Development of Engineering Management Education in China

Engineering management(EM) is a new interdisciplinary field accompanying China's economic and social development. To have a systemic research of the present situation and future orientation on China's EM education, this paper compares the connotation of engineering and engineering management based on the gap of their differences at home and abroad, with gained causes between them. Then, this paper analyzes the training system of 35 authenticated universities with the program of engineering management, which had received the certification from the Engineering Management Assessment Committee for Higher Education Institutions under the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development of China by 2014. With a web survey of the present condition of engineering management education at these universities,the paper discusses the disciplinary attribution of engineering management. Through the above research, this paper concludes with three suggestions for the long-term development of engineering management education in China.     

2006 Bernard M. Gordon Prize Lecture*: The Learning Factory: Industry‐Partnered Active Learning

On February 21, 2006, the National Academy of Engineering recognized the achievements of the Learning Factory with the Bernard M. Gordon Prize for Innovation in Engineering and Technology Education. The co‐founders were commended “for creating the Learning Factory, where multidisciplinary student teams develop engineering leadership skills by working with industry to solve real‐world problems.” This paper describes the origins, motivation, philosophy, and implementation of the Learning Factory. The specific innovations of the Learning Factory partnership were: active learning facilities, called Learning Factories, that provide experiential reinforcement of engineering science, and a realization of its limitations; strong collaborations with industry through advisory boards, engineers in the classroom, and industry‐sponsored capstone design projects; practice‐based engineering courses integrating analytical and theoretical knowledge with manufacturing, design, business concepts, and professional skills; and dissemination to other academic institutions (domestic and international), government and industry.     

The skills and practices of engineering designers now and in the future

An attempt is made to show the skills and practices needed for mechanical engineering design in an advanced field of engineering as a guide to the education of engineers in the future, and particularly design engineers.     

Developing Engineering Leaders: An Organized Innovation Approach to Engineering Education

In addition to providing technical expertise in their respective fields, engineers are increasingly assuming leadership roles in academia, industry, government, and even non-profit organizations. We draw from lessons learned in our decade-long study of the National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center program to provide both a theoretical framework, the Organized Innovation Model for Education, and tangible recommendations to educators, engineering managers, and anyone else interested in developing highly skilled engineers who are also excellent leaders. The model addresses a long-lamented need for systematic ways to integrate leadership development into technical curriculum and skill-building programs.     

面向并行工程的知识管理研究

知识经济和大规模定制等概念的提出，使得企业把知识财富作为获得竞争优势的战略要素来看待，企业知识管理由此受到学术界和企业界的共同关注。知识管理方法和工具集同并行工程现有方法和工具集的结合，产生了一个新的研究和应用领域，作者在跟踪国外研究和并行工程实践经验的基础上，对这一新兴领域的基本内容，实施方法和关键技术作了初步的讨论，以期引起国内学术界和企业界对该领域的关注，促进我国企业形成自己的核心竞争能力。     

电信企业管理胜任特征与管理绩效的关系

通过行为事件访谈与专家小组讨论,构建电信企业中层管理者的22个胜任特征项目;通过对测评数据的探索性与验证性因素分析.构建包括人格魅力、管理技能和管理素质三个胜任特征因子的电信企业中层管理者胜任特征模型;回归分析表明.三个胜任特征因子及其胜任特征指标对管理绩效具有不同程度的影响作用.     

Senior/Sophomore Co-Class Instruction: Teaching Interpersonal Management Skills in Engineering

As society becomes increasingly technology-oriented, there is a growing demand for engineers and scientists to take a greater role in decision-making processes. The future success of our engineering graduates will increasingly depend on not only solid training in scientific and engineering principles, but also a more rigorous education in interpersonal management skills (IPMS). Co-class instruction of sophomore and senior engineering students provides an efficient educational structure to incorporate IPMS education into an existing engineering curriculum. Co-class instruction provides opportunities for senior students to experience direct subordinate supervisory technical management, develop project management skills, formally evaluate personnel performance and improve faculty/student contact. Younger students gain opportunities to see how their engineering education is applied and gives them an opportunity to network with graduating students. Co-class instruction did not significantly increase instructor workload, but does require that one instructor teach both sophomore and senior classes concurrently. Given the similarity in engineering curriculum structure, this method should be easily applicable to a wide range of engineering disciplines. Results indicate that students are highly receptive to co-class instruction, with excellent feedback.     

An Examination of the Trade Study Process at NASA

Abstract:

Engineering managers increasingly rely on trade study processes to design optimum system architectures. Opinions on what constitutes a quality trade study differ, and this can hinder the engineering manager in determining what trade study processes to follow. This article contributes to the manager's body of knowledge by identifying trade study best practices through reviews of published research and interviews with engineers who conducted successful trade studies supporting the design of complex space systems.

