Introduction
Green building is based on effective operations management which helps the construction company to determine and stipulate the main steps and resources required for the project. In Green building, planning requires special attention because it influences the overall success of the project and its outcomes for the organization. The budget can be controversial in administration circles, in terms of whether it is well conceived and whether it would have lasting and beneficial effects. Both should assess their relative contributions to the total project management task and view each other as alternative and supporting resources.
As alternatives project managers present management with different means of budgets. The problem at this level is one of deciding what proportion of the total budget should be allocated to each. Conceptually, the decision of the relative amounts to be spent on each is straightforward. Economic theory furnishes the marginal approach.
Operations Management Strategies
Budgets and project planning
Even if project and resource management data are not available, it behooves management to think of the total project tasks that match resources with green market potential. For instance, with a relatively small budget many alternatives are not feasible. Once a total budget for a green building project is set, project management should think in terms of the possible impact of different combinations: the extremes of spending the total budget, and the results expected from different combinations of each. Here again, although it is impossible to get precise data, management estimates can be made.
There is at least an advantage to thinking in terms of inputs of alternative mixtures and resulting outputs. The most popular and advantageous sustainable technologies are renewable energy resources: solar energy, water and wind power. The main advantage of these technologists is that they do not pollute the surrounding and are effective enough to replace oil and gas, coal and power plants (Sustainable Development. 2009).
Management strategies and importance
Management may assist the natural processes in maintaining grasslands through seeding. In green building, water management involves methods to enhance water collection or to direct or divert water flows to maintain or increase targeted beneficial human uses. Tree planting can accelerate the reestablishment of a forest after a harvest or a fire. In some cases, the productivity of the resource may be stimulated simply by reducing the stock. For instance, a project near a forest with no net growth becomes a net producer of timber after some of its existing stock is removed, thereby permitting faster growth of the remaining trees.
More important, the knowledge and ability to manipulate environmental systems, gained largely over the past century, have dramatically increased the capacity to boost yields well beyond those that would occur naturally. Improved seed varieties and beneficial chemicals combined with proper management can increase nutrient supply and reduce natural pests to enable much higher crop, forest, and range yields. Greater understanding of hydrology, and investments in dams and reservoirs, have increased the capacity to reliably extract water from streams (Clough et al 76).
Resource Allocation
In Green building, important dimensions of renewability are the vulnerability of the resource to deterioration, especially to the point that natural restoration is impossible or unlikely except over long periods; the time over which the resource will naturally be restored after a disruption; and the responsiveness of the resource and its potential for restoration through management. Characterizing Green building resources according to these dimensions is a complicated process because the renewability of a given resource varies widely depending on a variety of factors.
For instance, water is generally more readily renewed than groundwater, and the renewability of forests, grassland, and cropland depends greatly on soil and water conditions. Increasingly over the past two centuries, the stocks and flows of these resources have been determined by the use and the management imposed by a growing human population and the economy (Scottish Institute of Sustainable Technology. 2009).
On the one hand, the use has sometimes depleted local stocks or adversely altered the natural ability of the resources to renew themselves. In many cases, the Green building project intended to reduce local renewability, as in the conversion of a forest to crops. On the other hand, increased understanding of the reserve systems and improved operations management practices have tended to increase the productivity of the natural systems to meet the demands of the American people (Clough et al 88).
Conclusion
Green building and operations management use resource flows from existing stocks without seriously compromising the renewability of the resource for future use. Such management involves, in part, capturing the “losses” and mortality that would otherwise occur naturally. Grazing captures grasses for feed that might otherwise die and decompose as seasons change. Irrigation captures water for use that would otherwise evaporate or flow directly to the sea.
In conclusion, operations management can provide protection to the resource from many natural and human-made dangers that reduce or dissipate the actual or potential productivity of the resource. Although operations management is not always wise and beneficial, advances in understanding the underlying natural processes and in the technologies for management have greatly enhanced the potential productivity of our renewable natural resources on a sustainable basis. Technological advances in building techniques early in the 21st century bring major changes in the uses of and benefits derived from the nation’s resources. Operations management can be seen as a framework for effective Green building and construction management.
Works Cited
Clough, E.H., Sears, G.A., Sears, S. K. Construction Project Management. Wiley; 4 edition, 2000.
Scottish Institute of Sustainable Technology. 2009. Web.
Sustainable Development. 2009. Web.