Learning About Cims By Doing Design: An Integrative Model For Manufacturing Education

This paper describes an integrated experience to teach students about computer-integrated manufacturingsystems (CIMS) by engaging them in hands-on team projects to design and build useful products for elementary school students. This experience is used in a senior level CIMS course that is teamtaught by two faculty members, one from the Manufacturing Engineering Department and the other from the Systems Analysis Department. In this course students learn to integrate computers and computer-machine interface concepts in the design of automated-manufacturing systems. The goal is to enable students to utilize such a methodology in the design and implementation of CIMS to improve product quality and reduce cost. In the past two years, we have been conducting projects to design and produce model toys that demonstrate scientific and engineering concepts for students in a local elementary school. Every year, the class is divided into small groups of students to design a manufacturingsystem that utilizes the concepts of CIMS to produce this model toy. The project is conducted in four iterative phases, where every phase builds on the previous one, but allows students to modify their previous phase based on the customers’ feedback (elementary school students), the instructors’ feedback, and new material covered in the lecture and lab. In this paper, we will discuss the interdisciplinary approach used in teaching CIMS, the applications of computers in the lecture and lab activities, and the design projects.