ENGINEER FOR FUTURE - TECHNOLOGY AND APPLICATION FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
SOFITEL HOTEL, HCM
29 MAY 2010
Thursday 20 May 2010
SET Industry Day in HCM, 29 May 2010
ENGINEER FOR FUTURE - TECHNOLOGY AND APPLICATION FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
SOFITEL HOTEL, HCM
29 MAY 2010
Wednesday 19 May 2010
SET/CEIM opens first batch of MPM in Cantho City
The Professional Master in Project Management Specialized in Construction was launched in Can Tho City on May 7, 2010. The opening ceremony was attended by Dr. Amrit Bart, AIT-CV Director; Ms. Nguyen Thi Bich Hoa, AIT-CV Deputy Director; Dr. Nitin Vasant Afzulfurkar, Associate Professor and Dean of School of Engineering and Technology; Dr. B. H. W. Hadikusumo, Associate Professor and Coordinator for Construction Engineering and Infrastructure Management and Master in Project Management (Professional); Ms. Nguyen Le Tuong, Local Program Coordinator for AIT-CV; Ms. Kieu Phu Ly, SET Secretary-Hanoi; and Ms. Bui Thuy Nga, SET Secretary-Ho Chi Minh City.
Twenty students enrolled in the MPM program for May (2010) Semester intake. Below is the complete list.
Full name Organization
1 Mr. Nguyễn Hoàng Đạo, Can Tho Department of Transportation
2 Mr. Hồ Chí Linh, College of Engineering Technology - CanTho University, Campus II
3 Mr. Tạ Chí Nhân, Can Tho Department of Construction
4 Mr. Lê Minh Nhựt, Hoa Binh Company
5 Mr. Lê Thành Phiêu, College of Engineering Technology - CanTho University, Campus II
6 Mr. Đặng Thái Sơn, TKN Kajima-Nippon steel
7 Mr. Huỳnh Thanh Sử, Can Tho Housing Development and Trading Company
8 Mr. Nguyễn Tiến Thực, Board of management of development and investment project - Thoi Lai district, Can Tho city
9 Mr. Nguyễn Thanh Trong, Soc Trang Department of Construction
10 Mr. Phạm Thành Trung, Constexim Holdings Projects
11 Mr. Phùng Quang Hiệp, PVSWG ( Petro Vietnam South West Gas )
12 Mr. Phạm Văn Hùng, PVSWG ( Petro Vietnam South West Gas )
13 Mr. Phạm Bình Lâm, PVSWG ( Petro Vietnam South West Gas )
14 Mr. Lê Quang Sơn, PVSWG ( Petro Vietnam South West Gas )
15 Mr. Lê Anh Thông Long Phu, Song Hau Petroleum Power Project Management Board
16 Mr. Nguyễn Viết Hiến, PVC (Petro Vietnam construction joint stock Corporation)
17 Mr. Hoàng Duy Phước, PVC (Petro Vietnam construction joint stock Corporation)
18 Mr. Lưu Hồng Linh, PVF Can Tho
19 Mr. Nguyễn Thanh Hải, PVF Can Tho
20 Ms. Lê Trương Mai Hoàng, PVF Can Tho
Photos during the opening ceremony.
Thursday 13 May 2010
Wednesday 12 May 2010
Construction Work Performance Under Bovis Lend Lease Safety Program
Throughout the construction projects starting from the design phase till the end of construction execution phase, numerous project management actions are deployed i.e. planning, quality assurance, communication system, and so forth (Chan et. al, 2004). Safety issues action is also included in order to execute the project safely. This is because if the accident occurs during execution, particularly major accidents, it leads to many disadvantages for company such as cost incurred from medical treatment, interrupting construction schedule, and impairing the reputation of firms.
Consequently, each company has established its own safety program for preventing the occurrence of accidents, as many companies have recognized the potential impacts of accidents. But do they ever review “What are the impacts of such safety program”, or in other words whether the program positively or negatively affected their execution. NOHSC (National Occupational Health & Safety Commission) has stated that most of companies have traditionally focused only on outcome measures of performance, for example, the accident records.
Systematic reviewing of performance is the key to successful management as stated in Holt (2001) since it reflects the actual conditions of the operation. Thus it will enable the re-development and modification of the strategy.
Therefore, these problems have arisen in Mr. Thanapat Leingtong’s study. His study focused in two aspects for reviewing the actual position. The first aspect is, for example, under their safety program, do they know that:
• Whether the root causes of accidents still exist or were eliminated – according to Holt (2001), the root causes of accidents are primarily referred to unsafe activities and conditions.
• Whether project participants satisfied the program.
• How does such safety program contribute to improving or declining the project work performances?
The second aspect is, whether their situation is superior or inferior to other companies that applied different programs.
According to the first aspect, the research has developed three significant issues in terms of effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in order to determine the impact of safety implementation. To this effect, Bovis Lend Lease Company has been selected as a case study and also it has been compared with other Non-BLL companies to study the second aspect of this study.
The study aimed to investigate the actual construction work performances under safety operation of Case Study Company i.e. Bovis Lend Lease Company. The main objectives of the study were enumerated as follows:
1. To study the Environment Health & safety program under Bovis Lend Lease Company
2. To study the impacts of Bovis Lend Lease EH&S program and safety management on construction work performances in terms of effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction.
Conclusions
Similar with finance, production or sales, the companies also need to measure and study the impact of their health and safety performances in order to find out if they are being successful. They need to know: where they are; and what’s the difference –and why. Therefore, the safety performance measurements are taken into account in order to answer these questions and provide related information as well as facilitate the management in decision making. Measures of safety performance are intended to give an indication of how a company is performing. The above mentioned questions such as where they are, what’s the difference and why, can be answered by conducting the safety performances measurement and making comparisons against a company’s past performances, industry standard, or other companies. Since this study undertakes to capture safety performances of Bovis Lend Lease Company, which is the case study company, the comparisons against other companies approach was selected in order to identify where BLL is and also the difference between BLL and Non-BLL Company.
After having determined the approach to track the company performances, the next problem was what should be measured to make comparisons. The reviews of past researches on the various types of safety performance measures showed that different types of information are provided by different measures. Therefore, the study has employed various effective measures, which are both positive and negative indicators, and reasonably measured the process, output, and outcome of each company for making comparisons against other companies.
Commencing from “input”, the study controlled the samples by selecting same scale and type of comparative companies, therefore, the uncontrolled hazards are not much of difference. In addition, comparative companies must have safety management system and its implementation during execution. Next, the measurement of “process” is conducted to see the differences and adequacy of system. Subsequently, the “output” and “outcome” are measured and compared to identify the differences in effectiveness and satisfaction of safety implementation in all aspects. Furthermore, the study of efficiency and productivity of workers are also included in this research to identify the labor productivity of each project i.e. if they have the same or different proportion of productivity when the site conditions are different.
His thesis abstract is copied and posted.
Abstract
Similar with finance, production or sales, the companies also need to measure the impact of their health and safety performances to analyze if they are being successful. Therefore, safety performance measurements are considered to provide information and facilitate management in decision-making relevant to re-evaluation and development of strategy. This study is concerned with the systematic reviewing of safety performance in terms of effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction. Study has been carried out with an aim to examine safety performances of BLL and Non-BLL Company. In order to compare BLL against Non-BLL Company, the study has employed various effective measures, both positive and negative indicators. The study has also reasonably measured the process, output, and outcome of the companies for making comparisons and in order to identify the current status of BLL and their differences with the Non-BLL in terms of safety management. The study indicated that BLL has better safety management than Non-BLL. Moreover, BLL’s performances are statistically better in terms of site conditions and employee satisfaction. But unsafe acts performed, worker satisfaction, and proportion of productivity are not statistically different. Strengths of BLL are comprehensive safety management, clear safety roles and responsibilities, systematic hazard control, well-organized safety training, high commitment, regularly conduct self-inspection, and employed full-time safety manager. Weaknesses of BLL are negligence, numerous subcontractors, and team conflicts.
