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Following the increasing need for faster construction, improved quality and evidence value propositions, offsite construction is increasingly being proffered as a viable contender to “traditional” construction approaches. However, whilst evidence supports the move towards offsite, its uptake has been lower than expected. Whilst the precise reasons for this seem to be influenced by a number of issues, including contextual drivers and market maturity; some project stakeholders also view offsite as carrying greater risks. The purpose of this paper is to report on the quality of information flow, in particular, the impact and influence of this on design risks in offsite construction projects.

An existing design risk framework is used as the point of departure for this research. This is further expanded into a specific model for evaluating offsite construction projects design risks, the rubrics of which were informed by two case studies of offsite construction projects in Australia and the UK analysed with a process-tracing technique. Whilst these cases were geographically separated, the constructs were aligned to uncover fundamental design information requirements and concomitant risks associated with offsite.

The findings of the research reported in this paper include the crucial information feeding into the design process emanating from the lifecycle of offsite construction projects, namely, design, offsite (manufacturing), handling and transporting, site works and installation and also occupancy. These are contextualised within the four categories, namely, client requirements, project requirements, regulation aspects and social aspects and the final outcomes were summarised into a holistic diagram.

Given that the offsite construction has shifted the working paradigm into assigning a significant level of efforts and emphasis at the front end of the construction projects, the importance of its design process and hence design risks management has gone up significantly in construction projects delivered using this technique. This research and paper contributes significantly to the built environment domain by identifying the crucial aspects along the project lifecycle to be considered to minimise the potential occurrence of design risks and hence increasing the confidence of project stakeholders in adopting offsite construction techniques in their projects.

The purpose of this paper is to address the increasingly important issue of the impact of product design on supply chain risk management in an era of global supply arrangements. The need to include product design considerations in the development of global supply chain strategies is highlighted.

The research methodology is based on an in‐depth longitudinal case study of a major UK retailer. Data collection tools included observation of supplier meetings/workshops, semi‐structured interviews and access to key company documentation and archives.

This paper provides a framework for design‐led supply chain risk management and thus presents a case for recognising design as more than a creative function but as a platform to manage risk in supply chains.

The empirical research reported in this paper is specific to the clothing manufacturing and fashion retail industry. Though the findings will most likely apply to all industries and supply chains where design has an integral role and plays an important part in the competitiveness of the final product, there would be benefit in extending the research into other sectors.

The increased trends to outsourcing and offshore sourcing and the elimination of trade barriers have added to the competitive pressures faced by clothing retailers, hence frameworks to manage supply chain risks are significant to the survival of companies from this sector.

Whilst there is a growing literature in the field of supply chain risk there is less empirical evidence providing practical examples of the impact of product design on risk. Design‐led risk management offers a novel approach to mitigating supply chain risk.

Uncertainty management (UM) in projects has been a point of attention for researchers for many years. Research on UM has mainly been aimed at uncertainty analyses in the front-end and managing uncertainty in the construction phase. In contrast, UM components in the design phase have received less attention. This research aims to improve knowledge about the key components of UM in the design phase of large road projects.

This study adopted a literature review and case study. The literature review was used to identify relevant criteria for UM. These criteria helped to design the interview guide. Multiple case study research was conducted, and data were collected through document study and interviews with project stakeholders in two road projects. Each case's owners, contractors and consultants were interviewed individually.

The data analysis obtained helpful information on the involved parties, process and exploit tools and techniques during the design phase. Johansen's (2015) framework [(a) human and organisation, (b) process and (c) tools and techniques)] was completed and developed by identifying relevant criteria (such as risk averse or risk-taker, culture and documentation level) for each component. These criteria help to measure UM performance. The authors found that owners and contractors are major formal UM actors, not consultants. Empirical data showed the effectiveness of Web-based tools in UM.

The studied cases were Norwegian, and this study focussed on uncertainties in the project's design phase. Relevant criteria did not cover all the criteria for evaluating the performance of UM. Qualitative evaluation of criteria allows further quantitative analysis in the future.

This paper gave project owners and managers a better understanding of relevant criteria for measuring UM in the owners and managers' projects. The paper provides policy-makers with a deeper understanding of creating rigorous project criteria for UM during the design phase. This paper also provides a guideline for UM in road projects.

This research gives a holistic evaluation of UM by noticing relevant criteria and criteria's interconnection in the design phase.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of a risk assessment model to assess the occupational safety and health (OSH) risks presented by different construction approaches, namely traditional and industrialised building system (IBS). The development process applies the concept of argumentation theory, which helps construction designers integrate the management of OSH risk into the design process. In addition, an energy damage model is used as an underpinning framework for developing the model.

