Engineering Management Field Projects

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https://hdl.handle.net/1808/593

A problem in engineering management, the satisfactory completion of which satisfies the project requirement for the degree of Master of Science in Engineering Management.

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Information of a confidential or proprietary nature has been disguised or removed from the projects.
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Measuring Customer Satisfaction to Assess the Effectiveness of Enterprise Account Teams
(2007-12-14) Schriner, Sabra
Improvements of Existing Knowledge Management Practices in the Consumer Electronics Industry
(2022-12-16) Kuehl, Dalton L.
This Field Project report investigated best practices for Knowledge Management (KM) and Knowledge Management Systems (KMSs) and sought to devise a recommended action plan for the author's employer's existing KMS. A literature review was conducted to first establish a sampling of different methodologies that may be applicable to a given KMS. Upon review of the different methodologies and additional research sources, themes were identified in the literature. These themes and components were combined and summarized to present a list of key components that are present in the most successful KMSs. The research was then conducted in the following manner. First, a historical documentation review was completed to evaluate what the company originally aimed at accomplishing with the current KMS. This documentation review consisted of reviewing a former Field Project report in which the author's company's original KMS was established. In addition to the former Field Project, internal company documentation was reviewed to help understand the switch from one particular KMS software to another software during the life of the KMS. These two historical documents were then used to develop a survey to measure and evaluate the current KMS against the previously stated goals found in the documentation. The primary output of the report lies in the recommended action plan. The recommended action plan provides literature-backed guidance for implementing best practices based on the results of the survey and with respect to the former documentation.
Improving Control System Project Success with Front End Loading Risk Analysis
(2004-07-29) Maples, Bill
Front End Loading (FEL) has become a recognized and accepted method to improve the performance of process plant upgrade and construction projects. Likewise, FEL also is being used in the control system Industry to improve the outcome of process control projects. Process control system projects utilize newer technologies along with software, construction and communications. These projects frequently present technical challenges and hidden pitfalls when trying to meet project objectives. FEL methods have recently found success in these types of projects by identifying problems early. This paper focuses on FEL applied to Control System Projects. It presents a risk analysis approach to improve the process and demonstrates the application with two case studies.
Applications of Outlier and Anomaly Detection in Sponsored Search Advertising Campaigns
(2011-12-16) Peck, Josh
Organizations using sponsored search advertising rapidly find their staff overwhelmed with the amount of quantitative data available to them. One area that is often overlooked is management of dynamic change in the online marketplace. This research attempts to provide a predictive model to determine when an ad group is likely to decline in profitability. Correlation analysis shows that, at the ad group level, the advertising metric most predictive of change in 7-day profit margin is revenue-per-click (RPC). Additionally, the likelihood of a negative change in RPC predicting a negative change in 7-day profit margin can be as high as 76% when applying these methods to ad groups that have a high number of impressions. The likelihood of false positives is low (3%-7%) when the number of impressions is high, so applying these methods would likely yield an improvement in profit over ad-hoc analysis. The anomaly detection methods show considerably less effectiveness when applied to ad groups with fewer impressions and as such should not be used in an unsupervised manner without further research.
A New Methodology for the Quality Control Review Process for Roadway-Engineering Plans: A Case Study
(2019-05-17) Beamer, Braden R.
This field project report provides an analysis and evaluation of an alternative quality control method to the traditional quality control methods for the conformation of engineered roadway plans against the various standards of design. The new method will shift the timing and method of quality control review of engineered roadway plans in such a way that overall effort is decreased, checking process duplication is eliminated, and comment resolution is well documented and tracked for closeout. The report finds that when the quality control process is completed in synchronization with design, and not at the end of design, major design flaws will be found sooner, and the likelihood of project delay is decreased. It is recommended that the new method of quality control be applied to all future roadway design projects. This report also makes note of some of the limitations of the project. Some of these limitations include the unique nature of the project being an intersection improvement project without structural design components, the small footprint of the design, and general improvement of an existing condition vs. a brand new design from scratch. Another limitation of the project is that there are no true metrics to record the traditional quality control methods to compare to the updated method. It does not make economic sense to budget a project to be reviewed two times, with one based on the original method, and the other based on the proposed new method.
The Effective Use of Economic Development Incentives in the City of Lee's Summit, MO
(2019-05-17) Elam, Ryan A.
