Papers by Umesha Weerapperuma
Construction projects involve major resource consumption, particularly in materials which can acc... more Construction projects involve major resource consumption, particularly in materials which can account for up to 60% of the total construction cost. Construction logistics is the integration and collaboration of several activities to plan, execute, and control the flow of physical objects from their point of origin to their point of consumption. While logistics plays a significant role in minimising material costs, the construction industry tends to pay less attention to logistic cost minimisation. This paper aims to identify construction logistic cost components and propose strategies to minimise these components on construction material cost from a contractor's perspective. Accordingly, the literature review highlighted the significance of construction materials as a resource for construction projects and the importance of material costs in total construction costs. Moreover, semi-structured expert interviews were conducted with twelve (12) experts involved in construction logistics to gather data. Both on-site and off-site experts were included in the sample. Manual content analysis was used to analyse the collected data due to its flexibility and adaptability for small sample sizes. Thirteen (13) strategies were proposed to minimise construction logistic costs on material costs, including proper knowledge of the logistic process and its cost components and implementing proper logistic cost minimisation strategies through coordination and collaboration between the head office and the site. The findings of this study are expected to contribute to the construction industry's better understanding of the importance of logistic cost minimisation strategies and their potential benefits.
11th World Construction Symposium - 2023
Infrastructure development can be identified as a key driver of economic growth. Most developing ... more Infrastructure development can be identified as a key driver of economic growth. Most developing countries have prioritised implementing new procurement arrangements to execute public infrastructure projects throughout their life cycle efficiently. Private Public Partnership (PPP) procurement arrangement is one of the popular procurement arrangements, which can be classified as solicited proposals (SPs) and unsolicited proposals (USPs). Most countries have adopted USP for infrastructure projects among those two arrangements. Nevertheless, USPs have several drawbacks than SPs, such as corruption, low social and economic benefits, low value for money, and lack of transparency. However, governments are still developing their infrastructure projects as USPs due to the government's motivational aspects towards them. Therefore, it is controversial how those motivations have a huge impact than drawbacks in implementing USPs. Thus, this study aims to investigate the motivation for imple...
Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management
PurposeA novel facet of the construction industry's (CI) digital transformation relates to th... more PurposeA novel facet of the construction industry's (CI) digital transformation relates to the rise of smart contracts, and the contribution of blockchain technology in this domain appears to be nascent but rapidly gaining traction. Although the benefits of digitalisation for technologically less enthusiastic CI are irrefutable, the adoption of smart contracts has been found to be low pertaining to industry professionals' behavioural factors stimulated by technological perception. The challenge undertook by this study, therefore, is to develop a knowledge framework for blockchain-enabled smart contract adoption in the CI.Design/methodology/approachFrom a methodological perspective, this study employed a qualitative approach that involved semi-structured interviews with ten (10) highly experienced CI practitioners involved in digital innovations for data collection. Directed content analysis was performed using NVivo 12 software, which enabled the creation of preliminary open...
Proceedings of 10th World Construction Symposium 2022, Jun 24, 2022
Sustainability
Modular construction (MC) has gained attention due to its potential for fast construction, reduce... more Modular construction (MC) has gained attention due to its potential for fast construction, reduced construction waste, and lower environmental impact while having several other issues on stimulating sustainability. The circular economy (CE) focuses on better resource management through a closed-loop system. Even though MC enhances sustainable practice, several pitfalls barricade sustainability in MC (high initial investment, design consideration, and technology challenges). Nevertheless, the synergy between CE and MC has not been investigated in past studies to address the issues in MC to achieve sustainability. This study investigates the integration of CE principles in MC to enhance sustainability. This study used a qualitative approach via the Delphi technique by conducting three semi-structured expert interview rounds with the use of a purposive sampling method. The collected data were analysed using manual content analysis. This study identified nine notable issues in MC to ach...
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Papers by Umesha Weerapperuma