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The Department of Defense (DoD) constructs, operates, and maintains a large number of facilities. DoD incorporates life-cycle cost-effective practices into many aspects of the military planning and construction processes. This report provides RAND’s description and assessment of the process used to obtain life-cycle cost-effective facilities and how that affects DoD construction options and choices.

LET us make two assumptions: first, that the Vietnam war has reached the beginning of the end and that it will be over within the next year or two; second, that the settlement will involve an American defeat and the extension of Communist power to South Vietnam.

\"Rhein-Main AB [air base] has been the 'Gateway to Europe' since the mid 1940's...Most importantly, it served as the major airfield supporting the movement of all US forces to and from continental Europe...The decision to close Rhein-Main AB caused a need to replicate its essential mobility capability at other places in the European En Route System. Although many locations are being enhanced, major construction projects are being undertaken in southern Germany at Ramstein AB and Spangdahlem AB.\" (Mobility Forum) Features of the construction projects are noted.

This book ... adds to the impressive 'legacy' of learning which is still emerging from the successful delivery of the London 2012 construction programme. The authors combine the reforming zeal of a champion for change, who was there every step of the way, with academic rigour, and the result is delivered with impressive passion and commitment to the topic ... All spenders and suppliers need to read this, to understand how conventional understandings of procurement fall so dramatically short when applied to high value-high risk acquisitions, which invariably is what large construction projects represent.'                                           Don Ward, Chief Executive, Constructing Excellence, UK Successful construction is often attributed to one or more aspects of the delivery process from good planning, design and clever engineering to efficient project management and quality construction. Before any of these disciplines can begin, they all require some form of procurement to select the team or supply chain to meet a client's or a project's specific requirements. The concept of PSE - Purchase and Supplier Engineering - originated in the procurement of the construction and infrastructure required to stage the 30th Olympiad in London during 2012.  At the time of writing PSE has successfully delivered almost £25bn of public procurement meeting client and project requirements and without legal challenge. The construction of the venues and infrastructure needed to stage London 2012 was such a resounding success that it boosted not only the reputation of the UK construction industry but also the confidence of the UK population in the country's ability to organise, build and run a major international event. Its success has been lauded as something from which clients and industry could learn. The ODA has established a comprehensive and informative body of evidence as part of a Learning Legacy. While the ODA is well aware of the many elements of the procurement and supply chain management, the complete end to end concept of how the Olympic supply chain procurements were managed has until now not been captured.  For example, how does one buy the stage for an Olympic Games? How does one manage the details of thousands of contracts and the many firms of contractors, subcontractors and material suppliers and ensure that no one organisation adversely affects any other to the detriment of the programme?  How are a client's requirements beyond those of the capital asset realised as part of the investment? How does one measure programme exposure, or manage performance?  How does one measure capacity and the ability of firms to cope with the work and manage the risks involved?  Programme Procurement in Construction: Learning from London 2012 covers the planning and preparation of a programme's procurement processes from understanding and developing the client's requirements, to monitoring performance based on the benchmarks contractors set out in their own tender submissions. The emphasis is on a close attention to detail to avoid surprises, while keeping a focus on the total programme.  Purchase and Supplier Engineering provides an overview of managing the interest of firms in participating and the resulting capacity and workloads of all suppliers, including the main contractors and the critical subcontractors and material suppliers.  Offering techniques, tips and lessons learnt from the implementation of PSE on London 2012 and Crossrail, this book is aimed at public and private sector clients, developers, senior management and those businesses and professionals involved in undertaking the procurement, supply chain management and delivery of multiple construction projects or complex major construction programmes.  

The groundbreaking Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) technology has gained significant attention from both academia and industrial experts due to several applications, such as military missions, power lines inspection, precision agriculture, remote sensing, delivery services, traffic monitoring and many more. UAVs are expected to become a mainstream delivery element by 2040 to address the ever-increasing demand for delivery services. Similarly, UAV-assisted monitoring approaches will automate the inspection process, lowering mission costs, increasing access to remote locations and saving time and energy. Despite the fact that unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are gaining popularity in both military and civilian applications, they have a number of limitations and critical problems that must be addressed in order for missions to be effective. One of the most difficult and time-consuming tasks is charging UAVs. UAVs’ mission length and travel distance are constrained by their low battery endurance. There is a need to study multi-UAV charging systems to overcome battery capacity limitations, allowing UAVs to be used for a variety of services while saving time and human resources. Wired and Wireless Power Transfer (WPT) systems have emerged as viable options to successfully solve this difficulty. In the past, several research surveys have focused on crucial aspects of wireless UAV charging. In this review, we have also examined the most emerging charging techniques for UAVs such as laser power transfer (LPT), distributed laser charging (DLC), simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) and simultaneous light wave information and power transfer (SLIPT). The classification and types of UAVs, as well as various battery charging methods, are all discussed in this paper. We’ve also addressed a number of difficulties and solutions for safe operation. In the final section, we have briefly discussed future research directions.

