Browsing by Author "Smith, Heather"

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
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    Data supporting 'An exploration of customers satisfaction with water and wastewater services in the UK'
    (Cranfield University, 2023-02-23 14:41) Smith, Heather; Tian, Kang; Goodwin, Daniel; Gallagher, Elaine
    This dataset underpins the paper entitled 'An Exploration of Customers' Satisfaction with Water and Wastewater Services in the UK' in the journal Water Economics and Policy. Data was collected through an online survey administered in Qualtrics. The data is in .sav format which is suitable for the SPSS statistical software. For further info contact the corresponding author.
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    Data supporting 'Public perceptions of household IoT smart water ‘event’ meters in the UK – implications for urban water governance'
    (Cranfield University, 2022-02-10 16:03) Shannon, Caitriona; Smith, Heather
    Student project collecting quantitative data on the UK public perceptions around water consumption and smart meters in the home, using an online survey.Data was collected through Qualtrics (n=558) from 20th - 24th July 2020. Files require SPSS software to be opened. Please contact if another format is required.
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    Data supporting: 'Real-life resilience: exploring the organisational environment of international water utilities'
    (Cranfield University, 2022-08-31 15:46) Giffoni, Eduarda; Jude, Simon; Smith, Heather; Pollard, Simon
    Dataset containing the themes devised from semi-structured interviews with representatives of the water sector.
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    ItemOpen Access
    Developing engineering systems with stakeholder engagement
    (Cranfield University, 2022-05) Chapman, Harris Spencer; Smith, Heather; Williams, Leon
    The activities of the early stages of new product development (NPD) projects have a significant impact on its results. This is evident by the failures of outputs to meet expected levels of adoption being traced back to inadequate elicitation of requirements and validation of the need for the output itself. To address this, the development of consumer goods, software and large-scale construction projects have been shown to benefit from the early involvement of stakeholders in these outputs. However, few studies focus on how this early involvement of stakeholders might advance the development of engineering systems. Although studied in the context of complex products and systems (CoPS), which includes large-scale constructions, engineering systems differ significantly to these and other NPD project outputs. This is due to the absence of end-users, or the general public, being involved as such systems are often automated and hidden within other systems or infrastructure. Adhering to development frameworks prioritising technical maturation furthers this difference, although, like consumer products, a market needs to be addressed. To explore this phenomenon, a single case study of the beginning of a wastewater system NPD project is conducted and supported by studies that identify, engage and evaluate the extent stakeholders can affect its activities. The results support the need for a dedicated early stage for stakeholder engagement. This will help address the implications of findings evidencing problems engineering systems need to address so to achieve expected levels of adoption. Successfully incorporating this new stage whilst prototyping the engineering system itself requires further research. The contributions of this thesis challenge prioritising technical interests during early stages of development, demonstrate the extensive value of analysing qualitative data and support iterative and collaborative NPD approaches. Incorporating these findings will contribute to ensuring highly innovative engineering systems effectively address the needs of their salient stakeholders.
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    Ecosystem services from combined natural and engineered water and wastewater treatment - Data accompanying the manuscript published in Ecological Engineering journal
    (Cranfield University, 2019-05-14 09:28) Zawadzka, Joanna; Gallagher, Elaine; Smith, Heather; Corstanje, Ronald
    This data repository contains the spatially explicit results generated during the research described in the manuscript. The methods used to obtain these results are described in detail in the manuscript and supplementary materials associated with the text. The contents of the zipped folders is as follows: - ESS_RBF.zip, ESS_MARSAT.zip, ESS_CW.zip - maps in ESRI shapefile format showing the distribution of the Site/Off-site ratio values across the entire modelling catchments, corresponding to the Figures 4-6 in the manuscript; - Connectivity. zip containing raster files showing the distribution of the resistance values (_resistance.tif) and locations of nodes (_nodes.shp) submitted to the Circuitscape model as well as the model outputs - cumulative current maps (_connectivity.tif). These datasets correspond to Figures 3 and 7 in the manuscript. - Site locations - shapefiles showing the outlines of the three sites assessed in this study. All datasets can be viewed and modified in a GIS software. Input land use/land cover maps for the models cannot be shared due to licence restrictions.
