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Table of Contents

Construction and Management, 2nd Edition

  • Authors: Daniel W. Halpin, Ronald W. Woodhead
  • Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 
  • Pages: 444 pages
  • Hardcover
  • October 7, 1997

  This textbook is written to help students gain a perspective regarding the industry and some  cross-cutting understanding of the things to be mastered if they wish to be successful as construction managers. A considerable amount of skill and knowledge is required to accomplish this task successfully. The student must be aware of the resources-money, machines, material, and men- that are basic to realizing a construction project. These basic resources are often referred to as the four M's of construction. They must be carefully and professionally committed and managed within a construction environment of contracts, through the communication of ideas and under the changing impact of weather, unforeseen events, and varying conditions.

  The text material is built around a set of chapters that introduce the nature of the four basic resources (money, machines, material, and men) and the concepts for their management. After initial chapters on the construction environment and the traditional building process approach to project design and construction, the student is introduced to the legal and management structures within which the basic resources are managed. Finally, chapters on Safety, Estimating, and Cost Control attempt to give the readers a well-rounded view of the construction industry.


Table of Contents

Planning and Analysis of Construction Operations

  • Authors: Daniel W. Halpin, Leland S. Riggs
  • Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 
  • Pages: 381 pages
  • Hardcover
  • March 3, 1992

  The objective of this text is to introduce concepts that form the basis for a scientific or analytical approach to the subject area of design and evaluation of productive processes as they are encountered in construction. The time is ripe for a science of construction operations. This text builds on techniques that were originally developed in the previous book. The CYCLONE modeling system provides a quantitative way of viewing, planning, analyzing, and controlling construction processes and operations. This system provides a Framework in which operations can be reduced to simple flowcharts that help in studying the interaction of the resources required as well as the determination of rates of production at the work site.

  Supporting techniques such as queuing theory and line-of-balance methods are presented to provide a background to the student of quantitative modeling methods. The main body of the book focuses on the use of simulation techniques to model and evaluate repetitive construction operations. A wide variety of examples from all areas of construction are presented to demonstrate the power and simplicity of simulation in analyzing production of complex construction operations. Methods of balancing production rates among interfacing processes and optimally allocating resources for maximum production are presented.


Table of Contents

Financial and  Cost Concepts for Construction Management

  • Author: Daniel W. Halpin
  • Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
  • Pages: 415 pages
  • Hardcover
  • March 18, 1985

  The objective of this text is to present both company and project levels of revenue and expense management in an introductory but integrated format to give the student a coordinated overview of how data at both levels interact. In many cases, managers have engineering or technology backgrounds that provide excellent preparation for solving technical problems in the field. However, their exposure to the financial context within which engineering and construction occur (if covered at all) may be limited to accounting courses oriented to non-construction disciplines such as manufacturing.  These courses often emphasize the rudiments of bookkeeping without providing the student with a good understanding of how familiarity with accounting technique can aid the engineering manager in the field. Such courses prepare the student to be a bookkeeper rather than a manager.

  The treatment of financial and cost concepts in this text is oriented toward engineering and technology students with no accounting background. The early chapters introduce accounting and bookkeeping principles as they relate to construction-oriented companies. The intent is not to prepare the student to set up the books of a company or to actually perform accounting functions. Rather, the objective is to provide future managers an understanding of financial accounting processes and to give them enough information to communicate at an informed level with accountants and bookkeepers. Although most of the material is presented within the context of a construction company, the information discussed and the financial concepts developed are equally applicable to a firm specializing in engineering design.


MicroCYCLONE Users Manual for Construction Operations, Version 2.5

  • Author: Daniel W. Halpin
  • Publisher: Learning Systems, Inc.
  • Pages: 110 pages
  • Soft cover

  MicroCYCLONE is a microcomputer based simulation program designed specifically for modeling and analyzing site level processes which are cyclic in nature. In broader terms, it can be used to model construction operations which involve the interaction of tasks competing for resources. The identification of resource units associated with a construction operation, the elemental work tasks with their related durations, and the resource unit flow routes through the work tasks are the basic rationale for the modeling of construction operations.

  MicroCYCLONE is based on classical networking techniques. It used the concepts of CYCLONE (CYCLic Operations NEwork) modeling. The CYCLONE approach provides a graphical format in terms of which the process of interest can be defined and solved using simulation techniques 

  MicroCYCLONE is a powerful tool for the manager who is responsible for designing a construction process. By changing initial conditions and resource specifications, different system responses result so that the user can select that mix of resources, work sequences, and technologies that best achieves his/her objectives. In this way, the user can experiment with the design of the construction operation and evaluate the economics and productivities of competing construction methods.

  This manual is intended to serve both the new and the experienced MicroCYCLONE user. The new user will be introduced to MicroCYCLONE through a simple network example. Step-by-step instructions are provided so that the first time user can run his/her first simulation. The experienced user will find this manual to be a useful reference on all the capabilities of MicroCYCLONE.

   
Last Updated: Monday, March 04, 2002 03:23:24 PM