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Optimizing Project Delivery through Augmented Reality and Agile Methodologies
... A multidisciplinary and selforganized team is a key foundation in the agile organizational structure, so that all members gather the necessary knowledge for the progress of the project [27]. Improved communication between project stakeholders [4]; [16]; [17]; [18]; [19]; [20]; [21]; [22]; [23]; [24]; [25]; [26]; [27]; [28]; [29]; [30]; [31]; [32]; [33] Change management [4]; [5]; [16]; [17]; [18]; [21]; [24]; [25]; [26]; [27]; [28]; [29]; [30]; [31]; [32]; [33]; [34]; [35]; [36] Collaboration between the managing team and the customer [4]; [16]; [18]; [22]; [23]; [24]; [25]; [26]; [27]; [28]; [30]; [31]; [32]; [33]; [34]; [35]; [36]; [37] Flexibility [4]; [16]; [17]; [20]; [21]; [24]; [25]; [26]; [27]; [28]; [30]; [31]; [33]; [35]; [36]; [37] Multidisciplinary team [16]; [17]; [20]; [23]; [26]; [27]; [28]; [30]; [31]; [33]; [37] Lessons learned [20]; [19]; [27]; [17[; [36]; [31]; [33]; [25]; [28] Cyclical process [20]; [37]; [4]; [35]; [27]; [5] The mapping of lessons learned during the project is a way of promoting continuous improvement with constant sharing of knowledge among team members and exchange of perceptions [40]. The cyclical process is guided by management in short cycles and adaptability through evaluation and feedback are agile objectives that add to the conduction of projects full of uncertainties [12]. ...
... A multidisciplinary and selforganized team is a key foundation in the agile organizational structure, so that all members gather the necessary knowledge for the progress of the project [27]. Improved communication between project stakeholders [4]; [16]; [17]; [18]; [19]; [20]; [21]; [22]; [23]; [24]; [25]; [26]; [27]; [28]; [29]; [30]; [31]; [32]; [33] Change management [4]; [5]; [16]; [17]; [18]; [21]; [24]; [25]; [26]; [27]; [28]; [29]; [30]; [31]; [32]; [33]; [34]; [35]; [36] Collaboration between the managing team and the customer [4]; [16]; [18]; [22]; [23]; [24]; [25]; [26]; [27]; [28]; [30]; [31]; [32]; [33]; [34]; [35]; [36]; [37] Flexibility [4]; [16]; [17]; [20]; [21]; [24]; [25]; [26]; [27]; [28]; [30]; [31]; [33]; [35]; [36]; [37] Multidisciplinary team [16]; [17]; [20]; [23]; [26]; [27]; [28]; [30]; [31]; [33]; [37] Lessons learned [20]; [19]; [27]; [17[; [36]; [31]; [33]; [25]; [28] Cyclical process [20]; [37]; [4]; [35]; [27]; [5] The mapping of lessons learned during the project is a way of promoting continuous improvement with constant sharing of knowledge among team members and exchange of perceptions [40]. The cyclical process is guided by management in short cycles and adaptability through evaluation and feedback are agile objectives that add to the conduction of projects full of uncertainties [12]. ...
... A multidisciplinary and selforganized team is a key foundation in the agile organizational structure, so that all members gather the necessary knowledge for the progress of the project [27]. Improved communication between project stakeholders [4]; [16]; [17]; [18]; [19]; [20]; [21]; [22]; [23]; [24]; [25]; [26]; [27]; [28]; [29]; [30]; [31]; [32]; [33] Change management [4]; [5]; [16]; [17]; [18]; [21]; [24]; [25]; [26]; [27]; [28]; [29]; [30]; [31]; [32]; [33]; [34]; [35]; [36] Collaboration between the managing team and the customer [4]; [16]; [18]; [22]; [23]; [24]; [25]; [26]; [27]; [28]; [30]; [31]; [32]; [33]; [34]; [35]; [36]; [37] Flexibility [4]; [16]; [17]; [20]; [21]; [24]; [25]; [26]; [27]; [28]; [30]; [31]; [33]; [35]; [36]; [37] Multidisciplinary team [16]; [17]; [20]; [23]; [26]; [27]; [28]; [30]; [31]; [33]; [37] Lessons learned [20]; [19]; [27]; [17[; [36]; [31]; [33]; [25]; [28] Cyclical process [20]; [37]; [4]; [35]; [27]; [5] The mapping of lessons learned during the project is a way of promoting continuous improvement with constant sharing of knowledge among team members and exchange of perceptions [40]. The cyclical process is guided by management in short cycles and adaptability through evaluation and feedback are agile objectives that add to the conduction of projects full of uncertainties [12]. ...
