An Integrated Approach to Developing Business Expertise in Industrial Engineering Students

Abstract

Now more than ever companies are expecting students graduating from baccalaureate engineering degree programs to have both strong technical problem solving skills and a level of business expertise. With corporate investment and engineering project funding decisions becoming increasingly reliant upon company financial statement and stock price impact,

Engineering Economy: The Crossroads of Business, Engineering, and Entrepreneurship

“…Without this interaction students sometimes consider economics to be irrelevant to design -a subject for business students," noted by Archibald, Reuber, and Allison 3 . Engineering education literature has continuously shown that projects with industry can be helpful for undergraduate and graduate students, even the processes of soliciting, administering, and managing industry projects that reinforce academic topics in engineering, technology, manufacturing, project management, lean, financial literacy, and six sigma 1,[4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] . Additional topics that are reinforced include professionalism (through interaction with industry), teamwork, and leadership 12 .…”

“…executive board members were also actively involved with the first company sponsored case study competition in this engineering economy course. All of the executive board members of the student group had taken the engineering economy course and all had internship and/or co-op experience 1 .…”

“…The NOBE executive board members worked with their faculty adviser who is also the instructor of the engineering economy course at Penn State University Park to carry out the semester long case study experience within the engineering economy course each semester 1 . As mentioned previously, the executive board members embraced the role of financial advisers to help the teams manage their investment portfolios throughout the semester.…”

“…After collecting this feedback from the corporate executives it was evident that every engineering student should not only be exposed to the traditional engineering economy time value of money formulas but also key financial accounting topics with much emphasis on real life applications. The advisory board members expressed a pressing need for students to be exposed to business planning, financial statements and financial ratio analysis with special emphasis on understanding how engineering project decisions impact company financial statements 1 .…”

Developing Essential Business and Engineering Skills through Case Competitions

“…The advisory boards and the course instructor that presenting a real world company problem would force the students to apply engineering economy tools learned in the course and to justify their engineering decisions would allow the students to gain real world training in this area. The team competition component was expected to add another element of motivation for the study and to provide a real world competitive business environment 1 .…”