Economic Feasibility, General Economic Impact and Implications of a Free Trade Agreement Between the European Union and Armenia

This study of the feasibility, costs and benefits of a free trade agreement between the EU and Armenia was conducted from July 2007 to April 2008 under contract with the European Commission. The first meeting in Brussels in September 2007 with Staff members of Directorates-General for Trade, External Relations, Economic and Financial Affairs, Internal Market and Services, Competition, Enterprise and Industry proved indispensable in our work on this report. During mission to Yerevan in October 2007 the consultations were held with a number of ministries, research institutes and business organizations. We greatly benefited from consultations with the representatives of the Ministry of Energy, Customs State Committee, Ministry of Trade and Economic Development, Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Union of Manufacturers and Businessmen (Employers) of Armenia, National Institute of Standards, Wine Producers Union, Ministry of Finance and Economy AEPLAC Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Armenian Development Agency UNDP, IMF and the World Bank. The European Commission Delegation to Armenia provided us with extensive information, consultation on key policy issues and organizational support, for chich we are very grateful. Several authors contributed to this study. David Dyker is the author of the introductory section (chapter 2) and the analysis of services sectors (chapter 7). Michael Emerson is the author of section on regional integration scenarios (chapter 3) and he also provided very valuable comments on all chapters in this study. Sveta Taran, Peter Holmes and Michael Gasiorek are the authors of chapter 4 employing the Sussex Framework to study the impact of FTA. Michael Gasiorek and Peter Holmes also provided valuable comments on the CGE modelling section. Evgeny Polyakov, Andrei Roudoi as well as Gevorg Torosyan contributed to the chapter on the institutional and regulatory harmonization (chapter 5). The team from the Global Insight including Andre Jungmittag, Vicki Korchagin, Evgeny Polyakov and Andrei Roudoi supervised the implementation of the survey and completed the analysis of the survey results (chapter 6). Also the same team from Global Insight contributed chapter 10 on sensitive sectors. The implementation of the survey of NTBs was conducted by AVAG Solutions under the supervision of Vardan Baghdasaryan and Melik Gasparyan. The analysis of FDI flows and their likely trends following an FTA was prepared by Malgorzata Jakubiak, while the estimation of the potential FDI flows was completed by Alina Kudina (section 8.4). The CGE analysis (chapter 9) was prepared by Maryla Maliszewska, who also acted as the project manager and the editor of the study. Finally, conclusions are a collective work of all the authors. Sierz Naurodski and Elena Kozarzewska provided an excellent administrative support. I would like to take his opportunity to thank them all for their cooperation, valuable contributions and comments.European Neighborhood Policy, free trade agreement, institutional harmonization, EU, Armenia

A holistic conceptual model for managing construction logistics in building projects: the case of Iran

Logistics, as a factor that affects the total cost of a product, has attracted attention in many industries. However, construction is behind other industries, such as manufacturing and food, in terms of obtaining value through application of effective logistics management. Some specific characteristics of the construction industry, such as fragmented supply chain, indirect employment, temporary location and matchless products, have prevented organisations utilising logistic management in their projects. In construction, logistics is about the mobilisation of different types of resources to feed the project with the required materials and components at the right time, in the right place, right quantity and right quality. To do so, a new approach to construction logistics should be undertaken that respects the special characteristics of this industry. This research aims to develop a conceptual model based on the current practice of construction logistics in building projects. This model, in addition to complying with the special characteristics of the construction industry, is also adapted to the economic, cultural, technological and environmental specifications of the building sector in Iran. The complexity mindset is adopted in this research which allows considering a construction logistics system as a whole and the system may assert an aggregate behaviour. This approach is called holism and investigates the performance of complex adaptive systems. The study is focused on the Iranian construction industry as the main source of data collection. To achieve the aim and objectives of the research, a literature review was followed by qualitative and quantitative data collection. This research adopted the complementarity approach that uses qualitative and quantitative strategies in a way that complement each other. In the qualitative phase, twenty four open-ended interviews were conducted with construction practitioners who work in the building sector in Iran. Gathered data was analysed using NVivo. This involves codifying the textual data to find themes, categories and relationships. The results of the first phase were rich and exploratory and explained opinions, norms and attitudes. Based on the results of the first phase, a questionnaire with ten sections was designed to investigate different aspects of construction logistics from wider perspectives by conducting a survey on a large sample. The data gathered from the second phase were analysed in a descriptive manner to provide statistical information about the present practice of construction logistics in the Iranian building sector. The final product of this research is a holistic conceptual model that has four subsystems: (a) environmental factors (b) operational factors, (c) commercial factors, and (d) managerial factors. Each subsystem has several agents that are different functions of logistics in a building project. The environmental factors include project size and location, peak working seasons, resource conservation and weather conditions. The operational factors discuss technological matters, construction methods, new materials, waste and transportation. The commercial factors encompass the supply chain, finance, economic conditions, material costs, estimation, supplier selection, packaging, purchasing, inspection, and material quality. The managerial factors cover material management, warehousing, material handling, information management, scheduling, delivery, organisation, personnel, knowledge, culture and site layout designing. All of these functions are integrated under the topic of construction logistics model. The model also illustrates the relationships among agents of the system. The developed model, in addition to technical factors, has paid attention to soft factors such as culture, economy and knowledge. The model is adaptable to changing environments and elements may be added or deleted from the system whenever required

