Research Publications

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Now showing 1 - 7 of 7

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Driving Towards Sustainability During the Construction Phase of Roads in Sri Lanka by Mitigating CO2 Emission: A Systematic Literature Review Approach
(SLIIT, Faculty of Engineering, 2024-10) Yaparathnea, I.H.G.Y.M. Udari; Guruge, K
Climate change has become a pressing concern for humanity in the contemporary era. Scientists believe that the acceleration of global warming and climate change is directly linked to the rising concentration of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide (CO2). This has become a challenge for many developing countries. The construction industry is one of the sectors that significantly contributed to heightened carbon emissions into the environment. Road construction involves various activities and processes that release substantial amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. Addressing these issues are crucial for mitigating the adverse effects of climate change and fostering sustainable development. The development of road infrastructure generates CO2 emissions across various stages. Notably, the construction stage is responsible for a significant portion of these emissions. Despite this, research efforts in Sri Lanka have primarily focused on reducing CO2 emissions in building construction projects, with limited attention to strategies specifically targeting road construction projects. The construction phase of road development has thus far been overlooked in terms of CO2 emission reduction strategies. Consequently, this study seeks to raise awareness among academics, professionals, and practitioners involved in road development projects about the factors influencing CO2 emissions during the road construction phase. The objectives of this study are to examine the factors affecting CO2 emissions during road construction development, identify the activities and processes contributing to CO2 emissions during the construction phase of road projects, explore existing sustainable strategies used in road construction to mitigate CO2 emissions, and assess their applicability to the Sri Lankan Road construction sector. A systematic literature review was conducted to achieve these objectives, selecting the fifty-six most relevant past research studies.
Embargo
Potential Use of Partnering Procurement to Minimize Project Delays in Private-Sector Construction Projects
(SLIIT, Faculty of Engineering, 2024-10) Hasaranga, K.K.A.P; Bandaraa, R.P.H.S.
Project delivery delays remain a critical factor for project success in private-sector construction projects. This research explores the potential of Partnering Procurement as a strategic approach to minimize project delays. Partnering Procurement emphasizes collaboration, transparency, and long-term relationships among project stakeholders, including clients, contractors, and subcontractors. The study aims to investigate Partnering Procurement's effectiveness in minimizing project delays in private-sector Construction projects. The research methodology encompasses a comprehensive literature review and quantitative data collection method. The survey will be designed to collect quantitative data on the benefits and challenges associated with partnering procurement and its effectiveness in minimizing project delays. The anticipated outcome of this research reveals key contributors to delays in privatesector construction projects. Financial problems and payment delays from clients, drawing submission delays from consultants, and improper project management from contractors stand out as critical factors. This research includes a deeper understanding of the benefits and challenges of partnering procurement in private-sector construction projects. The findings will contribute to the body of knowledge in construction management and guide project stakeholders on the effective implementation of partnering procurement to minimize project delays. By minimizing project delays, private-sector construction projects can enhance their competitiveness, deliver projects within budget and schedule, and ultimately satisfy the needs of clients and stakeholders.
Embargo
Impact of Pandemic on Finances of SMEs in Sri Lankan Construction Industry
(SLIIT, Faculty of Engineering, 2024-10) Abeysiria, O; Allis, C; Lokuge, A
This study focuses on the impact of the pandemic on the financial aspects of Sri Lankan construction SMEs. The pandemic has significantly affected economies globally. Sri Lanka, a country whose economy mainly consists of SMEs, has faced adverse effects due to the preventive measures implemented to control the spread of the disease. Nearly 90% of registered construction firms in Sri Lanka belong to the SME category. Financial challenges or difficulties were encountered by construction SMEs even before the pandemic impacted Sri Lanka. Currently, most of the Sri Lankan construction SMEs are on the brink of bankruptcy, mainly due to the financial challenges brought about by the pandemic. This study comprises primary data produced from semi-structured interviews and secondary sources of data from the literature review. It has identified the financial challenges undergone by construction SMEs in usual manners, including limited access to bank credit facilities, lack of capital of the contractor, and lack of cash flow due to delayed payments, among others. Principally, there were several financial challenges created due to the pandemic, including barriers in obtaining credit facilities from suppliers, and the challenges that were usually present have intensified with the effects of the ongoing pandemic. In the latter part of this study, strategies that Sri Lankan construction SMEs have executed to survive in the industry are pointed out. Most SME contractors in Sri Lanka do not have positive perspectives on staying in the industry for the long term, given the financial challenges they have encountered with the current pandemic.
Open Access
Mitigation Practices for Frequent Accidents in High Rise Building Construction
(SLIIT, 2022-02-11) Delpachitra, Y; Allis, C
