Teaching Global Manufacturing & Supply Chain Management Through Study Abroad Program: A Case Study Conference Paper uri icon

abstract

  • American Society for Engineering Education, 2015. In the 21st century's globalized economy, like any manufacturing enterprise, today's engineers face competition from all directions. Engineers must understand the socio-economic dynamics and business culture globally even to succeed locally. Recognizing the need, many engineering schools in the U.S. have started offering ethics and study abroad programs to their undergraduate students. Our research shows that selection of countries for study abroad programs have widened significantly in the recent years. For example, in the nineties, the US Universities were offering study abroad programs mostly in European and few other developed countries in the Asia pacific region. In recent years, that list has grown significantly including many other countries around the world like South Africa, Brazil, Russia, China, Chile, and India to name a few. This paper presents a survey of select U.S. engineering schools' study abroad programs and lessons learned from those programs. More importantly, we present a case study of a study abroad program offered by Industrial Distribution Program in the Dwight Look College of Engineering at Texas A&M University. This program is sponsored by the industry partners meaning that students actually work on the real world industry projects. In this paper, we present a case study of 2014 study abroad program to China. The project results and lessons learned from the program are discussed in detail in the paper. We believe the paper provides a good benchmark for other engineering schools that may be considering similar industry sponsored programs around the world.

name of conference

  • 2015 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition Proceedings

published proceedings

  • 2015 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition Proceedings

author list (cited authors)

  • Rodriguez-Silva, E., & Nepal, B.

citation count

  • 0

complete list of authors

  • Rodriguez-Silva, Esther||Nepal, Bimal

publication date

  • January 2015