Many accidents occur during construction and maintenance of facilities. Both research and practice have demonstrated that decisions made during the design and planning phases before work at a construction site can influence workers’ safety. The Prevention through Design (PtD) concept is the consideration of construction site safety in the design of a project. In one research study, more than 200 fatality investigation reports were reviewed, and the results showed that 42 percent of fatalities reviewed were linked to the absence of the PtD concept (Behm, 2005). This work indicates that the associated risk that contributed to the incident would have been reduced or eliminated if PtD had been utilized.

Researchers have identified the reasons for not applying the PtD concept. The predominant reason is that most architects and design engineers do not learn about construction safety and construction processes required to eliminate construction safety hazards through design. Therefore, Prevention through Design education of architects, design engineers, and construction managers is vital. However, in most curricula, there is no room for an entire course focused on PtD. Therefore, one researcher implemented 70 minutes long lecture-based intervention in a project management class of the civil engineering discipline, but it did not prove effective (Behm, Culvenor, & Dixon, 2014).

Hence, there is an opportunity to teach PtD to students using alternative teaching strategies such as computer games. Computer games are routinely considered as the most important and influential medium by college students. In this research study, a serious game and a paper-based game (paper version of the serious game) were developed and implemented. The aim of the study was to measure the effectiveness of alternative teaching methods to train students for safe design thinking. The result shows that the computer game engaged the students in comprehensive hazard recognition challenges. The learning experience of the students was compared to two other interventions: paper-based game and lecture-based teaching. The in-class lecture and the computer game were effective in delivering the prevention through design topics. The game was more effective compared to the lecture. The paper-based game failed to motivate students to learn. This dissertation discusses the possible reasons for success and failures of these pedagogical approaches.

This research focuses on assessing the impact of various process mapping activities aimed at improving students' abilities to plan for Building Information Modeling (BIM). During the various educational activities, students were tasked with generating process maps to illustrate plans for hypothetical construction projects. Several different educational approaches for developing process maps were used, beginning in the Fall 2015 semester. In all iterations of the learning activity, students were asked to create level 1 (project-specific) and level 2 (BIM use-specific) process maps based on a previously published BIM Project Execution Planning Guide. In Fall 2015, a peer review activity was conducted. In Spring 2016, a collaborative activity was conducted. Beginning in the Fall 2016 and Spring 2017 semesters, an additional process mapping activity was conducted aimed at separating process mapping and BIM planning into separate activities. In Fall 2016, the BIM activity was conducted in groups of three whereas in Spring 2017, the students were asked to create individual process maps for the given BIM use. To understand the impact of the activity on students' perception of their own knowledge, a pre-and post-activity questionnaire was developed. It covered questions related to: (i) students' ability to create a process map, (ii) students' perception about the importance of a process map and (iii) students' perception about their own knowledge of the BIM execution process. The process maps were analyzed using a grading rubric developed by the author. The grading rubric is the major contribution of the work as there is no existing rubric to assess a BIM process map. The grading rubric divides each process map into five sections, including: core activity; activities preceding the core activity; activities following the core activity; loop/iteration; and communication across the swim lanes. The rubric consist of two parts that evaluate (i) the ability of students to demonstrate each section and (ii) the quality of demonstration of each section. The author conducted an inter-rater reliability index to validate the rubric. This inter-rater reliability index compares the scores students’ process maps were when assessed by graduate students, faculty, and industry practitioners. The reviewers graded the same set of twelve process maps. The inter-rater reliability index was found to be 0.21, which indicates a fair agreement between the graders. The non-BIM activity approach was perceived as the most impactful approach by the students. The assessment of the process maps with the rubric indicated that the non-BIM approach was the most impactful approach for enabling students to demonstrate their ability to create a process map.

Economic and environmental concerns necessitate the preference for retrofits over new construction in manufacturing facilities for incorporating modern technology, expanding production, becoming more energy-efficient and improving operational efficiency. Despite the technical and functional challenges in retrofits, the expectation from the project team is to; reduce costs, ensure the time to market and maintain a high standard for quality and safety. Thus, the construction supply chain faces increasing pressure to improve performance by ensuring better labor productivity, among other factors, for efficiency gain. Building Information Modeling (BIM) & off-site prefabrication are determined as effective management & production methods to meet these goals. However, there are limited studies assessing their impact on labor productivity within the constraints of a retrofit environment. This study fills the gap by exploring the impact of BIM on labor productivity (metric) in retrofits (context).

