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Abstract-This paper describes a case study of an innovative approach to teaching at an engineering school. The postgraduate course Project Work and Communication in Research and Development (R&D) was developed at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia. The main aim of the course was to make the entry of young engineering graduates into the business environment as easy as possible. Currently, engineers are facing more and more interdisciplinarity and project work in their daily assignments. The course was designed to remedy any deficiencies in the multidisciplinary professional skills and knowledge of the graduate-level students, and it covered the topics of innovation management, communication in R&D, project management, and problem solving in teams. An end-of-course survey showed positive feedback from participating students. The empirical data (enrollment ratio of students, session attendance ratio, and average student grade) proves that the course met its goal of honing the professional skills of postgraduate engineering students.Index Terms-Communication, education, electrical engineering education, problem solving, project management, research and development (R&D).

Numerous laboratory tests are used to determine the appropriateness of new formulations in the development process in the paint and coatings industry. New formulations are most often functionally inadequate, unacceptable for environmental or health reasons, or too expensive. Formulators are obliged to repeat laboratory tests until one of the formulations fulfills the minimum requirements. This is cumbersome, slow, and expensive, and can cause ecological problems, wasting materials on tests that do not produce the desired results. The purpose of this research was to find out if there might be a better way forward to increase efficiency and free up formulators to focus on new products. In this experiment, a new paints and coatings development process was redesigned based on the potential benefits of formulation digitalization. Instead of laboratory testing, a digital platform was used that has been developed and stocked with relevant, up-to-date, and complete, usable data. This study found that, by going digital, developers could vastly reduce non-value-added activities in the development process (by as much as 70%) and significantly shorten the entire process throughput time (by up to 48%). Using digital tools to facilitate the development process appears to be a possible way forward for the paint and coatings industry, saving time, materials, and money and protecting the environment.

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We defined a model of allocating company available knowledge on company business processes requirements. Our model is based on an employee knowledge structure and on business process structural indexes. We found a conclusion that is useful to "destroy" a process to some level (and consequently decrease its efficiency) to reach a better knowledge alignment with existed employees (and consequently increase a process efficiency). This model is useful when we need a fast reaction on a new business opportunity without having enough time to reeducate employees. This article includes also an example of using proposed knowledge allocation model at the end.

An essential characteristic of the new product development process is to develop a new marketable product in the shortest possible time with the lowest reasonable costs. Therefore, the key factor of the process is efficiency. The paints and coatings industry development process contain numerous laboratory tests to determine the appropriateness of new formulation. It is proven that digital transformation can reduce the number of laboratory tests and consequently shorten the throughput time of the development process. This raised the question of whether the faster development process also reduces the process’ cost, or they even increase due to information and communication technology implementation. Therefore, the research’s purpose was to determine whether reducing the number of laboratory tests, based on the implementation of information and communication technology (ICT), affects reducing costs in the paints and coatings development process. The conventional process and the redesigned process of paints and coatings development were used as the basis of the research. The comparative analysis of the costs incurred during the development process was made. The analysis compares the types and amount of incurred costs. The article proves that digital transformation has a significant impact on up to 48% on reducing costs of the paints and coatings development process.

Process Reengineering and Innovation of Remaking SoapsudsThis article uses a business process renovation method to address an environmental protection problem. The presented case, studied in factories which remake crude vegetable oil (soapsuds remake), focuses on reengineering one of the business processes which is classified as an obligatory process. This process has to be performed to comply with the requirements of the existing ecology legislation. Therefore, it is reasonable to take a radical approach - business process reengineering. Soapsuds with oil remnants are a secondary product in the vegetable oil refining process. According to the legislation, secondary products as waste are not acceptable for the environment. Soapsuds remake as it is currently carried out produces technical fatty acids and, as a side product, calcium sulphate. Calcium sulphate is listed as special waste; therefore it must be deposited in a special waste landfill site. In the course of searching for a solution to this ecological problem, a new idea came up, namely that soapsuds are taken to the biogas plant. At the biogas plant, they can be decomposed into biogas, which is then used to generate electric energy, for heating or to supplement municipal gas. Thus, the reengineering of the process is upgraded into process innovation and environmental innovation. Using data obtained from the available literature, we managed to prove that process reengineering, which is simultaneously process innovation and ecological innovation, can be applied in practice. Side products resulting from the anaerobic digestion of soapsuds in the biogas plant comply better with the requirements of the Slovenian ecological legislation than those occurring in the process used up to now.

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