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An Integrated Approach to Entrepreneurship

Dr Perry Armstrong, School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Queens University,Belfast. Email: pj.armstrong@qub.ac.uk

Abstract

For the past three years the School has been running a team-based Stage 4 project which servesas a capstone project, as well as a vehicle for training students in entrepreneurship. The studentteams are tasked with designing and developing an innovative product, while also drawing up abusiness plan for a start-up company to market the product. Supporting courses are integrated withthe project in order to provide essential knowledge and skills that students have not covered in theearlier years of their degree programme.

Background and reasons for the project

When the new team-based Stage 4 project was introduced, the Schools planning decisions wereinfluenced by a number of factors, including the following:

Historically the local economy had been performing poorly in terms of the overall level ofentrepreneurial activity. Various local agencies had stressed the need for major initiatives inorder to rectify this situation.

A new team-based project was required in Stage 4 of the Schools MEng programme inMechanical and Manufacturing Engineering in order to satisfy SARTOR 3.

Participation in the Formula Student competition by the Schools Stage 3 students haddemonstrated the advantages of team-based design and build projects, in terms of studentmotivation, knowledge application and the development of important practical andprofessional skills.

The School had become involved in an international initiative to reform engineeringeducation, called the CDIO Initiative. The main premise of this initiative is that engineeringgraduates should be able to conceive, design, implement and operate value-added productsand systems.

An existing Stage 4 Marketing and Business Planning course included a team-based assignment,where each team had to produce a business plan for a hypothetical company set up to market aninnovative product. Student feedback indicated that the marketing assignment was both enjoyablefor the students and successful in educational terms.

Taking all of the above into account, it was decided that a new team-based Stage 4 project would

be introduced that combined the existing marketing assignment with an engineering project on thedesign and development of the innovative product chosen (by the students) for the marketingassignment. This, it was felt, would provide realistic and appropriate exposure to entrepreneurshipfor an engineering undergraduate. It would also satisfy the SARTOR requirements and cover thefull spectrum of activities identified as important in the CDIO Initiative. Finally it would have thesame potential benefits at Stage 4 as Formula Student was delivering at Stage 3, with the addeddimension of linking engineering decision making with marketing and business objectives andconstraints.

Key Features

The Stage 4 project and its supporting elements account for the equivalent of 2 modules out of

the 6 modules that make up the Stage 4 curriculum.

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The new Stage 4 project was introduced in 2002/3 and it requires each student team to:

(a) Generate an idea for an innovative new product.

(b) Form a hypothetical company to design, develop and market the product, with designated

roles (and titles) for each team member.

(c) Conduct a detailed market analysis, including the identification and assessment ofcompeting products.

(d) Create a design specification for the chosen concept.

(e) Generate and evaluate alternative design concepts for the product.

(f) Employ appropriate engineering science along with available CAE tools during designanalysis.

(g) Produce a detailed design, or designs, including CAD models and engineering drawings.

(h) Build and test a product prototype or, if this is not possible, use or build experimental

facilities in order to test critical features of the proposed design.

(i) Develop the product on the basis of the test results until it meets its design specification.

(j) Produce a detailed business plan (ostensibly for potential investors) covering the financial,business, technical, manufacturing and personnel aspects of setting up a company in orderto market the product.

What skills and abilities are enhanced and developed?

In part, the new Stage 4 project is a capstone project, in the sense that it enables students toapply the engineering science, design skills and computing expertise they have acquired in earlieryears. However, previous exposure to entrepreneurship is limited to a few lectures in Stage 2 and

Stage 3. These lectures are provided to encourage students to spend some time considering newbusiness and product ideas, partly in preparation for the Stage 4 project. However, full exposure toentrepreneurship is left to the final year. This is deliberate because, by this stage, students have adegree of competence with the technical side of product design and development, and aretherefore in a better position to cope with the marketing and business aspects. This does howevermean that students need additional knowledge and skills, that have not been provided prior toStage 4. Hence it was necessary to revise the curriculum at Stage 4, in order to incorporateadditional taught elements.

The additional elements introduced into the Stage 4 curriculum are shown in the upper part ofFigure 1.

