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Gabriella Bognár
Institute of Machine and Product Design
University of Miskolc
Miskolc-Egyetemváros, H-3515, Hungary
v.bognar-gabriella@uni-miskolc.hu
Abstract— The aim of the paper is to
innovative elements in the cooperation between
companies, to introduce some new forms
cooperation based on competitiveness according
a ERASMUS LLP project.
introduce new
universities and
developed for
to the results of
Keywords— mechanical engineering, practical
competency coaching, solving real life problem
I.
training,
INTRODUCTION
“Never has the speed of development in the area of engineering
been as accelerated as it is today, as we observe the enormous
and driven growth of the area of engineering as well as a
shortening of innovation cycles.” Michael E. Auer [1].
New engineering jobs include areas that were not as
common earlier. Animations, technical calculations /
simulations, productivity analysis, application development
and virtual realization are some of the new areas for
engineering company. When these competencies are needed at
the same time as the engineering jobs are getting smaller
therefore, the challenge is obvious.
Europe has lost step by step its competitiveness. The core
of European welfare is depended on the industries, especially
mechanical engineering industries. During and after the project
we want to improve radically the cooperation between
mechanical engineering industry and related HEIs: expanding
partnerships to new companies, spreading the novel partnership
model to new European HEIs, committing SME-associations
and decision makers to support the novel partnership model.
The project targets to change scatted university-enterprise
cooperation to goal oriented and strategic managed walking
hand-in-hand.
Our university, University of Miskolc (UM), has been
involved in an ERASMUS LLP project coordinated by JAMK
University of Applied Sciences (JAMK) and started in 2013.
University partners are Technical University of Cluj
(TUCLUJ) and Esslingen University of Applied Sciences (HE).
The general objective of the project “Reshaped Partnerships for
Competitiveness and Innovation Potential in Mechanical
Engineering” (RePCI) is to improve the cooperation between
mechanical engineering industry and related Higher Education
Institutions (HEI). The fundamental principle is to develop the
forms of cooperation to the level that the companies can
recognise benefits for them (resulting mechanism).
The more specific objectives of the project are to ensure:
1: Business line driven and strategy based cooperation
management.
2: Continuous development of companies’ staff based on the
strategic choices relative to business competitiveness.
3: International resource pool is easily available and
improving the competitiveness of companies.
4: Real life problem solving in company-student-staff of HEI
triangle.
The partners of the project are four universities and five
companies (FESTO, ELOMATIC, Konecranes, FUX and
Prototip Sro.) from four European countries (Finland,
Germany, Hungary and Romania).
II.
APPROACH
Nowadays, the expectations for the knowledge have been
changed to
•
network-oriented economy and society,
•
dependence on the capacity development
cooperation,
•
specialization.
The requirements and expectations for the education are
different previously and today. The target was to create a
special approach to performance and today is to give
competence in a variety of problem. The focus was necessary
technology to produce a product and today is to provide ideas,
tips, solutions and concepts. The tools have also been
changed; earlier the tool was a vertical deepening of
knowledge and nowadays, it is to develop relationships,
communication and cooperation.
Now, an engineer should be able to design and develop
structures, machines and processes in international
environment, with language knowledge, interdisciplinarity and
to have soft skill competencies.
The expectations for engineering education have been
changed. Engineers have to have
•
professional knowledge (natural sciences, economic
and technical sciences),
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Proceedings of 2015 International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning (ICL)
•
project management,
•
professional foreign languages,
•
structural thinking at master level,
•
professional communication;
moreover, general, soft-skill abilities as
•
communication,
•
feedback,
•
working in group,
•
openness and tolerance,
•
leadership,
•
reliability,
•
precision,
•
lifelong learning.
It is important to emphasis the duties of HEIs in the practical
engineering education in order
•
to improve the quality of education,
•
to ensure consistency between the engineering
education and the corporate training requirements,
•
to involve researchers, practitioners into education,
•
to introduce new forms of practical training into
higher education,
•
to utilize the infrastructure of the institutions of
higher education and the company in education and
in joint researches.
III.
ACTUAL OR ANTICIPATED OUTCOMES
The general objective of the RePCI project is to improve
the cooperation between mechanical engineering industry and
related HEIs. The project targets to change scatted universityenterprise cooperation to goal oriented and strategic managed
walking hand-in-hand. The fundamental principle is to
develop the forms of cooperation to the level that the
companies can recognize benefits for them.
