Thesis (M. S.)--Architecture, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2010. / Committee Chair: Augenbroe, Godfried; Committee Member: Bayer, Charlene; Committee Member: Gentry, Russell. Part of the SMARTech Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Collection.

Este trabalho apresenta um estudo, conceitual e empírico, objetivando examinar a gestão da marca do produto ao longo da cadeia, desde o fabricante até o consumidor final, sob a intermediação do canal varejista. A revisão da literatura abordando os conceitos relevantes à estratégia de marketing do fabricante e do varejista permitiu um melhor entendimento sobre os aspectos que interferem na gestão da marca. A pesquisa empírica exploratória, estudo de caso, investigou a marca Votomassa da Votorantim Cimentos por meio de vinte e sete entrevistas pessoais, com executivos do fabricante, varejistas, balconistas e clientes dos lojistas e, através da observação nos pontos de venda. Foram identificados pontos estudados na literatura, principalmente no que se refere ao desenvolvimento de relacionamentos, a gestão de canais e a venda ao consumidor final, todos com possíveis interferências na gestão da marca. Particularmente, foram identificadas as implicações que percepções dos atores que integram os vários elos da cadeia podem gerar. O trabalho contribui para avançar nos conceitos e processos pertinentes ao tema em estudo, tendo por foco a cadeia fabricante ? intermediário ? comprador no ramo de material de construção, a partir de uma perspectiva consolidada e holística, evidenciando uma série de ferramentas de marketing que permitem aprimorar o processo estratégico da gestão da marca pelo fabricante. / The study presents a conceptual and empiric vision examining the product brand management throughout the value chain, from the manufacturer to the end consumer, with the intermediation of the retail channel. The theory that supported the study was based on manufacturer and retailer marketing strategy concepts, leading to a better understanding of aspects that may interfere on brand management. An exploratory research was made, as a case study on Votomassa from Votorantim Cimentos, using twenty seven personal interviews with manufacturers\' executives, retailers and their employees, consumers and point of sale observations. This research resulted in the identification of some aspects studied on the literature review, mainly referring to relationship development, marketing channels management, and selling to final consumers, all with possible effects on brand management. It pointed out particularly the implications that perceptions from players on different links of the chain can generate. The main contribution of the present study is the improvement of the concepts and processes related to the theme, focusing on the chain manufacturer ? intermediate ? buyer in the building industry, from a consolidated and holistic perspective, highlighting the marketing tools that can make the strategic brand management process more efficient for the manufacturer.

A indústria da construção civil tem adotado várias tecnologias nos últimos anos com o propósito de melhorar seu desempenho, entre elas a Tecnologia da Informação (TI). Alguns dos principais objetivos da TI no setor são o de integrar e agregar valor aos processos e ajudar no gerenciamento de empreendimentos. Neste sentido, com a consolidação da Internet, foram desenvolvidas as chamadas extranets de projeto para gestão dos processos e armazenamento de documentos. Com estes sistemas é possível integrar as várias equipes intervenientes nos processos da construção civil, oferecendo um grande volume de informações a cada usuário. A proposta deste trabalho é conceber uma ferramenta especializada que auxilie na tarefa de recuperar informações em documentos de construção civil armazenados em extranets de projeto. As ferramentas atualmente disponíveis nas extranets normalmente possuem apenas mecanismos convencionais, com recursos baseados em busca por palavraschave. Estes mecanismos podem retornar grande quantidade de documentos irrelevantes frente a uma solicitação. Isso ocorre pelo generalismo e pela descontextualização dessas ferramentas. Numa extranet de projeto, o tema dos documentos armazenados é delimitado (a Construção Civil). A ferramenta proposta procura otimizar os argumentos das consultas e ordenar por relevância a lista de documentos recuperados. Os algoritmos de busca e ordenação de documentos apresentados neste sistema são baseados no conhecimento do domínio da construção civil objetivando maior eficácia na recuperação. Os resultados obtidos mostraram grande melhora nos parâmetros de precisão e revocação do sistema quando comparados a mecanismos convencionais. / The Building Industry has been adopting several technologies in the last years for improving its performance, including those from the Information Technology (IT). Some of the main objectives of IT in this sector are to integrate and to add value to processes, as well as to help in enterprise management. In this sense, along with the consolidation of the Internet, the so-called project extranets were developed for process management and document archival. With these systems it is possible to integrate all the different teams involved with the building construction processes, offering each user a large amount of information. The purpose of this work is to devise an expert tool to help in the information retrieval from building documents stored in project extranets. The searching engines available in current extranets are conventional, featuring only keyword search. These mechanisms can retrieve many irrelevant documents upon a request. This is due to the generic nature and the non-contextualization of these tools. The subject matter of the documents in a project extranet is restricted (Building Construction). The proposed tool aims to optimize the user query terms and to rank retrieved documents according to their relevance. The document search and ranking algorithms of this system are based on building construction domain knowledge for improving retrieval efficacy. The obtained results show large improvements on the system’s precision and recall parameters when compared to a standard search mechanism.

