In a new international course, global product realisation, teachers are giving lectures to students on three continents at the same time. American and Korean students not only attended a lecture in Delft without leaving their home countries, but they’ve also teamed up with Dutch students as part of the course’s virtual working groups.
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“Good morning Michigan, good afternoon Delft, good evening Seoul,” says Professor Imre Horváth, of TU Delft’s computer-aided design section. “Today, we’ve invited Mr. Wiersma of the Dutch company, Vlamboog, to talk about the design of their welding helmets for the global market.”
In the TU lecture hall, a large split-screen TV shows what’s happening in all three locations. In the United States, where it’s eight o’clock in the morning, the classroom is rather empty at the start but slowly fills, as the late-comers sleepily take their seats. In Korea, the students seem anxious for this evening lecture to start.
“We’ve used global product realisation to combine the best of existing helmets around the world and this allowed us to design more objectively,” says Wiersma, his power-point presentation instantaneously sending computer simulations of competitors’ welding helmets around the world via four ISDN-lines. Two cameras, in the front and back of the lecture hall, follow Wiersma’s every move.
“We gave our welding helmets a muscular design, because a welder doesn’t want to be called a sissy,” says Wiersma, which makes the American students laugh, the first sign of life from the States. The Americans still seem a bit sleepy, so it’s good that they needn’t take
notes%lecture notes were available a week in advance on a special website.
Time for some discussion: The US and Korean students ask lots of questions, proof that students on the other side of the world can follow a lecture delivered in Delft.
According to Margot Stilma, an Industrial Design student at TU Delft, it was easy to follow the lecture, “although the lecturer’s body language doesn’t always show up clearly, so you mostly depend on audio and power-point sheets.” The video images were also not entirely fluid, playing in slow motion after travelling some ten thousand kilometres.
Star Trek
Since September, when the course began, students follow lectures via video-conferencing once or twice a week. Alternately, Seoul National University, the University of Michigan and TU Delft prepare lectures on global product realisation theory and have invited guest lecturers from their own countries, such as a Ford employee in the US and a Samsung employee in Korea. “We invited leading companies,” says Horváth, “because we want to learn from the best.”
Horváth was pleased with Wiersma’s lecture. “Their welding helmet isa fine example of a global product,” he says, of a product that meets both local and international requirements. Because there are significant differences in the type of protective glass and headbands used worldwide, Vlamboog’s global helmet has neither protective glass nor a headband. It’s more profitable for Vlamborg to sell one standard sophisticated helmet globally, with retailers or end-users then inserting customised protective glass and headbands.
The Vlamboog helmet’s design looks like a Star Trek helmet. “We weren’t aware of that during the design process,” Wiersma claims. “However, users who tested our models liked it and perhaps it’s quite advantageous for a global launch, because Star Trek is known throughout the world.”
Cans of coffee
During the course, groups comprised of Dutch, Korean and American students must design a global product: a coffee dispenser that can serve Koreans instant coffee, serve Dutch people strong coffee, and serve Americans the weak stuff. The students, who had to collect information about the coffee drinking habits of their respective countries, experienced some cultural miscommunication . “Korean students were talking about cans of coffee, which apparently is a common form of packaging in Korea,” says Sybren van Wagenburg, a Dutch Industrial Design student. “They assumed we knew that, but we had no idea coffee comes in cans.”
With a large array of communication software available, such as PlaceWare, Net-meeting, Chat and Black-board, the students can chat and make sketches together while sitting behind computers around the world. And tutors can also monitor the group’s progress via computer, which allows them to coach international project groups from one location. Horváth: “Before we can teach the students about global product design, we must first teach them about all the software facilities. That’s a disadvantage for us. But these facilities will soon be common practice, just as nowadays it%s unremarkable to wear shoes.”
Students are enthusiastic about the course’s content. “It’s the first time I’m not counting my hours to prevent myself from working too many,” says Tone Reinertsen. “It’s very challenging to think about designs for a global market,” adds Babette Hamburger.
However, Reinertsen and Hamburger do find it difficult to co-operate with students living on the other side of the world. “Because you can’t go to the cafe with your fellow group members, you hardly get to know each other,” says Reinertsen. “And you can’t look each other in the eyes%that makes it much more difficult to co-operate and write a paper together.”
Holiday
“Connecting three continents was a novelty for most staff members of the US and Korean universities,” says Horvath, adding that it took more than a year to prepare the new course. “It’s not a fairy tale. We accepted the challenge. I like to learn how this technology works in practice.”
The Korean and American universities were somewhat ahead of Delft in technical facilities. “They had previous experience in using the technology, which was good for us,” Horvath says. “They also had experience with interesting software for communicating via the internet. We now use the same hardware, software and communication technology at all three universities. This kind of standardisation is necessary for effective co-operation.”
Preparing for such an international course presented the organisers with certain logistical problems. “It was difficult to make a lecture schedule because there always seemed to be holiday somewhere in the world,” Horvath recalls
The course, requiring a high-tech infrastructure, is expensive. The total costs for software, ISDN lines, TV screens and a smart camera, which automatically locates the person speaking, was fl. 60,000, with most of the funds being provided by the Dean of OCP and the rest by Horváth’s CADE section and the Department of Design Engineering. Using the equipment is also quite expensive. “We also have to pay for the telephone lines, cassettes and tape recorders,” says Horváth, who hopes that other lecturers will organise courses with their equipment, as well learning from their experiences with new techniques. “The dean asked us to make a report about the possibilities,” he says.
Now, TU Delft’s students are looking forward to meeting their colleagues from Michigan and Seoul in person: They’ll soon be flying to the States for a week, where they’ll present their final presentations and finally sit down and drink a cup of coffee together.
