Grants and Contributions:

Grant or Award spanning more than one fiscal year (2017-2018 to 2018-2019).

Valtech Fabrication Ltd. (Valtech) has focused on projects related to oil refineries, among others. It provides ax000D
number of products and services, including fabrication of Cyclones, Air Distributors, Riser Lines and otherx000D
complex refractory lined FCC equipment. As Valtech businesses have experienced a significant increase overx000D
the past 15 years, it needs a radical transformation of its organization into one that is better equipped with thex000D
competencies suitable for the increasing market share. In implementing the transformation in Valtech, it wasx000D
found that a customized solution for workflow management is necessary for the company to meet thex000D
opportunities and challenges. As EBD is a methodology that could help Valtech develop and implement ax000D
workflow that is easy to follow for the employees and managers, Valtech will work with Dr. Zeng's team on thex000D
improvement of its workflows, which will involve modeling, testing and optimizing of the workflow. Thisx000D
project aims to solve a critical and urgent problem arisen from the fast growth of Valtech over the past fifteenx000D
years: how to improve the competencies for efficient and effective implementation of growing number ofx000D
contracts. Based on many successful applications of Environment-Based Design (EBD) methodology, whichx000D
has been developed by Dr. Zeng's research team, Valtech planned to extend EBD's application to the workflowx000D
improvement in the operation of its business process. Integrating EBD into the work process will enhance thex000D
analytical abilities and provide greater confidence to Valtech team in identifying design and processx000D
opportunities. The present project aims to address the critical problem arisen from the fast growth of thex000D
company: how to improve the organizational competencies for an efficient and effective business operation.x000D
Many Canadian SMEs would share the same problem. EBD represents a possible future avenue to tackle suchx000D
issues.