Program Overview

In the production sector, design and fabrication are mutually dependent and interrelated activities.  Designers must consider the capabilities of the fabricators and equipment that will be employed to produce a physical prototype of their design.  Similarly, fabricators must rely on the designer’s engineering drawings to determine the shape, size, form, and fit of the part that they must produce.  Collaboration between the designer and the fabricator is, therefore, essential to effective design and fabrication. 

While there are a variety of industry models that govern design and fabrication, the concurrent engineering approach arguably best reflects the interrelation between these two activities.  In concurrent engineering, the design, manufacture, service, and ultimate disposal of a product are considered from the beginning of the design process. This is in contrast to the more traditional sequential approach in which design is completed before these other areas are considered. 

As the instructor for both the Engineering Design and the Metal Fabrication classes, it is my hope that I may help the students understand, at a basic level, these relationships as a way to evaluate and understand the options that are open to them after High School. It is my mission to teach them the skills that will allow them to realize those options.