Marketing for Service Quality - Contractors' Perception: UAE Case Study

This paper is based on the findings of in-depth face-to-face semi-structured interviews with owners, directors and senior managers of twenty contractors' organisation in the United Arab Emirates construction industry. Then the research findings were reported and sent back to those who participated in the interviews in a form of a validation report for their review and comments.  The objective of this paper is to explore the marketing concept, cost and activities within the contractors’ organisation in the United Arab Emirates construction industry. The results indicated that marketing function has been slightly accepted as legitimate management activities in the UAE construction organisations (15% of respondents). Furthermore, the majority of companies (80% of respondents) consider marketing cost as a wasting of money since most projects were awarded to the lowest price offer. More than 85% of the interviewed contractors indicated that they do not have marketing departments or divisions in their companies; instead they have a public relationship department with the focus on the documentation of current project and the internal magazine of the company. Only 15% of contracting companies have a separate marketing division with a few staff and little budget. The result also indicated that there is much confusion among contractors on the definition of the marketing concepts and its purpose and activities. Keywords:Marketing, Service Quality, Marketing Orientation, Differentiation and Marketing Researc

Marketing for Service Quality in Jordanian Construction Project Organisation

This paper is based on the findings of in-depth face-to-face semi-structured interviews with owners, directors and senior managers of fifteen contractors organisation in Jordan. The objective of this paper is to explore the marketing concept, cost and activities within the contractors’ organisation in the Jordanian construction industry. The results indicated that marketing function has not been accepted as legitimate management activities in the Jordanian construction organisations. Furthermore, the majority of companies (85% of respondents) consider marketing cost as a wasting of money since most projects were awarded to the lowest price offer. More than 85% (13 out of 15) of the interviewed contractors indicated that they do not have marketing departments or divisions in their companies. Only 13% of contracting companies (2 out of 15) have a separate marketing division with a few staff and little budget. The result also indicated that there is much confusion among contractors on the definition of the marketing concepts and its purpose. Key Wards (Marketing, Service Quality, Marketing Orientation, Differentiation, Marketing Mix

Vibration-Based Defect Detection for Freight Railcar Tapered-Roller Bearings

The railroad industry currently utilizes two wayside detection systems to monitor the health of freight railcar bearings in service: The Trackside Acoustic Detection System (TADS™) and the wayside Hot-Box Detector (HBD). TADS™ uses wayside microphones to detect and alert the conductor of high risk defects. Many defective bearings may never be detected by TADS™ due to the fact that a high risk defect is considered a spall which spans more than 90% of a bearing’s raceway, and there are less than 20 systems in operation throughout the United States and Canada. Much like the TADS™, the HBD is a device that sits on the side of the rail tracks and uses a non-contact infrared sensor to determine the temperature of the train bearings as they roll over the detector. The accuracy and reliability of the temperature readings from this wayside detection system have been concluded to be inconsistent when comparing several laboratory and field studies. The measured temperatures can be significantly different from the actual operating temperature of the bearings due to several factors such as the class of railroad bearing and its position on the axle relative to the position of the wayside detector. Over the last two decades, a number of severely defective bearings were not identified by several wayside detectors, some of which led to costly catastrophic derailments. In response, certain railroads have attempted to optimize the use of the temperature data acquired by the HBDs. However, this latter action has led to a significant increase in the number of non-verified bearings removed from service. In fact, about 40% of the bearings removed from service in the period from 2001 to 2007 were found to have no discernible defects. The removal of non-verified (defect-free) bearings has resulted in costly delays and inefficiencies. Driven by the need for more dependable and efficient condition monitoring systems, the University Transportation Center for Railway Safety (UTCRS) research team at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) has been developing an advanced onboard condition monitoring system that can accurately and reliably detect the onset of bearing failure. The developed system currently utilizes temperature and vibration signatures to monitor the true condition of a bearing. This system has been validated through rigorous laboratory testing at UTRGV and field testing at the Transportation Technology Center, Inc. (TTCI) in Pueblo, CO. The work presented here provides concrete evidence that the use of vibration signatures of a bearing is a more effective method to assess the bearing condition than monitoring temperature alone. The prototype bearing condition monitoring system is capable of identifying a defective bearing with a defect size of less than 6.45 cm2 (1 in2) using the vibration signature, whereas, the temperature profile of that same bearing will indicate a healthy bearing that is operating normally

Impact of Hysteresis Heating of Railroad Bearing Thermoplastic Elastomer Suspension Pad on Railroad Bearing Thermal Management

