ENMA 6050: Reliability, Failure Analysis, and Risk Assessment

Course Projects

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Personal and Team Projects

Students in this course execute two types of projects over the course of the semester (click on the link for details on current semester team and personal projects):

• Team project: Executed by a team of 3-5 students, sponsored by a project partner.
• Personal project: Executed by an individual student (with the involvement of co-workers, friends, etc.) on a topic of the individual’s choice.

The purpose of both types of project is to reinforce information provided during lectures, and to provide students with experience in applying the knowledge and tools provided by the lectures. In general, students will apply lecture material to their personal project during the week following the lecture, and to their team project the week after that.

Individuals and teams will prepare deliverables defined by the course instructor, which will be due by the specified date (see links above for current semester deliverables and due dates). Both personal and team projects include a final presentation and a final report. Students will submit team and personal project assignments using the D2L discussion forums for this course. For instructions, go here.

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Team Projects

There are two primary sources of team projects:

• Course instructor – Before the course starts, your instructor will have worked closely with sponsors in industry and business to identify and define projects. Students will have an opportunity to volunteer for projects, but the course instructor has ultimate responsibility for insuring that each team project is appropriately staffed.
• Students – Students are encouraged to bring real-world projects to the course. Project teams will be finalized by the second week of class, so students bringing projects must have documented problem definitions by that date.

A key to successful team projects is identification of a particular individual who will act as the sponsor for the project. The sponsor’s primary responsibilities are to provide the team with “voice-of-the-customer” information, and to connect team members with other individuals who can provide relevant information. For projects proposed by the course instructor, the instructor will have identified the project sponsor. For projects proposed by a student, the student must identify the sponsor. For this case, the student may be the sponsor. Team projects involve performing a “process FMEA”, so if students desire to propose a team project, it should relate to some type of process that the student is familiar with. An outline of a “good” team project is provided here.

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Personal Projects

A student’s personal project can be related to work or professional life, or to private or personal life. Personal projects involve performing a “process FMEA”, so should relate to some type of process that the student is familiar with.

If students have difficulty identifying a personal project, the course instructor will provide examples of types of personal projects. Here are some examples to stimulate ideas for personal projects:

• Work-related -

• Product fabrication/assembly/testing process,
• Order entry system,
• Employee performance assessment system,
• Etc…

• Personal live –

· Personal finance balancing system (credit cards, checking account, etc…)

· MU course enrollment system

· Etc…

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