Engineering Commons^™

Enablers And Barriers Of Communication In Virtual Engineering Teams: The Role Of Teamwork Skills And Emergent Conflict, Pilar Pazos, Francisco Cima

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

Communication is a critical process that facilitates team members' coordination, expertise exchange, decision-making, and, consequently, team elfectiveness. A focus on effective communication is critical in virtual teams due to their lack of face-to-face interactions and social presence. Communication becomes challenging in remote settings, and specific skills emerge as more essential to success. It is known that effective teams rely on planning, execution, and interpersonal skills to be successful. Still, the specific impact of these skills on virtual team effectiveness is not well understood. Additionally, conflict can emerge as a significant barrier to collaboration for remote teams that can hinder their …

Plan Estratégico Para El Posicionamiento Competitivo De Maderas El Vergel Ltda, Juan Felipe Mateus De Armas, Aura Natalia Aguilera Urrego

Ingeniería Industrial

Este proyecto tuvo como objetivo establecer qué plan estratégico competitivo podría implementar Maderas El Vergel Ltda. para posicionarse en el sector maderero colombiano. Para ello se realizó una caracterización de la situación actual y las tendencias del mercado maderero colombiano, una evaluación de la productividad y competitividad actual de la empresa y el diseño de estrategias que mediante un despliegue táctico permitan a la gerencia de la empresa definir la ruta de trabajo a implementar para lograr el fin propuesto y hacer un adecuado control gerencial por medio de indicadores que le permitan realizar seguimiento y control de la ejecución …

Siting A Wind Farm In Oregon: Considering A Hierarchical Decision Model With Four Scenarios, Diane Yates

Engineering and Technology Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper primarily serves two purposes: first, it looks to develop a methodology that takes scenarios and certain hard-to-measure intangibles such as politics, social impact, and even religion; as well as more tangible and measurable variables such as environmental impacts, cost and types of materials, storage and wind turbine technologies, to name a few, that then could be used as input to a decision-making model on where to build a wind farm. The hierarchical decision model (HDM) then analyzes these variables, based on an independent judging panel, in order to come up with a recommendation for the best site on …

Improving Library Efficiency To Meet Patron's Needs: A Data Envelopment Analysis Benchmarking Model, Michael Clark

Engineering and Technology Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Technological innovation and the information age have increased patrons’ expectations of the services and resources that academic libraries provide. Libraries are responding to patrons’ needs by providing digital resources and services, and collaborative spaces that invite communication and knowledge sharing. In order to effectively meet patrons’ needs, libraries are striving to efficiently manage their human, materials, and fiscal resources. Libraries have traditionally measured efficiency by developing single factor productivity indexes. However, these qualitative methods do not adequately address the efficiency aspect which measures the transformation of resources (inputs) into services (outputs). Data envelopment analysis (DEA) measures the relative efficiencies of …

A Framework Of Critical Success Factors For Business Organizations That Lead To Performance Excellence Based On A Financial And Quality Systems Assessment., Melissa Francisco

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

One of the most important tasks that business leaders undertake in order to achieve a superior market position is strategic planning. Beyond this obligation, business owners desire to maximize profit and maintain steady growth. In order to do this, resources must be invested in the most efficient way possible in order to achieve performance excellence. Adjusting business operations quickly, however, especially in times of economic uncertainty, is extremely difficult. Business leaders therefore need insight into which elements of organizational improvement are most effective in order to strategically invest their resources to achieve superior performance in the most efficient way possible. …

Evaluating Courses Of Actions At The Strategic Planning Level, Alhmet Ozdemir

Theses and Dissertations

Like almost all real life problems, Strategic planning is a good example of a problem with more than one objective. One of the most important steps of strategic planning is to generate and evaluate the courses of actions (COA) which can fulfill the mission and vision of the organization. This is a critical process since it is impractical to start the executed COA over. In this research, value-focused thinking (VFT) is used as a decision analysis tool to assess COAs. A general model is created to select the best COA for strategic planning such as air force operation planning. To …

Dynamics Capabilities, Caroline Mudavadi, Farshad Madani, Garrett Gilliland, Corey White

Engineering and Technology Management Student Projects

Slides from a presentation based on Teece, D. J. (January 01, 2007). Explicating dynamic capabilities: the nature and microfoundations of (sustainable) enterprise performance. Strategic Management Journal, 28, 13, 1319.

Discusses capabilities that enable business enterprises to create, deploy, and protect the intangible assets that support superior long-run business performance.

