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PurposeDespite the increasing number of studies investigating environmentally sustainable practices in different sectors, no research exists on the issues related to the success factors for implementing environmentally sustainable practices in the utilities sector. To partially fill this research gap, the purpose of this study is to empirically examine these success factors in a public utilities organization in the United Arab Emirates.Design/methodology/approachAn integrated interpretive structural modeling and fuzzy cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to classification approach was implemented to identify the critical success factors (CSFs) and to model and analyze the relationships among them.FindingsThirteen CSFs were identified and the relationships among them were represented by a seven-level hierarchical graphical model, and six CSFs were identified as drivers of success: government policies, regulations and environmental awareness programs; organization sustainability strategies; top management commitment; organizational capabilities; social and environmental responsibility; and eco-knowledge.Originality/valueThis is first kind of study to identify CSFs for implementing environmentally sustainable practices in the utilities sector. The results could guide government policymakers and decision-makers in utilities organizations that are interested in implementing environmentally sustainable practices.

Several studies have proposed methods for modelling and examining the outcomes of engineering change propagation. However, for reasons of practicality, designers need to be supported by simple tool...

The growth of any country depends upon the development of public sector organizations that satisfy the needs of their stakeholders and achieve their happiness. Therefore, and in order to fulfill the national strategies of United Arab Emirates (UAE), A Government Excellence Model; used to referred to as 4th G, has been developed to suit the requirements of UAE public sector organizations for achieving superior performance and a leading position worldwide. This paper uses the qualitative research technique to study the critical success factors which affect the implementation of UAE’s 4th G in the public sector. An ISM approach is applied to establish the interrelationship between the various critical factors. With the help of Fuzzy MICMAC technique, driver-dependence power diagraph is created. From our analysis, a new factor was identified by the experts participating in developing the ISM model that is “budget priorities”. It has been also found that “top-management commitment” has the highest driving power which helps in successful execution of 4th G excellence model. Variables “reputation” and “sense of belonging” have the highest dependence power. The success of these variables depends on the success of the variables below them. Finally, the limitations of using the above techniques are discussed and then suggestions are made for the further research.

Despite academics’ and practitioners’ increasing focus on project portfolio management over the last three decades, very few methods and tools have been proposed for modeling and analyzing interdependencies among projects within a portfolio. This paper proposes the use of a novel approach that integrates three techniques: social network analysis (SNA), fuzzy technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS), and cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to classification (MICMAC). Network mapping provides project managers with a holistic view of interdependencies among projects; fuzzy TOPSIS MICMAC and SNA measures are used to classify projects in terms of their driving power and dependence power and out- and in-degree centrality. This categorization offers a helpful tool for project managers to distinguish among projects and classify them based on their interdependency levels, and thus, aids in identifying critical projects. For the demonstration, the approach is applied to model and analyze interdependencies between projects within a real-life portfolio from the industry. The results of this application show that the proposed approach can serve as a viable and practical means of capturing and analyzing interdependencies among projects within a portfolio.

Factors that cause project delays are directly and indirectly interrelated. Despite this, the majority of prior studies that have been conducted to identify and rank project delay factors have fail...

Without conclusive settlement of disputes, uses of public sector infrastructure projects as public policy instruments might risk impeachment. With this in mind, we set out in this study to explore how public policy impacts the finality of dispute resolutions conducted within public sector infrastructure projectspaces. We used empirical data obtained from opinion coding of 220 decided disputes conducted in the United Arab Emirates between 1992 and 2018. Findings suggest differences in attitude among the courts in the United Arab Emirates in the interpretation and application of public policy as a basis for nullifying arbitral awards. This finding suggests that the existence of a series of parallel courts, a mixed legal jurisdiction, and multiple and concurrent intranational laws, combined with the intractable nature of public policy, can significantly impact the conclusive settlement of public sector infrastructure project disputes.

