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Browsing by Author "Rajabi, Mohammad Sadra"

Now showing 1 - 8 of 8
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    Constructive and Destructive Leadership Behaviors, Skills, Styles and Traits in BIM-Based Construction Projects
    Omer, Mazen M.; Mohd-Ezazee, N. M. Adeeq; Lee, Yong Siang; Rajabi, Mohammad Sadra; Rahman, Rahimi A. (MDPI, 2022-11-25)
    Building information modeling (BIM) implementation is expanding over time, and collaboration is becoming more critical in construction projects. Leadership characteristics may contribute to or hinder the effectiveness of these collaborations in BIM-based construction projects. However, the current body of knowledge lacks information on the leadership characteristics that can be constructive or destructive for BIM-based construction projects. Therefore, this study aims to determine the constructive and destructive leadership behaviors, skills, styles, and traits in BIM-based construction projects. An explorative qualitative study was conducted by interviewing twenty architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) professionals. Then, the thematic analysis approach was used to analyze the interview data. The study findings suggest that common constructive leadership behaviors are tolerant and committed. Furthermore, the common constructive leadership trait and style is reliability. On the contrary, the common destructive leadership behavior is intolerant. This study provides the literature with a novel list of constructive and destructive leadership characteristics for BIM-based construction projects. Understanding these characteristics would assist industry professionals and policymakers in increasing the performance of BIM-based construction projects.
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    Critical Government Strategies for Enhancing Building Information Modeling Implementation in Indonesia
    Rani, Hafnidar A.; Al-Mohammad, Mohammad S.; Rajabi, Mohammad Sadra; Rahman, Rahimi A. (MDPI, 2023-03-15)
    Building information modeling (BIM) enables substantial improvement in the architect, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry. To enhance BIM implementation, policymakers should develop appropriate strategies addressing local AEC industry needs. However, prior works that have explored government strategies to enhance BIM implementation in Indonesia are scarce. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the critical government strategies to enhance BIM implementation in Indonesia. A systematic literature review and semi-structured interviews with AEC professionals yielded 12 potential government strategies. The data were analyzed using mean score ranking, normalization, overlap, agreement, and correlation analyses. The findings illustrate that six strategies are critical for enhancing BIM implementation in Indonesia. Two of the six strategies overlapped between all main construction project stakeholders (i.e., consultants, contractors, and clients): (1) develop programs to integrate BIM into education curricula and academia, and (2) develop BIM implementation guidelines. These two strategies were highly correlated, and all project stakeholders had consistent views on their criticality for enhancing BIM implementation in Indonesia. The findings benefit policymakers by highlighting specific strategies that should take place to enhance BIM implementation in Indonesia.
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    Factors, Challenges and Strategies of Trust in BIM-Based Construction Projects: A Case Study in Malaysia
    Farouk, Abdelrahman M.; Zulhisham, Ahmad Zhahiruddin; Lee, Yong Siang; Rajabi, Mohammad Sadra; Rahman, Rahimi A. (MDPI, 2023-01-10)
    Implementing building information modeling (BIM) in construction projects can provide team members with an effective collaboration process. Therefore, organizations are implementing BIM to acquire the benefits. However, project members still use traditional collaborative approaches due to the lack of trust. Therefore, this study aims to identify the factors, challenges, and strategies of trust in BIM-based construction projects. To achieve this aim, semi-structured interviews were conducted with twenty industry professionals, and thematic analysis was used to analyze the collected data. The results suggest that the factors affecting trust in BIM-based construction projects are knowledge, skills, awareness, behavior, policy, system, cost, and management. Moreover, the challenges to creating trust in BIM-based construction projects are policy, cost, cooperation, system, service, behavior, expertise, and knowledge. Finally, the strategies used to create trust in BIM-based construction projects are management, preparation, capability, cooperation, awareness, individuals, education, and government. In summary, this study provides insights that can help industry practitioners to improve construction projects by reducing unnecessary distrust among team members.
