Sustainable Construction Project Management (SCPM) Evaluation—A Case Study of the Guangzhou Metro Line-7, PR China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
In my opinion, the article is interesting and properly constructed.
Please check the table designations (table 1, 2, 3, 11, 22, 33).
Author Response
Dear Reviewer:
Thank you very much for your comments on our manuscript entitled Sustainable Construction Project Management (SCPM) Evaluation-A Case Study of the Guangzhou Metro Line-7, PR China. Those comments are all valuable and helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and have corrected which we hope meet with approval. The main corrections in the paper and the response to your comments are as following:
Point 1: Please check the table designations (table 1, 2, 3, 11, 22, 33).
Response 1: According to your comment, we have corrected the all table designations.
Last but not least, thanks for your suggestions again, if you have any other questions regarding our revised manuscript, please feel free to contact us.
Best regards!
Your, Fu.
Reviewer 2 Report
I would like the authors for their paper.
The subject is very interesting.
Their effort is very good.
The theme of the paper is appropriate for the journal.
Authors have managed to provide a methodology / tool for assessing sustainable construction project management performance. They managed to do so using selected indicators and assigning proper weights based on a structured survey.
The research findings are significant, interesting and important for the construction sector.
Generally the paper has a very good structure.
It has clarity and helps the reader understand the essence of the paper.
The language is good. Minor grammar mistakes exist mainly on the use of plural and tenses.
i would kindly recommend to authors to write using a third person view. Please avoid using phrases "we did, we decided..."
The specific comments are the following:
Title
The title successfully describes and represents the paper's content. My main concern focuses on the use of the acronym CPM. Usually in management this term is usually associated with critical path method as a scheduling technique and personally at first i was confused and mislead the reader.
Abstract
The abstract is well structured. Provides most of the required information. It sets the aim / goal of the research, methodology, tools and some basic results. I think that authors should include key findings from their research regarding the identified indicators and the weights assigned to them and maybe inside the manuscript (in following subsections: discussion) discuss a little more their findings regarding the importance and try to explain these findings
Keywords
These are ok with a single concern again regarding CPM
Introduction
Introduction is a well written section. It manages to present the goal of the study. My only comment is that usually introduction concludes with a brief paragraph outlining the structure of the paper to follow.
Literature Review
This is divided in three subsections. I would recommend some additional studies to be added focusing on research close / relevant / similar to the research of the authors.
Line 117 a bracket exists with no reference
Methodology
Well written with clarity and appropriate flowcharts!
Line 168 instead of have please use has
line 179 Dimensions
Please use third person view
Line 190 please clarify what ENR stands for
Line 248 Indicator
line 263 inconsistent
3.2.2 heading should be alone because now it is embedded in the text
Line 336 please rephrase 'groups that with special....."
Here authors refer to 55 questionnaires but in conclusions authors mention 110 questionnaires
There is no reference to control of consistency for the questionnaire (cronbach alpha)
Authors could discuss a little more the results of the questionnaire survey regarding the indicators and weights. Are the results expected?
Conclusions
Well written but limited.
I would assign in this section four things.
Conclusions
Limitations
Further Research
Proposals (what for example government should provide as legislation policy to improve a situation)
References
Are good but a few more could be added in literature review!
Author Response
Dear Reviewer:
Thank you very much for your comments on our manuscript entitled Sustainable Construction Project Management (SCPM) Evaluation-A Case Study of the Guangzhou Metro Line-7, PR China. Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and have corrected which we hope meet with approval. The main corrections in the paper and the response to your comments are as following:
Point 1: I would kindly recommend to authors to write using a third person view. Please avoid using phrases "we did, we decided...".
Response 1: According to your comment, we have adjusted the article for the third person view and avoided using phrases " we think, we did...".
Point 2: My main concern focuses on the use of the acronym CPM. Usually in management this term is usually associated with critical path method as a scheduling technique and personally at first i was confused and mislead the reader.
Response 2: In order to avoiding confusing and minsleading the readers, we use the acronym SCPM (sustainable construction project management) in the title. Of course, ‘sustainable construction project management’ that appears in this article is all replaced by the SCPM.
Point 3: I think that authors should include key findings from their research regarding the identified indicators and the weights assigned to them and maybe inside the manuscript (in following subsections: discussion) discuss a little more their findings regarding the importance and try to explain these findings.
Response 3: we have revised the abstract and added the key findings from our research about the identified indicators and the weights assigned to them.
Point 4: My only comment is that usually introduction concludes with a brief paragraph outlining the structure of the paper to follow.
Response 4: we have added a brief paragraph outlining the strucure of the paper according to the remaining paragragh. In order to make the introduction more organized, we also have provided the citations for a few statements such as reference 3 to support our research background.
Point 5: in the literature review, this is divided in three subsections. I would recommend some additional studies to be added focusing on research close / relevant / similar to the research of the authors.
Line 117 a bracket exists with no reference.
Response 5: In order to make the literature review more organized, we have provided the citations for a few statements such as Line 117 (reference 49), and added some close and similar research (reference 55-57) to support our research background.
