Training ultra precision engineers for UK ...

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Training ultra precision engineers for UK manufacturing industry

Christopher Sansom & Paul Shore

Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing ISSN 0956-5515 J Intell Manuf DOI 10.1007/s10845-011-0611-8

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Author's personal copy J Intell Manuf DOI 10.1007/s10845-011-0611-8

Training ultra precision engineers for UK manufacturing industry Christopher Sansom · Paul Shore

Received: 28 May 2010 / Accepted: 10 November 2011 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011

Abstract Ultra Precision Engineers are in demand in both UK and European manufacturing industries. Engineering Companies can address this skills shortage by training existing staff or recruiting new staff with the appropriate skills. Since companies are understandably reluctant to lose key staff for re-training, it is preferable to meet the shortfall by recruitment. This paper describes how UK engineering companies have worked in partnership with academia to design a postgraduate course in ultra precision technologies. The new Masters level course has come to fruition under the auspices of the integrated knowledge centre in Ultra Precision structured surfaces (UPS2 ), as a component of its Knowledge Transfer portfolio. The MSc in “Ultra Precision Technologies” is led by Cranfield University, with support from University College London and the University of Cambridge. The role of industrial partners is described, from course design to student placements for individual project work; and the lessons learned from the first four cohorts are discussed. Keywords Precision engineering · Knowledge transfer · Postgraduate · Higher education · Industry

Introduction A number of UK manufacturing sectors require staff with postgraduate level skills in ultra precision technologies and applications. These sectors include machine tool manufacture, optics and optoelectronics, space, aerospace, energy C. Sansom (B) · P. Shore Precision Engineering Centre, Cranfield University, Cranfield, UK e-mail: [email protected] P. Shore e-mail: [email protected]

generation (nuclear, solar, wind and wave), medical, and large area display technology. The range of applications within these sectors encompasses products as diverse as prosthetic joints, wind turbine bearings, and mirror segments for the next generation of space and ground-based astronomical telescopes. The common thread running through all of these products and applications is the need for skilled mechanical engineers with an additional specialization in the field of ultra precision. UK industrial context The UK ultra precision technologies industries are thriving, despite challenging economic environments and the increasingly competitive globalisation of its markets. However the demand for the specialist mechanical engineering skills needed to realise the opportunities presented by the expansion of the technologically advanced customers within the new economies has not been matched by the supply. Some of the reasons for the shortfall in skilled personnel are deep-rooted and long term. In 1995, the Daily Telegraph wrote, Britain may have many assets; its people are not…. among them. We are too old, we are poorly educated and our attitude is appalling. Our inadequate educational system ranks 35th (in the world), there is little motivation to retrain for new jobs, and we lack competitive values such as hard work, tenacity and loyalty. Britain also ranks badly for both gender and race equality. Women in Turkey, Egypt and Colombia have better career prospects…. Engineering and Technology is also far from being the sector of choice for UK university students. At the

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Author's personal copy J Intell Manuf

graduate recruitment level UK Higher Education statistics (HESA 2008/2009) indicate that approximately 13% of Postgraduate Engineering and Technology students choose to study Mechanical Engineering. Also, UK Higher Education women account for only 16% of the total students studying Engineering and Technology subjects (HESA 2009/2010). The need for greater integration between UK Higher Education and the manufacturing sector has been well documented (Yasin et al. 2000). From the industrialists standpoint there are a bewildering number of undergraduate and postgraduate courses that feed into the labour market. Similarly there are a large number of Higher Education establishments that provide training, often with very different learning objectives for their students. Without any guidance it is often difficult for a manufacturing organization to recruit effectively in this environment. The recruitment operation is seen as a one-way process with little or no opportunity for the specialized needs of the manufacturer to be catered for. The student, employer, and the academic institution are essentially remote and isolated from each other in the context of the recruitment process. In such circumstances it is difficult for the employer to find the right candidate, with the right skills, at the right time (Yasin et al. 2000). This is true for the recruitment of ultra precision engineers into the manufacturing engineering sectors of UK business. Here a prospective employer must decide whether to recruit a seasoned professional, or a new/recent graduate. The individual will probably possess a first or second degree from one of 117 academic institutions of Higher Education within the UK, in a subject including mechanical engineering, physics, material science, electronic engineering, general engineering, and chemistry. It is against this backdrop that the integrated knowledge centre (IKC) in Ultra Precision Structured Surfaces (UPS2 ) and the Cranfield University led Masters degree in “Ultra Precision Technologies” were conceived, as discussed in the next section.

