Search results

Cost estimating process is an important element within the project life cycle. Comprehensive information, expanded knowledge, considerable expertise, and continuous improvement are needed to obtain accurate cost estimation. The purpose of this paper is to identify the critical factors that affect accuracy of cost estimation and evaluate the degree to which these factors are important from contractors’ and consultants’ viewpoints.

Qualitative and quantitative research approaches were adopted in collecting and analyzing the data, and testing the hypotheses. Based on the literature review, a questionnaire was prepared and then was modified according to the results of face-to-face open-ended interviews conducted with 11 project managers. The final version of the questionnaire was distributed to a random sample of 265 respondents. For analyzing the collected data Kendall’s and Mann-Whitney tests were conducted.

The analysis revealed that there is a strong agreement between contractors and consultants in the ranking of the factors related to consultant, contractor, design parameters, and information. A slightly weak agreement between contractors and consultants was noted regarding the factors related to market conditions (external factors) and factors related to project characteristics. Furthermore, the results show that the top ten factors affecting the accuracy of cost estimate are clear and detail drawings and specification, pricing experience of construction projects, perception of estimation importance, equipment (cost/availability/performance), project complexity, clear scope definition, accuracy and reliability of cost information, site constraints (access, storage, services), material availability, financial capabilities of the client, and availability of database of bids on similar project (historical data).

Offers an original view of the concept of accuracy of cost estimates as it relates to the efficiency of the project relying on both literature review and empirical evidence.

The purpose of this paper is to establish practical guidelines for benchmarking eight total quality management (TQM) practices vital to pharmaceutical companies’ performance. The paper also proposes the use of an analytic total quality index (TQI) as a benchmarking tool and illustrates the importance and effectiveness of this benchmarking methodology by applying it in two comparative studies of three Jordanian pharmaceutical companies.

In order to achieve the above-mentioned purpose, the data were gathered through a questionnaire that was used to evaluate the gap between the ideal and current status of the quality management system and distributed to the quality units from three companies: pharmaceutical manufacturing company, a pharmaceutical manufacturing company working in the same field and a pharmaceutical service providing research services to a pharmaceutical manufacturing companies. And the mean differences between the current and ideal states for the eight critical TQM practices were compared for these two comparative studies using the t-test.

Each of the two comparisons reveals statistically significant differences regarding the perceptions of actual and ideal scores for manufacturing and service companies on five out of eight critical factors and, on two out of eight critical factors for manufacturing and manufacturing companies.

The pharmaceutical companies, regardless of whether they are manufacturing or service company, can adopt benchmarking techniques which were applied in this case study to improve their performance and their product/service quality.

The consequences of this research can support organization managers and policy makers in effectively benchmarking the identified TQM practices in their organizations using the proposed TQI benchmarking tool.

The aim of this paper is to study and empirically test the relationship between employees' perceptions of the two motivation-enhancing human resource management (HRM) practices of reward and performance appraisal and both incremental and radical innovation. The paper examines whether innovative work behaviour (IWB) mediates the hypothesised relationship.

Data were collected from 313 unit managers in manufacturing, pharmaceutical and technology companies in Jordan. Structural equation modelling (SEM) using AMOS v27 was employed to analyse the data and test the hypotheses.

The study finds that employees perceive rewards to be significant and to directly influence incremental and radical innovation. Additionally, employees perceive that performance appraisal to be significant for incremental innovation. The study also finds that IWB mediates the relationship between rewards, performance appraisal and incremental and radical innovation. No support was found for the impact of performance appraisal on radical innovation.

Distinctively, this paper considers both incremental and radical innovation in studying the link between HRM practices and innovation. It also takes an intra-organisational perspective by considering employees' perceptions of rewards and performance in fostering innovation. Additionally, it assesses the impact of IWB in mediating the relationship between rewards, performance appraisal and innovation. IWB is rarely empirically studied in the HRM–innovation link specifically when linked with radical and incremental innovation.

The purpose of this paper is to report the results of a survey undertaken to identify and rank factors that are responsible for delay in the schedule of strategic industrial projects in Iran.

The survey covered 40 factors identified by previous literature and modified by 20 project professionals to fit the Iranian industrial culture. These factors were grouped into six major categories. For each category, the Shannon entropy weighting technique was applied.

The analysis of the 64 returned out of 87 randomly distributed questionnaires revealed that “sanctions” from political group, “cash flow problems” from financial group, “equipment availability and failure” from technical group, “project manager competence” from managerial group, “material procurement” from procurement group and “unqualified workforce” from human resource group were ranked as the highest contributing factors.

The findings of this study are of practical use for project professionals and experts seeking to improve the schedule performance of industrial projects.

This paper aims at studying the level of implementation of ISO 9001 in Jordanian consulting engineering firms and to what extent does the implementation effectiveness affect the success of the construction projects. Moreover, the paper seeks to identify the Critical Success Factors (CSFs) that directly influence the ISO 9001 effectiveness in Jordanian consulting engineering firms.

A questionnaire was constructed and distributed to a sample of 125 employees from six ISO 9001-consulting firms. After collecting the data, exploratory factor analysis was utilized to validate the latent constructs (CSFs, ISO 9001 Effectiveness, and Firm Performance).

The findings suggest that firms experience a high level of ISO 9001 effectiveness. Moreover, among the five identified CSFs; employee attributes, external environmental pressure and quality system attribute had a significant impact on the ISO 9001 effectiveness, while internal motivation and firm attributes were insignificant.

The significance of this study lies in exploring such topic in the developing countries, since most of current studies were focused on developed contexts such as the USA and UK. Therefore, this research acts as a response to calls in the current literature regarding considering different industries and contexts.