[pt] A atividade da construção impacta a economia brasileira de forma bem mais abrangente do que aquela diretamente visualizada através de um produto imobiliário ou de uma obra de construção pesada. Na verdade, a importância e o impacto desta atividade sobre o ambiente econômico se estabelece a partir de uma complexa articulação existente entre as organizações (agentes) através da cadeia produtiva, ligando desde fornecedores de matérias-primas, serviços e outros insumos até aquelas atividades de comercialização dos produtos imobiliários prontos. Nesta dissertação procuramos identificar o perfil e as inter- relações existentes atualmente entre os agentes da cadeia, de modo a dimensionar o macrosetor de forma completa, avaliando o impacto resultante do seu efeito multiplicador sobre a economia em termos da geração de produto, renda, emprego e impostos, destacando as virtudes e os problemas de cada agente e seus reflexos sobre a cadeia, propondo soluções criativas e necessidades de desenvolvimento para viabilizar um crescimento mais estável do macro-setor da construção imobiliária em um curto-médio espaço de tempo. / [en] Construction activities impact the Brazilian economy in a much more including way than the one directly visualized in building products or in heavy constructions. Actually, the real importance and the impact of this activity into the economical atmosphere begins with a complex articulation among the organizations (agents) through the supply chain, linking suppliers up to those activities after the conclusion of the building construction, such as rents, hotels, maintenance, administration and consultant works. In this dissertation, we tried to identify the profile and the interrelations among the agents of the chain, to design all the industry and to evaluate the resulting impact of its multiplier effect over the economy in terms of generation of products, incomes, employment and taxes.

