Course taught simultaneously on three continents

EDITORS: At 8:30 a.m. Nov. 9, U-M President Lee C. Bollinger and Stephen Director, the Robert J. Vlasic Dean of Engineering at Michigan, will visit with the Ann Arbor students in Room 1180 of the Media Union, located at 2281 Bonisteel Blvd. Representatives of the media are also invited to visit at that time.

ANN ARBOR—Motivated by industry’s need for engineers who can think globally—even if they have to work locally—to develop products for a world market, a University of Michigan faculty member has created a course that teaches such skills simultaneously to students in North America, Europe, and Asia.

Debasish Dutta, professor of mechanical engineering, conceived the idea for “Global Product Realization” (ME 590) and enlisted the cooperation of academic colleagues at the Technical University of Delft in the Netherlands and Seoul National University in South Korea to develop and present the course content. The course, which has drawn a variety of graduate students from disciplines inside and outside of engineering, meets Tuesdays and Thursdays during the fall semester. The meeting time is variable; “it depends on where you take it,” noted Dutta. “In Ann Arbor, our students gather at 8 a.m. In Delft, which is six hours different, the students file in for a 2 p.m. course. In Seoul, which is 14 hours later than Michigan’s Eastern Time, a very dedicated group of students shows up on campus at 10 p.m. to take in what we have to teach.”

Videoconferencing technology makes the “simulcast” of the course content possible. Explained Dutta, “we’re all using the same equipment.” The U-M students meet in the Media Union, where the University’s most advanced teaching and learning technologies are housed.

The three instructors of the course—Dutta, Prof. Imre Horvath in Delft, and Prof. Jongwon Kim in Seoul—take turns presenting the material and have also arranged for experts to come speak about the law, business, environment, and other related subjects. Because the course is so new, there is no established textbook; instead, the instructors have each developed case studies from local industry that are used as teaching aids. For instance, Dutta prepared one case study detailing Steelcase Corporation‘s development of a chair for the global marketplace and another focusing on Ford Motor Company‘s platform architecture for the Jaguar S-Type (manufactured in the U. K.) and Lincoln LS Series (manufactured in the U. S.).

The Delft and Seoul instructors will present studies based on design challenges at such companies as Philips Electronics and Samsung.

In addition to showing up for lectures with virtual teachers and virtual classmates, the students are required to design a product for global distribution, in teams composed of two students from each continent. “This reinforces the message about working effectively with others in remote locations,” said Dutta. “We expect these teams to use all the communications media at their disposal to get their work done, including video-conferencing, e-mail, phones, faxes, and Web tools like E-Viz and Placeware,” said Dutta. During the last full week of class, Dec. 4-8, the Delft and Seoul students will travel to Michigan to meet with their North American counterparts, complete their projects, and present them in a public exhibition, tentatively scheduled for Dec. 8 in the Media Union Gallery.

For more information about the Global Product Realization course, its professors or its students, contact Dutta at (734) 936-3567 or dutta@umich.edu.

Lee C. BollingerDebasish DuttaMedia UnionSteelcase CorporationPhilips ElectronicsE-Vizdutta@umich.edu