A multidisciplinary design education approach for supporting engineering product innovation

Abstract

Manufacturing success in today's global business environment depends on a manufacturer's ability to design and produce innovative products which are technologically sound and satisfy the customers' functional requirements, but at the same time possess those attributes that create excitement and capture the imagination. Generating and maintaining a creative and synergistic design environment and culture to achieve this is challenging for Small and Medium manufacturing Enterprises (SMEs). Therefore it is particularly important for them that their engineering and design staff have sound backgrounds in engineering science and design, possess multidisciplinary skills and experience and are capable of playing an integrative role in a creative design-driven business environment. However, many manufacturing SMEs that produce technologically complex products have insufficient human resources and skills to cover the breadth of competencies needed. Opportunities for improvement are often limited or seen to be too expensive, such as enhancement of their inhouse design capacity through external resources in the form of design services, tertiary institutions, or by cross-industry knowledge sharing. This paper describes an innovative educational program, which is aimed at the development of talent pathways for engineering students that reflect the skill requirements of design driven manufacturers. Concurrently, a professional development framework for design practitioners from the industry is being established that caters to their specific training needs, reflects the requirements of professional bodies and industry training organizations, and is closely integrated with the academic curriculum. Based on this educational framework, a comprehensive design-training program is currently being developed and implemented: consisting of specific design courses, teaching modules, short courses on particular design related topics and industry-based training activities such as design internships, practice-based case studies and collaborative project work. The first activities in the new program have been successfully introduced in the 2006 academic year. Amongst them are two teamwork and project-based design courses involving real industrial product development tasks. The courses were organized and delivered in cooperation with staff from business and creative arts faculties, local manufacturers, and external engineering and design professionals. Many positive comments were received from students coming from engineering, business and the creative arts faculties. As knowledge from the different areas was gained, students were able to appreciate different viewpoints from fellow students of different academic backgrounds. Plans for the 2007 academic year cover a multi-disciplinary, inter-faculty design course in each semester. Additionally, design internships for senior students have been organized to foster industry/academic collaboration, to expose students directly to design in a business environment, and to enhance the appreciation of academic design teachers of practical business requirements. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2007.