Project and Quality

Success is a disputed concept which is difficult to exactly define and quote. This study is related to Software Engineering field in which success factors and perception of key stakeholders (i.e. top management, core team and clients etc.) about software project success is tried to identify. Study postulates that there are so many dimensions which are behind of a successful software project. Success has different meanings and varies according projects to projects in Software Engineering industry. It is due to conflict in determination and selection of success factors among stakeholders. Software project stakeholders may differ based on their organizational culture and related goals, current market structure and their customized needs satisfaction (as a client or end user) from intended use of software. Qualitative technique has been applied by using thematic analysis on articles between the time frame of 1991-2010 with major three keywords of “software project success”, “project success” and “perception of stakeholders”. Study provides better understanding why there is a divergent view of success which stakeholders of a software project perceives and must need to know.

In the present paper, we have selected the sponge iron industry in Chhattisgarh which uses iron – ore as the main raw material for the purpose of analysis of the iron-ore suppliers, Six important criteria have been considered and four suppliers are taken into account. In this paper MCDM (MultiCriteria decision making) is used for determining order preference with the help of the parameter related to Supplier selection. MCDM refers to making decisions in the presence of multiple, usually conflicting criteria. These criteria are compared using AHP and their weights are found. Using these weights, Topsis is applied to find the ranking of the suppliers and to choose the best among them. Result shows supplier S3 is best alternative supplier.

The study was guided by the following specific objectives: the effects of customer focus, top management commitment, people management and process management on the performance of construction projects. The descriptive research design was used in the study. The study was carried out in Kiambu County. Questionnaires were used as the tools of data collection. Questionnaires were used to collect data from the employees of the construction firms. Quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive statistics which entailed use of frequencies and percentages. Inferential statistics where the researcher employed Chi-square and The Spearman Rank Order tests were used. The study found out that; most of the respondents were of the view that their organizations placed a major emphasis on communication and training processes with a view of enhancing customer focus. The top management was fairly evaluated on quality performance. The capacity of their project teams in terms of periodic training needs assessment to ensure sustainable construction projects performance. The organizations had put in place fair mechanisms to ensure that the team members fully comprehended the business processes within the organizations. The study recommended that: the construction companies should seek to place greater emphasis on customer focus. This is by way of always aligning their quality management practices and ethos on the clients’ needs with a view of seeking to ensure maximum satisfaction and repeat buying. The top management in the construction industry should seek to always lead by example and from the front in seeking to enforce quality standards.

Quality Assessment System in Construction (QLASSIC) was promoted by Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) in late 2006. Apparently its main aim is to assess objectively the level of quality of the building construction work. Essentially the program comprised of two main components which are the assessment standard known as Construction Industry Standard (CIS) 7:2006 and the operation of the QLASSIC assessment. After more than five years of its existence, inevitably there are several issues prevailed that need to be addressed. Having said that leads to the primary objective of having this study is to explore the potential areas of improvement in QLASSIC. The respondents for this research were the construction personnel that have fair knowledge on CIS 7: 2006 and considerable years of experience in QLASSIC assessments. The data were collected through five focus group workshops consisted representative from the key stakeholders in QLASSIC assessments namely developer, consultant, contractor, Housing Tribunal and QLASSIC assessor. Altogether 66 respondents have participated in the workshops. This study had utilized questionnaire form as the research instrument. The data collected were analyzed using SPSS version 17. Generally this study was able to identify potential areas of improvement in CIS 7: 2006 as well as the operational of QLASSIC assessment. The output of this research is expected to provide the preliminary indications as areas that need to review and improve in an effort to improvise the implementation of QLASSIC by CIDB.

Abstract Information assurance (IA) projects are essential components of the information technology industry and often fail due to budget overruns, missed deadlines, and lack of performance by the project teams. The purpose of this phenomenological research was to explore the strategies necessary to improve IA project team performance. Lewin’s situational leadership theory was used as the conceptual framework for this research. Interviews were conducted with 20 IA professionals located in the Washington, DC Metropolitan area. The data were transcribed, coded, and clustered for the identification of common patterns based on the Moustakas’ modified van Kaam analysis. The major themes that emerged from the interview data included the importance of: communication and teamwork, technical knowledge, training, hiring of skilled resources, and balanced project teams. An organization-wide internal training program emerged as an overarching best practice to improve the leadership strategies within the IA sector. The research results may help improve project success and contribute in some small way to the growth of the IA industry.

This study summarizes the steps for forecasting Natural gas consumption in Bangladesh’s power sector using Box-Jenkins autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) time series model. For this study a structure for ARIMA forecasting model is being proposed where a time series is expressed in terms of past values of itself plus current and lagged values of a ‘white noise’ error term. Validity of the model was tested using standard statistical techniques and the best model is proposed on the basis of various diagnostic and selection & evaluation criteria. The findings of the study will provide policy makers in Bangladesh a long term perspective of natural gas consumption in power sector along with necessity of exploring other alternative energy sources and assist in adopting proper strategies to address the power supply situation of Bangladesh.

This paper examines the effects of macroeconomic variables like currency rate, inflation rate, real interest rate, gross domestic product and liquidity on the stock market index in Tehran Stock exchange during 1985 to 2015. Various econometric analyses such as Co-integration and Vector Error Correction Method (VECM) are employed on time series data. It finds that Iran’s stock market is positively influenced by the inflation and currency rates and negatively affected by the liquidity. On the other hand the relationship between real interest rates and stock price is positive but not significant.

The main role of financial reporting is transferring information to outsiders in a credible manner, which it is realized by high quality disclosure of financial information. We investigate the relationship between information disclosure with profitability ratios as return on assets, return on equity, return on sales and dividend payout. Also panel data techniques and Binary Logit econometric model has been used in the period of 2008-2012. The results show that there is no significant relationship between information disclosure with return on equity and dividend payout, but there is a significant relationship with return on assets and return on sales.

In this paper, we propose to integrate Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT), Genetic algorithm (GA) and Gantt chart (GC) for scheduling a construction project. Here, earliest start (ES) and earliest finish (EF) times of the activities are considered. Then, the parents, which depend on ES and EF, are selected from the uniform distribution. Crossover and mutation are implemented on the offspring for a better solution. The fitness, which represents the total cost, is computed. As a result, the finishing time and the cost expended for the project are minimized. In conclusion, the efficiency of the approach proposed is shown.

The Land Use Charge Law (LUCL) of Lagos state is a form of public intervention in urban land market to generate the needed revenue for government expenditures, and for wealth redistribution. As a property tax, it was meant to correct the perceived distortion in Lagos land market – a situation whereby less than one percent of the population controls more than ninety percent of its land value. Although, the tax policy is laudable, the society is not always aware of the impacts such policies have on real estate market, yet they are not without implications either positive or negative. This paper therefore examined the perspectives of landlords and the Estate Surveyors and Valuers in Lagos, Nigeria on the impact of Land Use Charge (LUC) on volume of property lettings, rent and other letting fees in the study area. Structured questionnaire was randomly administered on 135 Estate surveyors and Valuers and purposively on 135 landlords. The data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Findings reveal that the LUC had no effect on volume of property letting, and larger percent of the Valuers (70.8%) and landlords (88.8%) affirmed that rent has increased in Lagos due to LUC. The paper concludes that though LUC has had no noticeable impact on volume of letting transactions probably due to limited land size and high population of Lagos, it has however led to increase rent and other letting fees in the state with its attendant consequences on urban renters