ASEM Blog

I am pleased to announce ASEM’s newest Professional Section – China, which was approved by our Board of Directors this month. Their local team developed an impressive application and formed a renowned set of engineering managers from academia, government, and industry to serve as the founding members of their section leadership team. Formation of this new section was spearheaded by Simon Philbin, Geert Letens, Steve Wang and other members of the ASEM International Committee and leadership team who formed and developed this significant partnership. We are very excited to see how ASEM’s global reach will expand with the formation of this new section. Congratulations to the new China Section’s Honorary President Jishan He of Central South University and President Professor Hong Ren of Chongqing University!

There is lots of great information about our upcoming International Annual Conference in this month’s eNews. Details about industry tours, workshops, speakers, sponsorship information, and the newly released program schedule are now available on ASEM website along with registration and hotel information. I cannot wait to visit with all of our members who are able to join us in Huntsville.

I am sure all of our members from the United States are looking forward to the upcoming 3-day Labor Day weekend. We can feel the heat breaking slightly here in Arkansas. Our entire leadership team hopes for a safe and quick recovery to our South Central members who have been impacted by Hurricane Harvey.

(This piece was submitted for an earlier Practice Periodical and was set aside due to space constraints; my apology. ~ TSK)

Workshop Held: Thursday, Oct 27, 2016, 9:30-11:45am

Workshop Delivered by: Dr. Alice F. Squires, Washington State University (WSU)and Dr. Jim Boswell, The Aerospace Corporation

Workshop Vision and Purpose

The American Society of Engineering Management (ASEM) Systems Engineering Workshop was held in Concord, NC during the ASEM 2016 International Annual Conference on Thursday morning, October 27, 2016. The workshop addressed early phases of the systems engineering life cycle starting from identifying the right problem, deficiency, or opportunity to developing an initial system functional architecture.

The vision for this workshop was to provide a sample approach (one of many) that included a minimum subset of the initial steps needed for defining a set of system level functions in support of a desired system capability for a known and well-understood system. To relay the concepts, a system of low complexity was chosen for the example, a coffee maker, and teams were encouraged to use a commonly known and understood system of relatively low complexity that they defined, to go through the steps as the workshop progressed.

To this end, the goals and outcomes of the workshop were:

• Identify the right problem, deficiency, or opportunity

– Use the five ‘whys’ to narrow in on the root problem

• Develop a need/opportunity statement that describes the problem and can be met with the design of a system
• Identify stakeholders and their requirements

– In the voice of the customer

– Listening to both wants and needs

– To be translated (later) to the system requirements

• Identify operational scenarios

– Address how the system will work in its intended environment

– Identify the capabilities of the system

• Define the input, transformative, and output functions of the system

– Include feedback

• Develop a system context diagram

– Bounds the system within the intended operational environment

– Defines the external interfaces to external systems and users

• Develop an initial system functional architecture

The workshop balanced topic presentation with active learning through group work and team reporting. The entire report (PDF) is available here: ASEM2016SEWorkhopReport.pdf

Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport. Grand Central Publishing: New York (2016). 303 + xv pages. US$28.00 (hardcover).

Like many companies today, ExxonMobil’s new campus at The Woodlands, Texas, features an open work space without traditional offices. The theory behind open work spaces is to drive collaboration and the chance encounters that will trigger an idea that leads to the next great thing.

Unfortunately, as Cal Newport argues in his new book, “Deep Work,” such open work spaces not only fail to drive magical chance encounters but are indeed quite harmful to the productivity of workers. Newport defines “deep work” as “professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit” (pg. 3). He contrasts deep work with “shallow work,” defined as “non-cognitively demanding, logistical-style tasks, often performed while distracted” (pg. 6).

The full book review (PDF) is available here: ASEM_Book_Review-Deep_Work-TJK.pdf

Please note that there is still time to register for our last webinar in the four part webinar series on Management Practices of Learning from Errors in High Risk Industries. Details below.

