Engineering

Management

Engineering Management
Engr. Jeck Sapnu
 Topics: Preliminary
1. Decision Making
i. Overview
ii. Basic kinds of decision making
iii. Decision making vs Problem analysis
iv. Systematic approach to Decision Making
2. Engineering Management Overview
3. Functions of Management (POLC)
i. Planning
ii. Organizing
iii. Leading
iv. Controlling

Engineering Management
Engr. Jeck Sapnu
 What is Decision Making?
▪ Is the study of identifying and selecting alternatives based on the values and
preferences.
➢ Has to be the highest probability of success or effectiveness.
➢ Best fits with your goals, desires, objectives, values and others…
▪ Is the process of sufficiently reducing uncertainty and doubt about alternatives
to allow a reasonable choice to be made among them.
➢ Uncertainty should be reduced rather than eliminated.
➢ If there is NO uncertainty, you don’t need to have a decision; you have a
SOLUTION to execute.

Basic kinds of Decisions

▪ Decision whether – yes or no, either/or decisions that must be made .
▪ Decision which – it’s a choice of one or more alternatives from among a set of
possibilities.
▪ Contingent decision – these are decisions that have been made but put on hold
until some condition is met.

Engineering Management
Engr. Jeck Sapnu
 Decision making techniques
▪ Logical and systematic decision-making process helps to address the critical elements that
result in a good decision. Also, it helps to miss important factors and you can build on the
approach to make your decisions better and better.
1. Identify the purpose of your decision.
➢ What is exactly the problem to be solved? Why it should be solved?
2. Gather information.
➢ What factors are involve?
3. Identify the principles to judge the alternatives.
➢ What standards and judgment criteria should the solution meet?
4. Brainstorming and list different possible choices.
➢ Generate ideas for possible solution
5. Evaluate each choice in terms of its consequence
➢ Use your standards and judgment criteria to determine the cons and pros of each
alternative.
6. Determine the best alternative.
➢ This is much easier after you go through the above preparation steps.
7. Put the decision into action
➢ Transform your decision into specific plan of action steps. Execute your plan.
8. Evaluate the outcome of your decision and action steps.
➢ What lesson can be learned it? This is an important step for further development of
your decision making skills and judgment.
Who will make the decision?
Engineering Management
Engr. Jeck Sapnu
 Groups should have a good repertoire of decision – making strategies and a means of choosing
the one that is most appropriate for the situation.
7 types for making decision:
1. Decision by authority without discussion. The leader makes all the decisions without
consulting the group. This method is efficient but does not build team member commitment
to the decision.
2. Expert member. The most expert member is allowed to decide for the group. The difficulty
with this method often lies in deciding who has the most expertise, especially when those
with power or status in the group overestimate their expertise.
3. Average of member’s opinions. The group decision is based on the average of individual
group member’s opinions.
4. Decision by authority after discussion. The designated leader makes the decision after
decision with the group. The effectiveness of this method often depends on the listening
skills of the leader.
5. Minority control. Two or more members who constitute less than 50% of the group often
make decisions by acting as (a) an executive committee or (b) a special problem-solving
subgroup.
6. Majority control. decision by a majority vote is the method used by the Philippine
Congress.
7. Consensus. Consensus is probably the most effective method of group decision making in
terms of decision quality and gaining member’s commitment to the decision, but it also may
take the most time. Perfect consensus is achieved when everyone agrees.
Engineering Management
Engr. Jeck Sapnu
Ranking Task Exercise
Below, in alphabetical order are listed the top 15 causes of death in the Philippines for the past 5 yrs. The data
were taken from an annual review of death certificates. Your task is to rank them in the order of the number of
deaths each causes each year. Then, in the last column, write in your estimated number of fatalities each
product or activity causes.
Reasons of fatality Ranking Number of Fatalities
Accidents (unintentional injuries)
Alzheimer’s disease
Assault (homicide)
Blood poisoning (septicemia)
Cancer
Chronic liver disease & cirrhosis
Chronic lower respiratory diseases
Diabetes
Heart disease
Influenza and pneumonia
Intentional self-harm (suicide)
Non-hypertensive kidney disease
Parkinson’s disease
Primary hypertension & hypertensive kidney disease
Stroke (cerebra vascular diseases)

To assist in the development of teamwork skills – especially communication (sharing knowledge

and expertise), leadership and decision making.
Engineering Management
Engr. Jeck Sapnu
 Reflection:
How did your group make the decision?

