Browsing by Subject "construction management"
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Item Investigation of contemporary problems and practices in post-hurricane reconstruction in the commercial sector of the southeast region of the United States(2009-05-15) Bhattacharjee, Suchayita S.The thesis addresses the problems faced by contractors during the recovery and rebuilding process after hurricanes that struck the southeast region of the United States in 2004-2005 hurricane seasons. It also deals with the practices they normally use to solve such problems. First, through literature review, six possible problems were identified, which were then used to gather information about the major problems faced by the construction industry in post-hurricane projects. The possible problems were site logistics, material transportation, labor, political influences, building permits and site location. Data were then collected via surveys of 450 contractors involved in post-hurricane construction in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas. The analysis showed that three of those problems - site logistics, labor and material transportation were identified as major problems among the respondents. The remaining were considered as problems, but not major ones in post-hurricane reconstruction projects. The study recommends practices, such as better planning, scheduling, coordination, supply chain management and use of experienced site personnel, for tackling the problems of site logistics and material transportation. Outsourcing labor was one of the methods suggested to improving conditions with regards to labor problems. The research identifies the problems and provides a list of possible solutions to these problems, as used by the contractors of such projects. Therefore, by using the suggested practices, post-hurricane reconstruction projects can be beneficial for contractors, and the outlook towards these projects as being less profitable can be changed.Item Location-based information system for open spaces(Texas A&M University, 2004-11-15) Tejavanija, KampanartProblem solving for location is one of the most critical cognitive skills that can be utilized in deriving a naive location and/or finding a primed location in large open spaces of the built environment. Wayfinding or locating objects in large open spaces is not often easy for individuals due their limitations in building effective mental models of the open space or their lack of a correct procedure for determining the grid coordinates of an object within that space. With the success of the global positioning system (GPS) in providing location information, it is expected that this technology could be utilized to control and improve building construction and facility management productivity within building interior spaces as well. However, GPS cannot perform robustly inside buildings due to the exterior walls or roofs, which weaken the signal. The Cricket indoor location support technology has been developed to respond to this limitation. Cricket uses a combination of radio frequency (RF), ultrasonic sound signals, and the triangular rule to calculate a user's current location. This research investigated performances within the context of a work order system between a human-based system and a computer-based system. Thirty subjects participated in this study. The subjects were asked to derive, find and verify a target box's location. Locating time-on-task, accuracy, and attitudes were measured. The overwhelming results demonstrated the speed and accuracy of the computer-based system over the human-based system. In addition to longer procedural processing times, subject errors included: 1) an incorrect estimation of distance, 2) an inability to correctly locate and/or project the X-axis and Y-axis grid lines, and 3) an incorrect treatment of the positive and negative characteristics of these coordinates. Even though half of the subjects liked the human-based system more, they significantly believe the computer-based system to be more accurate. All but one subject preferred that the computer-based system be used in his or her own future business. Finally, results indicate that the computer-based system does relieve humans of cognitive dependency, which may be further evidence that the computer-based system developed and tested in this study achieved its purpose.Item The cost-effectiveness of retrofitting sanitary fixtures in restrooms of a university building(Texas A&M University, 2004-09-30) Hwang, Byoung HoonThis study measured the actual water consumption of sanitary fixtures installed in restrooms of a university building while most studies have been based on the manufacturer's reported flow rate. Furthermore, this study analyzed the appropriateness of retrofitting with low-consumption water closets and urinals based on the actual water consumption. The purpose of this study is to analyze the cost-effectiveness of water savings from retrofitting water closets and urinals in restrooms of the Langford Architecture building A at Texas A&M University. The researcher directly measured the actual water-volume per flush of as-is, tune-up, low-consumption manual, and low-consumption automatic water closets and urinals. The data collected by these observations was analyzed, and the researcher evaluated the water savings of retrofitting water closets and urinals. Finally, this study provides the actual water-consumption data of sanitary fixtures and proves that retrofitting with low-consumption fixtures can save on water costs. The results will present practical standards to facility managers and other building professionals and will also contribute to determining the feasibility of retrofitting water closets and urinals.