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Certification to quality assurance standards has become a must for many construction companies nowadays to be able to survive in highly competitive market.Companies face some difficulties while deploying a quality management system. On the other hand and from resource management point of view, resource utilization should be optimized both in company and its projects. This optimization is sought to be cost saving and time reduction while enhancing quality in many recent studies.The main challenge in resource optimization is employees' and workers' low morale and their resistance against organizational change. In order to overcome this problem and creating a motive environment in construction companies, a robust decision support tool is needed to efficiently and objectively measure and monitor employee performances.The core research objectives of this study are to: (1) overcome main pitfalls of quality management system deployment including large amount of paperwork, unstructured documentation, improper communication, and low employee morale;(2) formulate a conceptual framework to quantify employee performances based on three management factors of time, cost, and quality to be used as a basis for motivation system; and (3) develop an online office automation system using web and database capabilities of Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2008 that simultaneously aims to optimize resource utilization.First, an extensive literature survey was conducted and through a questionnaire survey, the research methodology was designed.iv Second, a performance measurement framework was developed to enable efficient and effective resource utilization in construction projects and companies. The framework incorporates three management factors of time, cost, and quality and objectively quantifies each employee's performance. It was aimed to reduce the subjectivity of performance calculations through quantifying work quality. The performance factors could be further employed as a motivation tool for employees while being used as a performance monitoring decision tool for manager.Third, a prototype web-based office automation system was developed to enable the integration of the research developments of this study with information technology to facilitate its adoption in the construction companies. The system is designed to: (1)

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There are impressive efforts in conjunction with improving rheological and filtration properties of Water-Based Drilling Fluids (WBDFs) employing Nano-Particles (NPs). However, NPs’ performance in the presence of different salts has not been well assessed. This study intends to investigate the effect of Fe3O4 NPs on rheological and filtration properties of bentonite-water drilling fluids exposed to NaCl, CaCl2, and MgCl2 salts. To reach the goal specified for this study, three 0.5, 1 and 2 wt% NP concentrations, separately, were added into a salt-free and three salt-contaminated bentonite-water drilling fluids (four base fluids). So, 16 different drilling fluids were prepared for this research. The rheological models obtained by six shear rates, apparent viscosity, plastic viscosity, yield point, gel strength, and cutting carrying ability of all the drilling fluids are described in the paper. Moreover, API fluid losses (under 100 psi differential pressure), the cakes’ thickness, and the cakes’ permeability compared to the same as the salt-free base fluid, are interpreted to evaluate the NPs’ performance on filtration control ability of all the drilling fluids. The results showed that the salts weaken the rheological and filtration properties of the salt-free base fluid, while Fe3O4 NPs sustain and improve the rheological properties of salt-free and salty drilling fluids, significantly. Nano-sized Fe3O4 weakens the filtration properties of the salt-free WBDF, but it is a suitable filtration control agent for salt-contaminated drilling fluids. In a sentence, nano-Fe3O4 is a suitable additive to enhance salty-WBDFs’ performance.