August 8 - Management practices of learning from errors in high risk industries (Nicolas Dechy, Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire) - 1:00 PM EDT. Register here: https://www.asem.org/event-2568621

As part of our selection process of the annual ASEM Eschenbach Award for the Best Engineering Management Journal (EMJ) Paper, I recently reviewed all papers in the 2016 volume (28) of the EMJ. There is a great array of current EM topics covered in this issue including a special issue focused on military applications in engineering management. I know selection of this year’s best paper will be difficult for the selection committee as the quality of the papers in this issue is excellent. Thank you to our co-editors, Toni Doolen and Eileen Van Aken, for their outstanding leadership of EMJ. The 2017 Volume 29, Issue 2 is now available at Taylor and Francis online.

We are terribly saddened by the death of one of our past leaders of ASEM. Joette Sonnenberg made significant contributions to the engineering management field and to ASEM as a Society. She will be missed by all who knew her. 

As I reviewed this month’s eNews, I was struck by ASEM’s tagline, Serving Engineering Managers Worldwide. I am very proud of ASEM and how we have expanded our global reach while continuing to preserve our EM community. No matter how much we expand, I continue to interact with and grow from my interactions with EM pioneers, practitioners, and students. I believe it is the diversity of our membership that bring a unique professional opportunity to our members. ASEM is an organization of practitioners and academics, diverse technical skills, many generations, and wide array of cultural backgrounds. All of the makings of a great team. ASEM strives to bring value to all of its members. If you would like to get more involved with ASEM or have ideas on how we can increase value to our members, please let me or any other members of the ASEM leadership team know.

By Paul Kauffmann

A delegation from ASEM recently visited China as part of our ongoing collaboration efforts with the Division of Engineering Management of the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE). The CAE is a highly-regarded organization and is roughly equivalent to the National Academy of Engineering in the US.  Details on the meetings and the various initiatives will be provided in the next E-news. The purpose of this article is to provide one global perspective (in this case, China) on engineering management and the scope of areas generally considered under our EM umbrella. This question is an important one for the society since we are currently working on the next editions of the Engineering Management Body of Knowledge (EMBOK) and the Engineering Management Handbook. It is critical that these revisions reflect the global views and implementations of our profession. 

Photo credit: Simon Philbin

The meetings with the CAE were held in the context of an international conference covering several critical topics: Engineering Science and Technology Development Strategy- Clean Energy Technology and Engineering Management.”  Along with the CAE, the other co-sponsor was the Shenua Group. If you Google this firm you will see it is the largest integrated coal and mining organization in the world with 210,000 employees. So what is the first “take away” from this basic information? Considering that the CAE has a Division of Engineering Management and the Shenhua Group (a major industrial presence in China) supports a major conference (attended by three Nobel laureates) with engineering management as a focus, a logical conclusion is that the importance of EM is well recognized and has a high profile in China.  

The second take away is based on a sample size of n=1 (this conference) and involves the question of what China considers to be engineering management. We have this good-natured debate within the society. Some of our members are “people and team” oriented, some are “systems” oriented, and still others might be “quantitative methods” oriented (e.g. risk, decision science, etc.). I was curious if there was a particular spin at this conference. Based on the papers/ presentations, one could make the argument that this group sees EM covering these key areas:

• Innovation: Several presentations and papers addressed the concept of EM and innovation driving clean energy technology.
• Technology Strategy: EM was seen as having an important role in driving the move to cleaner technologies by influencing corporate and government policy. 
• Major Construction Project Management: Several presentations addressed this critical issue in the continually evolving Chinese economy. Driving through Beijing, it is clear that the construction and major project boom is continuing. 
• EM Represents Diverse Technical Fields: It was obvious from the representation and tracks of the conference that disciplines such as the sciences and information technology are considered a part of the “E” in engineering management.

This conference appears to be an indicator that the China perspective of EM is doing well and is big picture oriented: innovation, strategy, project management, and broad science related disciplines. We look forward to growing our collaboration and involvement in China. Globally, it is critical the society stay abreast of these evolving views and we particularly need our practicing professionals from all countries and parts of the world to get involved and provide input to the next editions of the EMBOK and Handbook.  Please contact me or Hiral Shah if you want to become involved.

