Design Project Management Research Articles

Risk Classification Model for Design and Build Projects

The purpose of this paper is to investigate if the various risk sources in Design and Build projects can be classified into three risk groups of cost, time and quality using the discriminant analysis technique. Literature search was undertaken to review issues of risk sources, classification of the identified risks into a risk structure, management of risks and effects of risks all on Design and Build projects as well as concepts of discriminant analysis as a statistical technique. This literature review was undertaken through the use of internet, published papers, journal articles and other published reports on risks in Design and Build projects. A research questionnaire was further designed to collect research information. This research study is a survey research that utilized cross-sectional design to capture the primary data. The data for the survey was collected in Nigeria. In all 40 questionnaires were sent to various respondents that included Architects, Engineers, Quantity Surveyors and Builders who had used Design and Build procurement method for their recently completed projects. Responses from these retrieved questionnaires that measured the impact of risks on Design and Build were analyzed using the discriminant analysis technique through the use of SPSS software package to build two discriminant models for classifying risks into cost, time and quality risk groups. Results of the study indicate that time overrun and poor quality are the two factors that discriminate between cost, time and quality related risk groups. These two discriminant functions explain the variation between the risk groups. All the discriminating variables of cost overrun, time overrun and poor quality demonstrate some relationships with the two discriminant functions. The two discriminant models built can classify risks in Design and Build projects into risk groups of cost, time and quality. These classifications models have 72% success rate of classification of risks in Design and Build projects. These models are strongly recommended for use of clients, Design and Build contractors and Risk Managers for the management, control and mitigation of future risks in new Design and Build projects. These models will offer appreciable improvements in risk management and mitigations which can enhance better management of future Design and Build projects. This study also recommends that clients and contractors using Design and Build approach should watch out for emerging issues of cost overrun and poor quality in their projects as these can dictate classification of newly encountered risks.

Configuring designers? Using one agile project management methodology to achieve user participation

The aim was to examine the possibilities and limits of involving end-users in applied knowledge-producing settings. Is it possible to have user participation as a part of the design process? The agile method DSDM supposed to enhance user participation as well as improve other aspects of the management of computer system design projects.

Greening government's office buildings: PWD Malaysia experiences

Tackling the challenge of climate change is about confronting the critical question of how we should value sustainability. The built environment is a reflection of our understanding through growing awareness of the solutions to issues that confront us. Public Works Department Malaysia (PWD) has taken steps progressively to create, adapt and apply a sustainable building project management throughout building lifecycle; planning, design, construction, monitoring and maintenance as to achieve a green nation by 2020. This approach focus on energy efficiency and energy saving in building sector thus in line with Malaysia's target to reduce carbon emission of 40% from 2005 level by 2020 as mentioned by Prime Minister of Malaysia at COP15 in Denmark, December 2009. Indeed, PWD has taken serious action significantly to lead this mission by implementing and achieving sustainable projects towards healthy and quality environment by using Green Building criteria to achieve sustainable building design. This aim is a collective approach from government agencies such as Ministry of Green, Technology and Water, Standard & Industrial Research Institute of Malaysia (SIRIM), Ministry of Natural Resources & Environment and Ministry of Housing & Local Authority with cooperation from the professional bodies namely Malaysian Institute of Architects and Association of Consultant Engineer Malaysia. The government has built several energy efficiency and green demonstration projects such as Low Energy Office (LEO), Green Energy Office (GEO) and Energy Commission Building. This paper outlines some of PWD experiences in implementing sustainable practices for government buildings that particularly focus on office buildings. In line with the Malaysian Plan, PWD has produce its sustainable plan towards achieving the goals that focuses on green government building initiatives for new and existing buildings. The approach for new building includes of Energy Efficiency Programmes; that focus on designed, constructed or retrofitted, operated and maintained in a manner that reduces the use of energy. Other than that, Industrialised Building System, Rain Water Harvesting and Environmental Management System (JKR EMS 14001: 2004) are also considered. These criteria will be implemented into new government buildings design such as the future Ministry of Works Complex 2. For existing buildings, efforts has been done especially through energy audit on selected government buildings all over Malaysia, energy saving programmes, energy performance contract, and retrofitting works. In becoming a world class service provider, PWD also has embarked a way forward in implementing sustainable design and green project management through Research and Development. Currently, the research field focus on Developing a Comfortable and Energy Efficient Government's Office Building Design and the outcome will be a guideline for the designers. PWD Malaysia has put plans and strategies on energy efficiency and greening of government buildings that aims to improve the quality of life for the population.

