Derek Clements-Croome

Creating the Productive Workplace

Preface. Contents. Foreword - Nick Raynsford, Minister for Construction, DETR. Creativity, Environment and People. Creativity in the Workplace - Jackie Townsend. Pleasure and Joy, and their Role in Human Life - Michel Cabanac. Emotion and Environment: The Forgotten Dimension - Mathab Farshchi. A Broad Definition of Comfort - Max Fordham. Stress and the Changing Nature of Work. The Economic Case for Productivity. The Economics of Enhanced Environmental Services in Buildings - David Mudarri. Productivity Link Assessment to Indoor Air Quality - Charles E Dorgan and Chad B Dorgan. The Nature of Productivity. Productivity in the Workplace - Derek Clements-Croome and Yamuna Kaluarachchi. Productivity in Buildings: The Killer Variables - Adrian Leaman and Bill Bordass. Individual Control at each Workplace - David Wyon. Creating High Quality Workplaces using Lighting - Jennifer Veitch. Concentration & Thinking. Attention and Performance in the Workplace - Roy Davis. Concentration and Attention: New Directions in Theory and Assessment - David A Schwartz and Stephen Kaplan. Case Studies. The Role of Perception, Designing for Productivity and Wellbeing - Jean Neumann. The Intelligent Workplace: A Research Laboratory - Volker Hartkopf and Marshall Hemphill. Airconditioning Systems of the K. I. Building in Tokyo - Hidetoshi Takenoya. Employee, Productivity in the Intelligent Workplace - Walter Kroner. Future Design: Guidelines and Tools - John Doggart. Optimising the Working Environment - John Jukes. The Future. Work Performance Improvement, using Facilities management - Andrew Carter. New Ways of Working: A Vision of the Future - Francis Duffy. Appendix. Index.

Optimal maintenance policies under different operational schedules

In the reliability literature, maintenance time is usually ignored during the optimization of maintenance policies. In some scenarios, costs due to system failures may vary with time, and the ignorance of maintenance time will lead to unrealistic results. This paper develops maintenance policies for such situations where the system under study operates iteratively at two successive states: up or down. The costs due to system failure at the up state consist of both business losses & maintenance costs, whereas those at the down state only include maintenance costs. We consider three models: Model A, B, and C: /spl middot/ Model A makes only corrective maintenance (CM). /spl middot/ Model B performs imperfect preventive maintenance (PM) sequentially, and CM. /spl middot/ Model C executes PM periodically, and CM; this PM can restore the system as good as the state just after the latest CM. The CM in this paper is imperfect repair. Finally, the impact of these maintenance policies is illustrated through numerical examples.

Preventive maintenance models with random maintenance quality

In real-world environments it is usually difficult to specify the quality of a preventive maintenance (PM) action precisely. This uncertainty makes it problematic to optimise maintenance policy. This problem is tackled in this paper by assuming that the quality of a PM action is a random variable following a probability distribution. Two frequently studied PM models, a failure rate PM model and an age reduction PM model, are investigated. The optimal PM policies are presented and optimised. Numerical examples are also given.

Sustainable intelligent buildings for people: A review

Intelligent buildings need to be sustainable (i.e. sustain their performance for future generations), healthy and technologically up to date; meet regulatory demands; meet the needs of the occupants; and be flexible and adaptable enough to deal with change. Buildings will contain a variety of systems devised by many people, and yet the relationship between buildings and people can only work satisfactorily if there is integration between the supply- and demand-side stakeholders as well as between the occupants, the systems and the building. To achieve this, systems thinking is essential in planning, design and management, together with the ability to create and innovate while remaining practical (see Glossary). The ultimate objective should be simplicity rather than complexity. This requires not only technical ability but also the powers of interpretation, imagination and even intuition. Building Regulations can stifle creativity but are necessary to set a minimum level of expectation and obey health and safety requirements. However, we should aim at designing well above these conditions. After all, buildings form our architectural landscape and they, and the environment they generate, should uplift the soul and the spirit of those people within them as well as those who pass by them. The creation of shared visions, effective teams, clear structures and robust processes ensures that the intelligent building being constructed will demonstrate the purpose for which it was conceived. Times are changing as technology and society evolve, so there needs to be a long-term outlook by the team. Key innovation issues for intelligent buildings include sustainability (energy, water, waste and pollution), the use of information and communication technology, robotics, embedded sensor technology, smart-materials technology including nanotechnology, health in the workplace and social change. Smart materials in facades, for example, will provide sophisticated forms of feedback and high levels of control besides regulating thermal transmission. Eventually by coating and embedding materials with nanoparticles we will be able to specify material properties much more easily. Self-healing materials will revolutionize facades in the future. Pelletier and Bose (2010) describe how a concrete matrix embedded with capsules of sodium silicate healing agent can repair cracks by the sodium silicate from the ruptured capsules interacting with the calcium hydroxide in the concrete to form a gel that seals the cracks. However, innovation must be an enabler rather than an end in itself. Passive environmental design is equally important so that the energy demands are minimized by using natural means such as mass, orientation and building form to capture sunlight, fresh air and rain water. The intelligent buildings control markets are strong worldwide even after the gloomy economic period of 2009. The largest markets are in the USA, Asia, Middle East and Europe but some smaller countries are showing rapid growth. BSRIA Member e-News August 2009 shows that Scandinavia, Germany and Qatar spend most per capita on sophisticated intelligent controls. The increasing demand for sustainable, healthy and low-carbon intelligent buildings seems likely to sustain this dynamic market. Building management systems (BMSs) provide control and interoperability between the various systems servicing the building. Innovations such as internet-based, common, open communication standards and protocols increasingly make it more important to integrate the systems within intelligent buildings. This in turn will require an extended range of professional expertise that could force a cultural change. A key driver is the sustainability agenda. This article is about the actions and trends that are necessary to achieve a sustainable intelligent building. Such buildings need intelligent infrastructures and serve communities that demand new master planning approaches, and these will feature in a later special issue.

