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Compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals published by MCB University Press: Facilities Volumes 8‐18; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐18; Property Management Volumes 8‐18; Structural Survey Volumes 8‐18.

Index by subjects, compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals: Facilities Volumes 8‐18; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐18; Property Management Volumes 8‐18; Structural Survey Volumes 8‐18.

Compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals published by MCB University Press: Facilities Volumes 8‐18; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐18; Property Management Volumes 8‐18; Structural Survey Volumes 8‐18.

Compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals published by MCB University Press: Facilities Volumes 8‐18; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐18; Property Management Volumes 8‐18; Structural Survey Volumes 8‐18.

The purpose of this research is to detect, through applying a process-based view, how to manage economisation of the maintenance and modification operations in offshore petroleum logistics operations.

A single case study of engineering services, more specifically, maintenance and modification service operations, on a Norwegian Sea oil platform reveals the dynamics of building network capabilities in a consistent network structure. Two layers of coordination are studied: the engineering process and its context, represented by its network of interconnected firms. This case study empirically grounds how engineering service involves managing reciprocally interdependent exchange processes in the network structure.

Pooled interdependencies are vital in understanding the nature of service provision and use, and sequential interdependencies are vital in narrating the timing of processes to reveal the nature of process emergence to coordinate strings of production events. Furthermore, the network structure, when characterised by multiple interdependent projects, is also dynamic but at a slower pace.

Through the case study, operations management is revealed to be associated with project emergence at two levels: the core process level regarding daily continuous change, including the changing interaction of multiple different and interdependent projects, and the contextual level, where features of interdependency and integration change, affecting engineering service production. This provides guidance as to the economisation of engineering services. They change not only interactions in the flow of production but also its context.

Strategic trends towards service operations have been widely reported in the recent literature, but organisational capabilities to support such service-centred strategies are less well understood. The purpose of this paper is to identify key organisational issues in managing complex engineering service operations throughout the lifecycle.

Using instruments developed from the product lifecycle management technologies and the network configuration concept, key organisational issues for engineering service operations were identified through case studies focusing on complex engineering products and services systems across a variety of industrial sectors.

The case studies demonstrated different organisational features and strategic priorities of engineering service operations along the whole lifecycle. A generic trend has been observed for engineering systems to move from being design, development and manufacturing focused to embracing support and end-of-life recycling matters.

This paper provides an overall framework for integrating key organisational issues in engineering service operations. It contributes to the service literature by highlighting the need of developing appropriate organisational capabilities to support service-centred strategies with engineering cases. It also provides guidance for companies to manage their engineering network operations throughout the whole lifecycle of complex products and services systems.

This paper aims to be a balance of mixed management and engineering concepts that aims to fuse classical engineering methodologies into a systems engineering framework to assess and compare systematically and comprehensively services rendered by engineering systems.

An auditing framework is developed to assess the performance of engineering services in the context of engineering services found within a facility. As a result of a system heterogeneity factor, an approach to remove this confounding issue is developed to provide a different insight into the performance of engineering services.

The output of the audit exercise serves as an input to the second methodology, direct age‐adjusted failure, which overcomes systems attributes confounding issues when comparison is made between different systems populations of the same class type. This method allows management to identify areas in which extra resources are needed to improve maintenance performance.

The proposed standardization technique, which can be applied to system attributes other than age, overcomes the systems heterogeneity issue between localities. This research work is positioned in the context of building engineering services, as they are the most important in terms of socio‐economical impact. A case study based on an actual facilities assessment in Singapore is used to demonstrate the usefulness of such an integrated systems approach.

This paper presents a qualitative‐quantitative assessment framework that consists of two major methodologies to help in identifying and prioritising engineering system services in order to allocate limited resources to the appropriate engineering service so as to improve its performance.

A distinction must be drawn between a dismissal on the one hand, and on the other a repudiation of a contract of employment as a result of a breach of a fundamental term of that contract. When such a repudiation has been accepted by the innocent party then a termination of employment takes place. Such termination does not constitute dismissal (see London v. James Laidlaw & Sons Ltd (1974) IRLR 136 and Gannon v. J. C. Firth (1976) IRLR 415 EAT).

Prior research has emphasised the importance of the early phases of construction projects, as well as the difficulties of procuring engineering services – especially due to the uncertainties. Despite that, studies on the public procurement of engineering services are scarce. Although scholars have shown that uncertainty may affect the choice of control modes, the level of uncertainty that characterises services is not addressed by the two task characteristics: knowledge of the transformation process and output measurability. The purpose is to investigate organisational control in public procurement of engineering services.

The existing control model was adjusted in this study by conceptually adding uncertainty as a third aspect to the two task characteristics. A single case study of the Swedish Transport Administration was used. The empirical data, comprising 14 interviews with managers from the client and engineering consulting companies, were analysed using flexible pattern matching and visual mapping approaches and then illustrated using the model.

The public client did not base its choice of control modes on uncertainty, but rather on the other two task characteristics. Consequently, the service providers argued that the chosen control modes reduced their creativity, increased their financial risks and caused unclear responsibilities. This study therefore shows that uncertainty is an important factor to consider in the choice of control modes, both from a theoretical perspective and from the service providers' point of view. The developed model may therefore be useful for researchers as well as practitioners.

This study is the first attempt to add uncertainty as a task characteristic when choosing control modes. The results contribute to the scarce control literature regarding the procurement of engineering services for construction projects and the procurement of other services with high uncertainty.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the method engineering perspective for service-oriented system engineering (SOSE). A number of SOSE methods have been proposed in both academia and industry. Given this, many intuitive, common questions arise. To answer these questions, many comparison frameworks have been developed. Each of which has considered certain methodological perspectives. However, less attention has been given to the method engineering (ME) perspective. The authors argue that this perspective would answer the question “what ME to apply in order to produce SOSE methods that themselves produce quality services at different levels of abstraction and SBAs”. This research question is further decomposed into other questions; the main one is “whether the existing ME do apply to service orientation”. Answering such a question would lead to either developing SOSE methods by using the existing ME or developing a new ME or framework for the specifics of SOSE.

This work first provides a literature review on ME approaches and techniques; then, it compares a sample of existing SOSE methods with respect to their ME within a comparison framework that comprises a set of relevant properties of a solution that would be provided by an SOSE method, namely, service-oriented architecture (SOA) adoption, quality of services and ME; and finally, it discusses the applicability of the existing ME to SOSE.

Strengths and weaknesses of the existing methods with respect to the aforementioned criteria, in addition to SOSE methodology open issues, were identified. The comparison has shown that while the existing SOSE methods have proved their success in a specific task, they still present some weaknesses. Therefore, it is better to benefit from the advantages of the existing ME techniques, notable method fragments, even if they need some alteration.

While this work has many open issues related to SOSE methods with respect to ME, it could be further developed in many directions by exploring the open issues. For instance, the generation of a new ME technique and application of this new ME technique to the existing SOSE methods to see to what extent the existing methods may be situational.

This work has practical implications, as it provides a better understanding of different views of SOSE methods, and assists the method engineers in deciding which ME technique is most suitable to their situation.

The produced artifact provides a research roadmap toward SOSE ME.

None of the existing comparison frameworks for SOSE methods has considered the criteria such as SOA adoption and ME techniques. Indeed, ME techniques and approaches would allow better reuse of the existing proven fragments of methods.