Scenario: Up until today One year ago, you graduated with your BSEE from PSU. You now are a process engineer at Sometime Semiconductor of North America (SSNA). Your first assignment was a relatively simple upgrade to the metal deposition process for the source and drain contacts on a MOSFET. For the past month, you have been working on your first big project, the development of a new interconnect material for Intel, who is one of SSNAA's major customers The new interconnect material shows significant advantages in reducing electromigration compared to current materials. The new material is a complicated compound of several different elements, but the process step for depositing interconnect layers needs to be done with Intel's current fabrication equipment. Until earlier this week, you have been stuck because the process for depositing the new compound requires higher temperatures than the current equipment provides. However, you just this week found a process technique that, by slightly increasing the pressure in the deposition chamber, should allow the new compound to be deposited with the current equipment. The method needs a little bit of tweaking to optimize it, but you finally feel like you are on your way. It has not been easy, but this is just the kind of problem that vou've studied hard to tackle.Too bad it took vou so long to find the right process, as now vour project is three weeks behind schedule Meanwhile, a crucial piece of equipment for the source/drain metal deposition process (the one you worked on for your first project at SSNA) arrived at the SSNA plant with a large variance in a key component. The wafer reject rate is unacceptably high. Today you are on a connecting flight from Portland to San Francisco, where you will board a flight to Shanghai. Your assignment is to visit the factory in Shanghai that makes the equipment, trouble-shoot the problem, and persuade the plant supervisor to make whatever changes are necessary to bring the part back into specification. This is your first trip to China, and you are travelling alone. Your excitement about the adventure is tempered by the stress of having to solve this new problem while your project for Intel is three weeks behind schedule. Will you be able to diagnose the problem in the five days you will be on site? Will you be able to convince the highly experienced plant manager with a reputation for stubbornness to make the necessary changes? As you try to relax with a copy of IEEE Spectrum on the flight from PDX to SFO, you're amazed by the level of responsibility you have suddenly earned. Who could have imagined that just 14 months ago you were arguing with your Capstone team on the merits of MATLAB vs Python? And then, this afternoon... When you land at SFO, you check your phone to find three text messages and an email from your manager, Jane Jones. Bob Smith, the purchasing manager for Intel will be in Portland tomorrow morning, and he wants to see your progress on the interconnect material. Your manager, who is tied up in annual budget review meetings all week, will not be able to talk on the phone during your layover at SFO. Her text messages reveal her concern about the importance of Intel as a customer. You know that she is very busy with the budget meetings and she has only limited time to deal with this issue during the day today. Intel is going to show up tomorrow at 8:30 am