Academic literature on the topic 'Construction technology'

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2003.<br>Includes bibliographical references (leaves 64-66).<br>Over the past decades, the dramatic progress of information technology has contributed distribution of innovative systems to most of industries in the world. Such technologies offer strategic advantages to gain competitive advantage, improving productivity and performance, developing new ways of managing and organizing. In this thesis, I explore and evaluate the impact of information technology in construction industry. I exhibit what strategic advantages can be gained from implementing innovative technologies within an organization and industry as a whole. In addition, I examine the knowledge management strategy as a part of advantages of technology. Some challenges to adopting innovations are addressed as well as the potential solutions. The purpose of this research is to provide a strategic vision for information technology in construction during the next decade.<br>by Youman Kim.<br>S.M.

Over the past decades, information technology has been impacting industries, economics, the way of life and even the culture throughout the world. Productivity has been attracting much attention as an important indicator of economics, and numerous researchers have investigated the relationship between information technology and productivity. Construction is one of the largest industries in the United States, but little research has been conducted to investigate the relationship between information technology and construction productivity. The major objective of this dissertation is to determine the degree (if any) to which information technology usage, specifically the use of information technology to automate and integrate construction project work functions, is related to construction productivity. First, the author analyzed the relationship between information technology and construction productivity on a national-level basis. Second, the author compared the relationship between information technology’ contribution to value added growth and productivity in the construction industry with other industries. Third, the author performed a series of statistical analyses to investigate the relationship between construction productivity and automation and integration applications at the construction project level. Based on the above results, the author developed a matrix to map the relationship between technology usage on each work function and productivity in the concrete, structural steel, electrical and piping trades. In addition, a technology index developed from technology usage on all of the work functions were used to investigate the general effect of information technology usage on a project level. In order to leverage the relative importance of technology on each work function, regression analyses were performed to obtain a further understanding of the relationship. Factor analysis was also applied to identify the latent factors and simplify the patterns of relationships among the different work functions. This analysis could provide construction companies an indication about information technology usage priority and deployment in their work. Finally, a detailed examination of how Building Information Modeling, representing a current significant advancement of information technology usage on many construction projects, impacts the performance of a specific construction project is performed through a case example.

This dissertation was the result of an investigation into the relative importance of construction as a curriculum organizer for the field of technology education. In particular, it concentrated on the relationship between construction technology and the principles of general education and technological literacy. The review of literature focused on the historic roles and meanings of this curriculum organizer and these principles as the discipline evolved from the industrial arts into technology education. Operational definitions were synthesized and the linkages between them was clearly identified. To address technology education's contribution to general education, or the full development of the human personality, the spheres of human/technology interaction model was developed. The model is based on the idea that people interact with technology and evaluate those interactions from three fundamental perspectives. Those perspectives were identified as the civic-life sphere, the personal-life sphere, and the work-life sphere. One hundred and forty-eight faculty members of technology teacher education programs in colleges and universities throughout the United States were surveyed. A 77% return rate was obtained. The survey included four major sections in addition to requesting limited information about the respondents and their programs. The four major sections asked the respondents to: 1) Evaluate potential goals for a K-12 technology education program. 2) Determine the relative importance of 10 study areas or curriculum organizers as they related to each of the three spheres of interaction. 3) Determine the percentage of the technology education curriculum that should be allocated to each of the three spheres of human/technology interaction. 4) Provide selected information about the way construction is offered and taught in technology teacher education programs. Medoid cluster analysis was used to evaluate the data derived from the goals of technology education portion of the survey. Using this information, three clusters were formed and initial respondent membership for each cluster was established. Subsequently, discriminant analysis was used to accomplish three goals: 1) Refine the initial assignment of respondents to the clusters. 2) Identify those variables that offered a significant level of discrimination between clusters. 3) Determine the accuracy of assignment to the clusters or groups. The canonical correlation 2, calculated by the discriminant analysis program, indicated that 66.3% of the variance was explained by the variables that were significant at a .05 level. After comparing the mean scores of the discriminating variables across the three clusters, one cluster was identified as favoring technological literacy, one favored industrial technology education, and one was ambivalent. T-tests were used to determine if any significant difference existed between clusters or groups. It was of particular interest to this research that no significant difference was found related to the relative importance of construction. All groups concluded that construction should comprise approximately 10% of the technology education curriculum. Finally, a schedule was established which allocated various percentages of the curriculum to each of the 10 study areas or curriculum organizers as they relate to the three spheres of human/technology interaction. This schedule was based on the relative importance assigned by the technological literacy cluster. The technological literacy cluster offered the most balanced allocation of the technology education curriculum across the three spheres of human/technology interaction.<br>Ph. D.

An intervention to improve adoption of dust control technology is designed, implemented and evaluated using three theoretical frameworks: the Health Belief Model (HBM), Diffusion of Innovation, and the Technology Acceptance Model. A quasi-experimental design (pretest-posttest, with control group) was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention. An integrated conceptual model, employing key constructs from these frameworks, was developed to predict and describe â adoption readinessâ . Adoption readiness combines the attitudes and perceptions about a technology with the capacity to implement the technology. The primary hypothesis was that the key construct scores of the three theoretical models would improve post-intervention, particularly, â adoption readinessâ . Workers in the drywall finishing industry have been found to be at risk of developing respiratory disease and disability. Studies have shown that drywall finish workers have been subject to overexposure to dust concentrations that contain respiratory heath hazardous particles including silica, talc, mica, and calcite. Prevention through Design (PtD) solutions, which are effective at reducing dust levels, do exist for these operations. Some of these PtD solutions include using vacuum sanders, wet sanding methods, pole sanding and using low dust joint compound in lieu of using personal protective equipment (PPE) as a primary form of exposure protection. Previous studies have determined barriers to adoption of current PtD solutions for dust exposure reduction. Usability, productivity, quality of finish and cost were all identified as barriers to adoption. An intervention directed at those involved in the drywall industry is needed to increase the usage of engineered dust control. This dissertation project developed, implemented, and evaluated three interventions to address the barriers to adoption through education and marketing strategies. Development of the interventions included strategies to improve industry usage of dust control technologies. The interventions targeted workers, small companies, and large companies involved in drywall finishing.<br>Ph. D.