipment service and other facilities related services.
The study discovered that there are number of suppliers or sub contracted parties in the industry and most
of them are local companies. However, respondents are not satisfied with the quality of the service and
performance level of suppliers. This was confirmed by R1 stating that I doubt whether these suppliers
are resourceful and they have sufficient technologies or knowledge to perform their task. In further, we
are having scarcity of quality suppliers. Due to the lack of experts and availability of large pool of
suppliers, the bargain power of the suppliers is less in the industry. Therefore, it would be a new
challenge for them to compete in the industry and there is a need of developing their capacities in terms of
quality, time, technology, performance etc.
Competitive Rivalry
The defined Sri Lankan market for outsource FM services is yet to be discovered. More FM companies
have initiated their business recently and need to expand limits of the FM market. Local companies who
were providing a single FM service, have extended their portfolios by providing total FM solutions. The
in-house FM units which have long being operated and managed high rise buildings having identified its
full potentials and capabilities, have converted their business centres to delivering total FM solutions.
Property developers or real estate companies and construction companies have diversified their business
risks and expanded the market by entering to total FM services industry. Moreover, international FM
companies have initiated business in Sri Lanka with growing demand for FM services. Number of local
and foreign outsourced companies exist in the industry and many more companies are expecting to
establish. It was discovered that two companies which were selected for this study are dominating the
market due to its financial and reputational capacities. However, the competitors are having different
strategies. The reputation, quality of the service, financial resource, human resources and brand loyalty
enable FM companies to compete in the industry. However, it was found that there is a cold war among
these companies.
5.
DISCUSSION
The choice of in-house or outsource FM services is a critical decisions taken by the property owners. It is
obvious that there are advantages and disadvantages of both the approaches though various facts
contribute for the decision. However, in Sri Lanka, there is a slight growing trend towards outsourcing
FM services and therefore there is an emergent market for the outsourced FM organisations to cater to the
growing demand. Number of organisations are approaching the market and delivering their services
according to their own strategies. Hence, the study intended to investigate the prevailing competitiveness
in the industry through the Porters five forces analysis. Figure 3 presents the features of the existing FM
outsourced industry in terms of five forces which were discussed in the aforementioned section. It was
revealed that it is easy to enter the market as there are less political, governmental and legal aspects
though companies required to possess a strong financial and human resource base. Further, there are
different types of clients in different property sectors and their bargaining power is average due to the
280
large pool of untapped customer requirements. The industry is price sensitive. There is no differentiation
strategy other than the in-house approach. Though there are many suppliers exist in the industry, their
power is less. Even though there is a slight competition prevails among the existing FM companies, the
market is attractive for innovative and expert FM service providers.
Business organisations cannot always succeed in their business operations of this industry. According to
respondents, several foreign and local companies have failed in this industry. It is therefore companies
decisions to identify its target market and potentials. R2 mentioned that this industry in Sri Lanka is
Virgin, and there is lot more to grow in this industry. However, it is evidenced that there are great
opportunities in this industry and the respondents are expecting more demand for the FM businesses in
the future.
Figure 3: Outsourced FM Market in Sri Lanka: Porters Five Forces
6.
FM market in Sri Lanka is long been considered a niche market that has not been widely considered by
industry professionals or researchers. The growth of the FM industry in Sri Lanka is very slow and the
market is still in its infancy. The definition of FM is poorly understood and it is not being practiced in an
appropriate way. It was apparent that foreign companies and local companies are operating as a FM
service providing companies and this has become most interesting topic in the field of built environment.
Specially, there is a growing trend for outsourced market within the Colombo region due to the massive
ongoing construction projects, urban development projects, and new investments on infrastructure
development projects. Considering the opportunities and the vacuum of the market, more and more
foreign and local companies are aiming for the industry. Thus, this study intended to assess the
281
competitiveness of the existing outsourced FM market in Sri Lanka. The Porters five forces analysis is
enabled to identify the industry competitiveness and attractiveness. According to the findings, the market
is attractive for investors. However, investors require financial resources and competent enough human
resources to sustain or gain profitability within the market. Changing perceptions of property owners for
the decision of outsourcing FM services is creating large number of clients and more opportunities for the
FM service providers. There is cold war in the industry among few FM service providers for the existing
market which is defined by their own. In fact, the industry is attractive and welcoming resources in order
to expand the boundaries of the market. However, the FM business organisations should build up their
own loyalty, trust and resources to gain competitive advantage in order to make profits in the industry.
7.
FURTHER RESEARCH
This study is a preliminary investigation of analysing the outsourced FM services market in Sri Lanka.
The researchers are expecting to expand the study in order to identify market entry strategies, product
diversification strategies and critical success factories for business performance for FM service industry
in Sri Lanka.
8.
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INTEGRATING DISASTER MANAGEMENT PERSPECTIVE INTO

ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN EDUCATION AT UNDERGRADUATE LEVEL A CASE EXAMPLE FROM TURKEY
Emrah Acar* and Fadime Yalinkaya
Department of Architecture, Istanbul Technical University, Turkey
ABSTRACT
The paper highlights key points and problem areas associated with integrating management
perspective into the architectural design education. Architects with appropriate training can easily
broaden their traditional roles to enhance the capacity of the society to respond to disasters through
efficient, sustainable, socially and culturally responsible designs. However, the number of
undergraduate and post-graduate programs which integrate disaster management perspective into
their curriculum as a long-term proactive strategy to build resilience is very low. Based on experience
from a series of Construction Project Studios with different themes and scenarios at Istanbul
Technical University, Department of Architecture, the paper compares the typical design process with
a disaster-focused process to highlight the differences. There are a couple of key issues in the
educational context to integrate disaster management perspective into the architectural education: a
shift towards a more collective problem solving space in the design studio along with an intellectual
familiarity with the problems of contemporary society; an understanding of the heterogeneity of the
needs and characteristics of different vulnerable groups; an adequate background knowledge to filter
and adapt common design principles and norms, so that they are relevant to disaster and project
scenarios; and a familiarity with technical solutions patterns such as open prefabrication and adaptive
re-use. The findings may show directions for future educational research, where little empirical
evidence exists.
Keywords:
1.
Architectural Design Education; Built Environment, Disaster Management; Disaster

Preparedness.
INTRODUCTION
Disasters, whatever their origin, can be traumatic events for a society, causing extensive loss of life and
other large scale material/non-material losses, and disrupting its normal functioning (Malalgoda et al.,
2010). Many scholars agree that the scale of threats facing the contemporary cities have escalated in
recent decades. The vulnerability of the marginalized groups, especially those struggling with poverty in
the poorly built urban environments have raised due to economic, demographic and socio-political
changes (Bosher and Dainty, 2011; Owen and Dumashie, 2007; Lloyd-Jones et al., 2009).
Built environment professionals and the universities are often thought to take critical roles in the disaster
management process in cooperation with governmental and non-governmental stakeholders (Amaratunga
and Haigh, 2010; Llyoyd-Jones, 2009; Thurairajah et al., 2011). Technical know-how and the routines of
the built environment professionals concerning the design, construction, planning, procurement and
management of the built environment facilities have a clear relationship with the disaster management
initiatives and they can significantly contribute to the prevention and minimization of disaster losses if
they broaden their traditional roles (Thurairajah et al., 2011; Malalgoda et al., 2010) with appropriate
training (Amaratunga and Haigh, 2010). Bosher and Dainty (2011) argue that a diverse range of hazards
are likely to become more significant in future years and so it has become incumbent upon those
responsible for planning, designing and constructing the built environment to take account of these threats
as a core part of their professional activity.
284
However, disaster management concept is relatively new to the built environment discipline, especially
for the architectural designers, except its regular concerns on effective and strong structural designs
(Thurairajah et al., 2011). The number of undergraduate and post-graduate programs which provide
disaster management education is very low (Thurairajah et al., 2011) signalling the ignorance of the role
of built environment professionals (Bosher and Dainty, 2011). Scholars and various international agencies
have called for curriculum changes/re-design to incorporate disaster management perspective and skills
into the education programmes (Thurairajah et al., 2011; Bosher and Dainty, 2011 for additional
references). Ideally, these programmes can be multidisciplinary to blend know-how from engineering
sociology, architecture, anthropology, finance, management, and other fields; so the professionals can
gain familiarity with both the hard and soft dimensions of the disaster management phenomenon (Cage et
al., 2009).
Based on a series of construction project studio works at undergraduate level, this theoretical paper aims
to contribute to the ongoing debate on the integration of disaster management perspective into the
architectural design education, as a long term proactive strategy. After a brief summary of the background
literature and focusing on the role of architectural designers in the disaster management process, the paper
aims to highlight some key points and problem areas based on different project themes or technical
solution patterns such as post-disaster camp planning, temporary urban housing, adaptive re-use.
2.
DISASTER MANAGEMENT CYCLE AND THE ROLE OF ARCHITECTS
Disaster management is defined as a collective term encompassing all aspects of planning for and
responding to disasters, including both pre-disaster and post-disaster activities (CERO, 2004).
Researchers often highlight a paradigmatic shift concerning the approaches to manage and avoid
disasters: from reactive to pro-active. The former refers to response-driven strategies, which typically
focus on rapid mobilization of resources and response to disasters, such as saving lives, providing
emergency relief and marshalling resources for restoration and reconstruction (Bosher and Dainty,
2011). Pro-active strategies, with a more holistic and long-term approach, place emphasis on disaster
preparedness, hazard mitigation and vulnerability reduction rather than the often reactive focus on
disaster management and relief. to address pre-event vulnerabilities (Ibid.). The priorities for action
adopted in The World Conference on Disaster Reduction held in January 2005 in Hyogo, Japan, shed
light on how this paradigm shift can be realized and put into practice at national and international levels
(Lloyd-Jones, 2009): Education to build a culture of safety and resilience at all levels; and strengthening
disaster preparedness for effective response at all levels with a special emphasis on preventative strategies
are among those major priorities (Ibid.).The term disaster management cycle (DMC) refers to the process
that consists of four interrelated phases of disaster management (March and Leon, 2013; Thurairajah et
al., 2011; Malalgoda et al., 2010): prevention/mitigation and preparedness; response/immediate relief and
recovery. The latter is called the rehabilitation/reconstruction phase (Thurairajah et al., 2011). These
phases may be separated by unplanned gaps (Llyoyd-Jones, 2009) or they may be overlapped and they
operate as a closed loop because a major aim of hazard management is to learn from experience and
feedback (Malalgoda et al., 2010). Bosher and Dainty (2011) argue that if the relationships between the
different phases of this cycle are misunderstood, there is the risk of developing inappropriate disaster
responses. Targeting favoured communities instead of the most affected people or being part of overly
influenced efforts that are non-conducive to the attainment of social/physical resilience are among the
examples of inappropriate responses.
What kind of roles can the architects take throughout the disaster management cycle? What kind of skills
do they need to possess? For some authors like Glass (2008), the role of architectural designers is
particularly interesting due to their potential to influence the specifications and configuration of materials
(Bosher et al., 2007). Among the few studies that are concerned with such questions, Lloyd-Jones (2009)
focused on the issue and provided a comprehensive summary of the possible roles of architectural
designers along with other professionals. Table 1 shows the diversity of the roles that architects can
undertake over the DMC. However, while there are researchers who highlight the need for the integration
of disaster management perspective into the architectural curriculum (Cage et al, 2009; Thurairajah et al.,
2011), the body of literature which addresses these questions appears relatively scarce. Cage et al. (2009)
argue that there are few countries where architecture students gain skills to design for disasters. If we
285
conceive shelter or housing just a delivery problem, the authors contend, there may not be a need for the
architect. For architects to be part of the solutions, they need to learn how to talk to people and
collaborate with other disciplines. Developing post-disaster solutions, however, may require different
skills than a commercial practice (Ibid.) and an ability to understand the contextual differences between
normal vs disaster situations (Thurairajah et al., 2011). Consequently, architects might have to unlearn
their usual approaches and relearn new ways of working to be effective, where the ability to engage in
collective problem solving becomes especially critical (Cage et al., 2009). Except for such limited
number of remarks, however, there appears a knowledge gap regarding the educational dimension of
disaster phenomenon and the current weaknesses of the academia to integrate relevant strategies into the
design education. So, what kind of a framework can help us contribute to a theoretical discussion on the
issue? This is a methodological question.
Table 1: Roles of Architects in the Disaster Management Cycle
Phases
1. Risk and vulnerability
assessment
Activities
Assessment of the way people build in the area, their use of dwellings, community
facilities and other buildings;
Pinpoint historic and culturally important buildings at risk.
2. Disaster risk reduction

and mitigation
Facilitate community surveys and advise on the planning of community shelters

and dwellings.
3. Disaster preparedness
and pre-disaster planning
Provide advice on building use in the event of hazard.
4. Emergency relief
Design relief shelters for dwellings as well as larger structures for essential
services such as medical facilities and vulnerable groups that need special
accommodation such as the sick and injured.
Develop survey methods to facilitate the repair and reconstruction of dwellings,
vital facilities, community buildings and heritage buildings.
5. Early recovery-transition
Provide an assessment of traditional patterns of use of space, building materials

and technology; work as part of social survey teams.
Advise on the selection of building materials and technology that are part of the
compensation package.
Work with social development agencies to carry out surveys with community
groups and households for which shelter needs to be provided.
Establish footprints of dwellings and other typical and key buildings; draw up
local area layouts and site planning in consultation with communities and local
authorities. Ensure overall appropriateness to local culture.
Design and layout of transitional shelter. Ensure such shelter is appropriate to
social and religious custom.
Volunteer architects to train other volunteers and manage design and planning
process. Volunteers also required to be trained for building and construction.
Project management focusing on design and provision of transitional shelter.
Monitor and plan spending on building and construction.
6. Reconstruction
Design and planning of landscape elements.

Work with households and communities to ensure that housing is allocated
according to needs and preferences appropriately.
Advice on building related regulations.
Design and building technology for dwellings including covered, open and semiopen spaces and vegetation.
Supervision and advice as the buildings are constructed.
286
Develop interface between infrastructure and buildings/boundaries.

Provide training in construction, retrofitting and maintenance of dwellings, nondwellings.
Oversee the delivery of dwellings/ community facilities with the assistance of
community groups and the delivery of facilities such as hospitals with specific
clients.
Identify the contribution communities are making to dwellings and non-dwellings
and feed that into cost model.
7. Post reconstruction
development and review
Review and revisit dwellings and non-dwellings, observing the way people are
changing their life-style and habits in relation to the use of buildings. Ensure safe
and sustainable adaptations.
Undertake life cycle studies of reconstruction projects and plan for their eventual
replacement; work with existing communities to design new developments that
reduce their hazards.
Advice on reducing operational and management costs.
Identify regular housekeeping and maintenance procedures to avoid major repair.
Provide training in building design, construction and extensions for professionals
as well as communities.
Source: Lloyd-Jones (2009)
3.
RESEARCH METHOD
There are different school of thoughts regarding the nature of architectural design studio: For some
scholars, design studio is a place where reflection-in-action is key and it is a nonlinear, complex and an
anti-rational process, where learner and the coach gradually come to understand each other. According
to this view, end of design would become an open horizon of values and possibilities - not a solution to a
problem (Wang, 2010). Where design is seen as a problem solving process, from a traditional point of
view, it typically consists of interrelated and cyclical phases starting with the identification of
problems/objectives (Figure 1). For the purpose of this paper, taking design as a problem solving process
could allow a simple and practical comparison with a typical design studio process and highlight the
differences and potential problem areas concerning the integration of DM perspective into an educational
environment. Empirical observations, the basis for such a comparison, were based on a series of
construction project studio works with different themes and scenarios at Istanbul Technical University
(ITU), Department of Architecture. ITU has five departments in total including architecture, industrial
products design, urban and regional planning, interior design and landscape architecture. There were two
main motivations behind the initiative to integrate disaster management concept into the current
undergraduate curriculum of ITU, especially in a mega city like Istanbul which is statistically on the
verge of a catastrophic earthquake and is struggling with a large number of refugees - more than 2.5
million people following the political instabilities and wars in the Middle East: (1) to build/raise
awareness among architecture students before they graduate and practice in the industry, and (2) to
develop an inventory of root/core technical design solutions to be inputs for future disaster preparedness
and research initiatives, in collaboration with selected stakeholders. The following sections summarize
the experiences from the studio works of different semesters. Table 2 includes short descriptions of
selected projects from different semesters to illustrate the diversity of the problems/themes to address as
part of architectural design efforts.
287
Figure 1: The Typical Design Process

Table 2: Selected Examples of Undergraduate Design Projects
Theme
Scenario
Post-disaster camp
planning
Considering the fact that many architectural design solutions units fail to meet
the needs of families of varying size in emergencies, the design intervention
strategy sought flexible solutions for different demographic scenarios and plan
layouts for camp planning (see URL 7 of Annexure I ).
Temporary multi-storey
urban housing
The project scenario was based on a couple of assumptions: (i) it can be more
difficult to find appropriate locations for the horizontal development of housing
units after a catastrophic disaster, so vertical solutions can be relatively
advantageous when top-down governmental strategies are immediately needed;
(ii) it can be easier to cost-effectively meet safety and accessibility requirements
in multi-storey building which may function as neighborhoods in appropriate
locations, in addition to providing common and service areas to meet the
psychological needs of masses (see URL 8 of Annexure I).
Adaptive re-use of a steel

frame building as a
temporary student dorm
Project scenario focused on the transformation of a 3-year old steel-frame

building located at the ITU central campus to offer a temporary housing solution
for about 500 students. The project sought answer to the following question:
How can we quickly create an additional housing capacity for students in case
of a disaster (i.e. a big earthquake), assuming that the building will keep on
serving its original function after a year or more following the event? (see URL
9 of Annexure I).
Adaptive re-use of a
historical bridge as a
rehabilitation center for
women and children
Creating spaces for craft production with womens labor was the major focus of
the design strategy, considering the psychological contributions of production
i.e. the positive effect of being a productive person- in addition to meeting the
immediate financial needs of disaster victims (see URL 10 of Annexure I).
Adaptive re-use of a twostorey neighborhood

bazaar as a disaster
operations center
The project aimed to transform a two-story steel structure - a local district

bazaar - ground floor of which partly serves as a car park every week day, into a
local disaster operations center - many of which are likely to scatter around the
city following a large earthquake (see URL 11 of Annexure I).
Temporary neighborhood
bazaar
The scenario focused on the development of a temporary neighborhood bazaar

for small business owners, who are often among the most disadvantaged groups
after disasters as their bankruptcy rate is significantly higher relative to the
medium and large enterprises (see URL 12 of Annexure I).
Other projects
There were other projects focusing on relatively more systemic interventions

such as the design solutions to benefit from the logistical capacity of railway
networks according to different disaster scenarios (i.e. transportable
prefabricated units to build temporary schools, medical facilities, food
distribution centers, etc.); adaptive re-use of concrete pipes as temporary shelter,
among others
288
4.
A COMPARISON WITH A TYPICAL DESIGN PROCESS
Considering the phases of a typical design process (Figure 1), the following section highlights the specific
features of a disaster-prone architectural design process in an educational setting.
Define the problem / identify objectives - This is the stage, where students gain familiarity with the key
concepts of disaster management - i.e. resilience, Disaster Management Cycle (DMC), disaster
preparedness, disaster psychology, and others). Using a commonly accepted terminology can be quite
instrumental at this stage. Various resources such as the recently published glossary by the Disaster and
Emergency Preparedness Presidency (AFAD) of Turkey appeared quite valuable for the participants of
projects whenever a consensus on terminology was needed (URL 1 of Annexure I).
Raising awareness on the potential roles of architectural designers in the DMC appears critical in the
early steps. One major cognitive barrier here is the widely shared view among the students that architects
roles are confined to developing individual prefabricated units for emergency or temporary housing. Such
an isolated view of the architects roles may be unsurprising for many, considering the typical emphasis
placed on individual space and an architecture of ego in a traditional instructional environment. An
understanding of the general context appears critical to go beyond unit and assess the wider role of
architect. This is necessary, first, to build awareness on the idea that a design solution which might be
influential under certain circumstances may become less efficient or totally dysfunctional when the
disaster scenarios or needs change. Accordingly, there are multiple patterns of architectural design
solutions for different disaster scenarios. Second, people with disabilities, sex workers, divorced women
or other groups can easily find themselves in a disadvantaged position after a disaster. Understanding and
appreciating the heterogeneity of vulnerable or targeted groups in terms of their characteristics and needs
requires an intellectual familiarity with the problems of a contemporary society. The widening
separation of architecture from the humanities as Wang (2010) observed, can be one of the barriers to
building such an intellectual capacity. D4D, however, requires skills such as collective problem solving;
understanding living patterns and value systems of vulnerable groups; developing empathy with people
and gaining more familiarity with the psychology of masses, in addition to that of individuals. Otherwise,
architectural design is less likely to result in an enhanced capacity of a society to respond to disasters
through efficient, sustainable and socially-culturally responsible solutions. Considering that social media
can easily support and disseminate this perspective, a Facebook group was started (URL 2 of Annexure I)
to function as a digital extension to the design studio to build/raise awareness on the political, technical,
social, cultural and historical dimensions of the disaster phenomenon. This group now has members from
different universities and disciplines, some of whom have actively taken part in the process at different
semesters.
To address the diverse needs of vulnerable groups, an ability to assess the relevancy of available technical
solution patterns or themes (see Table 2) is another critical issue. For example, both bottom-up and topdown (community-based/participative) strategies are available to provide temporary housing. While the
former generally deploys small number of units through local efforts, top-down strategies aim to deploy
large number of units in the shortest period of time. Quick response to housing needs of people helps
establish a sense of dignity, identity and privacy, and it helps people return to normalcy through daily
activities such as working, cooking, housekeeping, socializing and school (Felix et al., 2013; Aslan and
Cosgun, 2008). Post-disaster camps, on the other hand, might be at the bottom of the hierarchy of
governmental intervention strategies. However, they are often inevitable solutions as evidenced by the
current political crisis which urged Turkish government to host more than 2.5 million refugees from Syria
and Iraq in recent years. Adaptive re-use pattern can also be a very efficient intervention strategy due to
its potential to provide relatively low-cost and rapid design solutions. Governmental organizations can
quickly transform buildings such as schools, sports halls or shopping centres to meet the needs of the
displaced masses. In the relevant literature, adaptive re-use of existing structures is classified under the
collective centres category as one of the transitional settlement options or typologies. Also referred to
as mass shelters, collective centres are generally located in pre-existing structures such as public
buildings and community facilities including schools; barracks; community centres; town halls; disused
factories; gymnasiums; hotels; warehouses; disused factories; and unfinished buildings (demenet al,
2016). In addition to the re-functioning of an existing building, adaptive re-use can take the form of a
transformation of artefacts (i.e. transformation of cement water pipes or shipping containers into shelter
289
or service units). Awareness on these technical solutions patterns is key to developing a perspective for
students to go beyond unit.
Collect information and develop scenarios - Identifying and getting in touch with the relevant
governmental/non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and individuals with different expertise for
collaboration can be critical at this stage. In the case of ITU, informal interactions (i.e. individual
communications by students) and formal interactions (i.e. invitation by ITU) were quite useful to benefit
from the extensive on-site experience of various experts. AKUT Search and Rescue Association (URL 3
of Annexure I); Turkish Red Crescent Society (URL 4 of Annexure I); and individuals with different
backgrounds such as interior designers, industrial designers and urban planners were among the actors
that provided valuable expertise at different semesters.
Acquiring knowledge on regional disaster scenarios is part of the data collection stage. In particular to
Istanbul, for example, geographical proximity to sea was among the major site selection criteria at
different semesters since the majority of the urban population cluster in areas which are within fivekilometer range from the Marmara Sea and the disaster scenarios predict that most of the main roads will
be out of function in case of a large earthquake. Accordingly, developing design solutions close to coastal
areas and using water ways was a priority in many cases (see URL 8, URL 10 and URL 12 of Annexure
I). Supporting the design studio efforts by different collaboration and learning channels can facilitate the
sustainability of efforts to build/raise awareness about disaster management. In the ITU case, benefiting
from the potential of social media was extremely conducive. Resource pooling via cloud storage systems
(i.e. Google Drive), a closed project blog and a Facebook group (URL 2 of Annexure I) facilitated the
ease of access to many resources such as scholarly papers, media news, international standards, and
exchange experience with projects participants. This repository includes many examples/readings on the
different aspects of disaster phenomenon such as disaster psychology, which is a critical issue to
understand the role and the tools of returning to normalcy. Without an adequate understanding of the
role of contextual factors, the students cannot be able avoid the pitfall of approaching the problem merely
from a techno-centric perspective.
Brainstorm and analyse ideas - Students were encouraged to get in touch with and receive feedback from
potential users and site visits were arranged for the analyses of project locations. While the
communication with governmental bodies is essential to grasp regional disaster scenarios and projections,
collaboration with NGOs, which are directly related to the project themes, is crucial to benefit from their
extensive on-site experience. For example, a seminar by Turkish Red Crescent Society was very helpful
to clarify the common problems associated with camp planning (see URL 7 of Annexure I). In another
case, an interview with an experienced member of the AKUT Search and Rescue Association helped to
clarify the architectural program of a temporary disaster operations center project (see URL 11 of
Annexure I). Small business owners were interviewed to identify their priorities and expectations, when
the students were developing the architectural program for a temporary neighborhood bazaar project (see
URL 12 of Annexure I). PhD students and colleagues from different departments of ITU were involved
with both the brainstorming sessions and the design processes.
Develop solutions - Cage et al. (2009) contend that architects might have to unlearn their usual
approaches and relearn new ways of working to be effective, where the ability to engage in collective
problem solving becomes especially critical. According to Keitsch (2012), "the call to examine practices
and methods as well as values and norms is growing louder" in architecture, accompanied by a call for
interdisciplinary cooperation and teamwork to address the complexity of problems. Team working skills
are important not only for interdisciplinary collaboration, but also for collaborative problem-solving. ITU
experience suggests that an efficient process can involve the following steps: Providing individual space
and the discussion of individual design proposals; developing a common understanding and identification
of needs; division of labor for teamwork; returning back to individual level or individual space
whenever needed to explore alternative views and approaches; and disseminating information on different
technical matters, once a group consensus is reached. For some of the students however, who are very
much used to exploiting an individual space throughout their architectural education, movement between
the individual and collective problem solving levels were painful at times. In such cases, efforts were paid
to alter the misperception that collective problem solving is a threat to the use of individual space for
290
developing creative solutions. Respectively, readings on team working and conflict resolution were part
of the projects resource pool.
The technology dimension of D4D efforts has multiple facets. Technological paradigm of the disaster
management cycle, especially in the case of top-down intervention strategies, is generally based on fast,
flexible and modular design solutions. Most of the top-down approaches rely on prefabricated, massproduced and standardized solutions (Felix et al., 2013). Open prefabrication systems might be
appropriate solutions in many cases, which are based on the provision of standardized components in
factories and their transfer to the construction sites to allow various possibilities of assembly into
different forms and configurations (Abulnour, 2013). Open prefabrication brought a variety of
advantages to analyse horizontal or vertical growth scenarios in the student projects (see URL 7; URL 11
of Annexure I). On the other hand, the adaptive re-use of buildings require different types of solutions
when compared with the new construction processes (see demen et al, 2006). For example, the
assessment of the capacity of a building or structure to meet new/additional functions may require
additional effort (see UR1 9, URL 10 and URL 11 of Annexure I). Interestingly, neither the prefabrication
systems, nor the adaptive re-use patterns find themselves adequate place in the current architectural
design education, and ITU is not an exception.
Filtering architectural principles and norms through the special requirements of disaster situations can be
difficult and time consuming for many students at this stage. Especially for temporary housing projects,
students should gain familiarity with some well-recognized norms (The Sphere Project, 2015).to
understand how D4D context varies from a typical residential building project. Collaboration with
industrial designers can be quite useful to develop efficient design solutions for micro and small spaces,
where the victims share lives for considerable durations under traumatic conditions. A thorough
understanding of the dynamics of public spaces and the consumption/living patterns of various vulnerable
groups will be valuable intellectual assets at this stage.
Present ideas / Get feedback and improve design - Relevant external and internal stakeholders should
ideally take place in these stages, before architectural solutions are finalized.
5.
CONCLUSION
Many authorities share the view that hazards are likely to become more significant in future years due to
ecological, political and economic crises. Although education is considered as a proactive and long-term
strategy to build resilience at all levels due to the paradigmatic shift in the disaster management field, an
overwhelming majority of the architects graduate without an adequate knowledge of disaster management
perspective and skills. A quick analysis of the literature suggests that design-for-disaster (D4D) is not
considered as an integral part of the disaster management cycle except for concerns for strong structural
designs. Architects can more efficiently take role in the process to enhance the capacity of the society to
respond to disasters via sustainable and socially/culturally acceptable design solutions. ITU experience
suggests that there are a couple of key issues in the educational context to achieve this goal: (i) shift
towards a more collective problem solving space in the design studio along with an intellectual familiarity
with the problems of contemporary society; (ii) an understanding of the heterogeneity of the needs and
characteristics of different vulnerable groups especially in collaboration with the representative NGOs; an
adequate background knowledge to filter and adapt common design principles and norms, so that they are
relevant to disaster and project scenarios; (iii) a familiarity with different technical solutions patterns such
as open prefabrication and adaptive re-use. A thorough understanding of the local disaster scenarios is a
prerequisite for any kind of design effort to be able to adapt general design principles and norms and put
them into practice. Current tendencies show that urban areas will be increasingly threatened by disasters
in the near future (e.g., The Sphere Project guidance document on Using Sphere Standards in Urban
Settings was being piloted when the authors submitted this paper in May 2016). Future efforts should
focus on alternative approaches and methodologies in higher education system to help convert these
standards into professional knowledge. Finally, more systemic interventions such as making D4D part of
accreditation processes are likely to generate quick results in integrating disaster management perspective
into the higher education system.
291
6.
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Annexures I
URL1:
Disaster and Emergency Preparedness Presidency, 2015.Annovative Disaster Management

Glossary.
Available
from:-https://www.afad.gov.tr/Dokuman/TR/101-2014112716301sozluk.pdf [Accessed 15 July 2015].
URL2:
Open
Facebook
Group
afetsonrasibarinma,
Available
https://www.facebook.com/groups/afetsonrasibarinma [Aaccessed 15 July 2015].
URL3:
AKUT Search and Rescue Association. Available from:-http://www.akut.org.tr [Accessed 15

July 2015].
URL 4:
Turkish Red Crescent Society. Available from:-http://www.kizilay.org.tr [Accessed 15 July

2015].
URL 5:
The Sphere Project, available from:- http://www.sphereproject.org/ [Accessed 15 July 2015].
URL 6:
TarihiGalataKprsn
de
aldlar.
Available
from:http://www.sansursuzhaber.com/tarihi-galata-koprusunu-de-caldilar-434292h.htm [Accessed
16 March 2015].
URL7:
Figure 2: Disaster Camp Planning. Available from:- https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6upb4OsaVmUWJJa0NQZWQ1RTA/view?usp=sharing
URL 8:
Figure 3: Temporary Urban Housing. Available from:- https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6upb4OsaVmSnhFakxBSW4tc1E/view?usp=sharing
URL 9:
Figure 4: Transformation of the Central Lecture Hall into a Student Dorm. Available from:https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-6upb4OsaVmakRJc0JuUWp5ZkU/view?usp=sharing
URL 10:
Figure 5: Transformation of the Historical Galata Bridge into a Rehabilitation Centre.

Available
from:https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6upb4OsaVmUjVfUVk0TUotb1U/view?usp=sharing
URL 11:
Figure 6: Transformation of a District Bazaar into a Disaster Coordination Centre. Available

from:https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6upb4OsaVmT3JuSEwyeFFBbEk/view?usp=sharing
URL 12:
Figure 7: Temporary Neighbourhood Bazaar for Small Business Owners. Available from:https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-6upb4OsaVmYy05UkEwNEFzLTg/view?usp=sharing
293
from:-
INTERACTIONAL ANALYSIS FOR TWO-PARTY RISK ASSESSMENT IN

PUBLIC PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS (PPP)
Rana Khallaf*, Nader Naderpajouh and Makarand Hastak
Lyles School of Civil Engineering, Purdue University, United States of America
ABSTRACT
Public Private Partnerships (PPP) have been increasingly used over the past years. However,
problems have arisen with the increased use of this procurement strategy. These problems usually
occur as a result of various risks that manifest over the long duration of the project. These include
risks at the macro, market and project level specific to PPP projects. Examples include concessionaire
default in loans for the Sydney Airport Rail Link project, bank refusal to loan the concessionaire for
the Channel Tunnel Rail Link project in the United Kingdom and high interest loans on private debt
for the Taiwan High Speed Rail project. Identifying risks in previous projects would lead to a risk
registry that would help in understanding the sequence of events as well as the parties involved. Case
studies have suggested that the outcome of the identified risks can be linked to the interaction of the
parties in a PPP project. Parties to the risk in a PPP project include owner or government, developer,
financier, sponsor, supplier, architect, subcontractors, contractors, non-governmental organizations
(NGOs), media, authorities and regulatory, politicians, workers, end-users and experts. In this paper,
game theory is used to analyse the interactions between parties to understand dynamic outcome of the
associated risks in PPP project because of the actions taken by the parties to the risk. The scenarios of
risks are defined based on actions and their transaction cost as well as outcomes and their payoff.
Strategies would be developed and simulated to propose mitigation plans to address risks.
Keywords:
1.
Game Theory; Interactional Analysis; Public Private Partnerships; Risks.
INTRODUCTION
Public Private Partnerships have seen an increase in usage as a delivery method. The concession period of
PPP projects is usually a long duration of 20-100 years and involves multiple parties, which increases the
chance of risk occurrence. In a PPP project, these parties include government, private company,
lender/financial institution and operators. In cases of risks, these parties interact together to resolve the
issue. These risks have been studied in various literature for certain project types or phases. Risk
assessment is important for PPP projects in order to control high risks, minimize their effects and prepare
mitigation plans. Each risk that occurs instigates actions from the parties involved. Interactions between
parties in a risk scenario determine the outcome of the situation and the benefit for each party. In this
paper, we discuss the use and importance of interactional analysis and focus on the context of a PPP
project. The paper presents a case study of the railway project in Tanzania in order to showcase how
interactional analysis can be used to understand the possible strategies and determine the best course of
action.
2.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Use of PPPs has been increasing over the years. Sarmento and Renneboog (2014) defined eight sectors
where PPPs have been used: traffic, healthcare, culture and sport, administration, defence, justice,
education and others. Different risks manifest in construction projects, which becomes especially
complex in PPP projects that span long durations of 20-100 years. Khallaf et al. (2016) identified 75 risks
and classified them into three categories: macro/country, market and project risks. These risks manifest
throughout the different project phases and may lead to renegotiation of project parameters. Examples of
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such risks include: monetary inflation, bureaucratic delays, risk management practices of parties and
insolvency of contractor/operator (Khallaf et al., 2016). These risks not only plague the projects, they also
plague the country itself. For example, Colombia awarded the first batch of highway PPPs in the 1990s
and suffered due to: lack of a specified roadmap which led to inability to expropriate the required land,
lack of bidders, projects were awarded based on preliminary studies that were performed which lacked a
lot of detail, lack of financing of the concessionaire which the government did not check and incomplete
contracts that lacked mechanisms for conflict resolution (Engel et al., 2003). This led to a failure of many
of the PPPs.
According to Domingues and Zlatkovic (2015), the main reason behind contract renegotiations is the
complex risk sharing mechanism. Parties renegotiate in order to reduce their losses due to a risk
occurrence or to increase their profits in an opportunistic manner. Renegotiations can occur due to various
reasons such as incomplete contracts, inadequate regulations and inadequate public sector management
(Cruz et al., 2014). These renegotiations are affected by the risks that occur in the project as well how the
parties interact to deal with these risks. Interactions between parties can aggravate or reduce the risks and
outcomes related to them. Naderpajouh (2013) studied the interaction between parties in an international
project. This interactional analysis approach is very valuable in quantifying the results of the actions of
each party in a situation of negotiation.
Interactional analysis applies the concepts of game theory to study the interactions between different
entities and how their choices affect their payoff as well as the payoff of others. Game theory is a method
to study the interactions between people, which can be simulated in order to study the outcomes involved.
The analysis of these interactions helps in understanding decision-making to create strategies (Neumann
and Morgenstern, 1944; Glumac et al., 2015). These interactions are seen as a game where the players are
the actors in a situation. These players take actions sequentially that affects their payoff received.
Researchers have used game theory to study the interactions between parties in different situations
(Asgari et al., 2013; Eleftheriadou and Mylopoulos, 2008; Madani, 2010; Samsura et al., 2009; Zlotkin
and Rosenschein, 1989). Table 1 shows a list of the studies that used game theory. It can be seen that
game theory is a reliable method that has been used for to study interactions of actors in different fields.
Table 1: Researches that Applied Game Theory to Study the Interactions of Parties
Source
Description
Asgari et al. (2013)
Proposed a game theory framework to model resource sharing and

management among subcontractors
Madani (2010)
Applied game theory to address conflicts in managing water resources.
Samsura et al. (2009)
Used game theory to model the behavior of actors in situations of decisionmaking related to land development.
Eleftheriadou and Mylopoulos

(2008)
Implemented game theory to a case study of negotiations between Greece

and Bulgaria on Nestos/Mesta Transboundary River.
Zlotkin and Rosenschein (1989)
Applied game theory to multi-agent negotiation
Table 2 lists the studies that used game theory to address scenarios in Public Private Partnership projects.
Some of them enforced the use of game theory in PPPs (Scharle, 2002; Kargol and Sokol, 2007); some
studied the financial aspects in PPP projects (Ho, 2006; Kennedy, 2013), while others addressed risks that
occur (Naderpajouh, 2013; Zou and Kumaraswamy, 2009).
295
Table 2: Game Theory in PPP Projects

Source
Description
Scharle (2002)
Discussed PPPs and emphasized the importance of the gaming perspective to

understand PPPs
Ho (2006)
Studied when and how government will rescue a distressed project and what
impacts governments rescue behavior has on project procurement and
management using Game Theory
Kargol and Sokol (2007)
Presented a descriptive method in order to link the theoretical aspects of PPP to

game theory
Zou and Kumaraswamy (2009)
Presented a basic summarized theoretic approach for understanding risk

allocation in PPP projects in terms of Take/Transfer a risk
Chen et al. (2012)
Presented a Game Theory model to analyze the Taiwan High Speed Railroad
project to examine how developers implement different strategies during
project stages to alter the contract's conditions in order to continually creating
competitive advantage after they have been awarded the contract
Kennedy (2013)
Applied Hos (2006) model to Metronet - London Underground PPP project
Naderpajouh (2013)
Applied game theory and simulation to model emergent risks from the
interaction of project developer and social opposition.
Glumac et al. (2015)
Applied a game theory experiment to brownfield PPP projects in three cases of

negotiations: building claim, future land use and reparcelling of the land
3.
METHODOLOGY
Naderpajouh et al. (2014) proposed the use of game theoretic concepts to study emergent dynamics
between actors and applied it to a case of social opposition of an infrastructure development project. In
this paper, game theory is used to model the interactions between two parties to a PPP project. The parties
are considered actors that play a sequential game, taking turns choosing actions. Each action has a payoff
for each actor. This payoff is based on transaction costs for their choice of either a formal or informal
action that they incur. Examples of informal actions include protests, while formal actions include
litigation. Transaction costs are unique to each actor so they have their own cost for informal and formal
transactions. In this case study, we focus on a scenario between two parties: the union and government.
Studying the relationship between these two parties helps in understanding the negotiation process,
possible courses of action and the resulting payoff. The relationship between these two parties is
important because it affected the project, led to instability and later public resentment of the project.
4.
CASE STUDY
In this paper, we build a hypothetical model based on the dynamics associated with the case of the
Tanzania Railway Concession project. A need for rehabilitation, development and operation of the
railway drove the need for this project (IFC, 2016). Based on several studies performed by a private
consultant and also by the World Bank from 1997 to 2000, a framework of PPP was suggested for
execution of the project (Phipps, 2009). In 2007, RITES of India won the concession from the
Government of Tanzania. A new entity named Tanzania Railways Limited (TRL) was formed between
RITES - with 51% shareholding - and the Government of Tanzania with 49% for the operation of the
railway transport for 25 years (Tito, 2016). A Governmental agency, RAHCO (Reli Asset Holding
Company) was formed and tasked with monitoring contract compliance and managing the rail assets.
There was a long duration of 10 years between the decision to undergo a PPP and the actual signing of the
contract. During that period, there was no investment in infrastructure so the workers were uncertain
about their jobs. The concession was re-bid three times, which affected the workers and investors and
showed the governments lack of commitment to this delivery method (Phipps, 2009). Problems started
with the request of the Tanzanian Railways Association Workers Union (TRAWU) to increase salary,
296
with threats of going on strike if their needs were not met (Shlyk, 2009). TRL agreed to negotiate with the
Government to solve this issue, however, their meeting was not fruitful and no decision was made. Due to
the lack of action from these two parties, TRAWU followed their promise and went on strike. TRL and
the Government of Tanzania were forced to make a decision to appease the union. Eventually, the
Government decided to contribute to the salary increase.
It is important to understand how the decisions made by the Government of Tanzania and by TRAWU
affected the union workers, concessionaire and project outcome. In this paper, we focus on the
interactions between the union (TRAWU) and public (Government of Tanzania or GoT) because of the
significant impact their individual choices made on the project. Studying these interactions ex poste in
this project sheds light on the choices that each party had, what they chose and the effect of these choices.
Using an established case aims at validating the proposed framework in order to enforce the importance
of its use. Figure 1 shows the possible actions of the parties in each phase in time. The game starts with
TRAWU having a choice of either no action, thereby leaving the conditions as is, i.e., status quo, or
taking informal action, which is requesting a salary increase and threatening to strike. If TRAWU decides
to take informal action, GoT then makes a choice of either no action and accept their request or
taking informal action and requesting to meet with TRL to discuss this. In case GoT takes informal
action, the next move is up to TRAWU (due to their dissatisfaction of a lack of decision by GoT and
TRL) and they either take no action or take a formal action by going on strike. In response to
TRAWUs strike, GoT either goes to settle the subsidy request or takes formal action by terminating the
concession contract.
Figure 1: Game between Union and Government
Simulation is performed in order to observe the results from varying the parameters in different scenarios
(Naderpajouh et al., 2014). Using the Anylogic software, simulations are performed based on the
hypothetical scenarios in order to explore the probability of ending at each node and the expected payoff
for each party. Four cases are tested: base case, case of high transaction costs for TRAWU, case of high
transaction costs for GoT and case where there is slightly less bargaining power of TRAWU. Figure 2
shows the results of the simulation performed and associated probability distributions where the black
bars represent the union and the white bars represent the public.
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Figure 2: Simulation Results (Distribution of Outcomes for Union and Government)
5.
DISCUSSION
Figure 2 shows the results of 1,000 simulations for the hypothetical examples as discussed below:
1)
Base case without changing any parameters.
2)
High bargaining power for union shown by increasing the percentage of negotiation: this results
in an increase in the percentage of negotiation from the base case. It can also be seen that the
payoffs shift towards the right, which means an increase in payoffs.
3)
High informal cost for both parties: this causes an increase in the number of times that status
quo was chosen since an increase in informal cost makes the parties less likely to reach that
phase.
4)
High formal cost for both parties: this increases the chance of ending up in accepting request
and negotiation highly since the parties do not want to choose formal action for its extremely
high cost.
These simulations show the result of varying the parameters such as bargaining power for the actors (2nd
scenario), informal transaction cost (3rd scenario) and formal transaction cost (4th scenario). From the
1,000 simulations conducted, the possibility of ending at each node was calculated. Table 3 shows the
results of the count of how many times we would end up in each node for the four hypothetical scenarios.
It can be seen that when the informal cost is high, the probability of avoiding it and settling for status quo
is higher than in other cases. When the formal cost is high, the probability of avoiding it is high so the
game shifts towards negotiation. This table shows four chosen scenarios where the parameters are
changed to see the effect on the probability of choosing this node and to see the payoff received.
Table 3: Probability of Ending at Each Node
Base Case
High Bargaining Power for

Union
High Informal
Cost
High Formal
Cost
192
Accept request
244
196
242
186
Negotiate
721
756
566
813
Terminate
34
46
Status Quo
298
6.
CONCLUSION
This paper discussed the use of interactional analysis to simulate actions of parties in a risk and presented
a case study for the Tanzania Railway project. The interactional analysis framework was targeted for
cases of two parties in a PPP project and the results of the simulation showed the probability of ending up
in each node for 4 cases: base case, high bargaining power for union, high informal cost for both parties
and high formal cost for both parties. These results can be used by the parties to understand their best
strategies in any given scenario. The framework was used to analyse the interactions in the Tanzania
project ex poste to endorse its use for PPP projects and suggest its use a priori in the future in order to
understand each partys possible choices and assess the impact of these choices on the inherent risks
before taking a course of action.
This framework can be adapted and used for any project and any delivery method. More simulation
scenarios can be adapted in order to show a wide spectrum of possible actions and develop a portfolio of
the actions and resulting outcomes, which would help in future decisions. The authors are currently
working on applying this model to more case studies and also expanding the model beyond its two-party
interactions. This would be a more complex set-up but would shed light on the multiple parties involved
in a negotiation scenario and how their interactions and choices affect their gains/losses in a PPP project.
7.
REFERENCES
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INVOLVEMENT OF CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT PROFESSIONALS

IN PROPERTY LEVEL FLOOD ADAPTATION
Azom Uddin* and Gayan Wedawatta
School of Engineering and Applied Science, Aston University, United Kingdom
ABSTRACT
Flooding is a significant concern across the UK that has caused property damage, economic impact
and health and safety concerns. The national climate change risk assessment for the UK projects the
risk of flooding to increase in the future, and thus flood risk management is identified as an area that
requires serious action. Whilst community level flood protection measures have been and are being put
in places where there is an economic case for such intervention, the need for implementing property
level flood adaptation (PLFA) is increasingly highlighted. This industry is worth 2.1 billion globally;
with a forecasted UK growth at a rate of 7.1% by 2017-18. The aim of this research is to identify the
ability of construction managers to provide PLFA advice to homeowners. Interviews were conducted
with 10 professionals currently involved in flood adaptation product/service provision to gather their
views on construction manager involvement within this niche area. Majority of participants
interviewed accepted that construction managers could enter the PLFA industry. However, there has
been a lack of evidence that suggest that construction managers have played a key role in this field.
The paper suggests that there are several barriers that have resulted in the lack of involvement of
construction managers in the PLFA industry. Previous research recognises lack of relevant skills and
knowledge required to provide PLFA advice as a key barrier, this is supported by participants
interviewed mentioning that the qualification, knowledge and training required were a barrier for
construction managers to enter into the PLFA industry.
Keywords:
1.
Construction Industry; Construction Managers; Flooding; Property Level Flood

Adaptation; UK.
INTRODUCTION
Flooding is a global occurrence that has caused widespread destruction, economic damages and loss of
human life. In 2010 alone; 178 million people globally were affected by floods (Jha et al., 2012), and
scientific evidence suggest that this increase is due to the combination of climate change, population
growth and development pressures (Environment Agency, 2009; Jones et al., 2013).This phenomenon has
reflected on the UK, in England alone over 5.2 million properties are at risk of flooding (Environment
Agency, 2009), and government data has shown that the situation is likely to worsen as average global
temperatures increase, and properties continue to be built on flood risk areas (Soetanto et al., 2008;
Environment Agency, 2009). The concerning issue is that not only have these events have caused large
scale property damages, they have had a physical and mental effect on homeowners (Ranger et al., 2011).
The Environment Agency, on behalf of the UK Government, is working on building new and maintaining
existing flood defences. However, there are an estimated 50% of homes in flood risk areas that still
remain unprotected (Bichard and Kazmierczak, 2009). The costs of community-level flood protection
measures and the inability to protect every home through these measures, the governments aim is to shift
people from relying on community-level solutions to more on property level flood adaptation (PLFA)
(Environment Agency, 2009).
Flooding in the UK has required insurers to pay out 4.5 billion to people affected within a decade (ABI,
2010). According to the Association of British Insurers this pay-out is an increase of 200% on the 1.5
billion paid in the previous decade (ABI, 2010). UK insurers have always played a vital role in managing
the financial risks of flooding (Crichton, 2008), but their liabilities are limited to the reduction of tangible
*
301
impacts of flooding; whilst, the intangible impacts are left for homeowners (Rotimi, 2014). There is also
the issue that not all homeowners have the availability of insurance as a result of being located at a high
risk area. In June 2013 the UK Government and ABI announced a new system of insurance called Flood
Re, guaranteeing the availability of insurance for homeowners at flood risk areas (DEFRA, 2013a). But
the scheme appears to have less emphasis on the role of public risk management (Surminski and Eldridge,
2014), rather focusing on sharing the financial burden of flooding. The existence of Flood Re may
reduce the urgency to prevent and reduce risks, but the concept may lead to a false sense of security (ABI,
2016).
There is significant potential for construction managers to enter into PLFA market, but there is a lack of
evidence to suggest that they have. An exploratory study was undertaken using both primary and
secondary data to investigate the ability of construction managers to provide PLFA advice and identify
the options, opportunities and barriers for construction managers in this sector. The objectives were to;
Explore whether construction managers could enter the PLFA market,

To assess the current level of involvement of construction managers at PLFA, and
To investigate the enablers and barriers for construction managers to enter into the PLFA market.
2.
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1.
FLOOD RISK AND PLFA IN THE UK
Flooding in the UK has caused extensive damages, impacting both the economy and human lives. In
England alone, one in six (over 5.2 million) properties are at risk of flooding (Environment Agency,
2009). The government data has shown that the situation is likely to worsen as average global
temperatures increase, and properties continue to be built on flood risk areas (Soetanto et al., 2008;
Environment Agency, 2009).The major floods in the UK have been estimated to put 200 billion of asset
at risk of flooding (Treby et al., 2006; Hardaker and Collier, 2013). According to Association of British
Insurers (ABI) this pay-out is an increase of 200% on the 1.5 billion paid in the previous decade (ABI,
2010). It has resulted in UK insurers to pay out 5.8 billion since 2000, and a total of 8.43 billion since
1990 in insurance claims (ABI, 2014). UK insurers have played a vital role in managing the financial
risks of flooding (Crichton, 2008), but their liabilities are limited to the reduction of tangible impacts of
flooding on households; whilst, the intangible impacts are left for homeowners (Rotimi, 2014).
Traditionally, flooding has been included as a standard feature in general property insurance in the UK.
This has allowed property owners to use general property insurance as the primary source of risk
management against flooding. But the continuous increase of pay-outs has caused the insurance industry
to review this practice, and introduce specific arrangements for flood insurance. In June 2013 the UK
Government and ABI announced a new system of insurance called Flood Re, which is scheduled to start
in 2016. The aim is an industry-run, not for profit scheme, which will cap the maximum amount paid by
the 2% (350,000) of households who will meet the eligibility criteria (DEFRA, 2013a; ABI, 2016).
Although the scheme guarantees the availability of insurance for homeowners in flood risk areas
(DEFRA, 2013a), there are exclusions. Properties built after January 1st 2009, will not be covered by the
scheme, as the government believes not to incentivise home-building in flood risk areas after that period
(ABI, 2016), as this will reduce developers justifying and selling their properties in flood risk areas. There
has also been several reports against this scheme, stating that it appears to have less emphasis on the role
of public risk management (Surminski and Eldridge, 2014), but rather focusing on sharing the financial
burden of flooding. This is not a sustainable solution going forward, especially in a changing climate and
rising flood levels (ABI, 2016). The existence of an insurance scheme may reduce the urgency to prevent
and reduce risks, but the concept may lead to a false sense of security (ABI, 2016), so PLFA methods are
an urgent need.
An estimated 120,000 houses are built in England each year (DCLG, 2014), 25% of which may be at risk
of flooding (BRE, 2014). According to BRE (2014), due to pressure on land and the need to encourage
economic growth, development take place in flood risk areas. The growing concern is that local planning
regulations in the UK take minimal or no consideration of flood adaptation. Planning may necessitate the
need for some restrictions in regards to resistance or resilience measures, but these are not always adhered
302
to at the construction stage (BRE, 2014). A government review, led by Lord Taylor, recommended that
planning practice guidance on climate change and flood risk should be a priority for re-issue in an
updated and streamlined form, helping to make the planning system swifter and more accessible (DCLG,
2013).
The Environment Agency, on behalf of the UK Government, is working on building new and maintaining
existing flood defences, but given that, there are an estimated 50% of homes in flood risk areas that still
remain unprotected (Bichard and Kazmierczak, 2009). The government admits that not all areas could be
protected due to cost and practical reasons. Its aim is to shift people from relying on government solutions
and more on PLFA (Environment Agency, 2009). Although theoretically this shift seems quite promising,
there is little evidence to suggest that any significant action plans have emerged to implement this in
practice (Ingirige and Wedawatta, 2014). DEFRA (2013a) states that every 1 spent on adaptation
represents four times its value in potential damages avoided. It will allow homeowners to be better
prepared for future flood events, improve their safety and minimise financial losses. It will also encourage
insurers to reassess flood-adapted areas in order to provide more affordable insurance. Therefore, there is
an urgent need for PLFA and for individual property owners to take action.
2.2.
PROPERTY LEVEL FLOOD ADAPTATION (PLFA)
PLFA measures are categorised into either resistant or resilience measures. Resistance measures can be
either manual or automatic measures, which are designed to keep out, or at least minimise, the amount of
water that enters a building (DEFRA, 2005). Resilience measures seek to reduce the consequence of
flooding and the cost of repairs after the flood (DEFRA, 2005). Its aim is to minimise damage to the
structure, interior and furnishing of a building when floodwater enters the premises (Pitt, 2008). The
benefits of PLFA measures can be gained by different stakeholders; for insurers its the tangible benefit
of reduction in future claims (Joseph et al., 2011). In the case for the government is that it will allow them
to focus on critical locations for large scale flood defence developments. For homeowners there are
several benefits including financial cost and the reduction or elimination of intangible impacts such as:
Reduction in stress and anxiety rate (Reacher et al., 2004);

Reduction in the deterioration of physical and mental health (Reacher et al., 2004);
Reduction in depression cases following flood event (Reacher et al., 2004);
Inability to move house immediately after flooding (Warren et al., 2011);
Stress of living in alternative accommodation (Warren et al., 2011).
Although there are several benefits of PLFA measures to be gained by different stakeholders; barriers
have drastically reduced the current uptake of them. A report by DEFRA (2008) reveals that homeowners
are deterred from installing PLFA measures due to them being unattractive and a constant reminder of the
flood risk they have to live with. A report by LCCP (2009) states that retrofitting of buildings may be
held back by barriers which are partly due to planning and hidden costs and partly due to the lack of
information and incentive available. While government involvement can be the solution to behavioural
barriers and market failure, government processes and public policy failures can themselves be a barrier
to adaptation. Additionally, the lack of availability of competent construction professionals who can
provide valid PLFA advice to home owners has also been identified as a barrier in previous research
(DEFRA, 2008; Wedawatta et al., 2012).
2.3.
CONSTRUCTION MANAGERS AND THEIR INVOLVEMENT IN FLOOD ADAPTATION
Construction Management is recognised for being associated with the Built Environment sector (CIOB,
2010). A construction manager has the role of overall planning, coordination, and control of a project
from beginning to completion (Dictionary of Architecture, 2012). The functions of a construction
manager typically include the following (PM Hut, 2008):
Specifying project objectives, performance requirements and selecting project participants,

Maximising resource efficiency through procurement of labour, materials and equipment,
Implementing operations through effective co-ordination and control of planning, design,
estimating, contracting and construction of the whole project,
303
Developing effective communication and mechanism for conflict resolution.
A construction managers skill-set such as planning, designing and implementing, would be highly
effective in PLFA. An example is demonstrated in the study carried out in developing countries whereby
UK construction managers provided aid after a natural disaster (Jones et al, 2009). The report showed that
using construction managers more widely in disaster mitigation was highly successful and that the
relevant professional skills and expertise of construction managers can be applied at all stages of disaster
management, including flooding. This practice has not been the case in the UK; there has been some
progression in the form of including construction managers in debates regarding climate change and
sustainability, however there has been minimal involvement of construction managers in regards to PLFA
(Bosher et al., 2007; ABI, 2010). According to Bosher et al. (2009) and Haigh and Amaratunga (2010)
construction managers can play a vital role in PLFA. Their involvement in the industry is important in
understanding a resilient built environment, especially in the increase of flooding. A study by Emissions
Strategy Solutions (2011), found that construction managers advice could be effective in raising
awareness for PLFA. It would not only create a potential income source but also a value addition for their
service. To support this statement, a survey by Wedawatta et al, (2012) says that in the future
communities will rely more on the advice and assistance of building contractor - i.e. construction
managers.
The increase in climate change, the global market for PLFA is worth 2.1 billion (DEFRA, 2013b), and
the forecasted UK growth in this area is at a rate of 7.1% by 2017-18 (DEFRA, 2013b). The market is
expanding and it is an area where construction managers will benefit substantially, but there is a lack of
evidence that suggest that they have. A statement by Economics of Climate Resilience Project, suggests
that this gap is due to construction managers lacking in the relevant knowledge and competencies to carry
out PLFA advice (DEFRA, 2013b). There is also no formally recognised qualification, national training
or approved standard for PLFA (DEFRA, 2014).
3.
RESEARCH METHOD
3.1.
DATA COLLECTION
A qualitative approach was adopted in conducting the primary research for this paper. This method has
been known to provide details about human behaviour, emotions, and personality characteristics that
quantitative studies cannot match. Research sought to obtain complex textual description of construction
managers experience and knowledge in PLFA, whilst simultaneously obtaining their personal opinions
and emotions. Semi-structured interviews were conducted, as the research questions in hand favoured this
method. Semi structured interviews allowed to pursue an idea or response in more detail (Gill et al.,
2008). This form of gathering information has been successful in previous studies where professionals
were questioned on disaster related issues, for example Malalgoda et al. (2016). Themes covered in semistructured interviews included flood adaptation products/services provided, knowledge requirements to
provide these, barriers and enablers to entry, how to provide flood adaptation knowledge and
qualifications, etc.
3.2.
INTERVIEW SAMPLE
There were a total of ten participants that were interviewed, all from different organisations and are
actively involved in providing flood adaptation products/services, and are from companies specialised in
those aspects. Out of these, 4 respondents had over 5 years of experience working in the flood industry.
Although approximately half of the interviewees had around 2 years of experience in the flooding field,
there were no significant differences among the responses provided. The sample is consistent with the
expansion of flood adaptation industry during recent years, where new/experienced professionals have
entered the industry quite recently.
304
Table 1: Interview Participants

Code
Job Title
Qualifications
Participant 1
UK Manager
Participant 2
Operations
Manager
Participant 3
Divisional Director
Participant 4
Participant 5
Participant 6
Participant 7
Participant 8
Participant 9
Participant 10
3.4.
MA in language French,
English and History
No formal qualifications
No. of Years in
Construction
Industry
5 Years
No. of Years
in the Flood
Industry
5 Years
25 Years
2 Years
Masters in Civil and

Environmental Engineering
Member of ICE and CIWEM
23 Years
17-18 years
20 Years
10 Years
18 Years
7 years
Director/
Construction
Manager
Associate in Civil
Structures
NVQ in bricklaying
Flood Professionals BSI
KiteMark course
CEng MICE
Director/
Construction
Manager
Director/
Construction
Manager
Marketing and
Advertising in
Flood Adaptation
Director/
Construction
Manger
Director/
Construction
Manager
BEPEC Course
BSI Accredited Surveyor
27 years
4 Years
BSI Accredited Surveyor

BPEC Certified
8 Years
2 Years
BSc Communication
Studies, Marketing
Communications
Qualified Joiner
BEPEC Accredited
BSI Kitemark Accredited
No formal qualification
5 years
2 Years
37 years
4 Years
20 Years
2.5 Years
DATA ANALYSIS
The data obtained were analysed using a thematic analysis approach. It is a qualitative analytic method
for identifying, analysing and reporting patterns (themes) with data (Braun and Clarke, 2006). This
method allowed organising and describing the qualitative data obtained from the semistructured
interviews in detail and interpreting various aspects of the research topic. Using themes, enabled to
capture important data in relation to the research question and represent levels of patterns with the data
obtained from semi-structured interviews. An example where this has been carried out is a report by
DEFRA (2012) on the evaluation property level flood protection scheme, where it worked really well. In
the analysis, determining the percentage for each products or service is based on the number of
interviewees that mention each product/service. For instance out of 10 participants interviewed, if 7
participants mention a certain products/service, it is then classed as 70%.
4.
FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS
4.1.
CONSTRUCTION MANAGERS AND FLOOD ADAPTION INDUSTRY
Participants were asked whether they thought construction managers could enter the PLFA industry, and
9 out of 10 participants felt that they could. Participant 4 commented construction managers could
definitely enter this industry; they have the right background knowledge and skill set to enter. Participant
6 supported the statement by mentioning that construction managers can definitely enter this area; they
305
have the building knowledge and the skills to deal with complex and sophisticated projects on demand.
Although there is a lacks of evidence that suggest that construction managers have played a key role in
flood adaptation, the opinions of fellow construction professionals suggest that they could play a key role
within this industry. Furthermore, the reports by Haigh and Amaratunga (2010); Emissions Strategy
Solutions (2011) and Wedawatta et al, (2012) back the participants statement that construction managers
involvement within this industry could be highly beneficial for both the industry and the professionals
themselves.
The remaining participant interviewed did not entirely disagree with this view. For instance, Participant 5
mentioned that its not that construction managers wont be able to enter this industry, its just that their
skills set would come to better use on larger projects.
4.2.
FLOOD ADAPTATION PRODUCTS
In order to identify the ability required for construction managers to provide PLFA advice, participants
were asked the products and service they or their organisation provided in relation to PLFA.
Table 2: Flood Adaptation Products
Products
Flood Barriers
Flood Sump & Pump System
Flood Walls
Flood Doors
Flood Gate
Flood Accessories
BSI Kitemark Products
Both Resistance & Resilience Measures
Participants who mentioned they provide this

product(%)
70%
100%
60%
70%
90%
100%
50%
90%
Table 2 identifies the most common products mentioned by all participants; the products identified are
from the interview data; the percentage gives the identification of the number of individuals that
mentioned each product. The results showed that organisations provided similar products; the variation
was that some firms used BSI Kitemark products, whilst others either manufactured their own or used
various different manufacturers. The interesting notion was the contrasting opinion on the standard of
products between some participants. For instance, participant 1 who works for a flood barriers
manufacturing firm mentions that We manufacture our own products; they have been tested to meet the
highest standard and efficiency in comparison to what is out there. However, other participants felt
completely different; participant 4 stated that We provide our customers with only BSI Kitemark
products, because we feel they provide the highest standards. This is supported by participant 6 who
stated I only use Kitemark products because I find they actually work. There is a conflict of opinion in
which products are the most effective to use in PLFA. There could be several reasons behind this, one
which is mentioned by participant 7 and 8 that flood products are not off the shelf; they are bespoke, so
every house would have different measurements and requirements. As a result, it is difficult to have one
set of product for everyone; it all depends on the property, area, and flood conditions. An alternative
reason could be that the flooding issue is relatively new in the UK especially in some districts, and there
are no set guidelines by the government or agencies to what type or standard a flood product should
adhere to. Instead professionals are working on the basis of their personal experience and manufacturers
influences. If this is the case, it is not the most effective way forward for the industry, as a report by the
Environment Agency and DEFRA (2012), reveals that construction professionals lacked the necessary
experience and training to deal effectively with flood related products and services, and may not yet have
the skills necessary to understand the standard that is required for PLFA products. Additionally,
participant 9 mentioned that All manufacturers think their products are best on the market, while it may
be for certain situations, it might not be for others. So it needs to get away from the manufacturers and
more into independent advisory.
306
The difference in opinion regarding products could be the source of confusion for construction
professionals and homeowners. There is a requirement for the government or regulatory body to
implement a standard of quality and efficiency for manufacturers to work against and for PLFA
professionals to adhere to. The principle could be similar to building standards and regulations, and this
will allow homeowners to have confident in the products available on the market.
4.3.
FLOOD ADAPTATION SERVICES
Participants were all asked the services they or their organisation provided in regards to flood adaptation.
Table 3 depicts the most common services mentioned by participants; the services identified are from the
interview data; the percentage gives the identification of the number of individuals that mentioned each
service.
Table 3: Flood Adaptation Services
Participants who mentioned they
provide this service (%)
Services
Flood Surveys & Advice
Environmental Impact Assessment
Flood Training Service
Feasibility Study
Detail Designs
Technical Design
Drainage Design
Fluvial and GIS Modelling
Risk Assessment and Site Investigations
Structural Work
Hydrology, Ecology and Water Quality
Groundwater and Catchment Management
100%
40%
30%
40%
60%
40%
70%
40%
60%
60%
50%
60%
The results indicated that there are several similarities between participants in relation to the services they
provided, for example flood surveys and advice. However, what was noticed was the correlation between
participants who worked for SMEs mentioned similar services (flood surveys/advice, detail and drainage
designs, and ground/catchment management), and participants who worked for large organisation did the
same (environmental impact assessments, feasibility studies, technical design, risk assessment/site
investigations, structural work and hydrology, ecology and water quality). These results give an
indication about the flood industry, and the service that could be provided may depend on the size of the
organisation. This could be due to several reasons, one which could be that SMEs have limited capital
and resources to provide complex and sophisticated service in comparison to larger firms. For instance,
larger firms may have a variety of experienced employees from different backgrounds which enables
them to provide different services. This variation could make it difficult for professional such as
construction mangers to understand what specific knowledge or competencies are required in order to
provide PLFA advice. The industry as a whole, including the government and agencies will need to
address this issue to ensure that smaller businesses have the opportunity to learn and develop key skills to
be able to provide a variety of service to compete within the industry. This will also make it clearer for
professionals entering the industry the specific knowledge and competencies required to enter the market.
4.4.
BARRIERS FOR CONSTRUCTION MANAGERS IN PLFA INDUSTRY
Participants were asked the barriers they felt that prevented construction managers to enter into the PLFA
industry. The findings show that a wider majority of participants recognised market failure and lack of
information as key barriers. Participant 1 mentioned that the flooding issue is relatively new within the
UK in comparison to other countries, resulting in the lack of information available for construction
professionals to take a step towards entering this market professionally and legally. Participant 2
supports this by stating that the information and guidance out there is limited to give a clear indication
307
for construction managers to enter into the PLFA market. Participant 4 continues this further stating that
not all professionals understand the processes and legalities involved to enter this industry. I was
fortunate to find Flood Professionals BSI KiteMark course that helped explain all that, but these courses
arent accessible around the country. The government and agencies involved havent done sufficient
enough to provide the relevant information and guidance for professionals to take a step into this industry
without taking a personal risk. Participant 2 continues to say that the market failure has prevented
professionals such as construction managers to enter the industry and stay within their comfort zones, but
this is not the underlining issue, the lack of professionals has encouraged the so called unprofessional
builders to enter and provide low quality workmanship which not only cost consumers additional money
to rectify but puts their lives at risk. The statements from participants in the PLFA industry suggest that
in the UK there has been a lack of support, processes and guidance for construction professionals to enter
into PLFA market. The professionals in the industry have mentioned that it has not been an easy
process to enter, but have been down to their perseverance and determination that has enabled them to
enter the industry.
The finding also shows that a majority of participants mentioned that the lack of support towards
qualifications, knowledge and training required were a barrier for construction managers to enter into the
PLFA industry. Participant 1 mentions that construction managers have an all rounded knowledge of the
built environment, but the PLFA sector requires specific qualifications, training and knowledge, not
having the support in obtaining these criterias will defer any professional. Participants 6 continue this
further by stating that not understanding the qualifications, knowledge and training required to enter
this industry could be a huge barrier for not only construction managers, but for any construction
professional. It will prevent them from understanding if they have the capabilities and knowledge to take
a step towards this industry. This is something the government and agencies will need to address in
order to attract professionals towards this industry and prevent cowboy builders dominating the field.
Finally, the two other barriers mentioned by participants were behavioural barriers and lack of incentive.
Regarding behavioural barriers participant 1 stated that professionals may feel that as they have never
worked in this industry, they may not have the capabilities or expertise- thus they dont wish to explore
this area. In regards to the lack of incentive barrier, participant 2 states if the government provided
some sort of training grant or equipment funding scheme, it would have encouraged construction
managers to take a leap into this area. Participant 3 continues this and states that better government
incentive schemes need to be introduced to encourage construction managers to enter into the PLFA
market, otherwise they will continue to stay within their markets they feel comfortable.
5.
CONCLUSION
Research from several reports and participants interviewed suggest that construction managers can play a
vital role in PLFA. Their involvement could be effective in understanding a resilient built environment
and raising awareness for the industry. Additionally it would not only create a potential income source but
also a value addition for their service. The primary research suggests that a wider majority of participants
in the PLFA field believe that construction managers could enter the PLFA industry and that future
communities will rely more on their advice and assistance. However, there has been a lack of evidence to
suggest that they have played a key role. What has been identified is that there has been some progression
in including construction managers in debates regarding climate change and sustainability, however there
has been minimal involvement in regards to PLFA.
There are several barriers that have resulted in the lack of involvement of construction managers in the
PLFA industry. The primary research suggests that a majority if participants recognised market failure
and lack of information to be key barriers. It has not only resulted in construction managers to stay within
their comfort zones, but has also encouraged unprofessional builders to enter the industry, adding health
and safety risks as another concern. The recommended option would be for the government to provide the
relevant information required for construction professionals regarding the industry. Secondly, put in place
strategies to control, support and monitor construction professionals to enter the PLFA industry with the
relevant qualifications, insurance and documentations.
308
The lack of support towards qualification, knowledge and training required were mentioned by both
primary and secondary data as barriers to PLFA industry. The recommendation would be that the
government and relevant professional bodies to address this issue by implementing recognised
qualifications, national training or approved standard for PLFA. Not only that, it needs to be formally
available and accessible to all professionals in order to attract them towards this industry and prevent
cowboy builders dominating the field.
Finally, behavioural and lack of incentive were mentioned by participants as barriers to enter into the
PLFA market. In order to mitigate this and attract construction managers, the government and appointed
bodies need to implement strategies to provide information, guidance and support to educate construction
professionals about the PLFA market and how their skill-set could be relevant within the industry.
Furthermore, an incentive programme towards helping professionals start in this industry will encourage
them to take the initial step.
To understand the ability required for construction managers to provide PLFA advice, participants were
asked the products and services they provided in relation to PLFA. The results showed various opinions
to which products are the most effective. With this in mind, the recommendation would be for the
government or regulatory body to implement a standard of quality and efficiency for manufacturers to
work against and for flood adaptation professionals to adhere to. The principle could be similar to
building standards and regulations, and this will allow homeowners to have confident in the products
available on the market. In relation to services, the difference noticed is the separation in the services that
is provided in relation to the size and resources of an organisation. Based on this the recommendation
would be for the government to ensure that smaller businesses have the opportunity to learn and develop
key skills to be able to provide a variety of service to compete within the industry. Additionally, it will
make it clearer for professionals entering the industry the specific knowledge and competencies required
to enter the market.
For further research, the recommendation would be to look into the knowledge and competencies required
for construction managers to provide PLFA advice, because the research obtained indicates that at the
moment construction managers lack of relevant knowledge and competencies required to provide PLFA
advice. Another recommendation would be suitability and effectiveness of flood adaptation products;
because this research indicates that at the moment there is a difference of opinion between professionals
to what products are suitable for certain flood adaptation measures.
6.
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IS CONSTRUCTION GETTING QUICKER?