Registration for our 2017 ASEM International Annual Conference is open! I realize as I look forward to our conference each year that it feels like a family reunion where I get to catch up with old friends and meet new colleagues who are also passionate about EM. I hope to see each of you there. Huntsville is a great town, especially for engineers! Our IAC committee has planned an excellent technical program coupled with lots of opportunities to enjoy yourself with fellow EMs.

Our ASEM Delegation to China received a warm welcome from the Chinese Academy of Engineering. I love the photo below of our Executive Director Paul Kaufmann and Associate Executive Director Dave Wyrick on stage discussing the importance of EM towards building clean energy sourcing around the world. What a distinguished panel! More details about our partnership will be published in our upcoming issue of the Practice Periodical.

Please take the time to nominate your fellow ASEM members for a 2017 ASEM award. Nominations are due June 30, 2017 and are summarized below. As summer approaches, I hope you are able to relax and rejuvenate as we work to make the world a better place through EM practice.

ASEM’s tagline is Serving Engineering Managers Worldwide.  I have been a member of ASEM  for almost 20 years and it has been exciting to watch our Society’s global research expand tremendously over the past two decades.  Just a quick glance at the membership of ASEM’s International Committee is clear evidence of this as our committee includes members from Belgium, Brazil, China, Denmark, Great Britain, South Africa, Spain, and the United States.  This committee under the leadership of International Director Simon Philbin has increased ASEM’s service to our global members through formation of new international ASEM sections, support of more expansive, online professional certification, focused international activities at our annual conference, and international engineering management conference planning efforts.  Just last year our international student membership increased 210%!  Our Society has made great strides in creating an inclusive global professional network for all of our members, and I look forward to seeing where our reach expands in the coming years.

Please consider nominating your peers and colleagues for a 2017 ASEM award.  Each year ASEM recognizes our members, chapters, sections, and community leaders who have made significant contributions to the engineering management practice and to ASEM itself.  Nominations are due June 30, 2017, and are summarized below and detailed on our website.

President's Note

We received a record number of abstract submissions in response to our International Annual Conference call for presentations, tutorials, workshops, and panels. I hope you are making plans to join us in Huntsville, October 18-21, 2017. The conference program is shaping up to provide interesting and value adding content for industry and academic engineering managers worldwide. Our conference committee is planning dynamics keynote speakers, interactive panel sessions, professional development workshops and several networking events.

I am pleased to announce a new ASEM Student Chapter at Northeastern University. According to their chapter advisor Dr. Mohammad Dehghani, their Master of Science in Engineering Management offers graduate students an opportunity to develop both technical expertise and business competence that is in high demand among prospective technology-based employers. The new chapter will focus on helping develop student skills outside of coursework by participating in professional development activities with their peers, alumni, employers, and the ASEM network. The chapter will be led by President Neel Dalal. New ASEM student chapters are always welcome. Inquires can be sent to Bill Schell at StudentMembership@asem.org.

This month the ASEM executive committee and board of directors held our semi-annual meetings in Huntsville, AL at our conference venue. Celebrating engineering success is prevalent throughout the city, and Huntsville will be a great place to hold our annual conference in the fall. The conference team is building an outstanding program featuring engineering leaders in accordance with the engineering management and systems engineering conference theme.

During our meeting, the board of directors approved a new strategic plan for ASEM which includes a new set of society objectives and metrics that work towards our mission to advance and disseminate the engineering management body of knowledge, develop engineering solutions to management challenges, and promote professional development and networking among members. You can see the new plan here .

Other meeting discussions focused on professional certification online delivery and best practices, building new domestic and international collaborations with society, industry, and academic partners, and annual conference planning. The underlying theme throughout the meetings was bringing value to our ASEM membership.

Heather Nachtmann, Ph.D.

2016-2017 ASEM President