Industrial partnerships, and the IKC in precision engineering Partnerships between academic institutions and manufacturing industry have been developed in a number of fields, including general mechanical engineering (Kettunen 2006), aerospace manufacturing (Deisenroth and Mason 1996), and automotive engineering (Mears et al. 2011). There are many examples of industrial companies being consulted on course design. These include the link between Toyota Prius and the Oklahoma Mid-Del Technology Centre on education for electric vehicles (Lee and Stephens 2004), and the skills gaps that were identified by the Australian automotive industry and presented to the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) for action (Borthwick et al. 2000).

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Some reported course design is aimed at an industrial market sector, rather than a particular company or groups of companies. Beasley et al. (1995, 1996) addressed the undergraduate science curriculum to develop techniques that are still in use in the US automotive sector today. Similar work at the Illinois Institute of Technology led to the enhanced training of design teams in the field of automotive electric power drives (Emadi and Jacobius 2004). Moving away from the purely technical training content, there is also work to emphasise the need to build flexibility and agility into the thinking of new graduates bound for industry (Lerman 2008), whilst McGrath (2007) underlines the external influence of industrial globalization on the need to elevate the skill-sets of graduates. For general training of students for industry see also the work of Van Der Linde (2000) in South Africa. The work of Guerra-Zubiaga et al. (2008) is also highly relevant to our work, especially in its insistence on the need to elicit feedback from the end user (the industrial customer). In the current context of UK ultra precision engineering the appropriate link is provided by a unique partnership between UK academia and industry, the UPS2 Integrated Knowledge Centre (IKC). The Ultra Precision and Structured Surfaces Integrated Knowledge Centre (UPS2 ) is a cornerstone of an EPSRC funded approach to support UK industry through a range of industry-facing technology transfer initiatives. UPS2 is a unique partnership between Cranfield University, University College London and the University of Cambridge, together with the Technium OpTIC; and is located at the Technium OpTIC within the North Wales opto-electronics business cluster. UPS2 is concerned with the manufacturing technologies relating to ultra precision and structured surfaces as applied to next generation products. Such surfaces are applied within products across a wide spectrum of markets including: optoelectronics and displays, medical devices, aerospace, defence, space and automotive sectors. These sectors represent over £75 billion annual business in the UK and account for a major percentage of UK export trade. UPS2 therefore provides support for the design and manufacture of UK products having a competitive edge, which is achieved through the application of ultra precision and structured surfaces.

Systemic linkage between industry and academia The links between industry and academia have been extensively reviewed in the literature. At the systems level this includes the imperative of linking information and knowledge to the benefit of both the research community and business (Filos and Banahan 2001).

Author's personal copy J Intell Manuf Faculty and administration

Input

Students

Course-level interface

Flexible outward facing organizational culture

Teaching and learning

Assessments

Output

Company, student, and HE establishment engagement

Business and HE partnership (IKC)

Industry demand for precision engineers

Knowledge Skills Experience Maturity Employability

Fig. 1 Academic-industry links for the MSc in “Ultra Precision Technologies”

The MSc in “Ultra Precision Technologies” is the flagship of the IKC knowledge transfer programme, and reflects the strength of the link between academia and the needs of precision engineering businesses. The link is illustrated schematically in Fig. 1 (Sansom and Shore 2008). In the model the students are regarded as inputs to a teaching and learning system, with corresponding outputs. However there is a need for stronger links between students, academia and industry throughout the whole sequence of processes that make up the system. This has been addressed by the addition of an intermediate shell of subsystems which are described in Fig. 1 in systems terms as the “Course-level interface” and “Company, Student, and HE establishment engagement” sub-systems and define the role of a dedicated HE academic or professional. It is through this structure that the precision engineering industry is able to play a proactive part in all of the key activities from student recruitment to course design. The roles played by the industrial partners and the proactive links between the University and its engineering sponsors are described in the context of the Cranfield University led MSc in Ultra Precision Technologies in the sections that follow. The role of industry The structure illustrated in Fig. 1 provides a means for participating companies to influence the MSc in “Ultra Precision Technologies” at all phases of its life-span and at each process step during a single cohort study cycle. Course structure The concept of the course, and its role in attempting to address a UK skill shortage for precision engineers, is a direct