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    Improving Emergency Training for Earthquakes through Immersive Virtual Environments and Anxiety Tests: A Case Study
    Rajabi, Mohammad Sadra; Taghaddos, Hosein; Zahrai, Seyed Mehdi (MDPI, 2022-11-02)
    Because of the occurrence of severe and large magnitude earthquakes each year, earthquake-prone countries suffer considerable financial damages and loss of life. Teaching essential safety measures will lead to a generation that can perform basic procedures during an earthquake, which is an essential and effective solution in preventing the loss of life in this natural disaster. In recent years, Virtual Reality (VR) technology has been a tool used to educate people on safety matters. This paper evaluates the effect of education and premonition on the incorrect decision-making of residents under the stressful conditions of an earthquake. For this purpose, a virtual model has been designed and modeled based on a proposed classroom in a school in the city of Tehran to simulate a virtual learning experience. In contrast, the classroom represents a realistic method of learning. Accordingly, each educational scenario, presented in reality and the virtual model, respectively, was conducted on a statistical sample of 20 students within the range of 20 to 25 years of age. Among the mentioned sample, the first group of 10 students was taught safety measures in a physical classroom. The second group of 10 students participated in a virtual classroom. Evaluation tests on safety measures against earthquakes were distributed after two weeks. Two self-reporting tests of Depression, Anxiety, Stress Scale (DASS) and Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) tests were assigned to the second group to evaluate the effect of foresight under two different scenarios. The results indicate that teaching through VR technology yields a higher performance level than the in-person education approach. Additionally, the ability to detect earthquakes ahead is an influential factor in controlling anxiety and determining the right decisions should the event occur.
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    The Influence of Olfactory and Visual Stimuli on Students’ Performance and Mood in Virtual Reality Environment
    Moon, Hayoun; Freidouny, Mohammadreza; Rajabi, Mohammad Sadra; Bozorgmehrian, Shokoufeh; Sangwan, Ankit; Jeon, Myounghoon (SAGE, 2023-12-05)
    Exposure to sensory stimuli such as aromatherapy and immersion in Virtual Reality (VR) has shown impacts on task performance and emotional state. In this study, we examined the effects of stimuli types (olfactory, visual, and both) and themes (forest and café) in a VR environment to improve students’ performance and mood. While both the stimuli type and theme had no influence on the performance of the Stroop Test, providing olfactory with visual stimuli did increase the level of awakeness compared to providing visuals only or olfactory only. The choice of theme was an important factor in affecting mood; presenting the forest theme made participants feel better, more awake, and calmer compared to presenting the café theme. No interaction effect of stimuli and the theme was observed in any of the studied measurements. More complex tasks should be further tested to see whether aforementioned stimuli can have effects on students’ performance.
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    Key Assessment Criteria for Organizational BIM Capabilities: A Cross-Regional Study
    Rajabi, Mohammad Sadra; Radzi, Afiqah R.; Rezaeiashtiani, Mohammad; Famili, Alireza; Rashidi, Mohammad Emad; Rahman, Rahimi A. (MDPI, 2022-07-14)
    Building information modeling (BIM) is an emerging process for managing the design, construction, operation, and maintenance of a facility. While BIM has developed in diverse aspects, the lack of organizational BIM capabilities remains a barrier to its implementation across the global architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry. Accordingly, AEC organizations need to understand their organizational BIM capabilities and those of other organizations to realize the benefits of implementing BIM. This study examines the key criteria for assessing organizational BIM capabilities across two countries—Malaysia and Iran. For this purpose, the study compares the assessment criteria for BIM capabilities among the two countries based on the following elements: (1) criticality of the criteria; (2) degree of centrality of the criteria; and (3) underlying groups of the criteria. A systematic literature review of 26 articles and semi-structured interviews with BIM professionals provided nineteen criteria. A total of 121 and 126 BIM professionals evaluated the criticality of the criteria through a survey in Malaysia and Iran. The collected data were analyzed using the contextual disparities test (Mann–Whitney U test, Kruskal–Wallis H test, and rank agreement factor), network analysis, and exploratory factor analysis (EFA). The leading key criteria in both countries are “the company has the necessary infrastructure to implement BIM”, “the company has a good attitude towards new technology”, and “the company understands its expertise”. However, the subsequent key criteria differ between countries. Furthermore, while the level of agreement on the ranking of the criteria is at a neutral level, the Mann–Whitney U test indicates that the level of criticality significantly differs between countries for most criteria. There are also changes in the level of criticality of the criteria between countries. Finally, criteria with a high degree of centrality differ between countries. On the contrary, although the criteria slightly differ between countries, the overarching groups of the criteria are similar (i.e., the criteria are related to organizational BIM capabilities and organizational capabilities). Understanding these criteria can help researchers and industry practitioners develop the optimal tool for assessing organizational BIM capabilities for the local industry.
