A VIRTUAL CLASSROOM EXPERIMENT FOR TEACHING ENGINEERING ECONOMY

The productivity of a two-station production line is determined by the station breakdown and repair rates, and by the capacity of the lncerscaclon buffer. A model which describes the station breakdown and repair rates as functions of the maintenance and repair inputs to the system la presented.The production function is Incorporated Into a profit function. The values of maintenance, repair, and an aggregate materials-labor inputs aa well as the capacity of the interstation buffer which maximize profit are sought.     

A SURVEY OF ENGINEERING DESIGN LITERATURE: METHODOLOGY,EDUCATION, ECONOMICS,AND MANAGEMENT ASPECTS

This paper provides a comprehensive list of relevant books and articles pertaining to the subject area of “engineering design,” with specific focus on the methodology, education, economics, and management aspects of the design discipline. The purpose of this survey of engineering design literature is to provide a compendium of books and articles that may be instrumental in facilitating the process of sharing and disseminating design knowledge     

探索赴美上市新路

赴美上市一直是很多国内企业的向往，毕竟全球融资资本最大的市场就在那里。上期本刊报道了美国萨法实施，证券监管的力度进一步加大．也就是说在赴美上市的道路上，交警的执法力度加强了。但非美国企业在美上市的机会并不意味着不存在，借助什么新的方式可以曲线上路，正是这期报道所要呈现的主题。[编者按]     

ENGINEERING ECONOMY CASES

This note extends the Initial partial-mean concept for present worth analysis of risk by Buck and Askin (1986) to a two random variable case where the magnitude of a single cash flow Is a random variable, and the time duration is a random variable with uniform distribution. This extension leads to the calculation of the expected magnitude of a project loss given that the loss occurs. Computational formulas and numerical Illustrations are presented.     

ENHANCING ENGINEERING ECONOMY CONCEPTS WITH COMPUTER SPREADSHEETS

This note provides a perspective on the use of spreadsheets in the engineering economy classroom. It highlights some challenges and potential rewards of their use to augment, support and/or re-enforce concepts traditionally taught from an engineering economy textbook.     

AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF ENGINEERING ECONOMY PEDAGOGY

This work presents the results of a recent two-part survey of how engineering economy is taught in U.S. universities. A mail and email survey of faculty and staff that teach engineering economy was conducted in 1995 through 1997. For the survey's two parts, this produced 45 and 28 complete responses, respectively. Three categories of questions were asked pertainingto 1) the faculty that teach it, 2) the course content and mechanics itself, and 3) the students that take the course. This paper also includes results from a previously unpublished survey done in 1989. All of these results are compared with two similar studies done in 1984 and 1989. Potential pedagogical implications are summarized as they relate to increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of engineering economy teaching in U.S. universities.     

A FIFTY-YEAR EDITORIAL HISTORY OF THE ENGINEERING ECONOMIST

One problem with internal race of return is the possibility that given cash flows may result in more than one internal rate of return. The purpose of this paper is to develop a method for determining relevance of an internal rate of return. An Internal rate of return is considered relevant if its derivatives with respect to each of the cash flows are positive. It is determined that the necessary and sufficient conditions for relevance are: (1) the net future value function has a negative derivative at a relevant root; and (2) a relevant Internal rate of return must be greater than -1. Our method of analysis identifies a single relevant rate for the dual race problem and for a special case when there are three rates, However, when more than one Internal rate of return meets the conditions for relevance, our analysis cannot be extended to choose among the relevant rates.