Engineering asset procurement: operationalising complex adaptive system theory

Furneaux, C.; Brown, Kerry; Gudmundsson, A.

doi:10.1109/INFRA.2008.5439596

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Access Status

Open access

Authors

Furneaux, C.

Brown, Kerry

Gudmundsson, A.

Date

2008

Type

Conference Paper

Metadata

Show full item record

Citation

Furneaux, C. and Brown, K. and Gudmundsson, A. 2008. Engineering asset procurement: operationalising complex adaptive system theory, in Proceedings of 1st International Conference on Infrastructure Systems and Services: Building Networks for a Brighter Future (INFRA 2008), Nov 10 2008. Rotterdam, Netherlands: IEEE.

Source Title

Engineering asset procurement: Operationalising complex adaptive system theory

Source Conference

2008 1st International Conference on Infrastructure Systems and Services: Building Networks for a Brighter Future, INFRA 2008

DOI

10.1109/INFRA.2008.5439596

ISBN

978-1-4244-6887-4

Remarks

Copyright © 2008 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/8457

Collection

Curtin Research Publications

Abstract

Procuring the management and maintenance of engineering assets are key activities of government, particularly given the importance of these assets for business and society. Despite their importance, the most effective methods for procuring engineering assets are still to be determined due to the complexity inherent in such arrangements. While Complex adaptive systems (CAS) theory has been advocated as a coherent theoretical framework for examining both procurement and engineering assets, considerable challenges remain in operationalizing this framework for government systems. There are thus two challenges: developing an understanding of the complexity and dynamics of procurement systems, together with a practical problem of how to model such systems. This paper outlines CAS theory and suggests ways that it might be operationalized to examine engineering asset procurement.