Transportation for a New Era -- Growing More Sustainable Communities

Outlines policy recommendations to create a national vision recognizing the links between land use, infrastructure, and sustainable communities; support metropolitan areas; foster more compact development; and invest effectively in transportation

Streamlining the Decision-Making Process on Tubular Rigid Busbar Selection During the Planning / Designing Stage by Utilizing 3D Substation BIM Design Software

For Utilities, each substation is regarded as an asset. Managing of assets is one of domains of Asset Management including Life Cycle Costing (LCC) as a decision-making criterion. However, LCC as a decision-making criterion should be applied on an entire substation taking into account all of the potential cost influences for the purpose of achieving of an effective substation management. Asset management as a decision-making process should be observed within a larger context and should be more focused on risk management, as all real decisions include an element of risk due to present uncertainties. Two promising avenues are explored in regards to more comprehensive and rigorous up-front planning through usage of Information Technology (IT). While up-front planning falls under the domain of Lean philosophy, Building Information Modeling (BIM) falls under the category of agile decisionsupport tools. Utilization of both is explored from a perspective of design-uncertainties under both product and process design. Standard specifications and standard designs are another form of applied Lean Philosophy that reduces design-uncertainty and variability. However, a range of technical solutions stemming out of the standardization can be quite wide. Customization involves specification and design of new / innovative designs with wide range of technical solutions as well. Due to external pressures focused on shortening of the project delivery time, there is a need for a faster project time throughput. This is reflected in the form of a requirement for more rapid engineering decision-making and faster decision cycles. Streamlining of a decision-making process related to the engineering is all about engineers’ awareness of the situation from the project level perspective coupled with utilization of decision-support tools for creation and reuse of knowledge. Plan – Do – Study – Orient (PDSO) cycle is a decisionmaking model that supports creation and reusability of knowledge along with providing an explanation in regards to the time dimension relating to decision-making, and as such is presented in this paper. The rigid busbar system design is an iterative process influenced by many factors, defined either as design variables or design constraints. As rigid busbars are gaining more popularity for both greenfield and brownfield investments, the rigid busbar system design is explored from a perspective of decision-making streamlining. The case of the rigid busbar system design of El Chaparral project in El Salvador is given

Developing a comprehensive framework for multimodal feature extraction

Feature extraction is a critical component of many applied data science workflows. In recent years, rapid advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning have led to an explosion of feature extraction tools and services that allow data scientists to cheaply and effectively annotate their data along a vast array of dimensions---ranging from detecting faces in images to analyzing the sentiment expressed in coherent text. Unfortunately, the proliferation of powerful feature extraction services has been mirrored by a corresponding expansion in the number of distinct interfaces to feature extraction services. In a world where nearly every new service has its own API, documentation, and/or client library, data scientists who need to combine diverse features obtained from multiple sources are often forced to write and maintain ever more elaborate feature extraction pipelines. To address this challenge, we introduce a new open-source framework for comprehensive multimodal feature extraction. Pliers is an open-source Python package that supports standardized annotation of diverse data types (video, images, audio, and text), and is expressly with both ease-of-use and extensibility in mind. Users can apply a wide range of pre-existing feature extraction tools to their data in just a few lines of Python code, and can also easily add their own custom extractors by writing modular classes. A graph-based API enables rapid development of complex feature extraction pipelines that output results in a single, standardized format. We describe the package's architecture, detail its major advantages over previous feature extraction toolboxes, and use a sample application to a large functional MRI dataset to illustrate how pliers can significantly reduce the time and effort required to construct sophisticated feature extraction workflows while increasing code clarity and maintainability

Orbit transfer rocket engine technology program. Phase 2: Advanced engine study

In Phase 2 of the Advanced Engine Study, the Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) maintenance-driven engine design, preliminary maintenance plan, and concept for space operable disconnects generated in Phase 1 were further developed. Based on the results of the vehicle contractors Orbit Transfer Vehicle (OTV) Concept Definition and System Analysis Phase A studies, minor revisions to the engine design were made. Additional refinements in the engine design were identified through further engine concept studies. These included an updated engine balance incorporating experimental heat transfer data from the Enhanced Heat Load Thrust Chamber Study and a Rao optimum nozzle contour. The preliminary maintenance plan of Phase 1 was further developed through additional studies. These included a compilation of critical component lives and life limiters and a review of the Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) operations and maintenance manual in order to begin outlining the overall maintenance procedures for the Orbit Transfer Vehicle Engine and identifying technology requirements for streamlining space-based operations. Phase 2 efforts also provided further definition to the advanced fluid coupling devices including the selection and preliminary design of a preferred concept and a preliminary test plan for its further development

