Modern day chemical engineers are largely responsible for the design, improvement and maintenance of processes that transform raw materials to products in an economical and sustainable manner. These individuals are highly paid and, due to the diversity of the field, the demand for individuals with the right level of training and experience is high. Despite the high demand and the attractiveness associated with an illustrious career however, the pulp and paper industry experiences a 15 to 20% labour turnover rate. This research sets out to explore the influences of, and the responses to, the labour market for chemical engineering skills in the South African pulp and paper industry. An understanding of the labour markets would afford stakeholders the opportunity to curb the high turnover rates and allow for the ability to respond to changes in the labour market. The research adopted a qualitative study which involved in-depth interviews with the stakeholders of the pulp and paper industry. A total of 18 stakeholders were interviewed. Due to distance and logistical constraints, some interviews were conducted telephonically. A semi structured interview guide line was used. Fine grained content analysis and descriptive statistics were used to extract key constructs from the data analysis obtained during the interview process. The outcome of the research has resulted in a better understanding of the labour markets for chemical engineers in the industry. The findings provide key insights to factors that stakeholders consider as crucial in enhancing the effective use and retention of chemical engineers in the pulp and paper industry. Copyright / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

South Africa currently finds itself in a constrained environment. In order to alleviate this constraint, Eskom, the dominant (and state-owned) electricity supplier in South Africa has embarked on an electricity capacity expansion programme. One of the constraints on the capacity expansion programme, as identified by Eskom, is the shortage of skills including that of engineering skills. Firstly, an understanding of the background to the shortage of engineering skills in South Africa and Eskom was gained through literature review. Thereafter, a list of contributors was identified in terms of the skills shortage in South Africa and Eskom. In addition to this local view of the engineering skills shortage issue, the author of this dissertation supplemented this with a review of international literature. The issue was then documented using systems thinking diagramming techniques which eventually culminated in the development of a draft systems dynamics model of the shortage of engineering skills in Eskom for the capacity expansion effort. Once the draft system dynamics model was developed, the author of this dissertation conducted one-on-one interviews with staff members who represented the stakeholders in the engineering skills shortage issue for Eskom's capacity expansion programme. This enabled the author of this dissertation to share his understanding of the problem with the interviewees and to gain an improved understanding of the issue by listening to the interviewees. Thereafter, this improved understanding was utilised to update the systems dynamics model. Finally, this updated model was utilised to perform an analysis to determine the leverage points to alleviate the engineering skills shortage problem in Eskom's capacity expansion programme. The literature survey suggested that mentorship, retention of current engineering skills and improving the image of engineering (in general) should be pursued to alleviate the shortage of engineering skills in the electricity industry. Furthermore, the use of interviews and systems dynamics modelling suggested that there needs to be a core focus on mentorship. In addition, effort should be allocated to attracting more of the under-represented groups into engineering i.e. women and black males. Furthermore, effort needs to be placed on specifying the capacity expansion resource requirements adequately i.e. plans in terms of numbers of people, qualifications and skill level are required. Finally, the interview process highlighted the view (not supported by systems dynamics modelling) that outsourcing of engineering work and importing of engineering skills should be pursued as a last resort. KEYWORDS Eskom, Engineering Skills Shortage, Capacity Expansion Programme. / Thesis (M.Com.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2008.

This thesis reports a study of the impact of work placements on the transferable skills of engineering students. The thesis provides a review of the theoretical and empirical literature in the field of student work placements and transferable skills and provides a discussion of the measurement of impact in this field. It also describes the design of the study, methods of data collection and the data analyses used. The research project was carried out at Loughborough University from 2005 – 2008. The data was collected from 247 students and 5 DIS (Diploma in Industrial Studies) tutors from three engineering departments (Chemical Engineering, Civil Engineering and the Institute of Polymer Technology and Materials Engineering (IPTME)) and 26 line managers from 19 different companies which take students on placements. The results shows that the overwhelming majority of the students valued work placements as a way of developing transferable skills and identified the transferable skills which work placements were most likely and least likely to develop. There was close agreement on these matters between students who had experienced placements and those that had not. All DIS tutors and 87% of the line managers interviewed considered that a work placement had a very strong or strong impact upon the transferable skills of the students. Triangulation of the responses by students, tutors and line managers revealed close agreement on these matters. Students, tutors and line managers had mixed opinions whether work placements would improve degree results. In fact, work placement students performed significantly better in degree examinations than non work placement students. The tutors and line managers stressed particularly that work placements increased the confidence and maturity of the students. They suggested holiday work, summer work, team based projects as a part of the University degree courses as alternative ways of helping the students who are not doing work placements to acquire and improve their transferable skills, although they did not think that these suggested alternatives will be as effective as the one year placement. They considered that the duration of the work experience period is a key factor in improving transferable skills.

