Product Engineering in Chemical Engineering Curriculum

Product design is a relatively new field within Chemical Engineering. More than half of the Chemical Engineering graduates in the US and elsewhere are now entering product-oriented companies. This is a significant increase in recent times. The traditional oil and chemical companies are undergoing major changes and a significant number of companies are shifting into manufacturing value-added specialty chemicals. The switch from process focus to chemical products heralds a corresponding change in pedagogical content of our conventional curriculum. Thus, attention needs to span from molecules to marketable products and a paradigm shift is indicated in education that will help expand the traditional process engineering problem-solving skills. Educational changes need to focus beyond large volume commodity chemicals to small volume specialty chemicals and to expand our courses to include product design. This work focuses on the importance of product design, the incorporation of product design in the curriculum and a case study to demonstrate its implementation. We examine product design framework in the context of an actual market scenario, including the screening of candidate products, development of new industrial products, followed by process design, plant commissioning, manufacture of products and introduction into the marketplace.