{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.016595289079229122, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0, 'mean_word_length': 5.698924731182796, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
THE USE OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN PROJECTS AS A MEANS FOR INTEGRATING SENIOR ENGINEERING DESIGN AND ENGINEERING ECONOMICS

Strategies for the development and maintenance of university/industrial relationships can take several forms. These include industrial boards of advisors, research contracts, internships, faculty sabbaticals, guest lectures from industry, etc. One strategy that is underutilized is the use of student design teams which complete projects suggested by industry. These types of projects provide opportunities for student/company as well as faculty/company interactions and additionally involve industrial professional staff with the educational process. In recent years the author has developed student project activities with industry in senior design courses. These projects have been very successful in building positive relationships with numerous companies. For example, the capstone course, SYSTEMS DESIGN, requires that each student team start with a general design problem suggested by a company. The team then carries the project through the Problem Definition, Conceptual Design, Embodiment Design, and Detail Design phases. During the embodiment phase each team is required to evaluate their proposed design with respect to economic considerations. Depending on the proposed design solution and on the preferences of the particular company, the economic measures of benefit/cost ratios, return on investment, internal rate of return, or simple payback are used to evaluate and compare recommended design proposals. The student experience of working with actual companies on real problems and being forced to justify their design proposal on an economic as well as a technical basis has been an excellent strategy for learning engineering economics. The methodology for selecting and administering these industrial projects will be presented.