A Strategy For Incorporating Advanced Manufacturing Technologies Into Undergraduate Education

The face of manufacturing has been steadily and rapidly changing for many years. From about the mid-1980’s, concepts of cost control, quality and overall efficiency have become an increasingly sharp focus. In recent years, many companies have tunneled in on lean manufacturing as their savior. It is certainly true that the precepts and procedures of lean, ToC, TQM and other regimens are essential for modern manufacturing competitiveness, and instruction in these matters has become a fundamental component in manufacturing education. With far less visible excitement, however, another ‘revolution’ has entered the scene. The fastest growing sectors of product type are those that require new processing technologies. In 21st century technical dialogue, product and process identification are intermingled. Among the new technologies that demand attention are nanotechnology, MEMS, biologically-focused products and a host of ‘micro’-featured products and processes. This paper will explore the product and process issues that are relevant for undergraduate education in manufacturing engineering and manufacturing engineering technology and propose a timeless set of manufacturing principles that transcend evolutions in product and process development. The discussion will draw on classroom and laboratory content applied at the author’s institution, as well as observations gleaned from the literature and from the Society of Manufacturing Engineers’ leadership forums during 2008 and 2009. The paper will conclude with an outline of one possible step towards incorporating advanced manufacturing technologies into an undergraduate curriculum, without displacing instruction on timeless fundamentals. Historical Perspective for Introduction of New Technologies: For at least the past three decades, the face of manufacturing has been in flux. The workplace in 2010 looks very much different than its counterpart in 1980. Tools and practices have evolved enormously. In response, so has been the need for definition of manufacturing engineering education and the design of both undergraduate and graduate curricula. Figure 1: An abbreviated view of the introduction of new required topics into manufacturing engineering education over three decades-plus 1 It is fully recognized that university-level programs in both manufacturing engineering and manufacturing engineering technology are viable for providing professional staffing for industrial companies. In order to shorten the adjectives and other modifiers throughout this paper, whenever ‘manufacturing engineering’ appears, ‘manufacturing engineering and manufacturing engineering technology’ is meant, in almost every case. There are a few references (e.g., reference to accreditation criteria) where this inference is not the case, and these cases will be clear in the context. !"#$% !""$% &$$$% &$!$% '( )% '( * %