Fuzzy-based decision-making applied to performance evaluation in value engineering

Abstract

Value engineering (VE) has been widely applied in project innovation fields. Theoretically, VE implementation should improve efficiency, but improper VE implementation timing, poor communication or cooperation, insufficient budget, etc., often mean that this is not the case for many construction projects. This study considers several factors, including key factor index, value engineering study performance, and stakeholder satisfaction in order to evaluate the performance of a VE project. A fuzzy decision-making model based on an analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is used to identify those factors which influence value engineering study results. Five linguistic ranks: very high, high, medium, low, and very low, were used to describe the degree of project performance. The results yield performance evaluation scores for the Shangyi International Airport in Kinmen, Taiwan VE project of between high, with a confidence of 57.4%, and very high, with a confidence of 4.5%.     

Using Scrum and unified modelling language to analyze and design an automatic course scheduling system

This research used a case study methodology to examine large-scale software projects accomplished despite ambiguous customer requirements. This study adopted Scrum as the agile software development method and used unified modelling language (UML) diagrams to enhance design implementation documents and improve the software development process. This study presented how the case company explored a Scrum-based automatic course scheduling system for elementary and secondary schools. Through interviews, the case company incorporated customers’ requirements by using the corresponding UML diagrams, which helped the project team document the software development process and design the functions to satisfy customer demand. Then, the proposed method was introduced to the automatic elementary and secondary school course scheduling system project undertaken by the case company, verifying the feasibility of the proposed method. A few problems arose in the proposed software development process, and remedies were discussed. Software companies could use these results as a reference when implementing a large-scale software project with ambiguous customer requirements.     

Quality Improvement Partnerships with Industry Using Student Teams

The 1993 Quality Challenge is a cooperative partnership between Milliken and Company, the National Science Foundation and three North Carolina Universities. The project goal was to activate a multidisciplinary team of students, faculty, and industry representatives in a real-world quality improvement project. The 1993 project was an expanded follow-up to the 1992 University Challenge Project, also sponsored by Milliken. Based upon past experience, project coordinators broke the 1993 project into three components: Preparation, Identification, and Action. Preparation included a preliminary course held in the Spring to teach students fundamental Total Quality Management tools, team building skills and communication skills needed in industry. A team of students was selected from the course to participate in the summer Identification and Action phases of the project. The Identification phase included introduction to project goals, team process training, specialized team formation and project focus. The Action phase of the project included process capability studies, shade variation studies, root cause trials and a statistical design of experiment on shade variables. The project resulted in many recommendations to improve the process and reduce shade variation. The overall project methodology and approach can be applied to industries other than textile manufacturing. Educational benefits for all participants included: team building and teamwork experience, enhancement of effective communication skills, experience in design of experiments, engineering design and practice, greater self confidence, and industrial experience with real-world quality improvement opportunities.     

Enhancing Engineering Students' Communication Skills Through Multimedia Instruction

After discussing the communication requirements in the engineering work place and what universities have done to prepare students for this environement, this article describes a project aimed at developing multimedia, interactive courseware for use by engineering students and faculty. This courseware is being designed to maximize student exposure to pragmatic communication processes and problem-solving without requiring engineering faculty to diminish the technical content of their courses. The article discusses design criteria, implementation issues, evaluation processes, and the time table for project completion.     

Student Focus Group Results on Student Team Performance Issues

Use of project teams is increasing in the engineering environment due to their many benefits. These include increased creativity, productivity, and reduced time‐to‐market of engineering concepts. Good team skills are desired by engineering employers, prompting universities to focus on curriculum development with strong team utilization. While team projects significantly increase opportunities for team interaction, they rarely provide sufficient training to enable students to function most effectively in a team environment. In addition, there is lack of standardization in how teams are used, and inconsistency in team performance expectations and training. These concerns led to our current efforts to develop a standardized team‐training format for faculty and students. To provide the basis for development of team training materials, faculty interviews and student focus groups were conducted to assess perceptions of team project work and training as well as expectations and definitions of successful team performance. Results of student focus groups on team project class experiences are discussed.     

