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• 1. [Article] Digital Luggage Weighing Machine Development Log

  Millions of people travel each year whether it is for business or pleasure. No matter what the purpose for their trip is, they have the same worry as they leave for the airport—will my luggage exceed the ...

  Citation × Citation Citation Abstract Copy Title: Digital Luggage Weighing Machine Development Log Author: Julien, Alex, Borgan, Mohammed, Rampalli, Phaneendra, Singla, Puniti, Bhendigeri, Sandeep Year: 2012 Millions of people travel each year whether it is for business or pleasure. No matter what the purpose for their trip is, they have the same worry as they leave for the airport—will my luggage exceed the maximum amount allowed? In the New Product Development course, the students in the class were required to team up and work on a project developing a new product. As our team was composed of international students, we decided to develop a digital luggage scale because it was something we could all relate to. This development log will explain in detail how we went from initial idea to the final product design. Additionally, this paper will describe the challenges that we faced, what we did well, the improvements that could be made and finally how we will learn from our mistakes and use this knowledge in future projects. Title: Digital Luggage Weighing Machine Development Log Author: Julien, Alex, Borgan, Mohammed, Rampalli, Phaneendra, Singla, Puniti, Bhendigeri, Sandeep Year: 2012 Millions of people travel each year whether it is for business or pleasure. No matter what the purpose for their trip is, they have the same worry as they leave for the airport—will my luggage exceed the maximum amount allowed? In the New Product Development course, the students in the class were required to team up and work on a project developing a new product. As our team was composed of international students, we decided to develop a digital luggage scale because it was something we could all relate to. This development log will explain in detail how we went from initial idea to the final product design. Additionally, this paper will describe the challenges that we faced, what we did well, the improvements that could be made and finally how we will learn from our mistakes and use this knowledge in future projects. Close

• 2. [Article] Open Source Software – Implications on Technology Management

  Over the past few years, major IT and non-It companies have increasingly adopted open source software (OSS). OSS is developed by organized communities of interested parties and sometimes by major software ...

  Citation × Citation Citation Abstract Copy Title: Open Source Software – Implications on Technology Management Author: Goyal, Shreya, Biradar, Renu, Singla, Puniti, Rampalli, Phaneendra Year: 2012 Over the past few years, major IT and non-It companies have increasingly adopted open source software (OSS). OSS is developed by organized communities of interested parties and sometimes by major software companies.OSS is developed by applying high quality standards and rigorous processes used when developing proprietary softwares. In most of the publications, much of the assessment of the drivers of growth and factors which hinder the development of OSS has been done form the technical perspective .Managerial perceptions of benefits and drawbacks that impact the organizational adoption of OSS has been neglected due to its focus on software development. In this paper we have tried to analyze the benefits and drawbacks mainly from the perspective of the IS/IT managers by analyzing various case studies of the leading companies that adopted OSS in their software portfolios. We also conducted surveys with two leading corporations like Nike and Intel in the city of Portland in Orgeon and also tried to contact the people from few global companies. After analyzing surveys and case studies we found out that benefits outweigh drawbacks in adoption of OSS. Companies are strategically adopting OSS as they have incorporated OSS in their IT strategies. The issues which were thought to be hindering the growth of OSS were found to be insignificant in front of the large amount of savings, escape from vendor-lock-in and customization of processes which companies are able to achieve after switching to OSS. Despite of many benefits some concerns surfaced up like lack of formal guidelines for the adoption of OSS in an organization. Lack of management support also hinders the adoption of OSS. OSS can be the best choice for the company if it aligns its business objectives with particular OSS before switching to it. Today,OSS is in the software portfolio of more than seventy five percent of the major companies and is expected that by 2016 OSS will be in mission critical software portfolios of more than ninety nine percent of global companies. Title: Open Source Software – Implications on Technology Management Author: Goyal, Shreya, Biradar, Renu, Singla, Puniti, Rampalli, Phaneendra Year: 2012 Over the past few years, major IT and non-It companies have increasingly adopted open source software (OSS). OSS is developed by organized communities of interested parties and sometimes by major software companies.OSS is developed by applying high quality standards and rigorous processes used when developing proprietary softwares. In most of the publications, much of the assessment of the drivers of growth and factors which hinder the development of OSS has been done form the technical perspective .Managerial perceptions of benefits and drawbacks that impact the organizational adoption of OSS has been neglected due to its focus on software development. In this paper we have tried to analyze the benefits and drawbacks mainly from the perspective of the IS/IT managers by analyzing various case studies of the leading companies that adopted OSS in their software portfolios. We also conducted surveys with two leading corporations like Nike and Intel in the city of Portland in Orgeon and also tried to contact the people from few global companies. After analyzing surveys and case studies we found out that benefits outweigh drawbacks in adoption of OSS. Companies are strategically adopting OSS as they have incorporated OSS in their IT strategies. The issues which were thought to be hindering the growth of OSS were found to be insignificant in front of the large amount of savings, escape from vendor-lock-in and customization of processes which companies are able to achieve after switching to OSS. Despite of many benefits some concerns surfaced up like lack of formal guidelines for the adoption of OSS in an organization. Lack of management support also hinders the adoption of OSS. OSS can be the best choice for the company if it aligns its business objectives with particular OSS before switching to it. Today,OSS is in the software portfolio of more than seventy five percent of the major companies and is expected that by 2016 OSS will be in mission critical software portfolios of more than ninety nine percent of global companies. Close