BIM use for process tool installation at a semiconductor manufacturing facility serves as an ideal environment for practical observations. Direct site observations indicate a positive correlation between disruptions in the workflow attributed to an immature use of BIM, waste due to rework and high non-value added time at the labor work face. Root-cause analysis traces the origins of the said disruptions to decision-factors that are critical for the planning, management and implementation of BIM. Analysis shows that stakeholders involved in decision-making during BIM planning, management and implementation identify BIM-value based on their immediate utility for BIM-use instead of the utility for the customers of the process. This differing value-system manifests in the form of unreliable and inaccurate information at the labor work face.

Grounding the analysis in theory and observations, the author hypothesizes that stakeholders of a construction project value BIM and BIM-aspects (i.e. geometrical information, descriptive information and workflows) differently and the accuracy of geometrical information is critical for improving labor productivity when using prefabrication in retrofit construction. In conclusion, this research presents a BIM-value framework, associating stakeholders with their relative value for BIM, the decision-factors for the planning, management and implementation of BIM and the potential impact of those decisions on labor productivity.

Semiconductor manufacturing facilities are very complex and capital intensive in nature. During the lifecycle of these facilities various disciplines come together, generate and use a tremendous amount of building and process information to support various decisions that enable them to successfully design, build and sustain these advanced facilities. However, a majority of the information generated and processes taking place are neither integrated nor interoperable and result in a high degree of redundancy. The objective of this thesis is to build an interoperable Building Information Model (BIM) for the Base-Build and Tool Installation in a semiconductor manufacturing facility. It examines existing processes and data exchange standards available to facilitate the implementation of BIM and provides a framework for the development of processes and standards that can help in building an intelligent information model for a semiconductor manufacturing facility. To understand the nature of the flow of information between the various stakeholders the flow of information between the facility designer, process tool manufacturer and tool layout designer is examined. An information model for the base build and process tool is built and the industry standards SEMI E6 and SEMI E51 are used as a basis to model the information. It is found that applications used to create information models support interoperable industry standard formats such as the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) and ISO 15926 in a limited manner. A gap analysis has revealed that interoperability standards applicable to the semiconductor manufacturing industry such as the IFC and ISO15926 need to be expanded to support information transfers unique to the industry. Information modeling for a semiconductor manufacturing facility is unique in that it is a process model (Process Tool Information Model) within a building model (Building Information Model), each of them supported more robustly by different interoperability standards. Applications support interoperability data standards specific to the domain or industry they serve but information transfers need to occur between the various domains. To facilitate flow of information between the different domains it is recommended that a mapping of the industry standards be undertaken and translators between them be developed for business use.

Horizontal Directional Drilling (HDD) is a growing and expanding trenchless method utilized to install pipelines from 2 to 60 inch diameters for lengths over 10,000 foot. To date, there are not many public documents where direct costs and bid prices incurred by HDD installations are available and analyzed. The objective is to provide a better understanding of the factors affecting the bid prices of these projects. The first section of the thesis analyzes how project parameters such as product diameter, bore length and soil conditions affect the bid price of water and wastewater pipeline installations using HDD. Through multiple linear regressions, the effect of project parameters on bid prices of small, medium and large rigs projects is extracted. The results were further investigated to gain a better understanding of bid factors that influence the relationship between total cost and the project parameters. The second section uses unit cost, based on bid prices, to compare the costs incurred by defined categories. Parameters such as community type, product type, soil conditions, and geographical region were used in the analysis. Furthermore, using average unit cost from 2001 to 2009, HDD project cost trends are briefly analyzed against the main variations of the US economy from the same time horizon by using economic indicators. It was determined that project geometric factors influence more the bid price of small rig projects than large rig projects because external factors including market rates and economic situation have an increasing impact on bid prices when rig size increases. It was observed that bid price variation of HDD projects over years followed the same trend as the US economic variation described by economic indicators.