Innovation in construction eBusiness

The use of e-Business within the construction industry has steadily grown over the last decade. However, despite the successes being widely publicized, it is perceived that progress is limited and constrained within the industry. Thus, there are still drivers to be harnessed and barriers to be overcome. The successes achieved in other industries could be transposed and implemented within the construction industry. Many models have been suggested to successfully implement, integrate and embed e-Business within the construction industry. The aim of this special issue is closely aligned with that of a special session on ‘Innovation in Construction e-Business’ at the 6th International Conference on Innovation in Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) on June 9-11, 2010. A selection of papers submitted to the conference special session in Innovation in Construction e-Business has been reviewed along with additional papers for publication in this ITcon special issue

Assessment of Knowledge and Practices of Referring Private Practitioners Regarding Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme in Nagpur City - A Cross Sectional Study

Objectives: To assess knowledge, diagnostic and treatment practices of the referring private practitioners of Nagpur city regarding Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme (RNTCP). Methods: The study involved interview of 103 Private Practitioners (PPs) of Nagpur city. Knowledge of private practitioners was assessed based on questions related to diagnosis, categorization, treatment regimens & follow up. Practices of private practitioners were assessed based on which investigations and treatment regimen they advise & whether they offer supervised treatment. Their willingness to get involved in the programme was also recorded. Results: Only 49 (47.6%) private practitioners knew sputum smear examination as primary tool of diagnosis of TB. Only half, 52 (50.5%) of the private practitioners knew number of categories of tuberculosis correctly and 64 (62.1%) private practitioners did know how to categorize TB patients. Chest X-ray and Mantoux test (38.5%) was mainly used by the PPs for TB diagnosis. 42.7% of PPs were prescribing treatment for TB and among them only 8 were prescribing as per RNTCP guidelines and just one provided treatment under direct observation. Different combination of HRZE and HRZES was prescribed for variable period ranges from 2-8 months. And only 12 (11.6%) private practitioners expressed their willingness to get involved in RNTCP for TB control. Conclusion: There is lack of adequate knowledge, diagnostic and treatment practice among PPs as per RNTCP guidelines and further encouragement is required for their participation in the programme

When will we learn: key factors and potential barriers

The overall aim of this research was to improve the dissemination of Lessons Learned in construction projects so that contractors’ project teams have access to the most relevant lessons at the most appropriate time, in the most appropriate format. The outcome of the research aimed to provide (1) an understanding of the different systems and tools used for recording Lessons Learned amongst major construction contractors; (2) an understanding of the needs in terms of what sort of lessons are required, the level of detail required and how best these should be made available; and (3) an approach on how best to disseminate Lessons Learned. The key objectives of the research were to: 1. Investigate current practice for recording and disseminating Lessons Learned; 2. Identify potential barriers for successfully disseminating Lessons Learned; and 3. Identify key factors affecting company processes to encourage a more systematic dissemination of Lessons Learned. The study was conducted in three phases. The first investigated contractors’ current practices for recording and disseminating Lessons Learned through a questionnaire survey. The second phase identified key factors that would encourage the institutionalisation of Lessons Learned and also the factors that inhibit their use. The third phase examined how current processes could be adapted to develop a process that would embed the systematic dissemination of Lessons Learned within an organisation’s existing practices. This report focuses on the second stage of the project that identified from the end users those factors that would encourage the institutionalisation of Lessons Learned and also the factors that inhibit their use of Lessons Learned

Business process implications of e-commerce in construction organisations

The need for construction to change its traditional working practices has been repeatedly expressed in government, industry, and academic publications. The Internet has been a major catalyst for change in most industry sectors, including the construction sector. The implementation of Internet-based technologies, such as ecommerce for achieving business targets, bring about changes in an organisation, its current practices, systems, processes and workflows. It is therefore important to evaluate the business process implications of adopting e-commerce in construction organisations. This was the focus of this study. The early stages of the research established the possible benefits, barriers, and drivers for the adoption of e-commerce technologies within construction. This was done by conducting an industry-wide survey that explored attitudes, current usage, barriers and enablers of IT and e-commerce within the UK construction sector. Survey results indicated that the exact benefits of using e-commerce within the construction industry were not known and more needed to be done to establish the effects of incorporating e-commerce applications into construction business processes and to demonstrate the opportunities of e-commerce for construction. To address this need a typical business process model that used the principles of business process re-engineering and demonstrated opportunities for e-commerce, was developed. Using this model it was possible to illustrate how, with the use of ecommerce applications, different members of the construction supply chain could derive business benefits and overcome traditional process inefficiencies. In order to effectively adopt e-commerce technologies in construction, companies may have to reengineer their current working methods, which could lead to a step change in current work practices. To facilitate such a step change it was essential to study and document the impact of specific e-commerce applications on their current end-user business processes. Case studies were conducted for this purpose. The case study findings showed that the end-user companies had accrued several business benefits from using e-commerce tools. Issues related to management buy-in and organisational culture were the main barriers to the wider use of e-commerce within the construction industry. The case studies and earlier findings indicated that e-commerce is ‘here to stay’ and it will not be long before it becomes an industry norm. Taking this into account, construction companies who are currently using, and those who have yet to use, e-commerce tools need to take measures to successfully adopt and benefit from these tools. It is important for companies that seek to adopt ecommerce to assess their ‘e-readiness’ for adopting e-commerce tools to ensure a productive and beneficial implementation of these tools. To address this need an ereadiness model for construction organisations and a prototype application, VERDICT, that assess e-readiness were developed and implemented. The model is based on the premise that for any company to be e-ready, its management, people, process and technology have to be e-ready in order to derive maximum business benefits. The research findings indicate that the use of e-commerce is still in its infancy within the construction industry. The current use of e-commerce has resulted in process automation, however, there is no evidence of process re-engineering. Such practices, although beneficial in the short-term, can have long-term implications in that the end-users are not necessarily making full use of the technology and hence not deriving full benefits from it. The model and e-readiness assessment prototype developed as part of this study will enable construction organisations to successfully adopt e-commerce and exploit its potential

