Design in the New Millennium Advanced Engineering Environments: Phase 2 (2000) / Chapter Skim
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Overcoming Barriers
Overcoming Barriers
Pages 29-45
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From page 29... ...
Overcoming cultural inertia in the engineering enterprise and inciting a revolution in design, business, and educational methodologies will be difficult. Currently, however, many organizations either ignore AEEs altogether or have delegated internal responsibility for AEEs to technology researchers and developers who do not have the authority or resources to influence the overall organization.
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From page 30... ...
However, without interoperability, innovation is slowed and advances in tools may be counterproductive. Overcoming the tool and data interoperability barrier in the next 15 years will require major research into software composability and interoperability, as well as significant cultural and educational changes.
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From page 31... ...
The new, federally funded Information Technology Research Initiative (which grew out of the proposed research initiative, Information Technology for the Twenty-First Century) will create opportunities for information technology research related to AEEs that would be compatible with the Internet of the future.
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From page 32... ...
Department of Defense FIGURE 4-2 Fiscal year 2000 funding for the Information Technology Research Initiative. Source: NCO, 1999.
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From page 33... ...
In fact, data mining is now the focus of at least one journal, Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery (Kluwer, 2000) and international conferences (e.g., the Sixth International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining; for additional information, see ACM, 2000~.
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From page 34... ...
Data transmission rates for user interfaces and throughput limits on the total system for the current Internet impede the exchange of large amounts of data or detailed images. However, industry and government are investing billions of dollars in high-capacity data transmission technologies and systems, and transmission rates will increase greatly in the next few years.
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From page 35... ...
Potential barriers associated with organizational culture and human behavior include the following: resistance to change because of fear of the unknown, aversion to risk, and hesitancy to criticize past practices or those who established and maintained them organizational cultures that impede innovation and participatory design through excessive oversight and the lack of effective reward systems differences in how individuals work efficiently · disruptions caused by new technologies that do not work as expected discipline-specific jargon that impedes communication or leads to miscommunication difficulties associated with creating and maintaining collaboration within teams and across an organization or group of organizations simulator sickness,2 information overload, and other shortcomings of human-machine interface technologies, which are not maturing fast enough to counteract the effects of increasing complexity in projects, processes, tools, and systems difficulties in applying lessons learned from other organizations or projects to the task at hand Overcoming these barriers will require social and behavioral changes because of (1) the increasing scale and scope of collaborative activities within and across institutions, (2)
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From page 36... ...
· Institute participatory design. · Establish a culture of innovation.
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From page 37... ...
Thus, even though AEEs may reduce cycle time and improve productivity, they are unlikely to be perceived by workers as a step forward unless they also improve the workplace atmosphere, for example, by reducing stress and time pressures and helping to build social relationships. Therefore, new research is needed to address the psychological and temporal dimensions of engineering design work in synchronous and asynchronous distributed collaborative activities.
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From page 38... ...
The Industry, University, and Government Roundtable for Enhancing Engineering Education is exploring options for reforming the educational process so that engineering graduates can meet the challenges of future business environments and professional standards. The roundtable is also concerned with improving knowledge management, enhancing the engineering profession, and improving continuing education (IUGREEE, 2000~.
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From page 39... ...
. 1ng grap llCS · limited time and resources for faculty to develop interdisciplinary programs4 the view by government and industry that academia is a minor player in implementing AEEs in the engineering enterprise a lack of proven methods for preparing students and working engineers for the new work structures and processes that AEEs will enable 4This barrier is especially acute because rapid advances in AEE technologies require that courses be constantly updated.
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From page 40... ...
Air Force in the follow~ng ways: DESIGN IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM reducing the use of aircraft, which are expensive to operate and are reaching end of life faster than they are being replaced eliminating unrealistic restraints, such as minimum altitudes, that are imposed on real-world training because of safety concerns reducing costs increasing training opportunities · reducing air crew deployments for trainings AEEs will be used to create increasingly sophisticated training environments that combine real and virtual environments for individual and group training locally and in distributed training environments. In fact, the Air Force has already used transportable simulators to conduct distributed mission training exercises with pilots at several remote sites.
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From page 41... ...
This section describes economic considerations and management solutions for implementing AEEs, particularly with regard to start-up costs, uncertainties, and metrics. Economic Consiclerations Some commercial organizations are turning to AEE technologies to reduce costs and cycle times, increase customer satisfaction, and improve competitiveness.
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From page 42... ...
The economic uncertainties and concerns of some AEE pioneers can be summarized as follows: poor near-term returns, although economic returns have been much better in the long term as technologies mature and expertise in their use grows high cost uncertainties associated with overcoming cultural barriers, gaining acceptance across the enterprise, and maintaining AEE systems in a rapidly evolving technological environment lack of experience with nontraditional cost-time curves for new product development and acquisition difficulty in separating the impact of AEEs from other efforts to lower costs, reduce cycle time, etc. DESIGN IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM uncertainty about the amount and timing of returns on investment, financially and in terms of improved quality, customer satisfaction, or mission effectiveness, for different products and processes difficulty of certifying that AEE simulations can reliably replace physical validation tests, especially for complex new projects and one-of-a-kind missions difficulty of identifying and analyzing low-frequency events that may be caused by cost-saving modifications to existing products and processes6 Metrics Uncertainties about the costs and benefits of using AEEs will persist until a set of metrics is available to quantify improvements.
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From page 43... ...
These changes will produce a more capable information technology workforce and improve the interoperability of tools used by prime manufacturers and their suppliers. AEE technologies will also improve data transmission among users of tools created by different organizations, increase information security, and lower cultural barriers.
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From page 44... ...
Briefing by Steve Goldberg, Army Research Institute, to the Committee on Advanced Engineering Environments, RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, California, August 18, 1999. Gordon, Daniel.
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From page 45... ...
2000. vBNS home page.
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