Andrew Ross*, Rebecca Norman, Anupa Manewa and Dianne Marsh
Department of Built Environment, Liverpool John Moores University, United Kingdom
ABSTRACT
Construction time performance has been a frequent topic of discussion in the literature and
government reports in which the performance of the UK construction industry has been reviewed. It is
evident that construction duration is one of the measures by which the success of a project is measured
and there has been a great deal of research to develop reliable methods of predicting construction
duration. There has been significant research identifying factors which have an effect on the duration
of a construction project but little research has been undertaken which considers the changes in
construction duration over time. This paper reports on a desktop study considering project duration by
collecting data from the Building Cost Information Service (BCIS) and modelled in a general linear
model (GLM) and an analysis of variance (ANOVA) to investigate the relationships between the
contributory factors for construction duration for projects constructed in the UK between 1995 and
2014. The paper draws a conclusion which suggests that the meeting of the targets set in Construction
2025 of a reduction of time by 25% is unrealistic is drawn; counter intuitively the duration of
construction projects in the UK was seen to have increased between 1995 and 2014.
Keywords:
1.
Construction Duration; Building Cost Information Service (BCIS); General Linear

Model (GLM); Analysis of Variance (ANOVA); UK.
INTRODUCTION
The construction industry in the UK accounts for over 280,000 businesses, 3 million jobs, and contributes
approximately 6.4% in value added (BIS, 2013; ONS, 2014). The industry reports by Latham (1994);
Egan (1998); Wolstenholme (2009) which gave a review of the problems and recommendations for the
industry highlight the importance of this. Latham (1994) explained that cost overruns and delays in the
construction industry are largely related to the adversarial contract relationships which often lead to
dispute. In the report 30 recommendations were made to address the industry problems and the
Construction Industry Board was set up as one of the outcomes (Latham, 1994). There had been some
improvements when the Egan (1998) report was published, however these improvements were not
considered to be significant enough. Egan (1998) proposed targets of cutting construction cost and time
by 10% each year, and highlighted the importance of setting such targets and creating measures of project
performance. Similar concerns were raised just over 10 years later by Wolstenholme (2009) who found
that only 48% of respondents believed the projects they work on are completed to time. In order to
encourage the construction industry to change its approaches public sector projects were identified to be
exemplars of best practice.
This paper reports on research which considers the modelling of factors that influence contract period and
to identify if construction has got quicker. The data were collected from completed public and private
sector projects over a twenty year time period which allowed a contrast to be made between the two
sectors and an assessment over the time period; this supported some tentative conclusions about the effect
the interventions have had. Prior to data collection a review of extant literature was undertaken to identify
the significant factors influencing contract periods and approaches to modelling contract time.
Much of the previous research concentrates on the relationship between construction cost and
construction time (Martin et al., 2006; Kaka and Price, 1991; Kumaraswamy and Chan, 1995; Mak et al.,
2000). Kaka and Price (1991) in particular considered the relationship in some detail using Building Cost
Information Service (BCIS) data and found that there is a positive correlation between the two variables.
To improve client satisfaction it is clearly important to accurately predict the duration of a construction
*
312
project (Blyth et al., 2004). The majority of research focuses on the overall construction duration (Bhokha
and Ogunlana, 1999; Boussabaine, 2001; Chan and Chan, 2004; Pewdum et al., 2009), whereas Blyth et
al. (2004); Nguyen et al. (2013); Zhang et al. (2004) focus primarily upon individual construction
activities. There are two main types of techniques for modelling the duration of a construction project and
these are simulation techniques and multiple linear regression modelling.
2.
SIMULATION TECHNIQUES
2.1.
ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORKS
Bhokha and Ogunlana (1999) applied artificial neural networks (ANNs) to forecast construction duration.
The ANN links give weights to various inputs which provide an output through a logistic transformation
function to capture a decision making process (Bhokha and Ogunlana, 1999). Pewdum et al. (2009) also
use an ANN to predict the construction duration of highways projects in Thailand. Bhokha and Ogunlana
(1999) acknowledge that ANNs lack user friendliness and explanation facilities. Moreover, Lowe et al.
(2006) found that ANNs had a greater percentage error in all models apart from one when compared to
the regression models in their study. Zhang et al. (2004) utilise fuzzy discrete-event simulation which
looks at the activities of constructing buildings to model the uncertainty in construction duration.
2.2.
MULTIPLE LINEAR REGRESSION MODELLING
Greenwood and Shaglouf (1997) considered a number of models to predict construction and conclude that
the planning methods used by the client are generally the most accurate, with multiple linear regression
being the most effective out of the remaining models. Chan and Kumaraswamy (1999) applied multiple
linear regression to predict the construction of high-rise public housing projects. The study by Blyth et al.
(2004) also produced low error levels of 15% for activity level predictions and 7% for overall duration.
Moreover, according to Blyth et al. (2004) the multiple linear regression model is the most suitable
method to establish the relationship between variables for a statistically small sample size. In order to
establish an analytical framework to test the hypothesis that construction is getting quicker, the influential
factors had to be identified.
3.
INFLUENTIAL FACTORS
3.1.
COST
The first notable research on the relationship between construction time and cost was that by Bromilow
(1969) when Bromilows time-cost model was introduced. Kaka and Price (1991) utilised data from the
Building Cost Information Service identified that the relationship changes depending on the type of
project and type of client being considered. Mak et al. (2000) further updated Bromilows time-cost
model for Australian projects built between 1991 and 1998. The K-value in the time-cost model was
found to be correlated with the state economic indicators, suggesting that when there are longer
construction periods when the economy is doing well (Mak et al., 2000). The most recent study showing
the relationship between time and cost was conducted by Martin et al. (2006) who confirmed the
relationship using a data set of 2500 projects constructed between 1998 and 2004; this research was the
basis of the BCIS model.
3.2
FLOOR AREA
The floor area is a factor which affects the duration of a construction project (Bhokha and Ogunlana,
1999; Blyth et al., 2004; Martin et al., 2006; Chan and Chan, 2004; Chan and Kumaraswamy, 1999;
Elhag and Boussabaine, 1999; Greenwood and Shaglouf, 1997; Kumaraswamy and Chan, 1995; Lowe et
al., 2006; Walker, 1995).
313
3.3.
PROCUREMENT METHOD
Blyth et al. (2004); Martin et al. (2006); Chan and Chan (2004) identify that the method of procurement
used has an impact on the duration of the project. Although according to Boussabaine (2001) design and
build projects have a longer duration, whilst other procurement methods have little effect.
3.4.
COMPLEXITY OF PROJECT
Another group of factors highlighted by researchers related to the complexity of a project and can include
the construction methods and methods of contractor selection (Bhokha and Ogunlana, 1999; Blyth et al.,
2004; Martin et al., 2006; Chan and Chan, 2004; Chan and Kumaraswamy, 1999; Lowe et al., 2006;
Walker, 1995). Boussabaine (2001) found that the selection method of negotiation in particular has a
higher tender price and duration. Likewise Zhang et al. (2004) consider construction duration
uncertainties related to the construction method such as weather conditions, equipment properties and
supply of materials.
3.5.
FUNCTION OF THE BUILDING
Clearly the function of a building as well as the client it is being built for has an impact on the duration of
construction (Bhokha and Ogunlana, 1999; Blyth et al., 2004; Martin et al., 2006; Chan and Chan, 2004;
Lowe et al., 2006). Furthermore Bhokha and Ogunlana (1999); Blyth et al. (2004); Martin et al. (2006)
suggest that the location of the building effects the construction duration.
3.6
OTHER FACTORS
There has been a great deal of research into modelling and predicting the duration of construction projects
(Blackman and Picken, 2010; Bromilow, 1969; Bromilow et al., 1988; Kaka and Price, 1991; Walker,
1995; Chan and Kumaraswamy, 1999). However there has been very little, if any, research into whether
construction has become any quicker over the past twenty five years, following on from the
aforementioned seminal reports.
4.
RESEARCH APPROACH
The main focus of this study was to investigate whether construction periods were getting shorter over
time. It was decided that a 20 year period would sufficient to investigate this, particularly as this would
show any impact of the Latham, Egan and Wolstenholme reports. Data from the BCIS on projects
constructed between 1995 and 2014 were collected and variables such as those identified above were
recorded. In order for the data from the BCIS to be interpreted easily it needed to be formatted. For the
projects to be comparable the contract value was adjusted for location (UK mean) and the quarter in
which it has been priced the values were rebased to the final quarter of 2014 (Kaka and Price, 1991).
5.
5.1.
DATA COLLECTION
The database was used to collect newly built projects in the UK between 1995 and 2014 from the public
and the private sector which could be analysed to achieve the research aim. The public sector was
represented by buildings built for education such as schools, universities and libraries, and the private
sector projects were made up of supermarkets, factories, hotels, offices and sports facilities. In total 604
private projects and 886 public projects were collected. The frequency tables which show how many of
these projects were built in the years being investigated is shown in Appendix A. Furthermore, many of
the variables being considered were categorical variables with a large number of categories. These
variables, such as location, were reduced into a smaller number of categories so that it could be
reasonably seen how they affect the contract period. It was also required that these variables were coded
so that they could be included within a model, the variables are shown in Appendix B.
314
5.2.
DATA MANIPULATION
Results of a general linear model are very difficult to interpret if large numbers of variables and
categories are used. Hence, the detailed BCIS data was collected into groups based on similar projects.
The categorical variable of time that was considered was the year in which the projects contract value was
priced. To help determine suitable groups of years a graph of the mean contract period for each year
between 1995 and 2014 was considered for both the public and the private data. Four year periods were
subsequently selected to be used in the general linear model to investigate the trend of contract period
over the year groups. The variable for year was condensed into the four year categories 1995-1998, 19992002, 2003-2006, 2007-2010 and 2011-2014 which are coded as 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 respectively The
categorical variables for the public data and the private data are summarised in Appendix C. The coding
of the independent variables can be viewed in Appendix D.
5.3.
DATA ANALYSIS
A general linear model was used to investigate the relationship between the agreed contract period and
the year in which the project was priced, the method of contractor selection, and whether the project was
public or private. This was selected as it allowed for an interpretive approach to the quantitative analysis.
A planned contrast was utilised to investigate whether there was polynomial relationship in contract
period with respect to year. Moreover, the interactions between the variables in the general linear model
were investigated to determine whether the trend in the length of contract period is similar for the
different categories of variable or not. Furthermore for the BCIS data the distribution of the variables was
checked and the rebased building cost was transformed using a logarithm.
6.
RESULT AND DISCUSSION
6.1.
THE GENERAL LINEAR MODEL
The general linear model (GLM) is a mathematical model which allows for all of the statistical tests of
hypotheses such as -tests, analysis of variance, correlation and regression analysis to be applied in broad
analytic framework (Rochowicz, 2014). Support for the use of such a framework rather than separate
isolated tests was found (Maxwell and Delaney, 2004; Rochowicz, 2014).
6.1.1. SELECTING THE INDEPENDENT VARIABLES

The ultimate aim of this research was to investigate the change in contract period over the years 1995 to
2014. Hence the categorical variable year was included in the model. Furthermore, the ANOVA model
was used to analyse whether the contract period follows a linear trend with respect to year. The selection
of contractor method was included in the ANOVA model as an independent categorical variable to test
for the significance of the relationship between contract period and the contract selection method.
6.1.2. ANALYSING THE MAIN EFFECTS

Effect of contractor selection and project type
After running the GLM for the full factorial model it was important to consider the main effect of each of
the independent variables. The output from SPSS can be observed in Table 1. The F-ratio and degrees of
freedom for the model and the residuals can be reported in the form (
,
)=
where
represents the F-ratio,
are the degrees of freedom for the model and
are the degrees of freedom
for the residuals (Field, 2013). The p-value of this ratio was considered to be significant if <0.05. There
was a significant main effect of the year in which the project was constructed when the method of
contractor selection and project type was ignored, (4,1451)=3.888, =0.004. This main effect was
considered further in the planned contrast to help evaluate how the contract period changes for the
different time periods and is reported below. For the variable for selection of contractor (3,1451)=3.218,
=0.022 which was also a significant p-value. Therefore the method of contractor selection also
influences the contract period when whether a project is public or private, and the year in which the
315
project was built is ignored. Moreover it was clear that the main effect of the project type (public or
private) was not significant, (1,1451)=1.696, =0.193. This suggests that the contract period for the
project does not differ depending on whether the project is public or private. However, it is misleading to
interpret the main effects of the independent variables when there is a significant interaction in the model
(Field, 2013).
Table 1: Full Factorial ANOVA
Interactions between independent variables

To establish whether the time period had an influence on the contract period of a public sector or private
sector project and analysis of the interaction of the year of construction, contractor selection and project
type was required. The interactions between the independent variables were analysed using the F-ratios in
the same way as the main effects. For the interaction between year and method of contractor selection,
(12,1451)=1.005, =0.441 which was not a significant p-value. Therefore the effect of the year group on
the contract period of the project was not significantly different for the different contractor selection
methods. Furthermore there was a non-significant interaction between the year group and the project type
(public or private), (4,1451)=0.787, =0.533. Hence it can be concluded that the effect of year group on
the agreed contract period is the same for public and private projects.
Impact of contractor selection
The interaction between the method of contractor selection and public or private project was significant,
(3,1451)=3.456, =0.016. It was found that the effect of the contractor selection method on the agreed
contract period was significantly different for public and private projects. When further analysis was
undertaken for the public sector projects it was found that those public projects which used two stage
projects were generally longer, however selected competition lead to a longer contract period than both
open competition and negotiated. This interaction can be broken down using simple effects for the
interaction between the contractor selection method and the project type (public or private) analysis to
look at the effect of the project being public or private at each level of the selection of contractor (Field
2013). The output from the simple effects analysis can be viewed in Table 2. The analysis indicated that
there was a significant difference in contract period between public and private projects when selected
competition and open competition are used ( =0.000 and =0.031 respectively). On the other hand there
is no significant difference between public and private projects for those that were negotiated ( =0.987)
and for those using two stage tendering ( =0.320). Finally the three way interaction between all of the
independent variables was non-significant, (11,1451)=0.490, =0.911. This suggests that the effect of the
selection of contractor method and the year group on contract period does not differ between public and
private projects.
316
Table 2: Simple Effects Analysis for the Interaction between Contractor Selection Method and Project Type
Planned contrasts
Planned contrasts were undertaken to investigate how the agreed contract period differed across the
factors. A simple contrast was used to compare the contract periods of each of the methods of contractor
selection to selected competition. In addition, a polynomial contrast was used to investigate how the
contract period changed across the year groups from 1995 to 2014. The SPSS output for the polynomial
contrast for the year group is shown in Table 3. The output for the linear trend gave a significant p-value
of =0.037 which suggested that the contract period changes with the year group in a linear fashion.
Table 3: Polynomial Contrast of Year Group
317
Table 4: Marginal Means of the Variable for the Year Group
By observing the marginal means for the variable for year shown in Table 4 it can be seen that the mean
contract period increases between 1995 and 2010. However, the mean for 2011-2014 shows a decrease
again. This decrease could be the reason for the significant p-value for the cubic trend in the polynomial
contrast ( =0.038). Overall the polynomial contrast can be concluded as significant, (4,1451)=4.323 with
=0.002. The contrast did not suggest a decrease in contract period as was suggested by Government
reports. In fact the results of the analysis suggested the opposite.
7.
CONCLUSION
The General Linear model found that the main effects for the year and the method of contractor selection
were significant, whilst the project type was not. On the other hand there was a significant interaction
between the project type and the contractor selection method which suggested that the effect of the
contractor selection method differs between public and private projects. These significant differences
occurred when selected competition and open competition were used, and there was no significant
difference between the contract period of public and private projects when negotiation and two stage
tendering are used. By considering a planned contrast the differences in contract periods between the
contractor selection methods were considered; open competition did not significantly differ from selected
competition, however negotiated and two stage tendering were significantly different to selected
competition. Additionally a planned contrast was used to specifically address the main research question;
is construction getting quicker? The polynomial contrast used suggested that there was a significant linear
trend in contract period over the year groups, however the trend showed an increase in contract period
rather than a decrease. The target of reducing construction periods by 25% as identified by Construction
2025 (BIS, 2013) does seem a difficult achievement based on these findings.
The first major limitation of this study is that by using the secondary data source of the BCIS data the
projects are not randomly selected. However, all of the projects that were found between the years 1995
and 2014 for the building functions selected were included, unless they had data values missing, to
attempt to eliminate the possible bias.
8.
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Appendix A: Data in year group
Appendix B: BCIS data
320
Appendix C: Condensed variables
Appendix D: The codes used in the GLM to represent the independent variables
321
LEGAL FRAMEWORK FOR EFFECTIVE IMPLEMENTATION OF ADR

METHODS UNDER THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY
DEVELOPMENT ACT
Jayarajan Jeyavernee* and Mahesh Abeynayake
ABSTRACT
The recently enacted Construction Industry Development Act No. 33 of 2014 is for the development of
the construction industry in Sri Lanka. The Act facilitates the resolution of disputes within the
construction industry. There is ineffectiveness on implementation of ADR methods for the settlement of
disputes. Thus, this study focuses on developing a legal framework for effective implementation of
ADR methods for the settlement of disputes in accordance with the said Act.
The research was initiated with a literature survey. A survey approach was implemented whereby two
rounds of questionnaires were distributed and semi-structured interviews were conducted among
construction professionals with more than 10 years of experience. A pilot study was conducted as a
preliminary measure to design the questionnaire round one. Questionnaire survey was conducted by
Delphi technique with two rounds by targeting 36 and 30 professionals in round one and two
respectively. Data was analysed by taking as a percentage of the total number of respondents for
questionnaire round one. For questionnaire round two, first t-test was used to identify the significant
problems and potential solutions and then MWR was used to rank them. The structured interviews
were analysed using content analysis. The sampling technique was a judgemental sampling.
The survey results on questionnaires revealed the problematic areas related ADR methods used by the
construction industry and at the said Act. The survey findings also presented potential solutions to
overcome those problematic areas. In addition to the questionnaire survey, interviews were generated
recommendations to the part IX - Settlement of disputes of the said Act. Through these results of the
study legal framework for effective implementation of ADR methods under the Construction Industry
Development Act No. 33 of 2014 was developed. This framework can be adopted to settle the dispute
effectively in the Sri Lankan Construction Industry. By practicing this framework the projects can be
continued without deadlock, whenever dispute is arisen.
Keywords:
1.
Alternative Dispute Resolution; Construction Industry Development Act No.33 of 2014;

Settlement of Disputes.
INTRODUCTION
The construction industry is one of the crucial industries that be able to place any country on the fast track
of development. Thus, construction industry is placing a vital role in the growth of economy (Central
Bank of Sri Lanka, 2014). Construction projects are highly uncertain, complex in nature and it is difficult
to decide every detail at the earlier stages (The College of Estate Management, 2014).
ICJ (2011, p.2) stated that the dispute is a disagreement on a point of law or fact, a conflict of legal
views or of interests between two persons. Whenever dispute comes, projects stops at a half and
everybody loses money (Patterson, 2015). Therefore, the settlement of dispute is necessarily considerable
to complete the projects successfully as to eliminate the delays of the completion of construction projects
(Cheung et al., 2010).
322
The cost, time consumption and risk of litigation in construction disputes tends to look for fresh and
further efficient techniques to resolve the disputes outside the court premises (Elziny et al., 2014). Thus,
alternative dispute resolution (ADR) methods have been introduced and practised in construction industry
(Patterson, 2015). At SBD/02, ICTAD (2007) mentioned that, normally when any dispute arises, the
conditions of contract in contract document is referred to check whether is there any methods to follow
for the settlement of the disputes. Every arrangement to the potential for disagreement over issues arising
from a contract should be considered (Bihancov, 2014). The developed countries already have
construction Acts which facilitate the dispute resolution process by using the ADR methods. For an
example, UK construction Act which is known as the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration
Act (The National Archives, 2015). But, in Sri Lanka, there is no such an Act earlier. These kinds of
issues are resolved by introduction of the Construction Industry Development Act No.33 of 2014, which
is provided for the development of construction industry in Sri Lanka. In case of any disputes relating to
construction works, if any provision is not included in the contract to settle the dispute, then the dispute is
to be settled in accordance to the Act.
A couple of provisions is there in this Act which introduce a way of solving disputes associated with
construction activities (Jayalath, 2014). The Act facilitates the resolution of disputes within the
construction industry. Even though, this Act has three ADR methods to be followed in case of disputes,
when the clauses are silent at the condition of contract in the contract document, there are some
drawbacks in the selection of ADR methods at the newly enacted Act (Jayalath, 2014). In the Act, there is
a way from conciliation, mediation and adjudication without a stopover at any arbitral tribunal that has
being in practice over five decades (Jayalath, 2014). Arbitration is the single most preferred method of
dispute resolution recognised internationally as providing a flexible and effective alternative to costly and
time consuming litigation (Mwenda, 2003). Such an ADR method is not mentioned in this Act.
Accuracy, short response time, cost savings, increased awareness of the issues, accountability and
dependency could be a reflection of success, as a dispute mechanism (Jayalath, 2014). Thus, the
construction industry needs a cost effective and fast dispute resolution process (Jayalath, 2014). Hence,
the research tends to develop a legal framework for effective implementation of ADR methods for the
settlement of disputes according to the Construction Industry Development Act No.33 of 2014.
This paper initially provides a comprehensive literature review in order to mine the background of the
ADR methods used by the construction industry and at the said Act. Then the findings of the
questionnaire surveys and interviews have been presented. Finally, conclusions have been drawn from the
findings.
2.
RESEARCH METHOD
The research commenced with literature review which reviews the existing literature on ADR methods
and said Act. Firstly, it was decided that a survey approach would be suitable for this research to address
the research problem and to collect the data from the construction practitioners with more than ten years
of experience. Sampling strategy for data collection was judgmental sampling. Pilot survey was
conducted to six practitioners to collect input and to improve the questionnaire. Questionnaire survey was
conducted by Delphi technique with two rounds. In questionnaire round 1, data was collected from 36
respondents and analysed by taking a percentage of the total number of respondents and the problematic
areas and potential solutions which were obtained above 50% out of total respondents had been qualified
to questionnaire round 2. For questionnaire round two, data was collected from 30 respondents and at first
t-test on SPSS software to identify the significant problems and potential solution. Then, MWR was
calculated to rank the significant problems and potential solution. The structured interviews were
conducted to 28 professionals and analysed using content analysis. Finally, arrived at conclusions and
recommendations.
323
3.
LITERATURE REVIEW
3.1.
CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY DEVELOPMENT ACT NO.33 OF 2014
Construction Industry Development Act (2014) stated that the Construction Industry Development Act
No.33 of 2014 is,
An Act to provide for the development of the construction industry in Sri Lanka; to
regulate, register, formalize and standardize the activities of the construction industry; to
provide for the establishment of the national advisory council on construction; the
establishment of the construction industry development authority; and the establishment of
the construction industry development fund and the fund of the construction industry
development authority; to provide measures for the improvement and wellbeing of the
industry related professionals, manufacturers, suppliers, contractors and craftsmen; and for
the settlement of disputes related to construction activities; to ensure public safety in the
construction industry of Sri Lanka; and for matters connected therewith or incidental
thereto. (p.1)
3.2.
SETTLEMENT OF DISPUTES AS PER SAID LEGISLATION
A couple of provisions are there in this Act which introduces a way of solving disputes associated with
construction activities (Jayalath, 2014). Construction Industry Development Act (2014) states in the Act
that there are three ADR methods which could be followed in case of a dispute. They are conciliation,
mediation and adjudication. However, Act introduced special Appeal Board to hear the appeal on
decision or award of ADR methods.
If the parties in the contract faced any dispute between them in relation to contract, initially the dispute
could be settled by conciliation or mediation. For the disputes which are unable to be resolved with
conciliation or mediation, the adjudication could be the next choice. The parties who are not satisfied with
the decision of the adjudicator, may appeal to the Appeals Board which has been introduced in this Act
(Construction Industry Development Act, 2014). Likewise there is a certain process to be carried out to
settle the dispute as per this Act.
3.3.
INTERNATIONAL PRACTICES OF SETTLEMENT OF DISPUTES
The most of the countries already have construction Acts which facilitate the dispute resolution process
by using the ADR methods. For example, UK construction Act which is known as the Housing Grants,
Construction and Regeneration Act (The National Archives, 2015). Moreover the Building and
Construction Industry Security of Payment Act of Singapore is one like (Building and Construction
Authority, 2005). As per the official position, Singapore is still a developing country. In Singapore,
mediation, adjudication and arbitration are in use to settle the disputes. The United Kingdom is a
developed country and has the world's fifth largest economy. At UK, mediation, adjudication and
arbitration are used to settle the disputes.
3.4.
COMPARISON BETWEEN SRI LANKA, SINGAPORE AND UNITED KINGDOM PRACTICES ON ADR
METHODS
In Sri Lanka, Debt Conciliation Board Act 1941 is available for conciliation. But, it is not suitable for the
construction industry. UNCITRAL is recognizing the value of conciliation as a method of amicably
settling disputes arising in the context of international commercial relations (United Nations Commission
on International Trade Law, 1994).
In Sri Lanka, Mediation Board Act (No. 72 of 1988) and Mediation Boards (amendment) Act, No. 4 of
2011 provide legal recognition to the mediation. SMC empowers parties to take charge and gain positive
outcomes in complex business environments through facilitating the mediation of disputes in a range of
commercial areas (Singapore Mediation Centre, 2013). The Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (CIArb) is
324
an institute of arbitrators and a professional membership body for potential and practicing mediators at
UK. The guidelines are provided to conduct the mediation by the CTArb (CIArb, 2007).
In Sri Lanka, Adjudication is practiced as per the SBDs according to the form of contract of the projects.
In Singapore and UK, adjudication is conducted as per Building and Construction Industry Security of
Payment Act 2004 and Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996, respectively.
Adjudication has the legal assent at UK through the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act.
In Sri Lanka, arbitration is practiced as per Arbitration Act No. 11 of 1995. Moreover, in Singapore and
UK, arbitration is conducted as per International Arbitration Act (Original Enactment: Act 23 of 1994)
revised on 2002 and Arbitration Act 1996 accordingly. There are no any huge deviations among the
arbitration practices in these countries.
3.5.
PROBLEMATIC AREAS OF ADR METHODS
Conciliation is rarely practiced and not popular when compared to the other ADR methods (Kassem,
2014). As well as, decision given by the conciliator is not bound between the parties (Kassem, 2014).
Conciliators have no powers of enforcement (Billings and Watts, 2007). As well as the awareness of
ADR methods and awareness in related legislation or standard conditions of contract is less (Abeynayake,
2014).
Mediation is not binding the parties with the decision, not provide any decision to settle, the dispute rarely
practiced and not that much popular and the awareness of ADR methods and awareness in related
legislation or standard conditions of contract is low (Jayalath, 2014). Mediator diversity and training,
greatly affect whether disputants can get fair and unbiased outcomes (Valters, 2013). There is an
informality for the mediator to perform his function and generally no legal obligations arise for the
mediator from the solution (Office of Legal Affairs Codification Division, 1992). Depending on skills of
Mediator outcome vary.
In adjudication, low level of satisfaction on proceedings and outcomes are there. Additionally, less formal
than arbitration, strict rules of evidence are not applied (Bentley, 1992). Procedural rules may be imposed
by nominating body. Adjudication may destroy the relationship between parties. The consequences of
failure to comply with time constraints may be severe (Jayalath, 2014).
In arbitration, there is dissatisfaction with current arbitration practice within the construction industry
because of its complexity and slowness (Albright and Stoddard, 2012). Therefore, low level of
satisfaction is there on arbitration as an ADR method such as proceedings and outcomes. Time limits are
not mentioned at the Arbitration Act (Jayalath, 2014). Involvement of Lawyers for the arbitration
hearings is higher. The fee charged by the arbitrator in order to settle the dispute is higher these days
(Albright and Stoddard, 2012).
3.6.
POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS OF ADR METHODS
As solutions, increasing the practice of technically qualified construction professionals as arbitrators,

adjudicators, etc. for settlement of construction disputes, speeding up the proceedings of ADR methods,
giving more attention in drafting the correct dispute resolution clause, changing the attitude of
construction professionals to encourage an ADR culture and moving away from traditional court
practices, conducting awareness programs such as teaching and training in ADR methods and their
procedure at the professional and academic institutes, establishing an institute for practicing, developing
and regulating all ADR methods, introducing rules and guidelines for ADR methods used in the
construction industry in Sri Lanka for mediation and conciliation, introducing time framework to the
ADR methods for settlement of disputes, appointing of a lawyer and experts on the construction industry
to the ADR tribunal and introducing rules for non-involvement of legal professionals in ADR practice
(Abeynayake, 2014). A complete re-orientation of the traditional approach and attitude towards dispute
resolution is needed for the stakeholders of the Sri Lankan construction industry (Lim, 1994). During
operations and implementation of ADR methods, establish of effective procedures for selection, training,
and oversight of conciliators, mediators, adjudicators and arbitrators is essential (Brown et al., 1996).
325
4.
DATA ANALYSIS AND RESEARCH FINDINGS
Data was collected through pilot survey, two rounds of questionnaire survey and semi-structured
interviews were conducted among construction professionals with more than ten years of experience.
4.1.
PILOT SURVEY
The pilot questionnaire was prepared and distributed to 6 experts in construction industry and obtained
suggestions, mainly for the problematic areas and potential solutions. In addition to literature review,
respondents were suggested additional problematic areas and potential solutions. Moreover, some
problematic areas were removed according to the comments. Problematic areas such as mediator is not
provide any decision to settle the dispute, creative remedies are not possible and arbitration is an
adversarial process were removed. No time framework for settlement of disputes was changed as Time
framework for settlement of disputes at the contract is not followed for the reason that, the actual
meaning of the problem was not represented on the previous phrase.
In conciliation, not enforceable by courts unless parties make separate agreement to enforce and o trained
personnel to do Conciliation were added. Community should be advanced to consider others views were
included in mediation. Under adjudication, time framework for settlement of disputes at the contract is
not followed, temporary Binding, awareness of importance and outcome of Adjudication is low, lack of
competent adjudicators at Sri Lanka and costly method added. Arbitration was included costly method,
only few construction professionals are there and slow in enforcement of arbitral award. These are the
newly added problematic areas through pilot survey.
A potential solution Introduce time framework for ADR methods for settlement of disputes has been
removed from the questionnaire round one for the reason that, if the time framework is at the contract, it
would not be suit to all type of disputes. The suggested potential solutions were honour the outcome of
the ADR when it is not enforceable, guidelines to draft ADR clauses in contracts and appoint full time
adjudicator for the complex projects. Finally, questionnaire round one was developed based on the results.
4.2.
DELPHI ROUND ONE
A total of 38 questionnaires were distributed to where 36 respondents responded. Among these

respondents (36), the problematic areas for each ADR methods were replied by different number of
professionals. The number of practitioners replied for each ADR methods among respondents at Delphi
Round one are 29 practitioners for conciliation, 34 practitioners for mediation and adjudication and 35 for
arbitration.
The conclusive evidence that the 97% of the respondents in the sample have admitted the awareness of
the Act. The usage of adjudication and arbitration are high in the Sri Lankan construction industry is
identified through the survey. Thus, adjudication and arbitration are being practiced more in the
construction industry. However, mediation is also being practiced in the industry up to some extent. But,
the usage of conciliation is comparatively low. Through the survey, it is clear that the awareness of
method and its procedure is high for arbitration. Second highest for adjudication. However, mediation
knowledge also there for nearly 64% of construction practitioners who are having more than 10 years of
experience. But, the awareness of conciliation is comparatively low among the construction professionals.
326
4.2.1.
Problematic Areas related to Conciliation

The problematic areas related to conciliation in Sri Lankan construction industry is identified in the
percentage of respondents of conciliation. Conciliation is rarely practiced and low popularity and
Conciliation is not binding the parties with the decision and conciliators have no powers of enforcement
were accepted by 86.21% and 82.76% of respondents. Moreover, no time framework for settlement of
disputes, not enforceable by court unless parties make separate agreement to enforce and no trained
personal to conciliation were answered as problem by 75.86% of respondents. Due to mixed
questionnaire, problems which were recognized as addition to the above are parties have discretion to
withdraw from the process at any stage, process is practiced only in case of minor disputes, no
encouragement from the authorities, no proper awareness, not included within standard forms of contracts
and parties attitude about conciliation (Confidence about process).
Among these problems, parties have discretion to withdraw from the process at any stage was rejected,
because this is a feature and not a problem. Furthermore, parties attitude about conciliation (Confidence
about process) was removed for the reason that, the respondent mentioned that the parties who involve in
the conciliation are not following the procedures with full involvement because they have the mentality
that if it fails then they can refer it to adjudication or arbitration. Therefore, this can be categorised under
no proper awareness of the method.
Problematic Areas related to Mediation
The problematic areas related to mediation in the Sri Lankan construction industry is identified in the
percentage of respondents for mediation. Mediation is not binding the parties with the decision and
Mediators have no powers of enforcement and Depending on skills of Mediator, outcomes vary are by
far the most popular problems related to mediation with 85.29%. No time framework for settlement of
disputes and Mediation is rarely practiced and awareness of mediation is low were accepted by 76.47%
and 67.65% respectively. However, community should be advanced to consider others views is much
less significant problem with 44.12%. Due to mixed questionnaire, problems which were recognized as
addition to the above are skill of mediators, parties have discretion to withdraw from the process at any
stage, process is practised only in case of minor disputes, no trained personnel to do mediation, not
included within standard forms of contracts and parties attitude about conciliation (Confidence about
process).
Among these problems, community should be advanced to consider others views was eliminated due to
the acceptance by lesser than 50% of respondents. Parties have discretion to withdraw from the process
at any stage was eliminated, because it is a feature. In this process, parties believe in achievement of
decision is important. Thus, if the parties feel that they cannot obtain a decision in any stage of the
process. Then, the parties have discretion to withdraw. Parties attitude about mediation (Confidence
about process) was rejected due to the same reason as mentioned under problematic areas related to
conciliation.
Problematic Areas related to Adjudication
The problematic areas related to adjudication in Sri Lankan construction industry are identified in the
percentage of respondents for adjudication. Time framework for settlement of disputes in the contract is
not always followed and Normally Adjudicator is not appointed at the initial stage are by far the most
popular problems related to adjudication with 79.41%. Temporary binding and Lack of competent
adjudicators at Sri Lanka were accepted by 76.47% and 61.76% respectively. However, Awareness of
importance and outcome of adjudication and Costly method were much less significant problem with
44.12% and 38.24% accordingly.Due to mixed questionnaire, problems which were recognized addition
to the above are adjudicators rarely follow the events at site progressively until the dispute is notified and
they are not keen in prevention of disputes, loosing party can resort to Arbitration and so rarely accepts
the decision, preference to Arbitration over adjudication, standing DAB may be costly method, lack of
procedural rules and decision of Adjudication is not honoured even temporarily.
327
Among these problems, awareness of importance and outcome of adjudication and costly method were
eliminated due to less than 50%. Adjudicators rarely follow the events at site progressively until the
dispute is notified. They are not keen in prevention of disputes. was rejected because cannot mention as
they are not keen in prevention of disputes because if there is a standing adjudication they try to prevent
the problem too. Thus, that phrase is removed. Lack of procedural rules was eliminated, due to the
reason that ICTAD Publication which is known as Guidelines for ICTAD enlisted construction
adjudicators is contained procedure for enlistment, procedure for adjudication and principles of ethics.
Problematic Areas related to Arbitration
The problematic areas related to arbitration in Sri Lankan construction industry are identified in the
percentage of respondents for arbitration. Slowness of the method and higher involvement of Lawyers
for arbitration hearings whenever not necessary are by far the most popular problems related to
adjudication with 88.57%. Moreover, Slowness of enforcement of Arbitral Award and costly method
were accepted by 82.86%. However, only few construction professional are there, No time framework
for settlement of disputes and Dissatisfaction with current arbitration practice within the construction
industry because of complexity of the method were accepted as a problem by around 80%, 71.43% and
71.43% of respondents accordingly.Due to mixed questionnaire, problems which were recognized
additionally are relevant technical professionals are rarely appointed as arbitrators as well as dominated
by legal persons and lengthy proceedings follow similar to litigation in courts.
Among these problems, Dissatisfaction with current arbitration practice within the construction industry
because of complexity of the method was rejected because this is a feature of arbitration not a problem.
Furthermore, lengthy proceedings follow similar to litigation in courts was removed due to the same
reason.
4.2.2.
POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS
The potential solutions suggested to improve ADR were presented to respondents. They were asked to
mark whether they identify the following as potential improvements in ADR methods to settle
construction disputes efficiently. Table 1 summarises the responses received. The percentages identified
with reference to solutions are shown in the table below.
Table 1: Potential Solutions
Potential solutions
Increase the practice of technically qualified construction professionals as conciliators, mediators,

adjudicators and arbitrators for settlement of construction disputes
100.00
Make the proceedings of ADR methods speeder
88.89
Change the attitude of construction professionals to encourage an ADR culture and to move away
from traditional court practices
83.33
Conducting awareness programs
83.33
Appoint full time adjudicator for the huge and complex projects
80.56
More attention should be given in drafting of the correct dispute resolution clause
77.78
Introduce rules and guidelines for ADR methods used in the construction industry in Sri Lanka for
mediation and conciliation
77.78
During operations and implementation of ADR methods, establish effective procedures for
selection, training, and oversight of conciliators, mediators, adjudicators and arbitrators.
77.78
Guideline to draft ADR clauses in contracts
69.44
10
Establishment of an institute for practicing, developing and regulating all ADR methods
61.11
11
Honoring the outcome of the ADR, when it is not enforceable
58.33
328
Due to mixed questionnaire, potential solutions which were identified as addition to the above solutions
identified through literature review and pilot survey are the proceedings shall continue uninterruptedly for
required number of days until completion, enforce the agreed time frame by parties and arbitration panel
strictly follow without any extension for submissions and postponements of hearing, introduce rules and
guidelines for adjudication and guidelines shall be drafted in nominating adjudicators etc from the panel
lists of appointing authority, shortcomings are exposed in the present system.
Among above potential solutions, following potential solutions were rejected or amended for the purpose
of questionnaire round two. Those potential solutions were supported with the reason of rejection or
amendment as below.
Conducting awareness programs - It was changed as Conducting awareness programs and

Continuing Professional Development (CPD) programs regarding ADR methods as to make it
more detailed.
Establishment of an institute for practicing, developing and regulating all ADR methods - There are
institutes such as CIDA, ICPL Arbitration Centre and Sri Lanka National Arbitration Centre. CIDA
is facilitating and regulating the ADR methods. As well as, CIDA is going to establish an institute
for adjudication too. ICPL Arbitration Centre and Sri Lanka National Arbitration Centre are
practicing, developing and regulating arbitration.
Introduce rules and guidelines for Adjudication - ICTAD Publication No. ICTAD/ADV/01 Guidelines for ICTAD enlisted construction adjudicators is a contained procedure for enlistment,
procedure for adjudication and principles of ethics. Thus, this is rejected from potential solution.
Finally detailed questionnaire round two was developed based on the results of questionnaire survey
round one.
4.3.
DELPHI ROUND TWO
A total of 36 questionnaires were distributed to which 30 respondents responded. Among these

respondents (30), the problematic areas for each ADR methods were replied by different number of
professionals. The number of practitioners replied for each ADR methods among respondents at Delphi
Round one are 25 for conciliation, 28 for mediation and adjudication and 29 for arbitration.
4.3.1.
The section one of questionnaire survey round two was designed to identify the level of each problematic
areas in implementation of ADR methods such as conciliation, mediation, adjudication and arbitration in
Sri Lankan construction industry and finally ranked using scale of 5 levels (Likert). For analysis, first ttest was used to identify the significant problematic areas. t-test was done through one sample t-test on
SPSS software. Then, MWR was calculated to rank the significant problematic areas.
Benchmarking p value for this t test was 0.05. If the significance level which is the p value for a particular
problematic area is less than 0.05, then that problem is significant. Null hypothesis is non-significant
problematic area and alternative hypothesis is significant problematic area. In the problematic areas, if the
t observed value is greater than the t-critical value, and they were considered as significant problematic
areas, then the null hypothesis was rejected and the alternate hypothesis was accepted. A test value is 3
and confidence level is 95% (p <0.05, = 0.05)
Problematic Areas related to Conciliation
The critical t-value is 1.711 from the t-table when degrees of freedom is 24 (25-1). Thus, the t-values of
the problematic areas should be greater than the critical t-value. If so, null hypothesis to be rejected.
Further, t (24) = observed t-value. Significant problematic areas arrived through one sample t-test was
ranked using MWR is shown in Table 2.
329
Table 2: Ranking of Significant Problematic Areas Related to Conciliation

Problematic areas related to Conciliation
Not included within standard forms of contracts
Conciliation is not binding the parties with the decision and conciliators have no powers of
enforcement
Not enforceable by court unless parties make separate agreement to enforce
No proper awareness
No time framework for settlement of disputes
No encouragement from the authorities
Conciliation is rarely practiced and low popularity
MWR
4.32
4.24
Rank
1
2
3.96
3.88
3.68
3.64
3.64
3
4
5
6
6
Problematic Areas related to Mediation

ranked using MWR is shown at Table 3.
Table 3: Ranking of Significant Problematic Areas Related to Mediation
Problematic areas related to Mediation
Mediation is not binding the parties with the decision & no powers of enforcement for
mediators
Depending on skills of Mediator outcome vary
Skill of mediators
Not included within standard forms of contracts
No time framework for settlement of disputes
Mediation is rarely practiced and awareness of mediation is low
No trained personnel to do mediation
MWR
4.43
RANK
1
4.21
4.18
4.14
3.68
3.61
3.57
2
3
4
5
6
7
Problematic Areas related to Adjudication

Table 4: Ranking of Significant Problematic Areas Related to Adjudication
Problematic areas related to Adjudication
Adjudicators rarely follow the events at site progressively until the dispute is notified.
Loosing Party can resort to Arbitration and so rarely accepts the decision
Normally Adjudicator is not appointed at the initial stage
Preference to Arbitration over adjudication
Standing DAB may be costly method
Time framework for settlement of disputes at the contract is not followed
MWR
4.11
4.07
3.96
3.89
3.86
3.71
RANK
1
2
3
4
5
6
Problematic Areas related to Arbitration

Table 5: Ranking of Significant Problematic Areas Related to Arbitration
Problematic areas related to Arbitration
Relevant technical professionals are rarely appointed as Arbitrators but dominated by
lawyers and retired judges
Costly method
330
MWR
4.21
RANK
1
4.03
Slowness of the method

Higher involvement of Lawyers for arbitration hearings whenever not necessary
Only few construction professionals are there
Slowness of enforcement of Arbitral Award
4.3.2.
3.97
3.86
3.72
3.48
3
4
5
6
POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS
The potential solutions to improve ADR methods were presented to respondents. They were asked to
mark on the level they are agreed on each potential improvements. Ranking was done with scale of 5
levels (Likert). For analysis, first t-test was used to identify the significant solutions. t-test was done
through one sample t-test on SPSS software. Then, MWR was calculated to rank the significant potential
solutions. The ranking was to prioritise the solutions that have to be taken in order to make ADR methods
more effective and efficient.
Benchmarking p value for this t-test is 0.05. If the significance level for a particular potential solution is
less than 0.05 that potential solution is significant. Null hypothesis is non-significant potential solution
and alternative hypothesis is significant potential solution. In the potential solutions, if the t observed
value is greater than the t-critical value, then they are to be considered as significant potential solutions,
then the null hypothesis is to be rejected and the alternate hypothesis is to be accepted and vice versa. The
critical t-value is 1.699 from the t-table when degrees of freedom is 29 (30-1). Further, a test value is 3, t
(29) = observed t-value, and confidence level is 95% (p <0.05, = 0.05). Significant potential solutions
arrived through one sample t-test was ranked using MWR is shown at Table 6.
Table 6: Ranking of Significant Potential Solutions
Potential Solutions
Appointment of standing adjudicator for complex projects
Increase the practice of technically qualified construction professionals as conciliators,
mediators and etc. for settlement of construction disputes
Guidelines shall be drafted in nominating adjudicators from the panel lists of appointing
authority
Organise the publications of ADR methods in Sinhala and Tamil medium
Conducting awareness programs and CPD programs regarding ADR methods
The proceedings shall continue uninterruptedly for required number of days until
completion
Introduce rules and guidelines for mediation and conciliation to use in the Sri Lankan
construction industry
Provide attention in drafting of correct dispute resolution clause
During and before operations and implementation of ADR methods, establish effective
procedures for selection, training, and oversight of conciliators, mediators and etc.
Make the proceedings of ADR methods speeder
Change the attitude of construction professionals to encourage an ADR culture
Enforce the agreed time frame by Parties and Arbitral tribunal strictly without any
extension
Guideline to draft ADR clauses in contracts
When the decisions are not legally enforceable, Then made contractually binding
4.4.
MWR
4.47
4.40
RANK
1
2
4.33
4.30
3.97
3.90
4
5
6
3.90
3.83
3.77
8
9
3.73
3.70
3.70
10
11
11
3.60
3.55
13
14
SEMI STRUCTURED INTERVIEW
Aim was to make recommendations to the part IX - settlement of dispute at the said Act. Views and
knowledge of construction expertise with more than ten years of experience in the construction industry
was referred and focused in conducting semi structured interviews. The semi structured interview
guideline was prepared and conducted to 28 construction practitioners. 75% of professionals are
unsatisfied on the selection of the ADR methods in the said Act. 79 % of professionals are unsatisfied on
the part IX.
331
Recommendations to the Part IX - Settlement of Disputes at the Act

According to the results of the interviews, 9 professionals have told that the detailed procedures of the
ADR methods have to be included in the said Act or otherwise the document to refer has to be mentioned.
Moreover, 4 professionals have suggested to provide the legal assent to the adjudication. Similarly, 3
professionals have stated to include arbitration as an ADR method, before referring the dispute to the
court. Due to time constraint in the construction projects, facilitate process in speedy manner by rules and
guidelines was recommended by two professionals. Additionally, the other recommendations which were
stated are to establish a committee in CIDA to decide on appointment of adjudicators or arbitrators, to
introduce appeal system for decisions of mediators, conciliators etc. to the authority, to encourage to
attend ADR awareness programme as pre requisite for registration, to penalise any party if they are
absence from proceedings, to provide flexible rules and the guidelines, to introduce negotiation as first
method to solve disputes, to conduct CPDs or related conferences to enhance knowledge of mediators,
conciliators, arbitrators and adjudicators and to use New Zealand or Malaysia model as a guide to
settlement of disputes.
5.
CONCLUSION
Overall, the study has captured the level of effectiveness on settlement of disputes in the construction
industry by means of problematic areas of ADR methods which are used by the construction industry and
at the said Act. As well as, legal framework was proposed for settlement of disputes, using ADR methods
through the Act with the help of potential solutions and the recommendations to the part IX of the said
Act. The legal framework for settlement of disputes is through ADR methods according to the
Construction Industry Development Act No.33 of 2014 is shown at Figure 1. The use of proposed
framework for settlement of disputes could contribute to the development of construction industry.
Figure 1: Legal Framework for Settlement of Disputes through ADR Methods according to the Construction Industry
Development Act No.33 of 2014
6.
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333
MANAGING OCCUPATIONAL STRESS OF PROFESSIONALS IN LARGE

CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS IN SRI LANKA
Rasika Samanmali and Nayanthara De Silva*
ABSTRACT
This research aims to take an insight at construction professional-specific occupational stress causing
factors, and their impacts to the productivity. The occupational stress causing factors pertinent to
construction professionals, consequences of occupational stress and occupational stress prevention
strategies that could be implemented within the construction sites were studied and a questionnaire
survey was carried out among construction professionals such as project managers, Engineers and
Quantity surveyors to identify the significance of them. Ten stressors were identified as significant in
causing occupational stress among constructional professionals. Further it was recognized the
organization related factors have a significant variance of occupational stress among professionals.
Thereafter 11 significant impacts for project managers, 9 significant impacts for Engineers and 11
significant impacts for Quantity surveyors were explored. Impact of occupational stress of
construction professionals for low performance and productivity can be reduced and job satisfaction
can be enhanced by implementing the occupational stress management strategies in construction sites.
Keywords:
1.
Occupational Stress; Productivity, Large Construction Projects; Construction

Professionals; Occupational Safety and Health
INTRODUCTION
Continuous increasing in complexity of work and growing demand for higher productivity have become
common features of the industry and thus, created a challenging environment towards achieving time,
cost and quality targets of construction projects (Ibem et al., 2011; Jang et al., 2003). Under such
circumstances, many professionals including project managers, engineers and quantity surveyors have to
work under pressure (Thomas et al., 2005). Thus to a certain extent, stress has become a normal part of
most of the professionals work environment. Stress is a natural consequence of a change that can be
either positive or negative (Strutton and Tran, 2014). Occupational stress is a pattern of responses in
workplace that occurs when employees are offered with work demands which are not matched to their
knowledge, skills or abilities, and which challenge their ability to cope with (Mohajan, 2012).
Generally, it is considered that occupational stress is harmful to physical and mental health of workers
under various circumstances. As such, excessive stress interferes with their performance and productivity
and thus efficiency of the overall project delivery (Ng et al., 2005; Amankwah et al., 2015). Therefore,
occupational stress is a growing problem worldwide which results in significant costs for both of the
employees and organizations and may experience in various behaviours (Strutton and Tran, 2014; Cotton
and Hart, 2003). These behaviours includes; low motivation and morale, decrease in performance, high
turnover and sick leave, accidents, low job satisfaction, low quality products and services, poor internal
communication and conflicts etc. (Schabracq and Cooper, 2000). However, this problem has been
overlooked at the industry level and hence professionals have to find ways of managing their stress at
individual capacity to meet delivery of the projects within the time, cost and at the required quality
(Leung, Ng et al., 2004). Therefore, this particular research was mainly outlined and aimed to address the
occupational stress causing factors and their impact, extend of the occupational stresses among
professionals in large construction projects.
334
2.
TYPES OF STRESSES
Selye (1976), who often referred to as the father of stress, was the first to distinguish stress as good
stress (eustress) or positive stress and bad stress (distress) or negative stress. Positive stress is
generally short term perceived and results motivation, better focus improve personnel coping abilities,
feel exciting, improve performance etc., whereas negative stress can be short term (acute) or long terms
(chronic) resulting anxiety unpleasantness, decreased performance and mental or physical problems
(Leung et al., 2004). Among these, chronic stresses create bad health problems and thus it is required to
manage its causing factors. When the stress caused as a result of occupational factor such as mismatch of
the job requirement and the workers capabilities, resources or need of the workers, is known as
occupational stress (The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) cited Mohajan,
2012). Such Stress is not limited to any particular occupation or profession (Ng et al., 2005).
Statt (1994) has specially noted that construction work is the third most stressful profession after mining
and police work. As cited by Oladinrin et al. (2014), Sutherland and Davidson (1993) found that 77% are
senior managers and 23% are middle level managers among professionals who have experienced stress in
the UK construction industry. Further, recent studies show that construction workers experienced much
more stress at their workplace than at home, and thus created undesirable effects on their health and
productivity at work (Wahab, 2010). Similarly, a negative correlation is mentioned between the
occupational stress and the job satisfaction as well as organizational performance (Elovainio et al., 2002;
Cotton and Hart, 2003; Kazmi, 2007 cited Amankwah et al., 2015). While there is a reported increased in
occupational accidents high absenteeism, alcoholism, and drug abuse have become major social problems
due to occupational stress (Clarke and Cooper, 2004).
The common types of stressors related to the construction industry can be categorized into four main
groups at the site level as work demand, work environment, job role and organizational related (Ibem et
al., 2011). Unspecified employment requirement, extremes of formality, lack of locus of authority are
organizational related stressors (Raitano and Kleiner, 2004). Additionally, Ng et al., (2005) mentioned
inadequate room for innovation, unsatisfactory remuneration and ambiguity of job requirement as
stressors. According to Cooper cited Ekundayo (2014), these causing factors have been categorized in a
broader way by adding several levels including environment, individual and individual differences in
addition to organizational level stressors. Uncertainties such as economic, political and technological are
discussed under environmental related stressors.
3.
SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS OF OCCUPATIONAL STRESS
According to literature findings, signs and symptoms of occupational stress are appeared as physical,
psychological, behavioural consequences which include (Gupta, 2013; Ekundayo, 2014; Oladinrin, et al.,
2014; Ademola (2005) and Melinda et al. (2010) cited Amankwah et al., 2015);
4.
Physical: cardio-bronchial pains, blood pressure, palpitations, weight loss from under-eating and
sleeping at abnormal times, eating disorders, headaches, hair loss, breathlessness and
hyperventilating, muscle ache, dryness of throat and mouth, sweaty palms, diarrhea, indigestion,
stomach ulcers, etc.
Psychological: feeling of useless, and hopeless, lack of concentration, tenseness, sleep
disturbances, depression, distrust, anxiety, etc.
Behavioral or emotional: impulsive behavior, eating more or less, easily distracted, speech
problems, sleeping too much or too little, change in personality, irritable or aggressive, grinding
of teeth, increasing smoking and drugs and alcohol, burnout, nervous habits, increased errors,
absenteeism, lack of concentration, etc.
OCCUPATIONAL STRESS MANAGEMENT
Individuals ability to mobilize and successfully or unsuccessfully deal with stress factors is defined as
coping with stress, adjusting to stress or stress management self-mobilization (Stoica, 2010). Instead of
335
taking medicine to reduce stress, there are many ways of diminishing its damaging effects through better
control and management (Oladinrin et al., 2014). Moreover, organizations can orient their employees to
regular maintaining of well-being and prevention of occupational stress (Treven and Potocan, 2005). Such
prevention strategies at organizational level can be taken as primary, secondary and tertiary prevention
methods (Ratino and Kleiner, 2004; Jordon et al., 2013):
Primary prevention is the elimination or reduction of the factors that promote distress
Secondary methods involve moderating the response of stress itself
Tertiary prevention strategies are the attempts to minimize or cope with excessive distress from
inadequately controlled stressors and inadequately controlled or moderated stress responses.
5.
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
Since stress at work is a well-known factor for low construction productivity, the research focuses to
examine whether the various construction professionals can adequately cope with the stresses they are
confronting. Thus, the research is designed to examine occupational stress causing factors and their
impact, extend of the occupational stresses among professionals in large construction projects in Sri
Lanka.
6.
RESEARCH DESIGN
The research was structured to several phases. It begins with an extensive literature review to identify
occupational stressors specific for the construction professionals, impact of occupational stress and
occupational stress prevention strategies. Literature findings were used to formulate the questionnaire and
it was validated though a pilot survey, focusing on the comprehensiveness, reliability, and conciseness.
Three industry experts from each professional categories were participated for the pilot survey. Those
experts were selected considering the experience in large construction projects and experience in both
civil engineering and building sectors.
In the second phase, the detailed questionnaire was designed by incorporating the expert feedback given
to the pilot questionnaire. The questionnaire was comprised with two separate sections namely; personnel
information and subject information and a cover page. Further, it was included with both open ended and
closed ended questions. Personnel information section covered the profession of the respondent,
experience in large construction projects, age and gender of the respondents, marital status and opinion of
the respondents for the occupational stress as a health and safety problem.
Three main questions to identify significant stressors, impact of such situation and stress prevention were
included for the observations of the subject information. In the first question, forty one stressors were
organized into ten headings namely; (1) work load and workplace related factors WL&WP, (2) work time
related factors - WT, (3) organization related factors - O, (4) work related factors W, (5) career
development and status related factors - CD, (6) interpersonal relationship related factors - IR, (7)
preparation and training related factors, (8) Organizational function and culture related factors - OC, (9)
participants related factors - P, and (10) other problems related factors - OP. In the second question, 17
number of potential health impacts which were identified through the literature survey were listed under
three groups as physical response, psychological response, and behavioral or emotional response.
Respondents were asked to rank the extent of given problem using a 5 point Likert scale to measure the
severity.
7.
SAMPLE SELECTION
The target survey group was considered as the professionals who are working in large construction
projects. Large construction projects were defined as;
Construction projects which are complex in nature and multitasking, contact sum more than Rupees 600
million including both Building and Civil engineering construction projects for the study.
336
Hence, large construction Organizations defined as the Organizations which are undertaking large
construction projects.
However, it was impossible to survey those large populations due to limited resources. The cluster
sampling method was used for the study by selecting the registered large scale construction contractors
(i.e. grade C1) in Colombo area. Further, it was aimed to select the most experienced professionals. A list
of C1 grade contractors in Colombo area were taken from the ICTAD (Institute of Construction Training
and Development) website. In view of that, 20 firms were listed as C1 contracting firms in Colombo area.
Visiting the firms, details of large construction projects which were completed in last 10 years were
obtained and 25 projects were selected for the study. Most experienced persons who have engaged in
those projects from each professional category were invited for the survey. Hundred and six
questionnaires were delivered using two methods; direct handover and via emails. Further on average 2-3
reminders had to be sent for the professionals who were communicated through emails. Reminders were
given over the phone and visited to collect the completed questionnaires for other professionals.
8.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
8.1.
PROFILE OF THE SURVEY SAMPLE
84 questionnaires were received claiming 79% response rate from 106 questionnaires. Nine
questionnaires were rejected due to their incompleteness. Tables 1 and 2 represent the composition of the
survey , and site experience and age of the selected respondents respectively. Further, 36% of the sample
was female while remaining 64% was male.
Table1: Composition of the Survey Sample
Profession
Project Managers
Engineers
Quantity Surveyors
Distributed
Questionnaires
Received
Questionnaires
Response Rate
Selected
Questionnaires
37
33
36
26
29
30
70.27%
87.87%
83.33%
25
25
25
Table 2: Site Experience and Age of the Respondents

Description
Project Managers
< 5years
5-10 years
10 years <
16
8
25-35 years
35-45 years
over 45 years
14
7
4
Engineers
Site Experience (years)
17
7
1
Age (years)
21
3
1
Quantity Surveyors
15
4
6
19
6
-
Occupational Stresses among Professionals

Results reveal that 96% of the respondents have experienced occupational stress while 4% have not
experienced occupational stress during their work experience. Further, 90% of respondents have indicated
that occupational stress as a health and safety problem and hence it impacts the productivity whereas 10%
responded have not considered it as a health and safety problem.
8.2.
SIGNIFICANT STRESS CAUSING FACTORS
T-test (at 5 percent significance level) was conducted using Statistical Package for Social Sciences
(SPSS) software to identify significant stressors from given 41 stressors in the questionnaire. To test the
null hypothesis the following conditions were used:
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H0: m=m0 against the alternate hypothesis

H1: m=m1, where m is the population mean and m0 is the sample mean.
Test value was taken as 3, according to the given scale. Thus the stressors which have obtained critical tvalue 1.990 and less than 0.05 p value are identified as significant. According to results obtained from the
t-test, 11 significant stressors were established from 41 given stressors under 10 headings in the
questionnaire survey (Table 3).
Table 3: Significant Stressors
Stressor
Time pressures and deadlines (WL&WP)
Mean Rating
3.85
Std. Dev.
0.711
t-value
10.397
Sig.
0.000
Rank
1
Work overload (WL&WP)

Lack of control over pacing of work
(WL&WP)
Long hours of work (W)
Different views from superiors (W)
3.83
3.48
0.795
0.760
9.007
5.471
0.000
0.000
2
3
3.55
3.43
0.949
0.808
4.991
4.571
0.000
0.000
4
5
Unpredictable hours of work (WT)

Inadequate recess (WT)
Exposure to heavy traffic jam (OP)
Inflexible work schedules (WT)
Lack of resources and staff shortages (OP)
Use of mobile phones while working (OP)
3.35
3.33
3.32
3.24
3.28
3.28
1.007
0.977
1.092
0.998
1.192
1.225
2.982
2.954
2.537
2.083
2.035
1.999
0.004
0.004
0.013
0.041
0.045
0.050
6
7
8
9
10
11
8.3.
IMPACT OF OCCUPATIONAL STRESS
Occupational stress causes serious impact when it is taken as a negative stress. As highlighted by Ilbem et
al. (2011) in his study, recent studies show that construction workers experienced more negative stress at
their workplace, and this had been caused undesirable effects on their health and productivity at work.
Occupational stress is a critical issue for the individuals and consequently result in loss of organizational
productivity (Akrani, 2011 cited Amankwah et al., 2015). In this research, second objective was to
examine the impact of occupational stress of professionals in large construction projects.
Two tailed t-test was conducted to identify the critical impacts faced by each professional category
separately. The results are shown in Tables 4, 5 and 6.
Table 4: Response of Project Managers
Productivity Impacts
Fatigue (PR)
Tense more often (ER)
Aggressiveness (BR)
Neck and Back pains (PR)
Impact on family and personnel life (BR)
Less job satisfaction (CR)
Unable to Relax (ER)
Reduced attention (CR)
Headaches (PR)
Depression and Anxiety (ER)
Sick more often (PR)
Mean
Std. dev.
t-value
Sig.
Rank
3.20
3.40
2.92
3.20
2.96
2.80
3.12
2.40
2.64
2.40
2.36
0.763
0.913
0.702
1.041
0.841
0.764
1.201
0.500
0.907
0.764
0.810
7.856
7.668
6.549
5.765
5.710
5.237
4.661
4.000
3.527
2.619
2.221
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.001
0.002
0.015
0.036
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
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Table 5: Response of Engineers

Mean
Std. dev.
t-value
Sig.
Rank
2.84
3.08
2.76
2.76
2.80
2.68
2.36
2.52
2.52
0.850
1.115
0.926
0.970
1.080
1.069
0.700
1.085
1.194
4.938
4.843
4.106
3.919
3.703
3.180
2.571
2.397
2.177
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.001
0.001
0.004
0.017
0.025
0.040
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Aggressiveness (BR)
Feelings of powerlessness (ER)
Headaches (PR)
Fatigue (PR)
Table 6: Response of Quantity Surveyors

Mean
Std. dev.
t-value
Sig.
Rank

Aggressiveness (BR)
Fatigue (PR)
Impact on family and personnel life (BR)
3.08
2.96
3.00
2.88
2.68
2.68
2.52
0.909
0.841
0.913
1.092
0.945
1.069
0.918
5.939
5.710
5.477
4.028
3.597
3.180
2.831
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.001
0.004
0.009
1
2
3
4
5
6
7

Reduced attention (CR)
Making mistakes frequently (CR)
Feelings of powerlessness (ER)
Headaches (PR)
2.72
2.36
2.44
2.40
2.56
1.275
0.700
0.870
0.816
1.356
2.823
2.571
2.529
2.449
2.064
0.009
0.017
0.018
0.022
0.050
8
9
10
11
12
Results obtained from the t-test explored 11, 9 and 12 significant impacts for the PMs, Engineers and QSs
respectively. Eight impacts such as Fatigue, Tense more often, Aggressiveness, Neck and back pain, less
job satisfaction, Unable to relax, Headache, Depression and anxiety are common for all three
professionals.
Fatigue is more often due to the heavy work load. Generally they have consciously work more than eight
hours during a project to meet their targets. This problem has become more serious when they handle
multiple projects.
Similarly, Tense more often and Aggressiveness are often linked with heavy work load. When the job
demand is high; exceeding the person capacity, the above responses have become common among
construction professionals.
Back and neck pain is occurred due to longer sitting hours with wrong posture. This problem is more
often originated due to mismatch of the dimension of the chairs with persons body height to have better
ergonomic seating facility. On the other hand, people are not serious about seating posture in most of the
time.
Due to stressful working environment, most of them have felt less satisfaction towards their job. Thus,
they are not fully committed to perform their work well.
Headache and even Depression and anxiety situation are identified mostly due to unable to relax with the
workload. This has been further impacted on Family and personal life of them. In the local context,
people always try to hide depression situations. Therefore, they are reluctant to obtain medical advice or
drugs at early stages to control the situation due to fear in exposing the situation to others.
339
In addition, professionals neglect to highlight their health problems at work as well as they are still ready
to work even if they are not feeling well. This is very common in developing countries (Chopra, 2009).
9.
CONCLUSIONS
According to the previous researches, occupational stress leads to a decline in employees job
performance as excessive stress interferes with performance. This supports the assertion that excessive
stress interferes with productivity. Stress must therefore be kept under control. Occupational stress has
become an ignored term in the construction industry and the impact has been rarely studied due to the
inherent characteristics of the industry. Construction projects are highly committed to the achievements of
time, cost and quality targets. During last 10 years large construction projects were started by turning a
new page in the Sri Lankan construction industry due to the construction boom. Therefore, it was
identified that this is the most appropriate time frame to start assessment of occupational stress of
professionals involved in construction industry.
Majority of the respondents (96%) have responded that they are experiencing stress at workplace while
others (4%) said that they are not experiencing occupational stress. However, stress has become a big
issue for the performance of the individuals due to less job satisfaction. Further 89.93% of respondents
have presented that they are facing occupational stress as a health and safety issue, while 10.07% of the
respondents stated that they do not face occupational stress as a health and safety problem.
This research study found 11 significant occupational stressors and especially organization related factors
which have difference of occupational stress among different professions. Further, significant
consequences were studied for different professionals separately as the results were shown in tables.
10.
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Oladinrin, O. Adeniyi, & M.O. Udi, 2014, Analysis of Stress Management among Professionals in the Nigerian
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OCCUPANT PRODUCTIVITY AND INDOOR ENVIRONMENT QUALITY

LINKED TO GLOBAL SUSTAINABILITY ASSESSMENT SYSTEM
Yousef Al Horr, Martha Katafygiotou and Esam Elsarrag
Gulf Organisation for Research and Development (GORD), Qatar
Mohammed Arif and Amit Kaushik*

School of Built Environment, University of Salford, United Kingdom
Ahmed Mazroei
Qatari Diar Real Estate Development Company, Qatar
ABSTRACT
Occupant productivity is gaining momentum in the field of sustainable built environment. Humans
spend most of their time indoors, and the majority of the worlds population lives in urban areas and
work in an office environment. Different Indoor Environment Quality (IEQ) factors affect productivity
in an office environment. This paper investigates Global Sustainability Assessment System (GSAS)
rating system to identify criteria and submittals focusing different physical indoor environment quality
factors that influence occupant productivity. It draws implicit links between the current state of
sustainable research and indoor environment quality factors covered in the GSAS rating system. The
study highlights that GSAS has focused one-third of its weightage to indoor environment quality
factors. Most IEQ criteria like indoor air quality, thermal comfort, lighting and day lighting, Biophilia
and views are well addressed in the GSAS. There is still room to focus on factors like office layout,
look and feel, and location and amenities. This paper is a part of ongoing research endeavour to
update GSAS to incorporate occupant productivity and well-being in rating system's focus to improve
green buildings in the Middle East. The paper would help researchers and professionals who aim to
understand the link between the GSAS rating system and indoor environment quality factors that affect
productivity.
Keywords:
1.
Green Building Rating System; Indoor Environment; Quality Occupant Productivity;

Sustainability.
INTRODUCTION
Humans spend most of their time indoors, and the majority of the worlds population lives in urban areas
and work in an office environment (ASHRAE, 1993). There has been a significant global shift in the
economy from manufacturing sector towards service and knowledge-based sector, operating in indoor
office environments (Haynes, 2008; World Green Building Council, 2014). Hence, it is becoming
important to understand the indoor office environment and the effect it has on occupant well-being and
performance. Office environment has a high level of influence on its occupants well-being and
performance (Leaman and Bordass, 1999; Frontczak et al., 2012 ; Roelofsen, 2002; Mawson, 2002; Van
der Voordt, 2004). Past studies on sustainable buildings postulate that green design strategies and
technologies enhance the indoor workplace environment. It enables to create an environment favouring
occupants comfort and performance in both newly built and retrofitted buildings (Romm and Browning,
1994). The majority of the building stock which will exist in 2050 has already been built (UNEP, 2009).
Thus, there is a need to understand the quality of the indoor workplace environment, and its relation to
342
occupant productivity and comfort. An extensive literature review was conducted to identify physical
indoor environment quality factors that affect occupant productivity and comfort.
The study identifies eight physical components that affect occupant satisfaction and productivity in an
office environment:
1. Indoor Air Quality and Ventilation (Vernon and Bedford, 1926; Wargocki et al., 2000; Fanger,
1988; Fisk et al., 2012)
2. Thermal Comfort (Fanger, 1970; De Dear et al., 1997; Tanabe et al., 2007; Djongyang et al.,
2010)
3. Lighting and Daylighting (Hopkinson, et al. 1966; Alrubaih et al., 2013; Edwards, L. 2000)
4. Noise and Acoustics (Sundstrom et al., 1994; Banbury and Berry, 2005; Mui and Wong, 2006)
5. Office Layout (Brill et al., 1985; Laing et al., 1998; CABE, 2005; Haynes, 2009)
6. Biophilia and Views (Heerwagen and Orians, 1984; Grinde and Patil, 2009; Heerwagen, 2009;
Bright, 2012)
7. Look and Feel (Mahnke, 1996; Kwallek et al., 1988; Ou et al., 2004; World Green Building
Council, 2014)
8. Location and Amenities (Duffy et al., 1992; Gordon-Larsen et al., 2009; World Green Building
Council, 2014)
This research paper investigates the Global Sustainability Assessment System (GSAS) rating system and
its categories to identify criteria focusing the eight physical environmental factors identified above.
The comprehensive GSAS rating system measures and evaluates every project on eight key aspects or
categories that have a direct impact on environmental stress mitigation (refer Figure 1). Each category is
assigned a weight based on Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). The categories are then broken down
into specific criteria that measure and define these individual issues. A score is then awarded to each
criterion based on the level of compliance.
GSAS indicated that the impacts resulting from limited control and design of the indoor environment
include are mainly the following:
Climate Change
Fossil Fuel Depletion
Air Pollution
Human Comfort and Health
343
Figure 1: GSAS Categories and Environmental Impacts
The GSAS green building rating system divides its criteria and submittals into eight categories (refer
Figure 2). The indoor environment has its category with 16% weightage. However, this document
analyses all the categories in GSAS to identify criteria related to the identified eight aspects affecting
occupant productivity.
Figure 2: GSAS Categories and Weights V2.0
2.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND PROCESS
This study aims to identify the current gap in the GSAS rating systems focus towards employee
productivity. The study was conducted by desktop analysis/study. The research process was divided into
two steps:
1. The first step was literature review. It was done by looking at journal articles, conference articles
and books to establish a firm base for the research findings. The keywords used were: occupant
productivity, workplace satisfaction, indoor environment quality, occupant comfort. The authors
used the University librarys online search engine and Google Scholar, Science Direct and
Elsevier for the literature search.
344
2. The second step of the study was to draw links between eight IEQ factors identified in the
literature review and GSAS rating system. The analysis was done using desktop study to identify
current gap in the GSAS rating system based on the literature review findings.
The rest of the study is divided into nine sections. First eight sections discuss each identified IEQ factor
and GSAS criteria and submittals focusing that IEQ factor. The last section presents the conclusion of the
study.
INDOOR AIR QUALITY
Indoor air quality is covered by two categories in the GSAS guidelines. In energy category, criterion (E.5)
focuses on the nitrogen and sulphur gases in the indoor environment. The criterion defines two submittals
with 2.05% weightage of the overall scoring. The indoor environment category has four criteria focusing
indoor air quality. These criteria focus on ventilation design (IE.2, IE.3) of the building and indoor air
pollutant source (IE9, IE.10) in the buildings. These four criteria have 16 submittals with 7.12%
weightage of the overall scoring. Overall indoor air quality has 15 points with 9.17% weightage of the
overall scoring.
Table 1: Details of Indoor Air Quality
Category
Energy
Indoor
Environment
Criterion
E.5 - NOx, SOx,
and Particulate
Matter
IE.2 - Natural
Ventilation
Submittals
Max Score
Weightage
Energy Calculator (one for all 5 criteria below)
2.05%
1.13%
2.33%
1.83%
1.83%
Horizontal work plan area calculations

Natural Ventilation Calculator
Occupancy calculations
Floor plans highlighting all occupied spaces
IE.3 - Mechanical
Ventilation
IE.9 - LowEmitting Materials

IE.10 - Indoor
Chemical and
Pollutant Source
Control
Elevations highlighting operable parts of

windows, or drawings for controlled direct air
supply system
Calculations for fresh outdoor air delivery
Equipment Schedule
Report showing comparison between Fresh air
calculations based on minimum required
outside air for each zone as per ASHRAE 62.12010 recommendations, and Fresh air as per
design
Report showing equipment efficiency compared
to ASHRAE 90.1-2007
Low-Emitting Materials Calculator
Material Safety Data Sheet listing VOC content
for all indoor materials and finishes
Floor plans to demonstrate the locations of
contaminant sources in the project
Wall sections or other drawings to demonstrate
how source of contamination spaces are sealed
and isolated
Mechanical drawings showing dedicated
exhaust system for those spaces
Doors specifications illustrating self-closing
doors are provided for those spaces
HVAC specifications and equipment schedules
to demonstrate the scope of filtration systems
Floor plans showing permanent entryway
system provided at main entrances
345
4.
THERMAL COMFORT
Thermal comfort is an important aspect of indoor environment quality. GSAS system has one dedicated
criterion for thermal comfort in the indoor environment category. The criterion outlines six submittals
with 1.57% weight of the total score. Energy category has energy demand performance (E.1) criterion
that focuses on the energy efficiency of the building for thermal comfort. This criterion has nine
submittals with 7% weightage of the overall scoring. The site category has heat island effect (S.7)
criterion focusing on the heat island effect generated by the neighbouring building. Heat island effect also
influences the thermal comfort of the occupants. This criterion has six submittals with 0.78% weightage
of the overall scoring. Overall, thermal comfort aspect has nine points and 9.35% weightage of the total
scoring.
Table 2: Details of Thermal Comfort
Category
Indoor
Environment
Criterion
Submittals
IE.1 Thermal
Comfort
System operation specifications
Max Score
Weightage
1.57%
Floor plans highlighting spaces under assessment

Glazing data sheet
HVAC drawings showing nominal air supply for
spaces under assessment
Equipment Schedule
Diffuser data sheet
Energy
E.1 Energy
Demand
Performance
Energy Calculator (one for all five criteria below)
7%
0.78%
Architectural drawings.
Relevant MEP drawings.
Area, volume and envelope calculations
Roof and Walls U-value calculations
Glazing data sheet
SEER Calculations
Lighting calculations for the whole building
Fan efficiency calculations or data sheet
Site
S.7 Heat Island

Effect
Heat Island Effect Calculator

Site plan including neighbouring buildings within the
200 m radius, illustrating required coordinates and
Selector Indicator calculations
Landscape plan highlighting different types of site
finishes
Roof floor plans illustrating coordinates
Construction material specifications for building
envelope and site finishes
Simulation results for irregular shape buildings
5.
LIGHTING AND DAY LIGHTING
Lighting and day lighting is covered by indoor environment category. There are three criteria focusing
lighting and day lighting aspect of the indoor environment. These are illumination levels (IE.4), daylight
(IE.5) and glare control (IE.6). They have 15 submittals with nine points and 4.57% weightage of the total
score.
346
Table 3: Details of Lighting and Day Lighting

Category
Criterion
Submittals
Indoor
Environment
IE.4 Illumination
Levels
Max Score
Weightage
1.37%
1.83%
1.37%
Illumination Levels Calculator

Electrical drawings highlighting spaces being
measured
Lighting simulation results for all typical spaces
Lighting manufacturers data sheet
Daylight Input Calculator
IE.5 Daylight
Daylight Scoring Calculator

Daylight Simulation results
Drawings identifying measuring point locations
Boundary conditions for daylight simulation
Glare Control Input Calculator
IE.6 Glare
Control
Glare Control Scoring Calculator

Simulation boundary condition template
DGI simulation result
Relevant drawings including elevations, plans and
site map with surrounding buildings
Diagram identifying the measuring point location
6.
NOISE AND ACOUSTICS
Three GSAS categories cover noise and acoustics aspect. Urban connection category has an acoustic
condition (UC.6) criterion that highlights submittals focusing urban level acoustic conditions around the
site. Noise pollution (S.9) criterion under site category identifies submittals focusing neighbouring noise
pollution sources and design mitigation strategies. Acoustic quality (IE.8) criterion under indoor
environment category identifies seven submittals focusing noise sources, acoustic quality of material used
in the building and acoustic analysis in and around the building. Noise and acoustic factor has nine points
and 2.21% weightage of the total score.
Table 4: Details of Noise and Acoustics
Category
Criterion
Urban
Connection
UC.6
Acoustic
Conditions
Submittals
Acoustic Condition Calculator
Max Score
Weightage
0.26%
0.58%
Traffic report for each road

In case an airport exists in proximity to the site, provide
site DNL if current DNL contours are available, or a
report
Drawings or diagrams showing the distance between
the site and any major road or airport
Site
S.9
Noise
Pollution
Noise Pollution Calculator

Site plan including neighbouring buildings within the
500 m radius, specifying building types
Report for hourly sound pressure level measurements at
the 4 test positions on an operational day
Plans and elevations for outdoor HVAC equipment
location
347
HVAC equipment manufacturer sound data
Indoor
Environment
IE.8
Acoustic
Quality
Acoustic Quality Calculator
1.37%
Floor plan and elevation highlighting space under

assessment (worst case selection)
Site plan showing road under assessment
Report for road traffic input data and measurements
Building material specifications illustrating absorption
coefficients
HVAC drawings
Noise source sound power levels
7.
OFFICE LAYOUT
There is no criterion focusing office layout in the GSAS commercial building guidelines.
8.
BIOPHILIA AND VIEWS
The GSAS system has views (IE.7) criterion under indoor environment category that highlights five
submittals focusing outside views from the indoor environment of a building. The criterion has 1.37%
weightage of the total score. Biophilia has two elements, the biophilia features outside the building and
the features inside the building. GSAS building guidelines system indirectly addresses the biophilia
features outside the building in the site category. The habitat preservation (S.3) and vegetation (S.4)
criteria outline eight submittals highlighting strategies for preserving local ecosystem and vegetation and
landscape design for the site. These criteria have six points with 1.68% weightage of the total score.
GSAS system does not recommend any indoor biophilia design strategy. Overall, biophilia and views
aspect has nine points with 3.05% weightage of the total score.
Table 5: Biophilia and Views
Category
Criterion
Indoor
Environment
IE.7 Views
Submittals
Views Input Calculator
Max Score
Weightage
1.37%
0.65%
1.03%
Views Scoring Calculator

Floor plans showing all occupied areas, and areas
within 7 meters of the perimeter
Building elevations highlighting window area
Interior partitions specifications, if any
Site
S.3 Habitat
Preservation
Ecologist Site Assessment Report and preservation plan

Drawing identifying habitats pre and post-development
List of endangered plant and animal species
Strategies for preserving ecosystem interaction within
the site and adjacent areas
S.4 Vegetation
Vegetation Calculator
Landscape plan highlighting total landscape area
Landscape plan highlighting lawn area
Landscape material data sheet
348
9.
LOCATION AND AMENITIES
Location and amenities aspect is partially covered in the GSAS building guidelines system. Urban
connection category has three criteria that focus on the location and transportation aspect of the building
site. Proximity to infrastructure (UC.1), public transportation (UC.3) and private transport criteria (UC.4)
outline nine submittals highlighting the transportation options and facilities for the building occupants.
The research indicates that amenities can help increase occupant productivity and recommends employers
to provide few amenities on site or around the site. Proximities to amenities (UC.7) only focus on locating
nearby amenities. It does not provide extra points for incorporating amenities in the design of the
commercial buildings. It would be helpful to introduce a criterion or submittal that encourages
employers/owners to include amenities like gym, childcare inside or near the site in case these facilities
are not available. Location and amenities aspect has 12 points with 3.43% weightage of the total score.
Table 6: Details Location and Amentities
Category
Criterion
Urban
Connection
UC.1 Proximity
to Infrastructure
UC.3 Public
Transportation
Submittals
Proximity to Infrastructure Calculator
Max Score
Weightage
1.22%
1.15%
0.38%
0.68%
Site map showing all available connection for existing

infrastructure
Public Transportation Calculator
Authorized public transportation site plan, showing
bus/rail stops within 240, 320, 400 and 480m from site
Transportation plan for shuttle services, connecting
occupants to public transportation if provided
UC.4 Private
Transportation
Private Transportation Calculator

Building floor plans highlighting all provided facilities
Transportation plan for shuttle services or alternative, if
provided
Occupancy calculations
UC.7 Proximity
to Amenities
10.
Proximity to Amenities Calculator

Sitemap, using interactive map such as Google maps,
showing locations and types of amenities within 480,
720, and 960 m from the site
LOOK AND FEEL
Look and feel aspect of the indoor environment is indirectly covered in the heritage and cultural identity
(CE.1) criterion in the cultural and economic value category in the GSAS system. The criterion defines a
submittal to outline design strategies to incorporate design features that address the heritage and cultural
identity of Qatar. The criterion addresses the Qatars cultural identity in design. However, it does not
recommend any strategy to incorporate potential occupants perspectives and opinion about interior
designs look and feel. The look and feel aspect has three points and 3.12% weightage of the total score.
Table 7: Look and Feel
Category
Criterion
Submittals
Max Score
Weightage
Cultural and
Economic
value
CE.1 Heritage
and Cultural
Identity
Concept brief outlining design strategies that meet

the criteria along with supporting design drawings
or renderings
3.12%
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11.
CONCLUSION
This research study has analysed the current GSAS green building rating system and its categories along
with various indoor environment quality factors that affect occupant productivity. The study establishes
the implicit links between eight indoor environment quality factors and GSAS building rating system.
Indoor air quality and thermal comfort have the highest weightage allotment among the eight IEQ factors.
Indoor environment quality and thermal comfort have high impact on occupant comfort and productivity
and they are well addressed in the GSAS. The medium impact IEQ factors like lighting and day lighting,
noise and acoustics, and Biophilia and view have been taken into account carefully as well. However, the
study indicates that office layout and location and amenities can be addressed more appropriately. GSAS
can include criteria on office design to reduce disruption and distraction caused due to inefficient office
layout in the office buildings. Overall, the analysis presents that GSAS guidelines have 34.90% weightage
towards both indoor and outdoor environment aspects that influence occupant productivity. GSAS rating
system has a well-balanced approach towards occupant comfort and productivity. The study findings
would help architects, engineer designing building under GSAS to also include office layout strategies to
increase occupant productivity in their buildings. This study can also be used a model study to investigate
other international green building rating system and their focus on occupant comfort and productivity.
Table 8: Details of Analysis
IEQ Aspect
Category
Criteria
Submittals
Total score
Weightage
Indoor Air Quality
15
15
9.17%
Thermal Comfort
21
9.35%
Lighting and Day Lighting
15
4.57%
Noise and Acoustics
16
2.21%
Nil
Nil
Nil
Nil
Nil
Biophilia and Views
13
3.05%
Location and Amenities
11
12
3.43%
Look and Feel
3.12%
92
66
34.90%
Office Layout
Total
12.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This research is supported by the Qatar National Research Funding under the project GSAS Guidelines
for Occupant Performance, Health and Environmental Realization of Sustainability under the acronym
GOPHERS and NPRP No.: 7 - 344 - 2 146.
13.
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OPTIMISATION OF PROJECT PERFORMANCE IN POST-DISASTER

BUILDING RECONSTRUCTION PROJECTS IN SRI LANKA
Maheshi Hulugalla*
Nirodha Fernando
Department of Architecture and Built Environment, Northumbria University, United Kingdom
ABSTRACT
Natural catastrophes occur frequently around the world and cause severe undesirable impacts on
human lives and properties of the communities. The restoration of a human life style after such
massive event, consume some significant time and cost, comparatively to the conventional day-to-day
constructions. Recovery and rehabilitation of the affected nature have to be completed at extreme cost
and within strict time limitations, in order to achieve the project goals up to highest possible level of
satisfaction. Whereas, numerous issues and challenges, affecting the reconstruction projects, leading
to failures and inefficient outcomes at the project completion stage. Time, cost and quality parameters
will always be the highlighted aspects in the process of determination of project performance level in
reconstruction projects. Thus, the lack of strategies to enhance the degree of performance status, is
addressed as the research gap of the study.
Case study was selected as the most appropriate approach for the study. Six interviews were
conducted among Project Engineers and Managers and Clients Representatives. Further, document
reviews also conducted in the case study. Consequently, code-based content analysis was used to
capture the substantial factors as well as the probable elements that can be implemented to optimise
project performance in post-disaster reconstruction projects in Sri Lanka. Thus, conclusions are
drawn and recommendations are suggested.
The outcomes of the analysis were able to identify critical issues of post-disaster reconstruction
projects in Sri Lanka, and probable attributes which can be implemented for a proper trade-off in
time, cost and quality perspectives. The findings would be much effective for developing strategies to
implement to achieve the best performance level in reconstruction projects.
Keywords:
1.
Cost Performance; Post-disaster Reconstruction; Project Performance Optimisation;

