Search results

Several years ago, North Carolina State (NC State) University Libraries technical services department, Acquisitions & Discovery (A&D), merged acquisitions, cataloging, and electronic resources management functions and staff. One intended outcome for the merger included integrating and distributing electronic resources management across all staff positions whereby staff would be trained to manage a larger portion of the life cycle for print and electronic resources. The benefits of a life cycle approach for both print and electronic resources included better staff understanding of resources; staff ownership of packages; and improved staff follow-through, consistency, and ability to troubleshoot. Key positions were reimagined to support this effort. This included the creation of a staff package manager role in the serials unit to provide oversight of e-journal packages, distribute work to staff, and create and maintain an information dashboard (the Electronic Resources Hub) for staff as well as for other stakeholder departments across the libraries. The monographs unit has recently adopted a similar integrated approach to manage NC State's growing collection of e-books. This chapter will outline A&D implementation of two package management models, one for serials and one for monographs; describe the associated tools and technologies used for support; and discuss lessons learned. Benefits will be discussed to illustrate how other libraries might transform their electronic resource management operations by using a package management strategy.

Earned Value Analysis (EVA) is an accepted theoretical technique advocated for the control of projects. This paper attempts to refine and improve the performance of traditional EVA by the introduction of a hybrid methodology based on work packages and logical time analysis entitled Work Package Methodology (WPM). The proposed WPM provides the means to periodically update project cost and time performance by restricting EVA calculations to individual work packages. These are then subjected to a logical time analysis to determine the predicted project cost and time to completion. A comparative analysis between WPM and EVA is then undertaken using adapted test data derived from knowledge of previous projects to identify the reasons for variation in the results obtained from both methods. The evaluation of the test results indicates that when the Cost Performance Index (CPI) and the Schedule Performance Index (SPI) are well above or below unity then, especially in the early stages of the project, traditionally applied EVA predictions can be un‐realiable and require further investigation and evaluation. WPM provides a vehicle for judging the performance of EVA by applying an alternative logical time and cost utilizing work sequence and construction methods. The predictive performance of EVA is refined by these means.

This paper aims to describe three exploratory field studies investigating which characteristics add to later time to market and/or low product functionality of newly developed products. The studies are conducted at the level of developments tasks, or work packages. The first and second studies investigate to what extent the unpredictability of the project's outcome is the result of the unpredictability of the completion time of individual work packages, and of the instability of the total network of work packages.

Statistical analysis of the empirical data about the progress of three design projects carried out in the development department of a high‐tech capital equipment manufacturer was used. The third study examines the reasons that members of the product development teams in this firm give for the unpredictability of time and quality of the project's outcome.

The results result indicate the existence of three very different sources of unpredictability: the usual uncertainty about the duration of a design task, the discovery of unexpected new problems in a design task, and the reprioritization of a work package by project leaders due to new problems in other work packages.

Together the three studies provide a detailed account of the operational characteristics of time‐paced product development projects in a particular firm and suggest ways to effectively manage such a project.

The purpose of this paper is to present a comprehensive analysis on how the advanced work packaging (AWP) managerial paradigm could be advanced by incorporating and integrating the post-construction commissioning and startup (CSU) phases.

This study was implemented with the support of consolidated knowledge from industry subject matter experts and an exhaustive literature review to provide a knowledge foundation for the developments. The findings were further validated and strengthened by external subject matter experts.

A new operating system-oriented work package, systems work package (SWP), is devised with a set of definitions and models of how it relates to AWPs with three-dimensional visualizations. SWP-related constraints, key roles and responsibilities are thoroughly investigated.

A new SWP concept would pose potential challenges for its adoption because of inherent organizational culture and hesitation to change. A systematic reorganization of existing practices is considered as a key strategy to alleviate the limitation, and short- and long-term validity of SWP is currently being investigated by organizations.

This research provides practical implementation strategies on CSU integration which lead to benefits including: better alignment and collaboration of stakeholders, reduced costs for associating AWPs to SWP and improved predictability.

AWP-related studies have primarily focused on the construction phase, with minimal integration of CSU considerations. Highlighting the importance of the philosophy “start with the end in mind,” this research describes how the AWP managerial paradigm can be expanded to include CSU, by placing a strong emphasis on understanding CSU priorities, sequences and constraints.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the collaborative practices of virtual teams carrying out knowledge‐based work and the tools required/used to assemble “collective” artefacts.

The vast majority of recent work on communities of practice is devoted to community management (i.e. discovering, building, and maintaining communities), dismissing or undermining community practices and how they are technologically mediated (i.e. the practice‐specific tools and artefacts involved). This paper investigates existing practices and makes use of scenarios to envision new distributed collective practices in a designated application domain. The instruments used include both empirical tools (i.e. survey of current practice and expert interviews) and analytical tools (i.e. scenarios of use, walkthroughs, and virtual prototyping) to provide insight towards the design of practice‐oriented toolkits.

The proposed approach is validated in the context of an electronic village of local interest with a thematic focus on regional tourism, highlighting the key role of “collective” knowledge management in information‐based industries whose products are non‐material (intangible) and knowledge is central to gaining competitive advantage. The results include a general model for practice‐oriented toolkits conceived of as separate software components from (but interoperable to) the community support system and devised to establish a place for engaging in the practice the community is about. This model is then used to build an operational toolkit for assembling vacation packages by cross‐organization virtual communities of practice.