Abstract: Introduction- Human activities has resulted in degradation of quality of environment, social life, and economic gains, bringing to life the challenges of sustainability. In order to reduce degradations, a solution encircling sustainability is required. The solution must bring economic viability, social equity, and environmental protection. One of the many solutions can be creation of sustainable enterprises, also the concept of sustainable entrepreneurship is catching the pace worldwide. But who can attain sustainable entrepreneurship is still a question Engineers can connect technology to the market and can create products which are sustainable (Alexa et al., 2020) seems to be right choice. Hence educating engineers can be effective to achieve sustainable entrepreneurship. Purpose and research question- Sustainable entrepreneurship is a relatively nascent field. Even though, engineers seem to be right choice to train, there is not sufficient information on the literature regarding the skills necessary to promote sustainable entrepreneurship. Besides, the universities are not aware of the methods that helps in developing these skills. Even though many authors focus on sustainable entrepreneurship, it is not quite explained in terms of engineering. This gap needs to be bridged by determining relevant engineering skills that promote sustainable entrepreneurship in future engineering students and discover few teaching methods and learning approaches that facilitate in developing these skills and thus answer the research question “What engineering skills are important to promote sustainable entrepreneurship in master education and what methods facilitate the developing of these skills”   Methodology- In order to answer the research question, a qualitative study was carried out with a deductive approach. Also, the nature of the research is exploratory. In addition to this, interviews were conducted with program directors from four Swedish universities to gain deeper understandings from their perspectives regarding the engineering skills required to promote sustainable entrepreneurship and the methods to facilitate its development.    Findings- From the insights of the participants it is found that many skills are interrelated to each other; meaning, development of one skill results in improvement of another. Also, many teaching and learning methods were found out from the interviews that facilitate in the development of these skills. Besides, it was found that the participants did not consider the development of all the skills identified in the literature in accordance with their program. But majority of these skills were considered to be relevant to promote sustainable entrepreneurship. Conclusions- It is seen that engineering skills from multiple disciplines seems to coincide especially when sustainability is a common goal. It is evident from the literature, primary and the secondary data that these skills are important to be developed in engineering students in the perspective of sustainable entrepreneurship. Also, this study has many implications for program directors, future researches, teaching professionals and master’s students as well.

As the complexity of systems increases, so does what can go wrong with them. For example, the United States Air Force selected McDonnell Douglas’ design for the F-15 Eagle fighter aircraft in 1967 and the aircraft’s first test flight was in 1972, 5 years later. In contrast, the US military selected Lockheed Martin as one of two companies to develop the F-35 Lightning II in 1997 and its first flight was in 2006, 9 years later, and the first production aircraft had its first flight in 2011, 14 years after the selection. This complex program’s problems have been well-documented by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) and have contributed to the project’s long lead time and skyrocketing budget. GAO reports on other military projects reveal that problems the F-35 project has experienced are shared among all of these projects. In this dissertation I posit that similar problems plague all complex systems engineering projects and that a combination of these problems may lead to negative consequences, such as budget and schedule exceedances, quality concerns, not achieving mission objectives, as well as accidents resulting in loss of human life.<div><br></div><div>Accidents, or unexpected events resulting in loss, have been well-studied over time and we currently have sophisticated theories that help explain how they occur. The leading theory is that most accidents are a result of an accumulation of “mundane” errors at an organization, and that these errors are similar across industries. However, these mundane errors, such as failing to follow procedures and poorly training personnel, occur in all companies, such as companies that design and manufacture military aircraft. My theory is that these mundane errors accumulate in all organizations and result in many different kinds of systems engineering failures, including failures traditionally referred to as “accidents” that result in loss of life, as well as other types of failures which I refer to as “project failures”.<br></div><div><br></div><div>What can be learned from these systems engineering failures? In this dissertation, I begin by mining publicly-available reports to determine whether seemingly dissimilar failures, accidents and project failures, share common causes. I then explain the similarities and dissimilarities between these causes and provide examples from the failures I studied. To help provide systems engineers with actionable advice on these common causes, I describe how I linked the causes to recommendations from accident reports in a cause-recommendation network. I then discuss the results of interviews I held with systems engineers to determine whether the problems I identified in past failures occur in similar ways to the problems they have encountered on their projects. I also discuss the criticisms these systems engineers have about systems engineering education based on the tasks their newly-hired systems engineers struggle with. I explain how I used what I learned about problems in systems engineering that lead to failures to develop survey questions designed to gauge whether systems engineering education at Purdue prepares students to identify and fix these problems. Then, to help systems engineers learn from the data I collected and solve the problems they encounter on their projects, I describe how I built an interactive, web-based tool that presents expert advice on systems engineering failures. I finally explain the results from feedback I received from experts and novices in systems engineering to determine whether this tool could be useful for engineers in this context.<br></div>