Quality Performance; Time Performance.
INTRODUCTION
Catastrophes, both natural and human-caused, have been arising with aggregate frequency and influence
in recent decades in many countries around the world (Schilderman, 2004). Societies are necessary to be
equipped for natural and human-made disasters because they can strike anywhere, regardless of location,
culture or history.
Moreover, Moe and Pathranarakul (2006) explained that, disasters cause a significant influence to the
entire world. Further, authors have clearly highlighted that, the occurrences of natural disasters have
increased sharply worldwide causing loss, disruption and damage to lives, built and social assets, and
economy. Natural hazards endure to cause thousands of deaths and billions of dollars economic loses
each year around the world.
According to Pathiraja and Tombesi (2009), disasters can affect the community through physical losses
and economic losses and to overcome those losses post-disaster reconstructions are performed. Whereas,
*
353
post-disaster reconstruction (PDR) and rehabilitation is a complex issue with several dimensions and
those projects often deals with uncertainties. Meanwhile post-disaster reconstruction can be considered as
a process with potential for creating a resilient built environment or for generating further vulnerabilities
to the disaster affected communities and it is part of a sequence of three identifiable post disaster periods:
emergency, restoration and reconstruction (Chang et al., 2012). Therefore, the success of post-disaster
reconstruction is a matter of delivering and constructing houses and towns, and how much it reaches the
project goals.
However, the critical consideration in post-disaster reconstruction is that how a countrys construction
industry is able to engross and put to efficient rebuilding by using all the aids and resources available.
Relief, recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction are the main activities in rebuilding the affected nation
where the government and non-government organizations are the major stakeholders (Freeman, 2007).
Therefore, the challenge of recovering from natural disasters will create an unpredicted future with the
burning necessity of effective post disaster responses strategies. Hence, post disaster reconstruction
situation can be seen as one of new opportunities for reconciliation, investment and growth, sustainable
resource utilization, human capital formation, employment generation and human development (Pathiraja
and Tombesi, 2009).
Nowadays, it has been discovered that there are numerical challenges and barriers in post disaster
reconstruction projects (Ahmed, 2011). There the time, cost and quality constraints have become major
challenges that are difficult to overcome (Baroudi and Rapp, 2010). Hence, disaster reconstruction is all
about certifying the properties are reassembled and it requires a substantial sum of funding for an
adequate accomplishment. Another concern that can be identified is lack of time, since post disaster reestablishment work have to be done within a limited time period as the restorations are the basics of the
affected communities. Furthermore, it is clear that inadequacy of qualified people may affect the
reconstruction process duration and quality of the work done (Chang et al., 2011).
Meanwhile optimisation is finding an alternative with the most cost effective or maximum feasible
performance under given limitations, by making the best use of desired factors and minimizing undesired
ones (Huimin and Peng, 2013). Furthermore, optimisation means trying to attain the highest or maximum
result or outcome without regard to cost or expense (Alex, 1999). Therefore, optimizing project
performance in post-disaster reconstructions is significant as those are facing many challenges as well as
resources restrictions.
On the other hand, post-disaster reconstruction performance measurement is defined as the process of
evaluating performance relative to a defined goal in post-disaster management and it provides a sense of
where the reconstruction process lies and more importantly, where it happens (Khosrowshahi, 1997).
Khosrowshahi (1997) further stated that, performance measurement can guide steady advancement
towards established goals and identify shortfalls or stagnation and the significance of measuring
performance.
Moreover, it is a widely accepted view that, performance measures of a project are based on time, cost
and quality. Hence, Atkinson (1999) noted that these three components of project performance as the
iron triangle. As a result of frequent challenges faced in post-disaster reconstruction projects in Sri
Lanka, the performance level of constructions is at a lower level (Pathiraja and Tombesi, 2009). The
current situation in Sri Lankan post-disaster reconstruction projects is more severe due to numerous
challenges faced by the industry. The construction industry in Sri Lanka is developing in order to manage
post-disaster reconstruction work especially through the experiences of enormous destruction in Tsunami
disaster in 2004. Although, government and non-government organisations contribute for post disaster
due to the unavailability of standard performance measures, the direction of post disaster reconstruction
projects, performance optimisation have been a significant challenge.
Further, lack of research has been conducted in order to address the gap of finding the way of optimising
projects performance in post-disaster reconstruction projects in Sri Lanka. Therefore this research is
focused to fill the research gap through developing a framework to optimize projects performance in postdisaster reconstructions. The scope of the research is limited to post-disaster building reconstruction
projects and those projects were done due to natural disasters occurred such as landslides, tsunami etc.
354
Consequently, the research question is how to optimize project performance in post-disaster

reconstruction projects in Sri Lanka?
2.
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1.
DISASTER RECOVERY AND POST-DISASTER RECONSTRUCTION
Generally, disasters are known for its vast impacts on human lives, economy and environment (Moe and
Pathranarakul, 2006). Disasters lead to terminate the developmental projects since the fund allocations
should be transferred to the new outcomes for relief, reaction and rehabilitation work other than
interrupting the usual life of affected groups. Post-disaster recovery and reconstruction is identified as
developing a set of strategies to support a community in rebuilding after a disaster occurs (Newport and
Jawahar, 2003). Recovery planning can also be thought of as building the outline for reconstruction of the
community after a disaster. There are a number of activities that communities can engage in to address
post-disaster recovery.
The most common goal in disaster recovery process is to restore buildings, infrastructure, business and
activities of the government to the ordinary pattern that existed (Newport and Jawahar, 2003). Hence,
post-disaster reconstruction can be indicated as a process of creating a resistant built environment for
generating future vulnerabilities, to the disaster affected communities. It is a process of developing new
buildings or refurbish the damaged constructions in order to replace the affected ones.
Major stages of post-disaster reconstruction projects can be identified as definition, design and
implementation (Attalla et al., 2004). Yet, these projects always deal with uncertainties, complication
and challenges as it has been done within the disaster-affected areas in most of the times. Therefore, PDR
is a part of a long-period process including emergency, re-establishment, reconstruction and betterment
construction.
2.2.
TIME, COST AND QUALITY PERFORMANCE
Atkinson (1999) identified the three criteria of time, cost and quality as iron triangle. The author further
proposed that when other definitions of project management are developed, the iron triangle is always
used as time, cost and quality. The Iron Triangle was initially considered as a framework to empower
project managers to assess and balance the challenging demands of time, cost and quality of the projects
(Torbica and Stroh, 2001). According to Stojcetovic et al. (2014) this triangle was named as Iron
triangle because, the margins can reduce or extend, whereas the structure is unbreakable. Changes can be
done in to one aspect; however other two also should be balanced and adjusted accordingly.
Cho et al. (2009) have defined that project performance management reviewing the efficiency of the
project by analysing the practices and procedures. The duration, cost and the quality are the basic criteria
of high project performance level, which is identified and discussed by each and every academic and
experts. In addition to those basic criteria, Cooke-Davis (2002) has identified that project psychosocial
consequences that refer to the fulfillment of interactions and relationships with project team is also a
cause to project success.
Time denotes the duration of the project from the inception to completion of the project. It is
programmed to facilitate the building to be occupied by a date specified by client in accordance with his
future plans. Time management is very critical and the project cost is highly depended on the estimated
time duration (Kim and Garza, 2005). When the duration of a project is compacted it is essential to
increase labour and more productive tools which increase the cost.
Cost is another significant aspect that determines the project performance (Cooke-Davies, 2002). Cost
can be defined as the expenses incurred for labour, material, plant, financing, services etc. including the
overheads and profit. It is very difficult for an organization to keep increasing the quality of projects and
seeking to reduce their costs as the cost and the quality are inter-related aspects.
355
Quality is another principle that is highlighted by academics and researchers. However, assessing
quality is relatively subjective. Stojcetovic et al. (2014) have defined that quality as the degree to which a
set of essential characteristics satisfy the requirements of client or stakeholders.
Trade-off is necessary among the three targets of cost, time and quality in a construction project. The
requirement of a project is to complete it within the specified time period, adhering to the budget and
reaching the quality standards which are identified in the specifications.
2.3.
ISSUES AND CHALLENGES THAT AFFECT PROJECT PERFORMANCE IN PDR PROJECTS
Various experts and researchers have been involved in defining cross cutting challenges that are faced by
different post-disaster reconstruction stakeholders. Ismail et al. (2014), have identified delay, resourcing
etc. as the major challenges. Further Comerio (1997) and Shaw (2006) have identified that, reconstruction
financing and environmental sustainability are some other issues in post-disaster reconstruction projects.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
2.4.
Delay
Resource Challenging
Financing Issues
Lack of Coordination
Unstable Policies
Quality of Work
Cost Overruns
Shortage of Technical Staff
Inflation of Prices
Weak Regulation and Control
Unpredictable Weather Conditions
Risk and Uncertainty
Lack of Proper Training
Lack of Project Management Experiences
Non-Performance of Subcontractors
Design Changes
Contract Interpretation Disagreements
Conflicts between Parties
PROJECT PERFORMANCE OPTIMISATION IN POST-DISASTER RECONSTRUCTION PROJECTS
Optimisation is defined by Khosrowshahi (1997) as finding a substitute which reaches the performance
to the maximum level with most cost effective within the given limitations, by making the best use of
preferred aspects and minimizing undesired aspects. Maximization means trying to achieve the utmost or
highest consequence despite of concerning cost or expenses whereas optimisation is restricted by
limitations of time and cost.
Due to various limitations, the level of project performance in PDR projects is at a very low level
(Baroudi and Rapp, 2010). According to Yi and Yang (2014), the methods of financing the reconstruction
projects is a critical factor as there will be a strong pressure due to limited funds. Barenstein and Pittet
cited in Thanurjan and Seneviratne (2009) identified that post-disaster reconstruction projects are one of
the least effective sectors in the implementation stage.
Optimising the project performance is a concept of not merely increasing the level of performance, but
providing splendid standards in all aspects of project performance. In simple terms performance is
reaching project goals successfully and keeps the clients satisfaction to the maximum level in time, cost
and quality aspects (Nkado and Meyer, 2001). The level of performance is highly depended on the
activities of each stakeholder, resource allocation, construction management etc.
356
2.5.
CURRENT STATUS OF PROJECT PERFORMANCE OF PDR PROJECTS IN SRI LANKA
Empirical evidence revealed that the Sri Lankan cities face number of challenges in achieving a disaster
resilient built environment. Some of the challenges identified are, lack of regulatory frameworks to
regulate disaster resilient development, such as resilient building codes, planning regulations and risk
maps; unplanned cities and urbanisation; old building stocks and at risk infrastructure; unauthorised
structures; institutional arrangements; inadequate capacities of municipal councils; lack of funding;
inadequacy of qualified human resources; and corruption and unlawful activities. Sri Lanka encountered a
big challenge in reconstruction, as it had not earlier faced a disaster of the level of tsunami (Karunasena
and Rameezdeen, 2010).
Post-disaster housing reconstruction is considered by many experts as one of the least successful sectors
in terms of implementation (Barenstein and Pittet, 2007). Further, lack of effective information and
knowledge dissemination can be identified as one of the major reasons behind the unsatisfactory
performance levels of current disaster management practices (Haigh and Sutton, 2012). According to
Banerjee cited in Haigh and Sutton (2012), lack of prior knowledge and proper point of reference have
made most of the recovery plans guessing games, eventually failing without adding appropriate values to
the recovery attempts.
3.
A research design is the logical sequence that connects the empirical data to a study, initial research
questions and, ultimately to its conclusions (Yin, 2013). A research design is not just the work plan where
a thing more than that with the purpose is to avoid the situation in which the evidence does not address
the initial research questions.
Case study approach included two phases design called exploratory design where by collecting and
analysing qualitative data at first and based on that collection and analysis of quantitative data is done to
test or generalize the initial qualitative findings. Since this study was aimed to investigate the strategies
used to optimise the projects performance in post-disaster reconstruction projects, multiple case study
design was selected to obtain the realistic data and final conclusions.
Since this research depends on experts knowledge and numerical data so as to carry out an effective data
collection within the available time, and budget several limitations were undergone. Number of postdisaster reconstruction projects is limited and finding stakeholders who involved in them were hard to
discover. In qualitative approach, interviews are most commonly used data collection technique. To
collect the data on overall project performance, the critical factors identified were used in interviews. In
order to cater for emerging questions in the interview, semi structured interviews were selected. Yin
(2013) explained that, in-depth interviews were conducted to gather essential details from the experts
while clarifying the doubts, asking further questions. Interviews were carried out with qualified and
experienced representative such as Project Engineers, Project Manager and clients representatives.
Content analysis involved codifying qualitative information in to pre-defined categories while gathering
data, to obtain patterns in the presentation and reporting of information. Yet, it is an analytic approach
which undertakes similar cognitions in a same concept in a systematic and replicable manner. Therefore,
as the qualitative data analysis software available, NVIVO (version 10) was used, manufactured by
Qualitative Solutions and Research (QSR) International (Pvt) Ltd. for content analysis which enclosed
graphical presentation of interpreting relationships.
4.
As the initial step, in finding the strategies to optimise project performance in PDR projects, the
interviewees were asked about the critical factors that affect the cost performance of post-disaster
reconstruction projects. After that probable ways to optimise the performance level were identified
through the semi-structured interviews. Figure 1 shows the critical factors affecting cost performance.
357
Figure 1: Critical Factors Affecting Cost Performance in PDR Projects in Sri Lanka
As the next step in finding the methods to optimise project performance level, the respondents were
questioned about the critical factors that affect the time performance of post-disaster reconstruction
projects, with their involvement in these projects. Thus, it was identified that what kind of components
have an influence on time performance.
Figure 2: Critical Factors Affecting Time Performance in PDR Projects
The interviewees were asked about the critical factors, which affect quality performance of the postdisaster reconstruction projects in Sri Lanka in accordance with experiences gained in the industry. Thus,
some aspects were identified through the data collection as factors which are having a negative impact on
the quality performance.
358
Figure 3: Critical Factors Affecting Quality Performance in PDR Projects
All the respondents highlighted the issues that affect the project performance in PDR projects as critical
factors that highly affecting time, cost and quality factors. As the next step, the interviewees were asked
to expose the suggestions and probable attributes in order to optimise the project performance level.
A broadly defined project team organisation structure (hierarchy) with a clear outline of duties,
responsibilities, authority, and communication channels etc. For each and every individual of the
project team.
Preparation of comprehensive financial management plan and strict implementation ensure the
availability of funds, before commencing the project or sections of the project.
Preparation of comprehensive site organisation plan, optimizing the efficient usage of site space.
Recruitment and appointment of competent professionals for the project team by analysing their
level of knowledge, experience, skills and attitudes.
Proper consultation on project definitions and requirements in order to minimize design errors
and variation.
Sequential development of the design with relevant professionals, in order to minimize design
errors
Strict evaluation on the capacity, performance and qualifications of the Contractor before
awarding the Contract
Establishment of firm site security and supervision structure.
Comprehensive project time line or plan development with identification of resource

requirements in each stage, in order to minimize lack of resources on time.
Consideration of weather patterns as much as possible in planning stage and allow sufficient
buffer time period for such unforeseen conditions
Liaison between the parties regarding the project requirements in the designing stage in order to
minimize design changes and emphasize on the importance of not changing the design thereafter
and consequences, if it had to be changed.
Incorporation of quality control procedure within Contractor and client as well.
Introduction of severe penalties and damages for deliberate poor quality work.
Increased defect liability period and high quality supervision procedure.
Introduction of strict specification and standards for the construction materials and construction
methods, in order to eliminate poor quality materials and workmanship
Development of comprehensive cost plan for the work items and establishment of cost control
procedure and cost analysis methods to avoid unnecessary cost overruns and wastage.
359
Reduce time incurred to follow up office procedures and enhance the performance of government
organisations
This research attends to determine probable attributes and suggestions that can be integrated into project
performance optimisation of post-disaster reconstruction projects. Accordingly, there were several
attributes highlighted in the interviews which would be better to suggest for time, cost and quality
improvements.
5.
CONCLUSIONS
Undertaking reconstruction projects after a major disaster can be identified as challenging task in Sri
Lankan context. Furthermore, the importance of managing all stakeholders involved in the project for
effective and efficient recovery of an affected community. It is emphasized and highlighted the
significance of reconstruction planning as well as the accurate ways of executing the activities in the
construction project. The research indicates the importance of reconstruction process referring to highcost and long-term commitments required. The complexity of post disaster reconstruction, in related to
various dimensions as risks and uncertainty lead the whole project in to unsuccessful.
The numerous critical factors affecting the time, cost and quality performance levels were identified in
the research through expert interviews. Those aspects are within six main subsections such as, issues
occurred in the planning stage, issues in related authorities and professional bodies, unforeseeable
conditions, issues in the site, issues due to economic instability and issues of the contractor and suppliers.
Ultimately, the probable project ways of enhancing and optimising the degree of time, cost and quality
perspectives in post-disaster reconstruction projects in Sri Lanka were identified through the research.
6.
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POTENTIAL TO IMPLEMENT BIM PROJECT WITH SRI

LANKAN PROFESSIONALS
A.P.N.Y.K. Pathirana* and Himal Suranga Jayasena
ABSTRACT
Building Information Modelling (BIM) was found by construction industry, to increase the productivity
of construction, while other industries gain more productivity by automating the processes and using
software. BIM opened a new era to the construction industry, in which stakeholders in the industry
deals with concepts in three dimensional virtual environments, leaving behind the time which used two
dimensional concepts on papers. Even though other countries are gaining the benefit of BIM, Sri
Lanka is still in the infant stage when it comes to BIM. If BIM is to be used for a construction project
in Sri Lanka, a major barrier would be finding suitable persons as the participants to the project team.
Therefore, this research is aimed to identify the best BIM team in Sri Lanka, for successful completion
of a project using BIM.
With the aim of identifying the best BIM team in Sri Lanka, first a literature review was conducted to
identify the tasks to be carried out in a BIM project. Having identified the tasks to be performed such
as advising the client on purpose of using BIM, the required skills to perform each task were also
identified. Thereafter, the conventional design team in the current construction industry in Sri Lanka
was identified, and tasks to be performed by the BIM team were mapped to the conventional design
team, to create hypothetical ideal BIM team.
Thereafter the hypothetical BIM team was analysed through a qualitative research approach to
formulate the ideal BIM team.
Keywords:
1.
Building Information Modelling; Construction Industry; Professional Team; Sri Lanka.
INTRODUCTION
Building Information Modelling which is often represented by the acronym BIM is used, as a tool, a
technology and a process, in architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry in many
countries, for producing better products in AEC industry. When it comes to Sri Lankan AEC industry, the
number of AEC projects completed utilizing BIM in any means, is zero. Therefore, Sri Lanka, not only
the AEC professionals but also government, employers and facility managers, should be acknowledged
about the advantages that are gained by other countries in using BIM, what are that advantages Sri Lanka
could have, and how to implement BIM for Sri Lanka AEC projects. In that context, many literatures
have been produced in Sri Lanka, regarding technological and cost aspects of implementing BIM is Sri
Lanka, but only a few writings have been done in Sri Lanka, about the people who work in BIM. That is
why, this research is focused on the people who work with BIM, more precisely the skills needed for
professionals to work with BIM.
A huge advancement in terms of productivity has been gained by the industries like health,
manufacturing, distribution, and finance, through automated processes, tools, and software, over the last
30 years, but not in the AEC industry (Reddy, 2012). One such advancement happened in AEC industry
is Building Information Modelling (BIM) (Eastman, Teicholz, Sacks and Liston, 2011). Now BIM has
become a tool which is used not only for designing and documenting a project, but also as a means of a
facilitator to boost the communication between the parties in a project (Krygiel and Nies, 2008).
362
1.1.
AIM AND OBJECTIVES
The aim of the study was to identify the best BIM team for successful completion of a project in Sri
Lanka. The followings were the objectives which should be fulfilled, in order to reach the above aim,
2.
identify the process of a BIM project
identify the tasks and responsibilities of the members in the BIM team
determine the required skills to perform the task and fulfil the responsibilities
check the required skills with the capabilities of the professionals in the AEC industry of Sri
Lanka
map the positions in a BIM team with the professionals in the AEC industry of Sri Lanka
HOW BIM IS USED?
Building Information Modelling (BIM) has been described in many different ways in many different
places. BIM is the evolution which made it possible to trade in three dimensional and virtualized
buildings which contain a vast amount of knowledge, leaving the age behind, in which professionals
traded with owners, consultants and constructors, using two dimensional concepts and ideas on papers
(Hardin, 2009).
BIM is described as a tool, a platform, and an environment. If it is described as a tool, BIM will be a taskspecific software tool which is built to generate and manage building data, throughout its total lifetime,
that is, starting from conceptual design stage to operation and end of life (Deutsch, 2011). And also
software systems that include BIM design applications and other relevant application that use BIM data
are called as BIM systems. Sometimes the systems may be connected over a local area network (LAN) or
the internet (Eastman et al., 2011).
For the purpose of this research, BIM is defined as the total process consists of BIM tools, BIM platforms
and BIM environments, which are utilized to deliver a construction project. The process that uses the
information created by BIM for planning, scheduling, analysis, cost estimating and other uses is called as
the BIM process (Eastman et al., 2011). A digital database that includes all the information of objects of a
particular building is defined as a BIM model or a BIM data model. It may include, and shall not be
limited to, information such as its geometry, its planning, its construction and operations (Eastman et al.,
2011).
2.1.
UTILIZING BIM IN CONSTRUCTION
In the construction industry, BIM has the power, to generate models, to produce drawings, to produce
specifications, to prepare cost estimations, to do clash detection and error detection, to perform energy
analysis, render models, to prepare schedules, and to visualize models (Eastman et al., 2011). In BIM to
make the work success, it is important to get information from all the parties involved in the project, so an
integrated and combined approach is necessary (Mallik and Irving, 2012).
With the evolvement of BIM, construction industry works towards becoming automated, which force the
professionals to adopt sophisticated services incorporated 3D, 4D, 5D, 6D and xD (Smith, 2014). The
basic level of BIM is 3D BIM, in which 3D virtual model is taken as the sole source of information about
the building. All the specification details and dimension details are included in the 3D model (Czmoch
and Pekala, 2014). In BIM, 4D modelling is used for project time allocation that means for project
scheduling and construction sequence scheduling (Ding, Zhou, and Akinci, 2014). 5D BIM modelling is
also utilized for projects. 5D BIM gives cost aspects regarding the project. 6D BIM is for sustainability
and 7D BIM is for operations (Deutsch, 2011). All of these tools can be used for BIM projects.
363
2.2.
WHAT IS TO BE DONE IN BIM?
BIM is said as a process and software, identifying it as just software is wrong (Hardin, 2009). In that
process, various tasks to be done in throughout the total project life time (Deutsch, 2011). For a
construction project to be designed and managed successfully using BIM, activities needed in each stage
should be fulfilled (RIBA, 2012)
BIM overlay to the RIBA Plan of Work 2013 is shown in the Table 1.
Table 1: BIM Overlay to the RIBA Plan of Work 2013
RIBA Work Stage
0
Strategic
Definition
1
Preparation
and Brief
Core BIM Activities

NA
Client is advised on purpose of using BIM, addressing the benefits of BIM

Level of BIM usage (4D-Time, 5D-Cost, 6D-FM) is agreed and defined
Long term responsibilities, including model ownership, are defined
Inputs and outputs to BIM are defined
Scope of BIM surveys and investigation reports are identified
Data drop 1 is performed
2
Concept
Design
Pre-start meeting for BIM is held

For strategic analysis and options appraisal, the initial model is shared among the
members if the design team
Environmental performance and area analysis is done using BIM data
Main model elements such as prefabricated components are identified
For all major elements, concept level parametric objects are created
Access to BIM data is granted to the design team
The extend of Performance specified work is agreed
3
Developed
Design
To perform design co-ordination and detailed analysis, data sharing and integration
is facilitated. Data links between models are also enabled
Generic design components and bespoke design components are integrated and/or
developed
Using BIM data, environmental performance and area analysis id done
For design co-ordination and technical analysis, data sharing is facilitated and also
specification data is added
BIM model data is exported in to planning application to prepare schedules
4D and 5D BIM are assessed if required
4
Technical
Design
To perform building control analysis data is exported from BIM

To conclude design co-ordination and to perform detailed analysis with
subcontractors, data sharing is facilitated
Detailed modelling, integration and analysis
Clash detection is performed
For all the major elements of the model, production level parametric objects are
created
Specification details are embedded in to the model
Final review of the model is performed and the parties sign off from the model
Access to the BIM model is given to the contractor(s)
Model information of sub-contractor performance specified work is integrated into
the BIM model data
Construction sequence of the project, which is incorporated to 4D BIM, is
reviewed with the contractor
364
5
Construction
Clash detection is performed

For Soft landings, the timing of happening and the scope to be covered is agreed
BIM record model data for End of construction is released with co-ordination of
other parties
Construction administration is done using 4D and 5D BIM data
6
Handover
and Close out
When an asset change is made, BIM model data for FM is issued

Parametric object information that is contained within the BIM model data is
studied
7
In Use
NA
Considering the current practise of professionals in the conventional system, a hypothesis was built to
make the analysis easy. Data collection was carried out based on the hypothesis.
Figure 1: Hypotheses of BIM Team
3.
For the research, mainly there were two research approaches that could be adopted; quantitative and
qualitative (Creswell, 1994).The suitable approach to address this hypothesis was a qualitative approach.
Since in the Sri Lankan construction industry nothing related to BIM is practised, (Rogers, Chong,
Preece, Lim, and Jayasena, 2015) it was difficult to get quantitative data to test the hypothesis.
Commonly used research designs for qualitative research are case study, oral history, interviews, and
observation (Kumar, 2011). As it was observed in the literature review, many work related to BIM had
been done based on case studies. However, for this research, it was impossible to do a case study due to
the unavailability of cases, which utilized BIM. As a result of the nature of the research; which is about a
very new aspect to Sri Lanka, oral history method is not practical.
In the data collection, the skills in the professionals in the Sri Lankan construction industry were
collected, through structured interviews. The next step of the research was to analyse the collected data.
Describing the data analysis under the research methodology is a bit problematic for a qualitative research
than for a quantitative research (Rudestam and Newton, 2007). The data collected in qualitative research
is huge. There are techniques used in qualitative researches to reduce the amount of data to be presented
and analysed. Using methods such as coding, and data matrix, the amount of data to be presented and
analysed, was reduced. For coding QSR NVivo 11 Starter software was used.
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4.
For data collection, eleven (11) respondents with various backgrounds were selected. While selecting
respondents their ability to provide opinion based on their experience and the ability to provide sufficient
information to conduct the analysis were the major concerns.
4.1.
THE ARCHITECT
The architect who is selected for the BIM team will have to do the following tasks; advising the client on
purpose of using BIM, BIM model administration, project administration, subcontractor work
administration and handover and feedback. In the hypothesis built up, BIM project administration was
under the architects work scope, however based on the analysis of data collected, that task was included
under the engineers work scope. There are two alternatives for the selection of an architect as shown in
Table 2.
Table 2: Selection of Recommended Architect
Recommended Architect
T1
T3
An architect with prior experience as a lead architect in similar kind of projects
An architect with prior experience as project architect for more than five years
When both the requirements are considered, an architect with prior experience as a lead architect in
similar kind of projects is the most suitable person. The selected architect should have the required BIM
based skills related to his tasks.
4.2.
THE ENGINEER
The engineer who is selected for the BIM team will have to do the following tasks; project scheduling,
BIM project administration, subcontractor work administration, project administration and hand over and
feedback. In the hypothesis built up, BIM project administration (T2) was under the architects work
scope, however based on the analysis of data collected, that task was included under the engineers work
scope. There are three alternatives for the selection of an engineer as shown in Table 3.
Table 3: Selection of Recommended Engineer
Recommended Engineer
T9
T2
An engineer with prior experience as project manager
An engineer with prior experience as planning engineer
An engineer with prior experience in similar kind of projects for more than ten years
When all the requirements are considered, an engineer with prior experience as project manager is the
most suitable person. The selected engineer should have the required BIM based skills related to his tasks.
4.3.
THE QUANTITY SURVEYOR
The QS who is selected for the BIM team will have to do the following tasks; cost estimating, clash
detection, subcontractor work administration, project administration and handover and feedback. There
are three alternatives for the selection of an engineer as shown in Table 4.
Table 4: Selection of Recommended Quantity Surveyor
Recommended Quantity Surveyor
T10
T7
A quantity surveyor with prior experience in more than five similar kind of projects
An engineer with prior experience in more than five similar kind of projects
366
When all the requirements are considered, a quantity surveyor with prior experience in more than five
similar kind of projects is the most suitable person. The selected quantity surveyor should have the
required BIM based skills related to his tasks.
4.4.
THE MODELLER
If a 3D modeller is appointed for the BIM team, he will have to prepare models for the architects and
engineers designs. There are two alternatives for the selection of a modeller for the BIM team as shown
in Table 5.
Table 5: Selection of Recommended Modeller
Modeller
T6
An architect + 3D modeller
An architect with 3D modelling skills
For the project, for model preparation, an architect can be appointed to designing and a modeller can be
appointed to prepare the model, or an architect with 3D modelling skills can be appointed to do both the
designing and preparing the model.
4.5.
3D MODELLING IN SRI LANKA
Frequently used software for creation of 3D models of buildings were Google SketchUp, Autodesk 3Ds
Max and Autodesk Maya. Such software is only capable of creating 3D model to visualize the idea. They
are not much help for designing process. Usage of 3D modelling software specially developed for
construction modelling has being popular since few years. Autodesk AutoCAD can also be used for 3D
modelling for construction. But it takes time. Most popular software for 3D modelling for construction is
Autodesk Revit. 3D modellers and professionals who use Autodesk Revit for modelling is increasing.
4.6.
3D MODELLING COURSES IN SRI LANKA
All the courses are based on Autodesk Revit Architecture software. Most courses provide similar skills.
All the courses include the following features; creating and modifying building components; floor, roof,
ceiling, curtain wall, stair, railing, etc., adding annotations, dimensions and details, rendering views and
creating walkthroughs, using massing tools, adding site features. In addition to them, some courses
include features such as creating and modifying schedules, creating structural elements, sheets and title
blocks, and using dimensions, alignments and constraints.
4.7.
SRI LANKAN PROFESSIONALS AND 3D MODELLING
Sri Lankan professionals have had a light touch to BIM in their work to make their work easy. They do
not implement projects based on BIM, they only use BIM software individually to complete their tasks.
Even though Sri Lankan construction industry is not using BIM tools much, for structural engineering, Sri
Lankan professionals are aware of such tools. That shows the attitude of Sri Lankan professionals towards
new trends. Due to this reason, implanting BIM in Sri Lanka would not be a very hard task.
5.
DISCUSSIONS AND CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS
From the findings of the study, it can be concluded, a project can be completed successfully by
implementing BIM, formulating a team from the participants in the current construction industry in Sri
Lanka. In a BIM project there are special tasks to be carried out, which are not in the conventional
construction process. Even though the participants in the Sri Lankan construction industry had never done
those tasks, they could easily do those tasks correctly, with the help of a little training of working with
BIM.
367
The conclusion for the selection of the participants for the BIM team is as follows. The team members in
the conventional design team and their tasks were identified in the literature review. They have to perform
the same tasks using BIM tools, in a project carried on using BIM. For that the participants in the BIM
team need to have the knowledge to use BIM tools in their work.
Apart from those tasks in conventional construction projects, the participants in the BIM team have to
perform special tasks unique to a BIM project. Those tasks with respect to the participants of the team are
as below.
The Architect
The architects special tasks include advising the client on purpose of using BIM, BIM model
administration, project administration, subcontractor work administration, and handover and feedback.
Alternatively, if the architect is going to prepare the model of the design himself, architect has to do
model preparation as well.
To do those tasks the architect needs to have the following BIM related skills; understanding of BIM
process, understanding of ownership privileges, understanding of model sharing, view a BIM model,
preparing correspondence and submittals using BIM data, knowledge about the data to be inserted to the
model, import and export BIM model data between software, extracting quantities, areas, volumes from a
BIM model, and preparing, reviewing and updating project schedule using BIM model data. If the
architect is going to prepare the model he needs the following skills; knowledge about the data to be
inserted in to the model, drafting components and design with parametric modelling.
Architects strengths include visualization ability, ability to convince the client and coordinating people.
Architects weaknesses include lacking in extensive knowledge about all the parts of the building, no
competency in planning, lacking in technical knowledge and prioritizing architectural design. Considering
all the facts an architect with prior experience as a lead architect in similar kind of project is selected.
The Engineer
The engineers special tasks include project scheduling, BIM project administration, subcontractor work
administration, project administration, and Hand over and feedback. Alternatively, if the engineer is going
to prepare the model of the design himself, engineer has to do model preparation as well.
To do those tasks the engineer needs to have the following BIM related skills; understanding of BIM
process, understanding of ownership privileges, import and export BIM model data between software,
preparing, reviewing and updating project schedule using BIM model data, generating BIM sequence
animation and schedule animation, extracting quantities, areas, volumes (quantity taking off) from a BIM
model, preparing correspondence and submittals using BIM data, view a BIM model, understanding of
model sharing.
Engineers strengths include understanding of all the aspects of the building such as design, schedule and
cost, extensive knowledge about all the parts of the building, planning. Engineers weaknesses include
prioritizing structural design. Considering all the facts an engineer with prior experience as a project
manager is selected.
The Quantity Surveyor
The quantity surveyors special tasks include cost estimating, clash detection, subcontractor work
administration, project administration, and handover and feedback.
To do those tasks the QS needs to have the following BIM related skills; understanding of BIM process,
understanding of ownership privileges, extracting quantities, areas, volumes (quantity take off) from a
BIM model, view a BIM model, import and export BIM model data between software, perform clash
detection, understanding of model sharing, prepare correspondence and submittals using BIM data.
Quantity surveyors strengths include extensive knowledge about all the parts of the building, detailed
knowledge about cost, independent choice, planning. Quantity surveyors weaknesses include lacking in
understanding of designing process. Considering all the fact a QS with prior experience in more than five
similar kind of projects is selected.
368
The Modeller
The modeller prepares BIM models for architects and engineers designs, if either the architect or the
engineer does not prepare the model for their designs themselves. Modellers tasks include for model
preparation, and handover and feedback.
To do those tasks the modeller needs to have the following BIM related skills; understanding of BIM
process, understanding of ownership privileges, understanding of model sharing, knowledge about the
data to be inserted to the model, drafting components and design with parametric modelling, view a BIM
model, import and export BIM model data between software, preparing correspondence and submittals
using BIM data.
How to Implement BIM Successfully?
From the conclusion of the study, main recommendation that can be made is, if a client needs to, or likes
to do a project using BIM, do not need to worry about formulating a reasonable BIM team within Sri
Lanka. It does not require to hire people from outside. However, none of the participants to the BIM
team, from Sri Lanka has not done a BIM project, they need an expert input. Giving an expert input to the
team will be an added advantage, which will increase the success rate of the project. A foreign input can
be taken to give the necessary exposure to BIM.
6.
REFERENCES
Creswell, J. W., 1994. Research design qualitative & quantitative approaches. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications.
Czmoch, I., and Pekala, A., 2014. Traditional Design versus BIM Based Design. Procedia Engineering , 210-215.
Deutsch, R., 2011. BIM and Integrated Design. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.
Ding, L., Zhou, Y., and Akinci, B., 2014. Building Information Modeling (BIM) application framework: The
process of expanding from 3D to computable nD. Automation in Construction , 46, 82-93.
Eastman, C., Teicholz, P., Sacks, R., and Liston, K., 2011. BIM Handbook. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.
Hardin, B., 2009. BIM and Construction Management Proven Tools, Methods, and Workflows. Indianapolis: Wiley
Publishing.
Krygiel, E., and Nies, B., 2008. Green BIM: Successful Sustainable Design with Building Information Modeling.
Indianapolis: Wiley Publishing.
Kumar, R., 2011. Research Methodology a step-by-step guide for beginners . 3rd ed. London: SAGE Publications
Ltd.
Mallik, A., and Irving, G., 2012. BIM - make sure you're not left behing. Strategic Direction , 28 (9). 240-255
Reddy, K. P., 2012. Bim for building ownes and developers. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.
RIBA., 2012. BIM Overlay to the RIBA Outline Plan of Work [Online].
http://www.architecture.com/files/ribaprofessionalservices/practice/general/
bimoverlaytotheribaoutlineplanofwork2007.pdf. [Accessed on: 15th May 2015]
Available
from:
Rogers, J., Chong, H.-Y., Preece, C., Lim, C. C., and Jayasena, H. S., 2015. BIM Development and Trends in
Developing
Countries:
Case
Studi,
[Online].
Available
from:
http://ebooks.benthamscience.com/book/9781681080178/. [Accessed on: 21st June 2015],
Rudestam, K. E., and Newton, R. R., 2007. Surviving Your Dissertation . 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Smith, P., 2014. BIM implementation global strategies. Procedia Engineering, 85, 482-492.
369
RE-DIRECTING CONSERVATION RISKS TO DISASTER RISKS IN

CONSERVING WORLD HERITAGE SITES IN MALAYSIA
Dodo Mansir* and Narimah Kasim
Department of Construction Management, Real Estate and Facilities Management, University Tun Hussein Onn,
Malaysia
Indera Syahrul Mat Radzuan

Department of Real Estate and Facilities Management, University Tun Hussein Onn, Malaysia
ABSTRACT
Although a host of researches have fished-out attributes collectively defining Conservation Risks
(CRs) at World Heritage Sites (WHSs) in Malaysia, these attributes are reported to threatening
WHSs thereby posing as potential Disaster Risks (DRs) to the WHSs. These fished-out CR attributes
however somewhat fall within the confines of hazards (as conceived by some researches and policy
documents on DRs) leaving out the other two variables (vulnerability and capacity) which alongside
hazards, collectively define DRs. This study as such, intends to explore the studies on CR in Malaysia
with a view to aligning these studies to a DR approach in conserving WHSs in Malaysia. Literature is
sourced and reviewed by means of document analysis. Interpreted inferences drawn will be used
presenting results. Findings reveal that attributes CR while bearing semblance to attributes of DR
however predominantly qualify to being hazards both originating from nature and human induced. It is
recommended that adopting the full concept of DR to WHS involves exploring the other two variables
(vulnerability and capacity) which alongside DR attributes qualified to being hazards will collectively
define DR at WHSs both in Malaysia and beyond.
Keywords:
1.
Conservation Risk; Disaster Risk; Malaysia; World Heritage Sites.
INTRODUCTION
Discussions that were topical during the World Heritage Convention held at Kyoto in 2012 were on
increasing instances of hazards which culminate to disasters thereby subjecting World Heritage Sites
(WHS) to great risks. Several reports on such topical issue were presented and deliberated upon by
stakeholders at the Convention. The floods, earthquake and fire that occurred at WHSs in Japan,
Thailand, Haiti, India, New Zealand and Nepal among other countries left devastating effects (Jigyasu,
2012; Okamura et al., 2015). The magnitude of such devastations discussed in The Convention were
pinned to inefficient and/or neglect of Disaster Risk Management Plans in conservation of the WHSs.
Resolutions reached in The Convention was that since WHSs are at risk of being affected by hazards that
eventually turn out to become disasters, Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) strategies should be highly
prioritised by state parties to The Convention.
Globally, several efforts have been put forth to combating disasters by means of DRR. The United
Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO, 2007) captures the Strategy for
Reducing Risks from Disasters at World Heritage Properties which was adapted from the Hyogo
Framework for Action (HFA, 2005). Although HFA served as a global platform for DRR from 2005 until
2015, the Sendai Framework for DRR (2015-2030) has replaced the HFA. The goal of these global
platforms for DRR is the substantial reduction of Disaster Risks (DR) by means of optimising the impact
of hazards, vulnerability, capacity and resilience of lives, livelihoods and assets within communities in all
countries. To achieve these goals which reduce DR, these global platforms spell out priorities for action
to DRR. The first priority for action in SFA (2015) is the understanding of DR in all its dimensions.
*
370
Having ratified the SFA, understanding DR within the field of heritage conservation among other fields
by Malaysia will show the countrys full commitment to the resolution of the World Heritage Convention
of which it is a State Party.
Most often than not, risks at WHSs are taken to be within the context of Conservation Risks (CRs).
There exists several researches on CRs to WHSs in Malaysia (Kamal et al., 2007; Lee, 2009; Woon and
Mui, 2010; King, 2012; Wan Ismail, 2013; Mat Radzuan, 2016). Although these studies may differ in
their attributes to CR, they however unanimously report the threats and/or negative effects the attributes
collectively defining CRs bear to WHSs. Therefore, it may be deduced that the attributes collectively
defining CRs to WHSs in Malaysia by extension pose as potential DRs.
While applauding the efforts of the researches that have extensively reported the attributes collectively
defining CRs (particularly in Malaysia) at WHSs, they somewhat fall within the confines of hazards as
conceived by a host of authors on DRs (Anderson and Woodrow, 1989; Parker, 2000; Chen et al., 2003;
Reddy, 2010; UNISDR,2015). However, DR have been claimed to being a collective function of not only
hazards but also vulnerability and capacity (Chen et al., 2003; Vatsa, 2004; Venton, 2008;Reddy, 2010).
Researches on the attributes of CRs at WHSs (particularly in Malaysia) as such contain a vacuum in the
other two attributes of DR (vulnerability and capacity) which together with hazards collectively define
DR. This study as such, intends to explore the studies on CR in Malaysia with a view to aligning these
studies to a DR approach in conserving WHSs in Malaysia.
2.
RESEARCH APPROACH
Addressing a problem in any research involves the selection of a suitable research approach (Jayaweeraet
al., 2015). The aim of this research is to be fulfilled by means of document analysis. Justification for
selecting such approach lies in the assertions of Prior (2003) and Owen (2014) that: in most social
scientific work, document analysis is placed at the margins of consideration. Authors that have recently
used document analysis include: Jayasinghe and Fernando, (2015); Jayaweera et al., (2015).
Document analysis is useful when conducting a study to present ideas whose purpose is to make an issue
better understood (Duignan, 2008; MohdAriffin, 2015). This assertion is in line with the goal of this study
because this study intends to present findings that may yield better understanding of CRs as they pass for
DRs to WHSs. Several documents on CR, DR and other subject matter of this research are sourced and
reviewed. Interpretation of the review is by means of drawing inferences to suit the aim of this study.
3.
CONSERVATION RISKS
Risks in the field if conservation whether to WHSs or to any heritage item are most often than not
contextualised to being Conservation Risks (CRs). Although CR is broad in nature, two approaches have
been selected to discussing them. While the first approach presents CR in general, the second approach
presents CR relative to WHSs in Malaysia. The subsequent sub-sections discusses these approaches.
3.1.
CONSERVATION RISKS IN GENERAL
Although researches in CR have been ongoing for decades, attributes collectively defining CR have been
presented by different researchers in different contexts. While some authors merely identified attributes
collectively defining CRs, other authors went a step further to classify and/or categorise them. The
subsequent sub-sections present these contexts.
3.1.1. CONSERVATION RISKS BY IDENTIFIED ATTRIBUTES

Forsyth (2007) identified attributes of CRs at WHSs to include: conflict in site values; access to
disabled; lack of resources; lack of statutory control; lack of management policies; neighbourhood
development; traffic; pollution; and skill gap. The work of Orbasli (2008) attributes the following as
collectively forming CRs to WHSs: earthquake; high winds; freak storms; flooding; fire; deliberate
vandalism; solar radiation; fluctuations in temperature, pollution, climate change, tourism flow, and
population density. According to Dolff-Bonekamper (2008), political circumstances and disputes/
371
conflicts serve as a major source of CR. It is worthy to note that these identified attributes alongside
others collectively defining CRs are WHS specific.
3.1.2. CLASSIFIED CONSERVATION RISKS

The work of Waller (1994) classifies CR based on frequency of occurrence into three types that range
from Type 1 which are rare and catastrophic, to Type 2which are sporadic and intermediate in
severity and finally Type 3, which are constant and gradual. The relation between these somewhat
arbitrarily defined types of CR is shown schematically in Table 1.
Table 1: Conservation Risks by Frequency of Occurrence
Constant
Sporadic
Rare
1
Catastrophic
2
Severe
3
Gradual
Source: Waller (1994)
Another study classified CRs based on agents of deterioration. Under this category, Michalski (1990)
itemised nine CRs. Attempting to improve these, Waller (1994) and Waller (1995) did not only add the
tenth CR but further categorised all of them based on the classification of CRs by frequency (against
the backdrop). This classification and further categorisation of CR is shown in Table 2.
Table 2: Classification and Categorisation of Conservation Risks
S/No.
Agent Type
Risk Type by Frequency
Examples
of Occurrence
1
Physical forces
Earthquake
Mishandling
Poor support and vibration
Fire
Fire
Water
Flood
Roof and plumbing leaks
Rising damp
Pests
Infestation
Contaminants
Gases and vapours
Criminals
Theft of elements or parts
Pollutants
Industrial waste
Light and radiation
Fading of colour
Relative humidity and temperature
HVAC malfunction
10
Custodial neglect
Abandonment
Source: Waller (1995)
The work of Reyers and Mansfield (2001) and that of Reyers (2003) categorise CR based on:
client/owner risk; consultant related risk; external bodies risk; Health and Safety risk; and risks associated
to design constraints. The classification of CR from these studies can be said to be based on the parties
involved in conservation work. Research conducted by Silva and Henriques (2015) presented CR based
372
on agent of degradation where they classified the agents into: biological, chemical and mechanical
agents. All these classification of CR indicates the efforts put forth by authors to studying CRs.
Similarly, the classification also portrays the variability of CRs.
3.2.
CONSERVATION RISKS TO WORLD HERITAGE SITES IN MALAYSIA
According to Mohd-Isa et al. (2011), Melaka and George Town historical cities were inscribed as WHSs
by UNESCO in 2008. Justification for such inscription according to Idid and Ossen (2013) is that both
cities possess Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) from the point of view of history, architecture, culture
and spiritual practices. Ever since the inscription of these two historic cities as WHSs, there exists
considerable studies in the WHSs. Some works include: Idrus et al., 2010; Harun, 2011; Wan Ismail,
2013; Said et al., 2013; Idid and Ossen, 2013; Hasbollah, 2014; Hasbollah and Baldry, 2014; Mansir and
Kasim, 2015. These studies alongside others is a clear manifestation of the growing interest to studying
WHSs in Malaysia.
The enactment of National Heritage Act 645 (2005) alongside other legislations and statutory bodies
(Federal, State and Local councils) in Melaka and George Town WHSs are statutorily meant to tackle all
issues on conservation. This involves combating CRs among other issues. While commending their
efforts, researches have not only identified CRs at the WHSs but also claim that CRs threatens WHSs
in Malaysia. For instance, Shamsuddin and Sulaiman (2002) and also Said et al. (2013) reported worrying
trends that threaten the survival of WHSs to include: the disruption of the urban pattern; disappearing
townscape; changing activity pattern; visual monotony and obsolescence; and gentrification.
Jenkins and King (2003) attribute CRs at WHSs to derive from relocation of property owners. The work
of Kamal et al. (2007) and Woon and Mui (2010) identify large-scale urban development, neglect, and the
high cost of maintenance to continuously threaten WHSs. Another study by King (2012) attributes CRs
to WHSs to: pressures for new high-rise development in the core and buffer zones; modernisation; and
traffic. Similarly, the work of Wan Ismail (2013) also touched on how workshops, factories, noise,
smelly and dirty environment, illegal and unsympathetic renovations put WHSs under risk. Furthermore,
Said et al. (2013) enumerate that WHSs are under intensified threats which include: design of new
township development; intensive and uncontrolled development pressures; insufficient legislations and
enforcement; changing lifestyles and consumption patterns of city dwellers; expectation of new tourists;
public awareness; environmental degradation; non-transparent local initiatives; poor provision of grants
and technical advice; insufficient law and enforcement and de-population of inner city.
According to Ahmat et al. (2015), CRs in Malaysia could be as a result of: lack of funds; the desire for
modernisation; diminishing residents due to increasing rejection of traditional values and identity;
economic demand through tourism; attitude of conservation administrators. Although these studies are
sourced from different authors, some of the attributes of CR enumerated by the different authors bear
semblance. These studies alongside others clearly confirm that CRs not only exists at WHSs in
Malaysia but they also threaten WHSs.
4.
DISASTER RISKS
Over the years, disasters in different parts of the world have left devastating effects to humans, property
and communities. Depending on the context of a particular disaster, DR has evolved through numerous
definitions by a host of authors. According to Vatsa (2004), DR refers to the chance of injury, damage, or
loss. Reddy (2010) equally posits that DR refers to the product of some probability of occurrence of an
event and expected loss generating thereof. From these definition, it becomes clear that DR can be said to
be built around effects (usually negative) that originating from the occurrence of a probable event.
Being a global platform for DR, the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR) has proffered
interpretation of DR to being a function of hazard, exposure and vulnerability normally expressed as a
probability of loss of life, injury or destroyed or damaged assets which could occur to a system, society or
a community in a specific period of time (ISDR, 2002; ISDR, 2005; ISDR, 2007; UNISDR, 2015).
Adapting this interpretation, a host of authors (Anderson and Woodrow, 1989; Chen et al., 2003; Vatsa,
2004; Venton, 2008; Reddy, 2010) all claim that DR is a function of three key variables which are:
373
hazard; vulnerability to that hazard; and capacity to anticipate, resist, cope with and recover from a
hazards occurrence.
5.
RE-DIRECTING CONSERVATION RISKS

SITES IN MALAYSIA
TO
DISASTER RISKS
AT
WORLD HERITAGE
The subsequent sub-sections will begin by presenting some DRs at WHSs. It must be noted that these
reported risks will particularly cover some countries in Asia. Furthermore, comparison will be drawn
between CRs to DRs.
5.1.
REPORTS ON DISASTER RISKS AT WORLD HERITAGE SITES
Several reports and researches have established the attributes that relate to DR. Natural disaster attributes
relating to DR as culled from Cummins (2012); Abungu (2012) and Okamura et al. (2015) include:
Hurricane; Volcano; Earthquake; and Tsunami. Human induced disaster attributes relating to DR as
culled from Abungu (2012); Nishibayashi (2012); Bokova (2012); Jigyasu (2012); Badman, (2012) and
Okamura et al. (2015) include: pressures for development; conflicts; lack of funds; lack of coordination
between stakeholders; lack of appropriate capacity; climate change; rapid urbanization; mass tourism;
economic development; lack of management strategies; political and economic considerations; lack of
consultation; suspicion of other parties; population pressure; unsympathetic and contradictory
developments; and fire.
Reports have shown that some of these afore-presented attributes relating to DR have in the past
individually or collectively culminated to disasters in WHSs. For instance, Jigyasu (2012) reported that
floods, earthquake and fire among others resulted to devastating disasters affecting WHS at Japan,
Thailand, India and New Zealand among other countries. Similarly, the earthquake that struck Nepal
caused a great deal of loss to its WHS (Okamura et al., 2015). These reports show that the factors claimed
to cause disasters are among both afore-presented natural and human induced attributes relating to DRs.
5.2.
COMPARING CONSERVATION RISKS TO DISASTER RISKS
Previous sections in this study presented the attributes relating to DR and also the attributes to CRs.
Table 2 depicts some comparison drawn between them on the basis of the CRs authors that identified the
DR attributes (listed in Table 3) in their study.
Table 3: Comparing Disaster Risk Attributes to Conservation Risk Attributes
S/No
Disaster Risk Attributes
Earthquake
2
3
Pressures for development

Conflicts
4
5
6
7
Lack of funds
Lack of appropriate capacity
Climate change
Rapid urbanization
8
9
Mass tourism
Economic development
Conservation Risks in
General
Michalski,
1990;
Waller, 1995; Orbasli,
2008
Forsyth, 2007
Forsyth, 2007; DolffBonekamper (2008)
Forsyth, 2007
Conservation Risks to World

Heritage Sites in Malaysia
Said et al., 2013; Ahmatet al., 2015

Jigyasu, 2012; Said et al., 2013
Orbasli, 2008
Orbasli, 2008
374
Shamsuddin
and
Sulaiman,
2002;Kamal et al., 2007; Woon and
Mui, 2010; King, 2012; Said et al.,
2013
Said et al., 2013; Ahmatet al., 2015
Shamsuddin
and
Sulaiman,
2002;Kamal et al., 2007; Woon and
Mui, 2010; King, 2012; Said et al.,
2013
S/No
Disaster Risk Attributes
10
Lack of management strategies
11
12
Political
and
considerations
Lack of consultation
13
Suspicion of other parties
14
15
Population pressure
Unsympathetic and contradictory
developments
Fire
16
economic
Conservation Risks in
General
Forsyth, 2007
Dolff-Bonekamper
(2008)
Reyers and Mansfield,
2001; Reyers, 2003
Reyers and Mansfield,
2001; Reyers, 2003
Orbasli, 2008
Conservation Risks to World

Heritage Sites in Malaysia
Said et al., 2013; Ahmatet al.,
2015.
Kamal et al., 2007;Woon and Mui,
2010; King, 2012
Jigyasu, 2012
Said et al., 2013
Said et al., 2013; Wan Ismail,
2013
Michalski,
1990;
Waller, 1995; Orbasli,
2008
Out of all nineteen attributes relating to DR (refer Section 5.1) none of the researches reviewed on CRs
report on the following: hurricane; volcano; and tsunami (hence sixteen are captured). Although the DR
attributes somewhat compare to the CR attributes identified by the authors (depicted in Table 2), these
attributes somewhat fall within the category of hazards as conceived by a host of authors on DRs
(Anderson and Woodrow, 1989; Parker, 2000; Chen et al., 2003; Reddy, 2010; UNISDR,2015).
5.3.
ALIGNING CONSERVATION RISKS AT WORLD HERITAGE SITES IN MALAYSIA TO DISASTER

RISKS
Although the attributes of CRs in WHSs somewhat fall within the confines of hazards, DR is reported
to not only be a function of hazard but also that of vulnerability and capacity. The migration of CRs to
DRs as such involves exploring the other two variables (vulnerability and capacity) which alongside
hazards collectively define DRs at WHSs both in Malaysia and beyond. To achieve this, Table 4
showcases the extensive work authors have undertook to classify the three variables collectively defining
DRs.
Table 4: Classification of the Variables Collectively Defining Disaster Risk.
Variables
Hazards
Vulnerability
Capacity
Variable classification
Origin (Natural and human induced)
Magnitude
Frequency
Aerial extent
Duration
Speed of onset
Spatial dispersion
Temporal spacing
Physical/material
Economic
Social
Economical
Institutional
Educational
Environmental
Attitudinal/motivational
Physical/material
Institutional
Social
Economic
Attitudinal/motivational
375
Authors
Anderson and Woodrow, 1989; Parker,
2000; Chen et al., 2003; Reddy, 2010;
UNISDR, 2015.
Anderson and Woodrow, 1989; Chen et

al., 2003; Vatsa, 2004; ADPC, 2006;
IFRC, 2007; Venton, 2008; Reddy, 2010.
UNISDR, 2015.
ADPC, 2006; IFRC, 2007; Reddy, 2010;

Gaillard, 2010; Eiser et al., 2012;
UNISDR, 2015.
While these classifications may serve as a stepping stone thereby assisting in aligning CRs to DRs, it
must be borne in mind that attributes defining the interplay between these three key variables must be
defined within the context of DRs at a particular WHS.
6.
CONCLUSION
The attributes of CRs at WHSs in Malaysia although bearing semblance to attributes of DR do not fall
under the attributes identified (amongst other factors) to culminate to disasters at WHSs in Japan,
Thailand, India and Nepal amongst other countries in Asia. However, these attributes of CRs at WHSs
in Malaysia together with those attributes identified to cause disasters all somewhat fall within the
confines of hazards. Similar to the hazards that culminated to disasters in the afore-reported WHSs,
attributes of CRs qualified to being hazards may cause potential DRs in conserving WHSs in
Malaysia.
Comprehensive coverage of DRs however involves classifying of attributes of CRs qualifying to being
hazards based on the classification in Table 3. Furthermore, an integration of these attributes of CRs
(which qualify as hazards) with a full exploration of vulnerability and capacity specific to the WHSs
in Malaysia will be necessary. Doing such will fall in line with the integrated-approach to studying CRs
usually propagated statutorily (ICOMOS, 2010a; ICOMOS, 2010b; ICOMOS, 2011; ICOMOS, 2012).
This study although being part of an ongoing Ph.D. will in future explore vulnerability and capacity
(based on classifications of Table 3) of the WHSs in Malaysia. Subsequently, a model to assess DRs at
WHSs in Malaysia will be proposed.
7.
REFERENCES
Abungu, G., 2012. The Convention Today for a Better Future: Emerging Issues on Sustainable Development and
Disaster Prevention/Recovery. The closing event of the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the World
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379
RE-THINKING POST-CONTRACT COST CONTROLLING TECHNIQUES

IN THE NIGERIAN CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY
Temitope Omotayo* and Udayangani Kulatunga
School of the Built Environment, University of Salford, United Kingdom
ABSTRACT
The challenges of cost and time overruns, construction disputes and client dissatisfaction have plagued
the construction industry in Nigeria. This may be as a result of the approaches used in monitoring
construction costs. The execution phase of a construction project relies on post-contract cost
controlling techniques, such as cash flow monitoring, interim valuations, final account preparation,
monitoring activities, site meetings and documentation of activities on site. These techniques are
imperative for project success. The purpose of this paper is to assess the various techniques used in
post-contract cost control in Nigeria, in terms of their effectiveness. The data was gathered from one
hundred and thirty five (135) cost and project managers in Nigeria. The Kendalls coefficient of
concordance was used to test the post-contract cost controlling techniques identified, through an
extensive literature review along with one sample run test.
The findings reveal that monitoring material cost was the most effective and important technique with
a Kendalls W score of 1.33 and 11.44 respectively. Cash flow monitoring had the lowest score of 7.85
for effectiveness, while variation management had the lowest score of 6.88 for importance. The
effectiveness of the techniques was further evaluated using one sample run test. The findings show that
sixteen out of the eighteen techniques were not effective from an overall point of view. The cost
controlling techniques used in the Nigerian construction industry are deficient and generally
ineffective. Therefore, there is a need to research alternative post-contract cost controlling techniques
for the construction industry in Nigeria.
Keywords:
1.
Construction Industry; Cost; Cost Controlling Techniques; Nigeria; Post-contract.
INTRODUCTION
Cost management is the bedrock of a successful project. Project cost controlling activities are based on
the output of project planning, tender evaluation and estimates (Rad, 2002; Samphaongoen, 2010). The
entire process of cost management has the aim of ensuring that there is cost accountability and
management. Therefore, cost controlling is vital for any construction project around the world. Shehu et
al. (2014) noted that the major factors associated with project delays are the contractors influence and
financial management. Cost overruns are very common wherever project delays occur (Jainendrakumar,
2015; Olawale and Sun, 2013). The major factors identified for cost and time overruns are risk factors
with regard to financial and political influence, the cost of construction materials, design changes,
inaccurate estimations of time and cost, project complexity, lack of training on the part of the project
manager, difficulty in collecting cost data and the cost of conducting cost control (Dada and Jagboro,
2007; Eshofonie, 2008; Liang, 2005; Olawale and Sun, 2013). Project cost and time overruns have been
studied by many authors over the decades, but research has not focused on the pertinent techniques used
by cost and project managers during the construction process. The techniques used by cost and project
managers for cost control during construction are very important in determining if the project will
complete on time and within budget.
The Nigerian construction industry has suffered a low growth rate and contribution to the gross domestic
product of the country (AfDB et al., 2013; NBS, 2012). Within the last five (5) years, the construction
industry in Nigeria has not grown as expected. The challenges faced by most construction industries
around the world in terms of cost and time overruns are not peculiar to the Nigerian construction industry.
*
380
The inaccuracies of construction cost estimates are affected by political, economic and geographical
issues, security, time and legal factors (Oyedele, 2015). These factors have influenced the accuracy of
construction estimates in Nigeria, hence cost and time overruns are prevalent. The contractor selection
process is also cost based, which is associated with project delays and cost overruns (Olaniran, 2015).
Post-contract cost controlling techniques in the Nigerian construction industry have not been a major
research area. However, contractors performance has been the major focus (Bala et al., 2009; Chukwudi
and Tobechukwu, 2014; Fagbenle et al., 2011; Inuwa et al., 2014a; Inuwa et al., 2014b; Odediran et al.,
2012). The lack of in-depth analysis of the effectiveness and importance of the post-contract cost control
techniques in the Nigerian construction industry is apparent. The techniques employed by contractors in
Nigeria may be an influence on the performance of contractors.
2.
POST-CONTRACT COST CONTROLLING TECHNIQUES IN THE NIGERIAN CONSTRUCTION

INDUSTRY
According to Jagun (2006) Quantity Surveyors are the cost managers of construction projects in Nigeria.
Hence, Quantity Surveyors are trained in the art and science of cost management for building, industrial,
civil engineering, mechanical and electrical aspects of construction. According to Ashworth (2010) the
Quantity Surveyor is heavily involved in the cost control processes. This stage starts from the planning to
the issuing of certificates. The most critical phase of a project is always the execution phase. Based on
exiting literature, the post contract cost controlling techniques used in the Nigerian construction industry
were extrapolated for this study. The major techniques identified for post-contract cost control in Nigeria
are listed in the table below with their description.
Table 1: Post-Contract Cost Controlling Techniques in Nigeria
S/N
1
Post-Contract Cost
Controlling Technique
Cash flow
Taking corrective action
Monitoring overheads
Monitoring labour cost
Monitoring material cost
Monitoring Equipment cost
Managing variations
Monitoring completed units
Unit rate
Description
Reference
Flows of cash for day to day

activities for relevant activities
on site. Allows the contractor to
calculate the profit and other
expenditure.
Errors and omissions identified
during the construction process
are corrected.
Monitoring specific activities
which may lead to more
expenses. Some of these
activities are identified in
preliminary items of work.
The cost of labour and other
rates are monitored.
The
material
costs
are
monitored, effect of demand and
supply and the exchange rate.
Hiring cost of equipment and
plants are regularly considered.
Variation
management
is
essential. There are always
alterations and changes during
the course of construction.
This
process
involves
monitoring the progress of
work.
Single rate cost estimating
method used during and before
construction. Cost estimating of
(Ashworth, 2010; Sanni and

Durodola, 2012; Sanni and Hashim,
2013)
381

Durodola, 2012)
Durodola, 2012)
(Ashworth, 2010); Sanni and

Durodola, 2012)
Durodola, 2012)
Durodola, 2012)
(Olawale and Sun, 2010;
Ashworth, 2010; Sanni and
Durodola, 2012)
(CII, 2000; Ashworth, 2010)
(Olawale and Sun, 2010;

Ashworth, 2010)
S/N
Post-Contract Cost
Controlling Technique
Description
10
Interim valuations
11
Incremental Milestone
12
Establishing baselines
13
Identifying indicators
cost overruns
14
Financial statement and

summarizing profit and loss
15
Site meetings
project reviews
16
Historical data
17
Cost Forecasting
18
Using established budget

and targets
and
of
post
the various building elements

are calculated using this method.
Interim certificates may be
issued for payment. Allows the
client to make payment based on
work done gradually.
This is a technique for earned
value analysis. It is used to
measure completed work and
outline the cost and during
further calculations.
Cost baselines are established to
evaluate the planned cost against
the actual cost.
Certain indicators which may
lead to cost overruns may be
identified. These may be
inflation, economic changes or
stakeholders involvement.
Financial statements and other
financial documents such as the
profit and loss summary are
used
in
identifying
and
evaluating the expenditure and
calculating the final profit.
Final
site
meeting
is
documented to evaluate the
performance of the project, in
this instance, cost, expenditure
and profit are evaluated.
Data from previous similar
projects are used during
construction cost control.
A technique used to evaluate the
cost needed to complete the
project, this may be carried out
using earned value analysis.
Bills of quantities are used
during construction activities for
managing construction cost.
Reference
(Ashworth, 2010)
(CII, 2000; Leu and Lin, 2008)
(Ankur and Pathak, 2014; Leu and

Lin, 2008; Czarnigowska, 2008)
(Ashworth, 2010; Olawale and
Sun, 2010; Sanni and Durodola
2012)
(Sanni and Durodola, 2012;

Ashworth, 2010)
(Puvanasvaran et al., 2010);

Berger, 1997; Chukwubuikem et
al., 2013)
(Sanni and Durodola, 2012)

Czarnigowska, 2008).

Ashworth, 2010)
The eighteen post-contract cost controlling techniques identified in the table above will be used for this
investigation. The effectiveness of the techniques will be assessed.
3.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
The problem of cost and time overruns has affected a number of construction companies in Nigeria (Bala
et al., 2009). Also, there has not been an adequate study into the post-contract cost control techniques
used in the construction industry. Most emerging small and medium scale construction organizations in
Nigeria have not been competing well, in recent years, with the larger construction firms. Hence,
liquidation of construction companies and loss of jobs in the construction sector has been prevalent,
although it may be difficult to pinpoint the challenges exactly that most small and medium scale
construction firms are experiencing in terms of post-contract cost controlling techniques at the moment.
382
There is a need to investigate and ascertain the role of post-contract cost controlling techniques in terms
of effectiveness.
4.
HYPOTHESES
The following hypotheses was used to evaluate the eighteen identified post-contract cost controlling
techniques in Nigeria.
H0: Post-contract cost controlling techniques identified are not effective for cost control activities
in the Nigerian construction industry.
H1: Post-contract cost controlling techniques identified are effective for cost control activities in
the Nigerian construction industry.
The next section addresses the data collection, and testing techniques.
5.
METHODOLOGY
A theoretical sampling technique was used to define the sample population and the number of
respondents. Walliman (2006) noted that theoretical sampling, which is a form of non-probabilistic
sampling, targets the population with adequate knowledge and experience. The targeted population were
chosen based on experience and knowledge level. Cost and project managers in Lagos, Nigeria were
selected because of their influence in construction projects. The respondents had a minimum of fifteen
and maximum of thirty eight years of experience in the construction industry. Subsequently, the
population size was selected based on a quarter of construction companies in Lagos. There are over one
thousand construction companies according to the Lagos State Ministry of Housing (Sanni and Durodola,
2012). Therefore, two hundred and fifty (250) questionnaires were distributed to construction companies
in Nigeria, however, one hundred and thirty five (135) questionnaires were obtained. The questionnaire
was designed based on the five point (5) Likert scale format. The format is displayed as thus:
Table 2: Likert Scale Format for Data Collection
1
Not relevant
2
Not effective
3
Moderately effective
Effective
Highly effective
The questionnaire was used to elicit information from cost and project managers who were the only two
categories of respondents in this survey. The theoretical sampling technique was used to target cost and
project managers with at least fifteen years experience in the construction industry. SPSS 22 was used to
test the data for effectiveness.
5.1.
KENDALLS COEFFICIENT OF CONCORDANCE
The study also utilized Kendalls coefficient of concordance to assess the agreement between the
respondents and also to rank the effectiveness based on the Kendalls W score. Kendalls coefficient of
concordance is used to measure the agreement of judgement of a set of variables (Legendre, 2005). Mehta
and Patel (2012) noted that Kendalls W test is a scaled Friedmans test with the formula:
W = T
N(K-1)
Eq: 01
The test produces the p values which are the asymptotic p value. If the p value is less than 0.05 this is
acceptable, also the Kendalls coefficient of concordance W should also be less than 0.05 for acceptable
values (Mehta and Patel, 2012). The ranking produced by Kendalls W coefficient of concordance is a
form of measure of association (Mehta and Patel, 2012). The author further noted that Kendalls W is a
measure of the degree to which the K applicants agree with the N judge. This measures the level of
383
effectiveness or importance for the various post-contract cost controlling techniques which are used by
small and medium scale construction firms in Lagos, Nigeria.
5.2.
HYPOTHESIS TESTING (ONE SAMPLE RUN TEST)
The hypothesis involved accepting or rejecting the null hypothesis based on one sample run test. The one
sample run test addressed the randomness of data in an observed sequence. According to Singh et al.
(2013, p.9) a run test is used for examining whether or not a set of observations constitutes a random
sample from an infinite population. The test for randomness is of major importance because the
assumption of randomness underlies statistical inference. The test for randomness in the Likert scale
non-parametric data observed the occurrence of the responses as a measure of the hypothesis. The
hypothesis test also utilized the significance value, which should be less than 0.05. The hypothesis test
aimed to address the effectiveness of post-contract cost controlling techniques individually and juxtapose
it with the findings of the Kendalls coefficient of concordance. Therefore, the tests addressed the core
aims but the hypothesis looked at the overall impact of post-contract cost controlling techniques in the
Nigerian construction industry.
The Kendalls coefficient of concordance and the one sample run test for randomness were carried out
using SPSS22. The findings of the Kendalls coefficient of concordance and the one sample run test for
randomness are presented in the next section.
6.
FINDINGS
The result of Kendalls coefficient of concordance test from SPSS 22 is displayed in the table below. The
results ranked monitoring material cost as the most effective technique with a score of 11.55. Interim
valuation is the second most effective technique with a score of 11.05. The established working budget,
which is the bill of quantities, is ranked third with a score of 10.90. The findings also revealed that
variation management is not effective for the construction industry in Nigeria. This technique had the
lowest score of 8.16. Cash flow monitoring, which is usually used by contractors, had the second lowest
score of 8.17.
Table 3: Kendalls Coefficient of Concordance for the Identified Post-Contract Cost Controlling Techniques
Post-contract cost controlling technique
Monitoring Material cost
Mean
11.55
Rank
1
Interim valuations
Using established working budget
11.05
10.90
2
3
Taking corrective action
10.39
Monitoring Overheads
Monitoring Equipment cost
Using Historical Data
10.22
10.08
10.07
5
6
7
Monitoring Labour cost

Similar projects
Monitoring completed Units
9.94
9.41
9.39
8
9
10
Incremental Milestone
Identifying cost overruns
Forecasting at completion
8.85
8.75
8.63
11
12
13
Cost Ratio
Profit and loss summary
Unit rate
8.57
8.52
8.40
14
15
16
Cash flow
Variation Management
8.17
8.16
17
18
384
The Kendalls W score for agreement is given as 0.046. This implies that there is a low level of
agreement between the respondents. In this instance, the respondents have given diverging views about
the various techniques. Therefore, it is important to assess the techniques, based on their individual
significance and randomness.
6.1.
FINDINGS FROM THE ONE SAMPLE RUN TEST
As can be seen in Table 4 below, the findings revealed that the null hypothesis for each of the postcontract cost controlling techniques is retained. There are only two techniques which take corrective
action and use the established working budget with a significance of 0.021 and 0.045 respectively, which
rejects the null hypothesis. This implies that the post-contract cost controlling techniques identified are
not effective for the Nigerian construction industry.
Table 4: Null Hypothesis Test for the Post-Contract Cost Controlling Techniques Identified
S/N
Null Hypothesis
Sig.
Decision
Cash flow is not effective
0.372
Retain null hypothesis
Using historical data is not effective
0.478
Using similar projects is not effective
0.918
Taking corrective action is not effective
0.021
Reject null hypothesis
Monitoring labour cost is not effective
0.0831
Monitoring material cost is not effective
0.143
Monitoring equipment cost is not effective
0.672
Monitoring overhead cost is not effective
0.084
Variation management is not effective
0.277
10
Cost ratio is not effective
0.850
11
Incremental milestone is not effective
0.601
12
Monitoring completed units is not effective
0.091
13
Identifying cost overruns is not effective
0.759
14
Forecasting at completion is not effective
0.163
15
Using a unit is not effective
0.091
16
Profit and loss summary is not effective
0.140
17
Interim valuations are not effective
0.907
18
Using an established working budget is not

effective
0.045
Reject null hypothesis
88.89% of the techniques identified are not effective for post-contract cost controlling in Nigeria.
Therefore, the null hypothesis H0, stating that post-contract cost controlling techniques identified are
not effective for cost control activities in the Nigerian construction industry, will be retained.
7.
DISCUSSION
The findings of the Kendalls coefficient of concordance reveals that monitoring material cost is the most
effective cost controlling technique in the Nigerian construction industry. This finding has been
corroborated by Sanni and Durodola (2012) in the assessment of cost control practices in the metropolis
of Lagos, Nigeria. Although monitoring material cost was ranked second to using established working
385
budgets in the authors findings, the impact of material cost monitoring, such as monitoring the cost of
cement in Nigeria, is enormous. Most complex construction projects in the country require a lot of
building material importation from Europe and Asia. Building materials such as windows, doors,
ceramics, tiles, sanitary and plumbing appliances, have been imported into Nigeria over the years
(Oruwari et al., 2002; Ugochukwu et al., 2014). The effect of inflation, fluctuating foreign exchanges, the
rising cost of importation and custom duties have led to a many cost overruns in the Nigerian construction
industry. Ugochukwu et al. (2014) conducted a survey which was based on the perception and patronage
of imported building materials in Nigeria. The findings revealed that most building material sellers and
contractors usually patronize BUA imported cement compared to the local Dangote cement. Dangote
cement is very popular in Nigeria, however, the prices of this cement brand fluctuate quarterly. This also
influences the overall costs of construction projects in Nigeria.
Cash flow is viewed as a very important post-contract cost controlling technique but in the Kendalls
coefficient of concordance test, the findings revealed that cash flow is the second least effective postcontract cost controlling technique in Nigeria. Sanni and Hashim (2013) stated that cash flow is the most
effective technique for cost controlling. However, the tests conducted in this study have disclosed
otherwise. Variation management was ranked as the least effective. This may be as a result of contract
documentation and adequate preparation. Also, the quantity surveyors experience matters in variation
management; this has been corroborated by the findings of Sanni and Hashim (2013) in their assessment
of construction cost control practices in Nigeria.
These factors have also influenced contractors and quantity surveyors approaches towards the interim
valuations and preparation of working budgets for tender. The null hypothesis was retained for sixteen out
of the eighteen techniques, showing that the process of post-contract cost controlling in Nigeria is
ineffective. However, the results showed that taking corrective action and conducting interim valuations
are effective, yet these are only two techniques out of the eighteen techniques in the study. Therefore, the
post-contract cost controlling techniques used in Nigeria are not effective, based on the findings of this
study.
There is a need to explore the alternative means of controlling post-contract cost. However, the cost
planning phase of construction in Nigeria needs to address certain aspects, which deal with contingency
funds, profit and overheads. The addition of contingencies to the cost plans or budget is a management
function. In most construction companies, profit and overheads are twenty (20) to thirty five (35) percent.
The contingency funds are between five (5) to ten (10) percent of the total contract estimate. These
figures have to be reviewed to allow for the changes in the construction industry, which may result from
cost fluctuation for building materials.
8.
CONCLUSION
Post-contract cost controlling techniques identified in the literature have been ranked and tested for
effectiveness, and monitoring material cost is the most effective technique. This is as a result of the
immense pressure to import high quality materials, which are not readily available in Nigeria. Cash flow
and variation management are the least effective techniques. This may be as a result of the challenges
posed by the regularly fluctuating material cost. It would be cost effective if more quality building
materials were manufactured inside Nigeria. This would reduce the dependence on foreign building
materials for construction projects. Notwithstanding this, the economic situation in Nigeria also has an
overall impact on construction projects. However, it is evident that activities which involve monitoring
the rise and fall of construction material costs in Nigeria are necessary. Further hypothesis tests have also
shown that most present post-contract cost controlling techniques are ineffective, and in fact, only two
techniques were found to be effective at all. Therefore, there is a need to implement new practical
approaches for conducting post-contract cost control. Modern cost management methods such as target
costing, kaizen costing, value engineering and earned value analysis may be incorporated with the present
post-contract cost controlling techniques in the Nigerian construction industry, thereby reducing the
challenges of cost and time overruns.
386
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388
REVIEW OF STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE WORKPLACE SAFETY

