Towards Inclusive Excellence: A Case Study in Engineering

<div class="htmlview paragraph">The case study approach, as an educational tool, has achieved widespread use in a variety of disciplines. The case method affords several advantages over conventional and traditional lecture methods of education, but the degree of effectiveness of the case study approach varies considerably between different disciplines. Therefore, an interdisciplinary comparison of case study techniques may be of some value in improving the case study methods used in engineering studies.</div> <div class="htmlview paragraph">The most notable applications of case methods include the areas of business and management decision making, medicine, the social sciences, and engineering. The Harvard School of Business has established the pattern for business case studies. Much of today's accepted medical practice is based on “case studies.” Many significant sociological and psychological findings are based on case studies, while engineering case studies can be applied to achieve a wide variety of objectives including creativity in design, technical feasibility, etc. The analysis of the case study historically applied in each discipline reveals certain characteristics which seem to be unique to each area of case study application. Interdisciplinary comparison also reveals basic differences in case study techniques. Some of these differences lie in the nature of the discipline itself, while some are based upon extraneous causes which are completely unrelated to the area of study.</div> <div class="htmlview paragraph">On the basis of the interdisciplinary analysis and comparison, certain conclusions may be drawn regarding the effectiveness of the engineering case study. The evidence seems to indicate that there is far more potential for improvement in the engineering case study than in the other areas considered. The basic recommendation resulting from the comparison of case study methods is that engineering educators incorporate more case studies into their courses. Engineering educators should also integrate into their case studies as many as possible of the characteristics of successfully proven case study techniques used in other disciplines.</div>

Without careful methodological guidance, case studies in software engineering are difficult to plan, design and execute. While there are a number of broad guidelines for case study research, there are none that specifically address the needs of a software engineer undertaking multiple case studies in an industrial setting. Through a synthesis of existing best practices in case study research, we provide a set of comprehensive guidelines for conducting multiple case studies in software engineering research. Our guidelines can assist software engineering researchers with all stages of multiple case study research, although in this paper we concentrate on the early phases, such as focusing the case study and detailed plan design. To date, three exploratory research projects found our guidelines very useful. We illustrate our guidelines with examples from one of these projects.

Building information modeling (BIM) involves the use of collaborative digital mock-ups of an asset to streamline design, building, and operation processes. Collaborative work and the use of an integrated digital mock-up offers many advantages but raises several problems regarding the liability of stakeholders in construction projects. Practitioners involved in the design process of a building (engineers and architects) practice very high-liability professions for which the use of a digital mock-up implies potentially high stakes. Although liability issues have been identified in the literature as a hindrance to BIM implementation, practitioners’ concerns toward their liability have only barely been investigated. In this paper, we propose to explore engineers’ concerns about their liability toward using BIM collaborative digital mock-ups with a case study in civil engineering. We documented these concerns through an exploratory study consisting of semi-structured interviews. The main contribution of the paper is therefore an organized list of concerns. These include: the alignment between their way of working and professional rules, the clarity of the assignment of liabilities, and the reliability of the digital mock-up. These stem from a liability risk that practitioners perceive because of uncertainty about liability allocation and uncertainty regarding the reliability of digital mock-ups. Our research work is part of an overall effort to understand the problems faced by practitioners when implementing new practices associated with BIM and to provide solutions. The results are therefore extensively discussed in order to identify hypotheses and avenues of work to address the identified concerns. The specific context (engineers, in Quebec) and the exploratory nature of the study implies that the results are not generalizable to a wider population. However, the identified concerns may be likely to emerge in similar context like high-liability professions involved in design stages of BIM projects. This paper is a very first step toward identifying these concerns in the construction sector and must be subject to future work.

The Virtual Assembly Technology Consortium is a university/government/industry consortium that seeks to investigate the application of virtual assembly methods in mechanical system assembly processes. In this paper we report three categories of engineering case studies that have been developed by the consortium members over the past two years, describe the overall methodology, and then proceed to feature specific details of two key case studies. An engineering case study has been defined as an account of an engineering activity, event or problem containing some of the background and complexities actually encountered by an engineer, with the objective of providing a medium for learning. The objective of the case studies was to assist consortium members in demonstrating and validating the use of immersive virtual assembly technologies and tools in the simulation of factory floor manufacturing processes. What is of special significance is that instead of modeling simplified problems or perceived representative situations, the case studies were constructed from actual assembly floor projects and situations encountered at industry member sites and with considerable participation from industry engineers and manufacturing shop floor personnel. Based on the success of the case studies, the consortium members inferred that virtual assembly methods are poised to move out of the realm of special projects and test scenarios to deployment in the actual design and manufacturing cycle. However, in order to be truly accepted in industry, there are still issues to be addressed in terms of ease of use, portability of the applications, and preparation of the models for the evaluations. Thus, the case studies added a new dimension to the exploration and understanding of how this new technology could be of practical value in industry.