A checklist of trade study best practices was developed. Three completed NASA trade studies were then evaluated against the checklist in conjunction with interviews of engineers involved in the studies. Through one-on-one interviews with engineers, assessments were made on the value, appropriateness, and effectiveness of each trade study. Key issues, taken from the checklist, were addressed and the lessons learned were identified. The goal of the study was to establish the groundwork for a more detailed analysis of trade study processes. The engineering manager can use these preliminary findings to ensure that their trade study processes are timely, set up properly, and contain needed checks and balances.     

开展工程伦理学研究 增强工程师责任意识

工程伦理学是20世纪后期兴起的一门交叉学科。文章首先分析了把技术开发与技术使用分开，从而回避工程师责任的做法，进而剖析了认为工程是科学的应用和工程是实现社会价值的简单工具等观点，指出工程与伦理密切相关，工程师应当增强责任意识。     

Reflection on Development Strategy of Engineering Management Discipline in China

A large number of engineering management professionals are required to promote engineering management efficiency, but the existing engineering management training system has some gaps with economical and social development in China. Development of engineering management discipline has very important strategic significance in China. This paper explores the disciplinary characteristics of engineering management, and analyzes the developmental issues about education of engineering management discipline. Meanwhile, the paper also proposes that the construction for development strategy of China’s engineering management discipline should be accelerated in the following aspects: Theoretical system of engineering management must be built and methodology of engineering management needs to be explored and perfected; advantages of various universities should be fully expressed, to show their own characteristics with accurate and reasonable positioning; knowledge system of engineering management discipline must be organized and integrated; practical ability of engineering management professionals needs to be promoted; education level of engineering management discipline should be perfected and training objectives at various levels must be clarified; teaching methods and means have to be reformed.     

US EPA/academia collaboration for a green engineering textbook for chemical engineering

This paper describes the collaborative efforts between the Chemical Engineering Branch of the U.S. EPA's Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT) and academia to develop a textbook titled Green engineering: environmentally conscious design of chemical processes. Development of the green engineering textbook was initiated in the fall of 1998 as part of the Green Engineering Program. An important goal of the Green Engineering Program is to incorporate "green" or environmentally conscious thinking and approaches in the academic and industrial communities regarding the design, commercialization, and use of processes and products. Initially, the Green Engineering Program focused on the academic community, with the aim to produce the next generation of engineers with knowledge to design environmentally beneficial processes. The flagship of the program is the green engineering textbook, published in the fall of 2001, that applies classroom initiatives to real world engineering problems. To date, it is estimated that up to 50 engineering departments, both domestically and abroad, are using the textbook and/or incorporating the materials into their curricula. Schools using green engineering are achieving Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) criteria 2000, which includes having a working knowledge of the environment.     

A Look at the Past and Present of General Engineering and Engineering Science Programs

In this article we discuss engineering programs named Engineering (sometimes referred to as General Engineering) and Engineering Science. Our purpose is to explore the role such non‐specialized programs have played, and currently play, in the overall scheme of engineering education. There are currently forty‐eight programs offered at U.S. institutions with EAC/ABET accreditation under the name Engineering or Engineering Science. Such programs are typically characterized by a general or interdisciplinary nature, and as such do not have to satisfy any discipline‐specific EAC/ABET program criteria beyond the basic criteria. Our analysis of Engineering and Engineering Science programs consists of two parts. First, we explore the historical trends in the evolution of such programs. Then we examine their uses, their current status, and their prospects for the future.     

Turning Students into Professionals: Types of Knowledge and ABET Engineering Criteria

In order to implement the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) engineering criteria, it is important for engineering educators to understand different types of knowledge and how these types relate to the outcomes described in Criterion 3. This paper first provides a heuristic for framing a program's educational objectives by identifying exemplars of the types of engineers a program seeks to graduate. Three sections then follow, each addressing categories of knowledge: tacit knowledge, four types of knowledge that can either be tacit or explicit, and knowledge created and shared in teams. Examples of the relationship of traits of knowledge to the outcomes in Criterion 3 are provided. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of how these types of knowledge are imbued in engineering students at the University of Virginia, as well as suggestions for additional ways in which they could be infused into engineering curricula.     

The Globally Competent Engineer: Working Effectively with People Who Define Problems Differently

This paper offers and tests an approach to conceptualizing the global competency of engineers. It begins by showing that the often‐stated goal of working effectively with different cultures is fundamentally about learning to work effectively with people who define problems differently. The paper offers a minimum learning criterion for global competency and three learning outcomes whose achievement can help engineering students fulfill that criterion. It uses the criterion to establish a typology of established methods to support global learning for engineering students. It introduces the course, Engineering Cultures, as an example of an integrated classroom experience designed to enable larger numbers of engineering students to take the critical first step toward global competency, and it offers a test application of the learning criterion and outcomes by using them to organize summative assessments of student learning in the course.     

