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AbstractThis study presents a structural equation model for understanding the determinants of front-line supervisor effectiveness in engineering team-based organizations. The study uses partial least squares to evaluate and quantify the interrelationships between the front-line supervisor effectiveness determinants. Nine hypotheses are proposed and tested using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The results show that the organizational context has a direct and positive influence on skill variety, which in turn, has a direct and positive influence on front-line supervisor effectiveness. Similarly, adaptive performance has a direct and positive influence on front-line supervisor effectiveness. The study provides useful insights for refocusing front-line supervisors’ development initiatives, improving front-line effectiveness, and selecting candidates for front-line supervisor roles in engineering team-based organizations.

Increasing the persistence of engineering transfer students can help meet the US national priority of increasing the number of engineering graduates. Many transfer students experience a decrease in their grade point average (GPA) at their receiving institution, known as transfer shock, which can lead to them leaving the institution. This GPA decrease is found to be more prevalent in engineering transfer students. The purpose of this study is to analyze a single institutional dataset to determine when transfer shock occurs, how it differs among engineering transfer student subgroups, and if transfer shock is a predictor of graduation within 4 years in engineering. A 10‐year dataset with 789 engineering transfer students was used in this study, and the engineering transfer students were split into four subgroups. Multiple statistical analyses were conducted, including Welch's F‐test, chi‐square, and logistic regression, to understand differences in transfer shock during the first three terms of enrollment as well as 4‐year graduation rates among each subgroup. Transfer shock extends through the first three post‐transfer terms, resulting in transfer norming. The engineering transfer student subgroups experience different levels of transfer norming; however, the subgroups were not predictors of graduation. The predictors were the transfer GPA and the transfer norming in the first three post‐transfer terms of enrollment. Engineering transfer students are not a homogeneous population; there are key differences between lateral and vertical transfer students. More strategic, longitudinal programming and decision‐making should be considered by institutions.

Increasing the number of engineering graduates continues to be a national priority and influences the need to understand persistence of all student pathways. Few studies have focused on engineering transfer student pathways and their success post‐transfer, suggesting a need for a more comprehensive analysis of existing research to advance this area. A comprehensive literature review was conducted to identify the factors found in the literature that most significantly affect engineering transfer student persistence, discuss themes that span the factors, and identify the frameworks used in the literature to understand engineering transfer student persistence. A systematic literature review method was used to capture a broad range of publications. A thematic synthesis approach was used to analyze the results of the final publication set. The systematic review identified 76 publications in this research area, and analysis of these publications resulted in 33 unique factors and 3 overarching themes. Additionally, 13 persistence frameworks were identified as being used to understand engineering transfer student persistence. Findings from this work suggest that the primary methods institutions can use to increase persistence in engineering of this population are increasing pre‐transfer academic requirements, increasing student integration, and providing an inclusive institutional culture. This review also supports the need for an updated persistence framework that considers the characteristics of engineering transfer students. Gaps in the literature were also identified and indicate a need to differentiate vertical and lateral transfer students as well as extend the review of post‐transfer academics beyond the first post‐transfer year.

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to synthesize and assess the published literature relating to critical success factors for continuous improvement projects (CIPs). Design/methodology/approach: A systematic literature review (SLR) was conducted to obtain the most relevant papers from four platforms: EBSCOhost, Engineering Village, ProQuest and Web of Science. The literature was assessed and synthesized based on analysis of characteristics relating to publications, authors and the content of publications. Findings: From the SLR, 98 publications were identified and analyzed. One primary finding is that this research area appears to demonstrate characteristics of an emerging field, not yet well established across all relevant aspects. Second, a comprehensive set of 53 factors were extracted from the publications identified. These factors were analyzed according to frequency in the published literature. This set of factors can be used in future empirical research to develop a more complete understanding of the relative contribution of each to influencing CIP success. Research limitations/implications: The SLR methodology does not guarantee that all of the publications related to a given research area will be identified; however, the researchers took different actions to mitigate this limitation. Further, not all relevant information from the publication set could be included in this work because of space constraints. Originality/value: To the authors’ knowledge, this paper presents the most comprehensive list of factors, and associated definitions, relevant to CIP success.

Abstract:Designing product platforms can be challenging, requiring the design of multiple products to maximize commonality without compromising individual performance. Some suggest that the lack of systematic approaches for defining platforms and related product families has made many companies shy away from platform strategies. This article presents a structured platform identification approach that utilizes questionnaires to assess modularity, as well as a function-based model to explore interdependencies and identify commonalities, while identifying market separator(s) by linking functionalities to anticipate customer needs. This approach is applied in an engineer-to-order company and proved to be successful in conceptualizing platforms and planning for new products.

Abstract:With the increasing popularity of Kaizen events as a process improvement initiative, the amount of Kaizen event literature has also increased. This article includes a systematic literature review of the Kaizen event body of knowledge, assessing the quality of the literature and synthesizing the literature to find convergent, variant, and divergent practices. The findings indicate that the literature is dominated by trade press and industry case works, with a growing number of academic publications. Several identified themes from the data synthesis were convergent, e.g., the importance of team member authority/autonomy and having a well-defined problem scope, while others were divergent, e.g., the level of functional and hierarchical heterogeneity and Kaizen event deployment. In order to advance the Kaizen event body of knowledge, future research should include more systematic academic investigations and theory-testing works, particularly of these divergent findings.