The focus of project management on processes and activities in the construction sector presents high variability and uncertainty. This article suggests the adoption of agile methodologies with an emphasis on people as an alternative that encourages reflection and anticipation of building maintenance and demolition problems. The objective is to identify the theoretical proximity between the main characteristics of agile construction project management and the circular economy mindset. The methodology used was a systematic bibliographical review and state-of-the-art content analysis on the application of agile in construction projects, with the discovery of the most cited characteristics and, subsequently, the establishment of a correlation with the elements of the circular economy mindset from inferences regarding the similarity of concepts and perspectives between both. From this analysis emerges the synergy between the circular and agile mindset. The conclusive trend is that architecture and construction benefit from the transitions from traditional management methodology to agile management and from the linear economy to the circular economy, given its limited technological stage in Brazil, in addition to the possibility of reducing waste generation and maintenance of the added value of buildings.
... Dynamic product definition and effort estimation [15], [20], [21], [22], [23] 5 ...
... Often, the need to move to agile is driven by context-related factors such as responding to a frequently changing environment [24] and the dynamic product requirements that prevail in small-tomedium scale enterprises (SME) [19], [25]. Additionally, the fluidity of product definitionswhich are often tailored to specific settings regardless of whether agility is implemented in a software development environment [20], engineering [21], [22], or even the previously mentioned SMEs [19] makes APM attractive to practitioners. ...
... Overall, the team related factors that drive the adoption of APM is heavily influenced by the need for better communication and collaboration within projects. A few of the problems that moving to APM seeks to solve include ambiguous communication channels [22], [26], ignorance of the work progress of team members [26], a general lack of collaboration within the team [22], [23] or collaboration between the project team and clients [21], [23]. Further, the setup of APM teams which stresses cross-functionality results in the formation of dedicated teams that are willing to adapt to changes. ...
... This can help reveal potentially hazardous consequences that can be avoided before construction [13,9] [13] [9]. Moreover, integrating computational design with extended realities can improve the application's performance, as creating and modifying architecture with highlevel editing operations that automatically fill in the relevant details require quick rendering and an easy input procedure [14]. Finally, stakeholder participation, design support, and design review can all be linked and implemented with XR technologies. ...
... This can help reveal potentially hazardous consequences that can be avoided before construction [9,13]. Moreover, integrating computational design with extended realities can improve the application's performance, as creating and modifying architecture with high-level editing operations that automatically fill in the relevant details require quick rendering and an easy input procedure [14]. Finally, stakeholder participation, design support, and design review can all be linked and implemented with XR technologies. ...
Virtual reality was investigated with various computational design approaches to improve users’ ability to communicate, share, and grasp the design’s requirements to better conceptualize ideas during various design and review stages. The study aims to show how computational design and virtual reality are utilized to forecast challenges, address design problems/limitations in a specific study space, and validate results. A case study of the main Architectural Engineering department building at the University of Sharjah (UoS) campus in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, was considered. The study focused on indoor daylight intake, ventilation, functionality, user comfortability, structural integrity, coherency and consistency, and performance optimization as factors to further evaluate and aid in the selection process of the optimal design. Consequently, innovative computational design tools were used in the study’s methodology to assess offered alternatives, such as altering and fabricating the building’s skin to deal with the challenges described above and improving the selected room’s visual and environmental conditions, such as optimal daylighting and ensuring users’ comfortability. The users’ immersive experience resulted in more accurate visualization and navigation around the to-be-built environment, allowing for more significant analysis and comprehension that further validated the results obtained. The chosen case study thus demonstrated the potential for computational design, mixed reality techniques, and strategies to enable an efficient process that ultimately verifies approaches taken toward a much more optimal solution through better visualization and contextualizing.