During the project, HEIs and enterprises target to establish
and test the cooperation which is driven from the strategies of
both parties guided by the shared aim to improve the
competitiveness. Second target is to convert the development
of know-how and skills in companies from occasional to
systematic, continuous and natural part of the operation of
companies. By implementing the Competence Coaching
training persons of companies’ are selected, who are able to
identify the learning needs of company ғs staff, create and
implement in cooperation with staff of HEIs flexible in-
company education solutions that fit to the business idea and
improve the competitiveness. HEIs and enterprises target to
form an international resource pool by defining the special
expertise on substance fields and related facilities they want to
bring available. The aim is to find the capabilities to be
combined for something better than any of the partner could
provide alone. During the project it is piloted and evaluated
how the resource pool is able to connect the expertise from
different organizations and countries.
The aim of this paper is to introduce some outcomes of the
project, how to involve students into project work in real life
solving problem when the task has been submitted by a
leading international company, and the way how we formed
an international resource pool with the participation of
enterprises and HEIs, which is easily available and it helps to
improve the competitiveness of companies.
IV.
STRATEGIC COOPERATION BETWEEN COMPANIES AND
HEIS
One of our targets is to examine the factors and to give
solutions for the question how to improve strategic cooperation
between companies and HEIs based on shared understanding about
requirements of global competitiveness. The following tasks have
been involved:
A. Present Situation Analysis
The needs and experiences about cooperation between
companies and HEIs have been shared in seminars. The present
situation are recorded and analyzed. The analysis frame is
based on the novelty factors (innovative elements, enlisted in
Table 1) of the fundamentals of the project.
B. Opening Negotiations with Industry
Defining of the fields of cooperation with companies based
on the strategy of each HEI. Instead of traditional approach
with companies’ human resource management the fields of
cooperation is negotiated with the business line management.
The main target is in seeking the international competitiveness
for companies – not limited to traditional improvements of
labor force production for industry.
C. Bottlenecks and Solution Possibilities
We wanted to create strategic commitment at organizational
levels. Therefore, participating companies identify the
bottlenecks of their competitiveness on global market and they
can seek improvements with the universities to those in order
to overcome them. Business line management is connected
with the university leaders and professors to identify the
needs, to agree the different processes to be engaged and to
goal setting process.
The development fields in the enterprises including the key
challenges and potential solutions have been selected. The
report includes also the description from the process and key
persons involved into the goal setting process. The most
critical element to follow in this project is the involvement and
commitment of business line management.
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Proceedings of 2015 International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning (ICL)
D. Strategic Development Plans
Each university prepares the plan with one or more industrial
companies with the focuses on improved competitiveness of
the companies. The network of partner universities and their
teaching staff is participating actively according to their
special expertise to the activities.
The contents of Action Plans are summarized. The
content of the cooperation is confidential. Main target for the
summary is to reflect the plans to the novelty factors in project
plan.
Meetings between companies and HEIs has been
participated by high level decision makers. Discussions have
been mostly focusing on the possibilities to improve the
cooperation on the field of education and research. The
summary of the contents of the plans:
Product development is mentioned in all plans
Lectures and competence coaching is mentioned in 3
out of 4 plans
Technological subjects is mentioned in 2 plans
One plan has mentioned individual agreements of the
subjects.
The most critical elements of the involvement and
commitment of business line management have been mostly
achieved. However the action is still strongly related to
traditional cooperation mode. The change towards novelty
factors requires more time to be implemented.
Action plans are crucial for implementing commitment and
discussions to practical action and through that we are able to
continue and develop strategic cooperation between HEIs and
cooperating companies.
E. Obstacles Based on Individuals, Institutions and Legislation
The partners identify and collect the individual, institutional,
structural, administrative and legislative obstacles against
“lean” and direct university enterprise cooperation. There is
exposed the existing manners to avoid and go around these
obstacles. The project forms foundation for one of the results
of the whole project: the conclusion summary of the
prohibitive effects and obstacles in university enterprise
cooperation in partner countries and recommendation how to
remove those.
It is agreed that the obstacles are summarized in guidelines
for HEIs and partner companies.
̺
Driver
Continuity
Opportunities
Industrial
interface
Dpt. of
Human
Resource
Activities
Randomly
scattered
Operator
basis
“One-manshow”
(source
Gooduep)
Risk for
continuity
Sudden and
often single
activities
like courses,
seminars,
laboratory
tests
On their
comfortable
zone
Outcomes
Staff
members
of
universitie
s
Interface
Initiative
V.
