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It’s a global challenge to make cities and communities become an age-friendly society. This paper aims to discuss how to develop good concepts for senior residences in Norway and aim to study what the challenges are in the early planning phase, searching the answer to the following research questions: (1) What makes a senior housing attractive? (2) What are the challenges that hinder future concept development? (3) Suggest actions in order to obtain a sustainable development.

This research uses a descriptive and explorative approach describing the phenomena by (I) a short literature review describing existing concepts and challenges, (II) “Walk-through”-methodology with informal dialogue on site and (II) semi-structured interviews of property developers, architects or contractors, politicians, care providers or planners in the municipality involved in seven pilot projects in Kristiansand and Stavanger.

The authors find that new and diverse concepts need to be developed to meet the demand of the seniors. The new concepts should be developed in collaboration with both public and private actors as well as developing a communication platform to meet the needs of the seniors in terms understanding the possibilities of alternative housings, incentives to move and how to influence and get involved in the planning.

There is a limited no. of informants among the public stakeholders. Only three of the seven pilot projects are accomplished. There is an advantage if the rest of the projects are evaluated when accomplished.

Develop participation models and PPP models at the local level.

The value lies in the evaluation of the seven pilot projects.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effect of a systematic commissioning process on project management performance of construction projects, expressed as cost, time, quality and customer satisfaction. The building commissioner in focus uses the term systematic completion (SC), defining it as a structured process, throughout the whole project assuring the fulfillment of functional requirements in the building.

A qualitative single case study was used to analyze the effect of a SC process by one Norwegian building commissioner in the public sector, exemplified with four projects. The analysis was conducted by studying project documents and conducting interviews.

SC has a positive effect on the performance of a construction project, enabling completion on cost, schedule and with fewer defects at handover. Involving facility management assures mutual learning, trained operations personnel and potentially lower costs of operations because of fewer corrections and optimized systems. Higher efforts and resource use in the early phases of the project and in testing are largely offset by the generated benefits.

This case study is limited to the building commissioner’s perspective in four projects. The design team’s, the contractor’s and the client’s perspectives are not represented in the study. Only one of the projects is completed, which limits the ability to draw quantitative conclusions.

Existing studies focus on the technical aspect of SC. The present study provides valuable insights into the effect of SC on project management performance, especially on its implications for the takeover of the building by operations.

The purpose of this paper is to know how do early-phase planning of real estate (RE) and facilities management (FM) create value for owners and users of commercial and public sector buildings.

The data were collected in Norway in 2015 through a national online survey (N = 837). The sample gives a good picture of Norwegian owners’ and even users on tactical-level (customer) perspectives on RE and FM. The data have been analysed through descriptive statistics and exploratory factor analysis. The hypotheses have been tested through analyses of correlations and ordinary least square (OLS) linear regressions.

Exploratory factor analysis made it possible to establish seven composite variables (constructs). Based on these seven constructs, six hypotheses were derived and tested. Obstacles and financials have no significant effect on buildings’ perceived usability. The most important factors during early-phase planning that influence buildings’ perceived usability and lifetime value creation are measures promoting environment and life-cycle costs (LCC), FM, adaptability and image.

Further empirical and preferably, comparative studies are needed to establish whether the findings can be generalized. The study has shown that a building’s usability and lifetime value creation is largely determined by decisions made during early phase planning.

Well-founded early-phase planning of RE and FM may actually provide very high return on the investments and significantly improve the buildings’ lifetime value creation for owners and users. Early-phase planning is also of great importance both for buildings’ physical design, as well as for successful FM during the buildings’ use phase, and may prevent irreversible blunders.

This is a large N empirical study in Norway. The findings indicate what owner and users of buildings should emphasize during early phase planning.

The aim of this paper is to present findings from the research project “Oscar – Value for Owners and Users of Buildings” and investigate two research questions: What in early-phase planning of real estate projects and facilities management creates value for owners and users of buildings? Do respondents in private enterprises, public administrations and hybrid organizations have different priorities during early-phase planning of buildings and facilities management concerning which factors creates value for owners and users of buildings?

