SUNRA - a sustainability rating system framework for National Road Administrations

National Road Administrations (NRAs) across Europe strive to improve the performance of their road networks. This improvement has been underpinned by significant research in the optimisation of road planning, design, construction and maintenance, which has enhanced the understanding of the social, environmental and economic aspects of managing a road network. Whilst there is common understanding in some aspects of sustainability there is not a common understanding of sustainability as a whole and thus how to benchmark and improve overall performance. The Sustainability: National Road Administrations (SUNRA) project aims to provide a common way of defining sustainability, identify how to measure sustainable development at a strategic level and integrate sustainable decision making into key intervention points. The project has developed a series of sustainability frameworks that allow NRAs to develop a tailored approach to sustainability based on national priorities, significant issues, stakeholder concerns and individual organisational structures.SUNR

Costing for sustainable outcomes in urban water systems - a guidebook

Research Report 3

Study of sustainability opportunities during construction

textConstruction Sustainability involves the processes, decisions, and actions during the construction phase of capital projects that enhance current and future environmental, social, and economic needs while considering project safety, quality, cost, and schedule. Most of the currently available published literature and advances in project level sustainability practices have focused on the early Concept Planning and Design phases of capital projects. Knowledge of sustainability practices during the Construction phase of capital projects is still in the early development stages and is highly fragmented; information regarding the selection, assessment, and implementation of construction sustainability solutions has remained largely unavailable or underdeveloped. Moreover, capital project owners and constructors increasingly seek practical guidance and resources to better integrate and evaluate sustainability decisions and actions within project construction services. The dearth of research on effective sustainability practices during the construction phase suggests that higher levels of sustainability attention and effort are needed in this area, in addition to the creation of support guidance and tools. To fill this gap in knowledge, this research has identified 54 unique actions that project teams can apply during construction to enhance the overall sustainability of their project. These construction phase sustainability actions (CPSAs) have been cataloged, characterized, and evaluated to facilitate their consideration and implementation by project teams. To further support the selection process and implementation of these actions, the research team developed a high-level strategic work process, a spreadsheet-based CPSA Screening Tool, and additional in-depth guidance for three CPSAs. In addition, both input- and output-oriented construction sustainability metrics have been developed and identified. Equipped with the findings from this study, owners and construction contractors will be better prepared to implement sustainability actions during the construction phase of capital projects.Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineerin

CareerSTAT: A Guide to Making the Case for Investing in the Frontline Hospital Workforce

The U.S. health care system is at a turning point, and no more so than in the nation's hospitals. They face increasing pressures to provide more and better care at lower cost. At the same time, revenue streams -- from Medicare and other sources -- are uncertain, as is the future of health insurance reform. New models are emerging for coordinating care and delivering it in a patient-centered way, as are new technologies, from new diagnostic and treatment methods to electronic health records. And the emphasis on demonstrated, measurable evidence of hospital performance has rarely been greater. Yet one thing is constant: health care is a distinctly high-touch, labor-intensive enterprise. And it depends in part on workers at the front lines of care: nursing assistants, housekeepers, medical assistants, unit secretaries, dietary service workers, and a host of others who work 24/7 to answer call lights, empty bed pans, pass trays, or draw blood. Today, some health care providers are discovering that investing in the education, training, and career advancement of these frontline workers pays off not only in dollars and cents but also in less measurable ways, including enhanced worker performance and skill, better functioning patient care teams, expanded pipelines for filling positions, and improved morale. The concept of investing in the frontline health care workforce is in good currency, but translating that into wider practice is not simple. At times, it requires overcoming the skepticism of decision makers, both private and public, about the value of long-term investments in human capital. It requires clear models, compelling arguments, and evidence to back them up. But in all cases, it requires engaging the leaders in the "C-Suite" -- chief executive officers, operating officers, financial officers, human resources officers, nursing officers -- in bringing the case to their peers in other institutions. This guidebook was prepared for CareerSTAT, an employer-based project to make the case for developing frontline hospital workers. It documents effective practices in leading hospitals around the United States, drawing on interviews with senior managers and executives. It presents the arguments that managers themselves make for investing in the training and education of less-skilled workers, along with the types of evidence and metrics that managers and senior decision makers find most persuasive

Business Case for the Application of Lean Design at XYZ, Inc.

