Minor in Defense Manufacturing & Innovation

Objectives: Prepare future engineers to lead innovations in the defense manufacturing

Introduction: The minor program provides new courses jointly designed and taught by consortium faculty and defense members. The focus is to create the Defense Manufacturing Engineering Concentration in the following educational programs: 1) the BS and MS in all engineering programs at UTRGV, UTSA (certificate) and Virginia Tech; 2) BS in Engineering programs at Virginia State University; 3) BS and MS in Mechanical Engineering at UT Austin. Table 1 shows the undergraduate curriculum of the new concentration. A complementary program at the graduate level will be created during the first year of the consortium.

Table 1. Degree Plan (15 credits entering for BS)


Number	Required/Core Course	SCH
DMEI 4303	Introduction to Defense Manufacturing Innovation (Co-development Li, Timmer, Spring)	3
DMEI 4304 Or DMEI 4305	DMEI 4304 Defense Manufacturing Capstone Design Course (Spring, Summer)	3
DMEI 4304 Or DMEI 4305	DMEI 4305 Defense Experiential Project: Complete a defense related manufacturing experiential project: defense Internship or Coop, or a directed study by a faculty member on a defense research project.	3
	Elective course
	Three courses from the concentration course list	9

Key Course Description:

DMEI 4301 Introduction to Defense Innovation This course prepares students for processes, concepts and philosophies of innovation in defense, with 1-hour lecture and 2-hour innovation lab. Topics include service differentiation, disruptive innovation, and other strategies that industries adopt. Students learn the product/process design and project management and dispersed multidisciplinary teams. Challenges and innovation in defense manufacturing are stressed.

DMEI 4601 Defense Manufacturing Innovation Capstone Project This is a capstone course equivalent to engineering senior design course, while design projects are sponsored by defense industry or defense lab. Students continue their design project in Senior design II.

While the team plans to further meet and discuss with defense collaborators and finalize the topics mostly needed, we identified the following elective courses for the concentration:


Course Number	Course Title	Instructor	Course schedule	Course Description
DMEI 4316	Principles of Additive Manufacturing and Innovation	Dr. Li		PDF
DMEI 4306	Seminars on Defense Manufacturing		Fall
DMEI 4310	Artificial Intelligence for Additive Manufacturing	Dr. James Kong	Fall
DMEI 4308	Industrial Internet of Things based Data Acquisition for Defense Manufacturing		Spring
DMEI 4309	Materials Engineering for Defense Innovation	Dr.Jasim Uddin	Spring	PDF
DMEI 4307	Precision Machining for Defense Systems	Dr. Srivastava	Spring	PDF
DMEI 4311	Friction Stir Welding for Shipbuilding	Dr.Wu	Spring	PDF
DMEI 4312	Tool Design	Dr.Nambiar	Fall
DMEI 4313	Machine Learning for Product and Process Design	Dr.Timmer	Summer
DMEI 4314	Condition based maintenance	Dr.Djurdjanovic		PDF
DMEI 4315	Advanced Alloys for Defense Manufacturing	Dr. Javier Ortega	Fall	PDF
DMEI 4399	Special Topics: Introduction Shipbuilding	Dr.Butler	Spring	PDF