Modelling the Stages of Pre-Project Preparation and Design Development in the Life-Cycle of an Investment and Construction Project
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
I would like to thank the authors for the opportunity to have insight into the results of an interesting research and topic. The title is fully adequate to the purpose of the research and the problem. The abstract is written according to the required structure, as is the entire manuscript. The introductory part contains all the necessary elements to guide the readers to the essence of the manuscript. The overview of the literature is quite sufficient and clear, there is no need for changes and additions. The methodology was constructed with all the necessary content elements, as well as an explanation of the mathematical model that was used. The tables in which the results are given, as well as the graphs, are completely correct and clear, as well as easy to read and understand. Organizational and management model of the rational combination of procedures is also clearly presented. The concluding remarks are clear and sufficient. It is recommended to emphasize limiting circumstances, if the authors consider them suitable for presentation to the readers.
Literature recommendation:
Gajić, T., Petrović, M., Blešić, I., Vukolić, D., Milovanović, I., Radovanović, M., Vuković, D., Kostić, M., Vuksanović, N., & Malinoivć, S. (2022). COVID-19 Certificate as a Cutting-Edge Issue in Changing the Perception of Restaurants’ Visitors – Illustrations From Serbian Urban Centers. Front. Psychol. 13:914484, 1-11. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.914484
The manuscript is recommended for publication with minor corrections.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
our team of authors would like to thank you for your review. We have taken into account your comments. Residential objects are considered as limitations within the framework of the study. The purpose of the object affects the definition of procedures and factors. We also took into account your literary recommendation.
Thank you very much for your positive review of our study.
Sincerely, the team of authors
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
This paper reports a thorough investigation into pre-project preparation and design development in the life-cycle of an investment and construction project. The paper provides some useful findings and observations, although some comments should be addressed as listed below.
1. The latest research studies should be included in the literature review, for example:
Yu, S., Zhang, Q., Hao, J. L., Ma, W., Sun, Y., Wang, X., & Song, Y. (2023). Development of an extended STIRPAT model to assess the driving factors of household carbon dioxide emissions in China. Journal of Environmental Management, 325, 116502.
2. Fig. 2.: Please indicate the rankings of some major countries such as the US, China, India and the UK in the world, instead of limiting to some European countries.
3. Fig. 7 is hard for readers to carefully read. This figure must be simplified. Same for Fig. 11.
4. There are some typos in the present manuscript (e.g., Line 41: du-ration). The authors are suggested to proofread it.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
our team of authors would like to thank you for your review. We have taken into account your comments. We supplemented the list of references with a number of studies in accordance with your recommendation. We also added ratings to Figure 2 for some major countries such as the US, China, India, and the UK. We have revised Figures 7, 8 and 11 for a better reader experience. We have reviewed the article again and made a number of changes.
Thank you very much for your positive review of our study.
Sincerely, the team of authors
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear Authors,
Please find below and attached my comments and suggestions for your work.
Good luck!
Kind regards,
The Reviewer
Review Report Form
Journal: Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417)
Manuscript ID: applsci-2059182
Type: Article
Title: Modelling the stages of pre-project preparation and design development in the life-cycle of an investment and construction project
Authors: Azariy Lapidus , Dmitriy Topchiy , Tatyana Kuzmina * , Polina Bolshakova
Section: Earth Sciences and Geography
Special Issue: Small Satellites Missions and Applications
Submission Date: 11 November 2022
Dear Authors,
I have carefully analyzed your article entitled “Modelling the stages of pre-project preparation and design development in the life-cycle of an investment and construction project”.
Congratulations for your work and valuable insights reflected in the content of the manuscript!
The structure of my Review Report Form takes into consideration two sections, namely: (A.) General overview of the article and strong points; and (B) Suggestions meant to improve your current manuscript.
