TOWARDS ACHIEVING SUSTAINABLE CONSTRUCTION THROUGH EFFICIENT CONSTRUCTION RESOURCES MANAGEMENT

1、international association for management of technologyeuromot 2008 - the third european conference on management of technologytowards achieving sustainable construction through efficient construction resources managementj. a. fapohunda,phd candidate, construction project management, faculty of devel

2、opment and society, built environment division, sheffield hallam university, sheffield, s1 1wb; email: bldrfapop. stephenson,professor, faculty of development and society, built environment division, sheffield hallam university, sheffield, s1 1wb, email: p.stephensonshu.ac.uka. griffithprofessor, fa

3、culty of development and society, built environment division, sheffield hallam university, sheffield, s1 1wb, email: a.griffithshu.ac.ukn. chileshephd, faculty of development and society, built environment division, sheffield hallam university, sheffield, s1 1wb; email: n.chilesheshu.ac.ukabstractth

4、e active campaigning for sustainable construction follows directly from the necessity to satisfy the needs of construction industry stakeholders and the requirements of future generations. these needs are tailored towards meeting social, economic and environmental importance that can be evaluated by

5、 means of life cycle assessment. for the construction industry to become truly sustainable, the industry has to re-engineer towards lean principles where the requirement for effective resources waste management is considered paramount.this paper identifies, evaluates and proposes an effective manage

6、ment framework that could support sustainable construction through efficient utilisation of construction resources. initial facts and insights were obtained through a detailed review of literature, augmented by primary data acquired by means of questionnaires and interviews with construction practit

7、ioners. the data collected were analysed using spss and nvivo statistical packages.findings from the research highlight that several clients are unaware of the magnitude of resources being wasted during construction through inattention of designers and ambiguous information used during production. m

8、oreover, construction participants somewhat believe that resources wastefulness is normal occurrence and has to be “budgeted” for during resources estimation. however, majority of these resource wastes are avoidable, despite several constraints facing site managers. these constraints include ineffec

9、tive management of partnering and the supply chains, and inadequate skilled workers in the industry. in respect of these, careful planning of resources before the project commences is absolutely essential.the proposal outlined in this paper will significantly enhance the efficient utilisation of con

10、struction resources and perpetuate sustainable construction, if properly implemented.keywords: construction resources waste management, lean construction, partnering, sustainable construction, the supply chain1.0 introductionthe active campaigning for sustainable construction follows directly from t

11、he necessity to satisfy the needs of construction industry stakeholders and the requirements of future generations. these needs are tailored towards meeting social, economic and environmental importance that can be evaluated by means of life cycle assessment. for the construction industry to become

12、significantly sustainable, the industry has to re-engineer towards lean principles, where requirements for effective resource wastes management need to be considered as paramount. this paper recognises the roles of government, clients, and construction organisations within the sectors towards achiev

13、ing sustainable construction resources utilisation. also, the paper emphasises the relative importance of effective implementation of modern methods of construction such as lean construction principles, partnering and supply chain management which could enhance efficient utilisation of construction

14、resources and thus perpetuate sustainable construction.a literature review forms the basis for this study, and subsequently, quantitative and qualitative survey methods for primary data collection. primary data will be collected by employing quantitative research method approach, while the results o

15、f the quantitative study will be investigated further by interviewing practicing construction professionals for validity rationale. the emergence results from the interview survey will be transcribed, analysed and presented. the statistical package for the social sciences, (spss), version 13 and nvi

16、vo, version 2, software will be employed for collation and analyses of the quantitative and qualitative data respectively.findings from the research will be grouped and presented on three major headings of which the study framework is based. these three major heading are (i) the roles of site manage

17、rs towards achieving construction resources sustainability, (ii) the roles of clients and (iii) partnering and the supply chain systems on construction sustainability. subsequently, conclusion of this study, towards achieving sustainable construction resources utilisation will be drawn based on thes

18、e key factors that will be evaluated.2.0 construction sustainability conceptssustainability is a form of development which intends to meet the present needs of humans without compromising the ability of meeting the needs of future generations. the objectives are to improve resource efficiencies, ove

19、rall effectiveness and social responsibility. sustainability concepts involve creation of better quality of life and to ensure that sufficient resources remain for future generations. this concept agitate on circumstances towards improving quality of life for everyone without increasing the use of n