Consequently, each company has established its own safety program for preventing the occurrence of accidents, as many companies have recognized the potential impacts of accidents. But do they ever review “What are the impacts of such safety program”, or in other words whether the program positively or negatively affected their execution. NOHSC (National Occupational Health & Safety Commission) has stated that most of companies have traditionally focused only on outcome measures of performance, for example, the accident records.
Systematic reviewing of performance is the key to successful management as stated in Holt (2001) since it reflects the actual conditions of the operation. Thus it will enable the re-development and modification of the strategy.
Therefore, these problems have arisen in Mr. Thanapat Leingtong’s study. His study focused in two aspects for reviewing the actual position. The first aspect is, for example, under their safety program, do they know that:
• Whether the root causes of accidents still exist or were eliminated – according to Holt (2001), the root causes of accidents are primarily referred to unsafe activities and conditions.
• Whether project participants satisfied the program.
• How does such safety program contribute to improving or declining the project work performances?
The second aspect is, whether their situation is superior or inferior to other companies that applied different programs.
According to the first aspect, the research has developed three significant issues in terms of effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in order to determine the impact of safety implementation. To this effect, Bovis Lend Lease Company has been selected as a case study and also it has been compared with other Non-BLL companies to study the second aspect of this study.
The study aimed to investigate the actual construction work performances under safety operation of Case Study Company i.e. Bovis Lend Lease Company. The main objectives of the study were enumerated as follows:
1. To study the Environment Health & safety program under Bovis Lend Lease Company
2. To study the impacts of Bovis Lend Lease EH&S program and safety management on construction work performances in terms of effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction.
Conclusions
Similar with finance, production or sales, the companies also need to measure and study the impact of their health and safety performances in order to find out if they are being successful. They need to know: where they are; and what’s the difference –and why. Therefore, the safety performance measurements are taken into account in order to answer these questions and provide related information as well as facilitate the management in decision making. Measures of safety performance are intended to give an indication of how a company is performing. The above mentioned questions such as where they are, what’s the difference and why, can be answered by conducting the safety performances measurement and making comparisons against a company’s past performances, industry standard, or other companies. Since this study undertakes to capture safety performances of Bovis Lend Lease Company, which is the case study company, the comparisons against other companies approach was selected in order to identify where BLL is and also the difference between BLL and Non-BLL Company.
After having determined the approach to track the company performances, the next problem was what should be measured to make comparisons. The reviews of past researches on the various types of safety performance measures showed that different types of information are provided by different measures. Therefore, the study has employed various effective measures, which are both positive and negative indicators, and reasonably measured the process, output, and outcome of each company for making comparisons against other companies.
Commencing from “input”, the study controlled the samples by selecting same scale and type of comparative companies, therefore, the uncontrolled hazards are not much of difference. In addition, comparative companies must have safety management system and its implementation during execution. Next, the measurement of “process” is conducted to see the differences and adequacy of system. Subsequently, the “output” and “outcome” are measured and compared to identify the differences in effectiveness and satisfaction of safety implementation in all aspects. Furthermore, the study of efficiency and productivity of workers are also included in this research to identify the labor productivity of each project i.e. if they have the same or different proportion of productivity when the site conditions are different.
His thesis abstract is copied and posted.
Abstract
Similar with finance, production or sales, the companies also need to measure the impact of their health and safety performances to analyze if they are being successful. Therefore, safety performance measurements are considered to provide information and facilitate management in decision-making relevant to re-evaluation and development of strategy. This study is concerned with the systematic reviewing of safety performance in terms of effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction. Study has been carried out with an aim to examine safety performances of BLL and Non-BLL Company. In order to compare BLL against Non-BLL Company, the study has employed various effective measures, both positive and negative indicators. The study has also reasonably measured the process, output, and outcome of the companies for making comparisons and in order to identify the current status of BLL and their differences with the Non-BLL in terms of safety management. The study indicated that BLL has better safety management than Non-BLL. Moreover, BLL’s performances are statistically better in terms of site conditions and employee satisfaction. But unsafe acts performed, worker satisfaction, and proportion of productivity are not statistically different. Strengths of BLL are comprehensive safety management, clear safety roles and responsibilities, systematic hazard control, well-organized safety training, high commitment, regularly conduct self-inspection, and employed full-time safety manager. Weaknesses of BLL are negligence, numerous subcontractors, and team conflicts.
Tuesday 11 May 2010
Risk Management In The Pakistan Construction Industry: A Contractors’ Perspective
The Construction Industry in Pakistan has gone through a rough patch with its compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in the three years up to FY2002 being well below the two percent as compared to a CAGR of nearly four percent for the overall GDP of the country during this period. This shows that instead of being a source of economic stimulus, the construction industry has actually lagged behind the rest of the economy in terms of growth. This negative perception regarding the macroeconomic and political instability and the law and order situation has deterred serious investors (JCR, 2003).
The problems facing the construction industry of Pakistan has persisted despite efforts made. It is important that the construction industry of Pakistan is more fully understood in order for more appropriate solutions, relevant to its contexts, to be found. This industry requires separate, special treatment.
Now there is a need to search the difficulties and problems being faced by the Pakistan construction industry, along with recommended solutions. Researchers, Developers, Builders and Contractors working together can identify the solutions to the problems and can boost the Pakistan Construction Industry.
Construction is a high-risk business which haunts every participant in the business, the project owner, construction companies, consultants, bankers, financial institutions, vendors & suppliers and even the service providers, each has his own fears of facing risks in the conduct of business. Risk management is important part of the decision making process in the construction. Risk is also the object of attention because of time overrun associated with the construction projects. Although the risk analysis and management is important to the activities of the construction industry, little is known about the industry response and the techniques employed for the risk management in the Pakistan construction industry. There is a need to investigate the construction industry's perception of risk associated with its activities and the extent to which the industry uses risk analysis and management techniques.
Mr. Asif Hameed Malik made a study which main objective to investigate the risk management practices of the construction contractors in public sector projects of Pakistan and to recommend the appropriate risk management techniques, which better fit the Pakistan context and environment.
To achieve his objective, the sub-objectives can be identified as follows:
a) To evaluate the current attitude of the contractors regarding the importance of risk and risk allocation.
b) To uncover the underlying relationships between the identified risks using the factor analysis.
c) To investigate the difficulties and the benefits relevant to the risk management and the current usage of risk management techniques in the construction organizations.
d) To propose recommendations to the contractors to cope with the major risks in the industry and manage risk effectively in long terms.
Conclusions
The following are the conclusions based on the work carried out and the results of the analyses.
1.Risk Importance and allocation
a. The ten-top major risks identified are: (1) Delays in resolving contractual issues; (2) Delayed payment on contracts; (3) Political uncertainty; (4) Financial failure; (5) Scope of work definition; (6) War threats; (7) Suppliers/subcontractors poor performance; (8) Change in work; (9) Defective design; (10) Labor and equipment productivity.
b. Out of thirty-one listed construction risks, thirteen construction risks are allocated to the contractor; seven to the owner and eleven are shared between the contractor and owner. Although, it is generally recognized that the risk should be transferred to the party that is in the best position to deal with it, the survey indicates that Pakistani contractors are often responsible for most of the risk. Contractors consider themselves responsible to take care of the risks associated with physical and environmental problems. The risks of this type include differing site conditions and adverse weather conditions.
c. Experienced engineers have rated the importance of risk events lower than less experienced engineers. The main reasons are experience level and management level of the experienced engineers. The experience gained in construction life may have enabled the engineers to develop additional ability and competency in managing, anticipating and solving possible problems. This result is contradictory to the findings of the Dung (2004) and Thuyet (2003), in which they concluded that experience level has a no big influence on engineers’ attitude. However this result is supportive to some extent to the findings of Santoso (1999).
d. The result shows that the respondents working in large companies have rated the risks less, which are of technical and managerial nature. This may be due to the reason that the large contractors have formal management practices in their organizations and also they have enough resources to mitigate the encountered risks more efficiently than the small contractors.
