Settlement Delay Research Articles

Application of lean for early identification and avoidance of disputes in construction projects

Purpose The dispute resolution process in the construction industry is known for delays in settlement, with some cases even escalating to complex arbitration and litigation. To avoid conflicts turning into disputes, the parties need to be proactive in identifying and resolving conflicts in their nascent stages. It is here that innovative lean construction practices can potentially act as a game-changer to avoid disputes, and this study aims to attempt to understand this phenomenon empirically. Design/methodology/approach A questionnaire-based empirical study, followed by semi-structured interviews, is conducted to understand the relevance of key tenets of lean principles in dispute avoidance. Findings Although stakeholders agree on the usefulness and practicality of lean principles in dispute avoidance, the extent of agreement is lesser when it comes to its implementation practicality. Moreover, there is a demographic influence observed on lean tenets such as “open communication”, “stakeholder collaboration” and “constraint identification”. Practical implications The results point towards an approach that combines contractual mandate, training and awareness creation to iron out the differences in the usefulness and practicality of lean approaches to avoid disputes. Originality/value Lean implementation is widely discussed in many construction contexts, such as sustainability, productivity improvement and planning. However, a discussion on lean philosophy’s role in dispute avoidance is muted. Therefore, this study assumes significance.

Seasonal variation in the biological succession of marine diatoms over 316L stainless steel in a coastal environment of Chile

Characterizing seasonal changes in diatom community profiles in coastal environments is scarce worldwide. Despite diatoms being prevalent in microfouling, their role in microbially influenced corrosion of metallic materials remains poorly understood. This study reports the effect of seasonal variations on the settlement of marine diatoms and corrosion of 316 L stainless steel surfaces exposed to Chilean coastal seawater. Electron microscopy imaging revealed a diverse assembly of diatoms, exhibiting pronounced differences at genus level between summer and winter seasons, with a significant delay in diatom settlement during winter. Electrochemical measurements indicated an active role of diatoms in increasing corrosion current during biofilm development. While the final diatom composition was similar irrespective of the season, the analyses of diatom assemblages over time differed, showing faster colonization when silicate and nitrate were available. This study lays the foundation for future research on the dominant season-specific genera of diatoms to unveil the microbial interactions that could contribute to corrosion and to evaluate their potential as bioindicators for alternative surveillance strategies.

Comparative Analysis of Inventory Management System with Two-Phase Time-dependent Demand and Shortages under Tolerable Slack of Payment for Deteriorating Goods

In actual commercial transactions, the supplier frequently gives the merchant a maximum permitted settlement delay in order to boost sales. In order to account for these variations and assume time-varying holding costs and shortages, this research analyses a time-dependent two-phase ramp curve demand under the allowable slack of payment model for goods with a limited life span. The demand rate for the nonlinear ramp curve is deterministic, changes over time until a pivotal moment, and remains constant. It is presumed that the breakthrough point happened within the cycle duration. Two scenarios are considered: One is that the slack of the payment period is shorter than the demand turning point, and on the other hand, the payment defer period is higher than the demand turning point. The outcomes of numerical results are used to compare the best optimality. The sensitivity analysis is then employed to exhibit the extent of the applicability of the inventory parameters.

Determinants and framework for implementing sustainable climate-smart aquaculture insurance system for fish farmers: Evidence from Ghana

