Temporary structures are a vital but often overlooked component in the success of any construction project. With the assistance of modern technology, design and operation procedures in this area have undergone significant enhancements in recent years. Design Solutions and Innovations in Temporary Structures is a comprehensive source of academic research on the latest methods, practices, and analyses for effective and safe temporary structures. Including perspectives on numerous relevant topics, such as safety considerations, quality management, and structural analysis, this book is ideally designed for engineers, professionals, academics, researchers, and practitioners actively involved in the construction industry.

This book presents the fundamentals of project management as applied in the built environment and more specifically for the construction industry. It presents the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK) using practical examples to show how various project management principles and concepts can be applied in practice. Providing study notes for students and aspiring project management professionals in the construction industry, each of the 13 chapters includes a set of comprehensive revision questions that allow readers to reflect on what they have learned. The book offers an introduction to what project management is all about as well as the project life cycles, stakeholders and organizations involved. It explains the project management processes and how these processes are applied in integration, scope, time, cost, quality, human resource, communications, risk and procurement management. It concludes with ethics and professional conduct in the project management profession.

This book addresses information technologies recently applied in the field of construction safety. Combining case studies, literature reviews and interviews to study the issue, it presents cutting-edge applications of various information technologies (ITs) in construction in different parts of the world, together with a wealth of figures, tables and examples. Though primarily intended for researchers and experts in the field, the book will also benefit graduate students.

Examining women's diverse experiences of male-dominated work, this ground-breaking book explores what sexuality and gender means to women working in the construction and transport industries. Using accounts from heterosexual women and lesbians working in professional, manual and operational roles, Gender and Sexuality in Male-Dominated Occupations adopts an intersectional approach to examine advantage and disadvantage on the basis of gender, sexuality and occupational class in these sectors. Drawing on interviews and focus groups, the author examines why women choose to enter male-dominated industries, their experiences of workplace relations, their use of women's support networks and trade unions, and the interface between home and work lives. Presenting international and UK-based examples of effective interventions to increase women's participation in male-dominated work, this important book highlights the need for political will to tackle women's underrepresentation, and suggests directions for the future.

The book presents a mixed research method adopted to assess and present the Toyota Way practices within construction firms in general and for firms in China specifically. The results of an extensive structured questionnaire survey based on the Toyota Way-styled attributes identified were developed and data collected from building professionals working in construction firms is presented. The quantitative data presented in the book explains the status quo of the Toyota Way-styled practices implemented in the construction industry, as well as the extent to which these attributes were perceived for lean construction management. The book highlights all the actionable attributes derived from the Toyota Way model appreciated by the building professionals, but alerts the readers that some attributes felled short of implementation. Further findings from in-depth interviews and case studies are also presented in the book to provide to readers an understanding how these Toyota Way practices can be implemented in real-life projects. Collectively, all the empirical findings presented in this book can serve to enhance understanding of Toyota Way practices in the lean construction management context. The readers are then guided through to understand the gaps between actual practice and Toyota Way-styled practices, and the measures that they may undertake to circumvent the challenges for implementation. The book also presents to readers the SWOT analysis that addresses the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats towards the implementation of the Toyota Way in the construction industry. The book prescribes the Toyota Way model for use in construction firms to strategically implement lean construction management. The checklist presented in the book enables readers to draw lessons that may be used additionally as a holistic assessment tool for measuring the maturity of firms with respect to their Toyota Way implementation. Consequent to this, management would then be in a better position to develop plans for Toyota Way implementation by focusing on weak areas, strengthening them, and thus increasing the likelihood of success in the implementation of the Toyota Way. In a nutshell, this book provides a comprehensive and valuable resource for firms not only in the construction industry but also businesses outside of the construction sector to better understand the Toyota Way and how this understanding can translate to implementation of lean construction/business management to enhance profitability and survivability in an increasingly competitive global market place.

This book focuses on the implementation of Quality Function Deployment (QFD) in the construction industry as a tool to help building designers arrive at optimal decisions for external envelope systems with sustainable and buildable design goals. In particular, the book integrates special features into the conventional QFD tool to enhance its performance. These features include a fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making method, fuzzy consensus scheme, and Knowledge Management System (KMS). This integration results in a more robust decision support tool, known as the Knowledge-based Decision Support System QFD (KBDSS-QFD) tool. As an example, the KBDSS-QFD tool is used for the assessment of building envelope materials and designs for high-rise residential buildings in Singapore in the early design stage. The book provides the reader with a conceptual framework for understanding the development of the KBDSS-QFD tool. The framework is presented in a generalized form in order to benefit building professionals, decision makers, analysts, academics and researchers, who can use the findings as guiding principles to achieve optimal solutions and boost efficiency.

