Abstract. The importance of performance based benchmarking has become a necessity in a modern construction company and presents a constant challenge for the construction industry. The aim of this paper is to elaborate significance, role and types of Key Performance Indicators (KPI) in the construction industry and show how different management perspectives perceive the indicators. A literature review was carried out in order to generate a listing of KPIs, used among academe and the industry. Afterwards, using surveys and semi-structured interviews, the data was gathered from more than 30 SouthEast European construction companies. Results were analyzed, producing a final set of 37 indicators. This study identified a low level of awareness of KPI models and performance management processes among the companies. Furthermore, the analysis showed a substantial difference in perception of KPIs among investors, consultants and contractors, which consequently led to a compiling list of KPIs. The top ten KPI's are: Quality, Cost, Number of investor interferences, Changes in project support, Time increase, Client satisfaction, Employees' satisfaction, Innovation and learning, Time and Identification of client's interest. The paper concludes with final remarks and guidelines for the implementation of KPIs in practice.
A novel leaky wave antenna, realized using gap waveguide concept, is here proposed. Both, the feeding structure and the antenna are realized in groove gap waveguide technology, thus simplifying the whole structure. A complete design procedure, starting from a given groove waveguide to the final radiation mechanism, is described in this paper. The results are supported with measurements of a prototype that operates in the X-band. The realized antenna has a gain around 18 dB between 9 GHz and 11.5 GHz, demonstrating the potential of the proposed radiation technology.
The construction industry is among the least digitized industries, and the lack of innovation in construction project management practices has led to decreases in productivity. The European Directives for Public Procurement are pushing the entire construction supply chain towards more radical digital transformations over the next years, and project managers are left with the difficult task to harness ICT for the involvement and management of project stakeholders. Digitalization of various processes and practices used to manage stakeholders in construction projects is still low, and part of this problem lies in weak systematization of ICT systems which support these practices. Thus, this paper provides a systematic review of how digitalization and digital transformation affect the way stakeholders behave, engage, and communicate in projects. Following the PRISMA methodology, 73 sources from the literature were chosen for the final analysis. Results are presented through descriptive and qualitative content analysis. Six research topics were identified and thoroughly analyzed. Results show that BIM, social network analysis, and web-based applications as means to digitalize stakeholder management are more mature than social media and VR/AR. An important finding is the need to reengineer and digitally transform processes in construction projects and construction firms to enable further digitalization and effectiveness of digital technologies. Suggestions for further studies follow this line of thought.
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