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As new information-age technologies are developed and applied by the Earthmoving Industry, standards are increasing in importance. The keys to long-term competitiveness in today's global marketplace are products of better quality, produced at lower prices, delivered in record time. Manufacturers are constantly being urged to produce better products cheaper, faster and at a higher quality than ever before. In fact, measuring quality has become the benchmark for many products. A company must have, to survive and prosper, an in-depth quality system; one that will meet and exceed the demands of customers. The International Standards Organization (ISO) has developed standards by such a quality system can be developed. These standards help guide the companies, who become certified against them, to increasingly higher levels of quality. Smaller manufacturers need to pursue this certification but cannot do it alone.

This paper describes a unique partnership between NASA and students residing in the Texas Rio Grande Valley. The program is based on annual activities that provide a connection between NASA and border communities via mentoring. The approach utilizes older students and teachers as mentoring ambassadors who are trained at NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston. The mentors are trained in specific space themes for each year's main event and return to South Texas to serve as mentors and role models for younger students. The main event occurs at UT Brownsville, in which over 600 5th and 8th graders from five counties attend. The event utilizes the trained ambassadors to offer more than 20 hands-on activities that highlight a theme related to NASA's current focus and missions. The activities demonstrate how math, science, and engineering relate to exploring and understanding the universe and solving problems on earth.

The Mission Operations Directorate (MOD) of the Johnson Space Center is responsible for providing continuous operations support for the International Space Station (ISS). Operations support requires flight controllers who are skilled in team performance as well as the technical operations of the ISS. ISS flight controller certification has evolved to include a balanced focus on the development of team performance and technical expertise. The latest challenge the ISS team faces is how to certify an ISS flight controller to the required level of effectiveness in one year. Space Flight Resource Management (SFRM) training, a NASA adapted variant of Crew Resource Management (CRM), is expanding the role of senior flight controllers as mentors to help meet that challenge. This paper explains our mentoring approach and discusses its effectiveness and future applicability in promoting SFRM/CRM skills.

Aviation training has remained largely untouched by decades of development in cognitive science. In aviation, people must be trained to perform complicated tasks and make good operational decisions in complex dynamic environments. However, traditional approaches to professional aviation training are not well designed to accomplish this goal. Aviation training has been based mainly on relatively rigid classroom teaching of factual information followed by on-the-job mentoring. This approach tends to compartmentalize knowledge. It is not optimal for teaching operational decision-making, and it is costly in time and personnel. The effectiveness of training can be enhanced by designing programs that support the psychological processes involved in learning, retention, retrieval, and application. By building programs that are informed by current work in cognitive science and that utilize modern technological advances, efficient training programs can be created.

Aviation training has remained largely untouched by decades of development in cognitive science. In aviation, people must be trained to perform complicated tasks and make good operational decisions in complex dynamic environments. However, traditional approaches to professional aviation training are not well designed to accomplish this goal. Aviation training has been based mainly on relatively rigid classroom teaching of factual information followed by on-the-job mentoring. This approach tends to compartmentalize knowledge. It is not optimal for teaching operational decision-making, and it is costly in time and personnel. The effectiveness of training can be enhanced by designing programs that support the psychological processes involved in learning, retention, retrieval, and application. By building programs that are informed by current work in cognitive science and that utilize modern technological advances, efficient training programs can be created.

I The increasing infiltration of technology into our society has resulted in a growing need for a technology-literate public who understands and supports areas of advancement. In addition, there is a current lack of technically skilled workers to fill the present job market in the United States due to the lack of students who are adequately prepared or interested in fields such as science, mathematics, engineering and technology (SMET). The K-12 students who are currently in our school districts are the policy makers, technical workers, and educators of tomorrow. In order to increase the number of Americans who are both technically literate and capable of performing the needed technical jobs, emphasis must be placed on improving the educational system in grades K-12 where the process of learning science and mathematics first begins.

We surveyed over 30,000 airline pilots to assess their perceptions of and experiences in their professional training. In this paper, we describe their responses to a series of questions that focus on Crew Resource Management (CRM) training. The results suggest that most pilots are satisfied with their CRM training and find it useful. However, the respondents indicated that training programs which integrate CRM principles throughout the entire curriculum are substantially more useful than stand-alone CRM training courses.

This paper seeks to describe an innovative solution initiated by the authors to solve the problem of inefficient system operation, non-compliance with EU legislation, customer alienation and maintaining sustained service technician development. The UK NTO Transport Skills Foresight Report (2001) states, “There are significant gaps in the skills of the current workforce”, and continues, “The most common reason identified for these skill gaps is a failure to train and develop staff”. Manufacturers training schemes although highly focused and relevant are exclusive to staff within franchised networks (the average national profile of franchised dealerships is 30%) and normally rely on traditional didactic training processes. The desire was to greatly increase the number of people undergoing professional development by providing flexible access to training while at work.

