Industrial Project

Aims

To provide the opportunity for delegates to apply their knowledge and understanding of process automation to an industrially relevant problem, which may be research, development or design in nature, and to develop their knowhow of applying that expertise.

Objectives

To enable delegates to apply knowledge gained in the optional modules to a project.

To provide an opportunity to deepen technical understanding through the application of theory to an industrially relevant project.

To enable delegates to demonstrate their investigational ability in an engineering context.

To provide the opportunity to gain experience of working on an individual basis in a development environment.

To enable delegates to demonstrate their ability to focus on a solution in the context of open ended problems.

To lead to the publication of a paper in either a refereed journal or a reputable conference proceedings.

Organisation

The co-ordinator will have overall responsibility for the organisation and assessment of the industrial projects.

Each delegate will be jointly supervised by a nominated member of academic staff from Newcastle University and a senior colleague from the delegate's company.

The function of the academic supervisor is to monitor progress and to provide technical support through discussion, etc.

The function of the industrial supervisor is to enable in company support, access to resources and to verify that the work reported upon in the dissertation is that of the delegate.

The function of the supervisors is to monitor progress and to provide technical support through discussion, etc.

Delegates will normally work individually on different projects.

The intention is that the project will be part of the delegate’s normal workload to the extent that the employer can justify the time and resources involved.

The project specification shall be agreed by discussion between the co-ordinator and the delegate, liaising with potential supervisors, subject to:

• the appropriateness, in terms of difficulty and challenge, of the academic content of the proposed project for the MSc degree,
• the availability of staff with relevant expertise and/or experience for supervision,
• the relevance of the project to the delegate’s company,
• access to the necessary resources to enable the project to be completed successfully,
• satisfactory arrangements to protect confidentiality and respect intellectual property,
• payment by the delegates’ company of any non UK travel and subsistence costs incurred in supervision.

Specification

Projects will be investigative. They may be oriented towards research, development or design. They will normally be open ended in the sense that the outcome cannot necessarily be predicted a-priori.

There is no requirement that the project be original work as opposed to being of a novel nature. For example, the application of existing theory or proven techniques to a different application or context is quite acceptable for an MSc project.

• For each project there will be an agreed written specification, prepared by the delegate at the outset of the project, addressing most of the following points as appropriate:
  • context of the project.
  • definition of the problem.
  • objectives of the project.
  • sources of essential technical information.
  • nature and scope of work to be carried out.
  • any project specific safety/environmental issues.
  • constraints on confidentiality and arrangements for publication.
  • resources required.
  • project plan, including targets and expected time scale
• The following information will be discussed and agreed with delegates at the specification stage:
  • deadlines for submission of dissertation and/or portfolio of work
  • structure and format required for the dissertation.
  • depth and breadth of content expected in the dissertation.
  • contents and scope of portfolio of work, if appropriate.
  • basis for marking the dissertation and/or portfolio.

Supervision

Academic supervisors will be assigned to each project/delegate according to the nature of the project and supervisors’ expertise and availability. Normally there will only be one academic supervisor per project. Delegates may express a preference for a particular supervisor and that will be respected when practicable.

The amount of effort that the academic supervisor is able to commit to each project is the equivalent of some 3 to 5 days full-time per delegate. This time allocation has to cover:

• initial meetings to get the project off the ground.
• the provision of technical support throughout the project.
• visits to the delegate’s company to progress the project and/or observe trials.
• reading papers and providing comment on the draft dissertation.
• marking the dissertation

Delegates have some responsibility to manage their supervisor’s input to the project, both in terms of time and expertise, by regarding it as a resource that has to be used effectively.

It is also the delegates’ responsibility to communicate regularly with their supervisors with regard to progress, difficulties encountered, etc. Supervision is intended to be interactive and without regular contact the supervisor is unable to offer guidance.

Academic supervisors may be required to sign confidentiality agreements with companies regarding proprietary information to which they are given access during the course of a project.

Time Scales

The expectation is that delegates will have accumulated most of the 120 credits from taking taught modules prior to starting their project. However, completion of all eight modules is not a prerequisite. Indeed, delegates are encouraged to think about potential projects, formulate a specification and, if possible, make a start on the project before then.