2. Grouping of identified risks
Factor analysis is applied to find any interrelationship existing among the risks in terms of their importance.The components extracted are labeled as managerial and technical risks; project scope and design risks; political, economic and regulatory risks; contractual delay risks and; site and weather risks.
3. Risk management practices
The results of risk management practices are similar to the findings of the other surveys conducted in developing countries by Dung (2004) and Thuyet (2003).
a. Importance of systematic risk management is well recognized in the Pakistan construction industry while the practice is far behind its importance.
b. The importance of training cannot be ignored in any organization. Conversely, the construction organizations in Pakistan provide poor job training in risk management to their staff.
c. There is a lack of formal risk identification teams in the organizations. Also the roles and responsibilities are not stated. Even sometimes only one person is responsible for the risk management process.
d. The main difficulties in the risk management process are lack of qualified experts, lack of budget and top management commitment.
e. Qualitative risk analysis techniques are more popular due to their simplicity and effectiveness. In qualitative analysis, the most used tools are checklist, brainstorming and interviewing. Quantitative risk analysis techniques have been rarely used due to limited understanding and experience.
f. The effectiveness of the risk responses in the descending order are: risk transfer, risk reduction, risk retention and risk avoidance.
g. Preventive actions are used to avoid and reduce risks at the early stage of project construction. Produce a proper schedule by getting updated project information and produce a proper program using subjective judgment are the two most effective risk preventive actions.
h. Mitigative actions are remedial steps aimed at minimizing the effects of risks. The most effective risk mitigative methods are to coordinate closely with subcontractor and to increase manpower and/or equipment.
i. Contract management is quite well performed, helping much risk allocation through contracts. Insurance serve as a second risk transfer for the parties involved. However, in reality they face lots of difficulties on the way of finding the insurance. High premium in insurance buying, long claim coverage procedure and lack of qualified experts are the most perceptible problems in purchasing insurance.
Recommendations
Based on the research results, the recommendations are made to the construction contractors to cope with the major risks in the industry and to improve their risk management practices.
1. Strategies to Mitigate the Major Risks
For projects to be successful, it is extremely important that the major risks affecting the projects should be thoroughly examined. The causes and characteristics must be carefully analyzed in order to propose the most appropriate and practical strategies to mitigate them. For the top-ten major risks, the proposed strategies to mitigate them are shown in the table below.
2. Strategies to Improve the Risk Management Practices
a. Integrate risk management in organizational culture in which everybody is a risk manager. This is more important than developing and issuing extensive policies and procedures. Management of risk is embedded in the management philosophy.
b. Implementing risk management requires resources. Investments will be required in: training, developing processes and techniques, management systems, specialist groups. Senior management must be committed to support the initiative with the required resources.
c. Open communication is necessary for risk management to succeed. Without open communication risk management cannot be "everybody's business". Managers require direct communication channels up, down and across their business units to help identify risks and take appropriate actions. Information must be shared.
d. Informal and formal teams are a mechanism that organizations should use to manage risks. Teaming brings together various risk attitudes and brings fresh thinking to issues and solutions. It also focuses diverse disciplines on common objectives.
e. A common business risk language enables managers to talk with individuals in terms of everybody understanding. This is important also in cases where everybody is expected to manage risks.
f. Set up a responsibility center for risk management. A Chief Risk Officer (CRO) who defines consistent approaches to managing risk should head it. The CRO is the organizational risk champion and is responsible for providing leadership and establishing and maintaining risk awareness across the organization.
g. Communicate the risk performance to top management and stakeholders/ shareholders. The reports should outline the major risks and how they are managed.
h. There is a need for risk management training, as part of a corporate training curriculum. Topic areas include: objectives for managing risk: risk-awareness, risk assessments, safety and legislative requirements.
i. The authorities should implement the performance assessment scoring system (PASS) as a mechanism for evaluating the effectiveness of a contractor's ability and to change the attitude of the contractors to simply win the projects rather than to deliver the projects to specified standards.
j. The internal audit function plays a key role in implementing risk management throughout an organization. Examples of this practice are: monitoring and reporting on the management of significant risks and reviewing processes for managing risks.
His thesis abstract is copied and posted.
ABSTRACT
The research study, on the basis of a questionnaire survey, describes the perception of construction contractors in Pakistan about the risk associated with its activities and the extent to which the industry uses risk analysis and management techniques.
The study has investigated the perception of the contractors regarding risk importance and risk allocation. The purpose was to provide insight into the current attitude of Pakistani contractors towards construction risk allocation and also to examine the importance of different risk categories.
Risk management practices in the construction industry of Pakistan have also been presented and discussed. First the organizational culture and support to the risk management is described and it is found that the importance of systematic risk management is well recognized in the Pakistan construction industry while the practice is far behind its importance. Then the extent/scope, responsibilities and problems in the risk identification; risk analysis; risk response; risk monitoring and control processes are discussed. The research results indicated that the application of the formal risk management techniques in the Pakistan construction industry is limited. It is also investigated that there is a lack of formal risk management teams in organizations and roles and responsibilities are not stated. The main difficulties during the risks management processes in the descending order are: the lack of qualified experts; lack of budget; complexity of tools and techniques; lack of top management commitment and support; and lack of historical data. This research also presents two types of risk management methods: preventive, which are effective at the early stages of the project life, and mitigative, which are remedial actions aimed at risk minimization during construction. At the end, risk allocation between the parties involved, through contract and insurance, is discussed.
The problems facing the construction industry of Pakistan has persisted despite efforts made. It is important that the construction industry of Pakistan is more fully understood in order for more appropriate solutions, relevant to its contexts, to be found. This industry requires separate, special treatment.
Now there is a need to search the difficulties and problems being faced by the Pakistan construction industry, along with recommended solutions. Researchers, Developers, Builders and Contractors working together can identify the solutions to the problems and can boost the Pakistan Construction Industry.
Construction is a high-risk business which haunts every participant in the business, the project owner, construction companies, consultants, bankers, financial institutions, vendors & suppliers and even the service providers, each has his own fears of facing risks in the conduct of business. Risk management is important part of the decision making process in the construction. Risk is also the object of attention because of time overrun associated with the construction projects. Although the risk analysis and management is important to the activities of the construction industry, little is known about the industry response and the techniques employed for the risk management in the Pakistan construction industry. There is a need to investigate the construction industry's perception of risk associated with its activities and the extent to which the industry uses risk analysis and management techniques.
Mr. Asif Hameed Malik made a study which main objective to investigate the risk management practices of the construction contractors in public sector projects of Pakistan and to recommend the appropriate risk management techniques, which better fit the Pakistan context and environment.
To achieve his objective, the sub-objectives can be identified as follows:
a) To evaluate the current attitude of the contractors regarding the importance of risk and risk allocation.
b) To uncover the underlying relationships between the identified risks using the factor analysis.
c) To investigate the difficulties and the benefits relevant to the risk management and the current usage of risk management techniques in the construction organizations.
d) To propose recommendations to the contractors to cope with the major risks in the industry and manage risk effectively in long terms.
Conclusions
The following are the conclusions based on the work carried out and the results of the analyses.
