Identification of the “Pathogenic” effects of disruptions to supply chain resilience in construction

In today’s interconnected world, disruptions arising from one party in a supply chain network could cause disruptions to other parties in the chain. Indeed, recent evidence suggests that supply chain disruptions had caused a wide-scale impact to the construction industry in various developing countries including the Malaysian construction industry, with increasing report on project performance deficiencies such as cost and time overruns of severe magnitudes. Although risk management is widely practiced in construction, the challenge now is to make systems and construction supply chains sufficiently resilient so that the project organisations can bounce back and thrive from catastrophes and disruptive events. Past studies of supply chain resilience however tend to overlook the underlying latent conditions that reside in the system that made an organisation vulnerable to such disruptions in the first place. The “pathogen” metaphor is used in this study to reflect these inherent hidden vulnerabilities that remain dormant in a system until a critical failure occurs. Although these pathogens are hidden and may not be causing any problem at the moment, they might trigger a later onset problem causing cascading impacts to the supply chain and its operations. While disruptions in construction are often difficult to foresee and is hard to eliminate entirely, these pathogens, however, can be identified and mitigated before a disruptive event occurs, which this paper aims to discuss. This paper therefore presents the identification of key pathogenic effects in the Malaysian construction industry through preliminary interviews with four experts in the field. Overall, the identification of the pathogens in the study will help the researcher to assess how vulnerable the project organisations are to making significant errors in a systematic way, thus providing the foundation to build appropriate strategies for their prevention and build the resilience of the construction supply chain to disruptions

Carbon dioxide/brine wettability of porous sandstone versus solid quartz: An experimental and theoretical investigation

Hypothesis: Wettability plays an important role in underground geological storage of carbon dioxide because the fluid flow and distribution mechanism within porous media is controlled by this phenomenon. CO 2 pressure, temperature, brine composition, and mineral type have significant effects on wettability. Despite past research on this subject, the factors that control the wettability variation for CO 2 /water/minerals, particularly the effects of pores in the porous substrate on the contact angle at different pressures, temperatures, and salinities, as well as the physical processes involved are not fully understood. Experiments: We measured the contact angle of deionised water and brine/CO 2 /porous sandstone samples at different pressures, temperatures, and salinities. Then, we compared the results with those of pure quartz. Finally, we developed a physical model to explain the observed phenomena. Findings: The measured contact angle of sandstone was systematically greater than that of pure quartz because of the pores present in sandstone. Moreover, the effect of pressure and temperature on the contact angle of sandstone was similar to that of pure quartz. The results showed that the contact angle increases with increase in temperature and pressure and decreases with increase in salinity

Safety Culture and Perioperative Quality at the Volta River Authority Hospital in Akosombo, Ghana.

BACKGROUND: The Volta River Authority Hospital (VRAH) is a district hospital associated with a large public works project in Akosombo, Ghana, that has developed a reputation for high-quality care. We hypothesized that this stems from a culture of safety and standardized processes typical of high-risk engineering environments. To investigate this, we evaluated staff and patient perceptions of safety and quality, as well as perioperative process variability. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The Safety Attitudes Questionnaire (SAQ) and Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) surveys were used to evaluate staff and patient perceptions of safety. Perioperative general surgery and obstetrical procedure observations generated process maps, which were analyzed for variability and waste. RESULTS: Thirty-one SAQs were administered. 83% of workers held a positive perception of teamwork, and 77.4% held a positive perception of safety culture. Fifteen HCAHPS surveys of surgical inpatients showed a median hospital rating of 10 [IQR 8.5-10] on a ten-point scale. 90% gave maximal scores for pain management and 84.4% for nurse communication. Ten general surgery and obstetrical procedures were observed for which process map analysis was notable for no consistent waste steps and 100% adherence to the World Health Organization Safe Surgery Checklist. CONCLUSIONS: Surveys suggest an institutional commitment to safety with strong teamwork culture and patient communication. Perioperative process mapping supports this culture, with low levels of variability and waste, and is useful for evaluating standardization of care. VRAH demonstrates the feasibility of delivering high standards of perioperative care in a low-resource setting

Australian construction SME : management implication of TQM implementation

SME play a major role in the economies and TQM is important in construction industry. The aim of this paper is to investigate, via extensive literature reviews, the management implication of Australian construction SME implementing TQM. In summary, there are four management perspectives: construction management, knowledge management, supply chain management and marketing management to enhance competitive advantage that may favour commercial viability. One can reasonably conclude that the quality improvements will greatly help to create long term commercial advantages