Foundry School Strategy and Practice (ENGR 296)

2 credits · Undergraduate

Take the decision-maker's seat. This companion course uses case discussions, external interviews, and a quarter-long team challenge to explore how leaders build and scale manufacturing enterprises.nnIn a discussion-driven format, multidisciplinary teams draw on the Stanford seminars and recorded sessions from collaborating universities to develop recommendations for a Foundry Challenge. Students weigh questions that rarely have a single right answer: Which production approach should a company choose? What should it build itself or source from others? How should it balance cost, quality, workforce needs, and supply-chain resilience? When is a technology ready to scale?nnDrawing inspiration from the National Academy of Engineering's Grand Challenges, students also consider a broader question: What should be the Foundry School's Ten Grand Challenges - the advances in technology, talent, infrastructure, and policy needed to make this industrial future a reality?nnTeams gather evidence, test assumptions, and defend their recommendations, adapting as new information emerges. Engineering students contribute technical perspectives while students from business, the sciences, social sciences, humanities, and other fields bring complementary insights into markets, organizations, people, and policy.nnThe emphasis is on judgment, collaboration, and making persuasive decisions under real-world constraints.nnBecause the Seminar provides the intellectual foundation for the Lab, students enrolled in ENG 196/296 Foundry School Strategy and Practice must be concurrently enrolled in ENG 194/294 Foundry School Seminar. Students may enroll in the Seminar without enrolling in the Lab, but not vice versa.