Said, H M and Reginato, J (2018) Impact of design changes on virtual design and construction performance for electrical contractors. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 144(1): 04017097, ISSN 0733-9364
Abstract
Specialty trade contractors have increasingly invested in virtual design and construction (VDC) capabilities to virtually model the project, ensure the constructability of the model, engineer its system components, prefabricate its assemblies, and layout the virtual model on-site automatically. This paper investigates the impact of design and scope changes on the performance of VDC tasks by adopting a hybrid research methodology that depends on interviewing and survey samples of electrical contractors. Drivers of VDC cost overruns and best practices to control and recover these costs are presented. This paper provides two contributions to the body of knowledge and industry practice of the construction engineering and management community. First, the paper presents the extent and drivers of the inefficiencies and cost overruns experienced by electrical contractors in managing VDC work scopes. Second, a set of best practices is suggested to manage, plan, and control the performance of VDC tasks of electrical contractors and other specialty contractors.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | building information modeling; changes; electrical contractors; project planning and design; virtual design and construction |
| Index terms: | project planning, trade contractor, body of knowledge, scope change, survey, design change, research methodology, construction engineering, best practice, virtual design and construction, constructability, building information modelling, specialty contractor, cost overrun, engineer |
| Subjects: | engineering methods, construction integration, digital design, information systems, business, research design and methodology, data collection methods, profession, practitioner, scope management, control systems, financial and cost management, professional practice, contractual arrangements, knowledge management |
| Topics: | Design Practice, Digital Applications, Research Practice, Project Management, Information Management, Engineering Principles, Business Strategy, Cost Management, Procurement, Roles and Professions |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCE |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here