July 2008 IssuE
Course News
Biomass Pipeline Researcher Joins Engineering Management Team
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DR. AMIT KUMAR |
Issues of environmental economics are among the new challenges facing engineers — including those engineers learning to be better managers
A University of Alberta management program designed with working engineers in mind has another environmental twist, thanks to the addition of a teacher involved in biomass research. Dr. Amit Kumar says the economics of alternative energy become more critical for managers all the time.
“It’s important for managers to understand where various new energy sources exist,” says Dr. Kumar, an assistant professor whose classes are now part of the U of A Engineering Management Program. “They need to learn not only the dollar costs of these, but the overall environmental economics as well.
“Biomass energy has a huge potential for development in Canada. We have large agricultural and forest biomass resources. From these we can produce a range of forms of energy, such as ethanol power, biodiesel and hydrogen,” Dr. Kumar says.
“The issue is on which route should we proceed? Techno-economic assessment of all these routes could help and it is important for managers to understand them.”
And to understand much more, too — which is what Engineering Management is all about. EM comes from an overall need for mid-career engineers to improve their management skills, says Dr. Peter Flynn, P.Eng., Poole Chair in Management for Engineers.
Many engineers advance quickly, particularly in a strong economy such as Alberta’s, Dr. Flynn says. Then comes the day of reckoning. They’re management skills, it turns out, aren’t nearly as advanced as their engineering skills.
Engineering Management, administered through the U of A Department of Mechanical Engineering, is open to engineers from all disciplines. At the graduate level, it offers one non-thesis and two thesis degrees, and only students with a bachelor’s degree in engineering are allowed to enrol.
The non-thesis degree is a master of engineering. Primarily aimed at working engineers, it can be taken part time or full time. This program includes nine courses and a capstone project equivalent to an additional three-credit course.
Says Dr. Flynn: “This program is aimed at giving students flexibility in the courses they choose.”
One course must be chosen from each of three core areas. From there, students tailor the balance of the program for individual interests and needs. Up to a third of the courses can be taken in technical rather than management areas.
Part-time students typically finish their degree in two to five years. Full-time students are looking at 12 to 18 months.
Thesis programs involve research and lead to a master of science degree in engineering management or a PhD in mechanical engineering. The EM program is also applying for certification for a PhD degree in engineering management, however. Both the master of science degree and the PhD are typically taken full time.
EM has faced some adversity. Active in the early 1990s, budget cuts nixed Engineering Management mid-decade. However, it bounced back quickly when it was reactivated in 1999, with a large incoming class in 2000. Right now, there are 65 graduate students in the program. — 37 are in the M.Eng. program, 16 in M.Sc. and 13 in PhD.
An additional 76 students have completed the program since 2000, with 55 of them in M.Eng., 15 in M.Sc. and six in PhD.
In addition to Dr. Kumar, Engineering Management has another new staff member. Dr. John Doucette, P.Eng., holds an undergraduate degree in industrial engineering and a PhD in electrical engineering. He has over five years’ experience with TR Labs.
Dr. Doucette has begun a research program in network reliability. He teaches graduate courses in modeling and optimization, and in production management.
Dr. Kumar has a PhD in mechanical engineering. He’s building a program on experimental work in pipelining of biomass and critical studies of energy economics, and will teach graduate courses in energy conversion and alternative energy.
He says there’s a need to reduce truck transport of biomass, because of costs and congestion. Pipeline transport would probably be cheaper and have greater capacity, and would put economy of scale into the equation.
Says Dr. Kumar: “Can we transport biomass through pipelines? What power is required? What is the maximum concentration we can transport? What are the characteristics of the slurry? These are some of the questions our research is trying to answer.”
More Info
www.engineering.ualberta.ca/mece/EngManagement.cfm
Dr. Peter Flynn, P.Eng.
peter.flynn@ualberta.ca