Engineering management education - Technology integration, manufacturing, or the management of engineers and scientists?

The content of Engineering Management (EM) educational programs has evolved significantly in the last five years. Many of the traditional EM departments have adopted systems engineering (SE) in their titles and have started systems engineering programs as part of their educational offerings. Subsequently, in many of the academic programs EM content has shifted from the combination of management of engineers and scientists within a traditional industrial engineering framework to one with a curriculum emphasizing the integration of management, human, and technology (i.e., systems) issues. The objective of all EM programs is to produce graduates who can work effectively at the interface between technology, management, and engineering. We believe that a systems engineering focus is a key component of the core curriculum for all EM programs. This paper attempts to present the market forces driving this change and presents an analysis of several large EM programs that have significant SE content. We hope that the ideas presented in this paper will be used in curriculum development for EM programs.