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Conference: The 10th International Value Management Conference 2010 (IVMC10)

The above conference was organised by the Hong Kong Institute of Value Management (HKIVM) and the Department of Real Estate of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (HKPolyU), along with CICID. This was successfully held on 13th December 2010 at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. The main theme of IVMC10 was “Enhancing the value of major public projects in Hong Kong”, focusing on the use of Value Management in Hong Kong’s construction industry in addressing the 10 major infrastructure projects launched by the Chief Executive in January 2008. 11 renowned expert speakers shared their view on this topic with over 160 professionals from local industries.

Public Seminar: "Enlightenment or punishment – which approach is producing the better results in improving behaviour in the UK construction industry?" by Jim Mason

Construction Law Task Force Meeting

CICID held a meeting of its Construction Law Task Force, with Jim Mason, the UK-based Joint Co-ordinator of the CICID-CIBW113 ‘LARC’ Working Group (on ‘Legal Aspects of Relational Contracting). Note: CIB is the International Council for Research & Innovation in Building & Construction. The meeting was chaired by Adjunct Prof. Ir Gary Soo and helped take stock of previous LARC outputs and to formulate firm plans for future outputs e.g. through a Special issue in an international built environment law journal.

Agreement Signing Ceremony between CIC and HKU for Research on Construction Materials’ Carbon Labelling

Researchers of The University of Hong Kong (HKU) are embarking on a research project on “Establishing a Hong Kong Based Carbon Labelling Framework for Construction Materials”, backed by the funding support from the Construction Industry Council (CIC). The signing ceremony held at HKU on 26 Oct 2010 signified the commitment of both sides into the research agreement. The agreement was signed by Professor Paul Tam, HKU’s Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Vice-President (Research), and Mr. Lee Shing-see, Chairman of CIC. The research team is led by Dr. S. Thomas Ng and Professor Albert K.H. Kwan of the Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Hong Kong.

ProMaRC Forum III

The 3rd ProMaRC inter-University Forum was hosted by UTM, Malaysia on 5 Oct. 2010, with direct participation from a delegation from the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Prof. Ron McCaffer of Lougborough University, UK; while a large group of CICID researchers at HKU, participated via Web-Conferencing. The first forum in this series was at NUS in Aug. 2008 leading to the formation of ProMaRC – an inter-University group on Project Management Research Collaboration. ProMaRC II was hosted by NUS in Feb. 2010. ProMaRC will next co-organise an international conference in Kuala Lumpur in Sep. 2011. Meanwhile HKU research postgraduate project summaries were presented to the participants at ProMaRC III on 5 Oct. 2010.

Public Seminar: "Research and publication trends in the built environment" by Prof. Will Hughes

Conference: Innovation Management in Infrastructure Development

The above conference was organised to promote knowledge exchange & dissemination on innovations in infrastructure development. Speeches from Hong Kong Housing Authority, RSM Erasmus University Netherlands and the National University of Singapore, were followed by a panel discussion.

PowerPoints Download:

Construction Industry Development reforms: Institutional Framework, Drivers and Challenges

A focus group meeting on this topic was held under the RGC funded project entitled ‘Evaluating Construction Industry Development Programmes in Hong Kong’ (Working title: ‘CIDCA - Construction Industry Development: Comparison and Acceleration’). This focus group meeting supplemented, validated and consolidated the preliminary interview findings towards identifying and refining the specific / detailed issues to be further investigated in the research project through a questionnaire survey, case studies and a workshop in the future course of this study.

20/03/10, 23/03/2010

Focus Group Meeting III on Construction Briefing in Hong Kong

This was the third focus group meeting on construction briefing following on from the first and second meeting held on 07/02/09 and 16/07/09 respectively. This is the last meeting focusing on the validation of a proposed Integrated Collaborative Briefing approach. To inject more specific and expert inputs from the industry, a select group of industry practitioners from public and private sectors as well as academic researchers were invited to join this meeting.

ProMaRC Forum II

An inter-University Forum on ‘Research Collaboration in Construction Project Management’, was organised at the National University of Singapore (NUS). This was the second in the series, following the first in Aug. 2008 which led to the formation of ProMaRC – an inter-University group on Project Management Research Collaboration. ProMaRC Forum II involved 24 participants from four Universities – with 16 (including HKU and UTM, Malaysia representatives being on-site in Singapore), while others from UK and HKU joined through web-conferencing. ProMaRC is expected to actively involve, and facilitate synergies between postgraduate and doctoral researchers in its next stage developments.