This study is based on a national survey (N = 837) among Norwegian owners and users of buildings where the respondents report their emphasis on economic, social, environmental and physical aspects during early-phase planning of buildings. The data have been analysed through descriptive statistics, ranking of means and one-way ANOVA supplemented with bootstrapping.

Many Norwegian owners and users of buildings emphasize short-term financials and seem to overlook recent research concerning what creates long-term value such as life-cycle planning and the buildings’ elasticity, flexibility, generality. Respondents employed by private enterprises seem to have shorter time horizon than respondents employed by hybrid organizations and public administrations.

Further empirical research in Norway and preferably also in other countries, based on surveys with large random samples of respondents is needed to establish whether it is possible to generalize this study’s findings.

Increased emphasis during early-phase planning of buildings on aspects creating long-term value can significantly increase the buildings’ value creation for owners and users. This article indicates some attention areas and possible strategies during early-phase planning to improve the long-term value creation for owners and users.

This is an empirical study (national survey) with particular emphasis on how early-phase planning of buildings can contribute to value creation for users and owners during the buildings’ use phase.

Family Justice Centers, or “one-stop shops” that enable domestic violence victims to access a range of services at one location, are becoming increasingly common. However, there is a limited body of research examining the outcomes and planning processes of these Centers. The early phases of planning Centers are critical to their initial and ongoing success. The purpose of this paper is to discuss these issues.

In total, 15 stakeholders in a community in the early phases of planning a Center were interviewed.

Content analysis procedures were used to identify themes related to participants’ ideas about what the Family Justice Center should look like (e.g. services to include and perceived benefits and challenges for the Center), the steps required for planning it (e.g. identifying the purpose of the Center, getting key people involved, and building collaborations), and desired technologies.

This paper is the first known research effort to examine the early phases of development in constructing a Family Justice Center.

This study explores how and when intuitive forms of planning can be used in a family firm's succession process.

The study uses an extended focus group meeting, consisting of individual, group and subgroup discussions with seven highly experienced external family business advisors in the Netherlands to gain a holistic understanding of the succession process and its underlying logic. The study also employs pre- and post-group questionnaires.

This study reveals that advisors perceive intuitive forms of planning as an integral part of the succession process, with the latter containing both intuitive and formal logic and activities. Both logics are used situationally and flexibly to deal with the uniqueness and unpredictability of the succession process and to build strong relations and manage relational dynamics in business families to address tasks, dilemmas and contingencies.

The succession process is an important part of business families' achievement of transgenerational intent. Creating commitment among potential successors begins when they are children, and understanding the role of the more intuitive forms of planning during the succession process will provide us with a more holistic perspective on its dynamics.

The purpose of this paper is to present the participatory action project, in an attempt to redefine the aprioristic approach, which does not bring significant results for the local community regarding the sustainable concept as an estimative goal. The purpose of introducing the process management (PM) as a technique was to incorporate the collaboration between academic research with ongoing activities of local authorities, and furthermore to preserve living and dwelling patterns to make them sustain within the neighborhood in time.

PM is a method of approaching planning that can be used in complex, unpredictable situations common in the field of development and social change. The method allows stakeholders to pursue different goals or activities within a common project. Under such circumstances, the planning process must respond to many interests as a key aspect of the public interest of a particular community. This concept helps planners by anticipating the precise events and activities to satisfy the larger goals and processes.

This study sets out with the aim to establish sustainability definition in this case study, i.e. based on the notion of the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, the management of the project described in these participatory activities has attempted to resolve the complexity of stakeholder positions in the contemporary community. Emphasizing the social content, general and specific objectives of the project interact and evolve during this process of implementation of sustainable methodology and become the subject to negotiations and compromises, which change during the process.

The survey could help to get the needed information to create correlated activity diagrams. They represent the actual and the proposed situation in the neighborhood regarding social interaction between the dwellers and their interlock of interests on different scales. These are highly mutable components that depend on a certain period. The hypothesis regarding certain research problem could give significant statistical differences, but depend on relevant survey questions.

A common topic is established – the importance of half-private spaces. The students have learned how to create and use analytical tools in the process of creating a program that has social significance for the inhabitants. In terms of the study curriculum, the students benefit from this project as a part of their education process. Local authorities and dwellers also become aware of the significance of particular social values regarding property value and land use assessment.

