Critical Barriers to Traditional Project Progress Measurement: Perspectives of Ghanaian Construction Professionals

Accurate project progress measurement is critical for effective project management. Besides guarantying smooth work progress, it affords project managers the chance to identify early warning signs for peremptory remedial actions to keep the project on schedule and to budget. However, pertinent barriers can suppress the realization of the benefits of an accurate assessment of construction progress. This study aims to identify, examine and prioritize the critical barriers militating against accurate project progress measurement in the Ghanaian construction industry. Sixteen barriers identified from the literature were administered in a questionnaire survey to professionals with tier one construction firms and consultants. Sixty experienced construction professionals practising with tier-one construction firms and consultancy services took part in the survey. The relative importance index technique was used to rank the factors and correlation in responses of the two parties tested by the Mann-Whitney U statistics. The most critical barriers perceived by the professionals were 1) Reliance on Supervisor’s Judgement, 2) Generic and Non-Systematic Approach, 3) Variable Quality of Data and 4) Intricate Measurement Reports. Other highly ranked barriers include 5) Lack of Timely Information, 6) Laborious Data Gathering and 7) Quality Integration Constraint. The findings underpin the need to minimize dependence on subjective opinions and mere experiences of supervisors for assessment of project progress in this age of information technology. Incorporation of a level of automation into traditional progress methods will not only reduce human errors introduced into manually collected data but facilitate visualization of progress reports. Contiguous to a clear specification of the method of progress measurement in the contract document, a system that conveniently integrates cost, time and scope of work into progress measurement must be pursued. Addressing these identified critical barriers will consolidate current construction progress management practices.

Conclusions on the Implementation of Regulation of the National Significant Seismic Monitoring and Protection Regions from 1996 to 2012 in the Chinese Mainland

The regulation of the National Significant Seismic Monitoring and Protection Regions(NSSMPR for short) is defined by the Law of the Peoples Republic of China on Protecting Against and Mitigating Earthquake Disasters.The first stage of implementation of the regulation of NSSMPR in the Chinese mainland was finished from 1996 to 2005.The second stage is being carried on from 2006 to 2020.With the support of the National Social Science Foundation,this paper follows up and evaluates the implementation of the regulation of NSSMPR from 1996 to 2012 in the Chinese mainland.Based on analysis of earthquake examples and investigation data,we find that the effect of disaster mitigation is good,and on this basis,some suggestions are proposed to improve the regulation of NSSMPR.

A FGR Software Model for Measuring the Effect of Technological Progress

The work of quantitative studying the effect of technological progress on economic growth, being of great complexity and far-reaching significance, has become a quite popular research topic in the world. In recent years there are a large number of scientists who are engaged in this research both at home and abroad.

Recent Progress in Multiparameter Measurement Based on Extrinsic Fiber-Optic Fabry-Perot Interferometers and Fiber Gratings

This paper presents a review of recent progress in simultaneous measurement of multiparameters including strain, temperature, vibration, transverse load, based on the combinations of extrinsic fiber-optic Fabry-Perot interferometers and fiber gratings.