Introductory description

In an increasingly competitive business environment, successful organisations use a variety of management approaches to ensure competitiveness. Companies facing external pressures need engineers who can respond to challenges, through effective project and change management, commercial awareness, and a commitment to continuous improvement to drive excellence. Some of the biggest challenges faced are those associated with the environment and minimising adverse impacts. Central to any successful company are employees and an inclusive approach will support business excellence.

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Commercial Awareness:
'Responsible' Management
Stakeholder Theory
Legal matters
IPR

Project Management and Change Management :
Characteristics of a project
Project management methodologies
Project planning, monitoring and control
Leadership and change management

Quality Management:
Evolution of quality: inspection, quality control, quality assurance, quality management
Quality Management Systems including ISO 9000
Continuous improvement and overview of approaches used in manufacturing organisations e.g. Six Sigma, TPM, SPC, 7 Tools, EFQM

Inclusive Culture:
BS ISO 30415:2021 Human resource management — Diversity and inclusion.
Equality Act 2010

Environmental :
Environmental Management ( e.g. ISO 14001)
CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility)
Environmental protection and lifecycle management standards

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Explain how organisations can employ practises of ‘responsible management’ and how they can adapt their practises to evolving external forces whilst also considering the commercial, legal and ethical implications. (C8, M8, C11, M11, C15, M15),
• Apply project management techniques and evaluate their effectiveness in project delivery, including analysing the role of change management when implementing solutions. (C15, M15)
• Discuss approaches to quality management, the role of quality management systems and continuous improvement, in order to solve complex problems and enable excellence. (C14, M14)
• Examine inclusive culture, recognising the responsibilities, benefits and importance of equality, diversity and inclusion for business and individual engineering practice. (C11, M11)
• Evaluate industry approaches to managing the environmental and societal impact of their business and minimising adverse impacts. (C7, M7[D]))

Indicative reading list

Das Gupta, Ananda (2022) A casebook of strategic corporate social responsibility: towards business sustainability; Springer
O'Riordan, Linda (2017) Managing Sustainable Stakeholder Relationships : Corporate Approaches to Responsible Management. Springer.
Nigel Slack, Alistair Brandon-Jones, Nicola Burgess (2022) Operations management. Pearson

Project management, planning and control : managing engineering, construction and manufacturing projects to PMI, APM and BSI standards / Albert Lester.Lester, Albert, E-Book | Butterworth-Heinemann | 2021. | 8th edition.

Total quality management : text with cases / John S. Oakland.Oakland, John S. Print Book | Butterworth-Heinemann | 2003.

Interdisciplinary

Understanding organisations with scientific, engineering, managerial and inclusive human focused approach.

Subject specific skills

Ability to develop economically viable and ethically sound sustainable solutions
Ability to be risk, cost and value-conscious, and aware of their ethical, social, cultural, environmental, health and safety, and wider professional engineering responsibilities.
Ability to ethically manage projects, change, continuous improvement with focus on quality and sustainability.

Transferable skills

Ability to formulate and operate within appropriate codes of conduct, when faced with an ethical issue.
Overcome difficulties by employing skills, knowledge and understanding in a flexible manner.