The "Karlsruhe model" - a successful approach to an academic education in industrial product development

The increasing complexity of product requirements combined with a customer tendency to prefer more simple and profitable solutions needs the integrated use by the design engineers of targeted combinations of organisational, technical and systematic tools based on an holistic view of the entire product development process. The education of design engineers has to react to these new professional requirements and excellence in professional competence must be generated. The education of mechanical engineering students in machine design can make a decisive contribution in obtaining technique and social competence for later success in study and profession. At the University of Karlsruhe the Institute of Machine Design and Automotive Engineering has constituted the new education concept called “The Karlsruher Model” in order to take up these challenges. This paper will present the basic course content and methodological approach and will describe our initial experiences with this new educational concept.