Social sustainability becomes a project where the planning process must respond to many interests as a key aspect of public interest where municipal sustainability requires self-assessment, to reinforce the connection between citizens and local authorities as their real representatives.

The hypothesis regarding social behavior gave significant differences when the following aspects were statistically analyzed: time-sharing between household members, the importance of house yard preferences, barrier properties between households and negotiation boundary between neighbors (space compromise). Urban Facility Management (UFM) is seen as the primary factor in creating an urban ecosystem, which has people and the environment as the main driving forces.

The purpose of this paper is to explore fuzzy front end (FFE) of new product development (NPD) in Japanese manufacturing companies and report on the key factors for success with regard to the front end activities of NPD.

On the basis of the literature review, the authors lay out an analytical framework and hypothesis and develop and test a causal model of relationships among key variables relating to the front end factors and success. The causal model is tested with AMOS using information from 513 completed NPD projects from Japanese manufacturing companies.

The results of this study are summarized as follows: first, the more both market and technical uncertainties are reduced during the front end, the higher is the effectiveness of NPD projects. Second, the more intensively new projects are planned prior to the start of development, the more both market and technical uncertainties are reduced. Finally, in the industry goods firms, it is easy for managers to develop the initial planning, and it has a greater impact on reduction of market uncertainty compared to the consumer goods firms.

First, it is the scope and size of the sample. Our research mainly focuses on the precision apparatus, chemical and material products, electronic products, food processing and pharmaceutical industry in Japan. Second, the research concentrates less on the interaction between initial planning, planning changes and process management style.

The paper provides several insights that will help managers to improve the success of their NPD activities.

The paper provides additional evidence regarding the strong positive effect of FFE activities on NPD success. The model presented enhances understanding of the dynamics of the FFE.

The paper aims to discuss how life cycle assessment can be used in the early stage planning phase of new settlements.

By applying the life cycle methodology on the waste, water and wastewater system of a new carbon‐neutral settlement under planning in Norway, the authors discuss the pros and cons with applying this methodology in an early planning phase.

The LCA methodology enabled the authors to compare suggestions from interdisciplinary planning teams, relate them to the existing systems in Trondheim and provide quantitative results back to the decision‐makers, in this case the municipality. The environmental benefits of implementing alternative solutions in the waste, water and wastewater systems were found to be small.

Data availability and uncertainty can be limitations in the early planning phase.

By applying this methodology, the life cycle environmental impact of different solutions can be assessed at an early planning stage.

Even if life cycle assessment has been used for years in the research community, there is too little experience with applying the methodology in the early planning phase of new projects. This paper discuss how life cycle assessment can be used to compare suggestions from interdisciplinary planning teams, relate them to existing systems and provide quantitative results back to the decision‐makers.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate hidden/less tangible dimensions of ISO 9001:2000 standard for better understanding where there are potentials for designing and implementing highly mature quality management systems (QMSs).

Based on advanced quality tools, 80‐20 rule and inventive problem‐solving algorithms, a novel methodology is developed and applied for quantifying the value weight of ISO 9001:2000 requirements in the equation of business competitiveness, for identifying critical issues, conflicts and barriers within projects dealing with quality management system (QMS) design and implementation, as well as for defining in a systematic way innovative solutions to the challenges arising from these analyses.

A quantitative assessment of the conformity that business processes have relative to ISO 9001:2000 requirements is possible even in the early stage of designing the QMS. A large number of conflicts and barriers could affect the performance of a QMS. Mature QMSs should consider innovative vectors of intervention from the early phases of their planning and designing processes.

The set of criteria and their ranks that were used to determine the value weights of the requirements within ISO 9001:2000 have been established only with a focus group of stakeholders; an extensive survey might reveal slight differences of results.

ISO 9001:2000 provides only a generic framework for bringing quality to life. Both careful performance planning and process innovation are required to elaborate a mature QMS.

The paper reveals a novel tool for quantifying the gap between a given quality management system and ISO 9001:2000 requirements. A comprehensive set of innovative solutions for approaching the design and implementation of a QMS in a competitive way are also provided.