McAnulty, S and Baroudi, B (2010) Construction challenges in remote Australian locations. In: Egbu, C (ed.) Proceedings of 26th Annual ARCOM Conference, 6-8 September 2010, Leeds, UK.
Abstract
The Australian construction industry has similar characteristics to many construction industries around the world. However, Australia’s construction industry needs to service a country with a large percentage of remote and isolated areas. These remote and isolated areas have recently seen major demand for construction works in a large part due to the current resources boom. Remote construction projects introduce many challenges not witnessed in urbanized locations. Therefore, this research aims to identify the main challenges facing Australian construction contractors in remote locations. Construction projects in general are complex and require a high degree of management. In remote areas this is seen as being intensified. Hence, this research sets out to highlight the contributing factors to the problem. It surveyed industry practitioners in relation to construction in remote areas. Likert and ranking scale methods were used in questionnaires with 75 returned. The results were analysed and discussed based on measuring collective participant response to the issues. The findings confirmed that there are major challenges associated with remote construction activity. Significant issues were found to reside within the areas of human resources, production, cost management, infrastructure and communications. Some reasoning of issues and courses of action were also offered. Remote construction activity within Australia is expected to further increase in coming years so it is hoped that the findings will be useful to industry practitioners. Whilst the research is based within the Australian construction industry the findings are thought to relate to other countries and industries facing similar challenges in the geographical context.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | construction activity; remote locations |
| Index terms: | reasoning, construction activity, cost management, Australia, human resource, construction project, questionnaire, construction work, practitioner, construction contractor, construction industry |
| Subjects: | construction operations, operations management, practitioner, data collection methods, industry analysis, cognitive psychology, Geography, production management, accounting and finance, management |
| Topics: | Roles and Professions, Research Practice, Geographical Context, Project Management, Cost Management, Site Management, Human Resources |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCTA |
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