Past, present and future mathematical models for buildings

This article is the second part of a review of the historical evolution of mathematical models applied in the development of building technology. The first part described the current state of the art and contrasted various models with regard to the applications to conventional buildings and intelligent buildings. It concluded that mathematical techniques adopted in neural networks, expert systems, fuzzy logic and genetic models, that can be used to address model uncertainty, are well suited for modelling intelligent buildings. Despite the progress, the possible future development of intelligent buildings based on the current trends implies some potential limitations of these models. This paper attempts to uncover the fundamental limitations inherent in these models and provides some insights into future modelling directions, with special focus on the techniques of semiotics and chaos. Finally, by demonstrating an example of an intelligent building system with the mathematical models that have been developed for such a system, this review addresses the influences of mathematical models as a potential aid in developing intelligent buildings and perhaps even more advanced buildings for the future.

Reliability in the Whole Life Cycle of Building Systems

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to show that reliability analysis and its implementation will lead to an improved whole life performance of the building systems, and hence their life cycle costs (LCC).Design/methodology/approach – This paper analyses reliability impacts on the whole life cycle of building systems, and reviews the up‐to‐date approaches adopted in UK construction, based on questionnaires designed to investigate the use of reliability within the industry.Findings – Approaches to reliability design and maintainability design have been introduced from the operating environment level, system structural level and component level, and a scheduled maintenance logic tree is modified based on the model developed by Pride. Different stages of the whole life cycle of building services systems, reliability‐associated factors should be considered to ensure the systems whole life performance. It is suggested that data analysis should be applied in reliability design, maintainability design, an...

What is an intelligent building? Analysis of recent interpretations from an international perspective

In recent years, the notion of intelligent buildings (IBs) has become increasingly popular due to their potentials for deploying design initiatives and emerging technologies towards maximized occupants’ comfort and well-being with sustainable design. However, various definitions, interpretations, and implications regarding the essence of IBs exist. Various key performance indicators of IBs have been proposed in different contexts. This study explores the notion of IBs and presents an analysis of their main constituents. Through a comparison of these constituents in different contexts, this study aims to extract the common features of IBs leading to an evolved definition which could be useful as a reference framework for design, evaluation, and development of future IBs. Findings also scrutinize the long run benefits of IBs, while demonstrating the constraints and challenges of the current international interpretations.

Burn-in Policies for Products Having Dormant States

Many systems might have a long time dormant period, during which the systems are not operated. For example, most building services products are installed while a building is constructed, but they are not operated until the building is commissioned. Warranty terms for such products may cover the time starting from their installation times to the end of their warranty periods. Prior to the commissioning of the building, the building services products are protected by warranty although they are not operating. Developing optimal burn-in policies for such products is important when warranty cost is analysed. This paper considers two burn-in policies, which incur different burn-in costs, and have different burn-in effects on the products. A special case about the relationship between the failure rates of the products at the dormant state and at the operating state is presented. Numerical examples compare the mean total warranty costs of these two burn-in policies.

Exploring the Role of Design Quality in the Building Schools for the Future Programme

Abstract The Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme represents the biggest single UK government investment in school buildings for more than 50 years. A key goal for BSF is to ensure that pupils learn in 21st-century facilities that are designed or redesigned to allow for educational transformation. This represents a major challenge to those involved in the design of schools. The paper explores the conceptualizations of design quality within the BSF programme. It draws on content analysis of influential reports on design published between 2000 and 2007 and interviews with key actors in the provision of schools. The means by which design quality has become defined and given importance within the programme through official documents is described and compared with the multiple understandings of design quality among key stakeholders. The findings portray the many challenges that practitioners face when operationalizing design quality in practice. The paper concludes with reflections on the inconsistencies between how design quality has been appropriated in the BSF programme and how it is interpreted and adopted in practice.

Creative and productive workplaces: a review

The built environment affects our well-being and this in turn influences our effectiveness in the workplace. Poor environments contribute to absenteeism and to people not working as well as they might. This is an enormous cost to the nation. High-quality environmental design is an investment, as occupants are healthier, staff-retention rates are higher, productivity is higher and sustainability ideals are more likely to be met. Workplaces reflect the culture of companies and are places that are not just functional and convenient but give the occupant a wholesome experience in terms of body and spirit.