The dissertation must normally be submitted within 5 years from the month within which delegate’s take their first module. This is the date from which their registrations for the MSc are effective.
Often delegates are unable to work on their projects for significant periods of time for reasons such as being sent abroad, doing commissioning work, personal tragedy, etc. When such periods are of the order of several months, it is wise to formally seek leave of absence. This effectively stops the clock and reduces the chances of running into the 5 year deadline.

It is also possible to apply to the Faculty for an extension to the 5 year deadline. Provided there are good reasons, and the application is supported by the Director of the IGDS, this is not normally refused and an extension of one year is typical. Applications for a second extension are seldom granted.

ISA Standards

In relation to the project, it may be necessary for delegates to have access to the ISA standards. Delegates who do not have access to such through the normal course of their employment may join the ISA as a student member for one year at PACT expense.

Dissertation

Whilst the length of the dissertation for the project part of a taught MSc degree is not prescribed, it is sensible to think in terms of a maximum of 100 pages, excluding appendices. The actual length obviously varies according to the nature of the project, the author’s style and policy on layout and spacing.

The structure of the dissertation would typically be as follows, although it is recognised that there does need to be some flexibility to accommodate different types of project:

• Title page.
• Abstract (1 paragraph).
• Acknowledgements.
• Contents list.
• Executive summary (1 page).
• Introduction, including:
  • Original project specification.
  • Industrial context.
• Theoretical background, including:
  • Literature survey.
• Development of model and/or design as appropriate
• Simulation of model and/or empirical tests on design.
• Results and discussion.
• Conclusions and recommendations.
• Bibliography and/or references.
• Appendices

Further detailed guidance on aspects of layout, style, numbering, referencing, etc is provided in a separate document entitled ‘General Guidelines on Writing Reports and Dissertations’. In particular, note that:

• The style required is past tense and indefinite sense. For example: “it was found from the results that …” rather than “I find from my results that …”.
• SI units, and units derived therefrom such as bar, litre and min, are required for all calculations.

Attention is drawn to the importance of the literature survey. Given the nature of an industrial project, it is acceptable that the literature be based upon internal company reports, industry guidelines, technical standards, textbooks, etc, with less reliance on academic papers and journal publications than is normally the case.

For the purposes of the literature survey, delegates’ attention is drawn to the facility to access the Robinson library on a remote basis: accessing library resources remotely

Occasionally, of necessity, delegates may need to include content in their dissertation that is based upon work done wholly or partially by other persons. Some examples of such circumstances are as follows: i) project may be part of a bigger project and there is overlap at the interface with work done by the rest of a team, ii) data/results obtained by other persons are used as a basis for analysis, and iii) the project may make use of software developed by another person. Inclusion of such content is legitimate, provided that the author identifies clearly and unambiguously those parts/work/data etc attributable to others. It is the delegates’ responsibility to declare such in the dissertation itself.

Delegates are normally expected to submit two copies of the dissertation in loose leaf form. Binding and payment for such will be handled by the PACT/IGDS office. The first copy will be lodged with the Director of the IGDS and the other copy retained by the academic supervisor.

In the event of the dissertation containing proprietary information, both copies will be covered by the confidentiality agreement.

Front page

There is a protocol for the title page for which a template is available. It should include:

Assessment

Assessment of the dissertation and/or portfolio of work will be in accordance with the rules and regulations of the University of Newcastle for the award of Master’s degrees.

The dominant criteria for assessment of the project normally include:

• Quality of work.
• Amount of work done and progress made.
• Personal qualities and skills demonstrated.
• Presentation of dissertation and/or portfolio.

Dissertations are normally marked by the supervisor and second marked by an independent person.

Delegates may be required for interview by the external examiner.

Note that the MSc degree awarded to any delegate invited to resubmit the dissertation for the Industrial Project is not accredited.

Presentation

Delegates may be invited to give an informal oral presentation about their project, based upon their dissertation and/or portfolio of work, to a postgraduate audience at Newcastle University.