Built Environment Project and Asset Management

 

Issue 1.1 (Vol. 1 Issue 1) CONTENTS:

 

INAUGURAL ISSUE EDITORIAL:

 

Integrating ‘infrastructure project management’ with its ‘built asset management’
Mohan Kumaraswamy

 

A real options framework to evaluate investments in toll road projects delivered under the two-phase development strategy
Baabak Ashuri, Jian Lu and Hamed Kashani

 

A new future for the past: a model for adaptive reuse decision-making
Peter A. Bullen and Peter Love

 

Conflict analysis study for public engagement programme in infrastructure planning
C. M. Tam and Thomas K. L. Tong

 

Effectiveness of infrastructure asset management: challenges for public agencies
Geert De Wulf, Andreas Hartmann and Daan Schraven

 

Quality control analysis of downtime and time to repair for water supply pipes
Amarjit Singh, Stacy Adachi and Megan Inouye

 

Ethical views of micro-enterprises delivering project and asset management services in west-central Scotland
James Sommerville

 

Applying Just-In-Time principles in the delivery and management of airport terminal buildings
Sui Pheng Low, Faisal Manzoor Arain and Jolene Yan Fang Wong

 

 

 

Issue 1.1 (Vol. 1 Issue 1) INAUGURAL EDITORIAL:

 

 

 

INTEGRATING ‘INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECT MANAGEMENT’

 

WITH ITS ‘BUILT ASSET MANAGEMENT’

 

 

 

ABSTRACT

 

Purpose – This paper aims to convey the rationale underpinning this new journal and its timeliness in addressing emerging imperatives in our built environment, to highlight the range of the papers in this first issue and to encourage readers and potential contributors to join the BEPAM journey, towards improved built infrastructure.

 

Design/methodology/approach – Drawing attention to the silos within which ‘project management’ research and practice has been largely isolated from those in ‘asset management’, recent initiatives to bridge this divide are spotlighted, synerigised and built upon.

 

Findings – A critical need is identified for a niche one-stop forum to address increasingly important interfaces between Project Management and Asset Management of Building and Civil Engineering Infrastructure. It is also found important to link leading-edge research to cutting-edge practice in physical infrastructure development, while empowering and inspiring authors and readers from many relevant disciplines and diverse regions towards synergistic research, development and dissemination.

 

Originality/value – Articulating the BEPAM vision in supplying the missing link between built environment project management and asset management, this paper aims to attract researchers and practitioners from hitherto compartmentalised sub-sectors to engage with, learn from and improve each other in a common mission to efficiently deliver and sustain better built infrastructure worldwide.

 

Keywords – built asset management, construction project management, ‘whole-life’ infrastructure management, sustainable infrastructure.

 

Paper type – Research paper

 

 

BACKGROUND AND INTRODUCTION

 

Much has been said, but much less has been achieved, in translating high-level sustainability goals into practice in our built environment. Much of this shortfall may be traced to persisting disconnects between ‘planning, design and delivery’ (in the ‘project management’ phase) and ‘operation, maintenance and overall management’ (in ‘asset management’). Such disconnects are evident in the information-knowledge gaps, and also between the teams working in veritable bubbles within each domain. Unsurprisingly, many ill-informed decisions taken within isolated silos also retard, if not obstruct the increasingly critical built environment sustainability agenda. Fortunately, there has been a rapidly growing appreciation of the major impacts of planning, design and construction strategies and decisions on life-cycle costs and performance of built assets.

 

Furthermore, the poor status of existing infrastructure assets in many developed countries, confirm that much needs to be done. Taking one example, the American Society of Civil Engineers 2009 infrastructure report card (ASCE, 2010) assigned an overall D grade for ‘America’s infrastructure GPA’ and estimated that it would take $2.2 trillion over 5 years to bring it into a state of good repair. It was also reported that ‘More than a quarter of the nation’s bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete’, while also citing leaky pipes, aging sewage systems etc. Secondly, the many developing countries embarking on rapid infrastructure development programmes should be able to learn lessons from the above, in planning, designing and installing more maintainable and sustainable built assets.

