Faculty Publications
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Item Building integrated project and asset management teams for sustainable built infrastructure development(Emerald Group Publishing Ltd. Howard House Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, 2014) Wong, K.K.W.; Kumaraswamy, M.; Mahesh, G.; Ling, F.Y.Y.Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the relevance of the relationally integrated value networks (RIVANS) concept for integrating project management (PM) and asset management (AM) for total asset management (TAM). The specific objectives are to test the RIVANS for TAM concept postulated by Kumaraswamy (2011) and Kumaraswamy et al. (2012); discover ways to enable PM and AM teams to work in an integrated manner; and recommend strategies and operational measures to promote greater team integration in the industry. Design/methodology/approach – This study is based in Hong Kong with parallel studies in the UK, Singapore and Sri Lanka. Through a comprehensive questionnaire, a case study on an organization engaged in both design and construction and operations and maintenance (O&M) works, interviews and hosting a workshop (all conducted with experienced industry practitioners and experts), a set of recommendations are derived to guide the industry toward greater team integration. Findings – Early involvement of O&M staff is important for better anticipating obstacles and learning from past experiences, but PM and AM teams generally work independently with limited interaction. Priorities of the stakeholders are often different. Knowledge management is increasingly important, but knowledge sharing is not always a priority. The three focus areas in the set of recommendations developed from Hong Kong are: organizational/management structure, procurement strategies and operational mechanisms; fostering culture of team building and providing additional means of communication; and informal communication tools. Originality/value – There has been little research into the communication, interaction and integration between PM and AM priorities and teams. However, increasing industry emphasis on sustainable buildings, end-user satisfaction and designing for maintainability dictates that PM and AM teams must work closer together, hence the imperative for mapping useful directions to be pursued. © 2014, © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.Item Developing a knowledge-based safety culture instrument for construction industry: Reliability and validity assessment in Indian context(Emerald Group Holdings Ltd., 2019) Deepak, M.D.; Mahesh, G.Purpose: Harnessing the power of knowledge management is important for minimizing accidents occurring at construction projects. Yet, knowledge management is a neglected dimension when developing safety culture in the construction industry. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to develop a knowledge-based safety culture questionnaire and examine its validity and reliability in the Indian context. Design/methodology/approach: A questionnaire survey was formulated after identifying 69 influencing factors from a thorough literature review. In total, 210 valid responses were obtained from key stakeholders operating in Indian construction industry. Reliability and validity of the measurement scale were examined by factor analysis and inter-item correlation test. Comparison of knowledge-based safety culture scores across several demographic profiles of the respondents was utilized for testing discriminant validity. Findings: Results suggest that the new instrument appears to be a reliable, valid and sensitive instrument that will contribute in examining the effect of key factors that influence the importance of the knowledge dimension toward developing safety culture in the construction industry. Originality/value: The measurement tool developed in this study focuses on considering the importance of knowledge management in enhancing safety culture of the construction industry. This instrument can be utilized to compare the level of safety culture among key stakeholders of construction projects. This paper can contribute to the promotion of safety theory in Indian construction industry and provide practical implications for construction enterprises when they engage in improving safety conditions in their organizations. © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited.Item Dimensions for improvement of construction management practice in Ethiopian construction industry(Emerald Group Holdings Ltd., 2020) Mengistu, D.G.; Mahesh, G.Purpose: The state of the different practices in construction industry determines its performance level. Hence, improving performance of construction industry needs assessing state of the practices in the industry and devising improvement intervention. The purpose of this paper is to measure improvement requirement level of different construction management practice areas and to identify the underlying improvement dimensions in Ethiopian construction industry. Design/methodology/approach: Questionnaire survey was developed for data collection based on a thorough literature review which yielded 28 construction management practice areas. Purposive sampling method was used to select respondents for the survey. Mean score was used to identify the required improvement level, and one sample T-test was carried out to identify significance of improvement requirement. Factor analysis