An effective way of managing a portfolio is to assign multiple projects to one project manager. A major step that helps in such an assignment is to form clusters of projects, an issue that is scarcely addressed in the literature. This study attempts to bridge that gap by proposing the use of a modified form of factor analysis for the formation of clusters of projects. The input for this method is a matrix representing the dependency levels among the projects, which is implemented in three major steps: measuring the level of dependencies among the projects; assessing the clusterability of the projects; and forming the clusters. The last step is complemented with a binary integer programing model for imposing constraints, such as maximum number of projects to be assigned to each project manager. The method is demonstrated using a real portfolio project adapted from the literature.

Purpose: This study proposes a new two-stage clustering method to break down the symmetric multiple traveling salesman problem (mTSP) into several single standard traveling salesman problems, each of which can then be solved separately using a heuristic optimization algorithm.Design/methodology/approach: In the initial stage, a modified form of factor analysis is used to identify clusters of cities. In the second stage, the cities are allocated to the identified clusters using an integer-programming model. A comparison with the k-means++ clustering algorithm, one of the most popular clustering algorithms, was made to evaluate the performance of the proposed method in terms of four objective criteria.Findings: Computational results and comparison on 63 problems revealed that the proposed method is promising for producing quality clusters and thus for enhancing the performance of heuristic optimization algorithms in solving the mTSP.Originality/value: Unlike previous studies, this study tackles the issue of improving the performance of clustering-based optimization approaches in solving the mTSP by proposing a new clustering method that produces better cluster solutions rather than by proposing a new or improved version of a heuristic optimization algorithm for finding optimal routes.

Information flow exchange within highly distributed, co-located, self-organising and networked projects is critical for successful planning, and ultimately, for successful infrastructure project delivery. While conventional project scheduling methods are still widely used as project support tools, most lack capacity for harnessing and exploiting both direct and indirect forms of information flow interdependency between activities in these project types. The present study sets out to develop and present a practical method for modelling and analysing information flow interdependencies in infrastructure projects. We propose and apply a five-stage approach, using an integrated form of Network Analysis augmented with fuzzy Cross-impact Matrix Multiplication Analysis. The findings classify project activities based on their dependency levels with other directly and indirectly related project activities. The novel contribution to project management practice is that key information flow interdependencies can thus be identified and then more effectively harnessed due to an enhanced ability to interpret the information with a clearer understanding of originating communication context.

Today's intense competition under the global economic framework requires organizations in all sectors regardless of their ownership type or size to innovate. This competition justifies the increasing interest in the literature concerning investigating different issues of innovation. Little attention, however, has been given to the possible linkage between structural organization characteristics and innovation in the services sector. Enriching the literature, this paper investigates this issue in the context of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) service sector. Data required for this study were collected from 85 organizations offering different types of services. The results showed than more than 86% of these organizations can be classified as innovative because they introduced either new or considerably improved services and or new or considerably improved processes during the past three years. Moreover, the organization size advantage that has been found for the manufacturing sector in past research also exists for the UAE service sector. However, unlike most of the relevant studies, no association was found between ownership type and innovation. The results of this study could be of value to services organizations in the UAE and other countries that have similar environments.

Purpose This conceptual paper aims to explore how supply chain managers deal with social threats to supply chains, in the process of demonstrating the potency of a largely neglected strand of realist social theory. This theory, as posited, sheds a great deal of light on the behavioural reality of how supply chain managers operate within the social aspects of their risk environments. Design/methodology/approach The paper is presented as a narrative synthesis of classical realist sociological literature. Findings The Machiavellian approach provides a template that can be used to help academics and practitioners understand how and why supply chain managers orient themselves to the social threats they confront in very different ways. The theory’s contention that the behavioural reality can be subdivided between two basic patterns allows it to serve as a constructively simple template for becoming attuned to ways in which supply chain managers socially construct and act within their social threat environments. Research limitations/implications The growing social complexity of supply chains gives behavioural responses a complexity reduction function. The authors theorise that such patterns, once activated, may not necessarily adapt rationally as guides to optimise the chance of success against the full range of social threats they are likely to encounter. Originality/value Cross-disciplinary supply chain management research is increasingly drawing upon sociology and behavioural science to facilitate greater understanding of not only the supply chain environment but also the roles of supply chain managers as relationship influencers and managers of conflict. The authors posit that Machiavellian–realist social theory can contribute to supply chain management scholarship by offering a constructively simple approach to evaluate the behavioural realities associated with social threats.

