No description available.

Since its inauguration in 1948, the National Health Service (NHS) has been providing “free at the point of delivery” healthcare to all UK citizens. However, lately, there has been unprecedented concern over the capability of most NHS hospitals to demonstrate best value in providing non-clinical service to NHS Trust customers. Demonstrating value is particularly important because of the current multi-billion pound expenditure towards modernising the healthcare service estate. Consequently, the present research aimed to respond to the need to demonstrate satisfactory Whole Life Value (WLV) delivery of healthcare facilities. This has been achieved by focusing on the improvement of front-end processes of construction briefing and optioneering, where most value can be embedded before progressing onto design and construction. The study reviewed extant literature in an attempt to construct a theoretical linkage between the three concepts of WLV, strategic briefing and optioneering. In addition, through a qualitative empirical study comprising interviews, workshops observations and a detailed case study, the same concepts were investigated within the context of NHS healthcare facilities. Key findings indicated that having a specific project strategy is vital to WLV delivery; and that selecting the right project and design options is dependent on first agreeing and clarifying a clinical service model/plan with clinicians. It was also found that improved construction briefing and optioneering involves adequately defining a customised whole life solution informed through purposeful communication and engagement with relevant stakeholders in contributing towards issues that directly affect how they use a healthcare facility. Another key finding was that WLV of healthcare facilities is defined through a whole life solution which is directly linked to its usefulness or utility value realisable by service users in achieving expected clinical outcomes over the facility's design life. Therefore, through briefing and optioneering, a healthcare facility's project strategy must be directly linked with specific needs and requirements (among other things) in order to reflect exactly what the stakeholders and end-users value in a healthcare built environment in the long term. These research findings were applied to inform the formulation of a better briefing and optioneering guidance framework applicable during project definition for satisfactory WLV delivery of healthcare schemes.

