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Effective management of information about client requirements in construction projects lifecycle can contribute to high construction productivity; within budget and schedule, and improve the quality of built facilities and service delivery. Traditionally, requirements management has been focused at the early stages of the construction lifecycle process where elicited client requirements information is used as the basis for design. Management of client requirements does not extend to the later phases. Client requirements often evolve and change dramatically over a facility's life. Changing client requirements is one of the principal factors that contribute to delays and budget overruns of construction projects. This results in claims, disputes and client dissatisfaction. The problems of current requirements management process also include: lack of integrated and collaborative working with requirements; lack of integrated requirements information flow between the various heterogeneous systems used in the lifecycle processes, and between the multiple stakeholders; inefficient and ineffective coordination of changes within the lifecycle processes; manual checking of dependencies between changing requirements to facilitate assessment of cost and time impact of changes. The aim of the research is to specify a better approach to requirements information management to help construction organisations reduce operational cost and time in product development and service delivery; whilst increasing performance and productivity, and realising high quality of built facilities. In order to achieve the aim and the formulated objectives, firstly, a detailed review of literature on related work was conducted. Secondly, the research designed, developed and conducted three case studies to investigate the state-of-the-art of managing client requirements information. A combination of multiple data collection methods was applied which included observations, interviews, focus group and questionnaires. Following this, the data was analysed and problems were identified; the necessity for a lifecycle approach to managing the requirements information emerged. (Continues...).

Radar surveillance systems, in both airspace and maritime domains, are facing increasing challenges in dealing with objects that cannot be detected by traditional transponder-based radar surveillance technologies. These objects, including birds, weather, Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), hot balloons, are labeled as non-cooperative objects. In order to prevent ambiguity and confusion for human operators using the surveillance data non-cooperative objects are commonly treated as unwanted clutter and removed from the displayed data. However, the omitted information of non-cooperative object can be critical to aircraft safety. With new developments in technology and radar capabilities, it is possible to detect these non-cooperative objects and consider how to distribute relevant information about them to human operators throughout a system. The research goal of this thesis is to identify the human factors challenges in future radar surveillance systems where non-cooperative object information is distributed to both air traffic controllers and pilots. In order to achieve the goal, the thesis first constructed a model of surveillance information distribution in current ATC operations and a model of surveillance information distribution in the expected future operational environment. The expected future surveillance information distribution model was then carefully examined to identify potential human factors challenges in the non-cooperative object information distribution process. Two of the identified challenges (non-equal time delay and information level of details) were studied in depth through conducting human-in-the-loop experiments and online surveys. The results of an asynchronous information (non-equal time delay) static simulation environment experiment showed that while a delay in the non-cooperative object information would lead to observable but not statistically significant longer communication time, it does have a significant effect on number of clarification statements ??? with an increase of time delay, more clarifications were made. A survey of controller and pilot perceptions of maximum acceptable delay showed no significant differences in the average maximum acceptable delay reported by controller (20.5 seconds) and pilot (13.64 seconds) participants. Future research should consider adopting dynamic simulation environment, subject matter experts and shorter delay intervals to identify an acceptable delay threshold. The survey results also demonstrated that there are more controllers and pilots who have had encounters with UAS in their daily tasks than what was originally expected. The survey also helped identify operational information requirements and availabilities for individual UAS and challenges in sharing non-cooperative object information between controllers and pilots. These findings are quite valuable as they provide guidance on future radar surveillance systems design in supporting the effective distribution of non-cooperative object information. Future work should complete the analysis of the survey and create more dynamic environment for studying information asynchrony.

Process automation for discrete manufacturing excellence (PADME)

To gain an understanding about what information requirements there are for future operators of autonomous drone swarms at airport, this study examined how work at airports is structured today, what staff at airports think about the potential implementation of autonomous drones, and what potential interface components that are necessary to be able to control these drones. Interviews and observations were made at five different airports and air traffic control towers with tower and ground staff. Based on the collected data a Cognitive Work Analysis (CWA) was made to understand the domain and a Thematic Analysis (TA) was made to understand the ideas regarding the drones. Finally, a workshop with fellow researchers was made to generate ideas about solutions and interface requirements, which was analyzed together with the CWA and TA. It was concluded that the main values of the system are to maintain Situational Awareness, Avoid collisions, and Keep time in order to ensure safe flight traffic. A major aspect to make this possible is communication. This was also a main factor for the implementation of autonomous drones, where it was considered important to know what the drones are doing and where they are. However, it was not always necessary for every person at the airport to have complete oversight and control over the drone, but having the possibility to gain that information was central. Having overview of the drones’ present activities, being able to see what they had done, being able to control them directly, and getting notified about relevant information were interface requirements identified. It was concluded that despite there being some constraints and challenges to implementing autonomous drones at airports, there are aspects that can be taken into account and information to be presented in the right way for the future operator to enable implementation of the autonomous drones at airports.

