Addressing information flow in lean production management and control in construction

Traditionally, production control on construction sites has been a challenging area, where the ad-hoc production control methods foster uncertainty - one of the biggest enemies of efficiency and smooth production flow. Lean construction methods such as the Last Planner System have partially tackled this problem by addressing the flow aspect through means such as constraints analysis and commitment planning. However, such systems have relatively long planning cycles to respond to the dynamic production requirements of construction, where almost daily if not hourly control is needed. New solutions have been designed by researchers to improve this aspect such as VisiLean, but again these types of software systems require the proximity and availability of computer devices to workers. Given this observation, there is a need for a communication system between the field and site office that is highly interoperable and provides real-time task status information. A High-level communication framework (using VisiLean) is presented in this paper, which aims to overcome the problems of system integration and improve the flow of information within the production system. The framework provides, among other things, generic and standardized interfaces to simplify the “push” and “pull” of the right (production) information, whenever needed, wherever needed, by whoever needs it. Overall, it is anticipated that the reliability of the production control will be improve

Information theory and the role of intermediaries in corporate governance

We investigate the connection between corporate governance system configurations and the role of intermediaries in the respective systems from a informational perspective. Building on the economics of information we show that it is meaningful to distinguish between internalisation and externalisation as two fundamentally different ways of dealing with information in corporate governance systems. This lays the groundwork for a description of two types of corporate governance systems, i.e. insider control system and outsider control system, in which we focus on the distinctive role of intermediaries in the production and use of information. It will be argued that internalisation is the prevailing mode of information processing in insider control system while externalisation dominates in outsider control system. We also discuss shortly the interrelations between the prevailing corporate governance system and types of activities or industry structures supported

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE COST INFORMATION IN MAKING DECISIONS

The cost information system plays an important role in every organization within the decision-making process. An important task of management is to ensure the control over operations, processes, activity sectors, and not ultimately on costs. Although in reaching the goals of an organization compete many control systems (production control, quality control and stocks control), the cost information system is important because it monitors the results of the others. The detailed analysis of costs, the calculation of production cost, the loss quantification, the estimating of work efficiency provides a solid basis for the financial control.decisions, costs, users, financial

Thermodynamics of adiabatic feedback control

We study adaptive control of classical ergodic Hamiltonian systems, where the controlling parameter varies slowly in time and is influenced by system's state (feedback). An effective adiabatic description is obtained for slow variables of the system. A general limit on the feedback induced negative entropy production is uncovered. It relates the quickest negentropy production to fluctuations of the control Hamiltonian. The method deals efficiently with the entropy-information trade off.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figur

Desk study on the control of weeds in organic arable and horticultural production systems OF0152

The Ministry is seeking to encourage an expansion of organic farming with a research programme to provide information of benefit to organic farmers and to policy makers. The lack of a reliable and effective weed control system that does not rely on herbicides, has been highlighted as the major problem in limiting the growth of organic farming in the UK. Studies have been made that are aimed specifically at developing organic weed control techniques. There has also been work on non-chemical methods for dealing with weeds in conventional systems. Research in weed biology, population dynamics, and competition modelling from conventional systems also provide valuable information for improving weed control strategies. In addition, research into novel and improved methods of plant husbandry, plant breeding, and the application of new technology in guidance systems etc., can also make a contribution to providing better weed control in organic and conventional systems. However, because of the diverse nature of the research it is not easy to assess the current state of the art for weed control in organic farming systems. The main objective of the present project was to identify and collate the relevant R&D that has been carried out and published on weed control in organic arable and horticultural production systems. The study was also intended to define the current state of the art in non chemical weed control, allowing recommendations to be made for future research work

Improving Information Flow within the Production Management System with Web Services

The efficiency of the production planning and control process in construction depends significantly on the reliability and timely availability of resource information. The Last Planner system for production control mandates that a construction task should not be started unless all the seven resource prerequisites are in satisfactory condition. Failure to do so results in wasteful processes. However, this information is not readily available due to the lack of systems integration that prevails within the industry. Current implementations of the last planner system mostly rely on the team leaders‘ and foreman‘s ability to gather the required information for the weekly planning meetings and also for the look-ahead planning. However, much time is wasted chasing relevant information due to the above-mentioned problems. Also, the reliability of planning could be much improved if there is a system available, which aggregates resource information from various project stakeholders in one place. In such a situation, web services could provide an ideal platform for integration as they provide a flexible way to integrate disparate systems, with choreography based on identified business processes drawn from Last Planner and implemented using BPMN/BPEL. With the improvement in connectivity as a result of better availability of high speed Internet through mobile and fixed networks, there is a better opportunity for information integration through web services. A conceptual framework based on web services is put forward which aims to improve the information flow within the industry and provide the right information at the right time to enable better planning and control within the production system