Opportunity and risk management for complex oil and gas developments

The thesis examines complex new oil and gas field developments, when growing the business from current capabilities and practice to the frontiers of undeveloped reservoirs. The contributors to complexity were identified, and an integrated methodology for opportunity and risk management, assessment and analysis was developed to produce more credible forecasts.

Key success factors in real-time industrial system assurance

The thesis analyses the issues of implementing real-time software systems in industrial applications. The benefit is the development of the Integrated Mega Project Development Model, to improve the effectiveness of planning and timely delivery of software, the quality of the delivered software and reducing problems associated with integrating software systems.

Technical developments for building demolition management

Environmentally friendly demolition methods such as deconstruction are currently not widely accepted due to a lack of economic motivation for demolition contractors. This research aims to economically analyse demolition techniques, and to adopt E-commerce into demolition project management in order to enable a higher level of material reuse and recycling.

Risk-based trust management for e-commerce

Electronic commerce (e-commerce) offers enormous opportunities for online trading while at the same time presenting potential risks. Although various mechanisms have been developed to elevate trust in e-commerce, research shows that shoppers continue to be skeptical about buying online and lack of trust is often cited as the main reason for it. Thus, enhancing success in e-commerce requires eliminating or reducing the risks. In this chapter, we present a multi-attribute trust management model that incorporates trust, transaction costs and product warranties. The new trust management system enables potential buyers to determine the risk level of a product before committing to proceed with the transaction. This is useful to online buyers as it allows them to be aware of the risk level and subsequently take the appropriate actions to minimize potential risks before engaging in risky businesses. Results of various simulation experiments show that the proposed multi-attribute trust management system can be highly effective in identifying risky transaction in electronic market places.

The process evaluation of it's your move!, an Australian adolescent community-based obesity prevention project

Background
Evidence on interventions for preventing unhealthy weight gain in adolescents is urgently needed. The aim of this paper is to describe the process evaluation for a three-year (2005-2008) project conducted in five secondary schools in the East Geelong/Bellarine region of Victoria, Australia. The project, 'It's Your Move!' aimed to reduce unhealthy weight gain by promoting healthy eating patterns, regular physical activity, healthy body weight, and body size perception amongst youth; and improve the capacity of families, schools, and community organisations to sustain the promotion of healthy eating and physical activity in the region.

Methods
The project was supported by Deakin University (training and evaluation), a Reference Committee (strategic direction, budgetary approval and monitoring) and a Project Management Committee (project delivery). A workshop of students, teachers and other stakeholders formulated a 10-point action plan, which was then translated into strategies and initiatives specific to each school by the School Project Officers (staff members released from teaching duties one day per week) and trained Student Ambassadors. Baseline surveys informed intervention development. Process data were collected on all intervention activities and these were collated and enumerated, where possible, into a set of mutually exclusive tables to demonstrate the types of strategies and the dose, frequency and reach of intervention activities.

Results
The action plan included three guiding objectives, four on nutrition, two on physical activity and one on body image. The process evaluation data showed that a mix of intervention strategies were implemented, including social marketing, one-off events, lunch time and curriculum programs, improvements in infrastructure, and healthy school food policies. The majority of the interventions were implemented in schools and focused on capacity building and healthy eating strategies as physical activity practices were seen by the teachers as already meeting students' needs.

Conclusions
While substantial health-promoting activities were conducted (especially related to healthy eating), there remain further opportunities for secondary schools to use a whole-of-school approach through the school curriculum, environment, policies and ethos to improve healthy eating, physical activity and healthy body perceptions in youth. To achieve this, significant, sustained leadership will be required within the education sector generally and within schools specifically.

Action learning through the use of enterprise resource planning system in construction management

Although information communication technology (ICT) tool is long regard as very useful in today’s engineering, architectural and construction management, organizations cannot just only simply operate based upon its origin, but also requires the on-going observation, controlling measures, monitoring aids, adding features and fine-tuning actions to such tool before the desirable outcome can be achieved. However, it is a very common phenomenon that organizations purchase the licensed “off-the-shelf-software” ICT package and customize it to suit their own requirements. Due to the incapability and inefficiency of such software and customization, the possible result is making such tool becomes not user-friendly and obsolete.

