Market needs and customer expectations on new products grow continuously, which increases the requirements on the product engineers and designers. Respectively, is becomes real challenge to educate engineering students theoretically by studding contemporary methods and techniques in design and practically mastering skills in multi-disciplinary product development process. The presented paper is meant to introduce an experiment in teaching Product development course for Mechanical engineering students at Linnaeus University (LNU). After teaching the course in several years we experience that, teaching creativity, critical thinking and decision making by presenting different tools and techniques, could be hard to make it inspiring enough for the students. During the fall semester of 2014 a decision was taken to re-design the course by shifting some of the activities and responsibilities from the teacher to the students. They were involved in delivering and clarifying the theory by summarizing the lectures. Students have an active role in working on industrial projects and presenting the results achieved. The individual apprizing based on the group members contribution was also a students' responsibility. There were benefits but also some problems which will be discussed in this paper. The conclusion made after this experiment reflected in the course planning for the next years.

The topic of mechanical transmission design is one of the fundamental parts in the subject of machine design, and it is taught almost in all the mechanical engineering programs around the world. The fundamentals are the same but the teaching methods, literature and the instruction language are different from country to country, and from university to university. Although the bachelor program in mechanical engineering at Linnaeus University (LNU), Sweden is taught in Swedish, there are some courses given in English language both for the program-and international students. The international students are usually exchange-or free movers staying at LNU for one semester or for a whole academic year. The English courses are usually in the final year of the program, which means almost all international students have different background, skills and knowledge. The mix of program students and students from different countries in an international classroom is an excellent opportunity to gain international experiences but it is also a real challenge both for teachers and student groups. This paper is presenting many years experiences and result from teaching machine transmission design though project based learning for classes mixed of program-and international students at Linnaeus University in Sweden.

Mechanical failures in general can appear because of weak design, wrong handling, and problems during the manufacturing process, material problems etc. This paper is dealing with failures in lifting machinery gearboxes which appear because of material stresses and tribological problems. The study conducted is based on theoretical analysis and analysis of inspection results for failures that have appeared in cranes and other lifting machinery in southern part of Sweden. Investigation shows that besides the surface damages like abrasive and adhesive failures also cracks in the material in different parts appear. Since these types of gearboxes are made in short series, gearbox housings and sometimes also gears are made of welded steel. Hence welding process makes the weld joints brittle; cracks do start and developed until the part fails. Another problem that happens due to welding is wrapping which leads to changes in the geometrical tolerances and that does affect the parallelism of the shafts and the functionality of the gearbox.

In this paper a successful final project work, done at Linnaeus University (LNU), is presented as a result of cooperation between the company and the students group, which will find its industrial application in making the production process of the company more efficient. In the presented paper the emphasis is on the process followed during the design project and on the continuous and fruitful cooperation between the company providing the project, the student´s design team and the University itself.

Based on previous experiences, making the subject Product Development understandable for the students' needs more and clear examples. In this case, it is easier for the students to understand if the products selected as examples are familiar to them. The idea was to make the students take the roles of design engineers, costumers, and users of the product which would be developed. That is the reason to select a student bicycle as example. A questionnaire, which was prepared and sent to students in different European countries, was used to collect the voice of the customer. Based on the gathered information, the process of product development was applied to achieve a conceptual design based on customers' requirements. This paper is presenting how a student bicycle example was developed and used in a product development course. In the preparation of the example two final year students were involved in cooperation with the authors of this paper. The result from this work was improved and modified by the authors to be suitable as a teaching example.

Cooperation is a multi-faceted concept in higher education. It could denote the cooperation between industry and academia, enabling students to train problem solving in a real life context. It could also describe the internationalization efforts found in teachers’ and students’ exchange programs. Moreover, cooperation exists between disciplines in order to enable a holistic perspective on course contents. This paper describes experiences of teaching some courses where all these aspects of cooperation are utilized for reaching the best possible conditions for teaching. The courses are within Machine Design, Product Development, Project Management, and Degree Project, and are all taught in English and contain projects in cooperation with industries. These courses are dealing with different approaches to the industrial projects to give the students an overall view and understanding of the real engineering work. The practical work is in form of student driven industrial projects, where students from the Mechanical Engineering Department at Linnaeus University collaborate with international students. The industrial related projects results in valuable real life experiences. The background of students from different countries and experiences of international teachers enriches the teaching process and students’ teamwork activities. Another result is the valuable culture exchange between the students and teachers which gives skills for future engineers to work in the European or global labor market. The implementation of the courses is described with focus on how cooperation between industry and academia, as well as between different competences at Linnaeus University and the University of Rousse, Bulgaria are utilized for creating optimal learning conditions.

Participating in product development course requires not only learning the theory delivered in the lectures but also learn how to combine the knowledge developed in previous courses with the systematic way of thinking in order to take right design decisions. This aim is achieved in a best way, if the educational process is accomplished in cooperation with the industry. Organization of a course based on industrial projects is not an easy task. The most difficult issues are to find suitable projects for the topic, adequate for the size of the course, and to fit to the background of the students. Before starting such course, it needs huge efforts to plan and prepare right proportions of theories, examples, seminars, and project group consultations. Although everything would be planned and scheduled in details, many problems may show up during running the course. The problems can be conflicts and miscommunications within the groups, and/or miscommunications between student groups and companies or teachers. The mixture of program-and international students with different cultural-and educational background does not always make the situation easier. The fair assessment for individual students needs different approaches from the teachers' side when the examinations of the projects are based on the reports prepared by groups. This paper is presenting experiences from teaching a project-based Product Development course with real projects from the industry. The course is given in English for program-and international students.

This paper presents some of the experience of two European Universities concerning regular student feedback in the area of higher education quality, which is implemented at the end of every course of a particular subject. It also presents a comparison between survey questionnaires at Linnaeus University, Sweden in Machine Design courses, at the Mechanical Engineering Department, where such feedback has been applied during the last fifteen years, and the existing experience in the same field at the Department of Machine Sciences, Machine Elements, and Engineering Graphics at the University of Ruse, Bulgaria. Conclusions are made on the necessity of providing students with regular opportunity to take part in quality management in higher education.

In the presented paper the authors expose their experience with caring out a course "Systematic Approach" to the "Product Development", at Linnaeus University, Sweden. Product Development is a process based on a number of techniques and methods applied in correct order to achieve the best result in design and innovation tasks. For successful product development in a present competitive market interdisciplinary different types of skills are required. The mission of the course is to prepare future leaders in new products' engineering and management. Teaching such abstract subject, where at every step decision making in aesthetic, engineering and economic issues is required, is a real challenge for the course instructors. The fundament in this course is industrial projects, about real products. The participating students must understand the theory given in the lectures at the same time as they have to manage to apply it in development of different type of products. Students from different backgrounds like Mechanical Engineering and Business Engineering programs, and exchange students from eight different countries were participating in the course. They were divided in missed groups of four people in each group. Every three groups were competed each other through solving the same problem. The projects finished with concept designs, based on identified customer needs, concept generation, developed product architecture, and project management.