LIRA Program

Evaluation Criteria
Undergraduates

INTRODUCTION

The Ministry of Industry, the Association of Lebanese Industrialists, antd the Lebanese National Council for Scientific Research are proud to launch the annual Conference and Exhibition of Lebanese Industrial Research Achievements.

All universities and technical schools are encouraged to participate in this "innovation showcase" aiming at instilling in the young generations of engineers and scientists the importance of creativity and high quality research, and technological development.

Every participating faculty or school shall adopt - based on the enclosed evaluation criteria - a maximum of three final year projects for each category, as set by LIRA program, intended for participation in the above mentioned annual event.

The faculty/school-adopted projects shall compete throughout an open forum to be evaluated based on the enclosed criteria by a jury during the LIRA Exhibition to award cash prizes from LIRA sponsors for the top three projects [1] of each category as shown in the table below. An extra award of $500 is to be attributed to the professor supervising the best project in each category.

Cash prices for top projects are divided equally amongst the students. An extra award of $500 is attributed to the supervisor of the best project in each category.

EVALUATION PROCESS

Submitted projects should include all the necessary elements for its evaluation. The students must submit a file that includes:

• the project document that clearly describes the problem, a bibliographical study and the technical solution,
• the extra information regarding the marketing, the business plan, the benefit for the Lebanese industry etc.
• A project is graded based on the achievements as follows:

1. The marketing and business development aspects (40 pts). It includes:
   • benefit to the Lebanese Industry
   • value added estimates
   • marketability analysis
   • manufacturing plans
   • business perspective
      
2. The creativity elements (20 pts)
    
3. The technical solution (40 pts). It includes:
   • quality elements
   • finishing and packaging
   • multidisciplinary aspects

The previous items are detailed in the remaining part of the document in order to provide a precise description of what is expected for the evaluation process. The students are encouraged to read carefully this description before producing the project document.

PROJECT ASSESMENT CRITERIA

Total of points is 100.

I. Marketing and Business Development (40 points)

A set of elements must be provided in order to clearly define the marketing and business aspects of the project. These elements are described in the following

1. Marketability:

The evaluation of the marketability should be based upon the following:

Assessment of proper identification of the market/client needs; Identification of a "need" addresses whether the need is properly and clearly defined.
Assessment of relevance of identified need; i.e. how urgent and how much the client is willing to pay; the relevance of the need to the market being served means: a proper definition of the market and of potential client, as well as how much the market can pay for the need and how much it can absorb so as to make the operation economically feasible.
Assessment of the ability of the proposed project to meet the need. It stresses whether the proposed concept is able to meet the need. Since no requirement is stipulated to address the other aspects of the marketing mix (namely promotion/communication, and distribution), they would not be included in the evaluation of the marketability of the proposal.

2. The Business Perspective:

Universities are vital to Lebanon's economic competitiveness because, in addition to "providing students with core skills that allow them to compete with the best" workers and employees, they should "promote a greater understanding of entrepreneurship and the self confidence to take risk". This will lead to a culture of entrepreneurship and to new business ideas and business start-ups. These university "spin-outs" are vital for employment-generation, for increased opportunities, and for a competitive economy. Therefore, project documents should include, if applicable:

• An estimate of the investment capital needed.
• A cash flow overview, including early return form sales, and break even point.
• An estimate of growing return on capital invested with time.

3. Value added (productivity):

What really determines how well a product is received by a market is the relative "value" that the product delivers. By looking at value, developers can compare between different offerings. Value is the benefits derived from a product (tangible and intangible) given the cost one pays as compared to competitors (others serving the same need and the same market segment as defined by the researcher). The need to include this parameter may be best reflected by quoting Michael Porter "Productivity, not exports of natural resources, determines the prosperity of any state or nation". Productivity is best measured by the ratio of the added value to the input factors invested in producing.

The developer(s) must estimate the value-added of the product, by calculating the expenses incurred and proposing a "Tag Price" for the finished product.

The academic need to include this factor resides in the necessity of creating a strong awareness among developers and industrialists of the need to measure and continuously work on improving this critical factor.

