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The main objective of this paper is to introduce the development of a novel feature recognition system for escape route planning. The genetic algorithm (GA) can be a useful tool in solving route planning problems.

A computer‐aided design (CAD) system is proposed to help to predict the best escape route. The system is based on a feature recognition process, which will scan a CAD drawing to determine the centroid points of corridors, and determine the best escape route with the help of GA.

The feature recognition system provides a quick method of determining the available pathways for use in escape route planning.

Factors such as multiple story buildings, number of occupants, or fire spread are not considered. Thus the system will be useful in the initial stages of escape route planning.

The system is limited to perpendicular walls, which should be of the same thickness. Doorways should also be a constant size. Thus the system will be useful in determining where escape routes exist, and attempt to determine the best route based on that information.

This paper shows how legacy drawings from various CAD systems may be reused to plan escape routes, rather than creating new drawings for the same purpose. This is useful to those in escape route planning, since the redrawing of plans using custom software is inefficient.

The purpose of this paper is to examine different categories of building project procurement routes based on organisational, contractual, financial and technical issues.

The paper is based on review of literature and conditions of contracts. The UK construction industry serves as a general frame of reference. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors survey of Contracts in Use from 1985 to 2004 is used to probe the share and value of contracts along different procurement routes and across different conditions of contracts in the UK. The logic is that the value and the share of contracts will indicate the behaviour of different procurement routes in the UK construction market while the in‐depth analysis of conditions of contracts will show the gaps and relationships between the general definition/categorisation and contractual context (conditions of contracts) of each of the procurement routes.

The preliminary result of the analysis shows that traditional routes remain the main type of procurement route for the construction project industry sector, within which different management and incentivisation systems are applied for greater efficiency. The conditions of contracts in the UK support this assertion by aligning different procurement routes to different conditions of contracts and additionally specifying different forms of agreements, special provisions and incentivisation in order to increase performance, reduce risks and improve compensation methods.

The study can serve as a learning opportunity for construction project stakeholders internationally, and clients in particular, to differentiate between procurement routes, management‐oriented systems, relational contracting and incentivisation.

The research provides an original assessment of construction procurement which can be used as intervening tool in different levels of private and public procurement strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to provide the method and system to conduct online measurement and the characterization of temperature during printed circuit board (PCB) routing process as well as the optimization of router design based on the investigation of routing temperature.

The background of this research is introduced first. Then the method to measure the routing temperature on-line by using an infrared camera is presented. The routing process is characterized by investigating the routing temperature. Tool design optimization is conducted based on the temperature in processing PCB with aluminum substrate. Finally the concluding remarks of this research are presented.

The routing temperature can be accurately measured by an infrared camera. Routing temperature is sensitive to properties of PCB, types of router and routing parameters. Very high temperature is experienced if non-appropriate routers are used to process board with aluminum substrate. It is demonstrated by the experiments that two fluted tool, three fluted tool and coated tool with three flutes are suitable for aluminum substrate processing by considering the low temperature and the nice surface finish.

The paper highlights the key points to measure the routing temperature on-line by an infrared camera and characterize the routing process and optimize the tool design by investigating the measured temperature as well.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how customer involvement in call routing affects the internal operations of the call centre service system by examining customer usability problems with the interactive voice response (IVR) system and the practices of agents used to redirect incorrectly routed calls.

A qualitative case study combined direct observation of live calls through sit-bys with agents and semi-structured interviews conducted with coaches and managers within 13 separate teams across all four functional areas of a call centre operation.

Customer use of the IVR system involved effort, capability, and arrival forms of customer-induced variability, which produced incorrect call inputs into the call centre. Shared norms and attitudes concerning knowledge, IT use, and responsibility for different call types within teams were associated with redirecting practices which lead to the problematic rerouting of calls. Problems with call routing and rerouting negatively affected operational efficiency and undermined customer satisfaction.

The paper is based upon a single case study so further research is required to examine how problems identified are manifest in call centre operations of different size and complexity. The qualitative approach develops rich insights but these findings would benefit from a quantitative focus in the future.

The customer experience of IVR systems should be continually monitored to identify usability problems and ensure effective design, while call centre management should attempt to increase teams’ awareness of and ability to successfully redirect incorrectly routed calls.

The paper conceptualises the mutual influence of macro-level service system design and the micro-level behaviour of customers and agents upon each other. In practice, formal design decisions such as input uncertainty, decoupling, and interdependence patterns are continually reproduced or modified. Shared attitudes and norms of teams and their behavioural influence upon agents’ call handling practices are identified as a cause of coordination problems in call centres service systems. Internal rerouting by agents is also identified as a crucial operational process and important area for future research.

The study aims to explore and develop a smart route planning system for the cross-docking delivery operations of a large supermarket chain using an action research (AR) approach and assessing through a design science research (DSR) lens.

This study took a problem-solving AR (PAR) approach toward the delivery operational issue of the case firm. The research process has accorded with the solution incubation and the refinement phases defined by a DSR framework. An intervention-based research framework for DSR is developed to assess the validity of this study as a DSR research and derive mid-range theories.

Dramatic operational and financial improvements were achieved for the case firm. Significant and unintended environmental and social benefits were also found. A design proposition (DP) and several mid-range theories are proposed as an extension of AR research to DSR research.

A problem-solving DSR research can be better assessed by the intervention-based DSR framework developed in this study. DSR studies should be encouraged for both practical and theoretical advancement purposes.

A challenging business problem-solving study can be tackled effectively through an industry/academic collaboration taking a PAR approach to deliver substantial values and organization transformational results.

