"Engineering Design" course transformación: From a conceive - design towards a complete CDIO approach

Abstract

“Engineering Design” is a discipline aimed at improving our understanding about the development processes of novel and successful products, processes and systems in general, and at providing engineers with methodical steps for enhancing such processes. It may well be the engineering discipline more linked to the CDIO approach and to the conceive-design-implement-operate process. The benefits of applying “Engineering Design” principles are better appreciated when facing the development of complex systems. In the field of Mechanical Engineering some of the more complex systems an engineer can develop are advanced mechanical systems and machines. In this study we present the transformation process of an “Engineering Design” course, carried out in parallel to the implementation of the new Master’s Degree in Industrial Engineering at ETSII – TU Madrid. In the old Industrial Engineering plan of studies, implemented in 2000, the “Engineering Design” course was taught in the 5th academic year for Industrial Engineering students specializing in Mechanical Engineering and lasted for one semester. In the new Master’s Degree in Industrial Engineering, which started in 2014-2015, the “Engineering Design” course can be chosen by students from all Industrial Engineering specializations. The new subject lasts for two semesters and it is taught, in the 1st academic year of the Master’s Degree, to students having finished a four-year Bachelor’s Degree in Industrial Technologies. When transforming the course, our first aim was to let students live through a complete CDIO process, as having a two-semester structure gave us additional time for reaching the implementation and operation stages. With the old one-semester structure they could just focus on the conceptual and design phases. With the new approach their experience is more complete but several challenges arise, which are systematically analyzed in the following pages. A comparative study, taking account of the opinions of students and teachers is also presented and helps to support the benefits from complete CDIO experiences. Key aspects, including: student motivation, coordination between teachers, supervision of the projects under a tight schedule, rapid prototyping resources for reaching the implementation and operation stages, among others, are discussed and the more relevant lessons learned and proposals for improvement are put forward. To our knowledge it constitutes the first subject following a complete CDIO cycle in the field of Engineering Design applied to machines engineering in our country.