Engineering Materials A Necessary Component Of A Course On Manufacturing Processes

Courses on manufacturing processes vary significantly in content from one engineering program to another. This is usually predicated on the mission of the particular engineering department. This, in turn, is conditioned by the local industry around the school and the academic and industrial backgrounds and experiences of the faculty. The depth, breadth, and technical rigor is usually determined by whether it is a traditional engineering or an engineering technology program and whether it is an ABET approved course. Traditionally, courses on manufacturing processes in many engineering departments emphasize just design and/or metal machining processes and little of anything else. Often the courses are devoid of two important elements namely the: (i) the interactions between design and manufacturing processes, and (ii) interaction between materials and process variables. This approach usually produces graduates who are limited in their ability to solve non-machine related production problems. In this paper, the case is made for making the knowledge of engineering materials and how they affect product (even machine) design and interact with process variables a necessary and critical component of a manufacturing processes course.