The common objective of most of studies that have investigated causes of project delays was to prioritize delay factors in a specific country by conducting opinion surveys of contractors, clients, and/or consultants using a Likert scale and simple ranking methods ignoring the fact that prioritization of delay factors is a multi-criteria problem that is subject to vagueness and uncertainty. To overcome this limitation, this paper proposes the use of fuzzy TOPSIS. The usefulness of this method is demonstrated by investigating delay factors in electrical installation projects carried out by an organization in the United Arab Emirates.

Developing a complex product in a concurrent engineering environment requires managing information flow among ten or even hundreds of people of different specialties organized in a large number of product development (PD) teams. Managing these teams effectively requires understanding the level of information dependencies among them which are often vague and cannot be precisely predicted. Taking into account the limitations of relevant previous studies, this article proposes a fuzzy-social network analysis approach for modeling and analyzing the information flow among PD teams. The approach involves four major steps: mapping of dependencies, measuring the level of information dependencies based on the fuzzy set theory, visualizing the network, and performing quantitative analysis using three measures (network density, in-degree centrality, and out-degree centrality). To validate its practicality, the approach is used to model and analyze the dependencies among 22 PD teams in a real project adapted from the literature and involved developing an automobile engine. An advantage of the approach is that in addition to providing a holistic view of the interactions among PD teams, it permits PD project managers to identity the most important PD teams with respect to information flow control using a proposed new classification system that classifies PD teams under four categories: autonomous, receivers, transmitters, and transceivers.

Reconfiguration of hospital outpatient pharmacies is necessary to achieve several benefits, including improved workflows, reduction in the total distances travelled by pharmacy drug pickers, and reduction in patient waiting times, thereby increasing patient satisfaction. To achieve this purpose, this paper proposes the use of a methodology that involves application of group technology, a manufacturing concept, to the drug-shelving problem. To demonstrate its practicality, the proposed methodology is applied to an outpatient pharmacy in a public hospital, in which 21 drug groups, comprising 114 different drugs, are clustered into eight cells, where each cell consists of interrelated drug groups that are to be located in close proximity on the shelves. Unlike those proposed in the literature, the methodology described in this paper, in addition to its simplicity, has the advantage of retaining the arrangement of drugs in their groups while minimising the total distance that pharmacy drug pickers travel to fill prescriptions.

As an extension to a previous study on the use of network mapping as a tool for visual representation of interdependencies in a project portfolio, this study employs five social network metrics (density, centralization, betweenness centrality, in-degree centrality, and out-degree centrality) for analyzing interdependencies within a project portfolio. Based on the in-degree and out-degree centrality values, projects can be classified, in terms of their interdependencies, as being: autonomous, dependent, linkage, or independent projects. An example is presented of a portfolio comprising 18 projects.

Cost overruns in construction projects are a problem faced by project managers, engineers, and clients throughout the Middle East. Globally, several studies in the literature have focused on identifying the causes of these overruns and used statistical methods to rank them according to their impacts. None of these studies have considered the interactions among these factors. This paper examines interpretive structural modelling (ISM) as a viable technique for modelling complex interactions among factors responsible for cost overruns in construction projects in the Sultanate of Oman. In particular, thirteen interrelated factors associated with cost overruns were identified, along with their contextual interrelationships. Application of ISM leads to organizing these factors in a hierarchical structure which effectively demonstrates their interactions in a simple way. Four factors were found to be at the root of cost overruns: instability of the US dollar, changes in governmental regulations, faulty cost estimation, and poor coordination among projects’ parties. Taking appropriate actions to minimize the influence of these factors can ultimately lead to better control of future project costs. Thisstudy is of value to managers and decision makers because it provides a powerful yet very easy to apply approach for investigating the problem of cost overruns and other similar issues.

Manufacturing enterprises can face obstacles that make productivity improvement efforts ineffective or even prevent improvement operations. This paper reports on an investigation of the internal obstacles restraining productivity improvement programs in the manufacturing enterprises of developing countries, using Oman as a case study. Data required for this study were collected through a questionnaire given to production and operations managers at 51 manufacturing enterprises in Oman. The results of applying factor analysis to a dataset of 15 obstacles showed that these obstacles can be reduced to three major factors. Ranked according to their importance, these factors are poor management practices, employee job dissatisfaction, and poor human resource management. The findings of this research are of value to production and operations managers of manufacturing enterprises who are interested in conducting productivity improvement programs not only in Oman but also in developing countries with environments similar to that of Oman, such as the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.

