PPU171 – Industry Project

7,5 Credits

Elective course in MPPEN

Examiner

Anders Skoogh, PhD

Professor

E-mail: anders.skoogh@chalmers.se

Telephone: +46 (0)31 - 772 48 06

 

Course administrator

PhD candidate Daniel Nåfors

E-mail: daniel.nafors@chalmers.se 

Telephone: +46 (0)31 – 772 10 02

 

Aim

Industry requests engineers prepared to solve open problems in a sustainable way by applying theoretical knowledge in a real-world context. With the aim to fulfil this demand, the course cooperates closely with industry, providing real industrial project enabling learning focused on the application knowledge. The vision is to give students an opportunity to make their first traces in the industrial reality and start building a personal network, an important prerequisite for a successful industry career. The course also functions as a preparatory exercise before the Master thesis work.

The purpose of the course is therefore that the students, through active collaboration in a project group, will learn how to solve real industrial problems by following established engineering methods, working in teams, and effectively communicating with various stakeholders.

Prerequisites

Same as for MPPEN; see student portal.

Learning objectives of the course

After having completed the course the students should be able to:

• Formulate a clear problem and create a project plan.
• Select and apply appropriate engineering methods and tools for solving the given problem.
• Assess engineering solutions in perspective of sustainable development, with consideration to both scientific and ethical aspects.
• Divide the work into result specific activities, assign responsibilities, and schedule the activities on a time axis.
• Develop project results following an established project methodology.
• Work in project teams and analyse the project work in terms of group dynamics.
• Organize and contribute to project meetings.
• Write a technical project report that follows an established structure and policies of academic honesty. This includes adding references, figures and tables according to praxis.
• Present the project results and own reflections for other students.
• Present the work for the representatives of the collaborating industrial company. This presentation with focus on the project results and a credible work procedure.
• Give constructive feedback on another project group's work and respond to similar criticism on the own project group's work.

Course content and organization

• Real industry project.
• Project work: structured management and task distribution.
• Sustainable development, with consideration to both scientific and ethical aspects.
• Coaching in writing a technical project report.
• Teamwork – theory and practice.
• Presentation training
• Training in giving and receiving feedback.

Organisation

The cornerstone in this course is that learning takes place in a real industrial project. To guide the students through their projects and to assist them with reaching the learning objectives, each group has a supervisor with a meeting once a week at the university. These meetings typically include assistance in finding solutions recent problems in the projects, technical support on applied software packages, and support with writing the final report. The project groups do multiple company visits where they meet the industrial contacts to formulate the problem, collect data and information, and gain necessary experiences from the industry. Furthermore, the course includes seminars aiming to give the students experience of communicating to a larger audience, working in teams, etc. Each group is also provided with a virtual project room for continuous communication and documentation. This virtual project room is used both to assist learning activities and for the supervisors to follow the projects as well as assessing some of the learning objectives.

Examination

The learning is assessed based on following: the project report, the A2 summary, the work procedure, the written opposition including response, the presentation, and the peer evaluation. An optional reflection hand-in on group dynamics will impact the grade according to the grading rubric available on Canvas. Grading is individual and the grading scale is: 5, 4, 3, and Fail.

 

Literature

• Project methodology
• Scientific papers
• Lecture presentations

Staff

Lecturers: AS: Anders Skoogh, DN: Daniel Nåfors, MD: Mélanie Despeisse, RB: Rebecca Bergman

Schedule

W	Time	Room	Activity	Resp.
45	Introduction and project planning
45	201102 09-12 Monday	Zoom	Lecture, Introduction	AS, DN
45	201104 10-16 Wednesday	Zoom	Lecture/Workshop, Project planning	DN
46	Project planning, project work and group dynamics
46	201111 10-12 Wednesday	Zoom	Lecture/Seminar, Group dynamics	RB
46	201111 13-15 Wednesday	Zoom	Seminar, Project plan	AS, DN
47	Project work and presentation techniques
47	201116 08-12 Monday	Zoom	Flipped classroom, Presentation preparation Please bring a laptop with PowerPoint or equivalent software to create material	MD
48	Project work and group dynamics
48	201125 10-12 Wednesday	Zoom	Mid-term gate meeting (groupwise)	DN
48	201125 13-16 Wednesday	Zoom	Workshop, Group dynamics	RB
49	Project work and group dynamics
49	201130 08-12 Monday	Zoom	Coaching session, Presentation performance Please bring a laptop with PowerPoint or equivalent to practice presenting	MD
50	Project work and presentations
50	201209 10-17 Wednesday	Zoom	Presentations practice (2-hour sessions*)	MD, DN
51	Project work and course summary
51	201214 10-12 Monday	Zoom	Course summary and poster presentations	AS, students

*Each student will join one session of 2 hours. Check list on Canvas for the time slot you were allocated to.

Deliveries

W	Date, Time	Day	Delivery
46	201113, 23:55	Friday	Delivery of project plan
47	201116, 23:55	Monday	Delivery of group contract
47	201120, 23:55	Friday	Delivery of first individual team member assessment
48	201124, 23:55	Tuesday	Delivery of mid-term gate report
48	201204, 11:55	Friday	Delivery of presentation material
50	201211, 23:55	Friday	Delivery of draft report and A2 poster
51	201218, 23:55	Friday	Delivery of written opposition (one per project group)
03	210115, 23:55	Friday	Delivery of final report and response to opponents
03	210115, 23:55	Friday	Delivery of final individual team member assessment and reflection on group dynamics