• 3. [Article] Team 2 Process Report: How Team 2 Became Team Velocity

  On January 11, 2012 The ETM Communications and Team Building 522/622 class began. After initial introduction of the course, Dr. Dryden instructed class members to form teams of 4 to 6 people that would ...

  Citation × Citation Citation Abstract Copy Title: Team 2 Process Report: How Team 2 Became Team Velocity Author: Mansour, Mohammad, Amini, Mitra, Bahrini, Sara, Saatchi, Bahareh, Nielsen, Carl, Singla, Puniti Year: 2012 On January 11, 2012 The ETM Communications and Team Building 522/622 class began. After initial introduction of the course, Dr. Dryden instructed class members to form teams of 4 to 6 people that would work together for the entire quarter. This was the beginning of Team Velocity. Most of us knew nothing of our team members when we formed. We formed primarily by chance. Our team consisted of six very diverse people. Mohammad, our unofficial team leader, is from Dubai UAE, three of the girls, Bahareh, Mitra, and Sara are from Iran, and Carl is home grown USA. One member left our team after the first class, however during the second session of class another member joined and became a member of our team; Puniti is from India. Beyond diversity, our team had a generation gap as well as industry experience gap. The age gap is over 20 years between our oldest member and youngest member. Finally, we had very diverse backgrounds in education from Computer Engineering, Civil Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Architectural Engineering, to Biology. One might expect that with this type of diversity, age gap, industry experience, and different education backgrounds, there would be inherent conflict to deal with. This was not the case for our team. We had very little conflict within our team and the conflict we did have was rather insignificant. We worked effectively together and respected each other’s opinions. This does not mean we all played the same role in our team. We had people that were more outspoken and quickly took a leadership role. We had members who were very detailed oriented and others who were bigger picture oriented. We had members that needed encouragement and others who were very self-confident. All of this together made up the complementary skills needed to make an effective team. Through the quarter our team worked together to complete assigned tasks and present material to the class. We all had different ways of looking at things and had different strengths and weaknesses. We learned through the quarter how to capitalize on each member’s strengths and thereby mitigating the weaknesses. We met many times during the quarter to form our presentations. We continually kept in contact over emails in the editing of papers and slides for presentations. Each person in the group was assigned equal amounts of real work to do. We were each accountable to the group to provide summaries of papers that the team would edit. We were also individually accountable to present sections of the class material to the class. The team would meet to compile and edit slides that would be presented. We would then practice the presentations. Each member clearly understood that the team would only succeed if each member did their part. We held ourselves mutually accountable for the work we presented. This is how our team was formed, how we are made up, how we did our work, and how we held ourselves accountable for our success. Through this process we developed a better understanding of each other and found that we really enjoyed working together. We developed a bond and friendship that transcends the individual. This paper describes how team 2 became Team Velocity. Title: Team 2 Process Report: How Team 2 Became Team Velocity Author: Mansour, Mohammad, Amini, Mitra, Bahrini, Sara, Saatchi, Bahareh, Nielsen, Carl, Singla, Puniti Year: 2012 On January 11, 2012 The ETM Communications and Team Building 522/622 class began. After initial introduction of the course, Dr. Dryden instructed class members to form teams of 4 to 6 people that would work together for the entire quarter. This was the beginning of Team Velocity. Most of us knew nothing of our team members when we formed. We formed primarily by chance. Our team consisted of six very diverse people. Mohammad, our unofficial team leader, is from Dubai UAE, three of the girls, Bahareh, Mitra, and Sara are from Iran, and Carl is home grown USA. One member left our team after the first class, however during the second session of class another member joined and became a member of our team; Puniti is from India. Beyond diversity, our team had a generation gap as well as industry experience gap. The age gap is over 20 years between our oldest member and youngest member. Finally, we had very diverse backgrounds in education from Computer Engineering, Civil Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Architectural Engineering, to Biology. One might expect that with this type of diversity, age gap, industry experience, and different education backgrounds, there would be inherent conflict to deal with. This was not the case for our team. We had very little conflict within our team and the conflict we did have was rather insignificant. We worked effectively together and respected each other’s opinions. This does not mean we all played the same role in our team. We had people that were more outspoken and quickly took a leadership role. We had members who were very detailed oriented and others who were bigger picture oriented. We had members that needed encouragement and others who were very self-confident. All of this together made up the complementary skills needed to make an effective team. Through the quarter our team worked together to complete assigned tasks and present material to the class. We all had different ways of looking at things and had different strengths and weaknesses. We learned through the quarter how to capitalize on each member’s strengths and thereby mitigating the weaknesses. We met many times during the quarter to form our presentations. We continually kept in contact over emails in the editing of papers and slides for presentations. Each person in the group was assigned equal amounts of real work to do. We were each accountable to the group to provide summaries of papers that the team would edit. We were also individually accountable to present sections of the class material to the class. The team would meet to compile and edit slides that would be presented. We would then practice the presentations. Each member clearly understood that the team would only succeed if each member did their part. We held ourselves mutually accountable for the work we presented. This is how our team was formed, how we are made up, how we did our work, and how we held ourselves accountable for our success. Through this process we developed a better understanding of each other and found that we really enjoyed working together. We developed a bond and friendship that transcends the individual. This paper describes how team 2 became Team Velocity. Close

