“Assessing Your Organization’s Capabilities: Resources, Processes, and Priorities” discusses how success of an innovation is determined by its management in terms of resources, processes, and priorities. You will have the opportunity to apply the methodologies outlined in these articles in this activity, to be continued in the class discussions.

QUESTIONS

List and describe resources of an architectural engineering design firm.

Describe the architectural-engineering design process. What types of meetings are held? What business units are represented? How do these business units interface and communicate?

What are the priorities for the design of a traditional facility, such as a manufacturing plant, church, school, or hospital?

GUIDING QUESTIONS ON ABOVE QUESTIONS

How may two units of technology be compared?

Who is responsible for providing the infrastructure required by an innovative technology?

What are measures of customer acceptance?

How quickly may specialized talent be acquired?

How quickly can specialized knowledge be acquired by existing staff?

What types of communication may be involved in a process, both written and oral?

What other priorities exist besides profit margin?

READINGS

Utilizing a fuel cell as a primary power source for a hospital

Hospitals are large public buildings that have a significant impact on the environment and economy of the surrounding community. They are heavy users of energy and water and produce large amounts of waste. Because hospitals place such demands on community resources, they are natural candidates for sustainable design. Hospitals are among the most regulated of all building types. Like other buildings, they must follow the local and state general building codes (Carr, 2017). The hospital design is different from other conventional power grid buildings; we provide a better innovation that has cleaner energy from a fuel-cell generator that will cost cheaper than power from the electrical power grid; the group has a better idea about hospital fuel system and experience on a particular part. In this innovation, the functional team will consist of Civil and Structural Engineer for the Hospital Buildings and Mechanical and Electrical Engineer for fuel cell integration. The Building should have a design that can provide flexibility and expandability. Since medical needs and modes of treatment will continue to change, hospitals should follow modular concepts of space planning and layout. Use generic room sizes and plans as much as possible, rather than highly specific ones. Be served by modular, easily accessed, and easily modified mechanical and electrical systems (Carr, 2017).

According to (Burgelman, Christensen & Wheelwright pg. 103), the boundaries of functional organizations tend to be drawn around disciplines on finance, marketing, manufacturing, and engineering. These broad disciplines typically are subdivided further by specialized expertise, such as electrical, mechanical, and software in an engineering organization, or cost accounting, budgeting, accounts payable, payroll, credit, and collections in an accounting organization. The key is the innovation of an inexpensive fuel-cell generator with a technical advance that could make fuel cells as cheap as grid power. The engineering process consists of a solid-oxide fuel cell. Like all fuel cells, it produces energy through electrochemical reactions (Bullis, 2013).

The advantages for the fuel-cell generator will have zero emissions while being operated, reduced in electricity costs, reliable and consistent power supply. It will have electrical efficiency than traditional combustion power products. We will also combine heat and power installations which will increase efficiency by using the heat generated by the fuel cell for the Hospital heating; it will also have a capability to use fuel-flexibility, which will provide a variety of domestic energy sources like hydrogen, natural gas, and methanol. Of course, it will be a quiet operation rather than a conventional generator which is ideal for a Hospital building (U.S. Department of Energy Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP), 2016).

Fuel cells are electrochemical devices that combine hydrogen and oxygen, by setting up an electrical charge across a membrane. This design used to produce a steady flow of electricity with no moving parts. A fuel cell system which includes a ‘fuel reformer’ can utilize the hydrogen from any other source of gasoline, natural gas or methanol (Mechanicalengineeringblog.com, n.d.). However the conventional electricity comes from the flow of electrical power, it is a secondary energy source generated by the conversion of primary sources of energy like a fossil, nuclear, wind or solar (Energy.gov, n.d.). For fixed electricity and natural gas prices, hydrogen cost decreases with increasing fuel cell utilization. Fuel cell utilization increases for more southern climates because electricity and heat load profiles are more uniform between summer and winter (Steward & Penev, 2017).