Search results

As many construction clients now require their consultants to seek accreditation under ISO 9000:2000, demonstrating customer satisfaction and continual improvement as required by the latest standards will become an important aspect for consultant practices. However, consultants seldom attempt to uncover the expectations of their clients, and this may hinder the improvement when their quality management systems (QMSs) are implemented and hence affect the satisfaction of their clients. The purpose of this paper is to examine the satisfaction of clients to the overall quality performance of engineering consultants in Hong Kong.

To assist engineering consultants to realise the clients' expectation, the expected benefits that construction clients would like to attain through the implementation of ISO 9000‐based QMSs and the perceived actual benefits the clients had received are identified through a postal survey.

The results indicate that the actual benefits were generally lower than that expected by the clients.

This paper is of value to those wishing to obtain accreditation under ISO 9000:2000 and improve their QMSs with respect to improving the satisfaction of their clients.

This paper aims to present the integrated teaching activity carried out in the Studios of the Master of Science “Architecture-Building Architecture” held at the School of Architecture Urban Planning Construction Engineering of the “Politecnico di Milano,” Milan, Italy. The integrated teaching activity related to the structural disciplines was in Sgambi et al., 2019; here the structure of the MSc training and its disciplinary synergies will be presented. Indeed, this type of activity characterizes all the Studios of this Master of Science and involves all the disciplines that contribute to the development of an architectural and cultural heritage preservation project.

In the Studios of the aforementioned Master of Science, teachers of different subjects are involved, working together to guide the student in the development of an architectural project sustainable in all aspects. The fundamentals of each discipline are taught using the best suited teaching methodology and the application phase of each discipline is carried out directly on the students' projects in the form of “learning by making.” The students are thus stimulated to deepen their basic knowledge of each single discipline, making their design choices sustainable.

This experience, born in 2003 and still active, has also achieved good results in employment. Students train using the “learning by making” method to acquire proficiencies in various disciplines of design, giving them the ability to communicate competently with experts belonging to different construction sectors.

The approach illustrated in this paper does not represent the didactic experimentation of a single discipline, but it is typical of the study program of an entire Master of Science. Although this approach is entirely built on a “learning by making” and “active learning” philosophy, it maintains the teaching of the theoretical contents of disciplines at a significantly high level when compared with the contents of a frontal-taught theoretical course. The development of this structure required a strong commitment on the part of the teaching staff in their search for effective teaching methods in each individual discipline and aimed at the architectural project. The results obtained give an added value to the training of future architects.

The built-transfer and operate (BOT) toll model has been a common approach for highway construction in India. Due to large amount of investment, many stakeholders and long concession period, Indian BOT toll roads become susceptible to different risks. Risk assessment is one of the essential and difficult steps of risk management that enables professionals to quantify and analyze the risks that may hamper the BOT toll project performance in terms of cost, quality, safety and time. The purpose of this study is to identify and assess the risk factors by the fuzzy probabilistic model.

The comprehensive literature review has been carried out for identification of Indian BOT toll roads projects' risk factors. A structured questionnaire was prepared which was then filled by contractors, government officers, academicians, project managers and consultants. For risk assessment, a systematic quantitative-based fuzzy probabilistic model is proposed with the help of lab-view, as a risk assessment technique to simulate the impreciseness of human judgment and to improve the assessment accuracy.

The risk assessment is one of the difficult tasks because BOT toll roads have complex structure. In this study, total 71 risks have been identified and categorized under 14 risk factors on a basis of case studies of Indian toll roads and literature review. All risks have been assessed by the fuzzy probabilistic model by lab-view. The land acquisition is the most crucial risk of BOT toll roads project which is subsequently followed by construction time and cost over-run. Also, Indian BOT toll roads are facing the traffic shortfalls critically, which became a reason toward declination trend for investment in BOT toll projects by the private players. Other risks like political risks, contractual and social risk badly are affecting the project performance. Early risk identification and assessment can be beneficial for the project, which is required to prepare the risk response strategy before the project commencement.

This study throws light on comprehensive risk assessment and framework modeling of the risk assessment for the BOT toll roads project in India. This comprehensive risk assessor model can be used for BOT toll roads in Indian scenario for prioritization of the critical risk. It is important for the public and private sectors to establish an effective risk assessor model for public–private partnership (PPP) projects to achieve win-win condition for both.

An S-curve is an essential project-management tool. However, it is difficult to adjust S-curve to deal with a force majeure event. The present study develops four valuable adjustment approaches, designed to achieve a compromise between the views of the client and contractor. These can be used to control projects after a force majeure event.

