Module ENGI4311: ENTERPRISE & OPERATIONS

Department: Engineering

ENGI4311: ENTERPRISE & OPERATIONS

Prerequisites

• Level 3 Electronics route, Level 3 Electrical route, Level 3 Mechanical route

Corequisites

• As specified in programme regulations

Excluded Combination of Modules

• As specified in programme regulations

Aims

• This module is designed solely for students studying School of Engineering and Computing Sciences degree programmes.
• This module will develop a critical understanding of the Entrepreneurial approach required to progress a business idea from generation, through market testing to a robust and commercially viable business concept. The business idea will be based on a combination of software orientated systems and engineering product concepts where strong patent intellectual property issues are required.
• This module will provide graduates with the knowledge and the tools necessary to understand, develop, implement and sustain strategies for managing supply chain networks.

Content

• Generating a business idea - theory and practice.
• Testing ideas against the market - theory and practice.
• Developing a clear and commercially viable business concept.
• Patent & intellectual property issues theory, legal and practical.
• Writing a business plan based on a self generated idea.
• Production & project planning and supply chain management.
• Inventory Management.
• Multi-Echelon inventory systems.
• Distribution strategies, models and algorithms, applications.
• Facility location and planning.

Learning Outcomes

• Understand how to plan for the launch of a new business venture.
• Be aware of the challenges encountered in the launch process.
• Demonstrate an understanding of the responses and strategies used to overcome such challenges.
• An appreciation and technical understanding of supply chain management.
• An understanding of production and supply network drivers.
• Understanding of management principles of different production and logistic networks.

• Demonstrate an understanding of the responses and strategies used to overcome such challenges.
• Intellectual property issues related to launching a new business.
• Financial elements required in producing business plans.
• The use of analytic tools and techniques necessary to develop solutions for a variety of production network and logistical problems.
• The ability to design and model complex production and logistic networks.

• Capacity for independent self-learning within the bounds of professional practice.
• Highly specialised modelling and optimisation skills appropriate to an engineer.
• Highly specialised use of information technology (IT) relevant to the engineering profession.
• Mathematics relevant to the application of advanced engineering concepts.
• Have developed/improved the students enterprising skills, behaviours and attitudes.

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• The module consists of two courses Entrepreneurship and Innovation and Management of Production Networks and Logistics.
• The teaching modes in Entrepreneurship and Innovation are covered by triple workshop-style lectures supplemented by 5 team workshop sessions each of up to 3-hour duration.
• The teaching modes in Management of Production Networks and Logistics are covered in single lecture format, supplemented by a 2-hour computer workshop.
• Students will be expected to work in a team environment with tutor support.
• Students are able to make use of staff 'Tutorial Hours' to discuss any aspect of the module with teaching staff on a one-to-one basis. These are sign up sessions available for up to one hour per week per lecture course.
• Assessment of the module will be done partly as summative course work assignment and partly by written examination.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

Staged written feedback of practical work

■ Attendance at all activities marked with this symbol will be monitored. Students who fail to attend these activities, or to complete the summative or formative assessment specified above, will be subject to the procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University