Several studies have been carried out to investigate the causes of project cost overrun in different industries worldwide. This paper reports on the results of a study investigating the factors causing project cost overrun in Oman. Data required for this study were collected from 44 project engineers and managers of client and contracting companies involved in telecommunications projects. According to the analysis of results, 14 out of 37 factors are identified as major causes of project cost overrun. While most of the identified factors could affect any types of projects carried out in any country, one of the factors, namely lengthy tendering process might be unique to the projects carried out in Oman. Moreover, this study investigates the association between company size in terms of number of employees and causes of project cost overrun. The results show that there is no strong evidence to suggest that the causes of cost overrun differ significantly according to company size.

The purpose of this paper is to report on a study comparing joint venture and non-joint venture projects in terms of their performance and usage of project management practices. Data were obtained from project managers at 99 contracting organisations in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) construction industry. The results show an agreement between the two types of project in the usage level of 35 out of 40 different practices associated with the ten knowledge areas articulated in the Project Management Institute (PMI) Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) Guide (PMI, 2017). However, joint venture construction projects had higher usages of four cost-and procurement-related practices compared to non-joint venture construction projects. The results also show that although they are associated with increased risks due to the involvement of partners, generally the overall performance of joint venture construction projects is comparable with that of non-joint venture construction projects. The findings of this study could be of value to organisations that are planning to form joint venture projects in the UAE and other countries with similar environments.

Several studies have been carried out to investigate the causes of project cost overrun in different industries worldwide. This paper reports on the results of a study investigating the factors causing project cost overrun in Oman. Data required for this study were collected from 44 project engineers and managers of client and contracting companies involved in telecommunications projects. According to the analysis of results, 14 out of 37 factors are identified as major causes of project cost overrun. While most of the identified factors could affect any types of projects carried out in any country, one of the factors, namely lengthy tendering process might be unique to the projects carried out in Oman. Moreover, this study investigates the association between company size in terms of number of employees and causes of project cost overrun. The results show that there is no strong evidence to suggest that the causes of cost overrun differ significantly according to company size.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to report on the results of a study investigating the association between organizational differences and some aspects relating to the implementation of ISO 9001:2000.Design/methodology/approachData required for this study were collected from 42 ISO 9001:2000‐certified organizations of different size and sector type in the Sultanate of Oman. The Kruskal‐Wallis test was adopted for testing 12 research hypotheses.FindingsThe results show that there is no strong evidence to suggest that the motives for implementation, the process and cost of achieving certification, the perceived benefits, and the shortcomings differ significantly according to organization size or sector type.Practical implicationsThe main outcome of this study is that the issue of organization size or sector type should not be a factor for an organization in deciding certification. This outcome is of value to organizations that are interested investing in ISO certification.Originality/valueSeveral studies have been carried out investigating aspects relating to the implementation of the ISO 9001:2000 quality management standard in organizations operating in different countries. However, the issue of whether these aspects differ according to organization size or sector type has not been sufficiently and appropriately addressed in the literature. This paper reports on the results of a study investigating these issues.

Since redundant relationships in an activity-on-node (AON) project network indicate that the schedule is more complex than it actually is, they should not be considered when evaluating the schedule complexity. However, identifying the relationships that can be removed while maintaining the project logic is not an easy task. For this purpose, this paper proposes a methodology, adapted from interpretive structural modeling, that basically transforms an AON project network into a network called minimum-edge diagraph which contains no redundant relationships. The methodology steps are explained through a demonstrative example of a simple hypothetical project. The application of the methodology to the AON network of a real construction project shows that it is easy to use yet effective in removing redundant relationships.

