Design for occupational safety and health: Key attributes for organisational capability

Purpose: Against the backdrop of the contribution of design to the occurrence of occupational injuries and illnesses in construction, design for occupational safety and health (DfOSH) is increasingly becoming prominent in the construction sector. To ensure that design interventions are safe for construction workers to build and maintain, design firms need to have the appropriate organisational capability in respect of DfOSH. However, empirical insight regarding the attributes that constitute DfOSH organisational capability is lacking. The purpose of this paper, which trailblazes the subject of DfOSH organisational capability in construction, is to address two key questions: what organisational attributes determine DfOSH capability? What is the relative priority of the capability attributes? Design/methodology/approach: The study employed three iterations of expert focus group discussion and a subsequent three-round Delphi technique accompanied by the application of voting analytic hierarchy process.Findings: The study revealed 18 capability attributes nested within six categories, namely: competence (the competence of organisation’s design staff); strategy (the consideration of DfOSH in organisation’s vision as well as the top management commitment); corporate experience (organisation’s experience in implementing DfOSH on projects); systems (systems, processes and procedures required for implementing DfOSH); infrastructure (physical, and information and communication technology resources); and collaboration (inter- and intra-organisational collaboration to implement DfOSH on projects). Whilst these categories and their nested attributes carry varying weights of importance, collectively, the competence-related attributes are the most important, followed by strategy. Originality/value: The findings should enable design firms and other key industry stakeholders (such as the clients who appoint them) to understand designers’ DfOSH capability better. Additionally, design firms should be able to prioritise efforts/investment to enhance their DfOSH capability

The impact of contractor selection method on transaction costs: a review

The basic premise of transaction-cost theory is that the decision to outsource, rather than to undertake work in-house, is determined by the relative costs incurred in each of these forms of economic organization. In construction the "make or buy" decision invariably leads to a contract. Reducing the costs of entering into a contractual relationship (transaction costs) raises the value of production and is therefore desirable. Commonly applied methods of contractor selection may not minimise the costs of contracting. Research evidence suggests that although competitive tendering typically results in the lowest bidder winning the contract this may not represent the lowest project cost after completion. Multi-parameter and quantitative models for contractor selection have been developed to identify the best (or least risky) among bidders. A major area in which research is still needed is in investigating the impact of different methods of contractor selection on the costs of entering into a contract and the decision to outsource

WP 107 - Codebook and explanatory note on the EurOccupations dataset about the job content of 150 occupations

Occupation is the key unit in matching vacancies and job seekers, and it is used for occupational choice and for career consultancy. Occupation is also a key variable in social research, particularly that which relates to the labour market, transitions from school to work, social stratification, gender wage gaps, occupational structures and skill requirements. Despite the fact that occupation is such an important concept, little is known about the similarity of occupations across EU member states. For this reason, the EU-funded FP6 project EurOccupations (2006-2009) aimed to build a freely available web-based database containing 1,500 to 2,000 of the most common occupations; and to test the similarity of job content, required skill level, and competency profiles for a selection of 150 occupations across the eight member states in the project (Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, and United Kingdom). This codebook explains the data collection methods used in the project and outlines the dataset collected for the detailed analysis of 150 occupations. Section 2 explains the selection of these 150 occupational titles from a provisional source list of 1,433 occupations. Four criteria were used for the selection, namely variation in skill level and ISCO major groups, variation in gender composition, the prevalence of the occupation amongst job-holders, and the extent to which an occupation might be considered ‘blurred’, with wide demarcation lines. Section 3 details the process used for testing the similarity of the selected occupations. Unique task descriptions (10-12 tasks) for all 150 occupations were drafted by means of desk research. A web-survey was designed with questions about the frequency of particular tasks and the required skill level for each occupation. Experts from all the study countries were recruited for survey completion. For a number of occupations, the goal of two completed expert questionnaires for each occupation in each country was not reached and the questionnaire was slightly adapted for completion by job holders. The job holders were recruited through teaser advertisements on the WageIndicator websites in the countries in question. Section 4 explains the structure of the dataset. The dataset can by freely accessed by sending an email with name and affiliate information to the first author, "[email protected]":mailto:[email protected]. The Appendix includes all questionnaires used for the survey, as well as the labels used for the education and occupation variables. This codebook and all project deliverables can be downloaded from the project website "www.euroccupations.org":http://www.euroccupations.org

Categorisation of designs according to preference values for shape rules

Shape grammars have been used to explore design spaces through design generation according to sets of shape rules with a recursive process. Although design space exploration is a persistent issue in computational design research, there have been few studies regarding the provision of more preferable and refined outcomes to designers. This paper presents an approach for the categorisation of design outcomes from shape grammar systems to support individual preferences via two customised viewpoints: (i) absolute preference values of shape rules and (ii) relative preference values of shape rules with shape rule classification levels with illustrative examples

Interrelations among leadership competencies of BIM leaders: A fuzzy DEMATEL-ANP approach

