Analysing strategic alliances in building construction

Building construction is a highly competitive and risky business. This competitiveness is compounded where conflicting objectives amongst contracting and subcontracting firms sets the stage for an adversarial and potentially destructive approach. There is a need for change in the construction industry—not only to a more cooperative approach to build mutual trust, respect and good faith—but also from a confrontationist and adversarial attitude to a harmonious relationship. It is necessary to change the culture to create a win-win situation. “Strategic Alliances” is one such concept. A strategic alliance is a cooperative arrangement between two or more organisations that forms part of their overall strategies, and contributes to achieving their major goals and objectives. This paper begins with an overview of the Australian building construction industry, then reviews the literature and describes an analysis framework comprising six attributes of strategic alliances—trust, commitment, interdependence, cooperation, communication, and joint problem solving. Given the trend towards greater emphasis on broader contracting firm performance criteria, indicators are proposed as a component of the tender evaluation process for public works.

Strategic alliances in building construction : a tender evaluation tool for the public sector

Building construction is a highly competitive and risky business. This competitiveness is compounded where conflicting objectives amongst contracting and subcontracting firms set the stage for an adversarial and potentially destructive business relationship. Clients, especially those from the public sector, need broader tender evaluation criteria to complement the traditional focus on bid price. There is also a need for change in the construction industry—not only to a more cooperative approach between the constructing parties—but also from a confrontationist attitude to a more harmonious relationship between all stakeholders in providing constructed facilities. A strategic alliance is a cooperative relationship between two or more organisations that forms part of their overall strategies, and contributes to achieving their major goals and objectives. Strategic alliances in building construction may provide a useful tool to assist public sector construction managers evaluate tenders and concurrently encourage more cooperative relationships amongst construction stakeholders. This paper begins with an overview of the Australian building construction industry, then reviews the existing strategic alliance literature and describes an analysis framework comprising six attributes of strategic alliances for application to construction organisations—trust, commitment, interdependence, cooperation, communication, and joint problem solving. These attributes are currently being used to collect data from 70 building construction firms in Queensland to assess their respective levels of strategic alliance. Given the trend towards broader indicators of construction firm performance, these attributes are proposed as a tool for use in the tender evaluation process for public works.

Design for Manufacturing (DFM) – A case study of repetitive measures

Design for Manufacturing (DFM) is a highly integral methodology in product development, starting from the concept development phase, with the aim of improving manufacturing productivity and maintaining product quality. While Design for Assembly (DFA) is focusing on elimination or combination of parts with other components (Boothroyd, Dewhurst and Knight, 2002), which in most cases relates to performing a function and manufacture operation in a simpler way, DFM is following a more holistic approach. During DFM, the considerable background work required for the conceptual phase is compensated for by a shortening of later development phases. Current DFM projects normally apply an iterative step-by-step approach and eventually transfer to the developer team. Although DFM has been a well established methodology for about 30 years, a Fraunhofer IAO study from 2009 found that DFM was still one of the key challenges of the German Manufacturing Industry. A new, knowledge based approach to DFM, eliminating steps of DFM, was introduced in Paul and Al-Dirini (2009). The concept focuses on a concurrent engineering process between the manufacturing engineering and product development systems, while current product realization cycles depend on a rigorous back-and-forth examine-and-correct approach so as to ensure compatibility of any proposed design to the DFM rules and guidelines adopted by the company. The key to achieving reductions is to incorporate DFM considerations into the early stages of the design process. A case study for DFM application in an automotive powertrain engineering environment is presented. It is argued that a DFM database needs to be interfaced to the CAD/CAM software, which will restrict designers to the DFM criteria. Consequently, a notable reduction of development cycles can be achieved. The case study is following the hypothesis that current DFM methods do not improve product design in a manner claimed by the DFM method. The critical case was to identify DFA/DFM recommendations or program actions with repeated appearance in different sources. Repetitive DFM measures are identified, analyzed and it is shown how a modified DFM process can mitigate a non-fully integrated DFM approach.

Design for manufacturing : a review and case study

Design for Manufacturing (DFM) is a highly integral methodology in product development, starting from the concept development phase, with the aim of improving manufacturing productivity. It is used to reduce manufacturing costs in complex production environments, while maintaining product quality. While Design for Assembly (DFA) is focusing on elimination or combination of parts with other components, which in most cases relates to performing a function and manufacture operation in a simpler way, DFM is following a more holistic approach. Common consideration for DFM are standard components, manufacturing tool inventory and capability, materials compatibility with production process, part handling, logistics, tool wear and process optimization, quality control complexity or Poka-Yoke design. During DFM, the considerable background work required for the conceptual phase is compensated for by a shortening of later development phases. Current DFM projects normally apply an iterative step-by-step approach and eventually transfer to the developer team. The study is introducing a new, knowledge based approach to DFM, eliminating steps of DFM, and showing implications on the work process. Furthermore, a concurrent engineering process via transparent interface between the manufacturing engineering and product development systems is brought forward.

