European Journal of Engineering Education
Vol. 34, No. 6, December 2009, 511–526
A multidisciplinary engineering summer school
in an industrial setting
Peter Gorm Larsen
a
*, João M. Fernandes
b
, Jacek Habel
c
, Hanne Lehrskov
a
, Richard J.C. Vos
d
,
Oliver Wallington
e
and Jan Zidek
f
a
Engineering College of Aarhus, Aarhus, Denmark;
b
University of Minho, Braga, Portugal;
c
Cracow
University of Technology, Cracow, Poland;
d
Hanze University Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands;
e
Bang & Olufsen a/s, Struer, Denmark;
f
VSB - Technical University of Ostrava, Ostrava, Czech Republic
(Received 22 October 2008; final version received 19 June 2009)
Most university-level engineering studies produce technically skilled engineers. However, typically
students face several difficultieswhenworkinginmultidisciplinaryteamswhenthey initiate their industrial
careers. In a globalised world, it becomes increasingly important that engineers are capable of collabo-
rating across disciplinary boundaries and exhibit soft competencies, like communication, interpersonal
and social skills, time planning, creativity, initiative, and reflection. To prepare a group of engineering
and industrial design students to acquire those capabilities, an international summer school that combined
industrialdesignwithdifferentkinds ofengineering disciplineswas organised on the site of Bang & Olufsen
(B&O) in Denmark. This multidisciplinary engineering summer school was attended by students from six
European university-level teaching institutions and was supervised by teachers from those institutions and
industrial experts from B&O. The main aim of the summer school was to allow students to work in teams,
composed of students from different knowledge disciplines and with different cultural backgrounds, with
the purpose of developing innovative concepts and products, within a strong industrial perspective.
Keywords: multidisciplinary engineering; embedded systems; mechatronics; problem-based learning;
industrial setting; innovation
1. Introduction
Inan increasingly globalised world,it isparamount for the competitiveness ofanycompanythat its
employees are capable of creating innovative concepts for new products and for the subsequent
production process faster than today (Calvano and John 2003). In addition, the complexity of
products tends to increase continuously. In order to master that complexity and at the same
time produce these products faster, it is essential that engineers with different disciplinary and
culturalbackgrounds areable to collaborateefficientlyinshort windowsof opportunity.In general,
there is a significant demand from industry for engineers who can collaborate with stakeholders
*Corresponding author. Email: pgl@iha.dk
ISSN 0304-3797 print/ISSN 1469-5898 online
© 2009 SEFI
DOI: 10.1080/03043790903150687
http://www.informaworld.com
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512 P.G. Larsen et al.
outsidetheirowndiscipline(Skates2003).Nowadays,the majorityofhighereducation institutions
educate students in one specialist discipline, and as a consequence, when they enter industry, they
face major difficulties in adapting to multidisciplinary project teams. A study of engineering
graduates’perceptions on how well they are prepared to work in industry confirms that one of the
key weaknesses in their education is the ability to work in multidisciplinary teams (Martin et al.
2005). Engineering graduates are typically lacking skills for collaborating with professionals with
different disciplinary backgrounds, because they have problems in understanding the significant
design constraints for the other disciplines, and as a consequence are often unable to come up with
optimal and innovative solutions. Furthermore, students are often unfamiliar with the complexity
of ‘real world’ problems and how to approach them.
Additionally, the opening of international markets leads to the necessity of new competencies
and skills for engineers (Lucena 2006). Due to the increasing number of companies that out-
source their engineering activities to partners located in emerging economies, there is a tendency
towards a change of the role/profile for engineers to fulfil tasks such as negotiating require-
ments, architecting systems, preparing contracts, planning and managing projects, controlling
tasks, verifying solutions against their specifications, managing team work, coaching and train-
ing, or communicating a project’s result. In industry, it is becoming quite common for companies
to follow a global development approach and consequently carry out their engineering activities
at distinct sites, for taking advantage, for example, of their different time zones (Ebert and Neve
2001).
