BEPAM Issue 3.1 (Vol. 3 Issue 1) CONTENTS:

Prevention through design: Trade-offs in reducing occupational health and safety risk for the construction and operation of a facility

Helen Lingard, Tracy Cooke, Nick Blismas, Ron Wakefield,

A Framework for Stakeholder Management and Corporate Culture

Jason von Meding, Keith McAllister, Lukumon Oyedele, Kevin Kelly

Modeling and Assessment of Competencies in Urban Local Bodies for Implementing PPP projects

Ganesh A. Devkar, Satyanarayana N. Kalidindi

External Agencies for Supplementing Competencies in Indian Urban PPP Projects

Ganesh A. Devkar, Satyanarayana N. Kalidindi

Value through Innovation in Long-term Service Delivery: Facility Management in an Australian PPP

Graham Brewer, Thayaparan Gajendran, Marcus Jefferies, Denny McGeorge, Steve Rowlinson, Andrew Dainty

PFI/ PPP, private sector perspectives of UK Transport & Healthcare

Robert Eadie, Phillip Millar, Rory Grant

Bathtub Curves and Pipe Prioritization based on Failure Rates

Amarjit Singh, Stacy Adachi

Use of ANNs in Complex Risk Analysis Applications

Nayanthara De Silva, Malik Ranasinghe, C.R. De Silva

Strategies for Construction Waste Management in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Florence Yean Yng Ling, Dinh Song Anh Nguyen

BEPAM Issue 3.1 (Vol. 3 Issue 1) EDITORIAL:

JOINING HANDS AND ADVANCING TOGETHER

After two good years and two well-received volumes, the BEPAM editorial team forges ahead with some minor transitions, that also align with adjustments at the publishing end. Emerald now has a Managing Editor helping each journal and we look forward to the increased support through this new role, as well as to the expected enhanced dissemination of the BEPAM message through Emerald, along with our steadily growing recognition and impact.

On our side, Thomas Ng and Linda Fan change their hats to ‘Joint Editors’, while Florence Ling and Janaka Ruwanpura move on to new positions as Deputy Editors;

Athena Roumboutsos takes on an Associate Editor role. Koshy Varghese moves from Regional Editor - Asia to the Editorial Advisory Board, while Ananda Jayawardane moves in the reverse direction from the Editorial Advisory Board to become our new Regional Editor - Asia. Indeed, our internationally well-positioned editorial team includes 6 Regional Editors and 10 Associate Editors, supported by a strong Editorial Advisory Board and an expert Editorial Review Board.  

BEPAM arranged and presented ‘Best Paper Awards’ at two conferences in 2012: (1) the International Conference in the Built Environment in Developing Countries, in December, at Adelaide, Australia; and (2) the International Conference on Sustainable Built Environment at Kandy, Sri Lanka, also in December 2012. We are currently assessing papers for our annual Journal ‘Best Paper Awards’ from among those published in 2012 i.e. in Volume 2.

The current 3.1 issue, as in our previous ones, also benefits from the dual dynamics of thematic linkages between papers, amidst the demographic diversity across papers. The underlying consolidated message underpins the overarching goals of linking and synergizing project management with asset management in the built environment.

While one does not expect a clearly coherent overall message from any one general issue, the message will be clearer with the focused topical thrusts in a Special Issue. In this context, we look forward to our forthcoming first Special Issue (BEPAM 3.2) on. ‘Public Private Partnerships in Transport: Theory & Practice’. Our Guest Editors working hard on this Special issue, are Athena Roumboutsos and Rosário Macário.

Meanwhile, the paper themes in this issue range from issues in PPP procurement; through those in stakeholder management and corporate culture, assessment and enhancement of competencies and construction waste management; to value through innovation in service delivery, occupational health and safety, complex risk analysis and replacements prioritisation in asset management. Fields covered range from transport, healthcare and urban local government to building and pipeline assets. It is always interesting to map useful patterns and pick out common threads that link upstream planning, design and construction to downstream operations, maintenance and optimal utilisation of our built assets.

From another perspective, the issues are based on scenarios ranging from different parts of both Australia and UK, through Vietnam, India and Sri Lanka, to USA; while of course painted on a necessarily global canvas. The authors themselves draw on even more diverse backgrounds, hence enriching the broader context. Although unusual to host two papers from the same authors in the same issue, the companion papers herein on PPP competencies in urban local bodies, complement each other, hence their juxtaposition, to highlight the synergies.

BEPAM readers may have noted the steadily increasing numbers of papers in each issue. Although initially targeting 5 papers per issue in 2011, we never had less than 7 papers in each issue, while also upholding our high quality standards. We had 8 papers in the last issue and now have 9 in this. Before ‘bursting at the seams’, we plan to increase the number of issues per year from 2014 to meet the burgeoning demand for publishing, reading and citing high calibre research and development in this increasingly relevant field.

Readers are invited to spread the word further, about our well positioned BEPAM forum, i.e. to more prospective authors, readers and facilitators or disseminators (e.g. relevant networks and libraries), if indeed you concur that we should extend our reach and strengthen our impact in connecting project management issues (of planning, design, construction etc.) with asset management issues (of operations, maintenance etc.) in the built environment. Bringing these under one BEPAM banner enables a holistic helicopter perspective of the often disparate principles and practices of sustainable built infrastructure and related asset life cycle issues.

Mohan Kumaraswamy