California Solar Regatta

This Final Design Review report details the research, analysis, and design conducted by a Cal Poly Mechanical Engineering senior project team working on the propulsion system for a solar powered boat. Working in coordination with another senior project team responsible for making the hull, the two teams comprised the Cal Poly team who entered the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) 2020 California Solar Regatta Competition. The SMUD Solar Regatta is an annual competition for high school and college students to design and build boats powered by solar power. The solar panels are provided by SMUD, and the battery storage is limited by competition regulations. The scope of this project was to design a propulsion system that would efficiently transfer energy, be easily integrated into the hull design and be competitive in the three races: endurance, slalom, and sprint. This document covers research conducted, objectives for the design, design concepts considered, the chosen final design, manufacturing and verification plans, and project management

Integrated Talent Management System for Customer Service Workforce

Call center agents performance nowadays becomes one of the key success factors that determine the call center business goals. Not all call centers aware those agents' personal attributes also contribute to the organization image and performances. As a result, organizations often miss an opportunity to gain competitive advantage in their business process. Thus, the objective of this project is to model, design and develop an integrated web based application that can assess and record agents' personal development and work attributes while at the same time allowing supervisors to communicate about work performances. Each organization has its own business objectives that need to be met where can only be met through a comprehensive ways that effectively manages an organization's talent. This concern should be focus more on customer service industry because they consist of agents that deliver service to customer along the time. This project discussed on human resource management constraints which in terms of call center agents' personal development attributes and performances in call center. Therefore, this project had proposed one solution by providing an integrated web based application to assess agents' personal development and at the same time enhance internal communication levels called Integrated Talent Management System. Not only that, this report also discussed benefits on Talent Management System to customer service organization and existing criteria on current Talent Management System. Some characteristics and function have been identified to build and enhance the problem. There is also a section that talks on current customer service industry environment. There are two types of methodology for this project which are system methodology and research methodology. Incremental model is the most appropriate methodology approach for this project. Observation, informal interview and document reviews method are the key activities have been used to implement User Needs Assessment as well as to gather information. Gantt chart has been created whereby to assist and monitor the project timeline and key milestone. There is also a section that describe on the tools that will be used in order to develop this project. There is a discussion that discussed on the current practice of performance appraisal assessment and inbound reporting structure environment for this project Industry Partner. Functional modeling Diagrams had been developed to make the requirements looks clearer. Testing analysis has been conducted to get feedback from the user. Several recommendations and future works plans had been discussed too. Therefore, by having an integrated talent management system, the author hope project objective can be achieved where it can assess and record agents' personal development and work attributes while at the same time allowing supervisors to communicate about work performance. Thus, an organization can have proper human resource management that will result in ease for the organization to achieve its business goals

Reviewing risk management tools for construction projects and the implementation of project management strategies

