Managing Risks in SMEs: A Literature Review and Research Agenda

In times of crisis, companies need to carefully monitor current expenses and forecast potential costs, which could be caused by risky actions. Risk is inherent in all business functions and in every kind of activity. Knowing how to identify risks, attribute a value and a priority scale, design actions and mechanisms to minimize risks, and continuously monitor them, are essential to guarantee companies’ survival and create sustainable value. This is especially true for small- and medium-sized businesses that are most exposed to the harmful effects of the risks, due to limited resources and structural features. The objective of this study is to analyze available literature on the subject of risk management for small- and medium-sized enterprises from 1999 to 2009. The analysis derives interesting characteristics from the scientific studies, highlighting gaps and guidelines for future research

Sustainable Construction

Construction is one of the main sectors that generates greenhouse gases. This industry consumes large amounts of raw materials, such as stone, timber, water, etc. Additionally, infrastructure should provide service over many years without safety problems. Therefore, their correct design, construction, maintenance, and dismantling are essential to reducing economic, environmental, and societal consequences. That is why promoting sustainable construction has recently become extremely important. To help address and resolve these types of questions, this book explores new ways of reducing the environmental impacts caused by the construction sector, as well promotes social progress and economic growth. The chapters collect the papers included in the “Sustainable Construction” Special Issue of the Sustainability journal. The papers cover a wide spectrum of issues related to the use of sustainable materials in construction, the optimization of designs based con sustainable indicators, the life-cycle assessment, the decision-making processes that integrate economic, social, and environmental aspects, and the promotion of durable materials that reduce future maintenance

Project Delivery Systems, Procurement Practices and Implementation of Building Construction Projects in the Kenyan Judiciary

Kenyan population increased from 20 million in 1985 to approximately 47.6 million in 2019 and with it, demand for justice also increased yet the growth did not come with improved Judiciary infrastructure. This attracted the World Bank through the Judicial Performance Improvement Project (JPIP) to fund 30 major court construction projects while the Kenyan Government also funded another 33 such projects from 2013. However, by January, 2020,only 10 projects had been completed and successfully handed over with all the 63 projects being out of the planned time and with variation on the original scope of works.This gave rise to this study that aimed to evaluate the influence of project delivery systems on implementation of building construction projects in the Kenyan judiciary as moderated with the procurement practices. The study was based on general systems theory. Pragmatism paradigm and convergent parallel mixed research design was adopted and proportionate stratified sampling was used to select a population of 234 consisting of judiciary staff, construction staff  and consultants.Primary data was collected through use of questionnaires, interviews and document  content analysis. Reliability was tested using Cronbach’s Alpha while data was analyzed using descriptive statistics which included measures of central tendency. Qualitative data was subjected to thematic analysis to triangulate results derived from quantitative data. Inferential statistics was analyzed by correlation, simple linear regression and multiple regression analysis. Two hypotheses were tested to establish whether there were significant relationships between project delivery systems and implementation of building construction projects in the Kenyan Judiciary, namely  1.H0:  Project delivery systems have no significant relationship with implementation of construction projects in the Kenyan Judiciary and 2.H0: There is no significant moderating influence of procurement practices on the relationship between project delivery systems  and implementation of construction projects in the Kenyan Judiciary.The findings were that there was a significant influence of project delivery systems on the implementation of construction projects in the Kenyan Judiciary and that procurement practices significantly moderated the relationship between project delivery systems and implementation of building construction projects in the Kenyan Judiciary.The slope coefficient was significant when p ≤0.05. The findings of the study will be beneficial to policy makers, project managers in public and private sectors and scholars regarding project delivery attributes on implementation of building construction projects. Keywords:Project delivery Systems, Procurement Practices and Implementation of Building Construction Projects. DOI: 10.7176/CER/13-6-03 Publication date:September 30th 202

The current context of Lean and Six Sigma Logistics applications in literature: A Systematic Review

