Saudi Cultural Missions Theses & Dissertations
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Item Restricted Impediments To Adopting Building Information Modeling In Saudi Arabian Infrastructure Projects(Texas A&M University, 2023) Alsofiani, Mohammed; Caffey, Stephen; Lewis, Michael; Dooley, Kim; Escamilla, EdelmiroThe present research investigates the impediments that hinder the infrastructure sector in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) from adopting innovative technological solutions that can enhance communication and collaboration, ultimately minimizing and preventing construction project delays. The focus is particularly on Building Information Modeling (BIM) and its role within KSA infrastructure projects. BIM serves as a pivotal technology in the Industry 4.0 era, facilitating data sharing among stakeholders throughout the lifecycle of built assets. However, the adoption of these technologies in KSA has encountered significant impediments. Thus, the current research aims to investigate the obstacles preventing the adoption of BIM in KSA infrastructure projects and suggests strategic approaches to overcome these hurdles. To accomplish the stated aim, the investigation process employs a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods, including a systematic review and stakeholder surveys. Specifically, the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) protocol was utilized, and 149 AEC (Architecture, Engineering, and Construction) professionals from both the private and public sectors in KSA, who possess awareness of BIM technologies, participated in the survey. The results indicate that key impediments to adopting BIM include a lack of training and education, unclear business value, absence of adoption initiatives, limited demand from clients, resistance to change, a lack of standardization, and cost considerations. However, participants generally concur that the current communication and collaboration practices in the context of KSA infrastructure projects need improvement. To overcome the identified impediments, the research emphasizes the need for a BIM mandating strategy, which includes developing standards, guidelines, and regulations alongside promoting BIM education and training programs. Raising awareness among stakeholders through workshops and incentive programs is also crucial. This strategy should involve the active participation of governmental bodies and industry organizations with clear roles and responsibilities. By addressing the identified challenges and implementing the recommended strategies, infrastructure projects in KSA can benefit from BIM technologies to enhance the successful and efficient delivery of these projects.55 0Item Restricted Cities and socio-technical transitions: An evaluation of the use of the multi-level perspective for examining the green economy transition in Makkah City, Saudi Arabia(2023-07-06) Alameer, Ali; Farrelly, Lorraine; Dixon, TimThe green economy has been widely advocated by global policy frameworks as a promising concept for accelerating urban sustainability. Its applications and practices have been spatially connected to cities due to their roles and functions as hubs of people, resources, knowledge, and economic activity. This distinction for cities emphasises the importance of examining how cities can accelerate the transition to the green economy by clarifying what influences and inhibits change toward this goal, and what the interrelationship between the city contextual setting and the green economy applications might look and feel like. Thus, the quest to implement this change also needs to analyse and understand the city's physical and functional features as well as its broader socio-technical networks. However, in practice there is a huge gap between real-world practises and contemporary transition research analytical frameworks, which are dominated by ‘acontextual’ approaches and thus fail to represent cities' real-world spatial, functional, and physical challenges. Whilst the multi-level perspective (MLP) provides a useful framework for understanding socio-technical transitions, it falls far short as a means of providing a contextual approach for urban transitions. To address this, in this thesis a modified analytical framework that placed spatial dimensions that shape and influence cities at the heart of MLP was developed for better understanding real-world challenges. Based on an analysis of twenty-six (26) interviews, three (3) focus groups, and secondary sources, this framework is tested using Makkah city as a case study for empirical examination of the nature and characteristics of the national KSA green economy transition, thereby generating valuable insights and evidence that reflect the complexity and fragmented nature of urban transitions. Four overarching dimensions have been identified that affect and shape the city's spatial context and strengths its role in the MLP and socio-technical transitions: (i) city functions and activities, (ii) city spatial and physical features, (iii) local government arrangements, and (iv) local economic structures. This novel MLP spatial technique combined top-down and bottom-up spatial analysis approaches that helped find spatial variability in transition pathways and provided better understanding of how new networks, fluxes, and activities drive developing niches. Additionally, the MLP's analytical framework moves from a descriptive study of the transition to pragmatic, practice-led spatial analysis that better explains city progress, disparities, successes and failures in urban systems reconfiguration as well as change in the built environment. This spatial MLP framework empirically shows that the original three MLP lenses, though useful, cannot provide a complete, detailed, and clear picture of social and technical urban transitions in the real city context and that explicitly including spatial dimensions analysis was a crucial step to understanding and interpreting functional and physical spatial forces and their impact on the city's socio-technical transition to sustainability. However, the findings suggest that unless the city’s existing multi-segmented regimes that drive urban action are re-configured in line with systematic and long-term characteristics of a green economic transition, then progress will be slow and may be limited. It further suggests that top-down ‘green innovation’ and bottom-up ‘project-based approach’ alone will not be enough to accelerate the green economic transition. Thus, future research and policies should focus intensively on destabilizing and unifying the city's existing fragmented regimes, including the integration, replication and expansion of successful experimental initiatives. Furthermore, consistency in both policy and practice is needed across scales and levels. To this end, there is a need for indicators or assessment tools, new business models, capacity buildings and better-integrated leadership at the city level.15 0