Owners of infrastructure assets have responsibility for the management of a diverse portfolio of civil engineering assets. These assets make up the foundations of modern society and are arguably pivotal in the economic growth and wellbeing of a nation. It is of no surprise therefore, that asset management business practises have risen in popularity as the UK’s infrastructure asset base continues to grow and inevitably ages with time. In the context of water and waste water infrastructure assets, which communities rely upon for health, economy and environmental sustainability, it is widely acknowledged that these assets have historically suffered from underinvestment. Whilst funding shortfalls have been evidenced historically, through the inadequacy of infrastructure to meet the needs and challenges of the past, it is of great concern that infrastructure expenditure is reducing in real terms as a result of the global financial crisis. This is leading to a widening funding gap between the available and the required finances for infrastructure investment which is further compounded by natural phenomena and human behaviours, i.e., climate change, population growth and urbanisation. To further intensify the problem, asset planning and management in the water industry is considered a complex and challenging discipline because of high interdependencies and the vast quantity of assets themselves. In acknowledgement of this global position, this thesis seeks to address some of the key challenges faced by utility companies in the adoption of asset management best practice across water and waste water assets, namely: • Operational decision making - the efficient and effective specification of least-cost rehabilitation programmes from condition information that ensure behavioural alignment with an organisations strategic objectives. • Tactical decision making - achieving risk based asset level inspection prioritisation that considers serviceability performance, for two particularly challenging asset groups: i.) High value - low volume assets and ii). Low value - high volume buried infrastructure. • Strategic decision making - identifying optimal long-term investment plans and asset management policies for assets that have previously not benefited from such technological advancements. To improve upon operational decision making, the author capitalises on the availability of condition inspection information for buried sewerage infrastructure by applying advanced optimisation techniques to help form an environment where the decision makers is presented with an array of optimal rehabilitation solutions. The trade-off curve that is presented uniquely evaluates solutions for the benefits they offer in-terms of: condition improvement, cost and operational performance. A financially favourable comparison (up to 45% saving) is drawn between the optimisation results which are automatically generated by the model and those that have been developed manually by experienced engineers in a ‘real world’ case study. However, it could be argued that the greatest benefit arises from the trade curve of feasible solutions which are presented to the decision maker across a range of investment levels. In recognition that tactical and strategic decision making have been the focus of a substantial amount of research for commonly found infrastructure assets, i.e., public sewers and water mains, a focus has been placed on improving upon and adopting best practise across infrastructure assets which have not previously benefited from the technological developments across these decision making levels. Firstly, a methodology for translating standardised condition inspection information into more meaningful reliability scores, to support risk based planning and decision making, is presented for service reservoirs. A service reservoir can be regarded as high value- low volume infrastructure asset and would typically have its condition evaluated between 1 (poor) to 5 (good). A case study demonstrates how this new reliability scoring mechanism has been successfully applied during a typical structural condition survey. The output from this process is a fully document reliability assessment for each component of the service reservoir. The output can be aggregated to provide an overall reliability assessment for the structure and/or used to target specific remedial works to troublesome components. Secondly, two methodologies are presented which address the fact that high volume – low value infrastructure assets across both the water distribution and wastewater collection networks, are typically less well understood and often sub-optimally managed in comparison to more critical or higher value assets. 1. A methodology has been developed to help UK water companies overcome the recent legislative changes associated with Section105A of the Water Act; which has transferred ownership of the private sewer network to UK water companies. The new methodology which has been developed, has allowed one of the UK’s water and sewerage companies to initiate a proactive asset management programme with the aim of addressing the deteriorating condition of these assets whilst also tackling their associated serviceability performance. Initially, a number of GIS tools are used to provide an estimate of the likely extent of the transferred network before a well-established public sewer deterioration model is used to predict the condition and operational performance of these S105A assets over time. 2. A novel deterioration modelling framework is developed by coupling the latest geospatial technologies with statistical deterioration modelling techniques. The modelling framework is specifically applied to small diameter water distribution assets (25-50mm diameter), known as communication pipes, which connect individual properties to the water distribution mains. Reliability curves are developed from failure data provided by two UK based Water Companies that have captured specific communication pipe failure records since 2001. The deterioration modelling curves and supporting data are compared and contrasted to demonstrate the robustness of this modelling approach, which is shown to be capable of modelling failure rates to a high degree of accuracy. This was validated by comparing the predicted number of failures against three years of failure data not used during the model building process. The yearly failure counts were predicted to within +/-5% accuracy and the overall cumulative modelled failure count at the end of 2014 was predicted within 1%. To conclude, the successful deterioration modelling tools for communication pipes are explored further, via the development of a strategic whole life cost optimisation framework for these assets. The outputs from the previous geospatial mapping tool are used alongside the calibrated Weibull deterioration curves to drive a whole life cost and performance analysis. Against this improved understanding of whole life costs, an optimisation algorithm is used to evaluate the trade-off between whole life costs (totex) and the prevention of future asset failures (serviceability). The model successfully identifies optimised investment policies according to the decision maker’s priorities which is evidenced in a case study that shows outperformance against existing maintenance policies for these assets. Financial savings in the region of £8.5M, or the prevention of 1,320 asset failures, were shown to be possible over a 25 years planning horizon in the case study. For the avoidance of confusion, the term ‘integrated’ is considered from the perspective of the three decision making levels associated with the management of an asset, namely: strategic, tactical and operational decision making. Therefore, data quality improvements and the management of information transactions between decisional levels are inherently considered within all of the methodologies developed in this thesis.

