Engineering design education - the integration of disciplines

The concept of the design process is not well understood by the general public. Indeed industry is now looking for graduates with the core skills of mathematics and science but enhanced by a firm grounding in the engineering design process. At Southampton a number of initiatives have been implemented in teaching practices and further activities are being constructed to increase the undergraduate's awareness of the order and execution of the modern design process. The demands of manufacture on design and the abilities of the undergraduate to use high grade CAD/CAM computer packages to perform these tasks is the focus of the developments. The exact package that is being used is not important, more so the thinking processes required in using them to their best advantage. The paper will describe the concepts behind these initiatives and how the engineering education process must itself become an example of the integration of disciplines.