The Role of Institutional Pressures in the Adoption of e-Procurement in Public Institutions in Developing Countries: The Case of Lesotho

Benefits of E-Procurement are now well documented as experienced by both public and private organizations. Yet, in developing countries, and more so in Africa, few organizations have reported benefits of E-Procurement. Whilst institutional pressures are instrumental in shaping organization’s actions and outcomes with regard to technology adoption, few studies have examined their role in E-Procurement adoption in African public sector organizations. This study situated in Lesotho, seeks to examine the rational for E-procurement adoption in the public sector and identifies institutional pressures that affect successful adoption. Following an interpritivist approach, this study identifies (1) perceived benefits of efficiency and transparency from the use of E-Procurement in the public sector; and (2) coercive and normative pressure as being instrumental in the adoption of E-Procurement. Contextual barriers are reported which are as a result of institutional pressures. Recommendations are provided to organizations in developing countries on how they should respond to institutional pressure

Management of agricultural waste biomass as raw material for the construction sector: an analysis of sustainable and circular alternatives

The agricultural and construction sectors demand enormous amounts of natural resources and generate environmental impacts that negatively affect ecosystems. One of the main problems is the generation and inadequate management of waste. For this reason, under the approaches of the new sustainable and circular models, waste valorization has been prioritised as a strategy for advancing towards the sustainability of production systems. This research aims to carry out a general analysis of Agricultural Waste Biomass (AWB) in the production of bio-based products for the construction sector. Bibliometric techniques were applied for the general analysis of the scientific production obtained from Scopus. A systematic review identified the main research approaches. In addition, European projects were reviewed to assess the practical application. This study is novel and provides relevant contributions to new trends in the valorisation of AWB in the building sector and the sustainability benefits. For policymakers, it is a source of information on the contribution of new policies to scientific advances and the aspects that need to be strengthened to improve sustainable and circular practices in both sectors

On the European Union – Turkey Customs Union

The purpose of the paper is to study the European Union - Turkey customs union (CU) of 1995 covering trade in industrial goods. The customs union decision of 1995 tending to rules and disciplines on various regulatory border and behind-the-border policies covers in particular customs reform, technical barriers to trade, competition policy, intellectual property rights, and administrative procedures. The paper after assessing in each case the status quo at the time of the entry of the CU into force evaluates the commitments undertaken under the CU, and assesses the degree of implementation of the CU requirements as well as the administrative costs of implementation of the CU. Finally, the paper shows how the CU has successfully moved the Turkish economy from a government-controlled regime to a market based one.Economic Integration, Customs Union

Integration of Joint Power-Heat Flexibility of Oil Refinery Industries to Uncertain Energy Markets

