Although it is generally understood that change is a fundamental component of managing projects in the construction industry in general and an inevitable challenge for large scale infrastructure project in particular, there has been little to no attention in the literature to understand change in this context from a more holistic perspective. For this purpose, this work looks at change through the eyes of a framework of six batteries of change that seem essential to charge an organization’s capabilities for change. The framework brings together the expertise of four specialists that all have developed their insights over many years of study and practice, and has been validated through an extensive review of the management literature on organization development and change. Reflections on the application of this model in the construction industry and in large scale infrastructure projects demonstrate that energizing organizations to successfully deal with change goes beyond the traditional techniques of managing change from a program or project management perspective. Assessing the six batteries of change in this context can help organizations to develop capabilities for change that build change energy by balancing formal/rational methods with informal/emotional interventions at both a local (department/subproject) and global (business) level.
Throughout the world, infrastructure to support cities is critical to support sustainable and responsible economic development. This can include new infrastructure projects in the case of growing areas. It can also include the renewal and upgrading of existing infrastructure in areas that have been inhabited and already developed. Infrastructure includes roads, bridges and transportation systems; power grids and energy service; internet and telecommunications; and water and sewer services. This development can be part of a system of systems, in which government, industries, and universities can contribute knowledge, skills, and abilities. This paper will investigate the strategic project management taken by one university to provide an academic experience that will prepare engineering students to address several of the Grand Engineering Challenges of the 21st Century, as identified by the US National Academy of Engineering. The challenges relating to energy, water, information, and urban infrastructure can be approached using the functions of teaching, research, and service. By approaching the challenges strategically, resources of faculty time, student effort and laboratory facilities can be leveraged to achieve greater results. This case study will describe the efforts and results to date and identify opportunities for future growth.
A wide range of industrial Internet of Things (IoT) applications have been developed and deployed in recent years. IoT has provided a promising opportunity to build powerful industrial systems and applications by leveraging the growing ubiquity of RFID, wireless, mobile and sensor devices. In an effort to understand the development of IoT in industries, this paper reviews the current research of IoT, key enabling technologies, major IoT applications in industries, and identifies research trends and challenges. As IoT has received support from governments and businesses across the globe, IoT will also greatly impact One Belt One Road (OBOR) in foreseeable future.
The construction of new buildings represents a significant investment. The goal of new building construction is to maximize value and minimize cost while staying on time and within budget. Translating customer requirements into engineering terms for new construction design is vital for a construction project to be successful. Quality function deployment has been successfully used in product development to capture the voice of the customer and translate it into engineering characteristics. Quality function deployment then carries these parameters into production and service to ensure the voice of the customer is being met with the final product. The house of quality, a tool within quality function deployment, can provide a means for comparison of owner’s project requirements and the proposed design, along with identifying how the design decisions impact meeting customer requirements and green building requirements. Quality function deployment can effectively link the project phases through design and construction and into operations and maintenance to ensure the owner’s project requirements are met with the final building. This research identifies and categorizes studies of quality function deployment applications in construction. The research method used is a systematic literature review from databases related to quality function deployment in the construction industry published in the periodicals through 2016. The principal findings of implementations, practices, and integrated approaches are then summarized. This article intends to propel further research of quality function deployment in the construction sector.
Modern international project management has entered the phase of precise and accurate project management after the global financial crisis broke out at the beginning of the 21st century. However, its development has faced new challenges since there has been lack of explicitly unanimous definition for the capability dimensions of precise and accurate project management, as well as the models and their process control parameters. The required core capabilities based on the precise and accurate project management for various rings are involved in the project life cycle, namely, the required internationally core competences and their components for the phases of project strategic planning and decision making in the early project phase, as well as the value engineering, and the project supervision and controls during the execution phase. Through studying the effects of the internationally core competences based on precise and accurate project management capabilities for the success and excellence of projects and configuring such models, the goal is to help the main contractors continuously obtain project success and excellence, thus improve its internationally core competences with continuous project success and excellence.
Management of the program quality for international infrastructure construction projects is complicated. Sustainability of these programs is the key for them to succeed in their lifecycles. This paper investigated current program quality management and compared it with the results of recent surveys of KGMP. A method for the sustainable program quality management of the international infrastructure construction management is proposed and demonstrated by research projects. The cycle of accountability, predictability, balance ability, and policy was proposed. The findings from the KGMP’s survey and this research show that the trend of the sustainable program quality management of the international infrastructure construction is transferring from agility to alacrity in the balancing of the metrics among economy, ecology, culture, and politics.
