Validation and Improvement of Reliability Methods for Air Force Building Systems

The United States Air Force manages its civil infrastructure resource allocation via a two-dimensional risk model consisting of the consequence of failure and reliability. Air Force civil engineers currently use the BUILDER® Sustainment Management System to estimate and predict reliability at multiple levels within its civil infrastructure systems. Alley (2015) developed and validated a probabilistic model to calculate reliability at the system level. The probabilistic model was found to be a significant improvement over the currently employed BUILDER® model for four major building systems (electrical, HVAC, fire protection, and electrical). This research assessed the performance and accuracy of both the probabilistic and BUILDER® model, focusing primarily on HVAC systems. This research used contingency analysis to assess the performance of each model for HVAC systems at six Air Force installations. Evaluating the contingency analysis results over the range of possible reliability thresholds, it was found that both the BUILDER® and probabilistic model produced inflated reliability calculations for HVAC systems. In light of these findings, this research employed a stochastic method, a Nonhomogenious Poisson Process (NHPP), in an attempt to produce accurate HVAC system reliability calculations. This effort ultimately concluded that the data did not fit a NHPP for the systems considered but posits that other stochastic process can provide more accurate reliability calculations when compared to the two models analyzed

Combined effect of trust, commitment and supplier development on buyer-supplier performance in textile industry

Large scale manufacturing organizations in developed and developing countries utilize supplier development practices to cope with increased competition and cost pressure. Understanding the effect of supplier development approaches on buyer-supplier performance remains a critical problem for these large scale manufacturing buying firms. There is a need to understand the effects of supplier development approaches combined with buying firm’s trust and commitment on the buyer-supplier performance in the textile industry of a developing country. This study investigates the effect of supplier development approaches on buyer-supplier performance, combined effects of buying firm’s trust with supplier development approaches on buyer-supplier performance, and combined effects of buying firm’s commitment with supplier development approaches on buyer-supplier performance. A research framework was developed by integrating indirect supplier development approach through goal-setting theory and influence strategy, direct supplier development approach through transaction cost theory and knowledge-based view on buyer-supplier performance, the moderation of buying firm’s trust on relationship of indirect and direct supplier development with buyer-supplier performance, and the moderation of buying firm’s commitment on relationship of indirect and direct supplier development with buyer-supplier performance. Regression analysis was performed on a cross-sectional data of 345 firms in the textile industry of Pakistan and the findings showed that the supplier development approaches were positively related to the improvement of buyer-supplier performance. Moreover, the buying firm’s trust and commitment positively moderated the relationship of supplier development approaches with buyer-supplier performance. The combined effects of buying firm’s trust and commitment with supplier development approaches resulted in the improvement of buyer-supplier performance. The findings are significant in order to understand the effect of supplier development approaches on buyer-supplier performance, and the combined effects of supplier development approaches with buying firm’s trust and commitment on buyer-supplier performance specifically in the context of the textile industry