Les réglementations concernant l’industrie de la construction deviennent de plus en plus complexes et touchent plus d’un domaine à la fois. Elles portent sur les produits, les composants et l'exécution des projets. Elles jouent aussi un rôle important pour garantir la qualité d'un bâtiment, ses caractéristiques et minimiser son impact environnemental. Depuis 30 ans, le CSTB prouve son savoir-faire en la matière au travers du développement du REEF, l’encyclopédie complète des textes techniques et réglementaires de la construction. Dans le cadre d’une collaboration entre le CSTB et le laboratoire I3S, nous avons travaillé à la formalisation et au traitement automatisé des informations technico-réglementaires contenues dans le REEF. Nous avons mis en œuvre notre approche pour aider à la création de nouveaux Avis Techniques. Il s'agit de préciser comment ils sont rédigés et comment standardiser leur structure grâce à la mise en œuvre de services sémantiques adaptés. Nous avons réussi à identifier et à comprendre les problèmes liés à la rédaction d'avis techniques et nous nous sommes focalisés sur le renseignement des dossiers techniques par les industriels. Nos contributions sont les suivantes : Nous avons construit manuellement une ontologie du domaine, qui définit les principaux concepts impliqués dans l’élaboration des Avis Technique. Cette ontologie appelée "OntoDT" est couplée avec le thésaurus du projet REEF. Nous l’avons définie à partir de l’étude des dossiers techniques existants, du thesaurus REEF et en interviewant les instructeurs du CSTB. Nous utilisons conjointement les standards SBVR et SPARQL pour reformuler, à la fois dans un langage contrôlé et dans un langage formel, les contraintes réglementaires présentes dans les Guides pratiques. SBVR représente une assurance de la qualité du texte des contraintes réglementaires présentées à l’utilisateur et SPARQL permet l’automatisation de la vérification de ces contraintes. Ces deux représentations reposent sur l’ontologie de domaine que nous avons développée. Nous intégrons des connaissances expertes sur le processus même de vérification des dossiers techniques. Nous avons organisé en différents processus les requêtes SPARQL représentant des contraintes réglementaires. A chaque composant intervenant dans un dossier technique correspond un processus de vérification de sa conformité à la réglementation en vigueur. Les processus sont représentés de manière déclarative en RDF et un moteur de processus interprète ces descriptions RDF pour ordonner et déclencher l’exécution des requêtes nécessaires à la vérification d’un dossier technique particulier. Enfin, nous représentons de façon déclarative en RDF l’association des représentations SBVR et SPARQL des réglementations et nous utilisons ces annotations pour produire à l’utilisateur un rapport de conformité en langue naturelle pour l’assister dans la rédaction d’un avis technique. / Regulations in the Building industry are becoming increasingly complex and involve more than one technical area. They cover products, components and project implementation. They also play an important role to ensure the quality of a building, and to minimize its environmental impact. For more than 30 years, CSTB has proved its expertise in this field through the development of the complete encyclopedia of French technical and regulatory texts in the building domain: the REEF. In the framework of collaboration between CSTB and the I3S laboratory, we are carrying on research on the acquisition of knowledge from the technical and regulatory information contained in the REEF and the automated processing of this knowledge with the final goal of assisting professionals in the use of these texts and the creation of new texts. We are implementing this work in CSTB to help industrials in the writing of Technical Assessments. The problem is how to specify these assessments and standardize their structure using models and adaptive semantic services. The research communities of Knowledge Engineering and Semantic Web play a key role in providing the models and techniques relevant for our research, whose main objective is to simplify access to technical regulatory information, to support professionals in its implementation, and to facilitate the writing of new regulations while taking into account constraints expressed in the existing regulatory corpus. We focus on Technical Assessments based on technical guides capturing both regulations and knowledge of CSTB experts when producing these documents. A Technical Assessment (in French: Avis Technique or ATec) is a document containing technical information on the usability of a product, material, component or element of construction, which has an innovative character. We chose this Technical Assessment as a case study because CSTB has the mastership and a wide experience in these kinds of technical documents. We are particularly interested in the modeling of the regulatory constraints derived from the Technical Guides used to validate the Assessment. These Guides are regulatory complements offered by CSTB to the various industrials to enable easier reading of technical regulations. They collect execution details with a wide range of possible situations of implementations. Our work aims to formalize the Technical Guides in a machine-processable model to assist the creation of Technical Assessments by automating their validation. For this purpose, we first constructed a domain-ontology, which defines the main concepts involved in the Technical Guides. This ontology called “OntoDT” is coupled with domain thesauri. Several are being developed at CSTB among which one seems the most relevant by its volume and its semantic approach: the thesaurus from the REEF project. Our second contribution is the use of standard SBVR (Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Business Rules) and SPARQL to reformulate the regulatory requirements of guides both in a controlled and formal language Third, our model incorporates expert knowledge on the verification process of Technical Documents. We have organized the SPARQL queries representing regulatory constraints into several processes. Each component involved in the Technical Document corresponds to a elementary process of compliance checking. An elementary process contains a set of SPARQL queries to check the compliance of an elementary component. A full complex process for checking a Technical Document is defined recursively and automatically built as a set of elementary processes relative to the components which have their semantic definition in OntoDT. Finally, we represent in RDF the association between the SBVR rules and SPARQL queries representing the same regulatory constraints. We use annotations to produce a compliance report in natural language to assist users in the writing of Technical Assessments.

Master of Philosophy / Australian government policy today aims to ‘deregulate’ industrial relations. A fractured system has ensued where uncontrolled market forces disrupt both business and unions. The building industry is particularly affected by uncertainty and industrial barbarism. Precisely one hundred years ago government policy was to create order, becoming directly involved in industrial regulation. This thesis aims to understand how building unions maintained their rates and conditions in the pre-arbitration era when there were no legislative minimums, and it seeks to place their labour relations within a political and ideological context. The thesis criticises historical scholarship surrounding artisan unionism in Britain and Australia, in particular the role of building tradesmen. Positive relations between employers and employed in the industry are often described in pejorative terms with tradesmen labelled ‘aristocrats of labour’ – apolitical, middle class and lacking class-awareness. The thesis argues this view does not adequately describe the qualities of building operatives, or place their motives within a ‘deregulated’ industrial context. To demonstrate nineteenth century building industry unionism in NSW had a broader nature, the thesis looks at British trade union radicalism. It examines both changes in structure and ideology caused by growing industrialisation and competitive organisation affecting building tradesmen known as general contracting, as well as continuity and differences in ideas of social change and progress. The thesis connects the ideology of British and colonial building unions in this regard. It then turns to the lives, work and society of nineteenth century building workers in Sydney and the make-up of their organisations. The thesis seeks to understand the political and ideological aspects of Australian building unionism and the effects of general contracting and competition. Central to the discussion is the influence of the Co-operative movement, and the significance of the struggle for the eight-hour day to the labour movement. Both were progressive responses to unfettered market forces on the trade. It argues that the challenges faced by operatives in maintaining conditions led them to develop politically, creating ‘modern’ class representation and ideology. The thesis ends with a chapter that examines the evidence before the 1891 NSW Royal Commission into Strikes showing the building industry to be characterised by conflict, co-operation, and radicalism. Unionists expressed progressive ideology and industrial militancy but maintained positive relationships with certain employers for whom they provided market security. The trade-off for efforts in this respect was recognition that union rules would be the primary form of industrial regulation. Their system, however, was ultimately unsustainable because of competitive pressures, and industrial militancy against builders outside the system flourished. In conclusion, the thesis suggests that nineteenth century building workers improved and maintained industrial standards by militant unionism, and yet, at the same time, by forming co-operative relations with employers. In dealing with the corrosive effect of market deregulation that undermined control over their trade, operatives also built progressive organisations which forged working class unity and developed politically advanced ideologies of social change. Their ideas and practices were at times unsuccessful or contradictory, but building unionists were not inward-looking ‘labour aristocrats’.

