NOMENCLATURA Y CLASIFICACIÓN DE LAS ENZIMAS

Following the decision management framework, described in Chapter 4, the three-phase stakeholder engagement process was applied. At the planning phase, 12 categories of fire

design stakeholders were nominated and called the ‘decision-makers’. Some of the

stakeholder categories were extracted from the literature (Alvarez et al. 2013; Park et al.

2014) and the rest were nominated by the researcher based on their potential involvement in conceptual and formulated structural fire design decision-making processes. The fire design

stakeholder categories were: architects, building consent authorities (authorities having

jurisdiction), building contractors, building insurers, building owners, end users, environmental professionals, fire engineers, fire service (operational/engineers), manufacturers/suppliers of passive fire protection products, structural engineers, and others (e.g. building services engineers).

It is noteworthy that some of the nominated stakeholders may not be involved in the design decision-making process of a specific building project. For instance, end-users are not traditionally involved in a design project and in the case of this study; it may be difficult to elicit their views, as they may not have knowledge of structural fire engineering. In another instance, some building owners may not know about the performance of unprotected steel in an optimally designed steel-framed building without being expressively informed by the fire and structural engineers. However, the inclusion of the above-nominated stakeholders is on the premise that the design decision-making process investigated herein can be applied at a project’s conceptual stage where all potential design options and decision attributes are considered. At this initial stage, the views of all stakeholders can be considered early in the

project to manage whole-of-life risks (i.e. from the design of the building, construction, use,

Prior to engaging the fire design stakeholders, human ethics approval was obtained from the University of Canterbury Human Ethics Committee. This was to ensure that the research was being carried out reliably and that personal and professional rights of participants were not being violated throughout the process, by seeking the appropriate consents to carry out the research investigation. The approved human ethics documents are shown in Appendices 2(a) and 2(b). Importantly, all participant-stakeholders read the approved information sheet and signed the consent document (Appendix 2(c)) before participating in the process. For consistency and to obtain meaningful results, the interviewed individuals were experienced and chartered practitioners from reputable organisations within the fire and building industries in New Zealand. The completion of fire design stakeholder identification and consenting concluded the planning phase of the stakeholder engagement process.

As earlier explained in Section 5.2, it was not possible to engage the stakeholders at the same place and time, as such, structured individual interviews were conducted face-to-face with each of the stakeholders, as the means of extracting fire design stakeholder opinions. In the preparation and engagement phase (Figure 4.1) and prior to conducting the interviews, this study considered that an hour per individual stakeholder interview was considered appropriate to elicit stakeholder opinions/judgements. Notably, a structured interview for each stakeholder was considered more appropriate than surveys on the basis that interviews would give the opportunity to also extract stakeholders’ professional and other comments as opposed to surveys that are implemented through questionnaires, and questions are fixed. Time limitation may also affect the efficient use of questionnaires given the very busy work schedules of chartered professionals. Nevertheless, an online survey was used to elicit stakeholder opinions from other jurisdictions. Their views were synthesised to compare with the views of New Zealand stakeholders of the same categories as presented in Section 5.2.3.2. For the structured interviews, the goal rating document developed in Chapter 4 was revised to contain the relevant items listed in Section 4.3.1.1. In this case, the information in Table 5.1 was used to set-up the judgement matrices according to Categories (A-C) of the AHP-

pairwise comparisons (Step 2). The interview questions for pairwise comparisons of decision

attributes and options were structured in such a way as to avoid ambiguity and to obtain a reliable judgement or rating from stakeholders. In the revised goal rating document, the fundamental AHP-pairwise comparison question was presented in this form:

“Compare (criteria or element A) and (criteria or element B) with respect to selecting the most suitable passive fire protection on steel elements for fully developed fires”.

This key comparison question was also applied to all pairwise comparisons presented in the matrix tables and representing the different hierarchical levels of the AHP decision model. A sample of the revised goal rating document is included in Appendix 2(d). The successful development of the goal rating document and schedule of interview meetings concluded the preparation phase as shown in the decision management framework (Figure 4.1).

In the response and rating phase, the fire design stakeholders were interviewed. Their paired judgements on the decision problem were elicited, and they also provided further comments on the competing fire protection options which are summarised in Section 5.2.2.1. Notably, the stakeholders were not asked about their previous experience in decision-making processes and use of MCDA tools to prevent bias in the process. At this stage of the research, 36 participants within the nominated 12 fire design stakeholder categories had participated in the interviews as shown in Figure 5.1. The fire service category had the highest participation with nine participants followed by fire engineers, while building owners, insurers and end-users

had the least participation with one in each category.

Figure 5.1. Fire design stakeholder participation.

5.2.2.1. Divergent Views of Expert Structural Fire Design Stakeholders

During the research interviews, discussions with some building contractors in New Zealand revealed that concrete encasement is hugely time-consuming regarding ease of construction, as a considerable amount of time goes into the casting of concrete and erection of the encased

