Implementation of industrial engineering and management projects in interaction with companies

Abstract

Active learning strategies have gained relevance in the context of Higher Education Institutions. This growing relevance is due to the fact that there is evidence that these strategies, in addition to being more appealing, are also more effective, resulting in deeper learning. In the context of active learning, one of the most used approaches in Engineering Education is the Problem and Project-Based Learning (PBL). Although there are many publications about PBL in Engineering Education, it is not common to find work that systematically describes the process of implementing these experiences. In addition, there are not many examples of PBL in interaction with companies, neither in Engineering Education in general, nor in Engineering Education in Industrial Engineering and Management (IEM). Thus, this article intends to describe in a systematic way a PBL approach in interaction with companies, which has been applied since 2005, in the Integrated Master in Industrial Engineering and Management (MIEGI) of the University of Minho, Portugal. This description, although it has some chronological references, will be fundamentally focused on the project that runs from September 2017 till the end of January 2018. In this way, it is intended to serve as a reference for other teachers who wish to implement projects inspired in this model.