The Development And Implementation Of An Expanded Capstone Design Experience By Replacing An Internship Course

The Industrial Engineering (IE) program at the authors' university receives continued feedback from industry, the IE Program Industry Advisory Board (IAB), and student evaluations. This feedback indicated the program needed to provide the senior-level students with a more realistic industry experience. Currently, the IE internship course, IE 471, and Industrial Systems Design (IE capstone course), IE 495, are in the IE program curriculum to introduce and provide the senior engineering student an insight into the industrial world. These two courses were evaluated according to the continuous improvement plan for the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) and changes were recommended. The IE 471 Internship is offered to give students an occupational experience in an industrial facility. Students and faculty have experienced several disappointing obstacles in executing this IE 471 internship course, including students being unable to convince industry to hire them for an internship course. The students in the authors' IE program are generally nontraditional students. They are generally older students with family and other responsibilities in addition to their education goals. They are generally working 40 hours per week to support the family and meeting a full-time student curriculum. These students are reluctant to give up their current employment and to work for one semester as an intern. These internships are at minimum wage without benefits for the student and his/her family. The student’s current job may not be available when he/she returns after the internship. The disappointments the faculty experience stem from students requesting the faculty advisor to consider using their current job responsibilities as their internship. For example, the student may be working as a sales clerk at a cell phone retail store. This position would have no engineering problems or experience. This paper focuses on the development and implementation of a replacement course for the IE 471 Internship course. Initially, introductory information on the authors' university and Industrial Engineering degree program are presented. Then, the approach in the past that the IE program has taken to implement the internship and the capstone courses is presented. Next, a description of the continuous improvement activities undertaken to make improvements in these courses is provided. This is followed by the description of the replacement course for the internship course, which includes a literature review justifying some of the new curriculum content. Also addressed is the modifications required of the IE 495 Industrial System Design course (IE capstone) so that the student is able to sequentially take these two courses during the their final academic year (fall and spring semesters). Completion of the two sequential courses with a participating industry partner gives the student a more consistent industry experience prior to entering an industrial engineering position.