This field project is an exercise in developing change in a business where aging strategies threaten the competitiveness of the business as a whole. Research and analysis into the market, for XYZ, Inc., are used to build the case that the market has changed. Old methods of competing are no longer effective at maintaining the market lead. Recent loss of the market lead is direct evidence that the company has not been paying attention to the low-end of the market and that a new strategy is needed. The current method of Lean Design is explored as it relates to revitalizing businesses, without the higher risk of new product development. Exploring the history and expert commentary of Lean Enterprise helps the reader develop insight into the correct way to achieve positive results for a business and how to avoid common pitfalls. To help XYZ executive management understand the benefits of Lean Design, a pilot project is proposed. Two project approaches will be addressed. The first project, Project A, is the first impression method, which explores the expected question of: Why not implement the change on all Appliance-A products? The purpose of addressing Project A before jumping to the best solution is to preemptively prevent the project from starting off on a high-risk path. The second project, Project B, is the best-result method, which explores the lowest-risk with highest-gain approach. Creating a small win for the business, without risk, should pave the way for a positive improvement in the organization and allow for a strategy, which could lead to an eventual recovery in the market. Operational metrics combined with project estimates clearly shows that capital investment for these projects will be recovered quickly. Sensitivity analysis for the projects shows which elements are the most critical. Finally, an intuitive understanding of the project risks directs a clear path for the best choice. Implementation of Lean Enterprise is a complex endeavor and requires efforts that transcend this business case. The final portion of this field project points out several areas where further research and analysis could augment a fuller more complete implementation of Lean Enterprise

A framework for estimating preconstruction service costs at the functional level for highway construction projects

Failing to budget an appropriate amount of funding for services rendered during the preconstruction phase of highway projects has been found to degrade the final quality of project construction documents, generating design errors, omissions, and ambiguities that must be remedied at additional cost during construction. The overall impact is to reduce cost certainty during the project development process. In other words, investment in the preconstruction process by developing an accurate estimate of preconstruction service (PCS) costs reaps a return measured in reduced cost growth during construction. To deliver a high quality constructed product, the necessary resources must be allocated to the preconstruction process to permit planners and designers the time and funding to be able to solve technical, environmental, and constructability problems before the construction contract is advertised. To ensure that the appropriate resources are made available during the preconstruction phase, an accurate estimation of PCS costs must first be developed. The preconstruction phase includes the delivery of many intermediate products and services such as environmental investigations, geotechnical studies, public involvement and permitting. The effort required to complete these tasks is project specific and influenced by location, resources impacted and regulations governing the project. Consequently, this research found the best way to quantify these services was to develop a scope of work for the effort required to complete each task. This is a ‘bottom-up’ estimating approach at the functional level. This research develops a cost and scope breakdown structure (CSBS) to organize PCS work tasks. It then proposes a methodology that utilizes the CSBS with historical data to create estimates that are consistent and less reliant on the experience of senior staff. A framework is developed to better estimate PCS costs, improving the quality of final design documents and enhancing an agency’s ability to control cost and schedule growth during project delivery. Finally, this research identified a need to assess the quality of the products used to disseminate highway research project findings. A vetting framework is proposed to ensure that new PCS estimating concepts and other highway research dissemination is rigorously evaluated to ensure its communicability with industry practitioners

The State of Adaptation in the United States: An Overview

Over the past two decades the adaptation landscape has changed dramatically. From its early days as a vague theoretical concept, which was often viewed as a threat to advocating for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, it has developed into a widely, albeit not universally, recognized governmental mandate to reduce societal vulnerability to climate change. While it is important to appreciate the progress that we are making on this issue, it is impossible to ignore the urgent need to do more. Smart investment can be made by reflecting on what is already underway in order to determine where to build on existing efforts and where to innovate new approaches to fill the gaps in the path forward. In this report we provide illustrative examples of the variety of work on climate change adaptation that is underway in the United States. This is by no means an exhaustive survey of the field; however it does provide insight into the dominant focus of work to date, the resultant gaps, and the opportunities available for advancing this essential aspect of sustainability. We focus on four areas of activity -- agriculture, natural resources, human communities, and policy. The general trends relevant to these sectors can be applied more broadly to other sectors and countries. Adaptation can be thought of as a cycle of activities that ultimately -- if successful -- reduces vulnerability to climate change. This process starts with identifying the impacts of climate change to determine the types of problems climate change might pose. This includes all of the research on the causes and the global, regional, and local manifestations of climate change, often referred to as impacts assessments

