Journal Issue: Journal of Advances in Engineering and Technology (JAET)
Volume
Volume 02
Number
Issue ii
Issue Date
2024-03
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
2950-7138
Journal Volume
Articles
Conflict Handling Styles used by Design Team Leaders During Post Contract Stage of Building Construction Projects in Sri Lanka
(SLIIT, Faculty of Engineering, 2024-03) Nuwandhara, R.M.K.K.; De Silva, G.H.S.P.
In comparison to other industries, construction sector encompasses a distinct, complex, and a
competitive environment. It enriches the community with improvements when individuals with diverse
perspectives, abilities, and degrees of construction expertise collaborate with each other. In this highly
competitive multiparty context, conflicts have been labeled as one of the key constraints that prevent
the `success of construction projects. Conflict is a fact that everyone must deal with on a regular basis.
Construction projects are therefore not an exception. It entails different types of conflicts. To handle
these different types of conflicts, construction professionals use different conflict handling styles.
Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate design team leaders’ preference of conflict handling
styles and its impact on team spirit of the members of the design team during the post contract stage of
building construction projects in Sri Lanka.
To collect data, an e-based, closed-ended questionnaire was used incorporating the conflict
handling styles introduced in Rahim's Dual Concern theory. The questionnaire was answered by 56
professionals who have the experience of working in the design team during the post contract stage. The
study was limited to the building construction projects in Sri Lanka. To analyze the gathered data,
descriptive statistics such as mean, percentage, count correlation co-efficient etc. were used.
The study has revealed that during the post contract stage, the design team leaders use all five
conflict handling styles of Rahim’s Dual concern theory: integrating style, obliging style, dominating
style, avoiding style, and compromising style in different frequencies to handle conflicts among design
team professionals. The design team professionals often use compromising style and rarely use
integrating style, obliging style, dominating style, and avoiding style to handle conflicts among the
design team professionals during the post contract stage respectively.
Furthermore, the study indicates that these styles bring different levels of impact to the team spirit
of design team professionals during the post contract stage of building construction projects in Sri Lanka.
The team spirit of design team members is shown to be strongly affected by the compromising style. In
contrast, the other four conflict handling styles, integrating style, obligating style, dominating style, and
avoiding style, were identified to moderately impact team spirit. Moreover, findings revealed that all
these five conflicts handling styles show a strong relationship with the team spirit of design team
members during the post-contract stage of building construction projects in Sri Lanka.
The research findings may assist construction industry design team leaders and other stakeholders
to manage conflicts in a more efficient way and provide an insight to the way to handle conflicts to
improve the team spirit of the design team during the post-contract stage of building construction
projects in Sri Lanka.
A Case Study of Assessing the Accuracy of Secondary Consolidation Prediction Using Qualitative Approach
(SLIIT, Faculty of Engineering, 2024-03) Welikala, C.O.; Vidurapriya, K. V. D.; Thilakasiri, H. S.
Infrastructure constructed, especially over soft organic soil layers, can be subjected to excessive
settlement within its life cycle due to the complex behaviour of the soft soil with time. However, with
necessary actions prior to construction, the impacts from such soil layers can be mitigated to some
extent. The case under consideration is a leisure resort in Matara, a 15-storey hotel resting on a raft
foundation near the southern coastal line of Sri Lanka. With time, some cracks have formed within the
building, and an investigation was done to identify the cause for the crack formation. It has been
determined that cracks have appeared due to the excessive settlement of the subsurface. Furthermore,
ground investigation results suggest that a peat layer is beneath the building within a depth of 15-24m.
As per the survey report on the settlement of the building, secondary consolidation of the soft soil
significantly impacts the excessive settlement. Therefore, three methods were used to predict the
secondary consolidation settlement of the peat layer beneath the building. The methods are prediction
using empirical correlations, laboratory experiment results that will follow the constant coefficient of
secondary consolidation throughout time and the qualitative method, which assumes that the secondary
consolidation coefficient varies with time. Based on the above techniques, predictions were made, and
results suggest that the qualitative method has a significant accuracy compared to the actual settlements
of the building. These observations provide some proof that the coefficient of secondary consolidation
varies with time according to the qualitative approach and does not remain constant throughout the
lifespan of the building as suggested by conventional methods.