Purpose - The research reviewed risk management tools for construction projects and the implementation of project management strategies, in which prominence is found in the use of the integrated use of value management and risk management adapted from the Integrated Approach for Soft Value Management. The study was based on a school construction project which was used as a case study at which the researcher’s role is that of ‘Project Manager’. The project status before the study was that it was almost 100% behind schedule and experienced a wide variety of problems ranging from constant site shut-downs due to community protests, contract scope changes, poor quality workmanship and material related setbacks. The study, through literature review, considered some of the methods currently used in the built environment to mitigate unforeseen problems to construction projects and ascertained the extent to which these tools and techniques for risk management on construction projects were used. The idea behind this was to review, document and package the application of a project management strategy that would be suitably effective for resolving the problems faced on the project site. Design – The research design used in this study was the ‘Case study design’ and ‘Experimental design’ in which the ‘Action-research’ approach and ‘Embedded survey within a case study’ were employed on the construction project site, managed by the researcher in his capacity as Project Manager. This was done by organising role-players as participants in focus group workshops facilitated by the researcher where the participants interacted with the researcher and amongst themselves in an effort to identify and find possible problems affecting the project. The researcher introduced stimulating action to project management processes based on the information sourced from the literature review and data obtained from focus group workshops where the outcomes were observed, recorded, analysed and conclusions drawn. Results – The investigation results revealed that the applied management strategies in form of the approach adapted from the integrated use of value and risk management provided a conclusion that the approach was an effective and preferable technique to use in comparison with the commonly used contingencies and float for risk management on construction projects. The above processes also confirmed its relevance as an appropriate technique for risk management of most unforeseen problems which have an effect on the three constraints of time, cost and quality. A further analysis of literature reviewed, which was also supported by other studies previously undertaken, concluded that most professionals in the construction sector such as Quantity Surveyors, Construction Managers, Project Managers and Architects were aware of Value Management but rarely applied it on projects for risk management purposes. Practical Implications – Developing a standard model for the implementation of measures to deal or manage unplanned problems on a project is a challenge as most projects do not have a set model to deal with unforeseen project problems which compels the reliance on contingencies and float. However, any envisaged model must be supported by a quality control system which allows for easy implementation of interventions. The prototype step model conceptualised by the researcher is intended to enable project functionaries and project managers through its unique and easy steps to navigate through any problem which may be encountered on a project. This is regardless of the project phase in which such challenges manifest as there is no preferred model capable of resolving much more than one setback at any given time in comparison with the strategy recommended by this study, which may also be applicable to other sites where similar dynamics exist. Limitations – The study was conducted in a confined environment which required to be confirmed through longitudinal research which is broader and based on many different projects hence the results could not be generalised but only limited to the current project and further research was recommended. The single case study design was also a limitation as the results were not broad enough and were also subjective for generalisation to other project sites. Conclusion – This project management strategy in which the integrated value management approach was used has the potential of being employed as an intervention technique for unforeseen problems related to construction projects provided the processes derived from further research are documented and packaged into a process to be used as a standard model. The project management strategy has the potential to mitigate problems related to time, cost and quality only during the three phases of the project which are, initiation, planning, and implementation and excludes the closing phase to enhance project value. In iii essence, when the project cost and time are effectively managed and reduced, with enhanced quality, the result is an improved project with significant prospects of success

Comparative analysis of new configurations of aircraft aimed at competitiveness, environmental compatibility and safety

This Ph.D. Thesis aims at suggesting a proper integrated and multidisciplinary design methodology to improve the current conceptual and preliminary design phases of breakthrough innovative aerospace products. The methodology, based on a Systems Engineering approach, is presented together with an envisaged toolchain, consisting of both commercial and ad-hoc developed software, integrated in a Model-Based Systems Engineering perspective. In addition, for the sake of clarity and for validation purposes, a specific case study has been selected and developed all along the document. The reference case-study is inspired to a real pre-feasibility study in which the research group of Politecnico di Torino, which the author of this Thesis belongs to, has been involved. The project aims at developing a suborbital vehicle able to perform parabolic flights for both scientific and touristic purposes. This kind of initiatives paves the way for the future hypersonic vehicles, because it allows to crucial enabling technologies to be tested and validated in relevant environment but with lower performances’ requirements. The Thesis is articulated in seven Chapters with an introduction and conclusion sections and in each Chapter a balanced mix between theoretical investigation, mathematical model development, tool selection or development and application to the selected case study is guaranteed. This document starts reporting the major reasons why an innovative design methodology should be envisaged to deal with the increasing level of complexity in the aerospace domain. In particular, in the first Chapter, a brief overview of existing or underdevelopment initiatives related to hypersonic is reported, together with the description of the different types of mission in which the new hypersonic vehicles will be exploited. Moreover, the major issues related to the infrastructures required to operate these transportation systems are summarized. As far as operations are concerned, a short section makes the readers aware of the current under-development regulatory framework. Then, the integrated multidisciplinary design methodology is presented starting from the very high level analyses up to the sizing of the different components of the transportation system. All along the document, crucial role is played by requirements, whose management can allow a complete traceability of the different design characteristics during the overall product life-cycle. Furthermore, proper algorithms allowing to move from purely qualitative to quantitative trade-offs, are presented, with a noticeable advantage in terms of traceability and reproducibility. Eventually, further improvements of both the tool-chain and the reference case studies are envisaged for future developments

