Manufacturing Systems Integration: What Is It And How Do We Teach It?

In today’s increasingly fast-paced ma nufacturing environment, engineers are called upon to design and develop manufacturing systems that can respond quickly and efficiently to constantly changing demands. The increased use of automation and continuing trend toward shorter life cycles and more customized products creates a heavy demand for sophisti cated skills in information technologies, engineering management, quality engineering and many other areas. These skills need to be pr vided to our students, and need to be provided in a way that allows them to be viewed as part of their engineering skills, rather than as a separ ate s t of “management tools” that can be “picked up later” or “learned on the j ob.”