Latest CII Research Publications - Now Available

Explore the research publications of 2023.

DPC2022 - Safety Summary

Injury, illnesses, and (more recently) near-miss safety data is collected each year from CII member companies, both owners and contractors and is reported in CII’s annual Safety Report, first published in 2001. CII began collecting safety data from member companies in 1989, with electronic reporting beginning in 2000. The reports present the data provided by CII members and compare it with data obtained from the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for the U.S. construction industry overall.  The purpose of these reports is to make the data available to CII member companies, which they can then use for further self-analysis. The reports’ content varies slightly year-to-year, but typically contains the following:

• That year’s data for both CII companies and the construction industry overall (OSHA)
• Changes in key metrics from the prior year, with commentary
• Running graphs presenting key yearly data, from the reporting year back to 1989 (the first year of CII safety data collection)
• Segment-specific data breakouts, including:
  • Owner and contractor
  • Industry sector (e.g., heavy industrial, commercial)
  • Location (e.g., U.S., International)
• Fatalities
• More recent reports contain additional data such as injury duration

FR-383 - Implementation Guide to Industrial Integrated Project Delivery (I2PD)

RT-383 developed tools and guidance to support I2PD projects with the assistance of subject matter expert workshops, an industry-wide questionnaire survey, and case study interviews. The team systematically evaluated project uncertainty to determine the suitability of I2PD for projects, the optimal set of CI methods, and a practical process for implementing those methods. The findings of this research will benefit industrial sector practitioners who wish to implement I2PD as a project delivery by helping them understand the I2PD process and supporting decision-making throughout the project life cycle. The team incorporated its findings into Excel-based tools, which can be applied to support the I2PD project decision-making process.

FR-390 - AWP Execution Planning Guide for Projects and Organizations

Guides practitioners as they work to start or mature an AWP program, and thereby to gain the benefits that can come from successfully implementing AWP. Consists of seven self-contained modules: a primer that focuses on AWP basics, five handbooks that consider AWP implementation by discipline, and an enterprise guide for setting up AWP as the standard approach for an organization.

FR-396 - Business Case Analysis for Industrial Modularization

Answers the question, “When is the appropriate time for modularization planning, and how should a company develop a business case to support the modularization decision?” Explains how the team developed its IR396-2 guide and software tools.

IR-396-2 - A Business Case Analysis Guide and Tools for Modularization

Provides a modularization business case analysis guide and three supporting Excel-based tools: the Modularization Business Case Analysis Tool for Opportunity Framing, the Modularization BCA Tool for Assessment and Selection, and the ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) Modularization Assessment Tool.

IR-394-2 - Capital Effectiveness & Efficiency

RT-394 investigated ways to improve capital effectiveness and efficiency through better alignment between business and project teams. The team identified activities that would benefit from this alignment, as well as practices that have been successfully implemented to achieve this purpose. Although this tool extends from inputs to the portfolio management phase through the transition to the front end planning phase, it focuses primarily on the portfolio management phase.

SP-397 - Safely Occupying Indoor Environments During COVID-19

COVID created multiple disruptions in the construction and commercial real estate markets, due to supply chain disruptions, changes in the labor market, and a shift to virtual work. Alongside these challenges in the industry, the shift to working at home created challenges for commercial office environments. Tenants and their employees continue to be slow to re-occupy the traditional in the midst of the pandemic.

Concerns about occupying office environments have led a variety of government agencies and research bodies to develop recommendations and guidelines for safely occupying shared spaces while the pandemic is ongoing. CII Research Team 397 synthesized the recommendations and guidelines into key findings.

FR-399 - Key Performance Indicators and Metrics for Capital Efficiency in the Downstream and Chemicals Sector

Past research has mainly focused on evaluating the cost and schedule performance of a capital project. The primary objective of this research was to identify KPIs and metrics to quantitatively evaluate the efficiency of capital projects in the DCC sector. To that end, RT-399 defined seven KPIs and 56 Metrics that can be used to track capital efficiency for these projects.

RT-399’s research method included three steps:

1. Define Capital Project Selection Effectiveness (CPSE) and Capital Project Efficiency (CPE).
2. Identify KPIs and Metrics (including cost and schedule metrics) to quantitatively measure CPSE and CPE.
3. Determine the feasibility of collecting data with respect to the identified metrics in DCC organizations.

