Perception of Students Towards Lecturers Teaching Engineering Courses with Industry Experience: A Case Study in Malaysia Technical University

Teaching effectively engineering lessons in class requires a good teaching skill but preparing the undergraduates especially the graduating students with employability skills is indeed a challenging task. In the context of Malaysia Technical University Network (MTUN), the graduating engineering students are expected to be good both in academics and the soft skills in particular of being ready to work as engineers. This is in line with the National Graduate Employability Blueprint 2012-2017 published by the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia. One of the approaches of getting the knowledge of being an engineer is to learn and experience it from the engineers themselves. It is an advantage for students if the lecturer is an engineer himself preferably with a long attachment in the industry. However such experiential learning is feasible if the university lecturers have exposure to industrial experience as engineers and the students have certain level of fundamental knowledge to maximize the learning process. This paper aims to study the perception of the students to the lecturers with such engineering experience towards their learning experience. The study will adopt the quantitative research methodology. A structure survey instrument will be developed to study the students’ perception on the lecturers. The targeted respondents are among the engineering students in one of the technical universities in Malaysia. The data obtained are analyzed and commented using Excel spreadsheet on the frequency and relative importance value. The results show the students do benefit from learning with the experienced lecturers in the context of preparing them for employment as engineers. The high perception also supported by the fact that the majority of the students are planning to be engineers themselves upon graduation coupled with some experiences in the industry plus good fundamentals in academics. The findings indeed support the strategy of technical universities which are highly required to hire lecturers with industrial experience

Framework of Systematic Sustainability Assessment Strategy (FSSAS) for Hydroelectric Power Industry in Malaysia

Hydroelectric power is an alternative power resource in Malaysia and always associated with negative impact on environmental, social and economy of the surrounding site. The dispute over environmental, societal and economic issues can be minimised if compliance to sustainability development requirement is included in the project as part of the project premises during planning phase. This paper suggests a framework targeted for decision-makers in charge of implementing the projects to produce hydropower the sustainable way in Malaysian context which can mitigate the risks in social, environment and economy. The framework is strategic in nature and based on project management methodology with objective to provide a 'common language' by having a project value as measureable for stakeholders to state their mutual agreement of what a sustainable hydropower project in the context of Malaysia and in line with the United Nations (UN) 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The paper discusses how the proposed systematic sustainability assessment strategy (FSSAS) framework support the call for Malaysia to promote meaningful public participation in ensuring land and natural resource decisions and to address citizens' interests which is the core idea of Environmental Democracy Index established in 2014. The paper argues that, even though it is at present impossible to define precision status of sustainability development with respect to the nature of the multi stakeholders and the lack of systematic assessment the proposed FSSAS framework can be a valuable tool because it tracks the project value as a quantitative deliverable to determine the status of the journey in sustainable development towards accomplishing the SDG under a consensus in hydropower industry of any scale over time

Framework of Sustainability Assessment (FSA) method for manufacturing industry in Malaysia

In recent years, our planet faced massive social, environmental and economic challenges. Moreover, Environmental Democracy Index (EDI) published that Malaysia has been ranked as the second worst environmental democracy among 70 countries in May 2015. This is due to lack of participation in sustainability compliance and less awareness on sustainability by Malaysia's business partners. By combating and achieving these, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) defines global priorities and inspirations through Agenda 2030 that recognize by United Nation. This paper attempts to propose Framework Sustainability Assessment (FSA) to assess sustainability for the various sector in Malaysia. This framework will give an overview to reduce the noise from wide data collection to a single element. Lastly, it will integrate the current performance with the linkage of the SDGs and the sustainability elements by dividing into three phase which is baselining, clustering and correlation. Now it is time for business to take action especially every sector or industry in Malaysia and it will improve the awareness and enhance Environmental Democracy Index to a better rank in future

Reliability information to support decision making for e-Government projects

E-government implementations in developing countries still face difficulties, leading to a large failure ratio. This paper proposed an exponential-related function adopted in an intuitionistic Fuzzy TOPSIS model for improving the understanding of failure and for building appropriate reliability knowledge to support decision making for e-government projects. The new method which is simple and straightforward have been successfully applied by virtue of numerical case studies for detecting failures, which in turn has provided information for building reliability knowledge to support decision making process. The method has been compared successfully with some similar computational approach in literature

Sustainability performance level of small medium enterprises in Pahang in the context of non-renewable energy consumption using correlation analysis

The usage of non-renewable energy in Malaysia has become a normal thing especially in the importance of electricity generation. Majority of the industry and households in Malaysia use non-renewable energy as the source of electricity generations. For that, this research aims to analyse the consumption of energy and electricity bills that is used in small-medium enterprises (SMEs) and the awareness level of sustainability in managing their businesses in Malaysia. This research is conduct around Pahang, Malaysia to analyse the awareness level of the SME owners on the percentage of the electricity used. The electricity management and the Sustainable Development Goals are reviewed through the literature survey as a reference to construct a conversion table. The normalization technique is used to reduce the bias in the data. Pearson’s and Spearman’s Correlation Analysis are used in this research to determine the correlation analysis from the finalized results

Review on CNC-rapid prototyping

This article reviewed developments of Computerized Numerical Control (CNC) technology in rapid prototyping process. Rapid prototyping (RP) can be classified into three major groups; subtractive, additive and virtual. CNC rapid prototyping is grouped under the subtractive category which involves material removal from the workpiece that is larger than the final part. Richard Wysk established the use of CNC machines for rapid prototyping using sets of 2½-D tool paths from various orientations about a rotary axis to machine parts without refixturing. Since then, there are few developments on this process mainly aimed to optimized the operation and increase the process capabilities to stand equal with common additive type of RP. These developments include the integration between machining and deposition process (hybrid RP), adoption of RP to the conventional machine and optimization of the CNC rapid prototyping process based on controlled parameters. The article ended by concluding that the CNC rapid prototyping research area has a vast space for improvement as in the conventional machining processes. Further developments and findings will enhance the usage of this method and minimize the limitation of current approach in building a prototype