Purpose – Engineer-to-order (ETO) supply chains involve multiple companies for performing complex projects. The ability to effectively coordinate cross-business activities is essential to avoid delays, cost overruns and quality problems. Coordination is related to a number of contingent factors that need to be better comprehended. The purpose of this paper is to highlight such contingent factors and to analyse their effect on the occurrence of project delays. Design/methodology/approach – A multiple case study is used to investigate the moderating factors affecting coordination in projects carried out in an ETO supply chain. Such factors are examined through a cross-analysis of six shipbuilding projects based on data from interviews, project documentation and clips from the media press. Findings – In ETO supply chains, the engineering and production activities involve mutual interdependences that need to be coordinated. The findings suggest that both the integration of engineering and production and the production capability are the most critical factors influencing coordination in an ETO supply chain. Research limitations/implications – The study was carried out within shipbuilding projects as a setting to represent the ETO domain. To extend the findings, further research can examine other types of projects, such as: oil and gas, construction, military and aerospace. Practical implications – In practice, there is no “one-fits-all” solution for coordination. Each project represents a unique context which has specific objectives, actors and constraints. From that perspective, this study provides a basis to comprehend coordination in a complex setting. Originality/value – This study builds knowledge upon coordination by generating a number of propositions regarding the effectiveness of coordination on avoiding delays in complex projects carried out in ETO supply chains. Focusing on the engineering and production activities, the authors extend the existing theory by demonstrating that coordination can vary according to the level of several moderating factors.

Military technology has developed rapidly in recent years, and this development challenges existing norms. It has produced countless debates about the application of international humanitarian law (IHL) to areas of war and technology including cyber military operations, military artificial intelligence (including autonomous weapons), the use of drones, and military human enhancement. Despite these rapid progressions, the prospect of creating new treaties to specifically regulate their use by militaries and in armed conflicts is very low. This is largely due to the unequal allocation of military technology among States and the differing interests that result from this inequality. The absence of formal regulation means that State and non-State actors are increasingly embracing informal means of law-making. This is similar to other areas of IHL, such as the regulation of asymmetric conflicts, where norms are contested. In such cases, State and non-State actors employ various informal law-making techniques to advance their normative positions through treaty interpretation and the identification of customary international law. However, the discussion on military technology differs from other contemporary IHL debates. First, due to the rapid development of such technology and uncertainty about how it will be employed in practice, the interests of the various actors are less clear. Second, there are significant challenges in obtaining accurate information about new military technologies. This makes even the informal law-making path in the context of new technologies more challenging. This paper explores the dynamics of contemporary international law-making as it relates to the regulation of new military technologies. It identifies the main techniques that are used by the relevant actors and explores the common themes among the various debates over military technology, as well as the potential specific challenges in relation to certain technologies.

The demand for significantly increased protection of civilians in the Gaza Strip from the consequences of Israeli military operations, together with reports of high civilian casualties, has resonated in public discourse for more than 18 months. The Gaza war, including its second phase involving ground operations, is regarded as an international armed conflict between the State of Israel and Palestine, particularly Hamas, which is considered the officially and legally elected authority in part of the Palestinian territory, the Gaza Strip, though not of Palestine as a whole. Civilian protection is thus assessed under the 1977 Additional Protocol I and international customary law. This paper explores the intersection of international humanitarian law and military strategy. Within these frameworks, and concerning military rules adopted by the State of Israel, it examines the issue of civilians losing protection from military attack. Focus is placed on distinguishing between civilians in Gaza who directly or indirectly participate in hostilities. The paper analyses the specifics of urban warfare, the obligation to minimise collateral damage, precautions in favour of civilians, and the challenges posed by the voluntary presence of civilians at military objectives. It aims to determine whether, and under what conditions, the IDF may lawfully launch a justifiable attack that also results in civilian casualties.