Technical Administration

Course Description

Technical Administration provides an overview of applying management principles to positions held by engineering technologists and engineers. Key topics include the management functions of planning, organising, leading, and controlling, and their application to managing technology.

Within the SCNS taxonomy, ETI is the Engineering Technology (Industrial) prefix. Daytona State publishes this at 3 credits, offered spring, with MAC1105 as prerequisite, giving approximately 45 contact hours at the prefix's unsuffixed convention.

The qualifying phrase matters: management principles applied to positions held by engineering technologists. This is not a generic management course. Technical people are promoted into management on the strength of their technical work and then discover the job is entirely different — and the transition fails often enough that this course exists specifically to address it.

Daytona State does not publish a lecture and laboratory split for its ETI courses, but the prefix convention is consistent: unsuffixed courses run at 15 contact hours per credit (ETI1000, ETI1411, ETI1628 and ETI1644 are all published at 3 credits and 45 hours) and C-suffixed courses at 20 (ETI1110C, ETI1701C, ETI1810C and ETI1830C are all 3 credits and 60 hours).

Learning Outcomes

Required Outcomes

• Describe the management functions of planning, organising, leading, and controlling.
• Describe the transition from technical contributor to manager.
• Describe organisational structures and their trade-offs.
• Describe authority, responsibility, and delegation.
• Delegate effectively and describe the common failures.
• Set objectives and align them with organisational goals.
• Plan and schedule technical work.
• Describe project management principles and tools.
• Estimate resources, cost, and time for technical work.
• Prepare and manage a budget.
• Describe cost control and variance analysis.
• Describe staffing, selection, and onboarding.
• Conduct performance evaluation and give feedback.
• Describe motivation theory and its practical application to technical staff.
• Lead and develop a technical team.
• Manage conflict within and between teams.
• Communicate effectively upward, downward, and across an organisation.
• Present technical information to non-technical decision makers.
• Describe decision making methods and their appropriate use.
• Describe change management in a technical organisation.
• Describe managing technology, including adoption and obsolescence.
• Describe quality and continuous improvement from a management perspective.
• Describe legal and ethical responsibilities of technical managers.
• Describe risk management in technical operations.

Optional Outcomes

• Describe strategic planning and its process.
• Describe intellectual property management.
• Describe managing remote and distributed teams.
• Describe innovation management and research and development.
• Describe labour relations in technical organisations.
• Describe financial statements and their interpretation.

Major Topics

Required Topics

• Planning, organising, leading, controlling
• Contributor to manager transition
• Organisational structures
• Authority, responsibility, and delegation
• Effective delegation
• Setting objectives
• Planning and scheduling technical work
• Project management principles
• Estimating resources, cost, and time
• Budgeting
• Cost control and variance
• Staffing and selection
• Performance evaluation and feedback
• Motivating technical staff
• Leading and developing a team
• Conflict management
• Organisational communication
• Presenting to non-technical decision makers
• Decision making methods
• Change management
• Managing technology and obsolescence
• Quality and continuous improvement
• Legal and ethical responsibilities
• Risk management

Optional Topics

• Strategic planning
• Intellectual property
• Remote and distributed teams
• Innovation and R&D management
• Labour relations
• Financial statements

Resources & Tools

• ASQ — American Society for Quality (asq.org) — certification bodies of knowledge and quality standards; the CQT and CQE credentials are recognised in manufacturing.
• ASME, SME, and IISE — the professional societies for mechanical, manufacturing, and industrial engineering technology; student membership is inexpensive.
• NIST Manufacturing Extension Partnership (nist.gov/mep) — free practical resources on manufacturing improvement.
• OSHA (osha.gov) — free standards, guidance, and the OSHA 10 and 30 construction and general industry cards.
• ASTM and ISO standards — the testing and quality standards manufacturing actually works to; check library access before buying.
• Materials Science and Engineering: An Introduction (Callister) — the standard materials text.
• Your programme's laboratory and its measuring and testing equipment — the reason to take these courses in person.
• ABET (abet.org) — free accreditation lookup; worth checking for any engineering technology programme you are considering.
• Project Management Institute (pmi.org) — the CAPM and PMP credentials are widely recognised and reachable from this background.
• The First 90 Days (Watkins) — on transitions into new roles; genuinely useful and short.

