An Advanced Technological Education Project for High Value Manufacturing: Lessons Learned

Projects rarely go according to plan, but this is especially true of those that involve multiple institutions and have a significant degree of complexity associated with them. This work relates the experiences an Advanced Technological Education (ATE) project around high value manufacturing. The project was a collaboration with a Texas A&M University and Houston Community College. The project comprised three main aspects: 1) the development of a certificate program in high value manufacturing; 2) offering professional development to working professionals in the area of high value manufacturing; and 3) educating teachers about advanced manufacturing with a goal of recruiting their students into manufacturing careers. This work describes the lessons learned through each of the project aspects. The design of the High Value Manufacturing Certificate Program required close collaboration between both institutions. The issues that arose during this development process included personnel turnover, approval timelines and processes, and agreement on the course content. The authors will relay how they navigated these issues to get the program created and approved. The creation of the professional development program did not involve the community college directly, but was very dependent on recruiting participants. This recruitment proved to be more difficult than the project team expected. The targeting of the professional development program and the development of the curriculum will be discussed. The authors will also highlight the delivery changes they implemented over the two years of the offerings based on participant