A maintenance-data-model of enterprise resource planning

Two distinct maintenance-data-models are studied: a government Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) maintenance-data-model, and the Software Engineering Industries (SEI) maintenance-data-model. The objective is to: (i) determine whether the SEI maintenance-data-model is sufficient in the context of ERP (by comparing with an ERP case), (ii) identify whether the ERP maintenance-data-model in this study has adequately captured the essential and common maintenance attributes (by comparing with the SEI), and (iii) proposed a new ERP maintenance-data-model as necessary. Our findings suggest that: (i) there are variations to the SEI model in an ERP-context, and (ii) there are rooms for improvements in our ERP case’s maintenance-data-model. Thus, a new ERP maintenance-data-model capturing the fundamental ERP maintenance attributes is proposed. This model is imperative for: (i) enhancing the reporting and visibility of maintenance activities, (ii) monitoring of the maintenance problems, resolutions and performance, and (iii) helping maintenance manager to better manage maintenance activities and make well-informed maintenance decisions.

Re-booting regional planning in South East Queensland

This Issues Paper presents the outcomes of a recent seminar which addressed the theme of 'Re-Booting Regional Planning in South East Queensland'. The seminar was held at the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, in June 2004. The seminar brought together a wide range of state and local government, community, private sector and scholarly participants, including members of the Urban Policy Program. This report provides an overview of the context for the seminar, the problems faced by the South East Queensland region which the seminar seeks to address and indentifies outcomes and proposals for future directions arising from the seminar dicussions.

Developing a vision for an nD modelling tool

The design of a building is a complicated process, having to formulate diverse components through unique tasks involving different personalities and organisations in order to satisfy multi-faceted client requirements. To do this successfully, the project team must encapsulate an integrated design that accommodates various social, economic and legislative factors. Therefore, in this era of increasing global competition integrated design has been increasingly recognised as a solution to deliver value to clients.----- The ‘From 3D to nD modelling’ project at the University of Salford aims to support integrated design; to enable and equip the design and construction industry with a tool that allows users to create, share, contemplate and apply knowledge from multiple perspectives of user requirements (accessibility, maintainability, sustainability, acoustics, crime, energy simulation, scheduling, costing etc.). Thus taking the concept of 3-dimensional computer modelling of the built environment to an almost infinite number of dimensions, to cope with whole-life construction and asset management issues in the design of modern buildings. This paper reports on the development of a vision for how integrated environments that will allow nD-enabled construction and asset management to be undertaken. The project is funded by a four-year platform grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) in the UK; thus awarded to a multi-disciplinary research team, to enable flexibility in the research strategy and to produce leading innovation. This paper reports on the development of a business process and IT vision for how integrated environments will allow nD-enabled construction and asset management to be undertaken. It further develops many of the key issues of a future vision arising from previous CIB W78 conferences.

Increasing relevance and interest : teaching environmental and planning law to built environment students

A new approach was taken to delivering a challenging "stewarship of land" unit to over 350 predominantly first year built environment students stewardship. The new approach involved incorporating environmental and planning law into the syllabus, exposing students to a wide range of statutes, selecting legal cases according to a et of criteria and revisiting the material using different modes of delivery and teaching resources. To evaluate the effectiveness of the new approach, the students were surveyed to elicit their learning experience and preferences. The survey found that most students perceived learning about environmental and planning law, including legal cases, worthwhile.----- Areas identified by the surcey for improvement included the perception by some students that: environmenatl and planning law is irrelevant to their discipline and future caree; studying law is dull and sometimes daunting; and the prescribed reading could be omitted.----- To address student perceptions, it is proposed to reorder the topics commencing with local, charismatic topics, while explanding international content and cases, to enlarge and enhance the repertoire of video clips to include sites of legal cawses and development projects, and to reformat the online weekly quizzes to promote reading of primary material.----- Overall, the approach to teaching environmental and planning law to built environment students, including the criteria for selecting legal cases, described in this paper, was found to be effective.

The impact of planning delays and other holding costs on housing affordability

Housing affordability is gaining increasing prominence in the Australian socioeconomic landscape, despite strong economic growth and prosperity. It is a major consideration for any new development. However, it is multi-dimensional, has many facets, is complex and interwoven. One factor widely held to impact housing affordability is holding costs. Although it is only one contributor, the nature and extent of its impact requires clarification. It is certainly more multifarious than simple calculation of the interest or opportunity cost of land holding. For example, preliminary analysis suggests that even small shifts in the regulatory assessment period can significantly affect housing affordability. Other costs associated with “holding” also impact housing affordability, however these costs cannot always be easily identified. Nevertheless it can be said that ultimately the real impact is felt by those whom can least afford it - new home buyers whom can be relatively easily pushed into the realms of un-affordability.