This study examines how humanist and visionary leadership contributes to inclusive excellence at Universitas Muhammadiyah Sumatera Utara (UMSU), Indonesia, by identifying leadership values that drive institutional transformation. Employing a qualitative case study design, the research involved 32 participants and utilized in-depth interviews, observations, and document analysis to explore how leadership practices shape inclusive policies and institutional culture. The findings identify four core leadership values: (1) a proactive mindset that anticipates institutional and stakeholder needs; (2) high-spirited engagement demonstrated through sustained support for inclusive initiatives; (3) visionary leadership manifested in measurable long-term programs and strategic expert recruitment; and (4) humanist approaches that mitigate resistance to change and enhance empathy-based decision-making. This study makes an original contribution by proposing an empirically grounded model of inclusive leadership within the context of Indonesian higher education, a setting that remains underrepresented in global scholarship. The findings demonstrate how values-driven leadership can transform conventional academic environments into disability-inclusive ecosystems, even under conditions of limited resources. The proposed framework offers practical implications for inclusive policy formulation, leadership development, and multi-stakeholder collaboration in higher education institutions. Keywords: Inclusive Excellence; Higher Education Leadership; Visionary Leadership; Humanist Leadership; Inclusive Policy; Disability Inclusion.

This chapter presents several examples of practical applications of the ranking aggregation problem in the field of Engineering, mainly in the context of design, development, and evaluation of the quality/reliability of products, services, and manufacturing processes.These examples prove (1) the diffusion of the ranking aggregation problem within the Engineering field and (2) the great flexibility/adaptability of the aggregation techniques previously shown in this book (e.g., BC, EYA, and ZMII) to the most varied practical contexts.

This paper summarizes a two-part curriculum reform that is well underway in the University of Michigan Engineering Department. The first part of the reform was developed by a college-wide task force, and addressed the overall structure of the thi r teen Bachelor's of Science in Engineering (BSE) programs across the College, and the courses that are common to all of the engineering curricula. The second part of the reform was developed inside the Engineering department, and addressed the portion of the curriculum unique to Aerospace, as well as how the department chose to implement the recommendations of the college-wide effort. The primary elements of the reform are: • The adoption of a four-credit per course/four course per semester/eight semesters to graduation (4 X 4 X 8) model. • One engineering course each semester of the freshman year — the first an introduction to engineering; the second an introduction to computers and computing. • Enhanced flexibility for students to tailor their senior years to address specific career goals. • The implementation of implicit curricula!' threads (i.e. coverage of topics via coordinated portions of courses throughout the four-year program, as opposed to coverage in a separate course). — wr i t t en , oral and visual technical communications; — engineering problem solving through computing; — engineering ethics; — teamwork and team leadership; — randomness and uncertainty; — environmental impacts and issues. • Increased use of teamwork in courses: five of the ten required courses inside the department are to be based on team projects and team grades. • A two-semester seminar sequence, covering current topics in aerospace and case studies in engineering. • A two-semester design sequence. Development of the outlines and supporting materials, including educational software modules, for new and modified courses is now underway. First-year s tudents entering in Fall 1997, the graduating class of 2001, will go through the new curriculum. ' A n onl ine version of this paper can be accessed on the Department home page [1] Aerospace Engineer ing Department ''Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs ' ' V i s i t i n g Faculty Member, Supported by the Boeing Fellow-on-Campus Program 1 The College-Wide Curriculum 2000 Effort 1.

Introducing Generative AI in Higher Education: Two Case Studies in Engineering and Humanities Disciplines

The purpose of this paper is to document the experience of introducing and delivering enterprise education into vocational disciplines at Heriot-Watt University, with a key objective being to provide a model that other institutions may find useful. It describes the various and important reasons for the inclusion of enterprise in these disciplines, not least of which are the requirements of professional vocational institutes, brought about by changes in the economic infrastructure nationally and globally. Essentially, to maintain competitiveness within existing and emerging vocational industries, enterprise is increasingly regarded as an essential element of the professional. This paper documents how enterprise education has been 'embedded' within core vocational degrees, and uses the case study of the various Engineering disciplines taught at Heriot-Watt University to illustrate how this has been achieved. This paper details the effective incorporation of enterprise via both horizontal and vertical integration with core vocational subject material. This integration is argued in the paper to best prepare the vocational graduate for the realities of a career in his/her future profession within the current economic circumstances.