The just-ended Sharm El-Sheikh Climate Change Conference in November 2022 brought to light the need to mitigate climate change adaptation related to risk and challenges through Climate financing, has made it very paramount the need to protect fish farmers' investments from climate change-related risk through the development of climate-smart insurance products and covers to help mitigate climate change effects on aquaculturists. As a result, this paper examines aquaculture farmers' preference for climate-smart aquaculture insurance products, challenges of climate-smart aquaculture insurance, and their preferred insurance cover. Survey data was collected from 140 fish farmers and analysed via Multinomial logistic regression, Bivariate Probit regression and Kendall's coefficient of concordance. Climate-Induced Aquaculture Stock Mortality Insurance (CIASMI) was the most-preferred climate-smart insurance product. Insurance Cover for Diseases (ICD) was the least preferred. The results further indicated that membership in a farmer organisation, farm income, credit access, climate-related peril and anthropogenic-related peril had a positive influence, whereas years of education had a negative influence on climate-smart aquaculture insurance participation.Moreover, production system had a negative relationship with mode of participation while number of employees, farm income and climate-related peril influenced mode of participation positively. The results also revealed that age, sex, stock size, awareness, income, climate and environmental-related peril, and anthropogenic-related peril significantly influenced the choice for climate-smart aquaculture insurance products, specifically climate risk related to stock mortality insurance and climate-related to consequential loss insurance. Finally, delay in claim settlement was the most pressing constraint. In contrast, lack of experts in disease diagnosis was the least ranked constraint of climate-smart aquaculture insurance. Therefore, this study provides insights for the Fisheries Commission, Ghana Agricultural Insurance Pool (GAIP), World Cover and other agricultural insurance companies globally to draft climate-smart insurance products for aquaculturists.

Acceleration Strategy of Ship Reparation Project Using the Ranked Positions Weight Method: Comparative Evaluation Between Adding Manpower and Work Time

Delays in settlement of a ship repair project in an Indonesian shipyard are still common, resulting in a schedule that cannot be carried out according to the contract schedule. This study investigates the acceleration duration by calculating the track balance using the Ranked Positions Weight Method (RPWM), used within the scheduling system to obtain a balanced schedule arrangement with an even distribution of labor resources or manpower. This method is used to solve the MT Poka Jo (IMO: 9918119) ship repair's acceleration of duration analysis at the Tegal shipyard in Indonesia. The study aims to achieve efficient project scheduling by reducing project completion time and cost-effectiveness. The analysis was performed to assess the amount of labor produced, network diagram, critical track, balance of the critical track, acceleration of the project's duration, increase in labor, and additional working hours (overtime). The network diagram, which comprises 18 tasks on the important track, has a tracking efficiency of 98% after one day, according to the findings. The addition of labor of 10% could reduce the duration of the project up to 16.92% from 65 days to 54 days, with an increase of cost of 3.83% from the initial condition total cost (from US$ 706.62 to US$ 733.7). On the other hand, with the addition of 3 working hours, a duration acceleration of 10.77% from 65 days to 58 days, with an increasing cost of 59.35% (from US$ 706.62 to US$ 1,126.02) can be obtained. As a result, the increase in labor could be a valuable reference for shipyard personnel to anticipate project completion delays.

Unravelling challenges of COVID-19 pandemic through risk and controls turnaround: the case of Dots & Lines

Research methodology The focused case is a “disguised case” developed based on a real-life apparel company in Sri Lanka. The authors have disguised the company name and have not revealed the identity of the key respondents and any data, which makes the firm obvious. However, the processes and practices reported represent the actual scenario of the company (gathered through interviews done mainly with the case protagonist, General Manager (GM) – Risk and Controls) and the authors have not fabricated any data. Case overview/synopsis Having established itself as a pioneer in the apparel industry in Sri Lanka, Dots & Lines reached the pinnacle of its performance in 2019. Following the outbreak of COVID-19, the situation turned unfavorable: global customers canceled orders by the end of the first quarter of 2020. It experienced settlement delays, increased freight charges and supply chain barriers. The virus spread among the operational staff, leading to health and safety issues and absenteeism. On April 2020, the executive committee gathered and decided to form a position titled “General Manager (GM) – Risk and Controls” and a team to turn around the company. Dots & Lines witnessed the harvest of the risk management turnaround measures pioneered by GM – Risk and Controls, from the first quarter of 2021 with impressive revenue and profit figures. It developed a pool of key strategic customers, while key performance indicators dashboards and the risk matrix provided vital insights in moving forward. Complexity academic level The case, Dots & Lines is written for use in undergraduate and graduate-level classes in business administration and management degree programs. The focus aligns with discussions on industry competition, controls and risk management. Of further importance, the case is applicable to discussions on topics in strategic management accounting courses.