The Effects of Physical Environment on Engineering Team Performance: A Case Study

The effects of physical environment on the performance of student teams were evaluated in a timed case study. Six teams worked on an intensive three‐hour problem‐solving event as part of their term project. Successful completion of the project depended on using engineering skills to solve an open‐ended technical problem and produce a one‐page memo defining the solution. The skills needed for this exercise included searching electronic databases for relevant information, analyzing journal publications, developing a kinetic model, applying the model to the problem, making team decisions, and communicating the results in a written product. Three teams performed the exercise in a technology‐training classroom (treatment group), newly constructed and flexibly furnished to accommodate interaction and electronic communication. The remaining three teams (control group) were to find any available space within the Engineering complex. The technology classroom featured flexible, team‐friendly furnishing, and laptop computers with wireless Ethernet connections, giving the students access to Internet database resources and nearby printers. None of the teams selecting their own space chose to work in a traditional classroom. Rather, they all migrated to space that could be used for group discussion, and left these areas to get access to other resources. All groups performed well as teams, probably due to the team training that had been provided to the class prior to the exercise. The three treatment teams in the technology classroom scored significantly better on technical content and communicating their work product in memo form than the control group.     

Industrial Sponsored Design Projects Addressed by Student Design Teams*

We have developed and implemented a four‐quarter design sequence starting in the spring of the junior year. The first course focuses on having teams of students take an industrial based project from inception through a conceptual design process culminating in a final design specification. The senior year sequence is structured to have three‐five member teams function as a type of “engineering consultant firm” to address externally sponsored projects. The teams initially work with the sponsor to develop a “Product Design Specification (PDS)” as the foundation of the project. The teams then develop the conceptual design of the project during the fall quarter in order to get sponsor approval to move toward final implementation or prototype development during the winter and early spring teams. The course culminates with a day long symposium where each team makes formal presentations of their project and designs to the campus community, the sponsor representatives, and invited guests from the local community and potential industrial sponsors. The paper will present the specifics of the Junior and Senior level courses, brief overviews of the related Sophomore and Junior prerequisite courses, the method of obtaining the industrial sponsors, team formation process, sample projects, and assessment results from the first two offerings of the sequence.     

Assessing the Process Maturity Utilized in Software Engineering Team Project Courses*

Many computer science departments offer an introductory software engineering course, which normally provides an introduction to software engineering topics in conjunction with a semester long team project. To ensure students acquire the correct lessons from this project experience, it is essential that the teams utilize well‐defined software development processes similar to those practiced by leading software development organizations. Since its inception, the Software Engineering Institute Capability Maturity Model (CMM) has served as a guide for organizations seeking to improve their development practices, through a self‐assessment questionnaire. In an effort to assess the maturity of development practices utilized in software engineering courses, an “academic” version of the CMM questionnaire was developed. This questionnaire was distributed to a sample of software engineering instructors in an effort to assess the maturity of academic software engineering course projects. The questionnaire and the survey results are presented and discussed.     

机器人与"蓝牙"技术集成研究策略

简要回顾和介绍了“蓝牙”技术发展的历史、目前的研究现状和未来的发展方向。阐明了机器人的体系结构,详细论述了机器人和蓝牙技术的集成研究策略,并就相互促进的几个热点问题：开放性、小型化、群体协调和人机协调提出了研究方法。最后,介绍了本课题组最新研究成果：基于“蓝牙”服务机器人研究。     

Coaching product development teams: a conceptual foundation for empirical studies

Global product development teams work in ambiguously complex dynamic networks. Characterization of the distributed work environment includes many factors, including: individuals and sub-teams are geographically distributed; they belong to different organizational cultures; they operate in different time zones and within different cultural and professional-frameworks. From a communication perspective, individual team members may speak different languages and lack a common tongue. Even in these scenarios, project teams are expected to produce quality products and bring them quickly to the market. The design-to-market life cycle has shortened markedly in the past decade in many industries. How do they manage to perform effectively in the face of these many obstacles? Development team “Coaching” has emerged as a guiding force in many project-organized environments. Individuals may have arrived at the role informally, tacitly responding to the needs of teams around them, or they are professionals with formal training as we find in SAP’s “Design Team Services” group (Plattner 2007, personal comunication). We have observed that the coach provides project team members with assistance that ranges from problem solving to moral support. In spite of the growing use of coaching, there is significant confusion about the nature of the role, the attributes of good versus poor coaching, associated terminology and definitions. We report on the development of a conceptual framework for further research in the emerging domain of design engineering coaching. Our efforts began with an extensive literature review that yielded leading candidates for role terminology and the scope of the subject. With that framework in hand, we performed a field assessment (survey) in an industry-academic environment that is noted for the extreme nature of its project-based learning paradigm and deep corporate engagement, including a mixture of industry liaisons and academic advisors who are in coaching roles. We expect the combination of methods to provide common ground for further work and to better explain the issues to students and industry partners. The resulting framework consists of five main roles that design-team coaches have been observed to assume. It is anticipated that our results will help others identify new research questions and apply an expanded set of empirical methods.     