20、atural resources beyond the capacity of the environment to supply the resources indefinitely, (brundtland, (1987); ogc, (2007); and berr, (2007).the department for business enterprise and regulatory reform, (berr, 2007), suggests a few strategic key areas for sustainable construction, including:i. r

21、eduction of the carbon footprint of activities within the construction sector;ii. production of zero net waste at construction site;iii. developing voluntary agreement and initiatives between construction industry and its clients with aims of reducing carbon footprint and efficient use of resources

22、that are available within built environment;iv. creating a dynamic construction industry by improving skills, boosting numbers of workers that take part in training programmes and retaining skilled workers in the industry.in moving towards sustainability in construction, the industry has to improve

23、environmental responsibility, social awareness and economic profitability. these factors are notionally endorsed to be “the three pillars of sustainability” which influence all aspects of the sustainable decision making process. moreover, these three pillars of sustainability significantly tend towa

24、rds balancing the conflicting needs of humans, (arthur, (1997); berr, (2007); ciob, (2006); ogc, (2007); and defra, (2001)sustainability, as a concept has different meaning from one sector to another, and different issues become relevant to different sets of people, more-so, approaches differ from d

25、ifferent perceptions. the construction industry tends to address sustainability by asking such questions as, “what? where? why? how, and when to build? and, in decision making, the industry takes into considerations, these three pillars of sustainability factors: the social, economic and environment

26、al sustainability, (construction skills, 2007). the guiding principles and approaches towards construction sustainable development as stated in dti, (2004), are as follows:i. putting people at the centre so that the individuals could enjoy a better quality of life currently and subsequently;ii. taki

27、ng long term preparations through radical improvements from present time, and consistently safeguarding the interest of future generations;iii. placing cognisant account of cost and benefits including those that cannot be easily valued in monetary terms; andiv. creating an open and supportive econom

28、ic system that could supports economic growth. however, sustainable construction does not only help the environment, but also improves economic profitability and relationship of stakeholders. the practice is to identify what are current good practices within the industry and to improve these current

29、 practices, in cognisance of what the future priorities should be.achieving sustainability in resources utilisation, construction organisations need to recognise the immense importance of designing to minimise resource wastefulness while achieving targeted quality.2.1 modern methods of construction

30、towards sustainable construction resources utilisationmodern methods of construction, (mmc) are the initiation and execution of projects from inception to completion considering the economy of production, while delivering better quality with minimum delivery times, (bura, (2005); and national audit

31、office, (2005). that is, the utilisation of mmc towards improvement of business efficiency, attainment of certified quality, customers satisfaction, effective and efficient environmental performance of construction products, together with construction at predictable delivery time scales and cost eff

32、ectiveness. among key principles and practice of mmc are the adoption of effective lean construction, partnering and the supply chain systems. based on these approaches, construction organisations strive towards delivering products more efficiently, cheaper and faster. 2.2 lean construction principl

33、es towards sustainable construction resources utilisationlean construction, (lc) is a production management-based approach to project delivery, a new way to design and build capital facilities, and to change the way in which projects, work, and tasks are being carried out, that is, the delivery proc

34、ess. lean construction extends from the objectives of a lean production system by structuring production processes in order to maximise value and minimise waste through specific techniques and apply the techniques throughout the project delivery processes. thus, the project and delivery processes ar

35、e designed together to reveal and support the clients intention. lean construction techniques enhance positive iteration within the process while negative iteration is rationally reduced, (constructing excellence, 2006)due to derivable importance of effective application of lc principles, various in

36、itiatives emerged through diverse organisations, sectors and research institutes, to foster the achievement of the strategic objectives of lean principles within the industry. some of these initiatives and practice are lean project delivery system, (lpds), construction lean improvement programme, (c

37、lip), construction best practice, (cbp), constructing excellence, (ce), and construction key performance indicators, (kpi).lean project delivery system, (lpds), is developed as a philosophy. this is a set of interdependent functions, systems level, rules for decision making, and procedures for execu

38、tion of functions to serve as implementation aids and tools for avoiding or minimising resources inefficiencies, (ballard, 2000). the operations of these lpds features enhance efficient application of construction resources in the industry, and bring forth clients satisfaction and also enhance contr

39、actors profitability.construction lean improvement programme, (clip) is another initiative towards achieving efficient resources utilisation that fosters sustainable construction. clip concept is based on the theory of lean construction, and was established in 2003. this concept focuses companies on