The experiences of teacher aides who support students with disabilities and learning difficulties : a phenomenological study

Schools in Queensland, Australia, are undergoing inclusive education reform, following the report of the Ministerial Taskforce on Inclusive Education (Students with Disabilities) in 2004. The State government’s responses to the taskforce report emphasise a commitment to social justice and equity so that all students can be included in ways that enable them to achieve their potential. Teacher aides are employed in schools as ancillary staff to support students with disabilities and learning difficulties. Their support roles in schools are emerging within an educational context in which assumptions about disability, difference and inclusion of students with disabilities and learning difficulties are changing. It is important to acknowledge teacher aides as support practitioners, and to understand their roles in relation to the inclusion of students with disabilities and learning difficulties as inclusive education reform continues. This study used a phenomenological approach to explore the lived experiences of teacher aides as they supported students with disabilities and learning difficulties in primary schools. Four key insights into the support roles of teacher aides in primary schools in Brisbane, Queensland emerged from the study: 1) teacher aides develop empathetic relationships with students that contribute significantly to the students’ sense of belonging within school communities; 2) lack of clear definition of roles and responsibilities for teacher aides has detrimental effects on inclusion of students; 3) collaborative planning and implementation of classroom learning and socialisation programs enhances inclusion; and 4) teacher aides learn about supporting students while on-the-job, and in consultation and collaboration with other members of the students’ support networks.

Urban sustainability and growth management in south-east Asian city-regions : the case of Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong

Major South-East Asian city-regions have experienced considerable physical, economic and social transformations during the past three decades. The rapid pace of globalisation and economic restructuring has resulted in these city-regions receiving the full impact of urbanisation pressures. In an attempt to ease these pressures, city-regions such as Bangkok, Seoul, Tokyo, Taipei, Hong Kong, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur have advocate growth management approaches giving particular interest to urban sustainability. These approaches promote efforts to achieve the triple bottom line sustainability by balancing economic and social development, and environmental protection, and putting more emphasis on compact and optimum development of urban forms. This paper evaluates the case of two South-East Asian city-regions, Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong, and assesses their experiences in managing their urban forms whilst promoting sustainable patterns of urban development. The findings show that sustainable urban development initiatives employing a top down approach has yielded encouraging results in these case study city-regions. However the need for a more concerted effort towards the overall sustainability agenda still remains vital.

Governance and effectiveness in regional planning: an analysis of North American, European, and Australasian practice

Over the past several years, there has been resurgent interest in regional planning in North America, Europe and Australasia. Spurred by issues such as metropolitan growth, transportation infrastructure, environmental management and economic development, many states and metropolitan regions are undertaking new planning initiatives. These regional efforts have also raised significant question about governance structures, accountability and measures of effectiveness.n this paper, the authors conducted an international review of ten case studies from the United States, Canada, England, Belgium, New Zealand and Australia to explore several critical questions. Using qualitative data template, the research team reviewed plans, documents, web sites and published literature to address three questions. First, what are the governance arrangements for delivering regional planning? Second, what are the mechanisms linking regional plans with state plans (when relevant) and local plans? Third, what means and mechanisms do these regional plans use to evaluate and measure effectiveness? The case study analysis revealed several common themes. First, there is an increasing focus on goverance at the regional level, which is being driven by a range of trends, including regional spatial development initiatives in Europe, regional transportation issues in the US, and the growth of metropolitan regions generally. However, there is considerable variation in how regional governance arrangements are being played out. Similarly, there is a range of processes being used at the regional level to guide planning that range from broad ranging (thick) processes to narrow and limited (thin) approaches. Finally, evaluation and monitoring of regional planning efforts are compiling data on inputs, processes, outputs and outcomes. Although there is increased attention being paid to indicators and monitoring, most of it falls into outcome evaluations such as Agenda 21 or sustainability reporting. Based on our review we suggest there is a need for increased attention on input, process and output indicators and clearer linkages of these indicators in monitoring and evaluation frameworks. The focus on outcome indicators, such as sustainability indicators, creates feedback systems that are too long-term and remote for effective monitoring and feedback. Although we found some examples of where these kinds of monitoring frameworks are linked into a system of governance, there is a need for clearer conceptual development for both theory and practice.