2 3 3 1 1 1 3 7 9 1 3 2 Stakeholder categories

concrete elements. The focus of contractors is on cost and minimum material use, and they would prefer unprotected steel if it meets the required fire resistance or spray-on cement- based material because they are cheaper and consume less application time on site compared to concrete encasement. The view of unprotected steel structures as a fire protection measure is also shared by some structural fire engineers who may meet performance objectives by optimising the structure (e.g. using heavier unprotected steel members) to achieve cost- effectiveness. On the other hand, views of some structural fire engineers in New Zealand reveal the inclination to a minimal use of sprayed-on cement-based material. This is due to the paucity of skilled-manpower for thorough application and the high probability of being compromised in pre-fire events such as earthquakes/tremors, vehicle impacts on steel columns in car parks, etc. The research interviews also revealed that the confidence of building insurers and owners are challenged to accept partial or non-protection of steel elements at the expense of their key decision criteria of ensuring financial risk management, loss prevention and business continuity. Hence, the views of these building owners and insurers are in contrast with the structural engineer and fire engineers regarding unprotected steel structures. Further research interview/discussions with fire and structural engineers in New Zealand revealed the high use of gypsum plasterboard. However, some officials in the New Zealand Fire Service are also wary of the assembly of board protection especially the ability of installers to seal all gaps at joints and screwed points on the boards. As far as end users are concerned, their desires and targets are safety and comfort in buildings. End-users may not be involved as stakeholders due to a lack of sufficient knowledge in most structural fire design decision-making processes and it may be difficult to elicit their views in a design decision-making process. However, their primary concern is for occupancy or business activities, and for that matter care more for a functional building having perceived reliable (visible) fire protection. Though this may sound trivial to some designers, it cannot be disregarded in a decision-making context. Importantly, the end-users that participated in this research were experienced professionals who currently use steel-framed buildings on lease and were fully involved in the entire process of creating or maintaining the building asset. For environmental professionals in New Zealand, Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (HSNO) is a significant consideration during fire design decision-making and consenting, which may be different in other jurisdictions.

Outside the structured research interviews carried out in New Zealand, there were more discussions with stakeholders from different countries to extract their opinions on fire

protection of steel structures for fully developed fires. This was done to gather a broader international perspective on the factors to consider in selecting suitable fire protection. These discussions revealed that the views of environmental professionals, fire and structural engineers vary in different jurisdictions. In some developing countries with little or no environmental conservation requirements stated in their building codes, environmental professionals are often swayed by the opinion of designers. However, in other parts of the world, environmental sustainability and strict compliance with environmental laws are likely to be enforced. For instance, the opinions of some fire design professionals in the United States and Australia are that concrete encasement of steel will produce massive waste during the demolition of fire-damaged commercial buildings, increasing the time to clean-up and building rehabilitation for business continuity. They mentioned the prevalent use of non-toxic intumescent coatings on steel structures concerning air pollution and control during fires, reduce waste material and building rehabilitation time after fires in these countries.

These divergent views on steel structural fire design from different stakeholder perspectives and in different countries are instructive, as the stakeholders have different backgrounds and operate in jurisdictions with very different regulatory environments. There is no dispute that managing inherent structural fire design decision uncertainties toward achieving better steel buildings will need a quality decision analysis technique deployed to balance divergent fire design stakeholder views, conflicting design decision criteria and competing options in a performance-based design environment.

5.2.2.2. Stakeholder paired comparison judgements

Using Saaty’s rating scale (Table 3.2) each stakeholder implemented the AHP-pairwise

comparison or judgement method as described in AHP-Step 2. For instance, the judgement

matrices of three structural engineers (SE1, SE2, and SE3) for the paired comparison of

benefits key decision criteria with respect to the goal (Category A) in this case are shown in

Table 5.2. Recall that economy as a key decision criterion, and its associated sub-criteria were

judged and analysed separately from the benefits criteria as mentioned earlier in Section 5.2.1.

In Table 5.2 structural engineer SE1 judged safety to be ‘much more important’ than

environmental criteria and rated safety as 5 in the top row of the matrix. Environmental is

rated as being ‘much less important’ than safety with a reciprocal value of 5 (i.e. 1/5) in the

than safety with 3 in the column on the left of the matrix; consequently, SE1 rated safety to be

‘somewhat less important’ than societal with 1/3 in the top row of the matrix. For the

pairwise comparison between environmental and societal criteria, SE1 judged societal to be

‘very much more important’ than environmental with 7 at the bottom in the societal row of

the matrix and 1/7 for environmental as being ‘very much less important’ than societal.

Using the AHP theory (Saaty, 1980) a value of 1 was entered for a paired comparison of an element against itself, which completed the matrix. The same pairwise judgement process is

seen in Table 5.2 for SE2 and SE3 in which safety and environmental criteria are judged

differently as compared to the judgements of SE1. The judgement matrices of other participant-stakeholders are not shown here but followed the same form.

Table 5.2. Judgement matrices from three structural engineer (SE) participants

SE1 Safety Environmental Societal

Safety 1 5 1/3

Environmental 1/5 1 1/7

Societal 3 7 1

SE2 Safety Environmental Societal

Safety 1 1 7

Environmental 1 1 7

Societal 1/7 1/7 1

SE3 Safety Environmental Societal

Safety 1 7 5

Environmental 1/7 1 1/3

Societal 1/5 3 1

The variation of SE1’s judgement to SE2 and SE3 on the societal criterion may be attributed

to building aesthetics (BA) and building regulation approval (BRA). As shown in Table 5.1,

BA and BRA are sub-criteria under societal. Notably, the general engagement process is

designed for stakeholders to give their expert judgements on the decision attributes based on the intensity of their feeling. The AHP-procedure does not include a method of understanding why an individual judged one element as more or less than the other. Decision-makers can revise their judgements to test sensitivities using the AHP. Here, the researcher leaned on the

experience/expertise of the chartered fire design stakeholders. However, for providing further insight in this thesis and within the limits of confidentiality, SE1’s comment on rating

societal more than safety and environmental criteria was based on aligning to the architect’s direction on BA and achieving BRA as the bottom line of design decision-making. SE2 and SE3’s comments were focused on achieving safety as their top priority. Therefore, this illustrates the different stakeholder views in the decision-making process. The completion of stakeholder judgement elicitation using the goal rating document concludes the implementation of AHP-Step 2 and Stage 2 of the decision management framework.