In this paper, we describe a curriculum reform project that aims to improve the industrial engineering curriculum through a web-based learning environment that engages students in active and collaborative learning. This environment focuses on engineering problems solving, increased information technology content, and the higher order cognitive skills that are needed to be a successful engineering problem solver. The project has several goals, one of which is to address the need for engineering students to understand how global and societal issues impact the problem solving process and potential solutions. We are addressing this goal by conducting an international team project, where teams consist of students from Iowa State University and the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland. In particular, a module has been developed for a course in production systems, offered at both universities, where project teams made up of two students from each university were formed to work on a challenging problem with global consequences. In this paper, we describe the design of this module, discuss our experience with this international collaboration, and place it in context of the large curriculum reform project.