Conference papers
RICS hosts the annual COBRA conference, a key event for presenting and discussing the latest industry research.
The latest conference papers from COBRA are available below. All papers were subject to review at both the abstract and full paper stage, to ensure relevance, rigour and topicality.
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Infrastructure
Conference paper 04 Jun 2018
Adopting the instrumental theory of technology, this study assesses the use of social media within a London Underground Programme of works created to deliver a series of integrated station upgrades.
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Construction management
Conference paper 31 May 2018
A variety of research has been conducted that has sought to improve the Nigerian construction industry. Despite the frequent research, the industry it is still faced with the same problems, such as cost overruns and poor safety among construction professionals.
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Project management
Conference paper 29 Apr 2018
This research sought to run a comparison between South Africa and major democracies to see if consultation protocols in South Africa are either misdirected, inappropriate or not inclusive enough. A case study of Gauteng Highway Improvement Project (GFIP) was utilised to assess the consultation because of its sheer size, reach and centrality.
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Affordable housing
Conference paper 29 Apr 2018
South Africa is experiencing a massive housing backlog in urban low-cost housing. This study attempted to identify the impediments and delays that exist in the transfer of low-cost housing within the current legal framework in South Africa.
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Project management
Conference paper 29 Apr 2018
This study focuses on innovation at the project level and looks at the dynamic interaction of innovation within construction project components as a system.
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Project management
Conference paper 29 Apr 2018
This paper will examine the implementation of an immersive learning approach and how the delivery of a 20-credit module at Level 4 of study in this way affected the engagement, motivation and retention of students in higher education. The authors’ research is a longitudinal study of which this paper only presents the initial findings of after the first year, future years’ data will provide great evidence of the efficacy of the immersive approach.
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Health & safety
Conference paper 29 Apr 2018
Construction is one of the most hazardous industries due to its dangerous work nature. Safety management system (SMS) have been introduced to prevent accident from happening. Project manager and safety practitioners are the key persons for the implementation of SMS in construction projects. The quality of them is crucial for the proper implementation and maintenance of SMS. There was limited work studying the competency profiles for project manager and safety practitioners. This paper presents some results on the identification of competence quality of the two key personnel.
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Project management
Conference paper 29 Apr 2018
Scaffolding is one of the most common temporary structures, typically used to support the construction of the permanent structures. Being a temporary structure, current scaffolding management and handling process has been considered as manual, highly relying on subjective decision and hence typically considered inefficient to ensure construction projects achieving their planned budget and schedule. This paper explores the potential to develop an image-based scaffolding recognition method that will enable an automated tracking of the scaffolding construction.
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Sustainability
Conference paper 29 Apr 2018
In Australia, Construction and Demolition (C&D) waste presents a significant proportion of industrial solid waste going to landfill. Although C&D waste has received increasing attention from industry practitioners and researchers since the early 1980s, current studies imply that waste management in the construction industry is still in its early stages and yet to mature to effectively alleviate the environmental burden. This paper addresses the issue and identifies the typical factors that influence construction waste management from three perspectives - organisation, process and people.
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Project management
Conference paper 29 Apr 2018
This research aims to identify the on-site problem-solving process in construction as well as the way in which the problem-solving process leads to innovation in the construction industry.
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Project management
Conference paper 29 Apr 2018
This research paper studies project management discipline development in the past decades and shows that project management research has become well-established with accepted theories, methodologies and standards. This paper presents a literature review on project success research history and definitions to identify the gaps related to success of dam engineering projects.
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Quantity surveying & construction
Conference paper 29 Apr 2018
This research investigates whether scrum, an agile project management framework, could be of benefit in tenders and bidding processes. The selection of the “right” construction contractor has been a topic of continual interest within academia and industry, with attention focused on both the selection of the optimal procurement method and the process of tender evaluation. As a consequence, the bidding process, as well as how a tender is conceived and developed, has now been recognised as a crucial element of future project success.
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Construction management
Conference paper 29 Apr 2018
The South African government has evolved diverse policies to enhance the competitiveness of South African construction organisations. Not with standing these policies, there are long lasting productivity challenges confronting the South African construction sector in which there is evidence to establish the existence of these challenges. To address this issue, this research identifies the underlying factors that contribute to poor productivity on South African construction projects.