Recent advancements in extended reality (XR) immersive technologies provide new tools for the development of novel and promising applications for business. Specifically, extended reality training applications are becoming popular in business due to their advantages of low cost, risk-free, data-oriented training. Extended reality training is the digital simulation of lifelike scenarios for training purposes using technologies such as virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality. Many applications are already available to train employees to develop specific technical skills, from maintenance to construction. The purpose of this chapter is to review the emerging XR applications developed for management training. Specifically, this chapter will focus on the training of some key skills in management such as leadership, problem solving, emotional intelligence, communication, and team working.
This article refers to a study in Tanzania on fringe benefits or welfare via the work contract1 where we will work both quantitatively and qualitatively. My focus is on the vital issue of combining methods or methodologies. There has been mixed views on the uses of triangulation in researches. Some authors argue that triangulation is just for increasing the wider and deep understanding of the study phenomenon, while others have argued that triangulation is actually used to increase the study accuracy, in this case triangulation is one of the validity measures. Triangulation is defined as the use of multiple methods mainly qualitative and quantitative methods in studying the same phenomenon for the purpose of increasing study credibility. This implies that triangulation is the combination of two or more methodological approaches, theoretical perspectives, data sources, investigators and analysis methods to study the same phenomenon.However, using both qualitative and quantitative paradigms in the same study has resulted into debate from some researchers arguing that the two paradigms differ epistemologically and ontologically. Nevertheless, both paradigms are designed towards understanding about a particular subject area of interest and both of them have strengths and weaknesses. Thus, when combined there is a great possibility of neutralizing the flaws of one method and strengthening the benefits of the other for the better research results. Thus, to reap the benefits of two paradigms and minimizing the drawbacks of each, the combination of the two approaches have been advocated in this article. The quality of our studies on welfare to combat poverty is crucial, and especially when we want our conclusions to matter in practice.
Building Information Modelling has experienced rapid development in recent years. Recognized the numerous benefits, various organizations and stakeholders have begun to implement BIM. Contrary to the extensive application, successful implementation requires a thorough understanding of current situation of BIM operations as well as effective, advanced, and high-performing measurements. Despite the existing studies of BIM maturity measurement tools, there is no comprehensive review yet, resulting in confusions faced by BIM users that need to conduct such evaluations. This study exhaustively reviews nine mainstream BIM measurement tools developed in the past years, shedding light on their distinct features. According to the findings, no universal applicable tool exists and each tool has unique emphasis, strengths and weaknesses, matching different users. Besides, some patterns of measuring scope, measures selections and evaluation methods along the development of these tools are also identified. Therefore, this study could not only help BIM users to choose appropriate tools based on their unique demands, but also serve as reference for developments of new tools in the future.
Still, projects in the construction sector are delivered with time delays and cost overruns. One of the reasons for poor performance was assigned to project complexity. A combination of lean construction and agile project management are hypothesized as a possible solution to cope with project complexity. In this paper we aim to understand if the implicit usage of lean and agile help coping with complexity. The research was done by means of correlation analysis on data gathered from a structured questionnaire (67 responses). In total, 51 significant correlations among 255 possible relations were found. To reduce the number of variables, factor analysis was performed. Correlation analysis on the defined factors showed 8 significant correlations among 25 relations. Several lean and agile elements were shown to significantly correlate to either reducing complexity or managing complexity. It was therefore concluded that these are promising to cope with complexity and improve project performance, which is to be confirmed in subsequent research.
Agile software-development advocates claim that an important value proposition of agile methods is that they make people more motivated and satisfied with their jobs. While several studies present anecdotal evidence that agile methods increase motivation and satisfaction, research has not theoretically explained or empirically examined how agile development practices relate to team members’ feelings about their work. Drawing on the management and software-development literature, we articulate a model of job design that connects agile development practices to perceptions of job characteristics and, thereby, improve agile team members’ job satisfaction. Using data collected from 252 software-development professionals, we tested the model and found a positive relationship between agile project-management and software-development practices and employees’ perceptions of job characteristics. Further, we found direct effects between agile development-practice use and job satisfaction. Finally, we found interaction effects between the use of agile project-management and software-development approaches and the perception of job autonomy. With this study, we contribute to the literature by theoretically explaining and directly evaluating agile development practices’ impact on individuals’ perceptions about their job characteristics and on their job satisfaction.