In a new international course, global product realisation, teachers are giving lectures to students on three continents at the same time. American and Korean students not only attended a lecture in Delft without leaving their home countries, but they’ve also teamed up with Dutch students as part of the course’s virtual working groups.
“Good morning Michigan, good afternoon Delft, good evening Seoul,” says Professor Imre Horváth, of TU Delft’s computer-aided design section. “Today, we’ve invited Mr. Wiersma of the Dutch company, Vlamboog, to talk about the design of their welding helmets for the global market.”
In the TU lecture hall, a large split-screen TV shows what’s happening in all three locations. In the United States, where it’s eight o’clock in the morning, the classroom is rather empty at the start but slowly fills, as the late-comers sleepily take their seats. In Korea, the students seem anxious for this evening lecture to start.
“We’ve used global product realisation to combine the best of existing helmets around the world and this allowed us to design more objectively,” says Wiersma, his power-point presentation instantaneously sending computer simulations of competitors’ welding helmets around the world via four ISDN-lines. Two cameras, in the front and back of the lecture hall, follow Wiersma’s every move.
“We gave our welding helmets a muscular design, because a welder doesn’t want to be called a sissy,” says Wiersma, which makes the American students laugh, the first sign of life from the States. The Americans still seem a bit sleepy, so it’s good that they needn’t take
notes%lecture notes were available a week in advance on a special website.
Time for some discussion: The US and Korean students ask lots of questions, proof that students on the other side of the world can follow a lecture delivered in Delft.
According to Margot Stilma, an Industrial Design student at TU Delft, it was easy to follow the lecture, “although the lecturer’s body language doesn’t always show up clearly, so you mostly depend on audio and power-point sheets.” The video images were also not entirely fluid, playing in slow motion after travelling some ten thousand kilometres.
Star Trek
Since September, when the course began, students follow lectures via video-conferencing once or twice a week. Alternately, Seoul National University, the University of Michigan and TU Delft prepare lectures on global product realisation theory and have invited guest lecturers from their own countries, such as a Ford employee in the US and a Samsung employee in Korea. “We invited leading companies,” says Horváth, “because we want to learn from the best.”
Horváth was pleased with Wiersma’s lecture. “Their welding helmet isa fine example of a global product,” he says, of a product that meets both local and international requirements. Because there are significant differences in the type of protective glass and headbands used worldwide, Vlamboog’s global helmet has neither protective glass nor a headband. It’s more profitable for Vlamborg to sell one standard sophisticated helmet globally, with retailers or end-users then inserting customised protective glass and headbands.
The Vlamboog helmet’s design looks like a Star Trek helmet. “We weren’t aware of that during the design process,” Wiersma claims. “However, users who tested our models liked it and perhaps it’s quite advantageous for a global launch, because Star Trek is known throughout the world.”
Cans of coffee
During the course, groups comprised of Dutch, Korean and American students must design a global product: a coffee dispenser that can serve Koreans instant coffee, serve Dutch people strong coffee, and serve Americans the weak stuff. The students, who had to collect information about the coffee drinking habits of their respective countries, experienced some cultural miscommunication . “Korean students were talking about cans of coffee, which apparently is a common form of packaging in Korea,” says Sybren van Wagenburg, a Dutch Industrial Design student. “They assumed we knew that, but we had no idea coffee comes in cans.”
With a large array of communication software available, such as PlaceWare, Net-meeting, Chat and Black-board, the students can chat and make sketches together while sitting behind computers around the world. And tutors can also monitor the group’s progress via computer, which allows them to coach international project groups from one location. Horváth: “Before we can teach the students about global product design, we must first teach them about all the software facilities. That’s a disadvantage for us. But these facilities will soon be common practice, just as nowadays it%s unremarkable to wear shoes.”
Students are enthusiastic about the course’s content. “It’s the first time I’m not counting my hours to prevent myself from working too many,” says Tone Reinertsen. “It’s very challenging to think about designs for a global market,” adds Babette Hamburger.
However, Reinertsen and Hamburger do find it difficult to co-operate with students living on the other side of the world. “Because you can’t go to the cafe with your fellow group members, you hardly get to know each other,” says Reinertsen. “And you can’t look each other in the eyes%that makes it much more difficult to co-operate and write a paper together.”
Holiday
“Connecting three continents was a novelty for most staff members of the US and Korean universities,” says Horvath, adding that it took more than a year to prepare the new course. “It’s not a fairy tale. We accepted the challenge. I like to learn how this technology works in practice.”
The Korean and American universities were somewhat ahead of Delft in technical facilities. “They had previous experience in using the technology, which was good for us,” Horvath says. “They also had experience with interesting software for communicating via the internet. We now use the same hardware, software and communication technology at all three universities. This kind of standardisation is necessary for effective co-operation.”
Preparing for such an international course presented the organisers with certain logistical problems. “It was difficult to make a lecture schedule because there always seemed to be holiday somewhere in the world,” Horvath recalls
The course, requiring a high-tech infrastructure, is expensive. The total costs for software, ISDN lines, TV screens and a smart camera, which automatically locates the person speaking, was fl. 60,000, with most of the funds being provided by the Dean of OCP and the rest by Horváth’s CADE section and the Department of Design Engineering. Using the equipment is also quite expensive. “We also have to pay for the telephone lines, cassettes and tape recorders,” says Horváth, who hopes that other lecturers will organise courses with their equipment, as well learning from their experiences with new techniques. “The dean asked us to make a report about the possibilities,” he says.
Now, TU Delft’s students are looking forward to meeting their colleagues from Michigan and Seoul in person: They’ll soon be flying to the States for a week, where they’ll present their final presentations and finally sit down and drink a cup of coffee together.
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