COLLEGE MARKETPLACE
Tennessee State University
and the Boeing Company
Break New Ground
Over the phone, Dr. Landon Onyebueke The tool, which gauges the number of Boeing then donated $800,000 to the
sounds as though he’s smiling. people that can fit inside aircraft cock- university for the project, and started
pits, automobiles and workspaces, also what former TSU President James A.
His voice is pleasant and passionate when contributes to new developments in the Hefner called a breakthrough in “success-
talking about the Expanded Accommoda- Department of Homeland Security. By ful research”.
tion Analysis Tool (EAAT) that he and using statistical data based on demograph-
his students at Tennessee State University ics, body size, height, width, hip-to-knee
(TSU) developed in partnership with the length and thumb-tip reach, engineers are “They believed [our
Boeing Company several years ago. able to assess the number of people that
can comfortably occupy small areas. research] could be ap-
Boeing’s attempt to
It all started in 1997 when, on a routine plied to their concept,
campus visit to TSU, Boeing took an
collaborate with sev-
interest in the engineering department’s and told us the prob-
research on probabilistic design method-
eral existing partner
ology. Onyebueke, associate professor of lem they were having
mechanical engineering at the university,
universities was unsuc-
said, “They believed [our research] could in developing a design
be applied to their concept, and told us
cessful, partly because
the problem they were having in devel- technique that could be
oping a design technique that could be
they could not find an
used to determine the percentage of a used to determine the
population that can fit in a given aircraft
institution that could
cock-pit.” percentage of a popu-
do the work.
During that time, Boeing’s attempt to lation that can fit in
collaborate with several existing partner
universities was unsuccessful, partly a given aircraft cock-
because they could not find an institution
that could do the work. pit.”
According to Boeing’s Peter Derenski, as-
sociate technical fellow in Human System “We found enough value in the work that
Integration, the company was looking at TSU did to move forward,” Derenski
universities that demonstrated strengths said.
in statistical techniques, and Onyebueke
“came up with relational arrangements, ‘Moving forward’ meant that it was time
which were exactly the kind of things [we] to replace the old with the new.
looked at [in terms of] anthropometric
analysis,” or the process of moving more Prior to the development of the EAAT,
than one variable at a time. older model cockpits were designed by
using percentile methods, which did not
60 USBE & Information Technology I January/February 2007
http:www.blackengineer.com
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