SELECTION OF CONSTRUCTION METHODS: A

PRELIMINARY MODEL
Ximena Ferrada
Pontificia Universidad Católica, Santiago, Chile
xferrada@ing.puc.cl

Alfredo Serpell
Pontificia Universidad Católica, Santiago, Chile
aserpell@ing.puc.cl

One of construction project managers’ most critical and highly influential task for
construction projects is to select the appropriate construction methods to carry out the
construction operations. In many occasions this task is not well made, affecting projects
productivity and quality. Research objectives are to identify and understand the necessary
knowledge to select construction methods and to define all relevant variables for this
analysis. This article presents the main concepts from literature review and a preliminary
knowledge model for construction method selection. The paper concludes that through the
analysis of the knowledge used to select construction methods it is possible to improve the
performance of this activity and to generate a knowledge management tool to help project
managers to improve in carrying out this task.

KEYWORDS: knowledge management, construction methods, methods selection.

INTRODUCTION
Construction projects have been criticized for under-achievement, situation that has been
reflected in the poor performance on time, cost and quality and the low satisfaction level of
construction clients (Poon et. al, 2003; Fortune and Lees, 2003; Tapia, 2007). Several
researches have indicated that problems related to productivity and rework could be
associated to the following causes: inefficient management, design and planning problems,
worker experience and skills, inadequate supervision, uncertainty, and poor construction
method choice, among others (Sanvido, 1983; Dai et al, 2007; Love et al, 1999; Love, 2000;
Serpell, 2002). This ongoing research focuses on the problem of the inadequate construction
methods selection, because this is a relevant task within the construction process, but in many
companies is still executed with some deficiencies, despite the critical role that plays in the
achievement of the projects’ objectives, because as Halpin (2006) points out, “once a project
has been defined, one of the most critical questions facing the construction manager is What
construction technique or method should be selected?”.

To face this problem, it has been decided to use a knowledge-based approach because it has
been considered that an adequate management of this organizational asset will substantially
improve the performance of the construction methods selection of a project. The central idea
of this research indicates that if it is possible for a construction company to capture the
knowledge and experience generated by the execution of its projects, it would then be
feasible to design a knowledge management structure and system for this purpose. If a
construction company counts with such a knowledge management system, it will be able to

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obtain, store and share the methods selection knowledge and to apply it for effectively
selecting construction methods for new projects.
This article presents the main concepts associated to construction methods selection and
knowledge management from literature review and, also presents a preliminary proposal of a
knowledge model for construction methods selection. This model, once validated, will be the
base for the development of a knowledge-based system for construction method selection.

THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS
This section present a review of the most relevant concepts associated to construction
methods selection and knowledge management.

Construction methods selection

Construction methods are the means used to transform resources into constructed products
(Tatum, 1988). The selection of the most appropriate construction method for an operation is
a major determinant of high productivity (Russell and Al-Hammad, 1993), but in many
occasions this activity is perform without the care that deserve, with inadequate studies of
alternative construction systems, just like Basha et al. (1991) find out in their evaluation of
superstructure construction methods used in Egypt (cited by Youssef et al, 2005). There are
different possible causes for this situation, such as (Serpell, 2002): deficiency in the use of
resources, inadequate use of technologies, not considering the most efficient alternative to
carry out the work, and the deficient reuse of experience from previous projects.

The selection of construction methods is a complex decision process which consider multiple
attributes such as cost, time, quality, physical characteristics of the element to build,
characteristics of the construction method, the environment, the risk of each alternative, and
available resources, among others (Youssef et al, 2005; Russell and Al-Hammad, 1993;
Soetanto et al, 2007). These criteria vary according to the reality of the project and the
company. In the construction field, we could find research efforts that have narrowly focused
on one class of method, as in the works of (Youssef et al, 2005; Pan, 2009; Sawhney and
Mund, 2001), and also researches that addressed the issue of construction method selection in
terms of approaches that have applicability to a broad range of construction methods, such as
in the work of Russell and Al-Hammad (1993), who developed an expert system for these
purposes, and Udairpurwala and Russell (2002) who develops a system that uses hierarchical
semantically predefined representation structures, hierarchical planning and scheduling.

In the case of Chilean construction companies, the problems with the construction method
selection process have been studied through a critical analysis of their construction method
design and selection practices (Tapia, 2007). The main deficiencies found indicate that
Chilean construction companies select and analyze their construction methods on the run as
the project is being carried out, have a tendency to choose previously applied construction
solutions in spite of knowing that there are other forms to carry out the work, support method
selection just on the knowledge of the professionals working on site, and select the simplest
methods, not necessarily the best ones (Ferrada and Serpell, 2008).

Despite the importance of an adequate construction method selection process the actual
approach used in Chilean construction companies stimulates mistakes, affecting customer’s
satisfaction and project performance. Some of the causes of these problems are:

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  People suppose that all the projects of the same company can be done in the same way
because companies tend to became specialist in a certain type of construction project.

