Part A: Course Overview

Course Title: Support Environment

Credit Points: 12.00

Terms

Course Code	Campus	Career	School	Learning Mode	Teaching Period(s)
MANU2171	City Campus	Postgraduate	115H Aerospace, Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering	Distance / Correspondence or Face-to-Face	Sem 1 2011
MANU2171	City Campus	Postgraduate	115H Aerospace, Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering	Distance / Correspondence or Face-to-Face or Internet	Sem 2 2016, Spring2016, Summer2017
MANU2171	City Campus	Postgraduate	115H Aerospace, Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering	Face-to-Face	Sem 1 2013, Sem 1 2015, Sem 1 2016

Course Coordinator: Prof. John Mo

Course Coordinator Phone: +61 3 9925 6279

Course Coordinator Email: john.mo@rmit.edu.au

Course Coordinator Location: RMIT Bundoora East Campus

Course Coordinator Availability: By email

Pre-requisite Courses and Assumed Knowledge and Capabilities

No pre-requisite is required for this course.

You are assumed to have industry experience in engineering, maintenance, support, logistics, supply chain and related business functions.

Course Description

This is the first course for the program. The working definition adopted for System Support Engineering is: “The integration of domain and logistic engineering skills with supply chain management and maintenance engineering competencies, to create and deliver system support business solutions for in-service major assets”. You will be presented with the complete picture of what the essential elements are in this emerging field of engineering, the changing business concept in this area and the opportunities in the future.

The course will use a number of case studies to illustrate the importance of a systems engineering approach integrated with service thinking and logistics engineering to design and develop system support solutions. You will also learn the environment in which future system support solutions have to operate, and the constraints and modelling requirements from which these solutions are developed.
 

The course will use a number of case studies to illustrate the importance of a system engineering approach integrated with service oriented system design. A complete support system will incorporate well planned and engineered logistics systems that links all the elements in the engineering organisation and its supply chain to deliver working engineering solutions. You will also learn the environment in which future business and social environment the engineering system has to operate so that an appropriate support solution can be designed to enable the engineering system to work.

Objectives/Learning Outcomes/Capability Development

The learning outcome of this course is a comprehensive view of the support environment as well as an awareness of the critical elements in system support solutions. You are then prepared to adopt a new paradigm of service oriented engineering design and operations that enables you to embark on a new career path in support engineering.
 

On completion of this course you should be able to:
• Identify fundamental elements of the support environment and the interrelationships that exist amongst those elements
• Investigate the effect of regulatory and data constraints (including safety) in the operating environment of the engineering system on the design of support solutions
• Apply product safety principles to conform to support environment requirements.
• Develop a systematic approach to manage assets from a contractor’s perspective
• Explain the differences between different support solutions types and architectures and evaluate their suitability in specific support environment.
• Compare and contrast sustainable systems and their support solutions.
 

This course contributes to development of the following program learning outcomes:

1. Needs, Context and Systems
• Describe, investigate and analyse complex engineering systems and associated issues (using systems thinking and modelling techniques)
• Exposit legal, social, economic, ethical and environmental interests, values, requirements and expectations of key stakeholders
• Identify and assess risks (including OH&S) as well as the economic, social and environmental impacts of engineering activities

2. Problem Solving and Design
• Anticipate the consequences of intended action or inaction and understand how the consequences are managed collectively by your organisation, project or team

4. Professional Practice
• Understand the scope, principles, norms, accountabilities and bounds of contemporary engineering practice in the specific discipline
• Apply systematic approaches to the conduct and management of engineering projects
• Communicate in a variety of different ways to collaborate with other people, including accurate listening, reading and comprehension, based on dialogue when appropriate, taking into account the knowledge, expectations, requirements, interests, terminology and language of the intended audience
• Demonstrate orderly management of self, and professional conduct.

5. Research
• Be aware of knowledge development and research directions within the engineering discipline.
• Acknowledge (clearly) your own contributions and the contributions from others and distinguish contributions you may have made as a result of discussions or collaboration with other people

Overview of Learning Activities

This course gives an overview of the system support environment in future asset intensive industries such as defence, mining, medical instruments, utilities and resources.
The course prepares you to be conversant with system engineering and support engineering. You will be able to lead the solution development team, think broadly and creatively, be business focussed in designing your solution and be connected to your client. These concepts will be used in other courses in your program.

The course will have an intensive 3-day session followed by at least 6 weeks of online virtual classroom sessions. The 3-day intensive session will introduce to you all the essential concepts, the learning tools, topics and operating environment for effective learning of the courseware and its support environment. You will also have the opportunity to interact with your classmates to exchange ideas and experience in operating or working with complex engineering systems. You will be divided into small groups so you can work together more effectively. If you are unable to participate in the intensive session personally, remote participation can be organised using Blackboard Collaborate instead.

After the intensive session, you will continue to participate in at least 6 weeks of weekly online Blackboard Collaborate sessions. You will learn more topics and interact with your group to finalise your assignments. Active participation is expected in all the discussions and case studies. You will participate in an interactive emulated business scenario that stimulates the thinking process towards service oriented engineering requirements.

 

Overview of Learning Resources

Learning Resources will be provided through "myRMIT Studies". 

Overview of Assessment

The assessment for this course includes:
• 2 online assignments and
• a reflection report