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Purdue University: Decision Making in Engineering Design

In this course, you will learn the foundations of decision-making in the design of engineering products, processes, and systems.

17 weeks
8–9 hours per week
Instructor-paced
Instructor-led on a course schedule

About this course

Skip About this course

This course is on schedule to retire officially on 12/31/2023 at 00:00 UTC.

Decision making is an essential activity in all organizations and teams involved in engineering design and product development. Successful design requires the ability to make good decisions in the presence of risk and uncertainty, and an understanding of how customers and other stakeholders make decisions.

This course provides a rigorous foundation of decision making by bringing together theories and knowledge from diverse fields of study and applying them to the engineering design context. The key topics covered in the course include multi-objective decision making under risk and uncertainty, group decision making, model-based and data-driven decision making, and heuristics & biases in human decisions. Example applications in engineering design including estimation of customer preferences, simulation-based design, and sustainable design.

The course would benefit a wide range of practitioners and active learners, whether they are entry-level engineers or transitioning into engineering management roles. The course content is suitable for individuals will an undergraduate degree in engineering or a related field. Basic knowledge of programming (in any programming language) is expected.

At a glance

  • Institution: PurdueX
  • Subject: Engineering
  • Level: Intermediate
  • Prerequisites:

    Undergraduate degree in Engineering

  • Language: English
  • Video Transcript: English
  • Associated programs:
  • Associated skills: Engineering Management, New Product Development, Group Decision-Making, Engineering Design Process, Data-Driven Decision-Making, Decision Making

What you'll learn

Skip What you'll learn
  • Learn to formulate design decisions under risk and uncertainty
  • Learn to apply multi-attribute utility theory to make decisions in engineering design.
  • Understand the assumptions and limitations of commonly used decision-making methods.
  • Identify and reduce biases in design decision making.
  • Adopt an interdisciplinary approach to design across engineering, economics, and social sciences.

Who can take this course?

Unfortunately, learners residing in one or more of the following countries or regions will not be able to register for this course: Iran, Cuba and the Crimea region of Ukraine. While edX has sought licenses from the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) to offer our courses to learners in these countries and regions, the licenses we have received are not broad enough to allow us to offer this course in all locations. edX truly regrets that U.S. sanctions prevent us from offering all of our courses to everyone, no matter where they live.

This course is part of Reliability and Decision Making in Engineering Design MicroMasters Program

Learn more 
Expert instruction
2 graduate-level courses
Instructor-led
Assignments and exams have specific due dates
9 months
8 - 9 hours per week

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