Figure 1Entrepreneurship Guest Lectures

InnovationMarketing &

Business Planning

Business Plan

Product Design& PrototypeSTAGE 4 ENGINEERING

& MARKETING PROJECT

Idea forInnovative

Product

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As previously mentioned, the Marketing and Business Planning course shown already existed. Itserves to provide the students with appropriate techniques and practical help with all of the non-engineering aspects of the project, from generating ideas for an original product to drawing up abusiness plan. Included are lectures on market research, strategic planning, product pricing,consumer behaviour, advertising, business ethics, leadership and presentation skills. The course isnow complemented with a separate set of lectures on Entrepreneurship, which cover the specificknowledge required by the entrepreneur. The lectures deal with the formation of start-upcompanies, alternative business models, sources of finance and advice, management topics andlegal issues.

Guest lectures are also arranged to cover gaps in the students knowledge and providebackground on more specialised issues. Topics covered have included project management,patenting and IPR, risk assessment, the EC Machinery Directive, team building, HR, qualityauditing and rapid prototyping. In addition guest lecturers have been invited from designconsultancies and design departments in companies, in order to present specific case studies anddiscuss their experiences with the students.

The lectures on Innovation have the specific aim of placing the Stage 4 project in a wider context.They focus on the importance of innovation and entrepreneurship to individual companies and theeconomy in general. The lecturer also reviews the characteristics of innovative companies and therole of research and development in industry. In addition the management of innovation and newproduct introduction are discussed. The intention is that the students will appreciate the importanceof the knowledge and skills they are acquiring in the project, and understand how companies dealwith the challenges of innovation.

The Stage 4 project and its supporting elements account for the equivalent of 2 modules out ofthe 6 modules that make up the Stage 4 curriculum. This illustrates the importance that the Schoolplaces on entrepreneurship. Having said that, the project also provides an important platform for

developing a wide range of personal, interpersonal and professional skills. These include skillsthat do not traditionally feature in an engineering curriculum, such as independent thinking, bothcritically and creatively, dealing with uncertainty, and the skills involved in problem formulation, asdistinct to those involved in problem solving. It is also a basic tenet of the CDIO Initiative thatstudents should develop more of the skills they will need as professional engineers, and the newStage 4 project provides an important opportunity for students to significantly broaden their skillsbase.

What is the role of the lecturer?

Stage 4 students are generally mature individuals, who will shortly be taking up posts ofresponsibility in the real world. By way of preparation, the School believes that they should be

given as much individual and collective responsibility as possible. Hence project supervision isdeliberately approached with a light touch. Normally two members of staff are appointed astechnical supervisors for each student team, once the nature of the teams innovative product isknown. The students are also told that they can consult any member of staff they believe hasappropriate expertise. However, all staff act as advisers rather than traditional projectsupervisors.

Three co-ordinators oversee the running of the projects, with one concentrating on guiding theteams through the preparation of their business plans. The latter co-ordinator is the lecturerresponsible for the Marketing and Business Planning course. He is a professional marketingconsultant with a natural talent for enthusing and motivating the students.

The support course and lectures are an essential part of the overall package at Stage 4. Asnoted, Marketing and Business topics are covered by an experienced marketing consultant. Thelectures on Innovation are delivered by a Senior Lecturer in Innovation, who holds a post at the

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University funded by a local bank. The lectures on Entrepreneurship are presented by a TeachingFellow in Entrepreneurship, whose post is funded by the Northern Ireland Centre forEntrepreneurship, which is run jointly by the University and the University of Ulster. The fact thatall of the above have professional expertise in their subject areas is an important factor in thesuccess of the initiative.

How is the module assessed?

Assessment is based on team presentations, the teams business plans, team and individualreports and supervisors evaluations of student performance. The Innovation andEntrepreneurship lectures and the Business and Marketing Planning course are also followed bywritten examinations, and the former incorporates an additional assignment. The teams make twotechnical presentations; including an early presentation to encourage the teams to define theirobjectives and produce a project plan as early as possible. The teams then make a final technicalpresentation on the engineering aspects of the project. A group of staff attend and mark thetechnical presentations. In a separate third presentation, the teams present their business plans toan invited panel, which includes appropriate guests such as industrialists and bank managers.

Examples of Projects

The most difficult part of the project for many student teams is generating their initial idea for aninnovative product. Ideally the product idea should come from the students, since the team willthen have ownership and, in our experience, will tend to promote and defend their idea morevigorously. In some cases individual students propose innovative products that have beensuggested to them by family members or friends. Providing the student can convince the otherteam members of the merits of proposal, this is acceptable. From time to time product ideas arealso submitted to staff in the School by companies or external organisations. Having given theteams a period of time to come up with their own ideas, these are brought to the attention of thestudents. In the final resort, the staff responsible for co-ordinating the projects will suggest product

ideas to any team that has failed to produce one of its own, but this has rarely been required.