In spite of the benefits of implementing whole life costing technique as a valuable approach for comparing alternative building designs allowing operational cost benefits to be evaluated against any initial cost increases and also as part of procurement in the construction industry, its adoption has been relatively slow due to the lack of tangible evidence, “know-how” skills and knowledge of the practice i.e. the lack of professionals in many establishments with knowledge and training on the use of whole life costing technique, this situation is compounded by the absence of available data on whole life costing from relevant projects, lack of data collection mechanisms and so on. This has proved to be very challenging to those who showed some willingness to employ the technique in a construction project. The knowledge generated from a project can be considered as best practices learned on how to carry out tasks in a more efficient way, or some negative lessons learned which have led to losses and slowed down the progress of the project and performance. Knowledge management in whole life costing practice can enhance whole life costing analysis execution in a construction project, as lessons learned from one project can be carried on to future projects, resulting in continuous improvement, providing knowledge that can be used in the operation and maintenance phases of an assets life span. This study aims to use knowledge management as a tool to address the obstacle of whole life costing outlined in this study by developing a framework for knowledge capture and recovery in whole life costing practice in construction. An extensive literature review was first conducted on the concept of knowledge management and whole life costing. This was followed by a semi-structured interview to explore the existing and good practice knowledge management in whole life costing practice in a construction project. The data gathered from the semi-structured interview was analysed using content analysis and used to develop the framework. From the results obtained in the study, it shows that the practice of project review is the common method used in the capturing of knowledge and should be undertaken in an organised and accurate manner, and results should be presented in the form of instructions or in a checklist format, forming short and precise insights. In order to efficiently and swiftly recover knowledge from previous whole life costing project, the knowledge must be characterised based on whole life costing processes and activities, by means of an IT system with components designed to manage knowledge and locate expertise. However; the framework developed advised that irrespective of how effective the approach to knowledge capture and recovery, the absence of an environment for sharing knowledge, would render the approach ineffective. Open culture and resources are critical for providing a knowledgesharing setting, and leadership has to sustain whole life costing knowledge capture and recovery, giving full support for its implementation. The framework has been evaluated by academics and practitioners who are experts in the area of whole life costing practice. The results have indicated that the framework and its components are both suitable and efficient.

This thesis provides an analysis of cost of ownership issues and techniques, and provides the supporting data to enable future system designers to make rational decisions on design options. It represents the experience gained whilst collecting cost and cost relationship data in the Rolls-Royce group over a period or more than four years. This, in a time of continuous change, in both the company and the wider IT industry. The thesis is arranged in chapters, each representing a milestone conference or journal paper. The exception to this is chapter Il- the conclusion and summary of the work in the thesis. The Chapter topics cover firstly the background of whole life cost and the aims and objectives of the research. A relationship between whole life cost and quality is considered and why whole life cost is a useful measure of quality. This is examined in practical terms of tools and methods. Case studies are used to illustrate the measurement and use of whole life cost. The impact of obsolescence risk is next considered, identifying the causes and implications of obsolescence. Case studies are used to show how the IT help desk can be used to identify and reduce whole life costs both in a deterministic and a probabilistic approach. This is followed by an examination of the costs of database systems at Rolls-Royce and Associates. Case studies of database systems are also used to show the need to collect in service data, and genetic algorithms are shown to be a useful tool for analysing the data. Whole life costing techniques applied to engineering systems at Rolls-Royce is examined. It is shown that a reliability centred maintenance database is a cost effective tool in collecting data. Network monitoring software is shown to be an effective tool for reducing the cost of ownership of IT systems. The overall conclusion is that whole life cost techniques have been shown to work for computer based systems, further work in this area is still needed to enable costs to be fully understood and optimised.

The UK is committed to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 80% from 1990 levels by 2050, with intermediate targets set in the form of 5-year carbon budgets. Residential sector emissions accounted for 26% of UK greenhouse gas emissions in 2009. For the UK to meet its carbon budgets, residential sector emission reductions of 35-40% are required by 2022 from 2009 levels, with further reductions beyond. As shown here, the UK has a range of policies and initiatives to reduce carbon emissions from the residential sector; and there is a range of methods and technologies available to reduce carbon emissions from dwellings. The process of selecting the combination of methods and technologies to reduce carbon emissions from dwellings is here termed the specification of a construction strategy. Energy assessment tools (such as SAP, BREDEM and PHPP) are integral to this process. They are used to predict the energy use of dwellings, to demonstrate compliance with targets and regulations, and to compare and choose between alternative construction strategies. However, current energy assessment tools, and the associated methodologies and data, are insufficient for optimal strategy selection. This is because they do not assist in the systematic comparison of all combinations of options; they do not assist in the evaluation of whole life energy, carbon and cost; they do not always allow sufficient flexibility for key inputs and assumptions characterising the dwelling and its use; and they do not allow sufficient flexibility for the key metrics (weather data, carbon emission factors, and energy costs) or lead users to develop values for these metrics appropriate to the study period. Following detailed analysis of the current processes of construction strategy selection for dwellings, a framework is developed for the rapid identification of the optimal construction strategy (within the constraints of the tools and data used), whilst evaluating the whole life energy, carbon, cost and performance of alternative strategies. Methodologies are developed and implemented in a working tool for the systematic comparison of all combinations of options entered by the user; the evaluation of whole life energy, carbon and cost in an energy assessment tool; the use of flexibility for key inputs and assumptions to test the sensitivity of strategy performance to changes in these values; and the development and application of metrics appropriate to the study period under consideration. The use of the framework, methodologies, and tool are demonstrated in worked examples for a new dwelling constructed to the proposed 2016 ‘Zero Carbon Homes’ standard, and for the renovation of an existing dwelling.