The Development of Sustainability Graduate Community (SGC) as a Learning Pathway for Sustainability Education - a Framework for Engineering Programmes in Malaysia Technical Universities Network (MTUN)

Environmental and sustainability' is one of the Program Outcome (PO) designated by the Board of Engineers Malaysia (BEM) as one of the accreditation program requirement. However, to-date the implementation of sustainability elements in engineering programme in the technical universities in Malaysia is within individual faculty's curriculum plan and lack of university-level structured learning pathway, which enable all students to have access to an education in sustainability across all disciplines. Sustainability Graduate Community (SGC) is a framework designed to provide a learning pathway in the curriculum of engineering programs to inculcate sustainability education among engineering graduates. This paper aims to study the required attributes in Sustainability Graduate Community (SGC) framework to produce graduates who are not just engineers but also skilful in sustainability competencies using Global Project Management (GPM) P5 Standard for Sustainability. The development of the conceptual framework is to provide a constructive teaching and learning plan for educators and policy makers to work on together in developing the Sustainability Graduates (SG), the new kind of graduates from Malaysia Technical Universities Network (MTUN) in Malaysia who are literate in sustainability practices. The framework also support the call for developing holistic students based on Malaysian Education Blueprint (Higher Education) and address the gap between the statuses of engineering qualification to the expected competencies from industries in Malaysia in particular by achieving the SG attributes outlined in the framewor

Industrial Training Approach using GPM P5 Standard for Sustainability in Project Management: A Framework for Sustainability Competencies in the 21st Century

Malaysian Engineering Accreditation (Engineering Programme Accreditation Manual, 2007) requires all bachelor degree in engineering programmes to incorporate a minimum of two months industrial training in order for the programme to be accredited by the council. The industrial training has the objective to provide students on the insights of being an engineer at the workplace hence increasing their knowledge in employability skills prior to graduation. However the current structure of industrial training is not able to inculcate good leadership ability and prepare students with sustainability competencies needed in the era of Sustainable Development (SD). This paper aims to study project management methodology as a framework to create a training pathway in industrial training for students in engineering programs using Green Project Management (GPM) P5 standard for sustainability in project management. The framework involves students as interns, supervisors from both university and industry and also participation from NonProfit Organisation (NPO). The framework focus on the development of the student’s competency in employability skills, lean leadership and sustainability competencies using experiential learning approach. Deliverables of the framework include internship report, professional sustainability report using GPM P5 standard and competency assessment. The post-industrial phase of the framework is constructed for students to be assessed collaboratively by the university, industry and the sustainability practitioner in the country. The ability for the interns to act as a change agent in sustainability practices is measured by the competency assessment and the quality of the sustainability report. The framework support the call for developing holistic students based on Malaysian Education Blueprint (Higher Education) 2015-2025 and address the gap between the statuses of engineering qualification to the sustainability competencies in the 21st century in particular by achieving the Sustainability Graduates (SG) attributes outlined in the framework

Assessing Sustainability Framework Of Automotive-Related Industry in the Malaysia Context Based on GPM P5 Standard

Corporate sustainability starts with a company’s value system and a principled approach to doing business. This means operating in ways that, at a minimum, meet fundamental responsibilities in the areas of human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption. Over the years, national and international efforts to identify an appropriate sustainability indicator have been consistent. However, such efforts to assess sustainability with regards to the principles derived in UN Global Compact initiative are not known in the context of automotive-related industries in Malaysia. Due to that, the level of corporate sustainability awareness and development of tools to manage, monitor and improve the sustainability performance at all stages of the decision making process is yet to be explored. In this study, the Green Project Management (GPM) P5 Integration Matrix is used to understand the perception of Malaysian consumers towards companies which practice sustainability as part of their business culture. This study will provide guidelines to the R&D engineers and project managers to incorporate sustainability assessment as part of their product development phases

Development of Sustainability Assessment Framework in Hydropower sector

Nowadays, Malaysian demand in energy sector was drastically increase due to technological developments. Since, hydropower is one of potential renewable energy source in Malaysia. The largest electricity utility company, Tenaga Nasional Berhad was provide an electricity to more than seven million people via independent suppliers in peninsular Malaysia and Sabah by intended a potential sustainable hydropower system. In order to increasingly the power capacity from current use, 1882 MW to more than 3000 MW by years 2020. In this study, the environmental issues and also the penalty to the responsible company especially on Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) towards their project or business are one of the problems. Other than that, every project or business has to prepare a sustainability statement or sustainability report as vital to Bursa Malaysia Securities Berhad under their listing requirements. Next, the sustainability performance on their project cannot be determined to achieve the key performance indicators (KPI) satisfaction from Government, stakeholder or any responsible agencies. This study presents an exhaustive review of these studies and suggests a direction for future developments. Sustainability Assessment framework or self-assessment is decidedly as a significant framework to assist towards sustainability reporting and to produce a Sustainability index for Hydropower sector using a mathematical model study. The results reveal that, the quantitative measurement from Sustainability Assessment framework to Systematic Sustainability Asssesment tool can be produce. In doing so, it is possible to improve the performance of the project especially in hydropower planner