Virtual communities of practice (or partnerships) necessitate smooth integration of community management and practice‐specific tasks and tools. Community management tasks can be supported by augmenting capabilities of existing community portals to allow for community registration, role undertaking, declaration of virtual assets, etc. Practice‐oriented tasks should be designed in such a way so as to capture and accommodate domain‐specific vocabulary.

Model‐based techniques and domain‐specific design languages are used as the unifying mechanism (i.e. software factory) for integrating community management and practice‐oriented artefacts. These techniques are designed and implemented into a software platform so as to facilitate the systematic accumulation and reuse of knowledge towards the construction of collective artefacts.

Existing labor estimation models typically consider only certain construction project types or specific influencing factors. These models are focused on quantifying the total labor hours required, while the utilization rate of the labor during the project is not usually accounted for. This study aims to develop a novel machine learning model to predict the time series of labor resource utilization rate at the work package level.

More than 250 construction work packages collected over a two-year period are used to identify the main contributing factors affecting labor resource requirements. Also, a novel machine learning algorithm – Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) – is adopted to develop a forecasting model that can predict the utilization of labor resources over time.

This paper presents a robust machine learning approach for predicting labor resources’ utilization rates in construction projects based on the identified contributing factors. The machine learning approach is found to result in a reliable time series forecasting model that uses the RNN algorithm. The proposed model indicates the capability of machine learning algorithms in facilitating the traditional challenges in construction industry.

The findings point to the suitability of state-of-the-art machine learning techniques for developing predictive models to forecast the utilization rate of labor resources in construction projects, as well as for supporting project managers by providing forecasting tool for labor estimations at the work package level before detailed activity schedules have been generated. Accordingly, the proposed approach facilitates resource allocation and enables prioritization of available resources to enhance the overall performance of projects.

Properly conceived, conducted and interpreted, motivation research can be an extremely powerful management tool, designed to help the manufacturer or advertiser to sell more goods. Its aim is to expose the market situation, explain it and suggest courses of action which will lead to desired changes. It is a way of looking at a problem rather than a collection of specialist techniques and is strictly practical. Hence it can be used alongside other market research tools for the solution of marketing problems and can be applied to a wide range of business activities. Much of its development has been in the advertising field but it can also help in the formulation of production policy, solving packaging problems and marketing operations. It is examined here in all these contexts. The idea of motivation research, the reasons for its use and the techniques by which to apply it are discussed, as well as the pitfalls that are likely to occur. New and imaginary case studies are used throughout to illustrate points. A review of the subject literature is included.

The objectives of this paper are to discuss the constraints stemming from the unstructured nature of the cost estimation practice in Turkey and introduce a generic computer aided building cost estimation model based on a cost significant technique for Turkish construction sector public projects in its detailed design phase.

The research design was based on the simplified version of the bill of quantities method and a cost significant estimating model works on a cost database was suggested to overcome the problems. Underlying principles and basic steps of cost estimation based on cost significant work packages was explained by means of manual calculations.

In order to automate the manual building cost estimation process, the software based on cost significant work packages was developed.

The software is currently in the testing phase and is being used for educational purposes. Making use of both public sector and current market prices in the cost estimation process, increasing number of projects stored in the database for more accurate results, estimating costs of different types of projects and calculating the cost significant value factor more precisely by using statistical techniques, those being employed by global cost models are suggested for future research.

As the number of the similar projects in database is increased, the accuracy of the cost estimation is also increased.

Estimators and graduate students can use the software to estimate building cost of public housing projects in its detailed design phase.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a novel analytical approach for workface planning practice in industrial-construction sector such that the construction work package (CWP) resource budget can be sufficiently planned for delivering possible field installation work package (FIWP) schedules with work uncertainty.

The relationship between CWP resource budget and FIWP schedules is first elucidated based on workface planning practice. The literature of work packaging, workface planning and project scheduling is reviewed. A novel analytical approach is then developed to quantify CWP resource budget based on a probability theory, in consideration of the probability of occurrence of feasible FIWP schedules formulated based on a resource scheduling approach. The results of case studies given by the new approach are cross validated by using simulation and optimization techniques.

The new analytical approach can assist workface planning by quantifying the expected CWP resource budget to deliver the FIWP work scope with certain activities that are planned at project level and with uncertain activities that are found at workface level.

The new analytical approach helps project and workface planners to reliably deploy CWP resource budget for delivering FIWP schedules instead of guessing the budget based on experience. An industrial-construction project for upgrading oil-sands refinery facility is used to show the practical implications.

This research develops a new analytical approach for workface planning practice to determine sufficient CWP resource budget for delivering feasible FIWP schedules with work uncertainty.

Discusses the characteristics of packaged software versus information systems (IS) development environments that capture the differences between the teams that develop software in these respective industries. The analysis spans four levels: the industry, the dynamics of software development, the cultural milieu, and the teams themselves. Finds that, relative to IS: the packaged software industry is characterized by intense time pressures, less attention to costs, and different measures of success; the packaged software development environment is characterized by being a “line” rather than “staff” unit, having a greater distance from the actual users/customers, a less mature development process; the packaged software cultural milieu is characterized as individualistic and entrepreneurial; the packaged software team is characterized as less likely to be matrix managed and being smaller, more co‐located, with a greater shared vision.