MIE315 - 2022 - Project Instruction
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MIE315 - Design for the Environment
Project Instructions
Winter 2022
Weight:
62% of Course Grade
Context
A number of companies and organizations have approached the MIE department for help making a
challenging design decision. In all cases, they are trying to decide between two different products or
process alternatives that perform the same basic function. For example, Federal Express is trying to decide
whether they should continue using diesel engines for their local delivery trucks or switch to electric
motors.
A primary objective of these companies and organizations is to reduce the life cycle environmental
impacts of their products or processes. At the same time, they are concerned about other factors relevant
to both them and their customers. These factors include functional, economic, and societal concerns, in
addition to the environment. Your term project will be to help these companies make their decision.
In teams of four, you will help them build their project by performing the following analyses on the two
alternative products or processes:
Functions/Objectives/Constraints (FOC) analysis
Streamlined Life Cycle Assessment (SLCA)
Economic analysis
Hybrid life cycle assessment
Societal analysis
Ultimately, your group will recommend one of the alternatives as the best option for your client. Materials
presented in MIE315 will provide you with the tools needed to do an outstanding job on this project.
Warning: The project clients are real companies or organizations
; however, their interaction with
this course is limited. Therefore, do not contact these companies or organizations for information
specific to this fictitious request for a consultant’s report. Their names are included to give you a rich
body of information from which to work with in your documents. However, you are supposed to only
contact the “Contact Person” of your project. In most cases, the “Contact Person” is your “TA Project”
who knows the details of the project. Either your project’s contact person is a company client or your
TA project, you need to schedule a monthly meeting with them to update them with your progress
and/or ask questions. If your contact person is your project TA, you have to separately arrange a
monthly meeting with him/her, other than your tutorial sessions.
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Project Deliverables
0.
Project Selection (4 members, same tutorial section), opens on Jan 12- at 12:01 pm and due Jan 16
11:59 pm (Not graded but mandatory):
https://forms.office.com/r/FMWnsfxfYF
1.
Preliminary Literature Review (done individually
), due Feb 04- 11:59 pm
2.
Preliminary Consultant’s Report, due Feb 27-11:59 pm
3.
Final Consultant’s Report:
First version, due Mar 18-11:59 pm
Revised version, due Apr 08- 11:59 pm
4.
Personal Statement on Environmental Stewardship, due Mar 25 at 11:59 pm
5.
Final Poster Presentation and Theme Round-Table Discussion:
Poster Submission, due Apr 12- 11:59 pm
Oral Poster Presentation, Apr 13
General Project Notes
References: As with any credible engineering argument, inclusion of appropriate references is
required. Citations and/or a reference list should be in IEEE
or APA . Both failing to cite sources of
information or other people’s ideas are academic offences, as per university policy. Consider using
a free reference manager such as Mendeley or Zotoro, but make sure to check their formatting!
Reports are to be single spaced 8.5”
×
11” pages with 1” margins and 12 pt standard font, Arial
or Times New Roman are acceptable fonts.
Word limits do not include the Cover Page, Executive Summary, Table of Contents, References,
Attribution Table, and Appendices. Word limits include everything else such as figures, tables, and
headers. The Marker will not grade anything beyond these word limits. The word count will be
conducted using the word count tool in Microsoft OneDrive. Therefore, all documents must be
submitted as a Microsoft Word document.
It is a course requirement that group deliverables be written collaboratively using Microsoft
OneDrive or Google Docs. This requires each member of the team to have a Microsoft or Google
Account. If you already have an account you can use it. If you do not already have an account, it is
free to sign up for one.
The revision history from OneDrive (or Google Docs) will be used as evidence in support of claims
of individual contributions made in the attribution table. Therefore, when you contribute to your
team’s documents you will need to be logged into your own account. Failure to do so will mean
that you do not get any credit for your work.
For all group assignments (except
Group Selection
) an attribution table detailing the work done by
each team member is required. Team members not doing their fair share will be penalized. The
attribution table will also be used in the event of suspected plagiarism.