THROUGH ETHICAL CLIMATES
Uthpala Rathnayake* and Gayani Karunasena
ABSTRACT
Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) is an important aspect in every type of organisations. Healthy
workers are an important asset to the organisation and safety issues causes various losses to the
organisation. Therefore, it is vital to formulate strategies to improve the occupational health and
safety in every type of organisations.
It has been found out that 80% of the workplace accidents are due to employee behaviours. Moreover,
according to past researches, ethical climate of the organisation affects the individual employee
behaviours. Ethical climate refers to the shared perceptions of organisational members regarding
what is considered correct behaviour in the organisation and how the organisation deals with ethical
issues. Ethical climate guides the employees to determine what is considered right and wrong
behaviour at work. Therefore, it is much clear that there is a strong link between ethical climates and
the workplace safety.
Thus, this study discusses how the ethical climates affect the employees work place safety behaviours
and ultimately on the occupational health and safety. The literature review shows that among the nine
types of ethical climates, principal-local climates and benevolent- local climates have the highest
positive effect on workplace safety behaviours. Therefore, the organisations should encourage these
types of ethical climates in their organisations and can enhance the safety performance by aligning
their safety initiatives with ethical climates.
Keywords:
1.
Occupational Health and Safety; Ethical Climates; Employee Safety Behaviours.
INTRODUCTION
Healthy workers are productive workers with high morale and better productivity (Pasha and Liesivuori,
2003). Workers have a right to a safe workplace. In every country the law requires employers to provide
their employees with safe and healthful workplaces. However, according to Rantanen et al. (2004 cited
Trute and Hiebert-Murphy, 2013). 2.4 billion working people in the developing countries often have to
endure employment conditions, which do not meet even basic Occupational Safety and Health (OSH)
standards.
The 'root cause' of the accident is a human error on part of a person involved directly in the dynamic flow
of events (Rasmussen, 1998). As it was recorded, 70-80% of the industrial accidents were due to 'human
error'. As human errors can be eliminated though behaviours, behaviours have always had a role in safety.
For instance, Guldenmund (2000) viewed that, when designing and evaluating safety processes, attention
needs to be in three basic domains; namely, environment (such as equipment, tools, machines,
housekeeping, engineering, management systems); person (employees knowledge, skills, abilities,
intelligence, motives, and personality); behaviour (employees complying, recognizing, communicating,
and actively caring). Behaviours are regarded the primary, and sometimes only, tools for survival,
remaining today as the last tool when all else fails (Galloway, 2012). Galloway (2012) further explains
that, when proper tools or systems were lacking, workers should behave in a manner for self-preservation.
Thus, improving the safety behaviours of workers can be a reassuring way to eliminate human error, and
enhance safety in an organizational level.
*
389
As argued by many researchers, the organization and its subunit have the most important influences on
the safety behaviour of the individual employee (e.g., Katz-Navon et al., 2005; Neal et al., 2000).
Moreover, taking the right action in an organization when faced with a decision that influences other
people is related to the work climate of the organization. This work climate determine what constitutes
ethical behaviour at work (Victor and Cullen, 1988).
According to Parboteeah and Kapp (2008) there is an important but neglected link between workplace
safety and ethics. However, only two studies have examined that link. Among that one study, McKendall
et al. (2002) examined, how various aspects of an ethics program (ethical codes, communication about
ethics, ethics training, and incorporation of ethics into human resources practices) were linked to
Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act) violations. And the finding was ethical compliance
programs may actually be used to deflect attention from illegal activities rather than promote legitimate
activities. In the second study by Parboteeah and Kapp (2008) which is the first one to demonstrate the
utility of the ethical climate concept in explaining work place safety, confirmed that workplace safety can
be enhanced through organisational ethical climate rather than solely on the typical contingent reward
approach based on use of reward and punishment to encourage safety behaviours.
Accordingly, this paper aims at reviewing the strategies to improve workplace safety through ethical
climates. This paper is based on the comprehensive literature review of an on-going MPhil research. Iqbal
(2003) explains that literature review is required to identify any gap in the knowledge and a successful
researcher claims a gap in the existing knowledge with evidence. Thus, findings of comprehensive
literature review presented the overview of ethical climates, occupational health and safety issues, link
between ethical climates and workplace safety and strategies to improve workplace safety through ethical
climates. Finally, the paper elaborates future way of this research. Mainly, referring journal articles,
books, published and unpublished bibliographies, conference proceedings, industry reports and
documents took literature evidence. During the literature survey, key terms such as ethical climates,
apparel industry, occupational health and safety, and ethical behaviour were used for the review.
2.
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1.
OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY
Occupational safety and health (OSH) is generally defined as the science of the anticipation, recognition,
evaluation and control of hazards arising in or from the workplace that could impair the health and wellbeing of workers, taking into account the possible impact on the surrounding communities and the general
environment (Alli, 2008). Simply, the goals of occupational safety and health aims at fostering a safe and
healthy working environment.
According to International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the World Health Organisation (WHO)
Occupational health should aim at: the promotion and maintenance of the highest degree of physical,
mental and social well-being of workers in all occupations; the prevention among workers of departures
from health caused by their working conditions; the protection of workers in their employment from risks
resulting from factors adverse to health; the placing and maintenance of the worker in an occupational
environment adapted to his physiological and psychological capabilities; and, to summarise, the
adaptation of work to man and of each man to his job (Amarasinghe, 2013). Therefore, it is clear that
work and health is always interrelated. Health of the worker affects the work performance. Healthy
worker is an asset to the work place because his work is productive, and efficient and less errors. An
unhealthy worker should be referred for treatment, rest or at least to relax for a short time. Time spent for
other activities except for the production, such as seeking treatment or resting in the sick room, is a cost to
the organisation. At the same time work affects the health of a person in two ways, mostly in a positive
manner, because of the earnings the workers will have a better access to nutrition, education.
Accordingly, researchers, have found that the workers life expectancy is significantly longer than a nonworking population, which is called the Healthy workers effect. However, if the work place is not a
safe place to work, the workers might end up with occupational accidents or if the workplace is not
healthy the worker might end up with occupational diseases.
390
Workplace accidents occur for many reasons including accidents result from the behaviours of people, the
hazards in the work environment (Figure 1). It has been found that unsafe actions, more so than unsafe
conditions are the root cause of the vast majority of occupational injuries and accidents (Mcquiston,
2012). Moreover Mcquiston (2012) further explained that approximately 80 out of every 100 accidents
are directly attributable to the person involved in the incident. In fact, unsafe work behaviour causes four
times as many accidents as unsafe work conditions.
Unsafe
Conditions
Accidents
Employer
Responsibilities
Overload
Unsafe Acts
Inappropriate
Worker
Response
Inappropriate
activities
Improperly guarded
equipment
Defective equipment
Hazardous procedures in,
on or around machines or
equipment
Unsafe storagecongestion, overloading
Improper illumination
glare, insufficient light
Improper ventilation,
impure air sources
The work task is beyond

the capability of the
worker
1. Includes physical and
psychological factors
2. Influenced by
environmental factors,
internal factors, and
situational factors
To hazards and safety

measures (workers fault)
To incompatible work
station (management,
environment faults)
Lack of training and

misjudgement of risk
Figure 1: Causes for Occupational Accidents
Unsafe condition is a condition in the work place that is likely to cause property damage or injury.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), working conditions, for the majority of the three
billion workers worldwide, do not meet the minimum standards and guidelines set by the WHO and the
391
International Labour Organization (ILO) for occupational health, safety and social protection. Throughout
the world, poor occupational health and safety leads to two million work-related deaths, 271 million
injuries and 160 million occupational diseases per year (Eijkemans, 2003). The majority of the worlds
workforce does not have access to occupational health services; only 10-15 % of the total global
workforce has access to some kind of occupational health services. The main problem of the absence of
occupational health services is the continuous presence of hazards in the workplace, such as noise, toxic
chemicals, and dangerous machinery, leading to a huge burden of death, disability and disease.
On the other hand, unsafe act is a performance of a task or other activity that is conducted in a manner
that may threaten the health and/or safety of workers (Hosseinian and Torghabeh, 2012). Behind every
unsafe behaviour or unsafe act, there is a reason that those people engage in those acts. According to
Henrich there are three major reasons behind the unsafe acts of the employees namely, overload,
inappropriate response and inappropriate activities (Brauer, 2016).
However, all workplaces should be safe to work for all workers. Occupational safety and health should
not be restricted to the industry as this is a cross cutting issue for all working sectors (Amarasinghe,
2013). It is the duty of the employer to provide all equipment which is intended to be worn or held by a
person at work which him against one or more risks to his health and safety (Branson, 2015). Moreover,
Amarasinghe (2013) explained that there is an equal responsibility lies with the employees as they are
obligated to use the supplied personal protective equipment as per the Factories Ordinance and the
Workmens Ordinance of Sri Lanka.
However, it has been noted that many organisations have made substantial efforts to ensure that facilities
and equipment are designed for safe operation, and that appropriate safety management systems are in
place. However, all too often, employees are still having accidents. The reason behind these accident is
the human errors (Sellers and Eyre, 2000). One of the important way of preventing the human errors is
management of behaviours (Dekker, 2002). A lot of times, that has to do with the management system the way people are measured and rewarded, the culture of the organization that leads unsafe behaviour to
be exist (Cooper, 2001). Managers have to look at the causes of accidents as being a combination of a
management system and a culture or environment that leads to human error (Ganguly, 2011). In this
context ethical climate of the organisations can be used as an effective tool as to manage the behaviours
hence improve the occupational safety and health practices.
2.2.
ETHICAL CLIMATES
It is important to note that many types of climates exist within the organizational framework: climates for
safety compliance, community service, and innovation are just a few that have been researched (Moore
and Moore, 2014). Among those, the ethical climate concept has derived from the idea of organisational
climate which refers to the way people perceive the environment of their workplace (Coetzer, 2015).
According to Victor and Cullen (1988), organisational climate types can be categorized into two broad
classifications. The first category relates to the aggregated perceptions towards structure and procedure
forms for the use of rewards and control. The second concerns the aggregated perceptions of the existence
of organisational norms supporting certain values.
According to Victor and Cullen (1988) climate types under the second classification have an ethical basis.
Based on this premise combined with Schneiders (1975) conceptualisation of multiple climates in an
organisation, Victor and Cullen (1988) hold that there should be a climate that guides organisational
members to determine what is considered right and wrong behaviour at work, which they name ethical
climate.
Therefore, according to (Cullen et al., 2001) ethical climate refers to the shared perceptions of
organisational members regarding what is considered correct behaviour in the organisation and how the
organisation deals with ethical issues. Moreover, Lombardo (2013) defines organisational ethical
climate as the moral atmosphere of the work environment and the level of ethics practiced within a
company. To clearly define the ethical climate of an organisation, Victor and Cullen (1988) employed
theories derived from philosophy, psychology, and sociology. A two-dimensional model is then devised
to describe possible various ethical climate types in organisations.
392
The first dimension called ethical criterion. This dimension refers to the considerations that individuals
take into account when making ethical decisions. The basis of this dimension is the three basic ethical
theories, namely, (1) egoism, (2) benevolence or utilitarian, and (3) principled or deontology. That is,
whether the decisions associated with their own self-interest (egoism), the interests of as many people as
possible (utilitarian), or the adherence to certain principles of right or wrong (deontology) respectively.
The second dimension called locus of analysis. It concerns the referent from which individuals receive
their cues regarding what is considered ethically appropriate in decision making (Peterson, 2002). This
dimension is derived from sociological theories of roles and references group as proposed by Merton
(1957). Merton suggests the distinction between a local and a cosmopolitan referent that might help shape
the behaviours and attitudes of role incumbents in social system. The sources of role definitions for the
local incumbents are contained within the social system. For the cosmopolitan role incumbents, the
referents of role definition are in social system external to the system in which the actor is embedded.
Gouldner (1957) apply these conceptions in organisational contexts. The local referent refers to the
organisation itself (e.g., the organisations standards and policies). The cosmopolitan referent is pertains
to the organisation, such as the community or religious values (Martin and Cullen, 2006). Victor and
Cullen (1988) extend the work of Gouldner (1957) to include another referent called individual. This
referent is located within the individuals themselves (i.e. their own personal ethics). They develop a
typology comprising nine theoretical ethical climate types as shown in Table 1.
Table 1: Theoretical Ethical Climates Types
Locus of Analysis
Ethical Criteria
Individual
Local
Cosmopolitan
Egoism
Self interest
Company interest
Efficiency
Benevolence
Friendship
Team play
Social responsibility
Principle
Personal Morality
Rules and procedures
The law or professional codes
Source: Victor and Cullen (1987)
This typology clarifies the interaction of the two ethical climate dimensions in an organizational context.
In the context of the egoism criterion, the loci of analysis identify the particular self in whose interests
one is expected to act (Victor and Cullen, 1988) with no consideration of other constituents interests.
Therefore, in the self-interest (egoism-individual) climate, the egoism criteria (the maximisation of selfinterest) are used for the needs of ones own self, such as personal gain. In the company interest climate
(egoism-local), the considerations are for the organisations interest such as corporate profit. Finally, in
the efficiency climate (egoism-cosmopolitan), considers societys best interest, for example, the
efficiency of the social system.
In the context of benevolence criteria, the loci of analysis both identify for organisational members who
we are and set the boundaries for our concerns (Victor and Cullen, 1988). In the team play
(benevolence-local), the criteria are applied for the organisational collective. In the social responsibility
climate (benevolence-cosmopolitan) the criteria are considered for other constituents outside the
organisation, for example, caring for the interests of society as a whole suggests a concern for social
responsibility.
In the context of the principle criterion, the loci of analysis define sources of principles expected to be
used in the organisation (Victor and Cullen, 1988). In the personal morality (principle-individual) climate,
organisational members are expected to be guided by their own personal ethics. In the rules, standard
operating procedures climate, the source of principles comes from the organisation itself, such as
organisational policies and codes of conduct. In the laws or professional codes climate the source of
principles is outside the organisations, for instance, legal system, professional codes and religious values.
393
2.3.
OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY AND ETHICAL CLIMATES
As discussed in the previous section ethical climates represent a subset of the array of work climates and
refer to the institutionalized organizational practices and procedures that define what is considered right
or wrong within the organization.
As argued by many researchers, the organisation and its sub unit have the most important influences on
the safety behaviour of the individual employee (e.g., Katz-Navon et al., 2005; Neal et al., 2000).
According to Parboteeah and Cullen (2012) by investigating the local level, one can more accurately tease
out the effects of the plant level climate on occupational health and safety. Additionally, plant level
climate reflects a condition that is within the organizations ability to change. In contrast, other loci of
analysis such as the individual or the cosmopolitan are not considered, because they do not necessarily
reflect the strongest influence of ethical climate on safety behaviours.
It is argued that there are compelling reasons to expect a strong link between local ethical climates and
workplace safety. Schneider (1990) defines climates as incumbents perceptions of the events, practices
and procedures and the kinds of behaviours that get rewarded, supported and expected in a setting.
Since ethical climates are concerned with issues that relate to workers overall welfare and well-being, it
can be believed that the ethical climate within any plant will provide guidance as to the appropriate safety
enhancing behaviour. Climate perceptions provide guidance to employees with respect to the types of role
behaviours that will be rewarded and supported in the organization (Zohar and Luria, 2004). Therefore,
the following section discusses the links between occupational health and safety and three ethical climates
namely, egoist-local climates, Benevolent-local climates and Principled-local climates.
Egoist-local Climates
As discussed earlier the egoist dimension is generally based upon the maximization of self-interest
(Cullen et al., 2003). Therefore, it is believed that in the egoist climate the decision-maker is likely to
choose alternatives that benefit himself/herself the most while ignoring the needs of others (Martin and
Cullen, 2006). Moreover, in the context of the local locus of analysis, decisions are made based on
profitability or efficiency considerations at the expense of the individual well-being (Victor and Cullen,
1987; Victor and Cullen, 1988).
It is argued that an egoist-local climate will be associated with increased incidences of injuries in a plant.
In an egoist-local climate, employees perceive that self-interest guides behaviour, even to the possible
detriment of others (Martin and Cullen, 2006). If employees perceive that the organization is promoting
the material well-being of the company at the expense of the well-being of the individual employees, they
are less likely to be concerned about safety. In fact, they are more likely to be careless about the impact of
their actions on others. Furthermore, safety programs are costly and can expect that the organization may
not necessarily devote the resources to safety if they are focused on efficiency.
Consequently, it is likely that the egoist climates place pressures on employees for production and
profitability. Therefore, can expect that in such egoist-local climates, there are higher incidences of
injuries because of the exclusive emphasis on the productivity and profitability of the business.
In contrast, safety-compliance behaviours are seldom acknowledged in such climates. Safety-compliance
behaviour seems inconsistent with an egoist-local climate, as it may not necessarily contribute to
organizational efficiency and profitability. In fact, it more likely that employees will behave in selfinterested manner and be less motivated to comply with safety standards and, more motivated to achieve
production goals. Furthermore, it is also likely that as employees see others behave in self-interested
fashion, they will be less likely to see the importance of safety and thus less motivated to comply (Zohar,
2002).
An egoist-local climate is also unlikely to promote the cohesiveness and active caring that has been
shown to be so crucial to making employees feel more responsible for the safety of others (Simard and
Marchand, 1997; Zacharatos et al., 2005). Exclusive focus on profitability and efficiency is likely to
discourage employees from voluntarily participating in activities that enhance the safety of their
colleagues.
394
The expectation is that individuals are not concerned with the well-being of others (Victor and Cullen,
1988). Under such conditions, it is seems unlikely that the workers would be motivated to voluntarily
participate in safety programs. This lack of caring for the individual is likely to be manifested in lower
motivation to participate in safety enhancing behaviours. Therefore, if egoist-local climate exists in an
organisation, the organisation should identify and address the factors that influence the individuals
determination of what is in their self-interest to include the personal benefits from maintaining a safe
work environment.
Benevolent-local Climates
Benevolence is primarily based on concern for others (Victor and Cullen, 1987; Victor and Cullen, 1988).
Within such a climate, the decision-maker is likely to make those decisions that result in maximum
collective gains even at the expense of individual needs (Cullen et al., 2003). In the benevolent-local
climate, the focus is on the well-being of those in the organisation. Therefore, a person perceiving a
benevolent climate is most likely to be concerned about others in the plant and will make those decisions
that provide the greatest good for the greatest number of people (Martin and Cullen, 2006).
Given the above, a benevolent-local climate is inherently concerned with concern for the welfare and
greatest good for the greatest number of people (Parboteeah et al., 2005), of which safety is a likely an
important component. It is therefore expected that workers respond to a benevolent climate by being more
aware and concerned about safety issues. It is further argued that if workers perceive others to be showing
concern for their own safety, they are also more likely to be aware of safety issues and to be motivated to
enhance their own safety (Barling et al., 2002).
According to social exchange theory (Blau, 2009) when employees perceive that their organization values
and supports them, an implied obligation develops on their part for future mutuality that will benefit the
organization. Due to the high level of concern for safety and the collective well-being fostered by a
benevolent climate, and the sense of mutual obligation surrounding safety (Hofmann and Morgeson,1999)
workers are more likely to go beyond mere compliance and are more voluntarily motivated to participate
in activities that promote safety within the organization. Thus, researches have suggested that
organisations need to devise systems and structures to build an environment where employees genuinely
care about each others wellbeing.
Principled-local Climates
Victor and Cullen (1988) ethical criterion of principle embodies the application or interpretation of rules,
laws, and standards in the normative expectations in a social unit. In general, when faced with an ethical
dilemma, organizational or group norms suggest that the decision-maker resort to decisions that are based
on adherence to rules and codes (Martin and Cullen, 2006). The expected sources of principles for such
moral reasoning can be internal to an individual with a principled-individual climate, or external such as
with a local ethical code (principled-local) or a broader code such as the Bible or state and federal laws
(principled-cosmopolitan) (Victor and Cullen, 1988).
Principled climates are manifested through the application of organizational rules and codes of conduct
(Martin and Cullen, 2006). As such, it is expected that in stronger principled climates, employees will be
more motivated to comply with established safety requirements (Ismail, 2015). Therefore it can expect
that principled climates to be positively related to safety behaviours as the inherent emphasis on security
encourages employees to be more motivated to behave safely.
Additionally, it is expected that workers will be more motivated to participate voluntarily in safety
programs in principled climates based on progressive personal and organizational policies and procedures
that solicit employee participation in safety (Parker et al., 2001). In contrast, weaker principled climates
may not place as much emphasis on safety and may not motivate voluntary participation on the part of the
employees. Hence, managers are encouraged to establish and maintain a principled-local climate and
foster adherence to company rules and procedures while simultaneously maintaining safety policies and
procedures.
395
3.
SUMMARY
Work place safety or occupational health and safety is an important aspect in any type of organisation.
Therefore, there should be strategies to enhance workplace safety in the organisations. Moreover,
literature identified that employee behaviour is a crucial factor in maintaining a safety environment.
Various researchers have identified various methods to enhance the safety behaviours in the organisations
and ethical climates can affect in employee behaviours. Thus, this paper reveals the strategies to enhance
workplace safety through aligning safety initiatives with ethical climates. Figure 2 summarises the
literature review of this study.
Figure 2: Summary of the Literature

It has been noted that the ethical climate exists within one organisation can defer from another
organisation. The organisations with egoist-local climate can enhance the safety of the employees through
identifying strategies to address personal benefits of the employees by maintaining a safety behaviours.
The employees within the benevolent-local climates are inherently associated with the safety behaviours.
Therefore the organisations with benevolent-local climate should devise the systems and structures to
enhance caring of each other in the organisation. Moreover, it was revealed that as principled-local
climates are positively affect on the employee safety behaviours, it is beneficial if organisations can
transfer their organisational ethical climate into principled-local climate. Moreover, organisations with
principled-local climate should maintain strong rules and procedures for occupational health and safety.
396
4.
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398
REVIEW ON LEAN CONSTRUCTION AND TPS APPROXIMATION

WITH BIM
M.Z.M. Zuhair
Al Jaber LEGT Engineering & Contracting LLC, Dubai
Himal Suranga Jayasena and M.R.M.F. Ariyachandra*

ABSTRACT
Lean construction is a substantial feature of construction including both pre-construction and postconstruction activities which leads a project towards a successive or catastrophe end result.
Nowadays, most of projects frequently face uncertainty and it causes to produce continuous waste
throughout the construction process making negative outcomes of quality, cost, time and scope.
Synergy of TPS (Toyota Production System) philosophy and BIM (Building Information Modelling)
methodology is the key to diminish the above-mentioned project hazards which creates an opportunity
to stimulate the construction process by avoiding negativity for a better lean future. Hence, aim of the
paper focuses on determining most effective potentials that could be derived from the Toyota way
philosophy to incorporate to BIM to benefit the lean construction industry.
A qualitative approach has been used considering the nature of the research, comprises of primary
and secondary data collection which totally ran across information grabbed from online publications
concerning the reliability of sources.
Evidences revealed that TPS-BIM model has agreeably accepted by construction field and the features
of this model need to be more precised and refined to achieve more accomplishments in conditions of
leanness. It was revealed that even if the method of synchronizing TPS capabilities on BIM tools by
balancing nature of human dynamics along with technological endeavours, TPS-BIM integrated
elements need more amendments and verifications to perform with its superlatives. Moreover, lean
principles derived from TPS contain adequate capabilities to up heave BIM potentials to maximize the
benefits in construction with all the positivity throughout the process.
Keywords:
1.
Building Information Modelling (BIM); Lean Construction; Toyota Production System

(TPS).
INTRODUCTION
In the present context, which heading to a digit imminent; draws parallels in between technology and
humanity as a respond to necessities gathered around. Building Information Modelling (BIM) can be
identified as an incipient approach which guides to achieve better lean construction through principles by
eliminating negative aspects behind. Though the BIM procedure is already in practice elsewhere in the
field with positive responses, still it has potential to explore to deepen the existing knowledge through
theoretical understanding and sometimes with collaborations. One such possibility is integration and
resembling of Toyota Production System (TPS) philosophy along with BIM. TPS is the well-known
example for the best practice of lean concepts to improve production cycle. Hence, this paper pursued to
study the improvements that could be made by the philosophy of above mentioned TPS on BIM to
achieve and succeed better lean construction.
399
2.
BACKGROUND
Productivity in the construction field is challenged all over the world and in contemporary situation.
There is a competitive pressure is steadily increasing among product manufacturing companies which
demand increased quality, added functionality, lower prices and speed of innovation; so companies must
develop more desirable products ahead of their competitors before new technology emerges or market
conditions change (Welo, 2015). So, it is questionable, how new product development practices can be
improved to sustain competiveness (Welo, 2015). With this recent necessity, construction field use to
practice the concept of lean in order to achieve maximum output with minimal waste based on the core
idea of lean concept (Marhani et al.,2012). In another way lean can take to mean as generating more
assessment for customers with fewer resources. Lean construction defines the connection in between lean
thinking and construction including fast time adjustments, low wastage and contemporary market address.
Collaboration of these ideas stand for lean thinking which shaped around the main theme of value.
BIM is a great technological achievement in recent years from architecture, engineering and construction
industry which designates building designing process integrated with a comprehensible system of
computer models which link between separate sets of drawings (Boton et al., 2013). Although the
features of BIM model is more like 3D geometrical, it reaches assured advance extend with its integration
of other building analysis applications such as cost estimating, energy simulation, day light,
computational fluid dynamics, space planning and building code checking within the model
(Kumanayake and Bandara, 2009).
The term lean was taken into act by Toyotas business in 1980s (Marhani et al., 2012). It is competent
throughout many centuries with its thoughtful proficiencies which can be identified mainly under five
principles of technological invention of Building Information Modelling; commonly known as BIM
agreeably blend with this lean concept and it focuses to deepen the scope of construction in positive
manner. With regards to recognizing connection of BIM and lean thinking logic have been utilized
independently as huge individual ways to deal with entire development ventures change. Their mix, given
few situations, presents chances for development and difficulties in usage (Hamdi and Leite, 2012). BIM
usage mainly concern on the reduction of time cycle which belongs to lean principles too. Also it highly
requires accomplished individuals to find its maximum benefits. The second priority moves across the
efficiency and redeemable of owners money (Sacks et al., 2010). In contemporary situation time and
money are the significant and tempting facts to be concern which BIM process simply assists and cover
up already with the connecting key factors of experience and skills. So, in that sense BIM can be
identified as a context changer which addresses to the existing exact needs accordingly. As long as it
addresses to the contemporary needs and requirements, it is being accepted for the current construction
industry and last till new demands and challenges gets in. Despite the fact that the principle of BIM does
not fulfil the criteria of three dimensional geometry demonstrating, it goes afar and accomplishes more
over with precised data (Smith and Tardif, 2009). In that way the great synergic fitting of lean and BIM
cure to invigorate activities of one another.
3.
LEAN CONCEPT
The big picture of Lean is generating customer based significance over less possessions (Dombrowskia
and Mielkea, 2014). The connecting fact can be identified as productivity of these two ends of customer
value and diminished waste and foremost focus is gathered around this connecting fact to exhaust the
possibilities. With compare to mass production, it uses only half of human power, work spaces,
investment and also most importantly the fact of time (Sundara et al., 2014).
Statement of most claims this lean concept as a key cause of Japanese accomplishment. Developing lean
management at Toyota Motor Company for the first time could be the reason for that and it happened just
after the great impairment of Second World War would be backing up it in all the way (Jayaram et al.,
2010). In that way even the initiate stage of developing the concept of Lean hits the market where its
necessary and success of car industry which was established by TPS motivates to move parallel to it with
all the way success with powerful and significant techniques (Jayaram et al., 2010). With the flexible
quality of the concept most of the concerns have implemented lean in their own unique adequate way by
evaluating its utilizable potentials (Torielli et al., 2010).
400
4.
THE TOYOTA PRODUCTION SYSTEM (TPS)
TPS is a lean manufacturing process initiated in Japan, around 1940 after great loss of World War II and
Taiich Ohno has been credited as the father of TPS. In between 1948 and 1975 the system developed with
the collaboration of Taiich Ohno, Shigeo Shingo and Eiji Toyoda and it was very famous after oil crisis
occurred in 1973 with respect to its effective performances. The essence of TPS can be concluded into
three figures of reduced set up times, small-lot production and employee involvement/empowerment with
the inclusion of seven numbers of principles (Jayaram et al., 2010). Also, TPS is consisted of three
concepts named JIDOKA (highlights the causes of problems because work stops immediately when a
problem first occurs), Just-in-time (JIT) and Kanban system (Koskela, 1992; Liker, 2003). While the
JIDOKA concept highlights problems, JIT complete elimination of waste and the duty of reducing excess
production by the concept of Kanban. Goals of TPS have been identified as flexible production process,
participation of all employees in the work process, reduce inventory through elimination of imperfection
or problem, highly interdependent systems thinking-tools and techniques etc. and outcome of TPS, such
as reduction of lead time to a great extent, quality improvement, one of ten largest companies in the
world, largest car manufacturer low cost and fast response always back-up by them with a nice synergetic
influence (Liker, 2003).
4.1.
MAJOR THEMES IN TPS RULES AND TPS PRACTICES
The mandates of rooting out defects, eliminating waste and reducing lead time nicely blend the lean
philosophy and TPS with respect to the actionable principles. The principles come along with the TPS are
not represented through individual practices but through the processes of production system related to
Toyota designs. Identification of new practices and principles causes innovations of Toyota and that
stresses on the design decisions of TPS. The production system is defined in terms of activities,
connections and pathways by the TPS experts and system design decisions guide splitting of business
processes into individual activities, making direct connections between activities and streamlining
pathways. Furthermore, TPS continues exploring new approaches and work methods based on the
systematic problem solving method.
As per TPS guidelines are stressed under two topics of, making structural work plan facilitators for
critical thinking by structurally organizing learning at the most minimal conceivable level in association
and systematic critical thinking (Spear and Brown, 1999). As indicated by TPS, both inner and outside
connections are associated when understanding the whole framework (See Figure 1). Its primary goal is
to distinguish, evaluate and eliminate sources of variety with respect to whole framework.
Figure 1: Structural Links Internal and External to the Organization
401
5.
TPS VIRTUALLY TOWARDS BIM
The fundamentals of BIM have impressed the construction industry immensely. Though these two
concepts TPS and BIM are autonomous in their origin, the collaboration of the two concepts have
produced more impact (Eastman et al., 2008; Hattab and Hamzeh, 2015). The way BIM respond to
eliminate waste in construction; approach of encouraging organizational forms by BIM regarding lean
and characteristics generated by BIM to stand against to promote or interrupt flow could be pointed out as
few synergies of them (Sacks et al., 2009a).
5.1.
EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE LINKING BIM AND TPS PHILOSOPHY
A strong synergic effect has been observed between TPS principles and Computer Advanced
Visualization Tool (CAVT), which concludes end results of improved flow, waste reduction and customer
value by stressing on design stage of construction (Rischmoller et al., 2006). Similarly, integration of
Virtual Design and Construction (VDC) and Lean Project Delivery System (LPDS) process is another
attempt of linking TPS processes with BIM, due to the overlaps of underlying principles and technologies
of them (Khanzode et al., 2006). The application of VDC at the correct stage is highly appreciated to
meet its best improvements in the LPDS (Sacks et al., 2009a). Contribution of BIM potentials in regards
to TPS principles to visualize the product and process aspects and found a significant reduction of
variabilities in the construction projects by allowing a pull flow mechanism (Sacks et al., 2009b)
Automated capture, semantic search capabilities and eternal data compatibility are identified as issues of
knowledge management occur due to the integration of management and utilization databases (OBrien
and Hammer, 2006). Even though these capabilities are included in many projects, both BIM and TPS
would be required to reach more capabilities all-inclusive and; preparation and organized careers are
highly appreciated for backing both BIM and TPS philosophies (OBrien and Hammer, 2006).
The interaction nature of BIM functionality and TPS philosophy always lead to success destination in a
precised and detailed manner. The methodology part is given by the side of BIM and technical
mechanism all the way come along with it and the utilization of that mechanism is fulfilled by the
thoughtful ideas generated by TPS philosophy. With the synergy of technical and ideological ingredients
it always creates logically acceptable effective results with more potential yet to be revealed.
5.2.
BIM FUNCTIONALITY
BIM knowledge gives key aspects of functionality for assessing, altering, compiling and reporting data
identify with building projects and this knowledge encourages BIM tools to develop building's structure,
function and behaviour and that makes all conceivable functionality angles as underneath (Tommielein,
1999; Sacks et al., 2009c).
Visualization of structure with the form

Rapid generation and assessment of multiple design substitutions
Maintenance of information and design model reliability
Collaboration through design to construction
Rapid generation and evaluation of multiple construction plan substitutions
Online/electronic object-based communication
The shown functionality develop to the concern rather than the central technology, as for the reason for
examination or more specified things touch exposed functionality concerning the advantages or
disadvantages happen in their use.
6.
METHODOLOGY
The preliminary stages of a research involve the review of the literature relevant to the topic under
analysis. The main topics addressed within the literature synthesis were; lean concept, TPS and virtual to
BIM towards lean construction. Literature review was done while developing the research methodology
402
as well, as this study is a qualitative research which normally requires a broad knowledge to design the
project. Since this research problem resembles a qualitative research approach rather than a quantitative
one, the study was limited to a content analysis, whereby data are gathered by reading the data published
on different sources. Interviews, questionnaires, and direct observation of human behaviour are highly
sort after for the qualitative analysis. But was not achievable for this context as BIM and TPS is not in
function in Sri Lanka.
7.
TPS philosophy and BIM methodology synergy has brief in matrix as revealed in Table 1 to get a better
understanding of the big picture and this figure is totally based on the lean principles related to TPS
philosophy and BIM functionality features related to BIM methodology. Interaction of BIM functionality
and lean principles creates a framework to move steps ahead by revealing possible and related potentials
accept by the context. The synergy of TPS philosophy and BIM methodology most of the time backing by
issuing positive face of results, but in some times with negative results too. If BIM makes effective
impacts on philosophy with higher percentage at the end it counts under positive reaction and if the
percentage is zero or below the rate, counts as negative by stimulating to research further to improve up to
the acceptable rate under positivity.
BIM-Lean influence analysis depends on two main criteria and that system utilizing strides can be
identified as proposing conceivable connections and looking for exact evidence to either strengthen or
challenge them. According to this analysis it proposes 55 particular cooperation based on both research
evidences and literature. All the interactions based on research evidences are properly justifiable with all
necessary proofs under a debatable logic. But other interactions based on writing study, comes with
questionable arguments as they do not proof yet on a logical platform. BIM functionality effects make by
every feature belongs to it; evaluated by definitions accommodated for both principles related to
philosophy and functionality related to methodology. Positive interactions shown with (*) while (x)
denote negative interactions.
As listed in Table 1, the clarifications accommodated for every interaction propose the conceivable
connections. They are not esteemed to be demonstrated by empirical evidence; but instead they are
nominees for corroboration or inconsistency through estimation in future examination. Where episodic or
other proof is accessible, the proper sources are referenced in the third section. The areas of reported
proof has not been discovered, have noted not yet available and these extents are possibly prolific
ground for future empirical examination to substantiate or repudiate the associations.
403
Visualization of form
Rapid generation of design alternatives
Predictive analysis of performance
Automated cost estimation
Evaluation of conformances
Single information source
Automated clash checking
Automated generation of drawings and documentations
Multi user editing of a single discipline model
Multi user viewing
Automated generation of construction tasks
Construction process simulation
4D visualization of schedules
Visualization of process status
Online communication of process and product information
Computer controlled fabrication
Integration with project partner databases
Provision of context fur states data collection
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
*
*
*
13
14
15
16
17
18
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
* *
*
* *
Verify and validate
Go and see for yourself
Decide by consensus,
consider all options
Cultivate an extended
network of partners
Ensure requirement flow

down
L M N O P
Focus on concept selection
Ensure comprehensive
requirements capture
Standardize
J
Ensure the capacity of the

production system
Level the production

I
Use only reliable technology
Use pull systems

H
Use parallel processing
Use multi skilled teams

G
Institute continuous
improvement
Visualize methods
Visualize processes
Simplify
Reduce Batch sizes

Reduce changeover times
B C D E F
Reduce inventory
Reduce production cycle
BIM
functionality
Reduce production variability
Lean
principles
Reduce product variability
Table 1: Lean BIM Interaction Matrix
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
x *
*
*
*
x
*
x
x
* *
* *
*
404
x
x
*
*
*
*
*
*
* *
* *
*
* *
*
*
*
x
x
x
x
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
7.1.
POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE INTERACTIONS OF IMPLEMENTING INTEGRATED TPS-BIM

FRAMEWORK
According to the matrix there are number of characteristics towards positive and negative interactions for
specific BIM functionalities and lean principles. These characteristics help the management to observe
and recommend guidelines while implementing lean and BIM, which will in return assist the managers to
understand and realize the positive interactions in practice. Following are the highest concentration of
unique interactions of lean principals
Get quality right the first time [reduce product variability] (A),
Focus on improving upstream flow variability [reduce production variability] (B),
Reduce production cycle durations (C).
Above points have higher interactions comparatively to any other principles. Nevertheless interactions are
not just bound to BIM functionalities but also influenced in design and construction. Aesthetic and
functional evaluation, Multi-user viewing of merged or separate multi-discipline models, 4D
visualization of construction schedules and Online communication of product and process information
are the BIM functionalities which have the highest concentrations of unique interactions. Even though
these factors are not precise compared to the leading lean principals, three of these four factors are
reflected in fabrication and construction management as BIM is recognized primitively as a design tool by
many. It is identified that Reduce inventory (D), Simplify production systems (N) and Use only
reliable technology (P) are the negatively impacted or least served principals. BIM helps to increase
information inventory, and also it helps to well organize the flow of information. Due to technological
advancement of the BIM tools if the users lack knowledge, skill or ability or if the applications are not
rich process can be unstable. Also if the tools are not properly implemented and managed process can be
complicated. And also buyers of model information are reluctant to rely on the models due to margin of
error as models are often incomplete and detailing in different areas varies. The single information source
is the BIM functionality which least offers the support for lean principals.
It has shown that use of Information Technology (IT) in construction management was not always a win
to provide a positive impact on the return on investment. Under-utilization and interoperability issues are
the key issues identified in BIM adoption and lean construction initiatives can be complicated due to lack
of conceptual understanding.
Also it was established that compatible re-alignment of business processes is an important piece of IT
benefits. In other words IT benefits rely on compatible re-alignment of business processes. As a matter of
fact they develop this scope in the context of construction in order to affirm that re-alignment is required
for basic understanding of the unique features of construction. When it comes to lean construction and
BIM, information and material processes should not only logically dependent on these two but also be
established firmly in conceptual understanding of the theory of production in construction.
Compared to traditional measurements from drawings, shorter cycle time is gained by extracting the
quantity take-off from a building model. If the management recognizes;
That the shortened cycle time shifts the bottleneck in the process to other activities, and
That the overall design management approach can be re-aligned to bring designers and estimators to work
together
It would help to increase efficiency by reducing repetitive design. No matter whether the project
participants have an idea or not the cycle-time is reduced by BIM, even though the comprehensive
benefits can be gained via thorough understanding of its meaning. As a crucial fact, rather than
considering the interaction of lean principles and BIM in construction as the sum of the isolated parts
better to consider as a whole and complete process while interpreting the interaction matrix. Multiple lean
principles are supported by each functionality and conversely and more effective when working together
rather than working alone. Due to the same reason experts cannot identify all of the interactions and their
impacts. Exploration and trialling by practitioners help some to get through.
405
As examples of such holistic interactions, topics of BIM as a boundary object and construction tolerances
can be taken into consideration even though they are not mentioned in the interaction matrix. In business
and social interactions it has been identified that BIM technology as the entity which enhances the
capacity of the theory. Nevertheless, these business and social interactions need organizational change
and also it make the process smooth in the organizational change. Even though this is not an issue that
most are familiar, lean transformation can use BIM technology as a stimulant.
Management of dimensional tolerances in construction is not handled properly. Even though advanced
tolerance analysis and management capabilities were unavailable in previous 2D CAD versions, it helps
BIM to improve tolerances related to space. This helps prefabrication and assembly of high tolerance
components. In order to put up with leaner processes higher precision tolerances are required. This is due
to reduction of variability, resultant wasted in the construction process and reduction of losses. As the
effect is comprehensive and deviant, experiments should be carried out or should be proven via
observations etc.
8.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
TPS-BIM framework made out of TPS philosophy and BIM methodology, provide surfeit of benefits for
construction industry mainly by revealing potential of JIT delivery, eliminated waste and shorter
production cycles and interactions between all necessary parties by utilizing potential and benefits. As a
whole TPS-BIM framework creates impact on the construction industry by maximizing benefits and
influencing to gain more in the future.
Individuality of BIM and lean principles derived from TPS do not achieve the maximum leanness of the
construction; but with the synergy of them. Even though BIM elements capable to find its best at some
application most of the time lean principles of TPS required to shape up and sharpen up the benefits of
end result. The main reason for that is two different capabilities of these two components. That means, the
strength of quantitative data handling by BIM get fills the gaps by TPS lean principles; where its strength
covers the aspects related to quantitative criteria. Also it was emphasized and prove the effectiveness of
BIM-TPS synergy with evidences in practical platform by revealing the strategy behind every success.
According to the above mentioned evidences it also emphasize the improvements made by TPS on BIM
as lean principles related to TPS always all the way focus on the human factors which is hard to manage
and control. But that is where the management should highly practice as all these construction projects
run on the practical situation with all the raises and falls. So in that way lean principles derived from TPS
philosophy covers a really important and highly essential area which BIM cannot pay attention with its
capabilities. So at the end, the combination of BIM and TPS creates effective end results by maximizing
benefits it generates with its setup.
9.
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407
RISK ALLOCATION BETWEEN MAIN CONTRACTORS AND

SUBCONTRACTORS IN BUILDING PROJECTS IN SRI LANKA
K.R.S. Perera, S. Gunatilake, D.T. Vijerathne and N.N. Wimalasena
ABSTRACT
Risk is identified as a probability of occurrence of an event which may have an adverse impact on the
project objectives. Therefore, risk identification and allocation in a well-defined manner is a
mandatory prerequisite for a successful project. An optimum risk allocation between main contractor
and subcontractor becomes crucial as because in most projects, considerable amount of risk is usually
being allocated to subcontractors, and success of a project hugely depends on risk allocation
decisions. Hence the aim of this research was to identify and prioritise risks which are common and
significant to the relationship between main contractor and subcontractor and to develop a guidance
to allocate those risks to the party best placed to manage them. To achieve the aim of this research
first, an extensive literature survey was carried out to identify the common risks and to review the
concept of risk allocation and its application to the construction industry. A questionnaire survey was
carried out to prioritize those short listed risk factors and to find the optimum risk allocation between
concerned parties. Through the analysis of collected data using RII, a risk register and a risk
matrix were developed. It is recommended that the developed risk register be used as a guidance
during the risk identification phase and risk matrix when allocating those risks between concerned
parties.
Keywords:
1.
Main Contractor; Risk Allocation; Risk Management; Risk Matrix; Subcontractor.
INTRODUCTION
No construction project is risk-free. Risk can be defined as unpredictable events that might occur in
the future whose exact likelihood and outcome is uncertain (Loosemore et al., 2006, p.8).Construction
industry is especially risk prone due to the fact that construction projects are one off projects with many
features that make them unique to most industries (Taylor and Mbachu, 2014). According to Latham
(1994 cited Lam et al., 2007), risk is manageable, diminishable, transferable or acceptable but not
ignorable. Therefore, a proper risk management process is essential to manage risks and successfully
fulfil project objectives. Risk management can be viewed as a systematic approach to deal with risks
(Edwards and Bowen, 1998). Risks, which are identified and allocated in a well-defined manner is a
mandatory prerequisite for a successful project. Herein, risk allocation can be identified as a major
function in risk management process, which allows the risks to be divided among the parties best placed
to manage them (Hearn, 2004). Hence, in the context of construction projects, risk allocation becomes
particularly imperative to project success.
In a construction project, main contractor is employed by the client and is responsible for the overall
coordination of a project (Shekar, 2005). Nelson (2007) states that by entering in to a contractual
agreement with client, main contractor explicitly assumes the risk of timely and complete performance of
works agreed. By subletting some or all parts of the work, the main contractor can assign obligations
and rights under the contract for building to others who are not parties to the contract, but at the same
time retain the overall contractual responsibility as far as the head contract is concerned (Uher, 2006).
While risk allocation is mainly done through contract documents in the case of such subcontracts, this
may not always yield results that are fair and is to the satisfaction of both parties (Lam et al., 2007). One
reason for this is the unavailability and/ or non-usage of standard sub contract documents, which often
results in main contractors preparing their own tailor made sub contract documents (Uher, 2006). This can
408
often result in passing off the responsibility of most risks to others by the party that prepares the
contractual documents (Lam et al., 2007).
Using a risk register and/or a risk matrix are precise ways of optimally allocating risks between
parties. In the current construction context, these are used as tools, particularly in PPP/PFI (Public Private
Partnership/ Private Finance Initiative) projects, to allocate risks between the client and the main
contractor. Herein, risk register can be identified as a list of categorized risks and risk factors, while
risk matrix in addition to above, shows to whom those risk should be allocated (Bing et al., 2005; Ng
and Loosemore, 2007). Hearn (2004) states that it may be prudent to develop a risk register or matrix to
help identify risks and to keep track of how the risks are allocated and managed.
The risk allocation between the client and the main contractor has been vastly taken into consideration by
many researchers. For instance, researchers such as, Grimsey and Lewis (2004); Bing et al. (2005); Ng
and Loosemore (2007); Susilawati et al. (2009) have developed such risk registers/matrices for the
purpose of risk allocation between clients and the main contractors. However, the risk allocation between
the main contractors and the sub-contractors is often neglected in many researches (Artto et al., 2008). In
research related to the Sri Lankan construction industry in particular, this area still remains untouched.
Hence, the aim of this paper is to develop a risk register and a risk matrix, which can be used as a
guidance for identifying and allocating the risks between the main contractor and the subcontractor in
building construction projects Sri Lanka.
2.
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1.
RISK MANAGEMENT
Both Royal Society (1991 cited Edwards and Bowen, 1998); CIDB (2004) have identified construction
risk as a probability of occurrence of an event which may have an adverse impact on the project
objectives in terms of time, cost and quality. Typically, risk is expressed in terms of probabilities and
consequences (Loosemore et al., 2006). Herein, probability alludes to a judgement about the perceived
relative likelihood of some event and consequences are measured in monetary terms (CIDB, 2004).
Considering the above, risk can be assessed by multiplying the probability of the event by the
consequence if it occurred (Hearn, 2004).
Risk = Probability of event x magnitude of loss/gain
According to Nieto-Morote and Ruz-Vila (2011) risks are neither ignorable nor fully eliminable.
Therefore, as Baker et al. (1997) highlights the choice is between two options; either to accept the risks or
to take measures to minimize their consequences. Both of these activities fall under the category of risk
management, which could be described as the process of proactively working with stakeholders to
minimize the risks and maximize the opportunities associated with project decisions (Loosemore et al.,
2006, p.29). The aim here is not to avoid risk but to take calculated risks, make more informed decisions,
avoid unpleasant surprises and identify opportunities (Loosemore et al., 2006, p.29).
Baloi and Price (2001) argue that there is a direct relationship between effective risk management and
project success. This is because risks are assessed by their potential effect on the objectives of the
project. Loosemore et al. (2006) have strengthened the above argument by tracing failed projects with
non-achievement of time, cost and quality back to the absence of proper risk management techniques. So
it can be concluded that risk management is essential for the survival and success of construction projects.
The following section of this paper briefly describes the risk management process.
2.2.
RISK MANAGEMENT PROCESS
Risk identification, risk allocation, and risk handling/risk response are the key activities of the risk
management process (Baker et al., 1997). From these, risk response; which is the process of developing
strategic options, and determining actions, to reduce risk to the projects objectives and enhance
opportunities (Lam et al., 2007); is outside the scope of this paper. The focus of the paper is mainly on the
first two activities, risk identification and risk allocation, which are further discussed below.
409
2.2.1.
RISK IDENTIFICATION AND CLASSIFICATION
Nieto-Morote and Ruz-Vila (2011) has defined risk identification as a process of determining which risks
may affect the project and documenting their characteristics. According to Flanagan and Norman (1993
cited Perera et al., 2009), an identified risk is no longer a risk, but a management problem. Classification
of risk also falls under the risk identification category and entails identifying the type, consequence and
impact of risk (Perera et al., 2009). The risk factors which were identified by the past researches that can
be tabulated as given in Table 1.
Table 1: Risk Factors
Risk factor category
Risk factors
Reference
1
Political and Government

Policy
Macroeconomic
Legal
Natural
Project Finance
Residual Risks
Design
Construction
Relationship
Third party
Unstable government
Strong political opposition/hostility
Inflation rate volatility
Interest rate volatility
Influential economic events
Legislation change
Changes in tax regulations
Weather
Force majeure
Geotechnical conditions
Environment
Availability of finance
Residual risks
Delay in project approvals & permits
Design deficiency
Construction cost overrun
Construction time delay
Material/labour availability
Late design changes
Poor quality workmanship
Excessive contract variation
Inadequate experience of contractor
Inadequate experience of subcontractor
Inadequate distribution of responsibilities and risks
Inadequate distribution of authority in partnership
Differences in working method and know-how
between partners
Bid shopping
Staff crises
Source: Tchankova (2002); Harinarain et al. (2008); Edwards and Bowen(1998); Uher (2006);
Loosemore et al. (2006); Hinze and Trazey (1994)
2.2.2.
RISK ALLOCATION
Once the risks are identified, defined and classified, the next stage is to allocate these risks to different
parties. Risk allocation involves the division of responsibilities associated with risks among concerned
parties regardless of the methods (transferring, sharing, etc.) (Lam et al., 2007). Herein, it is important
that the risks are allocated so that they rest with the parties that have control over them and are best able
to manage them (CIDB, 2004). So, if one party is not in the best position to manage a concerning risk,
there might always be another party willing to take that risk as the same risk event may create
opportunities for the latter party (Loosemore et al., 2006).
410
2.3.
ALLOCATION OF RISKS BETWEEN MAIN CONTRACTORS AND SUBCONTRACTORS
According to ICTAD(2007), main contractor is defined as a tradesman, who has signed a letter of
acceptance with the client. Hinze and Tracey (1994) have defined subcontractor as a specialty
contractor, hired to perform a specific task of a project. According to Hinze and Tracey (1994), in many
building projects, 80% to 90% of the total work is usually performed by subcontractors. Thus, success or
failure and profit or loss of a project ultimately depends on the performance of the subcontractors
(Nelson, 2007). Hence, optimum risk allocation between main contractor and subcontractor becomes
crucial and ever important.
The issue of improper allocation of risks between main contractor and subcontractor and its resulting
consequences have been highlighted by a number of researchers. Unavailability of the standard sub
contract documents has been identified as a particular issue that can result in risks not being allocated to
the party that is best able to effectively and efficiently manage them (Uher, 2006). Hanna et al. (2013)
note that the tailor made subcontract documents prepared by most main contractors are highly modified to
suit their own requirements while allocating a large portion of risk to the subcontractor. Improper risk
allocation between main contractor and subcontractor is further enhanced by clients limited involvement
in sub contractual matters (Uher, 2006) and the practice of pre exposing subcontractors bid price to
prospective subcontractors (i.e. bid shopping) in order to come up with a significant lower bid price
(Trangkanont and Charoenngam, 2014).
Risk matrix can be identified as a method of showing to which party, each specific risk is allocated
together with their category and source if needed (Bing et al., 2005; Ng andLoosemore, 2007).Such risk
matrices make it easier for parties to keep track of how the risks are allocated and managed between
concerned parties (Hearn, 2004).
3.
This research aims to develop a risk register by identifying and prioritising the risks between main
contractor and subcontractor and a risk matrix that could guide risk allocation decisions. A
questionnaire survey was used as the main data collection approach in achieving this aim.
As shown in Table 1, 28 risk factors were identified through the comprehensive literature review and
these were used to develop the initial questionnaire. This initial questionnaire was refined using four
informal expert interviews (two main contractors and two sub-contractors). These informal interviews
were useful to ensure sensitivity to participants language and privilege [from] their knowledge,
especially relating to the Sri Lankan context (Fossey et al., 2002). Considering the input of the
interviewees, the initial questionnaire was further refined by removing three of the risk factors (i.e.
unstable government, force majeure and staff crises) identified in Table 1. The interviewees noted
that these risks are not passed down to the subcontract level and are usually borne by the client or
determined at the main contract level. Hence, the three factors were omitted from the final questionnaire
as they were deemed not applicable to the relationship between the main contractor and subcontractor in
the Sri Lankan construction context. Four new risk factors (i.e. political support, price increasing of
materials, working capital and specialized design) were instead included considering the
interviewees suggestions. These factors were not identified through the literature review, but were
deemed important by the interviewees as they were prevailing risks when it comes to the Sri Lankan
context. Altogether, 29 risk factors were included in the final questionnaire sent out to respondents (refer
Table 2).
The developed questionnaire consisted of two main sections. The first section focused on identifying the
frequency (or likelihood) of occurrence of each risk factor and their impact to the project objectives. This
was necessary to develop a ranked risk register indicating significant risk factors related to the
relationship between main contractor and subcontractor. Five point Likert scales were used to ascertain
the frequency of occurrence (1-rare to 5-almost certain)and the level of impact (1-negligible to 5-severe)
of each identified risk factor. The second section of the questionnaire, focused on allocation of risks
between main contractors and subcontractors. Herein, two separate five point Likert scales were used to
ascertain the optimum allocation for main contractor and subcontractor of identified risks.
411
The scope of this research was on main contractors with C1 CIDA grading and MEP sub contractors
with EM1 CIDA grading in the Sri Lankan construction industry. Further, it was limited to building
projects under conventional procurement method and to projects exceeding One Million Rupees of
subcontract value. Convenience sampling technique was used to select the sample and questionnaires
were distributed among 25 quantity surveyors (QS) from main contractors and 25 subcontractors
satisfying the above criteria. Out of these, 21 main contractor QSs and 18 subcontractor QSs responded to
the questionnaire.
3.1.
DATA ANALYSIS
The Relative Importance Index (RII) can transform the findings of 5-point Likert scales in such a way that
facilitates ranking of all the factors (Tan et al., 2010). Hence, it provided a useful tool to rank the risk
factors from the data gained through the first section of the questionnaire. RII also provided a basis for
calculating risk allocation percentages for both main contractor and subcontractor. RII was calculated
using the following formula in this research:
=
Eq: 01
Where, W = Weight given to each factor by respondent, A= The highest weight, N = Total number of the
respondent
Ranking risk factors: It is important to consider, both probability and consequences when assessing risk.
This is because although something may have a very low probability of occurring, extreme consequences
can make it a very high risk (CIDB, 2004). Therefore, for the purpose of ranking/prioritizing risk factors
(i.e. the focus of the first section of the questionnaire), a rating value was derived considering RII values
of both occurrence and impact of risk factors. Ease of referring a single figure value rather than
considering both RII values of occurrence and impact at the same time, which could be complex, was also
reason to derive a rating value.
The rating value was derived through following steps.
1. Calculated RII (RIIf) for frequency of occurrence (likelihood) of risk factors.
2. Calculated RII (RIIi) for impact for project objectives of risk factors.
3. Calculated rating value by multiplying results from 1 and 2 (RIIf and RIIi).
Risk cut off criteria: Several researchers have developed cut off criteria, which can be used to determine
whether a particular risk factor is to be considered as significant or not. According to Sun et al. (2008);
Kamalanathan (2013) if a risk factor fails to fulfil any of the following requirements, it can be regarded as
a not significant risk factor to the concerning context. Those requirements are;
1. With a rating of 0.360 or above
2. With RII of 0.600 or above for the frequency of occurrence (since the rating is 1-5, point 3
considered as the neutral point)
3. With RII of 0.600 or above for the impact on project objectives
Risk allocation: The focus of the second section of the questionnaire was to determine the optimum
allocation of risk factors between parties. For this, main contractor QSs and subcontractor QSs were
requested to provide their opinions on allocation of risk factors for each party (main contractor and
subcontractor) on two different Likert scales. Then RII values of each risk factor for main contractor
(RIImc) and subcontractor (RIIsc) were calculated separately, as follows;
RII values of each risk factor for both main contractor and subcontractor separately, as per the
opinion of main contractors perspective (RIImc - by 21 respondents from main contractor
organizations)
RII values of each risk factor for both main contractor and subcontractor separately, as per the
opinion of subcontractors perspective (RIIsc - by 18 respondents from subcontractor
organizations)
412
According to Uher (2006); Kamalanathan (2013), percentages represented by Likert scale can be
considered as follows;
Point 1 - from0% to 20%

Point 2 - from 21% to 40%
Point 3 - from 41% to 59% (neutral point)
Considering the above, the following criteria were used in this study to determine the allocation of risks.
For each risk factor, if the percentage derived from RII is;
From 0% to 40% - allocated to the relevant single party

From 41% to 59% - shared by both parties
From 60% to 100% - allocated to the relevant single party
4.
RESEARCH FINDINGS
4.1.
FREQUENCY OF OCCURRENCE OF RISK FACTORS AND THEIR IMPACT TO PROJECT OBJECTIVES
The 29 risk factors used in the questionnaire survey could be categorised into nine categories as shown in
Table 4. Calculated RII values considering the frequency of occurrence (RIIf) and the impact for project
objectives (RIIi) of each risk factor, rating values, ranks within each risk category and overall ranks are
given in Table 2.
Table 2: Ranking Risk Factors
[A]
[B]
[A]x[B]
RISK FACTOR
RANK
OVERALL
RANK
OCCURRENC
E RII (RIIf)
IMPACT
RII (RIII)
RATING
VALUE
0.728
0.583
0.683
0.606
0.497
0.353
1
2
13
18
0.739
0.739
0.561
0.472
0.822
0.706
0.633
0.450
0.607
0.522
0.355
0.212
1
2
3
4
6
11
17
28
0.728
0.561
0.722
0.617
0.526
0.346
1
2
10
20
0.733
0.628
0.494
0.772
0.650
0.472
0.566
0.408
0.233
1
2
3
8
16
27
0.856
0.744
0.844
0.761
0.722
0.566
1
2
1
7
0.494
0.572
0.283
24
0.817
0.617
0.533
0.772
0.744
0.650
0.631
0.459
0.346
1
2
3
4
15
19
0.806
0.794
0.640
POLITICAL AND GOVERNMENT POLICY
01
02
Political support
Strong political opposition/hostility
MACROECONOMIC
03
04
05
06
Price increasing of materials

Interest rate volatility
Influential economic events
LEGAL
07
08
Legislation change
Changes in tax regulations
NATURAL
09
10
11
Weather
Environment
PROJECT FINANCE
12
13
Working capital
RESIDUAL RISKS
14
Residual risks
DESIGN
15
16
17
Design deficiency
Specialized design
Delay in project approvals and permits
CONSTRUCTION
18
413
19
20
21
22
23

Late design changes
Excessive contract variation
Poor quality workmanship
Material/labour availability
0.822
0.694
0.511
0.544
0.522
0.744
0.706
0.639
0.589
0.517
0.612
0.490
0.327
0.320
0.270
2
3
4
5
6
5
14
22
23
25
0.806
0.789
0.689
0.572
0.517
0.452
0.867
0.700
0.728
0.594
0.517
0.447
0.699
0.552
0.502
0.340
0.267
0.202
1
2
3
4
5
6
2
9
12
21
26
29
RELATIONSHIP
24
25
26
27
28
29
Inadequate distribution of responsibilities

Inadequate
and risks distribution of authority in
Bid
shopping
partnership
Inadequate experience of Sub-contractor
Differences in working method and knowInadequate
experience
how between
partners of contractor
- Recognized as non-significant
Out of the 29 risk factors, only 17 were identified as significant risk factors considering the criteria
discussed in section 3.0. Working capital was identified as the highest ranked risk factor and
Inadequate experience of contractor had the lowest rank.
Under the category of political and government policy, political support risk factor has become
dominant having relatively higher RII values for both occurrence and impact. But strong political
opposition/hostility has become a non-significant risk factor, due to relatively low RIIf, which implies
that likelihood of occurrence of this risk factor may be relatively low. It may also be ascertained that latter
risk factor is too remote to be included in the relationship between main contractor and subcontractor.
In the macroeconomic category, the risk factors price increasing of materials and inflation rate
volatility both have a high impact on project objectives having RIIi values of 0.822 and 0.706
respectively.
Under legal risk factor category, legislation change have become a significant risk factor with
dominating RIIf and RIIi values with an overall rank of 10. Though RIIi is high, due to relatively less RIIf,
changes in tax regulations have become a non-significant risk factor. This implies that, although the
impact on project objectives is high, the respondents consider changes in tax regulations are less likely to
happen in the Sri Lankan context.
Weather and geotechnical conditions have become dominating risk factors in natural risk factor
category, having relatively values higher than 0.600 for both RIIf and RIIi.
Under project finance risk factor category, working capital was identified as the predominant risk
factor. This also had an overall rank of 1 considering all the identified risk factors. It had the highest RIIf
and second highest RIIi, implying that working capital is a very likely risk factor to take place in the Sri
Lankan context and has a very high impact on project objectives if it occurs.
On the other hand, residual risks was identified as a non-significant risk factor having a relatively low
RIIi. Under the design risk factor category, design deficiency and specialized design risk factors
were identified as the dominant risk factors having relatively high values for both RIIf and RIIi.
Under construction risk factor category, construction time delay, construction cost overrun and late
design changes were identified as significant risk factors.
Under relationship risk factor category, inadequate distribution of responsibilities and risks,
inadequate distribution of authority in partnership and bid shopping were identified as significant risk
factors. Out of these three, inadequate distribution of responsibilities and risks has become predominant
having an overall rank of 2 and highest RII value for impact. On the other hand, inadequate experience
of contractor had the lowest rank out of all of the risk factors and emerged as a non-significant risk factor
considering the criteria mentioned in section 3.1. As this research was limited to the C1 main contractors,
EM1 subcontractors and projects above LKR 1 million subcontract values, this risk factor would be rare
in such contexts.
The above findings were used to develop the risk register (refer Table 3).
414
Table 3: Proposed Risk Register

Risk meta level
Macro level risks
Risk factor category

Political and
Government Policy
Macroeconomic
Legal
Natural
Meso level risks
Project Finance
Design
Construction
Micro level risks
4.2.
Relationship
Risk factors
Political support
Rank
13

Legislation change
Weather
Working capital
Design deficiency
Specialized design
Late design changes
Inadequate distribution of responsibilities and risks
Inadequate distribution of authority in partnership
Bid shopping
6
11
10
8
16
1
7
4
15
17
3
5
14
2
9
12
OPTIMUM RISK ALLOCATION BETWEEN MAIN CONTRACTOR AND SUBCONTRACTOR
In the second section of the questionnaire, the respondents were requested to indicate how those risk
factors, which were identified and shortlisted in the risk register (refer Table 3), should be allocated in
order to get those risks managed in the best possible way. For this, main contractor QSs and subcontractor
QSs were requested to provide their opinions on allocation of risk factors for each party (i.e. main
contractor and subcontractor) on two different Likert scales. Using RII values, allocation percentage for
each risk factor were derived as discussed in section 3.1. Table 4 provides the percentage allocation of
risks from the perspectives of main contractor and sub-contractor.
Table 4: Allocation of Risks between Main Contractor and Sub-contractor
Risk Factor
Main Contractors Perspective
Percentage
allocation to
main
contractor
Sub Contractors Perspective
Percentage
allocation to
sub-contractor
Percentage
allocation to
main
contractor
Percentage
allocation to
subcontractor
60%
40%
63%
37%
38%
31%
62%
69%
64%
65%
36%
35%
56%
44%
54%
46%
56%
41%
44%
59%
58%
55%
42%
45%
40%
36%
60%
64%
63%
62%
37%
38%
42%
58%
40%
60%
POLITICAL AND GOVERNMENT POLICY
01
Political support
MACROECONOMIC
02
03

LEGAL
04
Legislation change
NATURAL
05
06
Weather
PROJECT FINANCE
07
08
Working capital
DESIGN
09
Design deficiency
415
10
11
Specialized design
35%
55%
65%
45%
30%
59%
70%
41%
38%
42%
60%
62%
58%
40%
54%
55%
70%
46%
45%
30%
40%
43%
65%
60%
57%
35%
70%
62%
73%
30%
38%
27%
CONSTRUCTION
12
13
14

Late design changes
RELATIONSHIP
15
16
17

Inadequate
Bid
shopping
partnership
Consequently, a risk matrix was developed as shown in Table 5, which can be used as guidance when
allocating risk between main contractor and subcontractor.
Table 5: Proposed Risk Matrix
Risk factor
Political support
Legislation change
Weather
Working capital
Design deficiency
Specialized design
Late design changes
Inadequate
partnership
Bid
shopping
Total
Main
contractor
Risk Allocation
SubShared by
contractor
both
To be decided after
further negotiations
Out of the 17 risk factors, under agreement of both parties, 3 risk factors were allocated to main
contractor, 2 for subcontractor and 5 risk factors were shared by both parties. However, regarding rest of
the factors (7), both parties had contradictory views. This was due to either, 1) both parties were
transferring those risk factors to the other party or 2) while one party suggest that other party should bear
the risk, other party suggest to share the risk instead. However, allocation of those risk factors in question
might depend on the nature of the project or let to be further negotiated between parties. Moreover, the
three top ranked risk factors of significance were also among those which were not agreed by parties, of
allocation.
Practitioners in construction industry can use this risk matrix as guidance for allocating risks between
main contractor and subcontractor for building projects in Sri Lanka. This risk matrix would help to get a
general idea on what risk factor should be allocated to which party and what risks should be shared
among parties, during the risk allocation process. However, limitations of this research discussed under
section 3.0 should be taken into consideration, whenever using this risk matrix.
416
5.
In the context of construction projects, risk cannot be completely avoided or evaded. Therefore, a proper
risk management process is essential to identify and allocate risks in a systematic manner.
This study investigated 29 risk factors, which were identified as affecting the relationship between the
main contractor and subcontractor. Out of these, 17 risk factors were found to be significant based on
their frequency of occurrence and impact to the project objectives. Risk of working capital was the
highest ranked risk to the relationship between main contractor and subcontractor, while inadequate
experience of the contractor was lowest ranked. According to Loosemore et al. (2006), although a risk
may have a very low probability of occurring, extreme consequences can make it a high risk. Based on
this view, some risk factors such as interest rate volatility and strong political opposition and hostility,
which were identified as not significant, may have the probability to develop into such risks.
When it comes to the allocation of risks, practitioners must be careful to make both the parties understand
that managing risks is a joint responsibility. It is important that ownership of as many risks as possible are
determined and allocated to an appropriate party as any risks without ownership may lead to disputes
and/or claims later on. Out of the 17 significant risk factors, under agreement of both parties, 3 risk
factors were allocated to main contractor, 2 for subcontractor and 5 risk factors were shared by both
parties. However, regarding the remaining 7 risk factors, both parties had contradictory views. Finally
risk register and risk matrix were developed by using short listed and allocation determining criteria.
It is recommended that the developed risk register be used as a guidance during the risk identification
phase and risk matrix when allocating those risks between concerned parties. The research findings
revealed that, it is important to consider, both probability and consequences when assessing a risk,
because although something may have a very low probability of occurring, extreme consequences can
make it a very high risk. Therefore, practitioners must be very careful not to reject risks which have either
low probability or low impact by only considering one aspect. Moreover, as it is always important to be
proactive rather than being reactive when it comes to risk management, practitioners should be careful
enough to consider each and every aspect of the project and related environment to identify and allocate
every possible risk before it is too late to manage it later on.
6.
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419
RISK ASSOCIATED WITH FACILITIES MANAGEMENT OUTSOURCING

AND ITS IMPACT ON SERVICE PERFORMANCE
K.K.G.P. Somarathna* and Nayanthara De Silva
ABSTRACT
In Sri Lanka, Facilities Management (FM) outsourcing has shown steady growth in recent years.
Although FM outsourcing has become popular, organizations do not aware about what risks are
involved with outsourcing and its impact on service performance. Therefore, the purpose of this study
is to develop the strategic framework to analyse risks associated with FM outsourcing and their
impact on service performance. Firstly, a literature review was done to identify FM outsourcing risks
and its impact on service performance. Further, management strategies were reviewed to overcome
FM outsourcing risk with a view to improving performance. A quantitative research approach based
on questionnaire was followed to achieve research aim. The initial literature survey findings and
preliminary survey finding were included in the questionnaire. Subsequently, questionnaire survey was
conducted among the professional experts in both FM service provider companies and client
organisations. The results were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistical methods.
Accordingly, 31 factors were identified among the analysed 32 FM outsourcing risk factors. The
relationship between FM outsourcing risks with service performance attributes were identified by
using correlation analysis and FM service provider related risks were rated at the high side of
correlation. The factor analysis was also carried out and six management strategies were identified as
the most efficient strategies. Finally, a framework to enhance the FM outsourcing practice was
developed based on the research findings, in order to suggest appropriate solution to overcome FM
outsourcing risk. Hence developed framework can be used to effectively manage FM outsourcing
practice for FM practitioners.
Keywords:
1.
Facilities Management; FM Outsourcing; Management Strategies; Risks.
INTRODUCTION
The core business of any organization can be succeeded with effectively planned facilities and supporting
services (Alexender, 2013). Therefore, facilities within the organization and other supporting services are
considered as an essential business need that helps to achieve the corporate objectives of the organization
(Chotipanich and Nut, 2008). The Facilities Management (FM) has thus become important in
organizations to achieve their corporate objectives (Missingham and Kenly, 2010). As a result, FM has
become an emerging profession to produce effective management of facilities (Kurdi et al., 2011).
Over the past decade, there has been a new trend which concentrates on outsourcing non-core supportive
functions in an organization (Ventovuori and Lehtonen, 2006). When considering different modes of
managing facilities, outsourcing is identified as the most common strategy used in organizations for
various benefits including better efficiency (Adeleye et al., 2004). FM outsourcing means, transferring the
operation and maintenance of facilities of an organization to an outside FM service provider company
(Kurdi et al., 2011). It is done under a contract in between client organization and FM services provider
company (Atkin and Brooks, 2009).
Though FM outsourcing has become increasingly popular, risks factors associated with this were
identified (Dorasamy et al., 2010; Zsidisin and Ellram, 2003). Most of these risks are usually associated
with adverse or negative impact on the performance of facilities (Ikediashi et al., 2012). However,
majority of organizations are outsourcing their functions without considering the risks involved (Adeleye
et al., 2004).
*
420
However, outsourcing is used as a strategic choice to optimize cost, time and quality as performance
aspects of facilities (Kurdi et al., 2011). But results of the FM outsourcing cannot be confirmed without
considering risk factors (Ikediashi et al., 2012). Most of the researchers have identified importance of
outsourcing as strategy for improving performance of organization. Lack of literature regarding impact of
FM outsourcing risks on service performance is another problem. Therefore, both client and FM service
provider company need to consider the risks associated with FM outsourcing and its impact on service
performance and it should be assessed in a systematic manner.
Moreover, outsourcing FM in Sri Lanka has seen a steady growth over the recent years. At present, world
recognized FM companies have been established in Sri Lanka. But still majority of organizations are
outsourcing their operation and maintenance of facilities without considering the risk involvement.
Therefore, this research expects to address the research gap of identifying the risk factors associated with
FM outsourcing in Sri Lanka and identifying their impact on service performance of client organization.
It may help to develop appropriate standards for a successful FM outsourcing procedure. Given the
background above, the preliminary objectives of this research are to use data from Sri Lankan FM
industry,
To identify the critical risk factors associated with FM outsourcing and their impact on service
performance attributes.
To assess the impact of risk factors to services performance and management strategies
To develop a strategic framework for analysing critical risks associated with FM outsourcing and its
impact on service performance
2.
FM OUTSOURCING RISKS
FM outsourcing is a strategic option to improve in the effective and efficient management of FM

resources. However, over the past decades, the relationship between FM services provision and decision
to outsource is becoming increasingly complex (Ikediashi and Mbamali, 2014). Mainly, it occurs due to
risk associated with an organizations FM service through the process of outsourcing with a view to
improving performance. Therefore, according to studies there are three major determinants as client
related risk, FM service provider related risk, contract related risk. Table 1 shows the three latent
variables, their respective risk factors and their sources identified from literature.
Table 1: Risk Associated with FM Outsourcing
Risk
Sources
Client
related
risks
Risk Factors
Lack of communication
Sources
Excessive monitoring of performance
Harland et al. (2005); Kremic et al. (2006); Nakatu and

Lacovou (2009); Atkin and Brooks (2009); Ikediashi et
al. (2012)
Kremic et al. (2006); Atkin and Brooks (2009);
Ikediashi et al. (2012)
Redding (2007); Atkin & Brooks (2009); Ikediashi et al.
(2012)
Harland et al. (2005); Atkin and Brooks (2009);
Redding (2007); Atkin an Brooks (2009); Ikediashi et
al. (2012)
Atkin & Brooks (2009); Ikediashi et al. (2012)
Financial failure of chosen FM service

provider during contract period
Harland et al. (2005); Redding (2007); Atkin and

Brooks (2009)
Wrongly communicated
Failure to manage end-user
expectation
Nakatu and Lacovou (2009); Atkin and Brooks (2009)

Kremicet al. (2006); Atkin and Brooks (2009)
Inexperienced client
Interruption to supply of services
Unclear responsibility and target
High management overheads
421
FM service
provider
related
risks
Poor quality of services
Redding (2007); Atkin and Brooks (2009); Ikediashi et

al. (2012)
FM service provider
underperformance
Critical service failure
Atkin and Brooks (2009); Ikediashi et al. (2012)
Minimal FM service provider

accountability

al., (2012)
Call out charges for labour

al. (2012)
al. (2012)
Redding (2007); Nakatu and Lacovou (2009); Atkin and
Brooks (2009); Ikediashi et al. (2012)
Atkin and Brooks (2009; Ikediashi et al. (2012)
Risk of dependency on providers

Risk of opportunism by providers
Excessive high FM service provider
rates
Lack of education and training in FM
service provider
Absence of shared owner outcomes
Contract
related
risks
2.1.

al. (2012)
In adequate staffing by service

provider and FM service provider
viability
Absence of benchmark for quality
Loss of strategic flexibility
Loss of core activities
Inadequate definition of scope of
services
Nakatu and Lacovou (2009); Atkin and Brooks (2009);

Inadequate planning of policies

implementation
Lack of standard forms of FM
contracts
Fall in employee morale
Unfavorable contract terms
Inappropriate allocation of risks and
resource
Atkin& Brooks (2009); Ikediashi et al. (2012)
Poor relationship between FM service

provider & clients
Kremic et al.(2006); Redding (2007); Atkin and Brooks

(2009)
Absence or poor system for providing

incentives for performance
Improper invoicing and billing
practices

Kremic et al.(2006); Redding (2007); Atkin and Brooks
(2009); Ikediashi et al. (2012)

Redding (2007); Atkin and Brooks (2009)
Redding (2007); Atkin and Brooks (2009)
Redding (2007)
IMPACT OF KEY RISK FACTORS ON SERVICE PERFORMANCE
Several studies have been conducted about outsourcing risks impact on service or organization
performance. But, the impact of outsourcing risk on service performance has been largely unexplored.
Most of the researchers have identified the importance of outsourcing as strategy for improving
performance of organizations. Therefore, literature regarding impact of FM outsourcing risks on service
performance is of very low level.
The scope of service performance indicators for FM services is depended on need of the client
organization. Therefore, service performances are measurable subjective attribute of FM services. Most of
the researches have focused on four main criteria as service performance attribute of time, quality, cost
and user satisfaction (Swan and Khalfan, 2007). Other than that, most of the researches were concerned
outsourcing were only cost effective method. But it affects more than that other service performance.
422
Therefore, this research were used time performance, quality performance and user satisfaction as
indicators for measuring service performance.
3.
MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES TO OVERCOME FM OUTSOURCING RISKS
Client organization considers FM outsourcing as a cost saving solution and transfer full responsibility to
service provider (Kurdi et al., 2011). However, this process may also have unique risks when it comes to
service delivery (Redding, 2007). But, the correct management strategies can overcome risk associated
with FM outsourcing. Table 2 shows management strategy to overcome FM outsourcing risks.
Table 2: Management Strategy to Overcome FM Outsourcing Risks
Sources
Management strategies
Client related risk
Information sharing
Documenting a baseline from the financial
Identified Critical Services
Full Commitment of Client
Identify the critical service level
Documenting of all information regarding FM
outsourcing
Evaluating competence, knowledge in Selection phase
FM service
provider related
risk
Evaluating specific technological capabilities in

Selection phase
Evaluating successful partnership with the Client in
Selection phase
Information sharing
Sources
Redding (2007); Kurdi et al.
(2011)
Redding (2007); Kurdi et

al.(2011); Lee et al.(2012)
Evaluating financially stable over the life of the

agreement in Selection phase
The details of the implementation plan, all activities
Details about proposed staffing, processes and
technology
Secure client organizations confidential data as well as
customers confidential data
Contract related
risk
4.
Negotiate with relevant parties

Provider requires a clear definition of each management
teams role
The details of the implementation plan, all activities and
milestones identified
Both parties take ownership for creation of a successful
solution
The pricing structure must align the FM service
Providers profit with the clients success
Redding (2007); Kurdi et al.