For the purpose of organizing and carrying out extracurricular training, and identifying, mentoring and supporting gifted students, the Ukrainian Junior Academy of Sciences (UJAS) was created. Under its auspices, high school students from the USA and the Ukraine, together with astronauts aboard Space Shuttle Columbia, conducted plant science experiments (Collaborative Ukrainian Experiment or CUE) during NASA's STS-87 mission. While the students constructed simulated flight hardware and studied the growth, pollination and fertilization of Brassica rapa plants in their classrooms, the same plant investigation took place in the microgravity environment aboard the Space Shuttle. During the period when the Brassica experiments were being conducted, the International Water Institute (IWI) Program was developed by Brevard Community College in collaboration with the UJAS. The program has expanded and today the IWI program is one of the most productive in Ukraine.

The ALS/NSCORT Education and Outreach provides an avenue to engage and educate higher education students and K-12 educators/students in the center's investigations of the synergistic concepts and principles required for regenerative life-support in extended-duration space exploration. The following K-12 Education programs will be addressed: 1) Key Learning Community Project provides exposure, mentoring and research opportunities for 9-12th grade students at Key Learning Community This program was expanded in 2004 to include an “Explore Mars” 3-day camp experience for 150 Key students. The overall goal of the collaborative project is to motivate students to pursue careers in science, technology, and engineering; 2) Mission to Mars Program introduces 5th-8th grade students to the complex issues involved with living on Mars, stressing the interdisciplinary fundamentals of science, technology and engineering that underlie Advanced Life Support research.

The NASA Specialized Center of Research and Training in Advanced Life Support (ALS/NSCORT) Education and Outreach Program is designed to engage audiences through concepts and technologies highlighted in the NSCORT research program. The outreach program is composed of three thrust areas. These areas are technical outreach (graduate education, technology transfer, presentations to industry, etc.), educational outreach (professional development, undergraduate, K-12), and public outreach (museums, state fairs, etc.) Program design of the technical and educational outreach began in January 2003. This paper reports anecdotal data on one ALS/NSCORT outreach program and gives a brief description of the other programs in their pilot stages. Technical and educational outreach programs developed to date include: 1) Summer Fellowship Research Program, 2) Distance Learning Course, 3) Key Learning Community Collaborative Project and 4) Mission to Mars.

About 27 million persons, or ½ of our total adult population, are enrolled in some form of adult education. Such education, continuing through years of maturity, engenders tolerance toward others and makes possible individual fulfillment. These are the only two forces that can successfully combat the spirit of hostility between countries, political, social or economic groups. In engineering especially, the age limit in education has been raised. The Engineering Council for Professional Development, in its minimum definition of an engineer, specifies not less than four years after graduation from an approved engineering school as the minimum time in which a young engineer can be expected to reach full professional status. Along with the increased emphasis on the post college training of engineers has occurred a change in engineering colleges themselves.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a system of selection for technical leadership which has been developed in the UK's Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineer Corps. It has been refined over the years into an effective method of selecting young men with qualities which have taken them to responsible positions in technical management.

Clear identification of motor vehicle controls is necessary for safe operation of a vehicle. Identification of some well-known symbols and some new symbols was investigated by inquiries. Differences in identification between trained and untrained subjects are shown (employees of a vehicle manufacturer versus factory visitors). Influences of sex, age, and professional education are evaluated. The learning effect of identification before and after a purposeful training was investigated by an additional inquiry of factory visitors. The result showed no significant influence of sex, age, professional experience, or ownership of a driver license on the identification after training. This improves the chance of eliminating symbols of insufficient identification.

The future education of engineers must include a greater emphasis on professionalism, which has been recognized by many engineering colleges. The topics to be covered, and the extent of the coverage, for professional education are not well defined. A Professional School would involve people from the profession, consider the needs of society, inculcate high ethical practices, and provide continuing education. The technical and professional background would prepare engineers to be leaders in the application of technology. The adequacy of the technical education will be based on accreditation by ECPD. An approach to assure an adequate professional engineering education is through the development and recognition of Professional Schools of Engineering. Considerable discussion has taken place, and continues, on the recognition of such schools.

Work in the industrial setting can be regarded as problem solving activity. Meeting the consumer’s requirements represents the problem to be solved and all persons in a given industry are participants in its solution. Each individual in the organization works at solving his portion of the problem, and he is thereby also working to satisfy some of his personal needs. This paper will show how, by helping others satisfy their needs, the engineer can best reach the objective, the solution of the problem.

Successfully moving up through the managerial ranks creates special problems for engineers. Not only must they learn how to deal with subordinate managers who behave differently from workers, but they must master a basic change of orientation. Inability to make this vital shift severely limits individual potential as well as organizational potential.

A profile of the woman engineering student and the professional woman engineer is presented, along with an analysis of why she chose engineering and how she compares with her male counterpart. The impact of women engineers on society and that of society on women engineers is examined. The second half of this paper deals with the personal aspects of being a woman engineer. The concerns of a woman engineer in the workplace and in the home are discussed along with some differences between male and female engineers and some problems unique to women engineers.

The material presented in this paper addresses the following questions of the engineer of the ‘80’s: 1. How can an (earthmoving) engineer be successful in the ‘80’s? 2. Should he isolate himself in his work? 3. Are there special needs in the ‘80’s? 4. What should he do-personally-to succeed and to improve the world in which we live? 5. Can the engineer help solve specific problems facing us now? 6. Can today’s problems-unemployment, inflation, world unrest, competition from new sources around the world, social unrest, energy limitations, pollution, and others, be met directly by the engineer with any success?