Revitalizing us manufacturing to capitalize on innovation - through education

We find that a conventional engineering degree approach to education is not sufficient to meet the new challenges in the ecosystem of manufacturing, design and business innovation, and product realization. Instead a new form of engineering education, the “Professional Masters” is required that takes...

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Main Authors: Anthony, Brian, Hardt, David E.
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
Format: Article
Language:en_US
Published: American Society for Engineering Education 2014
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/88281
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author Anthony, Brian
Hardt, David E.
author2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
author_facet Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
Anthony, Brian
Hardt, David E.
author_sort Anthony, Brian
collection MIT
description We find that a conventional engineering degree approach to education is not sufficient to meet the new challenges in the ecosystem of manufacturing, design and business innovation, and product realization. Instead a new form of engineering education, the “Professional Masters” is required that takes the grounding provided by typical Bachelor of Science in engineering degree and provides condensed, formalized, experiencewith systems,applications, projects, and non-technical topics to create a true professional ready to maximize their value to the company and ready to use their experience to lead. The Master of Engineering in Manufacturing (MEngM) at MIT was developed over a period of 10 years, and has more than 200 alumni. It is based on the notion of a need for graduate level education in the profession of engineering that is not fulfilled by the conventional research- oriented Master of Science degree. We have learned that there is a large pool of outstanding students who will seek out this degree once it is offered, and who have as alumni drawn strongly positive reviews from their employers. Students in the program are drawn to the notion that manufacturing is how technological advances and innovations become rooted in a nation's economy. They want to understand the essential components and growth opportunities of the foundation - manufacturing and innovation - of an economy. There are many indicators of the decline of manufacturing in the US, most of them economic. One troubling indicator is the persistent lack of interest in careers in this field, particularly at the collegiate and post-graduate level. While there are continual calls for better labor force training and government programs to support the same, there are actually disincentives for promising young professionals to enter this field. Societal perception and industry needs seem to run counter to one another. We propose that the MEngM can serve as one example of a new national model for professional manufacturing engineering education. It can profoundly impact the US’s innovation ecosystem which is the foundation of our manufacturing based economy today and in the future.
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spelling mit-1721.1/882812022-09-27T13:59:36Z Revitalizing us manufacturing to capitalize on innovation - through education Revitalizing us manufacturing to capitalize on innovation Anthony, Brian Hardt, David E. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering Hardt, David E. Hardt, David E. Anthony, Brian We find that a conventional engineering degree approach to education is not sufficient to meet the new challenges in the ecosystem of manufacturing, design and business innovation, and product realization. Instead a new form of engineering education, the “Professional Masters” is required that takes the grounding provided by typical Bachelor of Science in engineering degree and provides condensed, formalized, experiencewith systems,applications, projects, and non-technical topics to create a true professional ready to maximize their value to the company and ready to use their experience to lead. The Master of Engineering in Manufacturing (MEngM) at MIT was developed over a period of 10 years, and has more than 200 alumni. It is based on the notion of a need for graduate level education in the profession of engineering that is not fulfilled by the conventional research- oriented Master of Science degree. We have learned that there is a large pool of outstanding students who will seek out this degree once it is offered, and who have as alumni drawn strongly positive reviews from their employers. Students in the program are drawn to the notion that manufacturing is how technological advances and innovations become rooted in a nation's economy. They want to understand the essential components and growth opportunities of the foundation - manufacturing and innovation - of an economy. There are many indicators of the decline of manufacturing in the US, most of them economic. One troubling indicator is the persistent lack of interest in careers in this field, particularly at the collegiate and post-graduate level. While there are continual calls for better labor force training and government programs to support the same, there are actually disincentives for promising young professionals to enter this field. Societal perception and industry needs seem to run counter to one another. We propose that the MEngM can serve as one example of a new national model for professional manufacturing engineering education. It can profoundly impact the US’s innovation ecosystem which is the foundation of our manufacturing based economy today and in the future. 2014-07-11T17:30:29Z 2014-07-11T17:30:29Z 2012-06 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/ConferencePaper AC 2012-3749 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/88281 Anthony, Brian W. and David E. Hardt. "Revitalizing us manufacturing to capitalize on innovation - through education." 2012 ASEE annual conference & exposition, June 10-13, 2012, San Antonio Convention Center, San Antonio, TX. en_US http://www.asee.org/public/conferences/8/papers/3749/view Proceedings of the 119th ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, 2012 Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ application/pdf American Society for Engineering Education Prof. Hardt via Angie Locknar
spellingShingle Anthony, Brian
Hardt, David E.
Revitalizing us manufacturing to capitalize on innovation - through education
title Revitalizing us manufacturing to capitalize on innovation - through education
title_full Revitalizing us manufacturing to capitalize on innovation - through education
title_fullStr Revitalizing us manufacturing to capitalize on innovation - through education
title_full_unstemmed Revitalizing us manufacturing to capitalize on innovation - through education
title_short Revitalizing us manufacturing to capitalize on innovation - through education
title_sort revitalizing us manufacturing to capitalize on innovation through education
url http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/88281
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