A Cross-course Design and Manufacturing Project

In today’s global and competitive environment, development of new products is a key aspect for firm success. New product development is a multidisciplinary process of systematically converting a concept for satisfying customer needs into a product or service that is ready for the market. Employers will be looking for graduates to have the skills necessary to join their product commercialization teams and contribute immediately. Students are also interested in learning relevant skills and participating in “hands-on” activities. This paper reports preliminary results from a project that has been developed to allow students to use the same “product” in three courses of a combined Manufacturing and Mechanical Engineering Technology program. Background information on the involved courses and detailed aspects of the individual course projects is presented. Example projects and implementation experiences of the projects into the relevant courses are also summarized. The goal of the proposed projects is to highlight for students the relevance of each course and the applicability to future industrial applications. In addition, the project aims to convey the interrelated nature of courses in the curriculum. As such, pre and post intervention survey data related to student perceptions of overall course relevance and course interconnectedness are presented. Improved ratings are seen in some aspects of course relevance and integration. Suggestions for implementation in other programs and possible future work are also presented.