Products from Purdue Systems Collaboratory Faculty
First-year undergraduate students’ economic decision outcomes in engineering design
Authors: Karabiyik, Tugba; Magana, Alejandra J.; Newell, Brittany A.
Year of publication: 2022
Economic decisions are a crucial part of the engineering design process as designers aim to minimize the cost and maximize the system’s benefits. This study focuses on first-year undergraduate students’ economic decision-making process when they trade off costs and benefits during a design challenge. In addition, we characterized students’ patterns of outcomes derived from economic decisions using the cost-benefit analysis (CBA) method during the design process. Our results suggest that students took different approaches, such as being conservative, moderately conservative, moderate, and aggressive when they tradeoff their design goals. Implications of this study relate to (a) the characterization of different approaches for trading-off design goals and (b) the use of the cost-benefit analysis method as a tool to assess students’ final designs to decide which alternative design is better. In addition, students can use the CBA method to make informed decisions while designing to optimize their design solutions.
Loss-Driven SE and ASELCM Pattern for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles
Presenters: Robert C. Kenley and Ibukun Phillips
On January 29th 2022, Robert C. Kenley of the PSC and Ibukun Phillips gave a talk at the Annual International Workshop of the International Council of Systems Engineering at Torrance, CA.
Using the Viable System Model to Focus on the Human Aspects of Problems
Presenters: Robert C. Kenley and Robert Clark Stevens
In July 2019, Robert C. Kenley of the PSC and Robert Clark Stevens gave a talk at the 29th Annual International Symposium of the International Council of Systems Engineering at Orlando, FL.