Systems engineering in industry internship and academic projects

Large complex Industrial projects most often are interdisciplinary and require a complex systems engineering approach to guarantee success. In this paper we present a successful implementation of a true systems engineering approach to a summer internship program in industry. We exported the methods and lessons learned to an academic environment. For each project a group of six to fifteen students were selected to solve a practical industry problem and produce a detailed design for a specified project. Different aspects of the project plan were assigned to members of each group who were the most qualified or who expressed interest in a specific area of specialization. Three industrial and one academic implementation of this method are explained in this paper.