All programmes > Engineering & Entrepreneurship

Engineering & Entrepreneurship (B-KUL-H09P4A)

6 ECTSEnglish69 Second termCannot be taken as part of an examination contract
Duflou Joost (coordinator) |  De Moor Bart |  Duflou Joost |  Geldof Bernard |  Gorissen Benjamin |  Joubert Johan  | LessMore
Facultaire POC Ingenieurswetenschappen

Aims

The course explains and illustrates the role of leadership and technology in the entrepreneurial process.

  • The student can explain the key role of technology and engineering in entrepreneurship
  • The student is able to take advantage of market opportunities by planning, organizing, and employing several types of resources.
  • The student is able to clarify the role of and generate a business plan for an existing as well as a new to start-up company.
  • The student can clarify how different units within the company interact and how the company should position itself within a given market, based on the participation during the business games and the testimonies by the entrepreneurs to.
  • The student can explicate the product development cycle and more specifically the creative phase following the need recognition and problem formulation stages. In this phase design concepts need to be conceived and assessed.
  • The student can indicate the techniques of Business Strategic Dialogues and the role of leadership in this.

Previous knowledge

Students are not allowed to follow the course H09Q1A ‘Leadership and Strategic Management’ (3 ECTS) nor H04V2A ‘Ontwerpmethodologieën’ (6 ECTS) when they subscribe this course.

Is included in these courses of study

Activities

1.5 ects. Business Simulations (B-KUL-H09P5a)

1.5 ECTSEnglishFormat: Assignment30 Second term
Duflou Joost |  Joubert Johan
Facultaire POC Ingenieurswetenschappen

Content

The ola consists of two games:

 

  • concurrent engineering game: this business simulation game makes students familiar with the important influence of organizational structures on the performance of project teams with parallel, interacting task responsibilities. The exercise consists of a 4 hours competitive product development effort set in a real life production facility.
  • business game: during this three day business game students have to organize themselves in teams or companies. They create a vision, set goals for their company, translate them in the normal activities of a company: hiring people, buying raw material, investing in machines, price setting, marketing, selling and delivering the products, production planning, etc. At the end of the game during a formal session what they hoped to reach and what has been reached is discussed.

Course material

Handouts made available to the students  before the start of the games.

Format: more information

Interactive business simulation games: presence is obligatory.

Is also included in other courses

1.5 ects. Strategic Management (B-KUL-H09P8a)

1.5 ECTSEnglishFormat: Lecture15 Second term
Geldof Bernard
Facultaire POC Ingenieurswetenschappen

Content

1. Leadership:How to define,types of profiles(inspirational,organisational),style
2. Strategic Dialogues: Vision and Strategy as a tool to aline teams and lead the team to common goals.Technique of defining actual situation against strategic desired position (Ist/Soll) and definition of action programs to get there.
3. What to do in global crises: short time survival to reach long term objectives (use of operational KPI's)
4. Culture of enterpreneurship and commitment
5. Why?(reason to exist),how?(values),what?(action plans)
6. How evaluate (choose) the team and reward it?
7. Priority setting (people,profit,planet?)
8. Translation and communication of vision/strategy to affiliates and workfloor
9. Role of innovation10. Case study of a company in Belgium

Course material

Handbook, texts and presentations

Format: more information

Mixture of classes and seminars

Is also included in other courses

2 ects. Creativity and Decision Making for Product Development (B-KUL-H0T37a)

2 ECTSEnglishFormat: Lecture12 Second term
Duflou Joost
Facultaire POC Ingenieurswetenschappen

Content

1. Characteristics of design activities and systematic design procedures

2. Creativity methods: including

  • Lateral thinking
  • Brainstorming
  • Synectics
  • Biomimicry, biologically inspired design
  • Combinatorial concept generation
  • Morphological analysis

      and creativity quantification

3.   Design by Analogy and Systematic biologically inspired design

4.  Theory of Inventive Problem Solving :TIPS / TRIZ

5.  Open innovation and lead users

6.  Design evaluation methods and decision theory

  • Design axioms
  • Decision matrices
  • Decision theory
  • Multi-criteria decision making

Course material

Handouts and selected articles

1 ects. Technology & Entrepreneurship: Case Studies (B-KUL-H0T38a)

1 ECTSEnglishFormat: Lecture12 Second term
De Moor Bart |  Gorissen Benjamin
Facultaire POC Ingenieurswetenschappen

Content

Testimonies on the role of engineering and technology in the start-up of technology spin-offs. Leading entrepreneurs of technology spin-off companies will be invited to contribute to this seminar lectures.

Course material

Byers, T.H. Dorf, R.C., & Nelson, A.J. (2010). Technology ventures: From idea to enterprise (3rd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Handouts of the presentations.

Evaluation

Evaluation: Engineering & Entrepreneurship (B-KUL-H29P4a)

Type : Partial or continuous assessment with (final) exam during the examination period
Description of evaluation : Written, Paper/Project, Presentation, Participation during contact hours
Type of questions : Open questions

Explanation


 

  • ‘Business Simulations’: continuous assessment based on participation
  • ‘Strategic Management’ and ‘Creativity and decision making for product development’: written exam during the exam session, open questions
  • ‘Technology & Entrepreneurship: case studies’: short paper on a case study
  • One of the business game takes place during three consecutive days during the Easter holidays, this game is graded based on participation.

Not participating in one of the diffferent parts results in failing this course. There is no possibility to take a second exam session for the games in September.

If the faculty decides that the business games cannot go ahead in their current form, compulsory attendance will be waived. The business games will then not be included in the assessment of this course.

 

 

 

Information about retaking exams

You cannot retake the business games in the September exam session, since they exist of continuous assessment. However, you can retake the course modules ‘Strategic Management’, ‘Creativity and Decision Making for Product Development’ and ‘Technology & Entrepreneurship’.