Development of the model was achieved through two phases. Phase I involved collection of data on the activities involved in the construction process and their associated OSH risks, derived from five different case studies, field observation and interviews. Knowledge of design aspects that have the potential to impact on OSH was obtained from document analysis. Using the knowledge obtained in phase I, a model was developed in the form of argument trees (Phase II), which represent a reasoning template with regard to options available to designers when they make judgements about aspects of their designs. Inferences from these aspects eventually determined the magnitude of the damaging energies for every activity involved. Finally, the model was validated by panels of experts, and revisions and amendments were made to the model accordingly.

The risk assessment model development revealed that the concept of argumentation theory and energy damage model is suitable to represent design safety risk knowledge and effectively address the designer's role in making decisions in their designs and further illuminate the level of OSH risk their designs pose.

The developed model provides best-practice reasoning support for construction designers, which help them to understand the impact of their designs decisions on worker's safety and health, and thereby assist them to further mitigate the risk to an acceptable level.

This study departs from the existing tool in that the model was developed based upon the combination of argumentation theory and energy damage model. The significance of the model is discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to describe an innovative information and decision support tool (ToolSHeD™) developed to help construction designers to integrate the management of OHS risk into the design process. The underlying structure of the prototype web‐based system and the process of knowledge acquisition and modelling are described.

The ToolSHeD™ research and development project involved the capture of expert reasoning regarding design impacts upon occupational health and safety (OHS) risk. This knowledge was structured using an innovative method well‐suited to modelling knowledge in the context of uncertainty and discretionary decision‐making. Example “argument trees” are presented, representing the reasoning used by a panel of experts to assess the risk of falling from height during roof maintenance work. The advantage of using this method for modelling OHS knowledge, compared to the use of simplistic rules, is discussed

The ToolSHeD™ prototype development and testing reveals that argument trees can represent design safety risk knowledge effectively.

The translation of argument trees into a web‐based decision support tool is described and the potential impact of this tool in providing construction designers (architects and engineers) with easy and inexpensive access to expert OHS knowledge is discussed.

The paper describes a new computer application, currently undergoing testing in the Australian building and construction industry. Its originality lies in the fact that ToolSHeD™ deploys argument trees to represent expert OHS reasoning, overcoming inherent limitations in rule‐based expert systems.

In build-operate-transfer (BOT) transportation projects, design and construction phases are critical in terms of their effect on time and cost overruns. The purpose of this paper is to identify the role of risk factors affecting these phases and their significance level for BOT transportation projects.

Design and construction risks were determined and then validated by focus group discussions. Afterwards, an illustrated case study was presented to better understand the effects of determined risks in a BOT mega transportation project. As the last step of the study, the fuzzy analytical hierarchy process method was used to prioritize risk factors.

The prominent risk factors were found out as occupational accidents, integration between design and construction phases and excessive design variations.

Different kinds of BOT transportation projects in different countries might be executed very differently considering specific social, political, economic and other factors. However, the results of the study are important in terms of the specific lessons learned from the case study that can be used as a foundation for developing possible risk mitigation measures.

Though the risk management of BOT projects has been investigated frequently in the literature, there is a knowledge gap in the quantitative evaluation of risk significance specific to design and construction risks. The prioritization of determined risks with an associated case from a mega transportation project will contribute to the BOT project practitioners about possible challenges in design and construction phases in BOT mega transportation projects.

The prevention through design (PtD) concept has been widely recognized as one of the most effective approaches to eliminate or reduce construction site hazards. It encourages engineers and architects to consider occupational safety and health during the planning and design phases. Nevertheless, the implementation of PtD is often inhibited because designers lack adequate knowledge about construction safety and the construction process, and limited design-for-safety tools and procedures are available for designers to use. The purpose of this paper is to provide designers a tool for assessing construction risks during early phases of multistory building projects at an activity level and on a daily basis in a 4D environment. By using the tool, proactive measures could be taken in the design and planning phase to reduce site hazards.

The proposed method consists of four steps including risk quantification at a design element level, 4D model integration with risk values, risk assessment, and design alternative selection and model acceptance. A case study was carried out to test and verify the proposed method.

The proposed tool has the capability to assess the safety risk for an entire multistory project and visualize safety risk in a particular time period, work space and task prior to construction. It benefits designers in conducting risk assessments and selecting design alternatives concerning safety. Contractors could also utilize the visualization and simulation results of the 4D model for site safety planning so that a range of risk mitigation strategies could be implemented during construction.

The study provides an innovative PtD tool targeting designers as primary end-users. The proposed tool helps designers assess construction risks and has potential to incorporate the top levels of the hierarchy of risk controls.