Did you average your individual rankings? Vote?

Did you discuss your individual high and low rankings and then work from both ends
toward the middle?

Were you convince by group members who seem to have an “expert” knowledge?

Did you try to reach consensus?

Did you start with the number of fatalities for one of the activities and work from there?

How well did your group work?

What went well?

What things could you do even better next time?

Engineering Management
Engr. Jeck Sapnu
 Problem Analysis vs Decision Making
▪ Problem analysis must be done first, then the information gathered in that
process may be used towards decision making.

Problem Analysis
▪ Must be precisely identified and described.
▪ Merely deviations from performance standards.
▪ Caused by some change from a distinctive feature.
▪ Most likely cause to a problem is the one that exactly explains all the facts.

Decision Making
▪ Objective should be established.
▪ Objective must be classified and placed in order of importance
▪ Develop the alternative actions and must be evaluated against all the
objectives.

Engineering Management
Engr. Jeck Sapnu
 What is Engineering?
▪ Can you name one thing in this room that was not developed, produced or delivered
by an engineer?
▪ Can you name any profession that is affecting your life more directly than
engineering?
▪ Since engineering is evidently very important, can you now define the engineering
method for solving a problem?

Engineering is Design!
Design in a major sense is the essence of engineering; it begins with the identification of a need
and ends with a product or system in the hands of a user.

What is Design?
Is the process of planning a system, component or process to meet a desired need.

Project Management &

Design Teamwork

If design is the heart of engineering and design is a social process, then it follows that teamwork and project management are
essential to engineering.

Engineering Management
Engr. Jeck Sapnu
 Engineering Management
Management Engineering
A set of activities (including planning and The profession in which knowledge of the
decision making, organizing, leading and mathematical and natural science gained
control) directed at an organization's through study, experience and practice is
resources (human, financial, physical applied with judgment to develop ways to
and informational) with the aim of utilize, economically, the materials and
achieving organizational goals in an forces of nature for the benefit of
efficient and effective manner. mankind.

▪ Engineering Management is a specialized form of management that is required to

successfully lead engineering or technical personnel and projects
▪ Directing and controlling a group or entities towards to a common goal.
▪ Management of technical functions. Direct supervision of engineers and/or the engineering
functions.
▪ The art of getting things done through people.
▪ Engineering managers typically require training and experience in both general
management and the specific engineering disciplines that will be used by engineering team
to be managed.

Engineering Management
Engr. Jeck Sapnu
 Why Engineers need Management?
➢ Most of our curriculum programs emphasize on technical subjects that help to develop our
technical competency.
➢ Engineering and Management have very little in common.
There is a growing need to Engineers who:
▪ Can see the big picture
▪ Effectively interact and communicate with people
▪ Challenge the status quo
▪ Effectively work in team
▪ Apply critical thinking skills to solve real-world problems.
➢ Engineering Management develops leaders who have these skills and are comfortable with
the language and methods of engineering, business and technology.
➢ Emotional and intelligence are connected, not opposites. Emotions affect thinking, reasoning,
judgment and actions.
➢ Emotional IQ may be more important than traditional IQ in success.
Emotional IQ is your ability to recognize and understand emotions in yourself and others,
and your ability to use this awareness to manage your behavior and relationship.
➢ Engineers usually have low emotional IQ.

Engineering Management
Engr. Jeck Sapnu
 Why People seem difficult
➢ Technical systems, although complex, obey logical rules and/or laws. There are some
people based their decision “by the book” (ie. Electrical code, confidence level, error rate
etc…)
➢ Individual people are more complex and follow no set of rules.
➢ A system of multiple people are incredibly complex and unpredictable.

Behavioral Tendencies
➢ People tend to do what is best for themselves
➢ People want to avoid looking bad
➢ People tend to go with the crowd
➢ People make communication challenging
➢ People are imperfect
➢ People are complex and hard to predict
➢ Systems of people are difficult to manage
➢ Knowing about personality types and behavioral tendencies (raising your Emotional IQ) can
help you be a better manager

Engineering Management
Engr. Jeck Sapnu
 Different levels of Management
▪ Top level management (strategic horizon ~ 2yrs above )
➢ Establish company’s vision, mission, goals and objectives (ie. CEO, COO,
President, Sr.VP, etc..)
▪ Middle level management (tactical horizon ~ 2months – 6months)
➢ Plan the execution and align resource on HOW to meet the established goals
and objectives (ie. Factory manager, general manager, department manager
etc…)
▪ Lower level management (operational horizon ~ < 1 month)
➢ Execute base on what have been planned. ie. Supervisor, line leader, team
leader etc..

