2 3Quantifying civil engineering projects in terms of sustainability and meeting carbon dioxide reduction targets is a new challenge for the civil engineering industry. While the development of carbon accounting tools has helped to identify areas of bridge design and construction which have the greatest carbon dioxide emissions, quantifying sustainability overall has been less well studied. The sustainability index for bridges described in this paper is a significant step towards facilitating systematic quantification of the sustainability of schemes through a simple, graphical tool. The output identifies where improvements can be made on a design and allows comparison of alternatives. It can be used throughout the design process to monitor decisions, the success of design changes and to inform decisions on future projects, thereby improving the sustainability of designs. The overall sustainability index rating enables targets to be set for the desired sustainability performance of bridges produced by an organisation. The methodology can be adopted by clients so that, once the key attributes are set and weighted accordingly, designs can be benchmarked across their whole bridge stock. This paper presents the background to the development of the sustainability index,its key features and examples of its use and benefits. Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers Bridge Engineering 165 June 2012 Issue BE2 Pages 81-89 http://dx.
Within the civil engineering industry there are numerous methods of communicating knowledge. These include formal methods, such as through peer-reviewed papers, conferences and websites, and informal methods such as new teams coming together and sharing their experiences. However, knowledge management is more than just communicating lessons; it involves the creation, capture, sharing and leveraging of knowledge and, without all these aspects present is unlikely to be effective. Capturing all useful knowledge in a project life cycle and cascading the lessons learnt to industry, and indeed within organisations, presents a significant challenge to achieve consistently. This paper presents a tried-and-tested solution which employs a named individual on each project, the knowledge capture coordinator, in conjunction with a framework of technical, discipline-led, networks. In essence, the knowledge capture coordinator is responsible for capturing learning on the project and feeding past learning into the start of the project, while the technical networks review, develop and validate the learning captured and ensure it is subsequently available and communicated in the most appropriate manner to all who need to know. This paper discusses in detail how this is achieved and elaborates on the role of the KCC and networks in driving continuous improvement. It is based on a process employed within the Highways and Transportation business of Atkins.
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