(2011); Lee et al. (2012)
The specific purpose of this research is to identify the risk associated with FM outsourcing and its impact
on service performance. Therefore, in order to achieve the aim of this study, it is required to select
suitable risk factors from literature according to the Sri Lankan context and also need to identify the
impact of those risk factors on service performance. In addition, management strategies are considered to
overcome the risks relating to FM outsourcing. Hence, research requires dealing with statistical way.
Therefore, the quantitative research approach based on questionnaire was followed to achieve research
aim. In order to capture data related to the research problem, the questionnaire was prepared by using
comprehensive literature review. It consisted following aspects,
423
Identify the risk factors associated with FM outsourcing
Identify the service performance aspect which is impacted by risk factors
Identify the management strategies to overcome identified risk factors
Preliminary and detailed questionnaire survey used to gather the opinion of respondents by using 5 point
likert scale where 5 and 1 denote the two extremes of extremely positive and extremely negative
impact respectively.
The main objective of the preliminary survey was to validate the literature findings relating to Sri Lankan
FM context and make the way to achieve the best outcome from detail survey. Therefore, the structured
interviews were carried out among two professionals from both client organization and FM service
Provider Company. These professionals were selected mainly based on their experience, rank and
responsibilities within FM industry. All respondents have experience of more than 10 years. Based on the
information of questionnaire, the several modifications were done to understand anybody and some
factors were improved in simple manner. Final results of preliminary survey were provided satisfactory
picture for the entire questionnaire.
According to Sri Lankan context, main FM service provides and client who are in the building which are
maintained by FM service provider were considered as population for this research. As per the
information were collected from experts in the FM industry, there were nearly 06 FM service providers
which carry out their business in Sri Lanka. Exact number of FM service provider in Sri Lanka could not
be mentioned properly, since they were not registered in recognized resource. Therefore, the experts who
represent client and FM service provider company were varying from building to building. Therefore,
exact value for population could not be presented for this research.
Without knowing population sample method cannot be used effectively. Therefore, non-probability
convention sampling method was adopted to collect the data for this research. This method obtained
readily available lists is a convenience sample and all respondents were selected to take more than 2 years
of experience. In order to ensure the reliability of data, target respondents were considered based on their
senior position (Facility managers, Operation managers, Property managers, Maintenance engineers and
Facilities executive). Therefore, the questionnaires were distributed among 50 number of experts who
represent FM service providing company and client who were in the buildings which are maintained by
FM service provider. But only 43 questionnaires were received for the analysis.
5.
The results were analysed by using descriptive and inferential statistical method. When collecting data
through questionnaire survey, it was consisted with questions that were not consistent to the research
problem or received data may have lot of variance within the respondents. Therefore, Cronbachs alpha
was used as reliability analysis for the data set of questionnaire. Reliability coefficient 0.7 or higher is
considered acceptable in most social science researches (Parrant, 2010). According to results, all data
set was between 0.7 and 0.8. As well as, it indicated large alpha value. Therefore, it could be assumed that
data sets are reliable for analysis.
One-sample t-test was used to identify significant level (p value) of tested variable. It was used to identify
whether the mean of a population significantly differs from a specific value. In hypothesis testing, these
hypotheses were tested using t-values (one-tailed) at 5 per cent significant level. Therefore, the critical tvalue at the approved degree of freedom and value was compared with calculated t value.
Further a null hypothesis is rejected for p-value of less than 0.05 and accepted for p-value is equal or
greater than 0.05 (Field, 2005). One of the important points to be considered is sample mean of risk
factors were compared with assigned value 3. Through the literature survey and preliminary survey most
of the identified risk factors have some impact on the service performance. Therefore, opinions of most of
the respondents were equal or greater than 3. Therefore, mean value of most of the FM outsourcing risk
factors were higher than three. Based on above reason value 3 was assigned only for this analysis. One
sample t-test was conducted by using MINITAB in order to identify the most significant risk factors for
each separate risk category with following hypothesis,
424
Null Hypothesis:
H0: Mean level of concern with risk factors associated with FM outsourcing < 3
Alternative Hypothesis:
H1: Mean level of concern with risk factors associated with FM outsourcing > 3
By considering to critical t-value and significant level of 0.05 except the factor Call out charge for
labour, all other 31 factors were able to reject null hypothesis. According to that decision, there was an
opportunity to accept alternative hypothesis highlighting significant factors over mean value. Table 4.7
shows finalized risk factors impact on service performance
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
FM service provider related risk

Contract related risk
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Client related risk factor
Table 3: Significant Risk Factors Impact on Service Performance

Failure to manage end-user expectation
Wrong Communicated
Financial failure of chosen FM service provider during contract period
Inexperienced Client
FM service provider underperformance
Critical services failure
Inadequate staffing by service provider & service provider viability
Lack of education & training in FM service provider
Minimal FM Service provider accountability
Risk of opportunism by provider
Risk of dependency on provider
Excessive high FM service provider rates
Inadequate definition of scope of services
Lack of standard forms of contract
Unfavorable contracts terms
Improper invoicing & billing practices
Absence or poor system for providing incentives for performance
Inadequate planning of policies implementation
Poor relation between FM service provider & client
Fall in employee moral
Loss of core activity
Inappropriate allocation of risk & resource
Once significant risk factors were identified, the correlation analysis was performed to establish
relationships among risk factors with service performance attributes (time, service quality, user
satisfaction). Table 4 indicates correlation analysis for FM outsourcing risk with service performance
attributes.
425
Table 4: Correlation Analysis for FM Outsourcing Risk with Service Performance

Pearson Correlation value
Correlated Variable
Client related
risks
FM service provider
related risks
Contract
related risks
Time (Ability to achieve on-time schedule)
0.398
0.596
0.468
Service Quality (Ability to achieve improved

consistency with laid down quality standard)
0.513
0.596
0.468
User Satisfaction (Ability to achieve user

requirement perfectly)
0.430
0.666
0.360
Since each risk indicate a positive correlation value, change in one risk was directly correlated with
changes in service performance attributes. FM service provider related risks were rated at the high side of
correlation in each service performance attributes. It could be presumed that, FM services can be
delivered on time with quality standard and ability to achieve user requirement perfectly, by which FM
service provider related risks are properly managed. Therefore, management strategies need to consider to
FM outsourcing risks. However, other risks also have some certain relationship with service performance
attributes. Therefore, the service performance can be improved by managing the each FM outsourcing
risks.
The factor analysis was also carried out and six management strategies were identified as the most
efficient strategies. The factors were identified based on the principle component method the factor
solutions eigen value greater than or equal to one. And also the variables which are greater than 0.45 are
regarded as most efficient factors (Ikedishi and Mbamali, 2014). Finally, a framework to enhance the FM
outsourcing practice was developed based on the research findings, in order to suggest appropriate
solution to overcome FM outsourcing risk. Hence developed framework can be used to effectively
manage FM outsourcing practice for FM practitioners.
6.
DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS
When considering the developed strategic framework, it consists with significant risks associated with
FM outsourcing and its impact on service performance attribute and suggestions to enhance the FM
outsourcing practice.
Significant risk factors were identified based on main sources which are involved in FM outsourcing
practice with the view of service performance. The identified main sources were client related risks, FM
service provider related risks and contract related risks. t- Test was conducted to identify most significant
FM outsourcing risk. According findings of this analysis, 31 risk factors out of 32 risk factors were
significantly impacted on service performance. Further, finding reveal that call out charge for labours
has not much effect on the service performance. Since each risk indicate a positive correlation value,
change in one risk was directly correlated with changes in service performance attributes. In addition to
that, among these risk sources, FM service provider related risks were the most relative risk sources with
each service performance attribute. Therefore, FM service provider related risks mainly impact on service
performance than other risk sources. Then, suggestions were given considering client related risk, FM
outsourcing risk and contract related risk. Furthermore, six strategies under above risk category were
identified as the most efficient strategies. Each category consists with two suitable strategies. Since there
are lot of risk factors which directly affect to FM outsourcing practice, necessary strategies were given to
mitigate these factors also.
426
Risk associated with FM outsourcing & its

impact on service performance
FM OUTSOURCING RISK
MANAGEMENT
Management Strategies to
overcome FM outsourcing Risks
Analysis of risks
Inexperienced Client
Financial failure of chosen FM service provider during contract period
Wrong Communicated
Failure to manage end-user expectation
FM service provider underperformance
Critical services failure
Minimal FM Service provider accountability
Risk of dependency on provider
Risk of opportunism by provider
Excessive high FM service provider rates
Lack of education & training in FM service provider
Inadequate staffing by service provider & service provider viability
Loss of core activity
Inadequate definition of scope of services
Inadequate planning of policies implementation
Lack of standard forms of contract
Fall in employee moral
Unfavorable contracts terms
Inappropriate allocation of risk & resource
Poor relation between FM service provider & client
Absence or poor system for providing incentives for performance
Improper invoicing & billing practices
Management strategies to overcome client related

risks
Establishing operation procedure to client
Client
Related
Risks
FM
Service
provider
related
Risks
Service
Performance
Time
Quality
User
satisfaction
Developing a document baseline from

performance & service level perspective
Management strategies to overcome FM service

provider related risks
Improving effective relationship between
client and FM service provider
Assessing the FM service providers

organization and capabilities
Contract
related
Risks
Management strategies to overcome contract

related risks
Figure 1: Framework
427
Establishing well designed contract

document
Establishing each management teams role.
7.
SUMMARY
Most of researchers have investigated importance of FM outsourcing as strategy for improving

performance of organization. But, impact of FM outsourcing risks on service performance has been
largely unexploded. This research addresses the risk associated with FM outsourcing and its impact on
services performance. In addition, management strategies were introduced to overcome FM outsourcing
risk with a view of improving service performance.
According to findings of several research studies, identified FM outsourcing risks were divided into three
determinants such as client related risk, FM service provider related risk and contract related risk and this
research used time performance, quality performance and user satisfaction as indicators for measuring
service performance. In addition, management strategies were identified from literature.
In order to capture data related to the research problem, the questionnaire was prepared by using
compressive literature review. It was consisted with 32 risk factors regarding client, FM service provider
and contract and as per the information was collected from expertise in the FM industry. There are nearly
06 FM service providers which carry out their business in Sri Lanka. But, exact number of FM service
provider in Sri Lanka could not be mentioned properly. Since FM service providers were not registered in
recognized resource. Therefore, the expertise that was representing client and FM service provider
company are varying from building to building. Therefore, exact value for population could not present
for this research.
According to findings of statistical significant analysis, identified FM outsourcing risk factors were
highly impacted on service performance. Further, statistical analysis finding reveal that Call out charge
for labours was not much effect on the service performance. Therefore, it was not regarded by
respondent as the critical factors while considering FM outsourcing as a procurement option. Each other
factors were rated according to the identified alternative hypothesis. Therefore, it indicated that, each
factors are significantly impact on service performance. Correlation analysis indicated that, FM service
provider related risk was rated at the high side of correlation in each aspect of service performance. It
could be presumed that, service performance can be highly improved; the FM related risks are properly
managed. Then Factor analysis was conducted in order to identify most efficient strategies, there were six
strategies under client related risks, FM outsourcing risks and contract related risks were identified as the
most efficient strategies.
Suggestions were given considering client related risk, FM outsourcing risk and contract related risk.
Furthermore, six strategies under above risk category were identified as the most efficient strategies. Each
category was consisted with two suitable strategies. Since lot of risk factors which directly affect to FM
outsourcing practice. Therefore, necessary strategies are given to mitigate these factors also.
The final outcome of the research developed a strategic framework to enhance the FM outsourcing
practice. It provides the suggestion to mitigate identified risk factors under client related risk, FM service
provider related risk and contract related risk.
Developed framework would direct for FM practitioners, stakeholders in the FM profession
understanding FM outsourcing risk impact on service performance. It could impact on entire business of
both client organization and FM service provider company. Therefore, management team of these
organization can be used this developed framework as a FM outsourcing risk management tool.
This framework was developed based each FM practice facilities in Sri Lanka. As well as, developed
framework can also be expanded to different facility. Depending on the circumstance, FM practitioners
could customize framework according to their preference.
8.
REFERENCE
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investigation into commercial banks in Nigeria. International Journal of Information Management, 24(2), 167
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Atkin, B. and Brooks, A., 2009. Total Facilities Management .3rded. New York: Blackwell Publisher.
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organizations, sectors and nations. International Journal of Operations and Production Management, 25(9),
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service-level performance: A Case of Nigerias public hospitals. Construction Management and Economics
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Kremic, T., Icmeli Tukel, O., and Rom, W. O. 2006. Outsourcing decision support: A survey of benefits, risks, and
decision factors. Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, 11(6), 467482.
Kurdia, M. K., Abdul-Tharim, A. H., Jaffar, N., Azli, M. S., Shuib, M. N., and Ab-Wahid, A. M., 2011.Outsourcing
in Facilities Management- A Literature Review. Procedia Engineering, 20, 445457.
Lee, C. K. M., ChingYeung, Y., and Hong, Z., 2012. An integrated framework for outsourcing risk management.
Industrial Management and Data Systems, 112(4), 541558.
Missingham, C. H. G., and Kenley, R., 2010. Modelling and managing affective psychology in Australian local
government facilities. Facilities, Vol. 28(3), 156174.
Nakatsu, R. T., and Iacovou, C. L., 2009. A comparative study of important risk factors involved in offshore and
domestic outsourcing of software development projects: A two-panel Delphi study. Information and
Management, 46(1), 5768.
Redding, M., 2007. Managing Risk in Facilities Management Outsourcing[online]. New York: Agile OAK LLC.
Available from: http://www.agileoak.com.
Swan, W., and Khalfan M.M.A., 2007. Mutual objective setting for partnering projects in the public sector.
Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, 14(2),11930.
Ventovuori, T., and Lehtonen, T., 2006. Alternative models for the management of FM services: An empirical
investigation. Journal of Corporate Real Estate, 8(2), 7390.
Zsidisin, G. A., and Ellram, L. M., 2003. An agency theory investigation of supply risk management. The Journal
of Supply Chain Management, 39(3), 1527.
429
RISK MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES FOR FACILITIES MANAGERS IN

SRI LANKA
N.S.D. Abeysinghe* and A.K. Andaraweera
Integrated Facilities Management, Jones Lang LaSalle Lanka Pvt Ltd, Sri Lanka
ABSTRACT
Value is a function of risk and return. Every decision either increases, preserves, or erodes value
(COSO, 2004). Given that risk is integral to the pursuit of value, strategic-minded enterprises do not
strive to eliminate risk or even to minimize it, a perspective that represents a critical change from the
traditional view of risk as something to avoid. Rather, these enterprises seek to manage risk exposures
across all parts of their organizations so that, at any given time, they incur just enough of the right
kinds of risk-no more, no less-to effectively pursue strategic goals. The Facilities Management (FM)
industry delivers a range of services and products through the spectrum of the facility life cycle, all of
which carry varying degrees of risk, identifying risks and being prepared to manage them will
minimise any negative impact they may have. Effective Risk Management (RM) planning and practice
is an essential component of the practice of FM. Delivering on strategies that enable the organisation
to realise the opportunities in their activities while appropriately managing risk is the central to
successful management of Facilities. The purpose of this paper is to provide leadership to manage
risks within Sri Lankan FM context with an overview of risk assessment approaches and techniques
that have emerged as the most useful and sustainable for decision-making.
Keywords:
1.
Facilities Management; Risk Management; Sri Lanka; Office Buildings; Case Studies.
INTRODUCTION
It is obvious that the secret behind returns on invested facilities lies upon proper and effective
management of the built environment (Redlein and Poglitsch, 2010). Thus, the attraction of FM has
become increasingly common as forward-looking organisations are beginning to realise FM as a function
with clearly defined objectives and a strategic and commercially-oriented discipline (Pathirage et al.,
2008). FM is frequently described as an integrated approach to operating, maintaining, improving and
adapting the buildings and infrastructure of an organization in order to create an environment that
strongly supports primary objectives of that organization (Atkin and Brooks, 2000, P.4). According to
Atkin and Brooks (2000), FM services encompass broad and a large number of functions and roles
towards a strategic concern.
Gleisner (2008), defines risk in a company as a the possibility of deviating from planned objectives
resulting in the unforeseeable future caused by incidental disturbances. As far as Enterprise Risk
Management (ERM) is concerned, COSO (2004) defines ERM as a process, affected by an entitys board
of directors, management and other personnel, applied in strategy-setting and across the enterprise,
designed to identify potential events that may affect the entity, and manage risk to be within its risk
appetite, to provide reasonable assurance regarding the achievement of entity objectives.
Risk Management (RM) is crucial for organizations to thrive and succeed hence; its the way in which
enterprises get a handle on how significant each risk is to the achievement of their overall goals. To
accomplish this, enterprises require a risk assessment process that is practical, sustainable, and easy to
understand (COSO, 2004). The process must proceed in a structured and disciplined fashion. It must be
correctly sized to the enterprises size, complexity, and geographic reach. While ERM is a relatively new
discipline, application techniques have been evolving over the last decade (Redlein and Giller, 2008).
ERM is recognised as good business sense and a way to demonstrate good governance (Alexander, 1992).
Current global events have increased the focus on managing uncertainty. Given the nature of FM and the
*
430
significance of infrastructure, assets, facilities and service supply, the responsibility for most of this
planning and recovery or response rests with those who manage facilities (Alexander, 1992).
Since nature of managing risks is not well defined in FM context, applicability of RM strategies in to the
FM profession is not well understood (Redlein and Giller, 2008). In Sri Lankan FM context, there are no
adequate research done in the area of ERM, however, adopting ERM strategies to Sri Lankan FM
industry is utter most important considering its emerging and challenging nature. This created the
knowledge gap for this research and emerged the research question for the study. Hence, the research
question that was developed for the study is How to apply RM strategies to Facilities Managers in Sri
Lanka. Due to the evolving nature of FM profession in Sri Lanka, exploratory case studies were carried
out to explore answerers to the research question. The key findings from the literature review are
discussed next in this paper.
2.
KEY LITERATURE FINDINGS
The buildings, installations and facilities to which FM is relevant represents important company assets.
According to a study carried out by the International Facility Management Association (IFMA), these
assets are the source of 10 to 19% of company expenditure and represent 25 to 50% of company assets.
Therefore, in the case of all companies, and not just real estate companies, FM processes influence
company figures and are formidably significant within the framework of ERM.
Gleissner and Romeike (2005) differentiate between financial and operational risks. Furthermore,
operational risks are classified into strategic risks (e.g. the risk that a certain company strategy does not
result in the best possible outcome) and operative risks that can arise as a result of inadequate
performance of technologies, processes, personnel or organisations, or external events. The second area is
particularly relevant to FM because it exposes to infrastructure for the core business and can, for example,
be caused by false assumptions (an inadequate service level), production failure or even a high level of
illness.
The Internal Control Systems (ICS) is part of ERM and is aligned with operative processes. According to
COSO, an ICS relates to all processes, methods and control measures that are carried out under the order
of the supervisory board and/or senior management and serve to ensure that business operations function
correctly. The organisational measures of the ICS are integrated into operating procedures. This means
that they occur during the course of work performed take place directly before or after a work activity
(COSO, 2004). The methods by which companies should proceed with the implementation of a Enterprise
Risk Management strategies and ICS are presented in below sections.
2.1.
IMPLEMENTATION/OPTIMISATION OF AN ENTERPRISE RISK MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
First, senior management must define the companys risk appetite in order to align an organisations
inclination to take risks with its strategy (Redlien and Giller, 2008). In addition, this will enable riskrelated decisions to be taken. As a second step, related key risks are defined and subsequently evaluated
(Redlien and Giller., 2008). Both the risks and opportunities that are seen as significant to the company
are defined at the senior management level using brainstorming techniques (Redlein and Poglitsch, 2010).
In order to facilitate easier definition of a risk map, a best-practice map, is depicted in Figure 1.
In order to support the client in minimising risk, the graphic displays the opportunities and risks of large
companies covered by FM through an internal department as well as those covered by facility service
providers.
431
Figure 1: FM Risk Map

Source: Alexander (1992)
Particularly in the case of FM, large companies are faced with the strategic decision of whether to make
or buy - this refers to whether they should carry out the implementation themselves or subcontract it to a
professional provider of facility services and hence transfer risk. Many users also assess the area of legal
compliance - meaning compliance with legal requirements - as a risk. This mainly involves the areas of
industrial safety and fire protection but also covers environmental protection.
For service providers, this entails competitive pressure, price wars and maintaining/ optimising quality.
After listing risks and opportunities in the risk map, a quantitative evaluation of risks and opportunities
with respect to the extent and likelihood of occurrence has to be performed.
Two examples are mentioned here:
1. Server room: Failure of the server infrastructure resulting from overheating can have dramatic
consequences depending on the IT infrastructure dependencies of the organisation (insurance
companies, banks). Therefore, the company, in the course of identifying risks, will analyse the issue,
classify the risk according to the likelihood of occurrence and impact, and thus determine appropriate
corrective action. Naturally, these can also affect FM: Service level agreements with subcontractors,
backup solutions, investment in better cooling systems, adaptation of the maintenance intervals, and
so on.
2. Elevators: In production areas, failure of a goods elevator can result in grave disturbances to the flow
of material. Therefore, in this area also, during the course of the risk evaluation process, risk is
classified and appropriate measures are taken. Based upon this data, the risks are entered into a
company-wide risk matrix (see Figure 2) and classified into the following groups: significant risks,
risks that should be monitored, risks to be observed.
432
Figure 2: Risk Matrix

Source: Alexander (1992)
The possible control measures can be deduced from the matrix:
avoid the risk refrain from doing

minimise the risk internal measures, process improvement
share the risk transfer the risk to another, e.g. insurance companies, or outsource facility
services to a professional partner to minimise risk
accept the risk consciously bearing the risk
The result of Enterprise Risk Management is that risk owners carry out and evaluate actions, and manage
risks within defined tolerance limits.
2.2.
ENTERPRISE RISK MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK
Findings of literature is summarised in to the following framework of Enterprise Risk Management to

facilitate adoption and application of it to the Facilities Management Industry.
433
Figure 3: Enterprise Risk Management Framework

Source: Accenture (2013)
3.
This research took an exploratory nature and it required access to FM professionals, who could explain
their views and experience. As such, case study has been selected for this research. In Sri Lankan office
building sector, there are very few facilities management in-house divisions, who are practicing FM in its
full sense. Three such FM divisions in office buildings were selected for these case studies. Within one
organization, three professionals from the FM division were interviewed. The description of cases and
professionals interviewed are given below.
CASE A
With over 750,000 square feet of prime office and retail space, this organization is an international
business complex on par with premium grade buildings in major cities around the world. Built to the
highest standards, this impressive landmark comprises two 39 storey towers connected by a 4 storey retail
block. It has attracted prestigious local, international and multinational companies as tenants, making it
the most sought after business address in Sri Lanka. With its prime location in the heart of the city in the
Central Business District (CBD) and easy access to all main banks, major five star hotels, government
offices, shops and headquarters of some of the largest businesses, this towering business complex is Sri
Lankas tallest and most impressive commercial landmark. Within this organization, interviews were
conducted with the Facilities Manager, Assistant Facilities Manager and Electronic Engineer.
434
CASE B
This organization is a largest banking and financial services organization. It has more than 32,000 skilled
professionals operating out of 15 group service centres present in five countries in Asia, including India,
China, Malaysia, Philippines, and Sri Lanka. The service centre in Sri Lanka is managed by the business
process outsourcing a ERM of the group and it is occupied by the banks back offices service providing
professionals within over 350,000 square feet. Interviews were made with the Facilities Manager,
Assistant Facilities Manager and the outsourced Facilities Manager in this organisation.
CASE C
This organization is one of the leading government banks in Sri Lanka. This building is a 32 storied head
office building with a total built up area of 600,000 square feet. It was constructed in 1987 to house all
administrative offices, international division and corporate branch of the bank. Managing this building is
done with the involvement of well qualified and experience FM related professionals. So, data has been
collected from three key FM related professionals namely Maintenance Manager, Human Resource
Manager and the Electrical and Plumbing Engineer.
While interviewing, note taking and tape recording (with permission of the interviewee) were performed
to maintain the accuracy of data collection. The data gathered from the interviews were analysed by
manual code-based content analysis. Finally, conclusions about the overall research problem were drawn
by analysing the findings as described next.
4.
RESEARCH FINDINGS
Applicability of Developed Enterprise Risk Management Framework was tested throughout the case
studies. In doing so, following scenario was presented and used to test the successful application of the
Enterprise Risk Management framework developed through literature findings.
4.1.
IMPLEMENTATION/OPTIMISATION OF AN
(APPLICABILITY OF ERM FRAMEWORK)
ENTERPRISE
RISK
MANAGEMENT
SYSTEM
Example: Inspection and maintenance of facilities and installations

The objective of the process is to analyse the current conditional state of facilities and installations as well
as the maintenance or improvement of this state through maintenance measures. It comprises the planning
and execution of inspection, and maintenance of facilities and installations, although it does not deal with
specific activities in detail. Process steps have been added to this procedure, whereby inputs case studies
via expert interviews have been taken into consideration.
Based on the activities defined in the detailed reference procedure, experts were subsequently interviewed
in order to indicate possible risks and related enterprise risk management and control activities. The result
of that is presented in Table 1.
Table 1: Inspection and Maintenance of Facilities and Installations - Risk and Control Matrix
Activity
Tactical level
Analyse available information
(evaluation, objectives, costs) and
collect missing data
Define maintenance strategy and
required infrastructure availability
Enterprise Risk Management/Control

Activity (ies)
Risk or Risks
Undiscovered objects, lack

of information
False assumption(s) with

regard to the necessary
availability/the risk of
infrastructure failure
Undiscovered objects
Periodic inspection of relevant

facilities and installations, updating
documentation
Carrying out periodic review of the
requirements of the core business and
taking practical experience into
consideration
Level of operative planning

Update list of relevant objects
435
Periodic inspection of relevant

facilities and installations, updating
Activity
Risk or Risks

Activity (ies)
documentation
Define/Update activities per object
Failure to perform timely

maintenance on facilities
and installations (including
necessary procurement)
Define maintenance/Inspection
intervals
Maintenance intervals too

frequent or too seldom
Preform economic efficiency.
Verification of check is not

carried out by all responsible
persons
Verify allocation of responsibilities

consideration of specific
requirements during the cost
effectiveness study
No Risks Involved
No Risks Involved
No Risks Involved
Procurement risks
Procurement risks
No Risks Involved
Material is not available
Use of wrong spare parts or

wrong material
Use of wrong material
Stock spare parts and relevant

material, check specifications
Check performance and material

check service manual
Taking the availability of personnel

into consideration, improving the
selection and training of personnel
Define standards for

documentation
analysis and plausibility check
Create maintenance/inspection
schedule
Operative level
Plan execution
Use internal resources
Procure service
Procure material
Inspect material quality and Quantity
Accept material
Preform maintenance/inspection
Review performance and

consumption of material
Document service/material
Specific requirements are

not taken into consideration,
e.g. as a result of the
location of facilities or
installations
No Risks Involved
Inadequate execution of
maintenance/ inspection
Inspection cannot be carried
out or cannot be carried out
adequately because of lack
of special knowledge on the
part of the personnel
responsible
Incomplete documentation
Orientation of
maintenance/inspection intervals to
the life cycle data, relevant
standards and the practical
experience of experts, taking
required time for procurement into
consideration
Verify standards and
documentation
The second column of Table 1 can be considered a risk inventory of the reference processes. This is a
basis for the risk and control matrix of the specific company. However, within the scope of
implementation, an additional quantitative risk evaluation carried out by the specific company is
necessary.
4.2.
IMPLEMENTATION/OPTIMISATION OF INTERNAL CONTROL SYSTEMS
Example process: Carry out equipment management activities

The processCarry out equipment management activities is associated with serious risks (e.g. server
room, lifts) and has been identified as relevant to determination of the risk map. As a result, ICS activities
436
have been devised and introduced for the purpose of operative implementation in order to reduce the
likelihood of a risks occurrence (see Figure 2: risk matrix)
Figure 4: Building Technology Management Process
Overview of activities that are relevant to ICS (see marking above) including the control activities
implemented:
Table 2: Overview of Activities that are Relevant to ICS
Activity
Carry out
productivity planning
Preform
inspection/approval

Activity(ies)
Risk or Risks
Installation failure due to lack of/poor
maintenance
Illustration of all components

maintenance schedule
Statutory audits are not held
Automatic escalation if deadlines are

not met
No accurate documentation of the

activities performed
The work order is created in the

Computer Aided FM (CAFM) tool and
defines exactly which activity is to be
performed
Individual implementation (no standard

available)
Carry out monitoring
activities for
measuring equipment
Quality statements are carried out with

measuring equipment which has not
been calibrated statements flawed and
not understandable
437
Monitoring measuring equipment

managed in the CAFM tool
5.
SUMMARY
The research findings confirmed that the, profession of Facilities Management involves with great
number of risks, hence, adopting ERM strategies in to the profession is utter most vital to ensure success
of the profession. Risks needed to be identified, analysed and mitigated across business functions which
include operations, business process and strategic and throughout the building and project life cycle to
ensure smooth operation of the building facilities and delivering clients / occupants expectations.
Despite of it is application basic ERM approach (framework) follows its basic steps of risk identification,
risk classification, analysis and mitigation. More importantly, case study findings revealed, despite of it is
approach, Enterprise Risk Management Frameworks largely facilitates in identifying risks inheritant in it
functions and analysing those, defining mitigation actions and appointing risk owners.
Mainly in addressing the research gap, conceptual framework developed based on the key literature
findings was tested with the help of industry professionals. The outcome is mainly presented in the data
analysis.
However, success of adopting ERM strategies in to Facilities Management largely depends on continuous
monitoring of risks for its movement accordingly with its mitigation actions implementation. After the
initial setting up of risk registers are done continuous, brainstorming sessions and risk workshops needs to
be carried out until its completion and throughout its continuous life cycle to ensure Enterprise Risk
Management Strategy implementation within the Facilities Management functions and its profession.
6.
REFERENCES
Accenture, 2013. Building Resilience in Supply Chains. In: World Economic Forum. Switzerland 23-27 January
2013. Switzerland: World Economic Forum.
Alexander, K., 1992. Facilities Enterprise Risk Management. Facilities, 10(4), 1418.
Atkin, B. and Brooks, A., 2000. Total Facilities Management, Oxford: Blackwell Science.
Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO), 2004. Enterprise Risk Management
Integrated Framework [Online]. UK: Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission.
Available from: http://www.coso.org/documents/coso_erm_executivesummary.pdf
Gleisner, W., 2008. Grundlagen des Risikomanagements in Unternehmen. Germany: Vahlen.
Gleissner; W. and Romeike. F., 2005. Risk management : implementation , tools , risk assessment ; Controlling,
quality management and balanced scorecard as a platform for building . Germany: Freiburg
Pathirage C, Haigh R, Amaratunga D and Baldry D., 2008. Knowledge management practices in facilities
organisations; A case study. Journal of Facilities Management, 6(1), 5-22.
Redlein, A. and Giller, B., 2008. Reference Processes and Internal Control Systems within Facility Management. In:
European Facility Management Conference 2008. Manchester 10 - 11 June 2008. UK: integrated Facilities
Management Association, 181191.
Redlein, A. and Poglitsch, R. P., 2010. Trends and Developments within Facility Management [Online].
Copenhagen:
Proprietary
information
ISS
Word
Services.
Available
from:
https://www.google.lk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwi4gZ
qyo-3NAhVFo48KHah9C7UQFggaMAA&url=https%3A%2F%2F2.gy-118.workers.dev/%3A443%2Fhttp%2Fwww.uk.issworld.com%2F%2Fmedia%2Fissworld%2Fuk%2FFiles%2FInsights%2FManaging_and_Mitigating_risk_in_FM_Aug14.pdf%
3Fla%3DenGB&usg=AFQjCNGSeLDMvJchQeRLGWclLdHfdyuqmQ&sig2=4ZANLenkYro_bXgI0Rhb3g&bvm=bv.126
130881,d.c2I
438
SAVING ENERGY IN OFFICE BUILDINGS WITHOUT COMPROMISING

THEIR INDOOR ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
R.A.D.K. Akalanka, B.A.K.S. Perera and N.H.C. Manjula*
ABSTRACT
The concept of Internal Environmental Quality (IEQ) has emerged as a determinant of the
performance of built environments due to its direct impact on the health, comfort and satisfaction of
the occupants of the buildings and also due its role in ensuring a productive work environment.
However, IEQ indicators such as thermal comfort, indoor air quality, and lighting level are associated
with the most energy consuming utilities, namely HVAC and lighting. While IEQ and energy efficiency
have been researched extensively, there is no published research on energy saving strategies that will
optimize the IEQ in office buildings. Therefore, the aim of this study was to identify energy efficient
strategies that will optimize the IEQ in office buildings. The research problem was approached
through a case study analysis of four office buildings. The study identified energy efficient strategies
that can be practiced without compromising the IEQ of a building. However, findings also asserted
that there is no common platform to optimize the IEQ performance while achieving the best energy
performance of a building. Energy efficient strategies to be adopted can depend on various internal
and external factors of a facility. The findings will be useful for building managers who manage office
buildings.
Keywords:
1.
Built Environment; Energy Efficient Strategies; Indoor Environmental Quality; Office

Buildings.
INTRODUCTION
Due to economic and environmental reasons, organizations around the world are constantly under
pressure to reduce their energy consumptions. As energy cost is one of the major cost factors of
businesses, a reduction in their energy consumptions leads to a reduction in their operating costs thereby
helping to improve their profitability (Jayamaha, 2006). The energy in office buildings is mainly utilized
for heating, cooling, and lighting purposes while a significant portion of it is consumed by office
equipment (Santamouris, 2002). Managing a buildings energy efficiency may soon be an integral
component of managing its operational and financial performance (Landsberg, Lord, Carlson, and
Goldner, 2009). The energy consumption of buildings depends significantly on the criteria used for the
design and operation of their indoor environments as well as the buildings themselves (Bluyssen, 2002).
A majority of people carry on their lives inside buildings which have to satisfy the objective and
subjective requirements linked to vital functions of the occupants (Wolkoff, 2012). Therefore, the Indoor
Environmental Quality (IEQ) plays a major role in the overall performance of a building (Quang et.al,.
2014). In todays world, people spend more than 90% of their time in built environments such as
residences, workplaces and similar buildings (Levin and Emmerich, 2013). The built environment or
indoor environment of a building should be at an acceptable IEQ level for the comfort and satisfaction of
the occupants and for a productive work environment (Bluyssen, 2011).
The cost of energy used to maintain acceptable standards is often high. (Abbaszadeh et al., 2006) On the
other hand, a good IEQ could improve the overall work performance of workers by minimizing building
related illnesses and absenteeism (Brimblecombe, 2002)., Thermal comfort and IAQ are two dominant
factors among IEQ parameters, while indoor air temperature and indoor CO2 concentrations are the
*
439
control parameters of environmental control systems of many air-conditioned office buildings (Bluyssen,
2011).
A good energy policy for indoor environment should respond to the needs of both energy conservation
and a desirable healthy indoor environment by users of the built environments (Abbaszadeh et al., 2006).
Several studies have addressed the requirement of optimizing the energy performance in buildings and
also their IEQ. However, there is little research that has addressed both energy efficiency and IEQ
optimization within a single paradigm. Thus, there exists a research gap in coupling energy performance
with IEQ optimization.
AIM
The aim of this research is to identify strategies to save energy in office buildings without compromising
their indoor environmental quality.
OBJECTIVES
To identify IEQ indicators and problems related to them in office buildings

To identify currently practiced energy efficient strategies in office buildings
To investigate energy saving strategies that will optimize IEQ in office buildings
The Building Performance (BP) of a built environment addresses a set of coordinated strategies that are
mainly aimed at assessing the quality of that built environment, in terms of the extent to which all
requirements of performance such as safety in operation, air quality, energy performance, acoustics,
thermal comfort and visual comfort are satisfied (Hapurne, Baran and Bliuc, 2012). The BP of a built
environment depends upon consumer satisfaction including users needs such as those of physiological,
physical, sociological and psychological nature and mental health. These have to be satisfied together
with users spatial ergonomics and their thermal, air, acoustic and visual quality needs which are
interrelated with user satisfaction related to BP (Frontczak et al., 2012).
2.1
INDOOR ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY INDICATORS
The concept of IEQ is growing as a new and very useful concept of building performance and quality
(Catalina et al., 2011). It is because people spend most of their time inside buildings with various aspects
of the indoor environment affecting their wellbeing and performance (Prakash, 2005). Furthermore, the
quality of the indoor environment reflects health, comfort and productivity of occupants of building
environments (Singh, 1996). Moreover, it has been emphasized that IEQ parameters are important and
that a better IEQ would improve existing working conditions while minimizing complaints from
occupants (Catalina et al., 2011). Therefore, the increasing interest in this IEQ concept has placed
additional pressure on professionals such as architects, facility managers, building investors, engineers
and health officials. Occupants also seek practical guidelines on creating a safe, healthy, and comfortable
built environment (Kumar and Fisk, 2002).
Past research has identified thermal comfort, lighting quality, acoustic quality and indoor air quality and
workspace as the most important indicators of IEQ (Mahbo et al., 2011). Figure 1 illustrates the main
indicators relating to IEQ performance.
440
Indoor Air
Quality
(IAQ)
Thermal
Comfort
IEQ
Acoustic
Comfort
Lighting
Level
Workspace
Figure 1: IEQ Indicators

Source: Mahbob et al. (2011)
However, out of the above mentioned five indicators of IEQ, only thermal comfort, IAQ, and lighting
level make a measurable impact on energy consumption of a building (Catalina et al., 2011). Thus, only
those three indicators were taken in to consideration in this study.
3.
The research was initiated with a literature synthesis to identify common issues relating to the indoor
environmental quality in office buildings. A case study was undertaken using a mixed approach, the best
suitable method for the research. A case study examines existing phenomenon within a real life context
especially when boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident (Yin, 2009). Hence,
in a case study, data is gathered from real life practices. Furthermore, different cases offer multiple
sources of evidence and a possible replication of findings. Therefore, four multi-storey buildings
providing similar services were selected as case studies. All four cases had central air conditioning
systems, glazed windows and 20-25 floors.
A questionnaire survey and semi-structured interviews were selected as the data collection method. Office
workers usually spend many working hours at their desks. Therefore, they become more sensitive to the
working environment. Thus, their opinions about the IEQ were sought through a questionnaire survey in
each case. Twenty office workers were selected from each case and thus the sample consisted of a total of
80 workers. Data was processed using simple statistics (weighted average).
The questionnaire survey was focused on three main indicators of IEQ identified from literature as having
a significant impact on energy efficiency, i.e. IAQ, thermal comfort and lighting level. The five point
Likert scale was used to collect occupants responses. The scale was 1 - Unbearable, 2 - Not pleasing but
bearable, 3 - Moderate, 4 - Good, and 5 - Very pleasing.
A separate five point Likert scale was used to collect occupants responses for disease symptom analysis
as well as for subsections under thermal comfort. This scale was 1 - Never, 2 - Rarely, 3 - Occasionally
(few times a month), 4 - Often (few times a week) and 5 - Very frequent (almost daily).
441
Semi structured interviews were carried out with the managements involved in the energy management of
the selected cases and content analysis was used to analyse the collected data. Table 1 denotes the
interviewee profile.
Table 1: Interviewee Profile
Case Study
Interview Code
Designation
Experience
A1
A2
B1
B2
C1
C2
D1
D2
Manager, O & M Division

Manager, HVAC
Chief Engineer
Assistant Engineer
Head, FM division
Facilities Manager
Chief Engineer
Assistant Engineer
10 years
20 years
15 years
8 Years
25 Years
20 Years
25 years
18 years
B
C
D
4.
4.1
IMPORTANCE OF IEQ IN OFFICE BUILDINGS
Building owners and managers during the past few decades have become increasingly knowledgeable
about the importance of a good indoor environmental quality (IEQ) in their buildings (Landsberg et al.,
2009). Building owners and managers may have heard about how good IEQ in a building can help their
occupants to improve their productivity, Tenants may wish to judge IEQ on absentee rates and create
productivity rates specific to their businesses. However from a building-industry perspective, it is difficult
to nail down productivity specifics as studies done are not that definitive (Bluyssen et al., 2011).
Office workers spend most of their time in commercial buildings for carrying out their daily work as well
as for having meals and entertainment. These buildings in modern cities are typically fully air conditioned
high-rises in which the indoor environmental quality essentially lies in the proper operation and
management of their facilities such as the air conditioning systems, electrical lighting and, sanitary and
drainage systems (Joseph and Francis, 2007). The research by Gensler (2005) identified the impact an
office working environment has on improving the productivity and job satisfaction of employees.
Therefore, maintaining an acceptable IEQ would enable better occupant comfort in built environments.
4.2
ISSUES RELATED TO IEQ IN OFFICE BUILDINGS
Epidemiological studies such as the European Audit Project, the WHO study in Europe, and the BASEstudy in the US have all shown how complex the relationships between building conditions (thermal
comfort, lighting, indoor air quality and noise) and human well-being are (Bluyssen et al., 2011). Leea
and Brand (2005) have illustrated that a majority of respondents believed that the office environment had
a direct influence on their well-being and self-assessed productivity. When dissatisfaction with the
environment and job were high, there was a low level of self-assessed productivity. Table 2 provides IEQ
related issues that are most common in office buildings.
Table 2: Identified IEQ Issues in Office Buildings
IEQ Indicators
Thermal Comfort
Causes
Operating air
temperature
Issues in Office Buildings

Common cold
Heavy headed feeling
Dry nose
Dry lips
Dry skin
442
Indoor Air Quality
Ventilation
problems
with insufficient fresh air
A high concentration of
CO2.
Recirculation of air
Low relative humidity &

warm temperatures
High air velocity
Poor luminance
Lack of exposure to day
light
Lighting Comfort
Headaches
Fatigue (tiredness, lack of energy and mental
fatigue)
Shortness of breath
Stuffiness
Irritation
Skin problems
Dryness
Itching
Drying of the mucous membranes and skin
Difficulty in breathing
Fatigue (tiredness, lack of energy and mental
fatigue)
Drowsiness
Nausea
Eye irritations
Sources: Ncube and Riffat (2012)
4.3
ENERGY EFFICIENT STRATEGIES IN OFFICE BUILDINGS
Building Orientation
With regard to energy saving strategies, all of the interviewees agreed that the control of solar radiation
that comes into the building would have a significant effect in controlling the consumption of energy
within a building since HVAC systems had the highest energy requirement in office buildings. With
respect to energy saving strategies, all interviewees agreed that proper building orientation and the
building location and layout at the site would highly influence the consumption of energy within the
building. Interviewee B1 stated that the building orientation has a significant impact on the energy
consumption. Interviewee further said that if the building is receiving direct sunlight, it will be hard to
maintain the indoor temperature as well as the natural lighting supply and that therefore, it is important to
design the building properly. Managements of Cases A and C stated that when constructing buildings,
special building orientation factors were considered to reduce their energy consumptions.
Internal Shading Methods
Another important feature stated by many interviewees was that internal shading methods are used to
control solar radiation coming into office buildings. Most of the interviewees stated that they were using
curtains, blinds and tinted glasses in their building to control solar radiation. Interviewees D1 and
D2 stated that in the morning, the building is directly exposed to direct sunlight and that therefore in order
to control the solar radiation coming into the building, they install blinds at each floor. All of the
occupants in the building have the freedom to adjust internal shadings to suit their requirements.
Interviewee D1 stated that blinds were installed in some parts of the buildings to automatically adjust the
luminance level at each floor level. These types of blinds help in controlling the solar radiation coming
into the building.
HVAC System
All buildings had central air conditioning systems and several methods were being used to cool the inside
of the buildings. Except Case D, all other buildings used Air Handling Units (AHU) to cool and
dehumidify air at each floor. Case D used a fan coil unit at each level. The Variable Air Volume (VAV)
method is used to control the air floor volume in ducts especially in areas where occupancy loads could
vary considerably depending on the time of the day. The building in Case B did not have VAV installed
and a constant air flow rate was provided through the duct line in each of the floors at all times. Variable
Speed Drives (VSDs) had been successfully installed on fan and pump motors for a range of variable load
applications. According to interviewee C1, the use of variable speed drives has caused energy savings of
443
35 to 50% in comparison to conventional constant speed applications. All four buildings had VSDs
installed.
Lighting Systems
The types of lighting lamps presently used in the selected cases are fluorescent lamps, Halogen bulbs,
CFL bulbs and LED bulbs. Fluorescent lamps were being used in all four buildings. All the interviewees
stated that most of the office buildings still use fluorescent lamps. Halogen bulbs were used only in Case
B and Case C to light up the outdoor garden. LED lights were being used only in Case C and Case D.
To control lighting, several methods can be used such as manual handling and the use of sensors, timers
and building management systems. In most of the buildings, lights were controlled manually by the
occupants and workers themselves. Except Case B, all other buildings used timers to control lighting
systems. Every building under study used metering to measure the consumption of the HVAC system.
Table 3 shows the energy consumption of the HVAC systems during the past three months.
Table 3: Energy Consumption of the HVAC Systems
Energy Bill (kWh)
June
July
August
Average energy consumption by
HVAC
Number of square feet in the
building
KWh required to cool 1 square
foot of floor area
Case A
249429
260564
234954
248316
Case B
690208.4
693703.2
698194.4
694035.3
Case C
344516
327969
319846
330777
Case D
182325
187707
169420
179817
300930
598421
750000
179686
0.83
1.16
0.44
1.00
Case C needed only 0.44 kWh to cool one square foot of the building. When compared to other buildings,
it had the lowest energy consumption. Case A needed 0.83 kWh to cool one square foot of the building
which is the second lowest energy consumption. Case D and Case B required the highest amount of
energy to cool one square foot of their respective buildings. Case D required 1.00 kWh and Case B
required 1.16kWh.
4.4
ENERGY EFFICIENT STRATEGIES THAT WILL OPTIMIZE IEQ
Occupant survey and management interview findings were analysed to identify IEQ related problems and
the type of energy saving strategies currently practised in buildings. Results obtained by simple statistical
analysis and cross case analysis were compared to achieve more relevant data. Through this the final
objective of the research, the investigation of energy saving strategies that will optimize indoor
environmental quality in office buildings, was achieved. Figure 2 denotes the occupants perception of
IEQ in the four cases.
Figure 2: Occupants Perception of IEQ in the Four Cases
444
Case A has obtained an average of 4.1 for IEQ level satisfaction. This indicates that its occupants
perceive the quality of the indoor environment to be between the levels, good and very pleasing.
Occupants of the building in Case B had rated its IEQ with an average of 3.4 which falls between
moderate and good levels. Case C indoor environment conditions have been rated as 4.7, indicating that
its occupants are very pleased with the quality of the indoor environment. An average of 3.5 was achieved
by Case D regarding IEQ levels denoting that occupants perceive the IEQ to be between the levels of
moderate and good.
Figure 3: Distribution of Issues Caused by IEQ
Accordingly, issues related to the level of IEQ in each case were surveyed and apparently Case C had the
lowest probability of occurrence of issues that can be caused by a bad IEQ. Figure 3 depicts the
distribution of issues related to IEQ in the four cases.
The study investigated energy saving strategies used in four cases and calculated the energy consumed in
cooling a unit space in each of the four cases. Table 4 presents the findings.
Table 4: Energy Saving Strategies Used in the Four Cases
Cases
Case A
kWh
consumed
to cool 1
square
foot of the
floor area
0.83
Energy Savings Strategies

HVAC
Lighting
- Building Orientation
- Heat Gain Reduction Strategies
External Strategies
Tinted Glasses
Blind Walls
Internal Strategies
Curtains
Blinds
- Variable Air Volume
- Variable Speed Drives
- Chiller Optimizde Start
- Chilled Water Reset
445
Use of Lighting Types

Fluorescent Lamps
CFLs
Lights Switching Method
Manual
Sensors
Timers
IEQ
Perceived
by
Occupants
4.1
Case B
Case C
Case D
5.
1.16
0.44
1.00
Heat Gain Reduction Strategies

External Strategies
Tinted Glasses
Blind Walls
Internal Strategies
Curtains
Blinds
Variable Speed Drives
- Building Orientation
- External Strategies
Tinted Glasses
Blind Walls
- Internal Strategies
Curtains
Blinds
- Variable Air Volume
- Chiller Optimize Start
- Electrical Demand Limiting
- Chilled Water Reset
- Fan Cycling
- External Strategies
Tinted Glasses
Blind Walls
- Internal Strategies
Curtains
Blinds
Using Lighting Types

Fluorescent Lamps
Halogen Bulbs
Manual
3.4

Fluorescent Lamps
Halogen Bubs
LEDs
Manual
Sensors
Timers
4.7

Fluorescent Lamps
CFLs
LEDs
Manual
Sensors
Timers
3.5
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
With a growing number of hours being spent in built environments today, the indoor environmental
quality is becoming a major consideration among building occupants. In office buildings, energy is
mainly consumed for heating, cooling and lighting purposes. These activities are directly related to the
Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) indicators. Four objectives were formed to achieve the aim of the
study and as the research progressed, these objectives were achieved from literature and empirical studies.
This study evaluated IEQ issues that emerged in each case along with different energy performance
strategies employed in those buildings. It was found that in cases which were able to minimize the energy
consumption, it was also possible to provide its occupants with comfortable working conditions. Higher
energy consumptions were seen in cases which had been unable to provide a comfortable indoor
environment to their occupants. Proper building orientation, internal and external heat gain reduction
methods such as the use of tinted glass, blind walls, curtains and blinds, use of VAV, VSD in HVAC
systems, electrical demand limiting, chilled water resetting, fan cycling, use of energy efficient lamps
such as fluorescent lamps, Halogen bulbs and LEDs and the use of sensors to control lighting were
identified as successful strategies. The strategies identified can be applied depending on the nature of the
building and the status of its utilities. This makes it evident that the effectiveness of an energy
performance strategy of a building will depend on the inherent features of that respective building.
446
6.
REFERENCES
Abbaszadeh, S., Zagreus, L., Lehrer, D., and Huizenga, C., 2006. Occupant satisfaction with indoor environmental
quality in green buildings. In: Healthy Buildings. Lisbon 4-8 June 2006, 365-370.
Bluyssen, C., 2002. Indoor environment quality upgrade of european office buildings.Energy and Building, 34(2),
155 - 162.
Bluyssen, P., Aries, M., and Dommelen, P. V., 2011. Comfort of workers in office buildings: The European HOPE
project. Building and Environment, 46(1),211-288.
Bluyssen, P.M., 2011. Assessment of wellbeing in an indoor office environment. Building and Environment, 46(12),
26322640.
Brimblecombe, P., 2002. The great London smog and its immediate aftermath. In: T. Williamson, ed. Smog 50th
Anniversary, NSCA: Brighton, 182195.
Catalina, T., Virgone, J., and Iordache, V., 2011. Study on the impact of the building form on the energy
consumption. In: 12th Conference of International Building Performance Simulation Association, Sydney 14-16
November 2011. Sydney: International Building Performance Simulation Association. 1726-1729.
Frontczak, M., Andersen, R. V., and Wargocki, P., 2012. Questionnaire survey on factors influencing comfort with
indoor environmental quality in Danish housing, Building and Environment, 50, 56-64.
Gensler, 2005. These four walls: the real British office. London: Gensler.
Hapurne, T.M., Baran, I. and Bliuc, I., 2012. Total performance - useful tool to measure quality of buildings.
Buletinul Institutului Politehnic din Iai, 58(62), 147-156.
Jayamaha, L., 2006. Energy Efficient building systems: Green Strategies for Operation and Maintence. United
States of America: McGraw-Hill Companies.
Joseph, H. L., and Francis , Y. W., 2007. Perceived Importance of the Quality of the Indoor Environment in
Commercial Buildings. Indoor and Build Environment, 16(4).11-321.
Kumar, S. and Fisk, W.J., 2002. IEQ and the impact on building occupants. ASHRAE Journal, 44(4),50-52.
Landsberg, D. R., Lord, M. R., Carlson, S., and Goldner, F. S., 2009. Energy Efficiency Guide for existing
Commercial Buildings: The Business Case For Building Owners and Managers. United States of America: W.
Stephen Comstock.
Lee, S.Y. and Brand, J.L., 2005. Effects of control over office workspace on perceptions of the work environment
and work outcomes, Journal of Environmental Psychology, 25(3), 32333.
Levin, H. and Emmerich, S.J., 2013. Dissecting interactions among IEQ factors, ASHRAE Journal, 34(2), 66 - 76.
Mahbob, N. S., Kamaruzzaman, S. N., Salleh, N., and Sulaiman, R., 2011. A correlation studies of indoor
environmental quality (IEQ) towards productive workplace. In : 2nd International Conference on
Environmental Science and Technology, Singapore 26th to 28th February 2011. University malaya: IACSIT
Press, 434-438.
Ncube, M. and Riffat, S., 2012. Developing an indoor environment quality tool for assessment of mechanically
ventilated office buildings in the UK A preliminary study. Building and Environment, 53, 2633.
Prakash, P., 2005. Effect of indoor environmental quality on occupant's perception of performance - a comparative
study, Thesis (MSc). University of Florida.
Quanga, T.N., Hea, C., Knibbsc, L.D., De Deard, R., and Morawska, L., 2014. Co-optimisation of indoor
environmental quality and energy consumption with in the urban office building, Energy and Buildings, 85,
225-234.
Santamouris, D., 2002. Passive retrofitting of office buildings to improve their energy performance and indoor
environment: the office project, Building and Environment, 37(6), 575-578.
Singh, J., 1996. Health, Comfort and Productivity in the Indoor Environment. Indoor and Built Environment, 5(1),
22-33.
Wolkoff, P., 2012. Indoor air pollutants in office environments: Assessment of comfort, health and performance,
International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health, 216(4), 371-94.
Yin, R. K., 2009. Case study research: Design and methods. 4th ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
447
STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT IN ROAD CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS

IN SRI LANKA: A CONTRACTOR PERSPECTIVE
K.H.N.P. Jayathissa, Aparna Samaraweera* and K.A.T.O. Ranadewa
ABSTRACT
Possessing rights and abilities to influence the project activities, project stakeholders have become a
major source of uncertainty in construction projects. Road construction projects are associated with
such a varied range of stakeholders and it is necessary to recognize and manage them properly to
complete projects successfully. Being in constant interactions with many of the project stakeholders
daily within the project lifecycle, contractor requires a proper management of stakeholders from their
standpoint. Thus, this research intends to analyse the power (importance level of impact) and interest
(influence probability of those impacts) of stakeholders in road construction projects and recommend
suitable strategies to manage them. This aim was approached through a quantitative research
methodology using a questionnaire survey including a random sample of 43 contractors personnel
from different construction projects in Sri Lanka. The research findings revealed that client,
consultant, government authorities, funding bodies and subcontractors are imposing a high level of
impact on project decisions and are with a high probability of having an impact on project decisions.
Thereby, contactors suggest adaptation and compromising strategy to manage those stakeholders.
Further, suppliers, environmental pressure groups and general public are unable to impose a high
level of impact on project decisions but they are with a high probability of bringing in some sort of
impact on project decisions. Thus, contractors suggest compromising and influence strategy to
manage them. Finally, a matrix developed incorporating the aforementioned findings would serve as a
guideline for contractors to manage stakeholders in road construction projects in Sri Lanka.
Keywords:
1.
Interest; Power; Road Construction; Stakeholder Management.
INTRODUCTION
A construction project is a complex process of planning and managing array of activities which project
management requires to be focused. Therefore, many stakeholders, who involve in numerous ways bring
in different types of influences in different levels for the project operations (Atkin and Skitmore, 2008).
Hence, the stakeholders play a major role in the successful accomplishment of the project objectives due
to the decisions and actions that are taken by them (Karlsen, 2002). Often, each and every stakeholder has
different stakes or interests and their engagement itself cause conflicts of interests (Chinyio and
Olomolaiye, 2010). Therefore, the project management needs to manage them towards success of the
project according to their individual needs and concerns (Olander and Landin, 2005). Thereby, the
concept of stakeholder management has been established to clearly identifying the project stakeholders,
their potential impact on project as well as for implementing appropriate strategies (Bourne and Walker,
2005).
The stakeholders of the construction industry are more complex compared to other industries due to
participation of a large number of stakeholders such as client, consultants, contractors and regulators to
name some (Bourne and Walker, 2005). Generally, there is a high probability to arise disagreements
between the parties which can adversely affect to project management and delivery of the project within
the time, budget and expected quality. According to Assefa et al. (2015) these disagreements leading to
number of claim situations occur in construction projects due to improper identification and management
of the project stakeholders. Olander and Landin (2005) also mention that the construction industry
*
448
worldwide has a poor record of Stakeholder Management during the past decades. Elmualim (2010)
highlight that with the direct involvement of relationships and power structures, culture in different levels
(national, organisational and individual) has a direct influence on stakeholder management in
construction. Thereby, a contention could be brought in that localised understanding of stakeholders is
essential in proper stakeholder management. Hence, there is a need to investigate stakeholder
management in Sri Lankan construction industry for the purpose of developing better stakeholder
management practices in that local context. Thus, the aim of this research is to analyse the stakeholder
management in road construction projects in Sri Lanka.
This paper is structured in five sections. Initially, the concept of stakeholder management in construction
industry is explained highlighting the three steps in stakeholder management process. Next, the research
methodology adopted is described following the elaborations on research findings proposing a matrix for
stakeholder management in road construction projects in Sri Lankan context. Finally, the conclusions
have been drawn.
2.
THE CONCEPT OF STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT IN CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY
A stake is an interest and a stakeholder is an individual with a stake (Weiss, 2006). The most commonly
used and widely accepted definition of a stakeholder in organisational context by Freeman (1984) states
that any individual or group who is affected by or can affect the achievement of an organizations
objectives is identified as a stakeholder. Newcombe (2003, p.15) has defined stakeholders in a project
context as individuals or organizations who are involved in a project, or whose interests may be
positively or negatively affected to project execution and successful project completion. Construction
projects are often complex and large which consist of individuals and groups with different stakes. As
number of stakeholders involved increase, the project can dramatically increase uncertainty of the
situation (Freeman and McVea, 2001). Accordingly, the stakeholders contribution is very essential for
successful completion of a project. As the project stakeholders have different stakes which impact
positively and negatively on project, the concept of stakeholder management has been built up to manage
the relationships for the project success (Chinyio and Olomolaiye, 2010). According Rawlinson et al.
(2008), stakeholder management is to maximize positive influences and minimize negative influences of
stakeholders, by implementing project strategies.
2.1.
STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT PROCESS
Researchers such as Olander (2006); Jepsen and Eskerod (2009); Walker et al. (2008); Kalsen (2002)
have described many frameworks for project stakeholder management processes. However, out of all
these models, Olanders (2006) model, which consists the management functions seems the most popular
and heavily referred by recent researchers. The seven steps of the stakeholder management model by
Olander (2006) include; identification of stakeholders, gathering information, identification of mission of
the stakeholders, determining strengths and weaknesses, identification of stakeholder strategy, prediction
of stakeholder behavior, implementing stakeholder management strategy. When all these project
stakeholder management processes are analysed, it can be identified that all authors have basically given
their concern on the three steps; identifying stakeholders, prioritizing stakeholders and implementing
strategies. Following subsections include elaborations of these three basic steps.
2.1.1.
IDENTIFYING THE STAKEHOLDERS
Generally, a stakeholder can be recognized from their contribution to the project such as being the source
of finance or fund, personnel or material and impact in either action or inaction to the project. Bourne and
Walker (2006) recommended identification of project stakeholders was based on their stakes such as;
interest, rights, ownership, knowledge, impact or influence and contribution.
As stakeholders influence to a construction projects in various ways, the project managers should
understand the attributes of stakeholders to determine how those affect to the project performance.
Number of authors have described that the stakeholders attributes can be recognized as a leading
assessment factors for analysing the stakeholders impact for the project as described in Table 1.
449
Table 1: Stakeholders Attributes

Attributes
Attitude
Description
Attitudes of stakeholders can be recognized as the capability and eagerness to
corporate or else intimidate the project (Savage et al., 1991). In the opinion of
McElroy and Mills (2000), stakeholder attitude decides upon to whether to
contribute or to go against the project.
Interest
Olander and Landin (2005) state that stakeholders can be identified as a sector
under a proposed project who persuade in the execution of construction in order to
safeguard their personal interest. According to Yang et al., (2009); Freeman et al.
(2007) it is vital to identify the stakeholders interest as they can be varied due to
the complexity of the project in the fields of product safety, reliability on financial
reporting new product services and financial returns.
Collaboration/conflict
among stakeholders
Involvement of stakeholders internally (directly) or externally (indirectly) or in

both ways could results in conflicts in a construction project. The difference of
indirect stakeholders has results in the difficulty of resolving their conflicts with
regard to the defect in establishing procedures to work incorporate with them
(Weaver and Bourne, 2002).
Power
Power can be defined as an individual or group which might enduringly alter or

end the project or any other work. Further, power is considered as a foremost
driver of the dealings between manger and stakeholders (Mitchell et al., 1997)
Legitimacy
According to Freeman et al. (2007), the legitimacy can be identified as a

requirement to accomplish dealings among the stakeholders. In addition to that
Mitchell et al. (1997) specify that according to various researchers, stakeholders
have legal interactions with the project due to contracts, legal rights and ethics.
Urgency
The extent that stakeholder declare for an instantaneous notice can be explained as
urgency (Mitchell et al., 1997). Stakeholders attributes can be decided upon the
scope to which they persuade the project manager by means of urgent actions.
Influence
Olander (2007) states that the project stakeholders influence the process of project
managers. Further, he describes in order to plan and execute a sufficiently rigorous
stakeholder management process, identification of the influence of stakeholders is
essential. In order to evaluate possible impact of stakeholders, level of influence
assist to understanding effect of different stakeholders in impact and nature of
influence in a project.
2.1.2.
PRIORITIZING THE STAKEHOLDERS
Once identifying the stakeholders attributes, it is necessary to prioritize them to determine their likely
impact on the project. Therefore, many authors have got effort to priorities project stakeholders in many
ways. Olander and Landin (2005); Winch (2010) have mapped the stakeholders involved in several stages
of construction projects and they have prioritized the stakeholders by using power and interest matrix.
Further, Newcombe (2003) has proposed two methods of grouping each stakeholder who is likely to
enforce its expectation on the project and who has the means to do so based on the power possess. The
two methods are power/predictability matrix and the power/interest matrix. Nguyen et al. (2009); Olander
(2006) have argued that these methods lead to certain problems in conducting an external stakeholder
analysis, thus, the relative levels of power and interest need to be evaluated on a finer scale than one of
high or low. For an example, although one has power or one has an interest, it is hard to assess each
stakeholder on a scale. Therefore, Olander (2007) proposes impact/probability matrix as depicted in
Figure 1.
Nguyen et al., (2009); Bourne and Walker (2005) have further developed the concept of probability of
impact and level of impact as vested interest levels and influence impact levels by considering
stakeholders impact level of each attributes of stakeholders as indicated in Figure 2.
450
According to this latest technique, the project stakeholders have been analysed based on their importance
level and the influence level for the project. Further, Nguyen et al. (2009) indicate;
Importance level of impact of the stakeholder = total impact level of each attributes
Keep satisfied
Key player
Minimal effort
Keep informed
Level of
Impact
Probability of Impact
Figure 1: Impact/Probability Matrix
Source: Olander (2007)
ImportanceLevel of Impact
Keep satisfied
Key player
Interest protected
Maintain good relationship
(Involve)
(Collaborate)
Keep informed
Minimal effort
Monitor
(Inform)
(Consult)
Influence-Probability of Impact
Figure 2: Importance vs. Influence Probability of Impact
Source: Chinyio and Olomolaiye (2010)
Further, Bourne and Walker (2005) indicate;

Influence probability of impact = level of influence of the stakeholder
Chinyio and Olomolaiye (2010) in their studies related to construction projects reveal that the client,
consultant, donor and contractor are considered as the key players of the project. Further, these
stakeholders have been mapped as high level of importance as well as high level of influence. Moreover,
the stakeholders like beneficiaries, government and non-government organisations are considered as high
importance and low influence level for the project. However, general public belongs to both low position
as their studies. Thus, these two scales within a matrix can be adapted to analyse the stakeholders in Sri
Lankan road construction projects.
2.1.3.
IMPLEMENTING STRATEGIES
The project management needs strategies in dealing with different types of stakeholders. Chinyio and
Olomolaiye (2010) describe four levels of stakeholders engagement and explained four strategies:
inform, consult, involve, and collaborate for each type of engagement to deal with them. Further,
Aaltonen and Sivonen (2009) state that there are various ways to deal with the stakeholders pressure and
they propose five basic strategic responses as described in Table 2.
451
Table 2: Implementing Strategies

Strategy
Adaptation strategy
Definition
Obeying the demands and rules that are presented by stakeholders. It is considered
that in order to cope with the demands and to achieve the objectives of the project
it is better to adjust to the external stakeholder pressures.
Compromising strategy
Negotiating with the stakeholders, listening to their claims related to the project
and offering possibilities and arenas for dialogues. Making reconciliations and
offering compensation. Opening the project to the stakeholders.
Avoidance strategy
Loosening attachments to stakeholders and their claims in order to guard and

shield oneself against the claims. Transferring the responsibility of responding to
the claims to another actor in the project network.
Dismissal strategy
Ignoring the presented demands of stakeholders. Not taking into account the
stakeholder related pressures and their requirements in the project execution.
Influence strategy
Shaping proactively the values and demands of stakeholders. Sharing actively

information and building relationship with stakeholders.
Once identified and prioritized the category of the stakeholders, the five strategic responses which have
been identified by Aaltonen and Sivonen (2009) can be applied to manage the project stakeholders. Next,
the methodology adapted for the research is explained.
3.
Considering the type of Research Questions (RQ) to be answered in this research including what
questions (RQ-1. What is the importance-level of impact of each project stakeholder?, RQ-2. What is the
influence-probability of impact of each project stakeholder? RQ-3. What is the appropriate stakeholder
management strategy for each stakeholder?), survey method was selected as the research strategy.
Initially, three semi-structured interviews were conducted with the participation of three managing
directors of three construction contracting firms (interviewees A,B,C) to find the applicability of the
literature findings to Sri Lankan construction industry: the concept of stakeholder management, the
process of stakeholder management, determining attributes of stakeholders which impact to the project
and the strategies manage the stakeholders. The professionals were selected mainly based on their
experience of more than 20 years within the construction industry. The software program NVivo
(NUD*IST Vivo Version 7.0.281.0) produced by QSR (Qualitative Solutions and Research Ltd.) for
coding function during data analysis for the semi-structured interviews.
Next, the questionnaire survey was conducted to collect data on the stakeholders importance-level of
impact, influence-probability of impact and the most recommend strategies to manage them. Random
sampling technique was adopted to select a sample of 60 contractors personnel in Sri Lankan road
construction industry including construction managers, site managers, project quantity surveyors and civil
engineers to name some.
Relative Importance Index (RII) was used to rank the stakeholders according to impact level of each
attribute during data analysis. Accordingly, respondents were requested to rate the level of impact for
each stakeholders attribute and the probability level of influence for the project. Five point Likert scale
was provided to obtain aforesaid ratings. Initially, the mean of each attribute was calculated to deliver an
indication of the Importance level of impact and Probability level of influence.
The mean value indicates the impact level of each stakeholders attribute. Finally, total importance level
of impact of each stakeholder was calculated by taking average of all the mean values calculated for all
attributes (refer Eq:01).
Ma = M1+M2+M3+M4+M5+M6+M7+M8 ... (Nguyen et al., 2009)
m
452
(Eq: 01)
Where,
Ma = average mean value of the stakeholder (importance level of impact)
M1, M2, M3, M4, M5, M6, M7, M8= mean values of the attributes
m= number of attributes
As per the purpose of prioritising the stakeholders, the mean value of the attribute influence was
separately used as the influence-probability of impact.
Further, the mean values calculated were validated by using the standard deviation. Finally, the
Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA) was used as the mapping tool to map and prioritize stakeholders
to the importance/influence matrix. Final step of data collection was to identify the implementing
strategies to manage stakeholders. Through the literature, five numbers of strategies were identified as the
suitable strategies. In the data analysis, the most suitable strategy for particular stakeholder was identified,
based on the recommendation of majority of the respondents i.e. the mode value of each strategy
recommended by the respondents. Research findings are presented in the subsequent section.
4.
RESEARCH FINDINGS
The preliminary semi-structured interviews allowed to refine the list of most popular stakeholders in road
construction projects including; client, consultant, sub-contractors, suppliers, government authorities,
general public, insurance companies, media, environment pressure groups and funding bodies. As per the
interviewees A and C, often the client and the consultant of grade B type road construction projects is the
Road Development Authority (RDA) and grade A roads and highway construction involve a consultant
from an external organisation. Further all the interviewees described the beneficiaries of a road
construction project is the general public. Moreover, interviewee A specially pointed out that funding
bodies of most of the road construction projects are foreign organizations such as (Japan International
Cooperation Agency (JAIKA), United Nation (UN), and Asian Development Bank (ADB) to name some.
Further, both interviewees B and C described environment pressure groups can often be identified as a
community representatives in the road construction projects.
The list of attributes of stakeholders which were identified in the literature synthesis (attitude, interest,
power, collaboration/conflict among stakeholders, legitimacy, urgency, influence) were accepted by all
interviewees. As per interviewee B, relationship of the stakeholder also affects to the project operations.
Further, stakeholders relationships with the main contractor such as contractual/non-contractual, long
term/short term etc. depend on managing the stakeholder. Interviewee C pointed out knowledge of the
stakeholder also affect to the project performance. This knowledge can be related to specialized
construction knowledge, new technologies etc. Moreover, if a particular stakeholder aware about his/her
importance to the project, he/she can tend to demand his/her value for the project. Therefore, the
stakeholders knowledge level needs to be assessed during stakeholder management. Thus, the two new
attributes; relationships and knowledge were added to the list of attributes identified from literature
review.
The stakeholder management strategies, which were identified in the literature synthesis were accepted by
all interviewees as required to manage stakeholders in road construction projects in Sri Lanka.
Interviewees A and B pointed out adaptation strategy has to be considered when the present demand of
the stakeholder cannot be disregarded or controlled by the contractor other than obeying the same. As per
the interviewee C, the compromising strategy is more useful to retain the stakeholders within the industry.
Further, interviewee pointed out there is cooperate social responsibility to strengthen the stakeholders
within the industry. Interviewee A stated that avoidance and influence strategies more useful for resolving
conflicts among stakeholders automatically with the time. As per the interviewee B, the dismissal strategy
has to be taken when any stakeholder continuously act an adversarial role (unfair business approaches and
discourage the project operations) and his/her absence may not highly affect to the project objectives
(time, cost and quality).
Questionnaire survey was carried out to analyse the impact level of each attribute of the project
stakeholders identified and recommend strategies to manage them.
453
Total number of questionnaires distributed was 60 and only 43 responses were gained with a response
rate of 72%. The working experience of most of the respondents was fallen between to five to ten years.
According to the results of the calculations of average mean values, the selected stakeholders were
mapped by using IPA grid as shown in Figure 3. The IPA matrix contains four categories of quadrants;
A - high importance level of impact/low influence probability of impact, B - high importance level of
impact/high influence probability of impact, C - low importance level of impact/high influence
probability of impact, D - low importance level of impact/low influence probability of impact. The
stakeholder management strategies suggested by the respondents have also been indicated for each
quadrant. Although five strategies were found through literature, contractors prefer using four of them to
manage the stakeholders. The adaptation strategy, avoid strategy, compromising strategy, influence
strategy were accepted by the most of respondents, thereby dismissal strategy happened to be dropped
from the matrix. Detail explanations of research findings for each quadrant is as follows:
Quadrant A
After mapping the selected stakeholders, it was apparent that no stakeholder is belonged to quadrant A.
Therefore, in Sri Lankan road construction context, most of the stakeholders who have high importance
level of impact, are also seem to be having high influence probability of impact.
Quadrant B
As per the contractor perspective, quadrant B is consisted of client, consultant, funding bodies,
government authorities and sub-contractor, who have a high importance and high influence on road
construction projects. According to Chinyio and Olomolaiye (2010), only client, consultant, funding
bodies and contractor have been considered as the key players who have high importance level and high
influence level. As per this research findings, sub-contractor and government authorities have also been
considered as stakeholders who have high influence level and high importance level for road construction
projects in Sri Lankan context from the contractors perspective. As the quadrant B includes key players
of the project, contractor is required to pay high attention for those stakeholders. This can be because,
client, consultant and funding bodies are the stakeholders who have the finance, needs and knowledge to
implement the project and who expect required quality, minimum cost and on time completion of project
from the main contractor. According to the responses received from contractors personnel, either
adaptation or compromising strategy was more suitable for managing the stakeholder relevant for this
quadrant.
Quadrant C
According to the mapping, quadrant C consists with general public, suppliers and environment pressure
groups who have low importance and high influence for the project. From contractors perspective, these
stakeholders could be less important but they have high influence in road construction context because
often the general public and environment authorities tend to disrupt the construction massively. This may
be because general public and the environment are continuously exposed to disturbances due to road
construction activities.
According to the Chinyio and Olomolaiye (2010), general public in construction context have been
positioned as low importance and low influence category. However, according to the road construction
projects in Sri Lankan context, aforementioned literature finding is contradictory making general public
tend to be highly influential to project activities although not considered as important. As per the survey
findings, the most suitable strategy to manage stakeholders of road construction projects belonging to
quadrant C is either using compromising or influence strategies.
454
5
Client
Importance level of impact
Adaptation or
compromising strategy
B
Governt authorities
Consultant
Funding bodies
Client
Consultant
Sub-contractors
Sub-contractors
Suppliers
Environment p.g.
General public
Suppliers
Media
Environment p.g.
Media
Funding bodies
Governt authorities
General public
Insurance companies
Avoidance or influence
strategy
Insurance companies
Compromising or
influence strategy
1
1.00
3.00
Influence probability of impact
5.00
Figure 3: Proposed Matrix for Stakeholder Management in Road Construction Projects
Quadrant D
The stakeholders in this quadrant are media and insurance companies, who have low influence level and
low importance level for road construction projects. The media often creates adversarial situations and
however, the contractors point of view they have less ability to influence a road construction project.
Although, the involvement of insurance companies is mandatory to transfer many risks of road
construction projects, the insurance companies hold comparatively low importance level within the
project from the contractors perspective. Avoidance or influence strategies have been identified the most
suitable to be used in managing stakeholders in quadrant D. Next, the conclusions drawn from the
research is discussed.
5.
CONCLUSION
This research aimed to analyse the stakeholder management in road construction projects in Sri Lankan
context. The initial step of stakeholder management process included identifying the stakeholders. The
most popular stakeholders in road construction projects were identified as; client, consultant, subcontractors, suppliers, government authorities, general public, insurance companies, media, environment
pressure groups and funding bodies. The next step of the stakeholder management is prioritizing the
stakeholders. Eight number of stakeholder attributes were identified as visible with stakeholders in road
455
construction projects. These include; attitude, interest, power, collaboration/conflict among stakeholders,
legitimacy, urgency, influence, relationship and knowledge. Although many authors have used different
techniques to prioritise the project stakeholders, the importance/influence analysis technique was
identified as the most appropriate one which considers the all attributes in prioritizing process. The
prioritising technique is consisted with two scales as importance level of impact and influence
probability of impact.
According to the prioritization of stakeholders in road construction projects in Sri Lanka, the client,
consultant, funding bodies, government authorities and sub-contractors held high impact level of
importance and high influence probability of impact. These stakeholders were identified as the key
players in road construction projects in Sri Lankan context. The general public, environment pressure
groups and suppliers were belonged to low importance level of impact and high influence level of impact.
In addition, media and insurance companies were belonged both low importance level of impact and low
influence probability of impact.
The final step of stakeholder analysis consisted of identifying implementing strategies to manage
stakeholders. From contractors perspective, either adaptation or compromising strategy was more
suitable for managing the client, consultant, funding bodies, government authorities and sub-contractors.
General public, environment pressure groups and suppliers were suggested to be managed either using
compromising or influence strategies. Further, media and insurance were suggested to be managed using
avoidance or influence strategies. Dismissal was not regarded as suitable strategy to manage stakeholders
in road construction projects from contractors perspective.
Therefore, the proposed matrix in Figure 3 can be used as a guideline to assist the contractors in
managing the stakeholder effectively in Sri Lankan road construction projects.
6.
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STRATEGIC APPROACH TO ENSURE PROCESS SAFETY IN APPAREL

MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY USING TOTAL PRODUCTIVE
MAINTENANCE (TPM)
H.W.S.N. Denipitiya*, Nayanthara De Silva, S.D.A. Soorige and H.W.N. Madhusanka
ABSTRACT
Accidents in the apparel manufacturing process lead to huge monetary and productivity loses. Total
Productive Maintenance (TPM) can be identified as a rapidly spreading process improvement tool
which is targeting zero defects, zero breakdowns and zero accidents. The aim of this research was to
explore the suitability of TPM to ensure Process Safety (PS) in the apparel industry. An extensive
literature review was carried out to identify process safety, process accidents and relationship between
process safety TPM in the apparel industry. Accordingly set of accidents and existing Occupational
Safety and Health (OSH) practices were identified in the apparel manufacturing process.
Both qualitative and quantitative approaches were used for the effective fulfilment of research aim.
During first phase of data collection questionnaire survey and document survey were carried out with
support of OSH experts to gather knowledge regarding process related accidents. Second phase of
data collection was conducted using semi structured interviews and observations to identify TPM
approaches used to enhance the PS in apparel manufacturing process.
Findings of the study revealed that implementing TPM led to improve the process safety in the apparel
manufacturing process up to some extent. But 90% of the identified TPM approaches focused to ensure
the production and quality systems. Therefore, process safety was not adequately addressed by
identified TPM approaches in both cases. Hence after implementing TPM, still there were accidents in
the apparel manufacturing process. Since the research highlighted the importance of paying adequate
attention to process safety when implementing TPM otherwise achieving zero accidents remains as a
challenge.
Keywords:
1.
Apparel Manufacturing Process; Process Safety (PS); Total Productive Maintenance

(TPM); Safety Health and Environment (SHE).
INTRODUCTION
Apparel industry in Si Lanka acts as the major contributor in Sri Lankan economy among the other
different types of manufacturing industries and exports garments to many leading buyers in the world.
Quality of garments manufactured in the country is a key contributor to retain in the international market.
Therefore, it is vital to maintain the quality of the garments along with the productivity (Kapuge and
Smith, 2007). There are different mechanisms available to improve the product quality and the
productivity of the process and among that Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) can be identified as one
of the key contributor.
TPM is a resource based management tool which directly influences to the worker-subsystem and
machine-subsystem in the manufacturing process (McKone et al., 2001). The core TPM initiatives can be
classified into eight TPM pillars or activities to accomplish the manufacturing performance improvements
which includes Autonomous Maintenance, Focused Maintenance, Planned Maintenance, Quality
Maintenance, Education and Training, Office TPM, Early Management and Safety Health and
Environment (SHE) (Ahuja and Khamba, 2008). Considering the different pillars of the TPM SHE pillar
directly relates to improve the process safety by minimising the accidents.
*
458
SHE pillar focuses on creating a safe workplace and a surrounding area that is not damaged by production
process or procedures. This pillar plays an active role integrating each of the other pillars on a regular
basis. SHE pillar targets are zero accident, zero health damage, and zero fires (Wakjira and Singh, 2012).
Apparel manufacturing industry is more labour intensive and therefore, number of potential accidents are
higher in the process. According to a research done by Calvin and Joseph (2006) physical, chemical,
biological and ergonomics hazards are the major hazards allied with the apparel industry. Both minor and
major, accidents are frequently occurred in the apparel industry and minor accidents include falls, cutting
and bruising, major accidents include fingers can get caught in the machines, puncture, incise wound,
blunt injury, pinch points, amputation and injuries due to chemical splashes (Basso et al.,2004).
Further, in an analysis of process accidents in Sri Lanka by Gunasekara and De Alwis (2008), categorise
the stage of accident taken place as processing, loading/unloading, maintenance/repair, transportation
(onsite/offsite), storage and unknown. Among these stages most of the accidents occur, due to human
failures and technical failures, occurred during the manufacturing process. Since the apparel industry is
highly labour intensive, the risk is applicable to the industry up to a greater extent. In mitigating such
accidental risk various standards are implemented, such as Occupational Safety and Health Assessment
System (OHSAS) 18001, Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI), Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production
(WRAP), CT-PAT, other international safety standards and buyers standards.
Even though such standards, audit systems, precautionary methods and commitment exist still workplace
accidents are often occurred in apparel industry. Therefore, the need has risen to improve the occupational
safety and health. TPM can be identified as a tool to improve the processes and also it can be applied to
improve the process safety of the apparel industry. According to Gunasekara and De Alwis (2008) also
the stage where the accidental risk is higher also during the manufacturing process/stage. Therefore, to
improve the process safety TPM can be applied specially concerning the SHE pillar. Based on the factors
the research problem was how TPM can ensure the process safety in apparel manufacturing. The research
was aimed to explore the suitability of TPM to ensure Process Safety in the apparel industry and to
achieve such aim, following objectives were set.
2.
Identify process related accidents in apparel industry
Review the approach of promoting TPM to ensure process safety
Evaluate the reduction in process accidents by implementing TPM
According to Howard (1993), apparel manufacturing is an assembly oriented production process with a
great range of raw materials, product types, production volumes, supply chains, retail markets and
associated technologies. Production process of apparel manufacturing includes number of functions such
as cutting, sewing, quality checking, washing, finishing, inspection and packing (Park-Poaps, 2009).
In the production process proper safety precautions should be taken to minimise or eliminate the
accidents. According to Langerman (2015), process safety can be achieved in several ways such as proper
designing, engineering techniques and operating and maintenance practices. Process safety leads to
prevent and control the events with potential to create hazardous activity. When it comes to the Sri
Lankan context Ministry of Health estimates that nearly 15% of the total admissions due to injuries at the
Colombo National Hospital in 2011 were work-related (Madurawala, 2015). Therefore, the process safety
has become a factor to be considered by the organizations.
2.1.
PROCESS RELATED ACCIDENTS
On the other hand, in Sri Lankan context, compensation paid by employers to the victims of work related
accidents in 2007 is Rs.65,417,100.00 and in 2012 is Rs.77,119,389.57 (Central Bank of Sri Lanka and
Ministry of Labour and Labour Relations, 2009; Central Bank of Sri Lanka and Ministry of Labour and
Labour Relations, 2012). Nevertheless, these amounts are only in respect of cases notified to the
Commissioner for Workmens compensation. However the total cost of occupational injuries mainly
459
consists of non-financial human costs, costs of the lost production, medical costs, compensation for lost
wages, production disturbance and administrative and legal overheads and it is not only the employers,
workers and the governments who bear the costs of occupational injuries and diseases (Rao, 2007).
In cutting and sewing processes there are different types of machines used and some are used to knit and
weave, sew or cut patterns and cloth, some press or steam, and others transport apparel pieces on the
factory floor (Czarnecki, 2000). These large number of different machines can cause major accidents,
such as puncture, incise wound, blunt injury, pinch points, and amputation (Aneziris et al., 2013).
2.2.
SIGNIFICANCE OF TPM FOR PROCESS SAFETY
TPM which is an equipment management approach and the methodical application of maintenance
interact all workers company wide, allowing organisations to accomplish their objectives of zero
breakdowns, zero defects and zero accidents (Nakajima, 1989). In other words, according to Poduval et
al. (2013), the passion of TPM is incorporated in the three words. Total means the whole workforce
from top management to the machine operator, Productive means how to get greater excellence work
out of employees and finally, Maintenance is the encouragement of sense of possession in operators.
Safety, Health and Environment (SHE) is the last TPM pillar and carryout a procedure to initiative in the
direction of the accomplishment of zero accidents (Tsang and Chan, 2000). Even though made known as
the last pillar of TPM, the TPM Safety and Environmental pillar is in the same way, if not more, vital
than the seven other pillars (Wireman, 2004). The application of SHE approaches take place during the
TPM setting out process and SHE activities are at no time complete (Ahuja and Kumar, 2009).
SHE pillar initiatives aim to reactively remove the root causes of occurrences that have happened, to
avoid reoccurrence, and proactively decrease the risk of future probable occurrences by aiming near
misses and potential hazards (Cooke, 2000).
Suzuki (1994), delivers illustrations of how TPM expands safety and environmental protection,
Defective or unreliable equipment is a source of danger to the operator and the environment. The
TPM objective of Zero-failure and Zero-defects directly supports Zero-accidents.
Autonomous Maintenance teaches equipment operators how to properly operate equipment and
maintain a clean and organized workstation. 5S activity eliminates unsafe conditions in the work
area.
TPM-trained operators have a better understanding of their equipment and processes and are able
to quickly detect and resolve abnormalities that might result in unsafe conditions.
The immediate benefits of implementing the SHE pillar are to prevent reoccurrence of lost time accidents
and reduce the number of minor accidents as well as preventing environmental system failure. This has a
direct financial saving in the cost of containment, investigation and compensation as well as reputational
impact (Sharma et al., 2006).
3.
Initially, an extensive literature review was conducted to primarily identify the importance of apparel
sector to Sri Lanka, occupational safety and health issues in apparel sector and TPM concept. Then data
collected through two phases.
Phase I was used to validate the accidents determined through the literature survey. Two professionals
were contributed to the survey to specifically identify the process related accidents in apparel sector. The
professionals were selected mainly based on their experience, rank and responsibilities within the
department. All the respondents had experience in the department for more than 2 years. Twelve
identified accidents were presented for the phase I data collection to search for actually existing process
related accidents. Additionally, document surveys were conducted to collect the numerical values
regarding accidents occurred before and after implementing TPM. Further, respondents were requested to
recommend some additional accidents that take place in their premises which was not identified in the
460
literature review. Final Interview guideline was developed with the findings of literature review and phase
I data collection. The Interview guideline was consisted with accidents identified in literature review and
phase I data collection. Phase II data collection was done to identify TPM process improvements which
ensure the process safety in apparel manufacturing process. TPM pillars and accident root causes were
presented to find most appropriate TPM technique to avoid those accidents. Respondents are requested to
give their recommendations in line with the implemented techniques and as well as from theoretical
background.
Multiple case study approach was identified as a suitable method because TPM implementation in
process wise and plant wise different to each other. Therefore, two case studies were selected considering
the number of years plant occupied, number of employees and number of phases of TPM implemented.
Hence all plants were occupied more than 10 years in industry. Furthermore 1,000 exceeds employees
were working daily in selected plants. For an example 1,750 direct employees were engaged in the
production lines of case study A. With all the other departments it will be 2,200 total employees in case
study A. In the same way all plants were in second phase of the TPM implementation. It means they have
done TPM implementation to production process and support services also. Therefore, it was easy to
gather data which relevant to achieve the aim and objectives
Data analysis was carried out as statistical analysis and content analysis. Accordingly, in the statistical
analysis significant accidents were identified by using the number of occurrences and lost time creation
due to the accidents. Lost time was measured by using man-days. In addition, three equations were used
to compare, the number of occurrences and lost man-days produce, before and after TPM implementation,
namely annual man days lost rate, standardised lost man days per employee and rate of reduction in
annual man days lost rate. Annual man days lost rate was calculated using the following formula:
Annual man days lost rate =
(Eq: 01)
Where, lt = Lost time, w = Number of workers, d = Number of working days per year, i = Particular
accident and n = Annual number of occurrences in particular accident.
Annual man-days lost rate represent ratio between lost man-days due to particular accidents to total
number of man-days per year. Hence, identified annual lost rate of particular accidents separately.
Furthermore, most lost man days created accidents were identified and included to the semi structured
interview and then expert opinions were gartered for the same.
Standardised lost man-days per employee calculated using the following formula,
Standardised lost man days per employee =
(Eq: 02)
Where, lt = lost time, i = accident type and w = number of workers.