By way of illustration, one of last years teams felt that it would be worthwhile to develop a gearboxfor a wheelchair, in order to facilitate hill climbing. As with all student teams, they wereencouraged to seek out groups and individuals in the local community when undertaking theirmarket research. In this case they consulted wheelchair users, staff at an orthopaedic hospital anda local wheelchair manufacturer. They discovered that a more important and fundamental problemwas stopping a wheelchair from rolling backwards. As a result they changed the project to oneinvolving the design, development and marketing of an anti-roll back system for wheelchairs.Figure 2 shows CAD models the team produced to explore different design concepts.

Figure 2

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Another of last years teams became aware of a problem in nasal surgery through a relative.Consultants in this area have a requirement for flexible forceps to enable them to reach into thepatients nasal passages. The team set about satisfying this requirement, having refined the designspecification through interviews with surgeons, and other relevant medical staff. The devicedeveloped by the team is shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3

MEDICYTE

A further project from last year arose from a problem raised by the Northern Ireland AmbulanceService. When critically ill patients are transferred on stretchers by ambulance they are normallyaccompanied by various heavy items of monitoring and life sustaining equipment. This tends to beunsecured, which creates difficulties when the stretcher is moved, and poses obvious dangerswhen the ambulance is braking or cornering at speed. The challenge faced by the team was todesign and develop an equipment carrier for a typical complement of equipment that could easily,but securely, be attached to a stretcher and quickly removed when required. A CAD model and a

photograph of the prototype carrier developed by the team are shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4

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Evidence of success

All students complete a comprehensive questionnaire at the end of the year. Their views assistwith efforts to continuously improve the project. Ideas gained from participation in the CDIOInitiative also inform the process. A point consistently made by the students is that they recognise,

for the first time, the extent to which marketing and business factors impinge on product designand development. This is an important lesson for any engineering graduate interested in becomingan entrepreneur.

It is evident to staff that the students gain in confidence during the course of the project. Theycome to realise that they have the ability to carry an initial idea through to a physical product and acredible proposal for setting up a company. Team spirit tends to be excellent and students haveno difficulty with the role-playing involved in assuming company titles and responsibilities. In fact anumber of teams have had company T-shirts printed, along with other publicity material. The teamethic is reinforced by the fact that the teams are encouraged to enter various competitions fororiginal product or business ideas. There are many such competitions, and a number of teamshave won prizes, including one of 10,000, which was shared between the four members of the

team. As with Formula Student the competitive element serves to increase team spirit, motivation,and student work rate.

Reflections and future developments

More engineering graduates need to become entrepreneurs, or adopt entrepreneurial attitudeswithin the companies they work for. The School believes that the best preparation is a holisticproject that effectively simulates the complete process of transforming an idea into a marketableproduct. To be successful, such a project has to be driven by the students, which in turn meansthat they have to be given more responsibility than would normally be the case.

In terms of the future development of the Stage 4 project, the difficulties faced by students when

asked to generate an initial idea for an innovative product need to be addressed. The introductionof assignments involving the generation of original product ideas in earlier years is one possibilityunder consideration. Students have also exposed various weaknesses in the Schools systemsand facilities that have delayed the progress of their projects. The underlying problem is thatengineering schools are not generally resourced to support the transformation of a product ideainto a working prototype within the space of an academic year. The School is working to improvethis situation.

Another issue that needs attention is assessment. Although it has been considered, peerassessment has not been introduced, mainly because a significant proportion of the students haverejected the idea in their end-of-year questionnaires. The general view is that it would bedetrimental to the building of team spirit. It would also be preferable if teams used peer pressure to

ensure that every team member is making a full contribution to the project. To date, this appearsto have happened, but the situation is being kept under review.

It could be argued that focusing on entrepreneurship is somewhat illogical since few engineeringgraduates actually become entrepreneurs. However, the School is satisfied that the underlyingcharacteristics and skills that the Stage 4 project develops are important to all engineeringgraduates. These relate, in the main, to the promotion of self-confidence, the development of awillingness to take initiatives, and the ability to work effectively in a team on a realistic and complextask for an extended period of time. In the absence of any other opportunities to develop thesecharacteristics within the undergraduate curriculum, it is felt that the Stage 4 project performs avaluable role, whether or not the graduate is a potential entrepreneur.

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