 The only way to know if a construction method accomplishes the project requirements
it is executing the method, because there is not a previous period of detail analysis.
Given that, the first construction units became a prototype (Tapia, 2007). Obviously,
this procedure generates an important number of changes and rework, with the
consequent higher cost and lower productivity of the project.

 There is not an adequate use of the knowledge and experience that the company
acquire in every project. People tend to repeat the same solutions but without
including any improvement or learning, repeating the same mistakes again and again.
Besides, experience is not share between projects, because construction companies do
not have a system to do that.

Knowledge Management

It is common that people confuse the terms data, information and knowledge, using them
indiscriminately as synonyms. Within knowledge management this terms, although related,
have different meanings, so serious attempts to clearly distinguish these concepts are being
published (Spiegler, 1999). For example, Alavi and Leidner (2001) indicate that data are raw
numbers and facts. For Davenport and Prusak (2001), data is a set of discrete and objective
facts (Davenport and Prusak, 2001). Unlike the above, information is a message (Davenport
and Prusak, 2001) which consists of data that have a particular meaning in a specific context
(Haag et al., 2004); where data became information once is shaped by humans into a
meaningful and useful form (Laudon and Laudon, 2004).

Knowledge is information possessed in the mind of individuals related to facts, procedures,

concepts, interpretations, ideas, observations and judgement (Alavi and Leidner, 2001), being
“a fluid mix of data, experience, practice, values, beliefs, standards, context, and expert
insight that provides a conceptual arrangement for evaluating and incorporating new data,
information and experiences” (Davenport and Pruzak, 2001). Nonaka and Takeuchi (1999)
also indicated, that knowledge is strongly linked to people’s beliefs and commitments,
essentially related to human action in a way that adds value to the enterprise (Paiva et al.,
2007; Vail, 1999). Information becomes individual knowledge when it is accepted and
retained by an individual as being a proper understanding of what is true and a valid
interpretation of the reality (Wu et al, 2004). Then this knowledge becomes information again
once it is articulated and presented in the form of text, graphics, words, or other symbolic
forms (Alavi and Leidner, 2001).

Knowledge could be classified as tacit or explicit (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1999). Tacit
knowledge is difficult to express formally; an individual may not be aware that posses certain
knowledge, or may not be able to present it in an explicit way (Leon, 2004). It is stored in
people’s heads and is acquired through experience (Carrillo and Chinowsky, 2006), evolving
through peoples’ interactions (Choi and Lee, 2003). This knowledge includes cognitive and
technical elements. The cognitive elements are centered on mental models (mechanisms
through which an individual tries to explain how the real world works), while the technical
elements contained know-how and practical skills (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1999). Explicit
knowledge is formal, systematic and easily communicated and shared (Fernández, 2005), and

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could be documented and therefore physically stored in either electronic or paper format
(Carrillo and Chinowsky, 2006).

To define what is knowledge management there are a variety of approaches. Hsu and Shen
(2005) describes knowledge management as a systematic and organized approach to improve
the organization’s ability to mobilize knowledge to enhance decision making, take actions
and deliver results in support of the underlying business strategy. Also, we could say that is
the way that organizations create, capture and utilize knowledge to achieve organizational
objectives (Sommerville and Craig, 2006), which recognizes the fact that knowledge is a
valuable asset that must be managed to provide strategies for organization to retain
knowledge and improve their performance (Al-Ghassani et al, 2006). Then, the purpose of
knowledge management in organizations is “to ensure growth and continuity of performance
by protecting critical knowledge at all levels, applying existing knowledge in all pertinent
circumstances, combining knowledge in synergistic ways, acquiring relevant knowledge
continuously, and developing new knowledge through continuous learning that builds on
internal experiences and external knowledge” (Bourdreau and Couillard, 1999).

In a construction company, most of their knowledge is generated within each project and is
usually stored on reports that few people read, or is lost because parties involved are moved
to a new project, resign or retire (Kivrak et al 2008; Anumba et al., 2005), taking with them
not only tacit knowledge, but also a potential source of competitive advantage. This is
problematic because it is only with the benefit of hindsight that it is really possible to reflect
on the true consequences of an action within a project (Anumba et al., 2005). Thus, because
of the lack of methods for storing, distributing and sharing the information and knowledge
generated by each project team, a vital resource is lose, which becomes a major factor that
affects company business performance (Wu et al. 2004).

KNOWLEDGE MODEL FOR CONSTRUCTION METHODS

SELECTION
Even though construction industry is a knowledge-based industry (Egbu et al. 2004; Carrillo
et al., 2004), still exists problems with the management of the knowledge associated to
methods selection. Given this, the implementation of knowledge management is particularly
interesting for the construction sector (Carrillo and Chinowsky, 2006), because this approach
could help the industry to innovate, improve performance (Kamara et al. 2002) (Egbu et al,
2004), and to better handle with their particular characteristics.

To implement this approach and to achieve a real improvement in the process under study, it
is needed to know how to obtain, process, store and use a construction company’s knowledge
to select construction methods, according to specified requirements. Then, the main focus of
this research is to understand and model the reasoning process and the knowledge applied by
experts in performing the construction method selection activity. With this knowledge it
would be possible to design and build a knowledge management system prototype for
construction methods’ selection that could be applied to a broad range of construction
methods, helping people to make better decisions and allow them to store, share and use this
knowledge.