response to the needs of industrialists—expressed through the appropriate research councils. Simply, there is an urgent need for skilled and employable precision and ultra-precision engineers who can employ those skills effectively in a manufacturing environment. This requirement is not unique. For example Mears et al. (2011) described the design of a Masters course in Automotive Engineering at Clemson University in the USA. In order to meet our criteria a 1-year full-time Masters degree course was constructed. The Masters (M-level) structure has the benefit of joining three components of study within a proven overall framework. These are a block of taught courses or modules), a group project, and an individual project which is written up as a thesis. The taught modules are listed in Table 1. The topics reflect the engineering skills to be learned, the applications to be addressed, and the business skills that will aid new products and wealth generation. For example, modules 1 and 2 contain the core of the precision engineering knowledge and its application to machine tool design. Modules 5 and 6 concentrate on the applications of ultra precision technology; mainly in the optical and optoelectronic domains. Module 3 is unique in its brief to develop student’s managerial skills. This is in response to an industrial need for engineering students who have a good appreciation of entrepreneurship and the creation of new products within a manufacturing environment. In a wider industrial context it also prepares the student for the role of a new business creator. The unique partnership of academic departments that sit at the core of the IKC is apparent from the locations given in Table 1. The MSc is a Cranfield University degree, but the world class expertise of the IKC partners is well represented in the curriculum. In particular note the presence of the Optical Design Group of University College London (based at the OpTIC technium) and the Laser micro-machining taught module, located at Downing College, University of Cambridge (Centre of Industrial Photonics).

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Author's personal copy J Intell Manuf Table 1 MSc in ultra precision: taught modules

Module

Title

1

Precision engineering

Cranfield university

2

Metrology and optical test

OpTIC technium

3

Cranfield university (School of management)

4

Management of innovation and new product development Computer aided engineering

5

Optical design and fabrication

OpTIC technium (University College London)

6

Modern optical technologies

OpTIC technium

7

Surface engineering and coatings

Cranfield university

8

Laser micro-machining and surface structuring

University of Cambridge

The taught modules vary in style from traditional lectures for subject based learning to practical sessions with a more problem based learning style. The latter can be found throughout sections of the “Managing innovation and new product development” module whilst experiential learning predominates in the “Computer-aided engineering” module. The different teaching styles are designed to address the need for different learning styles, in an attempt to reduce gender bias (Powell et al. 2004) and increase appeal to midcareer change applicants. As discussed by Rae (2005), entrepreneurial learning can aid the mid-career change applicant by facilitating a successful transition from a role that utilises existing skills and expertise to a new role in a field that utilises newly learned skills and expertise. In making the transition to Precision Engineering, an experienced candidate may not have the same recollection of basic science and engineering knowledge as a new graduate. This can also be addressed during the Introductory week, and in tutorials held throughout the academic year. The Group Project provides another dimension to the student learning experience, and an opportunity to align with other qualities required by industry of newly recruited precision engineers. As mentioned earlier, industry requires high emotional maturity, motivation, and team working skills— in addition to technical knowledge (Rae 2007). These are all tested in the Group project phase of the Masters degree. The students, typically in groups of four to six in size, undertake a precision engineering project with a study time of 400 notional learning hours. Although the technical output is crucial, and can be sponsored by an industrial partner, the learning from the activity should include a better understanding and experience of working in a project team. The final component of the Masters degree consists of the individual project and its associated thesis. This is intended to be a crucial examination of the student’s learning, accounting for 40% of the overall course mark. It has the most overlap with the needs of industry, as described in the next section.

