Research Cores

Here's how it works

First, we’ll meet to establish initial expectations (yours and your sponsor’s), to get a sense for how our assistance fits into the scope of your project, what resources are available, and collect other constraints like time, equipment or personnel.

We strongly encourage engaging ETC during the proposal development phase to ensure adequate resources are allocated and applied contributions are tailored for the sponsor’s expectations. Using this information, we’ll prepare an initial requirements list, concept of operations, and estimated budget (resources, time and funds). We’ll then review our interpretations and estimates with you to ensure we’ve effectively and comprehensively captured your needs. A very important aspect of this exercise is to establish what the solution will not do or not include. By seeking explicit agreement about what your solution will and will not offer, we can avoid delays, cost over-runs and “scope creep.” This phase is often referred to as Front-End Engineering and Design, or FEED.

Next, our team will develop your solution and alternatives. For new design projects, this is presented as a Preliminary Design Report/Review. After you provide your input, we finalize the design and present it as a Final Design Report/Review. For other services, we will either provide a plan (as in the case of fabrication/assembly support, for example) or perform the service (prepare a test plan, for example).

If ETC is also assisting with another phase of a project, like acquisition, build, verification/validation, operation, or decommissioning, we would proceed to the appropriate lifecycle stage

At the conclusion of each project phase, you will receive documentation describing outcomes and recommendations to facilitate approval to continue.

Fundamentally, we seek consistency, thoroughness, and transparency with our approach. We apply engineering best practices in a streamlined approach that doesn’t incur unnecessary overhead, but which ensures that both ETC and PIs are on the same page for the project.

Director of Research Cores,

Thomas Graziano

Email: researchcores@fau.edu

FAU Research

Florida Atlantic is an R1 research institution where scientists and students collaborate toward common goals of improving human health, protecting our oceans and creating smarter spaces through artificial intelligence. Learn more about our four institutes, our accomplishments and our latest discoveries.

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