Engineering Design Education for Japanese Tertiary Education

Abstract

This paper describes the importance of providing engineering students with a basic understanding of the engineering design and proposes an integrated curriculum for engineering design and creativity exercises. The Japan Accreditation Board for Engineering Education (JABEE) defined engineering design as “an iterative open-ended process of creativity” , and JABEE inspects teachings for developing student’ s creativity through problem based learning at the program review. Most universities and colleges added exercises of creativity to their curriculum, but do not teach the basics of the engineering design process in their programs. On the contrary, ABET defined engineering design as “the process of devising a system, component, or process to meet desired needs” . Typically, engineering design is the process of developing a new product in a company. The author proposes an effective curriculum for engineering design education. Understanding the principles of the engineering design process and applying this knowledge to the manufacturing process are necessary for engineering students to study engineering design effectively.