Modular integrated construction (MiC) is considered as a process innovation to improve the performance of construction projects. However, effective delivery of MiC projects requires management of risks and uncertainties throughout its delivery chain. Although the design stage of MiC projects is usually managed with limited knowledge based on highly uncertain data and associated with epistemic uncertainties, MiC design risks have not received adequate research attention relative to other stages. The purpose of this paper is to conduct a knowledge-based evaluation and ranking of the design risk factors (DRFs) for MiC projects.

The paper reviewed the relevant literature to identify potential DRFs and validated their relevance through pilot expert review. The paper then used questionnaires to gather data from international MiC experts from 18 countries and statistically analyzed the data set.

Analysis results showed that the five most significant DRFs for MiC projects include unsuitability of design for the MiC method; late involvement of suppliers, fabricators and contractors; inaccurate information, defective design and change order; design information gap between the designer and fabricator; and lack of bespoke MiC design codes and guidelines. A correlation analysis showed that majority of the DRFs have statistically significant positive relationships and could inform practitioners on the dynamic links between the DRFs.

The paper provides useful insight and knowledge to MiC practitioners and researchers on the risk factors that could compromise the success of MiC project designs and may inform design risk management. The dynamic linkages among the DRFs instruct the need to adopt a system-thinking philosophy in MiC project design.

This paper presents the first study that specifically evaluates and prioritizes the risk events at the design stage of MiC projects. It sets forth recommendations for addressing the identified DRFs for MiC projects.

Risks can easily disrupt the demand–supply match targeted by sales and operations planning (S&OP). As surprisingly little is known of how organizations identify, assess, treat and monitor risks through tactical planning processes, this paper zooms in on the S&OP set-up and process parameters to explore how risks are managed through S&OP.

A multiple case study analyzes the S&OP processes of seven organizations in the process industry, drawing on 17 in-depth interviews with high-ranking representatives, internal and external documents, and a group meeting with participating organizations.

The study finds that organizations proactively design their S&OP based on their main risk focus stemming from the planning environment. In turn, such designs proactively support organizations' risk identification, assessment, treatment and monitoring through their S&OP execution. Reactively, a crisis S&OP meeting – making use of the structure of S&OP – can be used as a risk-treatment tool, and S&OP design can be temporarily adapted to deal with emerging risks.

This study is among the first to empirically elucidate risk management through S&OP. S&OP design, execution and adaption are identified as three interconnected strategies that allow organizations to manage risks. The design enables risk management activities in the monthly execution of S&OP. The reactive role of S&OP in risk management is particularly novel.

The purpose of this paper is to develop comprehensive risk management tool, Intelligent Risk Mapping and Assessment System (IRMAS™) with a contingency for multi‐site, multi‐partner concurrent engineering projects with the aim of achieving above‐mentioned paradigms. Its unique knowledge warehouse enables the use of organisational knowledge, lessons learnt, captured as well as best practices to minimise risks in project management.

IRMAS is designed to identify, prioritise, analyse and assist project managers to manage perceived sources of concurrent engineering risks. Several knowledge elicitation techniques were used to compile the knowledge used for the intelligent system developed. The core of the research is the reasoning methodology that not only supports the decision‐making process of the user, but also aids the knowledge retrieving, storing, sharing and updating process of manufacturing organisations.

A total of 589 risk items were identified for different project types, as well as information on 4,372 risk items and 136 lessons learnt were gathered. IRMAS is a proactive tool supporting project management activities. It is designed as a web‐based portal compiled in Java facilitating effective and a common communication platform between project partners.

Identification of risks during the complete product design, development and delivery process in a concurrent engineering environment is challenging. It covers the “product value stream” including partners, suppliers, research and development, design and manufacturing, marketing, purchasing, service and support personnel and customers. Within the context of concurrent engineering, the design style must be “Design WITH” approach where collaborative negotiation requires communication, consideration and collaboration. The full validation of IRMAS™ is successfully carried out in two large‐scale new product development projects. It has already been decided to be deployed by a large international aerospace company and is successfully commercialized.

The originality of the paper lies in its uniqueness in these areas: IRMAS provides a systematic engineering approach to risk management of concurrent product and process development based on risk management standards and Project Management Body of Knowledge, to leverage of success factors in manufacturing; concurrencies and relationships between several activities throughout product's life cycle are captured and mapped; the inheritance of risk between several phases are modelled and quantified; the wealth of knowledge stored in the knowledge repository and IRMAS's capability to reuse them for later elicitation in the system's knowledge base; and user‐interactive, unique dynamic risk management software package which will be available in the commercial market.