Most important topics for undergraduate Manufacturing Systems course?
Most important topics for undergraduate Manufacturing Systems course?
(OP)
We are in the process of revising our Manufacturing Systems course, for undergraduate mechanical and industrial engineers. The students will have already taken Manufacturing Processes (machining, forming, molding, etc). We are trying to prioritize topics for this course and particularly the lab which goes with it.
Our main question is: what is the relative importance of topics for the lab of a manufacturing systems course? E.g., vision, sensors, robotics, automation, SPC, lean, FMS, CIM.
We also need to consider the amount of time it will take for students to learn and practice the concepts. We don’t want them to just do cookbook or demonstration labs—we want them to be thinking and engaged. Thus some topics may be too time consuming to do properly. We have about 12 three hour lab session to work with.
Thanks,
David Malicky
Univ. of San Diego
Our main question is: what is the relative importance of topics for the lab of a manufacturing systems course? E.g., vision, sensors, robotics, automation, SPC, lean, FMS, CIM.
We also need to consider the amount of time it will take for students to learn and practice the concepts. We don’t want them to just do cookbook or demonstration labs—we want them to be thinking and engaged. Thus some topics may be too time consuming to do properly. We have about 12 three hour lab session to work with.
Thanks,
David Malicky
Univ. of San Diego





RE: Most important topics for undergraduate Manufacturing Systems course?
Some things don't change:
- They'll have to deal with people who actually do the work. To be effective they have to gain the respect of, and give respect to, those people. Staff the lab with cranky old guys.
- Systems never work right on the first try. Populate the lab with cranky old machines. Give credit for figuring out how to work with them as is, or ways to work around their idosyncracies, or ways to fix them on a limited budget.
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
RE: Most important topics for undergraduate Manufacturing Systems course?
Regards,
RE: Most important topics for undergraduate Manufacturing Systems course?
(1) mfg sys is about **manufacturing systems**, not machinery.
(2) It's primarily an industrial engineering function.
(3) It's primarily about analysis of shop floor operations, and includes issues of efficiency, productivity, floor layouts, etc.
(4) The impact of properly-engineered mfg sys results in direct substantial impact to the company's bottom line.
(5) most companies don't utilize it, and most managers wouldn't know it if it bit them on the tush
(6) My coursework SURVEYED topics like automation, robotics, PLCs, etc., but those topics require coursework in itself to be useful.
(7) The mfg sys coursework involved analyzing hypothetical and real shop floor situations. We had to act like consultants and propose cost saving changes and justify why we thought they were cost savers.
After all those years, the "apprenticeship consultant" role has served me well. Most of my managers in the real world had no clue about MfgSys, but I was prepared by my coursework to try to convince them. Sometimes I was successful, sometimes I was frustrated.
I would try to mimic that model. Also, try to get some real-world projects from local industries for your students to tackle as a team. Force them to do the written and oral presentations, with data to prove their conclusions. You may also look at some of the educational curriculum development material that the Society of Manufacturing Engineers has to offer. I've used that to assist a Department Head friend of mine to successfully re-vamp his Community College curriculum.
TygerDawg
RE: Most important topics for undergraduate Manufacturing Systems course?
Approximately none of those kids will get to plan or set up a multi- million dollar greenfield manufacturing system. Those are now being planned, funded, designed, built, and often installed, offshore.
Many of the students will, I hope, find opportunities in small businesses, where the boss treats every dollar as if it's coming out of his own pocket, because it is. The challenges there are on a small scale, but the payback is immediate and visible. And the available tools don't make perfect parts.
I'm thinking of semi- real world projects. One example might be making Legos from bar stock, or machinable wax, and comparing different sequences for accuracy and productivity.
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
RE: Most important topics for undergraduate Manufacturing Systems course?
Small:
Built a rough QC system using SPC tricks
Wrote troubleshooting manuals for people operating machinery
Wrote how to guides for same
Systems Integration (or how to make Widget A work with Widget B)
Developed a maintenance plan
Vision Systems
Machine Control stuff
Large
Work Sampling
Process creation
Systems evaluation
Simulation and Modelling
Vision systems
I applied as Industrial and Systems Engineer, so it might not be quite applicable.
RE: Most important topics for undergraduate Manufacturing Systems course?
Thanks again,
David Malicky
RE: Most important topics for undergraduate Manufacturing Systems course?