Infrastructure Projects Undertaken in Dubai - Report Example

Running Head: Assessment Criteria for Infrastructure Projects Undertaken in Dubai Assessment Criteria for Infrastructure Projects Undertaken in Dubai Name Tutor Date Assessing Criteria for Infrastructure Projects Undertaken In Dubai Dubai is one of the most important business hubs in the world, Dubai therefore has continually stepped up efforts in ensuring highest quality standards in all disciplines all in search for a sustained advantage. This is proven by the set strategic plan for Dubai (2007-2015) announced by Dubai rulers including His highness Sheikh Mohamed Bin Rashid, the prime minister and vie president , this is based on five guiding principals one of them being public sector excellent Since as early as 1997 different departments in Dubai have adopted self assessment model for internal assessment of development towards excellence. This excellence program is in two categories namely enablers and results where enablers describe activities to be undertaken by an organization to achieve the desired results. Leadership is the most important determinant of success of any implementation process this is done through the involvement of the leaders in workshops which have been identified as the most important tool for self assessment, use of the services of external assessors with the coordination of central quality department who assess the organization’s documents and score it to a nine criteria. Dubai’s model proves the viability of making the investment within the region, of making the investment that is specific to human welfare and to knowledge economy. It has led to a rise in expectations among citizens in the area concerning transparency and good governance levels, quality of services offered to the public as well as modern infrastructure. In a different perspective There are engineering firms involved in the assessing of different infrastructures in countries like Dubai, Australia e.tc this firm ensures that the infrastructures are protected from hazards like earthquakes, offshore environment, strong wind, fire outbreaks, e.t.c and blast they specialize in the form of upcoming structures as well as strengthening schemes for already existing structures. BLAST ENGINEERING The structural assessing firms offers top level evaluation on blast loads an infrastructure is exposed to. This entails defining the various blast scenarios to making quantifications on duration data with the distance from an indicated blast source. This is achieved through employment of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) methods for both load prediction and dispersion analysis.  The analytical methods are calibrated together with the available information to come up with realistic loading scenarios.   The services offered in this area involve evaluating performance of every structural part, as well as the responses of buildings and foundations.  Specific attention is geared towards an infrastructure’s architectural and nonstructural components like cladding to make sure that the response falls within the provided for deformation limits , stability and strain incase blast loading occurs. These firms assist most operators in the evaluation of existing control buildings and other building structures for blast loading in their specific facilities especially in the US. structures under evaluation range from recent to longer periods, they also cover many types of materials of construction including: prestressed concrete reinforced concrete, steel construction, unreinforced masonry e.tc, the assessment firms’ staff also serve as expert witnesses to characterize the force of e.g. refinery explosion on structures that were adjacent to the facility.  FIRE OUTBREAKS Fire outbreaks on structures affect both the asset and the safety of personnel. In every instance, the hazard can become well designed; performance needs put on the life safety structure or asset protection. The firm undertakes all aspects of structural fire engineering as well as offering a managed fire protection service.  Combining materials know-how, advanced fire modeling, and structural analysis. Specific services and skills include: Fire Risk Assessment, Use of phenomenological tools for fire hazard modeling, Development of performance standard, Quality Assurance and Auditing EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING Earthquakes have in the past caused great infrastructural damage as well as loss of lives in a bid to manage this hazard the assessment firms put in place methodologies to reduce its social and economic impacts. Expertise is put in seismology, geology, structural engineering, geotechnical engineering and financial loss modeling to help clients in mitigation of the unexpected consequences of earthquakes. These major services are generally made available to the owners and operators of petrochemical facilities and energy producing facilities.  There is use of modern techniques of analyzing seismic hazards at a particular site.  Deterministic and probabilistic procedures are also utilized to quantify these hazards in terms of time and response spectra histories. Combined with hands on capabilities of structural design, the firm puts in place cost effective, practical and reliable solutions for industries like refineries, offshore facilities, petrochemical complexes as well as lifeline systems. There is the provision of services that assess seismic loss for customers in the real estate, financial, commercial insurance and insurance sectors through the use of probabilistic assessment methods to enumerate the risk; post-earthquake reconnaissance work is performed for the customers to test the safety of structures and to help in minimizing the economic impacts of the disaster. SEISMIC HAZARD ASSESSMENT  In early project development, the most significant steps is establishment of seismic design criteria and subsequent detailed design. Seismic design implies significantly on the risk exposure of life of the facility and on project