On March 3, 2023, Professor Takayuku Aoki, the Deputy Director of the Global Scientific Information and Computing Center of Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan, visited the Faculty of Engineering, Chulalongkorn University, and gave a presentation at the special seminar at the Department of Civil Engineering, Chula Engineering.

There were Professor Anat Ruangrassamee, Ph.D. (Department of Civil Engineering), Assoc. Prof. Natt Leelawat, D.Eng. (Department of Industrial Engineering; and Assistant Dean for Communications and International Affairs), Asst. Prof. Piyatida Ruangrassamee, Ph.D. (Department of Water Resources Engineering), Tanawat Tangjarusritaratorn, Ph.D. (Department of Water Resources Engineering), Mr. Pongsit Polsomboon (Ph.D. Student of Water Resources Engineering) from Chula Engineering and Asst. Prof. Panon Latcharote, Ph.D. (Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Mahidol University), attended the seminar.

On Thursday, 19 January 2023, during 9.00-11.00 am, the 9th Steering Committee Meeting of the SATREPS Area-BCM (DREAM) Project was held in a hybrid manner at the Faculty Committee Room, Engineering Building 3, Faculty of Engineering, Chulalongkorn University. The purpose of this meeting was to report the overall progress and plan of activities. For this Steering Committee, the meeting was moderated by Asst. Prof. Dr. Ruttiya Bhula-or.
Prof. Dr. Supot Teachavorasinskun, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, Chulalongkorn University as a Project Director, started with welcome remarks to all 31 participants, both 21 participants onsite and 10 participants online: professors, researchers, and students from Chulalongkorn University, Thailand, and Japan. Also, it is a pleasure to welcome the participants from the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation (DDPM), Industrial Estate Authority of Thailand (IEAT), and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA Thailand). The Project Director pointed out the good collaboration with cordial coordination among all sectors: governmental agencies, collaborative entities, and the private sector for the project. For now, it is good to learn that situation of global pandemic has significantly declined. Thus, for now on we will continue and empower our works. Prof. Dr. Chakkaphan Sutthirat, Vice President, also as a Project Vice Chair of the Steering Committee, gave an opening remark for the Steering Committee Meeting, as it is delightful to learn the good progress of works from working groups.

This Steering Committee Meeting is also pleased to announce to all participants the Project Extension of the 6th Year Implementation. An extension of year for the project was approved, as it aims to build and strengthen capacity with industrial parks and related stakeholders through conducting activities, for instance, research, community survey, publications, and conferences.

Next, each representative from working groups updated the progress. Starting from each item following:
• Development of Flood inundation model for the Industrial Parks by Asst. Prof. Dr. Anurak Sriariyawat
• Community Research by Korrakot Posittilimpakul
• Decelopment of a Toolkit to Analyze the Impact of Flood Disaster on Employees’ Commuting by Asst. Prof. Dr. Tartat Mokkhamakkul
• Area-Business Continuity Management by Dr. Jing Tang

After the progress report presentation, questions and comments are opened in the session to share ideas and experiences of working in the project. Positive feedback was received and there was no objection to the issues presented by each researcher of the working group.

Lastly, Asst. Prof. Dr. Ruttiya, as a host of the Steering Committee Meeting, started the closing remarks as represented by Prof. Dr. Chakkaphan, the Project Vice Chair of the Steering Committee Meeting, with expressing gratitude to all participants from working groups and collaborative entities. We learned good effort through the continuous and successful progress from everyone: professors, researchers, students, collaborative entities, also governmental agencies, and private sectors. Hopefully, implemented works will help to enhance the project’s performance to be completely successful.

The SATREPS DREAM (Area-BCM) Project is a joint research project between Japan and Thailand under the SENDAI framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. The project is schemed to launch a sustainable economic growth platform through disaster resilience enhancement at Industry complexes in Thailand and input to ISO/TC292 by the year 2023.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN2BdDEuvUU

Written by Phongnarin Sukcham
Checked by Assoc. Prof. Natt Leelawat, D.Eng.

On Thursday, 30 July 2022 during 9.00-11.00 am, the 8th Steering Committee Meeting of the SATREPS Area-BCM (DREAM) Project was held in a hybrid manner at the Faculty Committee Room, Engineering Building 3, Faculty of Engineering, Chulalongkorn University. The purpose of this meeting was to report the overall progress and plan of activities. For this Steering Committee Meeting, the session on the Project Extension proposal was also presented.

Prof. Dr. Supot Teachavorasinskun, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, Chulalongkorn University as a Project Director started with welcome remarks to all participants: researchers from both Thailand and Japan, and assistants. Also, it is a pleasure to welcome Mr.Thanakrit Phothong, Director of  Bangpa-In Industrial Estate, and Ms. Jamaree Yamkinfung from Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA Thailand) as the observer to the Steering Committee. The Project Director pointed out the good collaboration among the actors for the project under the COVID-19 situation, especially risk and disaster management. Moreover, Area-Based, along with Business Continuity Management (BCM) was emphasized as all stakeholders; social and business should empower in solidarity to conquer the obstacles.