One of the benefits of agile is close collaboration of customer and developer. This ensures good commitment and excellent knowledge flows of information about priorities and efforts. However, it is unclear if this benefit can be leveraged at scale. Clearly, it is infeasible to use practices such as planning game with several agile teams in the room. In this paper, we investigate how a large-scale agile organization manages, what challenges exist, and which opportunities can be leveraged. We found challenges in three areas: (i) the ability to estimate, prioritize, and plan; (ii) the context of planning with respect to working environment, team build-up, and team spirit; and (iii) the ceremonial agreement which promises to allow leveraging abilities in a given context.
This paper examines the concept of Augmented reality and its various applications in civil engineering. The concept envisages reducing, or rather eliminating errors that creep in during construction process due to human and other technical errors. The concept of AR helps in recreating the architectural and structural drawings in actual scale on the field. This uses the techniques of holographic projections and other mobile applications to create a 3D image of the drawing. The Concept is to create an image of the structure as envisaged on the basis of calculations and compare it in real time with the actual construction, which can help in identifying errors quickly and efficiently.
This paper presents the findings from a study of collaborative work among design professionals in virtual modeling for building construction. The research is based on interviews conducted with members from various design professions. We analyzed a building project comprising a network of organizations interrelated by their information systems, to gain a better understanding of collaborative design based on Building Information Modeling (BIM). The findings suggest that the actors did not fully exploit the capability of BIM to transform and improve project communication, as they did not adjust the inter-organizational processes according to the BIM technology. Instead of effective collaboration, we found a system of "automation islands." To achieve full business-process integration, the actors would need to establish a shared organizing vision for BIM. This organizing vision needs to align inter-organizational processes and the functionality of BIM. Our findings illustrate weaknesses in existing practice and highlight possible improvements.
Building Information Modeling (BIM) has had a profound effect on the construction industry. It has greatly improved coordination among stakeholders, enhanced productivity, and increased profits. However, many factors still limit the application of BIM in the construction industry. This study conducts a literature review to identify these negative factors. Firstly, twenty-two sub-factors are identified and classified into five categories: Technology, Cost, Management, Personnel, and Legal. Secondly, some suggestions for eliminating these limiting factors are given. Finally, the study also identifies further research directions for improving BIM theory and applying BIM technology widely and successfully. The results of this study will provide support for practitioners who are using or plan to use BIM.
First published online: 03 Nov 2015
Systemic innovations – innovations that span across firm boundaries in supply chains and change product or process interfaces between affected trades and firms – are slow to diffuse in the construction industry. Agile cost shifting, defined as the rapid and easy redistribution of project funds across traditional firm boundaries, has been previously identified as a helpful mechanism for the implementation of systemic innovations. This paper extends the current understanding of the phenomenon of agile cost shifting as it occurs in projects that use Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) and Target Value Design (TVD). Four systemic innovation cases and two innovation logs are analyzed. Findings demonstrate that agile cost shifting can be a fast and easy mechanism for aligning collective action across firm boundaries to promote systemic innovations. This aligned incentive structure and coordination capacity is not present on typical projects. Compared to conventional change management systems, agile cost shifting reduces transaction costs, increases transparency, and requires consensus approval. Future research should try to understand how agile cost shifting could be enabled in other types of contractual arrangements to further promote the adoption of systemic innovations in construction projects.
Despite of the advances in construction planning and scheduling software, construction managers and planners are still facing problems in achieving accurate planning, scheduling and costing due to the one-off nature of the construction projects and the inherently uncertain site conditions and soil characteristics. The aim of the research presented in this paper is to introduce a new methodology for integration of ‘variable productivity data with a visualisation model of earthwork operations. To achieve this aim, a number of objectives have been set: identification of current industrial practices and confirming the needs and aspirations of the industry, designing of a methodology and a model to integrated variable productivity with visualisation, and performing a case study to demonstrate and verify the model. The paper presents a prototype of a 4D visualisation model which is designed by integrating the road design data, quantities of cut and fill, productivity model, algorithms for modelling terrain surfaces and a progress profile visualiser. The model generates automatically terrain surfaces of progress profiles for earthwork operations and visualises progress profiles throughout the construction operations under different site and soil conditions. It is demonstrated with a real life case study in a road project. The paper concludes that the model should be able to assist in producing efficient construction scheduling and resource planning, thereby reducing production cost and improving on-site productivity
This article refers to a study in Tanzania on fringe benefits or welfare via the work contract1
where we will work both quantitatively and qualitatively. My focus is on the vital issue of
combining methods or methodologies. There has been mixed views on the uses of triangulation
in researches. Some authors argue that triangulation is just for increasing the wider and
deep understanding of the study phenomenon, while others have argued that triangulation is
actually used to increase the study accuracy, in this case triangulation is one of the validity
measures. Triangulation is defined as the use of multiple methods mainly qualitative and
quantitative methods in studying the same phenomenon for the purpose of increasing study
credibility. This implies that triangulation is the combination of two or more methodological
approaches, theoretical perspectives, data sources, investigators and analysis methods to
study the same phenomenon.
