2008 Integrated Product Development Course

 Watch the IPD Video! - Interviews with Professors Lovejoy and Jackson (3 min 11 s; requires QuickTime version 7.0 or later).

Sponsored by the Tauber Institute for Global Operations, much of the IPD course’s value lies in the cross-disciplinary consensus building that takes place giving students real-world experience working with people from vastly different points of view and educational disciplines. When engineers, designers and MBAs come together to conceptualize, manufacture and market a product, it can be an eye opening experience for all. When that product has to meet strict guidelines and intimate personal needs, things get even more interesting.

Big Task for Big Thinkers

“We really gave the students an exercise that stretched them to their limits in terms of time and complexity. But, they all rose to the occasion and even maintained their sense of humor,” said Shaun Jackson. His students reported getting very little sleep in the weeks leading up to the IPD on-campus trade show, the final leg of the project competition.

It was the weight and portability requirements of the project that posed obstacles for some teams, as the scope of the task required the station to be portable, yet able to withstand winds of up to 20 miles per hour. The guidelines stated that the stations must weigh less than 40 pounds and pack down for convenient transportation. The deployed product must be free standing and be able to manage both clear and gray water so that it does not run freely to the ground and, of course, manage waste water.

Before launching their products, students designed a manufacturing process and estimated the fixed and variable costs of production for their product. These calculations influenced the price they declared prior to the competition. In the end, considerations like margins, inventory and profit are what put certain teams at the top of the list.

Taking Top Honors

Team Cocoon received first place for earning market share scores of 22 percent in the online trade show and 15.9 percent from the on-campus trade show. Pictured right, their team was made up of:
• Sheel Mohnot - MBA
• Laura McCann - Art & Design
• Rudy Wahyudi - Industrial & Operations Engineering
• Siddharth Gulati - Industrial & Operations Engineering and Mechanical Engineering
• Abhayraj Ajayaraj - Industrial & Operations Engineering


It may have been a unique toilet system, designed by Siddarth Gulati that put Cocoon over the top. Using a sliding mechanism, the Cocoon toilet’s collection bag was sealed using double-sided tape then dropped into a larger, also sealable bag for sanitary disposal.

The effervescent Gulati said that he draws energy from designing, and found his biggest challenge to be communicating well with teammates from different disciplines. “I learned patience. I also learned from Professor Lovejoy that there is a difference between designing something to perfection and actually selling a product. He told us to simplify,” said Gulati.

Rounding Out the Top Three

The second place team, Peeki Hut, employed a green strategy and used sustainable and recycled materials in their spacious, Zen-like structure.  Pictured left:
• Greg Lahrman - MBA
• Stephanie Starch – Art & Design
• Timothy Thoppil - Manufacturing Engineering
• Bharat Moorthy - Industrial & Operations Engineering

In third place, Mobiloo was a standout for its ease of portability and the compact nature of its hand-milled infrastructure.  Pictured right:
• Annamalai Viswanathan - Industrial & Operations Engineering
• Emily Friedberg – MBA
• Jacob Leedekerken - Industrial & Operations Engineering
• Manuel A. Herrera – Architecture

Over 1,600 Votes Cast

The public was invited to review and vote online for their choices of best personal hygiene station between Nov. 26 and Dec. 2. Next, the IPD teams used the results from the online voting to re-evaluate their inventories and perfect their sales pitches for the on-campus trade show, also open to the public. The trade show ran from 6-8 p.m. on Dec. 3 at the Gallery in the Duderstadt Center on North Campus. Here, potential consumers were given tours of the stations. They then ranked the various teams’ finished products. These rankings -- along with inventories declared by the teams -- determined both the competition winner and figured into the students' final grades.

In all, 1,314 votes were cast online while 302 votes were cast at the on-campus trade show. Once again this year, market share, high margins and inventory strategy combined to significantly impact the results, according to Lovejoy.

“Given the scope and nature of the design challenge this year, all of the teams really stepped up to the plate and did a fantastic job,” said Professor Shaun Jackson.

The IPD course was launched nearly 18 years ago by Lovejoy and two colleagues from marketing and engineering at Stanford University. It has been included in BusinessWeek's list of top design schools and also has been featured on CNN and in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.


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Written by Nancy Davis

View all 9 product websites, pictures from the trade show, and voting results