The design of design: essays from a computer scientist

Making Senseof Design Effective design is at the heart of everything from software development to engineering to architecture. But what do we really know about the design process? What leads to effective, elegant designs? The Design of Design answers these questions. This new book by Fred Brooks contains extraordinary insights for designers in every discipline. Brooks pinpoints the constants inherent to all design projects and uncovers processes and patterns most likely to lead to excellence. Drawing on the observations and intuitions of dozens of exceptional designers, as well as his direct experiences in several design domains, Brooks argues convincingly that bold design decisions lead to better outcomes. The author tracks the evolution of the design process, delves into complex systems based on distributed design, and illuminates what makes a truly great designer. He examines the nuts and bolts that affect all design processes, including budget and other constraints, aesthetics, design empiricism, and tools, and then grounds this discussion in his own real-world examplescase studies ranging from home construction to IBMs Operating System/360. Throughout the book, Brooks reveals the keys to success that every designer, design project manager, and design researcher should know.

Project management in instructional design: ADDIE is not enough

AbstractIn the digital age, instructional designers must possess both a sound instructional design knowledge base and solid project management skills that will enable them to complete courseware projects on time, on budget and in conformance with client expectations. Project management skills include the ability to apply repeatable processes, along with interpersonal skills such as communication and leadership skills. However, courses in project management are often absent from the higher education instructional design curriculum, creating a gap between what is learned in instructional design programmes and real‐world practice. In this paper, the author draws on the education and project management fields to examine this gap. The author argues that the gap between instructional design project management models and how instructional design practitioners view project management is a consequence of the divergent perspectives of higher education subcultures and the extent to which those subcultures are likely to embrace cross‐disciplinary subjects such as project management. The author proposes some research and advocacy opportunities for closing the gap between instructional design education and practice.

An integrated product-process-organisation model to manage design systems

Today, as many stakeholders take part in the development of a product, project design management has to encourage and favour collaboration among all the actors involved in the project. The indicators on the product are not enough to estimate and increase the performance of the design process. In design, the notion of performance concerns the product, process and organisation. It has to be quantitative and qualitative: quantitative to measure the tangible results on the product and qualitative to estimate the performance of the collaborative design process. In this paper, we are particularly interested in the identification and follow-up of the factors influencing the performance of the design process. We define the elements of the design performance and provide an integrated product-process-organisation model developed to manage the design process. Finally, the Unified Modelling Language (UML) models of a software prototype to help decision makers and an example of a Graphic User Interface (GUI) are also ...

Collaborative Decision-making in Design Project Management. A Particular Focus on Automotive Industry

The Project Definition phase in New Product and Process Development (NPPD) is decisive because the project outcomes depend upon the success of this phase, i.e. capability to define ambitious and feasible objectives corresponding to the market. The two main research questions are: how to support collaborative decision-making in the early stages of NPPD, and what an adapted project management approach for these phases is. Research methodology used in this study is case-based using semi-structured interviews and participation/observation of working groups. The case study concerns 7 managers or engineers working in this phase and 9 vehicle development projects. The findings of this research point out the need for a new management paradigm and a proposition of a project management framework for the early stages of NPPD.

The Driving Forces for Design Project Effectiveness

This study attempts to look at the internal and external factors which result in improved interior design project management through the proposal and empirical validation of a theoretical model. The model incorporates three major dimensions: users' technology readiness, their perceptions of information system quality, and project management effectiveness. Sample data collected from 50 interior design companies located in north, central and southern urban cities in Taiwan (n = 497) were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). Results showed that both users' technology readiness and information system quality have positive effect on project effectiveness. Specifically, technology readiness influences project management effectiveness indirectly through information system quality, indicating that it is crucial for organizations to invest and enhance quality technological performance support tools in conjunction with fostering users' acceptance and readiness of technology adoption and application.

Investigating strategies for using related cases to support design problem solving

Case-based learning has long been used to bring students into contact with the complexity of real-world situations. Despite this popularity and considerable history, research into how case analysis can support future problem-solving has been limited. The study reported in this paper investigated learners’ understanding of multimedia instructional design and development derived from the analysis of two richly detailed cases, and how this understanding then supported learners in their own design projects. A qualitative case study approach was used to follow a class of Masters students engaged in a technology-supported, case-based learning environment. Student work from case analysis, group project and reflective tasks was the key data source, complemented by interviews with students and their instructor, observations of class meetings, and the collection of online discussion list records and electronic resource files. The study found that the case analysis task raised learners’ awareness of design approaches and project management strategies, and that discussion and reflection play critical roles in developing students’ understanding. The study also highlighted some limitations of the case approach, suggesting the need for strategies that support learners’ thinking and reasoning.

Lessons Learned From the Design Experience

Designing and building a new healthcare facility provide insights into design features and project management processes that should be replicated or avoided. This bimonthly department expands nurse leaders' knowledge and competencies in health facility design and enables them to lead in design efforts. In this article, nurse leaders share the insights and experiences gained from leading design and construction projects and provide helpful advice.

