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Abstract

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Session 1355

Integrated Engineering-Business Graduate Program

Mel I. Mendelson Loyola Marymount University

Abstract

Our integrated approach to engineering management is innovative because it offers elective options that are tailored to the students’ career goals. It focuses on the broader issues and globalization, and it has partnerships with local industry. A graduate certificate is also offered. Class projects are assigned that use the course principles to solve "real world" problems in the students’ work environment. Students work both individually and in multi-disciplinary teams.

I. Introduction

In 1991, the National Research Council stated that "U.S. industry’s period of world dominance in product design, manufacturing innovation, process engineering, productivity and market share has ended" [1]. This could have been a reaction to the sluggish economy, the downsizing of engineers and reduced funding for aerospace/defense and research in the US. However, in addressing improvements necessary to develop new national goals, the Committee on Science, Engineering and Public Policy recommended that graduate education of scientists and engineers should be broader, more flexible and cross-functional [2].

For the last 5 years, Loyola Marymount University (LMU) has addressed the above challenges in graduate education by forming a cross-disciplinary engineering-business program. The Colleges of Science & Engineering and Business Administration have combined their efforts to offer an M.S. degree in Engineering and Production Management (EAPM). The mission of the program is to educate engineers in the manufacturing and management of globally competitive products for the 21st Century. It is a part-time, practice-oriented master’s degree that is administered by the College of Science & Engineering. All of our students work full-time in local industry and attend classes in the evening. Our graduate program currently has over 50 students in it. Because our program has both breadth and flexibility, it contains several innovative concepts.

The EAPM program was not intended to be another clone of the engineering management programs [3]. It was thoroughly researched and planned in order to have an integrated curriculum that satisfied the current and future needs of industry in Southern California. The purpose of this paper is three-fold: to determine which universities offer integrated curricula, to present the need for our program, and to discuss how our program is innovative.

II. Integrated Engineering Curricula

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Mendelson, M. I. (1999, June), Integrated Engineering Business Graduate Program Paper presented at 1999 Annual Conference, Charlotte, North Carolina. 10.18260/1-2--7749