The City of Lee's Summit has been utilizing economic development incentives for many years, and recently there has been an increase in projects seeking incentives. Many individuals feel incentives are an unnecessary use of potential public funds for private gain, while others believe their use is essential to attract and retain business in the area. Interviews were conducted with key city officials to identify overall themes present when evaluating incentive projects. The primary theme identified was clearly defining the public benefit a project will provide, and how an incentive is necessary to achieve the desired outcome. This report discusses the process used by the City of Lee’s Summit when evaluating incentive projects. An overview of the various incentive tools used, a summary of the themes identified from the key interviews, and a brief review of past projects are included. A suggested tool for evaluating, monitoring, and reporting on individual projects is proposed.
The Identification, Creation, and Implementation of a Project Metrics Database
(2018-12-14) Dowse, Thomas
A Case Study in the Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Environment; Electronic Signatures: Assessment and Enhancement
(2017-12-15) Wallace, Grant J.
Identification of Growth Opportunities for ABC Airlines
(2017-05-12) Bakshi, Aditi
Investigate the Applicability, Performance, and Implementation Strategy of Workload Control in Y Company for Customer Satisfaction
(2016-12-16) Shareef, Nadim
Workload control concept (WLC) is well known as a unique production and planning control (PPC) for small and medium-sized enterprises with limited financial resources. WLC is designed to meet the needs of controlling and stabilizing the workload in shop floor for make-to-order and make-to-engineer companies, where job shop configuration is typical. WLC was developed over the course of three decades and was based on theoretical, conceptual, mathematical, analytical, and simulated situations. Conceptually, WLC consists of four levels or stages. The first stage is customer inquiry management, which is when companies place bids or quotes for an order. The second stage is the job entry stage, where a competitive due date is assigned to each order. The third stage is the order release stage, which consists of reviewing orders in a pre-shop pool until their release date. The last stage is priority dispatching, which prioritizes the released orders on the shop floor. It has been practically proven that WLC reduces work-in-process and total throughput time by 30-40%, despite the small percentages demonstrated by simulations. Most of the studies focused on developing releasing rules to control order release; however, few successful implementations have been reported. The deviation in performance and theory is known as workload control paradox. This deviation proves that simulations do not reliably calculate expected performance, which should be considered before the implementation of WLC. This study evaluates the implementation of WLC in Y company. The first part of this study measures the suitability of the Y company as made-to-order business. Then, further investigation explores the applicability of WLC, which analyses Y company’s characteristics using a framework. Testing the applicability of WLC reduces the chance of jeopardizing the implementation of the inconvenient PPC approach that may cost time and money, which may risk the success of the company. The second part of the study assesses the performance of WLC in the Y company by analyzing one method for the due date assignment, five different rules for releasing orders, and two separate rules for dispatching. The simulation is constructed with high face validity to resemble the actual Y production system and types of orders and routes; however, the data used in this simulation is taken from previous studies (Thurer, Stevenson, Silva, Land, & Fredendall, 2011) since the primary goal is to measure the performance of WLC by using different rules and factors based on a company with a comparable business model. The third part outlines the implementation of the WLC strategy. Some scholars have reported that some implementation approaches have produced several issues. Even though there have been few successful implementation cases, a detailed application procedure has not been established; therefore, implementation strategies are also outlined in detail. The most recent research on WLC was used to construct the most applicable strategy for successful implementation. The results indicated that some barriers Y company prevent from implementing WLC. Through the simulation, one releasing rule was identified as the most compatible rule for the Y company. Finally, the limitations and future implications are discussed.
Project Risk Management in New Product Development Projects
(2016-07-29) Varanasi, Chitra
New product development (NPD) projects are efforts of cross-functional teams conducted in organizations by following a set of processes to achieve set goals for features, cost, performance, and at the right time. NPD efforts involve uncertainties that cross-functional teams categorize as technical risks and non-technical risks. The focus of the NPD teams is more towards the technical risks associated with a product and less on non- technical risks, which threaten attainment of the target cost, scope, and time constraints. Focusing on non-technical risk management enables teams to employ strategies to effectively counter them. The field project undertaken studies the NPD project stages, project management procedures and non-technical risk management procedures defined by guiding bodies and compares them with the procedures written by companies known for their NPD efforts.
Identifying External Risks in Saudi Power Generation Projects
(2016-05-13) ALShayeq, Abdulrahman S.
