Lighting, well-being and work performance: A review of the literature

Commissioned White Paper Report for Philips International

Redefining the Use of Sustainable Development Goals at the Organisation and Project Levels—A Survey of Engineers

The United Nations’ (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aim to deliver an improved future for people, planet and profit. However, they have not gained the required traction at the business and project levels. This article explores how engineers rate and use the SDGs at the organisational and project levels. It adopts the Realist Evaluation’s Context−Mechanism−Outcomes model to critically evaluate practitioners’ views on using SDGs to measure business and project success. The study addresses the thematic areas of sustainability and business models through the theoretical lens of Creating Shared Value and the Triple Bottom Line. A survey of 325 engineers indicated four primary shortfalls for measuring SDGs on infrastructure projects, namely (1) leadership, (2) tools and methods, (3) engineers’ business skills in measuring SDG impact and (4) how project success is too narrowly defined as outputs (such as time, cost and scope) and not outcomes (longer-term local impacts and stakeholder value). The research study is of value to researchers developing business models that address the SDGs and also practitioners in the construction industry who seek to link their investment decisions to the broader outcomes of people, planet and profit through the UN SDGs

Delivering UN Sustainable Development Goals’ Impact on Infrastructure Projects: An Empirical Study of Senior Executives in the UK Construction Sector

Achievement of the United Nations’ 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) is of paramount importance for both business and society. Across the construction sector, despite evidence that suggests 88% of those surveyed want to measure the SDG impact at both the business and project levels, there continues to be major challenge in achieving this objective. This paper shares the results of a qualitative research study of 40 interviews with executives from the United Kingdom (UK) construction industry. It was supported by a text-based content analysis to strengthen the findings. The results indicate that SDG measurement practices are embraced in principle but are problematic in practice and that rarely does action match rhetoric. While the research was completed in the UK, the findings have broader applicability to other countries since most construction firms have extensive global business footprints. Researchers can use the findings to extend the current understanding of measuring outcomes and impact at project level, and, for practitioners, the study provides insights into the contextual preconditions necessary to achieve the intended outcomes of adopting a mechanism for the measurement of SDGs. The international relevance of this research is inherently linked to the global nature of the SDGs and therefore the results could be used outside of UK

Trajectory-based worker task productivity monitoring

Over the past decades labour productivity in construction has been declining. The prevalent approach to estimating labour productivity is through an analysis of the trajectories of the construction entities. This analysis typically exploits four types of trajectory data: a) walking path trajectories, b) dense trajectories (posture), c) physiological rates such as heart rate (beats/minute) and respiratory rate (breaths/minute), and d) sound signals. The output of this analysis is the number of work cycles performed by construction workers. The total duration of these cycles is equal to the labour input of a task. However, all such methods do not meet the requirements for proactive monitoring of labour productivity in an accurate, non-obtrusive, time and cost efficient way for multiple workers. This paper proposes a method to address this shortcoming. It features a promising accuracy in terms of calculating the labour input.ICASE studentship award, supported by EPSRC and LAING O'ROURKE PLC under Grant No. 13440016

Rethinking the role of philosophy in project management

Is there a role for philosophy in project management? And, if yes, why is this the case and what are the risks of engaging with philosophy? These are the questions that we seek to address in this paper so that we can create the space where the study and understanding of projects under different philosophies can help create excellence in practice

Project Intermediation: The Critical Role of Negotiating Socio-Technical Regimes and Technological Niches to Achieve Climate Change Policies

This paper uses the socio-technical transitions model to understand the characteristics of the evolving, interdisciplinary, and externalized context of climate change. Specifically, we (1) identify the elements of the multi-level perspective that exist under new climate change policies and trends and (2) conceptualized how this multi-level perspective will result in emerging project practices. Together, these two areas of insights help us create a preliminary framework to better understand and identify specific contextual characteristics that might influence the use and adoption of project practices. This conceptual framework leads us to a key insight: the role of projects in a socio-technical transitions context. Unlike projects that are delivered within a closedsystem environment, these projects are supported and affected by established institutional and policy measures. The preliminary conceptual framework emphasizes project intermediaries and how they choose project practices that translate policies into climate change outcomes. From this framework, we lay forth propositions that will inform and be tested in subsequent empirical case studies, where we plan to further explore project intermediation, focusing on the empirical setting of climate change infrastructure