 

Thirdly, in many more recently developed regions such as Hong Kong, where basic new infrastructure needs have been met, there are major industry shifts from new-build’ towards maintenance, redevelopment and rehabilitation of built assets. These trends have led to the rapid development of ‘asset management systems’ e.g. for bridges, roads (pavements), in general internationally, and in organisations such as Depts. of Transport in each State of the USA, the Mass Transit Railway Corp. in Hong Kong etc.

 

An authoritative forum is clearly needed to link the development of such asset management systems, as well as to ‘feedback’ their knowledge from practice, to the managers of the planning, design and construction processes. Conversely, enlightened asset managers have highlighted the need for cross-fertilisation with upstream project management principles and practices e.g. Futcher (2006) made a sound case for ‘why facilities management needs good project managers’.

 

Based on such imperatives and trends as above the need was thus recognised for a journal to address these shortfalls in bridging the divides and connecting the essential interface elements across these domains. BEPAM is designed as a niche forum to address interfaces between project management and asset management of building and civil engineering infrastructure, while also benefiting from and tapping into relevant progress in the fields of both infrastructure project management and infrastructure asset management.

 

As further background to BEPAM, it may be noted that the core editorial team draws on a useful heritage and relevant strengths, having previously published the Journal of Building and Construction Management, and being presently supported by the Centre for Infrastructure and Construction Industry Development (CICID) in Hong Kong. The BEPAM editorial team brings on board a wide range of additional international expertise in covering the special thrusts, extra dimensions and extended reach of this new journal. In moving on, the scope expands in particular, to incorporate and integrate the increasingly important asset management focus into built environment infrastructure development and management.

 

GROWING IMPORTANCE OF INFRASTRUCTURE ASSET MANAGEMENT

 

‘Infrastructure Report Cards’ from prominent developed countries confirm the woeful state of their infrastructure. For example: (a) while the 2009 ‘report card’ of the American Society of Civil Engineers assigned an overall D grade to the nation’s infrastructure, five categories receiving D^- were drinking water, inland waterways, levees, roads and wastewater (ASCE 2010); and (b) the ‘Australian Infrastructure Report Card’ assigned an overall C⁺ grade in 2010, which also meant this had not improved from 2005. The press release in November 2010 highlighted that little or no progress had been made in the past 5 years (Engineers Australia, 2010). Although a few categories such as ports had improved marginally (from C+ to B-) others such as airports had dropped (from B to B-), while the overall grade remained at C⁺.

 

Lessons learned from the above developed countries can be applied in rapid new infrastructure development as in Mainland China, and many other fast-developing countries worldwide (as in the ‘BRICS’ and ‘CIVETS’ etc.). To reduce the potentially heavy costs of future repairs and rehabilitation as above, operation & maintenance priorities and needs must be proactively addressed and optimised from the outset. Indeed these costs would not only burden economies, but also the environment and society.

Meanwhile, in places like Hong Kong, the shift from greenfield construction towards rehabilitation, redevelopment and maintenance works, is evident from Census & Statistics figures, showing such works (construction at locations other than sites) rising from 28% of all works in 2000, to 51% in 2008. Similarly in the UK, ‘repairs & maintenance’ works accounted for 35% of construction output between 1955-1976, over 57% in 1977-1980, and has been around 45% since 1980.

Specific programmes accelerate this trend further, e.g. in Hong Kong: ‘Operation Building Bright’ (OBB) launched in May 2009 provides financial assistance for repair and maintenance of over 3,000 buildings aged 30 years and more. Having recently been injected with another HK$ 1 billion, the funds committed by the Government for such assistance in OBB now total HK$ 3.5 billion. OBB has so far approved assistance to repair more than 1,900 old buildings with 200 complete and 500 underway (Hong Kong Engineer, 2011). On the other hand, Governments in regions harder hit by the 2009 financial crisis e.g. in Mainland China and USA, crafted pump-priming ‘recovery packages’ that pumped massive amounts of funds into both upgrading/repairing ageing infrastructure, as well as into new infrastructure.

