Component Three

Provide a forecast of what the workforce demand would be over a five-year period to produce and market your team’s technical application or process. Include the impact such production would have on the marketplace.

In America, the demand for raw, natural resources is high. Catering to a global community, we are obligated to deliver these items in a timely fashion and with maximum efficiency. Given these aspects of trade, we are faced with challenges in providing the best possible source of transportation that will not only be beneficial in a monetary sense, but will also have positive environmental impacts. Barges are the perfect candidate.

Fact: "Barges safely and efficiently move fully 15 percent of our nation’s freight for less than 2 percent of the total bill"… and "move more than 800 million tons of cargo each year!" The chart to the right shows the major markets impacted by the barge industry on the Mississippi River and Illinois Waterway during 2000. The two following diagrams from the National Council for Science and the Environment show an extrapolation of the demand for corn and soybeans based on the data from the previous 40 years.

Courtesy of The American Farm Bureau

Fact: "A study by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers notes that traffic on the Upper Mississippi River will steadily increase between the years 2000 and 2050 growing by about 63 percent over those years. The same forecast predicts an average growth rate of 2 percent per year on the Upper Mississippi River during the remainder of the 1990s."

The employment of barges is fundamental as we maintain our prosperous economy and compete in the global market. In fact, as depicted in the following graph and chart¹, the entire barge industry has grown from moving 667 million tons in 1980 to moving 799 million tons in the year 2003.

Images used with the permission of Doug Scheffler1 According to Mr. Doug Scheffler2, AWO's research and data analysis manager, "the number of towing vessels in the inland sector of the towing industry is fairly stable, about 3,500 in the last few years, and the utilization rate has been simarly stable, so the number of jobs has been fairly stable." Although our product would not have a significant impact on personnel since it's management would not impact the size of a towboat's crew, it may have an economic impact beyond the decrease of repairs and damages resulting from the reduction of the accident-rate.

Again referencing Mr. Scheffler's February 25th email²,

"regarding the economic impact, your analysis of the damages data provides a static analysis. For a more dynamic analysis I would mention that not only with the out-of-pocket repair costs there is what economists call the opportunity costs. That is, while a barge or towing vessel is being repaired, the revenue that it could have earned if it was on the water is lost. So any device that reduces vessel casualties will also reduce repair costs will also have a positive impact on revenue by improving the utilization rate."

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The North American market for the carbon material industry is projected to increase in sales from $639 million from the present to about $878 million in 2011. In total, the North American Market’s carbon industry as a whole increased by 6.6%, reaching $2.2 billion in 2011. Based on an increase in North America's carbon industry, we believe our product will spur additional demand, increase profits and the growth of the industry, because it will encourage other developers to use carbon fiber in non-traditional applications. The graph below shows the predicted increase in North America's market for advanced structural carbon materials.

Courtesy of Business Communications Company, Inc.

SP Systems, a global manufacturer of advanced composite materials and technology solutions, specializes in marine, wind energy, and automative applications for composite materials. It has grown from a small company, started in 1970, on the Isle of Wright to a company that grossed £50 million in 2002 and currently has offices on four continents. With respect to our product, on February 21, 2006, Mr. Hammatt³ of New England Boatworks, Inc. stated that his ability to work with carbon fiber has positively influenced his company's sales.

Give two examples of undergraduate or graduate degree programs in science or engineering that directly relate to your team's NCT technical application. For each program, be sure to include the following:
   the URL address of the institution,
   the department (for example, chemical engineering, electronic engineering) where the program is offered, and
   a brief description of the program of study.

Due to the scope of our project, we felt it was necessary to examine three undergraduate programs to solidify the varied pre-requisites present in our technical application.

Courtesy of The United States Naval Academy

The United States Naval Academy houses a whole host of maritime courses that are aimed at the engineering aspect of maritime activity. In addition to their core curriculum of: engineering, natural sciences, humanities and social sciences, professional and leadership skills, which is aimed at teaching the skills required to create competent officers for the Marine Corp and the Navy, they offer courses that range from the basics of ship design to advanced material mechanics.

• Principles of Ship Performance and Naval Architecture
• Ship Structures, Hydrostatics and Stability
• Naval Materials Science and Engineering
• Ship Design
• Navigation and Piloting

A major goal of the Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering program:

You will be an engineer, a naval architect, and an individual who is capable of finding viable economical and technical solutions to a variety of complex and open-ended engineering problems, such as, how to safely and efficiently move a variety of cargoes across the world’s oceans (cruise liners, tankers, containerships, heavy lift ships, tug-barge units, etc.).

The USNA’s courses would be vital for one interested in the principles of naval architecture and the basic function and design of any marine vessel.

Courtesy of Maine Maritime Academy

The Maine Maritime Academy specializes in educating individuals in the feild of piloting and maintaining maritime vessels. Their merchant marine academy trains persons in two aspects of maritime service: that of piloting a vessel or that of servicing and maintaining a vessel. The Maine Maritime Academy strives to continue to provide the highest quality maritime, engineering, engineering technology, marine science, and logistics education with facilities and laboratories that are at the leading edge of technological innovation.

• Marine Engineering Fundamentals
• Intro to Marine Transportation
• Ship Handling
• Seamanship
• Navigation

These courses would be vital to anyone interested in piloting a vessel using our device.

Courtesy of Illinois Institute of Technology

The Mechanical, Materials, and Aerospace Engineering Department at the Institute of Technology has all of its classes accredited by the Engineering Accreditation Commission of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET). Its school of engineering course work is the same for the first two years allowing students to easily change and/or add their majors and minors. The undergraduate programs that would apply to preparing a student to work with our product would include:

• Composites
• Structure/ Property Relation in Polymers
• FIBER Reinforces Poly Comp Materials
• Physical Metallurgy
• Introduction to Polymer Science
• Materials Laboratory II
• Physics of Solids

These courses from IIT would be vital for one interested in the modification, production, or repair of our centerboard.

Develop an idea for a new science and/or engineering degree program that might emerge given the advancements in scientific knowledge that the team has identified. Provide a title and 100-word description of this new degree program.

In addition to building a basic background in marine technologies and sciences, our graduate program will enable our students to use, repair, modify, and/or build our product. The research we conducted will hopefully instill a better understanding of the mechanics and materials involved in marine transportation. We have developed a comprehensive degree program for those who wish to seek further education in this particular marine-based technologies field.

Our Master's degree program, Marine Science Technologies and Applications (MSTA), will inculcate into students such attributes as the ability to work in teams and meet deadlines. Our internship during the second year will give them the opportunity to gain real-world experience. These three criteria were listed by Matt Hammatt³ of New England Boatworks, Inc., as being important attributes of prospective employees.

	Year One	Year Two
	Hydromechanics	Hydrodynamics
	Electronics	Environmental Systems
	Marine Engines	Naval Vessel Design
	Chemistry of Polymers	Composite Materials and Applications
	Seamanship	Advanced Navigation and Piloting
	Internship	Internship
	*electives
	*Mechanical Engineering	*Electricity and Electronics II
	*Hydrography	*Marine Engines II

Dave Hanby⁴, President and Chief Operations Office of McDonough Marine Services stipulated that any potential towboat captain is

"required to have a valid license issued by the US Coast Guard. This license ensures the holder is qualified to operate towboats in the geographical area they intend to work. The Coast Guard regulations have changed in recent years to require specific periods of time working under an apprentice program to allow experienced operators to train mariners trying to advance."

He also added that they would be interested in hiring

"a licensed captain that preferably has operated the type of equipment we own, may have pushed the types of barges and cargos we move and has not had any incidents in the past."