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Location

Cranfield university

The individual student project It is a feature of the course that great effort is taken to place students in an industrial environment for the duration of their individual projects. From the company perspective the benefits are clear—access to a newly trained precision engineer on a project of interest to the company. For the student too there are considerable benefits, to the extent that the company placement scheme has become an important marketing aid for student recruitment. The student not only gains valuable work experience, but also has the opportunity to practice new skills and enhance their employability (Brown 1996). Matching of the individual student to a participating company is a three-way process, once again demonstrating the close relationship between the company, the University, and the student. In our model, drawn schematically in Fig. 1, this is represented by the Boxes labelled “Course-level interface”, “Students”, and “Company, student, and HE establishment engagement”. During the early stages of the academic year a “Selection Event” is held; the first step in the process to match students to Companies for the activities of the Individual project. The event has always been well attended by a number of invited companies, as discussed later. During the day, which includes tours and presentations, students are interviewed by the industrialists in order to assess their suitability for project work. Great care is taken to align the wishes of Companies to the expectations of students. Students who do not succeed in gaining company placements are allocated projects at Cranfield University, University of Cambridge, or Technium OpTIC. We should not underestimate the challenge for a new engineer entering the world of industrial manufacturing. Hurdles exist to complicate the transition from Higher Education into the workplace, which has been discussed by many authors including Heinz (1999), Arnold and Mackenzie Davey (1992) and Holden and Hamblett (2007). By undertaking a Masters level project in a company, the student practices their newly acquired technical skills (build-

Author's personal copy J Intell Manuf

ing on the learning from taught modules)—but also have to adapt to working within teams and groups which stretch their interpersonal skills and motivations. The Individual project in-company placement programme provides a “safe” and controlled environment within which the student can experiment in order to optimize their effectiveness in a precision engineering role. However the expectations of the course team are more ambitious than this, and the student is challenged to exhibit originality in their research and excellence in their project management and presentation style. Student engagement As reported previously (Sansom and Shore 2008) we have used a number of approaches to locate, select, and recruit suitable students onto the MSc in Ultra Precision Technologies. This includes the use of recruitment consultants and specialist web-based engineering databases. However, there is a common thread that links all of our successful recruitment to date, namely the importance of addressing the individual aspirations of applicants. Precision engineering has roles for new graduates and mid-career engineers (Blackburn and Mackintosh 1999) and scientists. The machining and structuring of surfaces can attract a range of academic disciplines. We are also keen to attract students from home and overseas, and to avoid the traditional engineering gender bias Madhill et al. (2003) and Srivastava (1996). These requirements, and the exclusive nature of the course, lead us to treat students as individual clients—an approach that can be continued throughout the period of study owing to Cranfield University pre-eminent position in terms of staff to student ratio (In the current Times Higher World University Rankings Cranfield University’s achievements included being ranked first in the UK for staff to student ratio, and sixth place in the World). The involvement of UK industry played a key role in the recruitment process. The academic partners are seen as enablers, providing a course of study that bridges the gap between the student supply and the demands of manufacturing industry. The industrial partners are made known to the applicants, and it is not unusual for a participating company to liaise with an applicant prior to the course start.

Measures of success The four main measures of performance are a blend of academic and industrial requirements. Firstly, as a provider of precision engineering skills to UK and EU industry it follows that the destination of the students at the end of their postgraduate studies is of major interest. Linked to this measure is the output of the company placement scheme, particularly the research carried out by the student and written up

in the individual project thesis. All such projects are aimed at understanding, investigating, or solving real engineering problems in an industrial context. Therefore the feedback from participating companies is also an important yardstick for gauging the success of the venture. A related measure of success refers to the provision of support to UK and EU manufacturing by the leverage of facilities, equipment, and skills of UPS2 . This requires a conveyor belt of talent to enter the academic departments of the IKC partner Higher Education institutions, including a desire to study at PhD level. Students emerging with the MSc in Ultra Precision Technologies are in position to fulfill this need. The final important metric is financial, and reflects the desire that the IKC attains sustainability within the period of Research Council funding. The Masters course resides within a portfolio of knowledge transfer activities, including short courses for industry and the development of novel learning methods such as e-learning and distance learning. The special nature of the Masters course does bring additional costs, and these must be covered by outreach events, courses, and teaching packages of the type described above. These items comprise a blended learning approach to knowledge transfer, promoted through both the academic institutions and the UPS2 brand.