Traditional
Individual
New
Organisation
Comments
Cooperation
is not
depending on
individual
intentions but
strategies
Strategy
Managed/ goal
oriented
Business Line
Management
Management
̺
TABLE I.
ad hoc
Establishing
external
body to
cooperate
Focused for
achieving the
strategic goals
Organised team
contacts shared
secured
continuity
Person’s
position
reflects the
interest and
guide the
focus of
cooperation
Cooperation
is
organisational
growth by its
nature
Activities in
line towards
increased
competitiveness
Effectiveness
of
cooperation
can reach
new level
In new
situation, facing
challenging
needs and
requirements
Being out of
the
comfortable
zone provides
development
and frankness
for teaching
Advances
will be
gathered into
university
operators
instead of the
outsourced
organisation > direct gain
for professors
and staff
members
University
cooperation
directly with its’
existing
structure
TRAINING OF COMPETENCY COACHING
Experts from project partner HEIs participating in the
development of the training programme and teaching materials
have met. During this meeting the need for guiding of
company coaches was underlined in identifying their
competence training needs. In this sense, the idea of a guiding
Handbook for Competence Coaches promotes training and it
has to provide:
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20-24 September 2015, Florence, Italy
Proceedings of 2015 International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning (ICL)
Ͳ
Ͳ
Ͳ
Ͳ
Ͳ
tips to engage learners throughout the entire
company
tools to motivate learners and other in-company
stakeholders
methods to finding out the actual and future
competence needs based on the business goals,
finding out of what is really happening in their
business.
guidance on how to make a rough study on
competence needs (“competence matrix”)
help in decisions on which competences /
processes need more training, who are the target
groups, what kind of trainings should be
organized and when, etc.
The experts have agreed on both final content of the
Handbook and on time scheduling of the Competency Coach
training program according to the followings:
Content of the Training program
The training program has its roots in the Process model for
the competency management implemented earlier by Finnish
partner. Some changes have been made for its better
adaptation to the needs of the RePCI project partners. The
process model for the competency management aims at
coaching the company to maintain and develop the
knowledge, skills and competences of its employees.
11) Further actions required by the competence
development (i.e. Continuous development of
competences into the course of action.)
The content of competency coaching implies finding out
the competence needs, maintaining the competence
development and tutoring. The training program includes 6
days of contact learning, 4-5 days independent learning (elearning), 5-10 days of planning and implementation of the
training.
The training materials for training of Competency
Coaches have been developed jointly by university
pedagogical experts and in-company trainers. The Handbook
is electronically available (www.repci.eu), and can be adapted
easily for the modern electronic learning environment.
The Abstract of the Handbook summarizes the most important
goals to be achieved: supporting of competence management,
of competence development and of personnel development,
and contributing in this way to improving of competitiveness
and innovation in companies.
The Content of the Handbook includes the following main
chapters:
Ͳ
Introduction
Ͳ
Basic key concepts
Ͳ
The competence management model
The main goal of the Training program is to provide the
coaches with principles and tools to realize the competency
management and the development cycles based on the
competency management process model. However, a strong
emphasis is put on motivation and commitment of the
company and personnel to develop their professional
competences.
Ͳ
The competence development model
Ͳ
Conceptualization and foresight
Ͳ
Identification and determination
Ͳ
Building the competence map
Ͳ
Competence mapping
The competency management process model is based on
two consecutive parts, consisting of several topics, as follows:
Ͳ
Competence discussions and/or performance
appraisals
I. Finding out the needs concerning competence changes
Ͳ
Actions in competence development
Ͳ
Implementation of development actions
Ͳ
Evaluation of competence development/management
Ͳ
Commitment of personnel
Ͳ
Competence coaching –the final words
1) An initial study of the competence needs in the
company
2) Analyzing and describing the competences
3) Identifying the desirable competences
4) Surveying
the
knowledge,
skills
and
competences
5) Comparing
the
present
and
desirable
competences
6) Outlining the needs and paths of competence
changes
7) Prioritization of the needs for competence
changes
II. Competence development
8) Planning competence development tasks
9) Implementing the competence development
10) Monitoring and evaluating the competence
development
Each chapter contains a Summary of the main outcome
learning, and at the end of the Handbook the reader can find
several references to the available literature (most of the
references are indicated by their availability on Internet).
The specific training materials are created following the
Handbook for competence coaching. The Handbook structure
guides the coach to implement the competency management
model. Experts in different countries may use additional
related teaching materials and methods to enrich the learning
process according to the country-specific or company-specific
needs. The presentation materials used in direct training of
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20-24 September 2015, Florence, Italy
Proceedings of 2015 International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning (ICL)
company staff are developed in partner countries’ own
languages.
VI.
