Essay on Construction Management: Common Issues in Construction Projects

The organization that often involved in construction projects either on a large scale or a small scale there are will be facing several challenges, problems, and risks during implementation of these projects. Therefore, it is necessary for the parties in charge to identify the possible issues that may occur when making plans for undertaking certain projects. The risks of construction projects typically can be categorized into construction, physical, technology, and design project.

There are several common issues in a construction project. One of the common issues facing the construction project is construction waste. There are more waste materials are produced in construction activities, which has become a challenging issue for the operators of construction sites. The waste is continually causing environmental difficulties and global warming problems to the world (Rawshan et al.,2009). According to Alarcon (1994), building waste not only concentrated on the amount of material wasted on site but also with overproduction, waiting for time, material handling, processing, inventory, and worker turnover.

A case example, there have been several recent news reports that 30 tons of construction waste have been transported to Bandar Hilir, Malacca, and that 17 sections of Petaling Jaya have experienced unusual construction problems, which can cause a variety of health problems for people in that area (The Star, 2011). Overstocking also can be a waste in construction projects such as after a certain period the cement may expire. (Ikau, Joseph, & Tawie, 2016)

Moreover, the waste is usually caused by a combination of events, rather than by an isolated factor. Similarly, Poon et. (2012) found that due to careless and use like Poon et. (2012) also call as wasted. While Rounce (2011) has noted that design changes and variability of design details are the major construction waste sources that appear in design stage. As Craven et. (2012) and Gavilan and Bernold (2013) have been categorized and classified that “construction waste sources into six groups which include design, material procurement, material handling, operations, residual, and ‘others’”. Inadequacy of skilled, knowledge or experience in managing construction waste will make construction projects facing big challenges or issue and it may cause project failure due to wasted too much at the project and cannot overcome it.

According to Fenn, Hall, and Carmicheal, construction disputes that are caused by clients, contractors and designers in the project have identified. Fenn and Speek (1997), the client as a poor communication among the team members, inadequate tracing mechanism for request of information, failure to respond in timely manner, coordination efforts on the part of the project and deficient management supervision, the client mentality to contractors and designers are lowest price in engagement for the project. Next, the reluctance to check constructability, completeness, clarity and also for the project manager position has failure to appoint.

Factors of construction disputes have identified the cause of the consultant itself. Example, the failure to understand the scope of design team contract, underestimating the costs involved and over design. Next, the cumbersome approach to request for information, information delivery, for the specification oversights and design has errors resulting from uncoordinated architectural, structural, mechanical, civil and electrical designs. The drawings and specifications are incompleteness (Hall, 2000). Construction disputes have identified it is caused by the contractors themselves. For example, the inadequate contractors' management and coordination delay or suspension of work, inadequate CPM update and scheduling requirements (Carmicheal, 2000).

As we know that a successful project is those that meet client requirements, satisfied by the client, delivered the project on schedule and within the allocated budget is the main goal of every project manager. Unfortunately, most construction project still facing a common issue which it fails to deliver project within the cost that estimate at the planning phase and this become a common issue in the construction project and are a big challenge to the project manager.

Cost overrun in the construction project is caused by many factors such as contractor inadequate site management, inaccurate in estimating materials. An example of a case is in Afghanistan construction industry and a survey is conducted to identify the common factors of cost overrun. From the research result in Afghanistan Construction Industry, corruption is the first major factor cause cost overruns which are with an RII value of 0.89 and it has serious impact on construction cost growth. (Niazi & Painting, 2017).

The material management is one of common issues in construction projects. This is very important in order to improve productivity and avoid wasted material. Next, the planning, vendor evaluation, selection, expenditure, purchasing, shipping, warehousing, material receiving, inventory and material distribution that include in materials management functions. The improper handling and managing material on-site during a construction process will influence the time, quality and total project cost.

Delays can have many negative effects on the construction project and their participant parties and considered one of the most common problems in construction projects. The factors delay come from three-stage in the construction project, which is from the construction stage, pre-construction stage, and post-construction stage sequentially. Cause of delay can be categories for four categories which are responsibility, resource-related causes, contract condition relate cause and external cause. From the collection data of cause of delays in Ethiopian researcher found that the top rank cause of delays is corruption which is in the external cause category. The analysis results show that in Ethiopia the time limit and cost limit are the two most common effects of construction delay. (Gebrehiwet & Luo, 2017).

The over delays have found the 56 causes and one of their main delay causes is related to contract disagreement in large projects. The indicated that change orders, site conditions, design, economic conditions, late deliveries and increase in quantity are the main causes of disputes. The consequent delay of construction schedule is one of the factors too. Next, inadequate contractor experience, payment and financing, slow decision making and labor productivity that is the five most important causes of delay and disputes construction project in the contract.

Construction workers have a higher risk of death than any other type of worker. Therefore, the construction industry is at the top of the most dangerous jobs list. Construction workers are more likely to lose their lives on the job and the most common case is when a construction worker falls from a height and loses his or her life on their job. Therefore, having the resources and incentives to ensure that construction workers are properly trained and protected is very important in the construction industry. (Mohammadi, Tavakolan, & Khosravi, 2018)

Tam et al. (2004) investigated the current situation of safety management in Chinese's construction industry and found that the main factors affecting safety performance included weak safety awareness of senior management, lack of training, weak safety awareness of project managers, reluctance to invest safety resources and reckless operation.

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2. Recent technologies/innovations to improve construction projects

Construction is one of the biggest industries in the world, worth approximately $8.5 trillion a year. In 2018, by making this largest industry more efficient and growing more rapidly, new technology and innovation must be used to achieve the goals of every company.

