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This study aims to address gaps in the integration of Building Information Modelling (BIM) into procurement processes for construction works under the Portuguese Code of Public Contracts (CCP). The goal is to improve procurement procedures with practical recommendations benefiting both public and private sectors, and applicable in other countries, promoting efficient BIM use in construction projects.

The study involved a literature review and expert interviews to identify opportunities within the CCP related to construction procurement that impact BIM implementation during construction works. It critically analyzed these insights and proposed specific adjustments to the CCP to enhance BIM application in public construction works.

The study provides practical recommendations to address two main gaps identified in the literature: the neglect of non-specific digitalization factors influencing BIM implementation, and the lack of consideration for specific constraints in public procurement, particularly those dictated by legal frameworks like the CCP. These recommendations aim to optimize traditional procurement provisions for public construction, thereby improving BIM utilization on-site.

The study’s social implications include enhanced transparency and efficiency in construction processes, leading to reduced delays and costs for both stakeholders and the public. By optimizing BIM practices, public resources can be used more effectively in construction projects. The research may also accelerate the adoption of advanced technologies in the industry and improve urban development through better-planned and executed infrastructure projects. Additionally, the study’s recommendations could serve as a model for other countries, fostering the adoption of higher construction standards on a global scale.

The study’s original contribution lies in its comprehensive examination of public procurement procedures, particularly within the CCP context, to enhance the utilization of BIM during construction works. It uniquely identifies literature gaps and provides practical recommendations addressing non-specific digitalization factors and legal constraints in public procurement.

This study investigates the repetitive mixed sampling (MRS) plan based on the Cpk index that was proposed by Aslam et al. (2013a). They were the first to study the MRS plan, but they did not pay attention to the fact that submitting to the variable inspection a sample that was first submitted to the attribute inspection, truncates the X observations. In addition, they did not work with an accurate expression to calculate the probabilities of the Cpk statistic.

The authors presented the results based on their original sampling plan through Monte Carlo simulation and defined the theoretical results of their plan when the sample submitted to the variable inspection is no longer the same one submitted to the attribute inspection.

The β risks of the optimum sampling plans presented by Aslam et al. (2013a) are pretty high, exceeding 46%, on average – this same problem was also observed in Saminathan and Mahalingam (2018), Balamurali (2020) and Balamurali et al. (2020), where the β risks of their proposed sampling plans are yet higher.

In terms of originality, the authors can declare the following. It is not a big deal to propose new sampling plans, if one does not know how to obtain their properties. The miscalculations of the sampling plans risks are dangerous; imagine the situation where the acceptance of bad lots exceeds 50% just because the sampling plan was incorrectly designed. Yes, it is a big deal to warn that this type of problem is arising in a growing number of papers. The authors of this study are the pioneers to discover that many studies focusing on the sampling plans need to be urgently revised.

The purpose of this research is to examine the factors that influence the design of performance measurement systems (PMSs) in nonprofit organizations (NPOs) and public administration and explore inter-relationships among these factors.

Findings resulted through the identification of design factors from the paper portfolio of a previous systematic literature review on this topic and the construction of a factor co-occurrence network for the identified factors. 

The methodology helped to determine the relationships among factors and show how these factors influence PMSs in NPOs and public administration. It also helped to demonstrate how PMSs in these organizations are different from PMSs in traditional companies because of the impact of the factors on the complexity and dynamics of NPOs and public administration. The findings and discussion contribute to the performance measurement literature on NPOs and public administration by presenting a set of design factors related to purpose, stakeholders and management.

This paper presents practical implications for managers regarding the PMS design process and shows how some design factors can be particularly related to these organizations

The design factors are particular to the organizational dynamic and should be considered by managers involved with the design (or redesign) process of performance measurement systems.

A number of works have been published in the scientific literature proposing the solution of heat diffusion problems by first transforming the relevant partial differential equation to the frequency domain. The purpose of this paper is to present a mesh-free strategy to assess transient heat propagation in the frequency domain, also allowing incorporating initial non-zero conditions.

The strategy followed here is based in Kansa's method, using the MQ RBF as a basis function. The resulting method is truly mesh-free, and does not require any domain or boundary integrals to be evaluated. The definition of good values for the free parameter of the MQ RBF is also addressed.

The strategy was found to be accurate in the calculation of both frequency and time-domain responses. The time evolution of the temperature considering an initial non-uniform distribution of temperatures compared well with a standard time-marching algorithm, based on an implicit Crank-Nicholson implementation. It was possible to calculate frequency-dependent values for the free parameter of the radial basis function.

As far as the authors are aware, previous implementations of the frequency domain heat transfer approach required domain integrals to be evaluated in order to implement non-zero initial conditions. This is totally avoided with the present formulation. Additionally, the method is truly mesh-free, accurate and does not require any element or background mesh to be defined.

Recently, industry policy researchers have been more interested in public procurement, as a “demand side” policy approach. The mainstream exclusively targeted public procurement demand to push innovation and furthermore leads to the “first mover strategy.” This paper points out that procurement decisions are likely to have a broader innovation impacts, and mostly via their influence on intermediate outcomes such as the structure of industrial competition. In this paper, the author explores the specific features of public procurement as a competition shaping instrument, and conducts an empirical study to measure the correlations among the competition regulation of procurement contracts awarding, industry competition structure and dominant design cultivation efficiency.