Standardised lost man days per employee represents ratio between lost man days due to particular
accidents to total number of employees. The standardised lost man days per employee was calculated
separately for each and every accident, which helped to further identify the accidents which had most
impact to the productivity of the organization. Moreover, accident comparison between before and after
implementation of TPM could be done using figures from these equations.
Rate of reduction in annual man days lost rate calculated using following formula,
100%
Rate of reduction in annual lost rate =
(Eq: 03)
Where, X1 =annual lost rate before implementing TPM and X = annual lost rate after implementing TPM.
Rate of reduction in annual lost rate represent the reduction of the accidents after implementing TPM
compared to before implementing the TPM. Most TPM approaches addressed accidents could be
identified by the rate of reduction in annual lost rate.
461
Content analysis was carried out by analysing the responses of each interviewee. Respondents were
requested to elaborate how TPM techniques were used to avoid listed accidents and how they have
overcome the root causes in their places. Findings of semi structured interviews, was comprehensively
discussed in this section. The section also contains a detailed discussion on improved and possible
improvement strategies of TPM.
4.
Twelve types of accidents were identified in apparel manufacturing process in both cases. Number of
accidents and lost time created by particular accidents were collected in phase I data collection. Incise
wound accident was the mostly occurred accident in both cases before implementing TPM and the total of
both cases amounted to 161 times (Case A - 80 times and Case B - 71 times). After implementing TPM,
only 59 times incise wound accidents were occurred in both cases (refer Table 1).
When considering the prick injury accidents, it was identified as the second highest number of accidents
which were occurred before implementing TPM in both cases. In total 135 accidents which distributed as
75 and 60 in cases A and B respectively before implementing TPM. After implementing TPM, prick
injury accidents were occurred only 42 times in both cases, as 22 accidents in Case A and 20 accidents in
Case B (refer Table 1). Third highest number of accidents count was recorded from contusion accidents
before implementing TPM in both cases. In total 99 contusion accidents were occurred in both cases
before implementing TPM and respectively 45 accidents in Case A and 34 accidents in Case B. After
implementing TPM total contusion accidents reduced to 41 accidents, as 24 accidents in Case A and 17
accidents in Case B (refer Table 1).
Laceration injury accident was occurred 96 times before implementing TPM in both cases as 49 accidents
and 47 accidents were occurred in the Case A and Case B respectively. However, after implementing
TPM total laceration injury accidents have reduced to 33 accidents (refer Table 1).
Furthermore, irritation of eyes accidents occurred 79 times in both cases before implementing TPM.
Respectively, 47 accidents and 32 accidents was happened in case A and case B. After implementing
TPM total number of irritation of eyes accident was reduced to 26 times (refer Table 1).
Table 1: Number of Accidents Before and After Implementing TPM
Accident Type
Case A
2011 2012
Case B
2011
2012
Total
Case A
2013
2014
Case B
2013
2014
Total
Prick Injury
Sprain
Blunt Injury
Pinch points
Contusion
43
20
1
0
43
32
13
1
1
22
25
10
2
1
15
35
14
1
0
19
135
57
5
2
99
12
25
1
0
14
10
30
2
2
10
9
20
0
1
10
11
17
4
1
7
42
92
7
4
41
Laceration injury
Electrical shock
Irritation of eyes
Incise wound
Hair stuck
Compound
fracture
Soft tissue injury
30
2
30
48
1
3
19
0
17
32
0
0
18
2
12
34
0
3
29
1
20
47
0
2
96
5
79
161
1
8
9
0
5
21
1
3
7
1
8
12
1
2
11
3
9
16
1
1
6
1
4
10
0
2
33
5
26
59
3
8
462
Table 2: Number of Loss Man-days Before and After Implementing TPM
Standardized lost
man days per
employee
Man days lost 2011
Man days lost 2012
Annual man days

lost rate
Standardized lost
man days per
employee
Man days lost 2013
Man days lost 2014
Annual man days

lost rate
Standardized lost
man days per
employee
Man days lost 2013
Man days lost 2014
Annual man days

lost rate
Standardized lost
man days per
employee
Case B
Annual man days

lost rate
Case A
Man days lost 2012
Case B
Man days lost 2011
Case A
Prick Injury
15
25
0.00877193
0 .021053
20
27
0.00783333
0.018800
0.0037281
0.0089474
0.00266667
0.006400
Sprain
47
30
0.01688596
0.040526
23
33
0.00933333
0.022400
58
70
0.0280702
0.0673684
46
39
0.01416667
0.034000
Blunt Injury
0.00131579
0.003158
0.00133333
0.003200
0.0019737
0.0047368
10
0.00166667
0.004000
Pinch points
0.00109649
0.002632
0.00083333
0.002000
0.0017544
0.0042105
0.00116667
0.002800
Contusion
89
45
0.02938596
0.070526
31
39
0.01166667
0.028000
31
22
0.0116228
0.0278947
22
14
0.00600000
0.014400
Laceration
injury
Electrical
shock
Irritation of
eyes
Incise wound
38
24
0.01359649
0.032632
23
37
0.01000000
0.024000
11
0.0041667
0.0100000
14
0.00350000
0.008400
0.00087719
0.002105
0.00100000
0.002400
0.0004386
0.0010526
0.00150000
0.003600
68
39
0.02346491
0.056316
27
46
0.01216667
0.029200
11
18
0.0063596
0.0152632
20
0.00483333
0.011600
63
42
0.02302632
0.055263
44
61
0.01750000
0.042000
27
15
0.0092105
0.0221053
20
13
0.00550000
0.013200
Hair stuck
0.00065789
0.001579
0.00000000
0.000000
0.0010965
0.0026316
0.00050000
0.001200
Compound
fracture
Soft tissue
injury
0.00065789
0.001579
0.00083333
0.002000
0.0013158
0.0031579
0.00083333
0.002000
0.00087719
0.002105
0.00100000
0.002400
0.0013158
0.0031579
0.00100000
0.002400
Accident
Type
463
Considering the number of accidents, most significant impact for the business was lost time created by
those accidents. The production was considerably affected due to those accidents. Lost time related to
accidents occurred before and after implementing TPM was further elaborated using annual man days lost
rate and standardized lost man days per employee (refer Table 2).
Man day lose before and after can be shown by taking one accident as an example. Comparing all the
accidents, highest loss man days were created by incise wound accidents before implementing TPM. It
was 210 man-days in both cases and each case amount to 105 man days (refer Table 2). These 210 loss
days were created due to 161 accidents in both cases. Hence average loss man days per accidents was 1.5
man days. After implementing TPM in both cases number of lost days due to incise wound accidents
were reduced to 75 man days. It was average of 1.2 man days was loss due to incise wound accidents
after implementing TPM in both cases. However, after implementing TPM still incise wound accident
was the highest in loss man-days.
When consider about the annual man-days loss rate before implementing TPM, in Case A it was 0.
02302632. Even though the calculated figure was a very smaller value since it has considered the total
man days of two years. This value can be used to compare and identify the rate of lost man-days
reduction.
Likewise standardized lost man days per employee in incise wound accidents before implementing TPM
in Case A was 0.05526316. As same in above calculations this figure can be interpreted as follows,
Standardized lost man days per employee =
(Eq: 04)
Hence, standardized lost man days per employee give the figure as a ratio to total number of employees.
Therefore 0.05526316 can be interpret as,
Man days lost per employee out = Standardize lost man days per Total number of
of total man days per two years
employee
employee
(Eq: 05)
= 0.05526316 x 950
= 52.5 man days
It indicates there was a possibility of losing 52.5 man days from an employee out of total working man
days in a year. So in a year, from an employee 52.5 man days were lost due to incise wound accidents in
Case A. After implementing TPM this figure was dropped to 21.5 man days from an employee. Similarly,
before implementing TPM in Case B standardised lost man days per employee due to incise wound
accidents was 52.5 man days in a year. After implementing TPM this figure was reduced to 16.5 man
days in a year. Accordingly, these figures can be calculated based on the data available in Table 2.
The empirical findings highlighted a different influence of TPM implementation four different types of
accidents based on the above calculations incise wound, price injury, irritation of eye, contusion and
laceration injury were reduced and sprain, electrical shock, blunt injury, pinch points, hair stuck, soft
tissue injury and compound fracture accidents did not show any influence to reduce number of accidents
even after implementing TPM.
5.
CONCLUSIONS
The empirical study was focussed on studying the TPM implementation in the apparel industry and the
relationship of TPM and the process safety. The literature review was focussed on identifying the
different types of accidents available in the garment manufacturing process. Then the accidents identified
through the literature were reviewed for the adequacy and availability through the industry survey.
Based on the statistical analysis it was revealed most significant accidents by cross checking the lost time
created due to those accidents. Further, aforesaid statistical analysis used to compare accident count
464
before and after TPM implementation and to identify the accidents that have been mostly addressed
through TPM. The results showed a reduction of the number of occurrences of some accidents and lost
time produced by accidents after implementation of the TPM. Nevertheless, there were accidents still
remained same as before or increased after implementing TPM too. Based on the perceptions of experts
and the observation of the process also revealed that process safety of the manufacturing process was
increasing through TPM implementation. However, the reduction of accidents was not applicable for all
types of accidents since there were accidents which were reduced after TPM implementations also
according to the expert perceptions which confirmed the results of the statistical analysis. It was revealed
that there is a gap between the expected level and actual level in process safety improvement using TPM
since the zero accident level was not achieved in any of the selected cases.
6.
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466
STRATEGIES FOR TACTFUL TIME MANAGEMENT FOR

QUANTITY SURVEYORS
Sivakumar Abiramy*, Vijitha Disaratna and Nishadi Anuruddika
ABSTRACT
More than ever before, todays global competition is driven by time. Many issues constituted problems
for construction professionals, among them central issue is the time frame. Especially Quantity
Surveyors day to day work involves management of activities and achievement of the short-term goals
of the project. Therefore this study focuses on tactful time management for Quantity Surveying
professionals practicing worldwide. Literature synthesis and preliminary survey were undertaken to
establish the research problem of this study that emphasised lack of awareness and training among
Quantity Surveyors on time management. Survey method was adopted whereby initially a preliminary
survey was conducted among 10 Quantity Surveyors who are having vast experience in the field of
study. Further questionnaires were distributed among 90 Quantity Surveyors and semi-structured
interviews were conducted with 7 experts having specialised knowledge and experience in Quantity
Surveying, Time management, Human Resource Management and Project Planning.
The research findings acknowledged Quantity Surveyors roles and duties in a typical organization
followed by critical activities that consume more time among the other duties such as preparation of
final accounts and agreements and procurement and coordination of stakeholders etc. while dominant
causes were lack of experience in Quantity Surveying practices and type and requirements of clients.
The survey findings also offered possible techniques to maximise time management such as effective
team work and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and identified barriers that could arise in
implementing them. MANOVA test was carried out with the aid of SPSS tool, which verified the
influence of type of sector, type of organisation, country of practise and managerial position employed
on each factor. Further NVIVO software package was used to produce cognitive map to visualise the
overall picture of study. Ultimately the solutions that emerged from the research findings were used to
formulate guidelines to assist Quantity Surveyors achieving tactful time management in professional
career - the aim of this research.
Keywords:
1.
Construction Industry; Quantity Surveyors; Tactful; Time Management; Sri Lanka.
INTRODUCTION
The construction industry is usually considered to be the backbone in any economy (Enshassiet al., 2010).
The nature of the industry is such that it is not capable of being planned, i.e. its dynamic environment
prevents any long and medium term planning (Yisa et al., 1996). Ringen et al. cited in Hoffmeister et al.
(2011) argued that in the construction industry, the tight deadlines and working with and around other
trades can create an atmosphere of tension and anxiety. As a result, difficulty with the availability and
management of time was the primary cause of stress for the professional groups. Thus, effective time
management skills are increasingly important to enhance the performance of professionals (Hawkins and
Klas, 1997).
Among the construction professions, quantity surveying is an important discipline (Olatunji et al., 2010).
According to Ferry et al. cited in Matipa et al. (2008) on frequent occasions, quantity surveyors (QS) do
not have enough space of time to perform their functions. In addition, Female QS felt that jobs in the
construction industry are masculine in nature, are stressful and demanding, and entail long working hours.
*
467
Dainty et al. cited Ling and Poh (2004) have also found site work to be time consuming and infringing on
social activities and family responsibilities. Moreover, time management will be more difficult for QS in
future (Claessens et al., 2007).
As a result, identifying and analysing the time management issues faced by QSs and providing practical
solutions to overcome those problems is vital and valuable for the young QSs to succeed in their
professional life. As well it will be beneficial for the construction industry as a whole and ultimately for
the nation. This paper initially provides a comprehensive literature review in order to mine the
background of the profession Quantity Surveying and its relationship to the time management
phenomena. Then the findings of the preliminary survey, questionnaire survey and experts interviews are
presented and further subjected to a discussion. Finally, conclusions are drawn from the findings.
2.
TIME MANAGEMENT
Time is the most precious, invaluable and limited resource and unless it is carefully managed, nothing
else can be (Hassanzabeh and Ebadi, 2007). In addition, Britton and Tesser (1991) argued that for most of
the cases time is one of the important factor determine the success of any activity. However in todays
society, ability to handle time is becoming more and more critical factor (Harung, 1998). In addition
Rehnquist cited in Margol and Kleiner (1989), stressed that the real reason for excelling in managing
one's time was to lead as fulfilling a life as possible, but balancing all of the family and personal role with
work commitments is not an easy task as timing plays an important part. Therefore its essential to focus
on time management phenomenon for the betterment of professional life as well as personal life. During
the last two decades, there has been a growing recognition of the importance of time in the organizational
literature. A number of authors discussed the need for better incorporating time in theoretical models and
research designs (Claessens et al., 2007). However none of them contemplated time management for
quantity surveying professionals. As a result, this research aims to study the time management behaviours
of QSs and attempts to develop some general guidelines on tactful time management that can be
applicable for QSs working worldwide.
2.1.
TACTFUL TIME MANAGEMENT
There is no agreement on the definition of time management in past studies. Several authors described
time management in different ways. Therefore, Claessens et al. (2007) found it was difficult to determine
the exact content of time management in past research. As a result a definition was suggested by them for
time management as: Time management is a set of behaviours that aim at achieving an effective use of
time while performing certain goaldirected activities. These behaviours comprise of assessment
behaviours, planning behaviours and monitoring behaviours. In addition, Oxford Dictionary (2014)
defines the meaning of tactful as having or showing skill and sensitivity in dealing with others or with
difficult issues. Accordingly tactful time management can be described as: having or showing skill and
sensitivity on time management. According to the definition of tactful time management, its essential to
identify time management skills. Time management may be aided by a range of skills, tools, and
techniques used to manage time when accomplishing specific tasks, projects and goals complying with a
due date (Ahmad et al., 2012). Further time management skills are ones abilities to recognize and solve
personal time management problems. Accordingly time management can be presented as a set of time
management skills described by Hassanzabeh and Ebadi (2007) as: Goal setting, Planning, Prioritizing,
Decision making, Delegating and Scheduling.
2.2.
ROLES AND DUTIES OF QUANTITY SURVEYORS
Due to the dynamic environment of the construction industry the quantity surveyors role has seemingly
continual evolution over the years (OBrien et al., 2014). The prime and essentially, the core role of
quantity surveyor rotate around the concept of cost control (Senaratne and Sabesan, 2008). Willis et al.
(2007) advocated three types of roles to replicate this, namely traditional, evolved, and developing as
shown in Figure 1.
468
Traditional role
Single rate approximate estimates
Cost planning
Procurement advice
Measurement and
quantification
Document preparation
(bill of quantities in
particular)
Cost control during
construction
Interim valuations and
payment
Financial statements
Final accounts preparation
and agreement
Settlement of contractual
claims
Evolved role
Investment appraisal
Advice on cost limits and budgets
Whole life costing
Value management
Risk analysis
Insolvency services
Cost engineering services
Sub-contract administration
Environmental services
measurement and costing
Valuation for insurance purposes
Project management
Administering maintenance
programmes
Advice on contractual
disputes
Employers' agent
Developing role
Automated measurement and
quantification
Environmental and
sustainability analysis
Advice on information and and
communications technology
Taxation and investment advice
relating to projects
Supply chain managemnt
Facilities management
Legal services
Quality management
Niche markets
Planning and Surpervision
Figure 1: Clusters of Quantity Surveyors Roles
OBrien et al. (2014) identified some of the duties of QS according to construction phases as illustrated in
the Table 1.
Table 1: Quantity Surveyors Duties based on Construction Phases
Pre-construction Duties
Construction Duties
Tendering and winning jobs in a

highly competitive market
Estimating reliably when there is
poorly documented design
information
Cost data integrity and reliability
of cost advice
Scope change and variation

management
Cash flow monitoring and
reporting
Accuracy of budgeting and cash

flow forecasting
Reconciling and estimate

assumptions with onsite cost
realities
Conflict management,
negotiations and Dispute
resolution
Contract administration
Effective contract negotiation
Appropriateness of contingency/
risk margins and allocations
Prediction of market trends and
their impacts on proposed project
Gaining and sustaining clients
confidence
Adequacy of tender and contract
documentations.
Resolving tags in tender
evaluation
Margin maintenance
Cost -to-complete forecasts

Industry Capitalisation
Overdraft/ credit facilities
Record keeping
Communication and reporting
469
Post construction Duties

Agreeing final accounts
Obtaining practical/ final
completions and Code
Compliance Certificates
Capturing and valuing costs
associated with snagging
requirements
Management of Defects
rectification liability
Retentions release
Cost analysis/ cost modelling

Liquidated and ascertained
damages
Arbitration/dispute resolution
Satisfying client - gaining repeat
commissions
Documenting and sharing lessons
learnt for use in future jobs
3.
The research initiated with a literature synthesis to establish a theoretical background on the concept of
time management phenomenon for Quantity Surveyors using existing knowledge. However it was
revealed lack of studies on time management; especially for Quantity Surveyors. As a result preliminary
survey was conducted among 10 experts in Quantity Surveying field in order to identify the critical duties
that consume more time among the Quantity Surveying functions, possible causes behind poor time
management and practical solutions to achieve tactful time management. Consequently the survey
approach was adopted as the best suitable method for the research among Quantity Surveying
professionals working in Sri Lanka and outside the country to ascertain their perception on the above
mentioned aspects. Questionnaire survey and semi-structured experts interviews were used as two
separate techniques to collect data under the survey approach (in addition to preliminary survey).
Questionnaires were distributed among 90 Quantity Surveying professionals and semi-structured experts
interviews were conducted among 7 experts having specialised knowledge and experience in Quantity
Surveying practice, Human Resource Management, Project Management and Time Management.
MANOVA test (to consider the effects of more than one independent variable on combined set of
dependent variable) was used to analyse data collected through questionnaire survey, and data collected
through interviews were analysed using content analysis with the aid of NVIVO software package to
arrive at suitable conclusions and recommendations. Sampling strategy for data collection was
convenience sampling under non-probability sampling technique.
4.
PRELIMINARY SURVEY
The information lacking from the literature review was collected through preliminary survey conducted
among 10 Quantity Surveyors working across client, consultant and contractor organisations. Amongst
those 8 were local interviews and 2 were from outside the country surveyed through electronic mail.
Initially the critical duties that consume more time compared to other functions were acknowledged as
illustrated in Figure 2.
Client Organization
Getting approvals
Consultant Organization
Contractor Organization
Preparation of tender documents

(especially BOQ)
Preparation of final accounts and

agreements
Procurement and coordination of

stakeholders to the project
Checking final accounts
Estimating & tendering
Tendering procedures
Claim report analysis
Preparation of claim reports
Evaluation of alternative proposals
Evaluation and selection of

suitable contractors
Several negotiations
Preparation of project budgets
Post contract administration

Cost planning and estimating
Feasibility studies
Preparation of interim applications

Evaluation of interim payment
applications
Sub contractor selection

Sub contractor evaluation
andpayments
Figure 2: Critical Duties of Quantity Surveyors that Consume More Time
Consequently the possible reasons behind poor time management were examined and each respondents
answers were collected and compiled into one set of document. Further, those responses have been
divided into three categories, as Personal Causes, Organizational Causes and Other Causes are
demonstrated in Figure 3.
470
Personal Causes
Inadequate training and/or
education level
Experience in quantity surveying
practices
Poor teamwork
Improper allocation of tasks
among team members
Improper planning
Lack of specialization skills in
quantity surveying
Personal attitude or life style
Personal competencies
Working attitude
Social activities
Personal life issues
Improper communication
Lack of practical knowledge
Other commitments
Addicted to the technology to
perform QSs job
Lack of proper documentation
Organizational Causes
Other Causes
Organizational policies
Organizational structure Top
management
Type and number of projects
Overloaded work
Working environment
Company priorities
Next authorized person or superior
Managerial decisions which
affects QS activities
Salary
Inadequate education of
subordinates
Number of QSs at the office
Reputation of the company
Relationship with the outsiders
Nature and complexity of project

Type of employer & his
requirements
Most of the QS works depend on
others information/output
Level of details and information
available
Unforeseeable events
Nature of profession
Type of procurement
Position of construction industry
Diversity of team members in work
related aspects
Mentality of Asian country people in
relation to time management
High number of parties involved
Repetition of work
Special procedure (procurement
guideline)
Government rules & standards
Legislation actions
Delay caused by the authorities
Figure 3: Potential Causes behind Poor Time Management
Effective team work

Proper planning well prior to the events
Development in personal skills and attitude
Proper division of tasks among team members
Use of check lists
Updating the knowledge
Methodological & systematic working pattern
Use of formats
Continuous reviewing & updating of sequencing
and prioritizing of activities
Direct communication with the superior
Improvement in psychological aspects
Ascertain skills
Systematically organized documentation
Formalized procedures
Development of brain to add value to the process
Personal relationship/communication
Sharing of information & knowledge with others
Use of available software to its maximum usage
Personal willingness to take opportunities
Use of programmes for daily activities
Writing internal memos
Putting Provisional Sum
Use of master specification, BOQ, preambles etc.
Use of industry norms
Use of guidelines
Organizational Improvements
Personal Statergies
Finally some suggestions were proposed and listed under two headings (as given under Figure 4) as
Personal Strategies and Organizational Improvements to overcome the above mentioned causes.
Continuous monitoring the actual
activities against planned ones
Time management training, CPD,
Use of proper advanced
technology/software
Regular management meetings
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Motivation & guidance by the top
management/other staff
Incentives/Bonus/Promotions etc.
Quick communication methods
Development in organizational
standards in quantity surveying
Providing required facilities
Positive working environment
Decentralization of powers
Centralized database & ease of access
Use of work studies, research &
development etc.
Reallocation & sharing of resources
Availability & usage of alternatives
Use of outsourcings resources
Some kind of punishments
Distribution of profit among team
members
Figure 4: Practicable Time Management Initiatives
471
In addition to the solutions for the improvement in time management, the possible barriers that may arise
when implementing those time management initiatives were identified through preliminary interviews.
The compiled list of potential difficulties includes: Personal attitude to resist the change towards time
management, Lack of awareness on time management, Lack of interest of top management, Fear on any
issues that may arise after implementing time management initiatives from staff and management,
Requirement of additional resources to implement, Requires a significant time to implement and
Financial constraints of the employer to support time management initiatives.
5.
Quantitative data for this study were collected through Questionnaire survey conducted among Quantity
Surveyors working worldwide. Subsequently the findings were verified through experts interviews
conducted among experts and the qualitative data obtained from interviews were analysed using NVIVO
software. Initially the presented data was analysed from various perspectives to understand the inter
relationships between variables in order to demonstrate a clear understanding on the research findings.
5.1.
PROFILE OF RESPONDENTS
The profile of the respondents of the questionnaire survey are classified according to the type of
organisation including the type of sector to which their firm belongs to and managerial position and their
working experience and presented in Figures 5 and 6 respectively.
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Employer
8%
Government
Employee-Superior
Level
29%
Private
17%
Employee-Subordinate
Level
Consultant Contractor
Figure 5: Respondents' Profile Based on Type of Firm and Managerial Position
No of Respondents
Client
46%
Employee-Middle
Manager Level
8
6
4
Site Environment
2
Office Environment
0
5
10
15
20
Both Office & Site

25
30
35
40
Experience in Years
Figure 6: Respondents' Profile Based on Working Environment
472
4%
Significant
23%
35.42
Moderated
50.00
Frequently
Low
8.33
Sometimes
73%
Negligible
6.25
Never
0.00 10.00 20.00 30.00 40.00 50.00 60.00
Figure 7: Frequency of Issues Faced by QSs on Time Management and Severity of Poor Time Management
The sample was verified to ascertain if the problem of poor time management is evident in the sample so
that conclusions could be drawn for the population. The Figure 7 reports the perception of the Quantity
Surveyors with regard to frequency of issues faced by QSs on time management and severity of poor time
management in day to day life.
5.2.
ESTABLISHING THE PROBLEM OF POOR TIME MANAGEMENT
It proves the existence of time management issues faced by QS to be substantial with 73% of respondents
rating the level of existence to be at a sometimes and around 23% of respondents rated as frequently level.
Also the severity of poor time management felt by QS has been rated 50% at moderated level followed by
35% of significant level. Therefore it can be concluded that majority of the respondents are experiencing
considerable level of time management issues. Based on the results of sample, it can be interpreted that
the population has a serious issue on poor time management. On the other hand the time management
sessions, workshops, and CPDs on work performance and time management, importance of time
management for professionals, scheduling techniques and ethical landscape in Quantity Surveying.
conducted among the construction professionals in Sri Lanka were acknowledged.
Having established the problem of time management, the mode of communication was verified to
recognize whether these issues are brought to light by Quantity Surveyors to their
employers/superiors/top management, if time management issues exist. Figure 8 illustrates that most
individuals have discovered time management issues through personal experience and the next majority
being through discussion with peers, followed by a small percentage of people through observation. A
significant point has to be emphasised on the absence of a proper organisational communication
mechanism in Sri Lankan construction firms to report on time management issues.
Through discussion with peers

Through an organisational communication mechanism
Means of
Communication
Through observation
Through personal experience
20
40
Figure 8: Mode of Communication Used to Identify Time Management Issues
5.3.
RESULTS OF MANOVA TEST
MANOVA (Multivariate Analysis Of Variance) was used to explore outcomes from several parametric
dependent variables, across more independent variables (each with two or more distinct groups). Since
this study attempts to identify the statistically significant differences between and/or among more than
473
one dependent variable (i.e. critical duties, causes, solutions and barriers) and more than one independent
variable (i.e. type of organization, type of sector, country of practise and managerial position), MANOVA
was the most appropriate tool among the others. For each MANOVA both the multivariate effects (how
the independent variables have an impact upon the combination of dependent variables) and univariate
effects (how the mean scores for each dependent variable differ across the independent variables groups)
were explored to study them individually and as a whole.
Initially MANOVA performed the multivariate test and provided Wilks Lambda value together with
associated F value and significance value (p). Wilks Lambda is a measure of the percent of variance in
the dependent variables that is not explained by differences in the level of the independent variable. If the
variance (Wilks Lambda) is close to 1, it can be interpreted that no significant variance between
dependent variables with associated F value. Further if the significance value (p) is greater than the
benchmark value of p (0.05), there is no significant effect on the group of dependent variables from the
independent variables. Subsequently it conducted an univariate test (F test) and offered an F ratio that was
assessed against critical (cut-off) F value and statistical significance will be achieved when a F ratio of
particular variable is greater than the critical F value. Similarly the level of significance (also known as p
value for the test) was measured against the benchmarking significance value (also known as alpha ()
value) and statistical significance is attained when a p-value is less than the significance level (). A
confidence interval of 95% was adopted based on rule of thumb, which means the benchmarking
significance level () is 5% (0.05). If the p value for a particular variable is less than 0.05 and F ratio is
greater than critical F value, it means a significant effect is caused by the categorical variable and vice
versa. Statistically this is known as rejecting the null hypothesis H0: the particular categorical variable
does not have any significant effect on the dependent variable or there is less than 5% chance that the
result would have been due to random reasoning. Consequently the post hoc test was carried out to arrive
at estimated marginal mean value for each dependent variable based on respondents comments on a 6
point rating scale. This will resemble the Quantity Surveying populations perception on each factor and
rank them accordingly giving priority to the top priority factors. Results of the test on questionnaire
survey are tabulated as follows. Data collected from interview are incorporated into the research findings.
6.
RESEARCH FINDINGS
6.1.
AN OVERVIEW OF TIME MANAGEMENT FOR QUANTITY SURVEYORS
A study was made by Waller et al. (2001 cited Wu and Passerini, 2013) that indicates different deadline
perceptions and behaviours among construction team members affect the ability of teams to meet
deadlines. Although among the construction professionals QSs are the ones who frequently appear to time
pressure as argued by several authors. As a result this study attempts to examine the time management
phenomenon among Quantity Surveyors. In addition, experts have stressed that QSs time management
may be influenced by specified contractual time targets for each critical activity. The reason behind this is
all of the Quantity Surveyors duties are related to construction contracts. Therefore their time shall be
proportionately allocated to several projects based on the scope of services they want to provide and
nature and complexity of projects they are supposed to do. Despite the lack of awareness on time
management, questionnaire survey and expert interview results acknowledged some trainings and
workshops at organizational level related to time management. Further the questionnaire survey findings
identified that majority of the individuals have discovered time management issues through personal
experience while there is an absence of a proper organisational communication mechanism in Sri Lankan
construction firms to report the time management issues to superiors.
6.2.
KEY FUNCTIONS THAT CREATE TIME MANAGEMENT ISSUES
Literature findings offered a complete set of functions of QSs with reference to Willis et al. (2007) and
OBrien et al. (2014) for roles and duties respectively. However only less number of literatures has
mentioned about critical roles and duties that consume more time compared to others. As a result
preliminary survey was undertaken to disclose the critical duties in client, consultant and contractor
organisation that consume more time.
474
However among the critical duties obtained from preliminary survey, only some activities (which
satisfied the criteria for selection) have been taken for detailed analysis. Initially it was revealed that there
is no influence between the duties in each type of sector and managerial position. Further each activity is
not impacted by categorical variables (type of sector and managerial position). Accordingly the key
functions that create time management issues include: Preparation of final accounts and agreements,
Preparation of tender documents (especially BOQ), Estimating & tendering, Preparation of claim report,
Checking final accounts, Procurement and coordination of stakeholders to the project, Value engineering,
Turnaround documents, Preparation of cost value reconciliation and getting authorities approvals. In
addition to type of organization, the impact from range of sectors in QSs time management has been
acknowledged through preliminary survey. Findings revealed that QSs working for both private and
government clients may need performing additional jobs due to project and clients requirements that may
influence on their time management. Moreover preliminary survey has exposed that time pressure reduces
from pre-construction to post construction.
6.3.
FACTORS THAT CONTRIBUTE TO POOR TIME MANAGEMENT
The prevailing causes for poor time management were acknowledged through literature and preliminary
survey. The research carried out by Guoqing and Yongxin (2000);Hassanzabeh and Ebadi (2007) have
identified some of the potential causes that may impact on time management as; social activities, personal
attitudes, several meetings and sudden crisis. Ultimately it implies that individual factors have a great
effect on wasting time than organizational or natural factors. Rightfully majority of the solutions were
acknowledged under personal improvements. In addition to the above principal causes for poor time
management, some other causes were collected through preliminary survey and classified under three
headings as, Personal Causes, Organizational Causes and Other Causes. Similar to the critical activities,
the questionnaire survey findings revealed that there is no inner relationship between causes in respect to
type of organization, type of sector, country of practise and managerial position. However it was
identified that there is a significant impact on some causes from these categorical variables. As a result
only those selected causes were analysed in detail and findings are listed as: Experience in Quantity
Surveying practices, Lack of specialisation skills in Quantity Surveying, Improper allocation of tasks
among team members, Personal competencies (especially time management skills), Type of Employer &
his requirements, Diversity of team members in work related aspects, Inadequate education of
subordinates and other commitments. Further finding revealed that office work is more time consuming,
compared to site environment. Ultimately the findings revealed that these reasons require to be managed
in a different manner, i.e. some unique techniques that involve a significant level of personal skills are
essential to overcome these causes. As a result tactful techniques that vary from general time management
principles are proposed to be adopted by QSs when managing their time due to those unrestrained factors.
6.4.
PRACTICALITY OF TIME MANAGEMENT INITIATIVES
Time management is possible by understanding the theories, principles and techniques proposed by
scholars and philosophers who have understood its significance. However these tools and techniques are
dependent upon the work and the amount of time required for completion in personal and professional
life. Moreover literature identified some time management tools as Personal Information Management
(PIM) software and Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) to facilitate the scheduling and prioritising of
activities. Literature findings recognised a step by step approach to solve the time management issues as:
Getting a clear understanding of the problem, Establishing goals and priorities, Making time to do
planning, Delegating unnecessary work, Allocating and scheduling time for important and priority
activities, Set yourself at least one major priority each day and achieve it, Frequently review and update
the schedule, Eliminate one time waster from your routine each month, Review at the start of each day
and make sure your first hour is productive, Try to finish what you start, Give yourself some quality time
each week to network outside your business - perhaps attend a seminar, follow-up customers, introduce
yourself to potential customers, or talk to business advisors and Take some time for yourself - time to
learn, time to relax, and time to live. In addition to time management initiatives, the feedback
mechanisms to evaluate the effectiveness of time management initiatives were revealed through
preliminary survey as personnel evaluation and performance review. Moreover literature findings
475
acknowledged that time management will be more difficult for QS in future and accordingly preliminary
survey findings confirmed the above literature findings. In addition preliminary and questionnaire survey
has attempted to distinguish the difference between QSs working in Sri Lanka and outside the country.
Consequently the findings were highlighted that there are pros and cons in working Sri Lanka and
overseas. Therefore it will not impact on the time management of individual QS.
6.5.
DEVELOPING GUIDELINES
According to the definition given for tactful time management (under section 2.1), it is essential to
consider the time management skills and attitudes when developing guidelines for tactful time
management. Subsequently the collected data from preliminary survey were categorised under two
headings as, Personal Strategies and Organizational Improvements. However among them, only some
strategies (which satisfied the criteria for selection) were carried for further analysis using univariate test.
Further it shall be noted that to practise tactful time management these guidelines need to be applied
together with time management skills. Accordingly the following guidelines were developed based on
those selected solutions to achieve tactful time management for QSs.
6.5.1.
GUIDELINES TO ACHIEVE TACTFUL TIME MANAGEMENT FOR QUANTITY SURVEYORS
Effective team work, Development in personal skills and attitudes, Updating the knowledge, Use of
formats, Proper division of tasks among team members, Continuous reviewing & updating of sequencing
and prioritising of activities, sharing of information and knowledge with others, Personal willingness to
take opportunities, Use of proper advanced technology, Key performance indicators (KPIs), Use of work
studies, research & development etc., Direct communication with immediate superior, Use of master
BOQ, specifications, preambles etc., Writing internal memos, letters etc. among the staff and Use of
outsourcing resources.
6.6.
BARRIERS TO TIME MANAGEMENT INITIATIVES
Literature findings, preliminary and questionnaire survey revealed some potential barriers that influence
on time management initiatives as: Requirement of additional resources to implement and requires a
significant time to implement. As a result it can be concluded that if QSs are able to prove this is an
effective & productive initiative, then top management will approve and allocate the funds.
7.
CONCLUSION
Analysis on research findings acknowledged the importance of time management for construction
professionals; especially for QSs. Since time management is more towards to personal achievement the
initial step has to come from individual level where each QS shall take necessary actions to apply and
enhance the time management initiatives at personal level. However individual policies will not become
successful unless the working environment or system is favourable to practise those strategies. Therefore
top management of the organisation shall ensure that positive and corporative working environment is
there to practise time management initiatives at individual levels. Superiors have a significant role to play
in creating this culture by maintaining flexible relationships with subordinates, so that they can
communicate the issues in achieving time targets. Further human resource division can introduce and
execute time management techniques for the entire organisation while providing training and
development on these initiatives if necessary. Moreover the professional institutions that govern the
conduct of professionals registered under such bodies as members to incorporate relevant guidelines from
the given list to enhance the time management behaviours among QSs at industry wide level. Accordingly
Institute of Quantity Surveyors Sri Lanka (IQSSL), Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and
other professional institutions need to initiate and endorse the policies on time management to upgrade its
members professional standards to global level. In conclusion, all time management skills and strategies
are learnable. With these time management skills and strategies, QSs need to select proper time
management techniques that are most relevant for their situation.
476
The Figure 9 demonstrates the overview of this research that indicates the critical time consuming duties, causes behind them, practicable strategies to tactfully
manage the time and possible barriers that may arise when implementing the given strategies.
Figure 9: Cognitive Mapping
477
8.
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478
SUITABILITY OF PACKAGE DEAL CONTRACTS FOR

RESIDENTIAL BUILDING CONSTRUCTION
U.S.C. Bandara, H. Chandanie* and Lalith De Silva
ABSTRACT
Residential construction is becoming an increasingly important subdivision of construction industry,
necessitating advanced procurement methods in order to accommodate changing requirements.
Commonly, residential construction demand is met by the informal sector of construction industry.
With the changing environments, a novel trend of package deal contracts is spreading in the context
bringing in formalities to the residential construction projects. Package deal is a developed
procurement method with unique characteristics. However, in selecting an appropriate procurement
method for a specific housing construction project, proper understanding of characteristics of
available procurement options are utmost of importance. Therefore, this research aimed to elucidate
the suitability of package deal contracts for residential building construction, against time, cost and
quality benefits.
Study identified 43 time, cost, and quality related expectations through a comprehensive literature
survey, which residential construction clients would expect to be born of package deal contracts. The
factors were ranked against industry experts' view and further, tested via a survey with a sample of
clients with package deal and informal construction experience. Data were analysed for medians and
standard deviations in to rank the factors considering the reliability. Consequently, experts
appreciated time and cost benefits of package deal contracts over informal construction. Importantly,
projects start quickly with known early commitments under package deal contracts. However, informal
construction offers better quality with attractive finished products. Therefore, the package deal is
suitable for the clients, who are concerned of time and cost benefits, while informal construction is
suitable for the clients with prime concern of quality benefits.
Keywords:
1.
Benefits; Informal Construction; Package Deal; Procurement; Residential Construction.
INTRODUCTION
From the dawn of history, residential construction has been a necessity of mankind (Allen and Thaloon,
2011). Hence, residential construction has developed as a sub-division of construction industry with its
unique characteristics to facilitate human needs of day today activities, leisure activities, studying,
playing and relaxing, all in comfort with good level of privacy, while being with an attractive finish
(Scutella and Heberel, 2005). However, increasing complexity of houses, use of innovative materials,
technologies, and increasing population have created many challenges to the residential building
construction industry (Turina, Radujkovic and Pusic, 2007).
Consequently, many residential construction clients face problems with delayed completions, wastage of
resources, and low quality outputs, while wasting money without fulfilling the clients requirement due to
poor pre-arrangements between the client and the contractor (Sambasivan and Soon, 2006). The
procurement system of a project is a key determinant to successful achievement of objectives of any
construction project. The choice of procurement system, therefore, severely influences the outcome of a
project (Jayasena, 2009). Traditionally, majority of residential buildings were constructed by informal
sector of construction industry. Yet, from the recent past a novel trend of package deal contracts for
residential building construction is emerged replacing the informal approach to the residential
constructions. Differently, according to Meikle (2011) formal approach to construction is more common
*
479
in urban areas, which follow a proper procurement method allowing a pre-agreed construction procedure
with fixed time scale. Yet, Ashworth (1996) advises client to choose the required building package and
package deal contractor carefully, if deviating from informal approach.
It is further described that, if a client makes a wrong choice, the penalty may be time and cost overruns
together with quality issues leading to general dissatisfaction. Therefore, the selection of the most suitable
procurement method is critical for both clients and all project participants. Such background urges the
need of proper guidance for clients in selecting procurement arrangements, being laymen to the
construction industry. Hence, this research addressed the problem of guiding identification of a suitable
procurement method for residential building construction in terms of time, cost, and quality benefits,
aiming to explain the suitability of package deal contract arrangement for the residential building
construction compared to informal approached construction. Since, the objectives were established as;
understand the behaviour of residential construction procurement arrangements, identify time, cost and
quality related benefits of package deal contracts compared to informal construction, and to develop a
guideline to improve awareness of benefits in package deal compared to informal construction in terms of
time, cost and quality for residential building construction clients.
Therefore a comprehensive literature survey was conducted in to understand the related research
directions and depths of existing knowledge, as presented in the next section.
2.
LITERATURE REVIEW
The literature survey of the study revealed many theories illuminating the significance of the research
problem and assisted identifying number of benefits, which are expected by the residential construction
clients to be arise via a procurement arrangement.
Accordingly, residential building construction is a major sub-division in the construction industry owing
30-35% construction output (Rhodes, 2015). Since, shelter has been recognized as a basic need, evolving
human kind has created residential construction needs continuously complex. Consequently, residential
construction demand urge for developed materials, and designs, for better time, cost, and quality
advantages (Sherwood, 1996). In meeting such demands, proper management of construction process
through an appropriate construction procurement arrangement is utmost importance (Ojo, Adeyemi and
Fagbenle, 2006). If a client makes a wrong procurement choice, the penalty may be time and cost
overruns, together with quality dissatisfaction (Jayasena, 2009).
Hence, the study suggests a proper procurement arrangement should able to offer a higher quality at a
lower cost within a minimum period of construction time (Jayasena, 2009). However, in developing
countries large portion of construction activity is executed by the informal sector (Hewage, 2009).
According to Meikle (2011) informal building construction is narrow in scope and mostly, concerned
about small scale buildings like houses, shops and storages. Normally, the informal approach to
construction does not involve various professions and parties in the industry neither follow a proper
procurement system. However, the informal sector involves with almost all construction projects in rural
areas of developing countries and 50% of housing in urban areas (Hewage, 2009). Yet, it may have
similarities with one or many of other procurement methods. According to Mitullah and Wachira (2003),
informal sector operates unregistered according to the regulations of national or local governments, as a
small proportion of the contractor body of a country, and operating with little capital, simple technology,
using mostly local resources, and involved with buying and selling in unregulated and competitive
markets. Yet, most of the residential clients seek the service of the informal sector of construction
industry due to constraints aroused basically, due to unawareness (Silva, 2009). However, there are many
negative impacts brought by the informal sector to the residential construction industry in terms of time,
cost, and quality (Silva, 2009).
Recently, package deal is another popular procurement option available for residential construction
contracts, which indicates the characteristics of a properly organized procurement system. In practice,
the terms package deal and design and build are interchangeable. But, the package deal is strictly a
special type of design and build project, where the employer chooses a suitable building, often from a
catalogue (Ashworth, 1996, p.112). Further, the option allows clients to view similar completed
480
buildings from elsewhere, that he/she wishes to build. Package deal contractors regularly advertise of the
services/products, they wish to offer in terms of building time and prices, rather than designs, and the
clients may most probably required to find a site. Yet, the package deal contractors offer many other
benefits starting from planning permissions, building regulation approval and many more (Franks, 1998).
Aftermath of the synthesis of the literature, in terms of expected benefits from a procurement option by
residential construction clients, 43 factors were identified, as presented in Table 1, which were field tested
for scrutiny in the practical context.
Table 1: Expected Benefits from a Procurement Arrangement
Time Benefits
Less construction time duration
(Meikle, 2011)
Handed over at the expected time
(Meikle, 2011)
Less time spent on project
management (Ojo et al., 2006)
Construction can start quickly
(Ashworth, 1996)
Less conflicts between contractor
and clients representatives
(Ashworth, 1996)
Time taken to finding a builder is
less (Franks, 1998)
Single point responsibility
(Franks, 1998)
Good communication among
construction team (Jayasena,
2009)
Time taken for authority
approvals is less (Meikle, 2011)
Simultaneous design and
construction (Ashworth, 1996)
Direct contact with the contractor
(Ashworth, 1996)
Quick response to the clients
needs (Scutella and Heberel,
2005)
Cost Benefits
Cost of the service is
worthy(Franks, 1998)
Applicability irrespective of the
location of the site(Franks,
1998)
Model house can see before
buying (Jayasena, 2009)
Less cost overruns (Jayasena,
2009)
Satisfaction on finished product
in terms of investment
(Ashworth, 1996)
Disputes with the contractor is
less (Hewage, 2009)
Ease of payments (Jayasena,
2009)
Availability of workmens
compensation and insurance
(Silva, 2009)
Cost of procurement is less
(Jayasena, 2009)
Low contractor profit levels
(Ojo et al., 2006)
Commitment known early
(Sherwood, 1996)
No tendering cost (Sambasivan
and Soon, 2006)
No fraudulent acts (Rhodes,
2015)
Quality Benefits
Flexibility for design
alterations(Ashworth, 1996)
Properly functioning building
services (Franks, 1998)
Minimized wastage
(Sambasivan and Soon, 2006)
Assurance of quality on the
materials used (Sherwood,
1996)
Adequacy of the builders
technical knowledge (Jayasena,
2009)
Attractiveness of the finished
product (Franks, 1998)
Work reviewed by experienced
professionals (Jayasena, 2009)
Availability of range of designs
with the contractor (Franks,
1998)
Involvement of construction
professionals (Sherwood, 1996)
Efficiency in contract
management (Ojo et al., 2006)
Durability of fixtures (Turina et
al., 2007)
Authorized construction
(Scutella and Heberel, 2005)
No structural defects (Allen and
Thaloon, 2011)
Final output is well-known
from the beginning (Franks,
1998)
Proper documentation
(Ashworth, 1996)
Contractor planning the work
properly (Franks, 1998)
Availability of required
materials and plant (Silva,
2009)
Concerned of safety regulations
(Silva, 2009)
Hence, it was required to scientifically investigate the availability of time, cost, and quality related
expected benefits with each package deal contracts and informal contracts. The next section presents the
method followed in filling the identified knowledge gap scientifically.
481
3.
THE RESEARCH METHOD
Research method section outlines the working plan of the study initiating from the research question
development to arriving into scientific conclusions. Hence, the study has established the research
questions as;
1. How different available procurement options behave in the context of residential construction?
2. What are the benefits of package deal contracts compared to informal construction?
Therefore, the initial literature review suggested many prepositions, which needed further analysis in
order to develop context specific solutions for the research questions.
The research was conducted with a positivist philosophical stance accompanied by a quantitative
approach since the methodology allows the end product to be generalised with higher degree of freedom
(Remenyi et al,. 1998). Further, the research was conducted as a cross-sectional study. Survey is
considered to be the most appropriate strategy for this research study since a survey is a systematic way
of primary data collection based on a sample, and assess information about the population. Therefore, it is
not a method considering a specific case in depth, yet, captures main characteristics of a population.
Moreover, survey is a quick and efficient strategy in collecting data comparative to other strategies such
as; action research, grounded theory, experiments, ethnography and archival research (Tan, 2002). Hence,
data were collected via two (02) questionnaires devised based on the literature findings separately, for
experts and clients following a mono method (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2009). The questionnaires
requested for demographic data of the respondents in order to evaluate the capacity of the respondents in
contributing to knowledge creation via the study. Further, core data were collected from the industry
experts based on their opinions on the importance of the benefits to be evaluated based on a 1-5 Likert
scale, where; 1 represents strongly important, 2 - important, 3 - averagely important, 4 - less important,
and 5 represents very less important. Similarly, the questionnaire designed for the residential building
clients were inquired for satisfaction with their construction experience in terms of the suggested benefits,
which were ranked using a similar scale.
Hence, two (02) different samples were used as sources in data collection process within the study, where
the sources being industry experts and residential construction clients as mentioned above. The sample
derived for the survey is representative portion of the population and the sample was selected as an
unbiased and sufficient in size. The non-purposive quota sampling was used to select the samples. Table 2
presented the cross-section of the survey samples.
Table 2: Cross-Sectional View of the Survey Sample
Survey description
Pilot survey with

industry experts
Context survey with

residential building
construction clients
Quota(s)
Response proportion
Response rate
Architects
20%
Engineers
40%
Quantity Surveyors
40%
Clients with
package deal
experience
40%
Clients with
informal
construction
experience
53%
482
Moreover, as per Stutely (2003) suggestion, a minimum number of 30 from each quota within overall
sample as a rule of thumb for statistical analyses has been followed in this study. Hence, the sample for
the pilot survey with industry experts comprised 30 units and the residential client sample comprised of
60 units. The overall response rate was 46.67%.
Data collected were analysed for median values since median represents the middle value of a data set
(Glosser, 2014). Further to obtain better ranking process 3rd and 1st quartiles of the sample were
calculated and standard deviations were calculated to check the consistency of data. Less standard
deviation values indicate that the data have spread closely showing high consistency.
Therefore, the data analysis of the pilot survey allowed ranking time, cost and quality benefits in terms of
importance. The data collected from the context survey allowed ranking the factors according to the
availability with each of the procurement arrangements. Each benefit ranked in time, cost, and quality
categories arose from expert survey analysis were weighted based on the rakings obtained. A total score
for each of the procurement arrangement in front of top five (05) time, cost and quality benefits were
calculated to compare the percentage achievement against the maximum score achievable to derive the
final decisions on comparative performance between the considered two (02) procurement arrangements.
4.
DATA ANALYSIS, FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
From the 43 benefits identified at the literature review, twelve (12) were time related benefits, 13 were
cost related benefits and 18 were quality related benefits. The factors were subjected to the initial expert
survey and the data analysis allowed to rank the time, cost and quality benefits in terms of importance.
Further, the context survey uncovered the presence of such benefits with each of the procurement
arrangement concerned by this study.
According to the demographic data analysis, 100% of the selected industry experts sample was
experienced more than five (05) years in the residential building construction industry. Specially, 90% of
the sample is charter qualified. On the other hand, 95% of the clients selected for data collection were
having recent experience [not over five (05) years from completion] in housing construction and occupied
at the same buildings at the moment. Therefore, the samples showed calibre in contributing
comprehensive data into the study.
This paper presents the analysis upon the top five (05) time, cost and quality benefits as per to views of
experts and relevant clientele views of availability with each procurement arrangement considering the
length limits of the paper submission.
4.1.
ANALYSIS OF TIME RELATED BENEFITS
Time related benefits in the order of importance and availability according to each survey strata are
present in the Table 4.1. Consequently, the two (02) benefits, less time spent on project management and
handed over at the expected time, out of the top five (05) time related benefits as identified by the
experts, are highly available with the package deal contracts, yet, which are not highly available with the
informal arrangements. In accordance with literature review, package deal contracts being a sub division
of design and build procurement arrangement, designs and costing are already finished, when a client
chooses his appropriate design (Ashworth, 1996).
However, less construction time duration is the most important time related benefit, as per experts, yet,
which is not offered highly at any of the two (02) procurement arrangements. However, the two (02)
procurements arrangements commonly offer the benefits; construction can start quickly and less conflicts
between contractor and clients representatives to the clients, where the first mentioned benefit is the only
time related benefit offered by the informal contract arrangements in addition to the benefit, quick
response to the clients needs, out of the major time related benefits. In addition, package deal contracts
offer clients, the benefit, time taken to finding a builder is less, whereas informal contracts offer the
benefits; direct contact with the contractor and good communication among construction team.
483
Moreover, considering the weighted scores, package deal is capable of offering 54.67% of the total
achievable score in offering time related benefits considering the top five (05) expected benefits whereas,
informal contracts offer only 41.33%.
Table 3: Importance and Availability of Time Related Benefits
Score
12
10
10
8
8
7
6
5
4
2
2
1
75
Industry experts view

Less construction time
duration
Handed over at the
expected time (10)
Construction can start
quickly
Less time spent on
project management
Quick response to the
clients needs
Time taken to finding a
builder is less
Less conflicts between
contractor and clients
representatives
Good communication
among construction team
Single point responsibility
Time taken for authority
approvals is less
Direct contact with the
contractor
Simultaneous design and
construction
Total Score
Score
10
8
7
10
6
41
Package deal clients

view
quickly
Less time spent on
project management
Time taken to finding a
builder is less
Handed over in the
expected time period
representatives
Score
(54.67%)
31
8
2
5
10
6
Informal clients view

Quick response to the
clients needs
Direct contact with the
contractor
Good communication
among construction team
quickly
representatives
(41.33%)
Hence, the analysis suggests higher capability in offering time related benefits to be with package deal
procurements over informal construction arrangements.
4.2.
ANALYSIS OF COST RELATED BENEFITS
Top five (05) cost related benefits according to each survey strata are present in Table 4. Thus, none of
the most important cost related benefits are present with the informal approach to residential construction.
However, the 2nd important benefit; commitment known early is highly available with the package deal
contracts. This is suggested as a top benefit in package deal construction as per literature as well. Clients
favour to know their commitment before starting the construction. They normally check, whether the
budget of the construction is suitable with his budgetary allocation (Sherwood, 1996).
However, the four (04) top benefits; cost of the service is worthy, satisfaction on finished product in terms
of investment, less cost overruns, and model house can see before buying, are not highly offered by any
of the two (02) prominent procurement arrangements for residential construction. Literature also suggests
clients satisfaction as one of the most important concerns in the residential building construction
(Jayasena, 2009). However, the two (02) procurements arrangements commonly offer the benefits; no
tendering cost, no fraudulent acts, and applicability irrespective of the location of the site, to the clients.
In addition, the package deal contracts offer the clients, the benefit, ease of payments, while informal
construction arrangement offers clients the benefits of; disputes with the contractor is less and cost of
procurement process is less.
Moreover, considering the weighted scores, package deal is capable of offering 31.58% of the total
achievable score in offering cost related benefits considering the top five (05) factors, whereas informal
contracts offer 24.21% of the top benefits expected. Hence, the analysis suggests higher capability in
484
offering cost related benefits to be with package deal procurements over informal construction
arrangements.
Table 4: Importance and Availability of Cost Related Benefits
Score
13
Cost of the service is

worthy
Commitment known
early
Satisfaction on finished
product in terms of
investment
Less cost overruns
13
13
10
10
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
95
Model house can see

before buying
No fraudulent acts
Disputes with the
contractor is less
Ease of payments
Cost of procurement is less
Low contractor profit
levels
Availability of workmens
compensation and
insurance
No tendering cost
Applicability irrespective
of the location of the site
Total Score
Score Package deal clients view
Score
No tendering cost
No tendering cost
13
No fraudulent acts
No fraudulent acts
Ease of payments
30
(31.58%)
23
Disputes with the

contractor is less
Cost of procurement
process is less
(24.21%)
However, the both the procurement arrangements offers lesser cost related benefits compared to time
related benefits, whereas the metaphor occurs with a considerable margins.
4.3.
ANALYSIS OF QUALITY RELATED BENEFITS
Top five (05) quality related benefits according to each survey strata are present in Table 5. Therefore,
out of the five (05) most important quality related benefits, adequacy of the builders technical knowledge
is present with both the approaches. Informal construction offer the most important quality benefit,
attractiveness of the finished product. It is important, as finished house should be attractive for people.
Clients always try to construct a unique house, which is exceptional and attractive (Franks, 1998).
However, the benefits; properly functioning building services, assurance of quality on the materials used,
and minimized wastage are not highly offered by any of the arrangements. Yet, both the arrangements
offer the benefits; authorized construction and no structural defects to residential construction clients. In
addition, package deal contracts offer clients, the benefits of; final output is well-known from the
beginning and availability of required materials and plant, whereas informal arrangements offer the
benefit of flexibility for design alterations. Hence, according to Jayasena (2009), if client did not find the
correct contractor, finally he will be dissatisfied with the construction. Selecting a suitable package deal
contractor is more important in package deal construction.
Therefore, considering the weighted scores, package deal is only capable of offering 21.02% of the total
achievable score in offering quality related benefits considering the top five (05) factors, whereas
informal contracts offer 31.79%. Hence, the analysis suggests higher capability in offering quality related
benefits to be with informal construction arrangements over package deal procurements.
485
Table 5: Importance and Availability of Quality Related Benefits

Score
Score
18
Attractiveness of the
finished product
technical knowledge
Properly functioning
building services
Assurance of quality on the
materials used
14
Final output is well-known

from the beginning
18
17
17
17
Package deal clients view
No structural defects
technical knowledge
17
Minimized wastage
materials and plant
14

alterations
Durability of fixtures
Work reviewed by
experienced professionals
Availability of range of
designs with the contractor
Involvement of
construction professionals
Efficiency in contract
management
Final output is wellknown from the
beginning
materials and plant
Proper documentation
Contractor planning the
work properly
Concerned of safety
regulations
Total Score
41
(21.02%)
14
14
8
7
6
5
5
5
5
1
195
17
14
14
14
Score
62

alterations
Attractiveness of the
finished product
Authorized
construction
Adequacy of the
builders technical
knowledge
(31.79%)
Considering all facts discussed and identified, residential construction clients should consider their time,
cost, and quality benefits requirements individually. When selecting a procurement system, requirements
of an individual client should be matched with the characteristics of each construction method. Therefore,
a guideline was developed to demonstrate the capacity of offering important time, cost and quality related
benefits by the package deal and informal construction procurement arrangements. The developed
guideline for residential building construction clients for procurement selection is presented as Table 6.
Hence, Table 6 illustrates the most important time, cost, and quality benefits available with package deal
and informal construction, whereas the top expected benefits, as per experts are given in bold letters and
common benefits are italicized. The factors are presented in the order of availability and font sizes are
proportionate with the importance given by the industry experts. Hence, by referring the guideline,
residential clients can decide the most suitable contract type for their construction according to their
requirements.
486
Quality
Cost
Time
Table 6: Guideline for Residential Building Construction Clients for Procurement Selection
Package deal
Less time spent on project management
Time taken to finding a builder is less
Handed over in the expected time period
Less conflicts between contractor and clients
representatives
Informal construction
Quick response to the clients needs
Direct contact with the contractor
Good communication among construction team
Less conflicts between contractor and clients
representatives
No tendering cost
No fraudulent acts
Applicability irrespective of the location of the site
Ease of payments
No tendering cost
Applicability irrespective of the location of the
site
No fraudulent acts
Disputes with the contractor is less
Cost of procurement process is less
Final output is well-known from the beginning
Adequacy of the builders technical knowledge
Availability of required materials and plant
Flexibility for design alterations Attractiveness

of the finished product
Adequacy of the builders technical knowledge
Therefore, if a client is interested in more of time and cost benefits over quality, the suitable procurement
arrangement is package deal. Although informal construction has more quality benefits, package deal
construction is a trustworthy contract type.
5.
SUMMARY
The study revealed the availability of more of highly important time, and cost benefits in package deal
construction over informal construction, whereas informal construction offers more of highly important
quality related benefits. Further, package deal offers least of quality benefits compared to its time and cost
benefits, yet, informal contract offer least cost related benefits compared to its time and quality related
benefits.
Hence, the study is important, as it sheds the light on the strength of package deal construction in the
context of Sri Lankan construction industry towards better residential construction procuring. It will be
helpful for residential construction clients to select the most suitable procurement types, as well as to
understand the novel systems of package deal construction. The clients, therefore, can select a suitable
procurement system by comparing the benefits from each construction method. Further, the study will
assist improved awareness upon key theories, characteristics and benefits of package deal construction
and informal construction of the interested people in residential construction industry. In addition, the
study lays the foundation for construction companies to direct their business towards package deal
construction and to promote their business in residential construction sector. However, it is important for
the package deal contractors to increase their attention upon the expected quality aspects of the building
output.
6.
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Ashworth, A., 1996. Contractual procedures in the construction industry. 3rd ed. England: Wesley Longman Ltd.
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Jayasena, H.A.E.C., 2009. Factors affecting construction procurement selection private sector Vs public sector
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488
SUSTAINABLE CONSTRUCTION PRACTICES OF SRI LANKAN

CONTRACTORS
Kushani Athapaththu*
Currie & Brown, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Gayani Karunasena and E.M.A.C. Ekanayake

ABSTRACT
Construction industry is conversely depleting of natural resources. It impacts on the environment,
economy and society, not only during a projects life cycle but also for coming generations. Adhering
sustainable principles in construction industry brings the sustainable construction which ensures
better quality of life for everyone. The contractor as a key player in the construction industry has to
play an imperative role to promote sustainable construction by minimising their negative impact on
the environment and society while maximising their economic contribution. Thus, this research
intended to examine current sustainable construction practices and issues of contracting organisations
to suggest a framework which can be used for the ultimate delivery of sustainable construction in Sri
Lanka. Case study research approach was used to collect data among contracting organisations and
eight semi-structured interviews were conducted. Four industry expert interviews were conducted to
verify the gathered opinions and suggestions on enhancements of sustainable construction practices of
contracting organisations. Cross-case analysis was used to analyse multiple cases using code based
content analysis technique. Findings revealed that the organisations were at primary stage in
sustainable construction practices, namely legal framework, standards, guidelines or policies, design,
procurement, technologies, processes and innovations, organisational structure and people, education
and training, measurements and reporting.
Keywords:
1.
Construction Industry; Contracting

Construction; Sustainable Practices.
Organisations;
Sri
Lanka;
Sustainable
INTRODUCTION
The sustainable development includes three broad components; social, environmental and economic
(Khalfan, 2002; Persson, 2009) often known as the triple bottom line, which brings environmental
responsibility, social awareness and economic profitability objectives to the fore in the built environment
and facilities for the wider community (Ali and Nsairat, 2009). Previous studies on sustainable materials
(Emmanuel, 2004; Mora, 2007) and sustainable indicators (Ugwu and Haupt, 2007) emphasise the
importance of national approach which unique to each country to deliver sustainability in their
construction industry. Therefore, it is an inevitable need in the Sri Lankan construction industry to grant
sustainability with the collaboration of all stakeholders. The contractor as a key player in the construction
industry has to play a significant role in promoting sustainability in construction by minimising their
negative impact on the environment and society while maximising their economic contribution (Tan et
al., 2011).
Accordingly, this study was to examine the current sustainable construction practices of contracting
organization and their issues in order to suggest actions which can be taken into the enhancement of
sustainable construction practices of contracting organisations to attain sustainable construction in Sri
Lanka.
489
2.
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1.
SUSTAINABLE CONSTRUCTION PRACTICES
The first definition of sustainable construction was proposed by Charles Kibert during the first
International Conference on Sustainable Construction in Tampa, 1994; sustainable construction is the
creation and responsible management of a healthy built environment based on resource efficient and
ecological principles (Kibert cited in Murray and Cotgrave, 2007, p.13). Later Plessis came up with a
straightforward definition on sustainable construction in 2002 in the discussion document of Agenda 21
for Sustainable Construction in Developing Countries by compelling entirety sustainability image as;
sustainable construction is a holistic process aiming to restore and maintain harmony between the
natural and built environments, and create settlements that affirm human dignity and encourage
economic equity (Plessis, 2002, p.8). Thus, this definition takes sustainability further than just reducing
pessimistic impact, as implied in the earlier definitions, by introducing the idea of restoring the
environment.
It may be perceived as a long term exercise carried out by various parties/industries to achieve a
sustainable development within the parameters of economic, social and environmental cornerstones.
Thus, construction industry, which traditionally focused on time, cost, and quality was shifted into the
new paradigm by focusing economic, environmental and social aspects. Such construction would bring
environmental responsibility, social awareness, and economic profitability to the fore in the built
environment and facilities for the wider community. Sustainability in construction offers first-rate
response to the present environmental and socio-economic problems as it is an application of the
principles of sustainable development to the comprehensive construction cycle from the extraction of raw
materials, through the planning, design and construction of buildings and infrastructure, until their final
deconstruction and management of the resultant waste (Yunus and Yang, 2011). The main challenge for
the industry is to play an integral part in reducing the impacts of its activities on the environment and
local communities. Hence, Owners/Developers who play an important role in developing and financing
construction projects for implementation of sustainable construction (Gan et al., 2015), Architects/
Engineers who are involved in designing sustainable infrastructures, Contractors as builders of the
construction projects, have to take leadership in such transformation.
Tan et al. (2011) stated that contractors have to play significant role in promoting sustainable
development within the context of the construction industry by assuming the responsibility to mitigate
their negative impact on the environment and society while maximise their economic contribution which
gives multiple benefits to contractors by implementing sustainable practices. Sustainability makes good
business sense because it is increasing importance to the efficient, effective and responsible operation of
business while such sustainable business practices in construction organisations give competitive
advantage to their organisations (Ebner and Baumgartner, 2006). Thus, focus on sustainable construction
practices of contracting organisations, where contractors play their role immensely, is very important to
bring sustainability in the construction industry as it ultimately contributes to sustainable development in
globally.
Table 1 summarized the previous studies which can be rehearsed to contribute sustainable development in
the construction industry.
Table 1: Sustainable Construction Practices of Contracting Organisation
Sustainable practices
Sustainable legal
framework
Sustainable construction
standards, guideline or
policies
Principles
Organisation can comply with the legal frame work of the country which leads to
sustainable construction, including the environmental requirement and social
responsibility, to improve economic advancement (Pitt et al., 2009; Tan et al.,
2011).
Organisation can proceed with establishing or their own sustainable standards,
guideline or policies to minimising environmental, economic and social risk
associated with construction practices (Krigsvoll et al., 2010).
490
Sustainable design
Sustainable procurement
Sustainable technologies,
processes and
innovations
Organisation can improve the projects whole life value through green design and
ensure the buildability with efficient use of resources, sustainable materials,
minimum wastage, resilient, adaptable and attractive (Tan et al., 2011; Akadiri et
al., 2013).
Organisation can promote green supply chain throughout the project life cycle to
ensure the sustainability (Vanegas et al., 1996; Tan et al., 2011; Shaharudin and
Ismail, 2015).
Organisation can increase the sustainability of both the construction process and
its resultant assets via sustainable technologies, processes and innovations which
includes lean principles (Tan et al., 2011; Booth et al., 2012; Liang et al., 2014;
Salifu-Asubay and Mensah, 2015).
People and
organisational structure
Organisation can arrange the organisation and project structure to facilitate the
implementation of sustainable policy and strategy and increase in organisations
awareness and committing sustainable construction (Tan et al., 2011; Liang et al.,
2014).
Sustainable education
and training
Organisation can increase organisations commitment to sustainable construction

through better education and training of every staff in the organisation or project
(Tan et al., 2011; Liang et al., 2014).
Sustainable
measurement and
reporting
Organisation can have measurement and reporting system or use existing

benchmarks to evaluate environmental, economic and social performance and
identify the areas to be improved (Persson, 2009; Pitt et al., 2009; Tan et al.,
2011; Liang et al., 2014).
2.2.
SUSTAINABLE CONSTRUCTION IN SRI LANKA
Sri Lankan history shows how our forefathers built great cities, irrigation systems and religious
monuments that coexisted with nature and yet provided a sustainable economy and lifestyle to the citizens
(GBCSL, 2010). However, Sri Lanka suffers from not only the environmental but also economic and
social issues due to unsustainable development happened during past decades and happening currently.
This timely requirement has been identified, revealed and has acknowledged distinctive sustainable
approach to meet its sustainable desires. The Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (MENR) in
Sri Lanka had put a step forward to contribute to sustainable development in Sri Lankan context by
introducing a guideline. MENR (2007) declared that the guideline for establishing National Sustainable
Development Strategies (NSDS) stated that NSDS is not just a document, but also a country based and
country owned system. Further, Green Building Council established in 2010 as one of the humble steps to
take our society to that glorious past which people are still proud of as Sri Lankans. In addition, Tsunami
reconstruction projects were in line with after the Tsunami Sustainable Building Guideline for South-East
Asia, which provides numerous environmental, safety and financial benefits through sustainable
reconstruction management guideline (UNEP, 2007). There are few building projects which were
recorded in the industry as sustainable buildings, for instance Kandalama Hotel which is one of the first
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Bronze rated hotels in the world (rated in year
2000), MAS Intimates Thurulie - Clothing Factory in Sri Lanka which is the first LEED Platinum rate
newly built manufacturing factory in the world. Even though such preliminary steps were taken still there
are gaps in sustainable construction practices to attain environmental, (The Sunday leader, 2014)
economic and social sustainability in Sri Lanka. Studies of Abeysundara et al. (2009) identified that
significant environmental impact in the Sri Lankan context due to unsustainable development as nutrient
enrichment, acidification and global warming, while most of the impact on society and economy were
silent in several studies.
3.
Under qualitative case study research approach, three contracting organizations were selected (refer Table
2) to appraise the current sustainable construction practices and issues of the contracting organisation in
Sri Lanka. An organisation was selected as the unit of analysis among C1 grading contracting
491
organisations that have been engaged in sustainable development up to a certain level in the Sri Lankan
construction industry as them are mega scale contractors who are representing the voice of construction
sector in Sri Lanka. Eight semi-structured interviews were conducted (refer Table 2) within the case
studies by considering individuals as a unit of data collection. Individuals who have experience in
sustainable construction have taken part in those semi-structured interviews and were conducted using
interview guideline and tape-recorded (with permission of the interviewee) to secure an accurate account
of the conversations and avoid losing data since everything cannot be written down during the interview.
Those semi-structured interviews enable sufficient flexibility to approach different respondents, covering
the same areas of data collection while enable to adapt the questions necessary, clarify doubts and ensure
that the response is properly understood by repeating and rephrasing the questions. Ultimately, interview
transcripts were developed to generate a sensible adaptation of interviewed data.
Since the research contained three case studies, during the analysis, broad themes and patterns were
looked for, rather than narrow, precisely variables of qualitative research. Cross-case analysis was used as
it is the most preferable method of analysing multiple cases (Yin, 2009). Code based content analysis was
used to analysis large set of gathered data in the simplest way as it produced a uniform schema of
categories (Flick, 2006), which facilitates comparison of different cases. The each individual case was
analysed based on the main themes, namely; sustainable construction practices of contracting
organisations and issues in order to identify actions which can be taken into enhancement of sustainable
construction practices of contracting organisations to attain sustainable construction in Sri Lanka.
Table 2: Profile of the Case Interviews
Cases
Case A
Type of construction
Buildings, Roads, Infrastructures,
Batching plants and quarries
Case B
Buildings, Roads, Infrastructures,

Batching plants and quarries
Case C
Buildings and Roads
Agent
A1
A2
A3
B1
B2
B3
C1
C2
Designation
Head of HR/ Team Leader of Sustainability
Committee
Engineer Progress Monitoring
Project Manager
Director Engineering
Project Coordinator
Director / Sustainability reporter
Project Manager
Engineer Design
In addition to that four interviews were conducted with industry experts who engaged in the development
of sustainable construction in order to verify and gather opinions and suggestions on enhancements of
sustainable construction practices of contracting organisation as illustrated in Table 3. Interviewees
represented environmentalist, sustainability consultant, contractor/builder, designer, engineer, project
manager. These high-ranked participants influenced a wealth of experience in varied of construction
projects such as factories, roads and highways, buildings. On an average, the recorded open-minded
interviews lasted for one and half hours each and were conducted.
Table 3: Profile of the Expert Interviews
Designation of expert
Advisor
Senior lecturer
Managing Director
Managing Director
Agent
E1
E2
E3
E4
Sector
Government sector
Government sector
Private sector
Private sector
Experience on sustainable
construction
Have experience
more than 5 years in
sustainable construction
Accordingly, next section discusses the findings of the research study.
492
4.
4.1.
CURRENT PRACTICES OF CONTRACTING ON SUSTAINABLE CONSTRUCTION
Findings reveal that organisations are at the primary stage of adopting sustainable practices. Contracting
organisations are currently observed and strictly enforced the law of the country because of its significant
impacts of construction activities on society and the environment (Tan et al., 2011). Similarly, in Sri
Lanka, contractors are enforced to comply with the legal framework which ensures sustainable
construction, unlikely not in the form of sustainable practices. The research study of Krigsvoll et al.,
(2010) revealed sustainability in construction has a short developing history in terms of guidelines,
standardisations and policy making in world content. It can be a one of the reasons to have very few
organisations who practicing inbuilt sustainable policies within their organisations. Ding (2008) revealed
that sustainable design is a best practice to have at the very earliest project stages and this involves not
just considering what is being built, but how it is being built, with which products and methods and which
functions the project will perform or facilitate, once completed. Thus, as the current demand for
sustainable design from all stakeholders is very important to have sustainable construction. However,
unlikely in other countries, Sri Lankan demand for sustainable construction is very poor.
Not likely in developed countries, there is no proper organisational or institutional procedure for green
supply chain, in Sri Lanka, where materials and equipment are supplied in a green manner (Vanegas et
al., 1996). As sustainability is a key concept in the world, Booth et al. (2012) stated that the contracting
organisations have increased their organisational capacity in terms of technologies, processes and
innovations towards sustainable construction by identifying their vital responsibility. Anyhow contracting
organisations in Sri Lanka, rarely follow when only clients demand. Tan et al. (2011) further explored
the importance of having awareness of sustainable construction within the people and top management at
contracting organisations to the positive contribution from contracting organisations towards sustainable
construction. However, there is no sufficient awareness in Sri Lanka about sustainable construction which
ultimately cause to no proper education and training on sustainable construction to employees in all levels
unlikely in global content. Further, without necessary skill sets, construction will be ill-equipped to meet
the challenge of the sustainable construction agenda. As a result, although there are several sustainable
measurements and reporting tools available which critical to the development of corporate sustainability
and to help organisations to manage towards sustainability, Sri Lankan practices on sustainable
measurements and reporting at infancy level.
4.2.
ISSUES ON SUSTAINABLE CONSTRUCTION PRACTICES OF CONTRACTING ORGANISATIONS
Issues in existing sustainable construction practices of selected contracting organisations were discussed
in this section to enhance the current sustainable construction practices of contracting organisations. Five
major issues were identified as below via the case studies, namely; Legal framework and enforcement,
Institutional intervention and coordination, Commitment of the people, Cost Factor, Education and
Experience.
The study of Abeynayake (2010) revealed that the Sri Lankan legal system has sufficient provisions to
protect the environment as well as a good system procedure for physical planning. However, empirical
investigations stated that there are several gaps in the legal system in Sri Lanka as it is not identified real
concept of sustainable construction. Although there are provisions within the legal framework in Sri
Lanka to accomplish environment sustainability, there are less provisions for economic and social
aspects. However, outdated Acts and Ordinances are still governed by law without necessary amendments
to suit sustainable construction. Furthermore, there is an immense problem with enforcement of the legal
provisions which leads to sustainable construction due to political issues and the less awareness of the
stakeholders. It indicates the levels of legal enforcements are varied from project to project.
There were several issues in the institutional intervention and the coordination of sustainable construction
practices in Sri Lanka. Although, there were published national strategies for sustainable development,
there are no any published national strategies which focus on the construction industry. At the same time
493
there is neither national platform nor coordination committee to promote sustainable construction while
even no coordination between organisations, government or the research and development units in Sri
Lanka. There are very few social responsible organisations to take leadership to promote sustainable
construction for an example Green Building Council and the Sustainable Energy Authority and they are
started recently. Thus, current institutional intervention, even in the government level is fairly less and as
a result of that, there is no any agenda or the setup to follow the contractors or other stakeholders.
The reasonable commitment of the stakeholders in the construction industry is an essential element in
promoting sustainable construction. Empirical records showed that there are issues with the commitment
of the people due to lack of aware of the significance of sustainable practices due to problem in their
attitudes. Finding revealed that the clients demand is not sufficient and demand for the sustainable
project should arise from the client side rather than conventional. The pointing figure is another problem
as many stakeholders believe that the role of promoting and encouraging sustainable practices falls on
other shoulders as well such as designers, consultants, contractors or the Government.
Cost of implementation of sustainable technologies is ridiculous. Thus, sustainable construction practices
are believed to increase project cost as they need to have higher capital upfront. When the client does not
demand the sustainable project, the contractor is not welcome in the sustainable construction as he is
losing in the competitive bidding. The cost of sustainable approaches which are costly than the other
conventional techniques (new technologies BIM, training cost) has to bear by the contractor which helps
to minimise the impact to the environment.
Empirical data highlighted that there are many players in the construction industry and mostly are not
professionally qualified. The implementation of sustainable construction practices can be improved if
various construction players, including Engineers, Architect and Quantity Surveyors play their role in
advising the developers on the merits of pursuing sustainable practices. If the consultants can come up
with a good design within the project budget that can sustain the environment and give a good business
return, then the developers will be inclined to accept the proposal. At the same time there is quite few
educated and experienced construction professionals in sustainable construction and most of the
employees are neither have the education nor experience on sustainable construction and even they are
not looking to continuous development as requires in the industry time to time.
Achieving sustainability goals depends on how well these issues are well handled. Accordingly, next
section discusses the suggestions which can be used to identify issues in current practices.
4.3.
SUGGESTIONS TO OVERCOME ISSUES IN SUSTAINABLE CONSTRUCTION PRACTICES OF

CONTRACTING ORGANISATIONS
There were several attributes highlighted through the literature synthesis and expert interviews which
would be better to suggest for improvement of sustainable construction practices of the contracting
organisation for the ultimate delivery of sustainable construction industry in Sri Lanka. The study
emphasises the delivery, sustainability in the construction industry is a long term process which needs to
address with the support of all stakeholders.
It is an essential to have an effective legal framework which ensures the sustainable construction within
the country. Accordingly, the government has to directly intervene to the development of sustainable
construction practices in the construction industry. Further, the studies of Majdalani et al. (2006) stated
that the legislative body has an important role to play in preparing the necessary legal infrastructure to
protect the interest of all parties and to prompt a wider adaptation of sustainable construction practices.
This can only be achieved if the government takes a leadership role in this regard. However, all the
stakeholders should participate and try to balance the long term benefits with the short-term resources.
Accordingly, all the parties should abide these legislations and regulations by looking at the macro scale
level of the industry and try to establish best practices that serve current and future interests of all. Both
government and private sector contractors can be motivated by introducing intensives, low taxes, low
interest rates, discounts for materials, for adhering of sustainable principles. Thus, responsible institutions
must involve in helping the government to shape the construction industry.
494
Institutional intervention and coordination have heavily contributed to sustainable construction and can
play a key role within the industry, it is needed to take leadership by responsible institutions and put step
forward to promote sustainable construction via proper agenda by introducing , sustainable design
criteria, Eco labelled materials, green supply chain, lean concepts, benchmarking, sustainable assessment
and sustainable consulting. It requires to enhance research and development which brings sustainable
technologies, processes and innovations. Thus, having proper coordination and collaboration among
academic and technical institutions will speed up the achieving sustainable desire.
Stakeholders awareness of the sustainable construction can improve via media as it assists in direct
communication to the people while the awareness level of the employees enhance by giving awareness
programme in each level of the employees with practical scenarios. Moreover, Pitt et al. (2008) revealed
that this is crucial if sustainable practices are to be adopted over and above the requirements of building
regulations. Thus, clients knowledge and awareness on sustainable construction is particularly important
as they are the principal stakeholder in determining and committing sustainable construction practice.
The cost factor as far more highlighted issue within sustainable construction practices, findings avowed
that to compete with this high cost associated with sustainable construction, it needs to well aware of
these concepts by all the stakeholders in the construction industry. Further, it needs to change the mindset of the people to think of the whole life cycle cost than current benefit. As the cost factor negatively,
strongly affect to the sustainable construction, it can be managed by introducing evaluation criteria which
gives high credits to sustainable contractors in the selection process of the contractors. It creates that the
contractors naturally tend to practice sustainable construction where the cost of it is shared by the client.
Not only construction professionals, entire people need to have knowledge and awareness on sustainable
construction practices from their childhood and should have a proper agenda to share the knowledge on
sustainable construction within the organisations. Further, best solution for that is to cross training among
the employees. It will be benefited to share the ones experience and the knowledge among many others.
Therefore, empirical investigation, specially identified significant of having experience employees who
positively contribute to sustainable development in the construction industry and rehearsing innovative
technologies like BIM where all the stakeholders working on same platform and talk same langue which
minimise construction waste, increase build ability and achieve stakeholder interest (Wu and Zhou,
2014).
Accordingly, sustainability in the Sri Lankan construction industry can be delivered effectively via
contracting organisations by adopting and focusing following developed conceptual framework (refer
Figure 1) namely; Legal framework, Standards, guidelines, Design, Procurement, Education and training,
Measurement and reporting, People and organization structure, Technologies, process and innovation.
5.
CONCLUSION
The impact caused by construction activities heavily affect to our environment, society and the economy.
Thus, there is a big responsibility within all stakeholders in the construction industry to take part of this
challenge, including contractors as a key player in the construction industry. Studies revealed that
contracting organisations were at the primary stage of adopting sustainable construction practices such as
Legal framework, Standards, guidelines, Design, Procurement, Education and training, Measurement and
reporting, People and organization structure, Technologies, process and innovation.
Legal framework and enforcement, institutional intervention, commitment of the people, cost factor and
education and experience, were identified as key issues in an existing sustainable construction practices of
contracting organisation. Therefore, several aspects were captured through experts opinions and
literature synthesis which would be guided for better enhancement of sustainable construction practices of
contracting organization in Sri Lanka.
Thus, it is required to rehearse identified sustainable construction practices and adopt made suggestions in
the Figure 1, rather it becomes as future menace. Consequently, this research contributes on sustainable
construction practices of contacting organisations related to the construction industry openings and
broader view on the current practices and issues and suggestions to overcome. In such situation, all the
stakeholders in the construction industry have great responsibility to contribute and make this into a
495
competitive advantage in future by furnishing awareness to implement or the enhancement of sustainable

practices.
Technologies, Process& innovation

Awareness of Sustainable
Technologies - etc. BIM, Lean,3Rs
Harmonization of academic and
technical institutions and searching
for cost effective methods
Sustainability criteria for bid
evaluation.
Legal Framework
Compliance with existing legal
framework
Preparing the necessary legal
infrastructure for sustainable
development
Standards, guidelines & policies
Organisational policies, vision
and mission to cover the
principles in sustainable
construction
Nationalregulations to comply
ENVIRONMENT
People & organizational

structure
Top management support
Collaborative approach
SUSTAINABLE
CONSTRUCTION
ECONOMIC
SOCIAL
Design
Sustainable design (energy
conservation , value engineering,
reduce CO2 emission)
Procurement
Organisational or institutional
procedure for green supply chain
management
Measurements & reporting

Project Benchmarking
Sustainability Assessment
Education & training
Increase the awareness of
sustainability
Sustainable agenda to aware,
share the knowledge
Figure 1: Developed Conceptual Framework
6.
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SYNERGY BETWEEN LEAN AND VALUE ENGINEERING CONCEPTS:

