An adaptation of SERVQUAL for events evaluation: an environmental sustainability addon

The events sector is continuously growing, driven by economic development and increased spending on leisure. As events may generate a large amount of waste, an environmental impact assessment is increasingly important for any event. The importance and necessity of this has recently become more significant not only from an environmental preservation perspective, but also from a social responsibility perspective, and from a marketing and public relations perspective. This paper presents a study carried out with the objective of creating a model adapted from the ServQual to evaluate the quality of the service provided with events, complementing the model with an environmental sustainability add on. Based on an action-research approach, a model was built that was developed and applied to small events in a Brazilian municipality. As the main result of this work, this approach allowed to create a way to measure the event quality, considering the gaps between expectations and perceptions of the client, adapting the ServQual Model to an event-type service. Moreover, it allowed the inclusion of an environmental sustainability dimension to ServQual. This adaptation of the model introduced new managerial analysis and was considered relevant by event managers. This study extends the application of service management tools to the specific domain of events, building on the perspective that event management shares a great deal of characteristics of services.This work was partially supported by FCT—Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the R&D Units Project Scope UIDB/00319/2020, and by CAPES—Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (Coordination of Superior Level Staff Improvement) within the Science without Borders Program Scop

Célula de projectos : a organização celular do processo de projecto de edifícios

Tese de doutoramento Engenharia de Produção (área de especialização em Gestão Industrial e Sistemas)O presente trabalho propõe, implementa e avalia um novo paradigma para o processo de projeto de edifícios, denominado Célula de Projetos. Tendo por base a abordagem transdisciplinar do processo de projeto, o conceito busca subsídios junto a práticas consagradas no ambiente fabril, reorganizando-os e transpondo-os ao ambiente de produção do projeto de edifícios. Para tal apresenta-se uma revisão bibliográfica sobre os conceitos de Engenharia Simultânea, Células de Produção e Células Administrativas, com ênfase nas características adotadas na proposição da Célula de Projeto. Definido o conceito, analisa-se a implantação de uma Célula de Projetos na Universidade de Brasília e sua operação em uma situação real de projeto. O projeto em questão é fruto de encomenda por parte do Ministério da Educação do Brasil e destinase à implantação de estabelecimentos de educação infantil em diferentes municípios brasileiros. Por fim, propõe-se um conjunto de indicadores de desempenho para o processo de projeto de edifícios. Com base nos indicadores de produtividade, redução de lead time e retrabalho propostos, avalia-se o desempenho da célula frente a valores de referência obtidos na literatura e no mercado brasileiro de projetos de edifício. Os índices de desempenho obtidos são, então, utilizados na verificação de ganhos organizacionais proporcionados pela Célula de Projetos. Conclui-se, ao final, pela eficiência e eficácia do conceito proposto e pela validade do mesmo como um novo paradigma para o processo de projeto de edifícios.This study suggests, implements and evaluates a new paradigm for the process of building design, which is named Project Cell. Based on the transdisciplinary approach of the design process, the proposed paradigm uses evidence based practice in the industry, reorganizing them and transpose them to the production environment of the building design. It is presented, for this purpose, a literature review on the concepts of Concurrent Engineering, Production Cells and Office Cells, with emphasis on the characteristics adopted in the proposed Project Cell concept. Once defined the concept, we then analyzed the implementation of a Project Cell in the University of Brasília and its operation in a real situation of project. The project was made upon request of the Brazilian Ministry of Education and it is aimed at implementing child education establishments in diverse Brazilian municipalities. Finally, it was proposed a set of performance indicators for the building design process. Based on the proposed indicators of productivity, lead time reduction and rework, the performance of the cell was evaluated in contrast to the reference values found in the literature and the Brazilian market of building design. Following, the performance indexes obtained were used to measure the organizational gains provided by the Project Cell. It is concluded, at the end, that the proposed concept is efficient, effective and valid as a new paradigm for the building design process