 

BRIDGING THE DIVIDES AND LINKING THE SILOS: CONCEPTS, POINTERS AND EXAMPLES

 

The above needs and trends point to the value and advantages of an appropriate platform to enable cross-sector learning linking those engaged in built environment project management with counterparts in built infrastructure asset management. In this regard, some lessons may be learnt from Singapore initiatives to boost ‘maintainability’. Following successful injection of ‘buildability’ into designs that must achieve minimum buildability scores, a Singapore industry report (C21 1999) also called for more maintainable buildings, with maintenance cost audits etc. A maintainability grading system was proposed, (<http://www.hpbc.bdg.nus.edu.sg>, Chew 2010). Elsewhere too, needs are noted for ‘designing facilities management needs into infrastructure projects’ (Edum-Fotwe et al. 2003); and also for ‘sustainable adaptation of existing facilities’ (Love and Bullen, 2009).

 

There is a growing need to establish smooth channels for rapid exchange of relevant knowledge and skills between hitherto fragmented groups working in either design, delivery, operations or maintenance etc. This is confirmed by initial findings from an ongoing research exercise entitled ‘Management of Infrastructure Rehabilitation Redevelopment or Revitalisation’. Interviewees in Hong Kong lamented the difficulty in sourcing accurate information from the design and delivery stage for supporting decisions in the operation and maintenance stage. In an example from a completed Hong Kong project, the client had to inject additional third party expertise to assist the main contractor to pilot and develop vertical greening solutions in choosing the optimal soil mix and plant species mixes for the panels (Mahesh et al. 2007).

 

In a broader study in USA, this lack of ‘interoperability’ in ‘stovepipe’-style data storage systems was said to have cost the capital facilities industry $15.8 billion dollars in annual operating costs even many years ago (Gallaher et. al. 2004). Continuous information flow to support life-cycle management of facilities using technologies such as BIM has been advocated to achieve seamless information flow (Singh & Dunn 2008, Faiz and Edirisinghe 2008) and has worked in some organisations (Eastman et. al. 2008). But adequate standards for managing infrastructure asset data are needed (Sabol 2006) and still awaited.

 

With a view to visualising and addressing the above issues and barriers, Figure 1 is developed to portray the current ‘silo’-type isolation (as also indicated by Singh and Dunn, 2008), as well as disjointed one-way information flows and barriers. Next, building on and applying the basic ‘information exchange’ conduit indicated by Huell (2010), Figure 2 shows the proposed two-way knowledge flows in the present scenario.

Indeed, the above two-way knowledge flows assume greater significance in ‘single point ‘delivery networks’ or ‘integrated supplier’ consortia that can also address life cycle issues, e.g. in Design-Build where concurrent engineering can also be applied (Evbuomvan and Anumba, 1998); in Design-Build-Operate (as in some water supply schemes); and in Public Private Partnerships. Smoother two-way knowledge flows are needed along such supply chains, driven by commercial imperatives in single point risk-reward groupings. Such two-way flows are valuable for example, in (a) designing for optimal Operations and Maintenance (Edum-Fotwe et al. 2003); (b) designing for durability and optimal life cycle costs (Ugwu et al. 2005); (c) evaluating sensitivity to sustainability (‘sustainsivity capacities’) in teams (Kumaraswamy et al. 2007); (d) ‘environmental performance assessment’ (Tam et al. 2006).