1.Risk Importance and allocation
a. The ten-top major risks identified are: (1) Delays in resolving contractual issues; (2) Delayed payment on contracts; (3) Political uncertainty; (4) Financial failure; (5) Scope of work definition; (6) War threats; (7) Suppliers/subcontractors poor performance; (8) Change in work; (9) Defective design; (10) Labor and equipment productivity.
b. Out of thirty-one listed construction risks, thirteen construction risks are allocated to the contractor; seven to the owner and eleven are shared between the contractor and owner. Although, it is generally recognized that the risk should be transferred to the party that is in the best position to deal with it, the survey indicates that Pakistani contractors are often responsible for most of the risk. Contractors consider themselves responsible to take care of the risks associated with physical and environmental problems. The risks of this type include differing site conditions and adverse weather conditions.
c. Experienced engineers have rated the importance of risk events lower than less experienced engineers. The main reasons are experience level and management level of the experienced engineers. The experience gained in construction life may have enabled the engineers to develop additional ability and competency in managing, anticipating and solving possible problems. This result is contradictory to the findings of the Dung (2004) and Thuyet (2003), in which they concluded that experience level has a no big influence on engineers’ attitude. However this result is supportive to some extent to the findings of Santoso (1999).
d. The result shows that the respondents working in large companies have rated the risks less, which are of technical and managerial nature. This may be due to the reason that the large contractors have formal management practices in their organizations and also they have enough resources to mitigate the encountered risks more efficiently than the small contractors.
2. Grouping of identified risks
Factor analysis is applied to find any interrelationship existing among the risks in terms of their importance.The components extracted are labeled as managerial and technical risks; project scope and design risks; political, economic and regulatory risks; contractual delay risks and; site and weather risks.
3. Risk management practices
The results of risk management practices are similar to the findings of the other surveys conducted in developing countries by Dung (2004) and Thuyet (2003).
a. Importance of systematic risk management is well recognized in the Pakistan construction industry while the practice is far behind its importance.
b. The importance of training cannot be ignored in any organization. Conversely, the construction organizations in Pakistan provide poor job training in risk management to their staff.
c. There is a lack of formal risk identification teams in the organizations. Also the roles and responsibilities are not stated. Even sometimes only one person is responsible for the risk management process.
d. The main difficulties in the risk management process are lack of qualified experts, lack of budget and top management commitment.
e. Qualitative risk analysis techniques are more popular due to their simplicity and effectiveness. In qualitative analysis, the most used tools are checklist, brainstorming and interviewing. Quantitative risk analysis techniques have been rarely used due to limited understanding and experience.
f. The effectiveness of the risk responses in the descending order are: risk transfer, risk reduction, risk retention and risk avoidance.
g. Preventive actions are used to avoid and reduce risks at the early stage of project construction. Produce a proper schedule by getting updated project information and produce a proper program using subjective judgment are the two most effective risk preventive actions.
h. Mitigative actions are remedial steps aimed at minimizing the effects of risks. The most effective risk mitigative methods are to coordinate closely with subcontractor and to increase manpower and/or equipment.
i. Contract management is quite well performed, helping much risk allocation through contracts. Insurance serve as a second risk transfer for the parties involved. However, in reality they face lots of difficulties on the way of finding the insurance. High premium in insurance buying, long claim coverage procedure and lack of qualified experts are the most perceptible problems in purchasing insurance.
Recommendations
Based on the research results, the recommendations are made to the construction contractors to cope with the major risks in the industry and to improve their risk management practices.
1. Strategies to Mitigate the Major Risks
For projects to be successful, it is extremely important that the major risks affecting the projects should be thoroughly examined. The causes and characteristics must be carefully analyzed in order to propose the most appropriate and practical strategies to mitigate them. For the top-ten major risks, the proposed strategies to mitigate them are shown in the table below.
2. Strategies to Improve the Risk Management Practices
a. Integrate risk management in organizational culture in which everybody is a risk manager. This is more important than developing and issuing extensive policies and procedures. Management of risk is embedded in the management philosophy.
b. Implementing risk management requires resources. Investments will be required in: training, developing processes and techniques, management systems, specialist groups. Senior management must be committed to support the initiative with the required resources.
c. Open communication is necessary for risk management to succeed. Without open communication risk management cannot be "everybody's business". Managers require direct communication channels up, down and across their business units to help identify risks and take appropriate actions. Information must be shared.
d. Informal and formal teams are a mechanism that organizations should use to manage risks. Teaming brings together various risk attitudes and brings fresh thinking to issues and solutions. It also focuses diverse disciplines on common objectives.
e. A common business risk language enables managers to talk with individuals in terms of everybody understanding. This is important also in cases where everybody is expected to manage risks.
f. Set up a responsibility center for risk management. A Chief Risk Officer (CRO) who defines consistent approaches to managing risk should head it. The CRO is the organizational risk champion and is responsible for providing leadership and establishing and maintaining risk awareness across the organization.
g. Communicate the risk performance to top management and stakeholders/ shareholders. The reports should outline the major risks and how they are managed.
h. There is a need for risk management training, as part of a corporate training curriculum. Topic areas include: objectives for managing risk: risk-awareness, risk assessments, safety and legislative requirements.
i. The authorities should implement the performance assessment scoring system (PASS) as a mechanism for evaluating the effectiveness of a contractor's ability and to change the attitude of the contractors to simply win the projects rather than to deliver the projects to specified standards.
j. The internal audit function plays a key role in implementing risk management throughout an organization. Examples of this practice are: monitoring and reporting on the management of significant risks and reviewing processes for managing risks.
His thesis abstract is copied and posted.
ABSTRACT
The research study, on the basis of a questionnaire survey, describes the perception of construction contractors in Pakistan about the risk associated with its activities and the extent to which the industry uses risk analysis and management techniques.
The study has investigated the perception of the contractors regarding risk importance and risk allocation. The purpose was to provide insight into the current attitude of Pakistani contractors towards construction risk allocation and also to examine the importance of different risk categories.
Risk management practices in the construction industry of Pakistan have also been presented and discussed. First the organizational culture and support to the risk management is described and it is found that the importance of systematic risk management is well recognized in the Pakistan construction industry while the practice is far behind its importance. Then the extent/scope, responsibilities and problems in the risk identification; risk analysis; risk response; risk monitoring and control processes are discussed. The research results indicated that the application of the formal risk management techniques in the Pakistan construction industry is limited. It is also investigated that there is a lack of formal risk management teams in organizations and roles and responsibilities are not stated. The main difficulties during the risks management processes in the descending order are: the lack of qualified experts; lack of budget; complexity of tools and techniques; lack of top management commitment and support; and lack of historical data. This research also presents two types of risk management methods: preventive, which are effective at the early stages of the project life, and mitigative, which are remedial actions aimed at risk minimization during construction. At the end, risk allocation between the parties involved, through contract and insurance, is discussed.
Monday 10 May 2010
The Integrated Performance Indicator For Airport Pavement Evaluation
Modern lifestyle, high competitive business and globalization considered the speed of transmission to convey cargo and passengers. Aviation becomes one of alternatives to sustain that purpose. Many Airports have been constructed with its modules such as a ground access facility connecting the airport to the nearest city, parking structures, an air-traffic control tower, a terminal building, jet ways, apron(s), taxiway(s), and runway(s).
In Airfield facilities, the major problem occurred after the construction finished, is the deterioration of pavement that caused from:
1)Traffic load exceeding the forecast during pavement design stage
2)Fatigue effect from repetitive loads
3)Surface weathering
4)Faulty construction technique
The above four problems will shorten the airfield service life; nevertheless, Airport Pavement Management System (APMS) has been implemented to solve these issues so that safe operation will be taken place to the pavement in time. Airport infrastructures require the comprehensive maintenance program like other infrastructure for preserving its runways, taxiways, apron, and pavement area in order to keep the airfield performance above acceptable level.
Airport pavement condition assessment usually focuses on the runway by measuring some of its features such as load-carrying capacity. Human factor (Pilot and User) always overlook during condition assessments, although they are not the part of the airport pavement but their feeling from airport utilization can notify the condition such as pavement roughness, pavement friction, riding quality or services quality. Human factor that always change sensitively can fulfill the equipment capability. The concept that considered only solitary indicator becomes obsolete.