Next, each representative from Items updated the progress. Starting from each item following:

• Development of Flood inundation model for the Industrial Parks by Asst. Prof. Dr. Anurak Sriariyawat
• Community Research by Dr. Chutaporn Amrapala
• Business Impact Analysis by Asst. Prof. Dr. Tartat Mokkhamakkul
• Area-Business Continuity Management by Asst. Prof. Dr. Natt Leelawat

After the progress report presentation, the meeting moved on to the session on the Project Extension proposal presented by Asst. Prof. Dr. Anurak Sriariyawat; as pointing the background of the unprecedented situation of COVID-19 that entails the project’s implementation, for instance, conducting field research, workshops, etc. According to the presentation, the extension is proposed to July 2024 as Project Design Matrix (PDM) will not be changed (except for the period). However, the schedule should be revised in the Plan of Operation (PO). The main activities during the extension period are capacity building with industrial parks and related stakeholders through conducting workshops. After the proposal presentation, Mr. Yoshiaki Miura, Project Coordinator of the SATREPS Area-BCM (DREAM) Project additionally noted that as all members of the Steering Committee have no objection to the Project Extension proposal, this issue will be presented to Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in the 5^th Joint Coordinating Committee (JCC) Meeting in August 2022.

Lastly, Prof. Dr. Vipan Prachuabmoh, Dean of College of Population Studies, Chulalongkorn University as a Project Director started the closing remarks by expressing gratitude to all participants from all-Item researchers and organizations. As an unprecedented COVID-19 that exacerbates people’s living globally; also, although many project activities were halted due to domestic and international travel restrictions responding to the scheme by the authority, we learned good effort during a hard time through the continuous and successful progress from everyone. Dr. Vipan also emphasized the benefit of the extension project period, believing as it will help to enhance the project’s performance to be completely successful.

The SATREPS DREAM (Area-BCM) Project is a joint research project between Japan and Thailand under the SENDAI framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. The project is schemed to launch a sustainable economic growth platform through disaster resilience enhancement at Industry complexes in Thailand and input to ISO/TC292 by the year 2023.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nMKz4PNiCE

For more information about SATREPS DREAM, please visit https://area-bcm.info/

On Thursday, 9 December 2021 during 9.00-11.00 am, the 7th Steering Committee Meeting of the SATREPS Area-BCM (DREAM) Project was held in a hybrid manner at the Faculty Committee Room, Engineering Building 3, Faculty of Engineering, Chulalongkorn University, for the aims of reporting progress, exchanging ideas, and discussing future collaboration and direction with advisory members and collaboration entities.

The meeting started with welcome remarks from Prof. Kasem Choocharukul, Ph.D., Associate Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, Chulalongkorn University, to project members and participants from collaborating organizations including the Department of the Disaster Prevention and Mitigation (DDPM), the Royal Irrigation Department (RID), and the Industrial Estate Authority of Thailand (IEAT). The associate dean said in his speech that the project has received good cooperation from the aforementioned sectors that could contribute towards the development of disaster risk management for industrial sectors and promote it to ISO/TC 292.

Prof. Chakkaphan Sutthirat, Ph.D., Vice President for Research Affairs and the Chairman of the meeting, followed with opening remarks that put emphasis on the disaster-wide utilization of the developing toolkit under the project. The vice president also pointed out that the unprecedented interdisciplinary integration among technological science, social science, and population studies would bring forth a monitoring and emergency response plan that not only deals with natural disasters but also other potential incidents in the future.

Hence, the moderator, Asst. Prof. Anurak Sriariyawat, Ph.D., introduced the overview of the SATREPS Area-BCM (DREAM) Project including updates on the operation structure, project design matrix, and research members with the presentation and the brief video. Consequently, the progress report was divided and sequenced into 4 main parts:

1. Development of Flood inundation model for the Industrial Parks presented by Asst. Prof. Anurak Sriariyawat, Ph.D.;
2. Community Research presented by Tadashi Nakasu, Ph.D.;
3. Business Impact Analysis presented by Asst. Prof. Tartat Mokkhamakkul, Ph.D., and
4. Area-BCM Establishment and Dissemination presented by Jing Tang, D.Eng.

After the progress report presentation, the meeting moved on to the session with advisory members and collaboration entities in which the representatives took turns sharing information, opinions, and suggestions. Ms. Areerat Wijitpatcharaphon, Plan and Policy Analyst; and Ms. Panphen Wongwattana, Foreign Affairs Officer from the DDPM, expressed great interest in the flood forecasting model, the developing toolkit, and the application potential of BCM and BCP for the use of governmental agencies.

Consequently, the representative from the RID, Mr. Santi Tem-iam, Director of Water Management Division Office of Water Management and Hydrology, firstly stated that the 7-day forecasting model was going to help support RID in terms of water management and administration. The director went on to present the overall water situation of Thailand and related aspects of water management and administration.

Then, the representative from the IEAT, Mr. Teerawut Charoensuk, Director of Development Department, extended thanks to the research team. The director stated that the project has made great progress on the 7-day flood forecasting model and hoped to connect the toolkit of the project to the central warning system of IEAT in order to master its efficiency. The director also made some suggestions on the toolkit development and offered to help coordinate companies if the project would like more samples. 

The meeting concluded with closing remarks by Prof. Chakkaphan Sutthirat, Ph.D., who offered his thanks and admiration to all project members for their contribution to the establishment of the Area-BCM toolkit along with participants for their information sharing that would strengthen the successful collaboration in the future. Prof. Chakkaphan finally expressed thanks to JICA for the long-standing support.

The SATREPS DREAM (Area-BCM) Project is a joint research project between Japan and Thailand under the SENDAI framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. The project is schemed to launch a sustainable economic growth platform through disaster resilience enhancement at Industry complexes in Thailand and input to ISO/TC292 by the year 2023.

Written by Ms. Pieng-in Punyaprasiddhi
Checked by Asst. Prof. Natt Leelawat, D.Eng., and Mr. Kullachart Prathumchai