 

Technology to bridge present ‘divides’ between ‘project’ and ‘asset’ management is fortunately becoming available e.g. with ‘extended’ BIM (Huell, 2010). But these also need revamped organisational systems, with proactive ‘capacity building’ and ‘learning’ dimensions, that must extend traditional ‘project management competencies’ (Edum-Fotwe and McCaffer 2000). It appears timely to [1] inject specific strong sustainability dimensions and drivers into; and [2] integrate (a) international bodies of knowledge in ‘project management’ (e.g. as developed by the US-based Project Management Institute and UK-based Association of Project Management), with (b) emerging bodies of knowledge in ‘asset management’ e.g. on: bridge management in UK, highways in USA and ‘total asset management’ in Australia.

 

In terms of organisational systems, in an example from a corporate management perspective: a case was made for ‘integrating project, programme, portfolio, asset and corporate management’ by McGrath (2007). He proposed a set of integrating principles, governance roles and managerial relationships in a restructuring exercise, designed to assist with the delivery of major roads programmes in the Queensland Dept. of Main Roads in Australia. Indeed the scope of BEPAM will extend into such organisational issues as well, as will be evident from some papers in this and forthcoming issues.

 

EDITORIAL VISION OF BEPAM MISSION

 

The primary aim of the new journal is to provide a unique platform for deliberating on, disseminating and validating cutting edge research and development in Infrastructure construction project management and built infrastructure asset management on a common platform, given the increasingly critical intersections and convergence between these domains e.g. due to ‘whole life’ and sustainability imperatives. The BEPAM focus is thus more on the interface issues which are proving increasingly critical, and which are not specifically addressed in existing specialist journals that focus on either infrastructure construction project management or built infrastructure asset management or facilities management.

 

Two other BEPAM aims are to connect both established and upcoming researchers with progressive practitioners in these fields; while also proactively linking research and practitioner communities worldwide i.e. from countries outside the traditional catchment areas of journals in these fields to join in a truly international forum.

 

The dual coverage of built environment project management and asset management recognises imperatives to serve and cater to:

 

(a) the many engaged in the former field who wish to cross-link to the latter, given the inexorably growing needs for design and construction to cater to, and indeed enhance infrastructure asset performance over their life cycles; as well as

 

(b) infrastructure asset managers who need to inject inputs at appropriate points to improve important decisions made in the planning, design and construction of the assets they must manage, operate, maintain and eventually decommission/demolish. The increasing worldwide popularity of Public Private Partnerships is one domain that has brought such needs into sharper focus, given the inherent integrated and longer-term management responsibilities.

 

Interface areas can for example, include useful linkages (e.g. in decision making) between procurement, design management or construction management (in project management); and operation & maintenance (O&M), or other whole-life issues (in asset management); as well as other potential synergies in the management of the projects and their resulting built environment assets. Interface areas may also be addressed through relevant issues in sustainability, PPP, infrastructure security/resilience etc. or on how planning/design decisions affect downstream O&M or conversely how lessons from O&M can ‘inform’ better upstream decisions – towards more ‘maintainable’, ‘operable’ and sustainable design management.

 

Of course a specific paper may possibly focus more on either project management or asset management, but the linkages and interface areas should be highlighted, as increasingly useful in practice e.g. in targeting enhanced sustainability.

 

In terms of types of papers, BEPAM targets to publish:
(a) rigorous research, including both empirical and theory-building exercises

 

(b) comprehensive reviews of relevant research and/or practice domains, that lead to the development and presentation of significant ‘new knowledge’

 

(c) in-depth case studies of industry innovations and/or research applications, that generate valuable ‘new knowledge’ of interest to leading practice and/or academia.

 

It is hoped that this section, albeit possibly more detailed than expected, will help to clarify the scope and types of papers that BEPAM targets to attract, and indeed, even inspire! For specifics on the journal requirements, please see: www.emeraldinsight.com/bepam.htm

 

 

BEPAM PAPERS IN THIS ISSUE AND BEYOND

 

The papers in this first issue speak for themselves, while their abstracts summarise them well. I will neither attempt to re-analyse the contents, nor to paraphrase the abstracts here. Instead, I draw attention to the wide spectrum of topics covered, as well as the spread and span of both the backgrounds of the authors and their current affiliations. It is hoped that this initial cross-section will provide a sound starting point in setting the scene for future contributions and participation.