High-rise building construction accidents are observed within the construction industry in Sri Lanka. These accidents represent a significant loss for the construction industry in terms of lives, cost, time, and the reputation of the construction company. To overcome those losses, this research aimed to develop the framework as guidance to mitigate frequently happening accidents in high-rise building construction in Sri Lanka. It was achieved by three main objectives, identify the frequent accidents in high-rise building construction, investigate the causes of frequent accidents happen and analyze the strategies to minimize them. The first two objectives were completed by literature review, and the third objective was completed by data collection while developing the second objective. The data collection was done through semi-structured interviews with 12 professionals who work as health and safety officers, project managers, engineers, and quantity surveyors in high-rise building construction. Only those who work in the Colombo area were considered here as a limitation. Under the first objective, scaffolding accidents, struck by falling objects, plant, and machinery accidents, falling from a height, and fire accidents were identified as frequent accidents in high rise building construction, and causes were listed below the human factors, material, and equipment factors, environmental Factors, safety technology factors, and management failures as the second objective. Essentially risk assessment, developing the site conditions, conducting training programs establishing safety system with the procedure control system, and establishing penalty procedure were the discoveries of the third objective, and those are categorized separately in the pre-construction stage and post-construction stage. According to all these findings, the framework was developed to identified relevant mitigation practices for the causes of high-rise building construction accidents, and this research recommended for government to introduce new regulations for safety while strictly following up the safety system of the high-rise building construction sites to reduce the accidents.
Open Access
UNDERSTANDING CONSTRUCTION SITE SAFETY HAZARDS THROUGH OPEN DATA: TEXT MINING APPROACH
(researchgate.net, 2021-10) Rupasinghe, N. K. A. H; Panuwatwanich, K
Construction is an industry well known for its very high rate of injuries and accidents around the world. Even though many researchers are engaged in analysing the risks of this industry using various techniques, construction accidents still require much attention in safety science. According to existing literature, it has been found that hazards related to workers, technology, natural factors, surrounding activities and organisational factors are primary causes of accidents. Yet, there has been limited research aimed to ascertain the extent of these hazards based on the actual reported accidents. Therefore, the study presented in this paper was conducted with the purpose of devising an approach to extract sources of hazards from publicly available injury reports by using Text Mining (TM) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques. This paper presents a methodology to develop a rule-based extraction tool by providing full details of lexicon building, devising extraction rules and the iterative process of testing and validation. In addition, the developed rule-based classifier was compared with, and found to outperform, the existing statistical classifiers such as Support Vector Machine (SVM), Kernel SVM, K-nearest neighbours, Naïve Bayesian classifier and Random Forest classifier. The finding using the developed tool identified the worker factor as the highest contributor to construction site accidents followed by technological factor, surrounding activities, organisational factor, and natural factor (1%). The developed tool could be used to quickly extract the sources of hazards by converting largely available unstructured digital accident data to structured attributes allowing better data-driven safety management.
Open Access
DELAYS AND DISRUPTIONS IN THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY DURING THE GLOBAL PANDEMIC
(researchgate.net, 2022-06-24) Gammanage, S. H; Gunarathna, N
COVID-19 pandemic has become a global catastrophe today dragging many nations towards severe economic distress. The Sri Lankan economy has no exception. Not surprisingly, the sluggish economic conditions in the country have adversely affected the construction industry in Sri Lanka. The pandemic has resulted in almost every construction project getting delayed or disrupted. This research aims to determine the factors that caused delays and disruptions in large scale construction projects in Sri Lanka due to pandemic. The overall impact of the global pandemic on construction projects in both local and international platforms were identified through a comprehensive literature review. Additionally, the impact on the local domain in terms of delay and disruption was assessed based on exploratory interviews and survey questionnaire disseminated among industry experts. Final conclusions were drawn by conducting 9 case studies and analysing responses to survey questionnaire provided by 30 industry practitioners. This study assisted in finding measures and mechanisms currently in use to mitigate the impact of delay and disruption of the construction phase of construction projects. The findings also paved the way to recognize innovative mitigation strategies to control the adverse impact on on-going construction projects. Analysis of the responses concluded that, delay in project kick-off, delays in material delivery, shortage of material, project suspension, reduction in the workforce productivity, health and safety concerns, regular price escalations as the key elements attributed to impact the project progress. The study has identified the present mitigating controls over delays or disruption are barely sufficient to address the concern and thus emphasised the need to resort to more effective techniques to remedy the issue.
Open Access
Construction waste management from a gender perspective
(2008-09) Manowong, E; Perera, R
Construction industry generates high volume of waste. The availability of dump sites for construction waste is decreasing and becoming a serious problem. Common waste management strategies such as Reduce, Reuse, Recycle (3Rs) can be provided for construction waste management (CWM). However, in order to be extensively implemented in construction industry, such practices need to be recognized by construction operatives and the general public whose behavior may be influenced by their attitudes and perception. A survey was carried out to investigate current situation of CWM in various regions of Thailand. Attitudes, perceptions, and roles of men and women in the construction-related sectors were analyzed. Recommendations are planners and decision-makers to improve the relevant parties’ perception and attitudes towards CWM policy planning and implementation in the GMS countries.

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