Prince of the Eastern Province Sponsors the Construction Industry Institutes Annual Conference

Under the patronage of His Royal Highness, Prince Saud bin Naif bin Abdulaziz, Governor of the Eastern Province, KFUPM’s Construction Industry Institute organizes its annual conference, titled "Towards Better Productivity and Effective Quality", on Wednesday and Thursday 1^st and 2^nd of March, 2017. A distinguished group of local and international leaders of the construction industry participate in the Conference, where they get together to discuss the best ways and practices to be followed in order to increase productivity and control the quality of engineering projects. The Conference is aimed at strengthening the role of research and development in the construction industry elements performance, as it is a national industry which has a substantial role in the Saudi economy.

His Excellency KFUPM’s Rector, Dr. Khaled Al-Sultan, asserted that the generous patronage of His Royal Highness, Prince Saud bin Naif bin Abdulaziz, is considered an appreciation of KFUPM’s message, which has chosen to be an active partner in all issues that enhance the march of the development work. Moreover, the University’s successful role in education and supplying different community sectors with specialists in the construction and building industry must be strengthened with the role of scientific research, aimed at improving the construction industry with its different disciplines to add benefit to this vital sector.

He added that this noble patronage stresses the importance of the construction industry, which is one of the most important industries in the Kingdom. There is a need to improve the construction industry and regulating its researches, and to improve the effectiveness and role of business capital, including safety, quality, schedule, cost, reliability and operability.

The Conference seeks to enable the exchange of information between the elements of the construction industry, especially with research centres and universities, strengthen the role of research and development to improve the performance of the construction industry components, and display practices followed in productivity measurement and quality control in Saudi Arabia’s construction projects. Furthermore, the Conference provides a forum for convergence and exchange of views on best practices to the elements of the construction industry (i.e., owners, contractors, consultants, suppliers, legislators, and academics) to increase productivity and improve quality control in the construction project sites and its role in sustainable development in the Kingdom.

KFUPM’s Construction Industry Institute provides vital programs dealing with research and development to improve construction methods, improving the efficiency of the vital cycle of the construction projects, raising product efficiency, and developing the competitiveness of Saudi manufacturers in this field. To this end, the Institute has attracted collaboration, partnerships, and consulting of entities with distinguished development and economic roles.

It is worth mentioning that KFUPM, being an engineering and technical university offering academically specialized programs through its departments in environmental design and civil engineering, has always paid great attention to the construction and building industry. Additionally, the University has been always satisfying the Kingdom’s varying needs of structural and architecture engineers, in cope with the needs of the Kingdom’s cultural and construction renaissances.