Results and discussion This section summarizes the results of the first four cohorts and analyzes the impact of the Masters course against the previously stated measures of success. There are four main measures of success: (1) Number of students recruited onto the course, the proportion that are UK-based, and the proportion that are female: (2) Number of company placements, and the number of UK companies participating in the placement scheme: (3) Destination of students after studying the course: (4) Sustainability of the course in financial terms. Student recruitment Since the programme hinges on the supply of skilled precision engineers into UK industry, special efforts were made to recruit UK students onto the MSc in “Ultra Precision Technologies”. These activities included a presence at National Graduate Recruitment exhibitions (Birmingham and London) and at local Jobs Fairs (Bedford and Milton Keynes). To date, 42 students have studied the course, of which 30 are UK students. Despite the small sample size the achievement of 71% “Home” students is extremely encouraging, since the percentage of “Home” students on postgraduate courses (excepting PhD and the Postgraduate Certificate of Education) at all UK HE institutions is 34%.

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Author's personal copy J Intell Manuf Table 3 MSc students: post-course employment

Table 2 MSc project: company placements Market sector

Company

Number of students

Market sector

Optics

Gooch and Housego

3

Qioptiq

1

PJ coatings Telecomms

Oclaro

Aerospace Instruments Machining

Energy

Employer

Number of students

Laser products

Laser Quantum

1

Automotive

Th!nk Global

1

1

Medical

Triteq

2

1

Aerospace

Rolls Royce

1

Bookham technology

1

Instruments

Renishaw

1

Airbus

2

Optoelectronics

Wight Electromagnetics

1

Surrey satellite

3

Energy

Bibby scientific

1

Green energy

1

Energy solutions

1

Queensgate

1

Machine tools

Cinetic Landis

1

Triteq

2

Optics

Qioptiq

1

Cinetic Landis

1

Telecomms

Apple

1

Microsharp

2

EnerGe

2

PV Crystalox Solar

2

Peterson dynamics

1

Equally promising is the statistic that 30% of the first four cohorts were female, which compares very favourably with the 8.5% women who study mechanical engineering at UK Higher Education level. This statistic includes both undergraduate and postgraduate students, but excludes PhD and Postgraduate Certificate of Education students (HESA 2004/2005).

pleted. A great deal of flexibility is built into the placement process. Some participating companies have approached the IKC academic partners with a specific project in mind, seeking a student with particular skills. Occasionally a student provides the main drive, which has led to new companies being approached to participate. However, in the majority of cases, the participating companies have a range of research needs—and are content to find a capable student to address one of those needs for the duration of a Masters project. The Selection Day is one element in that process, a process that can continue for up to 6 months—until the Individual Project is timetabled within the MSc course structure.

Company placements Employment enhancement Of course it is on the matter of company placements that a better indication of success lies. To date (including the first three cohorts and some, but not all, of the fourth cohort) 27 students have been placed in UK companies for their individual MSc projects (of which 24 are UK students). It is worth pointing out that non-UK students have usually preferred to study within the IKC partner institutions, particularly at Cranfield University or the University of Cambridge, reflecting a different route to employment or further study when returning to their own countries. The participating UK companies (shown in Table 2) span a number of market sectors. Major users of precision engineering technologies are represented (Aerospace, Optics, Machining, Scientific instruments), plus new developing sectors such as energy and telecommunications (fibre optics). Moreover, five of the companies listed in the table sit on the IKC Steering Committee. This body meets quarterly to provide direction for IKC activities, including the current suitability of the MSc in “Ultra Precision Technologies” to the needs of industry. Note that approximately 50% of companies have offered placements to more than one student. By participating for more than one year, the company is giving evidence for the quality of the work com-

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The ultimate measure of success is given by the number of UK students who find employment in UK industry, using skills gained on the MSc in “Ultra Precision Technologies” for the advancement of UK industry. The final destination of non-UK students is also of great interest to us, but is much harder to track given that most students return to their country of origin at the end of their studies. There are also difficulties in keeping track of UK students, and there may also be a delay in seeking or finding employment. This means that data for the third and fourth cohorts is incomplete. However, the information we have recorded to date is encouraging (see Table 3), and shows the willingness of UK companies to offer full-time posts to graduates from the course. In addition, we are clearly adding to the skill base of all of the UK companies who participate in the student placement scheme, where the company is connected through the student to the academic and technical expertise of Cranfield University, the University of Cambridge, and University College London. There are two additional advantageous outcomes that have not yet been considered. Firstly, a number of students have remained in academia to pursue doctoral projects,

Author's personal copy J Intell Manuf Table 4 Knowledge Transfer events 2007–2010

Table 5 IKC Steering Committee (January 2010)

Event title

Precision engineering market sector addressed

Name

Affiliation

Chris price

Rolls Royce (retired)

Industry awareness

All industrial sectors

Professor Paul shore

Cranfield university (CU)

Optics and displays road-mapping Medical devices road-mapping HiPER awareness

Optics and displays

Wendy Boddington

Welsh assembly gov.

