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1. Supply Chain Strategies in Virtually Distributed Supply Chain Project Teams During and Post-COVID-19

   https://doi.org/10.20545/isctj.v06.i11.01  

   Jones, Erick; J.L, Goldston (November 2020, International Supply Chain Technology Journal)

   Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of employees transitioned into virtually distributed supply chain project team environments for the first time in their careers due to shelter-in-place and social distancing mandates that impacted industries around the world. With project managers implementing processes and procedures remotely to employees fielding calls from home while caring for children, the world entered into an unprecedented time and an unknown unknown. As the pandemic required organizations to implement agile practices, project managers within various industries had to adjust operational processes, while at the same time had to ensure project team needs were addressed. In an effort to mitigate the risk of transitioning back to conventional management approaches, a qualitative survey method was performed in this study to understand supply chain project team member experiences during this transition period. The results of the survey uncovered that the creation of a supply chain uncertainty management plan, demonstrating the benefits of virtual supply chain project teams, and the continuous integration of collaborative technology tools may contribute positive outcomes from the COVID-19 pandemic. 

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2. Implementing Professional Skills Training in STEM: A Review of the Literature

   Gansemer-Topf, Ann; Li, Qing; Jiang, Shan; Okudan-Kremer, Gul; Reuel, Nigel; Mort, Rebecca. (October 2020, ASEE North Midwest Section Annual Conference 2020)

   Background: Project management and other professional skill training is often lacking in graduate student education, typically as a result of limited resources, lack of faculty buy-in, and narrow focus on thesis research. To address this need and with support from NSF, we are developing the Graduates for Advancing Professional Skills (GAPS) program at Iowa State University. To aid the initial development of this program, we conducted a literature review to understand the current context of the development and implementation of professional skills in higher education curricula, with specific interest in STEM fields. Purpose: The purpose of our study was to identify best practices related to implementing professional development skills into an academic curriculum. The goal was to utilize this information in the development, planning, implementation, and assessment of our GAPS program. Design: We engaged in a systematic literature review. We focused on the curricular and pedagogical approaches to implementing these skills, results of the initiatives, and methodologies used to assess their effectiveness. Results: Our literature review uncovered the “messiness” of teaching and learning of skills such as project management. There is often not one approach or definition of project management – it may change based on scope of project and context. Successful implementation requires adaptability, mentorship, problem solving, creativity, and communication. Additionally, project management has been referred to as a “threshold concept” and requires a certain level of intuition that cannot necessarily be gained through traditional classroom education. Conclusions: There appears to be an agreement on the importance of implementing project management skills at the postsecondary level. Our work illustrates the difficulty associated with undertaking this endeavor and provides guidance on approaches that can make these initiatives more beneficial. Although this literature was conducted to aid in the planning for our specific project, the synthesis of the extant works can inform other faculty and industry leaders who are interested in teaching and applying project management techniques in their courses or companies. 

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3. Work in Progress: Novel Ethnographic Approaches for Investigating Engineering Practice

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--35672  

   Jesiek, Brent; Johri, Aditya; Brozina, Cory; Korte, Russell (June 2020, 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference)

   null (Ed.)

   This work-in-progress paper reports on the early phases of an exploratory research project involving use of innovative approaches to collecting, analyzing, and archiving empirical data related to engineering practice. More specifically, our project takes an ethnographic approach to studying technical teams at multiple field sites representing multiple industry sectors using novel methods such as agile ethnography, trace ethnography, and network ethnography. In contrast to traditional ethnographic studies that may involve long periods of participant observation, these new approaches often involve less intensive fieldwork, and are instead designed around more targeted research questions and other sources of evidence (e.g., social network data, documentary traces in digital systems). These methods are new and evolving, and therefore have scarcely been used to study engineering practice. Thus, one major goal of the paper is to introduce the proposed methods to the engineering education research community. In doing so, we explore the potential for these methods to generate research findings more rapidly and with a greater focus on specific problems and questions of interest to both industry and researchers. Such methods have gained traction in workplace settings precisely due to such advantages, especially in software engineering and related fields where work is already very digital and distributed in character. A second major goal of this paper is to give a brief progress report on the early stages of our study, including the initial groundwork carried out to gain access to, and begin collecting data at, multiple field sites. We expect this paper will appeal to scholars who study engineering practice, and those who are interested in contemporary innovations in ethnographic and other qualitative research methods. 

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4. A Framework of Dynamic Data Driven Digital Twin for Complex Engineering Products: the Example of Aircraft Engine Health Management

   https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.promfg.2021.10.020  

   Zhenhua Wu, Jianzhi Li (November 2021, Procedia manufacturing)

   Digital twin is a vital enabling technology for smart manufacturing in the era of Industry 4.0. Digital twin effectively replicates its physical asset enabling easy visualization, smart decision-making and cognitive capability in the system. In this paper, a framework of dynamic data driven digital twin for complex engineering products was proposed. To illustrate the proposed framework, an example of health management on aircraft engines was studied. This framework models the digital twin by extracting information from the various sensors and Industry Internet of Things (IIoT) monitoring the remaining useful life (RUL) of an engine in both cyber and physical domains. Then, with sensor measurements selected from linear degradation models, a long short-term memory (LSTM) neural network is proposed to dynamically update the digital twin, which can estimate the most up-to-date RUL of the physical aircraft engine. Through comparison with other machine learning algorithms, including similarity based linear regression and feed forward neural network, on RUL modelling, this LSTM based dynamical data driven digital twin provides a promising tool to accurately replicate the health status of aircraft engines. This digital twin based RUL technique can also be extended for health management and remote operation of manufacturing systems. 

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5. Perceptions and the extent of Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) use – An industry survey

   https://doi.org/10.1109/SysCon53536.2022.9773894  

   Akundi, Aditya; Ankobiah, Wilma; Mondragon, Oscar; Luna, Sergio (April 2022, 2022 IEEE International Systems Conference (SysCon))

   Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) supports the development of complex systems through capturing, communicating, and managing system specifications with an emphasis on the use of modeling languages, tools, and methods. It is a well-known fact that varying levels of effort are required to implement MBSE in industries based on the complexity of the systems a given industry is associated with. This paper shares the results of a survey to industry professionals from Defense, Aerospace, Automotive, Consultancy, Software, and IT industry clusters. The research goal is to understand the current state of perception on what MBSE is and the use of MBSE among different industry clusters. The survey analysis includes a comparison of how MBSE is defined, advantages on the use of MBSE, project types, specific life cycle stage when MBSE is applied, and adoption challenges, as reported by the survey participants. The researchers also aim to trigger discussions in the MBSE community for identifying strategies to address MBSE related challenges tailored to a specific industry type. 

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