Infrastructure Engineering - Research Publications
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ItemConnection to Nature( 2020-12-10)Melbourne School of Engineering, Health and Wellbeing Session, 10 December 2020
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ItemA Systematic Content Review of Artificial Intelligence and the Internet of Things Applications in Smart Home(MDPI AG, 2020-04-28)This article reviewed the state-of-the-art applications of the Internet of things (IoT) technology applied in homes for making them smart, automated, and digitalized in many respects. The literature presented various applications, systems, or methods and reported the results of using IoT, artificial intelligence (AI), and geographic information system (GIS) at homes. Because the technology has been advancing and users are experiencing IoT boom for smart built environment applications, especially smart homes and smart energy systems, it is necessary to identify the gaps, relation between current methods, and provide a coherent instruction of the whole process of designing smart homes. This article reviewed relevant papers within databases, such as Scopus, including journal papers published in between 2010 and 2019. These papers were then analyzed in terms of bibliography and content to identify more related systems, practices, and contributors. A designed systematic review method was used to identify and select the relevant papers, which were then reviewed for their content by means of coding. The presented systematic critical review focuses on systems developed and technologies used for smart homes. The main question is ”What has been learned from a decade trailing smart system developments in different fields?”. We found that there is a considerable gap in the integration of AI and IoT and the use of geospatial data in smart home development. It was also found that there is a large gap in the literature in terms of limited integrated systems for energy efficiency and aged care system development. This article would enable researchers and professionals to fully understand those gaps in IoT-based environments and suggest ways to fill the gaps while designing smart homes where users have a higher level of thermal comfort while saving energy and greenhouse gas emissions. This article also raised new challenging questions on how IoT and existing developed systems could be improved and be further developed to address other issues of energy saving, which can steer the research direction to full smart systems. This would significantly help to design fully automated assistive systems to improve quality of life and decrease energy consumption.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableGreen Buildings in Makassar, Indonesia(Springer Nature, 2020)Indonesia has one of the world’s largest populations, which creates a demand for buildings. Construction and operation of buildings have impacts on environment. To create sustainable cities, Indonesia applied the smart cities concept and selected Makassar as one of three role model cities. This chapter explores the current situation in Makassar with respect to green building adoption, the challenges faced and opportunities in market transformation. The Green Building Council of Indonesia (GBCI) in Makassar is heavily involved with market transformation for green building practices and has four main activities: market transformation, training and education, green building certification and stakeholder engagement. GBCI has developed the GREENSHIP rating tool, an assessment system covering categories associated with the green building concept as it applies to Indonesia. The embracing of the green building concept, however, is still low in Makassar. Market transformation is a challenging task, and there is still a lack of formal education programmes and courses available to architects, engineers and the construction industry to drive the transformation. The initial higher cost of green building presents as a major barrier to the uptake of green building even though these costs are mitigated after a period of 4–5 years through a reduction in operational costs. Government regulations that support green building practices and education of the community about the benefits of green building may support/improve uptake of green building.
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ItemEngaging employees with good sustainability: Key performance indicators for dry ports(MDPI AG, 2019-05-24)Dry ports have the potential to enhance the sustainability of transport systems, yet their introduction requires major changes to the current logistics chain. Further, emphasising sustainability goals and continued employee engagement can be a challenge when developing or implementing organisational change management programs in dry ports. Key considerations include governmental requirements and compliance, investor expectations, as well as employee engagement; these factors may be conflicting. The top-down management approach supported by strong leadership, participative approaches and constant communication assists in achieving successful change management. Sound selection of key performance indicators (KPIs) provides a set of metrics to track and aid the change process. They serve as a unifying link between top managements’ sustainability goals and employees’ engagement. The initial findings of our research confirm that both port and terminal operators have a gap in their understanding of the importance of sustainability goals and environmental goals. This will have a flow-on effect of port and terminal operators not driving the right messages to their staff in their organisational change management programs. Based on a critical literature review, it has been established what might qualify as good sustainability KPIs for dry ports. An example of a dry port at the Port of Somerton has been included. As every dry port has different requirements and constraints, it is important to develop KPIs together with stakeholders.
