Dino Bouchlaghem

Collaboration Environments for Construction: Management of Organizational Changes

AbstractThe implementation of a new collaboration environment initiates many changes to an organization and to the end users as a result of the new way of working and the use of new technologies. Unless these changes are well managed at the organizational level, it will not be possible to achieve the full benefits expected from the implementation of the collaboration environment. This paper presents a framework for managing the organizational changes brought into construction organizations by the introduction of a new collaboration environment. The framework consists of five primary stages: initiation of change, development of change vision, planning of organizational change, implementation of change, and evaluation of change. The processes for each stage are detailed in integrated definition function modeling diagrams. The evaluators in construction organizations have found the framework to be successful in managing organizational changes.

Benchmarking small power energy consumption in office buildings in the United Kingdom: A review of data published in CIBSE Guide F

CIBSE’s Guide F is a widely recognised guidance document on energy efficiency in buildings, which includes energy consumption benchmarks for small power equipment in offices. In its recently published 3rd edition, existing power demand benchmarks for office equipment were revised to better represent appliances found in contemporary office buildings. Other key sources of data such as typical operating hours for equipment, however, have been omitted. This paper compares the benchmarks published in both the 2nd and 3rd editions of Guide F against a set of measurements of small power loads in a real UK office building. Load profiles for the monitored equipment are also presented to supplement the information included in the new Guide F. Practical application: With the increasing demand for more realistic predictions of operational energy use in buildings, small power should not be disregarded since it typically accounts for more than 20% of total energy used in offices. Furthermore, small power loads can have a significant impact on the cooling loads of a building. This paper reviews existing benchmarks, focusing on the new update to CIBSE Guide F, comparing available benchmarks against newly gathered monitored data. Detailed load profiles for individual office equipment are also provided, which can be used by designers to inform better predictions of small power consumption in office buildings.

Improving Construction Client Satisfaction Through Functional Briefing

The functional briefing (FB) process has a fundamental impact on the design, construction and whole life performance (WLP) of a constructed facility, yet it is widely believed to have limitations that can inhibit the success of a project. Clients are becoming more aware of the need to consider the WLP of buildings - that is, the through life costs and future performance of constructed facilities. There is also a growing realisation that the development of an integrated FB process is of primary importance in obtaining a successful project outcome. This is because FB is when the fundamental decisions regarding purpose, functionality, quality of design, materials and construction, budgets, procurement methods and constraints are made. Poor decisions in respect of any of these elements can have a negative impact on the WLP of the constructed asset. This paper argues that effective FB is vital for ensuring client satisfaction. It presents the results of an industry survey into the extent to which WLP issues are integrated into the functional brief. Details of the respondents and their views on the briefing process, as well as their understanding of the core elements of FB and WLP, are presented. The paper concludes that there is considerable scope for the WLP of constructed facilities to be improved by the development of a FB methodology that can facilitate the precise definition, analysis and translation of client requirements into a format that enhances their integration into the project process. The approach being adopted in a project that seeks to address this is also presented.

Architectural Engineering and Design Management: Sustainability Themed Issue

This sustainability themed issue includes a selection of articles from the 6th International Conference on Innovation in Architecture, Engineering and Construction held at the Pennsylvania State University in 2010. Sustainability was selected as a theme due to the wide interest shown by authors in the topic reflecting the level of research activity being focused on various aspects of this timely and important area driven by global concerns about issues such as climate change and the depletion of fossil energy resources. It is widely recognized that the built environment is a major consumer of energy and contributor to the overall CO2 emissions into the atmosphere. In the UK, it accounts for an estimated 40% of energy consumption and more than 50% of all UK carbon emissions can be attributed to energy use in buildings. Although it has always been good practice to reduce energy consumption (and therefore CO2 emissions) during the design and construction of buildings, it has now become a matter of legal obligation. The Climate Change Act of 2008 established a long-term framework to tackle climate change and aims to lay the foundations for the transition to a low-carbon economy through unilateral legally binding emissions reduction targets. These were set to achieve a reduction of at least 34% in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 and at least 80% by 2050. In response to the above pressures, the UK government initiated major steps to develop and implement strategies for sustainable development and low-carbon construction. This is now both influencing industrial practice and shaping the research agenda. A synthesis of the recommendations put forward by the Innovation and Growth Team in their Low Carbon Construction Final Report, grouped in key priority areas in terms of research themes is given below:

Using business impact analyses to enhance resilient fire engineering building design

As an engineering discipline within the United Kingdom, fire engineering is relatively young. It has been accepted as an alternative to traditional prescriptive means of meeting the functional requirements of the building regulations since the publication of the 1985 edition of Approved Document B. Performance-based fire engineering design methods have facilitated architectural design freedoms and supported creative construction. However, it has become evident that since fire engineering has become more established, significant concerns have been raised regarding various elements of the design process including the ability to consider aspects other than life safety. In response to these concerns, this article introduces novel application of concepts to assist the building design team to consider their clients resilience requirements. This is by utilising business continuity planning methods, specifically business impact analyses within the fire engineering qualitative design review. By using these concepts in this new way, the architectural design team will be able to identify those processes which are of greatest importance to their clients organisation, allowing the most appropriate fire engineering strategy to be established.