MEng Mechanical Engineering with Industrial Experience

This unit introduces students to Project Management (PM) and its importance to the success of delivering engineering projects that support organisational strategy. The unit discusses various topics within the field of PM and explains how they integrate with each over so that the student develops a good understanding of projects in their entirety. The unit is included in the degree programme as all engineering projects require some level of PM. The unit provides a framework to help ensure that students are able to help deliver industry projects that meet time, cost, and quality requirements. The unit also contributes to the accreditation of the programme from the engineering Institutions.

Explain how engineering projects that are delivered through the support of project management activities contribute to the overall success and strategy of an organisation.

Analyse the success of a ‘classic’ project in relation to organisational strategy, project scope, and risk management.

Explain how activities such as planning, risk management, cost estimating, and knowledge management integrate with each other and contribute to the effective delivery of projects.

Apply key project management tools and techniques such as developing project schedules and conducting earned value analysis.

Explain the concept of integrated programme management and the use of reflective practice to more effectively manage projects and programmes.

Communicate and appreciate viewpoints of different stakeholders in engineering projects; for example, ensuring that those involved in delivering engineering projects can communicate to non-technical audiences.

Determine customer/user needs in specifying project requirements. Evaluate projects at different stages of the life cycle, identifying risk issues and their impacts on time, cost, and quality. Identify the main costs of a project during its life cycle and the difference between current and future costs.

Discuss how project management underpins engineering projects throughout their life cycle. Discuss legal requirements related to project and corporate governance.

Discuss how risks and stakeholders impact on projects and determine how to assess and minimise the impact.

Apply project management analytical methods to describe and classify the performance of engineering projects.

Explain how integrated programme management enables organisations to deliver better value than through managing projects individually.

Interpret relevant project data to develop network schedule diagrams and conduct earned value analysis. Discuss how project management activities underpin engineering projects throughout their life cycles.

Identify the costs and risks of a project during its life cycle and judge uncertainty, and then evaluate their impact on time, cost, and quality.

Identify why stakeholders need managing across the full project life cycle.

Discuss how effective risk management underpins projects that are delivered to time, cost, and quality requirements.

The unit runs over 12 weeks and follows the ‘traditional’ lecture format. The unit schedule is:

1. Unit Overview and Introduction to Project Management: This lecture provides an overview of the unit teaching and assessment approach; it also explains why engineers need to study project management, the basic concept of the project life cycle, and how the different aspects of project management integrate with each over so that projects can be delivered effectively. Lecture content: Explains the importance of project management to engineers, explains what a project life cycle and a project is, and discusses the main stages of project definition.
2. The Organisation: strategy, structure, and culture: Explains organisational strategy, structure, and culture together with their links to projects and project management. Lecture content: Explains the links between the organisation, organisational strategy, and project management, the concepts of organisational strategy, corporate governance, and enterprise risk management, and how stakeholders and organisational structure and culture impact on project delivery. 
3. Project Planning, Scheduling, and Resourcing: These activities are critical to managing and delivering projects effectively; failing to plan, develop an achievable schedule, and poor management of organisational resources will inevitably lead to project failure. Lecture content: Explains the importance of project planning, the links between project scope, scope management, product breakdown structures and work breakdown structures, describes the steps involved in developing a project schedule, discusses the problems arising from resource scheduling and the approaches used to resolve the problems, and shows how to develop a project network diagram. 
4. Risk Management: All engineering projects incur risks that can impact on project outcomes and outputs; this session explains how to manage project risks effectively. Lecture content: Explains differences between risk and uncertainty, defines the risk management process, explains why organisations do risk management and why they need to take risks, explains what is meant by Black Swan Events, and identifies some common risk management mistakes in projects.
5. Building a Project Team: Projects are delivered by teams; the more effective a team is then the more likely it is that projects will be delivered successfully. Lecture content: Discusses approaches that can be used to build and develop a team, the challenges and problems with building teams, and the reality of building a team in relation to prescribed theory.
6. Cost Estimating: Cost estimates should be developed for all projects so that organisations can decide on which projects to undertake. Lecture content: Explains the importance of cost estimating and the different types of costs incurred on engineering projects, discusses the benefits, limitations, and challenges of cost estimating, explains the different estimating techniques used in the project life cycle, outlines the cost estimating process, and explains how three-point estimating can be used to develop  more realistic cost estimates.
7. Managing Project Quality and Supply Chain Management: Poor product quality will cause project failure, increased costs, and late delivery; projects are highly dependent on supply chains that are often difficult to manage, which can also lead to project failure. Lecture content: Explains the key concepts of project quality management (QM), recognises that it is people rather than systems and processes that have the biggest impact on QM, identifies the key causes of quality failures in projects.

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