Date of Award
5-2023
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS)
Department
Construction Science and Management
Committee Chair/Advisor
Vivek Sharma
Committee Member
Dhaval Gajjar
Committee Member
Jason Lucas
Committee Member
Kapil Chalil Madathil
Abstract
Capital project owners face several challenges in extracting meaningful information from large and complex data sets generated throughout the life cycle of a construction project. Capital projects must strike a balance between intuition-driven and data-driven decision-making due to their sensitive and change-averse nature. The main objective of this study is to improve the structure, clarity, and interpretation of the construction data, and enhance the decision-making processes for federal capital projects. To achieve this goal, this study developed a hybrid dashboard tailored to the federal agencies’ requirements of performance assessment. This study is a sub-section of broader research – the Federal Facilities Data Analytics Research Application Program (FF-DARAP). The sub-objectives of this study focused on identifying essential performance metrics and the most effective visual aids that communicate the accurate value of the metrics. This study employed a roundtable discussion, survey questionnaires, and semi-structured interviews as methods of data collection. The collected data was analyzed using methods such as mean score calculation and thematic analysis. As a result, two iterations of a prototype dashboard were created using Microsoft PowerBI and tested for usability satisfaction. The usability assessment was conducted using the CSUQ survey instrument by IBM and the iteration with a better score was recommended to the federal agencies for final deployment. The results of this study indicate that a well-designed dashboard can be a powerful tool for performance assessment and benchmarking and human factors considerations play an important role in this process. This study discusses the detailed approach to dashboard development; however, the content of the dashboard is unique to the federal agencies, therefore its generalizability is limited. Furthermore, the scope of this study only focuses on creating a strategic and analytical dashboard, therefore the design considerations may not be applicable to operational dashboards.
Recommended Citation
Bapat, Prajakta, "Visualizing Project Life-Cycle Data in a Hybrid Dashboard for Federal Capital Projects" (2023). All Theses. 3986.
https://open.clemson.edu/all_theses/3986