18,954 research outputs found

    Benchmarking for wireless sensor networks

    Get PDF

    Towards a lean model for production management of refurbishment projects, VTT Technology: 94

    Get PDF
    This is the Stage 3 Report for the ApRemodel project, which aims at improving processes for multi-occupancy retrofit by generating a lean model for project delivery. In this respect, a process-driven approach has been adopted to investigate what can be done to improve the way that retrofits projects are delivered. An initial literature review, focused on the management of refurbishment works, revealed that the research on this matter is scarce. There are plenty of studies related to the broad refurbishment area, however only a small number refer to the way that those construction projects are delivered. According to the literature, construction organisations have predominantly used traditional methods for managing the production of refurbishment projects. The problem is that those tools and techniques are not often appropriate to cope with the complex characteristics inherent to construction projects, especially in the case of refurbishments. Moreover, they have often not been based on a clear theoretical foundation. As a result, numerous types of waste have been identified in refurbishment projects such as waiting time, disruptions in performing tasks on site, rework, among others. This has led to unsatisfactory project performance in terms of low productivity, project delays, and cost overrun. The first step towards better production management in refurbishment projects is recognising the complexity of the sector in order to adopt the correct approach to cope with this specific scenario. In this respect, lean construction is identified as an appropriate way to deal with the complexity and uncertainty inherent in refurbishment projects, given that this management philosophy fully integrates the conversion, flow, and value views. This document builds on the findings from the literature review as well as evidence from case studies. Managerial practices based on lean construction principles have presented successful results in the management of complex projects. Case studies available in the literature report the feasibility and usefulness of this theoretical foundation. Moreover, the evidence from these studies show considerable potential for improving the management of refurbishment works. A list of methods, tools, and techniques are identified. This report may be used by construction refurbishment organisations and housing associations as a starting point for improving the efficiency in managing production of refurbishment projects. To this end, partnerships between industry and academia are strongly recommended. 4 Although the usefulness of lean principles in complex projects is already proved, further work is needed to check what practices are best for the respective refurbishment context, as well as identifying enablers and barriers for practical adoption. Furthermore, additional studies would be also necessary to better understand the extent to which the implementation of lean philosophy might influence performance of refurbishment projects. This report should be seen as work in progress with much more to learn, as detailed research work around the sustainable retrofit process in a lean way is further developed

    Experimentation in policy design: Insights from the building sector

    Get PDF
    The current article questions how experimentation in policy design plays out in practice. In particular, it is interested in understanding how the content and process of policy-design experiments affect their outcomes. The article does so by building on an original study into 31 real-world examples of experimentation in policy design in the building sector in Australia, the Netherlands, and the United States. All examples aim to improve the environmental sustainability of the building sector. The article finds that these 31 examples have attracted moderate to substantial numbers of participants (policy outcome HO.i), but have not achieved substantial numbers of buildings built or retrofitted with high levels of sustainability (policy outcome HO.ii). By carefully unpacking these policy designs into a number of key characteristics, it finds that this mismatch between the two outcomes may partly be explained by flawed policy-design processes. The article concludes with the main lessons learnt and provides some suggestions on how to improve experimentation in policy design

    A pragmatic approach to semantic repositories benchmarking

    Get PDF
    The aim of this paper is to benchmark various semantic repositories in order to evaluate their deployment in a commercial image retrieval and browsing application. We adopt a two-phase approach for evaluating the target semantic repositories: analytical parameters such as query language and reasoning support are used to select the pool of the target repositories, and practical parameters such as load and query response times are used to select the best match to application requirements. In addition to utilising a widely accepted benchmark for OWL repositories (UOBM), we also use a real-life dataset from the target application, which provides us with the opportunity of consolidating our findings. A distinctive advantage of this benchmarking study is that the essential requirements for the target system such as the semantic expressivity and data scalability are clearly defined, which allows us to claim contribution to the benchmarking methodology for this class of applications

    Hirschmanian themes of social learning and change

    Get PDF
    Many development strategies assume (or desperately hope) that a country already has the capacity to plan and implement institutional reform or that such institutional reform can be pushed through with the external pressures of aid and conditionalities. In a decentralized reform strategy, developmental change is induced not by government fiat but by releasing and channeling local energies in smaller projects that will in due course spread through links, learning, imitation, and benchmarking. A"Christmas tree"of conditionalities hung on an adjustment loan is generally ineffective in getting a country to develop"ownership"of reform or in generating sustainable change. Development agencies need to work toward client governments genuine commitment to policy reform rather than believe that they can"buy"such commitment with aid money. But how does a country get from here to there? Here is where the Hirschmanian notion of unbalanced growth can be"rediscovered."A country that has already developed a"good policy environment"is like a country that can implement the"balanced growth plans"of the earlier debate. Such a country would be well on its way to development. When the central government lacks such a capability, the Hirschmanian approach is to look for"hidden rationalities"in small areas or on the periphery and then help the small beginnings to spread--using, where possible, the natural pressures of linkages. Rather than try to put all the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle together at once to make it look like the picture on the box, one starts in the small areas where the pieces are starting to fit together and builds outward, using the links between the pieces. the author shows several authors arriving at a similar strategy from different starting points. Similar ideas underlie the Japanese system of just-in-time production based on inventory, local problemsolving, benchmarking, and continuous improvement: Charles Lindblom's theory of incrementalism and muddling through; Donald Schon and Everett Rogers's treatment of decentralized social learning; and Charles Sabel's theory of learning by monitoring.Educational Sciences,ICT Policy and Strategies,Public Health Promotion,Enterprise Development&Reform,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,ICT Policy and Strategies,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Educational Sciences,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies

    Good practice report:Nurturing graduate employability in higher education

    Get PDF
    • …
    corecore