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Abstract The laboratory accreditation system can be broadly identified as compulsory accreditation and voluntary accreditation. Compulsory accreditation is required and enforced by law, which is seen as an extension of government¡¦s public authority. The laboratory performing the test must first be certified by the relevant official institution before being allowed to provide testing services. Voluntary accreditation is industrial accreditation based on the credibility of the test results. This research hopes to study the key success factors of commercial laboratories accredited under both the compulsory and voluntary systems. The research hopes to make recommendations to commercial laboratories on the competitive strategies which will aid in the long term development of commercial laboratories. This study analyses 12 indicators, comprising of finance, market, core competencies, learning and growth, using the five-forces model, SWOT analysis and analytic hierarchy process (AHP). The weighting order of the key success factors for compulsory and voluntary commercial laboratories is identified as follows. 1. The weight ordering of key success factors for laboratory accredited under the compulsory system: 1. brand awareness, 2. creativity, 3. core competitiveness (accredited items), 4. training, 5. service quality, 6. responsiveness, 7. differentitation and diversity, 8. investment, 9. employee loyalty, 10. use of information technology, 11. government policy (redundancy cost), and 12. economies of scale (profitability). 2. The weight ordering of key success factors for laboratory accredited under the compulsory system: 1. brand awareness, 2. creativity, 3. service quality, 4. differentitation and diversity, 5. responsiveness, 6. core competitiveness (accredited items), 7. training, 8. government policy (redundancy cost), 9. economies of scale (profitability), 10. employee loyalty, and 11. use of information technology. The conclusions above are significant to the management in the following aspects. ¡EUnder the same indices, the weighting of key success factors vary according to differences in internal and external environmental conditions, market orientation and corporate market positioning ¡EBrand awareness and creativity are equally important for laboratories accredited under the compulsory and voluntary system, there top the first and second place of the list. ¡ECapability to compete in the market is much more significant in voluntarily accredited laboratories, indicating that it is more market orientated than laboratories accredited under the compulsory system.

Thesis (M.A.)--Eastern Illinois University, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis presents a framework for a virtual laboratory for material testing, called Virlab. A virtual laboratory is an open and flexible environment that is used to simulate a set of experiments using a computer. It is beneficial and valuable for researcher and educators to simulate real problems and to conquer some challenges such as a weightless body. The virtual laboratory for material testing contributes both to the field of mechanics of materials and the field of software engineering. In the field of material mechanics Virlab can be used for material testing education and research. Students can rapidly investigate many experiments for materials and the difference between kinematics quantities and stress measures. Virlab also offers a convenient platform for researchers to investigate and test new constitutive equation and implement their new algorithms. Virlab also encourages unambiguous definitions of mechanics terms and principles. In the field of software engineering the contribution is to provide an example of the application of software engineering approaches to an important scientific computing problem. By showing the successful application of software engineer­ing methodologies for a virtual laboratory, it is hoped that software engineering ideas will spread to other scientific applications. In terms of software engineering methodologies, this thesis presents a component-based design for the virtual laboratory for material testing. In this thesis we conduct a commonality analysis for material testing, decompose the system into modules with the information hiding principle, provide an easy way to identify components from the module decompo­sition, and build the component-based system architecture. In this procedure we apply the concept of design through documentation at each stage. / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

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Master of Science / Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering / Dale Schinstock / There is a trend in the control literature and in university control education research to develop inexpensive laboratory equipment for control based laboratories. But can using cheaper equipment obfuscate the concepts we are trying to demonstrate in the experiments? To investigate this, lab concepts were examined using an inexpensive platform developed at Kansas State University, Eeva, and compared to the existing lab equipment used in the introductory controls course, the MotorLab. While many lab concepts were successfully demonstrated on the cheaper hardware, they were obscured by higher order effects such as speed filters, back EMF effects, and encoder resolution. The effective operating range of the hardware also suffered from lower saturation limits and higher friction values, making the design of experiments more difficult. Care should be taken when designing inexpensive laboratory equipment to ensure that the lessons desired can still be demonstrated clearly to the students using the equipment.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-01