The equipments and software for APMS especially NDT for condition assessment are quite high cost, also the indicator gained from those equipments are still one aspect consideration. The difficulty burden on administrator who wants to complete all condition assessment but the budget allocation might not be affordable. The attractive choice is using available equipment and free software with integrating indicators concept that will spend less money and achieves identical purpose.
User’s requirements regarding to airport management always increase until they can make sure that the airport pavement condition is safe enough and ready to support aviation. Any airport agencies that can make more user confidence will get more advantages in high competitive aviation business.
New concept developed from infrastructure’s performance indicators (Hudson et al., 1997) will be conducted to solve these problems to reach the objectives below.
Mr. Yongyot Rotchaya made a study which main objective is to develop an integrated performance indicator for airport pavement; it is derived from different aspects of airport performance, which are Maintenance Unit Perception, Safety Perception, Physical Condition, and Structural Integrity.
The secondary objectives of his study were specified as follows:
1)To identify each different aspects of performance measurement for airport pavement.
2)To apply AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) to infrastructure management system as a weighting factor during the airport pavement evaluation.
3)Find the most influential factor to the Integrated Performance Indicator (IPI).
Conclusions
Different aspects of the airport pavement condition used to have its own condition indicator and some aspects has never considered before, such as safety issues. In this study, many aspects are combined into one indicator. People who are working close to the pavement are specified to be rater for particular indicators. These groups are supposed to give exact score to represent actual pavement condition through questionnaires, which had been prepared and adjusted in order to be suitable with each group. After the questionnaires had been distributed to two airports, the respondents gave a good cooperation in answering the questionnaires. As mentioned to the excellent competency of respondents, the achieved indicator can give high confidence to represent airport pavement condition. As well as the well-known indicator like PCI; high-technology tool like UPV are used to obtain the pavement condition.
Previously, the Analytical Hierarchy Process has been used as an important tool in supporting decision-making in complex issue that can be structured it as hierarchy such as marketing strategic planning, and finance. AHP applications in the non-profit organization are very few. The reason may be the problem in non-profit organization is not complex. Now, the situation is changed, non-profit organization like Royal Thai Air Force needs the effective tool to make decision under limited budget and other factors such as time constraint or effective utilization for all assets. One set of questionnaire had been distributed to engineers in Directorate of Civil Engineering, who has high experience in airport pavement design and management. Those engineers are also willing to give a precise answer and waiting attentively for new concept which will be useful for airport pavement management system.
Other conclusions:
a)The Integrated Performance Indicator, which is derived from integration of Maintenance Unit Perception, Safety Perception, Physical Condition, and Structural Integrity, can represent the actual condition of airport pavement.
b)The different aspects of infrastructure which are condition-related components are adapted from Hudson et al (1997) concept. In practical, the concept has been adjusted to be suitable with Air Force infrastructure and be appropriate with available tool or personnel, so the Service and User Perception is substituted by Maintenance Unit Perception. This study can find the indicators to represent each condition aspect.
c)Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) has been applied to give appropriate weight factors for isolate indicator in this study. This study is one of the attempts that try to apply AHP to current infrastructure management system, which is more complex and change sensitively now.
In the past, the Analytical Hierarchy Process has been used as an important tool in supporting decision-making in complex issue that can be structured it as hierarchy such as marketing strategic planning, and finance. The problem in non-profit organization is not complex so the AHP is not used widespread. Now, the situation is changed, non-profit organization like Royal Thai Air Force needs the effective tool to make decision under limited budget and other factors such as time constraint or effective utilization for all assets. The AHP illustrated its powerful capability for decision-making in non-profit organization like Royal Thai Air Force.
d)From the AHP, the most influential factor to the Integrated Performance Indicator (IPI) should be the one that has the highest weight factor. Physical condition is supposed to be the most influential factor but short study period can not give significant change in PCI value. Conversely, Maintenance Unit Perception, which has the second rank weight factor changes significantly and affects the overall indicator (IPI) obviously.
His thesis abstract is copied and posted.
Abstract
In the past, most agencies considered only one aspect of infrastructure condition to be a tool in decision-making then performed maintenance activities. This practice has some shortcomings, which lead to wrong interpretation and misunderstood about actual condition. It is the fact that one indicator can not represent overall performance of infrastructure. In order to overcome those shortcomings, the Integrated Performance Indicator has been developed by adaptation from Hudson et al (1997) concept; it clarifies four approaches to find infrastructure performance. Nevertheless, the original concept was adapted to fit with available tool and personnel, and then the approaches are changed to be Maintenance Unit Perception, Safety Perception, Physical Condition, and Structural Integrity. Each aspect of infrastructure performance is represented by isolate indicator, and then multipliers are calculated by Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) to find the appropriate weight factors before the combination into the Integrated Performance Indicator. This study is one of the attempts to apply AHP technique with non-profit organization and government infrastructure, which are encountering the difficult decision-making in fast-pace and more complex environment. Two airports pavement, which are Portland Cement Concrete (PCC) runway under the responsibility of Royal Thai Air Force are selected to be sample areas.
In Airfield facilities, the major problem occurred after the construction finished, is the deterioration of pavement that caused from:
1)Traffic load exceeding the forecast during pavement design stage
2)Fatigue effect from repetitive loads
3)Surface weathering
4)Faulty construction technique
The above four problems will shorten the airfield service life; nevertheless, Airport Pavement Management System (APMS) has been implemented to solve these issues so that safe operation will be taken place to the pavement in time. Airport infrastructures require the comprehensive maintenance program like other infrastructure for preserving its runways, taxiways, apron, and pavement area in order to keep the airfield performance above acceptable level.
Airport pavement condition assessment usually focuses on the runway by measuring some of its features such as load-carrying capacity. Human factor (Pilot and User) always overlook during condition assessments, although they are not the part of the airport pavement but their feeling from airport utilization can notify the condition such as pavement roughness, pavement friction, riding quality or services quality. Human factor that always change sensitively can fulfill the equipment capability. The concept that considered only solitary indicator becomes obsolete.
The equipments and software for APMS especially NDT for condition assessment are quite high cost, also the indicator gained from those equipments are still one aspect consideration. The difficulty burden on administrator who wants to complete all condition assessment but the budget allocation might not be affordable. The attractive choice is using available equipment and free software with integrating indicators concept that will spend less money and achieves identical purpose.
User’s requirements regarding to airport management always increase until they can make sure that the airport pavement condition is safe enough and ready to support aviation. Any airport agencies that can make more user confidence will get more advantages in high competitive aviation business.
New concept developed from infrastructure’s performance indicators (Hudson et al., 1997) will be conducted to solve these problems to reach the objectives below.
Mr. Yongyot Rotchaya made a study which main objective is to develop an integrated performance indicator for airport pavement; it is derived from different aspects of airport performance, which are Maintenance Unit Perception, Safety Perception, Physical Condition, and Structural Integrity.
The secondary objectives of his study were specified as follows:
1)To identify each different aspects of performance measurement for airport pavement.
2)To apply AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) to infrastructure management system as a weighting factor during the airport pavement evaluation.
3)Find the most influential factor to the Integrated Performance Indicator (IPI).
Conclusions
Different aspects of the airport pavement condition used to have its own condition indicator and some aspects has never considered before, such as safety issues. In this study, many aspects are combined into one indicator. People who are working close to the pavement are specified to be rater for particular indicators. These groups are supposed to give exact score to represent actual pavement condition through questionnaires, which had been prepared and adjusted in order to be suitable with each group. After the questionnaires had been distributed to two airports, the respondents gave a good cooperation in answering the questionnaires. As mentioned to the excellent competency of respondents, the achieved indicator can give high confidence to represent airport pavement condition. As well as the well-known indicator like PCI; high-technology tool like UPV are used to obtain the pavement condition.