The Role Of Conflict Management On Virtual Team Performance And Satisfaction, Pilar Pazos, Anil Ustun, Rolando Delaguila

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

The role that input factors from project planning processes play on conflict emergence and conflict resolution in virtual teams is not well understood. Of particular interest for this paper is the role that factors during planning stages play in preventing interpersonal conflict, supporting conflict resolution and ultimately enhancing team outcomes in virtual team settings. This study examines the relationships among commitment to team goals, conflict management and team outcomes in virtual teams. First we provide an in depth review of relevant empirical findings. Next, we describe a study examining the relationships between three sets of variables: 1) goal commitment, 2) …

A Multi-Phase Fuzzy Logic Approach To Strategic Planning Of A Reverse Supply Chain Network, Kishore K. Pochampally, Surendra M. Gupta

Surendra M. Gupta

Strategic planning (also called designing) is a challenging aspect of a reverse supply chain network. To effectively satisfy drivers such as profitability, environmental regulations, and asset recovery, only the most economical used products must be reprocessed in only the recovery facilities that have the potential to efficiently reprocess them. Due to uncertainties in supply, quality, and reprocessing times of used products, the cost-benefit function in the literature that selects the most economical product to reprocess from a set of used products is not appropriate for direct adoption. Moreover, due to the same uncertainties, any traditional forward supply chain approach to …

Examining Strategic Information Technology In Relationship To The Need For Technology Modernization, Jill A. Brown

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Strategic planning can be a critical business process for today’s organizations, especially for IT organizations that are facing continually changes in technology. This research was designed to investigate IT organizations’ use of strategic planning and determine if the organization uses their strategic plan to set project priorities. The second part of this research was to determine if the IT strategic plans are aligned with the overall organization’s strategic plan.

This research was conducted using a mail-type survey to IT Executives from organizations with sales/revenues under 100 million dollars, a maximum of 5000 employees, and SIC codes of 201 thru 399. …

Reducing Uncertainty In Effects-Based Operations, Wilburn B. Mclamb

Theses and Dissertations

Known as the fog of war, uncertainty has been prevalent in the conduct of military operations throughout human history. Intelligence collection efforts are tasked to reduce this uncertainty through the collection of information. Utilizing Shannon's entropy as a measure of the expected information gain due to an intelligence collection effort, a methodology is developed to prioritize and allocate intelligence assets in an efficient manner. Incorporated in this methodology are target priority and the requirement to reassess dynamic targets. The application area for the methodology is Effects-Based Operations. A generalized state model is developed to conduct adversary system-of-systems analysis. This model …

A Methodology For Performing Effects-Based Assessments, Benjamin A. Thoele

Theses and Dissertations

In order to bring the doctrine of Effects-Based Operations (EBO) into a fully operational capability, Effects-Based Assessment (EBA) must provide relevant insight to the commander and his planning staff. Assessments of an effects-based plan and execution must include an assessment of the effects of a campaign on the enemy in addition to an assessment of the accomplishment of friendly actions taken to achieve the desired effects. Determining the effects of a campaign requires an analysis of the dynamics of the enemy systems. EBA must be able to recognize the states of the enemy's systems as the system states change over …

Project Portfolio Management: An Investigation Of One Air Force Product Center, Bryan D. Edmunds

Theses and Dissertations

Over the last two decades, reducing product development times in the DoD has been the focus of many committees, commissions, and research efforts. Despite the implementation of numerous recommendations, the DoD still struggles with long acquisition cycle times. This research is part of the Air Force Cycle Time Reduction Research Program (CTRRP), which grew out of the Cycle Time Reduction Action Plan, developed in 1998. This research focuses on the portfolio management (project selection and resource allocation) part of the CTRRP. The purpose of this research effort was to investigate the use of portfolio management within the Air Force. Specifically, …

Evaluation Of Strategy-Structure Fit Of Space And Missile Systems Center Detachment 11, Tommy M. Gates

Theses and Dissertations

Activated June 1,1998, Space and Missile Systems Center Detachment 11, located in Colorado Springs, integrates system support management for the Satellite Launch Control System (SLCS), MlLSTAR, the Defense Meteorological Support Program (DMSP), the Space Based Infrared System (SBlRSl, and the Global Positioning System (GPS). The Detachment performs operational software maintenance, satellite systems engineering, space testing and evaluation, and technology master planning. Contemporary management theory asserts that the appropriate match of strategy and structure determines an organization's level of performance. The Detachment is currently organized programmatically. The current programmatic organizational structure represents the physical manifestation of the Integrated Weapon System Management …