LOD object content specification for manufacturers within the UK using the IDM standard

UK manufacturers are gradually embracing the adoption of Level 2 Building Information Modelling (BIM) standards (3D models and embedded data) within their product model elements. However, these are not always well defined due to inaccuracies related to the scope and the content of the model attributes. Product Data Templates (PDTs) are currently being created as a solution to provide structured model element data to manufacturer’s clients. However, defining PDTs data has been particularly challenging for manufacturers, as there is a scarcity of content knowledge which includes BIM uses (i.e. electrical design) and processes (i.e. cable tray sizing) that support client’s lifecycle processes. Similarly, few studies have investigated the Level of Development (LOD) that manufacturers should use to create their model element product data. In this paper, we therefore propose a generic industry approach to create and maintain model element product data at different LODs using the Information Delivery Manual (IDM) and we evaluate it for future improvement. The IDM can capture processes at the informational (i.e. attributes), behavioural (i.e. project stage), organisational (i.e. actor), and functional (i.e. business rules) level. A case study on Made to Stock Products for the Design use has been created to drawn recommendations for the behavioural and informational IDM perspective. In order implement the LOD on an industry basis and for its ease of use, we recommend matching the IDM Exchange models to a LOD graphical standard and keeping the BPMN free of stage bindings. This issue should be further studied for standardisation purposes. The benefit of this approach is that manufacturers could use the IDM to create product model element data in relation to their client’s processes at different LODs for its inclusion within BIM Information Systems (IS)

BUS LOCATION AND ROUTE SYSTEM USING INTERNET OF THINGS

The fundamental point of undertaking is to plan a remote correspondence based transport position checking framework which is much helpful in operation. It is imperative to diminish traveler holding up time at transport stop, when clean time dining areas are obscure to traveler or traveler new in the city. To conquer the issue of travelers, the transport area and course route framework have the capacity effortlessly recover data about transport. Global positioning system, additionally furnishing clients with the most limited strolling course to closest bus stop.Â

A grounded theory based framework for level of development implementation within the information delivery manual

The present study follows the progress of the level of development (LOD) specification from its inception in 2005 to its latest updates in 2018, a total of 42 guidelines from North America and Europe are reviewed. To organise the presented literature and to provide a comprehensive framework of LOD implementation within the information delivery manual (IDM), a LOD grounded theory-based taxonomy is introduced. The variables that constitute this taxonomy are BIM purpose, Stage, Role, Classification System, Attribute, Graphical information, Scale, LOD and Net benefits. The result of this exercise is a comprehensive view of the LOD construct impact on project performance which can be studied as a cumulative framework, where new research on the constructs can be added. Therefore, this allows a point towards the direction where further work is needed within the field of LOD-IDM implementation, such as the study of its use for data management among other uses

Innovation in Construction E-Business [Editorial]

The use of e-Business within the construction industry has steadily grown over the last decade. However, despite the successes being widely publicized, it is perceived that progress is limited and constrained within the industry. Thus, there are still drivers to be harnessed and barriers to be overcome. The successes achieved in other industries could be transposed and implemented within the construction industry. Many models have been suggested to successfully implement, integrate and embed e-Business within the construction industry. The aim of this special issue is closely aligned with that of a special session on ‘Innovation in Construction e-Business’ at the 6th International Conference on Innovation in Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) on June 9-11, 2010. A selection of papers submitted to the conference special session in Innovation in Construction e-Business has been reviewed along with additional papers for publication in this ITcon special issue

Image Quality Assessment Using Edge Correlation

In literature, oriented filters are used for low-level vision tasks. In this paper, we propose use of steerable Gaussian filter in image quality assessment. Human visual system is more sensitive to multidirectional edges present in natural images. The most degradation in image quality is caused due to its edges. In this work, an edge based metric termed as steerable Gaussian filtering (SGF) quality index is proposed as objective measure for image quality assessment. The performance of the proposed technique is evaluated over multiple databases. The experimental result shows that proposed method is more reliable and outperform the conventional image quality assessment method