SRI LANKAN CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE
E.M.A.C. Ekanayake* and Y.G. Sandanayake
ABSTRACT
The allied competitiveness and unpredictable nature of the construction industry forced to rethink on
the performance enhancement tools in order to address the urgent matter of resource scarcity as a
global dilemma. Hence, most of the construction firms highly concern about the customers
satisfaction by means of giving value for the clients money. The researchers established that Value
Engineering (VE) and Lean concepts supersede all the other value achieving strategies since; both
address the concept of Value in a greater extent. VE addresses the areas, which are not aligned with
the methodological purview of Lean. In turn, Lean could enhance the effectiveness of VE efforts.
Although there were some arguments on the above, there is lack of a research of investigating the
synergy between Lean and VE concepts with related to the construction sector. Hence, this study
investigates the synergy between Lean and VE concepts in order to explore the best value for client.
Accordingly, a qualitative research approach was followed to attain the research aim. A
comprehensive literature review followed by expert opinion surveys were used to investigate the
synergy between the concepts. The information gathered were subsequently subjected to a content
analysis. This study revealed that, there is a synergy among customer value principle, pre study,
information and presentation phases, value stream principle with functional analysis and presentation
phases, flow principle with creativity, evaluation, development and presentation phases, pull principle
with functional analysis, presentation and post study phases, perfection principle with presentation
and post study phases. The findings would be very much effective for advanced value achieving
strategy development purpose which achieve the best value for the client in the extremity.
Keywords:
1.
Value for Client; Synergy; Construction Industry; Lean; Value Engineering.
INTRODUCTION
A barrage of remedial reforms and revisions of construction practices have been recently targeting
enhanced value, superior performance, overall satisfaction and harmony (Palaneeswaran et al., 2003).
Hence, construction organisations are forced to rethink their construction for improving productivity,
quality and efficiency in order to gain the best value for the client (Karna and Jonnonen, 2005).
Different researches have highlighted different value achieving strategies existing in the practice. Ismail
et al. (2010) findings highlighted Value Engineering (VE) as a management tool that can be effectively
used in the construction industry with an aim to produce innovative ideas and solutions for enhanced
project value than in other value addressing techniques.
According to the findings of Perera et al. (2003), application of VE practices in Sri Lanka is relatively
low. However, VE practices were done to the World Trade Center project during the project
commencing and resulted energy saving and increased productivity in business etc. (Perera et al., 2003).
Finally the researchers concluded by highlighting that the construction industry in Sri Lanka exacerbates
the need of proper VE practice due to the absence of proper cost controlling mechanism allied with the
industry.
498
Aziz and Hafez (2013) mentioned that Lean concept and Lean-based tools can be successfully applied to
simple and complex construction projects, which effort to deliver better value to owners while making
real profits. Apparently, Lean is an immense in reducing cost and achieving project value compared to the
other techniques/strategies (Madanayake, 2015).
According to the findings of Senaratne and Wijesiri (2008), even though Lean construction is still new to
Sri Lanka, it can be used as a strategic option in construction projects. The research revealed that
domestic construction industry workforce neglect the waste and their causes which tend to inefficiency
and high cost. Hence, Sri Lankan construction industry make public an urgent need of Lean construction
to address the construction wastes in a proper manner. Hence, it should be highlighted that VE and Lean
address the value achieving scenario in a greater extent and there is an urgent need for the strategies from
Sri Lankan context.
According to Arratia and Cell (2003), integration of VE and Lean thinking offers an organisation the
continuous improvement while enhancing the value in manufacturing/production process. Although,
Arratia and Cell have mentioned that Lean and VE can be used together in production/manufacturing
industry, there is a lack of an evidence in research on such an integration with related to the construction
industry. There is therefore a need to investigate the synergy between Lean and VE concepts in order to
find out the probable integration and its benefits. Thus, the aim of the research is to investigate the
synergy between Lean principles and VE stages.
The paper stucture begins with an introduction to the study and followed by a literature review on Lean
and VE concepts in section 2. Section 3 presents the research methodology and section 4 presents the
synergy betweeen Lean and VE strategies. The final section summarises conclusions derived from the
research findings and present recommendations.
2.
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1.
LEAN AS A VALUE ACHIEVING STRATEGY
The concept of Lean based on the Toyota Production System introduced by Japanese in 1950s (Spear and
Bowen, 1999). Number of major companies in the world adopt Lean in order to remain competitive in
rapidly globalised market (Perez and Sanchez, 2000). As per Arratia and Cell (2003), Lean tends to
reduce cost, target customer wants, needs and finally improves the efficiency of production.
Lean Philosophy emerged to Lean Construction and Lean Project Management due to its strongest
approach of achieving best performance, while maximising value and minimising waste (Ballard and
Howell, 2003). Lean construction applies a new form of production management to construction sector
which includes performance maximisation, concurrent design and construction and the proper project
control throughout the project life cycle from design to delivery (Aziz and Hafez, 2013).
According to Madanayake (2015), there are five basic Lean principles in Lean implementation. The Lean
Construction principles which were derived through the literature synthesis and used for this studyis
shown in Table 1.
Table 1: Definition of Lean Construction Principles
Lean Principles
No
Principle
Description
Customer Value
Value Stream
Flow
4
5
Pull
Perfection
Specify the value from the perspective of ultimate customer. It is essential to meet
the required specifications and to deliver the value desired to the end customer. By
clearly defining value for product or service, customer value becomes the common
focus for parties involved in the project.
Identify all the steps necessary to design and construction across the whole value
stream to highlight non value adding activities
Make those actions that create value flow without interruption, detours, backflows,
waiting or scrap
Only make/provide what is pulled by the customer
The elimination of non-value-adding elements (waste/muda)
Source: Madanayake (2015)
499
Although Lean is effective, it does not answer to all the problems (Arratia and Cell, 2003). Hence, there
can be both benefits and drawbacks associated with the Lean Construction approach. Ballard et al.,
(2002) further explained the benefits achievable in Lean construction as improved management of
demand, reduced cycle time, greater productivity, heightened work force involvement, and increased
revenue and profitability. However, Garbie (2010) highlighted that although Lean provides the benefits, it
is still need more effort to explore ways to overcome the drawbacks associated with Lean.
2.2.
VALUE ENGINEERING AS A VALUE ACHIEVING STRATEGY
Lawrence D. Miles, who is an Electrical Engineer and also the pioneer of the VE has proposed some
alternatives to overcome the issue of material shortage (Cheah and Ting, 2005). VE is another systematic
approach which seeks to achieve value for money by providing all necessary functions at the lowest total
cost (Male et al., 2007). According to Morgan (2003), VE is an intensive, interdisciplinary problem
solving activity that focuses on improving the value of the goal objective functions in an organisation.
Value Management process involves three parts including pre-study, value-study and post-study (Shen et
al., 2004). In contrast, Kelly et al. (2004) and Shen et al. (2004) proposed six stage job plan for the
implementation of VE as information phase, functional analysis phase, creativity phase, evaluation phase,
development phase and presentation phase as shown in Table 2, which is used for this study due to its
selection as the most applicable job plan.
Table 2: Value Engineering Job Plan
Value Engineering Job Plan
Related steps
Collect user / customer attitude, complete data file, determine evaluation
factors, scope the study, build data models, determine team composition
Phase
Pre-study
Sub-phase
Value study
Information phase
Function analysis
phase
Complete data package, modify scope

Identify functions, classify functions, develop function models, establish
function worth
Creativity phase
Create large quantity of ideas to achieve the functions specified
Evaluation phase
Rank and rate alternative ideas, select ideas for development
Development phase
Conduct cost benefit analysis, complete technical data package, create

implementation plan, prepare final proposals
Presentation phase
Present oral report
Post study
Complete changes, implement changes, monitor status
VE facilitates creativity, innovative ideas, alternative solutions, and generally indulge in some out-ofthe-box thinking in introducing proper changes to the construction procedures (Ellis et al., 2005).
Further, VE facilitates sustainability to the construction industry and holds a strategic position (Abidin
and Pasquire, 2007). However, VE is not effective in low value low risk projects (Kelly et al., 2004).
Significant cost and time consumption of the process can be considered as other drawbacks associated
with Value Engineering implementation (Kelly et al., 2004).Hence there is a need of proper
implementation of the VE practices in order to achieve the target benefits.
2.3.
COMPARISON BETWEEN LEAN AND VALUE ENGINEERING
Different researchers have defined VE and Lean in different ways. However, there are some specific
characteristics, issues, problems and objectives associated with the concepts and the different researchers
views on the facts are shown in Table 3.
500
Table 3: Comparison between Lean and Value Engineering

Characteristic/Issue/Problem/
Objective
Excellent quality
Lean
Value Engineering
Can be achieved by perfection
On time delivery
Superior customer service
Obtains by reducing unnecessary flow

activities
Identify and address the customer
requirements in customer value phase
Based on customer pull situation
Enhance the value by achieving

optimum quality
Propose alternatives which
accelerate the project
Identify customer requirements in
pre study phase and address them
during job plan
Reduce variable overhead costs
Reduce non value added activity costs
Potential savings other than cost

reduction
Waste elimination
Limited by underlying design

characteristics
Continuous waste reduction
Transforming operations into

alternative forms of visual
information
Use of visual analytical tools
Achieve end user satisfaction and

understanding
Systematic approach for

problem identification and
solving
Provide consistency in
application
Promote creative thinking and
innovations
Vigorous and analytic
methodology
Reduce cost and increase value
Offers great flexibility to the
approach
Most effective with processes
that involve high dollar value
Works best with processes that
have low variation and effective
cost
Long term process which
require strong and consistent
management support
Require large financial
investment
Depends on the management
Can work as isolated study
event
Provide cohesive set of
operating principles and
practices
Operator support
Team dynamics
Achieve optimum cost even in

materials
Obtainable by making design
changes
Spontaneous and quick response to
the wastes
Achieve end user satisfaction and
understanding
Spaghetti diagrams, flow diagrams ,

bar charts, standard work sheets and
production control boards
Mainly focus on waste reduction not
problem solving
Function analysis and FAST

diagrams.
Due to various definitions consistency

is limited
Yes, but there is no room for creative
process improvement
Is not an analytical approach
Reduce costs of waste and increase the
value
Less flexibility due to standardisation
process
High cost reduction is possible in
expensive projects
Not effective for the projects with large
nr of variations
Yes, Job plan facilitates the

consistency
Yes, facilitates creative process
improvements
Yes, FAST diagrams etc. used as
analytic tools
Achieve optimum cost and enhance
value
Not a standardisation process hence,
the process is flexible
Can used in variety of situations but
VE cost is significant
No. can effectively implemented for
higher number of variations.
Yes, requires longer duration for

perfection
40 hour workshop is required for

implementing
Significant cost is there
Significant cost is there
Yes, mostly
No, operational management process
Depends on the VE team

Yes, an isolated study event
Number of principles to be followed
No, just the phases to be followed
Proactive problem identification and

solving mechanism
Operator support is required to achieve Operator support is required to

objectives
achieve objectives
Team based approach together with the VE team based approach
management
Sources: Dixon (2004); Wixon (2004); Arratia and Cell (2003)
501
Generally, the major difference between two concepts is; Lean is a philosophy whereas VE is an
analytical tool. Lean expects to improve performance in direct manner whereas VE tries to achieve
essential functions and improve the functional performance. VE is proactive process which provides an
innovative ideas and solutions for problematic situations. However, Lean provides perusing perfection.
However, both strategies focus on enhancing customer value, reduce unnecessary cost or wastage in a
great manner. Final objectives of two aspects would be achieving value for clients money and enhancing
the project performance.
3.
Research design is a logical blueprint which can be explicit or implicit (Yin, 2013). The design of this
research includes, literature survey, expert opinion survey, data analysis and validation of research
findings respectively.
In depth expert opinion survey was used for the study since the research topic associated with detailed
data requirement from the construction industry. On the other hand, the experts available with the specific
knowledge related to Lean and VE were very less within the industry. Hence, obtainable sample size was
less. Therefore, the research was conducted under the qualitative approach by considering its advantage
over the quantitative approach. Further, the information gathered were mostly the opinion evidence and
needed to be evaluated in a descriptive way. Hence, the research necessitated the qualitative research
approach.
Unstructured interview was selected as the most appropriate method of data collection from experts for
this research by considering above facts. Hence, six (06) experts were interviewed using unstructured
interview guideline as the major data collection technique. The interviews were conducted until the data
saturation among the industry experts who belong to consultant, contractor and client organizations.
Content analysis, which is a qualitative data analysis technique was used in this research study to analyse
the collected data by considering its merits over the other techniques. Further, unstructured interviewing
method necessitated the tool content analysis for analysing its findings. There are several data analysis
software to support the content analysis and this study selected NVivo (2010) for content analysis which
contained graphical presentation of interpreting relationships.
Data validation facilitates the verification of the validity of research outcome. The final outcome
developed under this research was validated by conducting two (02) expert interviews.
4.
First question of the Interview Guideline was to identify the existing industry practices to achieve value
for the money. All the six respondents have selected VE and Lean as value achieving strategies. However,
they all explained that Lean and VE both are practicing in the industry in an ad-hoc manner, which they
have derived, would limit the real benefits allied with the strategies. All the respondents agreed that Lean
and Value Engineering can make significant contribution to the Sri Lankan context as separated
strategies. Further, greater value achievement and unnecessary cost reduction is imaginable with both
strategies. It has been showing the benefits for large number of years in Sri Lanka and become popular
among the industry.
Both the strategies are with their own benefits and drawbacks. Hence, the industry is seeking for an
advanced value achieving strategy where the drawbacks can be minimized. Experts suggest that the
associated drawbacks could be overcome by synergising the concepts. The interview questions were
prepared accordingly to find out the synergy of the concepts since the relevant findings of researches and
applications are less in the industry.
Hence, third section of the interview guideline was developed accordingly to identify the synergy
between Lean and VE. Five basic principles of Lean and eight stages of VE job plan were considered in
finding out the synergy between the concepts. All respondents (R1-R6) presented their opinions and there
were similarities in their answers. The synergies that respondents have mapped are shown in Table 4.
502
Table 4: Summary of Research Findings

LEAN
PRINCIPLES
VE JOB
PLAN
PRE STUDY PHASE

V1
INFORMATION
PHASE
V2
FUNCTIONAL
ANALYSIS PHASE
V3
VALUE STREAM
L2
FLOW
L3
R1, R2, R3: These two phases can be

mapped.
R4, R6: There is a synergy
R1, R2, R3, R4, R5, R6: No Synergy
R5: Identifying & Specifying the clients
perception is achievable in pre study
phase
R1, R3: There is a link between these
two phases
R5: Value can be established with actual
customer requirements at this phase
R4: These phases can be mapped
R6: There is a Synergy
R3: An attempt to derive functionality of
the value stream
R6: It is possible to add functional
requirements to Lean implementation in
this stage
PULL
L4
PERFECTION
L5
R2: Perfection can be defined here
R1, R3, R4, R6: There is a synergy

R2: Add the functional requirements for
the pull
R2: Adding innovations to the Flow is

possible at creativity phase
R5: Value flow can be sharpened by the
creativity involvements

R2: Flow could be further evaluated for
waste elimination in evaluation phase
R5, R6: Value flow can be evaluated
DEVELOPMENT
PHASE
V6

R2: Value flow can be further developed R1, R2, R3, R4, R5, R6: No Synergy
in development phase
PRESENTATION
PHASE
V7

R2: An attempt to verify actual
requirements of the customer
R4: It can be checked weather the
objectives are achieved or not
R6: Findings can be presented to the
client and can get confirmed

R2: An attempt to verify the things
R2: An attempt to verify value stream
R2: An attempt to verify value flow
pulled by the customer
R4: It can be checked weather the R4: It can be checked weather the
R6: Findings can be presented to the R6: Findings can be presented to the

R2: An attempt to verification of
perfection

R4: These two phases can be mapped
R5: Building end users perception which
is always targeted. Can be achieved at
post study phase
R6: Pull can be further developed at post
study phase

R4: Continuous improvement process is
possible with post study phase
R5: Continual focus on mitigating
deficiencies while ensuring optimum
usage is possible
R6: It is providing a place to achieve
perfection with a clear reviewing process
What is pulled by the customer

can be provided within the stages
of Functional Analysis,
Presentation & Post Study.
Elimination of waste is achievable

at the stages of Presentation &
Post Study.
CREATIVITY
PHASE
V4
EVALUATION
PHASE
V5
POST STUDY
PHASE
V8
SUMMARY OF
THE FINDINGS
CUSTOMER VALU E
L1
Value can be specified from the

perspective of customer at Pre
Study and Presentation stages
Value Stream and waste activities

can be derived at the stages of
Functional Analysis and
Presentation stages.
Value Flow can be created with

use of stage Creativity,
Evaluation, Development &
Presentation.
503
Findings of literature review stated that combining Lean and VE would provide a better output. The
respondents opinion further reinforced the literature (as stated by Arratia and Cell, 2003) while stating
these two concepts could be merged. Hence, as the first stage of synergising the concepts, experts were on
their views by linking the five basic principles of Lean and all the Value Engineering stages. The final
outcome of the research is shown in Figure 1 based on the data analysis, which explains the synergy
between Lean and VE.
LEAN PRINCIPLES
VE JOB PLAN
Customer Value
Specify the value from the perspective of
ultimate customer
PRE STUDY PHASE
S
Y
N
E
R
G
Y
Value Stream
Identify all the steps necessary to design and
construction across the whole value stream to
highlight non value adding activities
Flow
Make those actions that create value flow
without interruption, detours, backflows,
waiting or scrap
Pull
Only make/provide what is pulled by the
customer
Perfection
The elimination of non-value-adding elements
(waste/muda)
INFORMATION PHASE
FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS
PHASE
CREATIVITY PHASE
EVALUATION PHASE
DEVELOPMENT PHASE
PRESENTATION PHASE
POST STUDY PHASE
Figure 1: Synergy between Lean and Value Engineering
Customer value principle can be linked with pre study phase, information phase and presentation phase of
the VE job plan where the principle can be realised. Value stream phase can be linked with functional
analysis and presentation phases whereas flow can be linked with creativity, evaluation, development and
presentation phases. There are links in between Pull principle and functional analysis, presentation, post
study phases. Finally there is a synergy of perfection principle with presentation and post study phases.
The synergy outcome was validated by two (02) industry and academic experts and thereby the synergy
was accepted.
Therefore, five Lean principles can be achieved with the relevant phases of the VE job plan which finally
provides Lean-Value Engineered outcome. Hence, the synergies can be used for further advanced value
achieving strategy development purposes. The synergies may facilitate for a multiple value achieving
strategy in time to come according to the views of the experts.
5.
CONCLUSIONS
The dynamic nature of construction industry has forced the firms to find out relevant strategies in
achieving best value for the client. The concept of value is not a novel concept which inherent a long
history. Different researchers have defined value with related to their own points of views. However,
value is not which measure the financial performance and value is depending on the interpreter who
interprets it. Value is related to function, quality and cost by means of construction industry.
Many researches reveal the fact that construction industry is striving for construction process
improvement in order to give best value to the client. Several holistic strategies being utilised in
construction sector as the value achieving strategies. Initially the cost consideration was given prior
concern whilst the modern era is rather concern over the value. Hence, the industry adhered to the value
504
achieving strategies and the researchers exaggerated that VE and Lean supersede all the other strategies
since, they address the concept value in a greater extent.
Although both the concepts are consisted with their own merits, they have their own drawbacks to
overcome as separated strategies. Hence, the synergisation is the suggestion by the industry since the
research findings facilitate a great synergy between the concepts. Basically, the industry entails a holistic
multiple value achieving strategy apart from the rational single value achieving strategies. Since these two
concepts supersede in the value arena, probably these two will address the concept in a greater manner.
Therefore, there was a need of finding out the synergy and probable links between the strategies in order
to develop an advanced strategy in time to come.
This research presents to the industry the basic synergy between Lean and VE as Customer value
principle can be linked with pre study phase, information phase and presentation phase of the VE job
plan, value stream phase can be linked with functional analysis and presentation phases whereas flow can
be linked with creativity, evaluation, development and presentation phases. There are links in between
pull principle and functional analysis, presentation, post study phases. Finally there is a synergy of
perfection principle with presentation and post study phases in order to proceed further and finally
realizing the best value for the client. Hence, the synergy findings could lead to a robust approach in
enhancing the value of construction projects.
6.
REFERENCES
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Aziz, F.R. and Hafez, S.M., 2013. Applying lean thinking in construction and performance improvement.
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Ballard, G., Harper, N. and Zabelle, T., 2002. An application of lean concepts and techniques to precast concrete
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THE ADOPTION OF INTEGRATED PROJECT DELIVERY IN PUBLIC

SECTOR PROJECTS IN NEW ZEALAND: THE WAY FORWARD
Nicola Naismith*, John Tookey, Ali Ghaffarian Hoseini and Rahul Kekreja
Department of Built Environment Engineering, AUT University, New Zealand
ABSTRACT
The construction industry in New Zealand is responsible for around 40% natural resources, 30%
energy consumption, and 30% greenhouse gases. The increased costs in natural resources, and
energy, together with environmental concerns have pushed the demand for green buildings. Integrated
Project Delivery (IPD) process has emerged as an enabler for green buildings. Successful IPD
combines the partnering concept and lean thinking, it addresses the participants expectations, cuts
costs, eliminates waste, reduces variability and generates value for all the participants. Yet many
public sectors owners, do not have the authority to adopt features of IPD. However, owners can
benefit from the IPD philosophy and features to take advantage of some key benefits. The purpose of
paper is to examine the IPD tools and techniques appropriate for public sector organizations in New
Zealand and to examine the barriers that public sectors organizations face in New Zealand while
adopting those IPD features. A pilot study was conducted to examine these issues, semi structured
interview were carried out with four public sector construction industry specialists. The interviews
revealed that there is a gap between current and best practice in the New Zealand construction
industry that is impacting on the adoption of IPD or IPD approaches. To improve the delivery of
public sector projects a checklist of specific IPD tools and techniques appropriate for NZ public sector
projects has been developed.
Keywords:
1.
Integrated Project Delivery; IPD; Public Sector, Construction Industry.
INTRODUCTION
The construction industry in New Zealand is responsible for around 40% natural resources, 30% energy
consumption, and 30% greenhouse gases (Forsyth et al., 2014). The increased costs in natural resources,
and energy, together with environmental concerns have pushed the demand for green buildings.
Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) process has emerged as an enabler for green buildings. Successful IPD
combines the partnering concept and lean thinking, it addresses the participants expectations, cuts costs,
eliminates waste, reduces variability and generates value for all the participants. Yet many public sectors
owners, do not have the authority to adopt features of IPD. However, owners can benefit from the IPD
philosophy, its features and its key benefits.
The paper begins by exploring the nature of IPD, its key principles, the benefits of its implementation and
the factors that are driving its adoption in construction industry, to provide a theoretical base for the
study. This informs the research objectives, which suggested certain methodological constraints and
avenues for the investigation. The results are summarised and discussed, a conclusion and suggestions for
further research is also provided.
507
2.
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1.
THE DRIVERS OF IPD
The fragmented nature of the construction industry, particularly the separation between the design and
construction, the uniqueness and complicated nature of building projects places great responsibility on the
project team in setting up a comprehensive building process and successfully concluding a project
(Sidwell, 1982). One fundamental aspect of the building process that requires particular and early
attention is the selection of the most suitable organization for the design and construction of the project if
success is to be achieved (Masterman et al., 2003).
There are several limitations to traditional project delivery methods used in construction industry
(Strickland, 2010). Over the years, construction project delivery methods have been evolving
continuously (Kent and Becerik-Gerber, 2010). With time projects have become more complex in nature
due to higher expectations of clients, advancement in technology, need for sustainability and energy
efficiency (Kent and Becerik-Gerber, 2010). Clients have also become more aware of waste and
productivity issues, technological advancements and are demanding change, it is suggested that the goal
of everyone in the construction industry should be faster, better, more capable project delivery created by
fully integrated, collaborative teams (NASFA et al., 2010).
IPD has emerged in response to this need (Nofera et al., 2011) and to reduce inefficiencies that are a part
of current design and construction practices (Kent and Becerik-Gerber, 2010). Frust (2010) stated that
Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) process offers a way to organize the delivery of construction projects
that uses the partnering concept and lean thinking, addresses participant's expectations, cuts costs,
eliminates waste, reduces variability and generates value for all the participants through the procurement,
design and construction process. IPD as a process embodies the principles of concurrent engineering.
Anumba et al., (2002) stated that concurrent engineering facilitates the simultaneous consideration of all
project-related issues and processes from the conception stage. Concurrent engineering uses systematic or
parallel processes (rather than traditional sequential ones), and multi-disciplinary teams comprising all
parties involved in the project, including the client and suppliers (Evbuomwan and Anumba, 1998).It
seeks to improve project outcomes by using a collaborative approach to align the goals and incentives of
project team through early involvement of all parties, shared risk and reward, and a multiparty agreement
(Kent and Becerik-Gerber, 2010). The principles of IPD can be applied to a variety of contractual
arrangements and requires highly effective collaboration between the client, designer and contractor, from
the early design phase through to project handover (Azhar et al., 2014). Usually, IPD teams include
members beyond the basic triad of client, designer and contractor (AIA 2007a).
Waste and lack of productivity are also considered as an important driver of IPD. A Lean Construction
Institute study (2004) suggests that as much as 57% of effort, time and material investment does not add
value to the final product in construction projects, as compared to 26% in manufacturing industry
(NASFA et al., 2010). It is suggested that to reduce this waste there is a need for change in the
environment in which project teams are appointed and perform; and collaborative environments where all
team members contribute to problem solving are required (ACIF et al., 2014). Perhaps this is why the
biggest support for IPD is from within the Architecture/ Engineering/ Construction (A/E/C) industry that
shares the owner's frustration about cost overruns, lack of coordination, change orders, poor
communication and missed information (Sive, 2009).
IPD has the potential to revolutionize the construction industry as it focuses on overall improvement by
integrating tools, processes and people into a system (Azhar et al., 2014). Several professional
organizations support the advancement of IPD, however a relatively small number of projects are using
IPD (Ghessemi and Becerick-Gerber, 2011; Kent and Becerik-Gerber, 2010; Sive, 2009).
2.2.
BENEFITS OF IPD
Mihic et al. (2014) stated that, IPD leverages early contributions of expertise and knowledge through
utilization of new technology, allowing all team members to better realize their highest potential while
expanding the value they provide throughout project life cycle. Building upon early contributions of
508
individual expertise, these teams are guided by principles of trust, transparent processes, effective
collaboration, open information sharing, team success tied to project success, sharing risk and reward,
value-based decision making and utilization of full technological capabilities and support (AIA, 2007b).
The outcome is the opportunity to design, build and operate as efficiently as possible (Mihic et al., 2014).
According to AIA (2014), IPD is the key for proper consideration of many features, criteria and
constraints of final design from the conceptual stage. Jones (2014) expressed that it offers a solution
oriented approach as the planning is done at an early stage by a relevant and specialist team. Here the key
participants work collaboratively on first defining the project goals and objectives including cost, time,
quality and sustainability, and then analysing the satisfaction of the objectives through the use of local
resources, opportunities presented by the site and selection of proper materials (Cleves and Gallo, 2012).
In this kind of collaborative design environment, supported by responsive decision analysis tools, the
possibilities of refining the design are wide- ranging (Jones, 2014). It is suggested that this leads to a high
degree of confidence in the design in terms of component and material efficiencies; cost and time
objectives and sustainability (Jones, 2014). Also, continuous efforts are made to reduce waste; use
economical and environmentally sustainable materials; improve health and safety and reduce pollutant
generation (Smith et al., 2011).
2.3.
BARRIERS TO IPD
The project team and its members are the centre piece of integrated project delivery (AIA, 2007b).
However, IPD presents challenges for the project team (Ghessemi et al., 2011). The implementation of
IPD is not easy, especially in public sector projects (Azhar et al., 2014). According to Kent and BecerikGerber (2010), while new contract documents supporting IPD exists, they have not been tested properly
and are not fully proven or understood. Construction industry firms are accustomed to traditional ways of
responsibility, leadership and opportunity; and change is slow. Barriers faced by public sector
organizations to implementing IPD can be categorized as legal and contractual barriers; cultural and
organizational barriers; and technological barriers (Azhar et al., 2014; Ghessemi et al., 2011).
Legal and Contractual Barriers
Legal and contractual barriers refer to issues of risk allocation, liability and insurance (Ghassemi et al.,
2011; Kent and Becerik-Gerber, 2010). Some IPD contracts reduce or eliminate the ability of parties to
sue one another for better collaboration, but the current insurance products are designed to assign liability
to each participant, and this makes the contractual arrangements more complicated (Cohen, 2010; Sive,
2009). According to Azhar et al., (2014) typically for public projects, architectural and engineering
services are procured through negotiated contracts as a part of quality-based selection, whereas
contractors are selected through open competition and lowest responsible bid (Ghassemi et al., 2011). In
this kind of procurement selection, design is completed before involvement of the contractor in the
process and this inhibits key aspects of IPD including multiparty agreements, shared risk and reward and
early involvement of all key participants (Azhar et al., 2014).
Cultural and Organizational Barriers
Cultural and organizational barriers within the construction industry refer to resistance to change; lack of
leadership; lack of a widely accepted solution; size of project and type of project (Azhar et al., 2014;
Eadie et al., 2007). Since IPD projects require significant additional costs and design efforts, some critics
believe that IPD should be reserved for large and complex projects (Tucker et al., 2013; Lichtig, 2005).
Others believe that IPD is more beneficial in repetitive facilities rather than unique one-time projects
(Cleves et al., 2012). Lichtig (2006) expressed that the real challenge is to overcome the inertia and
change the mindset built on traditional practices. Organizations are accustomed to tried and tested
methods and they show resistance to change, which can be aggravated by lack of awareness of new
processes; improper communication and information transfer; and concern related to liability and risk in
new processes (Zipf, 2000).
Technological Barriers
Technological barriers can cause concern while implementing IPD and are related to legal challenges of
ownership, interoperability concerns and liability in the integrated use of technology (Ghessemi et al.,
509
2011; Kent and Becerik-Gerber, 2010). It is essential to establish information management protocols from
the beginning that include ownership information, format of representation, responsibility, access and
accountability in respect to project information (Azhar et al., 2014) Availability of adequate IT
infrastructure is not mandatory for IPD implementation, but experts strongly believe that it is necessary
for the level of integration and collaboration required for IPD projects (Eastman et al., 2011). Since,
different organizations use different IT systems, interoperability issues arise when these organizations
form a project team (Moses et al., 2008). Some other barriers, according to Eadie et al. (2007) are high
costs of IT systems, lack of technical expertise, IT security issues and in some cases, no business benefit
being directly realized.
2.4.
IPD IN NEW ZEALAND
The New Zealand government has set a target to improve construction sector productivity by 20% from
year 2010 to 2020 (Fuemana et al., 2013). Gillies (2013) expressed that the government seems to
recognize this to some extent and proposes IPD, but it is unclear how it might be recorded in a contract
and what it would actually mean in practice. A report by New Zealand Productivity Commission (2012)
noted that project delivery issues in New Zealand's construction industry could be minimized through
better upfront planning and greater collaboration between clients, builders, designers and sub-trades, and
suggested adoption of IPD to better facilitate project delivery. However According to Ryan et al. (2013)
the New Zealand construction industry is not completely familiar with IPD.
This paper aims to investigate the following issues for public sector organizations in New Zealand:1. Identify in what form, if any, IPD is being utilized in the New Zealand Construction Industry.
2 Investigate the barriers that are faced by public sector organizations when employing IPD.
3 Examine the IPD tools and techniques applicable for public sector construction projects in New
Zealand.
3.
METHOD
The purpose of the research was to gain deep insights into the elements of IPD and the reality of its
uptake. The nature of the research problem meant that an inductive approach was appropriate. This was
exploratory in nature and a qualitative approach was taken as this would help to develop knowledge and
understanding.
The sample size is limited and focuses on exclusivity of text and that the focus of the research should be
transferability rather than generalizability (Marsh and White, 2006). Four construction industry specialists
took part in the pilot study. The sample was selected based on the industry specialists experience in terms
of their professional role, nature of work and projects they had undertaken in the construction industry.
All of the industry specialists were all working for or closely with public sector organizations in New
Zealand to deliver construction projects and had participated in at least 2 or more public sector
construction projects in New Zealand. They were identified through personal networking, social media
and company websites and selected on the basis of a homogeneous purposeful sampling technique
(Patton, 1990) this ensured that all participants were selected based on specific criteria. A brief summary
of each construction industry specialist is outlined below (see Table 1).
510
Table 1: Demographic Information of Participants

Interviewee
Role in Construction
Industry
Architect
(Private Consultancy)
Project Manager
(Contractor)
Project Manager
(Local Council)
Project Director
(Private Consultancy)
2
3
4
Years of
Experience
in role
7
Years of experience
in Construction
Industry
12
Level of Academic
Qualification
25
Bachelors of Architectural
Studies
Graduate Diploma in
Construction Management
Bachelors of Engineering
16
36
Bachelors of Engineering
As the interviews were semi-structured they were neither a completely open conversation nor were they
highly structured (Kvale, 1996). Semi structured interviews were conducted, it is well suited for
exploration of opinions and perceptions of respondents regarding complex and sometimes sensitive
issues, and also enable probing for more information and clarification of answers (Barriball and White,
1994). The interviews followed suggested themes and questions which were formed from the literature.
Face to face interviews were conducted lasting approximately 30 minutes in duration, this method was
preferred over other formats because it generates a more effective interaction and motivates the
participants to spend more time and put in extra effort (Ramanayaka, 2013). Notes were taken by the
interviewer during the interview.
The interview data was analysed using content analysis as it allows the researcher to make valid
inferences form the data to the context with the aim to provide new knowledge, insights and facts that can
be tested at a future date (Krippendorff, 1980; Elo and Kynga, 2008). The analysis allowed the
commonalities and differences that existed between each interviewee to emerge. The dominant themes
are summarised below.
4.
Based on the interpretation of the data the findings can be categorized into a number of themes including
the definition of IPD, benefits of IPD, type of projects most appropriate for IPD implementation and the
potential barriers to IPD implementation in New Zealands public sector construction projects.
A general understanding of IPD was communicated, the participants confirmed that IPD is a project
delivery method where clients, contractors, designers and consultants work collaboratively as an
integrated team, with their commercial interests aligned with actual project outcomes.
All the participants appreciated the intent of IPD, they believed that the IPD framework helps in
establishing right relationships among project participants to achieve success, especially in complex and
large-scale projects. A general consensus among the participants related to the benefits associated with
the use of IPD or IPD type delivery which supports the work of Azhar et al. (2014). They stated that
companies can improve their competitive positions, gain entry into new markets, supplement critical
skills and share the risk and cost of major developments which is in line with the AIA findings (AIA,
2007b).
The information collected from interviews revealed that IPD or IPD type delivery is particularly suitable
for projects that are: large, complex and high cost; need high flexibility; face significant or undefined
risks; have scope for innovation; have a tight time schedule to carry out; and involve significant
stakeholder, environmental and/or political implications. The participants views support the literature
and suggest that IPD is suitable for large and complex projects that require flexibility, enhanced
communication, innovation, enhanced quality and effective risk management (Frust, 2010; Azhar et al.,
2014).
The participants suggested that the IPD approach can be fundamental in achieving target outcomes and
sharing risk for high profile public sector projects. They also expressed that public sector organizations in
511
New Zealand are increasing their use of IPD type delivery for construction projects methods similar to
IPD are also being utilized on large infrastructure, public sector projects including 'Project Alliancing' and
Design and Build project delivery with increased collaboration and integration. Public sector
organizations are also adopting collaborative and integrated practices like early involvement of
participants, shared risk and reward, organizing workshops with stakeholder involvement and no
litigation.
The participants went on to confirm that the adoption of IPD can immensely benefit and transform the
construction industry in New Zealand from a traditional 'best for organization' practice to 'best for project'
practice (Azhar et al., 2014). Also, since public sector organizations are the largest procurers of
construction in New Zealand, the adoption of IPD approaches could transform the practices throughout
the industry, especially in large private organizations that work closely with public sector organizations,
which in New Zealands case is true for most large private sector organizations.
The participants revealed that there is a gap between current and best practices in the New Zealand
construction industry that is impacting the adoption of IPD or IPD type approaches. A wide range of
barriers to IPD were discussed and support the literature presented. Legal and contractual issues were
raised by the participants. For the adoption of IPD in particular, there is a lack of suitable form of contract
in New Zealand that is consistent with both IPD methodology and the Construction Contracts Act 2002.
This supports the work of Cohen (2010) and Siva (2009) who confirmed a lack of proper contract form as
an important barrier to IPD implementation. The New Engineering Contract x12 was suggested a solution
for this by one of the participants as it is specifically designed for multi- party agreements. Other
contractual challenges that could be faced while implementing IPD in New Zealand's public sector
construction projects include lack of insurance policies and bonding arrangements; complications with
job costing and accounting; assigning project leadership; and deciding framework for contractual
renegotiations.
Cultural and organizational barriers discussed by the participants included: resistance to change, lack of
leadership and uncertainty of risk involved (Azhar et al., 2014; Eadie et al., 2007). Participants suggested
that one of the most significant challenges to IPD suggested is the client's resistance to change, primarily
due to lack of knowledge and experienced personnel that could lead the change in their organization.
Participants also confirmed the challenging cultural paradigms that exist in the construction industry
which can act as a barrier to the successful implementation of IPD on public sector construction projects
(Lichtig, 2006; Zipf, 2000).
Another factor that demotivates the clients from spending resources on IPD developments is the
uncertainty of risk involved in multi-party contracts and collaborative arrangements where the client loses
a degree of control in decision-making. The issue of risk allocation which supports the work of (Ghassemi
et al., 2011; Kent and Becerik-Gerber, 2010).
A further barrier to IPD is that of other key project participants, who traditionally have an adversarial
control-based approach to contract management, and changing this behaviour and attitude of people in
the construction industry towards 'trust-based approach' is also a key issue.
Participants confirmed technological barriers to the implementation of IPD. They stated that the
availability of adequate IT infrastructure is critical for the level of integration and collaboration required
during implementation of IPD, especially on large and complex public sector projects this supports the
work of Eastman et al. (2008). Although large organizations in New Zealand can deliver on the IT
infrastructure requirements for IPD implementation, small and medium enterprises that play crucial roles
as sub-contractors and suppliers for public sector projects are still lagging behind in their technological
capabilities. Some of the reasons identified for this lack of technological capabilities among small and
medium enterprises are high upfront and maintenance cost of technological developments; lack of trained
professionals and lack of awareness of how technological advancements will impact these firms
(Ghessemi et al., 2011; Kent and Becerik-Gerber, 2010; Eadie et al., 2007). Participants also raised
concerns over the interoperability issues since different organizations involved in a project can have
different type and level of complexity of technology available to them which supports the work of Moses
et al., (2008).
512
The findings also support the suggestions that, project delivery issues in New Zealand public sector
construction can be minimized by using IPD which can offer better upfront planning, collaboration and
integration. Public sector organizations in New Zealand recognize this and are adopting project delivery
tools and techniques that are quite similar to IPD (New Zealand Productivity Commission, 2012).
The third and final objective of the paper is creating a list of IPD tools and techniques that are appropriate
for implemented on public sector construction projects in New Zealand. Table 2 demonstrates the IPD
tools and techniques, with their benefits, which could be adopted for delivery of public sector
construction projects in New Zealand. The recommendation for adoption of these tools and techniques is
based on the synthesis of the literature and analysis of the data.
Table 2: IPD Tools and Techniques appropriate for NZ Public Sector Projects
IPD Tool or Technique
Multi-party Agreement
Lean Construction
Benefits
Maximizes collaboration, builds trust, single point of responsibility on project
team
Confidence to project participants, best for project attitude, promotes
innovation
Minimize fragmentation, improved and informed decisions during design
phase, optimize the whole project
No blame culture, high performance, continuous improvement, flexibility,
optimize the whole project, enhanced communication
Collaborative and innovative decision making, flexibility, mutual trust and
respect, optimize the whole project
Mutual trust and respect, accurate information for all participants, prevents
contingency hiding
Safety for project participants, encourages teamwork, prevents contingency
stacking
Maximize efficiency, minimize waste, value for client, promotes sustainability
Incentive Pool
Promotes high performance
Building Information
Modelling (BI M)
Easy access to project information for all participants, current and accurate
information for all participants, process quality, increased productivity, better
collaboration and information sharing
Shared Risk & Reward

Early involvement of all
parties
Integrated Teams
Integrated Governance
Transparency
Contingency Pool
According to the literature review, multi-party agreements are a key aspect of IPD. Even though there is
no specific contract form for IPD in NZ, the qualitative analysis revealed that the New Engineering
Contract x12 is designed specifically for multi- party agreements and can be used by public sector
organizations in NZ. Therefore, multi-party agreements could be adopted by public sector organizations
while implementing IPD or IPD type project delivery.
Both, literature review and qualitative analysis revealed that public sector organizations are already
adopting techniques including early involvement of all parties and shared risk and reward due to various
benefits offered by both these techniques, therefore, both these techniques should also be adopted for IPD
or IPD type delivery. To successfully deliver a project that contains tools and techniques like multi-party
agreement, shared risk and reward, and early involvement of all parties, it is important to formulate
integrated teams and practice integrated governance to ensure success (AIA, 2007b; Mihic et al., 2014).
Transparency is essential to build trust in a collaborative and integrated setting and a contingency pool
provides safety for project participants that in turn motivates the project participants and prevents
contingency stacking. An incentive pool is another tool that motivates the project participants to perform
better and has proved to be quite beneficial in IPD or IPD delivery. Finally, lean construction and BIM
are two features of IPD whose importance cannot be stressed enough in delivering large and complex
public sector construction projects in NZ.
513
5.
CONCLUSIONS
The importance of the right project delivery system in a construction project cannot be overstressed, but
historically, very few attempts have been made to improve these systems. IPD is an attempt at improving
project delivery, and as this paper has examined how the implementation of IPD can successfully improve
public construction project delivery and add value to projects and organizations involved.
These exploratory findings are consistent with the literature regarding the fundamental features of IPD,
the level of uptake of IPD in New Zealand, as well as the barriers and benefits of IPD for Public Sector
Construction Projects. In summary the benefits of IPD for Public Sector Projects in the New Zealand
Construction industry include that IPD is suitable for large and complex projects that require flexibility,
enhanced communication, innovation, enhanced quality and effective risk management and project
delivery issues in New Zealand public sector construction can be minimized by using IPD which can
offer better upfront planning, collaboration and integration. In contrast there a wide number of barriers to
the implementation IPD for Public Sector Projects in the New Zealand Construction industry. These
include legal and contractual issues, cultural and organizational and technological constraints. The most
appropriate IPD tools to encourage IPD implementation on Public Sector projects in New Zealand are the
use of multi part agreements, a system that accommodates shared risk and reward, facilitates integrated
team and governance and champions transparency throughout the project.
Given that the study is based on a small number of industry expert opinions, it would be useful to conduct
a more in depth study focusing on the key results presented. One specific area that a wider study should
focus on is the relationship between IPD and Building Information Modeling (BIM). BIM offers easy
access to project information, current and accurate information for all participants. It also offers process
quality, increased productivity, better collaboration and information sharing and has the potential to
improve the uptake of IPD. The research provides insights into IPD uptake and barriers to IPD for public
sector projects in the New Zealand context. This is a pilot study and the results should be used cautiously
as they are not generalizable due to the small sample size. However they are transferable and these
findings could form part of a wider study. This would contribute to the exploration of a well refined and
calibrated IPD decision making tool for construction project owners. For this to occur a detailed statistical
analysis of the cost and benefit of implementing IPD on public sector construction projects in NZ is
needed as well as further validation of the findings presented in this paper.
6.
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516
THE LOOPHOLES OF EVACUATION PROCESS IN THE SRI LANKAN

HEALTHCARE SECTOR
Thanuja Ramachandra and Achini Weerasinghe*
ABSTRACT
Healthcare facilities are traditionally seen as places of sanctuary and safety by the general public. The
fire hazard is one of the challenges faced by any healthcare organization. Therefore, in order to save
lives and reduce injuries, well-designed evacuation process is significant. Thus, this research
investigates the loopholes of the evacuation process in the Sri Lankan healthcare sector which, would
be helped to improve the evacuation process in hospital buildings in Sri Lanka near future. The
research study was initiated with a comprehensive literature review and subsequently adopted a
qualitative research approach to investigate the research phenomena. Semi-structured interviews were
conducted with fire safety professionals to investigate the requirements and parameters of the
evacuation process and the loopholes of fire evacuation process in Sri Lankan healthcare sector. The
collected data was analysed through content analysis by manual. The research findings revealed that
the fire safety door, evacuation assembly point, compartmentation, fire detection and alarm system
and closings of high risk rooms doors are engaged with some loopholes which need to be improved.
Loopholes contributing to evacuation process are; inadequate space in assembly points, lack of
inspection by fire wardens etc. The research therefore suggests that regular maintenance, involvement
of space planner from the initial construction stage, conducting training programs to staffs including
managerial level, would help to improve the existing evacuation process in the Sri Lankan healthcare
sector.
Keywords:
1.
Healthcare Sector; Evacuation; Loopholes Fire Safety.
INTRODUCTION
Building fire accidents result in significant life and economic losses. It is considered as one of the biggest
threats to both the building occupants and its contents (Salleh and Ahmad, 2009). For an example,
Ramachandran (1999) indicated that in the UK nearly 800 people were killed in the fire accidents
annually, whereas direct material damage reaches to 1,200 million each year. According to Ahrens
(2002) fire caused by smoking materials, heating equipment, electrical or lighting equipment in 20062010 were 6,240. Further, Ahrens (2012) indicated fire caused an average of six civilian deaths, 171
civilian injuries and $52.1 million in direct property damage annually. Fire safety design in a building is
expected to provide a safe environment for occupants while inside the building during their safe
evacuation to a place of safety where outside the building (Furness and Muckett, 2007). Obviously, the
process of evacuation is significant, and therefore effective evacuation helps to save lives, reduce injuries,
bound property loss and minimize all sorts of troubles that caused by the fire as wells as during the
evacuation (Mileti, 1999).
There are several serious disputes when considering the evacuation of a hospital (Taaffe et al., 2005). For
example, previous studies had acknowledged the challenges with evacuation plan, such as emergency
planning and preparedness of hospital evacuation (Schultz et al., 2003; Manesh et al., 2013). As well as
Taaffe et al., (2005) identified the issues and complexities of hospital buildings in the USA. Moreover,
Schultz et al. (2003) and Manesh et al. (2013) merely described emergency planning and preparedness of
hospital evacuation. Tayfur and Taaffe (2007) argued that when considering the evacuation of a hospital
there are numerous critical issues identified, such as the nature of the threat, risk to patients and staff,
continuing care, resource demands and threat probabilities and timing. Further, Tayfur and Taaffe (2007)
*
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subjected inefficient and ineffective evacuation may result in terrible loss of life. For an example, in
Kolkata AMRI hospital fire killed 86 people due the lack of fire safety equipment in the hospital and also
when the fire took place the windows and doors were locked (Paul, 2011). The comprehensive evacuation
of hospital buildings involves different considerations (New York Centers for Terrorism Preparedness
and Planning [NYCTP], 2006). Consequently, hospital premises consist with many elderly people, young
people, teenagers, children, infants, handicaps and women who need both mental and physical care and
medications (Bierster, 2010). The way an individual occupant in a hospital will behave to a fire danger is
complex (Furness and Muckett, 2007). Evacuation of hospital is a difficult process that requires an
effective strategy and careful execution, however, there is still no stable approach to tackle this problem
(Tafee et al., 2005).
In the context of Sri Lanka, Carballo et al., (2005) mentioned, during an event of fire in healthcare
organization, evacuation of badly injured patients were done easily because of the safety procedures
which were prepared by the hospital in case of fire. However, the same researchers also argued, when
hospital proposed the advanced planning and instruction for emergencies, they did not accurately and
widely known about evacuation procedures. Moreover, Fazulhaq (2014) stated that although fire safety
equipment is installed in Sri Lankan hospitals, sometimes there are no service contracts for the
maintenance of that equipment. This conflicting nature of the evacuation process in the Sri Lankan
healthcare sector identifies a research gap. The current research therefore investigates the loopholes of the
evacuation process in the Sri Lankan healthcare sector, which would help to improve the evacuation
process in hospital buildings in Sri Lanka.
2.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Generally in the event of emergencies, a healthcare sector is a place where large number of patients need
to be immediately secured (Federal Emergency Management Agency, 2007). Complete evacuation of
healthcare sector requires special considerations, because a significant percentage of patients in hospitals
are incapable of self-evacuation; they may be medically unstable and dependent on mechanical support
equipment (Loria et al., 2012).
Malhotra (1993) explained that evacuation process is a vital part of any building fire protection system
and generally hospital design must follow the regulation of national as well as international. Hospital
building evacuation standards of the American Institute of Architects [AIA] (2006) specified about fire
safety actions such as compartmenting, exits, fire alarms, automatic switch off systems, and other fire
protection methods, including those within present facilities. National Fire Protection Agency [NFPA]
(2006) introduced the NFPA-101 standards and declared that fire protection is based on defend-in-place
principle. Defend-in-place principle means if evacuation becomes impossible, an alternative is to defend
in place, simply most appropriate location for refuge, where it is totally enclosed. The fire evacuation
requirements and the parameters for each requirement are guided by those standards. According to the
literature review following evacuation requirements and parameters are identified as the requirements and
parameters for an effective evacuation process.
2.1.
MEANS OF EXIT
Exit route is an uninterrupted and unobstructed path of exit, which use to travel to a safe area from any
emergency place and it includes exit access, horizontal and vertical exits and exit discharge (Geren,
2005). The vertical evacuation is very complex, also consuming large amount of waiting time due to the
significant percentage of patients who cannot evacuate without assistances of mechanical equipment in
the event of an emergency. Thus, the horizontal movement of patients is one of the most important
considerations in the healthcare organizations (NFPA, 2006). Horizontal exit of the hospital should have
at least two smoke free areas on each floor.
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2.2.
SITE ACCESS
In general, ground and air transportation are mentioned as the two types of transportations that evacuate
patients to the outside the hospitals. In the healthcare sector, allocating sufficient spaces for parking is the
main consideration in site access for all occupiers. Hospitals should have a separate and additional area
for ambulance entrance (AIA, 2006). The size of parking lots and ambulance entrance depends on
location, type and size of hospital facilities. Lee, Lim, and Anantharaman (2004) indicated that helicopter
access is one of the most significant accesses which transports patients directly and rapidly from the
helipad without interference from other hospital functions.
2.3.
EVACUATION ASSEMBLY POINT
NYCTP (2006) stated that the evacuation assembly area is the last resort and safe point to accommodate
all personnel of the building, after an evacuation. In hospitals, inside assembly area acts as the prime
staging safe space and also all occupants can assemble together inside the hospital (Burgun, 1994;
NYCTP, 2006). At the final stage of evacuation, all patients, staff, or visitors can assemble in the outside
assembly area which is a safe open area outside the building. Healthcare sector may have more than one
assembly point, depending on the size of the building. It should be out of the way of responding
emergency personnel (Drabek, 1999; Burgun, 1994).
2.4.
VERTICAL TRANSPORTATION
A hospital may have three types of vertical transportation. They are staircases, lifts, and ramps. In
healthcare organizations, the evacuation exit stairs should be designed to please the principles for internal
staircases. In hospital building only staff, visitors and ambulatory patients can evacuate through the stairs
(NFPA, 2006). Non ambulatory occupants are expected to remain in the building under the defend-inplace concept which those patients on the floor of fire origin being moved horizontally to an area of
refuge (NFPA, 2006). A significant amount of patients critically ill in the hospitals and patients in body
casts who difficult to evacuate, elevators provide the practical vertical evacuation (Bukowski, 2011).
2.5.
FIRE EVACUATION DRILL
Normally in hospitals a large amount of people is occupied daily. All of them may not be familiar with
the stairways and alternative exits; sometimes it may not be familiar,even for those who are working in
the same building. So they enter and exit using the same entrance. In the event of an emergency,
occupants might travel past to that particular entrance or exit to evacuate the building (Jones and Demers,
2001). So the use of fire drills becomes more important in situations like these, where conducting fire
drills will provide an opportunity for occupants to locate and use alternative routes under non-threatening
conditions.
2.6.
FIRE SAFETY DOORS
In a hospital, A fire door set should be designed as self-closing and latching devices, because they have to
provide more than simply fire resistance as possible to contain the spread of fire, smoke and toxic gases
especially in a high-occupancy building (Chiltern International Fire, 2000). Department of the
Environment, Heritage and Local Government (2006) specified that high risk rooms should be located in
close position.
2.7.
FIRE DETECTION AND ALARM SYSTEMS
A fire alarm system is designed to detect a fire at a sufficiently initial stage, with the aim of people who
are at risk can be made safe either by escaping from the fire (Goh and Kwek, 2005). Detectors must be
coupled with alarms. Alarm systems provide notice to at least the building occupants and usually transmit
a signal to a staffed monitoring station either on or off site. Further maintenance of fire detection and
alarm systems should be carried out monthly basis (The Electrical Safety Council, 2008).
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2.8.
CLOSING OF FIRE DOORS TO HIGH RISK ROOMS
Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government (2006) specified high fire risk rooms
should be taken special care of, and thus they can be identified as laundry rooms, kitchens and store
rooms. If the high risk rooms are held in open position, then there is a major chance of the fire to be
spread to other areas. Thus, three levels can be divided as low, medium and high as follows.
Low - If all the doors to the high fire risk rooms are kept in the open position
Medium - If some of the doors to the high fire risk rooms are maintained in the open positions
High - If all of the doors to the high fire risk rooms are closed
2.9.
COMMUNICATION SYSTEM
There should be an integral process to communicate with the occupants in the building (Muszynski,
2010). In the building both occupants and facility personnel must keep copies of the plan and as well as
need to learn and practice the plan. It is also useful if the details of the person who is authorized to
communicate with fire brigades, the person who operates the public addressing systems for directing the
occupants to move to a safe location in the building and to do necessary things when the fire brigade
arrives are also added in the evacuation plan. In high rise buildings which have these protection strategies
are frequently equipped with voice communication fire alarm systems that allow either a live or recorded
voice announcement, or both, to provide direction to occupants. The communication method may direct
the occupants about the emergency, if they have to remain in the place and await for further instructions,
or to evacuate the building (Muszynski, 2010).
2.10.
COMPARTMENTATION
Compartmentation is the subdivision of the building into compartments. Each compartment separated
from, either by walls or floors, thereby restricting the growth and spread of fires in buildings (Furness and
Muckett, 2007). As NFPA - 101 (2006) stated, the building shall be designed and constructed so that, in
the event of fire, its stability will be maintained for a reasonable period. In particular, walls common to
two or more buildings must resist the spread of fire. To inhibit the spread of fire all buildings must be
subdivided with fire resisting construction appropriate to the size and intended use of the building. In
addition, all buildings must be protected against the unseen spread of fire and smoke within concealed
spaces in its structure and fabric is inhibited.
3.
A qualitative research approach was adopted as the research requires an in-depth knowledge of the
evacuation process in the Sri Lankan healthcare sector. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to
assess the requirements of evacuation and to identify the loopholes in each requirement and their
parameters. A total of ten numbers of private hospitals was selected and interviewed thirteen
professionals in the healthcare sector, which included fire safety engineers, fire safety consultants,
facilities managers, maintenance engineers and intensive commanders. The organizations were
considered particularly due to those hospitals covers varieties of healthcare, including primary and acute
care and constraints in collecting data from government hospitals. The number of hospitals was limited to
ten due to the data saturation of semi-structured interviews. The interviewees were first asked to comment
on what are the requirements and parameters of evacuation that they have fulfilled at the hospital
building. A framework developed according to requirements and parameters identified through literature
review, was given to the each interviewee. Then the interviewees were asked to comment on the
loopholes in the evacuation process of the particular building. The views of the interviews were analysed
using content analysis.
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4.
The data for the analysis was collected using semi-structured interviews from ten hospital buildings H1H10 through a purposeful sampling technique. Table 1 represents the profile of the participants.
Participants were limited to thirteen and more than one professional who engaged in occupational health
and safety activities in selected hospitals were considered where necessary. Interviewees represent the
different professional backgrounds such as fire safety engineering, maintenance engineering, maintenance
management, facilities management, safety consultancy, and intensive commanding. 38% of the
participants represent fire safety engineering, while remaining 23% and 15% of participants are from
maintenance engineering, and maintenance management respectively. An equal percentage of participants
12.5% belong to field of facilities management, safety consultancy and intensive commanding.
Table 1: Profile of Participants
Building
H1
4.1.
Interviewee
I01
H2
H3
H4
I02
I03
I04
H5
H6
H7
I05
I06
I07
H8
H9
H10
I08
I09
I10
Designation
Maintenance Manager
Facilities Manager
Fire Safety Engineer
Fire Safety Consultant
Assistant Maintenance Engineer
Intensive Commander
Maintenance Manager
Years of Work Experience

10
6
12
30
28
7
5
17
30
7
16
6
9
REQUIREMENTS IN EVACUATION PROCESS OF HEALTHCARE SECTOR
The review of literature indicated that there exists ten different evacuation requirements for the effective
functioning of the evacuation process. However, evacuation requirements used to evaluate the evacuation
process in healthcare sector in Sri Lanka were limited to eight requirements and 39 parameters which
almost cover the ten critical requirements identified under the literature review. The interviewees were
asked to indicate Yes for the requirements and parameters which currently available at the evacuation
process of a particular hospital, and if not asked to indicate as No. Only three parameters are given with
a three point Likert scale which ranges from Low to High as stated in the literature review and obtained
the response. The Table 2 indicates the framework with requirements and the parameters of evacuation
with their percentage of availability within the selected hospital buildings.
Table 2: The Developed Framework for Requirements and Parameters of Evacuation Process and Their
Representation in Hospital Buildings
Requirements
Evacuation Drill
Educating the building occupants about alarm sound
Educating to building occupants to about using fire extinguishers
Notifying the building occupants to location of fire exit routes
Notifying the building occupants to location of the fire assembly point
Familiarizing new occupants with fire evacuation drill procedure
Identifying the weakness in communication system when evacuation
Arrangement for disabled people are checked
Fire drill is carried out at night times
Means of Exit
Fire exit routes are directly connected to the last resort
Handrails are at a height not less than 100 cm
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Yes (%)
No (%)
100
100
80
60
60
40
30
20
20
40
40
60
70
80
100
100
Existence of at least two exit routes in a workplace

Unobstructed fire escape routes
Fire escape stairs have straight flight not less than 125 cm wide with 25 cm
treads and risers not more than 19 cm
Fire escape entrance is separate and remote from internal staircase
Existence of emergency lighting system
Communication System
Radios have backup direct current power source (battery)
Facilities have presence of a backup communications system
Fire brigades visit and inspection for evacuation plan
Copy of the evacuation plan kept by the security center or telephone operators
Facilities have adequacy of fire brigade access
Facilities have the provision of action in the event of fire notices in the
healthcare sector
Facilities have the provision of calling fire brigade procedure notices
Fire Safety Doors
Door materials are wind- and fire-resistant
Doors of rooms for less than 50 people and more than 50 people are respectively
112cm and 122cm wide, located from each other in distance and swing out
Provision of residents bedrooms with minimum 30 minutes fire resistance door
Main doors is double swing; bathroom door is swing out; emergency room
doors are swing in and out
Door designed to be kept closed have indicated sign such as: fire exit, keep door
closed
Evacuation Assembly Point
Assembly point have sufficient spaces for assemble the large number of
occupants at a time
Route from the building to the assembly point contains illumination and signposting
Final exits lead directly to a place of safety
An outside location at least 50 feet from the building and away from roads
Safety once away from the building
Compartmentation
Exterior walls meet the fire resistance rating of two hours
Compartments enclosed consist of both floor-to-floor and wall to- wall fireresistant
Room partitions made of fire resistant construction material
Automatic fire detection and alarm system
Regular Maintenance (monthly)
Closing of fire doors in high risk rooms
If the all the doors in the high fire risk rooms are kept in the open position
If some of the doors to the high fire risk rooms are maintained in the open
positions
If all of the doors to the high fire risk rooms are closed
100
80
80
20
20
40
04
60
60
100
100
100
80
40
20
20
60
80
20
80
100
60
40
40
30
60
70
30
70
70
30
70
30
40
40
20
60
60
80
30
30
70
70
20
80
40
60
Low
Medium
30
70
High
Considering the % response regarding the each parameter of evacuation, the research findings imply, only
9 parameters (25%) are available at all the selected hospitals (100%)among the given 36 number of
parameters. Consequently, 6 parameters (16.6%) from the rest of the parameters are available at the
hospitals in a 70-80%. Other 17 parameters (58.3%) are available at the hospitals in a 60 or less than
60%. The last evacuation requirement is closing doors in high risk rooms. It includes three parameters
and tested using a three point Likert scale. According to the interviewees' opinion, 70% of selected
hospitals maintain medium risks if some of the doors of higher fire risk rooms are maintained in open
positions. The remaining 30% maintains low risks if all doors in the higher fire risk rooms are kept in the
open position.
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4.2.
LOOPHOLES IN THE EVACUATION PROCESS IN HEALTHCARE SECTOR
The next stage of the data analysis includes the analysis of interviewees' responses on loopholes in the
evacuation. The interviewees' responses on the loopholes were weighted according to the parameters
which have 60 or less than 60% of availability of requirements and parameters of the evacuation.
According to the interviewees' opinion, this includes the loopholes in fire safety doors, evacuation
assembly point, compartmentation, automatic fire detection and alarm system, and fire doors in high risk
rooms.
FIRE SAFETY DOORS
Overall, two loopholes are identified in the provision of the residents bedrooms with minimum 30
minutes fire resistance door. The loopholes include absence of conducting inspections to check the ability
of 30 minute fire resistance and lack of knowledge and skills of management personnel relating to fire
safety. Most of the interviewees (60%) opined that there are no any inspections to check the ability of 30
minute fire resistance. Considering the loopholes in the parameter; the main door double swings,
bathroom doors is swinging out, emergency room doors are swinging in and out, and there are two
loopholes responsible. 60% of the views expressed that fire safety engineers do not consider the fire door
standards in selecting the door types. Another 50% of the research participants are of the opinion, lack of
knowledge about the requirement of different types of doors. As the loopholes in the parameter; door
designed to be kept closed has indicated sign, most of the interviewees (80%) opined that there seemed a
lack of regular inspection of door whether the signs are properly displayed. And 50% of the interviewees
pointed out that fire wardens are not instructed to inspect the fire doors by the hospital management.
EVACUATION ASSEMBLY POINT
The analysis indicated that the absence of fire safety engineers in the design stage, inadequate space to
accumulate whole occupants in final resort and lack of awareness of fire safety standards are the most
prominent loopholes for the parameter; exits lead directly to a place of safety. Approximately, 50% of
interviewees were agreed on these factors. Considering the next parameter with loopholes, the parameter;
an outside location at least 50 feet from the building, and safety once away from the building mainly
depends on car park close to the hospital, inadequate space to design the assembly point 50 feet away
from building, absence of fire safety engineers in the design stage, lack of awareness of fire safety
standards, and design standards. Among those factors, 40% of the interviewees depicted that hospitals
with the car park close to the building may increase the probability of accidents when evacuate the
building. In terms of safety once away from the building, 60% of the interviewees indicated that
inadequate space to design the assembly points inside the hospital premises is more challenging. 40% of
the interviewees specified that the unawareness of the designers about the level of danger faced with
placing the assembly point outside.
COMPARTMENTATION
Most of the interviewees (60%) opined that the exterior walls constructed by non-fire resistant materials,
but the high initial cost of fire resistant material is challenging. Other 40% of the interviewees are of the
opinion that lack of the safety tests being conducted according to the fire safety standards and lack of
consideration by management in fire rating hours in exterior walls are most challenging. Considering the
parameter; compartments enclosed consist of both floor-to-floor and wall-to-wall fire-resistant, the
loophole is the lack of consideration of fire safety standards during early stage of the design and
construction stage. This was opined by approximately 50% of the interviewees. The analysis also found
out that room partitions with non-fire resistance material, lack of advice from quality consultants is more
challenging on the room partitions made of fire resistant construction material.
AUTOMATIC FIRE DETECTION AND ALARM SYSTEM
In the automatic fire detection and alarm system, there are three loopholes; a few maintenance staff to
carry out the inspection every month, lack of awareness of proper maintenances and testing system and
523
failure to maintain records relating to the fire detection and fire alarm test as per the standard. Most of the
interviewees (60%) are of the opinion, that there are few staffs to carry out the inspection every month.
Another 40% of the interviewees stated that there is a lack of awareness on proper maintenance and
testing system.
FIRE DOORS OF HIGH RISK ROOMS
Considering the fire doors of high risk rooms, 60% of the interviewees indicated that unawareness of
management and fire wardens about the importance of maintaining high risk rooms closed as a loophole
in the evacuation process. Another 30% of the interviewees in the opinion that high frequency of usage of
high risk rooms such as store room, kitchen and laundry and lack of daily inspection by fire wardens in
high risk rooms are also contributing to the loopholes in the fire evacuation process in the Sri Lankan
Healthcare Sector.
5.
DISCUSSION
Building fire safety can be divided into five major steps, those are minimizing the chance of fire, early
discovery, restricting the fire spread, extinguishing the fire, and evacuating the building (Smariga, 1965).
Accordingly, the research identified eight evacuation requirements for the better functioning of building
fire safety. The evacuation requirements are evacuation drills, means of exits, communication system, fire
safety door, evacuation assembly point, compartmentation, fire detection and alarm system and closings
of high risk rooms doors. Loria et al. (2012) explained that a complete evacuation of healthcare sector
requires special considerations, because a significant percentage of patients in hospitals are incapable of
self-evacuation; they may be medically unstable and dependent on mechanical support equipment.
However, research findings indicated that most of the evacuation requirements (5 out of 8) are with
loopholes in the Sri Lankan healthcare sector. Those requirements include: fire safety door, evacuation
assembly point, compartmentation, fire detection and alarm system and closings of high risk rooms
doors.
Evacuation aims at a continuous path of travel to move massive victims from any point within a building
or structure to another open space (fire assembly point) which should be secured from danger (Lathrop,
1997). Therefore, the fire assembly point should be away from roads, walkways and 50 feet from the
building. The interviews revealed that the assembly points are located even within 50 feet of building and
also closed to car parks. This is because of inadequate space of hospitals. Fire safety is a process that
should start at the beginning of the design of a building and it should address issues such as means of
escape, smoke control and other life safety provisions (Hoffmann and Steenbakkers, 2005). This seems
that the fire safety engineers and space planners need to involve from the initial stage of the design.
However, the view of the interviewees (30%) indicated that the hospitals are lacking in appointing such
professionals from the initial stage. A fire door set should be designed as self-closing and latching
devices, with fire resistance because they have to provide more than simply fire resistance as possible to
contain the spread of fire, smoke and toxic gases especially in a high-occupancy building (Chiltern
International Fire, 2000). According to interviewees, the fire doors are having some loopholes like; signs
are not displayed properly on fire safety doors, lack of inspections by fire wardens, and lack of knowledge
of fire safety standards. Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government (2006),
specified high fire risk rooms of laundry rooms, kitchens and store rooms, should be taken special care
and need to keep in closed condition as the chance of getting fire is high. However, the research found
that closing of high risk room engages following loopholes; the frequency of using those rooms per day is
high, therefore it is not possible to keep closed position.
Thus, the research identifies that the fire evacuation of hospitals in Sri Lanka is engaged with some
loopholes and intends to suggest ways to improve the evacuation process in hospital buildings in Sri
Lanka. The next section concludes the research and provide recommendations for the enhancement of the
evacuation process of hospitals in Sri Lanka.
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6.
According to the research findings, the evacuation requirements like fire safety doors, evacuation
assembly point, compartmentation, fire detection and alarm system and closings of high risk rooms doors
are engaged with some loopholes. Those loopholes need to be improved for a better functioning of the
evacuation parameters. Loopholes contributing to evacuation process are; inadequate space for assembly
points, lack of inspections by fire wardens and high cost involvement for fire resistance materials. The
research also found that regular maintenance (monthly) of fire detection and alarm system is necessary for
the best performance. However, because of the allocation of few staffs, the maintenance is not done
regularly. The research recommends the strategies to improve the evacuation process through identifying
the ways of minimizing loopholes. Steps need to be taken to carryout proper maintenance to fire detection
and alarm system, communication system and emergency lighting system in an accepted time interval.
Adequate staffs need to be allocated throughout the evacuation process. Further, the research found that
record keeping of evacuation drill, maintenance of fire detection and alarm system need to be done in a
systematic way. The space planner and fire safety engineers need to be involved from the design stage of
the building. This could allow the building to have separate staircases for common use and in the event of
fire; providing assembly point inside the building premises; and designing the parking area with sufficient
width. The most significant suggestion made by the interviewees was to make the management aware of
the important aspects of the evacuation process in healthcare organizations. This includes the importance
of designing a fire staircase separately, regular inspection by the fire brigades regularly and use of fire
resistant materials in the construction of buildings.
Finally, the research suggests that conducting workshops, training programs and brainstorming sessions
regarding evacuation process and its maintenance to relevant staffs including managerial level could
enhance the evacuation process. In addition, staffs from senior management levels need to undertake
comprehensive training and instruction in relevant fire safety legislation and associated fire safety
technical guidance. This could secure organizations from any legal problems. Thus, the healthcare sector
could be seen as a place of sanctuary and safety by the general public.
7.
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Taaffe, K.M., Kohl, R.,and Kimbler, L.D., 2005. Hospital evacuation: Issues and complexities. 2005 Winter
Simulation Conference, Clemson: Department of Industrial Engineering, 943- 950.
Tayfur, E. and Taaffe, K., 2007. Allocation of resources for hospital evacuation via simulation. 2007 Winter
Simulation Conference, Clemson: Department of Industrial Engineering.
The Electrical Safety Council, 2008. Fire detection and Alarm System Inspection and Servicing Report. London:
Electricity Safety Council.
World Health Organization, 2010. Safe hospitals in emergencies and disasters. Geneva: WHO Press.
8.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Authors would like to acknowledge the contribution of Mr.Praneendran in the data collection of this
research.
526
TOWARDS FACILITIES INFORMATION MANAGEMENT THROUGH BIM

K.A.D.N.C. Wijekoon*, Anupa Manewa, Andrew Ross and Dianne Marsh
School of Built Environment, Liverpool John Moores University, United Kingdom
ABSTRACT
Information plays a significant role in managing built environment facilities. These information are
generated at different life cycle stages, by different parties, which also provide different values to a
variety of stakeholders. The acquisition of appropriate information efficiently and effectively is two of
highly important considerations in facilities management because of the nature of information flows,
number of information providers and users. Building Information Modelling (BIM) is one of the
popular mechanisms, which has adopted in construction sector to manage its information. This
preliminary paper investigates how construction information is valued in facilities management. This
is an initial step of understanding the possibilities and hindrance of using BIM as an effective vehicle
to manage information during the facilities management stage.
To achieve this aim, data were collected through literature review and 13 semi-structured interviews
among construction professionals. Data were analysed thematically. The literature reveals BIM is an
efficient mechanism to manage construction information. However, there is a difficulty of transferring
appropriate information from construction stage to facility management. The study further identified
the types of construction information that are highly usable for completing FM tasks, their uses and
value attached to them.
Keywords:
1.
Building Information Modelling; Construction Information; Facilities Management;

Information Flows; Information Value.
INTRODUCTION
The success of facilities management highly depends upon the correct practices of information
management (NBS, 2015). The data flows (in - out) during the lifecycle of a facility is frequent and are
significant to manage the overall facility. On the other hand, the UK construction industry is highly
depend on sub-contracting (HM Government, 2013) and the information related to the built asset is
provided by several parties. Hence, BIM is identified as an effective solution to minimise such
deficiencies as it provides robust platform for collaboration. Although BIM is meant to provide benefits
throughout the building life cycle, current literature has been unbalanced in focusing on the application of
BIM in post-construction stages (Codinhoto et al., 2013). Also from the practitioners perspective, the
primary attention of project owners / stakeholders are more towards the built facility (end product) rather
its operational and maintenance considerations (Becerik-Gerber et al., 2012).
Therefore BIM enabled Facilities Management (FM) is been promoted within construction industry in the
recent past. However, the pre-identified benefits of BIM is merely based on the information it holds.
Therefore, this study attempts to investigate how construction information is valued in facilities
management in deciding which information to be passed down through BIM.
2.
BUILDING INFORMATION MODELLING (BIM)
BIM is identified as a novel approach to design, construction, and facilities management, in which a
digital representation of the building process is used to facilitate the exchange and interoperability of
information in digital format (Eastman, 2011). It is a process rather than a tool (British Institute of
Facilities Management, 2012). At construction stage, it appears as an AEC (Architectural, Engineering
*
527
and Construction) digital modelling process (McGraw-Hill, 2009). Looking beyond construction, BIM is
considered as a technology based process used to enhance the performance of a built asset through each
phase of its life cycle (Love et al., 2013). Being nourished by different views, this paper considers BIM as
the process of data acquiring, storing, integrating and management through the building life cycle with
graphical modelling. It provides number of advantages to project stakeholders through apposite
coordination, waste reduction, informed decision making and also contributing correct information at the
correct time (Love et al., 2013). However, the overall benefits of BIM is not completely realised and
construction project stakeholders are facing difficulties to make the decision on adopting BIM in their
project execution plan (Barlish and Sullivan, 2012). On the other hand, BIM is a complication as it
continues expanding from a software to an asset management information system (Love et al., 2013).
Moreover, BIM should not only be seen as a mere technology used at the design and construction stage
but also its impact on the future of the organisation as an information tool for operation and maintenance
of the built asset. To be an effective tool at the facilities management (FM) stage of a building, BIM
should contain FM information (NBS, 2014).
FM is dealing with enormous amount of building information; acquiring, updating and analysing (Wang
et al., 2013). BIM as a platform coming from the early stages of a building is a perfect solution for FM
data management. BIM allows to communicate FM needs in early stages (British Institute of Facilities
Management, 2012). The positive contribution of adopting BIM in facilities information management is
identified as a significant value addition associates with BIM (Gu and London, 2010). Eadie et al. (2013)
highlight that facilities managers and client benefit the most out of BIM implementation. From clients
perspective, a considerable effort should be given to define clients FM needs at the early construction
stages (Becerik-Gerber et al., 2012). Above that, most of the projects do not hand over the 3D model and
Construction Operations Building Information Exchange (COBie) dataset at the commissioning and this
prevents grasping of BIM advantages in FM (Eadie et al., 2013).
COBie and IFC (Industry Foundation Classes) are currently available standard formats for data exchange
with BIM. In terms of facilities management, COBie is a neutral spreadsheet format which allows data
exchange in a structured manner for commissioning, operation and maintenance of an asset (British
Standards Institute, 2012). IFC is another common language for information sharing (Abanda et al.,
2015), which provides a standard form of data sharing between construction, operations and maintenance
stages of a built asset (International Standard Organisation, 2013). IFC itself does not give a detail
explanation to decide what information is required by any specific task under the given scope (East et al.,
2013). On the other hand, information overloading and poor understanding on information needs of FM,
and level of details of those information drive towards the low implementation of BIM within FM
(Parsanezhad and Dimyadi, 2014). This indicates the niche for robust mechanism to acquire necessary
information for facilities management. Correct identification of the value that attached to facilities
information is a key mechanism to filter necessary information (Zhao et al., 2008).
3.
FACILITIES INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
Facilities Management (FM) is the centre point of responsibility which ensures services of an
organisation perform up to the agreed standards to support the core business performance to achieve
business objectives (British Institute of Facilities Management, 2015). To be successful, a business should
understand the impact of rising cost on building occupancy, services and workplace management over the
business life cycle (Codinhoto and Kiviniemi, 2014). FM is dealing with large amount of building
information including acquiring, updating and analysing (Wang et al., 2013). On the other hand. facilities
managers spend lot of time in searching the required information (Jylha and Suvanto, 2015). Therefore,
acquiring and storing required information related to the building is the initial success factor for a wellplanned facility management (Akcamete et al., 2011).
In order to be successful in continuously growing, complex built environment, FM requires to manage the
information produced by different stakeholders throughout building life cycle (Pittet et al., 2014). This
task has become much complex and challenging due to increasing volume, continuous changes take place
in information and variety of parties interested or using the same information (Zhao et al., 2008). As a
solution, Wang et al. (2013) suggest that the early engagement of FM in construction process will help to
528
overcome such challenges. Yet, the early engagement of FM is rarely practiced and depends upon the
type of procurement arrangement. BIM as a platform coming from the early stages of a building is
therefore a practical solution for FM data management.
Knowledge
Gap
Literature
Findings
However, this fascinating solution brought in through BIM for FM is highly depended on how building
owner explains his information requirements (Giel and Issa, 2016). Therefore, the question of what
information to be transferred through BIM still remains unanswered. Due to the complexity and
difficulties in transferring information from construction stage to facilities management it is necessary to
use a means of measurement to filter the necessary information from the least important information.
Identifying the economic value of information which is based on cost over benefit equation is the most
common method of capturing value of information (Neal and Strauss, 2008). On the other hand value-inuse is another mechanism to capture value of information in user perspective (Repo, 1986). Certain
characteristics in the construction industry such as contractual liability to fulfil client requirements and
the responsibility on client to prepare the Employer Information Requirement (EIR) document impose on
the value-in-use. Therefore, value-in-use is the most appropriate measurement for construction
information. Value is something more adjectival rather substantive hence, it should be found with along
the considered object and interest (Perry, 1914). Also the value of information differs based on the kind of
information and context of use (Repo, 1986). Accordingly, value is considered as usefulness of
information (Norton, 2010).
Information from design and
construction stages are
passed into FM
Construction information are

used to perform FM tasks
Input
Process
What information
do FM needs?
For what FM needs

construction information?
The purpose fulfilled by

using information is
considered as value
Output
What purposes FM achieve

through construction
information?
Figure 1: Information Value Process
Having studied the existing knowledge on facilities management information requirements and value-inuse, information value process is developed summarising the essence of literature (Figure 1).Accordingly,
it is evident that information is an input for FM from the design and construction stages. These
construction information are then used to perform different tasks during facilities management (process).
Finally, information users at the FM stage perceive a sense of value by processing information during
their job tasks. This conceptual model developed based on literature is needed to be taken forward to
explore its applicability in facilities management context and to study further to bridge the knowledge gap
by finding answers to the above questions (Figure 1).
4.
METHODOLOGY
This paper aims to investigate how construction information is valued during facility management.
Literature review was undertaken to identify the application of BIM in facilities management. Having
identified the magnitude of information flows from construction stage to FM stage, 13 interviews were
undertaken among the construction industry professionals(5 facility managers, 2 estate managers, 2
contractors, an architect, surveyor, BIM manager and a CAFM service provider) to understand the
information requirements. It was evident that information requirements are made based on the usability
and value of information. The study further noted that the term value is multi-faceted and the
information value depends upon for what and by whom its being used. Data was analysed through
coding.
529
5.
The interview transcripts were analysed through coding process adopted from grounded theory research
methodology. The first step of analysis engaged with Open Coding where the researcher looked for the
themes generated from the data with an open mind. All possible themes were captured and categories
were made grouping the similar themes together. These categories were coded by giving a name which
represents the similarity in the themes (Figure 2). In Axial Coding, the properties and dimensions of
categories were defined and relationship among categories were realised by going through the data once
more. Memos were written during the analysis. Figure 2 is an extract from the first two steps of the
analysis explaining the development of Types of information category.
Axial Coding
Open Coding
Themes
Basic information
Important information
Additional information
Support operation
Improve efficiency
Give confidence
Categories
Types of Information
Valued functions of
information
Properties and dimensions of Types of

information category
Information received at the building
handover
Produced by the project team
Useful for FM purposes
Complete, accurate information which can
be integrated with current CAFM systems
and FM practices
Relationships among categories

Types of
information
Valued
information
Quantities of
information
Every information type has
does a unique function by
supporting decsion making
or produce knowledge
Figure 2: Extract from Data Analysis - Open and Axial Coding
Three kinds of information were highlighted by the respondents when referring to the construction
information. A category named types of information was developed grouping these 3 types of
information. Going through the interview transcript and memos highlighted the common and extreme
characteristics such "the lead contractor is liable to provide necessary documents in softcopies at the
handover" as stated by a facilities manager was used to determine the properties and dimensions of the
category. For example, this quotation emphasise a dimension of the "types of information" category
through the code "at the handover" by limiting the amount of factors falls under the category. Another
example for a characteristic of the category was derived from a surveyor's statement "not all information
is accurate most of the time" which made the point that information should be accurate to perceive its
value. Once the categories were structured, key relationships were noted such as each type of information
has a predictable quantity and a function. Then at the selective coding, "information" was selected as the
core category and the relationship of this to other categories was formed to explain the developed
concept.
6.
RESULT AND DISCUSSION
Based on the research aim, construction information was selected as the core category. The other
categories related to construction information builds the properties and dimensions of the concept. Base
on the literature, the term value refers to the ultimate output of the information (Norton, 2010).
Accordingly, the role of construction information is developed in three sectors (Figure 3).
530
Value of information
Value based on blueprint evidence
about the facility
Uses of information
Gain confidence
Commercial value
Performance
Values based on the measurable
output through enhanced performance
Security
Information is valued based on the safe
position made through knowledge
Improve efficiency
Operate
Information are gathered in

detail to know about the facility
Information are used to operate the

facility more efficiently and perform
above minimum requirements
Information are used to keep the

facility functioning without interruption
Construction
information
Information which are required
to adhere statutory compliance
Essential information
Information which are not

essential but necessary to
perform efficiently
Performance enhancing
information
Information with a future
potential application
Information which has no

application under current system
yet have a potential use
Types of information
Figure 3: Role of Construction Information in FM