Bridging the gap between pricing and reserving with an occurrence and development model for non-life insurance claims

AbstractDue to the presence of reporting and settlement delay, claim data sets collected by non-life insurance companies are typically incomplete, facing right censored claim count and claim severity observations. Current practice in non-life insurance pricing tackles these right censored data via a two-step procedure. First, best estimates are computed for the number of claims that occurred in past exposure periods and the ultimate claim severities, using the incomplete, historical claim data. Second, pricing actuaries build predictive models to estimate technical, pure premiums for new contracts by treating these best estimates as actual observed outcomes, hereby neglecting their inherent uncertainty. We propose an alternative approach that brings valuable insights for both non-life pricing and reserving. As such, we effectively bridge these two key actuarial tasks that have traditionally been discussed in silos. Hereto, we develop a granular occurrence and development model for non-life claims that tackles reserving and at the same time resolves the inconsistency in traditional pricing techniques between actual observations and imputed best estimates. We illustrate our proposed model on an insurance as well as a reinsurance portfolio. The advantages of our proposed strategy are most compelling in the reinsurance illustration where large uncertainties in the best estimates originate from long reporting and settlement delays, low claim frequencies and heavy (even extreme) claim sizes.

Financial viability of a community-based health insurance scheme in two districts of northeast Ethiopia: a mixed methods study

BackgroundCommunity-based health insurance initiatives in low- and middle-income countries encountered a number of sustainability challenges due to their voluntary nature, small risk pools, and low revenue. In Ethiopia, the schemes’ financial viability has not been well investigated so far. This study examined the scheme’s financial viability and explored underlying challenges from the perspectives of various key stakeholders.MethodsThis study employed a mixed methods case study in two purposively selected districts of northeast Ethiopia. By reviewing financial reports of health insurance schemes, quantitative data were collected over a seven years period from 2014 to 2020 to examine trends in financial status. Trends for each financial indicator were analyzed descriptively for the period under review. Interviews were conducted face-to-face with nine community members and 19 key informants. We used the maximum variation technique to select the study participants. Interviews were audio recorded, transcribed verbatim, and translated into English. Thematic analysis was applied with both inductive and deductive coding methods.ResultsBoth schemes experienced excess claims costs and negative net income in almost all the study period. Even after government subsidies, the scheme’s net income remained negative for some reporting periods. The challenges contributing to the observed level of financial performance have been summarized under five main themes, which include adverse selection, moral hazard behaviors, stockout of medicines, delays in claims settlement for service providers, and low insurance premiums.ConclusionsThe health insurance scheme in both districts spent more than it received for claims settlement in almost all the period under the study, and experienced heavy losses in these periods, implying that it is not financially viable for the period in question. The scheme is also unable to fulfill its purpose of protecting members against out-of-pocket expenses at the point of health care. Interventions should target on the highlighted challenges to restore financial balance and enhance the scheme’s viability.

Determinant Factors for Delays in Settlement of Gono-Gini Asset Disputes

<p><em>This article discusses the highest factors that hinder the resolution of disputes over mixed assets. The determinant factors that impede the implementation of the religious court's decision on the resolution of disputes over arbitrary assets in the City of Gorontalo to those who apply for the separation of arbitrary assets are internal and external factors. Internal factors include obstacles; the lack of human resources for judges at court, as well as the knowledge of judges in resolving cases where the wife who is more dominantly working earns income while the husband does not work. In this case the judge uses the principle of justice by determining that the ex-wife gets ¾ of the share while the ex-husband gets ¼ of the share. External factors include: Partners between ex-husbands and ex-wives are not willing, do not accept, or do not agree with the results of the decision from the court. The approach used in writing this article is empirical juridical with a case study approach. Based on the data found in this article, the highest factor in the delay in resolving disputes over Gono-Gini assets is disagreement between ex-husbands and ex-wives over the decision of the Class IA Gorontalo Religious Court.</em></p>

A small step or a giant leap: Accounting for settlement delay and dispersal in restoration planning.

