“Assessing Your Organization’s Capabilities: Resources, Processes, and Prioritie
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Question
“Assessing Your Organization’s Capabilities: Resources, Processes, and Priorities” discusses how success of an innovation is determined by its management in terms of resources, processes, and priorities. You will have the opportunity to apply the methodologies outlined in these articles in this activity, to be continued in the class discussions.
QUESTIONS
List and describe resources of an architectural engineering design firm.
Describe the architecturalengineering design process. What types of meetings are held? What business units are represented? How do these business units interface and communicate?
What are the priorities for the design of a traditional facility, such as a manufacturing plant, church, school, or hospital?
GUIDING QUESTIONS ON ABOVE QUESTIONS
How may two units of technology be compared?
Who is responsible for providing the infrastructure required by an innovative technology?
What are measures of customer acceptance?
How quickly may specialized talent be acquired?
How quickly can specialized knowledge be acquired by existing staff?
What types of communication may be involved in a process, both written and oral?
What other priorities exist besides profit margin?
READINGS
Utilizing a fuel cell as a primary power source for a hospital
Hospitals are large public buildings that have a significant impact on the environment and economy of the surrounding community. They are heavy users of energy and water and produce large amounts of waste. Because hospitals place such demands on community resources, they are natural candidates for sustainable design. Hospitals are among the most regulated of all building types. Like other buildings, they must follow the local and state general building codes (Carr, 2017). The hospital design is different from other conventional power grid buildings; we provide a better innovation that has cleaner energy from a fuel-cell generator that will cost cheaper than power from the electrical power grid; the group has a better idea about hospital fuel system and experience on a particular part. In this innovation, the functional team will consist of Civil and Structural Engineer for the Hospital Buildings and Mechanical and Electrical Engineer for fuel cell integration. The Building should have a design that can provide flexibility and expandability. Since medical needs and modes of treatment will continue to change, hospitals should follow modular concepts of space planning and layout. Use generic room sizes and plans as much as possible, rather than highly specific ones. Be served by modular, easily accessed, and easily modified mechanical and electrical systems (Carr, 2017).
According to (Burgelman, Christensen & Wheelwright pg. 103), the boundaries of functional organizations tend to be drawn around disciplines on finance, marketing, manufacturing, and engineering. These broad disciplines typically are subdivided further by specialized expertise, such as electrical, mechanical, and software in an engineering organization, or cost accounting, budgeting, accounts payable, payroll, credit, and collections in an accounting organization. The key is the innovation of an inexpensive fuel-cell generator with a technical advance that could make fuel cells as cheap as grid power. The engineering process consists of a solid-oxide fuel cell. Like all fuel cells, it produces energy through electrochemical reactions (Bullis, 2013).
The advantages for the fuel-cell generator will have zero emissions while being operated, reduced in electricity costs, reliable and consistent power supply. It will have electrical efficiency than traditional combustion power products. We will also combine heat and power installations which will increase efficiency by using the heat generated by the fuel cell for the Hospital heating; it will also have a capability to use fuel-flexibility, which will provide a variety of domestic energy sources like hydrogen, natural gas, and methanol. Of course, it will be a quiet operation rather than a conventional generator which is ideal for a Hospital building (U.S. Department of Energy Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP), 2016).
Fuel cells are electrochemical devices that combine hydrogen and oxygen, by setting up an electrical charge across a membrane. This design used to produce a steady flow of electricity with no moving parts. A fuel cell system which includes a ‘fuel reformer’ can utilize the hydrogen from any other source of gasoline, natural gas or methanol (Mechanicalengineeringblog.com, n.d.). However the conventional electricity comes from the flow of electrical power, it is a secondary energy source generated by the conversion of primary sources of energy like a fossil, nuclear, wind or solar (Energy.gov, n.d.). For fixed electricity and natural gas prices, hydrogen cost decreases with increasing fuel cell utilization. Fuel cell utilization increases for more southern climates because electricity and heat load profiles are more uniform between summer and winter (Steward & Penev, 2017).
Explanation / Answer
What are the priorities for the design of a traditional facility, such as a manufacturing plant, church, school, or hospital?
Considering the example given, Hospitals. Generating Profits is not the only priority that should be considered. Since Hospital consume lot of energy and lot of waste are coming out of the building there should be proper waste management system as well as sustainable power generation method. They also consume lot of water and energy. They are ideal candidates for sustainable designs. First priority that should be considered is to consider a cleaner source of energy/power generation, since hospital consume a lot of Energy and also traditional form of power up such as generators produce lot of noise pollution. Second consideration should be layout and design of the rooms, layout should be such that it should be expandable as when the needs of the hospital changes. There should be enough flexibility in the design of the building so that changes could be incorporated in future. Using generic room sizes as much as possible.
Describe the architecturalengineering design process. What types of meetings are held? What business units are represented? How do these business units interface and communicate?
Architectural-Engineering Design Process, will have two teams working simultaneously to achieve a common goal of achieving a sustainable and innovative design process. Let’s take an example of the building, two teams will be part of the process, first will be architectural team which will consist of Civil and Structural team, which will focus on the design of the building, how can the design of the building be flexible and expandable, so that any future requirement of changes as well as the current requirements are balanced in such a way that both the priorities ar are met simultaneously. Any changes in operation methodology, changing needs of building should be easily taken care, such should be the layout and design of the building. Second team will be the engineering team, consisting of mechanical and electrical engineers, which will focus alternate source of fuel, which meets the demand of the energy needs of the building as well as the same time is cheap, efficient and environment friendly. Both the teams would work in conjunction to provide a sustainable design and structure to the new building.
List and describe resources of an architectural engineering design firm.
Resources of an architectural engineering firms are the different teams that work in conjunction to provide an innovative design solution. Based on different firms this could vary, common teams that most of the firms would have would include Finance teams that would be consisting of accountants and other finance specialist. Finance team controls entire cost of the project, coming with a cost analysis that is profitable for the organization. They decide, whether the project is viable financially or not. Second would Engineering team that develops the innovative alternate energy solutions that are viable to the clients that could a hospital, school, and manufacturing plants. Third will be the architecture team that focus on the design of the building of the building such it is flexible enough to meet the current needs as well the future needs of the firm in terms of expansion. All the team work together to build a sustainable project.
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