Managing technology-based projects in multinational environments

This paper examines the managerial issues involved in executing technology-based projects that span international borders. The results of a bilateral comparative field study, conducted in Brazil and the United States, show that in spite of considerable social and cultural differences between two international operating environments, successful integration of multinational projects may not require fundamentally different management approaches. This, however, does require strong senior management support and efforts in developing effective organizational linkages and alliances. Managers must need to have focus on cross-boundary relationships and fine-tune their people skills to deal effectively with complex forms of negotiations, delegations, and commitments in systems which are often weak on formal command and control     

Managing Murphy's law: engineering a minimum-risk system

The meanings of `risk' and `risk analysis' are examined by the author. The steps to be taken in assessing and quantifying risk are described, and the question of accepting and managing risk is briefly considered. Definitions of terms such as hazard, failure, accident and reliability are given. Two sources of uncertainty, i.e. the laws of chance and human error, are finally discussed using the Piper Alpha explosion as an example     

Schedule monitoring of engineering projects

An tool for monitoring reporting, and controlling the progress of time-critical projects called progress plotting is presented. It helps distinguish between minor schedule slips and problems that call for serious management intervention. It also serves to evaluate planning accuracy on previous projects. Progress is shown by plotting the actual time used on a project against the completed percentage of the critical path. Control lines in the plotting space indicate probabilities of completing the project on schedule. If the progress line crosses low-probability control line, managers may want to intervene and bring the project back on schedule. Crossing a high-probability control line means an early finish may be anticipated with confidence. The progress plot is comparable to the process-control chart used in manufacturing settings     

Managing CAD systems in mechanical design engineering

The results of an investigation into the management and use of CAD systems in ten manufacturing companies are reported. The goal of the research is to understand how engineers and managers perceive CAD systems, how work is restructured when CAD is used, and what barriers prevent the effective use of CAD systems. An introduction to CAD systems is presented, followed by a brief review of the latest literature relating to computer-aided design     

Management of urgent emergency engineering projects

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资源约束下多项目再调度算法

在项目的执行期间,某个项目的任务由于某些原因导致托期,而使项目不能按照调度计划完成,从而需要对项目进行再调度。针对再调度过程对原项目计划影响最小的目标构建资源约束下多项目再调度的数学模型,并提出了一种启发式算法,最后进行了有效的验证。     

网络化数字音频工作站在工程中的应用

以计算机控制的大容量外部存储器为主要载体,以计算机网络为数据传输通道,对音频信号进行处理的一种数字式录音、编辑和播放的系统,是电子计算机在音频技术领域上一种成功的应用,也是近年来迅速发展起来的一种专业化系统。它作为一种高档次的录音设备,其使用已十分广泛。     

Quality-oriented-maintenance for multiple interactive tooling components in discrete manufacturing processes

In discrete manufacturing processes such as stamping, assembly, or machining processes, product quality, often defined in terms of the dimensional integrity of work pieces, is jointly affected by multiple process variables. During the production phase, the states of tooling components, which are measured by adjustable process variables, are subject to possible random continuous drifts in their means & variances. These drifts of component states may significantly deteriorate product quality during production. Therefore, maintenance of the tooling components with consideration of both their continuous state drifts as well as catastrophic failures is crucial in assuring desired product quality & productivity. In contrast to traditional maintenance models where product quality has not been well addressed, especially for discrete manufacturing processes, a general quality-oriented-maintenance methodology is proposed in this paper to minimize the overall production costs. In this research, the total production cost includes product quality loss due to process drifts, productivity loss due to catastrophic failures, and maintenance costs. The quality-oriented-maintenance model is built based on a response model linking process variables with multidimensional product quality. It can be obtained either from engineering analysis for specific processes, or from statistical design of experiments. Three typical multi-component maintenance models are investigated under the general quality-oriented-maintenance framework. A case study for a sheet-metal stamping process is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology.     

Observability and state estimation for multiple product control in semiconductor manufacturing

Run-to-run control in semiconductor manufacturing is complicated by the use of multiple processing tools and many different products being made during a given time period. This paper investigates a Kalman filter-based state estimation scheme that views a manufacturing area with all the tools, products, and processes it contains as a single interrelated system. This formulation maximizes the amount of information that is shared across different batches by capturing their common characteristics in shared parameters. The estimation scheme performs state updates correctly even when measurement data is missing or delayed. A set of simulations are used to demonstrate the performance of the algorithm under different operating conditions.     

Managing in a slow-growth economy

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Managing networks in a multi-vendor environment

The Unified Network Management Architecture (UNMA), developed by AT&T to provide a base for network management in a multilevel environment, is discussed. The functions of data management addressed by UNMA are delineated. These comprise five functional areas recognized by the standards groups working in network management, namely configuration, faults, performance, accounting, and security, as well as the four functional areas of planning, operations, programmability, and integrated control specified by AT&T. The family of products introduced to support UNMA is described     

Managing certificates in a corporate environment

Many cryptographic security protocols make use of public key cryptography and corresponding public key certificates. In addition, it is possible and very likely that e-commerce applications will make heavy use of attribute certificates to address authorization. Against this background, this article overviews and briefly discusses the issues that suround the management of (public key and attribute) certificates in a corporate environment. In particular, the article introduces the topic, elaborates on possibilities to establish a corporate public key infrastructure (pki), overviews and briefly discusses the current offerings of two exemplary certification service providers, addresses the problems related to certificate revocation and authorization, and draws some conclusions. Further information about the topic can be found in Chapter 8 of [I].     

一种适于工程应用的杂波环境中机动多目标的跟踪方法

针对已有杂波环境中机动多目标跟踪算法运算量大的不足,提出了一种基于有机动检测和机动转稳态判断的自适应α-β滤波和改进的模糊数据关联的新方法,并利用滤波过程中的机动指标实时地调整波门的大小。该方法计算量小,易于工程实现。Monte Carlo仿真结果表明了该方法良好的跟踪性能。     

Fundamentals of silicon material properties for successful exploitation of strain engineering in modern CMOS manufacturing

Semiconductor industry has increasingly resorted to strain as a means of realizing the required node-to-node transistor performance improvements. Straining silicon fundamentally changes the mechanical, electrical (band structure and mobility), and chemical (diffusion and activation) properties. As silicon is strained and subjected to high-temperature thermal processing, it undergoes mechanical deformations that create defects, which may significantly limit yield. Engineers have to manipulate these properties of silicon to balance the performance gains against defect generation. This paper will elucidate the current understanding and ongoing published efforts on all these critical properties in bulk strained silicon. The manifestation of these properties in CMOS transistor performance and designs that successfully harness strain is reviewed in the last section. Current manufacturable strained-silicon technologies are reviewed with particular emphasis on scalability. A detailed case study on recessed silicon germanium transistors illustrates the application of the fundamentals to optimal transistor design.     

Virtual engineering: an integrated approach to agile manufacturing machinery design and control

A virtual manufacturing approach for designing, programming, testing, verifying and deploying control systems for agile modular manufacturing machinery are proposed in this paper. It introduces the concepts, operations, mechanisms and implementation techniques for integrating simulation environments and distributed control system environments so that the control logic programs that have been programmed and verified in the virtual environment can be seamlessly transferred to the distributed control system environment for controlling the real devices. The approach looks to exploit simulation in a much wider range of applications with great advantages in the design and development of manufacturing machine systems. In particular, it facilitates the verification of the runtime support applications using the simulation model before they are applied to the real system. Mechanisms that allow runtime data to be collected during operation of the real machinery to calibrate the simulation models are also proposed. The system implemented delivers a powerful set of software tools for realising agile modular manufacturing systems.