Integrated Product Development (OMS 548)

Faculty

William Lovejoy, Professor, Operations
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Yavuz Bozer, Professor, Industrial Engineering
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Course first offered

Fall 1995

Most recently offered

Fall 2004

Course overview

IPD is a cross-disciplinary experiential course delivered jointly by the School of Business Administration, the College of Engineering, the School of Art and Design and the WCC machining faculty with input from professional designers. The course requires teams of business, engineering and industrial design students to design and manufacture a consumer product, and compete with their product against other student teams. On the first day of class the instructors will specify the product market in which all teams will compete. Each team of students will: conduct market research to determine which product attributes are most valued by consumers; design a product that is responsive to consumers and to issues of efficient manufacture; use general prototyping machinery to build a customer-ready prototype of their product; Design and cost out the production process for their product; and compete in a simulated market with their prototype products, via pricing and production decisions. The primary input to each team's market success will be the reactions of potential consumers in a trade show and via a web-based competition. The cost of goods sold will be determined from the chosen manufacturing processes and production quantity. The evaluation of each team will be based in large part on the simulated profits that it generates. The major objectives of the course are: to develop in management students an appreciation for the process of design and manufacture via detailed familiarity with this exercise; to develop in engineering and design students an appreciation of the competitive context within which the design and manufacturing activities are executed; to develop in all students a customer-oriented, manufacturing-sensitive approach to product development; to develop in all students an ability to work in teams of combined management, engineering and design expertise. Instruction will be via a combination of lectures and laboratory (hands-on) exercises.

Course website

University of Michigan Business School