• 4. [Article] Elderly Home System Improvement for Medicine Management

  Participating in a design project that leads to a creative new solution is an excellent way to develop new skills by experiencing the design process first hand. The problem presented during the first class ...

  Citation × Citation Citation Abstract Copy Title: Elderly Home System Improvement for Medicine Management Author: Garcia, Jorge, Natarajan, Rupha, Gibson, Elizabeth, Spatar, Daria, Singla, Puniti Year: 2013 Participating in a design project that leads to a creative new solution is an excellent way to develop new skills by experiencing the design process first hand. The problem presented during the first class session was to create a solution to improve some attribute of human life in the home health care field. Our assigned team of five met the first feeling a little overwhelmed. We were challenged to find a worthy problem in need of a solution. Team Westside quickly completed the forming stage with introductions and discussion about meeting times and structure. In order to tackle this problem, we agreed to each shadow an elderly person that week and document observations before our next meeting. Our team “storming” sessions are more like a mild Portland sprinkle as all members perform to the “norms” and have good social skills. Team Westside, prepared with a wealth of observations and problems presented the idea of medicine management in a class verbal report. The idea was briefly discussed with the class and validated. We were charted to continue with generative design research and left with a better sense of direction. Our team performed over 50 hours of research using end user ethnographic techniques. The culmination of this effort pointed to the problem of elderly frustration with managing different and changing medications. Our team had quite a bit of data for this specific problem so this was the area we shifted our attention to find a solution. Title: Elderly Home System Improvement for Medicine Management Author: Garcia, Jorge, Natarajan, Rupha, Gibson, Elizabeth, Spatar, Daria, Singla, Puniti Year: 2013 Participating in a design project that leads to a creative new solution is an excellent way to develop new skills by experiencing the design process first hand. The problem presented during the first class session was to create a solution to improve some attribute of human life in the home health care field. Our assigned team of five met the first feeling a little overwhelmed. We were challenged to find a worthy problem in need of a solution. Team Westside quickly completed the forming stage with introductions and discussion about meeting times and structure. In order to tackle this problem, we agreed to each shadow an elderly person that week and document observations before our next meeting. Our team “storming” sessions are more like a mild Portland sprinkle as all members perform to the “norms” and have good social skills. Team Westside, prepared with a wealth of observations and problems presented the idea of medicine management in a class verbal report. The idea was briefly discussed with the class and validated. We were charted to continue with generative design research and left with a better sense of direction. Our team performed over 50 hours of research using end user ethnographic techniques. The culmination of this effort pointed to the problem of elderly frustration with managing different and changing medications. Our team had quite a bit of data for this specific problem so this was the area we shifted our attention to find a solution. Close