Evaluation of a pilot course of project management for industry 4.0

The fourth industrial revolution created the need for the development of new competences for Industrial Engineering and Management. In order to address this need an Erasmus+ project, developed by a consortium of nine universities, has been engaged in Curriculum Development of Master's Degree Program in Industrial Engineering for Thailand Sustainable Smart Industry (MSIE4.0), co-funded by the European Commission. In the context of this project, there are 16 master level courses being developed and piloted. One of the courses is Project Management for Industry 4.0 (PM4I4). The objective of this paper is to present the evaluation of this course based on the perceptions of the enrolled students. This evaluation was based on written reflection of the course delivered at the end of the course by a total of twelve students. Most of students enrolled (10/12) provided a positive perspective about the course, considering that will contribute for their professional practice in the future and recommend it for other engineering students. Part of these students considered the project related to the development of a questionnaire of I4.0 in a company quite interesting and contributing for their formation and other students considered it less practical that they expected to. It is worthwhile to notice that most of the students really enjoyed the diversity of pedagogical experiences and teachers engaged in the process (a total of 4), and the development of transversal competences, but some of them would prefer to have contact with less teachers. Thus, as final contributions, it could be recommended to create better framework for the Industry 4.0 questionnaire project and create opportunities for the students to enrol in management of more practical projects related with that main theme.This work is the outcome of project “Curriculum Development of Master’s Degree Program in Industrial Engineering for Thailand Sustainable Smart Industry (MSIE 4.0)” that has been funded with support from the European Commission (Project Number: 586137-EPP-1-2017-1-TH-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP). This publication reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. This work was partially supported by FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the R&D Units Project Scope: UIDB/00319/2020

Engineering education (Research) in higher education institutions

The past decades the interest in Engineering Education (EE) and Engineering Education Research (EER) has been increasing all around the world. Nevertheless, educators and researchers in engineering schools that dedicate their time to this field of applied research often find themselves in a reverse flow with the most accepted and traditional career paths. Considering that engineering educators are practitioners of EE and sometimes also researchers in EER subfields, this discussion paper aims to take a snapshot of the state of the art with respect to EE and EER in higher education and the role of higher education institutions (HEI). The approach chosen was to make an exploratory study based on document research, using three main sources: Elsevier Scopus indexing service, Times Higher education university rankings and universities’ web sites. Considering the Scopus database, the time threshold was defined as 1970 to the present. Using the search-term “engineering education” it was possible to identify 60250 conference documents and 18610 journal documents. Moreover, it could be established that seven from the top 25 institutions with a higher number of journal publications were also among the top 25 HEI of the Times ranking. Additionally, in all Times Top 25 HEI some kind of organization unit dedicated to staff development could be identified, most of these with some specific organizational initiatives related to EE. Based on this exploratory study the authors conclude that EE and EER mutually benefit from each other and that the combination apparently poses no stumbling blocks to the most recognized research institutions in the world. Finally, the authors argue that this field of applied research potentially has a high impact in the advancement of engineering education.This work has been partially supported by projects COMPETE-POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007043 and FCT-UID-CEC-00319-2013, from Portugal

Lean Construction – 2007 to 2016

Aiming at identify main keywords of Recent Works published the annals of the International Group for Lean Construction Conference ( IGLC ) so Get a retrospective of the main ITS applications, actions and tools used lean .It was analyzed all articles published in the period of 2007-2015 in IGLC and conducted a survey of keywords which were listed and quantified by  a PivotTable in Excel software, for those who had a higher frequency, obtaining graphs for trend analysis of the study period. From 851 items IGLC and 3739 keywords, ten key words were identified more frequently: Lean Construction, Last Planer System, Waste, Collaboration, Value, Lean, Construction, Flow, Production System Design and Production Control. Two graphs were made, one about the frequency of repetitions, which shows how many times the same word is repeated, and a percentage graph of repetitions of the ten most frequent words. Analyzing the data surveyed, it was obtained a retrospective of recent research of IGLC, allowing recommendations for future research on Lean Construction published by IGLC and suggest strategies to streamline the efforts of IGLC community to categorize their work for future conferences