It is a known fact that polymers and all other materials develop hysteresis heating due to the viscoelastic response or internal friction. The hysteresis or phase lag occurs when cyclic loading is applied leading to the dissipation of mechanical energy. The hysteresis heating is induced by the internal heat generation of the material, which occurs at the molecular level as it is being disturbed cyclically. Understanding the hysteresis heating of the railroad bearing elastomer suspension element during operation is essential to predict its dynamic response and structural integrity, as well as to predict the thermal behavior of the railroad bearing assembly. The main purpose of this ongoing study is to investigate the effect of the internal heat generation in the thermoplastic elastomer suspension element on the thermal behavior of the railroad bearing assembly. This paper presents an experimentally validated finite element thermal model that can be used to obtain temperature distribution maps of complete bearing assemblies in service conditions. The commercial software package ALGOR 20.3™ is used to conduct the thermal finite element analysis. Different internal heating scenarios are simulated with the purpose of determining the bearing suspension element and bearing assembly temperature distributions during normal and abnormal operation conditions. Preliminary results show that a combination of the ambient temperature, bearing temperature, and frequency of loading can produce elastomer pad temperature increases above ambient of up to 125°C when no thermal runway is present. The higher temperature increase occurs at higher loading frequencies such as 50 Hz, thus, allowing the internal heat generation to significantly impact the temperature distribution of the suspension pad. This paper provides several thermal maps depicting normal and abnormal operation conditions and discusses the overall thermal management of the railroad bearing assembly

Severity of Droughts in Arid Regions

The increasing water shortage in Jordan threatens the environment and badly affects most of the scoi-economic activities. In central Jordan, where major agricultural and water storage projects are located, the October – May rainy season precipitation for two gauging sites; namely Amman Airport and Madaba, is used in the present study to investigate the occurrence of extreme droughts. The extreme regional dry year occurs when the precipitation in that year falls under the threshold of 1 Standard Deviation below the long-term mean at site. Historical precipitation data, 1938 – 2005, are used to simulate 50000 precipitation data using multivariate stochastic simulation model of order 1, MAR(1). Drought analysis using the historical precipitation shows that extreme droughts fall out as individual years, while using generated precipitation droughts is distributed as 1 year events mostly, and as 2 and 3 years duration although less. This study also presents a theoretical model to estimate the return period of extreme droughts. The estimated return period of the 1 year extreme drought in central Jordan is around 10 years, whereas it is 160 years or more for droughts of longer durations. The probability that an extreme drought occurs at least once in a planning period of 25 years, defined as the risk, is found to be more than 90% for drought of 1 year duration, while it is found to be 15% or less for events of 2 years or more

Fatigue Life Estimation of Modified Railroad Bearing Adapters for Onboard Monitoring Applications

This paper presents a study of the fatigue life (i.e. number of stress cycles before failure) of Class K cast iron conventional and modified railroad bearing adapters for onboard monitoring applications under different operational conditions based on experimentally validated Finite Element Analysis (FEA) stress results. Currently, freight railcars rely heavily on wayside hot-box detectors (HBDs) at strategic intervals to record bearing cup temperatures as the train passes at specified velocities. Hence, most temperature measurements are limited to certain physical railroad locations. This limitation gave way for an optimized sensor that could potentially deliver significant insight on continuous bearing temperature conditions. Bearing adapter modifications (i.e. cut-outs) were required to house the developed temperature sensor which will be used for onboard monitoring applications. Therefore, it is necessary to determine the reliability of the modified railroad bearing adapter. Previous work done at the University Transportation Center for Railway Safety (UTCRS) led to the development of finite element model with experimentally validated boundary conditions which was utilized to obtain stress distribution maps of conventional and modified railroad bearing adapters under different service conditions. These maps were useful for identifying areas of interest for an eventual inspection of railroad bearing adapters in the field. Upon further examination of the previously acquired results, it was determined that one possible mode of adapter failure would be by fatigue due to the cyclic loading and the range of stresses in the railroad bearing adapters. In this study, the authors experimentally validate the FEA stress results and investigate the fatigue life of the adapters under different extreme case scenarios for the bearing adapters including the effect of a railroad flat wheel. In this case, the flat wheel translates into a periodic impact load on the bearing adapter. The Stress-Life approach is used to calculate the life of the railroad bearing adapters made out of cast iron and subjected to cyclic loading. From the known material properties of the adapter (cast iron), the operational life is estimated with a mathematical relationship. The Goodman correction factor is used in these life prediction calculations in order to take into account the mean stresses experienced by these adapters. The work shows that the adapters have infinite life in all studied cases

Structural integrity of conventional and modified railroad bearing adapters for onboard monitoring

This paper presents a detailed study of the structural integrity of conventional and modified railroad bearing adapters for onboard monitoring applications. Freight railcars rely heavily on weigh bridges and stations to determine cargo load. As a consequence, most load measurements are limited to certain physical railroad locations. This limitation provided an opportunity for an optimized sensor that could potentially deliver significant insight on bearing condition monitoring as well as load information. Bearing adapter modifications (e.g. cut outs) were necessary to house the sensor and, thus, it is imperative to determine the reliability of the modified railroad bearing adapter, which will be used for onboard health monitoring applications. To this end, this study quantifies the impact of the proposed modifications on the adapter structural integrity through a series of experiments and finite element analyses. The commercial software Algor 20.3TM is used to conduct the stress finite element analyses. Different loading scenarios are simulated with the purpose of obtaining the conventional and modified bearing adapter stresses during normal and abnormal operating conditions. This information is then used to estimate the lifetime of these bearing adapters. Furthermore, this paper presents an experimentally validated finite element model which can be used to attain stress distribution maps of these bearing adapters in different service conditions. The maps are also useful for identifying areas of interest for an eventual inspection of conventional or modified railroad bearing adapters in the field