Point 6: Line 168 instead of have please use has
line 179 Dimensions
Please use third person view
Line 190 please clarify what ENR stands for
Line 248 Indicator
line 263 inconsistent
Response 6: Thank you very much for your careful and useful suggestion, we have modified it.
Point 7: There is no reference to control of consistency for the questionnaire (cronbach alpha).
Authors could discuss a little more the results of the questionnaire survey regarding the indicators and weights. Are the results expected?
Response 7: We are very sorry for not being able to better description for the questionnaire data analysis. In order to provide the readers to better understand the process of data processing, we have discussed the consistency for questionnaire (the cronbach alpha is 0.823＞0.7) and a little more about the weight and indicators’ importance. And the whole results of the weight is our expected.
Point 8: the conclusion is well written but limited.
Response 8: Thank you for your constructive comment.We have assigned the section four things: conclusions, proposals, Limitations and the future research.
Last but not least, thanks for your suggestions again, if you have any other questions regarding our revised manuscript, please feel free to contact us.
Best regards!
Yours Fu.
Reviewer 3 Report
the paper aims to design evaluation mechanism for sustainable construction project management which is interesting topic. However, the manuscript lacks some fundamental elements in order to be considered as a research paper:
Title: the abbreviation of CPM stands for Construction Project Management , not Sustainable Construction Project Management. Authors may need to change it perhaps to "SCPM"
Abstract: abstract should inform the summary of the entire paper including the findings and result.
statement such as " the existing evaluation system ignores the needs of social development and sustainable development, and lacks implementation feasibility" is inflated, there are wealth of studies focus on this matter
Introduction: a few statements need citation such as the construction value in China
the introduction should inform the structure of the paper in terms of the sections and the aims
Literature Review: some statements need citation such as "There is a consensus that environmental performance is highly characterized by greenization, such as improved energy and water efficiency, enhanced air quality of construction sites, and reduced environmental pollution" and "In order to optimise, automate and modernise the traditional processes of this industry, information management has been increasingly valued and is already changing the current systems used in construction projects"
line 122, the name of authors should be mentioned followed by the reference number.
authors' proposal such as "To fill this gap, we propose a sustainable performance evaluation system..." should not be in the literature review section. in addition this proposal has been made earlier and no need to repeat it in this section again
Methodology: the indicators are based on only one construction company in China. the rigour and comprehensiveness of the data is questionable. if this is an ongoing study this issue should be mentioned in limitation etc.
Case Study : line 450, there is no table 4
Author Response
Dear Reviewer:
Thank you very much for your comments on our manuscript entitled Sustainable Construction Project Management (SCPM) Evaluation-A Case Study of the Guangzhou Metro Line-7, PR China. Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and have corrected which we hope meet with approval. The main corrections in the paper and the response to your comments are as following:
Point 1: the abbreviation of CPM stands for Construction Project Management , not Sustainable Construction Project Management. Authors may need to change it perhaps to "SCPM".
Response 1: In order to avoiding confusing the readers, we use the acronym SCPM (sustainable construction project management) in the title. Of course, ‘sustainable construction project management’ that appears in this article is all replaced by the SCPM.
Point 2: the abstract should inform the summary of the entire paper including the findings and result.
statement such as " the existing evaluation system ignores the needs of social development and sustainable development, and lacks implementation feasibility" is inflated, there are wealth of studies focus on this matter.
Response 2: we have revised the abstract and added the key findings from our research about the identified indicators and the weights assigned to them.
Considering your useful comments, we have rephrased "the existing evaluation system...".
Point 3: a few statements need citation such as the construction value in China.
the introduction should inform the structure of the paper in terms of the sections and the aims.
Response 3: In order to make the introduction more organized, we have provided the citations for a few statements such as reference 3 to support our research background. And we have added a brief paragraph outlining the structure of the paper according to the remaining sections.
Point 4: in literature review, some statements need citation such as "There is a consensus that environmental performance..." and "In order to optimise ..."
authors' proposal such as "To fill this gap, we propose a sustainable performance evaluation system..." should not be in the literature review section. in addition this proposal has been made earlier and no need to repeat it in this section again.
Response 3: According to your suggestion, we have revised the literature review and removed the redundant expressions. On the other hands, we have provided the citations for a few statements such as Line 117 (reference 49), and added some close and similar research (reference 55-57) to support our research background.
Point 5: the indicators are based on only one construction company in China. the rigour and comprehensiveness of the data is questionable. if this is an ongoing study this issue should be mentioned in limitation etc.
Response 5: We are sorry that our descriptions of the Sichuan Huashi construction enterprise group is not clearly. The huashi group contains 18 sub-construction companies at home and abroad, which stands for the overall development level of the construction industry. And the establishment of performance evaluation index system considers not only the construction enterprise database, but also many historical projects, which is valid and feasible.
Point 6: line 450, there is no table 4 in the Case Study
Response 6: Thank you very much for your careful suggestion, we have modified it.
Last but not least, thanks for your suggestions again, if you have any other questions regarding our revised manuscript, please feel free to contact us.
Best regards!
Yours, Fu.
