Module description

The aim of AKPro is to give students a hands on in product development with tasks from different industrial projects and challenges. Institutes participate with an industrial partner and a development order for a new technical product or improvement of a current product. Over the course of two semesters students will go through the development process from requirements definition to concept development to the validation of concepts and finally building a prototype in small groups.

Each semester starts off with two lectures on project management and model-based product development. Also, each project is presented and the students can choose one according to their interests. After the initial lecture and selection process the students will be supervised by the different participating institutes. The first project specific practice session starts off with the definition of the development task and a detailed introduction into the tasks topic. The following weekly group sessions afterwards are for technical discussion, sharing ideas and progress.

The course AKPro has no classical exam at the end of the semester but is divided into six milestones. Each semester contains three of these milestones with specific work packages. Every milestone is a mini exam in form of a presentation, so called design review. At the end of the semester the results from the design reviews are collected written in a final project report, which also counts as exam. The six milestones are shown in the figure below and are further detailed below.

The first milestone is mainly about getting an overview of the given task by literature research but also derive a list of requirements and write a specification sheet. Afterwards a function structure is written down and first feasible solution are developed. These solutions are pre-filtered, discussed within the whole group and finally presented in design review two for the second milestone. For milestone three the solution that came out on top are further detailed and a final concept is chosen. The first milestone in the second term (M4) starts with a recap on AKPro I. Moreover, the critical parts are drafted and the merge of these to an overall design is started. The penultimate milestone is all about finalize the overall design and try to identify further room for optimization. For the last design review the students should present their final design in a vivid and marketing effective way. Furthermore, they present a rough cost estimation and manufacturing plan for their prototype.

Current dates and further information can be found on RWTHonline.

Further literature

• Pahl, G.; Beitz, W.; Feldhusen, J.; Grote, K. H.: Konstruktionslehre, Grundlagen erfolgreicher Produktentwicklung, Methoden und Anwendung. 8.Auflage. Springer-Verlag 2013
• Ehrlenspiel, K.: Integrierte Produktentwicklung, Denkabläufe, Methodeneinsatz, Zusammenarbeit. 4. Auflage. Hanser-Verlag 2009
• Feldhusen, J.; Gebhardt, B.: Product Lifecycle Management für die Praxis, Ein Leitfaden zur modularen Einführung, Umsetzung und Anwendung. Springer-Verlag 2008
• Specht, G.; Beckmann, C.; Amelingmeyer, J.: F- & E-Management, Kompetenz im Innovationsprozess. 2. Auflage. Schäffer-Pöschel-Verlag 2002