Revising a Mechanical Engineering Curriculum: The Implementation Process

In early 1990, motivated largely by concern for the highly structured nature of engineering education, the faculty of Purdue's School of Mechanical Engineering initiated a two-year assessment of its curriculum. A principal conclusion of this assessment was that students should have more exposure to open-ended, cross-functional problems and that design, interpreted broadly, provided the best platform for launching appropriate curriculum changes. Specific plans for curriculum revision included a) early exposure to design and the product realization process, including issues such as marketing, manufacturing and economics, as well as concept generation, evaluation and documentation; b) integration of design and open-ended problem solving experiences across the curriculum, including the core engineering sciences courses; c) development of the softer skills associated with communication and teamwork; and d) greater emphasis on engineering practice through increased linkages with industry. To varying degrees, progress has been made on each of the foregoing objectives, and the purpose of this paper is to describe the nature of the curriculum revisions, as well as the process by which an implementation plan was developed. A retrospective assessment of the revisions and the implementation process is also provided.     

Reliability Engineering Practice in the Light Duty Dodge Ram Truck Chassis Program

In this paper, we demonstrate how we set up and executed an integrated reliability engineering process with the engineering team in the Light Duty (LD) Dodge Ram (DR) Truck chassis program. Organizationally, the LD DR chassis team consists of core engineering groups and supporting representatives from other related disciplines. The reliability engineer is a member of the team and he is the reliability advocate and leader. The integrated reliability engineering process was customized and implemented in the LD DR chassis program. Many of the tools developed by the company corporate quality office, such as design failure modes and effect analysis (DFMEA), design verification plan and reporting (DVP&R), and finite element analysis (FEA), were used in supporting the reliability engineering process. An array of technical enablers such as Test Matrix and ReliUp were also developed for supporting the implementation of the reliability engineering process. In the execution, the reliability engineer led the engineering team to set up reliability targets, develop reliability work plans, facilitate up‐front design analysis, review and integrate reliability test planning. The reliability engineer also set up the failure reporting, analysis and corrective action system (FRACAS) and managed reliability growth with the team. From the implementation, we have learned several things: (1) an integrated engineering team is crucial in order to develop a product better, quicker and cheaper; (2) a good team leader is the key to product reliability; (3) a capable reliability engineer is the catalyst to a reliability engineering process; (4) the best culture in which to achieve reliability is the delicate balance between ‘inside‐out’ and ‘outside‐in’; and (5) achieving reliability is far more important than measuring reliability. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

团队学习、团队有效性及其影响因素研究

在探讨团队学习的影响因素中,以往研究对团队结构变量的关注较多,但对团队认知变量关注较少。该研究以现场实验的方法,将来自浙江大学某学院选修市场调查与分析课程的84名学生以自愿的方式组成3—5人的共22个项目学习团队,并对其学习过程进行了研究。结果发现,团队信任与团队学习策略对团队学习行为具有显著正效应,团队信任与团队学习策略对团队有效性具有显著正效应,团队学习行为在团队信任与团队学习策略对团队有效性的影响中具有中介作用。     

A framework for developing engineering design ontologies within the aerospace industry

This paper presents a framework for developing engineering design ontologies within the aerospace industry. The aim of this approach is to strengthen the modularity and reuse of engineering design ontologies to support knowledge management initiatives within the aerospace industry. Successful development and effective utilisation of engineering ontologies strongly depends on the method/framework used to develop them. Ensuring modularity in ontology design is essential for engineering design activities due to the complexity of knowledge that is required to be brought together to support the product design decision-making process. The proposed approach adopts best practices from previous ontology development methods, but focuses on encouraging modular architectural ontology design. The framework is comprised of three phases namely: (1) Ontology design and development; (2) Ontology validation and (3) Implementation of ontology structure. A qualitative research methodology is employed which is composed of four phases. The first phase defines the capture of knowledge required for the framework development, followed by the ontology framework development, iterative refinement of engineering ontologies and ontology validation through case studies and experts’ opinion. The ontology-based framework is applied in the combustor and casing aerospace engineering domain. The modular ontologies developed as a result of applying the framework and are used in a case study to restructure and improve the accessibility of information on a product design information-sharing platform. Additionally, domain experts within the aerospace industry validated the strengths, benefits and limitations of the framework. Due to the modular nature of the developed ontologies, they were also employed to support other project initiatives within the case study company such as role-based computing (RBC), IT modernisation activity and knowledge management implementation across the sponsoring organisation. The major benefit of this approach is in the reduction of man-hours required for maintaining engineering design ontologies. Furthermore, this approach strengthens reuse of ontology knowledge and encourages modularity in the design and development of engineering ontologies.     