Prioritization of responsive maintenance tasks via machine learning-based inference

Maintenance task prioritization is essential for allocating resources. It is estimated that almost 1/3 of the maintenance cost is wasted to unnecessary activities. Task prioritization is based on risk assessment that takes into account the probability of failure and the criticality of an asset. The criticality analysis is defined by the asset owner based on several parameters, among them safety, downtime cost, productivity, whilst the probability of failure is determined based on deterioration models, regular manual inspections, or installed sensors. Currently, the latter is an extremely complicated and labour intensive procedure, when multiple and different types of assets need to be managed. This paper proposes an innovative method that exploits the advances in mobile communications, social networking, Internet of Things and machine learning to address this shortcoming. This approach brings building elements and assets online using asset tags with an online ‘asset profile’ linked to it. Users of assets are able to scan these tags using a mobile phone app to not only see the information about those assets, but also enter ‘comments’ describing issues and problems on the profiles. These comments are processed through machine learning-based inference methods to estimate the probability that a failure has occurred. This paper validates the proposed method using historical data collected from the Estate Management, of the University of CambridgeInnovate U

Public Acceptance of INDOT’s Traffic Engineering Treatments and Services

As a public agency, interacting with and understanding the public’s perspective regarding agency activities is an important endeavor for the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT). Although INDOT conducts a biennial customer satisfaction survey, it is occasionally necessary to capture public perception regarding more specific aspects of INDOT’s activities. In particular, INDOT needs an effective way to measure and track public opinions and awareness or understanding of a select set of its traffic engineering practices. To evaluate public acceptance of specific INDOT traffic engineering activities, a survey consisting of 1,000 adults residing within the State of Indiana was conducted. The survey population was representative in terms of age and gender of the state as of the 2010 U.S. Census. The survey was administered during the months of July and August 2020. Public awareness regarding emerging treatments not currently implemented in Indiana is low and opposition to the same new technologies is prominent. Older or female drivers are less likely to be aware of emerging treatments, and older drivers are more likely to oppose potential implementation of these treatments. Although roundabouts are commonplace in Indiana, multi-lane roundabouts remain controversial among the public. Regarding maintenance and protection of traffic during work zones and considering full or partial roadway closure, public preference is for partial closure; this preference is stronger in rural areas. The public equally agrees and disagrees that INDOT minimizes construction related traffic delays. Approximately 76% of Indiana drivers believe themselves to above average drivers, while an additional 23% believe themselves to be average. Driver perceptions of average highway speeds speed are not aligned with posted speed limit as the perceived average speed on Indiana’s urban freeways and rural and urban state highways is considerably higher than the actual speed limit

An Experimental Study on the Influence of Soundscapes on People’s Behaviour in an Open Public Space

Several studies have investigated how environmental sounds and music can modulate people’s behaviours, particularly in marketing research. However, there are relatively few examples of research about such relationships with a focus on the management of urban public spaces. The current study investigated an open public space used mainly as a pedestrian crossing to analyse the relationship between the audio stimuli and peoples’ behaviours. An experiment relying on covert behavioural observation was performed. During the experiment, three different music stimuli and a control condition (i.e., no music) were reproduced in order to find out firstly whether music compared to no music could elicit an increase in the number of people stopping in the investigated area, and secondly whether music is associated with a longer duration of stay for those who stop. Results showed that the presence of music had no effect on the number of people stopping in the area, but it had a statistically significant effect on the duration of stay for those who stopped. The above findings support the idea that people felt more invited to stay in the area with music rather than with no music, and suggest that the acoustical manipulation of the existing sound environment could provide soundscape strategies capable of promoting social cohesion in public spaces