ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT AND CORPORATE SUSTAINABILITY - 2021/2

Module Overview

The Engineering Management sub-module provides an introduction to company accounting and reporting, project evaluation and project management in preparation for working in a professional engineering environment.

This sub-module also provides an introduction to the legal responsibilities of companies and employees to the health and safety of all in the workplace.  It serves as an introduction to techniques used by engineers to evaluate and reduce levels of danger in the work place.

The Corporate Sustainability sub-module focuses on the way in which businesses have approached the diverse and increasingly complex agenda of environmental and social management, evaluating the degree of influence these issues, commonly summarised under the term “sustainability”, have on business activities. It offers a comprehensive grounding in these management issues including strategies, accountabilities, policies, auditing and reporting. Given appropriate tools and an exposure to international and local environmental and ethical issues, students will use real-life business industry situations to formulate and understand management policy. Particular emphasis will be placed on Life Cycle thinking and the rigorous understanding of material and energy flows.

Module provider

Chemistry and Chemical Engineering

Module Leader

CHADEESINGH Ralph (Chm Proc Eng)

Number of Credits: 15

ECTS Credits: 7.5

Framework: FHEQ Level 5

Module cap (Maximum number of students): N/A

Module Availability

Semester 1

Prerequisites / Co-requisites

Completion of the progression requirements to FHEQ Level 5 of the degree courses in Chemical Engineering, Chemical and Bio-Systems Engineering and Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, or equivalent.

Module content

Indicative content includes:

Engineering Management

Organisation and Financing of Companies:

• Types of company, elements of company law.


• Sources of funding, classes and types of shares, share transactions, FT and other indices, dividends, yields, P/E ratios.

Introduction to Management Accounting:

• Basic accounting concepts, interpretation of accounts, funds flow analysis, taxation. (CAI tutoring packages available)

The Company in Business:

• Company structure, elements of product cost, manufacturing costs, general costs, fixed, variable and marginal costs, cost behaviour, marginal costing, break-even analysis, profit sensitivity analysis, budgetary control, variance analysis.

Project Evaluation:

• Return on capital, payback time, discounting and net present value, comparison of alternatives, risk and uncertainty in investment.

Industrial Legislation:

• Health and Safety at Work Act and associated Regulations e.g. COSHH, COMAH, DESERA, RIDDOR etc., employment and other industrial legislation


• Systematic evaluation of hazard and risk:


• Identification and quantification of hazards, fault trees, case studies and examples.

Project Management:

• Co-ordination of activities, network analysis, resource use and control.

Corporate Sustainability

• Introduction to Corporate Sustainability


• Life-Cycle Thinking


• Corporate Social Responsibility


• Life Cycle Assessment


• Environmental Auditing


• Environmental Management Systems, ISO 14001, ISO9002


• Value-Chain Analysis


• Waste, Waste Management


• Product-based Environmental Management


• Environmental and Sustainability Reporting


• Industrial Ecology

Assessment pattern

Alternative Assessment

N/A

Assessment Strategy

The assessment strategy is designed to provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate the full range of learning outcomes though the balanced mixture of examination coupled with the carefully graded coursework tasks which reflect current industrial practice.

Thus, the summative assessment for this module consists of:

·         Examination – 40%, 1.5 hours (LO1 – LO4)

·         Coursework 1: Corporate Sustainability – 40%, the production of a company report (3500 words) (LO5 – LO8)

·         Coursework 2: Engineering Management - 20%, comprising  working in groups to develop a company of choice to include aspects of ownership and corporate structures, financing, business strategy, with attention to industrial legislation, safety and sustainability, and then presenting same to lecturer and peers. (LO1 - LO4)

Formative assessment

N/A

Feedback

• Verbal feedback in tutorial classes and seminars


• Written feedback on coursework activities

Module aims

• Give the students an understanding of how engineering companies operate with respect to the law, financing, safety and project management.
• Discuss the way in which businesses have approached the diverse and increasingly complex agenda of Corporate Sustainability
• Introduce students to the concepts and allow them to develop analytical skills related to Corporate Sustainability

Learning outcomes

Methods of Teaching / Learning

The learning and teaching strategy is designed to:

• Provide students with a sound understanding of the operation of companies and projects through a combination of lectures and real world examples.


• Demonstrate the complexity of corporate sustainability through industrially relevant examples discussed in lectures and seminars

The learning and teaching methods include:

• Lectures                                 28 hours


• Tutorials                                 5 hours


• Seminars                               11 hours

Indicated Lecture Hours (which may also include seminars, tutorials, workshops and other contact time) are approximate and may include in-class tests where one or more of these are an assessment on the module. In-class tests are scheduled/organised separately to taught content and will be published on to student personal timetables, where they apply to taken modules, as soon as they are finalised by central administration. This will usually be after the initial publication of the teaching timetable for the relevant semester.

Reading list

https://readinglists.surrey.ac.uk
Upon accessing the reading list, please search for the module using the module code: ENG2110

Programmes this module appears in

Please note that the information detailed within this record is accurate at the time of publishing and may be subject to change. This record contains information for the most up to date version of the programme / module for the 2021/2 academic year.