Medical devices

Dr Robert Heathman

EPSRC

Dr Sue Dunkerton

TWI Ltd

Nuclear fusion for power generation

Andrew Jones

Financial director (CU)

Science to industry

euspen sponsored event

Professor David Walker

University College London

OpTIC corporate partners

Optics and optical components

Dr Bill O’Neill

Cambridge university

Precision engineering and motorsport Metrology demand for space and aerospace Diagnostic devices for bio-medical applications RIKEN/UPS2 event

F1 racing car design and manufacture

Dr Peter MacKay

Gooch & Housego Ltd

Dave Price

Qioptiq Ltd

Ultra precision machining

OpTIC strategic conference

Large optics (Astronomy)

Space, aerospace, metrology Medical devices

although not necessarily at Cranfield. For example, a student from the first cohort is studying in the medical imaging field at London University, and a student who completed the course this year has begun studies in nuclear energy technology at Oxford University. Secondly, at least one student has started their own business, which is also a successful outcome for the IKC and for the UK economy. Knowledge transfer The MSc in “Ultra Precision Technologies” forms the cornerstone of the strategy to enhance the precision engineering skills of UK industry, but it is not the only route. Short courses offer additional opportunities for companies to learn new skills, by enhancing the skills of existing employees. All the MSc taught modules (apart from the Management of Innovation module, since Cranfield University has a suite of courses within Cranfield School of Management) are presented as industrial CPD short courses. Delegates may elect to attend between 1 and 5 days of each module, according to interest and budget. To date 18 companies have sent delegates on one or more short courses, with a total of 247 days sold. Open Days and Industrial workshops (see Table 4) provide a different experience for the industrial delegate, namely an opportunity to be made aware of technical developments within a particular field in a more informal environment, whilst networking with both academic and industrial engineers. More than 64 companies have attended these events, which covered the period 2007–2010. Finally in this section a “Precision Engineering” on-line distance learning package has been produced. This package

Dr David Purll

Surrey Satellite Tech Ltd

Dr Theresa Burke

Euspen Ltd

Professor Colin Cunningham

UK ATC

Dr Gareth Williams

Airbus UK

is aimed at the industrial manufacturing engineer who prefers to learn at their own pace, and in their own time. To date only three companies have purchased the package and the on-line teaching has proved to have greater value for promoting the IKC overseas and in reinforcing taught MSc modules. Course updates Since the first version of the taught material on the MSc in “Ultra Precision Technologies” was created with the needs of the industry in mind, it follows that we would expect the course to continually evolve in the light of feedback from our industrial partners. We will now explore the creation of the course material in more detail, paying particular attention to the inputs from industry, and go on to describe updates to (and developments from) the original course material. All the activities of the UPS2 IKC, including the MSc in “Ultra Precision Technologies”, are steered by a Committee under the Chairmanship of a senior industrialist, namely Mr Chris Price FREng—who is a retired Technical Director of Rolls Royce and past President of the IMechE. The Steering Group meets three times a year, and feeds comments on MSc course management, content, and outputs to the IKC KT Manager and MSc Course Director. The members of the Steering Committee (as at January 2010) are shown in Table 5. The Steering Group members cover a number of the key application areas for ultra precision technology, including astronomy, space, aerospace, medical, and optics. The involvement of external partners, both industrial and academic, is also evident in the eight modules that form the taught content of the Masters course. Table 6 shows the MSc external partners who were involved both in the original design of the course material and its subsequent updates.

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Author's personal copy J Intell Manuf Table 6 MSc/CPD courses: external partners Module

Subject

External partners

1

Precision engineering

University of Huddersfield. MIT (USA), Euspen

2

Metrology and optical test

University of Huddersfield, University of Arizona, ETH Zurich, Philips.

