Engineering design education: Surveys of demand and supply

Abstract

Two surveys were conducted in 2002 to learn more about the demand and supply of specific engineering design topics and activities, resulting in 1006 industry respondents and 182 academic respondents. Academia appears to be meeting industry's demand for Engineering Design Specifications, Teamwork and Overall Design Process topics. However, there appears to be a supply gap in academia's current coverage of Creativity Methods, Project management, Design for Manufacture, Design for Assembly, and Product Testing. Industry has a higher demand for Individual Design Projects and Interdisciplinary Design Project activities, in relation to Academia's current coverage. Also, academia appears to overemphasize oral and written design report activities. A majority of respondents indicated that 25% or less of the department's faculty participates in planning, monitoring and coordinating the design stem. And lastly, personal computers are the preferred choice of CAD platform in industry and academia as compared to Unix stations.