This study aims to conduct a literature review on factors that influence the implementation and design of performance measurement systems in nonprofit organizations.

The research strategy is conceived through a literature review focused on the analysis of authorship, supported by bibliometric techniques such as citation, co-citation and co-authorship social networks.

Models and theories proposed for measuring performance in non-profit organizations are being researched, starting to form an intellectual structure related to performance measurement systems and nonprofits. Three main research topics have been given more attention: strategic performance and public service performance, health-care performance and nonprofit operations strategy and performance measurement.

The study is limited to scientific journal papers and could benefit from the addition of new sources of information such as conference papers, books and standards. The body of knowledge of this topic could also benefit from an in-depth investigation through a comprehensive review of models and theories, as a proposal for a future research agenda.

As practical applications are identified, groups of researchers in different countries and subjects that can generate research agendas, scientific communities used to investigate issues related to performance in nonprofit activities.

Performance measurement in nonprofit organizations is a topic of study that has been receiving considerable attention in recent years, to the point that the literature is revealing specific models for measuring performance in this type of organizations. Particular models and theories are being conceived, specializing existing models and theories related to performance measurement and management.

Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have become increasingly important in national and international markets because they contribute to the development of local and national economies. SMEs often face serious challenges when competing with multinational companies. The purpose of this paper is to develop a method for assessing SMEs’ competitiveness.

Based on a constructivist epistemology, this study makes an integrated use of cognitive mapping and the measuring attractiveness by a categorical-based evaluation technique (MACBETH). To this end, face-to-face sessions were conducted with a panel of entrepreneurs and senior managers who deal with the challenges of maintaining SME competitiveness every day. The proposed assessment system was tested and validated by the panel members.

The methodological processes adopted in this study provide promising results for decision makers seeking to identify the most competitive SMEs. Specifically, the results emphasize, among other points, the importance of innovation and the human dimension to gaining competitive advantages.

The evaluation system developed in this study is extremely versatile and confirms the usefulness of integrating cognitive mapping and MACBETH to facilitate evaluations of SME competitiveness. However, due to its idiosyncratic and process-oriented nature, generalizations need to be done with caution.

The proposed method can be valuable to researchers seeking to develop mechanisms for evaluating SMEs’ entrepreneurial performance and include specialized know-how and sensemaking in organizational decision-making processes.

The integrated use of cognitive maps and MACBETH contributes to a better understanding of how to assess SMEs’ competitiveness. No prior work reporting the use of this dual methodology in this study context has been found.

This paper identifies and discusses the best possible solutions for regenerating cities, with the aim of creating inclusive, pleasant and sustainable cities and more developed and inclusive societies. The purpose of this paper is to stimulate debate about how to use tourism to regenerate cities.

Drawing on background experience in civil engineering and territory planning, this viewpoint discusses the role of tourism in regenerating cities.

The paper identifies possible ways to take advantage of the enormous potential of tourism in the transition towards more pleasant and sustainable cities and more developed and inclusive societies.

This paper advocates a role for tourism in the creation of environments conducive to the launch of high quality, global, urban operations.

The paper offers ten measures whose implementation could contribute to building more dynamic, pleasant, sustainable and inclusive cities. These measures constitute a “roadmap for change” in urban development.

This conceptual paper presents a proposal for improving a performance measurement (PM) system implementation process based on enterprise engineering (EE) guidelines, which gives the process a sense of completeness.

This paper analyzes a well-known process for PM systems implementation organized in two phases: identifying, designing and implementing the top-level performance measures; and cascading the top-level measures and identify appropriate lower-level performance measures. The proposed improvements to the studied process derive from the EE guidelines, which establish a basis for the structure of an organizational management system, the formalization and synchronization of processes, performance expectations, exception handling and change management.

The study reveals that not all EE guidelines are covered by the analyzed process, with four of them having no evidence of being adopted: involvement of people in process design and implementation; ensuring interoperability between different systems in the information structure; addressing of all possible exceptions; coherence and consistency of semantics across all processes.

By the lens of EE guidelines, this paper advances a how-to-guide. This paper can support managers and researchers on PM system design and implementation, given the importance and relevance of EE recommendations having a consistent and well-structured procedure.

In the performance measurement and management research field, the applicability of performance measurement systems (PMS) in nonprofit organizations (NPOs) and public administration has been considered a challenge. The diversity of these organizations makes it difficult to define proper terminology and organizational characteristics. PMS evolution has not yet been able to capture all performance dimensions of a public administration and, especially for NPO considering its dynamic and multiple goals. The purpose of this paper is to provide a conceptual framework that identifies and classifies the factors that influence the design of PMSs in NPOs and public administration.

The study was developed through a systematic literature review (SLR). A set of 29 papers were intensely studied, and the results provide a multi-disciplinary and holistic set of factors.

A set of ten factors that influence the design of PMSs in NPO and public administration were found. They were categorized into three groups: factor related to purpose, stakeholders and management.

The study synthesized the literature and provided a conceptual framework of the factors that influence the design of PMSs in NPO and public administration. No individual paper collected in the SLR shows a similar organization of the factors as the present paper. The set of factors indicates the importance of this study for NPO and public administration, and how complex a PMS in an NPO and public administration can become. The conceptual model presented can further assist practitioners in developing design process observing the role that the identified factors play.