Toward a More Uniform Engineering Management 'Body of Knowledge'

摘要

While the practice of engineering management has been around for hundreds of years, the academic discipline of Engineering Management has been around for a little over forty years. Today there are approximately 6,000 students enrolled in Engineering Management degree programs in the United States at over 70 universities. With this impressive growth, Engineering Management must be a mature and well recognized academic discipline. Unfortunately, this is not the case. While there is a general agreement on the basic definition of Engineering Management, there is only some agreement on what should be covered in an Engineering Management degree program and some agreement on what should be contained in an Engineering Management "Body of Knowledge" (EM BOK).rnThere are at least three groups claiming an Engineering Management "Body of Knowledge", a number of books on Engineering Management, and several studies documenting the coursework taught in Engineering Management programs. Unfortunately, none these sources completely agree on what should be covered in an Engineering Management program or an Engineering Management "Body of Knowledge". Attempting to explain the benefits of Engineering Management to prospective students and prospective industry employers is not helped by these conflicting views. This paper will review the current state of the Engineering Management "Body(s) of compare the similarities and differences, and suggest a way to actually achieve a single, uniform Engineering Management "Body of Knowledge".