ACTION RESEARCH AS A PROACTIVE APPROACH FOR WASTE REDUCTION IN STRUCTURAL DESIGN PHASE OF CONSTRUCTION PROCESS

Purpose: Research in construction engineering and management requires practical research approaches. However, the literature indicates that limited attention is focused on this issue and the methods used by most researchers are mainly quantitative surveys or case studies. In order to bridge this gap, this paper investigates how a proactive research approach such as action research (AR) can be effectively adopted as waste identification and reduction in the structural design phase of the construction process. In other words, the paper explores the application procedures of AR as a data collection approach in South African consulting engineering firms.

Design/methodology/approach: This was achieved by conducting action research in five selected consulting engineering firms located in Bloemfontein, South Africa, in 2016. The firms that were selected were those that have engineers with extensive experience in the structural design process (SDP), and are affiliated with Consulting Engineers South Africa. In the AR study, waste that is significant with the structural design process (SDP) in South African construction were investigated. The causes of the waste, their frequency of occurrence in different projects and the strategies that can be adopted to overcome the waste were also investigated.

Findings: The findings in the exploratory study indicate that AR is a reliable, structured, and rigorous research approach that can be adapted to identify and reduce waste such as waiting time, design error, over-processing, excessive vigilance, overproduction, and correction/rework in the structural design phase of the construction process.

Practical Implications: The study shows that AR is a suitable approach that can effectively improve collaboration between researchers and industry practitioners for efficient projects delivery.

Originality/value: This paper satisfies all the tenets of originality as it has not been previously published and all the information obtained from other studies have been dully referenced.