Research Seminar in Singapore

The CICID Executive Director presented a Research Seminar at the National University of Singapore, on “Bridging ‘Knowledge Gaps’ in Construction Project Management: in Academic Research; in Industry Development; and between Research and Development”.

Construction Law Task Force Meeting

CICD hosted Dr. Paul Chynoweth, the Co-ordinator of CIB W113 on ‘Law and Dispute Resolution’ at The University of Hong Kong. Updates on CIB W113, and the affiliated LARC and COPA Study Groups were exchanged. Relevant developments and ongoing initiatives in the UK and Hong Kong were reviewed, while future directions and activities were identified.

Knowledge sharing session on Target-Cost mechanisms and NEC Contracts

Dr. Gangadhar Mahesh gave a presentation on "Selection of Gain / Pain Share in TC / GMP Contracts". Participants from the Architectural Services Dept., Drainage Services Dept. and Highways Dept., together with research students contributed to the ensuing constructive discussion on various options and good practices in NEC and other Target Cost contracts. These deliberations contribute to the continuing work and findings of the LARC (Legal Aspects of Contractual Partnering) Study Group of the CICID Construction Law Task Force.

Presentation by CICID Executive Director on Procurement Approaches

Prof. Mohan Kumaraswamy, the Executive Director of the CICID gave a presentation on alternative contract procurement approaches entitled 'Procurement Approaches: Revolving while Evolving?' at the 2009 HKCA Conference.

CICD supported Conference: The New Economic Reality, Implications for the Construction Industry in Hong Kong

This was a two-day charity Conference organized by the Civil Engineering Committee of the Hong Kong Construction Association, together with the CICID and other professional and industry bodies. The conference explored the impact of last years ‘financial tsunami’ on the construction industry in Hong Kong whilst drawing comparisons with Asia and other parts of the World. Issues such as the availability of credit facilities, the importance of cash flow throughout the supply chain and the positive response by Government to ease the impact on Hong Kong’s construction industry were examined.

Public Seminar: "Ensuring Effective Time Management in Construction Projects Using Lean Principles" by Dr. David Chua

Projects are becoming more complex and dynamic. This poses a greater challenge for project management to better manage the various trades, meet owner’s requirements and project constraints. Traditionally, a project is viewed as a sequence of activities that converts inputs to outputs to meet project goals. This has been the model or current project management systems. In this seminar various key ideas in lean construction have been presented: theory of constraints, shielding the production process, getting to plan and flow reliability, identifying bottleneck constraints in project schedules.

Focus Group Meeting II on Construction Briefing in Hong Kong

This was the second focus group meeting on construction briefing following on from the first meeting held on 07/02/09. To inject more specific and expert inputs from the industry, a select group of industry practitioners from public and private sectors as well as representatives from Association of Project Management (HK Branch) and Hong Kong Institute of Value Management were invited to join this meeting which aimed to validate the potential for applying our proposed "value based briefing methodology" to the construction industry.

The Executive Director of CICID was one of four International Keynote Speakers for the “International Conference on Construction Research Funding in the XXI Century: A Partnership between Academia, Industry, and the Public Sector”. This was held in Urbana, Illinois, USA from July 8-10, 2009; and sponsored by the National Science Foundation (of USA), the International Development Grant Program at the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign), and the Worldwide Universities Network (WUN). It explored successful partnerships between academia, the construction industry, and the public sector at different institutions around the world, in order to identify the critical success factors and the way forward.

Focus Group Meeting on Bridge Maintenance Management

This focus group exercise aimed to test and verify research findings with practitioners, as well as to assess their applicability and usefulness in improving the maintenance management strategies and practices in respect of specific bridge elements. Performance prediction models were developed for each specific element such as expansion joints and parapets. Decision-making models based on such performance prediction, will be efined with a view to help select optimal maintenance strategies, including inspection intervals and protocols, over a planning horizon that should eventually minimize the life-cycle cost of the element network. It is expected that such potentially improved life cycle management plans for each element type can be integrated and applied to enhance maintenance strategies for entire bridge networks through the envisaged comprehensive life-cycle maintenance management framework.

Public Seminar: "Understanding the Duties and Liabilities of Construction Industry Professionals" by Dr Asanga Gunawansa

This seminar focused on understanding the key duties and liabilities of construction industry professionals in contract and tort. The emphasis was on the practical aspects of professional negligence. Further, the recent legal developments in the following areas were addressed: (a) Economic loss and defective buildings; (b) Claims by contractors in tort against consultants; and (c) Standard of care

Public Seminar: "Managing Payment Disputes through legislation and contract – a comparative analysis" by Dr. Philip Chan

Under-payment and non-payment must rank as common disputes in the construction industry. The speaker looked at the provisions of the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 2004 to verify this statement. The speaker then moved on to the USA where payment bonds were common and prompt payment was ensured by an Act of the same name, Prompt Payment Act. Other related payment US legislations were examined.