Previously, the Analytical Hierarchy Process has been used as an important tool in supporting decision-making in complex issue that can be structured it as hierarchy such as marketing strategic planning, and finance. AHP applications in the non-profit organization are very few. The reason may be the problem in non-profit organization is not complex. Now, the situation is changed, non-profit organization like Royal Thai Air Force needs the effective tool to make decision under limited budget and other factors such as time constraint or effective utilization for all assets. One set of questionnaire had been distributed to engineers in Directorate of Civil Engineering, who has high experience in airport pavement design and management. Those engineers are also willing to give a precise answer and waiting attentively for new concept which will be useful for airport pavement management system.
Other conclusions:
a)The Integrated Performance Indicator, which is derived from integration of Maintenance Unit Perception, Safety Perception, Physical Condition, and Structural Integrity, can represent the actual condition of airport pavement.
b)The different aspects of infrastructure which are condition-related components are adapted from Hudson et al (1997) concept. In practical, the concept has been adjusted to be suitable with Air Force infrastructure and be appropriate with available tool or personnel, so the Service and User Perception is substituted by Maintenance Unit Perception. This study can find the indicators to represent each condition aspect.
c)Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) has been applied to give appropriate weight factors for isolate indicator in this study. This study is one of the attempts that try to apply AHP to current infrastructure management system, which is more complex and change sensitively now.
In the past, the Analytical Hierarchy Process has been used as an important tool in supporting decision-making in complex issue that can be structured it as hierarchy such as marketing strategic planning, and finance. The problem in non-profit organization is not complex so the AHP is not used widespread. Now, the situation is changed, non-profit organization like Royal Thai Air Force needs the effective tool to make decision under limited budget and other factors such as time constraint or effective utilization for all assets. The AHP illustrated its powerful capability for decision-making in non-profit organization like Royal Thai Air Force.
d)From the AHP, the most influential factor to the Integrated Performance Indicator (IPI) should be the one that has the highest weight factor. Physical condition is supposed to be the most influential factor but short study period can not give significant change in PCI value. Conversely, Maintenance Unit Perception, which has the second rank weight factor changes significantly and affects the overall indicator (IPI) obviously.
His thesis abstract is copied and posted.
Abstract
In the past, most agencies considered only one aspect of infrastructure condition to be a tool in decision-making then performed maintenance activities. This practice has some shortcomings, which lead to wrong interpretation and misunderstood about actual condition. It is the fact that one indicator can not represent overall performance of infrastructure. In order to overcome those shortcomings, the Integrated Performance Indicator has been developed by adaptation from Hudson et al (1997) concept; it clarifies four approaches to find infrastructure performance. Nevertheless, the original concept was adapted to fit with available tool and personnel, and then the approaches are changed to be Maintenance Unit Perception, Safety Perception, Physical Condition, and Structural Integrity. Each aspect of infrastructure performance is represented by isolate indicator, and then multipliers are calculated by Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) to find the appropriate weight factors before the combination into the Integrated Performance Indicator. This study is one of the attempts to apply AHP technique with non-profit organization and government infrastructure, which are encountering the difficult decision-making in fast-pace and more complex environment. Two airports pavement, which are Portland Cement Concrete (PCC) runway under the responsibility of Royal Thai Air Force are selected to be sample areas.
Thursday 6 May 2010
A Web-Based Application to Support Quality Management Documentation System for a Construction Company
Since the emergence of ISO 9000 standards in 1987, it has been widely known and accepted by various organizations, mainly because ISO 9000 provides clearly documentation and systematic procedures and instruction that can be followed by everyone in organizations. Therefore, the most important benefit is a better management control on entirely organization system, greater awareness of procedural problems and promotion value (Tsim et al., 2002).
Although organizations already certified ISO 9000, documentations are still obvious in its difficulty. Since the concept of ISO 9000 focuses on the continual improvement of the system, some documentation need to be accurately and regularly revised and globally updated whenever changes are released. The major problem can usually be found in the companies where several site works in a various distance space are in operation. Sometime employees follow the “right” procedure from a “wrong” revision that can lead to inefficiency of Quality Management System within organization.
Organizations have should realized the importance of ISO 9000 standards, particularly in Quality System Documentation. The quality plan, another type of the Quality System Documentation is also very important for productivity of construction organizations. The quality plan is established to meet each project requirement. It may consist of several documentations including some parts of quality manuals and procedures, contract requirement, and specifically project procedures and work instruction.
By using Web-based technology, the organization can ensure that all employees can instantly access, validate, and retrieve all documentations. Moreover, the traceability of document can be easily implemented. This, of course, will certainly result in paperless work flow, faster exchange of information, and better documentary control.
Mr. Noppadol Kaewborisut made a study aimed to develop a Quality Management Documentation System (QMDS) application for supporting Quality Management System within construction organizations. The output of his study will enhance and facilitate organization to manage documentation more efficiently and also enhance the accessibility and speed in handling with entire Quality System Documentation. In order to achieve his main objective, sub objectives were defined as follows:
1. To investigate and study the mechanism of Quality Management System, ISO 9000 standard, in Construction Companies.
2. To develop a framework of Quality Management Documentation System.
3. To develop the prototype of Quality Management Documentation System for supporting Construction Company’s ISO 9000 operational processes.
Conclusion
The study has proved that the Quality Management Documentation System (QMDS) is a development tool to support operational processes of ISO 9000 standard, especially in a construction company. It is the process specially designed to deal with all documentation management in the organization like the one in the construction company which faces with complicated lines of procedures containing a lot of documentation, and concerning with different parties and activities. Therefore, the details of the study has gone into dept verification which resulted in the conclusion that the QMDS application can be an effective tool for a Construction Company to meet with the increasing demand of world market competition both in quality and quantify of productivity.
1. Quality Management System, ISO 9000 Standards, in Construction Companies
The standards of ISO 9000 are written a manual guideline for a general purpose rather than for any particular business. They interpret, to some extent, what sorts of accomplishment rather than specify how things must be done. It is, therefore, to be cited here that, the ISO 9000 standards are varied in their nature and details from each Construction Company to another. This is because Construction Companies are different in specific types of documentations, management performance, organizational culture and levels of employees’ educational background but on the same basis, the ISO 9000 standards should definitely provide three procedure modules as minimum requirements such as follows:
a. Documenting procedure is the major operation of ISO 9000 within scope of this thesis. This procedure deals effectively with all types of the Quality System Documentation generated from the head office and the project site. These documentations specify the authorization with qualified employee to manipulate which only specific qualified employee can manipulate (create, update, validate) with. The authorization in the Construction Company, therefore are set to look after their type of documentation already specified. The Quality team is responsible for a Quality Manual which provides the whole picture of the Quality Management System of a company. Department managers should be responsible for the Quality Procedure and Work Instruction, the content of which is related to their work. For a Quality Plan, it is established in order to reach the project objectives that construction department have be full responsibility to deal with. In addition, standard forms and records, which can generate from any activities, are also considered as Quality System Documentation and need to be organized properly.
b. In the ISO 9000 standard, an auditing procedure is also required. Its purpose is to inspect a Quality System whether the established documentations are effective and employees conform to such documentation. There are two types of audits: an internal audit and an external audit. An internal audit requires qualified employees to perform as an auditor to audit across different department in a specific period of time. They should have some basic knowledge on departmental operation so that they can use their expertise in bringing out the accurate and reliable inspection. The frequency of internal audit depends on how many problems at that department or direct requests from specific department are. However, they should perform their function at least twice a year for internal audit. Regarding the external audit, it is generally hire from the third party by the company. This third party must have qualification and experience in auditing according to the minimum requirement of ISO 9000 standard. The frequency of external audit also holds at least twice a year. After finishing the audit in each period, the audit reports are submitted to the authority incidental to the contents of the report. Such reports are reviewed for final and make a decision whether the established documentations need to be adjusted accordingly.
c. Measuring procedure purposes to verify the Quality System of a company whether specific operational processes, equipments, or activities can perform at acceptable level or according to established objective. Each employee can acknowledge from his/her occupied documentation that measurement of activities or equipment will be carried out as defined in initially in the documentation. For example, project team has to check whether materials from supplier are correct to theirs specification. The results of measurements are collected as records and have to be kept properly.