Concurrent multi-scale modeling of civil infrastructures for analyses on structural deterioration—Part I : Modeling methodology and strategy

This paper aims to develop the methodology and strategy for concurrent finite element modeling of civil infrastructures at the different scale levels for the purposes of analyses of structural deteriorating. The modeling strategy and method were investigated to develop the concurrent multi-scale model of structural behavior (CMSM-of-SB) in which the global structural behavior and nonlinear damage features of local details in a large complicated structure could be concurrently analyzed in order to meet the needs of structural-state evaluation as well as structural deteriorating. In the proposed method, the “large-scale” modeling is adopted for the global structure with linear responses between stress and strain and the “small-scale” modeling is available for nonlinear damage analyses of the local welded details. A longitudinal truss in steel bridge decks was selected as a case to study how a CMSM-of-SB was developed. The reduced-scale specimen of the longitudinal truss was studied in the laboratory to measure its dynamic and static behavior in global truss and local welded details, while the multi-scale models using constraint equations and substructuring were developed for numerical simulation. The comparison of dynamic and static response between the calculated results by different models indicated that the proposed multi-scale model was found to be the most efficient and accurate. The verification of the model with results from the tested truss under the specific loading showed that, responses at the material scale in the vicinity of local details as well as structural global behaviors could be obtained and fit well with the measured results. The proposed concurrent multi-scale modeling strategy and implementation procedures were applied to Runyang cable-stayed bridge (RYCB) and the CMSM-of-SB of the bridge deck system was accordingly constructed as a practical application.

Concurrent multi-scale modeling of civil infrastructures for analyses on structural deteriorating—Part II : Model updating and verification

This paper is a continuation of the paper titled “Concurrent multi-scale modeling of civil infrastructure for analyses on structural deteriorating—Part I: Modeling methodology and strategy” with the emphasis on model updating and verification for the developed concurrent multi-scale model. The sensitivity-based parameter updating method was applied and some important issues such as selection of reference data and model parameters, and model updating procedures on the multi-scale model were investigated based on the sensitivity analysis of the selected model parameters. The experimental modal data as well as static response in terms of component nominal stresses and hot-spot stresses at the concerned locations were used for dynamic response- and static response-oriented model updating, respectively. The updated multi-scale model was further verified to act as the baseline model which is assumed to be finite-element model closest to the real situation of the structure available for the subsequent arbitrary numerical simulation. The comparison of dynamic and static responses between the calculated results by the final model and measured data indicated the updating and verification methods applied in this paper are reliable and accurate for the multi-scale model of frame-like structure. The general procedures of multi-scale model updating and verification were finally proposed for nonlinear physical-based modeling of large civil infrastructure, and it was applied to the model verification of a long-span bridge as an actual engineering practice of the proposed procedures.

Recognising the capacities of dynamic reconfiguration for the QoS assurance of running systems in concurrent and parallel environments

Recognizing the impact of reconfiguration on the QoS of running systems is especially necessary for choosing an appropriate approach to dealing with dynamic evolution of mission-critical or non-stop business systems. The rationale is that the impaired QoS caused by inappropriate use of dynamic approaches is unacceptable for such running systems. To predict in advance the impact, the challenge is two-fold. First, a unified benchmark is necessary to expose QoS problems of existing dynamic approaches. Second, an abstract representation is necessary to provide a basis for modeling and comparing the QoS of existing and new dynamic reconfiguration approaches. Our previous work [8] has successfully evaluated the QoS assurance capabilities of existing dynamic approaches and provided guidance of appropriate use of particular approaches. This paper reinvestigates our evaluations, extending them into concurrent and parallel environments by abstracting hardware and software conditions to design an evaluation context. We report the new evaluation results and conclude with updated impact analysis and guidance.

Untanglings: A novel approach to analyzing concurrent systems

Substantial research efforts have been expended to deal with the complexity of concurrent systems that is inherent to their analysis, e.g., works that tackle the well-known state space explosion problem. Approaches differ in the classes of properties that they are able to suitably check and this is largely a result of the way they balance the trade-off between analysis time and space employed to describe a concurrent system. One interesting class of properties is concerned with behavioral characteristics. These properties are conveniently expressed in terms of computations, or runs, in concurrent systems. This article introduces the theory of untanglings that exploits a particular representation of a collection of runs in a concurrent system. It is shown that a representative untangling of a bounded concurrent system can be constructed that captures all and only the behavior of the system. Representative untanglings strike a unique balance between time and space, yet provide a single model for the convenient extraction of various behavioral properties. Performance measurements in terms of construction time and size of representative untanglings with respect to the original specifications of concurrent systems, conducted on a collection of models from practice, confirm the scalability of the approach. Finally, this article demonstrates practical benefits of using representative untanglings when checking various behavioral properties of concurrent systems.

