Chalmers and General Motors in sustainable partnership

This article is based on a piece first published in Chalmers Magasin.
Since 2002 more than 200 engineers from General Motors have taken web-based master courses at Chalmers. Diane Landsiedel, senior manager at GM Technical Education Programme (TEP), spoke to Chalmers Magasin when she visited Tuula Bergqvist, programme manager at the Chalmers School of Continuing and Professional Studies, to discuss and plan the upcoming presentation in Atlanta, Georgia, of a paper on this unique collaboration. Here she describes why Chalmers was one of the universities GM chose to work with to offer GM engineers a Masters degree.

“Global Sustainability is a very important strategy for General Motors. Furthermore, our interest in Chalmers came about because of the Alliance for Global Sustainability [formed in 1997 as a joint venture between MIT, the University of Tokyo and ETH-Zürich]. We wanted to work with Chalmers as a leading, top-level university. What is more, Chalmers presented distinctiveness in working with continuing education through its high-quality organisation for professional education,” she says.

“Another important factor is the people I work with and their ability to collaborate when it comes to problem-solving, decision-making, communication and understanding. The most critical factor for creating and improving employee involvement and satisfaction in distance education is fostering a highly supportive environment. Tuula, her team and the Chalmers faculty are fantastic to work with!”

The partnership began in 2002. Since then between Chalmers and GM has grown steadily and with considerable success. More than 200 GM engineers have studied Chalmers web-based credit courses over the years.

Since 2005 GM TEP together with the University of Michigan has offered a Master of Engineering degree in Global Automotive and Manufacturing Engineering to GM’s technical professionals worldwide. Thirty universities, including Chalmers, contribute to the interdisciplinary content.

GM is especially concerned with the design and delivery of the courses, even in a sustainable sense. Globally friendly delivery and high-quality instructional design for online learning are focal points.

“There is always a demand for improvement, so both students and industry evaluate the course and we collaborate right from the beginning with Chalmers, for example. We are always working together to identify new ideas for the courses, such as applications that are more relevant to the global automotive industry. Since online learning is available all over the world, this way of delivering knowledge with great content, great delivery and great results is environmentally sustainable.”

Landsiedel explains that Chalmers was excellent at meeting the criteria that GM set for academic partnership. She mentions factors such as the calibre of the faculty, capability of distance education, willingness to teach working professionals and the university's experience in this area.

“The strong relationship with Saab and the way Chalmers has helped Saab with their educational needs encouraged us to starting working together. Chalmers has been a leader in creating multi-university cooperation by bringing faculties together to teach courses. Guest lecturers from other universities in Europe and Asia really do give us a global perspective in our course work. Another way that Chalmers is unique is in the global alliances that have been created to conduct research that is core to GMs business,” says Landsiedel.

How does she see the return on investment when it comes to educating your engineers?

“We measure this in a variety of ways, but one method worthy of particular mention is our creation of the Value Added Award in 1999. We recognise graduates of the programme who apply what they learned in the course of the programme to their job and actually implement their ideas. We have measured the cost savings, the quality and the improvements that have resulted from the knowledge the students gained. Over 200 of our students over the past several years have won the award and been recognised for implementing their new knowledge within GM. It is a very concrete measure.”

What is her perspective on future cooperation?

“The outlook is very positive. Chalmers has a very successful partnership with GM and we will continue to rely on you in the future to help us with the General Motors’ continuing education needs,” concludes Landsiedel.