Design phase constructability concepts in highway projects

Abstract

Nowadays, highway construction projects suffer from lack of constructability, which causes many problems; traffic, substantial number of changes, poor planning, disputes, cost overruns, poor safety practices and time delays. Some researchers have realized the seriousness of this shortfall and have suggested solutions to resolve it. Previous studies indicate that, overall constructability is not being implemented to its full potential in highway sector. So, this study tries to explore constructability implementation in the local construction industry particularly the highway sector. The aim of the study is to establish guideline that can be used by engineers in order to improve constructability of highway project design. The findings of the study shows there were eighteen design phase constructability concepts that are ‘very important’ and ‘important’ in highway sector. For the level of application, it was found that most of the concepts are in ‘medium application’. It can be concluded that the engineers have the constructability knowledge but lack of understanding of the concepts. Based on the survey exercise, a guideline has been developed consisting of two parts which are ‘very important’ and ‘important’. It is expected that by having this guideline, engineers will be able to apply this concepts effectively in highway project design in Malaysia.