Understanding larval duration and hence dispersal potential of the European oyster Ostrea edulis is crucial to inform restoration strategies. Laval duration has an obligatory period of maturity to pediveliger (when larvae are ready to settle), but also an unknown period until metamorphosis is triggered by a settlement cue. The extent to which larvae can prolong the pediveliger period and delay metamorphosis has not been studied. Here we show that O. edulis larvae can delay metamorphosis for a period of 11 days, while retaining the capability to settle in high proportions when presented with a suitable settlement cue. O. edulis larvae are likely to be able to delay metamorphosis even further, since 80% of larvae in the control treatment were still alive when the experiment was terminated at day 14. The results indicate the ability of O. edulis larvae to more than double pelagic duration and probably further delay metamorphosis. We discuss these findings in the context of larval mortality, and the importance of O. edulis’ larval settlement requirements for dispersal potential, recruitment success and connectivity of restoration sites.

Optimal Investment in Preservation Technology for Variable Demand under Trade-Credit and Shortages

In particular business transactions, the supplier usually provides an admissible delay in settlement to its vendor to encourage further sales. Additionally, the demand for the commodity is inversely proportional to the function of the sales price, which is non-linear and, in some situations, a holding cost rises over time. Moreover, many goods often deteriorate consistently and shall not be sold after their expiration dates. This study analyses a model for perishable products with a maximum life span with price-dependent demand and trade credit by assimilating these variations and under the supposition of time-varying holding cost. Furthermore, to diminish the rate of deterioration, investment for preservation technology is often taken into account beforehand. Based on real-life circumstances, shortages are admitted and backlogged partially, with an exponential rise in wait time before the new good emerges. The key ambition is to calculate the optimum investment under preservation, sales price, and cycle time using the classical optimization algorithm to maximize the vendor’s net profit. Additionally, to clarify the outcomes, the numerical illustrations are addressed, and the sensitivity analysis of significant parameters is eventually implemented.

Problems, Prospects and Policy Recommendations of Crop Insurance Schemes

This paper discusses the findings of the study in the area of crop insurance. Firstly it studied the problems faced under PMFBY, secondly examines prospects of given scheme. The study was conducted in six districts of Haryana namely, Kaithal, Bhiwani, Karnal, Hisar, Panipat and Fatehabad. The study showed the results of a survey of 240 farmers being carried in June 2018 to September, 2018. Constraints generally faced by the borrower farmers like delay in claim settlement (21.66%), inaccurate yield estimation (20.83%), inadequate implementation (20.00%), lack of awareness about the scheme and exclusion of a malicious damage, theft and grazed and destroyed by domestic animals etc. as 3.33 per cent as major constraints. Majority of non-borrower farmers faced constraints like claim paid for loss assessment (20.83%) as highest per cent, lack of faith in insurance system (19.17%) and inadequate implementation (16.67%).

Can we classify cashless payment solution implementations at the country level?

This research commentary proposes a 3-D implementation classification framework to assist service providers and business leaders in understanding the kinds of contexts in which more or less successful cashless payment solutions are observed at point-of-sale (PoS) settings. Three constructs characterize the framework: the digitalization of the local implementation environment; the relative novelty of a given payment technology solution in a country at a specific point in time; and the development status of the national infrastructure. The framework is motivated by a need to support cross-country research in this domain. We analyze eight country mini-cases based on an eight-facet (2 × 2 × 2) classification. A key insight is the distinction between local and national environments for solution implementations, and that there are no objective “low-tech” or “high-tech” payment solutions, but only those that must be calibrated by a country’s experience at the national or local implementation environment levels. Our analysis also revealed that implementing cashless payment solutions is complex, with each country and local context having its own set of challenges. Our proposed framework is a basis for policy-makers and payment service providers to developing insights related to the challenges of cashless payment solution implementation. Developing countries sometimes are able to leapfrog their legacy infrastructures by using mobile payment solutions, while developed countries need to appreciate the importance of barriers to implementation success, such as costs, settlement delays, and the habitual use of cash. We further note why business leaders should consider their approaches to payment solutions in view of the different degrees of local digitalization and national infrastructure development to support tech innovations in the digital economy.

