Siding Attachment to Cold-Formed Steel Walls through Varying Layers of Foam Insulation

When insulating an exterior wall, more and more codes are requiring continuous insulation on the exterior of the studs to reduce the effect of thermal bridging. As energy codes continue to become more stringent, the thickness of the continuous installation has increased. Although wood and steel are both impacted, the requirements generally are higher for steel framing. A significant implementation challenge caused by increasingly higher levels of continuous insulation is the lack of specifications for the type of fastener and siding installation details that should be used when installing thicker levels of insulation. Thus, the engineer, architect, builder, and contractor are left to confront this challenge without clear guidance. Without clear building code requirements, the builder and code official also face the potential for conflicting code requirements between the building section of the code, which often cites manufacturer instructions, and the energy section of the code that goes beyond the scope of the same instructions. The overall objective of this project was to develop attachment techniques for securing building cladding and continuous insulation to above-grade, steel framed walls of single family and multifamily buildings up to seven stories. The project was funded jointly by the Steel Framing Alliance (SFA) and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), and thus considers requirements in national model codes produced by the International Code Council and the New York State Building Code. The project consisted of three main tasks. Task 1 included a review of code requirements related to siding attachment. The findings were used to identify potential options for siding attachment. Task 2 is an assessment of the practical construction issues associated with the options identified in Task 1. Task 3 includes the results of engineering analysis and structural tests conducted on the most promising options. The intention of this task was to develop a methodology and apply it to the development of prescriptive fastener requirements for steel framing. At the start of the project, an opportunity to work with the Foam Sheathing Coalition (FSC) was identified to accelerate the introduction of project findings into building codes through a Public Comment to the International Code Council (ICC) for consideration at their May 2010 Final Action hearings. Thus, Task 3 was expanded to work with the FSC to modify a comprehensive code change proposal they had previous submitted to the ICC. The remaining sections of this report consist of the three task reports. A summary of the findings of each task is provided in the section on each task report. The most significant result of the project is prescriptive requirements for building codes. These are included at the end of the section on Task 3.--Introductio

The adoption and use of Through-life Engineering Services within UK Manufacturing Organisations

Manufacturing organisations seek ever more innovative approaches in order to maintain and improve their competitive position within the global market. One such initiative that is gaining significance is ‘through-life engineering services’. These seek to adopt ‘whole life’ service support through the greater understanding of component and system performance driven by knowledge gained from maintenance, repair and overhaul activities. This research presents the findings of exploratory research based on a survey of UK manufacturers who provide through-life engineering services. The survey findings illustrate significant issues to be addressed within the field before the concept becomes widely accepted. These include a more proactive approach to maintenance activities based on real-time responses; standardisation of data content, structure, collection, storage and retrieval protocols in support of maintenance; the development of clear definitions, ontologies and a taxonomy of through-life engineering services in support of the service delivery system; lack of understanding of component and system performance due to the presence of ‘No Fault Found’ events that skew maintenance metrics and the increased use of radio-frequency identification technology in support of maintenance data acquisition

Services Trade Negotiations in the Doha Round : Opportunities and Risks for Pakistan

This paper seeks to examine how locking-in of Pakistans unilateral liberalization at the WTO/GATS and further liberalization of services trade would affect Pakistans competitiveness. Focusing on the opportunities and risks of such liberalization the paper discusses possible options regarding the corollary regulatory reforms and other flanking measures that may be needed to achieve these goals. The sectors studied in this paper are (a) construction and related engineering services; (b) architecture, engineering and integrated engineering services; (c) energy services; and (d) environmental services.liberalization, Services, regulation, Pakistan

Overview of Remaining Useful Life prediction techniques in Through-life Engineering Services

Through-life Engineering Services (TES) are essential in the manufacture and servicing of complex engineering products. TES improves support services by providing prognosis of run-to-failure and time-to-failure on-demand data for better decision making. The concept of Remaining Useful Life (RUL) is utilised to predict life-span of components (of a service system) with the purpose of minimising catastrophic failure events in both manufacturing and service sectors. The purpose of this paper is to identify failure mechanisms and emphasise the failure events prediction approaches that can effectively reduce uncertainties. It will demonstrate the classification of techniques used in RUL prediction for optimisation of products’ future use based on current products in-service with regards to predictability, availability and reliability. It presents a mapping of degradation mechanisms against techniques for knowledge acquisition with the objective of presenting to designers and manufacturers ways to improve the life-span of components

Russian engineering services market : theory and practice of modern high-tech business