However, using both qualitative and quantitative paradigms in the same study has resulted
into debate from some researchers arguing that the two paradigms differ epistemologically
and ontologically. Nevertheless, both paradigms are designed towards understanding about a
particular subject area of interest and both of them have strengths and weaknesses. Thus, when
combined there is a great possibility of neutralizing the flaws of one method and strengthening
the benefits of the other for the better research results. Thus, to reap the benefits of two
paradigms and minimizing the drawbacks of each, the combination of the two approaches
have been advocated in this article. The quality of our studies on welfare to combat poverty is
crucial, and especially when we want our conclusions to matter in practice.
Introduction
Despite of the advances in construction planning and scheduling software, construction managers and planners are still facing problems in achieving accurate planning, scheduling and costing due to the one-off nature of the construction projects and the inherently uncertain site conditions and soil characteristics. The aim of the research presented in this paper is to introduce a new methodology for integration of ‘variable producti¬vity’ data with a visualisation model of earthwork operations. To achieve this aim, a number of objectives have been set: identification of current industrial practices and confirming the needs and aspirations of the industry, designing of a methodology and a model to integrated variable productivity with visualisation, and performing a case study to demonstrate and verify the model. The paper presents a prototype of a 4D visualisation model which is designed by integrating the road design data, quantities of cut and fill, productivity model, algorithms for modelling terrain surfaces and a progress profile visualiser. The model generates automatically terrain sur¬faces of progress profiles for earthwork operations and visualises progress profiles throughout the construction operations under different site and soil conditions. It is demonstrated with a real life case study in a road pro¬ject. The paper concludes that the model should be able to assist in producing efficient construction scheduling and resource planning, thereby reducing production cost and improving on-site productivity.
Despite of the advances in construction planning and scheduling software, construction managers and planners are still facing problems in achieving accurate planning, scheduling and costing due to the one-off nature of the construction projects and the inherently uncertain site conditions and soil characteristics. The aim of the research presented in this paper is to introduce a new methodology for integration of ‘variable producti¬vity’ data with a visualisation model of earthwork operations. To achieve this aim, a number of objectives have been set: identification of current industrial practices and confirming the needs and aspirations of the industry, designing of a methodology and a model to integrated variable productivity with visualisation, and performing a case study to demonstrate and verify the model. The paper presents a prototype of a 4D visualisation model which is designed by integrating the road design data, quantities of cut and fill, productivity model, algorithms for modelling terrain surfaces and a progress profile visualiser. The model generates automatically terrain sur¬faces of progress profiles for earthwork operations and visualises progress profiles throughout the construction operations under different site and soil conditions. It is demonstrated with a real life case study in a road pro¬ject. The paper concludes that the model should be able to assist in producing efficient construction scheduling and resource planning, thereby reducing production cost and improving on-site productivity.
Agile development methodologies promise higher customer satisfaction, lower defect rates, faster development times and a solution to rapidly changing requirements. Plan-driven approaches promise predictability, stability, and high assurance. However, both approaches have shortcomings that, if left unaddressed, can lead to project failure. The challenge is to balance the two approaches to take advantage of their strengths and compensate for their weaknesses. We believe this can be accomplished using a risk-based approach for structuring projects to incorporate both agile and disciplined approaches in proportion to a project's needs. We present six observations drawn from our efforts to develop such an approach. We follow those observations with some practical advice to organizations seeking to integrate agile and plan-driven methods in their development process.