In the case of single project management standing the major place, the management on the organizational level and project level is separated from each other in large-scale construction enterprises, and it is not long before program management theories applied to construction industry. Under the new situation of construction project clustering, how to choose projects has been the strategic decision for construction enterprises. Therefore, with the theory of program management and strategic management, this paper analyzes the relationship between the strategic growth of large-scale construction enterprises and program contracting, and attempts to provide meaningful ideas for enterprises to choose program from the strategic level.
The financing efficiency evaluation of the ESCO (Energy Service Company) is an important approach to improve the operation efficiency of existing building energy-saving projects. To scientifically and reasonably evaluate the financing efficiency of the ESCO, this paper puts forward a combination evaluation model based on the method set. Firstly, the method set is composed of different methods that meet the demand of statistical coherence, and KENALL-W coefficient test of concordance is used to check up the coherence of the ranking results of the different methods. Secondly, mean, Borda and Copeland are used separately for calculating the combination evaluation results and the circular combination method is used to ensure the coherence of evaluation results. Finally, the combination evaluation model is used to evaluate the 10 ESCO business project financing benefits, and the effectiveness of the models is verified accordingly.
As the main consumables, huge amount of tubing and sucker rods are abandoned annually. The current remediation technology could only enable part of abandoned tubing and sucker rod to be reused in a degraded way, leading to a big resource waste. The production, use and remediation methods of tubing and sucker rod are analyzed here. Remanufacturing technology of abandoned tubing based on self-propagating high temperature synthesis (SHS) is proposed. Economic, environmental and social benefits of large scale application of this technology are evaluated. And then various factors that restrict the popularization of remanufacturing technology in the petroleum industry are studied and suggestions are given in the end. The results indicate that unlike conventional remediation methods, remanufacturing technology can extend the service life of abandoned tubing to reach or even exceed that of a new one. Meanwhile it can also reduce the cost effectively, and achieve significant economic and social benefits. We should expand remanufacturing technology areas in the petroleum industry and achieve stable, healthy development in the low oil price situation. The scientific standards for remanufactured products should be enacted, and new management mode of the remanufactured products should be developed.
Mineable coal reserves in thick and extra-thick seams account for 44% of the total deposit in China. Fully-mechanized top-coal caving technology is a new mining method of safe and efficient underground operations in extra-thick seams in China. The development of fully-mechanized top-coal caving technology in China, which was successfully applied in Face 8105 in Tashan Coal Mine, Datong, Shanxi, China, is analyzed in this paper. Studies on movement pattern of top-coal and roof from fully-mechanized top caving face in 14–20 m extra-thick seams have been carried out. A series of key technologies were successfully developed, including strata control technology, equipment for high-efficient and high-recovery top caving operations, and safety guarantee technology for low gas occurrence and high gas emission. As a result, the fully-mechanized top-coal caving Face 8105, with large mining height in Tashan Coal Mine, has achieved a recovery rate of 88.9% and an average equipment operation rate of 92.1%. With coal production of 10.84 Mt in 2011, the demonstration project is a technology and equipment breakthrough for fully-mechanized top-coal caving face in extra-thick coal seams with large mining height.
The construction industry has long been plagued with a high number of fatalities in the USA. Much safety improvements have been made after the USA Congress passed the Occupational Safety and Health Act in 1970. However, this industry still suffers from a disproportionately high rate of work-related fatalities in comparison to other industries. To provide a holistic view of current construction safety practices and corresponding performance, this paper reviews statistics of construction fatalities and their causes. It then presents efforts led to prevent work-related accidents and injuries by the federal safety agencies and the industry. Additionally, advantages and limitations of current practices in terms of construction safety have been discussed along with promotion of aspects in construction work environment.
Technical innovation is the core for enterprise competence and sustaining. Technical innovation strategy is the policy which the enterprise carries out for technology innovation in a long term. The paper took the practice of the technology innovation strategy in PetroChina Chang- qing Oilfield Company as a case study, and illustrated the significance, function and features of the self-developed technology innovation, cooperation development technology innovation and introduction-innovation based on the strategy structure of the energy enterprises. The suggestions for technology innovation strategy structure for large energy enterprise were proposed in the paper.
This article analyses the spatial spillover effects of infrastructure on regional economic growth by using the panel data of eight cities of Shenyang Economic Zone from 2001 to 2013. The empirical results of this paper indicate: (1) The infrastructure of adjacent regions have positive effects on local economic growth, demonstrating that the spillover effects of infrastructure in Shenyang Economic Zone are positive; (2) if one ignores the spillover effects of infrastructure, one will overestimate the effects of local infrastructure on local economic growth; (3) the effects of local infrastructure on local economic growth are far greater than those of adjacent regions; (4) there is great difference in spillover effects of infrastructure of different cities in the economic zone, which is related to the level of economic development.