The purpose of this paper therefore, as part of the doctoral research, is to review and report those actions taken by a construction organization to enhance the performance of its Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system upon launching it since December 2002. Such actions include: improving data inputting method; removing the transition bottleneck; introducing crystallization function; revising the organization’s “Delegation and Limits of Authority”; publishing the “League Table” amongst users; integrating the 3D Modeling into the system and adopting the “Resources Requirement Planning”.

Whilst the ultimate goals of this system are well beyond the time limit of the research project, an obvious interim result, achieved by this case studied organization, was winning a landmark project worth HK$5 billion after the ERP system was functioned effectively. The experience and success of this organization can be borrowed by those companies which are planning to adopt information technology (IT) strategy and use ICT tool in the architectural management system.

Improving the management of knowledge through optimizing ICT support

The use of Information Communications Technology (ICT) within a project framework requires that the sponsoring organization and project teams strategy work together to ensure that knowledge is stored and made available to the project team. To obtain the greatest benefits to the organization, this information must be made available to other teams once the project is completed. This requires sponsorship for the knowledge management processes that continues after projects are completed and a set of tools and ICT processes that facilitate the management and storage of appropriate information within an ICT solution.

The role of assessment in the development of judgement

This paper introduces an integrated assessment model developed within a project management discipline stream in a Construction Management course. Following Boud and Falchikov (2007) this model starts with practice, that is, the actual ‘doing’ of project management as the basis for shaping assessment that equips students to learn for the rest of their lives. Practice is understood as a holistic conception of what professionals do in particular contexts, and a theoretical construct that provides a method of framing ways in which we can investigate the world (Schatzki, 2001). This approach opens the way for considerations of assessment that engage with, and cultivate, certain kinds of professional learning and identity formation including the development of judgement. Integral to the model is the non-sequential nature of assessment activities, evolving team formation and ongoing self and communal reflection. The paper concludes that the use of an authentic and integrated assessment model creates a compelling learning environment that contributes meaningfully to the development of skills, knowledge and identities for future professional learning.

Managing commercially-focused collaborative R&D projects : preliminary findings from an Australian survey

Preliminary findings from a 2005 survey of Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) project leaders are presented. The results provide initial insights into the nature and outcomes of commercially-focused CRC projects. Such projects are modest in size and budget, are focused on producing new technologies, and are seen by the partners to be risky. Project teams tend to have the necessary project management capabilities and effective communication processes. The projects are experienced in positive terms by the partners, and positive collaboration experience is associated with positive project outcomes. The preliminary investigation of an initial sample is the first step in a more detailed analysis aimed at testing a theoretical model explaining the factors determining collaboration experience.

Major quantitative techniques for risk analysis in the construction industry : a comparative analysis

Risk analysis is one of the critical functions of the risk management process. It relies on a detailed understanding of risks and their possible implications. Construction projects, because of their large and complex nature, are plagued by a variety of risks which must be considered and responded to in order to ensure project success. This study conducts an extensive comparative analysis of major quantitative risk analysis techniques in the construction industry. The techniques discussed and comparatively analyzed in this report include: Programme Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT), Judgmental Risk Analysis Process (JRAP), Estimating Using Risk Analysis (ERA), Monte Carlo Simulation technique, Computer Aided Simulation for Project Appraisal and Review (CASPAR), Failure Modes and Effects Analysis technique (FMEA) and Advanced Programmatic Risk Analysis and Management model (APRAM). The findings highlight the fact that each risk analysis technique addresses risks in any or all of the following areas – schedule risks, budget risks or technical risks. Through comparative analysis, it has been revealed that a majority of risk analysis techniques focus on schedule or budget risks. Very little has been documented in terms of technical risk analysis techniques. In an era where clients are demanding and expecting higher quality projects and finishes, project managers must endeavor to invest time and resources to ensure that the few existing technical risk analysis techniques are developed and further refined, and that new technical risk analysis techniques are developed to suit the current construction industries requirements.

A framework for inter-organizational knowledge sharing : managerial influences

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether an existing organizational knowledge management framework could be utilized in an inter-organizational domain. We selected the threefold KM framework developed by Holsapple and Joshi (2000; 2002). This framework has been well tested and provides clearly defined elements to examine the influences on knowledge management and knowledge sharing in an organizational context. We report the results of testing the framework in three inter-organizational case studies and propose some adaptations to the managerial influences for inter-organizational analysis.