This paper proposes a novel approach to optimize the main energy consumptions of heavy oil refining industries (ORI) in response to electricity price uncertainties. The whole industrial sub-processes of the ORI are modeled mathematically to investigate the joint power-heat flexibility potentials of the industry. To model the refinery processes, an input/output flow-based model is proposed for five main refining units. Moreover, the role of storage tanks capacity in the power system flexibility is investigated. To hedge against the electricity price uncertainty, an uncertain bound for the wholesale electricity price is addressed. To optimize the industrial processes, a dual robust mixed-integer quadratic program (R-MIQP) is adopted; therefore, the ORI’s operational strategies are determined under the worst-case realization of the electricity price uncertainty. Finally, the suggested approach is implemented in the south-west sector of the Iran Energy Market that suffers from a lack of electricity in hot days of summer. The simulation results confirm that the proposed framework ensures industrial demand flexibility to the external grids when a power shortage occurs. The approach not only provides demand flexibility to the power system, but also minimizes the operation cost of the industries

BIM Assisted Design Process Automation for Pre-Engineered Buildings (PEB)

The effective adoption and implementation of Building Information Modeling (BIM) is still challenging for the construction industry. However, studies and reports show a significant increase in the rate of BIM implementation and adoption in mainstream construction activities over the last five years. In contrast, Pre-Engineered Building (PEB) construction, a specialized construction system which provides a very efficient approach for construction of primarily industrial buildings, has not seen the same uptake in BIM implementation and adoption. The thesis reviews the benefits and the main applications of BIM for the PEB industry as well as challenges of its practical implementation. To facilitate the implementation of BIM in the PEB industry, a BIM framework is adapted from Pre-fabrication (Pre-fab) industry and new workflows, process maps, and data-exchange strategies are developed. As the PEB industry traditionally makes significant use of automation in its design and fabrication process, accordingly this work investigates the technical challenges of incorporating automation into the proposed BIM process. Two new BIM concepts, “Planar Concept” and “Floating LOD”, are then developed and implemented as a solution to these challenges. To define the proper input/output criteria for automated BIM design processes, a numerical study was performed to identify an “Optimum LOD”. A software implementation embodying the research outcomes was developed to illustrate the feasibility of the results. Its step-by-step deployment is analyzed and discussed using an example industry PEB design project. Further, the impact of this work is extended by integrating the developed BIM framework and automated design process with wind engineering design activities and tools and procurement systems. The study concludes that the deployment of the proposed BIM framework could significantly address existing issues in project design through to operation processes found in the PEB industry. Also, the results indicate the developed concepts have the potential for supporting the application of automation in the other sectors of the general construction industry. This thesis is written using the Integrated Article format and includes various complementary studies

Elements of the industrial operation model in the Iranian construction industry

Abstract. The construction industry is notorious for its conservatism and low levels of productivity. During the previous decade, this industry lagged behind other efficient and profitable industries, such as the automobile industry, and was slow to adopt its best practices. The rate of development in this industry is not very encouraging. This research aims to adopt best practices and efficient systems from other industries into the construction industry. This research aims to create a model for a case study of Iranian construction companies to achieve the objective of a productive construction industry. In this study, several important Iranian construction companies that mostly operate as contractors were chosen for the case study. The author prepared the semi-structured interview to collect empirical data. The interview topic and questions were derived from a survey of the relevant research literature to determine the main elements of the industrial operation model (IOM). Following the interview, the data was evaluated to illustrate the existing status of Iranian construction companies, and then a model was developed for IOM. The data indicate that Iranian construction companies are well behind other industries, such as automotive, in terms of industrial operation model and productivity. The research reveals the limited product lifecycle engagement, simple portfolio management, limited data strategy, lack of advanced visualization, and marketing and sales processes. This study employs empirical data to establish a methodology for Iranian construction companies to maximize their IOM benefits. In the created model, construction companies are present throughout the product lifecycle, from the feasibility study through the sale, marketing, and operation stage. According to this model, organizations could profit from improved alliance contracts, more income from more work, effective data strategy and knowledge management, and enhanced production processes. To accomplish this, they must reorganize their business operations and place greater emphasis on portfolio management, data strategy, and marketing and sales processes, resulting in enhanced productization