Overview

Indicative content includes:

Business organisation, structure and functions

• Have demonstrated an understanding of organisational structures relevant for engineering business.
• Understand basic business functions and their role in supporting successful business
• Understand own employer’s structure and the role of its senior leadership team.

Professional business behaviours, ethics and courtesies

• Have demonstrated that they have understood and mastered basic business behaviour, ethics and courtesies,
• Demonstrate timeliness and focus when faced with distractions and the ability to complete tasks to a deadline with high quality
• Understand and be able to demonstrate competence in time management
• Apply basic management considerations: prioritisation, task versus responsibility management, managing up and across the organisation, people considerations
• Understand the importance of conforming to the organisational values and operating in a flexible and adaptable way to meet employer changing needs

Business finance and accounting

• Demonstrate a range of financial skills to include: Managing a budget, discounted cash flows, financial forecasting, ratios, net present values, paybacks, rates of return, basic balance sheet and profit and loss accounts and the assessment and mitigation of risk management information
• Understand how to justify the value of engineering technology investments and apply benefits management
• Can formulate a well-reasoned investment proposal and can construct and present a basic business investment case, including costed scenarios/options and benefits using quantitative methods
• Understand the need to control cash flow through managing invoicing, and debt recovery processes
• Understand the difference between Capital Expenditures (CAPEX) and Operating Expenses (OPEX)

Business Strategy

• Understand the role of engineering business strategy setting and the key aspects of strategy formulation in the management of firms that shapes the development of business.
• Appreciate the importance of integrating management and business practices with the engineering firm’s strategic objectives, including vision and strategy formulation.
• Appreciate strategic business practice including; goal and objective setting, risk identification (opportunity and threat) and response strategies.
• Understand the strategic importance of business processes and demonstrate the ability to document and analyse them.
• Appreciate the principles of business transformation in supporting business strategy.

Managing business

• Understand the core processes involved in running a business
• Understand the nature of governance, and assurance, for organisational effectiveness
• Appreciate HR practices and the importance of making the best use of people
• Understand what is meant by organisational theory, change management, marketing, human resource management and service management to engineering business.
• Understand and can apply the principles of quality management to engineering products and services.
• Understand the significance of human factors including leadership in the effective management of business.
• Understanding of the legal aspects of commercial contracts including terms, and techniques for dealing with non-conformance and resolving disputes

Organisational behaviour

• Understand models of organisational behaviour, processes and change.
• Appreciate the central issues in work organisations, including organisational psychology.
• Understand the application of systems thinking, flow charting, type and frequency data analysis, modelling future flows
• Understand some of the dominant concepts and models in organisational behaviour.
• Understand that changing organisational behaviours can deliver improvements in business results.

Global engineering strategy

• Understand the principles and practice of industrial economics and the role of manufacturing in the global economy.
• Understand the different strategies that firms may adopt for growth, how changing global conditions influence their management and the implications for industrial policy.
• Understand the importance of the global economy and the evolving structure of industries and firms.
• Appreciate the key aspects of management decision-making that shape the development of global business and the way in which it is governed.
• Describe key characteristics of modern manufacturing industries, and what factors are driving changes within them.
• Understand the ways in which companies can respond to industrial transformation.
• Understand the basics of how industrial and innovation policies are developed and implemented.
• Can apply SWOT analysis as a way of evaluating the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of different engineering projects.

Assessment Strategy

-threshold -Equivalent to 40%.Uses key areas of theory or knowledge to meet the Learning Outcomes of the module. Is able to formulate an appropriate solution to accurately solve tasks and questions. Can identify individual aspects, but lacks an awareness of links between them and the wider contexts. Outputs can be understood, but lack structure and/or coherence.

-good -Equivalent to the range 60%-69%.Is able to analyse a task or problem to decide which aspects of theory and knowledge to apply. Solutions are of a workable quality, demonstrating understanding of underlying principles. Major themes can be linked appropriately but may not be able to extend this to individual aspects. Outputs are readily understood, with an appropriate structure but may lack sophistication.

-excellent -Equivalent to the range 70%+.Assemble critically evaluated, relevant areas of knowledge and theory to constuct professional-level solutions to tasks and questions presented. Is able to cross-link themes and aspects to draw considered conclusions. Presents outputs in a cohesive, accurate, and efficient manner.

Learning Outcomes

• Demonstrate how economics and industrial transformations can impact global engineering strategies.

• Describe common business management techniques.

• Explain the theory and application of organisational behaviour.