This paper surveys the current state-of-the-art of technology, systems and applications in Augmented Reality. It describes work performed by many different research groups, the purpose behind each new Augmented Reality system, and the difficulties and problems encountered when building some Augmented Reality applications. It surveys mobile augmented reality systems challenges and requirements for successful mobile systems. This paper summarizes the current applications of Augmented Reality and speculates on future applications and where current research will lead Augmented Reality’s development. Challenges augmented reality is facing in each of these applications to go from the laboratories to the industry, as well as the future challenges we can forecast are also discussed in this paper. Section 1 gives an introduction to what Augmented Reality is and the motivations for developing this technology. Section 2 discusses Augmented Reality Technologies with computer vision methods, AR devices, interfaces and systems, and visualization tools. The mobile and wireless systems for Augmented Reality are discussed in Section 3. Four classes of current applications that have been explored are described in Section 4. These applications were chosen as they are the most famous type of applications encountered when researching AR apps. The future of augmented reality and the challenges they will be facing are discussed in Section 5.
This paper briefly summarises the evolution of Agile Project Management (APM) and differentiates it from lean and agile production and ‘leagile’ construction. The significant benefits being realized through employment of APM within the information systems industry are stated. The characteristics of APM are explored, including: philosophy, organizational attitudes and practices, planning, execution and control and learning. Finally, APM is subjectively assessed as to its potential contribution to the pre-design, design and construction phases.
In conclusion, it is assessed that APM offers considerable potential for application in predesign and design but that there are significant hurdles to its adoption in the actual construction phase. Should these be overcome, APM offers benefits well beyond any individual project.
Press releases, scientific publications and anecdotal evidence demonstrate that organisations worldwide are adopting agile software development methods at increasing speed. Little is still known about the current usefulness of agile methods in the complex environment of the embedded software development industry. Embedded devices are already commonplace in regular households. The goal of this survey is to provide first-hand knowledge of the adoption and experience of two of the most known agile methods, namely Extreme Programming and Scrum, in a number of European organisations of embedded software known to be interested and active in experimenting with agile software development methods. The survey involved 13 industrial organisations in eight European countries and 35 individual software development projects. The focus of the questionnaire was to enquire into the level of use as well as the experienced usefulness - or expected usefulness if there was no experience available - of the two agile methods and their individual practices. The results show that the embedded industry has been able to apply agile methods in its development processes. The results also indicate that the appreciation of the agile methods and their individual practices appears to increase once adopted and applied in practice.
In this paper, we first present a brief review of approaches used for studying and designing Augmented Reality (AR) systems. The variety of approaches and definitions in AR requires classification. We define two intrinsic characteristics of AR systems, task focus and nature of augmentation. Based on these two characteristics, we identify four classes of AR systems. In addition our OP-a-S notation provides a complementary characterization method based on interaction. Using OP-a-S, an AR system is modeled as a set of components that communicate with each other. One crucial type of OP-a-S component is the Adapter that establishes a bridge between the real world and the virtual world. By defining a classification scheme, we aim at providing a better understanding of the paradigm of AR and at laying the foundations of future design principles according to the class of systems. Keywords Classification. Interaction characterization. INTRODUCTION One of the recent design goals in Human Com...
For construction clients, the presence of uncertain information inhibits their ability to choose correctly among project delivery methods because uncertainties maximise the risk associated with the choice. Also, the process of forming an opinion and making a decision contains uncertainty. Fuzzy uncertainties arise because of imprecision in the estimation of the relative importance of criteria and the weighting of each delivery method on any criterion by a decision maker. Random uncertainties stem from the variance of these imprecisions. Presently, the modelling of project delivery decisions accounts for fuzziness, but there is no account of randomness. Cloud theory, which is an infusion of fuzzy set theory with probability theory and which uses a ‘bell-shaped’ membership function, is used to order decision makers’ preferences while incorporating both fuzzy and random uncertainties in project delivery selection. An investigation of a student recreational facility and the sensitivity of criteria associated with the case study revealed that the proposed infusion improves certainty in the derived outcome. The application of cloud theory provides the opportunity to simplify and structure decisions and improves the decision-making quality where uncertainty exists. This formulation of project delivery selection reduces the gap that exists between procurement practice and theory.