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Affordable housing
Conference paper 29 Apr 2018
This research investigates by an in-depth literature review the current position for first time buyers in the difficult Housing Market in the South East of the UK. It identifies the desire for home ownership yet confirms many problems with the lack of housing supply, the lack of affordability and issues with land and planning.
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Valuation
Conference paper 29 Apr 2018
The sophistication of the property valuation services provided by valuers in a country has a significant impact on national and global economies. An attempt is made to investigate the property valuation practice using Hong Kong as a case study being a developed country that developing nations can learn from. Property valuation firms in Hong Kong were invited to partake in an online questionnaire survey, the essence of the survey was to examine the property valuation approach(es) being adopted in practice.
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Project management
Conference paper 29 Apr 2018
Little focus has been placed on the specific roles of the consultant’s quantity surveyor and contractor’s quantity surveyor regarding their ethical actions. With the use of a questionnaire survey, this research identifies the ethical pressures, unethical temptations and the frequency of unethical behaviour that differing groups of quantity surveyors have witnessed in the UK construction industry.
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Affordable housing
Conference paper 29 Apr 2018
This research proposes a mobile city caravan to give answers to the needs of the people that cannot afford to buy a house or an apartment, even temporarily, and introduce an important part of sustainability using cork and bamboo.
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Investments
Conference paper 29 Apr 2018
With the objective of increasing the efficiency and to cut down overall costs in construction and operation of the facilities, Public-Private Partnership (PPP) schemes have been used for healthcare projects across the world over the past two decades. These projects comprise a long-term partnership period with a great deal of costs, risks and opportunities. Considering the various stakeholders involved and inherent public interest, the vital importance of project delivery in accordance with the project objectives becomes prominent. This research determines the critical success factors (CSFs) to be used in the subsequent stage of the research for in-depth analysis.
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Project management
Conference paper 29 Apr 2018
The interest of this study is to evaluate and establish the PIs that are key for measuring Stakeholder management (SM) performance in construction project delivery. This study therefore seeks to answer the question “what performance indicators are key for evaluating the performance of construction SM?”
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Business & management
Conference paper 29 Apr 2018
Corporate governance helps to limit problems arising from the separation of ownership and management interests. The principal-agent problem occurs when managers act in their benefit at the expense of shareholders. This paper aims to identify the critical elements of corporate governance, investment decision-making by Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). The findings will contribute to the development of a corporate governance scoring framework based on an analysis drawn from the United Kingdom, South Africa and Nigeria REITs.
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Quantity surveying & construction
Conference paper 29 Apr 2018
Many authors have attempted to predict a way to be able to forecast project life cycle cost especially at the early phases of the project. This paper covers the different components of the life cycle costing techniques. It also highlights some of the methods used such as the ReCipe Method. The different financial aspects of LCCA are defined such as the constant dollars method and the selection of the discount rate techniques.
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Quantity surveying & construction
Conference paper 29 Apr 2018
Through a literature review and in-depth interviews, the study examines the position of Quantity Surveyors (QSs) in a collaborative production setting, revealing how they might collaborate with other stakeholders in construction. In addition, it also revealed an example of practice that shows how QSs can challenge and improve their current position going into collaborative practice.
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Project management
Conference paper 29 Apr 2018
The built environment industry is in a constant state of change as a result of a number of variables including economics, market forces, emerging technologies and government regulations. As such, it is imperative that built environment programs reflect the dynamic nature of the industry to ensure that students emerge work ready and well-prepared for the workplace.
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Residential property
Conference paper 29 Apr 2018
This study examined some of the challenges and opportunities in real estate financing in Nigeria. This was done through the examination of four (4) salient factors, which are the economic factors, legal framework, policy environment and private sector developers. The residential loan of which mortgage loan forms the bulk, accounts for 70% of the GDP of the developed economies; however, it is less than 1% to Nigerian GDP. The causative underlying factors for this gross comparative under performance has to be understood to influence policy changes that will create a more sustainable real estate environment in Nigeria.
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Environment
Conference paper 29 Apr 2018
There exists a lack of a general measurement framework for determining the level of flood resilience for an individual property. This research presents a conceptual model for measuring flood resilience at the individual property level adopting a systems dynamic approach. The concepts underpinning the model and the make-up of the approach are discussed, including the identification of components and the development of mathematical models.