No / Rainwater harvesting (RWH) can be used to reduce the demand for potable mains water. At the single-building scale, previous research has focused on water-saving potential, while financial assessment has either been omitted or considered in an ad hoc manner. This paper reports on the application of a more rigorous financial analysis of domestic RWH systems than had been conducted previously. Whole life costing was selected as the most appropriate financial assessment technique. A total of 3840 domestic system configurations were assessed at a daily time step, taking into account various stakeholder perspectives and future cost scenarios. In each case, it was found that harvesting rainwater was significantly less cost effective than relying solely on mains-only water. The domestic RWH systems generally resulted in financial losses approximately equal to their capital costs. Without significant financial support, domestic RWH is unlikely to be cost effective for all reasonably foreseeable scenarios.

The research work that underpins this thesis aims to investigate the viability of renewable energy technologies (RETs) and to develop a RETs implementation framework for providing sustainable electricity to Nigeria’s rural areas. As a result of electricity supply deficiency in Nigeria, rural communities have been negatively affected in their socio-economic activities. A strength, weakness, opportunity and threat (SWOT) analysis in combination with an assessment of sustainability indicators of RETs, identified the most appropriate technology for providing sustainable electricity in Nigeria's rural areas. Biomass energy technologies (BETs) are the most appropriate RET given significant resource availability. However, cost has been identified as the major barrier in adopting BETs. Both BETs and grid extension (GE) systems have been assessed. Whole Life Costing (WLC) and interview methods have been used to evaluate the economics of various capacities of BETs and GE systems, and assessed suitability of BETs respectively. Typical findings revealed that all the BETs capacities evaluated other than a 50kW direct combustion system are currently cost-competitive with existing fossil fuel (FF) sources used in generating electricity in Nigeria (US$0.13/kWh without incentives). BETs are identified as the preferable option than GE system for electricity provision to communities of demand capacity less than 50kW and distance less than five kilometre from load centres. Similarly, the interview method confirmed that BETs utilisation in the country’s rural areas are suitable and desirable. For implementation, all the identified drivers and enablers of BETs should be considered, along with the identified constraints to the adoption and development of BETs, some of which should be addressed before implementation. Further, a BETs implementation framework for sustainable electricity provision in rural areas has been developed through the selection of appropriate biomass feedstock and conversion technologies, and support through suitable incentive strategies. The framework was then evaluated and validated using six villages as case study. The benefit of the framework is ensuring successful electricity provision in rural areas. Thus, this study recommends that the existing rural areas energy policies be reviewed to include incentive strategies like economic subsidies in order to encourage investors’ participation given lack of energy infrastructures in rural areas.