The present study develops four adjustment approaches, which can be used to achieve a compromise between the views of the client and those of the contractor when controlling projects after a force majeure. To determine the S-curves during a force majeure event, two approaches can be selected: BCWS (budgeted cost of scheduled work)-base approach, or BCWP (budgeted cost of work performed)-base approach. To determine the rest of S-curves after a force majeure event, two approaches can be considered: maintaining the original curve of the remaining BCWS, or allocating the original curve of the remaining BCWS. Based on the validation of three empirical cases, drawn from a professional project-management website, this study confirms the feasibility of four proposed empirical approaches and a selection procedure for S-curve adjustment.

The S-curve-adjustment approaches presented here can be used to deal with cases that are ahead of, on and behind schedule. Using the proposed approaches and selection procedure, contractors can easily revise S-curves and control projects more effectively. To deal with a force majeure event, such as COVID-19, they are strongly advised to adopt the approaches labeled SA-A1 (to adjust the S-curve based on the extension ratio multiplied by the difference in progress during the force majeure) and SA-B1 (to maintain the original curve of the remaining BCWS) for the A/E and E/F curves, respectively.

The proposed approaches can be used in cases of continuous construction during force majeure events. If construction work is totally suspended during such an event, it will be necessary to fine-tune the proposed approaches.

Previous studies have used case-oriented or mathematical-simulation approaches to forecast S-curves. The present study proposes simple approaches that allow the client and contractor to adjust the S-curve easily after a force majeure event. These approaches can be used to adjust work and project-completion targets within an extended duration. Selecting the right S-curve adjustment approach can help to control the remainder of the project, reducing the possibility of delay claims.

Each of these four books, recently published in U.S.A., is addressed primarily to a different circle of readers. “Simple Aerodynamics”, by C. N. Monteith (now Chief Engineer, Boeing Airplane Co.), revised by Col. C. G. Carter, is a text book for the use of students of a highly specialised type, namely cadets of the U. S. Military Academy at which institution Col. Carter is Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy. It is interesting to learn from the preface that since 1921 all such cadets take a course in Aerodynamics, whether their ultimate destination is the Air Corps or some other branch of service. The book suffers in many respects from being in the main a third edition of one written five years ago. After reading it one is strengthened in the opinion that a subsequent edition of an aeronautical text‐book should, for the present, be written on the same terms as Mr. A. P. Herbert's book for ‘La Vie Parisienne’ at the Lyric—the author should not be allowed to read the original.

Cray Valley Products Ltd. launched a new reactive polyamide, “Quickcure 195X”, at the Resins and Pigments Exhibition in Brussels last year, and at the same time at the American Paint Show.

The copyright of this paper belongs to the Society of Manufacturing Engineers of Dearborn, Michigan, by whose kind permission it is reproduced here. It was written for their Creative Manufacturing Engineering Programmes. The internal method of cooling metal‐cutting tools is explained and it is shown that this method can provide 50% reduction in wear on the flank surfaces of cutting tools. A sintered copper wick shim also effects improvement.

The key principle of the jet deposition rapid prototyping (RP) system is to deliver material through a jet and deposit the liquefied material onto a platform to build a physical model. Model Maker (MM) RP system is one of the jet deposition processes with the smallest slice thickness and better model accuracy. In order to maintain thinner layer thickness and model accuracy, a cutter is employed to plane off the deposited surface. The fabrication speed for MM models is extremely low because of the employment of the tiny jet and the cutting operation. The model interior filling does not affect the model accuracy very much but it does significantly affect the fabrication speed. Hence, a new flexible layer fabrication method is proposed in this paper to separate the fabrication processes of the profile and the interior, respectively, in order to maintain model accuracy and thinner slice thickness, and to accelerate the fabrication speed.

This article examines the nature of skill shortages in the UK construction sector in 1988. It sets out the current survey evidence on the extent of skill shortage, with details on selected individual crafts and a breakdown by main geographic region. The most significant shortages are identified for the South‐Eastern region. The article analyses the current patterns of demand for construction skills and assesses how these have been changing over recent years. Attention is paid to both the regional demand for output and to the mix of construction products and services. Some implications are drawn for the demand for particular skills. The supply of skills as represented by the number of trainees entering the industry is also examined and observations are made on the quality of training received. Finally, a brief assessment is made of the future prospects for solving the skill shortage problem in construction over the longer term.

The wheel polygonization of state‐of‐the‐art lightrail streetcars is studied using a mechanical model for the vibrational frequency response of a vehicle with a nonrigid body, which reveals relevant novel wheel resonances.