Studier har visat att det i den traditionella undervisningen i matematik råder brist på förutsättningar för eleverna att utveckla sin resonemangsförmåga på ett betydande sätt (Sidenvall, Lithner och Jäder, 2015; Tranbeck, 2010; Jäder, 2015). Denna brist har identifierats som en av anledningarna till att elever har det svårt på matematikutbildningar på högskolenivå (Lithner, 2011). Detta har lett till att alternativa arbetssätt har undersökts med avseende på hur de främjar elevernas användning av resonemangsförmågan (Liljekvist, 2014; Brunström, 2015). Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur gymnasieelevers resonemang ser ut och vad de innehåller när de spelar spel med matematiskt innehåll från gymnasiets matematikkurser. En förståelse för detta kan bland annat möjliggöra en utvärdering av denna typ av spels relevans inom matematikundervisningen på gymnasialnivå. I denna studie studeras två gymnasieelevgruppers resonemang när de spelar ett kortspel som har ett matematiskt innehåll. Två strukturerade innehållsanalyser tillämpas i denna studie. Den första tillämpar kategorier som skapats utifrån tre olika ramverk för resonemang medan den andra utgår ifrån kategorier för ingenjörsmässiga förmågor som valts ur Conceive Design Implement Operate (CDIO) syllabus. Resultatet visar att ett flertal olika former av resonemang och ingenjörsmässiga förmågor förekommer bland elevernas resonemang. Det vanligaste är att eleverna i sina resonemang tillämpar kunskaper om generella matematiska regler och samband på ett imitativt sätt och resonemanget behandlar även samspelet mellan två variabler. Andelen kreativa resonemang var dock fortfarande högre i denna studie än i tidigare genomförda studier. Elevernas resonemang visar vidare främst på ingenjörsmässiga förmågor relaterat till initiativförmåga och beslutsfattning under osäkerhet. Utifrån resultatet görs bedömningen att det spel som studeras i denna studie är att betraktas som relevant för tillämpning inom matematikundervisningen, med några begränsningar. Mer generellt visar resultatet att när spel av den typ som studerats i denna studie används visar eleverna upp resonemangsförmågan på ett nyanserat sätt och även ingenjörsmässiga förmågor framkommer. / Studies have shown that in the traditional forms of mathematics education there is a lack of opportunity for students to improve their reasoning ability in a meaningful way (Sidenvall, Lithner och Jäder, 2015; Tranbeck, 2010; Jäder, 2015). This flaw has been identified as one reason for why students have troubles following the mathematics education at university level (Lithner, 2011). This has led to alternative methods being studied in regard to how they provide opportunities for the students to utilise their reasoning ability (Liljekvist, 2014; Brunström, 2015). The purpose of this study is to examine what the students’ reasoning looks like and its content when they play a game with mathematical content in high school mathematics courses. Understanding this can, among other things, enable an assessment of how relevant this type of games is for use in high school mathematics education. In this study, two groups of high school students reasoning are observed when they play a card game that has mathematical content. Two structured content analyses are used in this study. The first one applies categories that have been created through the combination of three other frameworks, while the second one applies categories of engineering skills that have been selected from Conceive Design Implement Operate (CDIO) syllabus. The result shows that many different forms of reasoning and engineering skills were present in the students’ reasoning. It is most common that the students’ reasoning incorporates knowledge of general mathematical rules and relations in an imitative way that also includes the interaction between two variables. The proportion of creative reasoning was higher than those found in previous studies. Furthermore, the students’ reasoning mostly reveals engineering skills related to taking initiative and decision making under uncertainty. With regards to the result the assessment is that the game that was studied in this study can be regarded as relevant for use in mathematics education, with some limitations. More generally, the result shows that when games of the type that has been studied here are used the students show the ability to reason in a nuanced way and engineering skills are also present.

The purpose of this study was to develop and evaluate engineering self-efficacy measures for undergraduate students (N = 321) and to examine whether students' engineering self-efficacy differed by gender, year level, and major. The relationships between engineering self-efficacy and academic achievement and intent to persist in engineering were also investigated. Data from engineering students from two southeastern universities were collected in spring 2013. Exploratory factor analyses resulted in a unidimensional general engineering self-efficacy scale and a three-factor (i.e., research skills, tinkering skills, and engineering design) engineering skills self-efficacy scale. Multivariate analyses of variance revealed that self-efficacy did not differ by gender or year level. Students in different engineering sub disciplines reported different levels of tinkering self-efficacy. Multiple regression analysis showed that engineering self-efficacy measures predicted academic achievement outcomes but not intent to persist in engineering. Engineering self-efficacy significantly contributed to the prediction of achievement after controlling for prior achievement. Research funded by the National Science Foundation, EEC Award No.1240328.