Exploring Wayne State's new manufacturing engineering program at Realize LIVE Americas 2025

By Ian Mark

At Realize LIVE 2025, the Siemens Global Academic and Future Workforce Program is set to inspire engaging conversations about bridging the gap between industry and academia in manufacturing engineering.

Among the spotlight sessions is Dr. Jeremy Rickli’s presentation, “Aligning Industry Needs and University Manufacturing Curricula,” which will dive into the re-imagined manufacturing engineering master’s program developed by Wayne State University in collaboration with industry partners.

Secure your spot now for Realize LIVE Americas 2025. Explore exciting new ideas for bringing industry to academia and connect with leading experts addressing the engineering skills gap. If you’re an academic, be sure to take advantage of our special rate for educators.

Designing a master’s program to be intertwined with industry

In the redesign of the manufacturing engineering program, Dr. Rickli sought to build a program for the next generation of manufacturing and break the traditional silos between education and industry.

Regarding the driving purpose of the program, Dr. Rickli shared:

“Our main goal at Wayne State with the Industrial Systems Engineering Department is to educate, train students that are going to be exemplary manufacturing engineers of the future, who are going to be able to adjust to shifting technologies and shifting demands to drive manufacturing success in the United States.”

Working hand-in-hand with industry to develop student’s’ skills and competencies — from year one of the program

One of the core elements of Wayne State’s program is that each student participates in a year-long internship with an organization fully committed to developing and training the student along with the university.

Not only will the student graduate ready to contribute from day one, but they’ve already contributed by performing impactful research for the organization with the help of all the resources available at Wayne State.

Dr. Rickli elaborates:

“That’s where the benefit of having a year internship with classes and programs in parallel comes in, is that the company, the supervisor, the student and experts at Wayne State, we can start to really formulate a plan for the project so that that student is going to make a contribution to the company before they even finish their master’s programs.”

“That’s when they start to be day-one ready…they’ve started to develop those soft skills, started to interact with people at the company that are necessary to have their support to get your project launched and backed by the company. They develop all these skills that we just can’t fit within our 30-credit program.”

Join the premier event bringing together academics and industrial leaders

This session will be just one of many exploring exciting ideas for bringing industry to the classroom and cultivating a day-one ready workforce.

If you’re an educator looking to enrich your curricula with industry-relevant topics and experiences or an industry professional invested in building stronger talent pipelines, you won’t want to miss the Siemens Global Academic and Future Workforce Program at Realize LIVE Americas.