Master of Philosophy / Australian government policy today aims to ‘deregulate’ industrial relations. A fractured system has ensued where uncontrolled market forces disrupt both business and unions. The building industry is particularly affected by uncertainty and industrial barbarism. Precisely one hundred years ago government policy was to create order, becoming directly involved in industrial regulation. This thesis aims to understand how building unions maintained their rates and conditions in the pre-arbitration era when there were no legislative minimums, and it seeks to place their labour relations within a political and ideological context. The thesis criticises historical scholarship surrounding artisan unionism in Britain and Australia, in particular the role of building tradesmen. Positive relations between employers and employed in the industry are often described in pejorative terms with tradesmen labelled ‘aristocrats of labour’ – apolitical, middle class and lacking class-awareness. The thesis argues this view does not adequately describe the qualities of building operatives, or place their motives within a ‘deregulated’ industrial context. To demonstrate nineteenth century building industry unionism in NSW had a broader nature, the thesis looks at British trade union radicalism. It examines both changes in structure and ideology caused by growing industrialisation and competitive organisation affecting building tradesmen known as general contracting, as well as continuity and differences in ideas of social change and progress. The thesis connects the ideology of British and colonial building unions in this regard. It then turns to the lives, work and society of nineteenth century building workers in Sydney and the make-up of their organisations. The thesis seeks to understand the political and ideological aspects of Australian building unionism and the effects of general contracting and competition. Central to the discussion is the influence of the Co-operative movement, and the significance of the struggle for the eight-hour day to the labour movement. Both were progressive responses to unfettered market forces on the trade. It argues that the challenges faced by operatives in maintaining conditions led them to develop politically, creating ‘modern’ class representation and ideology. The thesis ends with a chapter that examines the evidence before the 1891 NSW Royal Commission into Strikes showing the building industry to be characterised by conflict, co-operation, and radicalism. Unionists expressed progressive ideology and industrial militancy but maintained positive relationships with certain employers for whom they provided market security. The trade-off for efforts in this respect was recognition that union rules would be the primary form of industrial regulation. Their system, however, was ultimately unsustainable because of competitive pressures, and industrial militancy against builders outside the system flourished. In conclusion, the thesis suggests that nineteenth century building workers improved and maintained industrial standards by militant unionism, and yet, at the same time, by forming co-operative relations with employers. In dealing with the corrosive effect of market deregulation that undermined control over their trade, operatives also built progressive organisations which forged working class unity and developed politically advanced ideologies of social change. Their ideas and practices were at times unsuccessful or contradictory, but building unionists were not inward-looking ‘labour aristocrats’.