Abstract:Organizations today face intense and growing pressure to reduce cost, decrease time to market, and maximize stakeholder value in product development (PD). Many organizations have adopted lean product development (LPD) methods in an attempt to improve their PD systems; however, despite two decades of research, there is still much less understanding of the characteristics of effective LPD systems than of effective lean manufacturing systems. LPD systems are complex systems involving multiple organizational levels; however, most LPD research to date has focused only on a single level. There is currently a lack of understanding of the interactions between levels and effective means for managing these interactions. In this article, we propose a multilevel framework designed to capture key LPD system principles at the functional, project, and portfolio levels; tools and practices for implementing principles at each level; and approaches for managing the interactions between levels. A longitudinal case study is used to expand and refine a conceptual framework developed through literature review. Future research should focus on further validating the framework and applying the framework to improve LPD system design.

Abstract:This paper describes results from an ongoing research program focused on identifying determinants of Kaizen event effectiveness, both in terms of initial event outcomes and the sustainability of outcomes. Although anecdotal published accounts suggest that increasing numbers of companies are using Kaizen events, and that these projects can result in substantial improvement in key business metrics, there is a lack of systematic research on Kaizen events. A particular weakness of the current published accounts is the lack of attention to less successful events – only strongly successful applications of Kaizen events receive much coverage in the accounts; however, the organizational learning literature suggests that understanding less successful cases is a key component of organizational learning. We present a case study from a less successful Kaizen event to demonstrate how the case study event contributed to organizational learning. We also present a set of methods and measures that can be used by practicing engineering managers and engineering management researchers to evaluate and analyze Kaizen event performance. The implications of the case study event for the current body of knowledge on Kaizen events are also examined, and, finally, directions for future research are described.

Abstract:This article presents an approach for assessing the effectiveness of engineering design tools applied within new product development (NPD). In this approach both the quality of the processused to apply the design tool and the quality of outputsgenerated by the design tool are assessed. The approach described was developed and piloted in an engineer-to-order (ETO) company. The specific assessment instruments created are also presented. Future work will include investigating the use of the approach for additional design tools and analyzing how design tool effectiveness relates to overall product launch effectiveness.

Abstract:This article describes the application of an integrated enterprise transformation methodology in an engineering department responsible for the design and installation of communication systems in the Belgian Armed Forces. Major change initiatives defined by Department management as part of the methodology are reengineering the project life-cycle process to a concurrent team-based approach and implementing a performance measurement scorecard for the Department. Engineering managers can apply the integrated transformation approach and associated tools demonstrated in this case study to engineering and technical settings of many types, including project-based work or engineering work environments in the public sector.

AbstractThis article describes the application of an enterprise engineering approach to analyze and redesign a design change process in an engineer-to-order manufacturing plant. Contributions of this article include the development of a framework for enterprise engineering, with an emphasis on the design phase; exploration of business process modeling and the adopted modeling language; and the application of the design steps of the enterprise engineering approach, including process modeling to an actual engineering change order process. In particular, the extended Event-driven Process Chain (eEPC) method was used to create a multidimensional process representation including function, data, organization, and output components. Results of the case application demonstrate the applicability of enterprise engineering and process-modeling activities to non-routine, knowledge-based work.

Examiner scores for two years of a state quality award were analyzed by sector to estimate interrater reliability. The intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC), ICC(1,1) and ICC(2,1), were chosen as the statistics to estimate reliability to enable the researchers to generalize results from specific examiner teams to the larger pool of examiners, thus providing an assessment of the overall scoring effectiveness in the state quality award. These forms of ICC address inter-changeability of examiners—that is, they provide an estimate of the reliability of the pool of examiners no matter which individual examiners were selected to evaluate applicants. Interrater reliability, as shown by ICC values, ranged from low to moderate, with significant values ranging from 0.18 to 0.58. These low correlation coefficient values were likely due to the inferential limitations of the field data used as much as any lack of consistency among examiners.

AbstractThis article describes an integrated and structured organizational assessment approach using multiple tools to collect qualitative and quantitative data from organization members. The purpose of the assessment is to create a clear and shared view within an organization of “where are now” to serve as critical input for determining how to reach a desired future state. This assessment approach has evolved over several applications in different organizations, and an application within an engineer-to-order slip ring manufacturing plant is described. Key results from this application are described. The plant leadership team used the results as a foundation for change. The implications for others using a similar assessment approach and directions for future research are discussed.

Large-scale organizational transformation and improvement typically involve cross-functional organizational design teams that act as architects of change. Fifteen organizational design teams were studied to identify the most significant determinants of team effectiveness. Within and between analysis (WAEA) and other analytical methods showed that (1) team skills and clear purpose and expectations are significant predictors of team performance and (2) team self assessment is a significant predictor of team member satisfaction. Results are discussed in terms of sociotechnical systems theory. Implications of these findings include the importance of a team charter to achieve clear purpose and the team member selection strategy to achieve the necessary team skill profile