Big data innovation and diffusion in projects teams: Towards a conflict prevention culture

Despite the enormous literature on how team conflicts can be managed and resolved, this study diverges, by examining factors that facilitate conflict prevention culture in project teams, especially when introducing Big Data Technology. Relying on findings from relevant literatures and focus group discussions, 28 attributes for embedding conflict prevention culture were identified and put together in questionnaire survey. Series of statistical tests including reliability analysis and exploratory factor-analysis. The results identified five critical success factors for entrenching the culture of conflict prevention in project teams introducing big data driving innovations. The five-factor solution include “building effective relationship”, “effective project communications”, “project team efficacy”, “pro-active conflict management approach” and “effectual project documentation”. Result of this study presents a Conceptual framework for effective management of human resource in relation to conflict prevention among project teams, as an effective strategy for facilitating seamless adoption and diffusion of big data innovation in organisations

Claims on construction contracts: a new management framework

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Wolverhampton for the degree of Doctor of PhilosophyThe contractor is required to submit well argued staternents of his entitlements upon the occurrence of defined events recognised by construction contracts. These are generally referred to as "clainis". It is a matter of record that the high incidence of disputes are the result of such claims. Two main strands of research and expert commentary has been followed to stem this tide. The first focuses on ensuring that the legal implication of terms of contract are understood. The other attempts to ensure that there is equitable risk allocation tinder construction contracts. Some reported research indicates that poor quality of claims management practice was perhaps one of the most important factors responsible for this phenomenon. Unfortunately, there has been no reported research into the most deficient aspects of the claims management process. The general aim of the research reported in this thesis attempts to fill the gap in the construction industry's understanding of claims management. The research involved: (i) an extensive review of the literature on claims, information management and technology, (ii) surveys and structured interviews of contractors and consultants and; (iii) case studies. Tile research confirmed the perceived central role of the Quantity Surveyor (QS) in claims management in addition to his traditional functions. It suggests that as a result of the QS's workloads, claims are usually left until projects are practically complete. Also contrary to conventional wisdom, most consultants to not object to tile principle of claims but rather reject claims because of lack of factual evidence to support them. This deficiency in clairn submissions frorn contractors is the result of lack of resources, the high cost of accessing the relevant paper records and/or the fact that information they submitted to support claims is usually captured by systems designed to produce internal accounting information which has, at best, only the most tenuous connection with claims. Further, although the technology required to reduce the expense of access to information from paper-sources is now well established, few contractors are even beginning to appreciate the values of these systerns. In addition no systems exist that are capable Of SUpporting every aspect of claims management. To improve the situation, the research proposes that : (i) a rnatrix of documents or their near equivalents that record resource use, performance and site events with reference to scheduled project activities be implemented; (ii) there should be a requirement to prepare and maintain resource-loaded CPM network schedules to aid the ascertainment of the cost and time impact of site events on specific activities. Standard specifications for these programmes and tile minirnurn requirements for keeping site records should also be incorporated with all standard forms of building and civil engineering contracts; (iii) to ensure an adequate standard of clairn documentation, it is desirable that tile requirements for claim submittals should be specified at project inception; (iv) the problerns with documents assembly, retrieval and access to data can be overcorne through the implementation of electronic document management systems; (v) ideological training of personnel to use IT tools and understand the need to change current clairris managernent practice should be undertaken and; (vi) the claims management function should be assigned to a member of tile project team specifically trained on large and mediurn sizes projects

Improving project administration in the construction industry using EDMS An integrated IS/IT solution

Available from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:DXN052524 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreSIGLEGBUnited Kingdo

Improving the management of claims on construction contracts: consultant's perspective

There is tremendous scope for improving claims management practice. This research comprised a postal questionnaire survey of contractors, project owners' architects, quantity surveyors and engineers, case studies on actual claims situations on projects, and structured interviews with consultants and contractors. Although based mainly on consultants' views although contractors' views are brought in occasionally for corroboration and clarification. The main findings are that: (i) claims management is still performed in an ad hoc manner; (ii) contractors' management information systems are ill designed to support claims; (iii) the products of basic good management practice, such as diaries, timesheets, and programmes, often are inadequate in content even if available; and (iv) some aspects of claims are impossible to quantify with precision even with the best information available at reasonable cost. Main remedial measures suggested include: (a) greater emphasis on the quality of claims management practice and information systems during evaluation of tenders; (b) agreeing figures usually in contention as terms of contracts; (c) implementation of electronic document management systems; and (d) stricter contractual provisions on the quality of programmes, timesheets and content of claims.Claims Management, Contract, Contractor, Disputes, Project,

AXaaS: Case for Acceleration as a Service

Abstract-The ubiquity and the range of utility of "smart" devices is ever increasing. Device limitations have lead developers to leverage cloud-offloading to gain performance for their applications. As users become aware of the expanding utility of their devices through these powerful applications, they tend to demand more from them. However, developers' intent on providing state-of-the-art applications will undoubtedly hit performance barriers for emerging products due to the inherently high latency of the prevailing mobile-cloud architecture. This paper proposes a new type of service architecture called AXaaS (Acceleration as a Service) that will empower developers to satisfy user demand for greater application performance and fully realize new computationally-intensive applications that would be otherwise impossible or impractical. While Telecom Service Providers (TSP) already provide data and bandwidth services, we introduce a new paradigm in which the TSP may charge subscribers for computational acceleration of complex applications by outsourcing computational tasks to larger cloud operators. We provide an exposition of the performance potential of such a service by examining its theoretical impact upon an opensource-based Face Recognition application. We also examine a sample instantiation of cloud resources via Amazon Web Services, and estimate the return on investment for a TSP implementing AXaaS. We find the TSP-side ROI to be quite favorable, which means that AXaaS is a viable new aaS alternative