Source: Norton (2010)
The construction information was detailed in three aspects. They are; types of information, the uses of
these information and their values. The category types of information consists with three sub categories
namely; essential, performance enhancement and potential application. The essential category identifies
the information which are highly necessary to run the facility. For example as-built drawings, safety
manuals and operation manuals. These information are collected to adhere to the statutory compliances.
Second category under types of information coded as performance enhancement is the group of
information which are not essential to have with to operate the facility but having this additional
information will help to provide an efficient service. The third category is future potential. This
includes the nice to know information as explained by an information provider and also by the BIM
manager. This does not have any practical application under current system but may have a potential
contribution in the future with the system and technology changes. For example; this category answers
the question, if any change of use occurs in the existing facility which information may be required?
The uses of construction information is also identified as key aspect. Here, the applications of
construction information to facilities management tasks were identified and noted under uses of
information category. Facilities managers prefer to have as-built information about the facility as it helps
the operation of the building. This is the most basic but most important use of information. The
expectation of gathering information at this stage was to understand the features and characteristics of the
facility in order to operate the building with minimum disruption. It guides the user on how to operate the
facility including the equipment handling, maintenance requirements and possible precautions to be taken
for any failure. Information are also used to make the FM functions efficient and effective. Having more
detailed information tend to avoid time spend on physical inspection to collect necessary details about the
built asset. Therefore, information are used to improve the efficiency of the FM performance. Then,
information are gathered to retain knowledge and gain confidence by knowing more about the facility.
This is very subjective therefore, no practical application is visible. In other words, more additional
information are gathered about the facility although they have no practical application but merely to
satisfy a psychological condition of information users.
Once the types and uses of information are formed, value of construction information was considered
with related to facilities management. The term value refers to the final output of having construction
information at the operation and maintenance stage of a building. Accordingly, information is valued in
three different perspectives. The most valued output of information is secure environment it builds
through knowledge. When the people are informed about the procedures, risks and characteristics of the
built environment they tend to be familiar with work place and the work they do. Next, information is
valued for the measurable output it brings through performance enhancement. The visible contribution of
information such as time savings, support on decision making and risks avoided falls under this value
group. Finally, information gains a commercial value when it is in a formal structure. This refers to
531
benefits which could be gained at the reselling point or working on receiving accreditation for best
practices. At such instances information acts as a visible proof giving evidence to the services provided
by the FM team.
The proposed construction information framework will be assisting laying the input, process and out of
construction information in FM. The three outlooks of the construction information also show a
relationship between each category. The scattered lined on the framework explain the inter-relationships
between three categories. Accordingly, it revealed that the majority of the construction information are
the least valued at the facilities management (the largest circle). Therefore, this indicates that economical
point of construction information for facilities management should be considered when choosing the
information to be stored on BIM platform for long term purposes rather being guided by information
management software capabilities.
7.
CONCLUSION
It is evident that information carry a value with or without BIM. With the capabilities of BIM, this
traditional situation of gaining advantages through information has become business as usual. BIM
practitioners hold evidence for the value addition gained through BIM. If the same amount of information
is handed over through BIM, building operators are capable of overcoming the basic problems faced in
traditional method. It will bring in many opportunities by having digitized information. It will enable the
long term use of information, inter-operability within CAFM systems and make it easy to update and
manage information. However, value of information through BIM exceeds more as it is capable of
handling more information and brings value through graphical demonstrations. Also, with the future
expectations of linking BIM with internet enhances its capabilities. This takes the value of information to
the next level as this one way information feeding loop will become a cycle going beyond feeding
information to BIM but also generating information through BIM.
Having identified this fact, it is necessary to choose the right information to be taken forward with BIM
through the building life cycle. Facilities managers play a vital role at this point by contributing to the
decision on selecting information which has a value addition beyond design and construction. Having
knowledge on the role of construction information is therefore the base for the success of BIM in FM. Not
only to the information users but, the model introduced through this paper is also beneficial for the
information suppliers such as contractor, architects, etc. to understand the user perspective of the
information they generate. This will promote to produce information with a lifelong application by
informing both supply and demand sides. However, as a preliminary output of an ongoing research, detail
development of the model is yet to be made.
8.
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533
USE OF PROVISIONAL SUMS IN THE UAE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY:

AN EMPIRICAL STUDY
Krisanthi Seneviratne*, Ahmad Feras Arar and Hagir Hakim
School of Energy, Geoscience, Infrastructure and Society, Herriot Watt University Dubai Campus, UAE
ABSTRACT
Provisional sums are widely used in the FIDIC (Red Book) forms of contract in the UAE construction
industry. The practices on dealing with provisional sums have exposed the contracting parties to a
number of risks. Therefore, this research aimed at identifying such risks and mitigation measures to
limit such risks in using provisional sums in the UAE. The research started with a comprehensive
literature review followed by a questionnaire survey among the UAE construction industry
professionals. Based on the survey findings, six semi-structured interviews were conducted with
expertise in the construction industry to verify the survey findings and close any gaps in the data. The
study found that provisional sums are mainly used in the FIDIC (Red Book) forms of contract in the
UAE for special works, contingencies, the works which can be only defined in the site, facilitating the
appointment of nominated subcontractors and overlapping design and construction. The most common
risks of using provisional sums are related to claims, variations and conflicts among the contracting
parties. Defining the scope of provisional sums before tendering, incorporating the provisional sums
into the project programme and limit the value of provisional sums in the contract are suggested as the
key measures to minimize the risk of provisional measures.
Keywords:
1.
Provisional Sum Uses; Advantages; Risks; Mitigation Measures; FIDIC; UAE.
INTRODUCTION
Provisional sums are mainly used for the works still under design or when their costs are unknown at the
time of signing the construction contract. Their existence in the contract however, does not necessarily
suggest any obligation on the employer to spend them. According to Murdoch and Hughes (2000), they
are simply a method for the employer to express part of the budget of the project in the main contract.
Okuwoga (1998), finds that provisional sums make 25% of contract sum and according to Ameer (2013),
in some projects the value of provisional sums increased up to 50% of the project contract value. With
this increased use of provisional sums and due to their uncertain nature, the risks related to cost
uncertainty, schedule incorporation, quality and scope control are significant. Therefore, it is worth to
identify the risks of using provisional sums in the construction contracts in order to develop strategies to
mitigate such risks.
Use of provisional sums is a common practice in the UAE construction industry and Skaik and Al-Hajj
(2013) indicate that the use was increased by the economic crisis in 2008 and this furthers the associated
risks. However, there is a lack of research carried out in this area and therefore, this study intended to fill
this gap through identification of the risks of using provisional sums in the UAE construction industry. As
the International Federation of Consulting Engineers (FIDIC) standard forms of contract are mostly used
internationally including in the UAE, this study is focused on FIDIC in general and FIDIC Redbook
(1987 and 1999 editions) in particular. The research aim was to enhance the management of risks related
to provisional sums through identification of such risks in the UAE construction industry. This aim was
achieved through following objectives:
Identify of the use of provisional sums in FIDIC (Red Book) form of contract
Discover the purpose of using provisional sums
534
2.
Examine the risks of using provisional sums
Develop strategies to minimize the risks of provisional sums
PROVISIONAL SUMS
Provisional Sums are classified as defined and undefined. Defined provisional sums deemed to be
accounted within the contract sum and the contractors baseline program and usually have sufficient
information about the related works (Ross and Williams, 2013). In contrast, undefined provisional sums
do not provide enough technical details for the contractor to incorporate them in the financial and
schedule planning (Ross and Williams, 2013). Provisional Sums allow the employer to deal with some
construction works that are not feasible to finalize during the tender stage or in the absence of clear scope
at the time of tendering. Unlike prime cost sums, which obligate the contractor to execute them,
provisional sums may or may not be carried out by the contractor (Jenkins and Stebbings, 2006).
According to Ross and Williams (2013), provisional sums can also be included in the contract as
contingency for the works that are unexpected.
Despite the advantages, provisional sums add uncertainty to the construction contracts. According to
Robinson (2013) their inclusion indicates that the main contractor is not required to take the risk of
pricing part of the scope of work. Provisional sums are also considered as one of the main factors leading
to cost overruns (Omoniyi, 1996). Ipko (2008) identified that provisional sums increase in an average of
40%. This is mainly due to the non-preparation of the technical drawings (Ogunsemi, 2007) and the
inclusion of arbitrary figures for provisional sums (Olusegun, 2010). Ameer (2013) indicates that inflation
leads to increase the provisional sums at least by 10%. Projects with fixed budget would choose lumpsum contacts to achieve the required cost certainty. However, if major parts of these contracts are made
up of provisional sums, the actual cost for executing the provisional sums might be more than the
estimated and included in the lump-sum. Engineers tend to include part of project scope as provisional
sums either to satisfy their employers by enabling early project construction or to collect their design fees
earlier than scheduled in their consultancy contracts. According to Ameer (2013), this leads to increase
the overall contract value by 5%. Though this is acceptable to some employers as early completion would
guarantee them early collection of the profit to compensate such loss, many, incur a loss.
Inadequate definition of provisional sums and the poor coordination of their scope with the main
contractors scope may cause variations and claims from the main contractor. Inaccurate estimation and
cost uncertainty of provisional sums lead to adversarial relationship between the client and contractor
creating conflicts, disputes and legal proceedings. Such conflicts are related to the subcontractor
nomination and signing contracts between main contractor and sub-contractors, not providing the required
workmen and not coordinating with main contractors to overlap the work activities by the sub-contractors
(Akintan and Morledge, 2013). In addition to the conflicts between the employer, contractor and
subcontractors, use of provisional sums also leads to conflicts between employer and engineer. For
example, when the engineer causes a delay in issuing the required information or instruction to the main
contractor to execute the provisional sum works or delays the nominating of the subcontractors, engineer
usually grants an extension of time to the contractor. This avoids deducting the associated liquidate
damages from the contractor and benefiting the engineer from the additional supervision fees related to
this extension. Thus, the employer incurs a loss on supervision fees and forgoing delay penalties. FIDIC
(2000) emphasizes that the provisional sums can be used in whole or part but cannot exceed their value
nor can the engineer or the employer add new ones. As Robinson (2013), indicates, enforcing such
increase also leads to conflict between contracting parties.
As the expenditure of provisional sums controlled by the engineers instructions to the contractor, they
are often not included or not properly accounted in the program. This creates difficulties to the contractor
to justify any delay in the construction or a claim for extension of time. When the provisional sums are
executed by the nominated subcontractors, the complexity of the nomination procedure also causes
project delays. Skaik and Al-Hajj (2013), comments that the greater the percentage of the nominated
packages, the greater the impact on the project program.
535
Since the provisional sums are often not detailed enough or estimated accurately at the time of the
tendering (Ogunsemi, 2007; Olusegun, 2010), once the construction contract is signed, the engineer
finalizes the design of the works related to the provisional sums under pressure of any claim from the
main contractor on delay of issuing the expenditure instruction of provisional sums. In this context, the
engineer may not be able to ensure the proper technical coordination between the different technical
packages (Skaik and Al-Hajj, 2013), or may choose to trim the scope or the design of the provisional
sums not to exceed their inaccurate estimated value, reducing the quality of the works.
The risk associated with the increase or decrease of the project value can be absorbed by the contracting
parties when the provisional sums form a limited percentage of the contract. When the provisional sums
form a considerable percentage of the contact value the risk can also be higher (Chan and Yeong, 1995).
Olusegun (2010) confirmed that the more provisional sums are included in the contract, the less precise
and realistic the initial contract sums will be if compared to the final cost. Accuracy of the provisional
sums can be increased through adequate detailed drawings used in estimating the provisional sums
(Olusegun, 2010). This conflicts with the time and stage at which they are prepared.
3.
FIDIC RED BOOK AND PROVISIONAL SUMS
Both versions of FIDIC (1987); FIDIC (1999) provide two options for provisional sums execution:
requesting the contractor to undertake the works or through a nominated subcontractor. When provisional
sums are executed by the contractor, both versions of FIDIC Red Book refer to the variation clause,
obligating the contracting parties to evaluate the cost of this item as a variation. When provisional sums
are executed by a nominated subcontractor, selected by the employer, both versions refer to the
nominated subcontractors clause obligating the contracting parties to evaluate the actual amount to be
paid to the nominated subcontractor while the overhead and profit to be paid to the main contractor. One
of the main advantages of executing provisional sums by nominated subcontractors is that it provides
better control over the time, cost and quality (Murdoch and Hughes, 2000). Skaik and Al-Hajj (2013)
confirmed that the subcontracting not only satisfy the employer, but also the contractor by improving the
efficiency of construction program through releasing him from the procurement of such works.
4.
Followed by a literature review on provisional sums and the use of provisional sums in the context of
FIDIC Redbook in the UAE, a questionnaire survey was developed to identify the relative importance of
the factors identified through the literature. Comprised questions were related to the respondents profile,
use of provisional sums in FIDIC Redbook, purpose of provisional sums, risks of provisional sums and
strategies to minimize the risks. The questionnaire survey was administered among 150 construction
professionals in the UAE. Professionals are purposively selected based on their knowledge and
experience on subject area. Out of 150 questionnaires distributed, 72 responses were received. Of these,
10 responses were excluded due to the inadequate knowledge and experience in the subject area. From the
remaining 62, 7 were incomplete and excluded from the analysis. Thus, 55 questionnaires were finally
analyzed representing 36.67% response rate. Table 1 presents the profile of the survey respondents, which
represented developers, consultants, contractors, sub-contractors and project managers. Of the
respondents 83% had more than 5 years of experience and majority of the respondents held senior or
manager positions.
Table 1: Profile of the Survey Respondents
Developer
Consultant
Contractor
15%
0-5
33.33%
6-10
23.33%
11-15
16.67%
Junior
10%
31.67%
Senior
35%
33.33%
Manager
31.67%
Discipline
Years of
experience
Current
position
536
Subcontractor
15%
16-20
10%
Senior Manager
15%
Project
Manager
10%
More than 20
8.33%
Director
8.33%
Other
3.33%
-
Followed by the questionnaire survey, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 6 experts to
validate the questionnaire survey findings and to derive explanations. the interviews were conducted in
November 2014. As presented in Table 2, the experts were managers and directors who had 12 - 25 years
of relevant experience. Interviews last for 45 - 90 minutes and all the interviews are digitally voice
recorded upon the consent of the interviewees. Interview guideline comprised questions related to the
interviewees profile, use of provisional sums in FIDIC Red Book, purpose of provisional sums, risks of
provisional sums and strategies to minimize the risks.
Table 2: Profile of the Interview Respondents
5.
Interviewee
1
Interviewee
2
Interviewee
3
Interviewee
4
Interviewee
5
Interviewee
6
Position
Contracts
Manager
Director
Senior
Manager
Contracts
Engineer
Manager
Manager
Experience
22 years
25 years
14 years
21 years
20 years
12 years
QUESTIONNAIRE SURVEY DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS
Relative importance and purpose of using provisional sums, risks and strategies to minimize the risks
were identified based on the Likert scale questions with a five point scale ranging from strongly
disagree, disagree, neither disagree nor agree, agree and strongly disagree. Factors are ranked
using the mean and the questionnaire leads to the following findings.
5.1.
USE OF PROVISIONAL SUMS IN FIDIC RED BOOK
Before the specific questions on the use of provisional sums in FIDIC Red Book, some questions were
asked to verify the mostly used standard form of contract in the UAE and their knowledge on it. Survey
respondents data revealed that FIDIC standard forms of contract were the most used forms of contracts
and significant percentage of the respondents has a good knowledge on them (see Figures 1 and 2). This
is in accordance with Kerr et al. (2013), who indicate that FIDIC forms of contract is considered as the
most used forms internationally and in the UAE.
Figure 1: Use of Standard Forms of Contract
537
Figure 2: Respondents Knowledge on FIDIC Forms of Contract
Among the FIDIC standard forms of contracts, over 90% of the respondents use FIDIC Red Book (see
Figure 3) and half of them use its 1987 fourth edition while the other half use the 1999 edition. This
ensures the reliability of the survey responses.
Figure 3: Use of FIDIC Red Book
Survey respondents indicated that the provisional sums are used in many contracts based on FIDIC
Redbook. As shown in Figure 4, 72% agreed that 80%-100% of contracts use provisional sums while
over 95% agreed that 60% - 80% of contracts use provisional sums. In comparing the value of provisional
sums over the contract value, 34.55% of respondents suggested a 40% - 50% value of provisional sums
(see Figure 5). Over 70% suggested that the value of provisional sums is more than 30% of the contract
value. Furthermore, over 96% of respondents confirmed that the employers use provisional sums to
include main components such as MEP works, aluminum and glazing, lifts etc. Though the majority of
interview respondents indicated that the FIDIC Redbook is not clear on whether the employer has the
right to increase the value of existing provisional sums or to add new sums, over 80% of the survey
respondents indicated that the employer has the right to increase the value of provisional sums while
about 60% of them indicated that the employer has the right to add new provisional sums. These findings
however, justify the significance of evaluating the extensive use of provisional sums in contracts.
538
Figure 4: Use of Provisional Sums in Contracts Based on FIDIC Redbook
Figure 5: Value of Provisional Sums Used as a Percentage to the Contract Value
Regarding the clarity of FIDIC Redbook clauses in dealing with provisional sums, 60% of the survey
respondents indicated that it is clear. In responding to the clarity of FIDIC Redbook on the responsibilities
and obligations of contracting parties with regard to the provisional sums 50% of respondents agreed that
it is clear while 41% stated otherwise.
5.2.
PURPOSE OF USING PROVISIONAL SUMS
As presented in Table 3, inclusion of un-traditional packages such as supply of materials, goods, plant and
services in the main contract, facilitating the nomination and appointment of sub-contractors, inclusion of
works under design at the time of tendering, inclusion of the works of which the scope can be defined
during the construction and expedite tendering and commencement of construction were the main reasons
for using provisional sums. Least chosen reasons by the respondents were the reasons related to the
budget control and contingency. While the literature (Emmitt and Yeomans, 2008) identifies the main use
of provisional sums as to cover the cost of a work of which there is no enough details available at the
tender stage to calculate its cost accurately, to cover the cost of work under design and to cover the cost of
specialist sub-contractor works, research reveals more uses. Nominating and appointing sub-contractors
are to enhance the quality of works while the inclusion of works under design at the time of tendering,
inclusion of works that the scope can be defined during the construction are intended to shorten the
project duration. A common practice in the UAE is to overlap the design and construction as much as
possible to allow early construction and save time. This forces the consultant to rush the preparation of
tender documents and identification of incomplete design packages as provisional sums so that the
tendering can start. This practice not only save time in the design development process but also the
tendering as the bidders are required only to include their attendance rates for these sums without
reviewing their details, calculating the quantities or providing detailed pricing for them. This is followed
by the project cost control.
539
Table 3: Survey Respondents Perceptions of the Relative Importance of Purpose of Using Provisional Sums
Purpose
5.3.
Mean
Rank
To include un-traditional packages such as supply materials, goods, plant and services
in the main contract
4.27
To facilitate the nomination and appointment of sub-contractors
4.22
To include some works in the tender, which are under design or of which the cost is
not known at the time of tendering
4.20
To include some works in the tender, of which the scope can be defined during
construction
4.13
To expedite the tendering and construction commencement
4.07
To have a contingency sum
2.93
To control the project budget
2.84
RISKS OF PROVISIONAL SUMS
More than 80% of the survey respondents agreed that provisional sums add risks to the construction
contracts. Meanwhile, 80% of the respondents agreed that the Employer caries the risk of provisional
sums in relation to the delay of expenditure of the provisional sums and the cost increase resulted by
inaccurate estimation or market inflation. 20% agreed the contractor caries the risk and this suggests that
the parties share some risks related to the project.
Survey response data analysis produced mean importance values for the risks ranging from 3.93 to 2.65
as presented in Table 5. Risk of claims, variations and conflicts among the parties ranked first in the
survey analysis (mean value 3.93), which is shared among all contract parties. The second ranked risk is
the added cost uncertainty to the contract (mean value 3.80) and drive for scope conflicts and
coordination issues is ranked as the third important risk in using provisional sums (mean value 3.65).
Uncertainty added to the scope and contract are also identified as a main risks of provisional sums in the
literature (Ashworth et al., 2013). As most of provisional sums are not fully detailed during the tendering
stage or even after signing the construction contract, once the detailed designs for these sums are
available there will be a need for some coordination between the main contractor and consultant in
adopting the scope of the provisional sums into the ongoing construction works with minimum variations
to the main contract. Coordination would be more complicated when provisional sums are subcontracted
to a larger number of parties with totally different priorities and interests. Increased final contract sum
(mean value 3.56) and expose the contract to the market inflation (mean value 3.47) are also a risk of
using provisional sums. These factors together with added cost uncertainty to the contract assert the need
to develop recommendations in dealing with Provisional Sums in the FIDIC Red Book to ensure good
cost control of these sums. Second lowest risk of using provisional sums is delaying the construction and
project completion (mean value 3.22). Reduce the quality of works (mean value 2.65) ranked the lowest.
This indicates that the respondents perceive that the provisional sums enhance the value and quality of the
project.
540
Table 4: Perceptions of the Relative Importance of Provisional Sum Risk Factors

Risks of provisional sums
5.4.
Mean
Rank
Drive for claims, variations and conflicts among contracting parties
3.93
Added cost uncertainty to the contract
3.80
Drive for scope conflicts and coordination issues
3.65
Increase the final contract sum
3.56
Expose the contract to the market inflation
3.47
Delay construction and project completion
3.22
Reduce the quality of works
2.65
STRATEGIES TO MINIMIZE THE RISK OF PROVISIONAL SUMS
Nine strategies identified through the literature review were presented to the respondents to identify the
relative importance of them. Defining the scope of provisional sums before tendering ranked first in the
survey analysis (mean value 4.27). This complies with the FIDIC (2000), which indicates to avoid the use
of undefined provisional sums as it increases the risk of inaccurate estimates, scope conflicts and
variations. Incorporating the provisional sums into the project programme ranked second (mean value
3.98) as this avoids the project delay by controlling their scope delivery, expenditure instructions,
subcontractor nominations and execution. Limiting the value (mean value .93) as a strategy minimizes the
associated uncertainties. As respondents identified, training and education of the staff also help to limit
the risks (mean value 3.87). A list of approved subcontractors (mean value 3.82) would allow the main
contractor to choose a suitable sub-contractor in executing the works collaboratively and allowing the
bidders to price the provisional sums would verify the accuracy of estimates and provide more control in
executing these sums either by themselves or through subcontractors. Followed by this was avoiding
provisional sums for main components of the projects. The least scored strategies are reducing the
number of provisional sums and adding particular conditions. Similarly, Okuwoga (1998), suggests that
cost overruns resulted by provisional sums could be reduced through better pre-contract documentation.
Table 5: Perceptions of the Relative Importance of Strategies to Minimize the Risk of Provisional Sums
Strategies
Mean
Rank
Tendering only once the scope of the provisional sums are defined
4.27
Incorporating the provisional sums into the project programme
3.98
Limit the value of provisional sums in the contract
3.93
Training and education of the staff on dealing provisional sums
3.87
Introduce list of sub-contractors to execute provisional sums
3.82
Allow the bidders to price provisional sums
3.69
Avoid the inclusion of main components of the projects as provisional sums
3.67
Reduce the number of provisional sums
3.40
Improve provisional sum clauses

through particular conditions
3.40
on obligations and responsibilities of parties
To explore the recommended range of percentage of provisional sums by the respondents, they were
asked to choose a range and as illustrated in Figure 6, 10-20% was the most recommended range followed
by the 0-10% and 20-30%.
541
Figure 6: Respondents Recommended Range of Percentage of Provisional Sums
6.
INTERVIEW DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS
Interview data was analyzed through content analysis and following presents a summary of the findings.
Interviewees agreed that the provisional sums are used in 70 90% of FIDIC Redbook based contracts
and the average value of provisional sums is around 40 50% of contract value. They indicated that
provisional sums are used in specialist works such as MEP, aluminum and glazing, lifts etc. Interviewees
generally viewed that the FIDIC Redbook clauses are clear on dealing with provisional sums. Majority of
them suggested the clauses related to increasing the value of provisional sums, payments and programme
need enhancement though some were in the view that the form of contract allows increasing or decreasing
the value of provisional sums.
As perceived by the interviewees, provisional sums overcome the tightness of lump-sum contracts based
on the FIDIC Redbook and provide flexibility in dealing with variations. This was considered as
significant when there are changes to the original scope. Interviewees were in the view that provisional
sums are mainly used for incomplete designs intended to be completed by specialist sub-contractors
during construction. They also agreed that the inclusion of provisional sums enables time saving through
integrating design and construction. Another benefit highlighted by the interviewees is achieving better
quality through nominated sub-contractors and suppliers.
Interviewees admitted that provisional sums are not detailed sufficiently by the consultants and not
studied by the tenderers leaving them to finalize during construction. This mainly led to cost issues and
contractual complications, which affected the timely completion of projects. Some un-defined provisional
sums were sub-contracted as design and built agreements, in particular for specialist works such as lifts
and escalators. Undefined provisional sums however, added more risk to the contract. Inaccurate
estimation of provisional sums is another issue, which leads to inflation and quality issues etc. Though
some companies estimated the provisional sums based on similar past projects and make necessary
adjustments, this was not the practice in most of the companies. Lack of experience of the staff also led to
poor estimates. Provisional sums also created scope conflicts and coordination issues between the main
contractor and sub-contractors.
Interviewees highlighted that the value of provisional sums must be lower than 20% of the contract value
to minimize the risks and the scope must be defined before tendering. Agreeing a list of sub-contractors
with the main contractor also helps to minimize the scope conflicts. They also suggested the possibility of
enhancing the clarity of the standard clauses through particular conditions.
542
7.
CONCLUSIONS
Provisional sums are used in the FIDIC (Red Book) forms of contract in the UAE mainly for untraditional packages, special works, contingencies and the works which can be only defined in the site.
They are also used to facilitate the appointment of nominated subcontractors, overlap design and
construction in the fast-track projects, expedite tendering and construction commencement and
controlling the quality, cost or scope of some packages due to certain requirements by the employer.
In general, inclusion of provisional sums save time through expediting construction commencement, give
flexibility to the employer to subcontract some packages to meet certain requirements in the quality or
scope, enhance the cost control of the project if they are used as contingencies to mitigate some risks in
the project. Provisional sums also help save cost mainly in the cases of untraditional packages as the main
contractors tend to overprice these packages, reduce the claims, variations and conflicts in some cases
specially if the main contractor has no interest to handle some untraditional or complicated packages.
Similarly, the risks depend on the nature of the project and use. The most common risks of using
provisional sums in the FIDIC (Red Book) forms of contract in the UAE are related to claims, variations
and conflicts among the contracting parties. Besides there are risks related to the cost uncertainty, the
projects delay and in some cases the poor quality due to scope conflicts, management and coordination
issues. Defining the scope of provisional sums before tendering, incorporating the provisional sums into
the project programme and limiting the value of provisional sums in the contract are suggested as the key
measures to minimize the risk of provisional measures. The maximum percentage recommended by the
majority of survey and interview respondents was 20%. Some recommendations in using provisional
sums in the FIDIC (Red Book) forms of contract are included in Appendix A.
8.
REFERENCES
Akintan, O. and Morledge, R., 2013. Improving the Collaboration between Main Contractors and Subcontractors
within Traditional Construction Procurement. Journal of Construction Engineering, 2013, 1-11.
Ameer, A., 2013. Irregularities, Frauds and the Necessity of Technical Auditing in Construction Industry.
Bloomington: AuthorHouse.
Ashworth, A., Hogg, K. and Higgs, C., 2013. Williss Practice and Procedure for the quantity surveyor. 13th ed.
Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Chan, A. and Yeong, C., 1995. A Comparison of Strategies for Reducing Variations. Construction Management and
Economics, 13(6), 467-473.
Emmitt, S. and Yeomans, D., 2008. Specifying Buildings: A Design Management Perspective. 2nd ed. Oxford:
Elsevier.
Federation Internationale des Ingenieurs-Cons (FIDIC), 1987. Conditions of Contract for Works of Civil
Engineering Construction. 4th ed. Switzerland: FIDIC.
Federation Internationale des Ingenieurs-Cons (FIDIC), 1999. Conditions of Contract for Construction. Switzerland:
FIDIC.
Federation Internationale des Ingenieurs-Cons (FIDIC), 2000. FIDIC Contracts Guide. Switzerland: FIDIC.
Ipko, I., 2008. Variability Analysis of Prime Cost Sums. Civil Consultation Dimension, 10(1), 40-44.
Jenkins, J., Stebbings, S., 2006. International Construction Arbitration Law (Arbitration in Context Series).
Netherlands: Kluwer Law International.
Kerr, M., Ryburn, D., McLaren, B. and Dentons Z.O., 2013. Construction and Projects in United Arab Emirates:
Overview [online]. London, Practical Law. Available from: http://uk.practicallaw.com/resource/1-519-3663.
Murdoch, J. and Hughes, W., 2000. Construction Contracts Law and Management. 3rd ed. London: Spon Press.
Ogunsemi, R., 2007. Predicting the Final Cost of Construction Projects in Nigeria. The Quantity Surveyors, 54(4),
3-6.
Okuwoga, A.A., 1998. Cost-Time Performance of Public Sector Housing Projects in Nigeria. Habitat International,
22(4), 389-395.
543
Olusegun, A., 2010. Adjustment of Prime Cost and Provisional Sums on Building Project in Nigeria: Causes,
Effects and Solutions. Journal of Applied Sciences Research, 6(8), 1212-1214.
Omoniyi, M.I. 1996. A critical analysis of abandonment projects. Journal of Building Science and Management, 11
(1), 4-10.
Ross, P. and Williams, P., 2013. Financial Management in Construction Contracting. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Robinson, M., 2013. An Employers and Engineers Guide to the FIDIC Conditions of Contract. Oxford: WileyBlackwell.
Skaik, S. and Al-Hajj, A., 2013. Improving The Practice of Subcontract nomination in The UAE Construction
Industry. In: RICS COBRA Conference, New Delhi 10-12 September 2013. Berlin: ResearchGate.
APPENDIX A: RECOMMENDATIONS IN USING PROVISIONAL SUMS IN THE FIDIC (RED BOOK)

FORMS OF CONTRACT
Limit the maximum value of provisional sums in the construction contracts to maximum 20% of the initial
main contracts value.
Avoid the use of provisional sums for the main components of the project as much as possible.
Estimate the value of provisional sums as accurately as possible during the tender stage.
Include only the defined provisional sums in the tender documents to avoid scope conflicts and incorporate the
provisional sums in the main contractor program to ensure proper accounting for their related works.
To request the bidders to include their attendance rate for each provisional sum in the BOQs to avoid the
contractual complications.
To agree with the bidder a list of approved subcontractors who may undertake the execution of provisional
sums.
To train the staff on contractual framework of dealing with provisional sums and raise the awareness about the
best use, benefits and risks of these sums.
Clarify the terms and conditions in the case of increase of contract value due to value adjustment of the
provisional sums and increase of a provisional sum value.
Clarify the obligations and responsibilities of the contracting parties toward the inclusion of provisional sum
items in the project program.
Establish a link between granting the project building permit and the satisfactory design completion of all main
project components to reduce the misuse of provisional sums and avoid the scope conflicts.
Develop and maintain a national construction cost database to enhance construction cost estimate in the UAE.
544
USING SAFETY CLIMATE AS A TOOL FOR IMPROVEMENT OF SAFETY

PERFORMANCE IN CONSTRUCTION ORGANIZATIONS
Tariq Umar* and Sam Chris Wamuziri
College of Engineering, ASharqiyah University, Oman
ABSTRACT
Data from a number of industrialized countries show that construction workers are 3 to 4 times more
likely than other workers to die from accidents at work. In the developing world, the risks associated
with construction work may be 3 to 6 times greater. Construction is one of the worlds biggest
industrial sectors, including the building, civil engineering, demolition and maintenance industries,
and in Oman it accounts for approximately 10% of the total GDP. Statistics indicate that a total of
723,243 residents including 91% foreigners were working in 100,000 construction organizations in
2014 and was having second larger rate of occupational injuries after manufacturing industry with an
estimated cost of 3,700,000 US$ per year. Construction workers are exposed to a wide variety of
hazards on the job, including dusts and vapours, asbestos, awkward working positions, heavy loads,
adverse weather conditions, work at heights, noise, vibration from tools, and therefore more closer to
occupational accidents. In recent years the awareness of the importance for safety performance of
organizational, managerial and social factors, has increased. Safety climate is an aspect of
organizational climate, and offers a route for safety management, complementing the often
predominant engineering approach. Safety climate investigations are more sensitive and proactive
bases for developing safety, rather than reactive information from accident rates and accident and
incident reports. Based on a thorough literature review, relevant safety climate dimensions including
(1) management safety priority, commitment and competence; (2) management safety empowerment;
(3) management safety justice; (4) workers safety commitment; (5) workers safety priority and risk
non-acceptance; (6) safety communication, learning, and trust in co-workers safety competence; and
(7) workers trust in the efficacy of safety systems, are identified and discussed. This paper further
describes how construction organizations in Oman can improve their safety performance by using and
assessing leading safety climate dimensions/ factors among their workers.
Keywords:
1.
Construction Safety, Safety Climate Dimensions, Safety Performance, Construction

Organisations, UAE.
INTRODUCTION
Statistics published by the International Labor Organization (2015) indicate that at least 108,000 workers
are killed on construction sites every year, a figure which represents about 30% of all occupational fatal
injuries. Data from a number of industrialized countries show that construction workers are 3 to 4 times
more likely than other workers to die from accidents at work. In the developing world, the risks
associated with construction work may be 3 to 6 times greater. Many more workers suffer and die from
occupational diseases arising from past exposure to dangerous substances, such as asbestos. Construction
is one of the worlds biggest industrial sectors, including the building, civil engineering, demolition and
maintenance industries. It accounts for a large proportion of GDP for many countries for example, 10
percent in the UK, 17% in Japan, and 10% in Oman. Statistics published in the daily Times of Oman
dated June 09, 2014, a total of 723,243.00 residents were working in the construction industry. In most
developing countries, construction is among the fastest growing areas of the labor market, continuing to
provide a traditional entry point for labourers. It is, however, one of the most dangerous
industries. Construction workers build, repair, maintain, renovate and demolish houses, office buildings,
*
545
factories, hospitals, roads, bridges, tunnels, stadiums, docks, airports and more. During the course of their
work they are exposed to a wide variety of hazards on the job, including dusts and vapours, asbestos,
awkward working positions, heavy loads, adverse weather conditions, work at heights, noise, vibration
from tools, among many others. The causes of accidents and ill-health in the sector are well known and
almost all are preventable. A report published in daily Times of Oman dated February 28, 2015 states that
there is no official statistics of how many company workers get hurt in the course of their duties but
according to the individual Health and Safety Environment's (HSE) records of top 10 contractors, more
than 3,700 of them needed medical treatment in 2014. The injured workers who get hospitalized made up
nearly 10% of the total workers on this list. Sadly, about 18 per cent of them died either at the sites or in
hospitals in 2015. In comparison to the previous year, 246 more workers got injured in 2014 but for
obvious reason, company directors do not want this part of the record to be made public. The Public
Authority of Social Insurance (2014) which registered only Omani nationals reports shows that 401 cases
of work related injuries were disbursed which cost a total amount of 406,000 OMR (105,1540 US$). The
number of active insurees in the Social Insurance System was 197,510 in 2014; which gives a ratio of
number of insurees and injuries cost as 1:0.49. If this is applied to the total workers working in the
construction industry of Oman to get an idea of the cost involved in construction safety, gives a figure of
1,428,571 OMR (3,700,000 US$) per year. In construction organizations most of the workers are
foreigners (92% of total work force) and as such they are not insured under the government authority. As
per law of the country, construction organizations required to seek private insurance for their workers,
however as the risk associated with construction workers is high their insurance premium is
comparatively more. Construction organizations further bear high cost at the time of recruitment and pay
for repatriation, compensation and replacement in case of accidents involving injuries and death. There is
high potential for construction organizations to reduce the cost associated with accidents by improving
safety culture through safety climate.
In recent years the awareness of the importance for safety performance of organizational, managerial and
social factors, have increased. Safety climate is a subset of organizational climate, and offers a route for
safety management, complementing the often predominant engineering approach. An understanding of
the safety climate dimensions can be useful in improving the safety performance of an organization. In
addition, safety climate investigations are more sensitive (e.g. multi-faceted) and proactive bases for
developing safety, rather than reactive (after the fact) information from accident rates and accident and
incident reports (Seo et al., 2004). Over the past century focus concerning factors influencing safety and
safety improvements within industries has changed and expanded. Hale and Hovden (1998) describe three
ages of safety: the technical age (1920s), the human factor age (1970s) and the management system age
(1980s). The third wave or age of safety expanded the focus to include safety culture, and the concept of
safety culture was first truly introduced and defined after the Chernobyl accident in 1986 (INSAG, 1992).
Safety culture and safety climate are concepts that today attract much attention across a broad number of
industries and sectors (Clarke, 2000). One of the reasons for this is that a rich safety culture and a mature
safety climate are some of the most important factors in achieving a safe workplace. In order to improve
the level of safety culture and safety climate it is important to: a) determine the current level of safety
culture and safety climate, b) decide what level of safety culture and safety climate is needed, attainable
and wanted, and c) to create a plan to achieve the safety culture and safety climate that is wanted
(AICHE, 2012). Safety climate may be defined as shared perceptions among the members of a social unit,
of policies, procedures and practices related to safety in the organization. Researchers and practitioners
have identified safety culture and safety climate as key to reducing injuries, illnesses and fatalities on
construction worksites. Many construction contractors are trying to improve these indicators as a way to
move closer to a goal of achieving zero injury worksites. This paper presents the initial research of how
different safety climate could be used by construction organizations to improve their safety performance.
2.
DEFINING SAFETY CLIMATE
Although there are several definitions suggested by different researchers from different thought and
background, however recently in a workshop on safety culture and climate: bridging the gap between
research and practice, held in Washington DC on 11-12 June 2013; Organizers distributed a handout
containing 10 safety climate definitions obtained from both the peer-reviewed academic literature and
546
from interviews recently conducted with contractors and safety practitioners. Seventy-two invited
construction stakeholders representing the following constituency groups participated in the construction
track (table No.1). Workgroups reviewed and discussed each definition and were asked to select one for
safety climate and one for safety culture that they thought was most relevant for construction. Table No.2
shows the reported favourite definitions of safety climate from the workgroup.
Table 1: Composition of Participants of Workshop from Different Construction Stakeholders
Contractors
25 %
Employer Associations
12 %
Labor Organizations
14 %
Researchers/Academics
40 %
Consultants
6%
Insurance Companies
4%
Table 2: Top Most Favorite Definitions of Safety Climate from Different Construction Stakeholders
Safety climate is a leading indicator. It reflects how well the espoused safety program is ultimately
integrated into the organization to support safe effective practices at the point of operation.
33 %
Safety climate reflects shared perceptions of the relative priority of safety compared to other
competing organizational priorities.
23 %
The safety climate is the environment in which a company puts its safety culture to work. Like
providing the tools and equipment necessary, maybe the resources on our job sites to create that
environment in which people are allowed to work safely.
Safety climate is the shared perceptions of organizational members about their work environment
and, more precisely, about their organizational safety policies.
Safety climate is a subset of organizational climate that measures through members perceptions
the degree of congruence between an organizations espoused values and policies and enacted
practices.
3.
19 %
16 %
9%
SAFETY CLIMATE DIMENSIONS/FACTORS
Based on theory and empirical results from different sources, it is mandatory to consider different
dimensions of safety climate based on the perceptions of conditions contributing to individual motivation,
as well as conditions influential to relational aspects of occupational safety. From the literature review,
the leading safety climate dimensions are: Management safety priority and commitment to safety;
Workgroup safety priority and commitment; Learning, communication and innovativeness; Management
safety justice; Trust in management; Trust in co-worker safety competence; Trust in the general efficacy
of safety systems; and Safety empowerment.
3.1.
MANAGEMENT SAFETY PRIORITY AND COMMITMENT TO SAFETY
As the organizational priorities are largely communicated through the managers, manager behavior would
be a main source of information. If managers are perceived to be committed to safety and to prioritize
safety in relation to other goals, safe behavior would be expected to be rewarded, and thereby reinforced.
From this it may be inferred that safety climate informs the individual on how to behave in order to
maximize individual benefit. In this respect, it may be viewed to represent an individualistic perspective.
547
Top management involvement in safety, and the priority of safety matters, were two of the themes
identified by Zohar (1980) in the literature review undertaken to define the first safety climate scale.
Brown and Holmes (1986) tested the safety climate questionnaire developed by Zohar (1980), and
identified management concerns for employee well-being, and management activity in responding to this
concern as two of three factors. Perceptions of management safety commitment and priority have been
found to be the most commonly assessed themes in safety climate research (Flin et al., 2000). As a design
criterion for the safety climate questionnaire that it should assess management safety priority as well as
management commitment to safety.
3.2.
WORKGROUP SAFETY PRIORITY AND COMMITMENT
Since being in equilibrium with the social environment contributes to a sense of security and reduces
stress, shared perceptions of safety being valued and expected in the organization would also contribute to
the development of workgroup norms favoring safety. Such norms would cue individual safety behavior,
since individuals may expect safe behavior to be socially rewarded by the group. Clarke (2006), in
discussing the results of her meta-analysis of 19 safety climate studies, suggested that individuals feel
more committed to the workgroup than to the organization, and hence that the workgroup is most
powerful in the socialization of new members. Clarke suggested perceptions of workgroup norms to be
highly decisive for group safety climate. The results of Dedobbeleer and Beland (1991) indicated that
safety climate measures should cover conditions regarding management as well as the workgroup.
Andriessen (1978) found Safety motivation to be strongly determined by leadership and safety standards
of the leader, but also by group standards and group cohesion. Results by Watson et al. (2005) showed
that an index of co-worker safety norms was negatively correlated with at risk behavior. Tucker et al.
(2008) found that the effect of perceived organizational support for safety, on employee safety voice, i.e.
the degree to which employees speak out in an attempt to change unsafe workplace conditions, was
mediated through perceived co-worker support for safety. Support for specifying safety climate
dimensions regarding not only managerial policies, procedures and practices, but also workgroup ditto,
has also been presented by Melia et al. (2008). Seo et al. (2004), in their scrutiny of 16 safety climate
scales, identified perceptions of co-worker safety support as one of five major dimensions of safety
climate covered in previous research. As a design criterion for the assessment that it should evaluate
safety climate dimensions regarding both, but separately, management and workgroup policies,
procedures, and practice. Safety priority and safety commitment should be assessed regarding both these
levels. Norms of risk acceptance may play a negative role in relation to safety priority, and have been
claimed to counteract active safety work (Murray and Dolomount, 1994; Pollnac and Poggie, 1989;
Torner et al., 2000). Therefore the safety climate Questionnaire must have an assessment of workgroup
risk acceptance.
3.3.
LEARNING, COMMUNICATION AND INNOVATIVENESS
Communication and social interaction are necessary means for the creation of social constructs such as
organizational climate. Hofmann and Stetzer (1998) suggested that management encouraging open
communication on safety, sends a strong signal on how safety is valued. Jeffcott et al. (2006) stressed the
importance of learning for a positive safety culture, i.e. continuously gathering, analyzing and
disseminating information in an environment valuing expertise and being based on trust, where operators
can identify and are willing to report abnormal events and errors. Communication is thus not merely an
exchange of information, but also a prerequisite for learning and for new, innovative ideas to emerge.
Open and frequent communication between management and employees was one of the important safety
themes identified by Zohar (1980) in his literature review. Perceived management openness, including a
willingness to share ideas and information freely and accurately, is often put forth as an aspect or facet of
management quality necessary for the development of trust in management (Clark and Payne 1997), a
dimension of safety climate discussed further below. Communication should, to be effective, take place
not only as an interaction between management and employees but also between employees. As a design
criterion for the questionnaire that safety related communication (open and rich), learning, and
innovativeness should be assessed.
548
3.4.
MANAGEMENT SAFETY JUSTICE
Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) has been defined as individual behavior that is discretionary,
not directly or explicitly recognized by the formal reward system, and that in the aggregate promotes the
effective functioning of the organization (Organ 1997). Actively taking responsibility for the safety of
oneself and others and engaging in safety activities, could well be regarded as an expression of OCB.
Organ (1997) suggested the antecedents of OCB to be dispositions related to conscientiousness and
any dispositions that can be confidently and empirically tied to a characteristic level of morale in the
workplace (p. 94). Fassina et al. (2008) based on a meta-analysis of 34 studies on the relationship
between distributive, interactional and procedural justice on one hand, and OCB on the other, stated that
all three justice dimensions correlated with OCB, but that the correlations with interactional (fair
treatment by superiors) and procedural justice (fair procedures) were the strongest. It could thus be argued
that employee safety responsibility and safety behavior would be positively influenced by management
procedural and interactional safety justice, i.e. just treatment and procedures when handling accidents and
near-accidents. As a questionnaire design criterion that perceptions of management interactional and
procedural justice in regards to safety should be included.
3.5 .
TRUST IN MANAGEMENT
The theory of social exchange (Blau 1986) further emphasizes the relational component of safety climate.
According to this theory, behavior from one party benefitting a second party creates a mutual expectation
that this will be reciprocated at some future time by the second party performing behavior that benefits
the initiator. Another theoretical concept of relevance here is that of Perceived Organizational Support
(POS) (Eisenberger et al. 1986). POS is based on the assumption that employees in an organization form
global beliefs concerning the extent to which the organization values their contributions and cares about
their well-being (Eisenberger et al. 1986), and that such beliefs would increase the employees affective
attachment to the organization. As this demonstrates caring for workers health, it may be assumed that
POS would also have a positive effect on safety climate which there is empirical support for. POS and
high-quality leader member relations have been shown to have an impact on workers safety commitment
and safety communication (Hofmann and Morgeson 1999), on safety climate (Wallace et al. 2006) as
well as on lower accident rates (Hofmann and Morgeson 1999; Wallace et al. 2006). Mayer et al. (1995)
stated that trust encompasses a willingness to take a risk in a relationship, and to be vulnerable to the
other party. Cox et al. (2006) discussing trust in high reliability organizations, concluded that low trust
relations can have negative impacts on an effective safety culture. Zacharatos et al. (2005) found trust in
management, and safety climate to predict safety knowledge, safety motivation and safety behavior, as
well as a lower rate of safety incidents. Burns et al. (2006) suggested that trust and distrust may be
viewed as different constructs, both of which may have a positive impact on safety. It was concluded as a
design criterion that the questionnaire should assess the employees trust in management, and trust in
management competence was chosen to represent it. However, the complex nature of trust in relation to
safety, further stresses the importance of simultaneously measuring safety communication.
3.6 .
TRUST IN CO-WORKER SAFETY COMPETENCE
The workforces perceptions of the general standard of workers qualifications, skills and knowledge, was
one of the six most common themes in safety climate research found by Flin et al. (2000). Co-worker
safety competence was also one of the five dimensions of safety climate identified by Seo et al. (2004).
As stated above, perception of competence is often suggested as one of the dimensions of trust. The
complexity of trust should, however, be kept in mind. As Conchie and Donald (2008) pointed out, if there
is blind trust in co-workers, double checking of safety critical tasks may be overlooked, and mistakes may
pass undetected. The questionnaire should be designed to contain items assessing perceptions of trust in
co-worker competence, but once again, the importance of open and rich communication, participation and
empowerment, in order to counteract the development of blind trust, should be emphasized.
549
3.7.
TRUST IN THE GENERAL EFFICACY OF SAFETY SYSTEMS
The importance of well-functioning safety systems was confirmed in an interview study with first-line
supervisors and worker safety representatives in construction work (Torner and Pousette 2009). It should
be emphasized that safety climate is a social construct, and a climate measure of perceptions of safety
systems should not be an audit on how such systems are implemented in the workplace under study
(Hale 2000), but rather aim at capturing perceptions of the efficacy for attaining a high standard of safety
of a systematic approach to safety through well-developed safety management systems. Pidgeon (1998)
expanded on this and stated that organizational culture plays an important role for how we structure our
understanding of the world, and these understandings help us to acknowledge certain safety issues. At the
same time they may turn our attention away from other equally important issues, so that hazards may
incubate in the organization. In addition, trying to anticipate all possible risks, and trying to prevent
them through elaborate safety management systems, may lead to rigid responses rather than resilience
when non-anticipated events occur (Conchie et al. 2006; Pidgeon 1998). This once again points to the
importance of learning (e.g. Pidgeon and OLeary 2000) and open and rich communication in the
organization. Hale (2000) advocated a creative mistrust in the risk control systems, as one of the
dimensions of a good safety culture. He stated that believing that you have the ideal safety culture should
be a warning that you dont, and instead it is sound to constantly question the quality of the safety culture.
Hale stressed the importance of open communication and reflexivity. As a design criterion for the safety
climate questionnaire that it should assess perceptions of the efficacy of safety systems, but that this
should be assessed together with other aspects of safety climate.
3.8.
SAFETY EMPOWERMENT
One way for managers to convey trust is by empowering the employees. Empowerment is a delegation of
power, and as such it demonstrates that managers trust workers ability and judgment, and that managers
value workers contributions. Empowerment would thus be expected to contribute to POS. In turn,
empowerment would further strengthen social exchanges, and in conditions where safety is highly valued
by the organization, empowerment would encourage reciprocation and reinforce safety behavior. Shannon
et al. (1997), in a review of ten studies examining the relationship between workplace and organizational
factors and injury rates, found that empowerment of the workers and delegation of safety activities, were
consistently related to lower injury rates, i.e. the relation was significant in at least two thirds of the
studies. In an interview study with first-line supervisors and workers safety representatives in
construction work, one of the main constituents of workplace safety, in their opinion, was cooperation
across hierarchical levels and functions, and support for cooperation through empowerment, mutual trust
and having a keen ear (Torner and Pousette 2009). Results of Clarke and Ward (2006) showed a positive
relation between management tactics characterized by being consultative, by inspirational appeals and
rational persuasion, and a good safety climate and safety behavior. They also found a positive correlation
between coalition tactics and safety participation. Clarke and Ward suggested that these types of
management tactics have a beneficial influence on perceptions of communication and perceptions of
managers competence in decision making, which supports development of trust and increases safety
participation. As a design criterion for the questionnaire that assessment of management safety
empowerment and encouragement of employee safety participation should be included.
550
Table 3: Demonstration of a Leading Safety Climate Factor "Management Commitment to Safety" at Different Levels of Achievement (CPWR 2014)
Uniformed
Reactive
Complaint
Proactive
Exemplary
Representation
from
management rarely comes to
the actual jobsite. When they
are present, they often act as
poor safety role models by
breaking organizational safety
policies and procedures.
Management gets involved only

after an injury occurs. They
often blame workers for
injuries, leading to suspension
or even termination. Safety
rules are enforced only after an
incident or when audit results
are negative.
Management conforms
strictly
to
OSHA
regulations, never more
or
less.
Safety
compliance is based on
owner or regulatory
directives.
Managers
participate in safety
audits.
Management initiates and actively

participates in safety audits. Managers
meet with workers to ask for advice and
feedback regarding hazard reduction.
Management conducts spontaneous site
visits and recognizes workers for
identifying hazards, working safely, and
keeping co-workers safe. Leaders
participate
in
safety
program
development and provide adequate
resources to ensure a positive safety
climate. The safety management system
is reviewed annually to ensure
effectiveness and relevance.
Management integrates safety into

every meeting and engages in
continuous improvement regarding
safety conditions and hazard
reduction. External audits are
conducted
to
evaluate
top
managements involvement in
safety.
Managers
are
held
accountable for safety expectations
through
annual
performance
evaluations. Safety trends are
analyzed. There is a formalized
process for corrective actions.
Management
does
not
participate in safety audits. If
employees bring concerns to
any level of management they
are not acted upon.
551
4.
PROCESS OF USING SAFETY CLIMATE FACTORS FOR SAFETY IMPROVEMENT
Safety climate factors can be measured among different categories of staff working in a construction
organization or in a project undertaken by the construction organization which will reflect the safety
climate of organization or safety climate of the specific project. After assessment of safety climate
construction organizations will be able to identify and prioritize the weak areas for improvement. Safety
climate leading factors can be reviewed on a five level scoring scale to assess what level of safety culture
for that factor is achieved by a construction organization.
Maturity level for all the factors can be classified as uniformed, reactive, complaint, proactive and
exemplary. Table 3 presents different levels for demonstration of a leading safety climate factor
management commitment to safety. Construction organizations can make short term (1-2 months),
mid-term (6-12 months) and long term (1-2 years) if the required level for the factors is not adopted.
5.
CONCLUSION
The risk associated with construction workers is higher than other industries which results in more
accidents and both organizations and individuals involved in accident suffer in different ways including
financially. This paper presented the concept for construction organizations for improvement of safety
performance through safety climate dimensions. Construction companies in partnership with workers are
responsible for ensuring that jobsite hazards are eliminated, or at least minimized. These partnerships are
most effective when they exist within a positive safety climate. The leading factors which contribute to
safety climate are discussed and how these factors are measured within construction organizations are
highlighted. Using these factors on a scoring scale can help the organizations to understand the level of
their safety climate to predict the safety culture and safety performance. Construction is a leading and
rapid growing industry of Oman, which is highly contributing to the country economy, needing to
improve their safety performance. 92% of the total workforce in the construction industry are foreigners
and in case of accidents construction organizations bear more financial cost such as for medical treatment,
workers compensation, repatriation cost in case of death, replacement and delay in completion of projects.
Assessment of safety climate will help construction organizations in Oman to develop short, mid and long
term plans to improve their safety outcomes. As this is the initial report of the research in progress, the
actual assessment of safety climate in selected organizations needs to be carried out so that it could be
recommended to the other construction organizations confidently.
6.
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WIN-WIN SETTLEMENT: APPLICABILITY OF NEGOTIATION

PRINCIPLES FOR DISPUTE NEGOTIATIONS IN CONSTRUCTION
PROJECTS
Samurdi Baduge*
Resources Development Consultants (Pvt) Ltd, Sri Lanka
Himal Suranga Jayasena

ABSTRACT
Effective resolution of dispute is always helpful for sustainable construction practices. However, it is
experienced that parties continuously failing to reach settlements in an effective and efficient manner.
Although many researches write on how to carryout negotiations successfully those concepts hardly
adopted in construction dispute negotiations. Construction dispute negotiations are different to other
business negotiations due to some unique features inherited such as complexity, regulated by contract,
and tendency of discouraging claims. Therefore, it is identified new theories need to be developed and
applied in construction dispute negotiations. Thus, the study was focused on improvement of
fundamental principles of negotiation to address characteristics of construction projects.
The study was approached through a multiple case study and in-depth study was carried out on two
selected cases which claims based dispute negotiation successfully concluded. Success factors of
claims based dispute negotiation identified through literature review compared with actual setting of
selected cases. Further, it was identified how parties have addressed special characteristics of claims
based disputes in construction projects when conducting negotiations.
Analysis reveals that, how far theory can be explained through research findings and which theory
should be extended based on knowledge explored. Accordingly conceptual framework had been
developed and it is concluded that the negotiation process shall be merged with characteristics of
construction disputes in order to achieve win-win settlement through negotiation. Major deviation
from existing theory when applying to claims based dispute negotiation in a road project is negotiation
shall be based on both position and interest of the parties.
Keywords:
1.
Claims; Dispute Resolution; Negotiation; Win-win Settlement; Road Projects.
INTRODUCTION
Unsettled claims lead to disputes between parties to the contract (Malak et al., 2002), which is a common
phenomenon in construction industry. Often parties fail to reach settlements for these disputes in an
effective, economical and timely manner (Barrie and Paulson, 1992 cited Ren, 2002, p.17). Resolving
disputes effectively is always helpful for sustainable construction practices.
To resolve construction disputes, parties use several methods. Due to numerous advantages inherited such
as cost effectiveness, informality, speediness, simplicity, confidentiality, party autonomy and preservation
of business relationship, negotiation is identified as the most suitable (De Zylva, 2007) and the preferred
(Jayasena and Kavinda, 2012) method of resolving construction disputes. Negotiation is a strategy of
conferring with parties of shared or opposed interests with a view to compromise or to reach an
agreement (Project Management Institute, 2008, p.421).
555
Negotiation plays a significant role in prevention and resolution of disputes arisen through unsettled
claims (Ren, 2002). Unresolved claims tend to be settled amicably by the parties at first instance of the
dispute before starting any adversarial process (Cheung et al., 2006). Standard forms of contracts and
arbitration acts also encourage amicable settlements (Arbitration Act, 1995; FIDIC, 1999; FIDIC, 2006).
However construction dispute negotiation is not simple. As one construction lawyer had written,
negotiation is a game, but if it is not practiced properly the game can be deadly because construction
disputes worth millions of money (Shapiro, 2015). As a result of this it can be seen that claim
negotiations are often difficult, adversarial, inefficient and ineffective (Ren, 2002; Hu, 2006 cited Ren et
al., 2011). Further Cheung and Chow (2011) stated that parties to construction contracts continuously fail
in reaching settlement through negotiation. Ren et al. (2011, p.131) identified that to improve sustainable
construction practices new theories and principles need to be developed and applied in claims based
dispute negotiations. Thus the study is focused on improvement of fundamental principles of negotiation
to adopt in claim based disputes settlement in construction industry.
2.
STUDY METHOD
There is a need to identify steps to be followed to achieve a win-win settlement for claims based dispute
negotiation while addressing identified barriers specialised for construction projects. Accordingly, this
study focuses on how to achieve a win-win settlement for claims based disputes negotiation in
construction industry. Aim of the research was to develop a conceptual framework to achieve win-win
outcome from claims based dispute negotiations which would be specialized with characteristics of
construction industry. In order to achieve the aim, two succeeded negotiations were examined. This
explained the theoretical framework identified in current literature and explored new paradigm which was
particular to construction industry through understanding of the situation. Thus research is combination of
explanatory study and exploratory study. Accordingly, this paper aims to extend a theory.
Case study is a strategy has ability to conduct an in-depth investigation of a particular case within its real
life context to answer a how or why question (Yin, 2004). Further Zainal (2007, p.4) explained that the
detailed qualitative descriptions which are generally formed in case studies are not limited to explore or
describe a real life environment, but also help to explain the complexities of real life situations which may
not be captured through experimental or survey research. Accordingly, in this research, case study
research strategy was used. Two case studies were examined where claim based disputes were
successfully resolved through negotiation. Document review and semi-structured interviews were used as
data collection techniques. The data produced from interviews and document review were qualitative data
in respect of how negotiating parties achieved a win-win outcome in selected cases. Thus content analysis
was selected as the basic data analysis technique of this study. Content analysis includes both within
case analysis and cross case analysis. Pattern matching was used to compare the literature findings
against case study findings to identify applicability of negotiation principles for dispute negotiations to
claims based dispute negotiations in construction projects.
3.
STEPS TO MAKE A SUCCESSFUL NEGOTIATION
Review of current literature, showed that there would be eight steps to make a negotiation success
identified under three stages of negotiation process. Pre-negotiation stage consists of three steps which
should be followed in sequence before sit in the negotiation table. Those steps are (i) getting people in to
negotiation, (ii) forming negotiation team and (iii) setting up bottom lines. Further, when both teams sit in
the negotiation table they have to adhere to four more steps which are parallel steps can be used to carry
out meeting successfully. Those parallel steps are (iv) separate the people from the problem, (v) focus on
interests, (vi) invent options for mutual gain and (vii) insist on using objective criteria. At the end of the
negotiation session, to conduct negotiation efficiently it is identified the parties should (viii) summarise
the discussion and keep minutes of meetings as the last step.
556
3.1.
STEP 1: GETTING PEOPLE IN TO NEGOTIATION
Ghauri and Usunier (2003) identifies that, through informal meetings and information gatherings, parties
try to understand each others needs and demands in pre-negotiation stage. Accordingly the parties decide
whether to commence, continue or abandon the negotiation. Ren et al. (2011) state that unlike a business
negotiation, getting people in to negotiation table is the hardest in respect of a dispute negotiation. Since
negotiation is a voluntary process, parties real interest to resolve their dispute through negotiation is
important to achieve a successful outcome.
3.2.
STEP 2: FORMING NEGOTIATION TEAM
Smith (1992) identifies that the negotiator should be capable in adopting more than one negotiation style.
Further he recognizes that emotional people should not be selected as negotiators since their emotions
easily can get them in to trouble. In case if other partys negotiators are known, it is important to select
people who will interact easily with them. Further to these, Ren (2002) states that the parties should
define their representative's authority level which will be helpful in making successful conclusions to a
negotiation.
3.3.
STEP 3: SETTING UP BOTTOM LINES
Proper preparation is essential to negotiate successfully (Ghauri and Usunier, 2003; Ren, 2002; Ren et al.,
2011). Preparation is time consuming hard work which has to be followed by each party before sitting at
the negotiation table in order to gain better outcomes (Ren et al., 2002). Proper planning strengthens selfconfidence of the negotiators (Mahmoodi, 2012) and avoids agreeing in to settlements by over
compromising which is not possible to be lived with (Thomas, 2001). Sometimes parties try to cut down
their loss through negotiations (Yuan and Ma, 2012). Knowing their own weaknesses will minimise
creation of unreasonable deadlocks. Thus preparation is very important in carrying out an effective
negotiation.
In negotiation, each party has a bottom line which is the maximum or minimum amount which a party
can offer to or accept from its opponent (Ren, 2002, p.166). Overlap range between bottom lines of the
parties constitutes the possible scope of an agreement which is called Zone of Possible Agreement
(ZOPA). This is a theoretical zone which is not known to the parties and only possible to partially
identify through negotiating (Alfredson and Cungu, 2008). The SWOT analysis can be used to set up
bottom lines as preparation in pre-negotiation stage.
3.4.
STEP 4: SEPARATE THE PEOPLE FROM THE PROBLEM
A basic fact about negotiation is that negotiators are not simply business representatives of each side, but
human beings with emotions, deeply held values, and different backgrounds and viewpoints (Fisher et
al., 1991, p.14). This human aspect of the negotiators makes negotiations difficult. People easily get
angry and unhappy. This may result in confusing their perceptions with reality and difficulty in clear
communication (Fisher et al., 1991). Shapiro (2015) states that, at the negotiation table parties should
avoid the debate getting personal but keep everything on business level.
3.5.
STEP 5: FOCUS ON INTERESTS, NOT POSITIONS
Positions are what parties say that they want, but interests are things that they really need. Often position
and interest are not the same (Ren et al., 2011). Fisher et al. (1991, p.24) state that the basic problem in a
negotiation lies not in conflicting positions, but in the conflict between each side's needs, desires,
concerns, and fears. Thus to understand the true problem behind the dispute, it is required to identify the
real interests of the parties. Ren et al. (2011) further explain that the people have a tendency in their
minds to challenge to the opponents position by taking extreme positions. However, Ren et al. (2011,
p.124) has found that the underlying true interests are actually compatible, not mutually exclusive.
Hence to achieve win-win outcome parties should focus on interests, not on positions.
557
3.6.
STEP 6: INVENT OPTIONS FOR MUTUAL GAIN
Fisher et al. (1991) point out that generally people negotiate with a belief in mind that their offer is
reasonable and it should be accepted by the other party. When it comes to dispute negotiation, people
usually believe that they are right and they know the right answer. Therefore, usually parties fight over
original positions trying to achieve win-lose outcome without focus on win-win solution. Fisher et al.
(1991) identify that the parties should invent options to the real problem behind the dispute.
3.7.
STEP 7: INSIST ON USING OBJECTIVE CRITERIA
Fisher et al. (1991) suggest that when parties could not come to a solution, looking for an objective
criterion will help to resolve the issue. Having identified some objective criteria and procedures make it
possible to bring fairness, efficiency or scientific merit to the negotiation (Fisher et al., 1991). Further it
helps to taking out emotions and allows both parties to take decisions on rational and logical basis (Ren et
al., 2011).Parties tend to accept outcome based on the objective criteria since the result is not under the
control of any single party (Ren et al., 2011, p.124).
3.8.
STEP 8: SUMMARISING DISCUSSION AND KEEPING MINUTES OF MEETINGS
Negotiation may not be over in a single session, but it will drag much more. At the end of each
negotiation session summarising discussion and keeping minutes of meetings is important (Ghauri and
Usunier, 2003). It will help to continue negotiation without unnecessary delays by avoiding discussion
over and over about same issue. Further this will help to draft the agreement at the post negotiation stage
incorporating all terms that have been agreed in negotiation (Ghauri and Usunier, 2003).
4.
CHARACTERISTICS OF CLAIM NEGOTIATION
Construction dispute negotiations are different to other business negotiations due to some unique features
inherited by construction industry (Ren et al., 2011). Therefore there are some barriers in adopting steps
of successful negotiation in respect of claims negotiation.
4.1.
NEGOTIATORS
Ren (2002) states that the employers direct involvement to negotiation is important and which is not
practiced in most of the cases. Participation of the consultant as an agent of the employer makes
negotiation weak especially when claims are arising out of his own mistakes the consultant tends to
discourage such claims (Ren et al., 2011; Ren, 2002).
Selecting same group of people who leads to disputes is a common mistake done when forming claim
negotiation teams (Ren et al., 2011). When negotiation starts with same group of people they see it with
prejudged mind set. Further, if negative relationships had been build up between each other makes it
difficult to achieve any progress (Ren et al., 2011).
4.2.
COMPLEXITY
Since construction claims are complex, most of the time both parties truly believe that they hold the truth
and the opponents requests are unreasonable (Ren et al., 2011, p.125). Otherwise, it can be either one
party or both exaggerates the opening demand by misrepresenting their contractual and/or legal positions
(Pickavance, 2005).
4.3.
CONTRACT GOVERNANCE
Construction projects are generally regulated by very sophisticatedly prepared conditions of contract that
defines rights and obligations of the parties (Cheung et al., 2008). Ren et al. (2011) state that generally in
respect of construction claims it is not a negotiation about how much, but about whether parties are
558
entitled for it based on the contractual provisions. Therefore, claims negotiation requires high level of
understanding of each claim item.
5.
Two foreign funded road projects identified as Case A and Case B as described in following sections
were selected as case studies in where claim based disputes were successfully resolved through
negotiation. Study method adopted was described in section 2.
5.1.
CASE A
The project was a rehabilitation class A road in which the Parties to Contract were state sector authority
and a local (ICTAD grading C1) contractor. The Engineer to the Contract was international and local joint
venture. General Conditions of Contract were FIDIC MDB Harmonised edition 2006 (FIDIC, 2006).
Accepted Contract Amount was above 1 billion LKR (7.5million USD) and Time for Completion was
450 days.
Claims no 01 and 02 were submitted by the Contractor to claim costs incurred due to acceleration
instructed by the Engineer. Further, claim no 03 was submitted by the Contractor to claim damages due to
changes in legislation which caused an increase in fuel price within the contract period. All three claims
had been rejected by the Engineer. The Contractor gave-up his three cost claims without refereeing to
dispute resolution mechanism specified in the Contract. Claim no 04 was a request of 130 days extension
of Time for Completion. Determination of rejecting the claim was sent by the Engineer without proper
evaluation. Claim no 05, 459 million valued cost claim, which consisted of associated cost of additional
scope and the cost of prolongation for 130 days was submitted by the Contractor. Same as before the
Engineers determination of rejecting the claim was received to the Contractor. Pursuant to Conditions of
Contract, notice to commence arbitration was sent by the Contractor to the Employer in order to resolve
the dispute through arbitration.
Thus, the dispute was regarding 130 days of extension to Time for Completion and 459 million of cost
claimed by the Contractor. Between the Employer and the Contractor negotiations were commenced as
invited by the Employer as the response to notice to commence arbitration.
Negotiation sessions between the parties were conducted as follows.
Session 1: Entitlement to EOT was established by the Contractor and it was accepted by the
Employer
Session 2: Agreed to grant 130 days of EOT for delayed part of Work and issued Taking-Over
Certificate for the rest of Works. Agreed to pay prolongation cost based on delayed part
of Work
Session 3: Established requirement of the cost claim and legitimacy of the claim. The Employer
agreed
Session 4: Agreed on boundaries of claim events and decided to let the Engineer to carryout
calculations and quantify cost to be paid
Session 5: Finalised quantification of the cost claim
It was agreed to settle for 130 days of extension of Time for Completion and 212 million rupees for cost
claim by the Parties.
5.2.
CASE B
Project was improvements for provincial roads in which the Parties to Contract were state council and
local (ICTAD grading C1) contractor. The Engineer to the Contract was international and local joint
venture. General Conditions of Contract were FIDIC MDB Harmonised edition 2006. Accepted Contract
Amount was near 400 million LKR (2.5 million USD) and Time for Completion was 547 days.
559
Five claims were submitted by the Contractor and Table 1 illustrates details of claims.
Table 1: Claim Summary of Case B
Claim
No
Submission
Claim Events
EOT
(days)
Cost
(Million)
01
October 2011
01: Non-availability of materials
12
5.7
02
December 2011
178
57.0
03
February 2012
01: Delayed drawings

02: Delayed Site possession
03, 04 and 05: Variations
Rate revision due to quantity reduction
04
February 2012
Exceptional adverse weather
34
05
January 2013
01, 02, 03 and 04: Variations
104
72.8
Unsettled Variations
37.7
26.4
Until the Contractor submitted claim no 04, the Engineer was at claim evaluation process and the
Contractor was awaiting the Engineers determination in regarding claims 01, 02 and 03. The Engineer
granted 32 days extension of Time for Completion for the claim no 04 submitted by the Contractor and it
was agreed by all the Parties.
Based on claim no 01, 02 and 03, negotiations were commenced as invited by the Employer.
Dispute was in regarding with 190 days of extension to Time for Completion and 135.5 million of cost
claimed by the Contractor. Between the Employer and the Contractor negotiation sessions were
conducted as follows.
Session 1: It was decided by the Contractor to withdraw the claim no 01 in good faith of the project
even though they have an entitlement according to the Conditions of Contract.
Session 2: Agreed to grant 32 days EOT for claim event 4 of claim no 2
Session 3: Agreed to grant 79 days EOT for claim event 2 of claim no 2
It is agreed to pay 14.8million rupees as non-recovered overhead and profit for above 111
days by the Employer.
Session 4: In respect of claim no 2, the Contractors entitlement to following items were agreed by
the Employer in principle; idling machinery cost, extended preliminaries, extended price
escalation, cost of non-release of retention. Further it was agreed to calculate idling
machinery cost based on depreciation rate and the maintenance cost only. Further it was
agreed to pay based on actual cost for extended preliminaries.
Session 5: Regarding claim no 3 the Contractors entitlement to rate revision for quantities which
exceeded the agreed bills of quantities was agreed in principle by the Employer. Further
clarifications requested on entitlement to rate revision for items which quantities reduced
than the agreed bills of quantities.
Session 6: Incurred cost due to reduction of quantities were explained and convinced to the
Employer by the Contractor.
Negotiations were carried out successfully and 111 days EOT was granted but no any additional payment
was made even though the Employer agreed to the Contractors entitlement for some claim events.
Then the claim no 05 was submitted by the Contractor and the Engineers determination was received to
the Contractor rejecting all cost claims made up to date. Pursuant to Conditions of Contract a notice was
sent by the Contractor declaring their intention to commence arbitration in respect of 104 days of EOT in
claim no 05 and 193.9 million of cost claimed in claim no 02, 03, 05 and failure in finalising cost of
Variations. The contractor was invited by the Employer to a meeting and it was agreed to continue
negotiations to settle the dispute amicably between the parties.
560
Therefore negotiation sessions continued.

Session 7: Agreed to grant 104 days EOT
Session 8: Agreed for the Contractors entitlement in principle to following claim events by the
Employer. Non-recovered overhead and profit, cost of non-release of retention, idling
machinery cost, rate revision for quantities reduction
Session 9: Agreed to the Contractors entitlement for the Variation 02 and 04 of claim no 05
Session 10: The Contractor requested that the settlement would be within 56 to 58 million. The
Parties agreed.
294 days of extension of Time for Completion was granted. Total cost certified was 96.5 million rupees.
40.5 million rupees were certified for extended preliminaries and extended price escalation for period of
time extension was granted. Further 51.9 million rupees was certified considering the Contractors
entitlement for the followings; (a) non-recovered overhead and profit and cost of non-release of retention,
(b) idling machinery cost, (c) rate revision for quantities reduction and (d) Variation 02 and 04 of claim
no 05. Further 4.1 million rupees was granted declaring as concession for amicable settlement.
5.3.
PATTERN MATCHING
Pattern matching was carried out for comparison between theory and research findings. The comparison
was done for eight steps identified in theoretical framework as key steps to make a successful negotiation.
Hence this pattern matching analysis reveals that, how far theory can be explained through research
findings and which theory should be extended based on knowledge explored in respect of claims based
dispute negotiation in construction industry.
Result of pattern matching between theorized concepts and observed data of each steps of a successful
negotiation is summarized and represented in Table 2.
Table 2: Theory Verses Research Findings
Theory
Research Findings
Comments
Step 01: Getting people in to negotiation

This is the hardest in case of a dispute
negotiation. However, in construction
disputes parties cannot easily walk away
from negotiation unless they are ready to
step in to next dispute resolution step
which is lengthy and costly.
In order to achieve successful outcome
through negotiation, parties real
interest to resolve their dispute through
negotiation is important.
When the contractor decided to seek a

fair determination through arbitration, it
was decided by the employer to come in
to negotiation table. Taking parties to
negotiation table is not difficult in
respect of construction disputes.
Parties awareness about cost and time
involved with arbitration procedure
creates real interest to resolve their
dispute through negotiation. Parties
real interest to resolve their dispute
through negotiation is a key factor
behind the success.
Step 02: Forming negotiation team

When forming negotiation team followings
are key facts to achieve success;
When forming negotiation team followings

are key facts to achieve success;
561
Explain the
theory
Negotiator should be capable in

adopting more than one negotiation
style, less emotional, easily interact
with other party
Negotiators should be well aware on the

project, claim history, claim events and
contractual entitlement according to
contract between the parties
Extend the
theory
Avoid selecting same group of people

who leads to dispute as negotiators
Negotiators selected from same group

of professionals involved in the project
Involvement of employer is important
Explain and
extend the
theory
Avoid participation of the consultant as

an agent of the employer
Parties should define their

representatives authority level
Parties should define their

representatives authority level
Participation of the consultant as an

agent of the employer has limited to
claim quantification
Explain the
theory
Step 03: Setting up bottom lines

through negotiation,

through negotiation,
Parties should be prepared and set their

bottom line in pre-negotiation stage.
SWOT analysis can be used as a tool to
determine bottom line.
In both cases the contractor stated that

they had initially decided the minimum
amount which they can agree had
decided by the management based on
actual loss caused.
Since construction claims are complex,

it is very difficult to find ZOPA in
claims negotiation.
The employer did not clearly decide

their bottom line before starting
negotiation. They kept an open-mind
and let it change as negotiation
proceeded. Basis was explanations
made and substantiations done to prove
the contractors demands.
Theory does not

explain how to
address
complexity
inherited by the
claims based
disputes
Findings
elaborate that
setting bottom
line in prenegotiation stage
is not a key to
address
complexity but
letting it develop
with the
negotiation
Thus, it extend
the theory
Step 04: Separate the people from the problem

People easily get emotional and getting
things personal.
This makes negotiation hard therefore
the negotiators should working together
attacking the problem but not each
other.
Separate people from the problem is very

important to achieve successful outcome
through negotiation
Since claims negotiations are based on
contractual provisions and contemporary
records separating people from the
problem is easy.
562
Explain the
theory
Step 05: Focus on interests, not positions

Parties should focus on interests, not on
positions
Parties should have intention to consider

both position and interests.
Extend the
theory
When position based negotiation carried

out, agreed in principle on entitlement
and then quantify based on agreed terms
made negotiation successful.
Step 06: Invent options for mutual gain
Inventing options for mutual gain is
very important
Inventing options beyond the contract is

not possible. In order to achieve
settlement inventing options is not
important
Extend the
theory
Objective criteria shall be used from the

beginning of negotiation as a basis for
the entitlements
Extend the
theory
Step 07: Insist on using objective criteria

Suggest using objective criteria when
parties could not come to a solution by
themselves
Examples: contract document,

professional standards and decided cases
Step 08: Summarising discussion and keeping minutes of meetings
Recommended keeping minutes of
meetings at the end of each negotiation
session
Keeping minutes of meetings at the end

of each negotiation session is identified
as a key factor behind the success
Explain the
theory
Requisites of successful negotiation identified in theory are developed in general business negotiation
context. However the theory was not validated in respect of claim based dispute negotiation in
construction industry. Little evidence from research findings shows that theory is not applicable fully in
construction. The analysis shows that that the existing theory needs to be extended to comply with special
characteristics in claim based dispute negotiation in construction industry.
5.4.
SUMMARY
As the main outcome of the study a conceptual framework was developed to achieve successful outcome
through negotiation for claims based disputes in road development projects in Sri Lanka. The conceptual
framework developed is shown in Figure 1
563
Pre-negotiation Stage
Step 1: Getting into Negotiation

Parties awareness on benefits of negotiation and real interest to resolve their dispute through
negotiation
Negotiation Stage
Step 2: Forming negotiation team

Negotiators should be well aware on the project, claim history, claim events and contractual
entitlement
Negotiators to be selected from same group of people involved in the project
Participation of the consultant limited to claim quantification
Participation of authorised representative for decision making /make representatives clear on
level of authority granted
Post
Negotiation
Stage
Step 3:
Separate the
people from
the problem
Step 4: Insist on
using objective
criteria
From the
beginning of
negotiation as a
basis for the
entitlements
Step 5: Intend to
consider both
positions and
interests
Position based
Agreed in principle
on entitlement
quantify based on
agreed terms
Interest based
Step 6: Bottom
lines
Basic idea on
strengths and
weaknesses of
claim at the
beginning
Keeping openminded and letting

it change as
negotiation
proceed
Step 7: Summarising discussion and keeping minutes of meetings
Figure 1: Conceptual Framework to Achieve Win-Win Settlement
6.
CONCLUSION
According to findings of the study, it can be concluded that applicability of negotiation principles in to
claims based dispute negotiation is limited and it should be merged with characteristics of construction
industry. Major deviation from existing theory, when applying to claims based dispute negotiation in road
project is that the parties shall have intention to negotiate based on both position and interests in order to
reach a settlement.
7.
RECOMMENDATIONS
The developed conceptual framework based on research findings contributes the body of knowledge
through extending the theory. The existing theory recommends only interest based approach, and
recommends not taking position based approach; but, it is now clear that an interest and position based
approach would bring success to construction dispute negotiation. Related theoretical concepts can
therefore be interpreted accommodating this deviation when applied in construction contexts.
564
Based on above key findings and other research findings following recommendations shall be made to
private sector contracting organisations and public sector employers who are involved in road
development projects for them to achieve win-win settlement through negotiation for dispute created on
unsettled claims.
Improve skills of negotiators representing through training programmes
Public sector organisations shall make aware professionals who are representing the organisation
on possibility of decisions making on negotiation within the authority level granted
Developed conceptual framework can be used by industry practitioners in order to reach

settlement for claims based disputes via negotiations
8.
LIMITATIONS OF THE RESEARCH
According to the study there are some limitations in generalizing the findings. The study was limited to;
9.
Foreign funded road improvement projects
Disputed claim amount in selected cases was more than 40% of initial accepted contract amount
Based on literature findings it was assumed that settlement can be only reached through two
different approaches, that are; position base negotiation and interest base negotiation
Since win-win settlements in claims based dispute negotiation are not common in Sri Lankan
context, opinions of negotiators were validated only via document study and content analysis that
was within case analysis and cross case analysis
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THE 5 WORLD CONSTRUCTION SYMPOSIUM

Greening Environment, Eco-Innovations &

Building Economics and Management Research Unit (BEMRU)

Edited by Dr. Y. G. Sandanayake, Dr. G. I. Karunasena and Dr. T. Ramachandra

University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka

Dr. Thanuja Ramachandra

University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka

Dr. Gayani Karunasena

University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka

Scientific Committee Members

Liverpool John Moores University, United Kingdom

Dr. Anupa Manewa

Liverpool John Moores University, United Kingdom

Prof. Arun Chandramohan

National Institute of Construction Management and

Associate Prof. Daniel W.M. Chan

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong

Dr. Dave Moore

Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand

Dr. K.A.K. Devapriya

University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka

Prof. Edwin H. W. Chan

Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong

Prof. Florence Y.Y. Ling

National University of Singapore, Singapore

Dr. Gamini Weerasinghe

University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka

Prof. Guillaume Habert

ETH Zurich, Switzerland

Associate Prof. Hwang Bon-Gang

National University of Singapore, Singapore

Ch.QS. Indunil Seneviratne

University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka

Dr. James Rotimi

Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand

Dr. Jamie Mackee

University of Newcastle, Australia

Dr. Janaka Wijesundara

University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka

Prof. Jay Sanjayan

Swinburne University of Technology, Australia

Prof. John Tookey

Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand

Dr. Kanchana Ginige

University of Northumbria, United Kingdom

Ch.QS. Kanchana Perera

University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka

Prof. Koshy Varghese

Indian Institute of Technology, Madras India

Assoc. Prof. Lalith De Silva

University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka

Prof. Manu Santhanam

Indian Institute of Technology, Madras India

Prof. Mark G. Alexander

University of Cape Town, South Africa

Prof. Mohan Kumaraswamy

University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Dr. Mohan Siriwardena

Robert Gordon University, United Kingdom