Lean Production - Identification of essential KPIs in a medical production process and design of a visual interface

Introduction: Rockwell Automation needs to understand how a lean company wants to visualize different KPIs. Ambu wants to see the value of using such visualization in their company and the effect it might have.Thus the two parts fulfill each other's needs and are the perfect match. Purpose: The purpose of the master thesis is to identify essential KPIs in a medical production process and design a visual interface. Method: The study was made in a case study approach and the data were treated in a qualitative approach. Theory: A theory study within the topic lean and KPI was done as a foundation to formulate the interview sessions. Empirics: The empirics were gathered through the interviews made with the respondents at Ambu. Those were then analyzed by the theory section. General Conclusions: Advises to Rockwell Automation: It's easy to develop dashboards using VantagePoint. Using animations, the KPIs are visualized in a very good way Perfect tool for lean companies Easy to drill down in each level and can be adapted to different roles Can be accessed through the web -- worldwide connection Information can be shared between colleagues in different places in the world The cell phone - a future possibility Gantt Schemes must be made as a standard in VantagePoint In each drill level it is important to have a big overview Improvements in the heatmap graphic and making heatmaps a standard in VantagePoint Dashboards are mostly used in the tactical level & down to the operational level Advises to Ambu: The dashboard implementation is an important element of building up a lean company Due to continuous improvement, the performance of different operations must be measured and visualized. Investment in such software makes difference, which must be seen in a long termmanner KPIs are dynamic, thus investing in a dashboard it must be dynamic Investing in a dashboard will add value to the staff at Amb

GIS-based risk management database integration and implementation framework for transportation agencies

Risk management analysis is one of the new requirements under MAP-21 and subsequently the FAST Act that separates transportation asset management programs (TAMP) from business as usual for the State departments of transportation (DOTs). Based on this requirement, each agency will discuss the concept of risk and how it should be incorporated into its transportation asset management program as well as how it informs maintenance practices, asset replacement or rehabilitation, and emergency management and response planning. This will require an agency to provide a list of risk exposures and document its system-wide risk management strategy. As a result, this research investigates the state of the practice of how agencies are developing their risk-based asset management plan and discusses recommendations for future research. The survey results show that state highway agencies are increasingly adapting the way they do business to include explicit considerations of risks. At the moment, this consideration of risk is not linked to data, and as a result most agencies do not have a data driven way of tracking risks and updating their risk exposures. Accordingly, this research proposed a data integration framework utilizing Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Application Programming Interface (API) to implement a risk management database of all the relevant variables an agency needs for risk modeling to drive risk mitigation, risk monitoring, risk updates, and decision making. In addition, this study proposed modifications to the risk register workshop that leverages the collaborative aspects of risk management to quantify risk in monetary terms. This study leverages available data and analysis tools to help agencies visualize and articulate, in both qualitative and quantitative terms, how the combination of various risks and strategies would influence performance targets. The significance of the results highlights the need for further research on data driven risk management and to synthesize methodologies for integrating risk assessment into the agency’s decision-making process

Main Street 2.0: A Guide To Online And Social Media Marketing For Small Business Through The Use Of Online Analytics And Content Marketing Strategies

This project is intended to serve as a guidebook for small businesses interested in developing digital marketing strategies to reach prospective and existing customers online. The guide will serve three main functions. The first is to provide a review of literature on integrated marketing communications, relationship marketing and content marketing to use as a foundation for planning online communications. Business owner interviews will also provide various perspectives to small business online marketing. The second is to provide instruction on evaluating existing website data to gain customer insight in planning communications. The third is a network structure for distributing content through multiple online platforms. The guidebook will assess data from small businesses in a university community as well as provide suggestions for developing an efficient and effective content distribution model using open-source content management tools