Measuring project performance by applying social network analyses

It is often argued that the core of organizational success is efficient collaboration.Some authors even posit that efficient collaboration is more important to organizational innovation and performance than individual skills or expertise.However,the lack of efficient models to manage collaboration properly is a major constraint for organizations to profit from internal and external collaborative initiatives.Currently,much of the collaboration in organizations occurs through virtual network channels,such as e-mail,Yammer,Jabber,Microsoft Teams,Skype,and Zoom.These are even more important in situations where different time zones and even threats of a pandemic constrain face-to-face human interactions.This work introduces a multidisciplinary heuristic model developed based on project risk management and social network analysis centrality metrics graph-theory to quantitatively measure dynamic organizational collaboration in the project environment.A case study illustrates the proposed model’s implementation and application in a real virtual project organizational context.The major benefit of applying this proposed model is that it enables organizations to quantitatively measure different collaborative,organizational,and dynamic behavioral patterns,which can later correlate with organizational outcomes.The model analyzes three collaborative project dimensions:network collaboration cohesion evolution,network collaboration degree evolution,and network team set variability evolution.This provides organizations an innovative approach to understand and manage possible collaborative project risks that may emerge as projects are delivered.Organizations can use the proposed model to identify projects’critical success factors by comparing successful and unsuccessful delivered projects’dynamic behaviors if a substantial number of both project types are analyzed.The proposed model also enables organizations to make decisions with more information regarding the support for changes in observed collaborative patterns as demonstrated by statistical models in general,and linear regressions in particular.Further,the proposed model provides organizations with a completely bias-free data-collection process that eliminates organizational downtime.Finally,applying the proposed model in organizations will reduce or eliminate the risks associated with virtual collaborative dynamics,leading to the optimized use of resources;this will transform organizations to become more lean-oriented and significantly contribute to economic,social,and environmental global sustainability.

Traffic Impact on Incentive Contracting Project Time Performance during Highway Construction

The volume of highway traffic in the United States continues to increase. In the face of this there is a concomitant need to improve and repair transportation infrastructure. Construction frequently requires a reduction in capacity during construction activity; consequently road users as well as adjacent businesses must endure the delays and inconveniences associated with transportation construction. Recognizing the problems that construction can produce, state highway agencies （SHAs） have continually sought ways to minimize the negative impact from their construction operations. Incentive contracting has played an important role in this effort to improve project performance. The Florida Department of Transportation （FDOT） is one of the leading SHAs using such innovative contracting methods as Incentive/Disincentive （I/D）, A＋B （cost plus time bidding） combined with I/D, No Excuse Bonus, and Liquidated Savings. This paper analyzes the traffic impact on incentive project time performance using highway construction projects recently completed in Florida. Project data obtained from FDOT were evaluated using time performance indices. A survey of traffic impact on project work types was performed in Florida in order to evaluate the relationship between construction project types and road traffic influence during construction. Based on the survey results, the 38 most frequently used work types in Florida during the study period were categorized into three traffic impact levels： （1） high traffic impact, （2） medium traffic impact, and （3） low traffic impact. Statistical analysis was performed. The results show that there are significant differences on project time performance between low and high impact levels as well as low and medium impact levels.

Research on performance evaluation of small water conservancy facilities construction project in Hebei Province

This paper takes Hebei province of small water conservancy facilities construction project as the research object, the performance evaluation purposes of construction of farmland water conservancy facilities project, the data sources when carry out performance evaluation, performance evaluation procedures and limitations of farmland water conservancy facilities construction project performance evaluation were discussed.

Perception-Based Assessment of the Factors Causing Delays in Construction Projects

Construction delay is a widespread issue in the construction industry of developing countries, and Nepal is no exception. These delays extend project durations and lead to cost overruns and disputes among stakeholders. To address this problem, this study aimed to identify and analyze the significant factors that contribute to construction project delays in Nepal. To gather data, a well-structured questionnaire was developed and administered to a sample of 100 participants, including contractors, consultants, and civil engineers. Various statistical tests were conducted to ensure the data’s integrity and consistency, such as reliability assessments and factor analyses. The findings of the study highlighted multiple factors contributing to delays in construction projects such as inadequate design, poor communication, and coordination among stakeholders, insufficient experience and planning by contractors, delays in material delivery and testing, labor-related problems including shortages and low qualifications, and external factors like regulatory changes and unforeseen circumstances. By identifying these major causes of construction project delays, this study presented insightful information that can contribute to the analysis and evaluation of project performance.

Application of system dynamics for assessment of sustainable performance of construction projects

Sustainable performance is expected to become a major factor when examining the feasibility of a construction project in terms of its life cycle performance. The study on which this paper is based developed a simulation model, using system dy- namics methodology, to assess the sustainable performance of projects. Three major factors are used to examine project sus- tainable performance (PSP): the sustainability of economic development (E), the sustainability of social development (S), and the sustainability of environmental development (En). Sustainable development ability (SDA) was used as a prototype to evaluate the degree of sustainable performance. The simulation software ‘ithink’ was used to help with the application of the model to a real life case. This paper explains and demonstrates the procedures used to develop the model and finally offers an approach for assessing the feasibility of a construction project in terms of its sustainable performance.

Stopping time of a one-dimensional bounded quantum walk

The stopping time of a one-dimensional bounded classical random walk（RW） is defined as the number of steps taken by a random walker to arrive at a fixed boundary for the first time.A quantum walk（QW） is a non-trivial generalization of RW,and has attracted a great deal of interest from researchers working in quantum physics and quantum information.In this paper,we develop a method to calculate the stopping time for a one-dimensional QW.Using our method,we further compare the properties of stopping time for QW and RW.We find that the mean value of the stopping time is the same for both of these problems.However,for short times,the probability for a walker performing a QW to arrive at the boundary is larger than that for a RW.This means that,although the mean stopping time of a quantum and classical walker are the same,the quantum walker has a greater probability of arriving at the boundary earlier than the classical walker.

Impacts of building information modeling(BIM) implementation on design and construction performance: a resource dependence theory perspective

Drawing on resource dependence theory, this paper develops and empirically tests a model for understanding how the implementation of building information modeling(BIM) in construction projects impacts the performance of different project participating organizations through improving their interorganizational collaboration capabilities. Based on two sets of survey data collected from designers and general contractors in BIMbased construction projects in China, the results from partial least squares analysis and bootstrapping mediation test provide clear evidence that BIM-enabled capabilities of information sharing and collaborative decision-making as a whole play a significant role in determining BIMenabled efficiency and effectiveness benefits for both designers and general contractors. The results further reveal that designers and general contractors benefit from project BIM implementation activities significantly nonequivalently, and that this non-equivalence closely relates to the different roles played by designers and general contractors in BIM-enabled interorganizational resource exchange processes. The findings validate the resource dependence theory perspective of BIM as a boundary spanning tool to manage interorganizational resource dependence in construction projects, and contribute todeepened understandings of how and why project participating organizations benefit differently from the implementation of interorganizational information technologies like BIM.