Departmental Conferences

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Browsing Departmental Conferences by Conference "15th Pacific Association of Quantity Surveyors Congress"

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    Arbitration as an mechanism for dispute resolution in construction industry of Sri Lanka
    Amarasooriya, B; Abeynayake, MDTE
    Dispute resolution systems change with the interaction. There is a necessity of reviewing and improving of the arbitration practice periodically in order to minimize the cost and complexity of the process. This research is a comprehensive quantitative and qualitative study to assess significance factors and effectiveness of arbitration in Construction industry of Sri Lanka. Many parties to construction contracts have no more interest to go for arbitration. Therefore professionals should take collective measures to increase the effectiveness of arbitration. Literature review for research was done together with the preliminary survey. Further questionnaire survey among 36 professionals and semi structured interviews with 5 arbitrators were used for the data collection. The findings of this study indicate that the professionals involved in the construction industry have low level of satisfaction on the current practice of arbitration; however, they believe that arbitration is an effective mechanism for dispute resolution and should survive as an ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution) method in the construction industry. The results of this study enable researchers to gain a deep understanding on the current arbitration practice and recognize significance of each advantages, drawbacks and suggestions for the development of arbitration in the construction industry of Sri Lanka. This research is limited to the arbitration practice in the construction industry of Sri Lanka and the sample for the data collection was selected only from leading clients, contractors and consultant organizations.
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    Effect of construction project team on its leadership: case studies in Sri Lanka
    Samaraweera, A; Senaratne, S
    Construction industry adopts different project team settings within its product deliver process with the construction project manager as the leader of such a project team. These construction project teams possess unique features which can have differing effects on the leadership of the construction project manager where studies redominantly focusing on that area are rare particularly within Sri Lankan context. Therefore, this study explored the effect of construction project team on the leadership of theconstruction project manager. The aforesaid research problem was approached through a multiple case study including three construction projects. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the respective project managers and with other three distinct team members. The findings highlighted that the effect on the leadership from construction project team can be identified with relation to the unique features of a construction project team discussed under team purpose, team composition and method of working. Effect of the purpose of the team is mainly due to the client's influential nature while the effect of the team composition is governed by the reason that team consists of professionals and the different team settings described as 'single-organisational teams' and 'multiple organisational teams '. Further, the effect of method of working on the leadership could be identified mainly as; contractual nature of relationship between team members, inter-dependent nature of works and appointment of members at different stages.
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    Evaluation of guest requirements on hotel building facilities in Sri Lanka
    (2016-09-21) Premarathne, W; Sandanayake, YG; Konara, KMGK
    Tourism is one of the major economic areas in the Sri Lankan Policy Framework, with a vision to make Sri Lanka the foremost leisure destination in the South Asian Region. After ending the 30 years of ethnic war, the tourism industry has gained an immense level of significance as a potential mode of investment and attracting foreign currency to the economy. Sri Lanka recently has achieved the ambitious post war target of 600,000 tourist arrivals showing a 73 percent growth with compared to the previous year. Sri Lankan government therefore focuses on fast emerging tourism sector with the central focus of providing low cost holidays with high quality hotel accommodation. The government is committed to develop tourist sector with targeted room capacity of 30,000 by 2015. In order to achieve aforementioned targets, it is essential to identify and evaluate guest requirements and their preferences. The main aim of this study is therefore to identify and evaluate guest requirements in Sri Lankan structured questionnaire hotel sector. Literature review and preliminary survey were used to identify guest requirements. Structured questionnaire survey was used to collect data and Analytic Hierarchy Process tool was applied to analyse and prioritise guest requirements. According to the survey findings, 'location' is the most important guest requirement followed by 'room facilities', 'entertainment and recreational facilities' and 'appearance '. Survey further identified, 'Value added facilities' and 'building services and supplementary facilities' as least important guest requirements in jive-star hotels in Sri Lanka. The aforementioned jindings of this study can be used to improve the hotel building facilities in order to achieve guest satisfaction.
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    Evolution of building performance evaluation techniques : synthesizing current knowledge towards a future research agenda
    (2016-09-21) Konara, KMGK; Sandanayake, YG
    Buildings provide infrastructure and logistical support for core business functions and present comfortable and stable internal environment to the occupants. Buildings, however, are not static over time; they change, evolve and often adapt in response both to external and internal factors. This dynamic nature has profound impact on building performance. Building performance plays a major role in articulating the expectations of building designers, owners, occupants and operators. Traditionally, cost centered performance evaluation criteria have been used by the building professionals in understanding how well a building is satisfying its users or functional requirements. The improved match between expectations and fulfillment is considered as an important target for the building in providing better value for the customer. However, advancements in expectations, standards and requirements of building occupiers and owners for cost effective and value added facilities have led the global industries towards the emergence of the concept of Building Performance Evaluation (BPE). This paper critically reviews the literature on the evolution of BPE frameworks and techniques since 1960s and presents current developments in systematic building performance evaluation. The paper concludes by highlighting the dearth of multidimensional framework and a holistic approach for BPE and provides recommendations for future research aimed at developing a more integrated BPE research agenda. This paper will be valuable to scholars working in BPE, who wish to understand how the field has been developed as well as those who are interested in avenues for future research.
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    A Literature synthesis: merging academic research and industry development requirements for a better responsive construction sector
    Hadiwattege, C; Senaratne, S
    A university is a scholarly organism committed to inquiry, investigation and discovery at all levels with an embedded symbiotic relationship between teaching, research and also practice. Lecturers receive a number of benefits resulting from their research activity which accrue to the human, financial and intellectual resources of the university, which subsequently benefit students, and ultimately the relevant industry. Research and Development can contribute to finding solutions to the challenges faced by the construction industry and making it highly valued by its customers. The internal dynamics of construction organisations must be such that they can respond to change. This implies that academic research in the built environment higher education institutions should be in line with the requirements of construction industry and there is a need that the academic research should finally be penetrated to the construction industry. However, there is lack of evidence that construction industry adopts new findings of academic research into their practice. The research study, on which this paper is based on, aims to address the process of merging academic research and industry development requirements for a better responsive construction sector. This paper reports on the preliminary literature findings when exploring the research issues related to such a merger.
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    Transfer of construction project knowledge throuh lessons-learned practices in Sri Lanka
    Thilakarathna, N; Senaratne, S
    The knowledge gained on a particular project is a highly valuable organizational resource. Lessonslearned (LL) practice can be viewed as a key mechanism in capturing and transferring project knowledge created during project activities to future projects. In LL practices, the team members of the project are involved in reflective discussions about what went well and what went wrong with the aim of improving future project erformance. Among the various initiatives for addressing the challenges faced in the construction industry in Sri Lanka, it is now recognized that managing project knowledge is equally important. However, there is dearth of studies conducted in Sri Lanka to identify current LL practices in construction and opportunities for improvements. Thus, aim of this research was to find out the response to lessons-learned practices in Sri Lankan construction industry as a mechanism to transfer construction project knowledge from previous project to following projects. The case study research approach was used to investigate the research problem by interviewing key project personnel including the project managers. Interview transcripts were analysed using qualitative content analysis. The findings reveal several barriers for practice of LL such as construction project-based nature and practitioners' negative attitudes. Despite the barriers, the majority of case study participants are willing to adopt LL, due to the benefits that it could bring to construction organisations. The paper finally, provides some guidelines on how to overcome the identified barriers for an effective LL practice for Sri Lankan Construction Industry.