Design Project Modularization for Product Families

Design project management involves sophisticated task planning that needs to streamline a number of design activities while properly allocating resources associated with these activities. In the field of product family design, there is a lack of comprehensive modeling and analysis formalisms for design project management. In this respect, this paper proposes a modular design project approach to support design project modeling and planning for product families. Design activities are identified as project modules according to the activity sequences, along with the players and resources involved in each activity. A generic variety structure is introduced to characterize the differentiation of design activities among various project variants of the family. Based on the identified modules of activities, design project planning is formulated as a project reconfiguration problem, for which genetic algorithms are employed for configuration evaluation. A case study of truck cab family design in an automobile company demonstrates that design project modularization enhances the coordination of multiple design projects of product families and contributes to the achievement of economy of scale through reusing proven elements.

Semantics-Based Design: Can Ontologies Help in a Preliminary Design Phase?

In today’s architecture, engineering and construction industry, there has been a vast evolution in the usage of information and communication technology (ICT) for the description and management of construction and/or architectural design projects. During the past years this led to the elaboration of the building information modelling (BIM) technique, which makes it possible to describe building information directly linked to the corresponding elements of the building. One of the major advantages in this BIM approach is the possibility to use this building information for calculation, simulation and analysis in related, more dedicated ICT applications (i.e. energy performance simulation, cost calculation, construction planning, etc.). This influence of ICT is mainly concentrated in the final construction-related design phase and prevails less in the first, preliminary design phase. However, a lot of advantages could be emerging when ICT techniques would be used in the first design stage as well. Therefore, this article proposes the development of an approach similar to BIM, namely an architectural information modelling (AIM) approach, which describes more theoretical, historical and designrelated building knowledge instead of the explicit and components-based descriptions inside BIM. This will result in a new, conceptual, integrated framework for architectural information modelling. In this framework, it will be possible to start and elaborate an architectural design project in a preliminary design phase, using conceptual and more abstract terms (e.g. taxonomy, typology, theory, etc.) to build up a central architectural information model. Several possible advantages of this AIM approach for application in architectural design practice and in building documentation for virtual heritage application will be elaborated during further research.

Integrating Graduate Design Coaches in Undergraduate Design Project Teams

This paper describes how a graduate mechanical engineering student was employed as a design coach on a senior undergraduate design team working on the development of a low-cost, low-volume plastic injection modeling machine. Traditional undergraduate design teams are formed with novice, inexperienced engineering students with limited training in project planning and management. By introducing a graduate engineering student who is formally trained in design methods and project management and who has experience in design practice, it was felt that the undergraduate students could focus more on the engineering design aspects of the project, similar to the work that they would experience upon graduation. For the graduate design coach, four roles were identified: design tool teacher, design reviewer, project manager, and, in this unique case, customer. A critique of the roles, including the time spent in each, is provided. This experience proved more satisfactory to both the students and the industry sponsoring customer than had been the case with similar projects.

Web-based modular interface geometries with constraints in assembly models

The use of a modular technique in modeling for assembly can improve design efficiency and reduce the cost of product development. This paper presents an approach to an assembly model that was built using modular interface geometries. This paper proposes a novel, hybrid modular design strategy instead of the traditional, top-down design process. The curve-joint method is used as a simplified process for converting a 3D solid model to a skeleton model with interface geometries in modeling for assembly. This research builds assembly interface geometries with their constraints in the assembly model instead of using information about individual assembly parts for the product. These interface geometries are easy to share, and they deliver the design requirements properly. They also ensure that minimal efforts will be required in the design change process. By implementing this method, the constraints of the features in modular assembly parts can be transferred to interface geometries. Designers can easily add, replace, and delete design parts in the modular product. Module interaction for application programmed interface (MIAPI) is developed using HTML and JavaScript. The module structure of products can be verified via the web-based Internet in VRML format. These simplified assembly models that have fewer constraints allow design project managers to simulate the functioning of the product in the modularized design before the prototype is built. By using the assembly models, customers can easily choose various modules to assemble the exact products they are seeking via the Internet process. A desk lamp model is used as the example for implementation to validate the feasibility of this research.

