IME Inc. A new course for integrating design, manufacturing and production into the engineering curriculum

Senior capstone design courses and projects like the SAE Formula Car or Hybrid Electric Vehicle have been created to provide engineering students with 'real-world' and 'hands-on' design experience; however, the products being realized are often only working prototypes. Engineering students rarely have the opportunity to experience the entire product realization process, from designing a product to developing a manufacturing plan for it and subsequently producing it in volume. Consequently, we have developed a new two-semester undergraduate course, IME Inc., wherein multidisciplinary student teams design and develop a marketable product while considering all aspects of manufacturing-including process planning, tooling, assembly, outsourcing, and final costs-so that they can produce approximately 100 units in the Factory for Advanced Manufacturing Education. The objective in the course is to improve manufacturing engineering education by providing students with manufacturing and production experiences analogous to those obtained by journalism students working on a student-run newspaper. The course is taught jointly by five engineering faculty with expertise in product design, CAD/CAM, rapid prototyping, plastic injection molding, electronic assembly, and manufacturing systems design. Multidisciplinary teams consist of students in industrial and manufacturing engineering, students from other engineering disciplines (e.g. mechanical, electrical, and chemical engineering), and students from the business school studying marketing, management, finance, and accounting. The business students work directly with the engineers in analyzing product price, manufacturing costs, licensing issues, and developing a business plan and an e-commerce site to sell the products. Products designed, prototyped, and produced during the 2000 and 2001 offerings of IME Inc. are presented and discussed. Assessment strategies for evaluating team performance and the impact of the course on students' learning readiness are also presented. In particular, design notebooks and frequent design reviews are used throughout the course to monitor progress during design and production as well as evaluate team performance. To further enhance undergraduate education in manufacturing engineering, the course also focuses on creating a classroom environment that promotes self-directed learning, active and problem-based learning, teamwork, communication, and presentation skills. Individual learning essays are used to gauge students' understanding of the product realization process, while the impact of the course on students' lifelong learning abilities is assessed using the Self-Directed Learning Readiness Scale, a self-report questionnaire that is administered anonymously at the beginning and the end of the two-semester course. Lessons learned from the course are also discussed, along with plans for using IME Inc. as a 'living factory' to improve the broader industrial and manufacturing engineering curriculum.