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    Perceptions of circular solutions
    (Cranfield University, 2020-05-27 15:13) Shannon, Caitriona; Smith, Heather
    Three data sets on public perceptions towards recycled water for drinking purposes and the use of recovered nutrients for food production in the UK, Netherlands and Spain. Quantitative data collected using an online survey. Data exported in SPSS.The projects that generated this data received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No 690323 (SMART-Plant) and No 776541 (NextGen).Files require SPSS software to be opened. Please contact if another format is required.
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    Real-life resilience in international water utilities
    (Cranfield University, 2022-09) Giffoni, Eduarda; Smith, Heather; Jude, Simon
    Resilience is a highly aspired capability for the water sector. Whilst the concept has been vastly utilised in technocentric and engineering objectives, few studies have investigated the human dimensions of resilience in the context of international water utilities. Specifically, little is known about how the organisational environment, organisational culture and engagement with water customers may contribute to the resilience of the water sector and the challenges and opportunities of building resilience capabilities in these domains. As the central context for this research, water utilities provide critical socio-economic utility to society. Disruptions felt by water utilities can negatively impact multiple communities, regional prosperity, and national security. However, water utilities monopoly nature may insulate them from the new and evolving demands derived from the free market, thus delaying the organic development of adaptive and agile capabilities. In addition, given that the infrastructure of water utilities tends to be ‘locked-in’ to a fail- safe stance, this bleeds through the organisation’s norms and beliefs, thus further perpetuating previous paths and hindering experimentation and transformative change. This is problematic because water utilities are more sensitive to local shocks and stresses as they are bound to local catchments and providing services to local communities, as opposed to energy utilities that may source energy from a wide range of geographical locations. All these factors make water utilities an interesting population of research from the lenses of Organisational Resilience. Therefore, this thesis aims to understand the current stance and context within international water utilities in relation adaptability and Organisational Resilience – ii spanning the organisational environment, culture, and interactions with customers. This work seeks to critically evaluate how the organisational and human capabilities may be shaped to enhance water sector resilience and the challenges and opportunities of doing so. Through semi-structured interviews and an iterative survey with international water utilities this qualitative research captures perceptions from water managers on embedding Organisational Resilience properties. This research provides several contributions to the current body of knowledge. Primarily, the findings empirically identified novel challenges utilities face - spanning the cognitive frame, behaviour of individuals, and the context of the organisational environment - which flagged some key developmental areas to establish an organisational setting conducive of resilience. For instance, chapter 2 delves deep into the organisational environment in water utilities. and identifies a need to broaden the cognitive frame of utilities to account for flexible concepts for enhanced sense-making and proposes novel categories of organisational silos and a set of cultural attributes that contribute to organisational resilience. Moreover, chapter 3 explores the contextual property of organisational resilience, based on external relationships, to examine how customers may influence the resilience of water utilities. Although it was recognised a role of customers as passive beneficiaries of resilience, positive roles were also identified, such as: facilitators of more targeted initiatives, contributors to higher tolerance levels and positive behaviour-change, and resilience advocates. An additional contribution of this research is the creation of a framework of an organisational culture of organisational resilience for the water sector in chapter 4. A iii novel set of cultural attributes that were validated as conducive to the Organisational Resilience of water utilities were appraised from relevant literature. Derived based on the perspectives of utility managers, the set of cultural attributes clarifies Organisational Resilience beliefs and values that should shape individuals’ behaviour and the organisational environment. Thematic analysis identified an over-emphasis on standards and procedures that may hinder positive changes towards a culture of organisational resilience. In addition, addressing organisational barriers perceived as a pre-requisite to cultural changes, which may lead to inaction. However, the water sector’s impetus for talent recruitment and staff retention translated as an appetite to foment deeper relational ties with personnel. Finally, this study highlights a real need for transforming the beliefs, values, and behaviour in water utilities to implement and sustain efforts in the human and organisational dimensions that are conducive of Organisational Resilience. Such resilience transformation will entail efforts in the cognitive, behavioural, and contextual aspects within utilities to address current challenges and leverage identified opportunities.