Browsing by Author "Kuo, Vincent"

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    The management of constructability knowledge in the building industry through lessons learnt programme
    (South African Institution of Civil Engineering, 2014-04) Kuo, Vincent; Wium, Jan
    In the 1980s the term "constructability" evolved in the USA. The proponents of this concept believe that constructability, which embraces both design and management functions, is comprehensive in facilitating construction operations and solving problems on site. Constructability problems are common on the construction site, due to the lack of construction experience in the design team and the absence of tools to assist designers in addressing constructability. Moreover, designs are predominantly done early in the project in the absence of contractor input, and there is yet no explicit means of defining or measuring constructability. This paper aims to address constructability problems in building construction, by understanding the nature of constructability knowledge and investigating how construction experience may be effectively disseminated amongst project participants, particularly through the use of lessons learnt programmes and inter-disciplinary knowledge sharing. It has been found that there is fundamental misalignment between consultants and contractors on the perceptions of criteria for a constructible design, implications of design decisions, and certain traits that may represent optimised vs poor constructability. The discrepancy in communication is the elemental cause of constructability problems and this research has demonstrated how lessons learnt programmes can be an effective tool in attaining better constructability knowledge management and collaboration.
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    The role of knowledge management in improving constructability
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2012-12) Kuo, Vincent; Wium, Jan; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Engineering. Dept. of Civil Engineering.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Constructability issues cause dire repercussions in the industry and often pose as overwhelming threats to the successful delivery of projects. Constructability issues mainly arise from a design, which does not sufficiently embody the knowledge and expertise of the construction phase. Subsequently this creates a variety of negative secondary effects during project execution, which eventually manifest as time-, budget- and quality-risks to the project. The research thesis explores the status quo of constructability issues in South Africa, with specific reference to the relationship between construction and design. It is well known that close collaboration between consultants and contractors has the potential to lead to more effective construction processes, improved construction safety and to cost effective structural solutions. Not all contract forms allow sufficient collaboration between these parties at the time of conceptual design, nor at the detailed design stage. For this reason it is imperative that a designer has sufficient experience and knowledge of construction processes to produce suitably constructible designs. In principle, constructability issues can be regarded as the result of poor coherence, and thus poor communication, between construction and design. The problem therefore lies in the transfer of knowledge between project participants, which can be described as poor knowledge management, in particular, of constructability knowledge. This research aims to address the topic of constructability and to demonstrate how structural knowledge management between contractors and designers can lead to improved construction processes. The concept of constructability is defined, through the identification of technical traits to explicitly describe constructability, concurrently with input from industry expertise and professional experience in the field. Knowledge management principles are also studied in detail and the status quo of current knowledge management initiatives in the industry is investigated. The investigations are done through a series of questionnaire surveys, personal interviews and correspondences. The principle conclusions from the study are that designers do not always understand what constitutes a constructible design. Furthermore, although constructability knowledge is found to exist in complex tacit forms, some explicit guiding principles can indeed be formulated to aid designers. In addition, considering the unique characteristics of each project, these guiding principles should be supported by proposed knowledge management initiatives to facilitate structured forums of knowledge sharing between different parties to develop and transfer constructability knowledge. This will assist to accelerate the learning process towards becoming an accomplished designer, and empower the capacity of both designers and contractors to manage constructability problems.