Drivers and store associates are safer with smart delivery operations in the case firm.

There are still limited PAR design science case studies in the supply chain/logistics research literature. The research experience and findings gained from this study provide more insights toward how this type of research can be conducted and assessed.

Purpose – This chapter reviews planning and design approaches for cycle traffic in order to direct future thinking towards the critical aspects of network design that will have a beneficial impact on the utility and nature of the environment for cycling.

Approach – This chapter provides a critique of the approach of adopting a so-called hierarchy of solutions frequently adopted in western countries with low levels of cycling use.

Findings – The guiding principle for designing routes for cycle traffic is that the bicycle is a vehicle capable of speed and, as a consequence, links and junctions need to be designed according to appropriate geometric design standards. In addition, owing to the nature of the cycle and rider combination, the oft repeated Dutch characteristics for good design for cycle traffic of coherence, directness, attractiveness, safety and comfort remain firm.

Practical implications – The practical implications of the outcomes from the chapter are a method of approach for planning infrastructure for cycle traffic which starts with an analysis of demand and works through to the creation of suitable networks for cycle traffic which are grounded in, and extended from, suitably regulated existing highway networks.

Social implications – An extensive transport system suitable in nature for cycle traffic will attract a wide base of users and consequently allow for the benefits of cycling to be captured.

Value of chapter – The value of the chapter rests in its emphasis on the need to treat cycling as a distinct transport mode and, consequentially, planning and engineering needs to be undertaken in a way conducive to providing the basic necessary infrastructure for such a distinct mode.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a computationally efficient and generally applicable measure for a pipe routing problem which decides the pipe paths and affects the pipe assembly feasibility. By imitating human thinking in pipe assembly planning, human's experience and intuition are quantified and applied in the pipe routing algorithm.

Human's imaginal thinking is simulated with procedures of knowledge representation, pattern recognition, and logical deduction; the algorithm transforms the physical obstacles and constraints into 3D pipe routing space and then into 2D planar projection, by using convex hull algorithm onto the projection, the shortest pipe route is found efficiently.

A novel pipe assembly planning algorithm by imitating human imaginal thinking is presented, which effectively solved the problem of conceiving the shortest pipe route in 3D space with obstacles and constraints.

The application of the algorithm in assembly planning of an aircraft engine pipe system is demonstrated. The algorithm can also be used in similar pipe planning problems such as industrial plant pipe planning and submarine pipe system design.

Human's imaginal thinking is introduced into pipe routing algorithm for the first time. By using graphics as the media to transfer the pipe routing information, human's experience and intuition in pipe assembly planning are quantified and computationally applicable.

The paper aims to propose general design rules and route plan for automated guided vehicle system (AGVS). The AGVS is applied to automated meter verification areas through a case study of meter verification shop floor to verify the feasibility.

The paper gives an appropriate route design for AGVS and proposes an optimized strategy for designed routes and a control system to manage traffic conflict.

This case study indicates that the application of AGVS can highly improve the efficiency of manufacturing and production. Besides, a reasonable transportation plan is beneficial in making the system run smoothly and in cutting conveying time.

The application of AGVS integrates a variety of advanced technologies (i.e. information technology, artificial intelligence, etc.) into the electricity meter verification system, which brings great economic and social benefits via enhancing the verification efficiency and reducing the total labor costs.

The application proposed in the paper solves the problem that the verification almost relies on workers, labor intensity is high and work efficiency is hard to improve. Furthermore, the general rules and strategies of AGVS transportation can be applied not only to the automated electricity meter verification but also in other industrial areas.

This paper aims to focus on time-related factors influencing on an itinerary planning system. The research objective is to produce an itinerary planning system which balances between the limited time of traveler and the number of tourist attractions they can visit. This system should facilitate travelers by presenting candidate itineraries that visit attractions as much as possible under several time-related factors.

To achieve the goal, an itinerary planning system has been designed and developed. The system considers several time-related factors including acceptable total travel time specified by travelers, time-related factors at an attraction (e.g. time zones, opening hours and visiting time) and time-related factors of traveling (e.g. road obstructions, weather, date and time and rest time). A routing algorithm which is aware of these time-related factors has been introduced to find candidate itineraries.

The performance of developed itinerary planning system has been evaluated by measuring speed and accuracy of seven traveling situations under different time-related factors. The experimental results indicate that the proposed routing algorithm spends less planning time than the traditional exhaustive routing algorithm. The efficiency of the proposed algorithm over the exhaustive algorithm is approximately 46 per cent while the accuracy is equal. Additionally, this designed system is evaluated by usability testing from nine experts. The evaluation is performed by measuring the user satisfaction level with the ability of user–system interaction. The results show that the overall system usability is in very satisfied level.

The designed itinerary planning system has three limitations. First, Google maps technology could not find information of some tourist attractions because these places were marked with several coordinates on the map. Second, holiday periods are manually kept into the database of system; therefore, it is necessary to annually and manually update the information. Third, the developed system is an online planner; thus, the speed of system depends on the bandwidth of users.

The designed itinerary planning system considers time-related factors as much as possible and more than the existing planning systems. This implies that the designed system is one of the most accurate planning systems in practice. Thus, the tourism business could rely on the developed itinerary planning system to help travel agents plan a travel itinerary properly and receive an accurate and up-to-date travel explanation to their customers.

This research proposes the novel design and implementation of an itinerary planning system which can suggest candidate itineraries, which visit maximum attractions under several time-related factors.