This project instruction is for your general information; however, some changes may be applied in
each section. In case of any changes applied to the project instruction, you will be notified by
announcement in Quercus.
Teamwork
You will be working collaboratively in teams of four, and through this project you are expected to reflect on
that experience to improve your teamwork skills.
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As a tool, we will be using the
Team-Effectiveness Learning System
(TELS), developed by the Troost
Institute for Leadership Education in Engineering
(ILead) based on research on teamwork and human
behavior. You may have used this tool in previous courses at U of T.
Through TELS, you will be asked to complete surveys
related to your team. The answers
you provide in
TELS
will
be graded based on the quality of feedback you provide and will factor into
your 7%
team
meeting grade.
Deliverable 0: Group and Project Selection
Weight: 0%
Group Self Sign-up on Quercus,
Jan 16-11:59 pm
You have been automatically (and randomly) assigned to groups based on your Tutorial section
Meet with your group (remotely) for introductions and to read over the available project themes
and individual projects. Each theme will be handled by one TA.
Project Selection Form (online)
Select one member to be the
group leader
who will be responsible for communication with TAs
and instructors and setting up the files in OneDrive.
As a group, choose and rank your
top five choices
from the projects list document. Your group
leader should submit your five project choices ranked in order of preference at
https://forms.office.com/r/FMWnsfxfYF
There will be only one team working on each project. The
first team
to submit their full team and
project selections will get their
first choice
.
Your TA will provide assistance for the duration of the project via email and in some tutorials.
Please direct all project related questions to your assigned TA.
Once your project has been assigned, identify the groups belonging to the same theme as your
group’s (refer to the projects list document). You will need to contact the other 2 or 3 groups
during the term for cross-team thematic interaction purposes.
Developing your own project?
If you are developing your own project save yourself some time and speak to Prof. Golovin about
your ideas prior doing the write up. Write a project description in the same format as those listed
in the projects document, including a slightly more detailed (1-2 paragraph) context. Your project
must fit into one of the three themes available to your Tutorial section.
A project consists of a client, location, context, and two alternatives. Projects must have significant
environmental implications.
o
Client: Your client must be a company or organization that is likely to commission a
consultant’s report on environmental impacts. Individuals are not allowed. For example,
you may explore the impacts of alternatives cleaning fluids for a major hotel chain, but not
for your roommate. You can use your own sources, family friends, relative, etc., who work
for a company or runs a company to design your projects.
o
Location: This information will help identify quantities that vary from region to region. E.G.
Codes and standards, energy mix in the power grid, climate conditions, etc. It is a common
student mistake to ignore this field. Save yourself some time and be sure to consider it
upfront. If you are originally from outside of Canada I would be happy to see some projects
from your home region.
o
Context
:
In a few sentences what is the client’s interest.
o
Alternatives: The two (or three) alternatives must perform the same basic function. Slight
differences in functionality will be addressed in the FOC analysis; however, if the
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differences are too great it will invalidate the report. e.g., Comparing a moped to a Harley
Davidson is not acceptable because their functional attributes are too different.
The first alternative is the baseline that is currently widely used.
The second alternative is a newer technology and could be still under development.
This alternative should offer promise for reducing the negative environmental
impacts over the first alternative.
Deliverable 1: Preliminary Literature Review
Weight:
10% of course grade (individual grade)
What is a Literature Review?
The function of a scientific literature review is primarily to collect and examine the state of current
knowledge in a field by examining the work of scholars and researchers whose work has been recognized
as valuable. Ultimately, a well-researched and written literature review accomplishes three goals. It:
1.
Establishes context for your work by showing what has been done in the area
2.
Exposes the gap in current knowledge
3.
Shows your supervisors that you have done your research [ CITATION Iri04 \l 4105 ]
Literature Reviews help to focus, refocus or consider new areas or close gaps in investigations[ CITATION
Iri15 \l 4105 ].