Feral practices

In this paper we introduce the concept of feral practices which we define as the usage of information technology which deviates from the standard organizational norms and which exists beyond the control and/or knowledge of the organizational IT management. We argue towards using a ‘practice’ perspective in understanding noncompliant IT practices where we suggest a greater emphasis on usage of IT artifacts rather than the artifacts itself. We also outline a scope of feral practices by clarifying some of the concepts associated with the phenomenon. We propose a model based on the Merton’s Theory of Anomie, which seeks to explain why feral practices come about and what are the technological and social influences and supporting factors which lead to this phenomenon. This study thus intends to build a conceptual base for future studies on feral practices by providing a holistic view on the phenomenon and also identify directions for future research.

Integrated construction supply chain design and delivery solutions

This study describes the development of a decision framework to support multi-disciplinary information and knowledge management model which focuses on integrated design and delivery solutions for all construction supply chain actors. The framework was developed within the context of two national information technology research projects in Australia. The first study used diffusion theory to explain the barriers and enablers to future adoption of advanced information technology solutions such as building information modelling (BIM). A grounded theory methodology was deployed and a pathways model for innovative information technology diffusion accommodating diverse patterns of adoption and different levels of expertize was developed. The second study built on the findings of the first study but specifically focussed on innovators, early and late adopters of BIM and the development of a decision framework towards advanced collaborative platform solutions. This study summarizes the empirical results of the previous studies. The core of the decision framework is the creation, use and ownership of building information sub-models and integrated models. The decision framework relies on holistic collaborative design management. Design expertise is diffused and can be found in various locations along the construction supply chain within project teams. A wide definition of design is considered from conceptual to developed to detailed design. The recent development to the decision model offers much potential as the early upstream decisions are often made in a creative, collaborative and uncertain environment. However, decision making needs to balance both a reductionist and exploratory creative empowerment approach. Shared team expertise and competency and team mental models are explored as a fundamental requirement to collaborative BIM. New skills in interdisciplinarity are discussed as an implication of future construction industry collaborative platforms.

Facilitating a no-blame culture through project alliancing

Innovation occurs within the safety of a no-blame culture yet we see surprisingly scant literature on how this is facilitated within a construction project management context. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how innovation and promotion of innovative thinking in action is enabled through a no-blame culture in project alliances in Australia. We argue that innovation is dependent upon collaboration and true collaboration is inextricable linked to behavioural drivers. Foremost of these is a culture of openness and willingness to share the pain and gain from experimentation. Further, this culture requires that collaborators be protected from the threat of being blamed and held accountable for experimental failure. We draw upon theory and data gathered over several recent research studies on the experience of project alliances in Australia. The project alliance procurement form has a unique ‘no-blame’ behavioural contract clause that is crucial in developing a collaborative culture where innovation can evolve through a process of trial and error.

An intelligent content discovery technique for health portal content management

Background: Continuous content management of health information portals is a feature vital for its sustainability and widespread acceptance. Knowledge and experience of a domain expert is essential for content management in the health domain. The rate of generation of online health resources is exponential and thereby manual examination for relevance to a specific topic and audience is a formidable challenge for domain experts. Intelligent content discovery for effective content management is a less researched topic. An existing expert-endorsed content repository can provide the necessary leverage to automatically identify relevant resources and evaluate qualitative metrics.Objective: This paper reports on the design research towards an intelligent technique for automated content discovery and ranking for health information portals. The proposed technique aims to improve efficiency of the current mostly manual process of portal content management by utilising an existing expert-endorsed content repository as a supporting base and a benchmark to evaluate the suitability of new contentMethods: A model for content management was established based on a field study of potential users. The proposed technique is integral to this content management model and executes in several phases (ie, query construction, content search, text analytics and fuzzy multi-criteria ranking). The construction of multi-dimensional search queries with input from Wordnet, the use of multi-word and single-word terms as representative semantics for text analytics and the use of fuzzy multi-criteria ranking for subjective evaluation of quality metrics are original contributions reported in this paper.Results: The feasibility of the proposed technique was examined with experiments conducted on an actual health information portal, the BCKOnline portal. Both intermediary and final results generated by the technique are presented in the paper and these help to establish benefits of the technique and its contribution towards effective content management.Conclusions: The prevalence of large numbers of online health resources is a key obstacle for domain experts involved in content management of health information portals and websites. The proposed technique has proven successful at search and identification of resources and the measurement of their relevance. It can be used to support the domain expert in content management and thereby ensure the health portal is up-to-date and current.