Construction material logistics: Project manager level of satisfaction and facilities layout planning

Construction management researchers have only recently highlighted the relationship between the contractors and the ultimate customers. To improve the understanding of the significance of customer satisfaction regarding construction logistics tasks, a pilot study has been undertaken. Customer satisfaction and continuous improvement are the fundamental goals of construction logistics tasks. Therefore the logistics manager who coordinates these operations with all parties to a contract is very important to the successful completion of a construction project. This thesis examines how construction logistics affect a senior project manager's level of satisfaction and also defines through the use of a survey which logistics factors correlate the most with customer satisfaction. Two hundred twenty-three experienced managers provided valuable data to the study. Five important factors relating to satisfaction were found through interviews with logistics managers and a literature review. They are personnel, material flow, schedule adherence, contractor's organization, and information flow. The study results suggest that material flow and information flow are worthy of the most attention.; Poor usage of space at construction sites is one of the leading causes of decrease in productivity in the construction industry; however, it is both preventable and manageable. The most commonly used method for space management in the industry is development of site plans. These plans outline how to manage material deliveries, staging areas, and crane locations for construction sites in suburban area but not in congested urban areas. This study focuses on how to efficiently manage space for construction facilities on high-rise buildings in congested urban areas where normally space for facilities around a building footprint is not available. The limitations of available horizontal space create a need to explore vertical expansion of facilities. This raises new aspects of vertical material handling and flow that need to be considered in the facility design problem. The construction facilities layout plan method provides layout planners with a valuable technique to develop efficient sequences of work that optimally defines how to efficiently utilize the construction facilities and minimize the travel of specific facilities effort on multiple-floor buildings. In this thesis, a genetic algorithm-based heuristic will be presented for generating block layouts for multiple-floor layout problems.