Welcome to my portfolio on davidgustafsson.com, my personal marketing site. I am 23 years old and studying the fourth year of a Master of Science and Engineering program at Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg.  My direction of education is Industrial Engineering and Management, which is a branch that exists to bridge engineering and business. I look at myself as a business engineer. My decision to become a business engineer was made during high school when I was involved with entrepreneurship starting a company together with friends. Our product was an everlasting golf tee for the golf drive, which was manufactured and sold under the brand name EverTee.

EverTee logo
EverTee logo

The concept with EverTee was new at the time when we designed the product and started production. The world was open and the competition was according to our investigations not fierce. We know nothing about risk capital and starting companies which also became our fall. Not enough resources were put on making a solid design and the product ended up to not be very user friendly. Today EverTee is put on ice and many other designs exist to solve the same customer problem. The next time I do a startup I will definitely put more resources into it and make it seriously, I have now gained the knowledge to do so!

You find my curriculum here:

The business engineer/graduate in Industrial Engineering and Management

My bachelor in Industrial Engineering and Management contain three years of studies in engineering and business topics. I have the same mathematical background as a physical or mechanical engineer but have replaced the main subject from these directions with business studies.

Course composition for Industrial Engineering and Management
Course composition for Industrial Engineering and Management

The business studies are focused mainly on designing existing operations. A distinction usually is made between innovation, operations management and supply chain management where the Industrial Engineer mainly addresses one of these topics. I have focused on the operations management category which I find most interesting. Lean operations, design of production, managing of people and projects and strategies for this is very interesting. I do believe that the mathematical and statistical background is very powerful in this environment focusing on management by facts rather than feeling. My technology background consists of fundamental courses in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and physics. My deepest knowledge is in the IT area with hands on experience in object oriented software development using java, MatLab and J2EE as well as PHP web application development.

Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden

The following courses are part of my academic record from my bachelor in Industrial Engineering and Management.

Year one

  • Introductory course in Industrial Engineering and Management
  • Introductory Mathematics
  • Mathematical analysis in one variable
  • Economical analysis 1
  • Programmed systems in Java
  • Physics for engineers 1
  • Linear algebra
  • Economical analysis 2

Year two

  • Physics for engineers 2
  • Data analysis and statistics
  • Object oriented software development
  • Industrial marketing
  • Industrial operations development
  • Analysis in multiple variables and statistical modeling
  • Information systems
  • Algorithms and data structures

Year three

  • Operations Management
  • Economical analysis 2
  • Logistics
  • Databases
  • Modeling and simulation methodology
  • Fundamental software engineering
  • Bachelor thesis

I am doing my master within the Quality and Operations Management program at Chalmers University of Technology. The program takes focus in improving existing organizations and gives among others a six sigma black belt. The program has ¾ year mandatory courses and ¾ year elective courses within the direction of study.

University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

The first year of masters studies I am doing on exchange at University of New South Wales in Sydney. During the exchange I take all elective courses and ¼ of a year with substitutes for mandatory courses. The courses at UNSW have a higher proportion of case work and assignments both alone and in groups. The first semester I did the following four courses:

  • Applied marketing research. The course treats research methodology in both qualitative and quantitative forms. I made a project for a performing arts company operating in Sydney. The project main methodology was a focus group with the donor’s of the organisation. A survey was also made. The objectives were among others to determine how to increase the amount of donation and how to better treat the donors. The course is a substitute for a mandatory course in my master. Below I will present a sample of a report I wrote together with an international group.
  • Business Process Improvement & Quality Management. The course aimed to evaluate and improve existing processes. Different techniques were used such as Six-Sigma to compare customers’ expectations/specifications with the process performance. The course was taken as a substitute for a mandatory course in my Chalmers master.
  • Web Applications Engineering treats the java J2EE way of building web applications. Just as the other courses at UNSW I have taken it is a postgraduate course. The course is very technical. Among others I learned Hibernate for persistence database storage and spring for MVC flow management. This is two fresh high technology frameworks. By taking the course I have increased my technology knowledge.
  • International Project Management is another elective course I have taken. The course treats project management in an international environment which is very important for the business engineer. This is my opinion in a more globalised world where projects requires people to cooperate across borders. Belbin team roles were one of the tools that the course applied in order to put together groups with complementary roles.

My courses for the second semester are:

  • Computer Networks
  • Innovation and Entrepreneurship
  • Negotiation Skills
  • Management of Risk

Work sample

My applied marketing research report was awarded as the best report in the course and the client were very grateful for our conclusions and recommendations. The report got 99 of 100 marks and can be read below.

On techonomics.se I have written about the courses for the first semester at UNSW. The Web Applications Engineering project report can be downloaded in the article.