To ensure your project gets off to a great start, the clients have requested preliminary literature reviews.
Each student must find and briefly summarize three sources that will supply information for the
remaining parts of the project. Each team member should use different sources. The sources can relate to
the environmental, economic, functional, and societal aspects of the alternatives and any other aspects of
the project.
You must use more than one type of source
(e.g. journal articles, handbooks, credible websites,
standards, and books). Sources should be scholarly or otherwise reliable and authoritative. You may wish
to discuss your sources with your TA prior to submitting this document.
Note that this research is merely the start. An effective report will utilize much more than 12 sources by
the end of the project.
Mandatory Library Research Workshop –
Jan 17/19
You must attend one of the Library Research Workshops held in tutorial. If you do not attend, you will be
marked out of
5% this assignment
.
Note: we can track attendance and those that have viewed the videos
using Quercus tools.
Literature Review Document –
Feb 04- 11:59 pm on Quercus
Your submission should include the following:
File Name:
Name
the file exactly as follows and share with your TA giving them Edit access.
Gr <##>
- <First Name> <Last Name> - Lit Review-Draft or Final
When you are ready to submit change “Draft” in the file name to “Final”
Each student is to submit this
individually.
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Cover page
: Include project name and group number, course, name and student number, name and
student numbers of team members, teaching assistant name, year.
Three (3) summaries of sources. For each summary:
o
Provide a citation of the source using IEEE or APA standards.
o
In a few sentences, discuss how the source is sufficiently reliable and authoritative for this project.
This includes discussing any potential bias.
o
In 1-2 paragraphs, briefly summarize the source in your own words and explain what information
from the source will be used by your group for the project.
o
You must include a CRAAP Test at the bottom of each your sources. See the Library Workshop
slides for more details
Reflection on how you found one of the sources
o
Detail the research tool or database, search terms/conditions/parameters, number of results in
the search, and how you selected the specific source.
o
Reflection as to how your research fits into the overall project
o
Write a few lines or up to
1
short paragraph describing how your research
benefits the overall project.
A project timeline
(should be completed in conjunction with group members, but each member
should submit a version in their individual literature review)
o
Ensure your schedule includes a date for completion of the research.
o
Your status with reference to this schedule will be reviewed by your TA during your weekly
meetings.
o
Copying the timetable from the course syllabus
does not
meet the requirements for a
project
timeline. This is a nuanced and detailed schedule to meet the demands of this project.
A Note on Academic Integrity and Accurate documentation
Academic Integrity involves much more than a list of references at the end of your document. In
engineering, design ideas are always based in someone’s earlier work, so documenting sources is
important to put your work in context. It serves two important purposes:
1.
Providing the authority to back up your ideas.
2.
Giving appropriate credit to someone else for their ideas.
As this relates to your Literature Review, the goal is for you to take someone else’s ideas and tell us how
you are using them to close the gap to solve a
Design for the Environment
challenge.
In year’s past we’ve had some issues with academic integrity and the reflections. A reflection regarding the
article is not regurgitating the main idea(s) of the source, a reflection goes beyond the details and
describes how this helps your project. It’s also worth noting that if you take a quote from the source as
part of the description in your reflection you must use “quotes” to properly cite the direct language.
For more information on Academic Integrity:
1.
ECP’s – Accurate Documentation:
https://ecp.engineering.utoronto.ca/resources/online-
handbook/accurate-documentation/
2.
U of T’s Writing Centre – Annotated Bibliographies:
https://advice.writing.utoronto.ca/types-of-
writing/annotated-bibliography/
o
U of T’s Writing Centre – Using Sources:
https://advice.writing.utoronto.ca/using-sources/
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Deliverable 2: Preliminary Consultant’s Report
Weight:
15% of course grade (team grade)
Submission: Final version shared with TA through OneDrive, and to Ouriginal (pdf)
In your preliminary consultant’s report, your client wants you to perform a FOC analysis and a SLCA of
your alternatives. Present your findings to your client in a report
no more than 3,000 words
. This report
will be submitted via OneDrive and Ouriginal on
Feb 27-11:59 pm Include the following sections (bullets)
and address the following points (sub-bullets):
File Name
: Name the file exactly as follows and share with your TA giving them Edit access.