economics. All over the world the engineering firm has a range of critical infrastructure because of its substantial experience in developing seismic design. For any key infrastructure project, establishment and definition of the criteria of seismic design is a significant step during the early stages of project development as well as in following detailed design. The criterion of Seismic design has major implications over exposure to risk in relation to the facility’s life and over project economics. The assessment firms have substantial experiences in developing criterions of seismic design for various critical infrastructures located all across the world. The project design life, seismic hazard analysis techniques are used on seismic design parameters like time histories and response spectra for their development. There are also experienced in establishing strength level earthquake and operating basis earthquake, ductility level earthquake for offshore structures. Seismic hazard assessment services have been located in a variety of tectonic settings; this includes regions of Chile, New Zealand, Alaska, New Guinea, and continental regions of West Africa and Middle East. There is the major use of modern probabilistic techniques of analyzing seismic hazards to build up parameters of seismic design like for example time histories and response spectra. The assessment firm staff has provides services that assess seismic hazards for the structures that are located in various tectonic and geologic settings which include active assessment of areas likely to be hit by earthquakes. WATER INFRASTRUCTURE RELIABILITY ASSESSMENT There is experience in performing multi-hazard reliability assessment of crucial lifelines, specifically water and wastewater systems distributed over a large geographical area including geological and topographical features. To ensure a reliable output of lifelines all of these hazards should be stopped frequently with consideration to the importance and criticality of each element. Such a comprehensive assessment of such system requires multi-disciplinary expertise in order to ensure that hazards are mitigated in time (Collard, 2005). . The firm’s senior workers possess knowledge and expertise in structural engineering, earthquake engineering and geotechnical engineering. The services offered by the firm in this area are: Security and vulnerability assessment System reliability assessment and development of capital improvement programs CLEAN ENERGY TECHNOLOGY The emerging sector of Clean Energy Technology has also been looked up widely and takes into account: Wind and Wave Energy Systems The firm provides structural design and marine engineering services for off the shore wind energy systems. The firm also provides structural design and marine engineering services for off the shore wind energy systems.  This work includes development of concept and evaluation, power generation reliability assessments, front-end engineering and design, design verification and review as well as specialized analyses to assess the complex manner in which ocean energy systems operates. Another sector is the support services that for devices used in wave energy conversion including the mooring design configurations of deep as well as shallow water . The major responsibility here is to ensure the work covers conceptual design, front-end engineering as well as detailed design including specific Hydrogen Since its provision for services related to the analysis of blast engineering and accident hazard to one of the world’s first hydrogen transport and fuelling facilities, MMI has been taken part in the provision of support to various developers with similar facilities both in Europe and in the US.  This support entails facility layout review, hazard analysis, identification and design against key natural and accidental hazards.  Carbon Capture having been considered a major bridging technology, the large scale capture and storage of carbon presents numerous hazard and engineering management challenges.  MMI has constantly been involved in various pioneering CCS activities and has continued to support several projects in Europe, the US, and the Middle East.  Principal services provided include the release & dispersal of H2S, consequence molding of every relevant accident hazard, deflagration of hydrogen gas, jet fires and detonation and the release & dispersion of subcooled, liquid supercritical carbon dioxide from both pipelines as well as plants. RISK ASSESSMENT AND RISK MANAGEMENT  Assessment firms have extensive experience applying risk assessment and management techniques in assessing of risk. The set of rules and assumptions in risk assessments are modified to reduce foreseen risk in infrastructural structures, there is a reason to understand that this is an improvement on paper only as opposed to its practicality.  The one and only way through which risks can be reduced is by applying sound engineering from the beginning of the projects, constructing, designing, and decommissioning, operation and maintenance cycles related to particular project. The risk assessment and management services include: Safety Case Development Quantitative Risk Assessments  REGIONAL LOSS ESTIMATION APPLICATIONS The personnel possess commendable working experience in developing comprehensive and regional scenario estimates of loss during floods, earthquakes and other hazardous events, to be used in emergency planning, preparedness and mitigation of disasters. The tools applied include the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s software for multi-hazard loss estimation.  Several of the experts led the software’s pilot projects in the mid-1990’s, this software was implemented in the development of the flood module for, and it ha been in effect in both application and research. Expertise in this area of practice includes development of regional building inventory facility specific databases and construction characteristics databases, such as those for important facilities and transportation system modeling clients who benefit form this services include federal, local emergency management agencies and state(Institution of Highways and Transportation et al, 1994). . CASUALTY MODELING A basic and most significant component of the mitigation of loss during disasters involves reducing the number of potential injuries and deaths.  