Principal Investigators Stephen Graves , Duane Boning , Brian Anthony , David Hardt , Jose Pacheco , Jung-Hoon Chun
Project Website https://manufacturing.mit.edu/faculty/
The capstone of the MEng degree is a group industry project in a manufacturing company or an Institute project. During the Spring semester, students begin meeting with the company and their thesis advisor to identify the problem or opportunity to pursue, define the project scope, and outline the expected deliverables. These meetings are typically held weekly, either in person or via video calls. Then, in the summer, from mid-May to mid-August, students work on the company project full-time. These projects, undertaken by groups of three students per site, form the basis of the thesis portion of the degree. Students work on-site under the supervision of an MIT faculty member, typically solving near-term problems for their company.
Several companies propose projects in late fall, and a selection process matches students with their assigned projects and MIT faculty advisors. Students begin their initial work at each company site in January, followed by once-weekly meetings during the spring semester. From late May until mid-August, the groups work on-site full-time to complete their projects. Students document their full contribution to the project thesis, which is submitted to their MIT advisor for approval.