Domain-Centric Design Education Available to Purchase

Industry and students clamor for increased training related to engineering design and analysis methods. Often, students are hired based on the suite of software packages and Design for Manufacturing methods with which they are familiar as opposed to their knowledge of the fundamentals and their ability to formalize and solve open ended design problems. In support of a domain-centric design education, some of the trends that are driving the increased domain emphasis in design education are documented including decreasing computing cost, decreasing communication costs, and decreasing engineering tenures. The paper then discusses the ramifications of these trends on design education and design practice as measurable by the availability of the mechanical engineering design curricula, design publications, and design patents. Finally, a domain-centric design education paradigm is proposed that suggests the differentiation of Mechanical Engineering programs through the replacement of traditional machine and product design courses with domain-specific courses with increased technical specialty.