Course Catalogue

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In this course a team of teams will work on a technically complex problem, emulating a redesign of an existing complex system to comply with new societal and environmental requirements. The redesign will balance technical requirements against human factors as well as wider change, budgetary, time, safety and legal constraints, producing a developed concept ready for embodiment design. Teams will align with specialities and departments typically existing in a large engineering organisation, taking responsibility for a major component, sub-system or functional aspect of design. Students will be taught core systems engineering and management tools and techniques.

One supervision session (to review progress and allow for discussion) of three hours once a week.

One lecture per week.

Mandatory Entry Requirements

None

Recommended Entry Requirements

None

None

None

60% Report:

■ group technical report (25%), covering the team's systems design solution, design process and management, and technical work; and

■ individual reflective report (35%), covering the student's reflections on their professional role within the team supported by a supplementary weekly logbook.

40% Oral Assessment & Presentation: individual assessment covering the student's technical work contributing to the group systems design project.

The aims of this course are to:

■ provide students with a simulated work environment, representative of the industry they would work in as mechanical engineers, in which they must fulfil both technical and non-technical tasks;

■ familiarise students with the challenges of working within and across large multidisciplinary teams to achieve a complex collective objective - the development of a highly integrated engineering product with conflicting local requirements;

■ provide students the opportunity to further develop their technical skills while considering how different aspects of complex mechanical product development interact;

■ introduce students to environmental, socially conscious and commercially compliant design approaches when executing large development programmes.

By the end of this course students will be able to*:

■ apply a comprehensive knowledge of engineering principles and techniques, as well as consult appropriate information/data and apply engineering judgment, to achieve coordinated problem analysis and resolution, and provide an original solution to a complex mechanical design problem (M1-4);

■ apply an integrated or systems approach to the solution of a complex technical problem, meeting a wide variety of stakeholder needs (M5 & 6);

■ select and apply appropriate materials, equipment, engineering technologies and processes, as well as quality and risk management techniques related to a mechanical design problem, discussing their limitations, where required using an array of industrial software packages to refine and/or verify design (M9, 13 & 14);

■ identify managerial, commercial, environmental and societal issues common in engineering organisations and programmes and formulate and implement appropriate measures to address these (M7, 8, 11 & 15);

■ function and communicate effectively - as both an individual and a team member/leader - in a team collaborating with other teams as part of a larger multidisciplinary engineering team (team of teams), to ensure requirement management is properly organised and technical solutions and communication are at a professional level (M16 & 17);

■ formulate and execute a plan for self-learning and development to achieve a set of professional objectives to support a complex system development programme (M18).

■ *M denotes coverage of learning outcomes for Masters degrees (including the Integrated Masters) set out in the 4th edition of the Accredition of Higher Education Programmes (AHEP) standard, published Aug 2020.formulate and execute a plan for self-learning and development to achieve a set of professional objectives to support a complex system development programme.