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ItemEducation & training for zero energy and lean manufacturing & construction of housing in Australia(Curtin University, 2018-09-27)For zero energy and efficient production of mass customised housing, good outcomes are possible only when it is supportedby a good education curriculum and infrastructure. This paper reports on the status of education for zero energy and lean manufacturing and construction of houses in Australia by investigating offerings of Victorian schools, vocational training and highereducation sectors in these respects. The courses currently offered within Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) were assessed. It was found that there are still gaps in the education infrastructure that do not provide fully for opportunities to educate the workforce in these areas. Although the main knowledge areas of zero energy are sufficiently covered by courses involving sustainability, renewable energy, energy efficiency in buildings and infrastructure construction, the teaching of lean concepts are not widespread in all these education sectors in Australia.
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ItemOccupational stress and workplace design(MDPI AG, 2018-09-23)The World Green Building Council (WGBC) advocates improvements in employee health, wellbeing, and productivity in buildings as people are about 90% of an organisation’s expense and well exceed building costs and energy costs. It was reported that earlier research on workplace design primarily focused on physical arrangement of employees’ immediate work area, and ambient environmental qualities of the work area. Building organisation, exterior amenities, and site-planning have been given less attention. Therefore, we examine more closely the health relevance of both proximal and remote aspects of workplace design. Occupational stress is a complex phenomenon that is dynamic and evolving over time. This investigation reviews the existing fundamental conceptual models of occupational stress, workplace design, and connection to nature. It aims to develop an improved model relevant to work place design and occupational stress linked with connection to nature. The proposed improved model is presented with an appropriate causal loop diagram to assist in visualizing how different variables in a system are interrelated. The developed model highlights how connection to nature in workspaces can function as a work resource with a dual effect of improving physical wellbeing and psychological wellbeing.
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ItemA minimum viable product design of volumetric building modules(ZEMCH Network, 2018)This paper explores the adaptation of an IBM approach to product development emphasising user experience and critical requirements. The potential of this approach to be applied to offsite building manufacture is identified. Minimum Viable Product (MVP) has helped IBM validate key hypothesis about a product, thus increasing its probability of success, before completing its development. This paper attempts to answer the question of whether an MVP of manufactured building unit can aid cost awareness at early design phase of building and also facilitate a mass customisation. Since about 80% of a building’s cost is determined in the concept design phase and the frontend design of manufactured buildings is seemingly unaware of costs, time and processes associated with the methods, this can cause unnecessary cost increases. The investigation involves the design of a parametrically constrained building system of an MVP of space requirement to program. The Victorian apartment design standards, logistic constraints, and user customisation to room sizes are considered to define spatial limitations in the case study. The effectiveness of the system is examined through a case study analysis to identify the possibility for variation of volumetric unit in an apartment building scenario. It is expected to develop a new understanding of modular building constraints at early design stage yet still allow for a mass customized outcome without the expense of variation through lack of front end knowledge of the manufactured system. It is also expected to produce a better understanding of base building costs and time associated with a mass customisable manufactured building system, suggesting possible cost data inputs to the system. It is anticipated that an MVP approach to early building design can help determine design and cost viability of building projects to stakeholders in the early design phase.
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ItemMoving assembly line for low cost mass customised homes(ZEMCH Network, 2018)This paper explores the potential for a mass customised building volume applying lean based moving assembly line method. Past experience would suggest that the moving assembly line stems from a mass production, that reduces customisation through standardisation of processes. However, when combined with a seamless method of design to documentation up front, it is proposed that the moving assembly line could allow for mass customisation. In addition, lean practices suggest that refinements of processes are intrinsically linked to a repetitious assembly process used in producing a homogenous object. We seek to break these moulds and examine the potential for a lean moving assembly line to allow mass customisation and what is required to do so. Moving assembly line offsite building manufacture factories in Australia, Sweden and Japan were visited and observed. A comparative exercise of when, what happens where was undertaken to identify the approaches. It was found that the moving assembly line allows cost and time savings in off-site manufacture of multi storey buildings, and could enable for a mass customised outcome. Lean is the facilitator, or enabler of this process working efficiently.