Browsing by Author "Soltan, Hossein"

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    ConSERV : A methodology for the management of capital projects and concurrent engineering design using knowledge based technology.
    (1997-09) Conroy, G.; Soltan, Hossein
    Project management is a complex process that does not lend itself to traditional line management theories. Projects fail more times than they succeed, the measures of success and failure vary widely depending upon the management strategy and the focus of the project at the time of the assessment i.e. Cost, Time or Quality. Most of the commercially available software packages developed for the use of project managers employ dated management theories and limited reasoning ability. With over 300 variations of software tools available to the project manager selecting the most appropriate packages is becoming increasingly more difficult. Projects are managed by employing a subtle combination of elements of interdependent software tools and human expertise. Project management systems include a variety of management tools and techniques that are not equally applicable across all projects. This submission introduces ConSERV, a project management technique that uses a knowledge based risk driven approach, in which key elements of a multidisciplinary capital project are identified using the Win-prolog Flex facility. ConSERV identifies the main project elements, including the risks, sensitivities and the project success criteria. The further use of knowledge based rules provides a framework in which the decisions made by the respective users can be challenged. ConSERV advises on the project management system best suited to manage the specific needs of the engineering design and project management issues. The aims of the research described in this thesis are i) To research and analyse project management decision making processes over the life of major capital projects, undertaken in accordance with established procedures. ii) To identify, from the industrial case studies, failure mechanisms resulting from flaws in human decision making, the use of inappropriate management processes and the application of unsuitable project execution procedures. iii) To apply an established KBS development technique (KLIC) in developing the ConSERV concept and selecting the demonstrator tools. iv) To compare the effectiveness of traditional project management concepts and justify the need for a customised project management system. vi) To build two limited application demonstrators of the ConSERV concept employing advanced reasoning and knowledge based technology. The thesis argues that the complexities of managing multidisciplinary projects in a competitive technologically advanced environment demand more sophisticated methods to those presently offered. The methodology aims to minimise project failure by providing a structured risk driven procedure able to identify and customise a dynamic project management system designed specifically to meet the real needs of a project over its life cycle. Using case studies the thesis aims to contrast the effectiveness of traditional project management software, against the proposed knowledge based alternative. In support of this research work three academic papers have been published by the IJPM (International Journal of Project Management) Ref. Appendix B8 (Table 8).
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    Harnessing Service Quality Guidelines to achieving Service Excellence
    (2005-09) Davoudi, M.; Soltan, Hossein
    Organisations everyday, are faced with the pressure of business forces and their health lies in correctly harnessing them and in order to effectively neutralise the effect of these forces to their advantage they use management guru’s frameworks such as Porter and Downes (see chapter 2). In this era one of the most important business forces affecting organisations is the customers’ expectation of a better service and in today’s competitive market dealing with service simply means success or failure. However very few organisations are currently meeting customers’ expectations of service, especially those within the SME market, who: • Have loose customer service policies • Do not view service as a major force • Have not developed a culture for service By highlighting the importance of service as a force and using other organisations as benchmark for developing a service guideline, the author has developed a number of steps to help organisations build a foundation to an effective service culture that is part of the organisational DNA. These guidelines are to be meshed with current strategies and culture that an organisation may have in order to be fully effective. The author indicates that the guideline (see chapter 5) must be used as the basis of this cultural development and further studies into each section of the guideline must be conducted in order to fully utilise the benefits of each area.
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    An Intelligent Negotiation Based Framework to Support Concurrent Engineering Principles in the Engineering Design of Process Plant
    (Cranfield University, 1996-10) Harrington, J.; Soltan, Hossein
    The traditional approach to the engineering design of process plant is highly sequential with decisions made early in the design phase having a large knock on effect to downstream design processes. A lack of consideration to downstream concerns will either result in design re-work or compromise. Concurrent engineering has been proposed as a design method for resolving the problems inherent in the sequential design process by bringing the different engineering disciplines together at key decision points in the design process, thereby preventing design problems before they occur. Computational support for concurrent engineering aims to develop tools to help team members in sharing knowledge and keep track of the others' needs, constraints, decisions and assumptions [Cutkosky, et.al. 93]. Such systems would enable engineering disciplines from each of the design life-cycle stages to communicate and review design strategy. As a group they would be able to explore design alternatives in search of a good solution [Talukdar, Fenves 89]. Knowledge based systems can support the engineering design process by providing advice that accounts for the global concerns. It is argued that such a system should be distributed, due to the problems in maintaining a single large knowledge base, and computational power required to operate a single system. However, wherever expertise is distributed, conflict exists that has to be resolved. The aims of this research are to identify the needs of a computational support environment to aid concurrent engineering design, and to develop a framework to enable disparate design systems to cooperate and produce designs acceptable from the global viewpoint. The 'needs' were identified from a study of the engineering design process, and a detailed analysis into the design and selection of pumping systems to provide a rich example of the problems faced in a specific design process. Cooperation is achieved through 'Negotiation', which resolves conflicts between the various objectives involved in design and is a central theme of this research. Through the provision of a framework to support negotiation the aim is to provide the basis on which individual design programs can cooperate to produce rational designs from a global perspective, thereby bringing life cycle design advice to the earlier design stages.
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    Knowledge sharing: Improving the central component of knowledge management
    (Cranfield University, 2006-09) Haji, M.; Soltan, Hossein
    This thesis project has sought to investigate the major factors affecting knowledge sharing in organisations. Research into existing studies and findings from an industrial survey highlighted that there are major areas of concern, these were: - The lack of management emphasis; - The challenge of culture; and - Determining what knowledge should be shared. Investigations into four case studies and discussions with their knowledge managers identified that different approaches and activities were been employed; these ranged from those that focused on technology to those that focused on people. To help organisations develop a holistic approach and in turn increase their chances of improving knowledge sharing the author has developed a set of guidelines directing organisation to focus their efforts on four key areas; strategy, people, process and technology. Each focus area proposes a range of guidelines; where within each are directions detailing what’s involved, why it is important, how it is carried out and when. The guidelines were packaged onto an internet based framework and were evaluated by a range of industrial practitioners, of which the results are discussed. The theory and main themes of the project have been outlined and the results from the industrial survey and case study investigations have been analysed.