REAL LIFE PROBLEM SOLVING
In the framework of this project international product
development projects were contributed in cooperation between
UM, Hungary - JAMK, Finland and between HE, Germany –
TUCLUJ, Romania.
The process of the Hungarian-Finnish project was
supported by both three Finnish and three Hungarian
supervisors and also by the representative of Bosch company.
From different fields of engineering studies the students have
worked in a real life case for the multinational company.
There were two groups, each of them 4 Finnish and 4
Hungarian students, working separately on the same task. The
subject of the project was about creating a cordless gardening
tool with at least three functions.
The task included a full product design from the market
research to the shape and part design. Main guidelines of the
international product development project have been given by
Robert Bosch Power Tool Kft. The universities of the
contribution pointed on the main milestones and deadline. The
students assess market requirements and user needs. Two
groups have found possible field of improvements what can be
competitive with current products and even completely new.
-marketing … etc.
showed the future way of garden tool improvements. They
have made a preliminary model of ergonomic battery operated
multifunctional tools for garden works.
As a result of the one semester common product design
work, two products have been designed:
A: The name of the first tool is Morphy what comes from
the Latin word: methamorphosys. It supposes to mean what
the designed tool is capable of. Morphy is a lawn & garden
tool what is multipurpose and battery operated. It is a
revolutionary cordless garden tool in its area. What people
need is to make various garden tasks easier and entertain with
additional technologies like smart applications, achievement
system, capability of smart glasses and revolutionary design
with changeable housing colour.
B: The second tool was named Bosch Python, it could be a
good name because the customer can memorize it easily and
refers that this tool is strong. Students believe that gardening
tasks can be fun and could mean so much more than
something to get over with.
Each student from the two groups studied new techniques,
and the way how to work in a group. All of the members got a
lot of experience in the project working,
-how to build-up a project,
The task “Design of a multifunctional battery garden tool”
has been formulated as
-Design a 14,4V or 18V battery operated, hand-held
garden tool
-Collect customer requirements based on daily
gardening tasks
-Based on the main requirements, chose the top 3
main functions of the tool
-Collect solution principles, and build function tree
variations
-Evaluate solution variations, and chose one
-Design parts based on main functions and
requirements
-planning the steps of the project,
-execute the assignments
and these experiences could be applied in the future works.
Because of these lots of experience each student enjoyed this
real project work.
Similarly, the German and Romanian students have solved
a different real life problem offered by a Romanian company.
The theme proposed by SC Leon Group is “Multifunctional
robotic arm with 2 degrees of freedom”. The tasks have been
formulated as:
- Design the mechanical parts of the arm, including the
robot connection to the mobile robot platform and the end
effector
Using the full scale of product design tools like
- Design the electrical circuits for motors and limit switch
-market research,
- Production cost estimation
-risk analysis,
-design book,
Both student groups have successfully completed the tasks
during the semester.
VII. INTERNATIONAL RESOURCE POOL
-brainstorming,
-solution evaluation methods,
-designing of the tool (3D model, finite element analysis),
-FMEA,
-purchasing (labour costs, market price),
The aim of this part is to create an international resource
pool easily available and improving the competitiveness of
companies. In order to design it is necessary to collect some
facts:
1.
Identifying
companies
the
collaboration
potential
with
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20-24 September 2015, Florence, Italy
Proceedings of 2015 International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning (ICL)
The needs of enterprises are identified and the feasible
needs are collected as collaboration potential for
university-enterprise cooperation. The list covers all the
identified and feasible cooperation potential.
2.
Selecting the potential fields of expertise for the
project partners
Universities identify the fields of their expertise which are
the most useful for efficiency and improvement of
competitiveness of enterprises.
Partner universities explore and identify their fields of
expertise which could be used to increase competitiveness
in enterprises of mechanical engineering. Expertise
should consist of more than one individual while on the
project fundamentals are the continuity and organizational
possession. Expertise should be explored also through the
all the partner universities in knowledge alliance so that
the joint activities are possible.
3.
Analyzing the expertise, facilities and related
activities
Universities establish entities of expertise including the
experts/professors, related research and testing
instruments, laboratories and other facilities. All
universities verify their expertise fields and entities in
order to connect their potential supply together. These
entities form the basis for the international supply of the
support activities for industry. By this way the
universities resources can be utilized more efficiently than
operating only nationally.
These resources include the laboratories, research and
testing equipment and there may be even something more
connected to given expertise. These resources are
explored and categorized and the availability of the
resource is analyzed. These resources are explored among
all the partner universities and – if possible – the partner
enterprises so that those resources could be analyzed
internationally.
4.
