Quality Assurance: Industrial Engineering Capstone Design Project Process Standardization

This paper presents a comprehensive overview of the Capstone Design Project (CDP) course guideline developed by an industrial engineering (IE) department at a public university. The ultimate objective is to create a stable reference point for faculty members and students to follow for the CDP. To this end, this paper presents a standardization process model for the CDP through the development of the Capstone Design Project Handbook (CDPH). The developed CDPH includes all of the requirements, details, course outcomes, and specifications necessary to ensure a standardized process and continuous improvement of the CDP experience. The purpose of this paper is to standardize and improve the process from registering for the CDP course to the posting of the grades at the end of the course. The outcome of developing such a document is the enhancement of the quality of the education received by the students. The CDPH will also provide the faculty members and students with deadline dates, assessment forms, evaluation criteria, rubrics, and deliverable requirements for the CDP journey. This study provides evidence related to the significant results experienced by the stakeholders who utilized the CDPH.