A new model to study healing of a complex femur fracture with concurrent soft tissue injury in sheep

High energy bone fractures resulting from impact trauma are often accompanied by subcutaneous soft tissue injuries, even if the skin remains intact. There is evidence that such closed soft tissue injuries affect the healing of bone fractures, and vice versa. Despite this knowledge, most impact trauma studies in animals have focussed on bone fractures or soft tissue trauma in isolation. However, given the simultaneous impact on both tissues a better understanding of the interaction between these two injuries is necessary to optimise clinical treatment. The aim of this study was therefore to develop a new experimental model and characterise, for the first time, the healing of a complex fracture with concurrent closed soft tissue trauma in sheep. A pendulum impact device was designed to deliver a defined and standardised impact to the distal thigh of sheep, causing a reproducible contusion injury to the subcutaneous soft tissues. In a subsequent procedure, a reproducible femoral butterfly fracture (AO C3-type) was created at the sheep’s femur, which was initially stabilised for 5 days by an external fixator construct to allow for soft tissue swelling to recede, and ultimately in a bridging construct using locking plates. The combined injuries were applied to twelve sheep and the healing observed for four or eight weeks (six animals per group) until sacrifice. The pendulum impact led to a moderate to severe circumferential soft tissue injury with significant bruising, haematomas and partial muscle disruptions. Posttraumatic measurements showed elevated intra-compartmental pressure and circulatory tissue breakdown markers, with recovery to normal, pre-injury values within four days. Clinically, no neurovascular deficiencies were observed. Bi-weekly radiological analysis of the healing fractures showed progressive callus healing over time, with the average number of callus bridges increasing from 0.4 at two weeks to 4.2 at eight weeks. Biomechanical testing after sacrifice showed increasing torsional stiffness between four and eight weeks healing time from 10% to 100%, and increasing ultimate torsional strength from 10% to 64% (relative to the contralateral control limb). Our results demonstrate the robust healing of a complex femur fracture in the presence of a severe soft tissue contusion injury in sheep and demonstrate the establishment of a clinically relevant experimental model, for research aimed at improving the treatment of bone fractures accompanied by closed soft tissue injuries.

The 4C spectrum of fundamental behavioral relations for concurrent systems

The design of concurrent software systems, in particular process-aware information systems, involves behavioral modeling at various stages. Recently, approaches to behavioral analysis of such systems have been based on declarative abstractions defined as sets of behavioral relations. However, these relations are typically defined in an ad-hoc manner. In this paper, we address the lack of a systematic exploration of the fundamental relations that can be used to capture the behavior of concurrent systems, i.e., co-occurrence, conflict, causality, and concurrency. Besides the definition of the spectrum of behavioral relations, which we refer to as the 4C spectrum, we also show that our relations give rise to implication lattices. We further provide operationalizations of the proposed relations, starting by proposing techniques for computing relations in unlabeled systems, which are then lifted to become applicable in the context of labeled systems, i.e., systems in which state transitions have semantic annotations. Finally, we report on experimental results on efficiency of the proposed computations.

Opportunities and challenges : combining distance and on-campus students in concurrent courses

Through its Electronic Delivery of Gator Engineering (EDGE) program, University of Florida (UF) offers online master’s degrees from participating departments within the UF College of Engineering. Each master’s degree requires 10 courses (3 credit hours each). One interesting and unique aspect of the EDGE pro-gram is that distance learners are registered concurrently in the same courses with traditional on-campus students. This paper examines the specific challenges involved in integrating distance students into on-campus courses, including communication, interaction, access to resources, and equal grading practices.

Parenting and the behavior problems of young children with an intellectual disability: Concurrent and longitudinal relationships in a population-based study

We examined parenting behaviors, and their association with concurrent and later child behavior problems. Children with an intellectual disability (ID) were identified from a UK birth cohort (N  =  516 at age 5). Compared to parents of children without an ID, parents of children with an ID used discipline less frequently, but reported a more negative relationship with their child. Among children with an ID, discipline, and home atmosphere had no long-term association with behavior problems, whereas relationship quality did: closer relationships were associated with fewer concurrent and later child behavior problems. Increased parent-child conflict was associated with greater concurrent and later behavior problems. Parenting programs in ID could target parent-child relationship quality as a potential mediator of behavioral improvements in children.