 

For example, the seven papers reflect the range of BEPAM, while also demonstrating its diversity and indicating its intended scope. For example, infrastructure types covered here include roads, water supply systems, harbour-front, buildings in general, as well as airports; while the authors are from four different continents and various disciplines, and they contribute on a range of sub-issues including financial, people-related and organisational.

 

Furthermore, papers that focus on asset management issues, also link relevant specifics to upstream project management decision making in keeping with the BEPAM thrusts. Conversely, those focusing more on project management issues, link to related asset management priorities and performance imperatives.

 

Secondly, while reviews are in progress of other submissions for future issues, three papers that have been recently accepted following their review cycles, are mentioned here, just to provide a flavour of our continuing BEPAM journey. These papers are: (i) on developing an enhanced ‘management framework for the built environment’ – that was tested on organisations in both Europe (mainly Austria) and the USA; (ii) on boosting road infrastructure performance - from Singapore; and (iii) on a case study of conflict dynamics in a dam project in Nepal, interestingly by authors now based in the Middle East and the UK. Also interestingly, the ‘conflict analysis’ on this dam project adopts a systems dynamics approach, which those interested may consider to juxtapose (after the 2^nd BEPAM issue), with the ‘Pawlak’s framework’ approach used in the conflict-analysis paper on the Hong Kong harbour-front design in the current issue.

 

CONSOLIDATING AND MOVING FORWARD

 

Although it may appear that BEPAM is championing a cause of integrating the domains of ‘Project’ and ‘Asset’ Management with almost a missionary zeal, we are doing nothing more than recognising the realities and stating the obvious. Both domains within themselves, have arguably not seen much recently, in terms of breakthrough concepts or dramatic performance gains. On the other hand, the global sustainability imperatives not only demand integrated approaches, but open opportunities for significant synergies and surges in joint added value for all stakeholders, of course including the end-users.

 

For example, significant efficiency gains can arise from integrated models, propositions and improved practices in organisational and supply chain management that bridge the current divides between built environment project management and its infrastructure asset management.

 

What else? In seeking answers to such questions, we invite you to join us in our journey through future issues, particularly if any ideas or examples in this editorial or any of the papers in this inaugural issue have resonated as worthy of attention. Indeed if they have struck chords with your own current or expected interests and/or work, you are warmly welcomed to join more proactively, say as a potential author and/or reviewer.

 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

 

While regretting the impracticality of naming the many who have contributed to the launch of BEPAM and this first issue, I must at least acknowledge the special contributions of the following: universities, professional bodies and individuals involved in the precursor Journal of Building and Construction Management; the Dept. of Civil Engineering and Faculty of Engineering of the University of Hong Kong and the Centre for Infrastructure and Construction Industry Development for proactively supporting the BEPAM launch; our special Emerald team of Valerie Robillard and Kieran Booluck who are a constant source of invaluable support and advice, and also Andrea Watson-Lee who helps with the on-line system; our whole Editorial team and particularly Thomas Ng and Jacky Chung; Gangadhar Mahesh for his inputs; and of course the authors and reviewers without whom this would not be possible.

 

REFERENCES

 

ASCE (2010) Infrastructure Report Cards, ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers), http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org./ (accessed April 03, 2011).

 

C21 (1999) Reinventing Construction, Construction 21 Review Committee, Ministry of Manpower and Ministry of National Development, Singapore.

 

Chew, Y.L.M. (2010) Maintainability of Facilities, World Scientific Publishing, 544 pages.

 

Eastman, C., Teicholz, P., Saks, R. and Liston, K. (2008) BIM Handbook: A Guide to Building Information Modeling for Owners, Managers, Designers, Engineers & Contractors. Wiley & Sons.

 

Edum-Fotwe, F.T. and McCaffer, R. (2000) Developing project management competency: perspectives from the construction industry, International Journal of Project Management, 18 (2), 111-124.

