23-CS-4 Engineering Management · May 2018
Nivaar worked solution (AI-drafted; not reviewed by a licensed engineer)
National Exams — May 2018 — 11-CS-4 Engineering Management. Closed book; no calculators. Any five questions constitute a complete paper; all questions are of equal value (20 marks each). Full worked answers to all seven questions are given below.
Question text not reproduced: the examination questions are © Engineers and Geoscientists BC. Open the official past paper (linked at the top of this page) to read the question, then follow the worked solution below.
(a) Kaizen—Japanese for "change for the better"—is the philosophy and practice of continuous, incremental improvement involving everyone in the organization. Rather than relying on occasional large investments, it accumulates many small, low-cost improvements driven by the people who do the work, using the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle and direct observation at the workplace (gemba); each gain is standardized so it cannot slip back. (b) Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) is a systematic, proactive technique for anticipating how a product or process might fail and preventing those failures. The team lists each potential failure mode, its effects, and its causes, and rates each on severity, likelihood of occurrence, and detectability; the product of these ratings is a Risk Priority Number (RPN) that ranks the failures so that mitigation effort targets the most critical first. (c) Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is a structured method for translating the "voice of the customer" into engineering and production requirements. Using the "House of Quality" matrix, it maps customer needs against technical characteristics, showing how strongly each characteristic affects each need and how the firm compares with competitors, so that design effort is directed at what customers actually value. Together, Kaizen improves continuously, FMEA prevents failures, and QFD keeps design customer-focused.
Root-cause analysis (RCA) is a structured problem-solving approach whose purpose is to identify and address the underlying, fundamental cause of a problem rather than merely treating its visible symptoms. Its value is that fixing symptoms allows the problem to recur, whereas eliminating the true root cause prevents recurrence permanently—so RCA underpins genuine, lasting quality improvement. Several techniques are used to "dig deeply." The "5 Whys" technique repeatedly asks "why?"—typically about five times—tracing each answer back to its cause until the fundamental origin is reached rather than a surface explanation. The Cause-and-Effect (Fishbone or Ishikawa) diagram organizes possible causes into major categories (commonly people, methods, machines, materials, measurement, and environment) so a team can systematically explore all contributing factors. Pareto analysis applies the 80/20 principle to focus on the vital few causes that account for most of the problem. Fault-tree analysis works logically backward from an undesired event through the combinations of causes that could produce it. Supporting tools include scatter diagrams, control charts, and check sheets. Used together, these techniques move a team past symptoms to the actionable root cause.
Industry uses a range of project-management software to plan, schedule, track, and control projects. Microsoft Project is the most widely used general tool, supporting work breakdown structures, Gantt charts, critical-path scheduling, resource assignment, and progress tracking. Primavera (Oracle Primavera P6) is the standard for large, complex engineering and construction projects, offering powerful scheduling, resource, and portfolio management. Cloud-based collaborative tools such as Jira (especially for software and agile projects), Asana, Trello, Monday.com, and Smartsheet support task management, team collaboration, and progress visibility, often with Kanban boards and dashboards. Basecamp and Microsoft Planner serve lighter team-coordination needs, while enterprise suites integrate project management with cost and resource systems. These tools typically provide scheduling (Gantt and network/CPM views), resource levelling, budgeting and earned-value tracking, document sharing, and reporting. The appropriate choice depends on project size and complexity—Primavera or MS Project for large scheduled engineering projects, and agile/collaborative tools such as Jira for iterative development—so that the software matches the planning and control needs of the work.
A manufacturer facing a recurring weld-defect problem would run a root-cause analysis: a fishbone diagram would organize possible causes across machines, methods, materials, and people, and the 5 Whys would trace the defect to an uncontrolled fixture temperature—an FMEA having earlier flagged that failure mode as high-RPN. QFD would ensure the redesigned joint still meets the customer's strength requirement, Kaizen would embed the fix as standard work, and the whole improvement project would be scheduled and tracked in Microsoft Project.