Originated in the Toyota Production System, the concept of lean production has become widely disseminated and broadly applied in the industry. When considering lean and six sigma principles in logistics, companies have obtained advantages in terms of cost and quality, which encouraged scientific researches for improvements in the topic. To study the current state of the art on Lean Logistics (LL) and Six Sigma Logistics (SSL), in the national and international level, a systematic review of lean and six sigma logistics were performed, aiming to evaluate theoretical and practical applications, in order to classify the current literature and propose studies to address research opportunities. For this purpose, a review protocol was created to guide and structure the review. As results, it was identified that Transportation has been the main logistic operational drive component in which LL has being applied. The most frequent type of waste considered was Motion and most of the studies were practical applications. Finally, this study found considerable research opportunities for future studies.

A new practical approach to risk management for underground mining project in Quebec

The mining industry worldwide is currently experiencing an economic boom that is contributing to economic recovery and social progress in many countries. For this to continue, the mining industry must meet several challenges associated with the start-up of new projects. In a highly complex and uncertain environment, rigorous management of risks remains indispensable in order to repel threats to the success of mining. In this article, a new practical approach to risk management in mining projects is presented. This approach is based on a novel concept called “hazard concentration” and on the multi-criteria analysis method known as the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The aim of the study is to extend the use of this approach to goldmines throughout Quebec. The work is part of a larger research project of which the aim is to propose a method suitable for managing practically all risks inherent in mining projects. This study shows the importance of taking occupational health and safety (OHS) into account in all operational activities of the mine. All project risks identified by the team can be evaluated. An adaptable database cataloguing about 250 potential hazards in an underground goldmine was constructed. In spite of limitations, the results obtained in this study are potentially applicable throughout the Quebec mining sector

A performance reporting tool for electricity service delivery for selected local South African municipalities

Thesis (PhD (Industrial Systems))--University of Pretoria, 2021.Basic services such as sanitation, waste removal, water, and electricity supplies are necessary for life, well-being, and human dignity. In South Africa, municipalities are the sphere of government constitutionally designated to provide these services. With months of rolling blackouts and volatile operating performance, Electricity Service Delivery (ESD) deserves some attention and improvement because it is setting the country on a pathway to national emergency, weakening investors’ confidence and stagnating the country’s already problematic economic growth prospects. Since improvement does not materialise spontaneously, deliberate and purposeful actions are required to understand the current state of ESD, extract stakeholders’ intentions for an improved ESD (diagnosis), and then devise means to operationalise the intentions. This study focuses on performance assessment with initial reporting capabilities to provide adequate information and insight for diagnosis of ESD within South African local municipalities. It starts by exploring a systematic literature review of available tools for diagnostic service performance assessment. Then, it extracts and validates, through a focus group session, the criteria which such tools must satisfy to be considered useful in the South African context. The study is based on a Design Science Research (DSR) methodology and follows an inquisitive process of multi-stakeholder engagement to extract evidence about existing functional and constructional ESD areas of concern/requirements. The study inductively develops an artefact, the ESD Performance Reporting Tool (ESD-PRT) to guide improvement in electricity service delivery in South African local municipalities. The ESD-PRT continuously extracts performance metrics from Power System Resources (PSR), citizens, and organisational competencies of the municipalities, with provisions for emerging areas of concern and requirements within design domains and sub-domains. It was evaluated for practicality and usefulness based on the DSR iterative approach and compared to the closest available similar solution. This entry point solution to an optimised local municipality ESD would guide the redesign of ESD and potentially save South Africa billions of Rands currently lost to energy losses, downtime in economic activities and social discontent occasioned by power outages and rolling blackouts. The study was demonstrated in three local municipalities geo-located in two different provinces. The researcher believes that the study outcome would apply to most local municipalities in South Africa. However, its applicability to metropolitan municipalities still needs to be tested.Industrial and Systems EngineeringPhD (Industrial Systems)Unrestricte