Engineering Management
Engr. Jeck Sapnu
 Functions of Management
▪ The principles of management can be listed down to critical functions. These functions are
planning, organizing, leading and controlling. P-O-L-C framework provides useful
guidance into what the ideal job of a manager should look like.

PLANNING
Is the ongoing process of developing the business’ mission and objectives and
determining how they will be accomplished.
▪ VISION – non specific directional and motivational guidance for the entire
organization.
▪ MISSION – It is concerned with scope of the business and what distinguishes this
business from similar businesses. Mission reflects the culture and values of top
management.
▪ OBJECTIVES – expected to be general, observable, challenging and untimed.
▪ GOALS – they are expected to be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable,
Rewarding, and Timed.

Engineering Management
Engr. Jeck Sapnu
ORGANIZING
Is the establishing the internal organizational structure of the organization. The focus is on
division, coordination and control of tasks and the flow of information within the
organization.
▪ DIVISION OF LABOR – is captures in an organization chart, a pictorial
representation of an organization’s formal structure. It is concerned with
relationships among tasks and the authority to do the tasks.
▪ DELEGATION OF AUTHORITY – is distribution of authority. Frees the manager to
use his or her time on high priority activities. NOTE: delegation of authority does not
free the manager from accountability for the actions and decisions of subordinates.
▪ DEPARTMENTATION – is the grouping of jobs under the authority of a single
manager, according to some rational basis for the purpose of planning, coordination
and control.

Engineering Management
 LEADING
Is directing to the channel of behavior of all personnel to accomplish the organization’s
mission and objectives while simultaneously helping them accomplish their own career
objectives.
▪ LEADERSHIP
▪ DECISION MAKER
▪ COMMUNICATIONS
▪ GROUP / TEAMS
▪ MOTIVATION

CONTROLLING
Establishing performance standards based on the firm’s objectives, measuring and
reporting performance, comparing and taking corrective or preventive action as necessary.
▪ Business process / systems
▪ Strategic human resources.

Engineering Management
Engr. Jeck Sapnu
 POLC framework

▪ Planning – involves setting objectives and determining a course of action in achieving

those activities.
▪ Organizing – involves developing an organizational structure and allocating human
resource to ensure the accomplishment of objectives.
▪ Leading – involve social and informal sources of influence that you use to inspire action
taken by others.
▪ Controlling – involves ensuring that performance does not deviate from standards.

Engineering Management
Engr. Jeck Sapnu
 How important is teamwork?
Teamwork and project management are central to engineering. Learning how to organize and
manage projects, and to participate effectively in project teams.

Groups and Teams

Groups Teams

Strong, clearly focused leader Shared leadership roles

Individual accountability Individual and mutual accountability
Purpose is the same as the broader Specific team purpose that the team itself
organizational mission delivers
Individual work-products Collective work-products
Runs efficient meetings Encourage open-ended discussion and active
problem-solving meetings
Measures its effectiveness indirectly by its Measures performance directly by assessing
influence on others collective work-products
Discusses, decides and delegate Discuss, decides and does real work together.

Key Note:
To develop the skills and confidence necessary to organize, manage, be
a participant and lead project teams.
Engineering Management
Engr. Jeck Sapnu
 Heuristics Engineering – may be generally defined as methods or strategies that aid in
discovery or problem solving.
1. Heuristics do not guarantee a solution.
2. Two heuristics may contradict each other or give different answers to the same question and
still be useful.
3. Heuristics permit the solving or unsolvable problems or reduce the search time to a
satisfactory solution.
4. The heuristic depends on the immediate context instead of absolute truth as a standard of
validity.
Quotes about teamwork
“Everyone has to work together; if we can’t get everybody working toward common
goals, nothing is going to happen”
Harold K. Sperlich (Former President, Chrysler Corporation)
“Coming together is a beginning
Keeping together is progress
Working together is success”
Henry Ford (Ford Corporation)
“If you can’t operate as a team player, no matter how valuable
you’ve been, you really don’t belong at GE”
John F. Welch (CEO, General Electric)
“Good teams, become great ones when the members trust each
other enough to surrender the ‘me’ for the ‘we’.
Phil Jackson
Engineering Management
Engr. Jeck Sapnu