Modeling of possible disaster related casualties requires the partnership of multi-disciplinary sectors.  Senior personnel have constantly been conducting multidisciplinary researches at the public health and engineering boundaries for over ten years now including making investigations on the impacts of various disasters , both man made and natural, on humans. Natural disasters include earthquakes, floods, terrorism acts. This information later translated into improved engineering based methods and models of loss estimation. Most of these researches have been conducted in partnership with medical experts and the public health located at the main Center of Public Health. There are examples of companies involved in development. in Dubai Meinhardt (Singapore) Pte Ltd is a major part of Meinhardt International Group which mainly provides services in project management, integrated services within certain areas of structural/civil engineering, mechanical, fazade, fire, electrical hydraulics, infrastructure and transportation engineering among other related disciplines that are delivered seamlessly at ago. Meinhardt commenced operation in Australia in 1955. Today, the Group has maintained twenty six permanent offices worldwide consisting of Asian Pacific Region, USA, UK and Middle East, employing an excess of two thousand five hundred skilled managers, engineers and technicians. The Asian and International headquarters of this group are can be found in Singapore. Meinhardt Group has had operations in the Middle East for more than ten years providing integrated Architectural/Engineering services for some of the most prestigious projects in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. This group also gives assistance during the recruitment selection and hiring. Sourcing and screening resume form Web Job Portals. Other than that it provides human resource support on management and non-management staff interviews Recruitment, Selection and Administration of Tests, to provide with the right candidate to the firm. Conducted reference checks and positively identified viable candidates for various work assignments. It provides applicants with information about the job including hours and pay, tasks and job responsibilities and working conditions as well as generation of required curriculum vitae templates for Clients’ review and approval. The Australian Government has announced a new, national approach to planning, funding and implementing the nation's future infrastructure needs. The act of infrastructure was implemented on April, 09 2008 leading to the establishment of Infrastructure in Australia. It is in infrastructure that Australia will be able to come up with a strategic blueprint for the future of our nation in terms of infrastructural needs and in the various partnerships with other territories, local government states, and the entire private sector and to facilitate the implementation of this blue print. It will be able to advice Australian governments on the different gaps and bottlenecks in infrastructure that lead to a hindrance in prosperity and economic growth. The country will also be able to identify regulatory and policy reforms and investment priorities necessary in enabling coordinated and timely delivery of infrastructure investment. The 2008-2009 Budget saw the Government announce for the establishment of a fund known as Building Australia Fund. Allocations collected from the Australian Fund will receive guidance from Australia's priority list on infrastructure priority list and national audit in relation to infrastructure. This will receive support from a coordinator in infrastructure .The Coordinator will then lead to a not so spacious professional infrastructure. This could be adopted by different governments including the Dubai government as well as the whole UAE region in a bid to ensure that the first growing infrastructural development is adequately taken care of GREEN BUILDING IDEA There is a particular municipality that is involved with making preparations of a legislative-framework, known as the ‘Green Building Code’. This is made for consultants, developers, and contractors to follow. It has become a requirement to have every building plan within the Arab region to meet the requirements of this code. Right now, there are certain regulations have been put in place to guide the installation of insulated floors and heat insulators in. The Green building standards would have more stipulations. Building officials were suggested that though the currently being constructed buildings cannot be asked make changes to their plans; developers can make possible alterations with the help of a particular section of the building department. The new building projects have to act in accord with the water and energy efficiency requirements, waste efficiency requirements, landscaping facilities, proper selection of sites, indoor & outdoor requirements of air quality among others. Only minimal requirements will be needed from the developers. Building projects will be approved on a case to case basis by the Permit Department. The municipality is organizing a meeting with developers at the Dubai Festival City to hold a discussion on the matter and to give the developers all the necessary information. Last year saw the prime minister and vice president of UAE, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, issue a directive, calling for every building constructed in Dubai meet the standards of the Green building. Following this, the Emirates Green Building Council (EGBC) implemented an assessment system to promote the sustainability of for UAE based on US GBC’s (US Green Building Council) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) system