Engineering Practices

Problem Framing is a process, which occurs early in and throughout the practice of Engineering Design that involves outlining one’s mental interpretation of a problem situation by identifying the goals and essential issues related to developing a desired solution.

Engineering Practices:
Engineering Design

Project Management is the process of scoping a project and planning, organizing, and managing resources to complete the project within defined constraints (Nembhard, Yip, & Shtub, 2009).

Engineering Practices:
Engineering Design

Information Gathering is the process of searching for the knowledge necessary to develop an informed resolution to a design problem.

Engineering Practices:
Engineering Design

Ideation is the process of mentally expanding the set of possible solutions to a design problem in order to generate a large number of ideas, in hopes to then, find a better, and more innovative, resolution.

Engineering Practices:
Engineering Design

Prototyping is the process of transforming an idea into a form (physical or digital) that communicates the idea with others with the intention to improve the idea, over time, through testing and the collection of feedback.

Engineering Practices:
Engineering Design

Decision Making is the process of making a logical choice from a variety of options through the gathering of information and assessment of alternatives.

Engineering Practices:
Engineering Design

Design Methods are the processes that people apply to devise novel solutions to a broad range of problem scenarios that have an identified goal and one or more reasonable pathways toward resolution.

Engineering Practices:
Engineering Design

Engineering Graphics are detailed and well-annotated visual illustrations that communicate the features and functions of a design or idea.

Engineering Practices:
Engineering Design

Design Communication is the process of effectively and efficiently sharing ideas, decisions, information, and results with team members and various stakeholders throughout the design process.

Engineering Practices:
Engineering Design

Manufacturing is the process of using technology to transform resources into valuable products.

Engineering Practices: Material Processing

Measurement is the process of comparing the qualities of an object, such as size, shape, or volume, to an established standard in order to describe, analyze, or plan to modify the object.

Engineering Practices: Material Processing

Fabrication is the process of making a product or the parts of a product to be assembled into a final product.

Engineering Practices: Material Processing

Material Classification is the process of cataloging solid materials by their atomic and molecular characteristics and properties to aid in the selection of a suitable material for a particular application as well as the processes necessary for manipulating the materials in a suitable manner.

Engineering Practices: Material Processing

Casting and Molding are the processes that give materials shape by introducing a liquid material into a mold that has a cavity of the desired size and shape, and then, allowing the material to solidify before being removed from the mold.

Engineering Practices: Material Processing

Separating/Machining include the processes that give an object a desired form by removing excess materials which includes knowledge related to basic machine operations of (a) drilling, (b) cutting, (c) milling, (d) turning, (e) grinding, and (f) shearing.

Engineering Practices: Material Processing

Joining is the process of creating a product from two or more parts through the actions of bonding and/or mechanical fastening.

Engineering Practices: Material Processing

Conditioning is the process of changing the internal structure of a material to adjust the material’s properties to better meet desired criteria

Engineering Practices: Material Processing

Safety is the process of reducing the chance of injury or harm through thoughtful action and, in engineering settings, includes knowledge related to (a) laboratory guidelines and standards, (b) machine and tool safety, and (c) personal protective equipment and attire.

Engineering Practices: Material Processing

Computational Thinking is the process of dissecting complex problems in a manner to generate solutions that are expressed as a series of computational steps in which a computer can perform (Aho, 2012).

Engineering Practices: Quantitative Analysis

Computational Tools are the programs, languages, and computer applications that facilitate engineering tasks which includes (a) spreadsheet tools (e.g. Microsoft Excel), (b) system design tools (e.g. LabView), and (c) computational environments (e.g. MATLAB).

Engineering Practices: Quantitative Analysis

Data Collection, Analysis, & Communication is the process of gathering, recording, organizing, examining, interpreting, and sharing data from a variety of sources, such as experiments, design calculations, economic analyses, and statistical procedures, throughout an engineering project.

Engineering Practices: Quantitative Analysis

System Analytics is the process of investigating systems and calculating the way in which a system’s components interact with each other, how they function over time, and the way in which they operate within the context of larger technological and natural systems.

Engineering Practices: Quantitative Analysis

Modeling & Simulation is the process of using a variety of media, both physical and digital, to determine how well a design idea will perform as well as to communicate a design idea to others.

Engineering Practices: Quantitative Analysis

Professional Ethics are the principles of conduct that govern the actions of an individual or group.

Engineering Practices: Professionalism

Workplace Behavior/Operations are the actions and activities of managing the internal functions of the business or organization in which one operates, following the appropriate rules of conduct and ethical guidelines, so that the entity runs as efficiently and honorably as possible.

Engineering Practices: Professionalism

Honoring Intellectual Property concerns protecting one’s work, and the work of others, to ensure that ideas, inventions, or innovations are not stolen, used without permission, or claimed as another’s work in order to uphold professional integrity in the creative pursuit that is engineering and design.

Engineering Practices: Professionalism

Technological Impacts are the effects, both positive and negative, that result from developing and using technologies.

Engineering Practices: Professionalism

The Role of Society in Technological Development involves humanity's input in the decisions regarding the creation and implementation of technologies based on the predicted outcomes of its applications as well as the evaluation of its unpredicted outcomes.

Engineering Practices: Professionalism

Engineering-related Careers are the wide variety of occupations that require technical knowledge to design, assess, implement, use, sale, and/or maintain technologies across industries, which includes a range of jobs including, but not limited to, skilled production workers, technicians, engineering technologists, engineers, engineering managers, and engineering entrepreneurs.

Engineering Practices: Professionalism