In the modern market economy, active use of scientific and technological progress, creation of high-tech products requires appropriate capacities and development of infrastructure, the presence of modern technology, advanced manufacturing, know-how and high-tech engineering services. The level of engineering services today defines and prerequisites improving the competitiveness of the national economy and an important competitive advantage for the government. Despite the fairly good theoretical work on engineering services development, today there is no detailed methodological basis of management, formation and development of engineering in countries with emerging market economies. In this regard, in the study an attempt is made to synthesize the theory and practice of market development of engineering services on the example of the Russian Federation. This focuses on the development and market forecasting of engineering. In a study a deep analysis of the theory and practice of development of Russian market of engineering services is made, the main trends and challenges of this market in close coordination with the global trends are identified, classification and segmentation of the global and Russian market of engineering services is carried out, the author's approach to the interpretation of “complex engineering services” is proposed, the reasonable forecast and recommendations for the development of the engineering market for the period up to 2022 is prepared.peer-reviewe

Strategic thinking : intelligent opportunism and emergent strategy – the case of Strategic Engineering Services

This case study focuses on strategic thinking and opportunistic approaches to business growth and diversification. It begins by examining the recent purchase of ‘Quickcover’, a remote-controlled sports pitch covering system, by engineering company Strategic Engineering services and the company’s current dilemma – whether to continue to develop this type of product, or sell it and concentrate on its existing engineering services business. In recent years, Strategic Engineering Services has moved away from traditional heavy engineering and diversified into related areas such as engineering services, oil and gas industry recruitment, plant and equipment hire, instrument calibration and project management. The case considers the relationship between strategic thinking and entrepreneurial approaches to opportunity recognition, exploring the concept of intelligent opportunism as an approach that enables entrepreneurs to develop emergent strategies and take advantage of new opportunities. It explores these concepts in the context of the current dilemma of Strategic Engineering Services. Keywords: intelligent opportunism; emergent strategy; strategic thinking;effectuatio

Digital twins: Understanding the added value of integrated models for through-life engineering services

Digital twins are digital representations of physical products or systems that consist of multiple models from various domains describing them on multiple scales. By means of communication, digital twins change and evolve together with their physical counterparts throughout their lifecycle. Domain-specific partial models that make up the digital twin, such as the CAD model or the degradation model, are usually well known and provide accurate descriptions of certain parts of the physical asset. However, in complex systems, the value of integrating the partial models increases because it facilitates the study of their complex behaviours which only emerge from the interactions between various parts of the system. The paper proposes that the partial models of the digital twin share a common model space that integrates them through a definition of their interrelations and acts as a bridge between the digital twin and the physical asset. The approach is illustrated in a case of a mechatronic product - a differential drive mobile robot developed as a testbed for digital twin research. It is demonstrated how the integrated models add value to different stages of the lifecycle, allowing for evaluation of performance in the design stage and real-time reflection with the physical asset during its operation

Challenges for Growing Engineering Services within a Large Construction Company

PKS is a construction company with annual revenues of 6 billon dollars. Some engineering services already exist in the company, yet the author believes that there is capacity for growth in engineering services; specifically in the discipline of civil engineering. This paper studies the challenges for growing the engineering services within PKS only with the intention of identifying potential growth opportunities for professional designers in the branch of civil engineering. The benefits of growing in-house engineering services are: • To have a larger pool of design professionals to accomplish not only the design but also the construction of large projects. • To increase revenue by keeping work in-house. • To make the design-build process more efficient. This paper is written to provide guidance on how to overcome some of the challenges for growing the services provided by an existing small engineering unit within a large construction firm. The two most important challenges addressed in this document are: • How to sell engineering services within the company. • Have a better understanding of the legal implications of combining the construction and engineering services. The process of getting more work would likely take months or years; therefore, the goal of this paper is limited only to planning the initial stage of the process

Resource Planning in Engineering Services Firms

We develop a model to enable engineering professional services firms to improve the management of their competitive resources, i.e., skilled engineers, to be better able to respond to customer demand. The model was informed by semistructured interviews with senior executives from engineering, information technology (IT) services and technical consulting firms. As a result, we capture many of the complexities associated with the resource planning process in the professional engineering services sector. In the resulting model, the key attributes of supply, demand, and operations constraints are identified. Based on information obtained from the interviews, a number of test firms are created.We then use these test firms to study the impact of various resource planning policies on firm performance. These policies include the skill mix and profile of skilled employees, limits on the number of concurrent projects to which an employee can be assigned, and policies governing employee cross-training and hiring. The impact of these policies is evaluated in terms of business metrics, such as the project completion rate and net revenue. Finally, our model is extended to capture a multiphase rolling planning horizon, where projects may span multiple phases with the goal of ensuring consistency in employee assignment to projects