It's always important to have a connection with local innovators and academia. It's the future of our workforce.

- Burkhard Huhnke

Learning from an industry professional in an academic setting provides several benefits. For example, a professional understands specific skills needed for jobs within an industry and can teach firsthand about potential challenges and solutions.

This semester, a small group of mostly Ph.D. students at the Molinaroli College of Engineering and Computing (MCEC) are learning the fundamentals of systems engineering in a class taught by a company executive with more than 30 years’ experience in the automotive industry.

Burkhard Huhnke has been the chief technical officer at Scout Motors since November 2023 and leads the company’s vehicle engineering strategy and team. This past August, he began teaching the college’s new course, “Applied Systems Engineering for Complex Systems” as an academic affiliate visiting lecturer.

Huhnke’s decision to become a visiting lecturer at the college came out of a casual conversation with MCEC Dean Hossein Haj-Hariri. The initial topic of a possible collaboration with Scout Motors switched to academics and Huhnke’s passion for bridging academia and theories into real world engineering practice. This resulted in an innovative, hands-on course designed to challenge students to think and apply the most recent tools from industrial practice.

“When he asked what I would teach, I said systems engineering because it’s a missing discipline and gives a holistic approach about complex systems,” Huhnke says. “With 30 years in industry, it would have been nice to have learned systems engineering at the beginning to think more holistically about requirements and the life cycle planning in general.”

Huhnke has always been keen to understand the innovative power of local universities to see a future workforce and how to work closely together to help influence, connect, and collaborate. He emphasizes the need of future engineers to understand their responsibility to recognize and prevent real world failures because there are multiple examples in industry that can be taught and lessons to be learned. 

“I reached out to the university because I wanted to understand their innovation power, which I think is great. It's a good opportunity to work together because you have to invest time and commitment to shape the next generation,” Huhnke says.

Scout Motors focuses on producing electric trucks and SUVs, and by 2027, the company is expected to begin operating their $2 billion manufacturing facility in Blythewood, located approximately 30 minutes north of the University of South Carolina campus. Over time, the new facility is expected to provide over 4,000 jobs and bring more than $4.2 billion in economic development to the state.

During this semester’s first “Applied Systems Engineering for Complex Systems” course, students are working on Capstone projects to model a complex system of their choice, based on two potential projects proposed by Huhnke. The teams work together on real- world case studies in areas such as electric vehicles, autonomous systems and aerospace. The project involves aspects including architecture requirements and validation. According to Huhnke, while the course sounds complex, it is relatively straightforward.

“It's important that people understand holistically about complex systems and its design, and I use automotive and aerospace examples where you can see how systems engineering failed,” Huhnke says. “The takeaway is learning from different perspectives and how to utilize modern tools like AI and digital twins in systems engineering to avoid failures.”

Students in Huhnke’s class are learning from his vast industrial experience. Prior to Scout Motors, Huhnke was chief technology officer for Fisker Inc, where he led the company’s global engineering and software teams. He was also vice president of automotive at Synopsys, Inc., a chip-design company in Silicon Valley. During his 20 years with the Volkswagen Group, he held leadership roles within engineering and research and development and co-founded the Volkswagen Automotive Innovation Center at Stanford University.

“Dr. Huhnke’s deep industry expertise and history of academic collaboration at Stanford and Tennessee reflect our commitment to connecting students with world-class technical leaders from industry,” says Haj-Hariri. “This partnership not only enriches our curriculum but also gives industry partners a chance to see our greatest asset: our exceptional students.”

Huhnke also previously served as a research assistant and guest lecturer at the Technical University of Braunschweig in Germany as well as a research fellow at the Hult International Business School. However, while his previous courses focused on artificial intelligence and digital twins, this is the first time he is teaching a course specifically on systems engineering.

“It's personally rewarding to see the curiosity and the creativity of these students [at USC],” Huhnke says. “I like to engage with the next generation, which is motivating because it gives me a chance to translate complex concepts into a practical learning. Sharing practical examples and use cases is helping students to be open-minded for using modern tools the right way.”

Mechanical Engineering Professor Thor Wuest, who directs the new industrial engineering program, which is the home of the new course, says that today’s products, services and processes are becoming increasingly complex. Thus, managing this complexity is a core skill set of current and future engineers.

“This skill set is embodied in modern systems engineering,” Wuest says. “Dr. Huhnke covered the full systems engineering lifecycle with hands-on examples, brought in subject matter experts that shared in-depth case studies, and engaged deeply with our students. This is a truly unique and transformational opportunity for our industrial engineering program and the college overall.”

Huhnke believes that the systems engineering course can help with workforce development for potential internships and career opportunities at the future Scout Motors facility. He says that the systems engineering approach is not only the development process or concept phase. It includes production, operations and all the different phases of product development.

“For example, implementing digital twins in the production process, and optimizing and improving further technology tools to reduce human failures are in every aspect of our Scout models,” Huhnke says. “The topics in this course are crucial, and we want talented students from USC into our company. It's a chance for both of us to work closely together because we have to be engaged to create a great workforce for the state.”