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    A New Hybrid Multi-Objective Scheduling Model for Hierarchical Hub and Flexible Flow Shop Problems
    Aghakhani, Sina; Rajabi, Mohammad Sadra (MDPI, 2022-12-17)
    In general, customers are looking to receive their orders in the fastest time possible and to make purchases at a reasonable price. Consequently, the importance of having an optimal delivery time is increasingly evident these days. One of the structures that can meet the demand for large supply chains with numerous orders is the hierarchical integrated hub structure. Such a structure improves efficiency and reduces chain costs. To make logistics more cost-effective, hub-and-spoke networks are necessary as a means to achieve economies of scale. Many hub network design models only consider hub type but do not take into account the hub scale measured using freight volume. This paper proposes a multi-objective scheduling model for hierarchical hub structures (HHS), which is layered from top to bottom. In the third layer, the central hub takes factory products from decentralized hubs and sends them to other decentralized hubs to which customers are connected. In the second layer, non-central hubs are responsible for receiving products from the factory and transferring them to central hubs. These hubs are also responsible for receiving products from central hubs and sending them to customers. Lastly, the first layer contains factories responsible for producing products and providing for their customers. The factory uses the flexible flow-shop platform and structure to produce its products. The model’s objective is to minimize transportation and production costs as well as product arrival times. To validate and evaluate the model, small instances have been solved and analyzed in detail with the weighted sum and ε-constraint method. Consequently, based on the mean ideal distance (MID) metric, two methods were compared for the designed instances.
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    Underlying Factors and Strategies for Organizational BIM Capabilities: The Case of Iran
    Rajabi, Mohammad Sadra; Rezaeiashtiani, Mohammad; Radzi, Afiqah R.; Famili, Alireza; Rezaeiashtiani, Amirhossein; Rahman, Rahimi A. (MDPI, 2022-10-31)
    Building information modeling (BIM) has a significant role in the architecture, engineering, construction, and operation (AECO) industries. Most BIM benefits have not been grasped due to the lack of organizational BIM capabilities (OBIMCs). Accordingly, organizations must develop intuitive strategies to support BIM implementation and to fulfill the promised benefits. This study investigates the impact of different capability factors on OBIMC and the underlying strategies to improve OBIMC in Iran. Particularly, this study builds a structural equation model to explain the links between the capability factors and strategies linked to OBIMC in Iran. A systematic literature review of twenty-six papers and semi-structured interviews with fifteen BIM specialists identified nineteen capability factors and fourteen strategies. A survey of 126 BIM professionals was used to assess the importance of the capability factors and strategies. To analyze the collected data, first, an Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) was performed. Then, Partial Least-Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was employed. The EFA generated two constructs for the capability factors: OBIMC and organizational capabilities (OCA). Furthermore, it categorized the strategies into two constructs: BIM capability requirement (BIMCR) and organizational culture (OCU). The structural equation model demonstrates that BIMCR and OCU enhance OCA and OBIMC. These two elements are also positively impacted by BIMCR. Industry professionals and policymakers can use these findings to develop strategic plans and to prioritize efforts. The significant contribution of this study is to illuminate the interrelationship between capability factors and strategies related to OBIMC in Iran.