This conference provides a unique venue that brings together a focused group of construction practitioners to enlighten university educators and researchers as to the challenges and opportunities of construction engineering. The goal is to promote opportunities in the area of construction engineering to young faculty and university decision makers; envision a stimulating path forward for this field; identify mutually beneficial interfaces between industry practitioners, construction educators and researchers; and establish a holistic research and education agenda to support the construction engineering needs of the 21st century. Construction engineering is the series of technical activities throughout the project delivery process that influence design, support construction means and methods decisions, create a safe and productive construction environment, and seek to avoid and solve the engineering issues associated with project delivery.
The envisioned gathering contains two interlaced parts over a two day period of time: Symposium: To investigate the function of construction engineering as it pertains to various project types (vertical and heavy civil), the issues of equipment and methods, the economics of engineering decisions, and the education of construction engineers (1.5 days); Workshop: to introduce young faculty to the opportunities in construction engineering research and to establish priorities (0.5 days). What makes this conference unique is (1) the future frontier construction engineering topics presented, (2) the interwoven nature of the research component with the symposium portion, and (3) a ?path forward? agenda that will be established with the ASCE Construction Engineering Education Committee. The conference format is set up such that research topics will be generated as a result of discussion between the academics and practitioners during the symposium, including the ASCE Construction Engineering Education Committee who will carry forward a the research agenda.
The intellectual merit of this symposium and research workshop involves an understanding of the critical role construction engineering plays in delivering challenging infrastructure projects for improving the sustainability of the built environment. The broader impacts relate to a methodology for developing the next generation of construction engineering educators, researchers, and practitioners. The exposure of young academics to the experience of construction professions will highlight the importance of teaching processes with emphasis on analysis, synthesis, and evaluation of problems more than on deriving a single solution. Wide dissemination of results will be through electronic proceedings and publication of papers in a special issue of the ASCE Journal of Construction Engineering and Management.
Construction Engineering Conference: Opportunity and Vision for Education, Practice and Research The Construction Engineering Conference was a unique opportunity in the sharing of knowledge across aisles. Each conference speaker submitted a manuscript that was peer-reviewed by academic and industry reviewers. In many cases, industry speakers co-authored the manuscript with a construction engineering academic. In all, the special issue includes 28 manuscripts that cover a broad range of construction engineering topics. The Construction Engineering: Opportunities and Vision for Education, Practice, and Research conference brought together a focused group of researchers, educators, and practitioners to enlighten all as to the challenges and opportunities of construction engineering. The goal was to promote opportunities in the area of construction engineering to young faculty; envision an exciting path forward for this field; identify mutually beneficial interfaces between industry practitioners, construction educators and researchers; and establish a holistic research and education agenda for construction engineering. Construction engineering is the series of technical activities throughout the project delivery process that influence design, support construction means and methods decisions, create a safe and productive construction environment, and seek to avoid and solve the engineering issues associated with project delivery. This gathering contained a symposium and workshop which were two interlaced parts over a two day period of time. The conference program included 21 technical papers, 6 whitepapers concerning research topics, and 5 keynote addresses. A Special Issue in the American Society of Civil Engineers Journal of Construction Engineering and Management contains twenty-eight papers addressing the symposium and workshop topics. The presentations and video recordings associated with these papers can be retrieved from: www.cpe.vt.edu/cec2010/. A total of 16 students (out of seventy-seven applications) were invited to attend using NSF travel grant funds—twelve of these were women. A selection process for faculty and industry practitioners was also followed. In addition to funding lead presenters for the research workshop and some of the symposium presentations, an effort was made to fund junior women and minority faculty. A total of 10 women were selected out of 36 young faculty invitees. The symposium portion of this conference contained six sessions covering: Background of Construction Engineering Infrastructure Construction Engineering Construction Equipment Technology Building Construction Engineering Construction Equipment Economics Construction Engineering Education and Research The goal of the workshop was to establish a needs-based research and education agenda for solving current and future industry construction engineering challenges. It contained five sessions on the following topics: Research in modeling and simulation for improving construction engineering operations Research in visualization techniques for field construction Data fusion approaches and applications for construction engineering and Remote sensing of construction engineering operations Sustainability: Using Lean Techniques to create a new operating system for managing projects Linkages between construction engineering education and research Based on the papers and discussions, the organizing committee identified the following major actions as a path forward: Inform, involve, and assist young engineers in industry to increase their knowledge of construction engineering so that they can further succeed in their career. Help managers in design and construction firms realize the opportunity for major project benefits from increased attention to construction engineering. Also convince progressive managers to serve as mentors for young construction engineers. Increase the rate of dissemination and adoption of new knowledge and technologies to increase the effectiveness of construction engineering activities in assisting in meeting all types of project objectives. Include construction engineering courses in all undergraduate and graduate construction programs. Further develop research programs for construction engineering topics. Recruit champions for the different types of actions shown here. Create links to other industry, professional, and educational organizations that also seek to improve the performance of design and construction projects in meeting all types of project objectives. Find a group or committee to assume responsibility for overall coordination of these activities.
