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The authors seek to clarify what is understood by the management of technology by involving a group of managers in a workshop to identify specifically what they believe to be their critical difficulties and challenges in managing technology. The approach is shown to be a means of enhancing creativity, designed not so much for creating good answers and solutions, but rather for discovering good questions and challenges and for conceptualizing complex issues. Virtually all of the challenges selected as most important had much more to do with leading people to think more innovatively and collaboratively than with new technology itself.

There are a lot of possibilities to protect the existing building against the negative impact arising from conducted or projected mining exploitation. These additional loads on the mining area are dependent, among others, from the effects on the surface from an exploitation of coal. One of the basic methods of protection of a building is to carry out the distribution of an object into smaller and regular in a horizontal section parts, what is called dilatation. In consequence of this treatment the decrease of the effort of supporting elements, additional loaded by mining impacts, is expected. The problem is realization of a proper and efficient dilatation in a complicated plan of an existing building. The paper contains the results of numerical analyzes of a model of a multi-family building with a large and irregular horizontal projection, where two systems of expansion joints were used. The results were compared to the results of the analysis of a model without taking into account additional building protection. The different solutions of the analyzes, where the different directions of mining were included, are presented. The distribution of forces in the bearing walls of the building was analyzed.

Analysis of the construction market in Poland and its trends in the recent years indicates a resurgence of prefabricated technology in residential construction. The main period of prefabrication development in Poland was in the 1970s. when it was referred to as large panel. According to a report by Building Research Institute, buildings constructed with large panels are characteristics for their high durability and any damage occurring in the buildings built using the technology can be divided into two groups. The first is damage similar to that occurring in traditional construction, such as damage to partition walls, roof covering or installations. The other is damage related to the prefabrication technology itself, i.e. the production of elements (material damage) and their assembly (damage at connections). Other potential threats include mining activity in the case of buildings located in mining areas and gas explosions related to the gas systems present in this type of building. This paper, therefore, attempts to recreate the process and consequences of an explosion in a closed room of a multi-family building using a numerical model. The simulations are based on: literature data (concerning calculating and applying explosion actions) and own experience in assessing the response of a concrete structure described using an elastic-plastic-damage (e-p-d) model. The result of the analyses included indication of areas directly affected by risk of loss of stability (with potential expansion of disaster area). The paper also presents the effect of “expulsion” of an external wall due to explosion. It was found that structure failure states obtained in the analyses are fully compatible in qualitative sense with observed real construction disasters caused by explosions. Real quantitative trustworthiness should result from laboratory tests of materials from which the buildings under analysis are built of.

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