Application of the Choosing by Advantages Decision System to Enhance User-Involvement in the Design Process
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Date
2017-01-30
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Abstract
Activities at the design stage of the construction project delivery process have been
found to significantly impact value generation and delivery. There is, thus, the need to
adopt design management practices to enhance the value of construction projects. One
dimension of meeting the value requirements of construction projects is the
involvement of stakeholders, such as users, in design process. Even though various
aspects of stakeholder involvement have been researched, limited knowledge exists on
how stakeholders can participate in a process to gain insights into their needs and
establish their values. Little is also known of how the involvement of stakeholders can
be staged, such that project participants can interact and discuss needs and concerns.
This results in the need to explore an innovative strategy, in the form of a userinvolvement
framework, to create a space where designers and other stakeholders, such
as users, can collaboratively define and generate project value. Since the design process
is punctuated by various instances of decisions, such a framework should incorporate a
group decision-making process, such as choosing by advantages (CBA). The aim of this
research addresses this need by ultimately proposing a user-involvement framework that
incorporates the CBA decision system. The objectives of the research, thus, included: to
identify the potential in CBA to foster collaboration between designers and users; to
identify strategies to incorporate CBA in a user-involvement framework; to design a
user-involvement framework incorporating CBA; to evaluate the practicality of the
framework; and to reflect the contribution of the framework to theory. In line with the
constructive research paradigm, the design of the framework was based on a
combination of theoretical and empirical knowledge. Theoretical knowledge originated
from reviewing literature on participatory design, lean design, design process
management, team process, and the CBA decision system. Empirical knowledge
emanated from three exploratory case studies involving the application of CBA by
respective design teams to involve users in typical design decisions for some selected
projects. The resulting framework, known as CBA-incorporated User-involvement
Framework (CBAUF), is made up of six performance episodes linked by reciprocal
dependency loops. The performance episodes include, i) compose a team; ii) define
project value; iii) identify and anticipate decision-making frames; iv) enforce decisioniv
making frames (apply CBA); v) implement decisions (deliver virtual value); and vi) run
product (experience virtual value). The workability of CBAUF was demonstrated in an
evaluation case study with respect to its completeness, simplicity, elegance, efficiency,
operationality and generality. Among others, the research contributes to knowledge by
providing: i) an empirical evaluation of the collaborative attributes of the CBA decision
system; ii) an analysis of the functioning of the CBA decision system in the context of
the wicked problems in participatory design; and iii) An insight into how CBA could be
combined with other lean design tools such as Target Value Design (TVD), Set Based
Design (SBD), A3 and Building Information Modeling (BIM) to enhance collaboration
between designers and users for project value generation. Based on the contributions to
knowledge, the discussion on the application of CBA in lean design can be expanded to
include exploring the integration of CBAUF with more lean tools such as the Last
Planner System (LPS) and Dependency Structure Matrix (DSM) towards waste
minimization in design process by improving design process schedule predictability.
Description
A Thesis submitted to the Department of Building Technology, College of
Art and Built Environment in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the
degree of Doctor of Philosophy, 2016.