Resource Planning in Engineering Services Firms

We develop a model to enable engineering professional services firms to improve the management of their competitive resources, i.e., skilled engineers, to be better able to respond to customer demand. The model was informed by semistructured interviews with senior executives from engineering, information technology (IT) services and technical consulting firms. As a result, we capture many of the complexities associated with the resource planning process in the professional engineering services sector. In the resulting model, the key attributes of supply, demand, and operations constraints are identified. Based on information obtained from the interviews, a number of test firms are created.We then use these test firms to study the impact of various resource planning policies on firm performance. These policies include the skill mix and profile of skilled employees, limits on the number of concurrent projects to which an employee can be assigned, and policies governing employee cross-training and hiring. The impact of these policies is evaluated in terms of business metrics, such as the project completion rate and net revenue. Finally, our model is extended to capture a multiphase rolling planning horizon, where projects may span multiple phases with the goal of ensuring consistency in employee assignment to projects

Understanding new venture market application search processes: A propositional model.

Technology-based ventures are confronted with complex decisions on how to apply their technology platform in highly uncertain and ambiguous market environments. Based on four case studies, a dynamic decision model is developed in which we highlight the similarities between the search and learning processes in venture development contexts and in new product development contexts. This entrepreneurial search and learning process is understood as consisting of sequences of episodes – characterized by uncertainty and ambiguity - and scripts – i.e. approaches to market application search. The model implies that a venture's adaptability - i.e. its ability to move efficiently and effectively between these episodes and their related scripts - influences its survival.Case studies; Decision; Decisions; Learning; Market; Model; Processes; Product; Product development; Research; Sequences; Similarity; Studies; Technology; Uncertainty;

Implementing Mass Customization Using SAP Variant Configuration and a 3D Printer

The process of manufacturing customized products at the efficiency of mass production is called mass customization manufacturing. In order to implement mass customization a product configurator, a well-planned configurable product platform and a flexible manufacturing technology are essential. As 3D printers are becoming more and more popular it is evident that they act as very flexible factories that could manufacture any object. This thesis tries to find out how 3D printers and product configurators could be combined to implement mass customization manufacturing. The system created in this thesis manufactures configurable motorcycles whose configuration model is maintained in SAP-ERP system. A product configurator built using SAP Variant configuration allows the user to configure a variant of the motorcycle according to their needs using the configuration model. This configured variant is manufactured using a 3D printer. Qualitative methods are used to gain knowledge and understanding about mass customization and SAP Variant configuration from books, scientific articles and software development forums. Using this knowledge the system is implemented which could manufacture approximately 23 different types of motorcycles customized by the user. The users who configure and manufacture the motorcycles also get hands-on knowledge about basic business processes in SAP ERP related to production planning (PP) and logistics (LO) modules and understand how information flows in the ERP system with respect to mass customized manufacturing.fi=Opinnäytetyö kokotekstinä PDF-muodossa.|en=Thesis fulltext in PDF format.|sv=Lärdomsprov tillgängligt som fulltext i PDF-format

Design Your Career - Design Your Life

This research investigates the current plague of unemployment and underemployment that nearly half of qualified individuals in the field of Visual Communications are met with after graduation. Students who major in this field dedicate a tremendous amount of time, money, and energy toward developing a broad skillset that resolves critical matters of communication through visual solutions. Research has demonstrated that despite conditions that are subject to ongoing change of economy, industry, and marketplace there are contributing factors that must be addressed to overcome un/underemployment regardless of circumstances. These include an underdeveloped network of professional contacts, deficiency in recognizing or responding to changing conditions, and a limited ability to customize one’s career around their unique specialization. The purpose of this study is to provide students who major in Visual Communications the information and tools needed to incorporate their ability to adapt and problem solve from their skillset into their search for work. To explore this issue, information was gathered through secondary research that involved data from federal databases, case studies, literature review, and secondary research in general. Return on investment for one’s education is measured in consideration of three primary themes: job satisfaction, income, and quality of life, which may provide hopeful opportunity for professionals in Visual Communications to overcome un/underemployment through career customization

Modeling the Portfolio of Capabilities for Product Variant Creation and Assessment

Choice navigation, solution space development and robust process design are the three mass customization key competences. The first and second are often mapped into product configuration or design automation systems and aim at specifying or co-designing a suitable product variant. Robust process design targets at managing a well-known but flexible supply network. As part of this, the portfolio of capabilities describes limitations to the solution space and is a valuable source of knowledge containing general design guidelines and specific manufacturing restrictions, like NC travelling distances, as well as availabilities of whole production processes. This article contributes a modeling approach that bridges solutions space development and modeling the portfolio of capabilities. Therefore, a knowledge-based engineering system is extended by a capability model of according production machines that allows to automatically check new product variants against the portfolio of capabilities and to estimate setup efforts and expenses of process changes

Improving product design phase for engineer to order (ETO) product with knowledge base engineering (KBE)

In industry currently Computer Aided Design (CAD) is an important tool for the modification, analysis, or optimization of the 3D virtual environment that replicates the physical product. CAD software is an efficient and reliable tool. However, as globalization increases customer demands, this process needs to be faster and more efficient to accommodate changing product design situations, especially for Engineer-to- Order (ETO) products. ^ The traditional method of product design process is to operate CAD software without argumentation. Design engineers create CAD prototypes and drawings based on available knowledge and information which comes from engineering experts, company standards, industrial practices as well as other sources. Research has shown that 80% of knowledge is not captured in the system. It can be time consuming for the design engineer to provide an accurate and consistent virtual product. Researchers have found that the traditional method is unreliable, inaccurate and inefficient. There is room for improvement in the product design situation for ETO products. There is a need to develop a design method that is faster and reduces costs. ^ Knowledge Base Engineering (KBE) is an alternative system that is built to capture and reuse knowledge. KBE technology is well known for reducing lead-time and design errors using automation. Through integrating KBE technology with CAD software, design engineers create virtual product configurations by applying a scripting language to the CAD model. It requires time and effort invested in a different way than traditional design method, which may cost more to develop. However it is more efficient and accurate when producing multiple configurations. ^ This research experiment is to define a better design method for the ETO product situation by comparing the traditional design method with the KBE/CAD integration method. The research question is Is the Knowledge-Based Engineering (KBE) and Computer Aided Design (CAD) integration design approach more efficient for the reduction of lead time and design error than the traditional method for Engineering-to- Order (ETO) product situations