PurposeWithout reliance on results obtained from applying a cell formation method, this paper aims to describe a simple quantitative approach to testing whether an underlying pattern of relationships exists between machines of a given system, such that the machines may be rearranged into manufacturing cells. It also aims to support the approach by an index for measuring the clustering tendency.Design/methodology/approachThe eigenvalues of the similarity coefficient matrix and Kaiser's rule are used to: detect the number of clusters existing in the part‐machine matrix, and derive an index for predicting the goodness of the best possible obtainable cell formation.FindingsThe results of applying the proposed approach and the clustering tendency index to problems of different sizes taken from the literature have proven that both the approach and the clustering tendency index are powerful in performing the feasibility assessment and in predicting the right number of manufacturing cell to be formed.Practical implicationsThis study is of considerable value to practitioners because it provides them with a powerful yet very easy to apply approach for assessing the feasibility of adopting cellular manufacturing in early stages of design. Another characteristic of this approach is the possibility of using it as a decision support tool for practitioners who opt to use a cell formation method which requires specifying the number of cells in advance. Moreover, the approach does not require any special software package, since it can be easily performed using several available software packages such as MATLAB and Mathematica.Originality/valueA methodology for evaluating the adaptability of a system to cellular manufacturing has been proposed in a previous study. However, the methodology used is complex and uses a certain degree of subjectivity. In contrast, the proposed approach is simple and completely quantitative. Furthermore, a new index for measuring the clustering tendency is presented.

The pressure to reduce product development time in today’s competitive industrial market has made the need for sound estimation techniques more acute than ever before. This paper reports on work done to construct a parametric model to estimate the time needed to develop future hydroelectric generators. The model uses three factors, namely, product complexity, involvement of partners in the development process, and generator speed. These factors were identified by applying factor analysis, with principal component analysis and varimax rotation to nine candidate factors. The performance of the model was tested in terms of a number of objective criteria. The results indicated that the model has a good accuracy for estimating development time.

Several studies investigating the causes of delay in projects in the construction industry have been conducted worldwide. This study investigates the causes of delay in construction projects in oil and gas processing facilities in Oman and serves as a case study for the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Using a questionnaire, data were collected from 59 project managers employed in different organizations in the oil and gas industry in Oman. The survey results showed a high degree of agreement among the perceptions of project stakeholders, clients, contractors, and consultants on the causes of project delay, and there is no evidence to suggest that the causes of project delay differ significantly according to organization size or organizational ownership. Moreover, seven factors were identified as the major causes of project delay. Although six of these identified elements are general factors that can account for delay in any project in any industry, one of them—poor interaction with vendors in the engineering and procurement stages—is found to be unique to construction projects in the oil and gas industry. The findings of this study could be of value to organizations that are planning to conduct construction projects for oil and gas processing facilities in Oman and other nations with similar environments, such as the GCC countries.

Birth weight is a key public health indicator that needs to be monitored regularly. However, in the United Arab and worldwide, there is currently no systematic procedure for monitoring shifts or trends in the mean and variability of birth weight at a national level. For this purpose, it is proposed to use statistical process control charts (SPC). This is illustrated through developing SPC charts for monitoring the birth weight of UAE nationals. The developed control charts indicated that the birth weight of UAE nationals is in statistical control. The national mean birth weight, standard deviation of birth weights, percentage of low birth weight, and percentage of high birth weight were estimated to be 3.208 kg, 0.445 kg, 5.59%, and 0.19%, respectively.

Today's intense competition forces organizations to examine how they can improve performance as they seek to enhance their competitiveness. In order to design and implement an effective program for performance improvement, the interrelations among performance criteria and factors affecting them need to be understood. For this purpose, this study used interpretive structural modeling to represent the interrelationships among seven performance criteria and 19 factors in a simple, hierarchical structure model. The bottom level of this structure contains 12 factors, namely employee selection, employee training , work environment, employee incentives, organizational culture, leadership style, efficiency, size of organization, organizational/commercial resources, product life cycle, internationalization, and employee satisfaction. This mean that any action improving performance must start from these factors. This study's findings will be beneficial for organizations that are planning to enhance their performance.

