Preparing Mechanical Engineering Students for Product Design Professional Practice Through PBL: Planning and Execution of the Subject “Product Design Methodology” Available to Purchase

Along with theoretical knowledge acquisition, knowledge application and professional competence acquisition must be important teaching objectives in any engineering subject. This is especially remarkable for subjects aiming the acquisition of product design knowledge, provided that, in actual professional practice, product design is done in multidisciplinary teams, taking into account technical and non-technical criteria, and with tight deadlines and budgets. This work describes the contents and teaching planning and execution for the subject “product design methodology” at the Mechanical Engineering Department of Universidad Polite´cnica de Madrid, aiming for the student acquisition of important professional competences to be used on professional product design practice, such as systematic decision making, global company view, task prioritizing, internal and external entrepreneurship, or teamwork, as well as hard competences such as design procedures, quality or project economics. Student teamwork examples from the problem-based learning (PBL) experience, together with internal and external surveys are shown to check the validity of the proposal.