Development Of Engineering Competencies In Freshman Courses

Abstract

The mid-nineties has brought industry close to a unified view that benchmarking is fundamental for strategic planning and development of improved processes that increase competitiveness. Benchmarking is nowadays applied to both products, parts, services, as well as to personnel. Establishing where a company is and where they need to be to stay competitive can be considered a "technological gap." By working with industry, professional engineering societies have documented perceived competency gaps in newly hired graduates. It has been recommended to include the product realization process into the engineering curriculum, as well as, to incorporate "best practices" as a means to develop new knowledge, skills and attributes that industry seeks in new engineering graduates.As engineering programs face increasing demands to alleviate the perceived technological gaps, the solutions have to be addressed in multi-year efforts. To facilitate the development of new engineering competencies, the authors have adapted/developed materials and examples for the introductory freshman course in Mechanical Engineering at Alabama A&M University. Goals of the course include but are not limited to: introduce freshmen students to the Product Realization Process, have the students develop a personal professional plan and to develop a basic engineering project to include market outlook, basic production techniques, economic assessment, planning, design, manufacturing, testing and product evaluation. From this point on students start their design practice portfolio. Building on these competencies continues through subsequent courses.