40、 achieving significant levels of clients satisfaction by improving the quality, cost, delivering of products, and services at satisfactory efficiency, (bre, 2006). clip is about practical steps to drive towards more profit and productivity. the adoption of lean tools and techniques in construction i

41、ndustry, allows construction companies to recognise theoretical topics of lean construction and turn this theory into a practical tool that could be effectively managed and implemented. thus, efficient and effective implementation of lean construction principles will significantly enhance constructi

42、on industry in removing several non - essential wasteful activities, and to minimise non - value adding activities in order to achieve optimal construction resources waste management.2.3 partnering and the supply chain concepts towards sustainable construction resources utilisationpartnering and the

43、 supply chains are concepts and practice by which two or more organisations co-operate to find ways of working together that could serve a significant interest of the parties. these concepts are terms used to describe individual stakeholders that are involved in a construction project, where mutual

44、and joint agreement on objectives are established, (ciob, (2006); peace and bennett, (2006); national audit office, (2001); and construction industry council, (2005). among the advantages of these concepts are achieving good performance in respect of quality, time, cost and specific improvement over

45、 individual distinctive performance. moreover, the partners tend to co-operate together over a series of projects to achieve improvements on performance that often leads to efficient resources utilisation, greater productivity, and improved profit. 3.0 the research methodologythis study is part of o

46、ngoing phd research work examining “optimal resources utilisation, during construction project execution. detailed literature reviews were carried out, followed by primary data collection, acquired through both quantitative and qualitative research methods, for triangulation purposes and in order to

47、 achieve valid findings. questionnaires were distributed to construction site managers working in different organisations, and extensively covered all geographical regions in the uk. data collected through a questionnaire survey were analysed using a statistical package for the social sciences, spss

48、 version 13. in addition, to validate the quantitative survey findings, open-end questions were structured from the results, which served as a guide for a qualitative interview survey. eight experienced site managers were interviewed. the interviews were tape-recorded using a digital recorder and up

49、loaded to a computer and analysed using nvivo 2 statistical software. the interviews were firstly transcribed verbatim, and then coded to various significant nodes and themes on sequence of occurrences. information obtained were further clustered and grouped together to a logical order of understand

50、ing. findings from the qualitative survey study were summarised succinctly including explanations. the study themes, findings and the established facts and issues obtained from this interview survey are presented in section 4.4.0 the study findings:figure 1 illustrates this study framework towards a

51、chieving sustainable construction resources utilisation, through efficient and effective project management. the summary of findings obtained from the data collection, analysis and interpretation, during this study are grouped under three main headings:i. construction organisations drivers towards s

52、ustainable constructionii. contributions of clients towards efficient resources utilisationiii. effective implementation of modern methods of construction.figure 1: the efficient resources utilisation framework towards sustainable construction4.1 construction organisations drivers towards sustainabi

53、lity in resources utilisationtowards enhancing sustainable construction resources utilisation, construction organisations significantly need to adopt or implement the combinations of these identified factors:i. effective adoption and implementation of lean construction techniques throughout construc

54、tion processes. construction organisations need to achieve effective implementations of construction lean improving principles, (clip); reduction or elimination of non-value-added waste;ii. adoption of site construction key performance indicators, (s-kpis), as a yardstick to compare resources input

55、with output. iii. adoption and implementation of efficient and effective partnering, including a supply chain system;iv. an enhanced implementation of value management and engineering before a project commences;v. creating the needs of sustainable construction for clients and stakeholders. thus, the

56、 project executors need to advise the stakeholders on accrued benefits of sustainability construction.vi. effective training of construction participants towards efficient resources utilisation, and adoption of effective knowledge sharing principles;vii. devising and implementing personal sustainabi

57、lity policy through instructing, guiding and training. viii. individual construction organisations should persistently strive towards being a model on sustainable construction initiatives;ix. ensure project delivery to clients and stakeholders satisfaction; x. setting targets towards construction re

58、sources efficiency. xi. strive towards reduction of cost and time while maintaining product quality;xii. ensuring construction excellence initiatives towards efficient resources utilisation;xiii. ensure construction best practice principles, (cbp);xiv. construction participants need to be enthusiastic towards achieving the best performance on every construction project;xv. every construction participant should continually consider their organisations reputation at all times.additionally, there are needs for construction organisations to persistently strive toward