Conference Session

Engineering Economy -- The Introductory Course

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Joseph Hartman, University of Florida

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Economy

AC 2008-267: DOES CLASS SIZE MATTER? REFLECTIONS ON TEACHINGENGINEERING ECONOMY TO SMALL AND LARGE CLASSESJoseph Hartman, University of Florida Joseph Hartman received his PhD in Industrial and Systems Engineering from Georgia Tech in 1996. He has served as Director of the Engineering Economy Division of ASEE and is currently Editor of The Engineering Economist. Page 13.449.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2008 Does Class Size Matter? Reflections on Teaching Engineering Economy to Small and Large ClassesAbstractHaving recently transitioned from a small, private university

Conference Session

Applications of Engineering Economy

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

John Robertson, Arizona State University; Michael Kozicki, Arizona State University; Slobodan Petrovic, Arizona State University

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Economy

capability of a technology is usuallyeasier to define in terms of the products it can deliver so many parameters have product-related metrics.Most development work on the assessment tool has been applied to nano-electronicfunctions. The consumer market gives a good demonstration of how products movethrough their life cycle in a year or less showing the familiar bell-shaped revenue curve.However, the underlying components and technologies can last for many productgenerations. They show the classical S-curve but there is an additional feature that makesprediction difficult. As one technology matures, it is replaced by a more advancedversion. Thus there are many generations of maturity for the same basic technology.This is reflected in different

Conference Session

Engineering Economy -- Outside the Introductory Course

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

William Peterson, Arizona State University

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Economy

of this paper was asked toreview for IIE Transactions on Operations Engineering a few years ago. The book is anexcellent presentation of cost estimating principles however its treatment of engineeringeconomy is problematic in several regards.One fault which the author of this paper has is with the depreciation section which does not seemto use the current MACRS but the older ACRS. While the text does suggest that interestedreaders go to the relevant IRS documents, it seems that even a hypothetical example in a text soclosely related to engineering economics would reflect current practice. This seems problematic.Additionally, in the chapter on engineering economy it presents return on investment first. ROI ispresented without the strongest of

Conference Session

Applications of Engineering Economy

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Donald Merino, Stevens Institute of Technology; Jakob Carnemark, SKANSKA

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Economy

ofthe analysis or be an independent attribute. These are real differences which reflect actualindustry practice.However, this insight reveals two problems in engineering economics education. The first is thatATA is not part of the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam (see reference7 page 551) and thesecond is that CEA and MAA are generally not taught in undergraduate engineering economicscourses.A trend in engineering economics education is to teach undergraduates Fundamentals. A reviewof typical fundamental engineering economic texts7 and widely used engineering texts6 indicatesthat topics like Cost Effectiveness Analysis (CEA) and Multi-Attribute Analysis (MAA) are notincluded. Also not included are realistic examples or cases which