Principles in Patterns (PiP) : Evaluation of Impact on Business Processes

The innovation and development work conducted under the auspices of the Principles in Patterns (PiP) project is intended to explore and develop new technology-supported approaches to curriculum design, approval and review. An integral component of this innovation is the use of business process analysis and process change techniques - and their instantiation within the C-CAP system (Class and Course Approval Pilot) - in order to improve the efficacy of curriculum approval processes. Improvements to approval process responsiveness and overall process efficacy can assist institutions in better reviewing or updating curriculum designs to enhance pedagogy. Such improvements also assume a greater significance in a globalised HE environment, in which institutions must adapt or create curricula quickly in order to better reflect rapidly changing academic contexts, as well as better responding to the demands of employment marketplaces and the expectations of professional bodies. This is increasingly an issue for disciplines within the sciences and engineering, where new skills or knowledge need to be rapidly embedded in curricula as a response to emerging technological or environmental developments. All of the aforementioned must also be achieved while simultaneously maintaining high standards of academic quality, thus adding a further layer of complexity to the way in which HE institutions engage in "responsive curriculum design" and approval. This strand of the PiP evaluation therefore entails an analysis of the business process techniques used by PiP, their efficacy, and the impact of process changes on the curriculum approval process, as instantiated by C-CAP. More generally the evaluation is a contribution towards a wider understanding of technology-supported process improvement initiatives within curriculum approval and their potential to render such processes more transparent, efficient and effective. Partly owing to limitations in the data required to facilitate comparative analyses, this evaluation adopts a mixed approach, making use of qualitative and quantitative methods as well as theoretical techniques. These approaches combined enable a comparative evaluation of the curriculum approval process under the "new state" (i.e. using C-CAP) and under the "previous state". This report summarises the methodology used to enable comparative evaluation and presents an analysis and discussion of the results. As the report will explain, the impact of C-CAP and its ability to support improvements in process and document management has resulted in the resolution of numerous process failings. C-CAP has also demonstrated potential for improvements in approval process cycle time, process reliability, process visibility, process automation, process parallelism and a reduction in transition delays within the approval process, thus contributing to considerable process efficiencies; although it is acknowledged that enhancements and redesign may be required to take advantage of C-CAP's potential. Other aspects pertaining to C-CAP's impact on process change, improvements to document management and the curation of curriculum designs will also be discussed

Designing the Future of Banking: Lessons Learned from the Trenches

This case study in retail banking reviews the work of a Wharton School research team which has been tracking the process of change at one of the larger American commercial banks. The bank is referred to by the pseudonym "National Bank." The team's research focuses on how a bank chooses what changes to make and how to implement changes as new technologies, increasing competition, and more demanding customers force it to rethink product offerings and distribution channel design. In the case of "National," these forces resulted in a massive re-engineering effort designed to restructure the branch delivery system. The goal of the redesign was to streamline branch processes and relocate many administrative tasks and routine servicing of accounts to centralized locations. The physical layout of branches was changed so customers would be encouraged to use ATMs and call centers rather than consult with branch employees. Branch employees' efforts were to be directed toward sales rather than service and information systems and call centers were expanded. As pilot experiments developed and the project matured, the bank's initial focus on changes in physical layout of branches, information systems, and design of key business processes gave way to focus on changes in key jobs in the branch systems, human resource practices that supported these jobs, and on employees' reactions to the changes. As these changes were implemented, several problems arose and were addressed. First, rural branches in the early pilots felt that the new changes were inappropriate for their market, leading to a decision to abandon the original model of standardization across the entire system. Second, implementation of new technology proved a slower process than had been expected. Third, branch employees often found it difficult to successfully refocus on sales rather than service. Fourth, some customers were unhappy with changes that routed all their calls to a centralized location rather than to the their local branch. Finally, it was difficult to implement the human resource practices necessary to support the new organization. New position levels changed employee expectations of moving up in the hierarchy and caused some internal dissatisfaction and confusion. Employees feared layoffs. In dealing with these problems, a second pilot redesign was tested in urban and suburban markets, incorporating a number of process modifications to address these issues. New challenges have arisen, including introducing the changes to branches that have been acquired recently through mergers and acquisitions and introducing standardized innovations within a decentralized management system. These and a range of human resource issues continue to be addressed by the team. Despite the many challenges to implementing an effective new delivery paradigm at National, a number of the early pilots have demonstrated success in moving routine transactions to more official channels, while achieving the goals of increased sales and customer satisfaction. As a result of their ongoing analysis of National's redesign process, the authors have identified six key factors for success: Have a good phone center in place early and believe in it as a critical component of retail service delivery; Acknowledge the importance of human resource issues; Not only acknowledge but address the human resource issues early and clearly; Clarify employees' roles and develop new skills when needed; Not all employees need the same kinds of commitment; Be ready and willing to adapt your model, but be confident to resist attempts to maintain the status quo for the wrong reasons.

Multiple Personalities: the Case of Business Process Reengineering

BPR can be deconstructed into four different identities. In the first place it is a product of the management fad industry. In the second place it is part of a neo-Taylorist movement because of the following characteristics: a top-down streamlining of operations, unproblematic acceptance of typical Taylorist solutions and the prevalence of assertions that the outcome for workers is an upgraded work content. In the third place BPR is a euphemism for downsizing. Downsizing is much more at the core of BPR than some of its proponents would have it. Finally, BPR functions as a non-normative, descriptive label for process oriented change. The paper seeks to show how the different identities of BPR interact and get into one another’s way