Engineering Decisions for Life Quality


Book Description

Engineering Decisions for Life Quality: How Safe is Safe Enough? provides a foundation and a theoretical basis for managing risk to an acceptable level under the real-world constraint of limited resources. The focus is not on risks as such, but on what can be done to maximize the positive outcomes of risk in terms of improvements to the quality of life. The principal focus of Engineering Decisions for Life Quality: How Safe is Safe Enough? is on the development of guidance for establishing rational standards of practice. Standards should meet the requirement of utilizing resources to achieve the maximum net overall benefit to society within society’s capacity to commit such resources. The ideas discussed within this book will be of interest to engineers; advanced undergraduate and graduate students; public health officials; and risk specialists.




Asset Management Excellence


Book Description

During the eight years since the publication of Maintenance Excellence: Optimizing Equipment Life-Cycle Decisions the business environment has changed drastically. Globalization, consolidation, and changes in technology challenge asset management and maintenance professionals to be more efficient. Globalization and consolidation have been particula




Community and Quality of Life


Book Description

"Quality of life"..."livability"..."sense of place." Communities across America are striving to define these terms and to bring them to life, as they make decisions about transportation systems and other aspects of planning and development. Community and Quality of Life discusses important concepts that undergird community life and offers recommendations for collaborative planning across space and time. The book explores: Livability as an ensemble concept, embracing notions such as quality of place and sustainability. It discusses how to measure the "three legs" of livability (social, economic, ecological) while accounting for politics and personal values. And the book examines how to translate broad ideas about livability into guidelines for policymaking Place as more than location, including the natural, human-built, and social environments. The book discusses the impact of population changes over time, the links between regional and local identity, and other issues Tools for decision making in transportation and community planning. It reviews a variety of decision models and tools such as geographic information systems (GIS)â€"as well as public and private sources of relevant data. Including several case examples, this book will be important to planners, planning decision makers, planning educators and students, social scientists, community activists, and interested individuals.




Life Engineering


Book Description

Machine Intelligence is changing every aspect of our lives. Internet traffic and sensors in households, cars, and wearables provide data that oligopolistic companies collect and use to extract patterns of human behavior. Further, active digital assistants are taking over more and more of our everyday decisions. Humanity is on the verge of an evolutionary leap and it is time to determine if this development will benefit people’s wellbeing or will just mean the accumulation of capital and power with no regard for quality of life. This book integrates the perspectives of various disciplines that are striving to establish resilient foundations – computer science, economics and social sciences, political science, psychology, philosophy, neuroscience, ethics and religion – in order to clarify a number of positions and, as a result, objectify the discussions. Written by Hubert Osterle, a researcher working at the interface of these disciplines, the book promotes debate on the future of man and machine, on happiness and evolution and on the major changes brought about by digital technology. Last but not least, it is a manifesto calling for a new – integrated – discipline to be founded: life engineering. „If you want to think more deeply about what machine intelligence (aka AI) really means for humanity, you should read this book. Hubert Oesterle takes an amazingly broad and multi-disciplinary look at all relevant aspects, from the roots of human behavior to the impact advanced digital assistants might have on our daily lives (and who will control these assistants). Highly recommended!” Andreas Goeldi, Partner at btov Partners




Engineering Decisions for Life Quality


Book Description

Engineering Decisions for Life Quality: How Safe is Safe Enough? provides a foundation and a theoretical basis for managing risk to an acceptable level under the real-world constraint of limited resources. The focus is not on risks as such, but on what can be done to maximize the positive outcomes of risk in terms of improvements to the quality of life. The principal focus of Engineering Decisions for Life Quality: How Safe is Safe Enough? is on the development of guidance for establishing rational standards of practice. Standards should meet the requirement of utilizing resources to achieve the maximum net overall benefit to society within society’s capacity to commit such resources. The ideas discussed within this book will be of interest to engineers; advanced undergraduate and graduate students; public health officials; and risk specialists.







Introduction to Quality and Reliability Engineering


Book Description

This book presents the state-of-the-art in quality and reliability engineering from a product life-cycle standpoint. Topics in reliability include reliability models, life data analysis and modeling, design for reliability as well as accelerated life testing and reliability growth analysis, while topics in quality include design for quality, acceptance sampling and supplier selection, statistical process control, production tests such as environmental stress screening and burn-in, warranty and maintenance. The book provides comprehensive insights into two closely related subjects, and includes a wealth of examples and problems to enhance readers’ comprehension and link theory and practice. All numerical examples can be easily solved using Microsoft Excel. The book is intended for senior undergraduate and postgraduate students in related engineering and management programs such as mechanical engineering, manufacturing engineering, industrial engineering and engineering management programs, as well as for researchers and engineers in the quality and reliability fields. Dr. Renyan Jiang is a professor at the Faculty of Automotive and Mechanical Engineering, Changsha University of Science and Technology, China.




Environmental Engineering for the 21st Century


Book Description

Environmental engineers support the well-being of people and the planet in areas where the two intersect. Over the decades the field has improved countless lives through innovative systems for delivering water, treating waste, and preventing and remediating pollution in air, water, and soil. These achievements are a testament to the multidisciplinary, pragmatic, systems-oriented approach that characterizes environmental engineering. Environmental Engineering for the 21st Century: Addressing Grand Challenges outlines the crucial role for environmental engineers in this period of dramatic growth and change. The report identifies five pressing challenges of the 21st century that environmental engineers are uniquely poised to help advance: sustainably supply food, water, and energy; curb climate change and adapt to its impacts; design a future without pollution and waste; create efficient, healthy, resilient cities; and foster informed decisions and actions.




Maintenance Excellence


Book Description

Considering maintenance from a proactive, rather than reactive, perspective, Maintenance Excellence details the strategies, tools, and solutions for maximizing the productivity of physical assets—focusing on profitability potential. The editors address contemporary concerns, key terms, data requirements, critical methodologies, and essential mathematical needs. They present maintenance in a business context, review planning, measurement, feedback, and techniques related to cost, efficiency, and results, and summarize applications of tools and software from statistics and neural networks to cost-optimized models.




Decision Quality


Book Description

Add value with every decision using a simple yet powerful framework Few things are as valuable in business, and in life, as the ability to make good decisions. Can you imagine how much more rewarding your life and your business would be if every decision you made were the best it could be? Decision Quality empowers you to make the best possible choice and get more of what you truly want from every decision. Dr. Carl Spetzler is a leader in the field of decision science and has worked with organizations across industries to improve their decision-making capabilities. He and his co-authors, all experienced consultants and educators in this field, show you how to frame a problem or opportunity, create a set of attractive alternatives, identify relevant uncertain information, clarify the values that are important in the decision, apply tools of analysis, and develop buy-in among stakeholders. Their straightforward approach is elegantly simple, yet practical and powerful. It can be applied to all types of decisions. Our business and our personal lives are marked by a stream of decisions. Some are small. Some are large. Some are life-altering or strategic. How well we make those decisions truly matters. This book gives you a framework and thinking tools that will help you to improve the odds of getting more of what you value from every choice. You will learn: The six requirements for decision quality, and how to apply them The difference between a good decision and a good outcome Why a decision can only be as good as the best of the available alternatives Methods for making both "significant" and strategic decisions The mental traps that undermine decision quality and how to avoid them How to deal with uncertainty—a factor in every important choice How to judge the quality of a decision at the time you're making it How organizations have benefited from building quality into their decisions. Many people are satisfied with 'good enough' when making important decisions. This book provides a method that will take you and your co-workers beyond 'good enough' to true Decision Quality.