The construction industry sector is developing rapidly, especially with the increasing pace of the Fourth Industrial Revolution in this sector. Construction projects can benefit from greater integration and collaboration between their technologies and processes to reap the advantages and keep pace with the recent significant technological and managerial techniques developments. Therefore, this study aims to delve into and investigate building information modeling (BIM) and Lean Construction (L.C.) with a concentration on the potential BIM–lean interactions synergy and integration in the Jordanian construction industry.

This study takes exploratory nature, followed by the deductive research approach, and is designed to be a mono-quantitative research methodology. Moreover, the sampling technique is non-probability convenience sampling, and the research strategy is implemented through a questionnaire used and analyzed by using Statistical Package for Social Science to conduct descriptive and inferential statistical analysis and verify the reliability and validity through proper tests.

The BIM–lean interactions synergy and integration findings revealed that eliminating waste (time, cost, resources), promoting continuous improvement (Kaizen) and standardizing as lean construction principles are the most significant and agreeable toward achieving BIM–lean interactions synergy. On the other hand, “High 3D Visualization Modelling” was the most significant BIM function, followed by “Rapid and Auto-Generation of Documents and Multiple Design Alternatives” and “Maintenance of Information and Design Model Integrity.” Moreover, based on the relative importance index (RII) values, “Lack of Technical Expertise in BIM-LEAN” is the most significant challenge with a 0.89 value of RII, followed by “Lack of Government Direction and Standard Guidelines” with a 0.88 value of RII and “Financial considerations” with a 0.83 value of RII.

This study will help provide a new detailed overview that investigates the effects and expected benefits of integrating BIM processes and technological functionalities with lean construction principles within a synergetic environment. Moreover, the study will increase the awareness of using new technologies and management approaches in the architectural, engineering and construction industry, seeking to achieve integration between these technologies to reach ideal results in terms of the outputs of construction operations.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of hard total quality management (TQM) practices on operational performance dimensions in manufacturing organizations.

The study was designed in the Jordanian manufacturing sector. Organizations that are familiar with hard TQM practices specifically that had already implemented ISO 9001 certificate were randomly surveyed through structured questionnaire, yielded a sample of 40 responding organizations. Principal component factor analysis was used to analyze hard TQM practices implementation and organizations operational performance dimensions. As a result, specific hard TQM practices and operational performance dimensions were extracted. The hard TQM practices that significantly influence operational performance dimensions were tested using simple and multiple linear regression analysis.

The research findings showed that hard TQM practices in manufacturing sector include; continuous improvement, statistical process control (SPC), process management and quality tools and techniques. Meanwhile, operational performance dimensions include; quality and inventory management performance. Also, the findings showed that continuous improvement and SPC practices play a major role in obtaining the desired results of operational performance.

Three limitations can be identified in this research, using subjective measures of TQM practices and operational performance, low response rate and using a sample of organizations from various industries. This paper can help Jordanian manufacturing organizations to foster proper practices and make the right decisions related to operational performance.

This study describes a reliable hard TQM model that can be used by manufacturing organizations to improve their operational performance. Also, the results of this study contribute to prior literature and recommend some best practices for manufacturing organizations.

The international energy agency states that the world’s primary energy needs are expected to grow to 55 per cent until 2030. Therefore, oil and gas industry as the main energy source will be more crucial where building or advancing new capacities is required. Because the reports highlight the delay as a recurring problem, thereby, more in-depth investigation to find out the main contributing causes is needed.

Root cause analysis (RCA) was applied to identify, rank, analysis and categorize the main sources of this problem.

Based on RCA procedure; Pareto analysis showed that 84.7 per cent of the delay is because: the radar chart indicated no difference in perception of the participants regarding the importance of the root causes, correlation analysis suggested strong relationship among the participants and the cause-and-effect diagram emphasized more on operational, human and equipment categories, which in total account for 51.86 per cent of the delay.

The risk planners of large-scale projects can consider these root causes as the main items to analysis, monitor and control, as they are vitally important for project success.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and assess the factors affecting maintenance management performance in public and private hospitals in Amman-Jordan.

The paper identified 70 items affecting maintenance management performance from the literature review. Descriptive analysis was performed to assess the practices in both sectors. Comparison between public and private hospitals was performed through conducting a Mann-Whitney U-test.

Public hospitals were found to be implementing more improved practices than private hospitals. The perception of maintenance staff in both sectors regarding the factors affecting maintenance management performance varied.

This paper provides an original review of the factors affecting maintenance management in public and private hospitals in Amman-Jordan. The identified factors provide a useful reference to maintenance departments to improve maintenance performance and practices.

The main purpose of this article is to examine the relationship among the manager's Strategic Intelligence (SI) with Organization Development (OD), and Entrepreneurial Behaviour (EB) in governmental agencies in underdeveloped countries.

To fulfill the purpose of this study, 274 staff were selected from a population of 480 based on stratified sampling. Descriptive and inferential statistics (including the measurement methods, KMO, Bartlett, Durbin–Watson, and path analysis tests) were performed by using SPSS22 software and Lisrel 8.5.

Based on the results of the analysis, there is a positive significant relationship between the manager's SI and organizational development. Moreover, there is a positive significant relationship between the manager's SI and entrepreneurial behavior. However, examining the moderator variables including demographic characteristics revealed that the demographic characteristics have no effect on the manager's SI–OD relationship and manager's SI–EB relationship. Only gender influences the manager's SI–EB relationship.

This research proposes a model of the relevant internal variables that have a positive effect on the organization's development and growth. The model is intended to help organizations gain competitive advantage and opportunity by improving the internal factors (managers' SI and entrepreneurial behavior of managers and staff) for the development and survival.

This study proposed a model of manager's SU, OD and Entrepreneurial Behavior in organizations based on data collected from underdeveloped countries. Also, the result of this study could be used by startup and entrepreneurial companies around the world.