A indústria da construção civil pode ser considerada como o setor que reflete o desenvolvimento econômico de cada país, visto que mobiliza riquezas e emprega expressiva quantidade de mão de obra. Essa indústria, porém é caracterizada pelos riscos ocupacionais e expressivas taxas de acidentes e óbitos, dentre os quais, pode-se destacar os acidentes de trabalho em altura. Ainda pouco estudados, os acidentes de trabalho em altura resultam em elevados custos humanos, econômicos e sociais, devido à gravidade desses acidentes. Considerando os acidentes com queda de pessoas – os mais fatais –, esta pesquisa objetiva desenvolver uma sistemática de análise, avaliação no controle dos riscos inerentes às atividades realizadas em altura, que venha auxiliar as empresas a aperfeiçoar as práticas de segurança adotadas. Trata-se de uma pesquisa qualitativa, estruturada através da aplicação de questionários junto aos órgãos envolvidos com a construção civil, e aplicação de checklist nos canteiros de obras da construção de edifício, na cidade de Natal/RN, no auxílio do levantamento das práticas de segurança em trabalho em altura adotadas nos citados canteiros. A análise dos dados coletados serviu para identificar as principais práticas e posturas prevalentes do trabalho em altura, resultando em conjunto com a teoria elencada, bases para a formulação de uma sistemática de análise e avaliação no controle das práticas de segurança de trabalho em altura na construção de edifícios, estabelecida com o objetivo principal de fornecer às equipes de gestão de segurança uma ferramenta estruturada para autoanálise e estabelecimento de metas de melhoria. / The construction industry can be considered as the sector that reflects the economic development of each country, as it mobilizes wealth and employs significant amount of manpower. This industry is, tough, characterized by occupational risks and high rates of accidents and deaths, among which we can highlight the accidents in height. Yet little studied, accidents in height result in high human, economic and social costs due to the severity of these accidents. Regarding accidents with people falling – the most fatal – this research aims at developing a systematic analysis, assessment of the risks inherent in controlling the activities carried out at height, which will help companies improve safety practices adopted. This is a qualitative research structured through questionnaires with agencies involved with the construction and application checklist at construction site buildings in the city of Natal / RN , in aid of the survey of working practices at height safety adopted in the sites mentioned previously. The analysis of the data collected was used to identify main practices and prevailing attitudes of working at height, resulting together with the theory listed, bases for the formulation of a systematic analysis and evaluation on control of the safety practices of working at height in building constructions which has been set up with the main goal of supplying the security management team with tool structured for auto-analysis as well as setting goal for improvement.

This thesis explains basic problems related to construction of the building. A primary goal of this work was set to work out a project of small detached house in given locality. This project has to reflect requirements of modern young family living. The appearance of house also has to respect circumstances of rural surrounding. The Local plan sets out a land use strategy for the district. During this work were all the regulations of planning policy followed. Designing building layouts to maximize the space use and improve accessibility inside buildings are important consideration for building designers. There were two possible building layouts designed. After due consideration was one of these variants chosen for further elaboration. The considerable work has been done by taking a general overview of the building process preparation. The main conclusion of this work is not only the spatial layout of one single house. Building law in the Czech Republic was completely modified year 2007. In connection with this modification, this work also provides a useful outline of new building act.

A indústria da construção civil pode ser considerada como o setor que reflete o desenvolvimento econômico de cada país, visto que mobiliza riquezas e emprega expressiva quantidade de mão de obra. Essa indústria, porém é caracterizada pelos riscos ocupacionais e expressivas taxas de acidentes e óbitos, dentre os quais, pode-se destacar os acidentes de trabalho em altura. Ainda pouco estudados, os acidentes de trabalho em altura resultam em elevados custos humanos, econômicos e sociais, devido à gravidade desses acidentes. Considerando os acidentes com queda de pessoas – os mais fatais –, esta pesquisa objetiva desenvolver uma sistemática de análise, avaliação no controle dos riscos inerentes às atividades realizadas em altura, que venha auxiliar as empresas a aperfeiçoar as práticas de segurança adotadas. Trata-se de uma pesquisa qualitativa, estruturada através da aplicação de questionários junto aos órgãos envolvidos com a construção civil, e aplicação de checklist nos canteiros de obras da construção de edifício, na cidade de Natal/RN, no auxílio do levantamento das práticas de segurança em trabalho em altura adotadas nos citados canteiros. A análise dos dados coletados serviu para identificar as principais práticas e posturas prevalentes do trabalho em altura, resultando em conjunto com a teoria elencada, bases para a formulação de uma sistemática de análise e avaliação no controle das práticas de segurança de trabalho em altura na construção de edifícios, estabelecida com o objetivo principal de fornecer às equipes de gestão de segurança uma ferramenta estruturada para autoanálise e estabelecimento de metas de melhoria. / The construction industry can be considered as the sector that reflects the economic development of each country, as it mobilizes wealth and employs significant amount of manpower. This industry is, tough, characterized by occupational risks and high rates of accidents and deaths, among which we can highlight the accidents in height. Yet little studied, accidents in height result in high human, economic and social costs due to the severity of these accidents. Regarding accidents with people falling – the most fatal – this research aims at developing a systematic analysis, assessment of the risks inherent in controlling the activities carried out at height, which will help companies improve safety practices adopted. This is a qualitative research structured through questionnaires with agencies involved with the construction and application checklist at construction site buildings in the city of Natal / RN , in aid of the survey of working practices at height safety adopted in the sites mentioned previously. The analysis of the data collected was used to identify main practices and prevailing attitudes of working at height, resulting together with the theory listed, bases for the formulation of a systematic analysis and evaluation on control of the safety practices of working at height in building constructions which has been set up with the main goal of supplying the security management team with tool structured for auto-analysis as well as setting goal for improvement.