Browsing by Author "Serpell, A."

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
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    A Lessons-learned System for Construction Project Management: A Preliminary Application
    (2016) Ferrada Calvo, Ximena Verónica; Nuñez, D.; Neyem, Andrés; Serpell, A.; Sepúlveda Fernández, Marcos Ernesto
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    A Mobile Cloud Shared Workspace to Support Lessons-Learned in Construction Companies
    (IEEE, 2014) Nuñez, D.; Neyem, A.; Sepúlveda Cárdenas, Marcos Daniel; Serpell, A.; Ferrada, X.
    Construction is a project-based industry, and for each project, companies have to cope with specific challenges. Nevertheless, most of these challenges are similar to each other and share many common elements. Thus, projects are an important source of expert know-how and organizational knowledge, but lessons learned in each one are not systematically incorporated into the design and construction phases of subsequent projects. Typically, construction companies do not have effective tools to make an appropriate transfer of this valuable knowledge for future projects. Therefore, shared workspaces could play an important role to do this by increasing communication among workers, organizing work more efficiently, reducing the coordination cost, and keeping an updated overview of the project. This paper presents a mobile cloud shared workspace to support knowledge management along each project. The platform is the result of the research and development work conducted by the authors, supported by a construction company, during the last two years.
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    Competitiveness factors and indexes for construction companies: findings of Chile
    (PONTIFICIA UNIV CATOLICA CHILE, ESCUELA CONSTRUCCION CIVIL, 2011) Orozco, F.; Serpell, A.; Molenaar, K.
    Globalization and industry competitiveness has led to an urgent need for an effective competitiveness management strategy. Thus, companies require a better understanding about the definition of competitiveness, factors for determining it, and indexes for measuring it. This paper provides the results of an exhaustive literature review about competitiveness. It summarizes those factors which affect construction companies' competitiveness and indexes to measure it. From these results, a structured classification for competitiveness factors and indexes was developed and a survey was applied to Chilean general contractors' top-managers. This resulted in a ranking of factors that most affect company competitiveness and indexes most suitably reflect their competitive position. The results provide the contractors' current competitive priorities in Chile. It was found through the factors and indexes chosen as the most relevant that price remains as the main criterion for contract award. In spite of this fact, top-managers are aware that other kind of factors could become more relevant in the future. The results can be considered for construction companies in developing countries to guide decision-making about competitive strategies.
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    FOSTERING THE EFFECTIVE USAGE OF RISK MANAGEMENT IN CONSTRUCTION
    (2017) Serpell, A.; Ferrada Calvo, Ximena Verónica; Rubio, N.
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    Knowledge Management and the Construction Industry
    (PONTIFICIA UNIV CATOLICA CHILE, ESCUELA CONSTRUCCION CIVIL, 2009) Ferrada, X.; Serpell, A.
    Every day, companies generate new knowledge about their products, their customers and their processes, but in general this knowledge is lost because there are no appropriate mechanisms to capture, store and share this knowledge. Because of that, knowledge management appears as an approach that gives to these organizations a systematic and structured process for managing their knowledge and experience. For the construction industry, highly intensive in knowledge, this approach can be a very effective tool for increasing productivity and performance in their projects. Thus, the proper management of this resource becomes vital, especially in the current environment characterized by high competitiveness. This discipline has been implemented in various parts of the world for several years, but has not yet been widely disseminated in Chile. To help disseminate the main concepts of this approach and its implications for the construction industry, this article presents a summary of the state of the art, which includes a review of the theoretical aspects of the discipline and its relationship and impact in the construction industry.
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    Topics and tendencies of construction and demolition waste: a meta-analysis
    (PONTIFICIA UNIV CATOLICA CHILE, ESCUELA CONSTRUCCION CIVIL, 2012) Aldana, J.; Serpell, A.
    In recent years, the topic of construction and demolition waste (C&DW) has been the focus of numerous investigations resulting in a large number of publications. Some items that have submitted revisions to the state of the art on C&DW management, they conclude on statistical aspects, such as the number of articles per journal, by country, by author, by source (University / Institute), for research methods and data analysis methods. But do not a frequency analysis of the issues addressed in these publications and also presented a summary of them. For this reason this article presents a meta-analysis of the contents of the C&DW management publications and collects progress on the most popular topics in recent years. We conclude that most mentioned topics are the types of materials that cause waste, the quantities generated, among others. Future research could focus on analyzing the situation of this problem in developing countries, methods of integration of advances in the subject, the methodologies for the formulation of management plans in C&DW work, among others.