Implementation Of Product Realization Concepts In Design And Manufacturing Courses

The act of revising curricula through a multidisciplinary rapid product realization program is a symbol of UL Lafayette’s commitment to undergraduate education in mechanical engineering. As part of its mission.” to prepare students for a perfectly consistent transition to industry,” an ongoing effort has been undertaken to restructure the undergraduate courses. Traditional design practices have been replaced in the world-class companies by concurrent engineering practices. Hence, it is time to develop an integrated design and manufacturing curricula to strongly enhance the presence of industry on campus. This paper aims to establish the fact that an innovation in undergraduate course work will have profound implications on students, essentially enabling them to handle realworld problems. In recent years product realization which offers prototyping and fabrication facilities in support of student design activities has attracted much research. Though not first of its kind, the proposed enhancement of undergraduate curriculum is based on the one coherent theme of ” Product Realization,” technical and professional skills can be coupled to raise students to their full potential. The myriad courses can be bolstered by launching an activitybased “Learning Laboratory”, with appropriate infrastructure that allows students to design products from conceptualization to actualization.