(A.) General overview of the article and strong points:
Ø General background of the study and Aim of the study: According to the authors, the stages of pre-project preparation and design development are the fundamentals to the further implementation of the investment and construction project. Also, based on the authors’ notes, the success of construction and commissioning of facilities depends on the smooth completion of these stages. In addition, the authors stated that the duration of stages depends on the competence and coordination of interaction between participants of an investment and construction project, rational decision-making by the project manager, and a number of other factors. Identifying these factors and finding rational planning options in terms of the stages of pre-project preparation and design development is a highly relevant task.
Ø Results of the study: The authors have developed an organizational and management model of a rational procedure to be implemented by the project manager at the stages of pre-project preparation and design development for a facility to be constructed. The model takes into account the influence of negative factors. Also, the authors have also developed a method for selecting rational solutions at the stages in question. The analysis of the research literature and regulatory documents was performed for this purpose. In continuation, the authors stated that the method of expert evaluations, elements of numerical analysis, mathematical processing of practical results, and methods of mathematical modeling were applied. In addition, the authors have developed an organizational and management model for a rational combination of procedures at the stages of pre-project preparation and design development for a facility to be constructed, derived a formula determining the duration of implementation of each stage, and a technique designated for selecting rational solutions at the stages in question. In the end, the authors stressed that the findings of this study can simplify project planning and process management at the stages of pre-project preparation and design development in terms of information modeling.
(B) Suggestions meant to improve your current manuscript:
Distinguished Authors I would kindly like to suggest the following aspects:
(1.) Closely analyzing the article, since there are some English language improvements and slight corrections that need to be taken care of. Thus, my recommendation would be to carefully proofread the entire manuscript.
(2.) Also, I have closely analyzed the format of the article, in order to check whether it follows the guidelines which are specific to the publisher. Thus, I have noticed that the current form of your work needs improvement in this regard. So, my kind suggestion is to closely analyze again the guidelines belonging to the publisher, since the article should fit exactly the publisher’s guidelines. For instance, the keywords, the subsections, the references, currently do not fit the style and the requirements of the publisher. Also, it would be highly recommendable to include in the abstract of your study more highly relevant details that refer to the research objectives and the methodology used. This would definitely be considered a plus for your scientific work.
(3.) In continuation, the suggestion would also be inserting in your article a few ideas concerning the correlation between effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the COVID-19 global crisis, sustainability and sustainability assessment, Sustainable Development Goals, while focusing on modelling the stages of pre-project preparation and design development in the life-cycle of an investment and construction project, since these are key focuses these days. In this context, I had the chance to read a few interesting scientific works recently, among which I would like to mention: Measuring Progress Towards the Sustainable Development Goals: Creativity, Intellectual Capital, and Innovation. In C. Popescu (Eds.), Handbook of Research on Novel Practices and Current Successes in Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (pp. 125-136). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-7998-8426-2.ch006; OECD. Measuring the Impacts of Business on Well-Being and Sustainability. https://www.oecd.org/statistics/Measuring-impacts-of-business-on-well-being.pdf; OECD. 2022. Toward sustainable economic development through promoting and enabling responsible business conduct. https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/f7813858-en/index.html?itemId=/content/component/f7813858-en.
Dear Authors, congratulations once again for your work and valuable insights reflected in the content of the manuscript, and I hope my comments will be of value to you!
Kind regards,
The Reviewer
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
our team of authors would like to thank you for your review. We have taken into account your comments. We proofread the article again and tried to edit it in accordance with the requirements of the journal. Corrected the keywords, the list of sources, the design of tables, figures, formulas. Added research goal to introduction. We also took into account your recommendations on literary sources.
The study looked at external factors such as the Covid-19 pandemic. But the experiment ended up taking into account internal factors. The experts were given the opportunity to propose a factor on their own. But experts eventually formulated other factors. We will take your recommendation into account in our future research.
Thank you very much for your positive review of our study.
Sincerely, the team of authors
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors have addressed all the comments.