The traveling salesman problem, an NP-hard problem in combinatorial optimization, is solved in several studies by decomposing the problem into subproblems using a clustering technique. The subproblems are then solved individually. To overcome some of the limitations of the clustering technique, this paper proposes a two-stage approach for decomposing the cities into groups. In the first phase, the groups of cities are identified using a marginally modified version of factor analysis. In the second phase, the cities are assigned to groups using an integer-programming model. The proposed approach has the flexibility to allow the user to either identify the required number of groups in advance or consider it as a dependent variable. Using algorithms that are available in many commercial software packages is another advantage of the proposed approach.

In today's competitive environment, it is necessary to deliver products on time and within budget. The first step towards achieving this is to have estimation tools that are effective in producing realistic project estimates that become the basis of a project plan. This paper describes a complete quantitative, estimation methodology that can provide initial as well as updated project estimates from feasibility study until completion. Demonstrative examples are presented.

In today's competitive environment, it is necessary to deliver products on time and within budget. Unfortunately, design projects have been plagued by severe cost and schedule overruns. This problem persists in spite of the significant advances that have been made in design technology over the last two decades. In most of the cases, the problem of overruns was due to poor estimations. The search for a solution has become even more pressing in the present era of shrinking product cycle times. Driven primarily by this need, this paper proposes parametric estimation models. Unlike existing estimation techniques which are based on process or product physical decomposition, the proposed models are based on product functional decomposition. The models were applied to project data collected from two Canadian companies. The results indicate that the proposed models have good accuracy for estimating design effort.

This paper describes an analogy-based model for estimating design effort. It is based on estimating the productivity of an upcoming project by incorporating the concept of an eigenvector to estimate the influence of various factors on productivity. The model is intuitive and does not require any prior mathematical relationships to be developed. It has been tested in two case studies from industry.

A new metric for estimating design complexity is described and its properties are discussed in terms of its ability to estimate design effort. A previous metric for estimating design complexity is reviewed, and criteria for evaluating design complexity metrics are presented.

Design projects have been plagued by severe schedule and cost overruns. This problem persists in spite of the significant advances that have been made in design technology over the last two decades. Underestimation of design effort and thus project duration has been identified as one of the major reasons for the problem. Adopting a metrics approach to estimate design effort and duration is one promising way of overcoming this difficulty. This paper reviews the problem and the literature on metrics for engineering design. The limitations of these metrics are identified, and the main factors for the estimation of design effort are indicated along with key parameters.

Chromate sorption on the strong basic anion exchanger, Amberlite IRA-400 is studied as function of pH (2–11), temperature (20–40°C) and different initial concentrations (1.030–15.449 mmol/l). The sorption increases with the decrease in pH and increase in temperature. The ratios of chloride released/chromate sorbed are determined, which are found to decrease with the decrease in pH of the solution, while the effect of temperature on mole ratios is negligible. It is suggested that the chromate sorption takes place initially as CrO 4 2− followed by HCrO 4 − . The differential isosteric heats of adsorption, Δ H , are also computed which show the process to be endothermic in nature. IR spectra of chromate sorption on the chloride form of the resins have been studied as a function of pH at 20°C. These spectra reveal the dimerization of HCrO 4 − to Cr 2 O 7 2− at lower pH inside the exchanger.

Facilities layout represents one of the most significant opportunities for expanding and improving the performance of any system including healthcare. This paper reports on work done to evaluate a revised layout of the emergency department of a public hospital. The objectives of revising the layout were: 1) improving patient satisfaction through minimizing patient waiting time, and 2) expanding the capacity of the department. MedModel was selected as a simulation tool for modeling and simulating both the existing the revised layouts. The results showed that by implementing the revised layout, the average waiting time of a certain category of patients reduced 75% and the capacity of the department increased 10% per month.

Concurrent engineering process is characterized by executing a large number of interdependent project tasks. One effective way of managing such tasks is to decompose them into groups. However, not all tasks are decomposable. Without the need to apply a decomposition method, this paper describes a simple quantitative approach to test whether an underlying pattern of relationships exists between interdependent design tasks, such that they may be rearranged into groups. In addition, a grouping efficiency index for predicting the goodness of the best possible obtainable decomposition is introduced. The proposed approach and the grouping index were applied to simple hypothetical projects and a sample project adapted from the literature. Both the approach and the grouping index are proved to be powerful yet very easy to use.