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VCE Systems Engineering Unit 1 — Electrotechnological systems design · Stage 6

Weeks 13-14 · Planning and managing

Plan production properly: sequence, timeline, milestones, materials, and the risks each process carries.

VCE-SE-U1-O2

Open this deck on the projector and press F for full-screen. N toggles speaker notes. The accompanying teacher guide is at /curriculum/vce-systems-engineering-unit-1/teacher/lessons/8.

Before this lesson:

Have the school's own risk assessment template and SDS access ready. Use the real documents, not a facsimile.

intention 2 min

Planning and managing

Plan production properly: sequence, timeline, milestones, materials, and the risks each process carries.

Have the school's own risk assessment template and SDS access ready. Use the real documents, not a facsimile.

concept 10 min

What we're covering

  • Write a work plan: steps, timeline, milestones, materials, components, tools and processes.
  • Draw it as a Gantt chart with milestones someone else could check.
  • Complete a risk assessment for the tools and processes your project needs, using the hierarchy of control.
  • Price your materials list and find out the lead time on anything you do not already have.
  • Keep the original plan. You will compare it to what actually happened.
  • Teach a work plan as a real instrument: a sequence of steps, a timeline, measurable milestones, and the materials, components, tools and processes each step needs.
  • Have students build a Gantt chart and then commit to milestones they can be held to. Milestones that cannot be checked are decoration.
  • Teach risk assessment using the hierarchy of control, applied to the tools and processes their own project actually needs. A project that is only breadboard has a different risk profile to one that involves a drill.
  • Teach the three kinds of document an engineer works from, and have students find one of each for their own project:
    • a specification, which states what a system must achieve;
    • a data sheet, which states what a component actually does — the numbers they used back in PRP 2 and PRP 4;
    • a safety data sheet (SDS), which states the hazards of a substance and how to handle it, and which they need for anything they are gluing, soldering or solvent-cleaning with.
  • Teach project management as an iterative practice, not a plan written once. The work plan is a living document: students should expect to revise it as they learn what does not work, and the record of that revision is evidence of the process working. Adaptability and continuous refinement are what separate a real work plan from a Gantt chart drawn in week 13 and never opened again.
  • Have students commit to reviewing their plan at the end of each production lesson and recording what changed.
  • Have students produce a materials list with real prices and lead times. A component that takes three weeks to arrive changes the plan, and finding that out now rather than in week 16 is the lesson.
  • Make clear the work plan will change, and that recording what actually happened against what was planned is part of the assessment later.
check 5 min

Quick check

My milestones could be checked by someone else, and my risk assessment covers the tools I will actually use.

Students write a risk assessment for a generic workshop rather than for their own project. A breadboard-only project should have a short one.

reflect 5 min

Before you pack up

Which step are you least confident about, and what will you do if it takes twice as long?

Work plan with Gantt and milestones; risk assessment using the hierarchy of control; priced materials list with lead times.

End of lesson 8

That's it.

Tomorrow / next lesson: Producing and implementing.

Teacher guide Next lesson's deck → All decks