Developing a conceptual lean briefing process model for lean design management

Although the concept of lean design management in Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) is still evolving and open to debate, it has helped to emphasise the importance of value and waste to the design team. An essential element of lean design management is briefing. Briefing is the process by which clients express and articulate their desires, and from which the design team develop their design. From a design management perspective briefing is a crucial stage in which values are explored and value expressed; and a process that could be better managed to help eliminate uncertainty and waste in the design and construction phases. A comprehensive literature review found that, aspects of process waste relating to ineffective briefing appear to have been neglected to date, which stimulated the idea of rethinking the briefing process to address waste at its origin. The research exposed limitations with current approaches to briefing and identified the potential for change. Applying lean thinking to the briefing process, with emphasis on value and flow, appears to provide an alternative approach to the traditional methods. A conceptual lean briefing process model is introduced by the authors, using lean management principles to achieve best value from the briefing process. This work reports the outcome of the first phase of the on-going research that aims to investigate and analyse the application of lean management principles in the briefing process for lean design management implementation; and to explore its validity within Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) projects' by looking at the theory and the application of lean design management. It is hoped that, this study followed by the outcome of the on-going research will contribute to the theoretical understanding and practical implementation of lean design management in AEC

Chemometric Simultaneous Estimation of Clopidogrel Bisulphate and Aspirin from Combined Dosage Form

Two chemometric methods, inverse least square and classical least square, were applied to simultaneous assay of clopidogrel bisulphate and aspirin in their combined dosage tablet formulation. Twelve mixed solutions were prepared for the chemometric calibration as training set and 10 mixed solutions were prepared as validation set. The absorbance data matrix was obtained by measuring the absorbance at 16 wavelength points, from 220 to 250 nm with the interval of 2 nm (Δλ= 2 nm). The developed calibrations were successfully tested for laboratory mixtures as well as commercial tablet formulation for their clopidogrel bisulphate and aspirin concentration. Mean recoveries for clopidogrel bisulphate and aspirin were found to be in good agreement with the label claim