The Engineering Management Handbook

Book excerpt: With the globalization of the manufacturing base, outsourcing of many technical services, the efficiencies derived from advances in information technology (and the subsequent decrease in mid-management positions), and the shifting of our economy to be service-based, the roles of the technical organization and the engineering manager of those organizations has dramatically changed. The 21st century technical organization and its managers must be concerned with maintaining an agile, high quality, and profitable business base of products or services in a fluctuating economy, hiring, managing, and retaining a highly qualified and trained staff of engineers, scientists, and technicians in a rapidly changing technological environment, and demonstrating a high level of capability maturity. Under this backdrop the American Society of Engineering Management sponsored the development of the handbook.This handbook is written for engineering managers in government and industry and to serve as a reference book in academics. We chose to group the 19 chapters contained in the textbook into broad areas to include Historical, Professional, and Academic Perspective, Management of Engineering Core Competencies, Quantitative Methods and Modeling, Accounting, Financial, and Economic Basis, Project Management and Systems Engineering, Business Acumen, and Govenance. Our hope is that this handbook, like the engineering management profession will evolve.Within five years, for most engineers' technical management become their primary job function. Combined with the fact that the modern engineering enterprise is now characterized by geographically dispersed and multi-cultural organizations, engineering management is more relevant than ever.