Cases on Engineering Management Education in Practice
Foreword
Engineering management is the application of the practice of management to engineering. Training for engineering management presupposes that the individual has completed an undergraduate degree specializing in one or more areas of fundamental engineering or technology innovation, such as mechanical, materials, biomedical, telecommunications, civil, mining, systems, industrial, requirements, design engineering, product or process engineering (e.g. supply chain) and has then opted to study the combined application of engineering within a management context to address complex sociotechnical systems and commensurate responses in the social-cyber-physical world. Some of these new initiatives may be greenfield implementations while others have existing infrastructure that requires engineering management, such as in brownfield implementations toward retrofitting, upgrade, or extension to mention but a few configurations.
It is not enough for an individual to be equipped with the latest technical knowledge on “how something works”. Equally, if not more important, is the ability to organize and mobilise individual componentry (i.e. assets), human factors toward administration and specialisation, design and construction and the commensurate processes required to make a project, a blueprint or architecture, a reality. Increasingly important is an understanding of non-technical issues that I like to term “human factors in engineering” that refer to those things pertaining to society and the regulatory environment. These two areas, can bring an engineering endeavor to a standstill if not considered long before the actual implementation phased approach. Right from the outset, engineering managers and engineers themselves, have to consider how to embed ethics into the design process, consider consultation with citizenry (e.g. the enactment of a new 5G base station near a School), conduct a business case, and become aware of the environmental conditions in which they are conducting business.
Failure to consider human factors in engineering can be detrimental to any project and lead to a delayed “go live” date, a product that does not achieve desired functionality, a significantly overbudget project, or at the worst case scenario an incomplete large-scale project that stalls and must go into receivership. This is why Despo Ktoridou’s edited volume incorporating invaluable perspectives from global authors in relation to engineering management education is so vital. As complexity grows in systems of all kinds, thanks to computational abilities in processing and storage and AI-based algorithms, additive manufacturing and 3D printing techniques, the adoption and application of new materials, even financial markets, we must ensure our students are ready for the complex value chains that have pervaded, the adaptive capabilities that are required in a turbulent environment that can see volatile fluctuations in the market for factors that would never before have been considered relevant.
In short, how do we impart this knowledge to our predominantly Masters level students, most of whom have had a taste of industry and are aware of some of the technical challenges facing engineering management at large? How do we emphasise cross-disciplinarity? Is it by forming unique groups to tackle large-scale case challenges through problem-based learning approaches? Is it to pose scenarios and come out with what-if events? It may even be going so far as to simulate an environment that may require the orderings of tens of thousands of smaller parts, consultation with legal experts in advising on changing laws, or otherwise.
This book stands as a wonderful contribution to coming forward in educating those who are responsible for engineering systems by emphasising the socio-technical-legal aspects as commensurately important in the curriculum as technical innovation management. It also lends educators the ability to reflect on their practice of engineering management and to try different things in their curriculum design that they may not have considered previously.
I’d like to take this opportunity to congratulate the editor and the contributing authors to this great volume.
Katina Michael
Arizona State University, USA
Katina Michael is a professor at Arizona State University, holding a joint appointment in the School for the Future of Innovation in Society and School of Computing, Informatics and Decisions Systems Engineering. She is also the director of the Society Policy Engineering Collective (SPEC) and the Founding Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Technology and Society. Katina is a senior member of the IEEE and a Public Interest Technology advocate who studies the social implications of technology. She has held 13 annual workshops in the social implications of national security space and chaired 3 international symposia on technology and society (ISTAS) in Wollongong, Toronto and Phoenix. She is the Senior Editor of the socio-economic impact section in IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine and was the editor in chief of the award-winning IEEE Technology and Society Magazine. In 2019 she took on the role of working group chair for the IEEE P2089 standard. In 2017, she received the Brian M. O'Connell SSIT Distinguished Service Award.
In the 1990s, Katina was employed as a senior network planner at Nortel Networks and systems analyst at Andersen Consulting and OTIS. In 2002 she entered academia as a lecturer at the University of Wollongong and in 2013 became a member of the executive team in the Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences as the Associate Dean – International, overseeing 8 partner and twinning arrangements for the University in the UAE, Malaysia, Singapore, China and Hong Kong. Katina completed a Masters degree in transnational crime prevention in the Faculty of Law with a UOW postgraduate scholarship in 2007, and was later invited to teach cybercrime in the law school. Her PhD was on systems of innovation in the automatic identification industry.
Despo Ktoridou is a professor at the University of Nicosia in Cyprus. She is also the Head of the Management & MIS Department of the School of Business since 2012. Despo is a Certified Engineer of the Cyprus Scientific and Technical Chamber (ETEK) and a member of IEEE and ACM Associations. In the period 1993-1999 Despo worked as a Senior Computer Engineer for various organizations in Cyprus. In 1999 she entered academia, as an Assistant Professor of Educational Technologies until 2007. In 2007, she was promoted to Associate Professor and in 2019, she was ranked as Professor. Her research focuses on the areas of ICT Integration in the Educational Practice; Technology and Innovation Management Pedagogies; and Open and Online Distance Learning Practices. She has presented and published papers, chaired Sessions, served as reviewer and member of the Program Committee for numerous refereed international conferences. She has contributed several chapters in books, served as a guest editor and reviewer and published several papers in refereed journals. She has also participated in EU and local funded programs and has been invited by foreign universities as a guest lecturer.
Professor Ktoridou completed her BSc. and MSc. of Science in Engineering, in the field of Computer Systems & Networks in the Engineering & Science Department of Saint Petersburg Electrotechnical University in Russia. Her PhD thesis title was 'Expert Systems in Education - Distance Learning Educational System for Early Childhood Education: Methods, Facilities and Means'.
Source: Katina Michael, 2020, “Foreword” in Despo Ktoridou (ed), Cases on Engineering Management Education in Practice, IGI, PA, ISBN-13: 978-1799840633, pp. xiii-xv. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1799840638/ref=tsm_1_fb_lk
Free sample, including foreword here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1799840638/ref=tsm_1_fb_lk?asin=1799840638&revisionId=&format=4&depth=1