Student Team Formation, Management, and Collaboration in PACE Global SUT Project

Mohammad Kamal Hossain; Stacy Benjamin; Kwanju Kim; Manuel Löwer; Pradosh K. Ray

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Conference: 2013 ASEE International Forum
Location: Atlanta, Georgia
Publication Date: June 22, 2013
Start Date: June 22, 2013
End Date: June 22, 2013
Conference Session: Track 3 - Session II - Faculty Development
Tagged Topic: Faculty Development
Page Count: 19
Page Numbers: 21.61.1 - 21.61.19
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--17266
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/17266
Download Count: 420

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Mohammad Kamal Hossain Tuskegee University

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Mohammad Kamal Hossain is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Tuskegee University. He received his Ph.D., M.S., and B. Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (USA), Tuskegee University (USA), and Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Bangladesh), respectively. His specialization is in the areas of materials and design. He has been involved with the capstone design program at Tuskegee University for the last five years.

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Stacy Benjamin Northwestern University

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Stacy Benjamin is the Director of the Segal Design Certificate program at Northwestern University. Prior to joining Northwestern, she worked for nine years at IDEO, in the Boston and Chicago offices, where she led projects across a broad range of industries including medical, business, industrial, and consumer goods. She received her M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from UCLA and a B.S in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Rochester. Benjamin’s expertise is in user-centered engineering design, innovation strategies, and project management.

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Kwanju Kim Hongik University

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Kwanju Kim is a professor in the Department of Mechanical and System Design Engineering at Hongik University in Korea. He received his Ph. D.and M. S. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University (USA), and B. S. in Mechanical Engineering from Seoul National University (Korea). His specialization is in the areas of noise and vibration. He has been involved with the capstone design program at Hongik University for the last five years.

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Manuel Löwer RWTH Aachen University

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Dr.-Ing. Manuel Löwer is Executive Manager of the Chair and Institute for Engineering Design (ikt) at RWTH Aachen University. He received his Dr.-Ing. and Dipl.-Ing. degree in the field of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and automotive engineering at RWTH Aachen University (Germany). Since 2005 he is affiliated with the ikt and holds teaching positions in “Collaborative Engineering”, “Principles and Processes of Lightweight Design” and “Structural and Systematic Engineering Design”. His research group focusses on PLM and Systematic Innovation.

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Pradosh K. Ray Tuskegee University

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Pradosh Ray is Professor and Head of Mechanical Engineering Department at Tuskegee University, Alabama. He earned his BS in Mechanical Engineering at IIT, Kharagpur and his MS and PhD in Nuclear Engineering at London and Penn State, respectively. He has four years industry experience and thirty seven years in academia. His current interests are in course, curriculum, and laboratory development.

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Abstract

Title: Student Team Formation, Management, and Collaboration in PACE Global SUT Project AbstractA sustainable urban transport (SUT) would go a long way in solving the global issues associatedwith transportation of the future. The GM Corporation and several major partners have set up aconsortium called PACE (the Partners for the Advancement of Collaborative EngineeringEducation) to involve students from several countries to educate and inspire them on thenecessities of global collaboration and to foster awareness of current social and economicpressures related to urban transportation. In this article, we describe the activities of the PACEGlobal Team #2 on the 2010-2012 SUT Global Project whose goal was to develop and design asuitable SUT. Industrial Design, Engineering, and Manufacturing students from six universitiesin four countries worked closely together and designed a production ready SUT to address thetransportation challenges. The biggest challenge lies in forming a team across various timezones at the beginning of a project. However, we became quite successful due to hard work bythe faculty and students involved in this project.We managed our large team (5 faculty and 34 undergraduate students) smoothly using theSMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely) methodology of George T.Doran to evaluate our strategic plans and project milestones. The PACE Program provided abroad outline for the SUT project at the beginning of the project. Each team was charged todefine the specifications for their own project that is compatible to the global guidelines set bythe PACE Program. We defined a clear concept of the goal of the SUT specifying “Muchsmaller, Most suitable, Most completion” functional objectives after extensive market andbackground information research. We divided our team into 8 groups conprised of 4-5 membershaving at least one industrial design and one manufacturing student in each group. Every 2months each group exchanged results. From these the feedback was provided to everyoneinvolved in the project. We set a deadline for each task to make smooth progress in the projectcontinuously. We had gone through 3 processes: Hypothesis-Analysis-Feedback for every task incommon for more verified results. To accomplish a substantial SUT, 6 elements (Innovativefeatures, Performance, Safety, Market, Plant, Cost) were required. We divided sub-phases fromthese elements. We elected a group leader for each group to attain the goal. Each leadercommunicated with his/her faculty member, and had responsibility to his/her group’s progress.Through team conferences we adjusted the possible scope of project every 2 months by takinginto account problems faced by students. Thus, we have developed a clear principle and systemthroughout our project duration and experienced an efficient process of management andcollaboration.We communicated with 5 channels including Adobe web conference, social networking system(SNS), e-mail, cloud computing, and Google web document. We arranged regular meetings andcommunicate steadily by using these channels to share ideas and development in the project.Thus, each group made uniform progress in the project.

