Designers’ performance evaluation in construction projects

Abstract

Purpose In a construction project, “participants’ satisfaction” is one of the main dimensions used for measuring the successfulness of a project. Designers perform a major role in attaining the project goals and managing project complexity during production. The purpose of this paper is to examine the designers’ performance as evaluated by the main participants: the client, the project consultant/manager and the main contractor, and to identify the main success factors of designer performance using the participants’ evaluation. The study also aims to examine how the economic size of a project affects the project participants’ assessment of the designer’s performance. It is assumed that as the size of a project increases, so does the complexity of the project, which will affect the scope of work and demands on the designers’ operational performance for the specific project level. Design/methodology/approach The Finnish project evaluation and benchmark database was used in this study as empirical data. The quantitative data consists of surveys on the project level and are based on a multi-dimensional standard evaluation wherein the main participants evaluate each other’s performances. The client, project consultant and main contractor evaluated the designer’s performance. The data of the study consisted of a total of 892 evaluations. ANOVA analysis was used to examine the differences between the project participants’ assessments based upon the different economic sizes of the projects. Findings Contractors were satisfied with the designers’ performance in small projects, whereas the client and the project consultant/manager rated the designers’ performance most successful in large projects. This result may be due to small projects are typically simple and less complex, in which case design solutions are generally well-defined. Nonetheless, the participants’ level of satisfaction follows the same factors. The main problems in the designers’ performance were related to the design content: the flawlessness and comprehensiveness, as well as the compatibility and consistency of designs. These factors were emphasized particularly in the client’s low satisfaction of the designer’s performance. However, project participants were satisfied with the collaboration with designers; however, room for improvement could be found in internal communication and collaboration within the design teams. The findings illustrated that the assessment of the success rate of a project was party-specific, which was clearly affected by the size of the project, as large projects appeared to be more complex than smaller ones. Practical implications The findings suggested that there is a need to develop project-specific practices in managing multidisciplinary design teams. Additionally, particularly in large projects, designers should focus more on solving problems and design requirements occurring at the construction site. However, this should be implemented in such a way that this does not interfere with the design activities conducted with the client and project management. While client satisfaction is low in the small projects, designers should focus more on customer-oriented methods to serve client needs better. Originality/value In construction project management studies, there is a need to measure the importance that various participants assign to different success factors. Since project success factors depend on project type, a more project-specific approach is suggested to identify the main parameters for measuring project success. This study provides a holistic approach of the designers’ performance, which contributes to the theory of project success and designers’ performance improvement.

Factors influencing the performance of architects in construction projects

“…The factors that influence the performance of architects can be classified into i) working condition (Sinesilassie Tabish and Jha, 2017;Böckerman and Ilmakunnas, 2019), ii) organisational support (Young and Young, 2012;Lai, Yusof and Kamal, 2016), iii) working relationship (Kärnä and Junnonen, 2017;Afolabi et al, 2018) and iv) design process (Kärnä and Junnonen, 2017;Assaf, Hassanain and Abdallah, 2018;Othman and Elsaay, 2018). These factors are subsequently discussed in detail.…”

“…In particular, the construction industry has been recognised to experience loss due to reworks, delays, defects and several other reasons involving professionals in the industry (Nawi et al, 2009;Hamza et al, 2019). Several scholars have argued that these problems are partly because of mistakes in design decisions (Nawi et al, 2009;Kärnä and Junnonen, 2017) and deficiencies in the design documents (Abdallah, Assaf and Hassanain, 2019); thus, architects have been indicted to be responsible for errors, which occur in buildings. Nawi et al (2009) investigated the constructability concept in Malaysia and found that challenges such as delays and reworks are aggravated by the weaknesses of the designs produced by architects at the design stage.…”

“…Nawi et al (2009) investigated the constructability concept in Malaysia and found that challenges such as delays and reworks are aggravated by the weaknesses of the designs produced by architects at the design stage. Similarly, a study in Finland revealed that clients exhibit low satisfaction towards the performance of architects, which is induced by flaws in the design, such as incompleteness, incompatibility and inconsistency of design documents (Kärnä and Junnonen, 2017). Design errors due to poorly prepared design documents have led to change orders, thereby generating considerable financial loss to clients (Abdallah, Assaf and Hassanain, 2019;Hamza et al, 2019).…”

“…Oyedele (2010) identified working condition, organisational support and design process as the top three factors that influence the performance of architects. By contrast, Kärnä and Junnonen (2017) assessed the performance of architects through satisfaction rating of various project participants and found that good working relationship and effective design process are significant to the performance of architects. Similarly, Othman and Elsaay (2018) reviewed the literature and identified that lack of communication, coordination and design process as the main reasons for poor performance of architects.…”

“…In particular, the present study investigates whether working condition, organisational support, working relationship and design process exhibit significant positive influences on the performance of architects. In terms of theoretical contribution, the current study adopts the works of Kärnä and Junnonen (2017) and Oyedele (2010) to provide further understanding on which of the aforementioned factors influence the performance of architects. Practically, findings guide architects, employers and the professional body of architects in the industry on the process of enhancing their performance and consequently achieving project success.…”