The Effects of a First‐Year Engineering Design Course on Student Intellectual Development as Measured by the Perry Scheme

In response to the demand for enhanced design, problem‐solving, and team skills in engineering graduates, Penn State has instituted a number ofteam‐based, project‐learning courses, including one taken by nearly every first‐year engineering student. To determine the impact of these experiences on our students we have begun a cross‐sectional and longitudinal study of their intellectual development based upon the Perry model. In this paper, we describe the research methodology and results for the initial group of first‐year students interviewed. The results of the study include the effects on intellectual development of the first‐year design course, gender, honors status, and the students' academic ability as indicated by SAT scores and grade point average. Design experience was positively related to enhanced intellectual development. Honors status, gender, and academic ability were not significantly related to Perry rating. We discuss the implications of these findings for instruction and curricular reform.     

An Introduction to Engineering Through an Integrated Reverse Engineering and Design Graphics Project

This paper discusses a new freshman course that merges previous topics in the “Introduction to Mechanical Engineering” and “Engineering Design Graphics” courses into a single integrated teaching effort. The main objective of the new course is to introduce students to mechanical engineering education and practice through lectures and laboratory experiences. A major effort in the course is devoted to a reverse engineering team project. The students are divided into four‐member teams and are instructed to select a simple mechanical assembly for dissection. They study and disassemble their object into basic constituent components, documenting this process with freehand sketches and notes. They use these sketches and other measured dimensions to construct 3‐D solid computer models of each major component. The teams then obtain .STL files of the solid models, which are used to make rapid physical prototypes of their parts. The teams conclude their project activities by generating engineering drawings directly from the 3‐D geometric data base. All of these efforts are integrated, documented, and submitted to the instructor as a final team project report.     

运用TQC方法提高锦屏二级水电站电站进水口拦污栅混凝土浇筑质量

锦屏二级水电站进水口拦污栅混凝土浇筑施工,前期浇筑质量较差,单元优良率低,为全面提高混凝土浇筑质量,确保工程创优,项目部成立进水口拦污栅混凝土浇筑质量管理QC小组,通过QC小组的不懈努力,拦污栅混凝土浇筑质量得到极大的提高,为工程创优打下了坚实的基础。     

Assessment of impact of AICTE funding on R&;D and educational development

Summary An analysis of 330 questionnaires received from project investigators funded by AICTE indicates that project investigators preferred to present their research results at conferences rather than in national and international journals. Impact of funding has been better on human resource capability development as compared to research and technological output. Analysis of data using data envelopment analysis indicates that projects funded under electronics and communication engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and management displayed some consistency and uniformity with regard to impact on various output parameters.     

Effect of Guided Research Experience on Product Design Performance

Designing, generally, requires a team effort. Consequently, several variables affecting team performance have been studied, such as team composition, female/male ratio in the organization, and teamwork skills training. This study furthers this effort by investigating the effect of guided external research during the concept generation phase of the design process. The premise of the study is that as resources increase in number and complexity, and time constraints pressure an overcrowded curriculum, professors are challenged to find new methods to train students in the skills needed for the constantly changing workplace. One technique to address this issue, a creative collaboration and its impact on design team performance, is discussed in the paper. First, the approach for incorporating guided research into curriculum is explained, and then the results of the study are presented, which indicate that a higher design performance can be achieved when guided research is added to design teaching.     

Developing and Assessing Statewide Competencies for Engineering Design

An assessment system was developed and piloted in Washington state to evaluate the engineering design competence of community college transfer students and continuing students at Washington State University (WSU) and the University of Washington (UW). A multiple measured approach was employed consisting of a multiple-choice assessment, a team design performance assessment, and an essay, each administered to junior level students at WSU and UW. These assessments covered important design and design-related outcomes valued by the engineering community in Washington and expected of junior level engineering students. Scoring criteria were developed by engineering faculty for the team design and essay components. The assessment results provide faculty and other decision makers at community colleges and four-year institutions with data they need to determine the extent to which students are meeting design competency expectations. Moreover, the approach described in this paper illustrates how institutions can productively address the ABET Engineering Criteria 2000 requirements by developing the assessment support that engineering educators need to make informed programmatic decisions and achieve continuous quality improvement.