RT-399 identified an initial set of KPIs and metrics through literature review and team meetings. The team then used a survey to refine these KPIs and metrics and to investigate the availability of data in DCC organizations.

Various stakeholders can use the team’s KPIs and metrics to capture the selection effectiveness and efficiency of their capital projects with respect to their unique business objectives. Future research will develop standardized means and methods to collect and process project data, and create a comprehensive tool that DCC organizations can use to assess their capital projects with respect to CPSE, CPE, as well as each stakeholder.

SR19-01 - AWP Data Requirements Implementation Guideline, Version 1.4

Advanced Work Packaging requires a great deal of data to be transferred between parties at various points in the process. Implementation experience of CII companies showed that a common set of data requirements and definitions were needed in order to standardize the way data were transferred on projects and specified in contracts.

CII’s AWP Community for Business Advancement formed Working Group 19-01, AWP Data Requirements, to develop a comprehensive set of AWP data requirements for capital project stakeholders. The group accordingly created Special Report 19-01, AWP Data Requirements Implementation Guideline, as an implementation guideline intended to accomplish several objectives:

• To support efforts to implement the assembled AWP data requirements.
• To encourage companies to standardize information flow for work processes on capital projects.
• To serve as a critical reference as companies create contracts that include data to support AWP.

Working Group 19-01 worked on AWP data requirements in parallel with Research Team TC-03, which transformed seven of these data requirements into digital threads.

SR22-01c - Advanced Work Packaging (AWP) and Lean Construction: A Comparison of Approaches

Lean Construction and Advanced Work Packaging (AWP) have different process and framework descriptions, but they share the goal of improving the efficiency and quality of capital project delivery. Both approaches emphasize constraint management to ensure productive construction-related activities on  and off the worksite, including off-site fabrication and preassembly. Also, both emphasize broad stakeholder engagement and input during early planning to facilitate alignment and improve coordination.

The management of constraints across the project lifecycle and the assurance of a smooth and timely flow of integrated work and associated deliverables (physical and information) are central goals for both Lean Construction and AWP. A clear commonality and key value between the two methodologies is the recognition that safety, health, and the well-being of the worker can be designed into the process.

That being said, Lean Construction and AWP are highly complementary but not identical. Primary differences center on their descriptions of approaches, and each approach has its unique methods. Lean Construction is based on the philosophy of developing a value-driven culture of mutual trust and respect, support to production, and leveraging a set of tools for deployment. AWP is described in a more structured context of additions and enhancements to typical execution in the industrial sector by defining and organizing constraint-free executable work packages.

IR BMM-2 - Benchmarking Associates Guide, Version 2.0

CII's Benchmarking Program, available through the Data Warehouse, provides a statistically valid, credible project benchmarking resource. Since CII first developed its Benchmarking Program in the 1990s, the emergence of big data has increased the quantity of data being produced at staggering rates. Likewise, tools for high-performance computing, business intelligence, and data science techniques have grown alongside big data.

This Benchmarking Associates Guide is intended to be a high-level description of the benchmarking process and its application at CII. Most importantly, this is a “how to guide” for new or existing Benchmarking Associates. Written by the Data Analytics Community for Business Advancement (DA CBA), this Benchmarking Associates Guide provides a high-level description of the benchmarking process and its application at CII.

FR-TC-03 - Advanced Work Packaging Digital Threads to Enable Supply Chain Visibility on Capital Projects, Version 1.1

The complexity of construction supply chains continues to increase as construction materials and methods become more intricate. Construction project stakeholders are encouraged to share information across the supply chain to foster stakeholder alignment and facilitate transparency.

RT-TC-03 created a web-based open-source digital library containing specifications from seven digital threads with supply chains on capital projects to encourage communication among stakeholders. Having open-source digital library in an interactive web-based format provides a database and user interface to promote the integration of supply chain elements with AWP practices. The research described in the team’s final report, FR-TC-03, was motivated by a specific need identified by RT-363.

RT-TC-03 identified the following benefits for implementing supply chain digital threads through the open-source web-based digital library:

• Increased alignment among stakeholders connected to the supply chain
• An increase in the visibility of supply chain information through the implementation of digital threads on the web tool
• Improved data sharing among stakeholders across the supply chain
• Clearly defined project stakeholder responsibilities for materials