The Offshoring of Engineering


Book Description

The engineering enterprise is a pillar of U.S. national and homeland security, economic vitality, and innovation. But many engineering tasks can now be performed anywhere in the world. The emergence of "offshoring"- the transfer of work from the United States to affiliated and unaffiliated entities abroad - has raised concerns about the impacts of globalization. The Offshoring of Engineering helps to answer many questions about the scope, composition, and motivation for offshoring and considers the implications for the future of U.S. engineering practice, labor markets, education, and research. This book examines trends and impacts from a broad perspective and in six specific industries - software, semiconductors, personal computer manufacturing, construction engineering and services, automobiles, and pharmaceuticals. The Offshoring of Engineering will be of great interest to engineers, engineering professors and deans, and policy makers, as well as people outside the engineering community who are concerned with sustaining and strengthening U.S. engineering capabilities in support of homeland security, economic vitality, and innovation.




Offshoring Information Technology


Book Description

The decision to source software development to an overseas firm (offshoring) is looked at frequently in simple economic terms - it's cheaper, and skilled labor is easier to find. In practice, however, offshoring is fraught with difficulties. As well as the considerable challenge of controlling projects at a distance, there are differences in culture, language, business methods, politics, and many other issues to contend with. Nevertheless, as many firms have discovered, the benefits of getting it right are too great to ignore. This book explains everything you need to know to put offshoring into practice, avoid the pitfalls, and develop effective working relationships. It covers a comprehensive range of the important offshoring issues: from ROI to strategy, from SLA to culture, from country comparisons to provider marketing. Written for CTOs, CIOs, consultants, and other IT executives, this book is also an excellent introduction to sourcing for business students.










Offshore Technology in Civil Engineering, Volume Five


Book Description

This is the fifth volume in a series of publications containing classic papers from the early years of the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC), the world s leading event for the development of offshore resources in the fields of exploration, drilling, production, and environmental protection. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), through its participation in and support of the OTC, plays a major role in the innovation and evolution of the technologies needed to overcome the challenges facing development of resources in the offshore environment. The years since the first OTC Conference in 1969 have seen the presentation of over 10,000 papers in the various technical disciplines central to offshore development. A few of the civil engineering papers, presented throughout OTC s history, provided innovation in, vision for and lasting impact on the design, construction, or installation of offshore infrastructure. Many have been adopted by design standards worldwide or became an integral part of design software. Some have had influence far beyond the offshore industry, and some have become integral to the design process of onshore structures such as buildings and bridges. Offshore Technology in Civil Engineering: Hall of Fame Papers from the Early Years; Volume Five is a collection of the eight winning papers inducted in 2010 at an award ceremony during OTC in May of 2010. The engineering methods published in these papers have proven their value through widespread use, permeating codes, standards, guidelines, and engineering software.




Software Engineering Approaches for Offshore and Outsourced Development


Book Description

SEAFOOD 2009: Enabling Global Partnerships to Deliver on Business Needs Companies have been outsourcing areas of software development work for many years, either because of the engineering challenges or because the outsourced aspect is not central to their core business. A profound transformation has been a?ecting this model over recent years: a massive transfer of development - tivities from the USA and Europe to a skilled labor force in service-providing countries. This transformation has been driven by the demands of a global bu- ness climate seeking to increase the value delivery of IT investment. However, the ability to realize this value can prove problematic in practice. Of particular concern are the hidden costs of globally distributed models of working, such as understanding and communicating the true business needs across organizational and cultural boundaries. To address such issues, o?shore outsourcing requires di?erent support from in-housedevelopmentandthismeansadaptingfamiliartechniques,processesand tools to this setting, as well as perhaps creating innovative new ones. Coupled with this industry transformation there is hence a pressing need to re-examine thosesoftwareengineeringapproachesthateither facilitate orimpede this model of working. With an inevitable focus on the economy in 2009, business decisions regarding the sourcing of software development projects will come under close scrutiny. It will become increasingly critical to design global partnerships that both clarify cost/bene?ts and enable delivery on business needs.




Software Engineering Approaches for Offshore and Outsourced Development


Book Description

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the First International Conference on Software Engineering Approaches for Offshore and Outsourced Development, SEAFOOD 2007, Zurich, Switzerland, in February 2007. The 15 revised full papers constitute a balanced mix of academic and industrial aspects and address topical regions such as processes, education, country reports, evaluation and assessment, communication and distribution, as well as tools.




Outsourcing and Offshoring of Professional Services: Business Optimization in a Global Economy


Book Description

"This book discusses the considerations and implications surrounding the outsourcing and offshoring of professional services, such as software development computer-aided design, and healthcare, from multiple global perspectives. This book, offers industry professionals, policymakers, students, and educators with a balance between a broad overview and detailed analysis of offshore outsourcing, would make an invaluable addition to any reference library"--Provided by publisher.




Industry Trends in Engineering Offshoring


Book Description

Engineering jobs are being offshored to countries like India and China, and the trend seems to be gaining momentum. It is not clear whether this will erode U.S competitiveness or provide long term benefit. What is clear is that there is insufficient independent research on this topic. Here, we delve into some of the offshoring experiences of leading American corporations. This report summarizes data collected from 78 division representatives at 58 U.S. based companies involved in engineering offshoring. We discuss their experiences in hiring engineers, the perception of the productivity and quality differences between U.S. engineers and those in China and India, and future trends in offshoring.




Software Engineering Approaches for Offshore and Outsourced Development


Book Description

This book constitutes the proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Software Engineering Approaches for Offshore and Outsourced Development, SEAFOOD 2010, held in St. Petersburg, Russia, June 17-18, 2010. The four long plus the four short papers presented together with two keynote speeches were carefully reviewed and selected from 25 submissions for inclusion in the book. The areas covered include industry challenges and best practices in offshore software development, distributed software development, risk management, and global software project management.