The Saudi Power Generation Project market is fast growing with more international EPC contractors and consultants entering this market. Understanding the risks, whether threats or opportunities, involved in the engineering, procurement, and construction of a Saudi power generation project will ensure the success of new power generation projects in Saudi Arabia. The six Risk Management Process steps, adopted by the Project Management Institute (PMI), were explained, with more emphases on the Identify Risks process; since it is the main risk management step applied in this research. The research used the expert interview method and review of existing literature research to identify external risks in Saudi power generation projects. It also highlighted the main external risks, in the Saudi construction industry, identified in almost all of the main studies conducted in the past 20 years. Through ten expert interviews, 101 responses were received. 88 of which identified 27 threats in Saudi Power Generation projects. Out of the 27 identified threats, 17 were major threats since they were highlighted by at least three experts. The most highly ranked threats, that were identified in this research, are: •Availability of qualified manpower in Saudi Arabia. •Main client’s contractual general terms and conditions. •Weather conditions in Saudi Arabia. The other 13 responses identified some opportunities in these projects. The main identified opportunities are: •The Saudi economy is a free market and stable and growing economy. •Positive outlook for the Saudi power generation industry with many new planned projects to meet increasing demand. A comprehensive comparison between the results of the primary research and the literature review was completed. Many similarities were identified between the two findings. Recommendations, that will help process the findings of this research further into the Risk Management Processes, include: •A risk register must be built to keep and track risk information. •Identified risks must be analyzed, their root causes, triggers, and effects must be defined. The extent of their impacts must also be identified. •Preliminary responses shall always be added to the risk register as they are identified. •Each major risk should be assigned to a risk owner. •All of this new data should be added to the risk register, monitored, and updated as the project progresses. Finally, further studies that could be developed based on the results of this research, were suggested by the author.
IT Project Prioritization Leveraging the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP)
(2015-12-18) Freeze, Eric P.
The University of Kansas Information Technology (KU IT) helps provide service solutions to the faculty, staff, and students of the Lawrence Main Campus and Edwards Campus. To keep up with the ever-changing needs of the campus, KU IT starts and completes hundreds of projects each year. The sheer quantity of projects that run through KU IT each year makes it difficult to balance resources and maintain strategic alignment while still meeting the needs of customers. The objective of this research is to develop and exercise an Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) model that aids in project prioritization. The AHP is a mathematical decision-making tool that helps standardize the decision-making process while bringing transparency and defensibility to the decisions made. An AHP model was created and exercised on a small subset of KU IT projects. This model was used as a proof of concept to evaluate the AHP and the feasibility of using this technique to aid in IT project prioritization. As a control, for comparison’s sake, the same subset of projects was prioritized using the traditional methods employed by KU IT. The result for both the AHP and the traditional methods was a prioritized list of projects. The traditional method was considerably faster, but provides executive leadership no transparency to the process and would be difficult for the KU IT Leadership Team to defend. The AHP model, while more involved, led to a result that can be explained and justified. It is also the result of a highly transparent and collaborative process.
Predicting Risk for Incidences of Homelessness Among Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan
(2015-12-18) Motupalli, Venkat
As communities report significant decreases in Veteran homelessness from 2010 – 2015, mitigation efforts have turned from reactive care and rehabilitation to prevention. With significant populations of contemporary Veterans transitioning to civilian life from operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is an opportunity to adapt transition and integration processes to preclude the risk of homelessness. This project attempts to curate priority intelligence requirements (PIR) aimed at identifying Veterans of Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Operation New Dawn (OEF/OIF/OND) who are at risk of experiencing incidences of homelessness after ending service in the United States Army. Having developed effective PIR, this project attempts to deliver an immediate decision support tool for commanders, transition supervisors, and VA intake providers, as well as the framework to automate that information collection and risk analysis in the future. A decision support tool with five binary outputs (yes or no) was developed based on an existing corroborated model of risk factors for homelessness developed by the National Center for Homelessness Among Veterans. The tool easily represents individuals of higher risk of homelessness to a screener, with no added time or data collection burden. Further, a freeware script, compatible with all common data collection and storage systems, was developed to provide a baseline for further digital management efforts.
A Study of Telomeres-Targeting Anticancer Drugs' Effectiveness through Comparative Cancer Mortality and Incidence Rates Analysis
(2015-07-30) Urio, Richard O.