Public Seminar: "Flexibility in construction procurement" by Prof. Will Hughes

Public Seminar: PPP and Energy Saving Performance Contracting’ (EPSC) in France

Apart from the usual expectations from PPP procurement, it is also seen in France as a way to develop Energy Saving Performance Contracting (ESPC). Growing awareness on climate change issues motivates public authorities to be proactive in the field of energy efficiency. They are also aware that building and construction are the largest energy consuming and greenhouse gas emitting sectors. The presentation highlighted the main elements of the new PPP procurement process, examining how it can be used for ESPC and why local authorities have been reluctant to use it so far.

Symposium: REVAMPING PPPs - from ‘Revisiting and Rethinking’ to ‘Revamping and Revitalising’ PPPs

This symposium attracted an audience of over 200 with interests in PPP, who attended the morning Seminar. Of these, over 60 participants had also registered for, and interacted in the afternoon Workshop, which included focus group and combined sessions. Speakers were from Australia, China, Denmark, Greece, Hong Kong SAR, Malaysia, Netherlands, Singapore, South Africa, UK and USA. The presentations and papers covered a wide spectrum of topics on "Revamping PPPs" as per Programme and Proceedings.

Focus Group Meeting I on Construction Briefing in Hong Kong

The importance of briefing (i.e. Architectural Programming and Scope Managemnt) is generally recognised in construction. With a view to improving the briefing process, a comprehensive questionnaire survey collected data from current practice in both building and civil engineering sub-sectors in Hong Kong’s construction industry. To invite the inputs from the industry, a small and select group of industry practitioners brain-stormed in a focus group meeting to validate and refine the survey results.

Meeting with Martin Davis from Strategic Forum, UK

Martin is a Consultant to the Office of Government Commerce, UK Treasury as well as a Champion for Integration for the Strategic Forum for UK Construction. He discussed and shared his views on an on-going research project investigating the use of collaboration technology in enhancing important aspects of construction briefing.

Public Seminar: 'INTEGRATED TEAMWORKING - Update from UK on the “Business Case” and innovative developments in procurement, contract and insurance of potential relevance to ‘RIVANS’?'- by Martin Davis

This seminar described the emerging “Business Case” FOR Integrated Teamworking, together with various innovations in procurement, contract and insurance that are under development and/or trial to remove the obstacles of lowest price, legal liability and unfair payment. He also related these to the ‘RIVANS’ (Relationally Integrated Value Networks) concepts originally developed and presented in Hong Kong (by CICID); and gave examples of relevant framework and project experiences

Meeting with Professor Shunji Kusayanagi from Kochi University of Technology

The University of Hong Kong is a founder member of the International Construction Management Forum in Asia (ICMFA) launched by Professor Shunji Kusanayagi and his team at the Dept. of Infrastructure System Engineering of Kochi University of Technology, Japan. Professor Shunji Kusanayagi visited The University of Hong Kong, soon after the inaugural meeting of ICMFA. He briefed the HKU Head, Dept of Civil Engineering, Prof Albert Kwan and CICID researchers about ICMFA and how it can help in addressing current needs in International Construction Management. CICID researchers also presented some of their work and a lively exchange of ideas consolidated the common ground.

A series of International Talks was given by CICID executive Director Professor Mohan Kumaraswamy, to a large group of public and private sector participants at Yogyakarta, Indonesia on 01 Nov. 2008.This special programme was co-organisedby: (a) Govt. of Yogyakarta Special Region;(b) Regional Construction Services Development Board, Yogyakarta; and (c) Construction & Human Resources Development Agency, Ministry of Public Works, Indonesia.

The CIB Programme Committee established a new Task Group: TG72 on Public Private Partnership (PPP), with Prof. Akintola Akintoye from the University of Central Lancashire, UK and Prof. Mohan Kumaraswamy from the University of Hong Kong as its Joint Coordinators.
CIB stands for "Conseil International du Bâtiment" (International Council for Building), but is now known in full as the International Council for Research and Innovation in Building and Construction. The CIB General Secretariat is located at Rotterdam in the Netherlands.
Planned TG72 activities follow-on very well, and indeed link well to those of the PPP Task Force in CICID.

