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The emerging global economy and global competition is having a significant impact on the management of businesses around the world. Customer satisfaction is essential. Quality of products and services and their reliability over time play a major role in satisfying the customer. A change in the mindset of organizations is required to meet these challenges. The focus of reliability efforts must shift from prediction to continuous improvement. Process oriented thinking along with the concept of the internal customer must permeate the entire organization. Mechanisms like a reliability operating process must be in place to capture lessons learned from prior failures and prevent their recurrence. Reliability disciplines - not reliability engineers - need to be deployed throughout the organization. An environment must be created which empowers self managed teams to apply these disciplines throughout the product planning, design, development, manufacturing, assembly and service processes.

Most manufacturers who supply the airlines with airplanes, engines or related systems, have organized programs to track the reliability of their products. The manufacturer is very interested in the service history of his product when service deficiencies are reported. He needs failure related information in order to determine what action to take. This paper describes the importance of failure data and describes the process which follows after the existence of a service deficiency is recognized.

Management of an effective automotive safety engineering program is recognized in General Motors as being a corporate staff function. This permits early recognition of needs and the orderly development of both short- and long-range goals and coordination of the steps necessary to attain them. Essential to a well-directed program are methods of measurement to permit evaluations of new design concepts which require the availability of adequate technical and physical facilities. Methods of measurement of the real-life situations of highway traffic are essential so that the urgency or priority of specific objectives can be determined realistically and continuously, and so that the effectiveness of design improvements can be evaluated objectively.

The activities developed by the Society of Engineers of Mobility (SAE) are important sources of knowledge and technological updating for the industry and for the academic environment. Through annual student events, the association has become a present and active icon for the market, which generates and disseminates knowledge for Brazilian and international mobility professionals. Thus, the article presents, in a didactic and complete way, a reference model for the Mini-Baja Development Process (MBDP), structured and systematized, for conducting and professionally managing the process to the participating teams. Thus, the model provides students, teachers, and members of the business sector a support to reflect on the difficulties and contextualization's encountered throughout the management of the team in the prototype off-road.

One of the many advantages perpetually claimed for the external combustion Stirling engine over it's internal combustion (IC) contemporaries is that it produces lower exhaust pollutants. However, this claim was made before carbon dioxide (CO2) was identified as one of the most important contributors to the undesirable greenhouse effect. Unfortunately, the more efficient combustion of a Stirling system results in proportionately more CO2 being produced than with an equivalent IC engine. Therefore, if the Stirling is to maintain it's position as an environmentally friendly engine, then some efficient means of removing the exhaust CO2 must be found. Of the many techniques available for removing this gas, the cryo-process appears to be well suited for use with the Stirling. However, a rudimentary analysis, presented in this paper, of such a system has indicated that the performance penalties imposed by making provision for CO2 removal would probably be unacceptable.

An automated Data Acquisition System (DAS) for managing and controlling an aerobic biodegradation process of solid biomass has been developed. The system employs a personal computer equipped with a data acquisition card and a visual basic software (LabVIEW). The DAS was integrated with the physical / chemical hardware (a bioreactor with its auxiliary equipment) through the necessary sensing devices. These sensing devices include in-line electrical-conductivity (EC), pH, and temperature probes. A flow sensor was inserted in the circulating sampling line to ensure that the in-line manifold does not contain air bubbles or clogged with fine particles. A gas analyzer was used to sample off-gases from the bioreactor to measure and record the change in the CO2 and O2 levels. The data acquisition system is capable of controlling the pH level inside the bioreactor by activating acid or base metering pumps.

This paper presents the results of a survey on the practices, problems, performance and trends in the product development process (PDP) management of the Brazilian autoparts industry. Last decade, this industry underwent a broad process of restructuring following the deregulation of Brazilian economy. In general, there is: a wide dissemination of PDP reference models, but they are partly implemented; application of methods and tools to problem solving, but they are poor integrated; use of development teams to carried out the tasks; integration with automakers; and, there is a lack of PDP performance measurement.

Along with the many benefits of 3-D CAD systems there are also problems. One problem is that multiple uses of a part require redundant work to keep layouts current. Multiple uses result from using the same part in different assemblies or the same assembly in different configurations. Existing CAD products offer solutions which do not address issues like version control adequately. A set of computer programs has been developed to reduce this redundant work. They allow the engineer or designer to change component geometry in one CAD model and have that change reflected in all usages of the part while maintaining version control.

As well as the major gases (O2, CO2, N2, CO) the submarine atmosphere contains trace concentrations of a large number of organic contaminants that arise from a variety of sources. Although air purification devices embarked for this purpose remove these contaminants, an equilibrium steady state is reached during the dived period and the men breathe this cocktail of trace contaminants throughout the patrol duration. These residual atmospheric contaminants must be monitored to ensure that the ambient concentrations are maintained ‘as low as reasonably practicable’ (ALARP) and that any variations from the norm are recorded and suitable corrective action taken. Real-time monitors are embarked to record ambient concentrations of the critical gases, and also trends in organic contaminants. Adsorption tubes are provided to take regular air samples for retrospective analysis at a shore based laboratory.

