The construction industry is one of the most male dominated industries around the world, not only when it comes to workers, but also as regards managers. Only 5% of the managers in the Swedish construction industry are women. The managerial competencies of individuals working as managers in the...

The preferential selection of minority firms in federally assisted contracts, state contracts and large metropolitan contracts has been in effect in the US for the purpose of meeting affirmative action goals, but this practice has also raised questions about the quality of contract performance....

This paper proposes a radical change in industry practice that will improve the quality of the construction process and the levels of customer satisfaction derived from it by evaluating the quality performance of the contractor. An alternative theory is developed of what constitutes quality,...

The just-in-time (JIT) approach to materials management appears to be superior to a just-in-case (JIC) approach in terms of reducing cost and improving productivity under most circumstances encountered in industrialized countries. However, is it truly more advantageous than the more commonly...

A computerized system to schedule high-rise building construction has been developed using line-of-balance technology assisted by an expert system. A review of the recent literature on the techniques available for scheduling and controlling construction projects of a repetitive nature shows that...

The construction project is subject to several risks, one of the most important of which is contractor default because contractor default may increase the final project cost considerably. In the US construction industry, owners commonly shield themselves from the risk of contractor default by...

ISO 9000 is one of the most important administrative innovations of the last two decades. The Turkish precast concrete industry is an interesting example of the diffusion of this important administrative innovation. Innovation diffusion theory proposes that the diffusion of an innovation is...

This note describes a model that measures the quality of the project service of a D/B firm using quality function deployment (QFD). This model is an add-on to a model developed previously by the authors to measure the corporate service quality performance of D/B firms. The project service...

The design-build (D/B) project delivery system has gained increased market share in the last few years. It is superior to traditional systems in some respects but some claim that it does not lend itself to effective quality assurance and control. D/B construction owners who are in the process of...