Journal of Construction Engineering, Management & Innovation

GÖKHAN KÜLEKÇİ Ali Osman YILMAZ

For resources to be used efficiently, the structures built on the earth must be long-lasting. The longevity of the roads built with a length of millions of kilometers per year is determined by the nature of the filling material, traffic, equivalent axle load, climatic effects, material fatigue, and layer thicknesses used. The fact that filling material complies with the standards and is easily available will ensure that the road construction works are both economical and long-lasting. Many building rubbles are formed from the buildings that have completed their lives in the urban transformation process. Storage and disposal of this building's rubble are very difficult. To eliminate these difficulties, the usage areas of the rubble should be increased. In this study, some mechanical experiments were carried out on the building rubble obtained from the Black Sea region, and these were interpreted. Grain density, freeze-thaw tests, Micro-Deval, and Determination of Fragmentation Resistance, tests were carried out according to TSE and ASTM standards of aggregates obtained from building rubble. The results obtained from the experiments were compared with the technical specifications of the General Directorate of Highways. It has been revealed that the analyzed aggregate can be used as road fill in highways.

https://doi.org/10.31462/jcemi.2022.04208217

Serkan Aydınlı

Successful cost prediction is one of the major issues in the construction industry. Practitioners and researchers use many methodologies to determine accurate project budgets. Time-series analysis is a widely used projection determination tool, that allows accurate forecasting in many areas such as financial analysis, temperature forecast, etc. This paper aims to determine the efficiency of time-series analysis in forecasting construction costs in Türkiye. To that end, construction cost index (CCI) data between 2015-2022 were used and two main time-series analysis methods; Holt-Winters Exponential Smoothing (Holt-Winters ES) and Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) have been employed. The results showed that all models underperformed in an environment with high inflation. However, considering all models, the triple exponential smoothing model showed the relatively best forecasting performance. It is suggested that the prediction performance can be improved using multivariate models and machine learning techniques.

https://doi.org/10.31462/jcemi.2022.04218227

Malak Al-Hajj Gulbin Ozcan-Deniz Beliz Ozorhon

The construction industry is known for its highly fragmented, project-based, and complex nature, which generally underinvests in digitization and innovation, primarily in developing countries. This results in a lack of efficiency and low productivity levels. Integrating drones, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), into construction management tasks can solve this problem. Thus, this study aims to identify the critical success factors (CSFs) leading to the successful integration of UAV technology in developing countries. A total of 28 CSFs were identified based on an extensive literature review, and a questionnaire survey was administered to the public and private companies to evaluate the role of those CSFs in the performance of UAV technology. Statistical analysis results showed that effective leadership and top management support, proven effectiveness of the technology, the organization’s innovation culture, and flexibility were the most important factors of success. Research findings are expected to assist drone operators and construction practitioners in effectively implementing UAV technology in construction projects.

https://doi.org/10.31462/jcemi.2022.04228252

Önder Halis Bettemir

In this study, a new problem that aims to maximize the profit of housing contractors based on the limitations of the contractors is proposed. The budget and the available workforce of the contractor as well as market conditions and the existence of suitable locations can be given as examples of the limitations of the contractors. Formulation of the problem requires estimating the expected costs and the expected profits of the construction alternatives. The limitations on the budget of the contractor and the suitability of the subcontractors may prevent the execution of all the construction opportunities. This situation leads to the problem of selecting the most appropriate housing construction alternatives. The construction opportunities can be executed or not. This forms binary decision variables, and the problem can be solved by simplex or branch-and-bound methods. An additional construction alternative doubles the number of construction combinations that constitute the search domain of the problem. The number of construction opportunities is not expected to be excessive. For this reason, the problem can also be solved by complete enumeration. Three hypothetical housing contractor profit maximization problems are formulated and solved to measure both the computational demand and the ease of application of the simplex, branch-and-bound, and complete enumeration techniques. The comparison revealed that all the techniques provide the optimum result for the problem. Complete enumeration is the easiest technique to implement because of the small search domain of the problem.

https://doi.org/10.31462/jcemi.2022.04253268

ÇİĞDEM KARABAĞ GAMZE OZKAPTAN ALPTEKİN

The global competitive environment of the real estate market requires the adoption of new marketing approaches with the help of information and communication technology integration. The concept of Marketing 4.0, which emerged with the adaptation of Industry 4.0, is evaluated under the title of Real Estate 4.0, particularly for the real estate sector. While real estate companies are motivated for producing branded housing projects because of demand, they need to develop brand positioning strategies as an integral part of marketing, to create a certain image of the target customer, orient perception and manipulate decision-making and guide consumer preferences. There are numerous studies according to marketing strategies in various fields as well as the construction and real estate industry. There is also much research about brand positioning strategies in various fields. There is a gap in the literature about brand positioning strategies in the real estate industry. This exploratory study is focused on developing brand positioning strategies for real estate companies and aims to integrate the subject within Real Estate 4.0 concept. The research problem of the study is to find the real estate 4.0 equivalents of brand positioning strategies within the scope of marketing 4.0 and to reveal the corresponding services. For this purpose, findings from theoretical work are matched with a particular real estate company’s brand positioning effort. Within a three-stage research study, projects and services produced by the selected company AAA were analyzed and potential customers’ perceptions were revealed. It is understood that the brand is a dominantly catchy feature for AAA, while many innovative services and social projects do not attract enough attention. It is also seen that social media is the most effective tool to reach potential customers. In the continuation of this study, a complementary study on purpose-based brand positioning strategies for real estate companies will contribute to the literature.

https://doi.org/10.31462/jcemi.2022.04269285

Ebrahim Yosef Omer Damdelen

Reducing energy consumption in buildings also can be referred to it as increasing the energy efficiency in a building. This study aims to examine the energy performance of buildings in North Cyprus. Three different case studies have been taken into consideration from North Cyprus: a normal villa without any renewable system, a flat with no renewable system, and a villa with a solar system for electricity generation. The energy efficiency of the buildings is evaluated using alternative clean energy systems such as photovoltaic systems. The founding of this study indicates a payback period of 4.5 years for the installation cost of the energy system. Using materials for minimizing the energy consumption in the buildings for example using insulation materials in the construction of a building will reduce the consumption of energy for cooling and heating. The case studies were simulated using SAM software and the obtained results have been compared. The environmental impact has been also taken into consideration where the effect of transforming buildings into sustainable ones is studied and how it would affect the numbers of the carbon footprints in buildings. The study found that the cost difference between insulating walls optimally and not insulating them at all is approximately 6000 euros. The payback period for this investment would be approximately 9 years. The research also calculated the amount of CO2 emissions, finding that a villa would emit 2154 tons and a flat would emit 1675 tons per month. Increasing energy efficiency in buildings is a fast, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly way to reduce energy consumption.

https://doi.org/10.31462/jcemi.2022.04286301