4. Manufacturing process:

Many of the excellent "lab prototypes" never make it to the manufacturing stage because the developer(s) did not take into consideration the manufacturability of the product. In fact, many good designs CAN NOT be easily manufactured and may have to be radically modified to accommodate the needs of mass production processes and/or to reduce the cost of such processes, to improve the competitiveness of the product.

Developers are expected to describe the various steps envisaged to move the prototype from the lab to the manufacturing workshops. An estimate of the manufacturing costs must be included as well.

5. Benefit to Lebanese Industry:

The cooperation between Lebanese industry and academic research is definitely our top priority. Thus, the project owner is expected to state the need his/her project addresses the Lebanese industry with through preliminarily estimating the feasibility to develop his/her project into a local industrial prototype or for it to become a part of the industrial manufacturing line.

II. Creativity Elements (20 points)

There is a strong need in Lebanon to promote the development of new industrial activities that can capitalize on the existent human resources. The inclusion of this element is to encourage directing our human resources towards products that have not yet been produced in Lebanon or in export markets. Innovation does not need to be complicated or difficult.

The developer(s) can identify clearly all innovations introduced, as compared to similar products in the market or to other similar projects.

III. Technical Solution (40 points)

The set of elements that permits to evaluate the technical solution adopted in the project are listed hereafter. The students must focus on two major aspects: i) how well their solution solve the original problem they address and, ii) how robust and innovative is their solution by itself.

1. Quality: (20 points)

In today's market, it is imperative to include quality as a parameter in any project evaluation. While there are many definitions for quality, in engineering projects quality deployment requires the investigation, implementation and documentation of specific techniques and steps. A quality project deploys these techniques while executing the engineering design process steps, in order to consistently deliver declared specifications.

For a prototype/project, quality may be defined in terms of functional performance and fitness-for-use requirements as applied to Design and Prototype.

A. Design:
The following steps must be documented:

• Collection and evaluation of market needs.
• Derivation of engineering measurable and controllable project characteristics.
• Development of alternative design solutions.
• Selection of a best proposed design.
• Evaluation (iterations when needed) of the design.
• Prototyping and assessment (iterations when needed).
• Follow engineering standards when appropriate, and always apply engineering best practices.

B.Prototype:

The "prototype" is essentially the first completed unit, tested and found to be operational. Prototyping is a science; it is recommended that the developers get familiar and apply when possible professional prototyping techniques and material. Ideally, prototype units are built using the manufacturing procedures and equipment planned for full-scale production. However, in some cases, that is not possible and the developer can build the prototype using: finished materials, printed circuit boards, proper housing elements, and professional wiring, acceptable labelling, wax and/or plastic moulding, etc.

Evaluation of the prototype will take into consideration the following items:

• Reliability:
• Reliability is the probability that an item will perform a required function following declared specifications under design stated conditions, for a stated period of time.
• Maintainability:
• Maintainability refers to the ease with which preventive, predictive, and corrective maintenance on a product can be achieved; more formally maintainability is defined as the ability of an item under stated conditions can be retained in, or restored to, within a given period of time.
• Product Safety:
• Safety should be designed into the product to a degree consistent with objectives' requirements. Hazards associated with each product (and its components and units) are to be identified, eliminated, or controlled to an acceptable level. Control is to be established over hazards that cannot be eliminated, so as to protect personnel, equipment, and property. 

2. Finishing and Packaging: (10 points)

The project is expected to offer a complete product that provides customer satisfaction. Thus, finishing and final appearance in the market are important, e.g.: shape, cleanliness, smoothness, easy and safe handling, etc ...

3. Multi-disciplinary Content: (10 points)

In today's knowledge based economy, high degree of competitiveness can be achieved by a successful integration of multiple specializations, yielding the production of more complex products achieving higher value added. Hence there is a need to train engineers in multidisciplinary environment, and to encourage applicants and the universities and technical schools to develop multidisciplinary (across discipline and specializations) teams and activities.

The inclusion of this parameter aims at promoting multidisciplinary thinking and projects. The developers are expected to indicate the multitude of disciplines and specialization areas used in the project.