Advances in Engineering Education - Winter 2016 - What Alumni Value from New Product Development Education: A Longitudinal Study

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Terk

Longitudinal research examines what UC Berkeley graduates take away from a cross-disciplinary, graduate-level New Product Development (NPD) course over a 15-year span (1996–2010). A longitudinal survey was designed and deployed for 494 alumni, followed by 19 in-depth interviews to interpret alumni perspectives. Findings analyze survey and interview data quantitatively and qualitatively, reaffirming multidisciplinary design projects as a pathway to skills for modern, competitive NPD and clarifying similarities and differences between academic and industry practices.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages37

Reading Time1 h 33 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Background

Longitudinal Assessment of Design Courses

| | Ad | vances in Engineering Edu | cation | | | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | WINTER 2016 What Alumni Value from New Product Development Education: A Longitudinal Study CORIE L. COBB Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), Inc. Palo Alto, CA JONATHAN HEY Nutmeg Saving and Investment Ltd, London, UK ALICE M. AGOGINO Mechanical Engineering Department SARA L. BECKMAN AND SOHYEONG KIM Haas School of Business University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA ABSTRACT We present a longitudinal study of what graduates take away from a cross-disciplinary graduatelevel New Product Development (NPD) course at UC Berkeley over a 15-year period from 1996-2010. We designed and deployed a longitudinal survey and interviewed a segment of our NPD alumni population to better understand how well our course prepared these alumni for careers in design, innovation, entrepreneurship and product management. We questioned alumni regarding the value of specific NPD skills, methods, and tools taught in the course. This paper presents a quantitative and qualitative analysis of survey and interview data. The results reaffirm the value of engaging students in multidisciplinary design projects as a means for developing the skills needed in today’s competitive NPD environment and highlight the similarities and differences that exist between academic and industry NPD practices. We believe the findings will inform educators about what is valued in NPD courses by graduates now working in industry. Key Words: New Product Development, Longitudinal Assessment, Engineering Education WINTER 2016 1 ADVANCES IN ENGINEERING EDUCATION What Alumni Value from New Product Development Education: A Longitudinal Study INTRODUCTION New Product Development (NPD), the process of bringing a new product from conception to market, involves an increasingly large range of disciplines including, but not limited to, marketing, engineering, manufacturing, industrial design, finance, software engineering, and biotechnology. Henderson et al. (1999) speak about the increasing complexity of NPD as it relates to different disciplines and the impact on institutional forces. Many variations of similar NPD courses are offered in the United Stated (U.S.) and world-wide. Beckman and Speer (2006) describe eight courses first offered in the U.S. in the period 1988–2003 that involve engineering, business and design: Carnegie Mellon University, MIT/RISD, University of Michigan, North Carolina State University, Arizona State University, University of Illinois at Chicago, and Columbia University/Parsons School of Design. Other U.S. programs with multidisciplinary design courses include the Wharton/University of Pennsylvania, Lehigh University’s Integrated Business and Engineering program, Segal Institute at Northwestern University, the IIT’s Institute of Design and the Institute of Design (d.School) at Stanford University. In collaboration with M. I.T., Singapore created an entire university with a multidisciplinary design theme – Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD)– with several multidisciplinary design course offerings. All of these courses, although different in their implementation, strive to provide an authentic learning experience and impart NPD knowledge and skills to students who will be future designers, entrepreneurs and innovation practitioners. As NPD course offerings at universities continue to grow and cross multiple disciplines, how do we know if the training students receive in these various courses adequately prepares them for NPD roles in industry? Are the skills taught sufficient to prepare students to contribute effectively? Is a project-based learning approach the most effective teaching methodology? How, as educatorsand practitioners, can we improve? We set out to tackle these questions by performing a longitudinal study of alumni from a graduate-level, multidisciplinary NPD clas

FAQs

What do the results emphasize about NPD education?

The results reaffirm the value of multidisciplinary design projects for developing skills needed in today’s competitive NPD environment and highlight similarities and differences between academic and industry practices.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Terk