Целью данной работы является составление шаблона информационных требований заказчика, который обеспечит возможность разработки ЦИМ, подготовленной для автоматизированного контроля технических решений. Был проведен обзор программного обеспечения, позволяющего автоматизировано проверять ЦИМ, определена методология работы при проверке моделей и реализован пример реализации проверок такого рода, на основании созданного примера, был сформирован шаблон информационных требований заказчика к ЦИМ. / The aim of this paper is to develop an employer’s information requirements template that gives an opportunity of building information model technical solutions automated validation. BIM model validation software review, validation methodology and a technical solutions of BIM model check example were given in this thesis. Based on this results the employer’s information requirements template was made.

The focus of this thesis was to develop a simplified framework for future sustainability reports. The traditional approach to corporate reporting is limited in its ability to meet expectations of stakeholders for what drives value creation in a business. Sustainability performance reports are aimed at providing stakeholders information regarding a company’s non-financial performance and to provide stakeholders some information regarding the future performance that can be expected. The idea behind sustainability and the triple bottom line is that a company’s ultimate success can and should be measured not just by the financial bottom line, but also by its social, environmental and economic success. Sustainability reporting, also known as triple bottom line reporting incorporates the economic, social and environmental performance of a company, but there is no universally accepted definition of the subject. Sustainability is a contested subject and defined differently by different groups to suit their purposes. This places the phenomenon in a situation where its future is threatened. / D.B.L.

This diploma thesis deals with the content of the consumer contract and its regulation from the perspective of consumers. The aim of this thesis is to analyse this particular regulation, decide whether it is sufficient, where can be seen some deficiencies and whether the regulations fulfil its function, that is to protect the weaker party. The thesis is divided into five fundamental parts. The first one is concerned with the introductory issues, such as the consumer itself, consumer protection, why is the consumer actually protected, the principles on which is the protection based. The second part looks into the unfair terms in consumer contracts. The emphasis is placed on problematic provisions with respect to the Court of Justice case-law as well as the national case-law. An independent head is devoted to the possibility of the contractual penalty in terms of trade. The third section deals with contractual information requirements. It summarizes the European regulation. It also compares the preceding regulation with the new one in order to find the current tendencies. The contractual information requirements are viewed critically, based on specialized comments and analysis. The national regulation is divided into the general regulation and consumer regulation considering the difference between...

The focus of this thesis was to develop a simplified framework for future sustainability reports. The traditional approach to corporate reporting is limited in its ability to meet expectations of stakeholders for what drives value creation in a business. Sustainability performance reports are aimed at providing stakeholders information regarding a company’s non-financial performance and to provide stakeholders some information regarding the future performance that can be expected. The idea behind sustainability and the triple bottom line is that a company’s ultimate success can and should be measured not just by the financial bottom line, but also by its social, environmental and economic success. Sustainability reporting, also known as triple bottom line reporting incorporates the economic, social and environmental performance of a company, but there is no universally accepted definition of the subject. Sustainability is a contested subject and defined differently by different groups to suit their purposes. This places the phenomenon in a situation where its future is threatened. / D.B.L.

Customer knowledge plays a vital part in organisations today, particularly in sales and marketing processes, where customers can either be channel partners or final consumers. Managing customer data and/or information across business units, departments, and functions is vital. Frequently, channel partners gather and capture data about downstream customers and consumers that organisations further upstream in the channel require to be incorporated into their information systems in order to allow for management information delivery to their users. In this study, the focus is placed on manufacturing organisations using third party distribution since the flow of information between channel partner organisations in a supply chain (in contrast to the flow of products) provides an important link between organisations and increasingly represents a source of competitive advantage in the marketplace. The purpose of this study is to determine whether there is a significant difference in the use of sales and marketing data marts as management information delivery mechanisms in manufacturing organisations in different industries, particularly the pharmaceuticals and branded consumer products. The case studies presented in this dissertation indicates that there are significant differences between the use of sales and marketing data marts in different manufacturing industries, which can be ascribed to the industry, both directly and indirectly. / Thesis (MIS(Information Science))--University of Pretoria, 2002. / Information Science / MIS / unrestricted