Books by Milan Radosavljevic
This authoritative textbook explains in fundamental terms the challenges faced by managers respon... more This authoritative textbook explains in fundamental terms the challenges faced by managers responsible for construction companies and projects. It defines the complexity and uncertainty faced by construction teams as they interact to construct buildings and infrastructure. This basic material establishes a robust basis for the first ever comprehensive theory of construction management.
The theory provides 26 propositions which detail in clear terms the actions which construction managers can take to make construction more efficient. This deep understanding of construction is essential reading for final year students worldwide in all construction-related disciplines.
Construction Management Strategies: a theory of construction management describes the strengths and limitations of the major construction management strategies currently found in leading practice worldwide: traditional construction, design build, construction management, partnering and the highly efficient total construction service. The descriptions are supported by worked examples which use mathematically-based Inherent Difficulty Indicators to measure the nature of individual construction projects and the effects of alternative strategies.
The book gives students the basic toolkit needed to think through the situations they will face in practice; and it gives construction managers responsible for companies and projects a robust methodology for checking their own approach in terms of construction efficiency.
Papers by Milan Radosavljevic
International Journal of Physical Sciences
Delayed ettringite formation (DEF) is a chemical reaction with proven damaging effects on hydrate... more Delayed ettringite formation (DEF) is a chemical reaction with proven damaging effects on hydrated concrete. Ettringite crystals can cause cracks and their widening due to pressure on cracked walls caused by the positive volume difference in the reaction. Concrete may show improvements in strength at early ages but further growth of cracks causes widening and spreading through the concrete structure. In this study, finely dispersed crystallization nuclei achieved by adding air-entraining agent (AEA) and short vibration of specimens is presented as the main prerequisite for reducing DEF-induced deterioration of hydrated concrete. The study presents the method and mechanism for obtaining the required nucleation. Controlling long-term DEF by providing AEA-induced crystallisation nuclei, prevented excessive and rapid initial strength improvements, and resulted in a slight increase of compressive strength of fine grained concrete with only marginally lower density.
The main objective of this study is to revisit the fundamental postulations of autopoietic self-p... more The main objective of this study is to revisit the fundamental postulations of autopoietic self-production wrapped within the autopoietic six-point key and to investigate whether or not firms as specific social systems can be treated as autopoietic unities. In order to do so firms have to be defined as simple and composite unities whereupon their boundaries have to be clearly identifiable. The test of social autopoiesis reveals that firms can be viewed as autopoietic social systems that exist in the communicative space with employees’ firm-specific communicative sub-domains as their components. Furthermore, it is argued that the social reification of autopoiesis autokoinopoiesis) in firms is quintessentially interconnected with physical autopoiesis of their employees (autophysiopoiesis). Discontiguous focus on productivity as firms’ obvious physical implication may thus be upgraded by a very social nature of ideactivity, firms’ only real survival force.
Planning is a vital element of project management but it is still not recognized as a process var... more Planning is a vital element of project management but it is still not recognized as a process variable. Its objective should be to outperform the initially defined processes, and foresee and overcome possible undesirable events. Detailed task-level master planning is unrealistic since one cannot accurately predict all the requirements and obstacles before work has even started. The process planning methodology (PPM) has thus been developed in order to overcome common problems of the overwhelming project complexity. The essential elements of the PPM are the process planning group (PPG), including a control team that dynamically links the production/site and management, and the planning algorithm embodied within two continuous-improvement loops. The methodology was tested on a factory project in Slovenia and in four successive projects of a similar nature. In addition to a number of improvement ideas and enhanced communication, the applied PPM resulted in 32% higher total productivity, 6% total savings and created a synergistic project environment.
The complex variability of the 12 construction labour productivity data sets has been examined by... more The complex variability of the 12 construction labour productivity data sets has been examined by analysing the central moments of tendency, and applying the Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Anderson-Darling tests of normality. The results consistently show that the productivity is not normally distributed. In addition, undefined variance causes a failure of the central limit theorem, thus indicating that some basic statistical diagnostics like correlation coefficients and t statistics may give misleading results and are not applicable. A brief comparison with volatility studies in econometrics has revealed surprising similarity with Pareto distributions, which can model undefined or infinite variance. Such distributions are typical of chaotic systems like the logistic equation, whose properties also are described briefly. Therefore, it is suggested that future research should be focused on studying the applicability of chaos theory to construction labour.