A group of six European university-level institutions, in collaboration with an industrial com-
pany, had organiseda summer school, entitled ‘Conceptual Design and Development ofInnovative
Products’, in order to prepare the students for the globalised world. The summer school, which
bringsinnovative dimensionsto highereducation, wasconceived takinginto account the following
essential principles:
• Team-oriented activities: the students work collaboratively in teams to develop an engineering
product.
• Multidisciplinary approach: the teams are composed of students with different disciplinary
backgrounds, whose skills, knowledge, and experience are important to combine in order to
achieve the project’s goal.
• Multicultural approach: the teams are composed of students from different countries.
• Problem-based learning: learning is centred on the students, using open assignments with
several possible valid solutions, and the teachers act as tutors of the assignments.
• Intensive schedule: the summer school lasts for a relatively short period of time, and students
work exclusively on their projects during five days a week.
• Industry-oriented: the summer school takes place in an industrial setting and the assignments
are closely connected with the requirements of the industrial partner.
The main aim of this summer school is to let students with different technical backgrounds
acquire a better understanding and respect across disciplinary, national and cultural borders. This
was achieved by letting the students work in multidisciplinary teams to develop innovative ideas
and products, within a problem-based learning environment and a strong industrial perspective.
As stated by van Kasteren (1996), working in multidisciplinary projects has been demonstrated
to be an excellent method to improve interdisciplinary thinking and studying skills.
The summer school was planned to take the students through the innovation and creativity
processes, with the aim of designing a product from the very birth of an idea to the construction
of a prototype and the planning of the interfaces between the different disciplinary parts. Through
these processes the students experience the importance of creative and innovative competencies in
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European Journal of Engineering Education 513
all development phases. Students also learn how different techniques help to stimulate creativity
and on supporting the innovative focus in the act of designing (Lawson 1980, 2004).
Problem-based learning (Savery 2006), in short PBL, was adopted as the main pedagogical
approach during the summer school. Student teams received different realistic open assignments
(called design briefs) and based on these, had to come up with a candidate solution. The fact that
this summer school was held on the premises of a company rather than in the traditional lecture
rooms gave an extra level of motivation and engagement for the students.
The summer school was primarily financed by a successful application to the European
ERASMUS Intensive Programme. In addition, the hosting company Bang & Olufsen found the
summer school so interesting that they both supplied a financial contribution as well as the time
for different internal stakeholders during the summer school.
The paper starts with a brief overview of the participants in Section 2. In Section 3, we describe
the learning space and in Section 4 the programme that was delivered at the summer school is
discussed. Section 5 presents the new aspects deployed at this summer school and Section 6
provides details about the evaluation of the summer school. The paper is completed in Section 7
with concluding remarks, including some ideas about how we think others can get inspiration
from this learning and teaching experience.
2. Participants
This summer school was organised by the Engineering College of Aarhus (Denmark), the
VŠB - Technical University of Ostrava and Tomáš Ba
ˇ
ta University in Zlín (Czech Republic),
the Cracow University of Technology (Poland), the Hanze University Groningen (The Nether-
lands), and the University of Minho (Portugal). Each institution provided one teacher and up to
five students for the summer school. Bang & Olufsen (B&O), a Danish manufacturer of exclusive
audio systems, televisions, loudspeakers, telephones and digital media products, was also highly
involved in theorganisation, providing its facilities andits expertsfor the realisation of the summer
school.
2.1. Students
At each institution, a teacher was responsible for selecting students to attend the programme
based on their English language skills, their technical skills, and their motivation to take part in
a multidisciplinary project. Twenty-eight students were selected to participate. The level of the
students participating in this summer school was a combination of B.Sc. and M.Sc. students from
the different partner institutions. The students’ average age was 23.5 years. They had around one
year left of their studies and their areas of expertise covered mechanical engineering, electronics
engineering, software engineering, industrial design, and human technology.
2.2. Teams
Six student teams were created: four teams of five students and two teams of four students. The
teachers were responsible for defining the composition of the groups of students, with the aim
of avoiding students from the same educational institution in the same group and having the
students spread as widely as possible across the different disciplines. This initial grouping results
in teams where each individual contribution is potentially maximised, as suggested by Maskell
and Grabau (1998).
