Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Self-Regulating Teamwork Behaviors In Low-Volume & High-Complexity Production, Aaron W. Powell

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

An environment of ever increasing competition drives manufacturing organizations to continually search for ways to improve the performance of their production operations. Lean manufacturing, born out of the Toyota Production System (TPS), has become the dominant improvement method sought to meet this need. Although well established in high-volume production settings, the application of lean production methods in low-volume and high-complexity (LVHC) manufacturing contexts has not been as successful. A commonly cited reason is a biased focus on the technical aspects of implementing lean methods with little regard for the social system involved in the change. In the LVHC manufacturing context, …

Major Factors That Influence The Employment Decisions Of Generation X Consulting Engineers, Robert William Mayfield

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to study Generation X consulting engineers (those born between the years 1964 and 1980) in Lynchburg, Virginia, to determine the major factors that influence their employment decisions. Engineering consulting firms throughout the United States, particularly those in Lynchburg, have struggled to recruit young engineers in recent years. The recruiting of young engineers has been regarded by managers and executives as the single greatest challenge to the consulting profession. Despite the consensus within the profession that the problem existed, recommended solutions have been mostly speculative in nature and unsubstantiated by supportive data. This study focused …

The Noaa Corps A Participant Action Research Of A Uniformed Service Facing Termination, Richard Eugene Marriner Ii

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The NOAA Corps is a uniformed service of the Federal Government. It is composed of officers commissioned by the President of the United States as are the officers of the Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Marines, Navy, and Public Health Service. "NOAA" is the acronym for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, an agency within the U.S. Department of Commerce.

On January 24, 1996 the Clinton administration formally proposed that the NOAA Corps be terminated on October 1, 1996. If this were to become reality it would be the first time in U.S. History that a uniformed service has been …

An Approach For Representation Of Organizational Mental Models Using System Dynamics, Jörg-Peter Theissen

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The concept of mental models has received much attention within recent years, especially within the context of organizational learning. This research is based on and departs from the Organizational Learning Process as developed by Keating, Robinson, and Clemson (1994). That process, which is based on a verbal representation of mental models, does not call forth the kind of change that is desired in Organizational Learning. This research investigates if mental models can be represented in the form of system dynamics models and inquires if this representation is beneficial to the process of Organizational Learning.

The research was designed as a …