The Consequences of shrinking chromosomes’ end-caps, known as telomeres- in cancer development is only partially understood. One thing that is certain, however, is that as tissue cells age and these end-caps start shrinking, telomerase enzyme production by the affected cells increases in order to repair these telomeres. The problem with this process is that it makes these cells immortal, making it impossible to maintain or renew themselves in a natural fashion. While scientists and researchers have long believed longer telomeres are associated with good health, some recent studies indicate that might not be the case. Scientists at the University of California in San Francisco have shown that Telomerase Reverse Transcriptase, an enzyme that maintains telomeres and hence protects cells from aging, also plays a significant role in the development of brain cancer known as gliomas. This discovery is one of the major challenges that face scientists and researchers in designing effective drugs against cancer. After more than four decades of telomeres research, leading to a belief that longer telomeres are important for good overall health and in protecting cells from senescence, this belief turns out to be only partially true or completely mistaken for certain parts of the body. This discovery is quiet important in the cancer fight and leads to needed rethinking of cancer development mechanisms. Does each tissue need a more specialized drug for that specific tissue, and what approach can be taken if such is true? Should more efforts and resources be directed to prevention or treating and curing cancer diseases? The United States population’s 10-year cancer mortality and incidence rates were compared with those of two states California and Utah with lowest cancer incidence rates and two states Kentucky and West Virginia with highest incidence rates in the country. The use of two states were used due to their lowest cancer incidence rates while two were used as states with highest cancer incidences in the country. Overall, the goal in this selection of states on both ends of the spectrums of cancer incidence rates together with the US population’s cancer incidence rates is to provide a representative sample to study the environmental mutagenic-inducing factors’ influence in contrast to the mortality hindrance factor of anticancer drugs. Most anticancer drugs designed and used in connection with completion of Human Genome Project (HGP) in 2003 will be discussed. The HGP had among its main three future goals the designing of more robust and efficient drugs, vaccines and therapies for cancer prevention or elimination. Analyzing the success of the anticancer drugs that were FDA-approved from 2007 to 2011 has been emphasized in this research to determine if these telomeres-targeting anticancer drugs have been successful in slowing or countering cancer disease rates. Cancer mortality rates from 2002 to 2006-before more efficient anticancer drugs were approved-are contrasted with mortality rates from 2007 to 2011. This research was unable to conclusively establish a clear role of anticancer drugs in cancer mortality rates decline in the US population by replicating their clinical trials’ effectiveness through expected mortality rates reduction. Meanwhile, smoking and tobacco use as an environmental mutagenic factor in lung and bronchus cancer incidence rates yielded conclusive research results in both sexes. The Pearson correlation coefficient calculation ranged from 0.5414 to 0.781 for the US population and three out of four selected states. It was also found that smoking and tobacco use might explain 29 to 60 percent of the lungs and bronchus cancer incidence rates in the US population and three out of four selected states that were studied.
Risk Management: Knowledge Transfer from Seasoned Project Managers
(2014-12-19) Cooper, Cameron
Idea-Nation: A Unique Framework for Managing Crowd-Sourced Projects
(2014-12-19) Palmer, Joseph
Web 2.0 has revolutionized the way people interact and how they solve problems. Engineering industries are embracing technology boom in order to maintain the rapid growth and diversification needed to compete in today’s market. With growing use of these technologies come new challenges for management such as effective knowledge sharing and project management of physically separated resources. This report introduces a framework for incorporating modern Web 2.0 technologies into while minimizing these challenges through a management frame work for inter-organizational crowd-sourced projects called Idea-Nation.
Municipal Solid Waste Generation: Feasibility of Reconciling Measurement Methods
(2014-07-25) Schneider, Shelly H.
Federal regulations require state governments provide for the safe and environmentally sound management of wastes generated within their borders. In order to effectively manage wastes, the types and quantities of material requiring management needs to be measured. This research investigates the reconciliation of results from two methodologies for estimating municipal solid waste (MSW) generation, and assessing the potential for solid waste planners to combine the two methods in a cost-effective manner to predict local baseline data in order to meet governmental solid waste planning regulations. This research investigates measurement methods and the feasibility of reconciling the output of two commonly used methodologies for estimating MSW generation: 1. Indirect measurement by a materials flow analysis (MFA) and published by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and 2. Direct measurement of the MSW stream at the local, state, or regional level. The MFA used by EPA to estimate the quantity of MSW on a national level looks at products sold and assumes a useful product life. At the end of the product’s useful life, EPA follows the product flow through end-of-life management—generation, recycling, composting, disposal. The direct measurement method involves the collection, sampling, and measuring of statistically valid portions of MSW. MSW is physically sorted at the disposal or transfer facility and recovery through recycling and composting is estimated directly from facility records or through various types of reporting requirements. Disposal is then added to recovery to estimate generation. Each method has advantages and disadvantages. The goal of this research is to highlight the differences and similarities and issues that arise when comparing MSW data collected under the two different methods. Understanding the individual product and material components that make up the total measurement, instead of just the bottom line total, is required when striving to reconcile measurement methods. Additional research is required before it can be determined if the potential exists for combining data collected by the two methods in a cost-effective manner that would be useful to solid waste planners.
Determining the Interest and Functionality of a Cloud Based Software System for Independent Tuition Based Child Care Providers
(2014-05-16) Persky, Ken
Burns & McDonnell Solid Waste Team Strategic Client Coordination Plan and Integrated Client Schedule
(2014-05-16) Drescher, Laura R.

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