Paul D. Gardiner

A collaborative analysis tool for visualisation and interaction with spatial data

A collaborative virtual environment system is described that is designed to support location-independent shared analysis of spatial data and urban planning proposals. The system seeks to extend the physical workplace of participants into the virtual environment, while preserving traditional textual and verbal communication and cooperation mechanisms. The systems aim is to improve productivity, quality and achieve more transparency in the planning process. The architecture of the Collaborative Urban Planner or CUP system is described and some experimental results that demonstrate urban development control tasks performed within this environment are presented. An application scenario offers a vision of future urban planning practice using CUP. The scenario also diagrammatically demonstrates virtual settings and scenes that could become everyday meeting places for remote planners, architects or engineers assessing proposals and discussing possible alterations to designs.

Are BPR practitioners really addressing business processes

Business process re‐engineering (BPR), a management tool that initially advocated a revolution in the way businesses are driven, now carries the stigma of being a major cause of job elimination. This study reveals the depth of involvement of BPR practitioners in what, advocates claim, are the fundamental ingredients of BPR – business processes. The data alert the reader to the different understandings and practices related to business process analysis held by several UK and Brazilian companies. Possible reasons are given, accounting for why some of the companies investigated seemed to lose a BPR focus in favour of more urgent restructuring matters. The authors conclude that companies often lack a basic awareness of the business process concept, and that misconceptions about these issues can lead to unrealised expectations at various levels in the organization.

Case explorations in construction conflict management

Empirical data from recent studies on conflict in construction projects are presented and discussed. Views of conflict management, collected during interviews with a wide range of practitioners, serve to highlight the importance of conflict as a major component in project management strategy in the construction industry. The occurrence of conflict is shown to be a common and often poorly managed phenomenon in modern construction projects, despite real progress in the organization and administration of construction projects. The research demonstrates a need to re-evaluate construction management processes in order to shift the distribution of conflict occurrences from one that peaks during construction to one that peaks in the earlier formative stages of design when the output of conflict is more likely to be creative and complementary to the overall project aims.

Project planning in a virtual world: information management metamorphosis or technology going too far?

The paper considers the emerging technology of virtual reality (VR) as a tool to help manage and make sense of complex management information systems. Project management is taken as an example business system, with broad commercial and industrial applications, that depend on the efficient and effective communication of information at several organisational levels to succeed. The use of a virtual world, having three physical dimensions and a time dimension, as a metaphor to represent planning, sequencing, and scheduling information in a way that improves the communication process is considered. Examples of how the technology has been used to date are given. The technology is shown to have a lot to offer complex information environments such as large projects. However, there are clearly gaps in how the technology can be used cost effectively and how far the concept of a virtual world should be taken as a replacement for more traditional, two dimensional and symbolic, methods of communicating information.

Corporate communications within a BPR context

Communication aspects within organisational changes have received greater attention since the advent of business process re‐engineering. This fact has been attributed mainly to the necessity of eliminating a higher degree of human resistance on the implementation of such a project. Our argument within this paper is that appropriate corporate communication would promote better chances to dissolve the aforementioned resistance. The research focused on large manufacturing enterprises and it brings to light the industrialists’ practices and expectances related to the communication issue and to the investment in IT to assist in the improvement of the information flow within and outside of the organisation. Based on the experience of the practitioners interviewed, a communication model was implemented aiming to guide companies in building their own communication process framework. Despite some important initiatives, the findings suggest that the improvement in the strategies of communication is not sufficient on its own but there are other key relational aspects to be considered in order to achieve the envisaged outcome.

Business process re-engineering-A discredited vocabulary?

Business process re-engineering (BPR) literature has demonstrated over the past 5 years how significant is the potential of BPR in keeping businesses competitive. However, a tremendous variation in the vocabulary used in the literature has blurred the meaning of re-engineering and a high level of misconception, misunderstanding, and misinterpretation has been identified during an investigation at three British and three Brazilian companies. Although, the spoken languages in the two countries are completely distinct, the root of the problems concerning BPR are exactly the same. Directors, managers, workers, and the authors of BPR literature all seem to be working with completely different mind sets. The evidence reported in this paper suggests that the credibility of BPR as a management change tool is becoming weaker, and if no urgent action taken to unify vocabulary and definition, then BPR is predestined to become another has-been theory in the history of management.

Interactive urban development control with collaborative virtual environments

This paper presents the rationale and design for a collaborative virtual environment that is being developed to aid shared assessment of urban planning proposals. The research aims to show how a collaborative virtual environment, system can be constructed, applied and used in the context of urban planning. A navigable and interactive collaborative virtual environment is being created in which planning information is embedded and analytical tools are provided Sharing the virtual experience can improve the collaboration among the planning officers, applicant, engineers, developers and the public. These participants can use the system to explore alternative designs independent of time and place. The system will be suitable for discussions during the development plan and development control (decision-making) process. The system aims to improve communication amongst the involved parties and in turn enhance the quality of decisions made by a planning committee. Better informed decisions will increase the confidence that the public has in the urban development process. The research aims to analyse the usability of a collaborative virtual environment system, not only in terms of its visual and communicative impact, but also its impact on the decision-making process.

Performance Management in the Not-for-Profit Sector with Reference to the National Trust for Scotland

Abstract This paper explores the validity of Human Resource Management (HRM) models and business solutions developed in the private sector when applied to the not-for-profit sector. In particular, it explores the role of performance management (PM) in aligning employee effort with corporate goals using the National Trust for Scotland (NTS) as a case study. PM is used by the authors to describe the range of HRM policies and practices focused on managing employee motivation and performance within an organisation. The concept of PM is placed into a broader theoretical context exploring its role in generating and sustaining employee motivation. Within the case study, a model of alignment is used to evaluate the strength of fit between PM within the NTS and a number of strategic critical success factors (CSFs), specifically those relating to desired HRM outcomes. The analysis has highlighted that while intrinsic drivers may be the key to the motivation of those working in the sector; intrinsic motivators should not be taken for granted by senior management. Both policies and management behaviour were identified as key variables that can have a significant positive or negative impact in terms of motivation and performance, regardless of how worthwhile the cause.

The Novel Use of a Capability Maturity Model to Evaluate the Mechanical Design Process

This paper describes a process improvement study undertaken at three sites of UK electromechanical engineering companies, using a derivation of the Carnegie-Mellon/SEI Systems Engineering Capability Maturity Model ®(SE-CMMSM) called the Process Capability Model — Mechanical Design (PCM-MD). The model was applied within a traditional engineering discipline domain, namely mechanical design. The new assessment tool was piloted on a sample of nine mechanical engineers and eight design engineers as well as some ancillary functions, such as stress and thermal analysis. This was expanded to take into account the views of the downstream manufacturing disciplines and was then subsequently rolled-out into the other companies. The results from these studies support the view that the SE-CMM can be adapted and used in CMM-type assessments for mechanical design process benchmarking.

Process Improvement in Mechanical Design Using a Derivation of The Systems Engineering Capability Maturity Model

This paper outlines the results obtained from applying a derivation of the Systems Engineering Capability Maturity ModelSM to the mechanical engineering design process within a large, product-based, electromechanical engineering company. This new model, termed the Process Capability Model for Mechanical Design (PCM-MD), was applied via two separate studies to establish the capability level of the company’s current mechanical design process and associated support areas. Results from an initial study clearly exposed deficiencies caused by the ‘citadel’ approach that the project-orientated company structure engendered whilst a second study indicated additional and more fundamental problems arising from the cost-accounting focus of the management.