Citation
Format

Hossain, M. K., & Benjamin, S., & Kim, K., & Löwer, M., & Ray, P. K. (2013, June), Student Team Formation, Management, and Collaboration in PACE Global SUT Project Paper presented at 2013 ASEE International Forum, Atlanta, Georgia. 10.18260/1-2--17266

TY - CPAPER
AB - Title: Student Team Formation, Management, and Collaboration in PACE Global SUT Project AbstractA sustainable urban transport (SUT) would go a long way in solving the global issues associatedwith transportation of the future. The GM Corporation and several major partners have set up aconsortium called PACE (the Partners for the Advancement of Collaborative EngineeringEducation) to involve students from several countries to educate and inspire them on thenecessities of global collaboration and to foster awareness of current social and economicpressures related to urban transportation. In this article, we describe the activities of the PACEGlobal Team #2 on the 2010-2012 SUT Global Project whose goal was to develop and design asuitable SUT. Industrial Design, Engineering, and Manufacturing students from six universitiesin four countries worked closely together and designed a production ready SUT to address thetransportation challenges. The biggest challenge lies in forming a team across various timezones at the beginning of a project. However, we became quite successful due to hard work bythe faculty and students involved in this project.We managed our large team (5 faculty and 34 undergraduate students) smoothly using theSMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely) methodology of George T.Doran to evaluate our strategic plans and project milestones. The PACE Program provided abroad outline for the SUT project at the beginning of the project. Each team was charged todefine the specifications for their own project that is compatible to the global guidelines set bythe PACE Program. We defined a clear concept of the goal of the SUT specifying “Muchsmaller, Most suitable, Most completion” functional objectives after extensive market andbackground information research. We divided our team into 8 groups conprised of 4-5 membershaving at least one industrial design and one manufacturing student in each group. Every 2months each group exchanged results. From these the feedback was provided to everyoneinvolved in the project. We set a deadline for each task to make smooth progress in the projectcontinuously. We had gone through 3 processes: Hypothesis-Analysis-Feedback for every task incommon for more verified results. To accomplish a substantial SUT, 6 elements (Innovativefeatures, Performance, Safety, Market, Plant, Cost) were required. We divided sub-phases fromthese elements. We elected a group leader for each group to attain the goal. Each leadercommunicated with his/her faculty member, and had responsibility to his/her group’s progress.Through team conferences we adjusted the possible scope of project every 2 months by takinginto account problems faced by students. Thus, we have developed a clear principle and systemthroughout our project duration and experienced an efficient process of management andcollaboration.We communicated with 5 channels including Adobe web conference, social networking system(SNS), e-mail, cloud computing, and Google web document. We arranged regular meetings andcommunicate steadily by using these channels to share ideas and development in the project.Thus, each group made uniform progress in the project.
AU - Mohammad Kamal Hossain
AU - Stacy Benjamin
AU - Kwanju Kim
AU - Manuel Löwer
AU - Pradosh K. Ray
CY - Atlanta, Georgia
DA - 2013/06/22
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Student Team Formation, Management, and Collaboration in PACE Global SUT Project
UR - https://peer.asee.org/17266
DO - 10.18260/1-2--17266
ER -