was conducted to identify the underlying dimensions of the construction management practice areas. Findings: Findings indicate 27 areas need significant improvement. This shows the low level of adoption of good construction management practices in Ethiopian construction industry. Factor analysis resulted in the areas being grouped to four broad improvement dimensions, namely, project management, organization management, knowledge and risk management and project development and contract management. Originality/value: The findings provide information for appropriate action by the stakeholders to raise standards of adopted construction management practices. It also show areas of construction management which require more focused research in the context of Ethiopian construction industry. Considering the similarity of nature of construction industry problems in developing countries, the findings can be extended to similar countries. © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited.Item Identifying the performance areas affecting the project performance for Indian construction projects(Emerald Group Holdings Ltd., 2021) Ingle, P.V.; Mahesh, G.; Deepak, D.Purpose: The construction industry is facing challenges because of performance shortfalls. Construction projects are highly complex, distinctive, fragmented and do not have well-established performance assessment models to evaluate their project success. The purpose of this paper is to assess the direction through determination of performance areas that would affect project performance in Indian construction projects. Design/methodology/approach: A survey instrument was developed to gather data on the perception of industry professionals on these identified areas. Purposive sampling method was used to select respondents for the survey. These performance areas are ranked using relative importance index to ascertain a level of importance among the group. Factor analysis (FA) was conducted to identify the significant performance areas project performance. Further to identify the most influence performance areas on Indian construction projects, multiple regression analysis was carried out. Findings: Findings indicated 28 significant performance areas. This shows the low level of adoption of good construction management practices in Indian construction projects. FA resulted in the areas being grouped to nine broad significant performance areas with 59.49% of the total variance, namely, quality, schedule, environment and stakeholder satisfactions, cost, productivity, safety, communication management, customer relations and finance. Multiple regression analysis revealed two pivotal factors “customer relations” and “schedule” that significantly influence project performance in Indian construction industry. Originality/value: The outcome of the study will guide project stakeholders, who desire to improve project performance on construction projects, to prioritize their efforts. It also highlights performance areas of project management which required more focussed research in the context of Indian construction projects. The findings can be extended to the developing countries. © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited.Item AN ONTOLOGY-DRIVEN BI-DIRECTIONAL WORKFLOW FOR INTEGRATING PROJECT MANAGEMENT DATA INTO THE IFC STANDARD(International Council for Research and Innovation in Building and Construction, 2025) Kone, V.; Mahesh, G.The evolution of Building Information Modelling (BIM) towards a data-centric paradigm is often hindered by challenges in semantic interoperability, particularly when integrating project management data with the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) standard. While IFC enables syntactic data exchange, a persistent gap exists dynamically linking building geometry with the complex, relational information of project schedules, resources, and costs in a semantically consistent, interoperable manner. This paper presents a novel, bi-directional methodology that leverages Semantic Web technologies (RDF, OWL, SPARQL) to address this challenge. The core of the methodology is an ontology-driven workflow that uses two purpose-built ontologies: BIMOnto, a lightweight representation of the building asset derived from if cOWL, and IproK (Integrated Project Knowledge Ontology), which formally structures project management information across schedule, resource, and cost domains. The workflow enables both directions: (1) transforming IFC models into queryable knowledge graphs, and (2) programmatically generating new, enriched IFC models from unified knowledge graphs. This reverse transformation creates native, standards-compliant IFC entities for tasks (IfcTask), resources (IfcResource), costs (IfcCostItem), and their standard relationships (IfcRelAssignsToProduct, etc.), moving beyond custom property sets. The feasibility and effectiveness of this approach are validated through a case study using a multi-story residential building model, demonstrating the successful generation of a verifiable, integrated BIM artifact. The findings show that this ontology-driven framework significantly enhances data integration, creating truly interoperable models where process data becomes a first-class citizen within the BIM environment, advancing the potential for more intelligent, data-centric BIM practices throughout the project lifecycle. © © 2025 The author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.