Search results

Advancements in digital technologies have provided significant opportunities to improve the Architecture, Engineering, Construction and Owner-operated (AECO) sector’s performance through superior data management, streamlined processes and cooperative working practices. However, whilst academic literature widely espouses these benefits during the design and construction phases of development, research suggests that the operational phase of a building’s lifecycle has yet to fully realise performance improvements available through the application of digital modelling technology. The purpose of this paper is to synthesise extant digital modelling, asset management and emergent digital asset management literature, to report upon the beneficial implications of digitalised asset management and identify obstacles hampering its adoption in industry.

A componential synthesis of future work reported upon in extant literature is organised into thematic categories that indicate potential research avenues and a trajectory for digital asset management research and practice.

Themes identified include: imprecise Building Information Modelling definitions; isolated software development; data interoperability; intellectual property and virtual property rights; and skills and training requirements. Notably, increased environmental performance also arose as a theme requiring further research but received considerably less academic coverage than the other obstacles identified.

The work presents a comprehensive review of digital technologies utilised within the AECO sector and as such provides utility to researchers, policy makers and practitioners to enhance their knowledge capabilities.

The purpose of this research is to study how knowledge‐based systems are applied in an industrial environment. This paper attempts to propose a system, object‐based knowledge integration system (OBKIS) which supports the early stages of product development.

This proposed system characterizes the “dynamic” information exchange capability through its distinct features to include executable tasks within product information script that is being utilized in various functional groups, thereby introducing the action items to be carried out in relevant areas. To achieve the “dynamic” information exchange capability, object technology, which is favorable to the creation of inter‐related modularized data objects, is incorporated into the product information script to facilitate the active information interchange process. The universal extensible markup language (XML) is also adopted to facilitate data exchange between the database and the knowledge base in order to make real time data and knowledge available throughout the enterprise.

Further research on developing the well‐structured XML schema is needed in order to provide a well‐understood syntax and self‐defined mark‐up language to suit particular needs of product data exchange. For verification and measurement, it is suggested that one should evaluate the system in terms of data reliability, transformation accuracy and effectiveness for improving product design process.

The implications of these for information flows and management of product data during product development are discussed. In order to validate the feasibility of the proposed system, a prototype is developed for a local company so as to provide linking between the system design concept and system implementation in a practical environment.

The significance of this research is that a new product data schema for the initial phase of product development is formulated and the proposed system supports invoking various behaviors for the same message and overriding the pre‐defined inherited operation such that a flexible correlation can be formulated in the iterative product design process.

This paper aims to explore how new product development (NPD)-based project management offices (PMOs) work, their drivers to deliver performance and their project success impact.

The study used a survey of 35 Brazilian and multi-national companies that identified the effort to perform a list of PMO functions, some PMO drivers in the company and five project performance perception indicators. The authors apply a specific set of statistics to uncover the relations between these dimensions of interest.

The factorial analysis allows us to find the main functions influencing each other. The project teams’ perception of project management (PM) performance is suggested as a success factor that drives PMOs when working on portfolio management issues, managing project files and promoting PM over the company.

This paper contributes to a contingency approach for designing a project machine involving PMOs to support NPD projects. Managers can set the most suitable PMO functions avoiding mimicry when structuring their NPD efforts.

PMOs have impacted team satisfaction and control of project data but not indicators related to triple constraints.

An arterial blood gas (ABG) interpretation remains indispensable tool to assess and monitor critically ill patients in the intensive care unit or other critical care settings. This paper proposes a mobile‐based interpreter for ABG tests with the aim of providing accurate diagnosis in face of multiple acid‐base and oxygenation disorders. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

A rule‐based expert system is designed and implemented using interpretation knowledge gathered from specialist physicians and peer‐reviewed medical literature. The gathered knowledge of ABG tests are organized into premise‐explanation pairs to deliver reliable evaluation with the appropriate differential in a timely manner.

Performance of the developed interpreter prototype was assessed using a dataset of 74 ABG tests gathered from medical literature and clinical practice. The obtained results demonstrated that the identified acid‐base and oxygenation disorders and their differential diagnoses are accurately correlated with those assessed manually by consultant specialist physicians.

This application is foreseen to be an everyday tool for clinicians at various levels; however, further studies are needed to evaluate its eventual impact on patients’ outcomes.

The contribution of this paper is the development of a new ABG interpreter which combines both the acid‐base and oxygenation disorders in a single application. Unlike existing ABG interpreters, it is comprehensive and capable of accurately identifying all kinds of acid‐base disorders and their combinations. In addition, it utilizes urine electrolytes which are useful tools in the differential diagnosis of normal anion gap metabolic acidosis and metabolic alkalosis. The interpretation algorithm is also designed to be flexible for some clinical settings which lack some input test data.

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.

Development and implementation of new process equipment within the process industries frequently necessitate strong collaboration between process firms and their equipment suppliers in joint process development projects. However, collaboration in this setting entails significant challenges over the lifecycle of these projects. Accordingly, the purpose of this article is to explore the problems and opportunities faced by equipment suppliers during collaboration with process firms, throughout the various lifecycle stages of process development projects.