© 2020 by the authors. The use of new, digitally enabled innovations, such as building information modeling (BIM), raises issues such as the delineation of a competent leader. Even though BIM-based competency assessment models have become essential tools for maximizing the potential values of BIM implementation, the current competency models provide limited focus on leadership aspects that facilitate and enhance the BIM implementation efforts. This paper seeks to identify the specific competencies required for BIM implementation and examines the relationships between these competencies. Thirty-two experts from around the globe investigated a total of 15 leadership competencies under three categories pertaining to intellectual, managerial, and emotional leadership. Fuzzy Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) was implemented to examine the cause-and-effect relationships among the BIM leadership competencies and fuzzy analytic network process (ANP) was performed to weigh those competencies. Findings show that the intellectual competencies act as the cause group, while managerial and emotional competencies are the effect groups. Moreover, the involving leadership is found to be the more suitable leadership style for BIM professionals, given the current capability and maturity levels of BIM implementation, in order to deal with the required changes throughout the BIM implementation process. This study contributes to the existing body of knowledge in the BIM domain to examine the associated leadership competencies by using the multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) technique. The results of this research show the relative importance of criteria and sub-criteria, which contributes to further improvement of BIM leadership

Evaluation of Alternative Options for the Irrigation Aqueduct of the Cavallino Peninsula Using the MULINO Approach

In the present article we analyse the problem and the effects of changes in irrigation technology that affect a farmer community in the Cavallino Peninsula in the northeast of Italy. The obligation of closing and sealing the wells, which are currently used in the area for irrigation purposes, is due to a national law aimed at preserving the groundwater resources and preventing subsidence phenomena in the Venice area. The enforcement of this law implies that the regional administration is obliged to provide farmers with sufficient water supply for their agricultural activity. The methodology developed within the MULINO Project was used in this analysis, to test the potentials of a decision support system tool (mDSS) developed by the project. Firstly, the decision context was analysed and, as result, the problem was subdivided in two more specific sub problems: one related with water abstraction and the other related with water distribution. In order to build the decisional model, the opinions of experts and the preferences of the stakeholders were taken into account in different phases of the process. The results allowed the competent administration to identify the stakeholders' main concerns about the development of a new irrigation system and to develop strategies to cope with them. The quality of the water supplied and the economic effects of the change in the irrigation system were the main issues dealt with in this process. The application of the MULINO approach and DSS tool added efficiency and transparency to the decision making process, by allowing the elicitation of opinions and preferences of all the actors involved in the process, and demonstrating that, notwithstanding the different viewpoints and interests, a general consensus could be reaches on a single management option

Design leadership and communication: Characteristics and abilities of design leaders communicating design to non-designers during the fuzzy front end of new product development

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel UniversityThis research investigates the key characteristics of design leaders in the context of New Product Development (NPD) at the Fuzzy Front End (FFE) or early stage of this process. It particularly focuses on how design leaders communicate design to non-designers. It is often observed that designers struggle to communicate design to non-designers. Previous research has identified design leaders as competent design communicators. However, the definition and key characteristics of design leaders remain unclear. By reviewing the literature on leadership studies, design leadership and project leadership, it is evident that no single universal definition of leadership exists. The most common definition is that leaders apply their knowledge and skills to conduct activities and use their traits to influence other people’s actions. Leadership requires different characteristics for different tasks. To understand the characteristics of design leaders, triangulated research was employed at a real-life NPD project involving young designers and non-designers at early stages of NPD as part of the first study. All participants (N=32) were directly observed, interviewed in semi-structured interviews and administered with assistive questionnaires to compare design and non-design participants’ leadership and communication styles. The second study was in-depth, focusing on UK design leaders (N=11) through semi-structured interviews and based on deficiencies in leadership and communicating design, identified from the first study and the literature review. Comparative studies indicate that designers and design leaders vary their attitudes towards non-designers, motivation and communication style. This study highlights the key characteristics of design leaders: an epiphany by experiencing the entire NPD process, interest in the benefits of NPD stakeholders, a good understanding of design competency, reflectively flexible working attitude and strong, active listening. Thus, a conceptual model was formulated and evaluated, able to guide designers who wish to become design leaders and help to enhance design communication and relationships with non-designers

Improving building performance and diversity using a new form of interactive evolutionary algorithm

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2012.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. [49]).There have been numerous studies demonstrating the use of optimization in architecture, yet it has not been adopted in the field, especially in the early stages of design. As buildings become more complex, the use of optimization in design becomes more relevant. Still, there is a gap between the way architects work and the role optimization plays in the design process. This work presents a new methodology, IDEA (interactive diversity-driven evolutionary algorithm), for designers to engage optimization in the early stages of design. IDEA is designed to work in a manner that is comfortable to the designer and easily integrated into the design process. By focusing on similarities and differences of form, designers sort design options into clusters. The clusters are used to develop a diversity-metric that IDEA uses to generate diverse design options that satisfy the objective. This work demonstrates a novel approach to interaction to better assist in early stages design.by Joshua Ingram.S.M