• 5. [Article] Optimization of Staffing Schedule At SHARC

  Scheduling employee’s staff is a crucial part of the operations of any organization. The organization must be efficiently schedule the staff to meet the continuous and potentially changing business demands. ...

  Citation × Citation Citation Abstract Copy Title: Optimization of Staffing Schedule At SHARC Author: Garcia, Jorge, Shah, Kshiti, Singla, Puniti, Yilmaz, Selen, Sengupta, Sowmini Year: 2013 Scheduling employee’s staff is a crucial part of the operations of any organization. The organization must be efficiently schedule the staff to meet the continuous and potentially changing business demands. Staff scheduling becomes challenging when the need to balance various personnel shifts and try to accommodate their preferences. In our report, we have attempted to address the lifeguard scheduling problem at Shute Park Aquatic and Recreation Center (SHARC). The aquatic center offers a variety of classes all year around for all age groups. The lifeguards and swim instructors are part-time employees and mostly students, over 16 years of age. The primary metrics used to schedule lifeguard staff are availability of personnel, avoid double booking when already working in other areas of SHARC, gender diversity, performance, and assessment by supervisor based on previous history. There are situations of last minute cancellations and thus a substitute has to be scheduled for those emergency situations. Currently the SHARC manager uses Microsoft Word for scheduling lifeguards. This paper attempts to propose a scheduling tool based on excel to cope with the emergency substitute scheduling of the lifeguards and document the process rather than relying on a person’s memory. Through this paper we attempt the following: 1) To address the issue of last minute scheduling and find a reliable person to cover. 2) To develop a model that be used for automation of life guard scheduling process. 3) To provide an Excel based program replacing the current word based for automated scheduling at no extra cost. 4) To achieve scheduling of personnel at least cost. Title: Optimization of Staffing Schedule At SHARC Author: Garcia, Jorge, Shah, Kshiti, Singla, Puniti, Yilmaz, Selen, Sengupta, Sowmini Year: 2013 Scheduling employee’s staff is a crucial part of the operations of any organization. The organization must be efficiently schedule the staff to meet the continuous and potentially changing business demands. Staff scheduling becomes challenging when the need to balance various personnel shifts and try to accommodate their preferences. In our report, we have attempted to address the lifeguard scheduling problem at Shute Park Aquatic and Recreation Center (SHARC). The aquatic center offers a variety of classes all year around for all age groups. The lifeguards and swim instructors are part-time employees and mostly students, over 16 years of age. The primary metrics used to schedule lifeguard staff are availability of personnel, avoid double booking when already working in other areas of SHARC, gender diversity, performance, and assessment by supervisor based on previous history. There are situations of last minute cancellations and thus a substitute has to be scheduled for those emergency situations. Currently the SHARC manager uses Microsoft Word for scheduling lifeguards. This paper attempts to propose a scheduling tool based on excel to cope with the emergency substitute scheduling of the lifeguards and document the process rather than relying on a person’s memory. Through this paper we attempt the following: 1) To address the issue of last minute scheduling and find a reliable person to cover. 2) To develop a model that be used for automation of life guard scheduling process. 3) To provide an Excel based program replacing the current word based for automated scheduling at no extra cost. 4) To achieve scheduling of personnel at least cost. Close

• 6. [Article] Heat Pump Water Heater (HPWH) Adoption

  As time goes by, the idea of having unlimited energy resources becomes less and less feasible. The population of our world and the rate of consumption of resources increase each year. The future has us ...