Gr ##
- PCR – Draft
When you are ready to submit change “Draft” in the file name to “Final”
Cover page
o
Include project name and group number, course, team member names and student
numbers, teaching assistant name, year.
Executive Summary
Table of contents
Introduction
o
Introduce the topic and alternatives.
o
Define scope and goals for the report.
Functions/objectives/constraints analysis
o
Define constraints and objectives related to function and other desired attributes.
o
Prove that both alternatives meet all constraints.
o
For the objectives, define metrics and assign scores to the alternatives. You may identify
economic and environmental objectives, but do not include them in comparison in this
section. Their comparison will be covered in their respective sections of the final
consultant’s report.
o
Compare the alternatives with a weighted decision matrix.
o
Discuss the results.
Streamlined life cycle assessment
o
For each alternative, describe the major processes occurring in each life stage. Include
qualitative inventory flow diagrams to show material and energy inputs and residues.
o
Use the appropriate checklist to fill in the SLCA matrices for each alternative.
o
Discuss the results. For each alternative, highlight the key life stages and environmental
stressors with the most significant contributions to overall environmental impact.
Summary
o
Based upon results of FOC analysis and SLCA, make a preliminary recommendation for
which alternative to select.
o
Inform your client of what analyses will be included in the final report to support your final
recommendation.
References
Appendices (if necessary)
Attribution Table
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Mandatory Team Writing Workshop
You must attend the Team Building Workshop held in
Tutorial on Jan 24/26. If you do not attend, you will
be marked out of
10% on this assignment
.
Note: we can track attendance and those that have viewed the
videos Quercus tools.
Deliverable 3: Final Consultant’s Report
Weight:
20% of course grade (team grade)
Submission: Final version shared with TA through OneDrive, and to Ouriginal (pdf)
Build upon your previous report by performing Hybrid LCAs and economic and societal analyses of the
alternatives. Present your findings to your client in a report of
no more than
7,500
words
.
This report will be submitted with an opportunity for revision. The first version of the report will be
submitted via OneDrive and Ouriginal on
Mar 18-11:59 pm.
This report will be fully reviewed by the TAs
and comments will be returned to the groups. The first version of the report will not be graded
.
Your
group will then be given the opportunity to revise and resubmit the final version of the report by
Apr 08-
11:59 pm via OneDrive and Ouriginal if you would like to improve your report and eventually your mark.
The Final Consultant’s Report mark will only come from the second version, whether you submitted the
first version or not.
The report should include the following sections (bullets) and address the following points (sub-bullets):
File Name:
Name the file exactly as follows and share with your TA
Gr ##
- FCR – Draft
I.E. Gr01 - FCR - Draft
When you are ready to submit Version 1 on March 19, change “Draft” in the file name to
“Version 1 - Final”.
When you are ready to submit the Revision on April 09, change “Draft” in the file name to
“Revision - Final”.
Cover page
o
Include project name and group number, course, team member names and student
numbers, teaching assistant name, year.
Executive Summary
Table of contents
Introduction
o
Briefly re-introduce your topic and alternatives.
o
Briefly summarize findings from your previous report. You may wish to include key
matrices from the previous report in an appendix.
o
State the scope and goals for this report.
o
Define the functional unit.
Economic Analysis
o
State and justify the life cycle costs for both alternatives.
o
Compare alternatives using a standard methodology that uses the time value of money.
o
Discuss the results.
Quantitative or Hybrid LCA
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o
State and justify which life stages (or processes within life stages) will be analysed with
EIO-LCA and which will be analysed by conventional LCA methods.
o
For each alternative, describe the major processes occurring in each life stage. Expand your
inventory flow diagrams to show monetary (EIO-LCA) or material and energy
(conventional LCA) inputs and residues. Tabulate inventory data in table(s).
o
Perform an impact analysis on inventory results.
o
Discuss the results.
