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As part of the Global Engineering activities of the Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering the TIES program with Monterrey Tech to offered a dual MS in Industrial Engineering with a focus on the Aerospace industry. The program is funded by the US-AID through the ALO program.
Manufacturing and the manufacturing sector are of strategic importance for the economies of both Mexico and the U.S.
For instance manufacturing represents around 18% of the GDP of Mexico (Banco de Mexico, 2003), for the United States while steadily decreasing, manufacturing still represents around 29% of the overall GDP (VPMEP 2003). The links in the area of manufacturing between the United States and Mexico are strong and becoming stronger than at any time in the past. This is the result of several factors. The most obvious one is the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Another important factor is the evolution of manufacturing in the United States and Mexico in the last twenty-five years.
In the case of Mexico, the federal government has recognized the strategic importance of developing qualified suppliers for the US companies operating in Mexico by providing funding for the development of small and medium companies capable of becoming suppliers of the large high technology companies established in Mexico. For instance, currently less than 5% of the supplies used by the maquiladora plants in Mexico (a market of over 53 billion dollars) come from Mexico. If this low percentage, which has been almost unchanged for the last ten years, started to increase this would bring immediate benefits to the Mexican economy and would be an indication of progress of the Mexican supply base. However, this low penetration is not the case for some of the more mature segments of the Mexican industry (for instance, 15% of the components used by the US auto industry are of Mexican origin).
The dual MS program between Arizona State University and Monterrey Tech is the first step toward the creation of a knowledge network among academic and industrial entities of Mexico and the United States to support the technological and human resource needs of the aerospace industry. One of the goals of the program is to start the process of building strong links between the aerospace industry in both Mexico and the US and the academic institutions participating in this proposal. The new program is anchored in both solid analytical and practical foundations that will result in the development of the technical human resources needed to consolidate the emerging aerospace supplier base in Mexico and maintain the leadership of the overall North American aerospace industry.
Two important components of the new program are the direct interaction with industry through workshops given by the faculty of ASU and Monterrey tech Tech and, more importantly, industry sponsored projects that will be central to the curriculum followed by the students. Another innovation of the program is the total immersion of students participating in the activities in a truly global environment. This will be made possible through the formation of project-oriented teams through the duration of the program. These teams will be composed of at least binational members working with industrial partners in both Mexico (Monterrey) and the USA (Arizona), communicating with their customers and giving presentations in English and Spanish and addressing supply chain issues related to binational idiosyncrasies. In summary, the graduate of the proposed program will not only be a technical leader, but also be deeply cognizant of global cultural and communication issues that undoubtedly affect the level of success of any integrated supply chain spanning different countries.
We see the new program as a first phase of a long-term project. The main goals of this first phase are to establish the basis of collaboration between the academic institutions involved and industry on both sides of the border. Because of the primary importance, given the existing level of development, of the aerospace industry in Mexico, in this phase we have decided to focus on logistics and competitiveness improvement issues. However, in later phases we will expand the focus to areas such as product design and advanced manufacturing processes.