Abstract:

Project-Based Learning (PBL) has been adopted in engineering education as an approach aimed at bringing academic training closer to professional practice. In projects developed in collaboration with organizations external to the university, this approximation requires not only the analysis of real problems but also the construction of instruments capable of guiding the observation and systematic recording of evidence collected in the field. This article describes and analyzes the process of developing a diagnostic tool created by engineering students within the context of a project conducted through university–industry collaboration. The challenge consisted of diagnosing the maturity level of the implementation of the 5S methodology in a production environment, which required the development of a diagnostic tool in the form of a checklist, accompanied by verification guidelines and an evaluation scale from 0 to 5. The study adopts a qualitative descriptive approach, based on a case study strategy, and relies on documentary analysis of materials produced throughout the project, including meeting minutes, records of technical visits, versions of the tool, applications of the checklist in the field, the final presentation, and the technical report. The results show that the need for the instrument emerged from the insufficiency of unstructured observations to support comparisons between different units and moments of evaluation. The tool was iteratively refined until reaching a final configuration composed of fifteen criteria distributed across the five principles of 5S. Its application enabled the systematization of recurring problems, supported comparisons among different observed contexts, and informed subsequent stages of prioritization and improvement proposals. It is concluded that the development of diagnostic instruments can play a central methodological role in engineering projects developed in real contexts, by transforming general analytical principles into operational criteria for observation and organizational diagnosis.

Keywords:

Project-Based Learning, Engineering Education, University-Industry Collaboration, Diagnostic Tool.