2. A Framework of Quality Management Documentation System
After accomplishing the first objective, the overall information (both from literature review and company investigation) are analyzed and conceptually put into the framework of QMDS application. Such framework demonstrates the relationship among essential parts of effective development in the system. There are three main parts of QMDS application such as:
a. The document database refers to electronic files of documentation that are stored systematically in a document center by a file system. There are various types of Quality System Documentation in the electronic files of QMDS application such as Quality Manual, Quality Procedure, Work Instruction, Quality Plan, Standard Form and Document Template. All of these files use Relational Database Management System, being classified by type of documentation and stored in separated tables. Some tables have their inter-relationship as referred by unique keys. The document database is vital. It can indicate the efficient or inefficient result of the running system.
b. The security system is introduced in the QMDS application to secure all documentation stored in database by allowing authorized users to access and operate therein. Security system is vital part for QMDS application due to all documentation stores at server side. QMDS application has set two levels of security system. The first level checks authorization at the first time when users access to the system. They must input accurate username and password for access. The second level then checks authorization of users whenever they want to access to each Web pages. Users can manipulate (review, insert, update, validate, discussion room, and mailing list) with documentation based on their authorization which defined initially by the authority. This security system must be ensured that QMDS application is reliable and can be adopted safely.
c. Document functions refer to all functions of QMDS application. These functions are aimed to support ISO 9000 operational processes which can be divided into three groups: Document Manipulation, Document Distribution, and Document Discussion and Survey. Document Manipulation is designed on the criteria relate to all functions originated form documentation such as searching, reviewing, downloading/uploading, inserting, updating, and validating. The Document Distribution is focused on how to distribute effectively available documentation to relevant employees. Finally, Document Discussion and Survey enhances users to express their opinion by submitting the feedback and discussion. Moreover, poll is used to survey user’s opinion on how such documentation is working efficiently.
3. Quality Management Documentation System (QMDS) for Supporting a Construction Company’s ISO 9000 Operational Processes
For the processes to develop QMDS application, the traditional approach of the system development is adopted. Because of there are some environmental restriction and limitation hidden behind such as the involvement of users, time constraint, and natural operation of Quality System Management, the QMDS application, therefore develops new processes which need to be carried out starting from System Requirement Identification, System Design and Development to System Testing.
System Requirement Identification
This is the initial phase in the development of the system. It consists of two steps for implementation: Requirement Acquisition and Requirement Analysis. The Requirement Acquisition purposes to investigate the overview of ISO 9000 standard in order to identify the frequent problems and significant areas. The semi-structure interview is introduced towards respondents of Construction Companies to acquire their information about the operational processes of ISO 9000 standard. This useful information then served as the input to Requirement Analysis. This step defined the main objective of QMDS application by focusing on the document procedure of ISO 9000 operational processes. Such objective is the systematic management of documentation which can reduce valuable resource use.
System Design
The System Design describes how to design the whole system of QMDS application in order to reach the main objectives of the application. The design has been in-depth classified for the studied into three: Information Requirement and Design, Technology Requirement, and Structure Design.
System Development
This phase, System Development, is carried out with the designed system accordingly. It starts from the creation of database processes in order to support the other functions as well. MySQL is the application in the development of the database at the server side. This database can interact directly with overall functions by using HTML, PHP script and SQL command. Moreover, Java script is also adopted to program some complicated functions. These programming languages are programmed together in the Web page which concerns the compatibility and effective functions.
Other approaches in the System Development are Security system and user interface. PHP provides the function “session” that can be applied to define the authorizations of users. This can protect the unauthorized users to access and get confidential information of the company. For user interface, HTML provides various tags and attributes for developing the structure of Web page and linked menu powerfully. The Internet technology gives advantage to click and link quickly and easily to whatever Web pages. The overall Web programming languages now are developed to succeed and make successfully the prototype of QMDS application.
System Testing
The system testing is the approach for the uses to examining the accomplishment of the developed prototype. The application is tested by using the concept of the System Verification and the System Validation. First concept wants to check an effective function performance. Each function is tested step by step at the actual remote server. Moreover, the feasibilities of malfunctions are also tested to some functions so that any errors behind are corrected immediately. The second concept tests the usefulness of QMDS application in order to support the actual ISO 9000 operational processes. The practitioners of Construction Companies are interviewed to suggest/recommend on the application and the feasible improvement. For this study, the result of interviewing indicates that the developed prototype of QMDS application is useful and can support document procedure of ISO 9000 standard at acceptable level.
His thesis abstract is copied and posted.
Abstract
Construction companies must sustain and grow in a competitive market. Companies consider a better business processes to ensure that employees have adequate information to carry out their work. One of many methods can be used to ensure the consistency of business process is Quality Management System. Quality System Standard, ISO 9000, is set up to control the processes and operations which influence to the quality of product. The major requirement of ISO 9000 needs the company to establish Quality System Documentation that refers to all information in each business process. When the documentations are properly managed, they will be improved the Quality System which lead to increased quality of product, company image, and customer satisfaction.
This study uses Web-based approach for managing Quality System Documentations. Quality Management Documentation System (QMDS) is introduced in order to support ISO 9000 operational processes, particularly in document procedure. MySQL and PHP are adopted to develop the system. The benefits from this application provide all users to access and deal with the documentations regardless of time or distance space, reduction of time used in manual operation, and an increased efficiency of document management.
Although organizations already certified ISO 9000, documentations are still obvious in its difficulty. Since the concept of ISO 9000 focuses on the continual improvement of the system, some documentation need to be accurately and regularly revised and globally updated whenever changes are released. The major problem can usually be found in the companies where several site works in a various distance space are in operation. Sometime employees follow the “right” procedure from a “wrong” revision that can lead to inefficiency of Quality Management System within organization.
Organizations have should realized the importance of ISO 9000 standards, particularly in Quality System Documentation. The quality plan, another type of the Quality System Documentation is also very important for productivity of construction organizations. The quality plan is established to meet each project requirement. It may consist of several documentations including some parts of quality manuals and procedures, contract requirement, and specifically project procedures and work instruction.
By using Web-based technology, the organization can ensure that all employees can instantly access, validate, and retrieve all documentations. Moreover, the traceability of document can be easily implemented. This, of course, will certainly result in paperless work flow, faster exchange of information, and better documentary control.
Mr. Noppadol Kaewborisut made a study aimed to develop a Quality Management Documentation System (QMDS) application for supporting Quality Management System within construction organizations. The output of his study will enhance and facilitate organization to manage documentation more efficiently and also enhance the accessibility and speed in handling with entire Quality System Documentation. In order to achieve his main objective, sub objectives were defined as follows:
1. To investigate and study the mechanism of Quality Management System, ISO 9000 standard, in Construction Companies.
2. To develop a framework of Quality Management Documentation System.
3. To develop the prototype of Quality Management Documentation System for supporting Construction Company’s ISO 9000 operational processes.
Conclusion
The study has proved that the Quality Management Documentation System (QMDS) is a development tool to support operational processes of ISO 9000 standard, especially in a construction company. It is the process specially designed to deal with all documentation management in the organization like the one in the construction company which faces with complicated lines of procedures containing a lot of documentation, and concerning with different parties and activities. Therefore, the details of the study has gone into dept verification which resulted in the conclusion that the QMDS application can be an effective tool for a Construction Company to meet with the increasing demand of world market competition both in quality and quantify of productivity.
