What is this project?
In the highly regulated medical device industry, producing accurate and compliant documentation is both critical and time-consuming. Stryker is challenging students to design an AI/NLP-powered tool built on Microsoft Azure that generates very high quality first drafts for compliant product documentation, and testing materials for the medical device industry to reduce development time.
What am I going to do?
MDP projects push you to integrate interdisciplinary engineering knowledge, and develop strategic problem-solving skills. On this project, students will build an AI-powered system that generates functional specifications, testing strategy, test scripts and Runbook from epic and feature level user stories created by internal product developers. The objective is to create valuable, useable drafts to accelerate the development cycle.
- Collaborate with Stryker stakeholders to understand the design process, and align functionality with user needs
- Design and implement an AI system using Microsoft Azure that transforms structured requirement documents into draft regulatory deliverables to 70% completeness
- Build and refine language models, or apply existing Azure AI tools to extract and synthesize content
- Develop a secure and intuitive user interface to support document input and review
- Conduct validation testing to assess completeness and accuracy of outputs
- Package the toolchain into a repeatable process for integration into Stryker’s development workflow
- Deploy and test the system in a simulated Azure development environment
- Tech Stack: Microsoft Azure
Stretch Goal Opportunities Include:
- Incorporate iterative user feedback to improve model performance and formatting alignment
- Deliver 1 solution (function specifications, testing strategy, test scripts, Runbook, or Terraform scripts) complete, requiring very limited if any editing by engineers
Why does it matter?
In the highly regulated medical device industry, producing accurate and compliant documentation is both critical and time-consuming. By automating this task with AI, Stryker aims to reduce administrative overhead, improve consistency, and accelerate the innovation pipeline. This project has the potential to redefine how technical teams interact with compliance, turning a bottleneck into a catalyst for speed and quality.
Below are the skills needed for this project. Students with the following relevant skills and interests, regardless of major, are encouraged to apply! This is a team-based multidisciplinary project. Students on the team are not expected to have experience in all areas, but should be willing to learn and will be asked to perform a breadth of tasks throughout the two-semester project.
NLP Model development (2-4 students)
Specific Skills: Natural language processing modeling
Must have completed EECS 281 or equivalent
Likely Majors: CS, ECE, CSE, DATA
General Programming (2-3 Students)
Specific Skills: Full web system development within Azure platform
Must have completed EECS 281 or equivalent
Likely Majors: CS, CE
Human-Centered Systems (1 Students)
Specific Skills: IT DevOps, business process mapping, process design and optimization
Likely Majors: IOE, CS, BBA
Additional Desired Skills/Knowledge/Experience
- Knowledge of regulatory processes in healthcare or related industries
- Interest in automating workflows and document pipelines to enable users to better accomplish their goals
- Strong team collaboration and agile mindset
- Experience interviewing stakeholders, documenting needs, and mapping business processes
- Experience/knowledge of DevOps
- Experience with Microsoft Azure, particularly Microsoft Azure AI Stack
- Familiarity with pre-trained LLMs like GPT, T5, BERT
- Understanding of prompt engineering and RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation)
Recommended Coursework
Include completed relevant courses (term, institution, course number/title, and grade). If you’ve completed any of the following courses, we recommend mentioning them in your application materials:
- EECS 281: Data Structures and Algorithms
- EECS 485: Web Systems
- EECS 492: Introduction to Artificial Intelligence
- EECS 453. Principles of Machine Learning
- EECS 553. Machine Learning (ECE)
- CSE 595 (LING 541) (SI 561) Natural Language Processing
- IOE 373: Data Analytics Tools and Techniques
- IOE 431: Human-Centered and User Experience Design
Sponsor Mentor
Steve Scott
Steve Scott is a Senior Principal Architect, in AI and Automation Governance, at Stryker. Prior to working at Stryker, Steve worked at HCA Healthcare, where he held various cloud architect and enterprise technology roles.
Executive Mentor
Scott Austin
Scott is the Senior Director of Intelligent Automation at Stryker. He is an experienced information technology solutions manager, with a demonstrated history of working in the medical device industry. Scott is skilled in enterprise software, medical devices, C++, Agile Methodologies, iOS, mixed reality, and artificial intelligence.
Faculty Mentor
Krisztian Flautner
Krisztian is a Professor of Engineering Practice in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department. He was most recently responsible for product strategy in Cisco’s Emerging Technology & Incubation Group after being CEO of Banzai Cloud, a startup acquired by Cisco that turned Cloud Native dreams into enterprise reality through cloud software. Previously, he was general manager of the Internet of Things business unit and VP of research and development at ARM. He received a Ph.D. in computer science and engineering and several other degrees from the University of Michigan. Flautner has co-authored over 80 publications, and received various best paper awards, the 2017 ISCA influential paper award for groundbreaking research in power-efficient computing, and the 2021 MICRO Test of Time award.
Project Meetings
During the winter 2026 semester, the team will meet on North Campus on TBD.
Work Location
Most of the work will take place on campus in Ann Arbor. Students may have the opportunity to travel to Stryker’s headquarters in west Michigan to interview stakeholders and later present their work to a wider audience. (MDP provides transportation)
Course Substitutions: ChE Elective, CS Capstone/MDE, DATA Graduate Capstone, EE MDE, CoE Honors, IOE Senior Design
Citizenship Requirements:This project is open to all students. Note: International students on an F-1 visa will be required to declare part time CPT during Winter 2026 and Fall 2026 terms.
IP/NDA:Students will sign IP/NDA documents that are unique to Stryker.
Summer Project Activities: No summer activity will take place on the project.