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Undergraduate Program—Major—Senior Design

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Information for Potential Industrial Partners

1. Philosophy of the Course

These projects are intended to be open-ended, interdisciplinary experiences that involve a fair amount of planning and creativity in the beginning of the year. Groups of 4-6 students work on the project for the entire year, and the class counts for about 25% of their total coursework during their senior year. Some teams will have mechanical engineering or electrical engineering students on them. We are trying to involve the business students as well, but this has proven to be more difficult.

"Good" projects typically allow the students to study some aspect of a complicated production or manufacturing problem, or a materials selection/replacement problem, or conduct more fundamental research/development projects in which the "big picture" goal is made clear to them, but they are responsible for planning the project, choosing the experiments, and the charting the direction of their research. In general, good projects are also those in which the best solution is not yet known to the Industrial Partner, and in which more than one acceptable solution will be possible.

"Bad" projects have tended to be those in which industry had a pressing need for data or microstructural analysis, and told the students exactly what to do, or those projects which were so narrow and well-defined that there was only one obvious thing to do, and it involved a lot of straightforward laboratory work. It should be emphasized that these are undergraduate students, and projects that might make sense for an MS thesis do not work well. Projects which fall in this category include those which rely heavily on advanced characterization techniques (like transmission electron microscopy), or those that require advanced theoretical studies of materials science which would not normally be covered in the core undergraduate courses. (Scanning electron microscopy, x-ray diffraction, and chemical analysis are often included in these projects, and are considered standard techniques.) Basically, if a fresh hire at the BS level in your company would not be expected to successfully contribute to the project, it won't be a good choice for this course.

It is of the utmost importance that our Industrial Partners understand the primary goal of their participation in these projects: to help educate a group of engineering students. It has been our experience that the role of the Industrial Partner is one of the keys to the success of this model. There have been a number of gratifying success stories, in which a student team "solved" a problem and thereby helped their Industrial Partner. However, we feel very strongly that even if a team does not "solve" their problem, the experience is still a success if the students learn to work in teams, organize a project, and develop communication and presentation skills. In a sense, the only "deliverable" here is a world-class educational experience for our students.

2. What is required of the Industrial Partner?

First, a good project is the most important aspect of the class. We encourage people to talk to us before suggesting projects, and often it is helpful to receive some suggested projects from the Industrial Partner and then refine the project based on our past experiences. All that is necessary is a title and a one-paragraph description of the proposed project. This is required by early April.

Next, any materials or components that are necessary to conduct the project must be furnished by industry. This does not include normal supplies and consummables, but instead the objects of the work. For example, if the project focusses on process improvements in a forging operation, examples of good and bad forgings, and perhaps die sets and the original bar stock, would be required from industry. If any specialized manufacturing or testing equipment is necessary and is not available at Michigan Tech, it is common for the Industrial Partner to either conduct that testing or to loan or donate the equipment to MTU. If extensive machining or raw materials are necessary, it is intended that these items be covered by the Industrial Partner.

Quality interaction and advising from the Industrial Partner are crucial. The students will be in contact with the Industrial Partner by conference calls, fax and e-mail during the whole year. The Industrial Partner will receive periodic reports, and we ask that they "grade" the reports and make suggestions to the students. Remember, the partners are among the most important people involved in this course, and they are helping to educate our students. The input of the Industrial Partner is also a key aspect in our self-assessment procedures for our curriculum, and is necessary for our continuous improvement processes.

Finally, we ask that the Industrial Partners meet personally with their groups at least twice during the year. One meeting will be in the middle of May, when the final project presentations are made. The other meeting should be early in the year. There are two possibilities. First, the students often visit the plants of the Industrial Partners during the planning stage of the projects. If the travel distance is not too large, this works very well. Since the cost of a van trip is typically on the order of $1,000, it is appreciated very much if the Industrial Partner can help defray the travel costs associated with a plant trip. The other option is for the partner to attend the "proposal" presentations which occur two weeks before Thanksgiving. At this stage, the students will have planned their projects, but the Industrial Partner still has the ability to suggest changes and criticize the plans before it is too late to do anything about it. Of course, partners are welcome to visit with their groups more often that twice, and if a partner wants to host a plant visit and attend the proposals, that would be outstanding. Some Industrial Partners have chosen to visit campus and meet with their groups within the first 5 weeks of the academic year. We understand that Houghton is not a convenient travel destination, and we emphasize that we have had good success with conference telephone calls, fax and e-mail. Video-conferencing is available.

If you have any questions, please call the Course Coordinator.

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