So, every time that a company needs to select its construction methods, it would not start
their work from zero, because by applying the methods selection approach, they would work

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on process previously used by the organization, establishing a continuous improvement and
learning system. The proposed knowledge-based model for methods selection at company
level is shown in Figure 1.

To structure this system, the first step of this work is to identify the available knowledge
related to construction methods selection in the organization. For this it is necessary to know
first which knowledge a person needs in order to do an adequate construction method
selection. As Russell and Al-Hammad (1993) said, methods selection includes knowledge of
available technologies and their capabilities, an ability to visualize their application on site,
and knowledge of which ones can be best combined to address site and project specific
conditions. This knowledge includes both procedural (knowing “how”) and declarative
(knowing “that”) knowledge, and was develop through formal studies or by professional
experience.

Then, knowledge acquired by a person is also tied to his/her experience, namely what this
individual has done or what has happened to him in the past (Davenport and Prusak, 2001).
This experience is associated with the context in which it was developed; therefore, capturing
knowledge without considerer the context in which it was built can seriously affect their
effectiveness (Maqsood, 2006). Indeed, Fernie et al. (2003) suggest that the context of the
industry, including political, economic, social, technological, legal, environmental and
structural factors of the sector may affect the transfer of knowledge between industries. The
same problem could appear if we want to transfer knowledge within the same industry, but in
different countries or different cultures.

Based on literature review a preliminary knowledge model for construction methods selection
was develop. This model proposed an initial knowledge classification that later will be
validated with experts at the end of the knowledge elicitation stage. The first level of this
model identifies six major types of knowledge: about the project, available technologies,
cost-benefit evaluation, risk management, project planning and project integration. In a
second level each one of these categories is defined in more detailed. Knowledge about
projects is associated to the technical characteristics of projects, their constraints (cost,
duration, quality requirements and safety requirements) and stakeholders’ objectives. This
knowledge could be obtained through revision of project documentation or in meetings with
clients or other stakeholders. Knowledge about available technologies includes know about
the resources required for each option, their major activities, their cost and availability, the
risks associated to each option and their duration. Also, this expert needs to know how to do a
cost-benefit evaluation, in order to compare different alternatives. The area of risk
management is very extensive and include know how to identify, asses, and control risk. For
project planning people need to know the main topics of this task, such as estimation of
activity duration, planning methods, resource allocation, and cost budgeting. Project
integration knowledge is related to understand how a decision made at one project level could
impact the performance of activities on other levels. This model is show in Figure 2.

In the final knowledge model each one of these knowledge types will be defined in more
detail, indicating their definition and scope, how people acquire that knowledge and where in
the company they could find it, according to the interview results. With this answers it would
be possible to structure a system that recognizes the features of the methods selection
process.

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 New construction
Available knowledge in the company
operation

Operation
Requirements Knowledge adquisition

Organizational
Data Base

Methods Selection

Method that partially A method that reasonably

Method that totally satisfies
satisfies the requirements satisfies the requirements
the requirements
does not exist

Reuse or modification of a Design the solution from

previous solution zero

Operation execution
with the select method

Construction method
performance with the select
method

Creation of new
knowledge

Figure 1: Knowledge-based model for construction methods selection

Then, once the knowledge elicitation phase is completed, it will be possible to answers some
questions, such as:
 What knowledge is applied to select a construction method?
 What factors are evaluated during this process?
 How a method is selected?
 What information is required to select a construction method?

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 Cost
Technical
characteristics
Duration
Constraints
Quality
Project Stakeholders’
objectives
Safety

Location
Surrounding
environment
Obstacles
Resources
required

Major activities

Cost
Available
technologies
Construction methods selection Availability
knowledge
Cost-benefit
evaluation
Risk
Production rate
Duration
Process capacity
Risk identification

Risk management Risk assessment

Project planning Risk control

Project integration

Figure 2: Knowledge model for construction methods selection

CONCLUSIONS
The proper selection of construction methods is a critical activity in order to reach the
requirements of quality, time, cost and customer satisfaction. Despite its importance, is an
activity which in practice does not deliver results as positive as people would like, since
many projects need to change their construction methods during the construction phase, or
apply methods that lead to repeat previous mistakes, given that the organization was not
carried out a learning process, or because the knowledge was in the mind of a person who left
the company.

The focus of this research is on how people do the selection process and what knowledge
they applied, given the industry characteristics, and their environment. Through the analysis
of the knowledge used to select construction methods it will be possible to improve the
performance of this activity and generate a system architecture that recognizes these
particularities to provide a knowledge management tool to help project managers improve in
carrying out this task. To support the development of this process, this article presents a
preliminary knowledge model for the selection of construction methods. Given that in Chile
there is little information about the construction methods selection process, and the fact that

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this activity is executed with a lot of inefficiencies, this study will be an initial step to
improve the performance of this process. Even though there are other researches on this topic,
the final results of this study will present a different vision about methods selection based on
the reality of a developing country and their particular needs.

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