Eman itec

Module # 7

Technology Evaluation (TE) Exercise – Drones

Goal:

The goal of this exercise is to complete a technology evaluation (TE) and make a decision on the best product to purchase. To accomplish this goal, you will follow the TE process and template provided. Your deliverable is a document that captures the results of this exercise and provides justification for your reasoning in a clear and precise manor.

This should be a 5 page paper (not including the TX exercise sheet). You can go over 5 pages if needed. Please use the typical formatting requirements (APA, Times New Roman, double spaced, Works Cited, Attachments)

Background:

A technology evaluation is standard practice in the business world. It is a simple methodology to perform a structured assessment of multiple tools in order to select one or decide against them. There are many published processes and templates that can be used, but there are commonalities among them to include:

· A structured process

· User defined criteria

· Rankings

For this exercise, you are provided a process and template for you to use. You are free to use an existing process or template that you find in your own research or develop one on your own.

Background:

The scenario is that you are the Emergency Manager for a large urban university. This university is spread over 10 miles and can have up to 30,000 people on the campus at one time. The campus faces many hazards such as tornados, floods, fires, and active shooters.

Recent incidents nationwide have placed pressure on Universities to be prepared for anything. The President of the University has asked you, the University’s Emergency Management Director, to find a way to provide aerial images with infrared capability and be able transmit them back to the EOC. She also wants Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and Explosive (CBRNE) sensor capabilities. She wants to know what your recommendation is, how much it will cost and why you chose the one you did.

(Notice she did not give you a budget – this is a tough target to hit. How much will it cost the Univ. to get CBRNE sensors? Does the University need CBRNE sensors?)

Technology Requirements:

The technology you choose must be able to work in a network of over 100 physical units (Classrooms / Offices / Facilities) over a distance of 10 miles.

Process:

1. Select Drones. Select 3 or more Drones to evaluate.

a. I recommend Googling

i. Professional Drone Ratings

ii. CBRN Drones

iii. Emergency Management Drones

2. Select Criteria. You must select the criteria for evaluation. You must select a minimum of 5 criteria (you can use more if you want). You must include at least 3 from the list below and come up with at least 2 of your own (again more if you want):

a. Price : The sticker price of the product

b. Function – Payload

c. Function – Video / IR Transmit

d. Function – Range

e. Function - CBRNE Sensors

f. Cost: All the additional costs associated with implementation such as training, or additional hardware requirements.

g. Reliability: How often does this product fail or is not available?

h. Security / Encryption

i. Durability

3. Determine Weights: You must determine how important each criterion is to you and for the given task. For example, if reliability is the most important it should get the highest weight. Each weight is represented as a percentage (50% = .50). ALL WEIGHTS MUST ADD UP TO 100% or (1 on the sheet).

4. Rank. Now rank each technology by assigning a score of 1-10 for each criteria. There are no Zeroes. One is the lowest rank you can assign and ten is the highest. Therefore, as an example, a very reliable technology would get a 10 and an unreliable one might get a 1.

5. Sum. Now for each technology multiply the weight * rank for each criteria and add that to the following criteria. Continue until complete and you should get a score in the TOTAL SCORE cell. Do this for each technology.

6. Analyze. Determine which technology is ranked the highest. If they are tied or very close do some further analysis. Play with the weights and see if this changes anything.

7. Deliverable. On 5 or more pages show your final evaluation table and justify your recommendations. Start by answering the following questions:

· What technologies did you select? Provide a very short description.

· What are your top 2 weighted criteria? Explain why did you select them?

· What technology do you recommend be selected for meeting the requirements and why?

Additional Notes:

· As best as possible use real data. If not available, then make any assumptions you need to complete the assessment. Note that the rank or weight you assign things can reflect your own uncertainty.

· You are welcome to write your response on the spreadsheet file or paste the spreadsheet into a word file. Just make it easy for me to read.

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