1. Quality Management System, ISO 9000 Standards, in Construction Companies
The standards of ISO 9000 are written a manual guideline for a general purpose rather than for any particular business. They interpret, to some extent, what sorts of accomplishment rather than specify how things must be done. It is, therefore, to be cited here that, the ISO 9000 standards are varied in their nature and details from each Construction Company to another. This is because Construction Companies are different in specific types of documentations, management performance, organizational culture and levels of employees’ educational background but on the same basis, the ISO 9000 standards should definitely provide three procedure modules as minimum requirements such as follows:
a. Documenting procedure is the major operation of ISO 9000 within scope of this thesis. This procedure deals effectively with all types of the Quality System Documentation generated from the head office and the project site. These documentations specify the authorization with qualified employee to manipulate which only specific qualified employee can manipulate (create, update, validate) with. The authorization in the Construction Company, therefore are set to look after their type of documentation already specified. The Quality team is responsible for a Quality Manual which provides the whole picture of the Quality Management System of a company. Department managers should be responsible for the Quality Procedure and Work Instruction, the content of which is related to their work. For a Quality Plan, it is established in order to reach the project objectives that construction department have be full responsibility to deal with. In addition, standard forms and records, which can generate from any activities, are also considered as Quality System Documentation and need to be organized properly.
b. In the ISO 9000 standard, an auditing procedure is also required. Its purpose is to inspect a Quality System whether the established documentations are effective and employees conform to such documentation. There are two types of audits: an internal audit and an external audit. An internal audit requires qualified employees to perform as an auditor to audit across different department in a specific period of time. They should have some basic knowledge on departmental operation so that they can use their expertise in bringing out the accurate and reliable inspection. The frequency of internal audit depends on how many problems at that department or direct requests from specific department are. However, they should perform their function at least twice a year for internal audit. Regarding the external audit, it is generally hire from the third party by the company. This third party must have qualification and experience in auditing according to the minimum requirement of ISO 9000 standard. The frequency of external audit also holds at least twice a year. After finishing the audit in each period, the audit reports are submitted to the authority incidental to the contents of the report. Such reports are reviewed for final and make a decision whether the established documentations need to be adjusted accordingly.
c. Measuring procedure purposes to verify the Quality System of a company whether specific operational processes, equipments, or activities can perform at acceptable level or according to established objective. Each employee can acknowledge from his/her occupied documentation that measurement of activities or equipment will be carried out as defined in initially in the documentation. For example, project team has to check whether materials from supplier are correct to theirs specification. The results of measurements are collected as records and have to be kept properly.
2. A Framework of Quality Management Documentation System
After accomplishing the first objective, the overall information (both from literature review and company investigation) are analyzed and conceptually put into the framework of QMDS application. Such framework demonstrates the relationship among essential parts of effective development in the system. There are three main parts of QMDS application such as:
a. The document database refers to electronic files of documentation that are stored systematically in a document center by a file system. There are various types of Quality System Documentation in the electronic files of QMDS application such as Quality Manual, Quality Procedure, Work Instruction, Quality Plan, Standard Form and Document Template. All of these files use Relational Database Management System, being classified by type of documentation and stored in separated tables. Some tables have their inter-relationship as referred by unique keys. The document database is vital. It can indicate the efficient or inefficient result of the running system.
b. The security system is introduced in the QMDS application to secure all documentation stored in database by allowing authorized users to access and operate therein. Security system is vital part for QMDS application due to all documentation stores at server side. QMDS application has set two levels of security system. The first level checks authorization at the first time when users access to the system. They must input accurate username and password for access. The second level then checks authorization of users whenever they want to access to each Web pages. Users can manipulate (review, insert, update, validate, discussion room, and mailing list) with documentation based on their authorization which defined initially by the authority. This security system must be ensured that QMDS application is reliable and can be adopted safely.
c. Document functions refer to all functions of QMDS application. These functions are aimed to support ISO 9000 operational processes which can be divided into three groups: Document Manipulation, Document Distribution, and Document Discussion and Survey. Document Manipulation is designed on the criteria relate to all functions originated form documentation such as searching, reviewing, downloading/uploading, inserting, updating, and validating. The Document Distribution is focused on how to distribute effectively available documentation to relevant employees. Finally, Document Discussion and Survey enhances users to express their opinion by submitting the feedback and discussion. Moreover, poll is used to survey user’s opinion on how such documentation is working efficiently.
3. Quality Management Documentation System (QMDS) for Supporting a Construction Company’s ISO 9000 Operational Processes
For the processes to develop QMDS application, the traditional approach of the system development is adopted. Because of there are some environmental restriction and limitation hidden behind such as the involvement of users, time constraint, and natural operation of Quality System Management, the QMDS application, therefore develops new processes which need to be carried out starting from System Requirement Identification, System Design and Development to System Testing.
System Requirement Identification
This is the initial phase in the development of the system. It consists of two steps for implementation: Requirement Acquisition and Requirement Analysis. The Requirement Acquisition purposes to investigate the overview of ISO 9000 standard in order to identify the frequent problems and significant areas. The semi-structure interview is introduced towards respondents of Construction Companies to acquire their information about the operational processes of ISO 9000 standard. This useful information then served as the input to Requirement Analysis. This step defined the main objective of QMDS application by focusing on the document procedure of ISO 9000 operational processes. Such objective is the systematic management of documentation which can reduce valuable resource use.
System Design
The System Design describes how to design the whole system of QMDS application in order to reach the main objectives of the application. The design has been in-depth classified for the studied into three: Information Requirement and Design, Technology Requirement, and Structure Design.
System Development
This phase, System Development, is carried out with the designed system accordingly. It starts from the creation of database processes in order to support the other functions as well. MySQL is the application in the development of the database at the server side. This database can interact directly with overall functions by using HTML, PHP script and SQL command. Moreover, Java script is also adopted to program some complicated functions. These programming languages are programmed together in the Web page which concerns the compatibility and effective functions.
Other approaches in the System Development are Security system and user interface. PHP provides the function “session” that can be applied to define the authorizations of users. This can protect the unauthorized users to access and get confidential information of the company. For user interface, HTML provides various tags and attributes for developing the structure of Web page and linked menu powerfully. The Internet technology gives advantage to click and link quickly and easily to whatever Web pages. The overall Web programming languages now are developed to succeed and make successfully the prototype of QMDS application.
System Testing
The system testing is the approach for the uses to examining the accomplishment of the developed prototype. The application is tested by using the concept of the System Verification and the System Validation. First concept wants to check an effective function performance. Each function is tested step by step at the actual remote server. Moreover, the feasibilities of malfunctions are also tested to some functions so that any errors behind are corrected immediately. The second concept tests the usefulness of QMDS application in order to support the actual ISO 9000 operational processes. The practitioners of Construction Companies are interviewed to suggest/recommend on the application and the feasible improvement. For this study, the result of interviewing indicates that the developed prototype of QMDS application is useful and can support document procedure of ISO 9000 standard at acceptable level.
His thesis abstract is copied and posted.
Abstract
Construction companies must sustain and grow in a competitive market. Companies consider a better business processes to ensure that employees have adequate information to carry out their work. One of many methods can be used to ensure the consistency of business process is Quality Management System. Quality System Standard, ISO 9000, is set up to control the processes and operations which influence to the quality of product. The major requirement of ISO 9000 needs the company to establish Quality System Documentation that refers to all information in each business process. When the documentations are properly managed, they will be improved the Quality System which lead to increased quality of product, company image, and customer satisfaction.
This study uses Web-based approach for managing Quality System Documentations. Quality Management Documentation System (QMDS) is introduced in order to support ISO 9000 operational processes, particularly in document procedure. MySQL and PHP are adopted to develop the system. The benefits from this application provide all users to access and deal with the documentations regardless of time or distance space, reduction of time used in manual operation, and an increased efficiency of document management.
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