Document Type

Closed Project

Publication Date

Fall 2004

Instructor

Dundar Kocaoglu

Course Title

Management of Engineering and Technology

Course Number

EMGT 520/620

Subjects

Emergency management -- Engineering aspects, Engineering -- Management, Technology -- Management

Abstract

The field of Emergency Management is an interesting one. There are management elements, such as managing resources, risk analysis, operations research, and other processes that can also be found in engineering management. Unlike the traditional managerial role, emergency managers are constantly preparing for and attempting to mitigate disasters when/if they occur. They must take on a leadership role when emergency events occur while being constantly aware that decisions made within the emergency organization can affect losses in property and life. We are not mitigating the importance of the Emergency Manager. Instead we are identifying that the emergency model too is evolutionary and that technology is part of that evolutionary process.

We gathered our information mainly from literature research, which included government documents on emergency management, articles, white papers, engineering management and various models existing in the emergency management field. Based on our research on Emergency Engineering Management (EEM), we found very little information that would support a movement of integrating technology into the emergency engineering genre. Most of the information involving an engineering function in emergency management is distinguished largely as a supportive role; not one taking a focused proactive approach to couple technology to the emergency setting. Certainly one can find relevant articles or lines of research on the subject matter but in large there doesn’t appear to be a focused and concerted effort to integrate technology into the emergency management community.

Therefore, our approach to the topic was to research and better understand how the discipline of Engineering Management and the field of Emergency Management differed and how respective strengths could be integrated for the betterment of preparing for and mitigating losses. It became somewhat obvious that there were enormous amounts of documentation on the procedures and processes involving Emergency Management but fewer instances on how technology or engineering management played a more integral role. Although Emergency management systems being used today do utilize many kinds of technologies, they do not actively manage them or attempt to uncover or develop new technology driven ways of improving upon the whole. This ‘gap’ was the vehicle that would enable our approach to attempt to identify the means to bridge these separate yet converging fields (of discipline and practice). We will discuss an emergency management model that is being used today by a state government and how the EEM role could complement each phase of the emergency model. This construct will be further expanded upon by proposing a more formal and managed system of communicating technology, applications and ideas within the emergency community. Finally we offer recommendations that suggest this emerging area of study to be brought into the fold of the Engineering Management Society that has structure and formality that will benefit this new area of study and serve as one component of communicating and managing ideas.

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Comments

This project is only available to students, staff, and faculty of Portland State University

Persistent Identifier

http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/23383

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