A four-University Research Forum on ‘Project Management” was initiated during a visit to NUS; and hosted by the Centre for Project Management & Construction Law, and the Department of Building of NUS on 26 Aug. 2008. The participating Universities were Loughborough University (represented by Ron McCaffer), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia represented by five staff members led by Muhd Zaimi Abd Majid), National University of Singapore (represented by many staff members led by Tham Kwok Wai, George Ofori and Low Sui Pheng) and The University of Hong Kong (represented by Mohan Kumaraswamy). Proactive exchanges on ongoing research and emerging focal areas led to ideas for deeper collaboration.

CICID 'RIVANS' Workshop II: "BUILDING RIVANS” WORKSHOP Boosting VALUE by Building RIVANS (Relationally Integrated Value Networks)

40 participants from the Hong Kong construction industry and academia, together with Prof. Derek Walker from RMIT, spent an interesting and invigorating Saturday morning in building RIVANS up to new levels.

See Summary and Photos.

Research Collaboration with the University of Padua

Further research collaboration with The University of Padua, Italy was discussed during the 3rd visit to HKU by Dr Paolo Franchetti. Topics discussed included (1) bridge maintenance and rehabilitation strategies; (2) road network vulnerability assessments and improvements optimisation strategies; (3) joint research projects and (4) postgraduate student exchangepossibilities.

Meetings of the LARC and COPA Study Groups were held at The University of Hong Kong. The meetings reviewed recent activities and developments, while planning future initiatives.

Public Seminar: 'Promoting ethical improvements in the construction industry – a single professional code?' - by Jim Mason

The above Seminar was presented by Jim Mason, a Senior Lecturer in Law with the Department of Construction and Civil Engineering, Faculty of the Built Environment, University of the West of England. The subject of ethics is currently a high profile topic within the construction industry. The key professional bodies have well established ethical codes applying to their members. Increasing numbers of contractors promote ethical code as part of their literature. This seminar examined the benefits and barriers to the promoting of a single ethical code for the construction industry using the Society of Construction Law Code of Ethical Principles. Interesting discussions ensued on how this may be popularised.

Public Seminar: 'Planning the design process using design structure matrix' - by Professor Koshy Varghese

Prof. Koshy Varghese of the Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM), gave a Seminar on "Planning the design process using Design Structure Matrix". The presentation by Prof. Vargehese provided an overview of current issues in planning design and how the Design Structure Matrix (DSM) approach can be used to represent, analyze and improve design information flows and optimise the sequencing of design activities. The stimulating presentation also led to interesting Q&A and very positive feedback.

Industry experts and experienced practitioners shared their knowledge and views on the potential and pitfalls in assembling integrated teams and supply chains for boosting overall operations and outputs of construction clients, consultants and contractors. This Workshop reviewed initial findings and generated priorities for the remaining work on the Hong Kong RGC funded project on ‘Relationally Integrated Value Networks’ (RIVANS) led by Professor Mohan Kumaraswamy (Principal Investigator) with Co-Investigators Professor Steve Rowlinson and Dr. Joseph Ugwu. Overseas Collaborator Professor Ron McCaffer provided overseas insights and examples. As expected, Group brainstorming under specific topics and sub-topics generated valuable outputs that would feed into further developments.

A 'COPA' meeting was held in connection with the visit of Professor He Bai Zhou , Dean, School of Economics and Management Engineering, of the Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture. The COPA Study Group targets a “Comparative Study on Enforcement of Payment and Adjudication in Construction Contracts in Singapore, Hong Kong and Mainland China”. Discussions were held on the ongoing joint research project for the Ministry of Construction, China, and other potential COPA activities that are planned in collaboration with Prof. He and his colleagues in Beijing.

"Construction: Transitions, the need for Innovation and the roles of Professionals and Academics" - Technical Talk, organised jointly with HKIE Civil Division by Professor Ronald McCaffer.

ABSTRACT: Transitions in construction over the decades show a shift from a site focus to corporate and sector wide initiatives. This has brought the conversion of what were previously seen as intangibles, such as: knowledge accounting; mitigation of environmental impacts; and the management of risk at project and corporate levels into direct and quantifiable costs. To meet these changes, construction is pressed to be more innovative and to measure innovation. This brings challenges to professionals, academics and academic departments. These trends and challenges were explored in this seminar, and generated interesting discussions.

Around 20 leading international experts in the areas of Architecture, Building, Civil Engineering and Design from Australia, Finland, France, Hong Kong, UK and USA participated in the two-day Workshop called "Collaborative Human Futures – A New Design Paradigm” at Cyberport. This workshop aimed at providing insights into the potential use, development and limitations of the current collaborative technologies and practices for researchers and practitioners of the building and construction industry. Prof. Mohan Kumaraswamy (Executive Director, CICID) was invited to participate in this workshop and made a presentation on "Accelerating Collaboration - Soft System imperatives for mobilising Hard System developments'. Apart from the interesting interactions and ideas generated at the Workshop itself, the presented papers will be published in a forthcoming book.