Societal analysis
o
State any issues that fall outside the FOC, economic and environmental analysis.
o
Discuss strategies your client could use to mitigate these issues.
Sensitivity Analysis
o
Name
and discuss the major points of uncertainty in your analysis
o
Conduct a thorough sensitivity analysis on your two alternatives and justify your results
Summary and Recommendations
o
Summarize and discuss results from both LCAs and FOC, economic & societal analyses.
o
Recommend the best alternative to the client.
References
Appendices (if necessary)
Attribution Table
Deliverable 4: Personal Statement on Sustainable Development and
Environmental Stewardship (SD&ES)
Weight:
8% of course grade (individual grade)
Submission: Final version submitted on Quercus as a link or attached file.
In MIE243, you created a Design Portfolio that highlighted your competencies (in line with a number of the
CEAB’s Graduate Attributes
, including communication, teamwork, professionalism, and life-long learning)
across several of your experiences. The Personal Statement on Sustainable Development and
Environmental Stewardship (Personal Statement on SD&ES) in MIE315 builds on that work but targets
your experience in addressing environmental considerations in your term project specifically, and, more
broadly, asks you to reflect on your responsibilities to the larger society and the environment as a future
engineer. You may consider integrating your Personal Statement on SD&ES into your existing portfolio (the
other parts of your portfolio will not be graded), or you may submit it as a standalone document.
The CEAB has a graduate attribute specific to this area:
3.1.9 Impact of engineering on society and the environment: An ability to analyze social and
environmental aspects of engineering activities. Such ability includes an understanding of the
interactions that engineering has with the economic, social, health, safety, legal, and cultural
aspects of society, the uncertainties in the prediction of such interactions; and the concepts of
sustainable design and development and environmental stewardship.
(CEAB/Engineers Canada,
2016)
Further, Engineers Canada has their
“National guideline on sustainable development and environmental
stewardship for professional engineers”
(2016). Engineering education and practice demand attention to
these larger environmental and societal factors.
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The challenge for you as future engineers is that while the work you do will have consequences, there will
often be competing interests that limit your ability to fully apply SD&ES principles in your day-to-day
work. Therefore, there are two main areas for you to consider. The first is
project-based action
(as you’re
engaged in with your term project), which involves consideration of SD&ES issues related to a specific
problem or situation. The second is
career-based action
, which involves the choices you make more
broadly in your career and life; this kind of action can include (but is not limited to) the selection of
engineering discipline, the choice of sector and employer, leadership within your field and your
community, and political advocacy, to name a few.
Your Personal Statement on SD&ES will be a considered reflection on your project-based and career-based
actions both this term and in your future career. You may consult reference material—such as Engineers
Canada’s National Guidelines—to help frame your discussion. However, the point is for you to develop a
statement that accurately reflects your position on SD&ES. Your statement will:
Analyze the project-based action involved in your term project. Here, you can reflect on how your
team approached the two alternatives, the choices that were made, and, perhaps most
importantly, whether or not you feel your team went as far as they could with SD&ES
considerations.
Reflect on the goals you have for your career post-graduation and consider the affordances and
challenges that path might have from a SD&ES standpoint.
You may choose to
either
write a 750-1000 word statement
or
record a 5 – 8 minute video. Note that
whichever mode you choose, you must provide a list of references, as appropriate.
Deliverable 5: Group Poster Presentation & Theme Round-Table Discussion
NOTE: The below assumes that presentations need to be presented online in April. If in-person
presentations are allowed, the below will change in content style, though grade percentages will
not.
Weight:
10% of course grade (team grade)
Submission: Presentation schedule to be announced –
Scheduled the week of Apr 13
Instead of a traditional presentations with slides we are asking you to create a poster this year. This serves
two purposes:
First, posters document and publicly
display a team’s project and accomplishments.