3

Managing innovation and new product development

Institute for Manufacturing, Cambridge

4

Computer-aided engineering for ultra precision

Cimatron, ForeGone solutions

5

Optical design and fabrication

University College London

6

Surface Engineering and coatings

PJ coatings

7

Modern optical technologies

UK ATC, Oclaro Inc, Rutherford Labs

8

Laser micromachining and surface structuring

Oxford Lasers, Powerlase, Optec, Coherent, LML Ltd, SPI Laser

Let us now consider three examples of companies giving feedback in order to effect a re-design of taught course material, in accordance with the schematic of Fig. 1. Our first example centers on the second taught module, namely “Metrology and Optical Test”. The original module was intentionally biased towards optical test in order to meet the needs of optics manufacturing companies. However, one of the successes of the course has been its broadening appeal, especially to non-optics companies and students whose interests lie in non-optical applications. Airbus UK was a key factor in this matter, sponsoring students at their Broughton site in North Wales on projects relating to the manufacture and metrology of Airbus wing structures. Whilst continuing to be mindful of the need to meet the needs of the optics manufacturers, the original split of lectures (14 h optical test/4 h Co-ordinate Measuring Machine) was changed to 10 h optical test/8 h CMM, with corresponding changes to lecturers, content, and teaching methods. This included an increased practical content in the CMM teaching material, and in the module as a whole. In addition to the optical test and CMM content, there is also 13 h of core metrology teaching that remained unchanged. Our second example of industrial influence on course content concerns the topic of engineering design. Module 4 “Computer-aided engineering for ultra precision” introduces CAD, CAM, and FEA software for ultra precision product design. Feedback through the Steering Committee, and from Project sponsors during the first two cohorts, highlighted the lack of basic technical drawing skills in students with first degrees other than mechanical engineering. This is understandable in hindsight, and reflects the unforeseen attractiveness of the course to non-engineering graduates (most notably those with backgrounds in Physics, Chemistry, and Materials Science). The course team’s response to this need was to create an additional series of taught and practical exercises to teach the basics of engineering drawing. After two subsequent cohorts this material has been incorporated into the Week 1 Induction programme, as a full-day teaching and learning package. As an aside a similar 1-day course on “Introduction to machine tools” precedes the engineer-

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ing drawing session, also fulfilling a need unforeseen at the initial course design stage. Our third and final example brought about a more fundamental change to the course content. As the number of sponsoring companies has increased they have broadened to encompass market sectors other than optics and precision machine tool manufacture. In particular we have developed significant connections in the energy, medical, and nanotechnology sectors. To re-design the course content to address the application of precision technologies to these sectors was not possible without compromising the core optics content. The solution was to create a new variant of the course, which has a reduced optics focus, with two modules replaced by material covering medical applications, nanotechnology, and applications in sustainable energy generation. The basics of this new course variant, the MSc in “Ultra Precision and Nanoengineering”, currently recruiting for an October 2011 start, is shown alongside the original course modules in Table 7. Note the slight change to the Modern Optical Technologies module, reflecting increased content on solar energy. Sustainability Since it is a key objective to provide a conveyor belt of precision engineering students into UK industry, it follows that the course must attain long-term sustainability. The course in its current form can accommodate up to 20 students per cohort, including both variants. With this level of intake, and an approximate split of 70% UK students to 30% non-UK, the course becomes sustainable by virtue of the parallel sale of industrial CPD courses. It should however be pointed out that the current changes to UK student fees and cuts to the public financing of the UK HE sector mean that the issue of sustainability will need to be revisited in the future.

Conclusions In order to retain competitive advantage, the UK manufacturing engineering industry requires a regular supply of tech-

Author's personal copy J Intell Manuf Table 7 Dual ultra precision masters programme