Characteristics of Travel Mode Choice of Families with Children Below Five Years Old
(SLIIT, Faculty of Engineering, 2024-03) Zain, A; Amarasingha, N
Travel mode choices for children under five years old have not been fully explored in past research
studies The main objectives of this study were to identify travel characteristics of children aged below
five years, travel mode choices for them, and investigate the factors affecting their selection. A survey
using a questionnaire was conducted with parents in the Western Province of Sri Lanka to collect data.
It revealed that private cars as the most frequent vehicle choice followed by public buses. The
Multinomial Logistic Regression analysis identified the age of the child, distance, income, type of
vehicle owned, and walking time to the nearest public transport station as the main factors that affect
the travel mode choice of children under five years old. Also, the habit of securing the child and the
child’s familiarity with the use of a car seat when traveling in a private car were identified as factors that
affect travel safety. The recommendations were provided to policy makers, parents, and the public in
order for children to make safer, comfortable, economical, and sustainable trips.
Whole Life Costing Awareness and Implementation Challenges in the Sri Lankan Construction Industry
(SLIIT, Faculty of Engineering, 2024-03) Jayasinghe, D.I.C; Abeynayake, D.N
Construction industry is highly demanding, especially with regard to the project cost as a
significant aspect. However, more informed cost advice can be produced considering the project’s life
cycle that begins with the conception and ends with its disposal instead of using a conventional initial
capital cost basis. Thus, Whole Life Costing (WLC) and Life Cycle Costing (LCC) concepts are
essential. Though many LCC research studies exist, WLC studies are minimal in the Sri Lankan
construction industry context. Therefore, this study aims to explore WLC awareness and implementation
challenges in the Sri Lankan construction industry. A literature review was conducted to search for the
concepts. Empirical data were gathered using questionnaires by implementing a quantitative survey
strategy. Findings depict that the awareness of WLC in the Sri Lankan construction industry is poor,
preventing its benefits. Moreover, this research identified difficulty in identifying includes and excludes
for calculating WLC, lack of details at early stages, lack of awareness of WLC benefits, lack of
understanding of WLC tools, lack of reliable data and lack of expertise/knowledge on WLC as the
primary challenges in implementing WLC in the Sri Lankan construction industry. Therefore, these
challenges must be mitigated for the beneficial WLC implementation in the Sri Lankan construction
industry while enhancing awareness and knowledge of the WLC concept among professionals,
especially quantity surveyors, to facilitate responsible initiation of WLC practices in the Sri Lankan
construction industry.
Machine Failure Prediction Using Multilabel Classification Methods
(SLIIT, Faculty of Engineering, 2024-03) Kumari, H.M.N.S.; Nawarathne, U.M.M.P.K.
Early detection of machine failure is crucial in every industrial setting as it may prevent
unexpected process downtimes as well as system failures. However, machine learning (ML) models are
increasingly being utilized to forecast system failures in industrial maintenance, and among them,
multilabel classification techniques act as efficient methods. Therefore, this study analyzed machine
failure data with five types of machine failures. Initially, a feature selection approach was also carried
out in this study to determine the variables which directly cause machine failure. Furthermore, multilabel
k-nearest neighbours (MLkNN), multilabel adaptive resonance associative map (MLARAM), and
multilabel twin support vector machine classifier (MLTSVM) in adapted algorithms, Binary Relevance,
ClassifierChain, and LabelPowerSet in problem transformation approaches, and Random Label Space
Partitioning with Label Powerset (RakelD) in ensemble classifiers were employed. To train these
models, both the original data set as well as data frame after the feature selection was used, and hamming
loss, accuracy, macro, and micro averages were calculated for each of these classifiers. According to the
results, MLkNN in adapted algorithms and LabelPowerset in problem transformation approaches
performed better than other classifiers used in this study. Therefore, it can be concluded that MLkNN
and LabelPowerset could be used to classify multilabel with positive results.
Description
Keywords
Impact, Industry 4.0, Technologies, Sustainable Manufacturing, Measuring Burnout, Validation Study, Oldenburg Burnout Inventory, Sri-Lankan IT Sector, Smart Health, Monitoring System, Health Technology, Machine Failure, Prediction, Multilabel Classification, Classification Methods, Whole Life Costing, Awareness, Implementation Challenges, Construction Industry, Sri Lanka, Travel Mode Choice, Families, Children Under Five, Transportation Characteristics, Secondary Consolidation, Prediction Accuracy, Qualitative Approach, Case Study, Conflict Handling, Design Team Leaders, Post-Contract Stage, Construction Projects,