of rating. Modifications were made to fully account for various conditions of the local environment. The proposed system of LEED Emirates was given to the US GBC for thorough evaluation. The main changes made on this system include a greater emphasis on the conservation of water. Various potential total points have as well been raised from 69 to 72. The EGBC has an intention of beginning a pilot project to test on the use of the implemented system. The aim of this is to use the system on twenty five new projects that are at present in the initial design stage. Feedback from the pilot project will be used to make updates on the rating system. Presently, 16 countries, including USA, India, Austria, China, Canada, UAE, Australia, and the Philippines are part of the Green building initiative. WHAT IS A GREEN BUILDING? A green building is an environment-friendly building that aims at reducing its impact on the countries environment It has less harmful impact on human health and the environment because of its better design, construction, operation as well as maintenance On average, a green building saves electricity consumption by 70 per cent water by, fifty to sixty per cent and energy by thirty six per cent. The middle east region which includes the Arab countries there is the use of services of companies which are globally recognized in the building industry for cost managing and quantity surveying services, this firm also offers additional value-added services which include project and construction management, planned facilities management, asset organization, risk and value management and sustainability. Risk management is one of the major area that has benefited from the collaborative approach to ensuring risks are reduced in infrastructure development. There is the need to integrate risk management within organizational processes as a part of each growing company’s permanent improvement cycle. Many are the times when clients acquire the need to highly integrate risk- management with value -management and engineering for the sole reason that these two have impeccable results if integrated as one. And as the market matures, there is thus significant potential for clients to further improve their regional capabilities through the application of risk management systems, tools and techniques. Firstly, it must be said that risk management fixed as a key component of project management process. However, this companies offer complete consultancy services across entire clientele enterprises. Before starting any projects the clients are advised to begin the projects with eyes wide open in order for them to clearly understand the issues at hand and those requiring more informed decisions to be made as well as those that have a lower lesser likelihood of receding back into the previous problems that one might encounter. It's very important to get these processes fixed early throughout the organization as the benefits have potential to extend beyond current projects - and by putting lessons learnt into their processes, their continuous improvement cycle continues, which adds further value to their organization (Institution of Highways and Transportation et al, 1994). Managing risks has become one way of driving value and reducing a lot of inefficiencies in most infrastructural projects recently in discussions with a client evaluating risks in their supply chain and procurement. As they were sourcing for market from international firms outside the region, it becomes important to identify several project risks which include disruption manufacturing process, currency fluctuations, and transportation as well as logistical concerns, all of which are bound to cause delays and increase costs. In consideration of mitigation of identified risks, and balance of the function of the required items versus costs, it is discovered that there is a local manufacturer who could directly supply the specified quality and quantity within a 30- or less minute drive. This effectively mitigates the risks associated with potential effects of the fluctuation of and of transport delays. This also ensures that the client saves a considerable amount of her or his budget, which also grants the client the opportunity to make use of his or her funds elsewhere. An additional benefit was that this allowed the client to increase his percentage of locally manufactured materials assisting with the local economy, as this is one of the key drivers of the overall project (Institution of Highways and Transportation et al, 1994). This presents one major example that shows why risk management has been dovetailed with value engineering (value management), as the two are not independent processes and hence their integrations into different project processes can have important benefits regarding the project’s entire performance. Risk management is believed to involve seeking opportunities for solutions. Clients benefitting from these services further require to empower their different personnel by training and providing them with tools and processes like for example the risk register that is user friendly and that comprehensively includes reporting capabilities that enable their respective project team members to keep track their progress. These extra services provide the client's team members with additional competencies that allow them to gain enhanced management skills (Collard, 2005). UAE is well-known as being a pioneer to the kind of projects it does. These projects are seen as daring and as those that can be determined using technical means, scales and coverage. The entire industry calls for the dire need to have the innovative approaches as a way of promoting development and further growth. As it is however, firms are reasonably becoming wary of the numerous embedding innovative that are not in any way proven and are likely to jump into unknown fields. So, in order to balance that risk versus innovation equation or better still, take risk out of the innovation process altogether there is a need for