Abstract
Teams of design engineers are increasingly working as members of virtual teams, or teams whose members are distributed geographically and communicate mostly through electronic means. In addition, emerging multi-user (MU) applications engage complementary teams in synchronous design activities. These new MU tools are changing the way engineers work together. Together, these factors have created a new and interesting environment in which engineering design teams must function. The work presented here lays out two major themes that teams and their managers can effectively apply to organizing and managing MU teams: 1) teams can maximize their potential productivity by determining the optimal number of teammates for a given modeling effort and by implementing a profile and team formation system based on the principle of optimizing complementary team member characteristics; and 2) to minimize process losses, teams can implement effective strategies for working in a MU and/or virtual setting and they can use novel new MU tools that address portions of the product development process that have previously not been addressed with such tools. It is my hope that these contributions can enable greater effectiveness and productivity among virtual engineering design teams as they strive to remedy many of the most pressing and dire issues facing humanity. By improving the way we work together, we can increase our ability to bless all of God's children.
Degree
PhD
College and Department
Ira A. Fulton College of Engineering and Technology; Mechanical Engineering
Rights
http://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/
BYU ScholarsArchive Citation
Stone, Brett Randall, "Maximizing Virtual MUCAx Engineering Design Team Performance" (2016). Theses and Dissertations. 6234.
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/6234
Date Submitted
2016-03-01
Document Type
Dissertation
Handle
http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/etd8474
Keywords
multi-user CAD, virtual teams, engineering design, teamwork
Language
english