Most important topics for undergraduate Manufacturing Systems course? 4

[dmalicky]

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

 

[MikeHalloran]

By the time your students get to be my age, they'll be trying to work with a whole new set of technologies and a whole new set of buzzwords. Okay, probably at least the third new set of each.

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

 

[PSE]

In my experience, manufacturing systems goes beyond what actually happens on the plant floor. I end up working with just about the complete organization in one form or another. You could try doing a design launch or a series of launches through your lab. Each could utilize different technologies to be "successfully" produced. You could then throw all sorts scenarios for your students to solve (schedule changes, requirement changes, material availability etc.)

Regards,

 

[tygerdawg]

Even though I call myself a mechanical engineer, I took coursework like that years ago in grad school. The resulting years out in the real world as a manufacturing engineer gave me this insight:

(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

 

[MikeHalloran]

Manufacturing systems comprise people, processes, and machinery. I'm assuming that a laboratory for teaching it will include machinery, and I'm suggesting that it not be new, state of the art machinery.

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

 

[tgeorge]

Upon graduating about 3 years ago, the stuff I have used as a part of two businesses, one large and one small, are as follows, but not limited to:

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.

 

[dmalicky]

Thanks, everyone, for your great feedback! This will be very helpful as we prioritize topics and make a cohesive course. We especially like the real-world and/or semi-real-world problems as vehicles for teaching the methods. The apprenticeship consultant model makes a lot of sense, too.
Thanks again,
David Malicky

 

[TVP]

Just wanted to reinforce the concepts of SPC and lean manufacturing. I cannot imagine any manufacturing environment in the 21st century that does not understand these two concepts. I think it is important that SPC is described in terms of a real product, and how product characteristics (say hardness or case depth of a heat treated steel shaft) may require the application of statistical methods to both the final product and to the process (measurement of steel composition, quench temperature, inductor energy, carbon potential during carburizing, etc.).