Adopting electronic medical records in primary care: Lessons learned from health information systems implementation experience in seven countries

The adoption of health information systems is seen world wide as one method to mitigate the widening health care demand and supply gap. The purpose of this review was to identify the current state of knowledge about health information systems adoption in primary care. The goal was to understand factors and influencers affecting implementation outcomes from previous health information systems implementations experiences. A comprehensive systematic literature review of peer reviewed and grey literature was undertaken to identify the current state of knowledge regarding the implementation of health information systems. A total of 6 databases, 27 journal websites, 20 websites from grey sources, 9 websites from medical colleges and professional associations as well as 22 government/commission websites were searched. The searches returned almost 3700 article titles. Eighty-six articles met our inclusion and exclusion criteria. Articles show that systems’ graphical user interface design quality, feature functionality, project management, procurement and users’ previous experience affect implementation outcomes. Implementers had concerns about factors such as privacy, patient safety, provider/patient relations, staff anxiety, time factors, quality of care, finances, efficiency, and liability. The review showed that implementers can insulate the project from such concerns by establishing strong leadership, using project management techniques, establishing standards and training their staff to ensure such risks do not compromise implementation success. The review revealed the concept of socio-technical factors, or “fit” factors, that complicate health information systems deployment. The socio-technical perspective considers how the technical features of a health information system interact with the social features of a health care work environment. The review showed that quality of care, patient safety and provider/patient relations were not, positively or negatively, affected by systems implementation. The fact that no articles were found reviewing the benefits or drawbacks of health information systems accruing to patients should be concern to adopters, payers and jurisdictions. No studies were found that compared how provider–patient interactions in interviews are effected when providers used electronic health information systems as opposed to the paper equivalent. Very little information was available about privacy and liability.

Developing Construction Professionals of the 21st Century: Renewed Vision for Leadership

The construction industry faces several technical, social, financial, political, and cultural challenges. Developments such as the growing volume of activity, increasing number of active stakeholders, advancement in technology, more intense global competition, and demand for fast-track completion, have created many distinct challenges for construction professionals. Consequently, there is a need to equip the professionals with hard (technical) as well as soft (management and leadership) skills. Construction professionals invariably work in teams and often assume leadership roles as the design manager, construction manager, procurement manager, contracts manager, or project manager. They deal with various project stakeholders and often get involved in sensitive decision making and dispute resolution processes. There is a broad sentiment in the industry that today’s new graduates are not adequately trained to deal with the soft issues on complex construction projects. In particular, academic programs do not...

A multidisciplinary team building method based on competency modelling in design project management

This research aims to develop a new team building method based on competency modelling in the field of project management. This method is divided into three main stages. First, a competency matrix based on a task-actor compatibility indicator helps to characterise the competency levels. Second, we apply a clustering algorithm in order to reduce the problem complexity and favour the employees’ expertise. The clustering algorithm will decompose large sets of tasks and actors into smaller task groups related to different actor groups. It facilitates the project leaders to organise the actors into teams. Finally, the proposed task assignment model incorporates a learning curve in order to take the competency dynamics into account. Our computational experiments suggest that incorporating a clustering algorithm as a step of the method results in preserving expertise and thus helps project managers to find better tradeoffs between project cost (short term goal) and competency dynamics (long term goal).

Activity Modeling for Integrating Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) Consideration as a New Element in Industrial Chemical Process Design

In this paper, we present activity models of chemical process design integrating environmental, health and safety (EHS) evaluation as a new element with conventional economic and technical considerations on the basis of the design framework, which defines different stages of early process design with appropriate indicators for multiobjective evaluation. The type-zero method of Integrated DEFinition language or IDEF0 is selected as an activity modeling method for the hierarchical and transparent description of complex design activities. The viewpoint of the activity model is the user of this design framework, i.e. a design-project manager who leads a group of process chemists and engineers. A set of template models is developed, which describes how a manager executes a project step by step with providing instructions and resources appropriately. According to this template, IDEF0 models of the design framework are created, and here EHS-related activities, tools and information are systematically defined as a part of the whole design activity. As further analysis, sub-activities are presented in detail, where the manager allocates resources appropriately to different design stages, including methods of environmental Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and EHS hazard evaluation. Another detailed analysis is on how design constraints, e.g., market situation, competitors’ patents and company culture, affect different decision-making within the framework. The actual development of methyl methacrylate (MMA) processes is investigated as a case study. The paper finally presents important know-how for the design manager in executing the integrated design framework.

Gene composer, a gene and expression construct design project management tool

Gene composer, a gene and expression construct design project management tool

Management of engineering design process in collaborative situation

Project design management not only involves allocating resources but also involves stimulating collaboration among the people involved in the project, in order to increase the performance of design teams. This paper presents an analysis of the stakes and needs, which should be introduced into the design process to set up and manage an appropriate design environment. A modelling framework to describe the work carried out by the different members of the design team is proposed, taking into account the knowledge exchanged to control the design environment. An analysis of collaboration exchanges' life cycle in design teams enables the proposition of a collaboration ontology with different viewpoints. A focus on the most constrained case of collaboration is proposed; a conflict management framework is presented; and the life cycle of exchanges in conflict design is exposed. An industrial experiment on a real conflict via the use of the IPPOP software is then proposed.