IME Seniors Set Record on State Engineering Exam

Dr. Bob White (left) and the Fall 2003 IME 416 class
that recently set a pass record for the professional state exam

Industrial engineering seniors have set a new record in terms of passing the professional national engineering exam administered by the State of Michigan. Of the 21 seniors who took Dr. Bob White’s IME 416 Operations Control class last fall, 18 recently passed the eight-hour Fundamentals of Engineering exam. This exam is prepared by the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES) and administered nationally.

White explained that the test is the first of a two-part professional engineering registration process required by the State of Michigan to become a registered professional engineer in Michigan. The second part of the exam is taken after the engineering graduates have had at least four years of field experience, and it tests their professional practice.

White has been teaching IME 416, which is offered only during the fall semester, since 1981. Students have been required to take the state exam since 1998. During that six-year time period, he said the class has “typically outperformed the national average,” but this year’s rate is the best so far.

The students’ 86 percent pass rate surpasses the 67 percent national average for students at all colleges. It is also better than the 74 percent pass rate of Doctoral I schools, which include the top-of-the-research-pyramid schools like Harvard and Yale. It is also well above the 50 percent average pass rate of colleges that are ranked in the Carnegie research doctoral-intensive schools, the group to which WMU belongs.

“We did much better than either the national average or the average of any of the groups that we compare ourselves to,” White said.

White is a full professor and a 31-year veteran of the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, A Plainwell native, he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at WMU and his Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering at Iowa State University.

IME Student Earns $5,000 Plastics Scholarship

Kamal Kumar Anand – winner of $5,000
SPE thremoforming scholarship

An IME graduate has earned a $5,000 Thermoforming Division Memorial Scholarship from the Society of Plastics Engineering (SPE) Foundation.

Kamal Kumar Anand, who needs one more semester to complete the work needed to earn a master’s degree in Manufacturing Engineering (ME), has been a graduate assistant in the plastics lab for the past year.

“I taught classes for two semesters, but now I’m looking after the lab,” he said. “The move to the new campus has left a lot of things to be set.”

After completing the master’s program, Anand plans to begin work on a Ph.D. His goal for a future career is to work with plastics. “I just want to work a lot in plastics,” he said. “And I like to work on projects.”

Before coming to WMU, he earned a diploma in tool engineering from Bangatore and a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Chennai. He also worked for over three years in plastics in India. “I’ve worked a lot in plastics injection molding and in thermoforming dies,” he said.

Anand came to WMU in August 2002 from Tirupathi, a town in southern India. He chose WMU after visiting the IME website and contacting Dr. Paul Engelmann, IME chair and the architect of IME’s plastics program.

“Even before coming here I was in contact with Dr. Engelmann, so I came to know that the plastics’ lab here is very good,” he said.

This is the second time Anand had applied for the scholarship, which is awarded to only two qualified applicants. He said the application process was fairly easy. “They just wanted to know if I am working with plastics, and if I have considerable experience in plastics, and if I’m taking classes in plastics,” he said.

Anand expressed his appreciation for the support of everyone. “I especially want to thank Dr. Engelmann,” he said.