The article synthesizes results from 22 interviews in a multiple case study of eight equipment suppliers in the process industries and a comprehensive review of relevant literature to identify critical problems of opportunities during the lifecycle. In total, data were gathered from firms in six different countries.

A deficient pre‐study may create problems due to miscommunication during development when close interaction is required. Purchasing discussions can be done simultaneously to development when a supplier has been selected, although uncertainty is a problem. It is important to get end‐user feedback and commitment during development and later stages. During assembly and installation and start‐up, a variety of actors are working simultaneously which requires coordination and planning from an early stage. Close interaction and education with end‐user is critical for the technology transfer in the start‐up stage. Sharing of experiences enhances operational performance during production.

This study contributes by employing information rich case study data to describe the problem and opportunities faced over the full lifecycle in joint process development projects in the process industry. In particular, key issues over the lifecycle have been identified and described (e.g. purchasing, start‐up, education). Moreover, the adoption of a lifecycle perspective has indicated how activities, issues, and managerial challenges in specific stages are interconnected and affect the joint work in the following stages.

The findings of this article serves as guidelines to managers in equipment supplier firms and their customers by highlighting the problems and opportunities for improvement that occur during the interconnected stages of process development projects.

By focusing on the collaborative activities in different stages, this study higlights the critical problems and opportunities in the lifecycle of process equipment. In addition this article outlines how joint process development activities can facilitate enhanced operational performance, by means of collaborative design, installation and operation of new process equipment – i.e. “open operation”.

This paper aims to understand the current development situation of scientific data management policy in China, analyze the content structure of the policy and provide a theoretical basis for the improvement and optimization of the policy system.

China's scientific data management policies were obtained through various channels such as searching government websites and policy and legal database, and 209 policies were finally identified as the sample for analysis after being screened and integrated. A three-dimensional framework was constructed based on the perspective of policy tools, combining stakeholder and lifecycle theories. And the content of policy texts was coded and quantitatively analyzed according to this framework.

China's scientific data management policies can be divided into four stages according to the time sequence: infancy, preliminary exploration, comprehensive promotion and key implementation. The policies use a combination of three types of policy tools: supply-side, environmental-side and demand-side, involving multiple stakeholders and covering all stages of the lifecycle. But policy tools and their application to stakeholders and lifecycle stages are imbalanced. The development of future scientific data management policy should strengthen the balance of policy tools, promote the participation of multiple subjects and focus on the supervision of the whole lifecycle.

This paper constructs a three-dimensional analytical framework and uses content analysis to quantitatively analyze scientific data management policy texts, extending the research perspective and research content in the field of scientific data management. The study identifies policy focuses and proposes several strategies that will help optimize the scientific data management policy.

This study attempts to expand knowledge of product lifecycle management (PLM) and supporting systems. Its objective is threefold: first, to identify and assess the impact of two key PLM building blocks on new product performance. Second, to use the aforementioned PLM building blocks to highlight the distinctive nature of PLM and closed‐loop PLM systems. Third, to demonstrate that the closed‐loop PLM system provides more new product benefits than the PLM system and that the usage of the closed‐loop PLM system is positively related to new product development.

The research hypotheses were tested on data collected from 87 manufacturers in the transportation equipment manufacturing industry in one Canadian province.

The findings show that only ten manufacturers have adopted a closed‐loop PLM system. As expected, the results show that the two key PLM building blocks, namely operational integration and information system (IS) usage, are positively related to new product development. Findings also show that the level of forward operational integration is similar in the closed‐loop PLM system and in the PLM system, while the level of backward operational integration, the usage of the PLM system and new product development are higher in the closed‐loop PLM system. Finally, the results demonstrate that the usage of the closed‐loop PLM system is positively related to new product development.

This contribution should give academics and practitioners alike a better understanding of the role and benefits of PLM and its supporting systems (the PLM system and the closed‐loop PLM system).

Nowadays manufacturers companies are increasingly compelled to navigate towards servitization. Different methods and approaches were proposed in literature to support them to switch from traditional product-based business model to product service systems (PSSs). However, new knowledge, capabilities and skills were needed to consistently develop PSSs, since they need a joint focus on both customer’s perspective and company’s internal performance and at the same time a proper support for the integration of product and service design. The purpose of this paper is to propose the Product Service System Lean Design Methodology (PSSLDM), a structured methodology to develop PSSs along their entire lifecycle.

Retrieving concepts from interpretative, interactive and system development research traditions, and strongly reminding the design research methodology framework, the adopted research methodology is composed of three main phases (observation and conceptualization, theory building and tool development, validation) and involved three heterogeneous companies.

This paper provides an overview of the PSSLDM, explaining how the different methods supporting its conduction should contribute to properly design an integrated PSS. Moreover, companies highlighted several benefits in the different stages along the PSS lifecycle deriving by the adoption of the PSSLDM.

The development of a platform based on the PSSLDM methodology raises a discussion on the possible changes needed by current Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) models and systems when they have to do with PSSs.

The PSSLDM enriches the already proposed SErvice Engineering Methodology, introducing new several components linked by lean rules in each of its phases (starting from customer analysis, going through solution concept and detailed design, until the offering analysis) and better supprting the deatil design of both prodcut and service components.