International Project Management Conference

This Seminar included following Presentations: 1. ‘Some Recent Advances in Projet Management from a Public Sector Perspective’ by Ir. Mak Chai-kwong, Highways Department of Hong Kong SAR Government; 2. ‘Why Facilities Management Needs Good Project Managers’ by Dr Keith Futcher, ISS EastPoint Facility Services Ltd., 3. ‘Project Managing the Business Case as well as Construction’ by Mr Russell Black, MTR Corporation Ltd., 4. ‘Relationship Management – Drawing on International Experiences’ by Prof. Stephen Michael Rowlinson, HKU, 5. ‘Reducing Rework to Enhance Project Performance Levels’ by Dr Ekambaram Palaneeswaran, HKU, 6. ‘Improvement through Cooperation – Integrating Partnering, Value Management and Risk Management’ by Mr Bryan Clifford, John Carlisle Partnerships (SEA), 7. ‘Information & Communication Technology for Collaborative Working in Project Management’ by Dr Onuegbu Ugwu, HKU, 8. ‘Project Management – Experience of The Hong Kong Housing Authority’ by Ms. Ada Fung, Hong Kong Housing Authority. Furthermore, Dr Mohan Kumaraswamy, HKU CICID conveyed the benefits of SMILE-SMC to the Construction Industry.

The workshop sessions included a set of demonstrative presentations and practice sessions for Small and Medium Contractors – with a view to impart practical training on various SMILE-SMC deliverables. The demonstrations include ‘Available Zone’ ‘Wanted Zone’, ‘Member Zone’, ‘Discussion Forum’, ‘Information Library’, ‘Electronic Information Exchange’, and ‘Strategic Information and Knowledge Manager’. The practical training sessions covered Wanted Zone, Available Zone, Member Zone, Discussion Forum, and Information Library.

Dr Miller is an overseas advisor on our SMILE-SMC Project for helping Small and Medium Contractors. During this period, he participated in various meetings and brainstorming discussions and presented a lecture on “SME Development Experiences in the UK” at the 15th SMILE-SMC Team Meeting on 21st May 2005.

The workshop sessions included several valuable disseminating Presentations and useful brainstorming Group Discussions. The interesting array of presentations include: 1. ‘Minor Works Regime’ by Mr Michael Y. L. Pang and Ms. Denise W.Y. Ng, Buildings Department of Hong Kong SAR Government, 2. ‘Strategic Approaches for SMCs to Manage Environmental Aspects of Development Projects’ by Mr Elvis W. K Au, Environment Protection Department of Hong Kong SAR Government, 3. ‘SMCs in Hong Kong: Problems and Prospects’ by Mr David Tse of Hop Yuen (Holdings) Ltd., 4. ‘Practical Legal Issues for SMCs in Hong Kong’ by Mr Peter Lau, Peter Lau and Co. – Solicitors, 5. ‘Making the most of your IT: Evaluation practices among Australian SMEs’ by Prof. Peter Love, Edith Cowan University, Australia (who is an overseas advisor to the SMILE-SMC project). Furthermore, the SMILE-SMC team presentations include ‘An overview of SMILE-SMC’, ‘Information Library & e-Bulletin’, ‘Electronic Information Exchange’, ‘Available Zone & Wanted Zone’, ‘Knowledge Management for SMCs & Discussion Forum’.

CICID contributed to the International Symposium on "Globalisation and Construction meeting the challenges, reaping the benefits", that was jointly organized by CIB W107 (Construction in Developing Economies), CIB TG23 (Culture in Construction) and the Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand.

The SMILE team presentations in the Workshop include ‘Introduction to SMILE-SMC & Workshop, Overview of Project Development, Pilot Needs Analysis & Questionnaire Survey, and Workflow Analysis. From the SMILE-SMC ‘partner contractors’, Mr Ma Ping and Mr Bill Chong delivered speeches entitled ‘Views from a Partner’. Furthermore, Prof. Chimay Anumba of Loughborough University (UK), who is an overseas advisor to the SMILE-SMC project delivered special lectures on the following two topics: (i) e-Hubs – an Example from Europe; and (ii) Developments in Knowledge Management and ICT. The post-lunch session include valuable Small Group Discussions (conducted in Cantonese) and an Open Discussion in which identified needs and priorities were shared and discussed further.