As an economy approaches maturity, the relative importance of the construction sector would gradually decline. Without effective policies and strategies, the construction industry will suffer irreversably and this may trigger a knock-on effect to the overall economy. The experiences of selected...

A multivariate discriminant analysis is described, aimed at predicting the direction of changes in the Hong Kong tender price index by utilizing the patterns of change in eight leading economic indicators. Two discriminant functions are derived which distinguish between 'upward', 'constant' and...

Singapore announced its Construction 21 Blueprint in 1999, which included quality improvement as one of the many initiatives aimed at making the construction industry more competitive and efficient. This has culminated in the development of the National Productivity and Quality Specification...

Construction projects involve numerous stakeholders, and their satisfaction could directly influence the performance of subsequent projects. Driven by a desire to improve project success, the critical satisfaction factors pertinent to the construction management process should be identified. In...

The introduction of a non private-funded public-private partnerships (PPP) approach to the maintenance and operation of infrastructure facilities necessitates an equitable performance standard, a sensible penalty mechanism and a credible auditing system. Yet, with limited research on this type...

As a driving engine for growth, the construction industry plays an important role in a country's economic development process. Despite that, the industry is vulnerable to cyclical oscillation and at times more fundamental changes in work volume when the regional or global economy is hit by...

Many researchers have advocated the development and application of a systematic approach to the selection of procurement processes. Different procurement selection models aimed at improving the decision making process have been proposed. These models generally fail to address the fuzziness of...

Bromilow's log-log time-cost (BTC) model is tested and refitted with a new set of data for Australian construction projects completed between 1991 and 1998. It is shown that, as anticipated by earlier research, different parameter estimates are needed for different project types, with smaller...

Many clients nowadays scrutinize consultants' performance carefully before determining which company should be awarded a consultancy assignment. Despite that, evaluating the performance of an engineering consultant is seldom conducted in a systematic manner, as every assessor has his/her own...

Acknowledging the importance of the private construction market and a close linkage between private construction investment, public sector output and general economic conditions, there is a strong motivation to develop reliable models to forecast private construction investment. Based on the...