An Investigation into the Construction Performance of High-Rise Commercial Office Buildings Based on Productivity and Resource Consumption

Langston, Craig; Best, Rick

doi:10.1080/15623599.2001.10773024

Cited by 7 publications

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“…It enables costs to be compared between locations, including across national borders, without reference to a currency exchange rate. The notion of a city-based international locality index was applied in Langston and Best (2001; where they used the price of a Big Mac hamburger, sourced from The Economist's Big Mac Index, as a PPP index to adjust construction cost data. Interestingly, today the average price of a Big Mac in Australia is AUD $4.80 and in the United States is USD $4.20, while the mean citiBLOC index in Australia is AUD $10,120 and in United States is USD $8,984 -the ratio is nearly identical.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A similar approach was undertaken by Kaming et al (1998) using 31 high-rise projects of various types in Indonesia, and by Langston and Best (2001) using 76 high-rise projects across twelve countries. Data was based on case studies with participant interviews or questionnaires.…”

Section: *External Work Is Not Very Significant For High-rise Buildimentioning

confidence: 98%

“…A ratio of output to multiple inputs was used in his model, and all were expressed in monetary terms. Langston and Best (2001) developed a performance index (PI) based on a ratio of output (production capacity) to input (resource consumption). Production capacity was measured as constructed floor area completed per month, computed as the gross floor area (m 2 ) divided by the time between commencement and handover (months).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Application of Data Envelopment Analysis to the Benchmarking of Construction Performance in Australian and American High-Rise Buildings

Langston¹

2013

International Journal of Construction Management

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The measurement of construction performance is a vexed problem. Despite much research effort, there remains little agreement over what to measure and how to measure it. The problem is made even more complicated by the desire to benchmark national industry performance against that of other countries. As clearly construction cost forms part of the analysis, the mere adjustment of cost data to an 'international currency' has undermined past attempts to draw any meaningful conclusions. The aim in this paper is to develop a method for benchmarking construction projects on the basis of their integrated time, cost and quality performance, and test it using what is understood to be one of the largest collections of construction project data ever assembled across two sample countries: Australia and the United States. The research draws on 337 high-rise projects of 20 storeys or more, completed between 2003 (i.e. 5 years pre-GFC) and 2012 (i.e. 5 years post-GFC), throughout the five largest cities in Australia and the United States, representing two-thirds of the known population of such buildings in these locations. Performance outputs of construction efficiency and construction complexity are selected to enable projects to be ranked and mapped via data envelopment analysis to identify potential instances of best practice worthy of further investigation. Furthermore, using a four-quadrant model to aid interpretation, it is clear that obtaining best practice in both efficiency (i.e. construction speed) and complexity (i.e. product sophistication) is very challenging and often mutually-exclusive. The use of a four-quadrant model combined with DEA provides context to the analysis. The scales for CE and CC applied in this research render the majority of projects to the 'normal (typical)' quadrant, demonstrating that fast construction speed and high product sophistication are often mutually-exclusive. This is a significant wake-up call for the industry and highlights the marked difference between 'business-asusual' and achieving 'best practice'.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: *External Work Is Not Very Significant For High-rise Buildimentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Application of Data Envelopment Analysis to the Benchmarking of Construction Performance in Australian and American High-Rise Buildings

Langston¹

2013

International Journal of Construction Management

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Introduction

Rundle¹,

Bahadori²,

Doust³

2019

Effective Front-End Strategies to Reduce Waste on Construction Projects

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Evaluation of construction contractor performance: a critical analysis of some recent research

Best

Langston

2006

Construction Management and Economics

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International comparisons of construction industry performance are notoriously difficult. A recent comparative study, extensive in scope and using an innovative approach, is reviewed and questions raised regarding various aspects of the methodology adopted, the validity of the conclusions drawn and manner in which outcomes were reported. Particular areas of concern include the unequivocal statement of conclusions that are based on a small sample, and the use of data from that sample that are, in fact, no more than estimates of project performance. Attention is drawn to the limitations of the research reported and the reliability of the methods used, and the data gathered is examined.International construction, industry comparisons, purchasing power parity, construction research,

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An Investigation into the Construction Performance of High-Rise Commercial Office Buildings Based on Productivity and Resource Consumption

Cited by 7 publications

References 0 publications

The Application of Data Envelopment Analysis to the Benchmarking of Construction Performance in Australian and American High-Rise Buildings

The Application of Data Envelopment Analysis to the Benchmarking of Construction Performance in Australian and American High-Rise Buildings

Introduction

Evaluation of construction contractor performance: a critical analysis of some recent research

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