Aircraft conceptual design traditionally utilizes simplified analysis methods and empirical equations to establish the basic layout of new aircraft. Applying optimization methods to aircraft conceptual design may yield solutions that are found to violate constraints when more sophisticated analysis methods are introduced. The designer's confidence that proposed conceptual designs will meet their performance target is limited when conventional optimization approaches are utilized. Therefore, there is a need for an optimization approach that takes into account the uncertainties that arise when traditional analysis methods are used in aircraft conceptual design optimization. This research introduces a new aircraft conceptual design optimization approach that utilizes the concept of Reliability Based Design Optimization (RBDO). RyeMDO, a framework for multi-objective, multi-disciplinary RBDO was developed for this purpose. The performance and effectiveness of the RBDO-MDO approaches implemented in RyeMDO were evaluated to identify the most promising approaches for aircraft conceptual design optimization. Additionally, an approach for quantifying the errors introduced by approximate analysis methods was developed. The approach leverages available historical data to quantify the uncertainties introduced by approximate analysis methods in two engineering case studies: the conceptual design optimization of an aircraft wing box structure and the conceptual design optimization of a commercial aircraft. The case studies were solved with several of the most promising RBDO-MDO integrated approaches. The proposed approach yields more conservative solutions and estimates the risk associated with each solution, enabling designers to reduce the likelihood that conceptual aircraft designs will fail to meet objectives later in the design process.

Prognostics aims at determining whether a failure of an engineered system (e.g., a nuclear power plant) is impending and estimating the remaining useful life (RUL) before the failure occurs. The traditional data-driven prognostic approach involves the following three steps: (Step 1) construct multiple candidate algorithms using a training data set; (Step 2) evaluate their respective performance using a testing data set; and (Step 3) select the one with the best performance while discarding all the others. There are three main challenges in the traditional data-driven prognostic approach: (i) lack of robustness in the selected standalone algorithm; (ii) waste of the resources for constructing the algorithms that are discarded; and (iii) demand for the testing data in addition to the training data. To address these challenges, this paper proposes an ensemble approach for data-driven prognostics. This approach combines multiple member algorithms with a weighted-sum formulation where the weights are estimated by using one of the three weighting schemes, namely the accuracy-based weighting, diversity-based weighting and optimization-based weighting. In order to estimate the prediction error required by the accuracy- and optimization-based weighting schemes, we propose the use of the k-fold cross validation (CV) as a robust error estimator. The performance of the proposed ensemble approach is verified with three engineering case studies. It can be seen from all the case studies that the ensemble approach achieves better accuracy in RUL predictions compared to any sole algorithm when the member algorithms with good diversity show comparable prediction accuracy.

Season’s greetings from the editorial team – Case Studies in Chemical and Environmental Engineering

This is a case study on the concurrent engineering experience of Boeing 777. A new generation of aircraft was designed, developed and inducted in a record time. A variety of new technological and organisational enablers have been used to reduce costs and cycle time: horizontal coordination, clever and innovative use of existing and new designs and technologies, digital product definition, systems integration, and working together teams that included customer airlines and suppliers. Top management provided the necessary support.

A lot of African countries are underdeveloped owing to the lack of good education. In most African countries the poor economic health is responsible for the lack of proper infrastructure in the education sector. Therefore, the need for alternative means to educate the future generation arises. In Engineering a lot of laboratory work and apparatus are required, whereas only a few Universities can afford this. In Electrical Engineering for instance,” electrical machines” is a very vital topic that requires a lot of laboratory work. The analysis of induction machines is very expensive to experiment on in the lab, and this machine is the most widely used in the industry. This educational gap means that graduates are underequipped and unable to perform optimally in the industry without rigorous training exercise. This study investigates the use of a virtual laboratory (LabVIEW) to model and analyse induction motors with the aim of achieving results that closely conform to the standard characteristics of induction motors. The results obtained confirm that the use of virtual laboratories should be encouraged where finance is a problem as accurate results were obtained from the study.

It has been argued that gender segregation may be declining or, at least, that more complex and subtle forms of gender segregation are now discernible as women acquire the necessary educational credentials to enter previously male-dominated professional occupations. Drawing on a case study of engineering and science, it will be seen that the `gendered' nature of subject choices in the educational system accounts for the persistence of gender segregation in the technical professions. Moreover, despite the introduction of equal opportunity legislation, the small number of women acquiring technical degrees still face discrimination from hostile managers in the recruitment process, and childcare and domestic responsibilities continue to block their occupational mobility within organisations where uninterrupted linear careers are the norm. The `liberal feminist' strategy of acquiring the necessary `human capital' to undermine social closure, in other words, has not substantially reduced horizontal and vertical gender segregation in technical professions historically almost exclusively dominated by men.