Coordination of student teams focused on project management processes

Engineering learning processes are expected to develop technical and transversal competencies on students that are demanded by the engineering professional bodies. The need for the development of competencies raised an incremental interest in applying innovative approaches in Engineering education. One of the methodologies used in this context is Project-Based Learning (PBL). At the University of Brasilia, a course degree in Production Engineering was created having as a main reference the Project-Based Learning (PBL) approach. The use of PBL implies a change of behavior of teachers who play a main role of facilitators of competencies development, and of the students, who learn in a collaborative way, working with others in teams. Students’ working in team and developing a project during a semester will require effective coordination models. The objective of this paper is to propose a model of coordination among students’ teams based on project management knowledge. Furthermore, a qualitative approach is applied to evaluate the application of this model during one semester. The results show that a coordination model for student teams developing projects is important to support their learning process, which is not solely dependent on students, as teachers/tutors have an important role before, during and at the end of the project. The tutor is especially important, as he/she is responsible for supporting the teams in several project management dimensions. This is an essential support for students to know how to manage the team, communicate, define goals, carry out the activities on time, plan the milestones and understand the impact of their decisions. These competencies are also part of student learning and are an important part of engineering education

O consumo de água na Universidade de Brasília

O consumo de água no campus Darcy Ribeiro da UnB atingiu valores muito altos no início da década de 1990 e desde então trabalhos sistemáticos vêm sendo desenvolvidos em parceria entre o Departamento de Engenharia Civil e Ambiental, a CAESB e as sucessivas administrações da UnB. Com esse trabalho, o consumo no campus foi reduzido para cerca de 1/3 do consumo de 1991, apesar do aumento significativo no número de usuários do campus. Uma pesquisa sobre usos e percepções da água na UnB foi desenvolvida por uma das comissões criadas para a gestão do consumo de água na UnB. Os principais resultados e conclusões dos trabalhos desenvolvidos por essas comissões são apresentados

Project Cell: Cellular Organization of the Building Design Process

The construction sector plays an important role in most economies; therefore, any waste reduction in a building's life cycle will result in a significant benefit to the economy. It is at the building design phase that most costs and wastes are defined for the entire building life cycle. Moreover, many forms of waste are also accumulated during the design phase itself. The objective of this article is to present a new approach for organizing and managing the building design phase in a more effective and efficient way. This approach, called Project Cell, promotes concurrent engineering and lean management principles to achieve better performance during the design of a building. The Project Cell approach was implemented in the design process of a generic kindergarten project for the Brazilian Ministry of Education. This case study determined that approximately 2.5% of the total project effort was due to rework and 7.5% was due to discarded drawings based on team decisions. Furthermore, after the construction of 16 buildings in several locations across Brazil, no requests for time extensions or additional work expenses were reported based on design errors or execution difficulties. In this case study the implementation of project cell resulted in better productivity in the building design process as well as more effective building designs when compared to the traditional departmentalized approaches. With such evidence in mind, the authors believe that introducing Project Cell may be valuable contribution to CEM Body of Knowledge.This work was partially financed by National Funds of the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, namely by Project PEST-OE/EME/UI0252/201

Project management : integrating architecture and structural engineering design processes

The efficient integration of Architecture and Structural Engineering design processes is required to the full accomplishment of schedule, cost and quality in a project development environment. This paper presents a Management Model for integrating architecture and structural engineering design processes to improve the whole building design production process. The management model presented is based mainly on the “Project Management Body of Knowledge” (2004) and on the “Handbook of Scope of Project and Services” (in Portuguese, 2003). Through the analysis of those documents, a project management life cycle for building design was presented and the building design activities were inserted in two processes of the PMBOK® Project Integration Management knowledge area. To demonstrate a mapping of the activities, processes were designed using the graphical representation Business Process Management Notation (BPMN). With this, the necessary conditions to establish a basis for integrating architecture and structural engineering design processes were accomplished

Lean office in the monitoring of public building works

The article presents how the Lean Office approach can contribute to improving the process of monitoring public works. The monitoring process conducted by the National Education Development Fund—FNDE—for the works of the Proinfância program is adopted as a case study. Based on design science research as a methodology, the article presents a literature review, survey and analysis of the data on restrictions and nonconformities collected with the current monitoring process and, finally, the proposal for a new procedure for data collection. As a result of the work, a new system is obtained for the collection of data on restrictions and nonconformities during inspections conducted to monitor the works. The proposed procedure is applied to 15 works, and the results are analyzed. The results show a potential for reduction in the processing and overproduction of information by 36%, contributing to the effectiveness of the analyses by the technical team.This work was partially supported by FCT—Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the R&D Units Project Scope: UIDB/00319/2020