Smooth flow of production in construction is hampered by disparity between individual trade teams... more Smooth flow of production in construction is hampered by disparity between individual trade teams' goals and the goals of stable production flow for the project as a whole. This is exacerbated by the difficulty of visualizing the flow of work in a construction project. While the addresses some of the issues in Building information modeling provides a powerful platform for visualizing work flow in control systems that also enable pull flow and deeper collaboration between teams on and off site. The requirements for implementation of a BIM-enabled pull flow construction management software system based on the Last Planner System™, called ‘KanBIM’, have been specified, and a set of functional mock-ups of the proposed system has been implemented and evaluated in a series of three focus group workshops. The requirements cover the areas of maintenance of work flow stability, enabling negotiation and commitment between teams, lean production planning with sophisticated pull flow control, and effective communication and visualization of flow. The evaluation results show that the system holds the potential to improve work flow and reduce waste by providing both process and product visualization at the work face.
… & Management in Construction: An …, 2012
o r g a n i z a t i o n , t e c h n o l o g y a n d m a n a g e m e n t i n c o n s t r u c t i o... more o r g a n i z a t i o n , t e c h n o l o g y a n d m a n a g e m e n t i n c o n s t r u c t i o n · a n i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l · 4(2)2012
Journal of Management in …, 2012
ABSTRACT In today’s global economic conditions, improving the productivity of the construction in... more ABSTRACT In today’s global economic conditions, improving the productivity of the construction industry is becoming more pressing than ever. Several factors impact the efficiency of construction operatives, but motivation is among the most important. Since low productivity is one of the significant challenges facing the construction industry in the State of Kuwait, the objective of this case study is to identify, explore, and rank the relative importance of the factors perceived to impact the motivational level of master craftsmen involved in primary construction trades. To achieve this objective, a structured questionnaire survey comprising 23 factors, which were shortlisted based on relevant previous research on motivation, the input of local industry experts, and numerous interviews with skilled operatives, was distributed to a large number of master craftsmen. Using a relative importance index technique, the following prominent factors are identified: (1) payment delay; (2) rework; (3) lack of a financial incentive scheme; (4) the extent of change orders during execution; (5) incompetent supervisors; (6) delays in responding to requests for information (RFI); (7) overcrowding and operatives interface; (8) unrealistic scheduling and performance expectation; (9) shortage of materials on site; and (10) quality level of drawings. The findings can be used to provide industry practitioners with guidance for focusing, acting upon, and controlling the critical factors influencing the performance of master craftsmen, hence, assist in achieving an efficient utilization of the workforce, and a reasonable level of competitiveness and a cost-effective operation.
This paper initially presents the potential use of mobile computing in the construction industry.... more This paper initially presents the potential use of mobile computing in the construction industry. However, it is further assumed that the use of mobile computing can significantly improve the flow of relevant information among the project participants only if the present organisational culture is subject to changes. That is further supported with the results from the experimental study of the potential use of various mobile computing devices in the project information exchange. In this respect only cost effective, commonly available and standardised solutions would prove a project-wide applicability. The final objective of the paper is to show why there should be further research in mobile computing focused on identifying weaknesses in project-related information exchange and how to apply existing optimised IT procedures to alleviate these weaknesses.
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Books by Milan Radosavljevic
The theory provides 26 propositions which detail in clear terms the actions which construction managers can take to make construction more efficient. This deep understanding of construction is essential reading for final year students worldwide in all construction-related disciplines.
Construction Management Strategies: a theory of construction management describes the strengths and limitations of the major construction management strategies currently found in leading practice worldwide: traditional construction, design build, construction management, partnering and the highly efficient total construction service. The descriptions are supported by worked examples which use mathematically-based Inherent Difficulty Indicators to measure the nature of individual construction projects and the effects of alternative strategies.
The book gives students the basic toolkit needed to think through the situations they will face in practice; and it gives construction managers responsible for companies and projects a robust methodology for checking their own approach in terms of construction efficiency.
Papers by Milan Radosavljevic
The theory provides 26 propositions which detail in clear terms the actions which construction managers can take to make construction more efficient. This deep understanding of construction is essential reading for final year students worldwide in all construction-related disciplines.
Construction Management Strategies: a theory of construction management describes the strengths and limitations of the major construction management strategies currently found in leading practice worldwide: traditional construction, design build, construction management, partnering and the highly efficient total construction service. The descriptions are supported by worked examples which use mathematically-based Inherent Difficulty Indicators to measure the nature of individual construction projects and the effects of alternative strategies.
The book gives students the basic toolkit needed to think through the situations they will face in practice; and it gives construction managers responsible for companies and projects a robust methodology for checking their own approach in terms of construction efficiency.