According to (Siebert and Teizer 2014). Drones are widely known as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) and Remote Piloted Vehicles (RPVs). Multirotor, fixed-wing, single-rotor and fixed-wing hybrid are the types of drones. (Australia UAV 2017). To aid in mapping construction sites and modeling construction projects, these devices can use add-on equipment such as infrared, geo-location and thermal sensors. The captured footage can be transformed into 3D models with integrated real-world conditions, allowing better replication, higher viability, and more accurate bids during the pre-construction phase.

UAVs can be used for controlling huge construction projects as it can be fitted with infrared cameras, radar and laser-based scope detectors that can greatly improve their monitoring and control capabilities on a construction site (Irizarry and Costa 2016). UAVs is quicker and efficient rather than sending personal worker to the ground. According to (Knight W 2015) the video recorded by using UAVs than will be converted to the site’s 3D image as it reveals how accurately the progress. In addition, UAVs can enhance safety construction. For example, by using UAVs, the risk of workers falling from great height and during maintenance inspection of tall structures such are skyscrapers, bridges, and towers can be avoided and give benefits for managers and workers (Watson M 2016). UAVs can also be used to detect unsafe conditions, tools and hazardous structures in construction sites without putting a worker at risk (Gheisari M, Esmaeili B. 2016).

Based on (Meža et al., 2015). Augmented reality was the better among 2D plans, BIM on a PC, and viewing of schematics on tablets. AR mixed one’s physical environment with computer-generated information and presents it in real-time. Augmented reality helps to build teams' drive more performance, reliability and overall trust in their projects by integrating digital and physical views. The construction company can produce details models by mixing 3D modeling software and building information modeling (BIM) so that designers and clients can preview structure and make a change before construction begin. This will prevent costly changes in which automatically reduce the cost of the project.

Augmented reality also can be used for real-time visualization and monitoring of activities and tasks also provide great opportunities to enhance construction quality assurance work. job outcomes can be automatically verified by workers and managers since augmented reality created information into real objects. (Kwon et al. 2014) stated that Such technologies have the ability to allow site management and business managers to recognize and resolve quality issues that would effectively reduce time and cut the cost of rework on construction sites

Another latest technology is using self-healing concrete. In construction building concrete is one of the most important materials. Unfortunately, due human mistakes, incorrect handling and unskilled labors cause concrete to crack and collapse as the ground beneath the concrete settles over time. To overcome this matter self-healing concrete it introducing in this industry, although Self-healing concrete is relatively new and it can be pricey, but benefits that these techniques help in another way. Bacillus pseudofirmus or Sporosarcina pasteurii, are the bacteria that used in self-healing concrete which they found out that these bacteria can survive up to 200 years without oxygen or food. And they will be activated when contact with water and calcium lactate used as a source of food, it will produce limestone that will close up the cracks. The main benefit of self-heling concrete is, the lifespan of the building predicted to be 200 years. It will decrease the number of maintenance costs for the building.

Construction work on the job site is where most accidents occur. However, awareness of workers tends to lead or cause an accident seriously. Construction industry leaders must strive to safeguard their employees by emphasis awareness. A leader should ensure all workers fully understand safety and caution on the site. It is the construction manager's job to make sure that every worker is aware of the dangers that come with working on a construction site and they must protect workers from these dangers. Any manager that fails to tell their crew and staff about how to avoid getting hurt and how to ensure safety is failing as a manager. Ensuring the safety of the construction workers and everyone on the site should be the number one priority of any construction manager. If the workers have no concept of construction site safety, they shouldn’t be allowed on the construction site.

Other than that, although workers are expected to attend regular safety training sessions about construction safety throughout the year, being able to practice safety training skills on-site would help construction workers enforce the safety rules. Practicing construction site safety training skills on-site will force workers to practice these skills in an environment where safety is essential and will make sure they are trained. Without proper training, construction workers can be easily injured or even killed. In such an environment where injuries and fatalities are highly likely, training is necessary and will prevent things like workplace injuries that will hurt you ethically and economically.

According to Francouis Buy (2015), many factors affecting project delay due to design error cost overrun, inappropriate and inadequate procurement, complexity of project and post-execution phase. A project manager should play roles on how to overcome those issue by involving their professional skills and expertise handling project. To eliminate or reduce the effect of delay and cost overrun due to project issues, vigorous planning should be done, incorporating every important aspect of the project scope, milestones, detailed WBS, delivery time, stakeholders, and methodology to be used. In addition, effective project planning, controlling and monitoring should be established to enhance project performance throughout the project life cycle. Proper site investigation also should be done to ensure that all site conditions are noted in the design, and application of value management could be used to obtain.

The implementation of these regulations and effective ways to archive project goals will lead to a better understanding of the issues in which the project manager needs to address and design a control system that will monitor these issues. The project owner and the project manager should be able to clearly define the management success and product success so that the project team has clear knowledge of its objectives.

Good waste management needs coordinated and actions of a state, business and professional groups. Several societies and non-governmental organizations successfully identified best management practices in the interest of public health and welfare. Absent coordinated regulations, realistic business opportunities, and the commitment of design and construction professionals and their clients for sustainability improvement of industry practices, consistent and stable markets for recovered materials cannot be achieved or sustained.

Management of building-related waste is expensive and often presents unwanted accidents. However, every work team plays roles to reduce, reuse and recycle to keep environmental safety. It stands to reason that efficient and effective elimination and minimization of waste, and reuse of materials are essential aspects of design and construction activity. Creativity, persistence, knowledge of available markets and businesses and understanding of applicable regulations are important skills for design and construction professionals

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