Measuring Customer Satisfaction Level at Counter Service, SunLife Malaysia Johor Bahru

This article was published, to identify significant effect between factors influencing customer satisfaction, in SunLife Malaysia Johor Bahru. Every business organization’s success depends on the satisfaction of their customers. Service quality is well recognized to influence the customer satisfaction. According to the Life Insurance Association Malaysia (LIAM) records, there are increasing numbers of complaints were reported from 2005 until today. Some issues such as poor service, delay in settlement of claims, wrong information, price fixing and lack of professionalism in their work by the agents of insurance companies and many others reasons were reported. Although there are several studies on customer satisfaction has been carried out before, unfortunately there are not many studies were done mainly in counter service for insurance companies in Malaysia. This study aims to measure the level of factors influencing customer satisfaction towards insurance counter service. 400 numbers of participants were chosen to conduct this study consist of existing SunLife Malaysia Johor Bahru customers. Quantitative method was conducted whereby 200 sets of hard copy questionnaires were distributed to the walk-in customers in the service counter. Another 200 sets of Google Form questionnaire were distributed online. However, researcher only received back 230 sets of responded questionnaires which are sufficient number to perform the research. The result shown that there is a significant effect between the 3 construct in counter service practice towards customer satisfaction, whereby Staff has become the highest element (based on the mean score) among the three factors. This study is expected not only to prove the conceptual of counter service practice; but the empirical evidence from the study can be used in order to facilitate more detailed future studies especially in customer service fields. It is also expected to improve understandings of the factor contribute to the customer satisfaction level in the service counter. The result of this study is beneficial to the insurance sectors’ counter service mainly in customer service department to enhance more customer satisfaction and loyalty towards the organizations.

Parisian Time of Reflected Brownian Motion with Drift on Rays and Its Application in Banking

In this paper, we study the Parisian time of a reflected Brownian motion with drift on a finite collection of rays. We derive the Laplace transform of the Parisian time using a recursive method, and provide an exact simulation algorithm to sample from the distribution of the Parisian time. The paper was motivated by the settlement delay in the real-time gross settlement (RTGS) system. Both the central bank and the participating banks in the system are concerned about the liquidity risk, and are interested in the first time that the duration of settlement delay exceeds a predefined limit. We reduce this problem to the calculation of the Parisian time. The Parisian time is also crucial in the pricing of Parisian type options; to this end, we will compare our results to the existing literature.

The Effect of Mandatory Insurer Reporting on Settlement Delay

Abstract To improve their fiscal position, Medicare and some state Medicaid programs have recently taken steps to mandate reporting of personal injury awards and thus facilitate subrogation against such awards. Participants in the tort system have argued these additional reporting requirements might delay settlement of claims, harming both plaintiffs and defendants. This article examines this problem empirically, using a rich, national data set of closed automobile bodily injury claims. Using a differences-in-differences research design that exploits the introduction of a new Medicare reporting requirement in 2011, it demonstrates that mandated reporting increased time to settlement by 19%, or an average of 58 days. Robustness checks using data from closed malpractice claims reveal a similar delay. Conservative calculations suggest such delays could generate hundreds of millions of dollars in waiting costs each year. Policymakers should be aware of and seek to avoid such costs as they assess whether and how to expand reporting of personal injury awards.

