Smart Green Prefabrication: Sustainability Performances of Industrialized Building Technologies

There is an urgent need to increase the environmental, economic, and social sustainability of buildings. Indeed, construction has one of the lowest rates of sustainability among productive sectors, associated with high energy demand and pollutant emissions, frequent cost increase and time delays, and poor and unsafe working conditions. Building prefabrication is a construction technique that can enhance the sustainability of buildings, in terms of predictability, product and process quality, and increased safety for workers. Recently, new approaches and concepts such as Industry 4.0 (Construction 4.0) and circularity of resources emerged in the field of prefabrication to potentiate the benefits of off-site construction. In this scenario, the scope of the work is to analyze the state of the art in the field of prefabricated building technologies in the light of these innovations and to evaluate their performances from a sustainability perspective. The work has been developed in two phases: (1) analysis of 13 case studies of prefabricated technologies in Europe; (2) comparative assessment of their sustainability performances according to 21 qualitative parameters. Based on the results of the work, a set of guidelines is proposed as the outcome, i.e., suggested strategies and approaches for designers and industry professionals that can be used to enhance the sustainability of prefabrication.

The role of absorptive capacity within supply chain quality integration

Purpose There is a consensus suggesting that the theoretical underpinning associated with supply chain quality management practices remain evolutionary to current thinking. Therefore, this study aims to explore how absorptive capacity (AC) supports supply chain quality integration (SCQI) by building product and process quality within a supply chain (SC). Design/methodology/approach A comparative case study of global pharmaceutical manufacturers in a developing market was undertaken. A two-round qualitative research method was designed to collect data through 54 semi-structured interviews with pharmaceutical managers and senior managers. Findings The results demonstrate that AC is essential to the development of SCQI because of its ability to use valuable strategic and operational knowledge, which is important when improving consistent internal product and process quality, along with establishing a robust SC design. The authors found that AC enables companies to design their quality and continuously improve their products and processes among their SC members. Research limitations/implications The authors acknowledge that these sets of findings are difficult to generalise to other sectors, however, the authors are confident that they can be extrapolated to other companies in the pharmaceutical industry. Practical implications The study develops a framework to support practitioners and decision makers to leverage their AC towards facilitating their SCQI practices. Originality/value This study explains the role of the AC process in relation to SCQI practices, in the context of the pharmaceutical SC. The study profiles the characteristics of dynamic capabilities to increase the companies’ competencies, processes and resources.

TQM I KAIZEN U FUNKCIJI KONTINUIRANOG UPRAVLJANJA KVALITETOM

There is almost a generally accepted view that quality is one of the most important factors of company competitiveness. For this reason, quality needs to be managed. In response to the need for management and requirements for high quality, theory and practice have developed several concepts. Total Quality Management (TQM) and Kaizen are two basic concepts directly involved in continuous improvement of product and process quality in the company, aimed at achieving positive transformation in the minds and actions of employees and managers. The focus of this paper is the analysis of the mentioned concepts and their contribution to the program of continuous quality improvement. Hence, the goal set by this paper is to review the basic characteristics of TQM and Kaizen, and, on the basis of a comparative analysis, draw conclusion about the distinction between them in terms of essence and practical application in the field of quality management.

Website Performance Measurement

Some tasks will be easier to implement and test, and others will either be un-applicable or difficult to test and implement in comparison with testing in traditional software development environments. For engineering management, product and process quality evaluation are important assessment tools by which managers can have significant indicators of the evaluated project or product. There are many ways and characteristics by which websites can be evaluated. Quality attributes can be external or internal. They can be measured based on the developed product (i.e. the website) or the developing process. In this chapter, the author describes in detail some of the product and process metrics by which websites can be evaluated. They are described based on the major classification: process and product metrics. In each one of those two major classes, the author describes possible measurements, how they can be evaluated, and examples of attributes and tools used in this measurement. Values of measurements can in combination provide useful information for project management and planning. Focusing on only one or two attributes can possibly be insufficient or misleading.

Website Performance Measurement

Some tasks will be easier to implement and test, and others will either be un-applicable or difficult to test and implement in comparison with testing in traditional software development environments. For engineering management, product and process quality evaluation are important assessment tools by which managers can have significant indicators of the evaluated project or product. There are many ways and characteristics by which websites can be evaluated. Quality attributes can be external or internal. They can be measured based on the developed product (i.e. the website) or the developing process. In this chapter, the author describes in detail some of the product and process metrics by which websites can be evaluated. They are described based on the major classification: process and product metrics. In each one of those two major classes, the author describes possible measurements, how they can be evaluated, and examples of attributes and tools used in this measurement. Values of measurements can in combination provide useful information for project management and planning. Focusing on only one or two attributes can possibly be insufficient or misleading.