 

Edum-Fotwe, F.T., Egbu, C., Gibb, A.G.F. (2003) Designing facilities management needs into infrastructure projects: Case from a major hospital, Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities 17 (1), 43-50.

 

Engineers Australia (2010) Infrastructure Report Card, Engineers Australia, <http://www.engineersaustralia.org.au/irc/ (accessed April 03, 2011).

 

Evbuomwan, N. F. O. & Anumba, C. J. (1998) An Integrated Framework for Concurrent Life-cycle Design and Construction, Advances in Engg. Software, 29 (7-9), 587-597.

 

Faiz, R.B. and Edirisinghe, E.A. (2009) Decision Making for Predictive Maintenance in Asset Information Mangmnt. Interdisciplinary Jnl. of Information, Knowledge, and Mangmnt., 4, 23-36.

 

Futcher, K. (2006) ‘Why facilities management needs good project managers’, Proceedings of Conference on ‘Recent Developments in Project Management in Hong Kong’, 12 May 2006, Centre for Infrastructure and Construction Industry Development, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, p. 2.1 to 2.10.

 

Gallaher, M. P., O’Connor, A. C., Dettbarn Jr., J. L., and Gilday, L.T. (2004) Cost Analysis of Inadequate Interoperability in the U.S. Capital Facilities Industry, Department of Commerce, USA, http://fire.nist.gov/bfrlpubs/build04/art022.html (accessed April 07, 2011).

 

Hong Kong Engineer (2011) HK$ 1 billion for Operation Building Bright, News Item, Hong Kong Engineer, Hong Kong Institution of Engineers, April 2011, p. 7.

 

Huell, E. (2010) Can BIM assist with Asset Management?, Missouri River/ Texoma Regional and Midwest Levee Conference, July 12-14, St. Louis, USA.

 

Kumaraswamy M.M., Ling, F.Y.Y., Anvuur, A.M. and Rahman, M.M. (2007) Targeting Relationally Integrated Teams for Sustainable PPPs, Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, 14 (6), 581-596.

 

Love, P. and Bullen, A. (2009) Toward the sustainable adaptation of existing facilities, Facilities, 27 (9/10), 357–367.

 

Mahesh, G., Kumarawamy M.M., Anvuur, A. and Coffey, V. (2007) Contracting for Community Development: a case study based perspective of a public sector client initiative in Hong Kong, 4^th International Conference on Construction in the 21^st Century, Ed.: Syed M Ahmed, Salman Azhar and Sherif Mohamed, 11-13 July 2007, Gold Coast, Australia, CITC, 366-372.

 

McGrath, S.K. (2007) ‘Integrating project, programme, portfolio, asset and corporate management’ Project Management Global Newsletter, Issue 1, Nov. 2007, Project Management Institute, 14 p., available at (accessed April 06, 2011): http://www.dynamail.weblease.com.au/download/files/01693/387740/Stephen_McGr

 

Sabol, L. (2006) Bridging the Data Gap in Federal Asset Management, Federal Facilities Council ‐ Government/Industry Forum.
http://www.dcstrategies.net/pdf/2_sabol_data_gap_federalam.pdf (accessed April 03, 2011).

 

Singh, H. and Dunn, H. W. (2008) Integrating Facilities Stovepipes for Total Asset Management (TAM), Journal of Building Information Modeling, Spring 2008, 30-32.

 

Tam, V.W.Y., Tam, C.M., Shen, L.Y., Zeng, S.X., Ho, C.M. (2006) Environmental performance assessment: Perceptions of project managers on the relationship between operational and environmental performance indicators, Construction Mangmnt & Economics 24 (3), 287-299.

 

Ugwu, O.O., Kumaraswamy, M.M., Kung, F. and Ng, S.T. (2005) Object-oriented Framework for Durability Assessment and Life Cycle Costing of Highway Bridges, Journal of Automation in Construction, 14, 611-632.

 

 

Please see Figures 1 and 2 below