Many of the water sectors in developing countries are facing challenges and obstacles in providing potable water to their customers. These challenges resulted from many reasons such as; shortage of water, huge population, low water tariff, regulations, unplanned development, shortage of financing, absence of commercial orientation and others. Therefore, these sectors are requested to work innovatively to overcome these problems and find out proper solutions. One effective option to address these challenges is appropriate pricing of water. Setting up appropriate water price aims to recover service cost, reduce rate of subsidy and achieve financial sustainability. This research was carried out to determine how to achieve financial sustainability in the water sector in the Sultanate of Oman. The study is based on three main issues, improving the water tariff structure, the role of the customer and his expectation to increase the chance of financial sustainability. Two stages of qualitative and quantitative data collection methods were adopted in order to answer the research question. 22 semi-structured interviews were conducted with PAEW key staff and other relevant parties outside PAEW. 610 quantitative surveys were returned from a total of 1600 PAEW customers to get their views about the role of the customer and his expectations of PAEW in order to increase the chance of financial sustainability. Findings from qualitative data showed the appropriate water tariff is the cost reflective tariff which increases the chance of financial sustainability and cost recovery. The quantitative findings present the willingness of customers' participation and his expectation. Customer participation is expressed in three main roles: leakage and defect reporting, payment and conservation. In all of these, the research outcomes prove the role of the customer and the importance of these roles to increase the chance of financial sustainability. Customer expectations are expressed in customer service, billing system and water service. The outcomes reflect the customer expectations in terms of satisfaction and identify the gap that should be filled by PAEW to make the customer satisfied and loyal.

Le contexte hospitalier actuel exhorte les établissements de santé à une gestion plus rigoureuse et objective des ressources dans le but de maitriser leur performance. Le patrimoine immobilier des établissements publics de santé contribue à la qualité des soins demandée, à la qualité d'accueil des patients et des conditions de travail du personnel. Aujourd'hui, les hôpitaux demeurent conçus et réalisés sans aucune anticipation des coûts futurs d'exploitation-maintenance. Ces coûts qui représentent indéniablement une valeur importante du budget global de fonctionnement, sont pourtant méconnus. Afin de palier à la faiblesse des moyens de financement public, l'administration a comme recours la mise en place d'une nouvelle procédure de contrats de Partenariat Public Privé. Or celle-ci ne dispose pas d'un minimum d'informations en terme de connaissances sur les dépenses d'exploitation-maintenance actuelles de son patrimoine. Dans ce contexte, le coût global constitue une approche innovante dans la gestion des projets immobiliers.La problématique développée dans ce travail de thèse est donc d'approfondir les connaissances en amont des coûts d'exploitation-maintenance des bâtiments hospitaliers. Elle apporte un éclairage sur la relation entre les coûts d'exploitation-maintenance et l'activité hospitalière. Elle propose ainsi une réponse plus adaptée et plus opérationnelle à la question de l'estimation de ces coûts d'exploitation-maintenance en aidant le maître d'ouvrage à prendre en compte l'activité de soin et les choix architecturaux dans son projet. Cela revient à proposer une méthode d'aide à la décision pour construire un bâtiment hospitalier qui minimise les dépenses futures de fonctionnement. Cette méthode s'appuie sur un modèle d'estimation et sur un observatoire des coûts d'exploitation-maintenance réel de 37 établissements publics de santé. / The current situations of hospitals require more efficient management in order to control their performance. The real estates of public hospitals contribute to the quality of required healthcare, the quality of patient care and working conditions of healthcare staff.Today, hospitals are designed and built without anticipating of future evolution of operation and maintenance costs. These costs that are an important contribution to the value of the overall operating budget are underestimated and far unknown.To overcome the lack of public finance, the government has so used the Public Private Partnership Contracts as a new procedure. Yet the government does not have a minimum of information about operating and maintenance expenses of its real estates. In this context, the Whole Life Cycle Costing is an innovative approach in managing public healthcare real estate projects.The problem developed in this thesis is to expend is to expend the knowledge of operation and maintenance costs of healthcare real estates. This thesis highlights the relationship between operating and maintenance costs and hospital activity. It proposes a more efficient response in the issue of estimating these costs by helping the director to take into account the healthcare activity and the architectural choices. It provides a decision making tool for designing and building a new hospitals for minimizing future costs of operation.This method is based on a model for estimating costs and on an observatory of real operation and maintenance costs of 37 public hospitals.