  Citation × Citation Citation Abstract Copy Title: Heat Pump Water Heater (HPWH) Adoption Author: Amini, Mitra, Singla, Puniti, Lui, Jonathan, Kensel, Craig, Lethlean, Joseph Year: 2012 As time goes by, the idea of having unlimited energy resources becomes less and less feasible. The population of our world and the rate of consumption of resources increase each year. The future has us looking at alternative energy sources that will drive the need for better methods of extraction of natural energy’s like wind, water, solar, geothermal heat, and other various types of natural resources. There is a need to focus on developing more energy efficiency of current products to lessen the demand on current energy sources. Primarily powered by electricity, one of the areas to focus on energy efficiency is the heat pump water heater (HPWH). In the Northwest states (Washington, Montana, Oregon, Idaho) about sixty to sixty five percent of households use electricity as the primary source of power. Heating water can consume anywhere from fifteen to twenty five percent of the home total energy consumption. The engineering behind the HPWH doesn’t generate its own heat while running. Rather the HPWH uses the ambient air surrounding the water heater and functions in revers of a refrigeration or air conditioning system. According to Energy star: “HPWH takes the heat from surrounding air and transfers it to water in an enclosed tank. A low-pressure liquid refrigerant is vaporized in the heat pump's evaporator and passed into the compressor. As the pressure of the refrigerant increases, so does its temperature. The heated refrigerant runs through a condenser coil within the storage tank, transferring heat to the water stored there. As the refrigerant delivers its heat to the water, it cools and condenses, and then passes through an expansion valve where the pressure is reduced and the cycle starts over.” Research Question: Why has the HPWH had such a slow or low adoption rate in society? Research Objective: There are factors and sub factors that are affecting the adoption of the Heat Pump Water Heater. The factors we have identified are economic, politic, social, technical and environmental. The sub-factors (elements) will be constructed at a later time and into the HDM model to find the causes that affect the adoption of heat pump water heater. Title: Heat Pump Water Heater (HPWH) Adoption Author: Amini, Mitra, Singla, Puniti, Lui, Jonathan, Kensel, Craig, Lethlean, Joseph Year: 2012 As time goes by, the idea of having unlimited energy resources becomes less and less feasible. The population of our world and the rate of consumption of resources increase each year. The future has us looking at alternative energy sources that will drive the need for better methods of extraction of natural energy’s like wind, water, solar, geothermal heat, and other various types of natural resources. There is a need to focus on developing more energy efficiency of current products to lessen the demand on current energy sources. Primarily powered by electricity, one of the areas to focus on energy efficiency is the heat pump water heater (HPWH). In the Northwest states (Washington, Montana, Oregon, Idaho) about sixty to sixty five percent of households use electricity as the primary source of power. Heating water can consume anywhere from fifteen to twenty five percent of the home total energy consumption. The engineering behind the HPWH doesn’t generate its own heat while running. Rather the HPWH uses the ambient air surrounding the water heater and functions in revers of a refrigeration or air conditioning system. According to Energy star: “HPWH takes the heat from surrounding air and transfers it to water in an enclosed tank. A low-pressure liquid refrigerant is vaporized in the heat pump's evaporator and passed into the compressor. As the pressure of the refrigerant increases, so does its temperature. The heated refrigerant runs through a condenser coil within the storage tank, transferring heat to the water stored there. As the refrigerant delivers its heat to the water, it cools and condenses, and then passes through an expansion valve where the pressure is reduced and the cycle starts over.” Research Question: Why has the HPWH had such a slow or low adoption rate in society? Research Objective: There are factors and sub factors that are affecting the adoption of the Heat Pump Water Heater. The factors we have identified are economic, politic, social, technical and environmental. The sub-factors (elements) will be constructed at a later time and into the HDM model to find the causes that affect the adoption of heat pump water heater. Close