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514 P.G. Larsen et al.
2.3. Teachers
The partner institutions provided the summer school with a total of six teachers. They were
responsible for defining the summer school programme and the (application of the) pedagogical
approach. They also gave guidance and technical support to the students during their activities,
and helped the students in the management of the projects, namely in deciding changes in the
composition of the groups, when appropriate. Additionally, teachers were responsible for a 1 h
lecture on a topic considered relevant for the programme. The topics addressed in the programme
were: Human Technology Interaction, Innovation and Creativity, Systems Engineering, Require-
ments Engineering, Product Development, and Virtual Instrumentation. Finally, teachers were in
charge of preparing several questionnaires for the students to fill in, with the purpose of evaluating
the quality of the activities developed during the summer school.
2.4. Industrial experts
Several experts from B&O also participated actively in the programme. They were in charge
of clarifying the company’s principles and mission, design process, portfolio of products, pro-
fessional careers, research activities, and sales strategy. In addition to presentations about these
subjects, B&O experts took an active part in guiding the students in modelling their creative
concepts, and a larger group of B&O experts gave feedback to the students on their work after
the first week and during the final presentation (at the end of the third week).
3. Learning space
The working space for the summer school, whose floor plan is depicted in Figure 1, was located in
B&O’s industrial facilities in Struer. The available space (14 m × 19 m) was divided into two main
areas. At the front, there were basically two tables and eight chairs, used by teachers to prepare
their work, and a space, organised like an auditorium, that was used for lectures and seminars.
Some tables were also used to install the printers used for supporting activities, for both students
and teachers. This turned out to be an efficient learning space for the summer school.
The back space was reserved mainly for student activities. Each project team had a reserved
4m × 4m cubicle for their activities. The cubicles were open, without any door. There was
a common working area between the two lines of cubicles, for all the project teams, where
students could build their prototypes, using tools and materials available there. There was an
extra room with special ventilation and soldering equipment. The students had also access to a
B&O prototyping team that could help with producing physical prototypes in different kinds of
materials.
Additionally, a staff-only room was available in the same building at a different floor. This
provided a quiet and private setting that was put into use for discussing student and project team-
related issues, discussing proposals for changes that were deemed sensitive, as well as personal
communications.
From a teaching–learning perspective, we believe that the easy access to teachers, experts,peers
andthe Internet inthe working space wasessential.On the onehand, students werehavingconcrete
experiences through direct, explicit forms of feedback, and information when they needed so or
needed to. On the other hand, the close collaboration and ease of access to assistance, implicit
feedback, and modelling examples (in the form of both fellow practitioners and reference projects
on innovation), facilitated the students’ process of discovery and creativity by the transference of
implicit knowledge.
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European Journal of Engineering Education 515
Figure 1. Layout of working space.
We wanted the project teams to feel like they were an external consultancy team in competition
with other consultants. The cubicle set-up was really successful, the balance of the teams’privacy
and overall room openness allowed both strong team/competitive experience, but still gave the
whole summer camp a group experience. The amount of cross-pollination of ideas among teams
was at a good level, having a shared ‘building space’ meant that techniques could be shared.
4. Summer school programme
4.1. Main characteristics
Thecurriculum of a summer school often resemblescourses ata university in traditional classroom
settings. In most cases, it is teacher-led with lectures and practical exercises, roughly equally
divided. Moreover, the curriculum is composed of a set of educational units, which are connected
with the main subject of the summer school.
This summer school was innovative in the sense that students were taken out of their conven-
tional classroom environment with substantial portions of teacher-led expositive learning to a
real industrial setting with a PBL approach in a multifaceted, multidisciplinary, and multicultural
setting, using learning units rather than teaching units. The programme was structured to have
approximately 10% of lectures and 90% of team work, and it took place over three weeks at
B&O’s industrial facilities in Struer, Denmark, during June–July 2008.
As already stated, the main aim of this summer school was to let students with distinct technical
backgrounds acquire a better understanding and respect across disciplinary, national and cultural
borders. Thus, students worked in multidisciplinary teams to develop innovative products, within
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