Maintenance and its cost continue, over the years, drawing the attention of production management, since the unplanned failures decrease the reliability of the system and the return of investments. Maintenance services of manufactured products are among the most common services in the industry; they account for more than half of the total costs and influence the environmental impact of the product. In order for manufacturers to increase their productivity, by performing accurate and quick maintenance, advanced monitoring systems should be considered in order to easily detect machine tool failures before they occur. Toward that end, a cloud-based platform for condition-based preventive maintenance, supported by a shop-floor monitoring service and an augmented reality (AR) application, is proposed as a product-service system (CARM2-PSS). The proposed AR maintenance service consists of algorithms of automated generation of assembly sequences, part movement scripts, and improved interface that aim to maximize existing knowledge usage while creating vivid AR service instructions. Moreover, the proposed monitoring system is supported by a wireless sensor network (WSN), and is deployed on a Cloud environment together with the AR tool. The monitoring system monitors the status of the machine tools, calculates their remaining operating time between failures (ROTBF), and identifies the available windows of the machine tools in order to perform the AR remote maintenance. In order to validate the proposed methodology and calculate its impact, it is applied in a real-life case study of a white-goods industry.
The essential role of design process visualization is to capture and represent design information as well as the change of design objects to keep track of reasons behind decision-making activities. The most prominent benefit of BIM, among its wide-spectrum potentials, would be that it made possible to consider simulated building performances such as energy efficiency for critical decision-making criteria even during the early stages of design project. Advanced design process visualization centered around BIM calls for reflecting performance-oriented design information generated from the various simulation tools from the early stages of building project. This will certainly demand a different approach in terms of process modeling and representation strategies. This paper introduces a visualization tool addressing these issues. It is on the top of an Open BIM Server to manage evolving IFC data model in a systematic way, integrating quantitative design data generated from performance evaluation tools. A data model was developed to represent the design process composed of evolving versions and alternatives interwoven with decision-making factors. The system, with its timeline-based interactive user interface, will give a better insight into the design process and easy access to the reasons behind decision-makings in an intuitive way.
Stakeholders’ collaboration is required to develop requirements in agile software development. Requirements engineering and agile methods share common grounds as they both focus on stakeholder collaboration. The key issue is finding a way to study collaboration driven by requirements in geographically distributed agile teams. In this paper, we aim to propose a framework to study collaboration driven by requirements among agile teams and determine the impact of their collaboration patterns on the iteration performance. We define collaboration in terms of communication as information exchange among members, and awareness knowledge of others. Two case studies were conducted to examine communication and awareness network patterns among distributed agile teams. Data were collected through questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and onsite observation. The findings revealed that the framework aids in determining the core members, collaboration trends, clustering tendency, communication and awareness reciprocity of the teams, small worldliness and centralisation behaviour of the networks and iteration performance of the agile teams. The framework has implications for the industrial practitioners, i.e. managers to learn about their team’s collaboration in order to take measures for performance improvement. At the same time, the researchers can use this framework to study other social aspects in variable settings to produce more empirical results.
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Purpose
Agile methods have proven successful in increasing customer satisfaction and decreasing time and cost to market under uncertain conditions. Key characteristics of agile methods are lean, flexibility and highly iterative development with a strong emphasis on stakeholder involvement. Today construction firms in general and small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in particular are surviving in a drastic competitive environment in which they are facing more and more challenges. Additional innovation is needed in the construction sector, with increased participation from more competitive SMEs. The main purpose of this paper is to present a model to prioritize available management systems to help SMEs address the challenge of today's market competition more effectively.
Design/methodology/approach
The research methodology used is that of interpretative case study and grounded theory based on a strong empirical foundation, on which new theoretical insight into knowledge management as an autonomous action is developed. The paper looks at ways by which SMEs are managed, based on the empirical data collected from 12 case studies. It presents the empirical findings drawn from the case studies. Finally, the adoption of agile methods is subjectively assessed as to its potential contribution for improving the business processes of small and medium construction firms.
Findings
It is assessed that agile methods offers considerable potential for application in construction SMEs and that there are significant hurdles to its adoption in the actual phase. Should these be overcome, agile methods offers benefits well beyond any individual company.
Practical implications
Construction firms need to be aware of the advantages of new management paradigms and practices. The analysis shows that SMEs in the construction sector have to internalize agile values into their business processes to reap the benefits of agile methods. It also reveals that existing practices show some kind of agile flavours.
Originality/value
Agile principles and methods are explored, including: philosophy, values, practices and benefits. The management approaches used by construction SMEs are analyzed and discussed. The paper presents recommendations and insights for enhancing the performance and efficiency of SMEs by adopting agile values in their business processes.
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