Identifying factors that influenced perceived quality in engineering trade studies
item.page.type
Artigo de evento
Date
2013
item.page.ispartof
International Annual Conference of the American Society for Engineering Management 2013, ASEM 2013
item.page.citationsscopus
0
Authors
Componation P.J.
Morris M.D.
Salles H.
Morris M.D.
Salles H.
publication.page.advisor
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
publication.page.board
publication.page.program
Abstract
An engineering manager often makes decisions based on work done by other professionals. This raises an interesting question, "How do engineering managers assess the quality of an analysis when they have limited understanding of the specific technical domains?" To help answer this question we provided a technical trade study paper to two groups of engineers and asked to assess its quality. One group was trained on the specific trade study tool used in the paper and one group was not trained. To collect data on how they based their assessment we also provided a survey tool for them to complete that included 11 factors on quality of writing and trade study tool use. Additional questions on work experience, current position, and their familiarity with the study subject area were included. The study found that when the engineering manager did not have training in the specific trade study tool used the quality of the writing was the best predictor of the manager's assessment of its quality. When the manager did have training their assessment was based on both quality of writing and the tool use itself. Some factors, such as "How well is the problem defined" and "How well is the methodology/model used defined?" were found to be better predictors of the manager's assessment of the trade study quality. Although this study was limited to fewer than 60 participants it was interesting to see that there were only limited correlations between their assessment of the trade study quality and their work histories.
Description
Keywords
item.page.scopussubject
Engineering managers , Perceived quality , Tool use , Trade-study , Work experience