IE 69000: Product and Process Innovation
Professor C. Richard Liu (Grissom 253, 494 5413, liuch@purdue.edu)
Credit: 3; MWF 3:30-4:20 pm, Grissom 166
Course Motivation:
The next wave of economic growth and promising opportunities will increasingly
depend on innovation. Purdue faculty has been in the frontier of research
innovation and Purdue “Engineer of 2020” identified innovative ability as a
desirable attribute yet to be formally integrated into our curriculum. This
experimental course is intended to achieve this goal.
Course Objectives:
We want to provide an opportunity for the students to understand industrial
innovation and enhance their own innovative abilities. This course is to offer a
structured and case-enhanced approach for creative problem-solving and its
applications to product and process innovation.
The objectives are to be accomplished through reviews and analyses of the
instructor’s own innovative experiences, of the literature available, case studies,
video tapes, elements and exercises of creative problem solving/design with class
interactions. A term paper will give a student the opportunity to show the result of
her/his learning. Excellent innovative result of commercial value will be encouraged
to compete for funding.
Course Topics may include:
Structures of creative problem solving and product/process development; the
relationships among needs, functions, conceptual designs and design realization;
geometric attributes, materials, processes and engineering design; methods of idea
generation; dynamics of industrial innovation; competitive strategy of innovation
and technology. Lessons learned by the instructor in specific product, process,
service and research innovations. Case studies (jet engines, commercial aircrafts,
airlines, smart phones, home appliances, load-carrying components, structures and
innovation of manufacturing industry, etc.); and other topics to be determined.
Course Grading:
The major part of grading is based on a research paper, a case study of analysis of
specific innovation or a project on developing and evaluating an actual innovative
product, process or research project.
Prerequisite: research or synthesis experience/ consent of the instructor.
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About the instructor: Professor Liu is recognized for a number of innovative contributions: by SME/NAMRI
Wu Research Award, for having created “single step finish/super-finish hard machining, leading to a new
market and a science base for engineering a new generation of processes, machine tools, cutting tools and
manufacturing systems”; by ASME Ennor Award “for his seminal research on surface integrity and fatigue
performance of manufactured surfaces”, by IR100 Award for his research leading to significant accuracy
enhancement of machine tools. He is a pioneer for creating the concept of the global supply-chain based
manufacturing structure widely used in industry. He also served as a research engineer in industry where he
developed a dominate product, and as a VP of Industrial Technology Research Institute of Taiwan, where he led
to initiate and strengthen several product/process based industries. Currently he is developing a hybrid mode of
education, replacing part of on-campus learning by distance learning.