Invenio: A Modern Digital Library System

Invenio is an integrated digital library system originally developed at CERN to run the CERN Document Server, currently one of the largest institutional repositories worldwide. It was started over 15 years ago and has been matured through many release cycles. Invenio is a GPL2 Open Source project based on an Apache/WSGI+Python+MySQL architecture. Its modular design enables it to serve a wide variety of usages, from a multimedia digital object repository, to a web journal, to a fully functional digital library. The development strategy used to implement Invenio ensures it is flexible in any layer. Being based on open standards such as MARCXML and OAI-PMH 2.0 its interoperability with other digital libraries is guaranteed. Being originally designed to cope with the CERN requirements for digital object management, Invenio is suitable for middle-to-large scale digital repositories (100K~10M records). Records can be of any nature (e.g. papers, books, photos, videos). This presentation will introduce the different features of Invenio, their usage in the CERN context and how other institutions and projects are also driving some of its development

Invenio: A Modern Digital Library System

Invenio is an integrated digital library system originally developed at CERN to run the CERN Document Server, currently one of the largest institutional repositories worldwide. It was started over 15 years ago and has been matured through many release cycles. Invenio is a GPL2 Open Source project based on an Apache/WSGI+Python+MySQL architecture. Its modular design enables it to serve a wide variety of usages, from a multimedia digital object repository, to a web journal, to a fully functional digital library. The development strategy used to implement Invenio ensures it is flexible in any layer. Being based on open standards such as MARCXML and OAI-PMH 2.0 its interoperability with other digital libraries is guaranteed. Being originally designed to cope with the CERN requirements for digital object management, Invenio is suitable for middle-to-large scale digital repositories (100K~10M records). Records can be of any nature (e.g. papers, books, photos, videos). This presentation will introduce the different features of Invenio, their usage in the CERN context and how other institutions and projects are also driving some of its development

Integrated Talent Management System for Customer Service Workforce

Call center agents performance nowadays becomes one of the key success factors that determine the call center business goals. Not all call centers aware those agents' personal attributes also contribute to the organization image and performances. As a result, organizations often miss an opportunity to gain competitive advantage in their business process. Thus, the objective of this project is to model, design and develop an integrated web based application that can assess and record agents' personal development and work attributes while at the same time allowing supervisors to communicate about work performances. Each organization has its own business objectives that need to be met where can only be met through a comprehensive ways that effectively manages an organization's talent. This concern should be focus more on customer service industry because they consist of agents that deliver service to customer along the time. This project discussed on human resource management constraints which in terms of call center agents' personal development attributes and performances in call center. Therefore, this project had proposed one solution by providing an integrated web based application to assess agents' personal development and at the same time enhance internal communication levels called Integrated Talent Management System. Not only that, this report also discussed benefits on Talent Management System to customer service organization and existing criteria on current Talent Management System. Some characteristics and function have been identified to build and enhance the problem. There is also a section that talks on current customer service industry environment. There are two types of methodology for this project which are system methodology and research methodology. Incremental model is the most appropriate methodology approach for this project. Observation, informal interview and document reviews method are the key activities have been used to implement User Needs Assessment as well as to gather information. Gantt chart has been created whereby to assist and monitor the project timeline and key milestone. There is also a section that describe on the tools that will be used in order to develop this project. There is a discussion that discussed on the current practice of performance appraisal assessment and inbound reporting structure environment for this project Industry Partner. Functional modeling Diagrams had been developed to make the requirements looks clearer. Testing analysis has been conducted to get feedback from the user. Several recommendations and future works plans had been discussed too. Therefore, by having an integrated talent management system, the author hope project objective can be achieved where it can assess and record agents' personal development and work attributes while at the same time allowing supervisors to communicate about work performance. Thus, an organization can have proper human resource management that will result in ease for the organization to achieve its business goals

The Real World Software Process

The industry-wide demand for rapid development in concert with greater process maturity has seen many software development firms adopt tightly structured iterative processes. While a number of commercial vendors offer suitable process infrastructure and tool support, the cost of licensing, configuration and staff training may be prohibitive for the small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) which dominate the Asia-Pacific software industry. This work addresses these problems through the introduction of the Real World Software Process (RWSP), a freely available, Web-based iterative scheme designed specifically for small teams and organisations. RWSP provides a detailed process description, high quality document templates - including code review and inspection guidelines - and the integrated tutorial support necessary for successful usage by inexperienced developers and teams. In particular it is intended that the process be readily usable by software houses which at present do not follow a formal process, and that the free RWSP process infrastructure should be a vehicle for improving industry standards