Categorizing (taxonomy) the productized services as
the operation potential
The expertise entities must be applicable for industry. It
requires that the expertise is available in different forms
depending on the enterprises’ needs. Some of the
activities may be student projects, some of them may be
extremely demanding specialist work by professors in
form of consulting or research project. All the supply
must be formed is such a manner that these activities are
easy to explain, easy to understand and there will be a
clear process and “rules” for providing these activities.
Reflected to novelty factors (innovative elements) the
activities are in different process categories and with the
description of the qualities of each process the analysis
produce the
cooperation.
taxonomy
of
university-enterprise
Based on the productizing process there is a number of
activities with the delivery process. This data is used to
analyze the different embodiment of activities which will
be categorized. These categories form the groups of
activities: student based activities, staff and professor
based services, projects, research, etc. and on the other
way funding which can be based on the education
funding, public funding or private funding, maybe even
mix of those.
Taxonomy includes the element of the content, process,
funding of the activities and resources used. Taxonomy
serves in future as a framework for all the universityenterprise cooperation being useful for communication,
classification and research.
5.
Creating the supply of knowledge/resource pool
Based on taxonomy of cooperation and the enlisted
activities the accessibility of activities is created by
creating a supply of the knowledge alliance. Supply is
structured in such a manner that makes it easy to
recognize the cooperation possibilities and agree the
terms of action. The key words are accessibility,
transparency, clarity and attractiveness.
As an outcome of productizing process there are services
provided by all the partner universities and also the
enterprises if they see it feasible. Services will be
implemented as pilots (funded by external sources) in
each partner country among the cooperation plan with the
enterprises. Services are recorded and feedback is
collected from each service implementation. Service
providers keep record of their experiences based on the
process and content of each service. Services form the
supply of the knowledge alliance and are listed in a form
agreed in the project.
6.
Planning and monitoring the executing of pilot
services
Each university discusses with the enterprises and selects
some activities to implement as pilot cases. It is crucial
that each university has more than one type of activities
because it is necessary to get out of the comfortable zone
of existing situation and gather experience. All the
universities control all the types of cooperation in use.
The resources may be facilities, equipment or something
else. Database is created, it explains what are resources
and from where this expertise is available.
7.
Evaluating the service availability and effectiveness
The pilot cases produce experiences and evaluation shall
be made from the both point of view: universities evaluate
their process and learning, enterprises evaluate the
effectiveness and usefulness of the activities. The
978-1-4799-8706-1/15/$31.00 ©2015 IEEE
20-24 September 2015, Florence, Italy
Proceedings of 2015 International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning (ICL)
evaluation is made reflecting the basic
competitiveness and usefulness of cooperation.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
goals:
Each partner university evaluates its cooperation and
implementation of the pilot activities. These evaluations
are collected into one document with the conclusion and
recommendations based on gathered experience.
Evaluation reflects the negotiations and joint management
with business line management, cooperation between
universities in those cases it was needed, adaption of the
novelty factors (innovative elements) of the cooperation
among the personnel in universities and enterprises, set
and achieved goals for cooperation and competitiveness
of enterprises.
The work presented in this paper is based on the results
achieved within the 540425-LLP-1-2013-1-FI-ERASMUSEKA „Reshaped Partnerships for Competitiveness and
Innovation Potential in Mechanical Engineering” ERASMUS
LLP project. The realization of this project is supported by the
European Union. The project is coordinated by Anneli Kakko
(JAMK), work packages concerning this paper are conducted
by Pasi Ahonen (JAMK), Peter Bikfalvi (UM), Gabriella
Bognar (UM) and Horst Haberhauer (HE).
REFERENCES
VIII. SUMMARY
The ERASMUS LLP project introduced in this paper
aims renewed partnerships in mechanical engineering in order
of higher competitiveness and better innovation potentials.
Several key elements of the project have been demonstrated as
training competency coaching, real problem solving or
international resource pool. The project is now ongoing; it will
be completed in September 2015.
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
Michael E. Auer: Present and Future Challenges in Engineering
Education and the Strategies of IGIP, ASEE International Forum, 2013,
Paper ID 8381
Peter J. Goodhew: Teaching Engineering All you need to know about
engineering education but were afraid to ask, The School of
Engineering’s Active Learning Lab at The University of Liverpool,
2010. ISBN 978-1-907207-22-8
Competency Coaching Handbook , www.repci.eu
www.repci.eu
978-1-4799-8706-1/15/$31.00 ©2015 IEEE
20-24 September 2015, Florence, Italy
Proceedings of 2015 International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning (ICL)