The Chinese Research Institute of Construction Management (CRIOCM) in collaboration with Xi'an Jiaotong University proudly invites all academics, researchers and professionals to participate in the CRIOCM 2013, the 18th International Symposium on "Advancement of Construction Management and Real Estate". We will uphold and preserve the idea and tradition of pragmatism and innovation, to offer an excellent academic and communication platform for academics and professionals to exchange information on the latest developments in real estate and construction management.

This unique book that deals with project communication management in complex environments, taking a leaf from China s experience with a major earthquake in Sichuan, would be a timely contribution to fill this lacuna. Readers would be able to understand how companies and organizations that are unprepared for crisis management would react to their detriment. The lessons provided in this book are the only one of its kind to highlight the lessons for companies and organizations to prepare themselves for successful project communication management through the complexity-informed framework. Although the book is written by two building professionals, the concepts and lessons presented are generic and equally applicable for businesses outside of the construction industry; for example, for airports, resorts, hotels, shipyards, etc."

It is widely acknowledged that there is an increasing problem in maintenance of the American civil infrastructure. Highways, bridges, sewers, railroads, harbours, and public buildings built in the 1950s and 1960s are wearing out, while inflation-adjusted federal spending on infrastructure has fallen. The current situation, with respect to highway bridge maintenance, is in fact so severe that many states cannot afford to attend in need of replacement, so they are focusing only on the most severe cases. Recently, rapid assessment, repair, and replacement of damaged highway bridge after extreme events have been given close attention to by government agencies, engineering and construction communities, and the general public. This book presents the complicated undertaking of highway bridge replacement in an easy-to-read format.

The Professional Services Contract is intended for use in the appointment of a supplier to provide professional services. It can be used for appointing project managers, supervisors, designers, consultants or other suppliers under NEC contracts and can also be used for appointing supliers on non-NEC construction projects or for non-constructionprojects. This document contains the core clauses, the relevant main option clauses, the secondary option clauses and the contract data. Construction Clients' Board endorsement of NEC3 The Construction Clients' Board (formerly Public Sector Clients' Forum) recommends that public sector organisations use the NEC3 contracts when procuring construction. Standardising use of this comprehensive suite of contracts should help to deliver efficiencies across the public sector and promote behaviours in line with the principles of Achieving Excellence in Construction.

This book provides an outlook into the use of Asbestos containing Materials (ACM) in Ghana, compared with what has been developed in the European Union (EU) and UK in particular. The fatal risks of Asbestos were overlooked in many instances due to ignorance. The background of Asbestos as a widely used material and its related sickness is discussed first, followed by the acceptance by the Western World and EU countries and UK in particular of Asbestos Regulation Car 2006, came into force on November 13, 2006 (Asbestos Regulations - S12006/2739). These regulations bring together the three previous sets of Regulations covering the prohibition of Asbestos, the control of Asbestos at work and Asbestos Licensing. The regulations prohibit the importation, supply and use of all forms of Asbestos. Emphasis is placed on practical approach to the use of ACM in UK and what can be done in Ghana of which other countries in Africa are not exceptions.

Prefabrication of building components could be leveraged to improve reported low productivity trend in construction industry. Despite numerous known benefits of prefabrication, uptake of this technology has been discouragingly low. A nation-wide survey of consultants, contractors, employers and manufacturers was carried out in New Zealand and the received feedback was analysed. The subcomponents of the broad constraint categories and their relative levels of impact on the uptake of the technology were reported. Additionally measures for improving the uptake of the technology in construction industry were suggested. For a methodical evaluation of the marginal value achievable by the use of prefabrication variant over and above that of the traditional stick-built system at the design and life-cycle phases of the procurement process, a decision support model was developed and tested using the modular variant of the prefabrication compared to the traditional stick-built system. Results shows that use of modular variant of the prefabrication delivers superior value to clients compared to the traditional system at the development, operational and life-cycle phases of procurement process.