collaborative action from the client and the involved companies (Institution of Highways and Transportation et al, 1994). When a certain project is initiated, a workshop is often held together with respective clients and other major stakeholders. The project objectives is looks at, stakeholder engagement, issues as well as a wide range of a defined criterion. This process greatly assists every involved party in defining the specifications of the and provides a very accurate overview that presents the needs of the client for example, whether the client desires to have the project as being either purely functional or iconic. It is critically important therefore to thoroughly understand the client's needs, and understanding what the client wants to achieve through the specific stipulated project. Communication has to pass across all aspects of the project, and is important to assist in the mitigation of potential risks. As the market matures and grows widely, particularly within the region, clients and developers in the infrastructure field are increasingly looking for best practice as well as world-class methodologies. The recent publication of ISO 31000( an international standard on risk management) has not only made many industry heads to recognize risk management as a standard international practice that is the best, but to also identify the demand for the implementation of effective processes of risk management while initiating their projects. This region has been known to thrives on innovation and new ideas, and often once it is demonstrated on how implementing a risk management system delivers solid benefits, such as assisting as a tool for measuring the probability of success for innovative options, most clients immediately understand how these processes provide them with greater comfort when making early stage decisions in starting their projects (Institution of Highways and Transportation et al, 1994). The idea of sustainability has been greatly emphasized, as it is there are challenges that need to be overcome for sustainability to become part of the material of everything that is done in every project viewed from a risk’s perspective, if the governments implant strict regulations on the need to have sustainability, then it will become a part of the project objectives to include it. This will provide assistance in the reduction of various risks. Currently, there is much discussion on whether or not sustainable thoughts and stipulation should be included in ones design, and on how far organizations will go to implement these standards that are numerous (Collard, 2005). The standards of design can be considered as partly still being in the early stages of development in various emirates and once they are fully imposed, then design teams will not have any other option but to find solutions that are sustainable for their designs. This presents a good example to how an apparent threat can change into a great opportunity. A perceived limit can be changed into a definite positive outcome in relation to viable return, environmental impact and to brand desirability. Once clients, financiers, designers and developers grasp this presented opportunity then the challenges can at this time be controlled somewhat. This region is really embracing the idea of sustainability, given the huge development that's taken place there over the last 15 years, Dubai, in particular, has to some level missed a trick by not fully embedded the concept of sustainability into all its processes from an earlier stage of project development. It would highly be unfair and inappropriate to focus singly on Dubai when it comes to the idea of enhancing sustainability in infrastructure development, as has been over the past one and a half decade. The implementation and enhancement of sustainability widely varies across the developing and developed parts of the world. It is evidently clear that sustainability, asset management and facilities management have turned out to be far more entrenched into existing design- team solutions. There are positive moves when one thinks towards wholelife appraisal rather than on the previous standard of short term views. Many consider the monetary cost of 'green-friendly' or sustainable items as being somewhat prohibitive. The significant reduction of such items leads to an increase in the accomplishment of sustainability. Looking at it in a risk point of view, enhancing focus on the promotion of sustainability will reduce the risks related to energy supply because more techniques on the use of renewable energy and other energy saving processes and materials will be used. Long term use of sustainable infrastructure is likely to reduce the various risks that are associated with certain utilities. This will be a positive outcome (Collard, 2005). In conclusion Dubai and the whole of the UAE region has in place different criteria for assessing the projects in the country, this helps in mitigation of potential involved risks, this region has a first growing infrastructural base thus calling for a constant change in assessment to meet the growing changes. Incorporation of international standards in assessment and evaluation of the projects has to a large level contributed to success in the sustainability of the projects but much has to be done to enhance success. References Collard E. (2005) Assessment of Infrastructure Projects in Dubai Middle East economic digest, 49(1):12 Institution of Highways and Transportation (Great Britain), Highway and Traffic Technicians Association (Great Britain), Institute of Highway Incorporated Engineers (Great Britain) (1994) Highways & transportation, Michigan: University of Michigan. The Dubai Mall brochure collects three awards at Summit Creative Awards 2005, AME Info, May 24, 2005, retrieved 06 April 2010. Work begins on Dubai Metro project, Khaleej Times on March 22, 2006, retrieved 06 April 2010 World's largest shopping malls compared, 20 January 2006, American Studies at Eastern Connecticut State University, retrieved 06 April 2010 Read More