Module

Ultra precision technologies

Ultra precision and nanoengineering

1

Precision engineering

Precision engineering

2

Metrology and optical test

Metrology and optical test

3

Management of innovation and new product development

4

Management of innovation and new product development Computer aided engineering

Computer aided engineering

5

Optical design and fabrication

Nanotechnology and medical applications

6

Modern optical technologies

Optical technologies

7

Surface engineering and coatings

Surface engineering and coatings

8

Laser micro-machining and surface structuring

Renewable energy technology

nically excellent and organizationally aware graduates. In the specialist field of precision engineering, where the UK has world class capability, this need is being addressed by a Masters level course in “Ultra Precision Technologies”. The course has grown out of the needs of industry, and this paper has attempted to show how the industrial links have helped to sculpt a structure for knowledge transfer that incorporates a system to deliver highly skilled postgraduates directly to the workplace. With the MSc course now in its fourth year, we can look back at the current status and compare our progress against the goals and performance measures we set ourselves at the outset. We have registered 42 students on to the MSc in “Ultra Precision Technologies”. Thirty of these were “Home” students. Despite the small sample size the achievement of 71% “Home” students is extremely encouraging, since the percentage of “Home” students on postgraduate courses (excepting PhD and the Postgraduate Certificate of Education) at all UK HE institutions is 34%. Equally promising is the statistic that 30% of the first four cohorts were female, which compares favourably with the 8.5% women who study mechanical engineering at UK Higher Education level. This statistic includes both undergraduate and postgraduate students, but excludes PhD and Postgraduate Certificate of Education students (HESA 2004/2005). The age range of applicants has consistently been 21–55, which means we are achieving our aim of recruiting new graduates and mid-career change engineers. The reasons for selecting the course give an insight into the importance that the industrial partners played in attracting applicants. Company involvement scored highly, in the guise of enhanced employability plus company placements for projects and financial support. It is also encouraging to note that the students have realized that the course is intended to attract people with a range of first degree backgrounds, and that there is scope not only for employment but also higher level research on completion of the Masters degree. Other factors scoring highly demonstrate effective communication during the recruitment process. This reflects

well on the central Marketing activity within the University, and is also a feature of the intermediate shell process of Fig. 1. Other comments made by the students at the end of the questionnaire mention the ambition to find a more fulfilling role in engineering, or the more general ambition to make a career change. It is also interesting to note the qualifications of applicants, at the time of application. By emphasizing the practical nature of the learning experience, and the opportunity for enhanced employability, students with previous Masters degrees and PhDs applied. As further evidence for the credibility of the course as a retraining medium the applicants also possessed a first degree in a range of subjects. These included the expected subjects of mechanical engineering and physics, but also students with qualifications in electrical engineering, electronics, chemistry, materials science, medical device engineering, nuclear engineering, and manufacturing engineering. To date, 27 students have been placed in UK companies for their individual MSc projects (of which 24 were UK students). Fifteen companies have participated as shown in Table 2, covering a range of markets and applications. Almost 50% of the companies have taken more than one student. The most important output, and the hardest to gather good data on, is how many UK-based students are able to find full-time employment in UK companies. The difficulty in gathering this statistic reflects the time lag in finding employment, the difficulty in tracking students after completing the course, and the student’s desire to enter UK industry (rather than further academic study, for example). In Table 3 we have sketched out our current knowledge in this area, which does show that students have found employment in all of the market sectors we were keen to support. The overall Knowledge Transfer activities of the IKC in Ultra Precision Structured Surfaces (UPS2 ) have also been recorded in this paper, including industrial CPD short courses, Open Days, Industrial workshops, and e-learning offerings. To date we can state that we have actively engaged with over 100 companies through the various KT activities over a 4 year period (including MSc company placements).

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Author's personal copy J Intell Manuf

The financial sustainability of the KT activities relies on populating the Masters course and CPD short courses with high quality students and industrial delegates respectively. Whilst still continuing to support UK industry, it is also clear that financial sustainability will be aided by a broadening of the student and industrial client base. To this end, the IKC is keen to globalize its operations, including its knowledge transfer activities. The MSc in “Ultra Precision Technologies”, and the new MSc in “Ultra Precision and Nanoengineering” have already attracted interest from Italy and India. Promoting the CPD short courses will remain important for additional income in the future, and may also be expanded overseas. The participating companies are also expected to grow in number over time, further strengthening the links to the IKC, and taking opportunities to increase the effectiveness of the course to industry. In the future, we can expect the gap between supply and demand for these strategically vital skills to be narrowed further. Acknowledgments The authors wish to acknowledge the help of their academic colleagues in the development of this work. In particular we would like to recognise the part played in course planning, design and structure by Professor John Corbett and Professor David Allen. Special thanks are also due to the MSc Course Module coordinators and to Cranfield University School of Applied Sciences Marketing team. From the IKC partners we thank Dr David Walker (University College London), Dr Bill O’Neill (University of Cambridge) and David Rimmer (OpTIC Technium). The industrial contacts are too numerous to list in person, but deserve great credit for their foresight, imagination, and commitment to the programme.

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