Conference Session

Industrial Collaboration & Applications in ET

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Thomas Dobrowski, Purdue University-North Central

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Technology

current and relevant to their chosen field. It can be further stated that existing employees, through either undergraduate or graduate studies can also further their education and make themselves more valuable to their employers. This being said, universities want to provide their students with practical experience so that they are better prepared to start their careers. Business, likewise, wants students with relevant knowledge thereby reducing training time.It is for these reasons, and others, that the amount of University/Industry collaborations haveincreased in the last ten years. As Powers et al. (1988) stated “the most fundamental reason thatinstitutions of higher education want to collaborate with businesses

Conference Session

Industrial Collaboration & Applications in ET

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

William Stuart, Oregon Institute of Technology

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Technology

in the global market place and what islikely to happen tomorrow. They need to study the proper reasons for outsourcing and when notto outsource. The labs we have and the experiments we work on must be designed to not onlyshow the students the properties of materials that were popular in the last century but they moreimportantly need to show the student how to design and select the best materials for design andmanufacture for the next century. We need to instruct our students on the rapid turnaround ofcomplex design drawings and yet have them capable in the art of sketching and asking all of theright questions when faced with a design project or a product to be manufactured. These are allqualities that industry is asking for in the graduates