Towards a New Curriculum to Support the Changing Front End Innovation Landscape. Educating Engineering Students to Effectively Participate in Iterative Data-Enabled Product Development Processes

The new generation of Internet of Things product offers exciting opportunities to design and develop highly personal and adaptive products. Engineering students are traditionally not trained to use user data, generated by prototypes, as creative material for ideating the Fuzzy Front End phase of the design process. In this case study, Philips Design and Fontys Engineering propose a change for the current Fontys engineering curriculum to prepare engineering students for this new way of defining innovative, connected products. For these new challenges, we argue that the focus in educating engineers should be changed from starting with product specifications and "first time right" towards data-enabled design (user feedback) and iterative design cycles to come to product specifications and maturing prototypes. A survey amongst 73 Fontys engineering students shows that approximately 20 percent of the current engineering students are interested in, and have affinity with, this new way of working.