Disturbing Practices in Engineering Design Projects

Author(s):  
Fernando Abreu Gonçalves ◽  
José Figueiredo

Most references to innovation relate to the development of new products. In this chapter, the authors do not address innovation in these terms; instead, they address them as changes in practices an engineer creatively adopts during engineering design projects. They adopt Actor-Network Theory as a way to understand these change processes (translations). The authors design a perturbation index inspired in Earned Value management to measure translation effort, having in mind the management of scope. Then they assess changes of regime in resource allocation of tasks and conclude some changes can lead to innovative results. That means we gain a wider view about scope, and scope management, being able to observe and change good practices, something crucial in engineering design projects where requirements and goals drift.

Author(s):  
Fernando Abreu Gonçalves ◽  
José Figueiredo

Most references to innovation relate to the development of new products. This paper does not address innovation in these terms, but as changes in practices an engineer creatively adopts during engineering design projects. The authors adopt Actor-Network Theory as a way to understand these change processes (translations). The authors design a perturbation index inspired in Earned Value management to measure translation effort having in mind the management of scope. The paper then assesses changes of regime in resource allocation of tasks and concludes some changes that can lead to innovative results. That means a wider view about scope, and scope management is gained, being able to observe and change good practices, something crucial in engineering design projects where requirements and goals drift.


Author(s):  
Fernando Abreu Gonçalves ◽  
José Figueiredo

We can address innovation from different perspectives. In engineering practices we can look to changes resulting from attempts to discover ways of overcoming difficulties. How can we manage these innovative practices in engineering design projects? Furthering our perspective we use an actor-network way to look at change processes as chains of translations between heterogeneous actors that are enrolled in changes and where patterns of action are inscribed in durable manners. In an actor-network, the chains of inscriptions are stronger if the number of aligned actors is bigger, and this is the case of engineering projects where the cost of change builds up with time. Through the use of some stylized situations, the authors construct a Perturbation Index to obtain numeric values to assess the dynamics of innovations in engineering practices. The aim is that the application of this index to real situations could lead to meaningful descriptions of such innovation processes. Managing innovation in engineering design projects has to do with the management of project scope. The proposal extends scope management from its definition and planning phases through the control of changes along the execution.


2016 ◽  
pp. 1120-1135
Author(s):  
Fernando Abreu Gonçalves ◽  
José Figueiredo

We can address innovation from different perspectives. In engineering practices we can look to changes resulting from attempts to discover ways of overcoming difficulties. How can we manage these innovative practices in engineering design projects? Furthering our perspective we use an actor-network way to look at change processes as chains of translations between heterogeneous actors that are enrolled in changes and where patterns of action are inscribed in durable manners. In an actor-network, the chains of inscriptions are stronger if the number of aligned actors is bigger, and this is the case of engineering projects where the cost of change builds up with time. Through the use of some stylized situations, the authors construct a Perturbation Index to obtain numeric values to assess the dynamics of innovations in engineering practices. The aim is that the application of this index to real situations could lead to meaningful descriptions of such innovation processes. Managing innovation in engineering design projects has to do with the management of project scope. The proposal extends scope management from its definition and planning phases through the control of changes along the execution.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Seyed Taha Hossein Mortaji ◽  
Siamak Noori ◽  
Morteza Bagherpour

Earned value management is well-known as the most efficient method of project monitoring and control providing relatively reliable information about the project performance. However, this method requires accurate estimates of the progress of project activities, which are always associated with uncertainties that, if ignored or not addressed well, lead to incorrect results. To address this issue, the application of multi-valued logic, in particular fuzzy logic, in earned value management has recently attracted a lot of attention both in practice and research. This paper introduces directed earned value management (DEVM) in which ordered fuzzy numbers are used to express the so-called uncertainties as well as to capture more information about the trend of the project progress. To evaluate the performance of the proposed method, several numerical examples and a case study are presented. The results reveal that compared to the existing methods, DEVM has a lower computational complexity. Also, it doesn’t suffer from the overestimation effect and as a result, it has a higher ability to express project-specific dynamics. In sum, the proposed method allows project managers to make informed decisions that lead to taking preventive and corrective actions promptly and at a lower cost.


2014 ◽  
Vol 971-973 ◽  
pp. 2317-2320
Author(s):  
Xiang Jun Yu ◽  
Chao Xie ◽  
Tian Ming Huang

This paper briefly introduces the basic connotation of earned value management, determine, from the target variable management process design, system function design and system implementation four aspects that the management of defense scientific research project management system design and implementation process based on the earned value, and some reasonable countermeasures to promote the use of the system.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document