Design and construction

Seismic performance and behaviour of precast concrete structures which were not designed and detailed as per existing provisions in relevant standards was very poor during past earthquakes while the buildings constructed and designed incorporating seismic design concepts performed remarkably well. A brief review of seismic performance and design of precast concrete systems is presented to seek for the ways to improve and develop construction of precast concrete structures in India. This paper brings together the historical perspective on the performance of precast concrete structures so that lessons can be learnt to avoid the poor performance of these systems. An extensive literature on experimental studies has been also reported here to demonstrate the improved seismic performance of precast concrete systems. Further, a review and comparison of International code provisions on the design and construction of precast concrete systems is presented to help in developing the provisions and practice of these systems in Indian perspective. Identifi cation of areas that need revision or attention in the current IS Code provisions are attempted in the light of International practice.

Purpose-The purpose of this study is how to use the quality function deployment (QFD) in the construction industry. The study was performed for the owners and decision-makers of a construction company in Egypt, as a sample, and the owners' requirements. Design/methodology/approach-The data collection process and the type of data collected are described in this section. The data used in this study was collected from a questionnaire survey and was quantitatively analyzed using statistical analysis to identify the practices that have a statistically significant correlation with the performance of the design in the structural system of multistory buildings. A structured questionnaire five points Likert scaled based was adopted in this study; the questionnaires were distributed to experts, managers in real estate companies, construction industry-academic experts and advisors. The resulting list of factors, issues and knowledge gaps was subjected to a questionnaire survey for quantita...

Purpose The purpose of this study is how to use the quality function deployment (QFD) in the construction industry. The study was performed for the owners and decision-makers of a construction company in Egypt, as a sample, and the owners’ requirements. Design/methodology/approach The data collection process and the type of data collected are described in this section. The data used in this study was collected from a questionnaire survey and was quantitatively analyzed using statistical analysis to identify the practices that have a statistically significant correlation with the performance of the design in the structural system of multistory buildings. A structured questionnaire five points Likert scaled based was adopted in this study; the questionnaires were distributed to experts, managers in real estate companies, construction industry-academic experts and advisors. The resulting list of factors, issues and knowledge gaps was subjected to a questionnaire survey for quantitative...

Purpose-The purpose of this study is how to use the quality function deployment (QFD) in the construction industry. The study was performed for the owners and decision-makers of a construction company in Egypt, as a sample, and the owners' requirements. Design/methodology/approach-The data collection process and the type of data collected are described in this section. The data used in this study was collected from a questionnaire survey and was quantitatively analyzed using statistical analysis to identify the practices that have a statistically significant correlation with the performance of the design in the structural system of multistory buildings. A structured questionnaire five points Likert scaled based was adopted in this study; the questionnaires were distributed to experts, managers in real estate companies, construction industry-academic experts and advisors. The resulting list of factors, issues and knowledge gaps was subjected to a questionnaire survey for quantitative confirmation and identification of the most important factors, issues and knowledge gaps by distributing the questionnaires to experts, managers in real estate companies, construction industry-academic experts, and advisor to identify ambiguous questions/items and to test the techniques used to collect data. Findings-The effect of many internal and external factors that affect on value engineering and decision support systems, such as schedule time, cost, the purpose of the building, availability of materials and environmental, needs to be considered in the structural system for multi-story buildings. The final proposal for the house of quality-chart helps designers and decision-makers in the preliminary phase and feasibility study stage for choosing the structural system using value engineering analysis for multi-story buildings. Also, construction and engineering industries can use the findings from this study as a basis for selecting the optimal structural system for multi-story buildings. The estimating team will be able to accurately make decisions and give recommendations regarding an optimal structural system for multi-story buildings for different activities. Practical implications-The proposed approach enables decision-makers and designers to select the optimum system for multi-story buildings according to the key performance indicators (KPIs) toward client satisfaction and conduct analytical investigations to facilitate decision-making in a structural system for the multi-story building in Egypt. The proposed approach enables decision-makers and designers to select the optimum system for multi-story buildings according to the KPIs toward client satisfaction and conduct analytical investigations to facilitate decision-making in the structural system for the multi-story building in Egypt. Originality/value-QFD is a technique that availed in many industries and it is used in evaluating the customer expectations, reflecting this evidence on the product specifications. In recent years, this technique is used also in construction industry projects. It is will help designers and decision-makers in the preliminary phase and feasibility study stage for choosing the structural system using value engineering analysis for multi-story buildings. 1. Introduction Every project is unique, a one-time activity, something different than was done previously and never to be exactly repeated. No two projects are ever identical, and even a repeated will differ from the predecessor, administrative or physical aspects. Building on the strengths and weaknesses of the decision support system for multi-story building projects, during the design stage. A building design team faces several decision-making problems when assessing building envelope materials and designs for private multi-story buildings in the early design stage. These decision-making problems include inadequate consideration of requirements, inadequate consideration of possible materials and designs, lack of efficiency and consistency in making decisions of the team, lack of communication and integration among members of the group, subjective and uncertain requirements and disagreement between members of the team. Undoubtedly, these problems can cause significant adverse impacts on a project. Ashworth (2004) defined value management is a structured framework that facilitates effective decision-making regarding the best value. One of the major success factors of value engineering in achieving better project objectives is through the provision of useful input by multidisciplinary team members involved in critical decision-making discussions during the early stage of construction projects. The most commonly used phases for value management divided are the: pre-study phase, information stage, creative phase, evaluation phase, development phase, presentation phase and post-study phase. The main components of the research methodology in this section from the paper include the review of scientific literature, data collection, analysis of data and interviews with experts. Research literature has been reviewed to identify the factors, issues and knowledge gaps for a decision support system throughout the project life cycle to recommend optimal structural systems for a multi-story building. Quality function deployment (QFD) is a technique of quality improvement. In this systematic technique, the customer requests and expectations spread to every stage of the design, the process and the production. The QFD is used for the first time, in 1960, in the Kobe shipyards in Japan by Mitsubishi heavy industry. Later on, various applications are performed in Toyota and subsidiary industries of Toyota. In the 1980s, it is started to use also in the USA (Sameni Keivani and Khalili Sourkouhi, 2014; Shino and Nishihara, 1990). Akao (1994) the original developer, described QFD as a method to transform qualitative user demands into quantitative parameters, to deploy the functions forming quality and to deploy methods for achieving the design quality into subsystems and parts, and ultimately to specific elements of the manufacturing process using house of quality (HoQ). The author combined his work in quality assurance and quality control points with function deployment used in value engineering. The most expectation benefits of the QFD in every organization are as follow (Franceschini, 2016; Utne, 2009): Reducing time for developing a product. Declining the variation in the number of engineering designs. Reducing the initial costs of introducing the product to the market-increasing satisfaction of customers from providing their wants.