Interdisciplinary Collaborative Learning in Mechatronics at Bucknell University

Examination of the “cone of learning” shows an increase in retention when students are actively engaged in the learning process. Mechatronics is loosely defined as the application of mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and computer intelligence to the design of products or systems. By its nature, mechatronics is an activity‐oriented course. The course content also provides an opportunity to employ interdisciplinary collaborative learning with active learning techniques. The mechatronics course at Bucknell consists of mechanical and electrical engineering students at the senior and graduate levels. The students engage in a variety of activities in teams comprised of members from each of these groups. In addition to team laboratory exercises and homework assignments, the students work in interdisciplinary groups to process their efforts. That is, they engage in meaningful discussion among themselves concerning their activities and the implications of the various results. The students also act as teachers by preparing lectures and exercises on topics from their discipline to the students in the cross discipline. Specifically, the electrical engineers teach the mechanical engineers microcontrollers, and the mechanical engineers teach the electrical engineers mechanisms. This paper describes the learning techniques employed in this course, as well as the interpretation of the results from the students. It also discusses the relationship of the course outcomes to Criterion 3 of the engineering accreditation criteria promulgated by the Engineering Accreditation Commission of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (EAC/ABET).     

Engineering Informatics: State of the Art and Future Trends

Engineering informatics is an emerging engineering discipline integrating information technology or informatics with a variety of engineering disciplines. It is an interdisciplinary scientific subject focusing on applying advanced information and communications technology (ICT) to a variety of engineering disciplines. Rapid advances in industrial information integration methods have spurred the growth of new techniques that can be used for probing industrial information integration including engineering informatics. These techniques include business process management (BPM), enterprise architecture (EA), enterprise application integration (EAI), service-oriented architecture (SOA), and others. Practical applications may require a combination of these techniques that have originated from different disciplines. These techniques have the potential to contribute to engineering informatics. For integrating complex engineering systems, both formal methods and systems methods are crucial. In this paper, we briefl review the state of the art of engineering informatics as it interfacing with industrial information integration.     

Enabling Engineering Performance Skills: A Program to Teach Communication,Leadership, and Teamwork*

A minor in Engineering Communication and Performance is being created at the University of Tennessee in conjunction with the engage Freshman Engineering Program. This minor provides engineering undergraduate students with formal training and a credential in complementary performance skills necessary for success in today's workplace. This interdisciplinary program is designed to improve the ability of engineering graduates to work on teams, to be effective communicators, to be socially adept, and to be prepared for leadership roles . Five courses compose the minor. Three of these courses are new and custom‐prepared for engineering students, while the other two may be selected from a limited list of courses that provide in‐depth training on supervision, cultural diversity, and interpersonal interaction. This multi‐disciplinary program takes a novel approach in the subject matter presentation and in the method of coaching students to use these skills. In the custom courses, students receive instruction and are placed in mini‐practicums. To complete the minor, students participate in a full practicum in a social service setting. This paper discusses assessment; course development; program basis and development; strategies for implementation of this new program; integration between engineering, counseling psychology, and human services; and student, faculty, and industry response to the program. The collaboration makes this program transportable to other institutions as it is dependent on having institution expertise in the disciplines of counseling and human services rather than having engineering educators with expertise in these fields. Our experience with establishing this collaboration will also be discussed.     

Educating electrical and electronic engineers

This article presents and discusses the results of a small-scale survey into the opinions of engineering employer on the education of graduate engineers. Basic engineering knowledge, mathematics and communication skills emerge as the essential pillars of degree courses, and the future direction of electrical and electronic engineering degree courses is considered     

Developing and Assessing Students' Entrepreneurial Skills and Mind‐Set*

A primary goal of The Pennsylvania State University's new Engineering Entrepreneurship (E‐SHIP) Minor is to build students' life skills so they can succeed within innovative, product‐focused, cross‐disciplinary teams. The E‐SHIP Minor is designed for undergraduate students majoring in engineering, business, or IST (Information Sciences and Technology) who aspire to be innovation leaders for new technology‐based products and companies. This paper outlines five E‐SHIP program components to meet this mission: the core courses for the minor, E‐SHIP competitions in which students exhibit their products and ideas, the E‐SHIP Event Series, student organizations to support out‐of‐classroom entrepreneurial interest, and team projects for local industry and Penn State researchers. Penn State's engineering entrepreneurship program is reviewed, summarizing both quantitative and qualitative assessment data to date, previewing future assessment plans, and providing a summary of lessons learned during the development and implementation of this program.