And Second, poster presentations are part of the fourth-year capstone project and we’d like you to
get some practice in.
In a way, posters are like a single slide. Don’t worry, we can ‘zoom in’ on specific sections, but don’t make it
so small that it looks like a mess when ‘zoomed out.’ From the outset the audience should see the general
layout of the poster with some ability to discern the information; we should be able to tell what is the
team’s environmental recommendation. Your Poster Presentation should take your audience through the
highlights of your project. It should integrate your poster and any other supporting material in a coherent
and concise argument.
The final presentation comprises two parts, with important information below the two parts.
1)
Group presentation
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Present your final recommendation to your client along with a brief justification (we are not
looking for a play-by-play of your entire process, just the highlight reel so that your
recommendation has credibility).
Secondly, make a recommendation to your client on how the negative environmental impacts for
your recommended design could be reduced making specific reference to one of the Design for
Environment guidelines. A strong technically backed recommendation along with some measure of
the impact on the functional, environmental, economic, and societal analysis is expected. The more
specific the selection of your DfE guideline is, the more credible your presentation will be. If your
recommendation could equally apply to nearly any other project, then it is not sufficiently specific.
Each of these two items should receive roughly equal presentation time.
Guidelines:
Again, there will be no slides for presentation. Each group will prepare a poster about their
project to share with other teams in their Theme and the facilitators. The poster presentation
workshop contains all the details you need to create a poster.
Each team will have a maximum of 5 minutes to share their findings and recommendation. Be
sure to practice your presentation to ensure proper timing.
Each group member must participate equally in the presentation or the group grade will be
penalized.
Teams from each Theme (3 to 4 teams) are required to present in the same 1-hour time slot.
You are required to attend the entire one hour. You are not required to attend other
presentations.
There will be no Q & A immediately following each team’s group presentation. Instead, all
teams will give their 5-minute presentation in sequence. Questions and responses will be
moderated during the Theme round-table discussion.
2)
Theme round-table discussion
Once all the groups in one Theme finish their presentations, there will be a round-table discussion
on the Theme’s cross-team interaction experience. Each team will have 3-5 min part of the
remaining time (approximately 25 minutes total) to discuss how they incorporated concepts /
ideas from other Theme groups into their own decision-making process. Your team should enter
the discussion with a question about the decisions other teams have made. Keep this question in
mind or write it down as you listen to their findings. Take this question (the answers you think you
heard, or the ones you did not hear stated) as a starting point for the discussion across the teams.
Explore the decision making processes and conclusions as they affect everyone in the Theme. The
Theme’s TA will facilitate the discussion by coordinating the specific questions on potential
challenges identified by the teams. All team members should participate in the discussion. Your
assessment will be based on how convincing your argument is with regard to identifying the major
common impacts within your Theme.
Mandatory Poster Presentation Workshop
You must attend one of the Poster Presentation Workshops on either
March 28
th
or 30
th
. If you do not
attend, you will be marked out of
5% on this assignment
.
Note: attendance will be tracked.
Other Activities throughout the Term:
TA-Facilitated Theme Meeting (
Jan 31 / Feb 02)
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Teams within one Theme will have a chance to meet and discuss the broader related aspects of
their projects, especially concerning research materials. The meeting will be facilitated by the TA
assigned to that Theme. This will be before
the Preliminary Literature Review submission, so
teams may discover promising research materials through their Theme interactions. This will not
be graded, but if you do not participate, will receive
0% on your client presentation
.
Optional presentation Rehearsal (
Apr 04/06)
You may complete a dry-run of your presentation with your course TA during this week.
This
presentation could be a rough or a complete version of your poster presentation for which the TA
will provide constructive feedback.
This will not be graded, and not mandatory, but we strongly
suggest
you have your meetings with your TAs, even
if you only prepared a
rough poster!
"
Coming together is a
beginning,
staying together is
progress,
and
working together is
success "
Henry Ford
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