Steven R. Harper

Incorporating Environmental Impacts in Strategic Redesign of an Engineered System

Large engineered systems do not often live out their life cycles as originally planned. Traditional design methods do not address redesign issues that arise during long term operation of these systems. The problem of how to consider the environmental impacts of stranded assets is especially problematic, particularly during system operational changes. This paper presents a method for analysis of a dynamically changing system that includes consideration of both economic and environmental impacts. A case study of an electrical power system illustrates the approach. Using a 100 yr time period and using several decision rules (e.g., keep all plants operating until planned retirement age or retire all plants 10% early), the aggregated results were derived. The best sequence of decision or decision rule can now be determined by the highest multiattribute utility score. The best decision sequence is one that immediately retires and decommissions all fossil fueled electrical power plants, although early retirement without immediate decommissioning produces inferior utility values. There is little gained in utility when extending operational life of the plants, and as the 100 yr period moves forward, all solutions collapse on the final system configuration. The results provide several insights that were gained through the ability to forecast the environmental impact caused by changes within the life cycle phases of a system, such as early retirement or operational life extension of facilities.

The interactive influences of conflict, task interdependence and cooperation on perceptions of virtualness in co-located teams

Purpose – This paper aims to explore the interactive influence of conflict, task interdependence and cooperation on individual perceptions of team virtualness levels. The study attempts to provide additional insight regarding how or why virtual structures might develop in teams with co-located team members. Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected from 355 upper-level business students assigned to the same team in four class integrated business courses. Moderated hierarchical regression was utilized in examining the moderating role of cooperation with conflict and task interdependence in predicting virtualness. Findings – Cooperation positively moderates the relationships between relationship conflict and perceived virtualness and between perceived task interdependence and perceived virtualness. In addition, conditional support exists for a cooperation and process conflict interaction in predicting virtualness. Originality/value – Many teams are mandated to be virtual either by management directi...

The effects of dynamic residential load participation : penetration levels for operational impact on reliability

Building an electrical load system that uses prioritised loads has been suggested as a means of approaching the overloading of the aging electrical infrastructure and thus increasing system reliability. In this paradigm, local controls would shut off electrical loads when overload conditions are being approached in the electrical power system. An unresolved question is how these systems might be configured and whether the deployment of residential load control will make a difference. This paper provides answers to both of these questions by suggesting several methods of deploying residential load control and determining the level of participation needed for each to make a difference in overall system reliability. The approach suggested was shown to improve the reliability of electrical power delivery even under very modest levels of participation. Under emergency conditions with 10% of load available for control, there is a factor of ten improvement in electrical power system reliability.

Electric Power Network Decision Effects

Electric power networks pose design decision complexities characteristic of other large engineered systems. A great number of decisions must be made by many decision-makers, some decisions are made in a sequential manner over very long time periods, objectives compete, a large number of feasible solutions exist, and one decision-makers actions can impact others, whose reactions in turn can affect the original decision-maker. This article addresses these issues, with a focus on the problem of determining when and how to consider decisions as an individual decision-maker vs. as part of a networked system. An electric power network analysis is presented, where local plant managers must decide when to replace existing power generation equipment (coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear, and hydropower) with an equivalent number of 12-megawatt natural gas–fueled microturbine generators. Competing objectives include cost, reliability, and environmental impact.

A study on conflicts during an interdisciplinary capstone design experience

When teams are formed there is often conflict that arises. However, not all conflict is detrimental to the final deliverables of the team. Conversely, extreme presence of conflict or the wrong type of conflict is counterproductive. We studied two types of new teams. One type of new team was composed solely of students majoring in engineering, while the second type was composed of students majoring in engineering and students majoring in management. Models were fit with a superset of variables to determine the causes of task, relational, and process conflict. Our overarching goal is to understand the factors which each of the student groups perceive to cause conflict such that we can tailor our instruction toward helping the two different groups to work together as a successful project team. Among the findings are that the variables influencing the types of conflict between the two types of students are distinct.

Stranded Environmental Impacts and Electrical Power System Redesign

Large engineered systems do not often live out their lifecycles as originally planned. Traditional design methods do not address redesign issues that arise during the operation of these systems. The problem of how to consider the environmental impacts of stranded assets is especially problematic. This paper presents a method for analysis of a dynamically changing system that includes consideration of both economic and environmental impacts. A case study of an electrical power system illustrates the approach. The results provide several insights that were gained through the ability to forecast the environmental impact caused by lifecycle changes of a system, such as early retirement or operational life extension of facilities.Copyright

Comparing the Perspectives of Engineering Students, Business Students, and Faculty Advisors Toward Successful Planning of Capstone Projects

One of the common goals in engineering design education is to provide real-world experiences that mimic the design experiences a student might encounter once graduated. An approach we use in the School of Engineering (SOE) at James Madison University (JMU) is a multidisciplinary pairing of business students from the College of Business and engineering students from the School of Engineering. Engineering and business students are positioned to learn from each other, and to collaborate together as they develop a feasible project plan for a two-year engineering project. In this paper, we present a study investigating the differing perceptions between faculty advisors, engineering students, and business students related to the successful capstone plan development. We hypothesized that each of the different functional groups (business students, engineering students, and faculty advisors) would have different view points on the planning and status of the infant capstone projects. The results indicate that, in the areas of planning and scheduling, the advisors are grouped with the engineering students, and in the areas of directing and controlling, the advisors are grouped with the business students. The time horizon of the students guides how they view unresolved problems with the planning and status of the project. This led to the business students, who were on the project for only one semester, to stand apart in their pessimistic assessment of the planning and scheduling of the project. The engineering students, who are on the project for the full two years, tended to be more optimistic about the directing and controlling aspects of the project.© 2012 ASME