Requirements analysis for aircraft simulators is often driven by photographs and videos of the actual aircraft. An engineer may gather and organize hundreds or even thousands of source photos of various instruments and devices unique to the aircraft. Managing all of this source information and referencing it to generate software requirements can be challenging and time-consuming. This paper explores Content Based Image Retrieval (CBIR) techniques to automatically process and search those images to generate basic requirements and to facilitate reuse. An unsupervised clustering algorithm groups source images based on minimal user input. Images processed in this way can also be queried by image similarity, thereby allowing project managers to find common source material among projects. The effectiveness of these techniques is demonstrated on an example cockpit.

Many of the tasks associated with approach chart use are cognitive (e.g., planning and monitoring). Therefore, design efforts associated with the presentation of approach information should consider the cognitive demands. Since traditional information requirement analyses do not explicitly address cognitive demands, a new methodology was developed for this purpose. The study described in this paper combined psychometric scaling techniques with a simulation task to provide quantifiable links between pilots' cognitive categorization and prioritization models (two salient cognitive processes) of approach information and their use of it. The results showed that pilots mentally organize approach chart information into ten categories, and that these ten categories underlie many of the pilots' cognitive processes.

The number of vehicles in world has been steadily increasing over the years. Asia Pacific is blessed to have the fastest growth rate in the world, with China experiencing over 20% vehicle production growth in the recent and coming years. As India jumps on this explosive bandwagon which could see growth rates higher than China, there is a need to understand the environmental and cost aspects arising from the vast increase of automobiles. The need to protect the environment, combined with the limited resource of oil, has led to the need for more fuel-efficient vehicles with intelligent engine and transmission control systems. This paper/presentation will look into the tough emissions regulations, lower CO2 requirement, different fuels and their efficiency, alternative fuel and the infrastructure to support such a paradigm shift, cost to achieve the desired, and GEMS-K1 (Gasoline Engine Management System - Kit 1) as a solution to meet some of the issues mentioned.

The 1978 model year marks a turning point in the introduction of electronic controls in automobiles. Although most of the existing functions are performed with analog circuitry, microprocessors are beginning to come into their own. Their ability to respond to the challenge rests largely on communications. Establishment of standards for timing, inter-connection and protocol are a necessary but not sufficient condition for the orderly development of compatible support products employing different technologies. This paper discusses some techniques for avoiding communication bottlenecks and introduces the concept of semi-smart peripherals. Cited examples include spark control, A - D conversion and display control.

What we are given at birth, our genetic heritage, we have no choice but to accept. What we strive to be is within our conscious control and this determines both our character and the nature and direction of our development. This paper identifies and offers suggestions for meeting two of the greatest challenges in any program of self-improvement: establishing priorities, and mapping out a plan.

Cooperative Product Development is the principal mechanism for supporting Concurrent Engineering. In large organizations, cooperative product development is expected to take place with the involvement of teams of geographically separated product developers working in a distributed and heterogeneous computer environment. Communication, cooperation, and coordination are essential for cooperative product development by members of a product development team virtually co-located over a network. The coordination framework in a computer-based cooperative product development environment is responsible for communicating work, securing focus, and ensuring progress towards a goal. A necessary function of the coordination framework, provided by a Constraint Management System, is the ability to capture and manage the constraints in the product development process. The development of a prototype Constraint Management System is discussed in this paper.

In the last few years, we have seen a tremendous increase in the rise in product complexity due to advances in technology and aircraft system functionality enhancement. The Model-based Design (MBD) process has helped manage the complexity of these systems while making product development faster by bringing more effective tools and methods to the entire process. Developing software using MBD has required extensive, sophisticated tool-chains that allow for efficient rapid controls prototyping, automatic code generation, and advanced validation and verification techniques using model-in-the-loop (MIL), software-in-the-loop (SIL), and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) for both component testing and integration testing. However, the MBD process leads to generation of large volumes of data artifacts and work-products throughout the V-Cycle.

This paper sketches a model based E/E-architecture analysis and design process for the development of distributed in-vehicle systems. Together with a model based system development, the sketched analysis and design process results in a cost-effective E/E-architecture which fulfills all the requirements for the developed in-vehicle system. As an example scenario, the integration of a new feature into a car, which requires integrating a new distributed function into the existing E/E-architecture of the car, is shown.

Management of engineering for profit is examined from the establishment of company objectives in the advanced planning stage through the planning and control of major programs. Five major areas are discussed: advanced program planning, managing small projects, developing the engineering processes leading to integrated major program plans, controlling the engineering effort, and managing the engineering rates. These five areas range from highly creative concepts to detailed control techniques. Approaches which have proven useful for reducing costs and maximizing profits are outlined. The delineation of authorities, responsibilities, and accountabilities is made where applicable. Actual examples from existing projects are included. The management techniques which are described are considered generally applicable to any large aerospace company where the major target is the capture and efficient execution of large complex programs.

As the percentage of work performed by Contract Labor Teams increases nationally, the necessity to understand how to manage this group increases for both the users and those contemplating their services. Insight into the motivation of the participants can be utilized to define a strategy that maximizes value obtainable from the Contract Labor Team.