Career Pathways

• Industrial engineering technologist or technician — SOC 17-3026.
• Quality control inspector and quality technician — SOC 51-9061; a common entry route with clear progression.
• Manufacturing production technician and process technician.
• Industrial production manager — SOC 11-3051; the usual destination of the management courses in this prefix.
• Operations and supply chain roles — planning, scheduling, and continuous improvement.
• Technical sales engineer — SOC 41-9031; frequently the best-paid route out of a technical background, and the reason ETI3690 exists.
• Occupational health and safety specialist — SOC 19-5011.
• Aerospace and space systems technician — a distinctively Florida sector on the Space Coast and through the aerospace supply chain.
• ⚠ Many aerospace and defence roles require U.S. citizenship and some require a security clearance — find out early if that pathway interests you.
• Quality management and Six Sigma — certification-driven and well paid.
• Continue to a master's in engineering management or industrial engineering — ⚠ note that an engineering technology degree is not the same as an engineering degree for professional licensure purposes; check requirements before assuming.

Special Information

⚠⚠ The hardest part of becoming a technical manager is stopping doing the technical work

• You were promoted because you were good at the work. The job is now to make other people good at it, and those are close to opposite skills.
• The commonest failure is doing the work yourself. It is faster, it is more comfortable, you do it better — and every hour you spend doing it is an hour your team is unmanaged and an engineer is not learning.
• Delegate the whole task, not the easy parts. Handing over the tedious portions while keeping the interesting judgement is not delegation; it is offloading.
• Accept work done differently from how you would do it. If the outcome meets the requirement, the method was theirs to choose — and insisting otherwise guarantees you remain the bottleneck.
• Your output is now your team's output. That reframing is the whole transition, and it takes most people a year to internalise.
• Learn to speak to people who will decide about work they do not understand. Cost, risk, schedule, and consequence — not implementation detail.
• Protect your team from disruption, and be honest with them about what is coming.
• Your technical credibility is an asset you will slowly spend. It buys trust early; sustaining it long-term means staying current enough to ask good questions, not to do the work.
• Ask for management training and a mentor. Being promoted is not being prepared, and asking is a strength.

⚠ This prefix spans PSAV certificates and a bachelor's degree — know which you are in

• ETI at Daytona State runs from 0000-level PSAV clock-hour courses through to 4000-level bachelor's coursework, which is an unusually wide range for one prefix.
• The 0000-level courses carry no college credit. ETI0450, ETI0456, ETI0481 and similar are PSAV clock-hour training measured in hours, not credits — a different credential entirely.
• The 1000- and 2000-level courses carry lower-division college credit and feed associate degrees.
• The 3000- and 4000-level courses are upper division, forming part of a bachelor of applied science in engineering technology.
• ⚠ A 1000- or 2000-level course does not substitute for a 3000- or 4000-level one, even where the subject overlaps — compare ETI1420C (Engineering Materials and Processes, lower division) with ETI3421 (Materials and Processes, upper division).
• Confirm with an advisor which lower-division courses feed the BAS, and in what sequence.

How Florida course levels affect transfer

The first digit of an SCNS number denotes the year of offering, not transferability. Courses at the 1000 and 2000 levels transfer transparently between Florida public institutions, and 3000 to 4000 is unproblematic since both are upper division. The boundary that actually matters is 2000 to 3000, where lower-division credit generally cannot satisfy an upper-division requirement.

ETI4635 is 3 credits and approximately 45 contact hours, offered spring at Daytona State, with MAC1105 as prerequisite.

It pairs with ETI4640 (Operations Management), also offered spring — see that guide.