In-Sample Hazard Forecasting Based on Survival Models with Operational Time

We introduce a generalization of the one-dimensional accelerated failure time model allowing the covariate effect to be any positive function of the covariate. This function and the baseline hazard rate are estimated nonparametrically via an iterative algorithm. In an application in non-life reserving, the survival time models the settlement delay of a claim and the covariate effect is often called operational time. The accident date of a claim serves as covariate. The estimated hazard rate is a nonparametric continuous-time alternative to chain-ladder development factors in reserving and is used to forecast outstanding liabilities. Hence, we provide an extension of the chain-ladder framework for claim numbers without the assumption of independence between settlement delay and accident date. Our proposed algorithm is an unsupervised learning approach to reserving that detects operational time in the data and adjusts for it in the estimation process. Advantages of the new estimation method are illustrated in a data set consisting of paid claims from a motor insurance business line on which we forecast the number of outstanding claims.

An empirical study on problems of policyholders of LIC of India

Consumer retention has become indispensable in all industries including insurance. LIC of India is the pioneer in life insurance industry catering for all expectations and benefit services on behalf of insurance. This study aims at assessing the problems of policyholders of LIC of India. This is a descriptive study conducted in Varanasi, India for which 363 completed questionnaires from policyholders were received by adopting snowball sampling. Chi-square test was used to test the hypotheses. The study found various problems of the policyholders of LIC of India such as low return, lack of adequate knowledge about product, complicated documents and procedures, interest conflict, lack of salesmanship, poor response from officials, delay in claim settlement, legal formalities, etc.

New Blockchain-Based Architecture for Service Interoperations in Internet of Things

Internet of Things (IoT) is able to integrate the computation and physical processes as services in the social world. The number of services at the edge of IoT is rising rapidly due to the prevalent uses of smart devices and cyber-physical systems (CPSs). To explore the promising applications of IoT services, one of the challenges is to enable the interoperability of the services in a decentralized environment. The blockchain technology (BCT) has been proven as a promising solution to establish the trust of data and call for executions; theoretically, it can be used to support the interoperability of services. BCT verifies data or a process and stores it as a transaction in a distributed ledger. Similar to the topology to IoT, applying BCT at the edges of the network exhibits the distributed characteristic. However, currently, BCT is still facing the challenges for interoperability due to a number of factors such as consensus protocols, block sizes, and interval of blocks. Prominent protocols such as proof-of-work (PoW) may cause excessive delays in finality settlement. One promising protocol Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerant offers a fast finality settlement and uses hyperledger to support the scalability; however, the trust might also be a concern if the validators are chosen improperly. This paper discusses the interoperability of IoT services and the challenges and proposes an architecture solution by integrating BCT, service-oriented architecture (SoA), and enablers of key performance indicators (KPIs) and service selections. The proposed architecture aims to solve both interoperability and trust issues for IoT services. The feasibility of the proposed method is validated by the examples of smart contract implementations.

Analysis of causes of delay in Indian construction projects and mitigation measures

PurposeConstruction projects in India continue to suffer excessive delays. This paper aims to investigate the delay causes in India by project sector (transport, power, buildings and water) and carry out a comparative study of delay causes in design build (DB) projects with that of design bid build (DBB) projects along with mitigation measures.Design/methodology/approachA questionnaire survey was conducted among major clients, contractors and consultants in India. Importance Index was used for ranking of the delay causes. Projects were categorized based on the type, and causes of delay in each project type were identified. Projects were also categorized based on type of contract, and delay causes in DB and DBB projects were compared. Statistical analysis of responses by Cronbach’s alpha, one-way analysis of variance, Kruskal–Wallis tests was carried out with Statistical Package for Social Sciences. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with senior industry professionals to develop exhaustive mitigation measures.FindingsThe research findings indicate finance-related causes as the most critical causes of delay in Indian projects. Delay in settlement of claims, contractor’s financial difficulties, delay in payment for extra work/variations by owner, late payment from contractor to subcontractor or suppliers, variation orders/changes of scope by owner during construction and changes in design by owner were the highly ranked delay causes. The research found no significant difference in the delay causes in DB and DBB projects.Originality/valueThis is the first study wherein delay causes for various project types within a single country are identified. In addition, the study has identified and compared the delay causes in DB projects and DBB projects. Mitigation measures developed in this study will help professionals and project managers not just in India but other developing countries as well to alleviate delay causes and in improvement of project timelines.