The Manufacturing Engineering Education Partnership program outcomes assessment results

Formal assessment of project outcomes and deliverables is usually required by granting organizations. This paper describes the Manufacturing Engineering Education Partnership (MEEP) project's outcomes assessment results. This curriculum innovation and facilities development program was implemented by a team of institutions across four time zones, partnering with a national research laboratory and industry and was sponsored by the Department of Defense's Technology Reinvestment Program (TRP). This paper highlights some of the project's assessment results and reviews some of the elements that made this partnership a success. Several project assessment tools used show that all constituents involved in the program: students, faculty and industrial partners, consider this program a success. Results demonstrate that the product of this program-The Learning Factory-which integrates design and manufacturing into the engineering curriculum, is a worthwhile effort and responds successfully to industry needs. MEEP courseware is available on the WWW as well as printed and CD-ROM.