Editorial

Citation

Haupt, T.C. (2012), "Editorial", Journal of Engineering, Design and Technology, Vol. 10 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/jedt.2012.34310baa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of Engineering, Design and Technology, Volume 10, Issue 2

This issue of the Journal of Engineering, Design and Technology features papers on socio-material engineering practices, tunneling under squeezing rock conditions.

In their paper on socio-material practices in engineering work, Styhre, Wikmalm, Ollila and Roth argue that engineering work unfolds as a process whereby technological artefacts are verified on the basis of testing procedures and whereby events concerning technological failure, what has been called the “back-talk” of technology, are handled using joint problem-solving. Their study found that engineering work is based on distributed know-how and joint collaborations, emerging as a patchwork of activities where one single person may know a lot, but not everything, about the technology-in-the-making. The paper concludes that joint concern for the technology, manifested as its gradual advancement, is what serves as the glue holding the community of engineers together.

Ghiasi, Ghiasi and Prasad discuss the evaluation of tunnels under squeezing rock conditions and evaluate the methods employed for classifying and quantifying of the potential of squeezing in tunnel. Along with the empirical and semi-empirical approaches presently available in order to anticipate the potential of squeezing tunnel problems, the squeezing potential of Karaj water transfer tunnel and North West Tunnel Convey (NWTC) tunnels (Lot 2), located in Iran, were evaluated. They argue that these two case studies have interesting geology profiles and parameters to identifying and then evaluating the squeezing potential. One of the more significant findings to emerge from this study showed that about 3 km of the second part of NWTC tunnel, and 2 km of Karaj tunnel had high squeezing potential. These findings suggest that some form of lining will have to be introduced into these tunnels given their squeezing potential.

The paper by Kamal and Flanagan examines the absorptive capacity of Malaysian small and medium sized enterprise (SME) sized construction companies in the context of the Malaysian Government aim to make the industry more productive, efficient and safe. They confirmed that SMEs are at the core of the Malaysian construction industry and account for about 90 percent of companies undertaking construction work. They found the main challenges to be the ability to absorb new knowledge and technology and to implement it in the construction phase. Nine key factors were identified namely factors involved:

1. 1.

   cost and affordability;

2. 2.

   availability and supply;

3. 3.

   demand;

4. 4.

   infrastructure;

5. 5.

   policies and regulations;

6. 6.

   labour readiness;

7. 7.

   workforce attitude and motivation;

8. 8.

   communication and sources of new knowledge; and

9. 9.

   culture.

Vinodh and Aravindraj discuss axiomatic modeling of the lean manufacturing system based on a hierarchical structure that was developed. This structure is composed of functional requirements, design parameters and process variables. The paper clarifies the tools, methods and resources of designing lean manufacturing system.

The automation of real time monitoring and controlling of a marine loading arm is discussed by Sastry and Seekumar. They report on the development of a generic control strategy that employs state of the art, industry standard position sensors, PLC systems, interactive human machine interface (HMI) and fail-safe operation and emergency shutdown procedures. They found the overall engineering process to be simpler, easier to implement and manage due to the fact that the industry standard equipment and design tools have been used.

The paper by Sacks, Nisbet, Ross and Harinarain presents foundation and supplementary research on the primary concepts of green building in order to lay the groundwork for future analysis. They analyse on a case study basis the cost-effectiveness of the heat recovery ventilation (HRV) technology incorporated within Lincoln on the Lake, against a direct-expansion (DX) ducted system of conventional practice utilizing the life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) approach to determine if the sustainable option is in fact the better choice. They found that sustainable measures were far more cost effective over the 20 year study period than that of the comparable conventional system. The life-cycle cost analysis tool provided a simple, uniform and predetermined manner for which the life-cycle costs of sustainable designs can be successfully quantified.

The penultimate paper by Vinodh and Ravikumar addresses the application of probabilistic finite element analysis for crane hook design. They present the results of probabilistic analysis, wherein the input random variables were varied and corresponding variations in the output parameters observed. They report that the probability of occurrence of output variation and the sensitivity of output variables on the input variables were the important results generated from this analysis.

Chileshe and Dzisi in the final paper report on the benefits and barriers of construction health and safety management (HSM) from the perspective of design practitioners. They found that the ranking analysis suggested that “safer workplace”, “enhanced company reputation”, and “decrease in accidents” were the most important benefits arising from deployment of HSM programmes among the practitioners whereas “improved work performance”, “increased organisational performance”, and “reduced sickness and absence from work” though least ranked, still attained medium level of benefits. The findings further identified organizational skills as the most desirable for the effective implementation of HSM by project managers.

Special thanks to each of the contributing authors and reviewers for their contribution to the papers in this particular issue.

Theo C. Haupt