RECENT EVOLUTIONS IN THE CURRICULA OF LEADING INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING PROGRAMS WITHIN THE UNITED STATES (original) (raw)
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Benchmarking Undergraduate Manufacturing Engineering Curricula in the United States
Advanced manufacturing is demanding universities and industry expand their perception of the role of manufacturing engineers in driving innovation and competitiveness. In turn, innovations in rapid, smart, and sustainable manufacturing require engineers to investigate new ways of making products for flexible and competitive production. In addition to the associated operational, technological, and strategic advantages for industry, advanced manufacturing creates national workforce and market opportunities. While universities play a key role in educating and preparing engineers to fulfil these needs of advanced manufacturing industry, existing undergraduate manufacturing engineering programs have not been reviewed to learn how well they are meeting the needs of industry. The objective of this research is to investigate the structure and composition of undergraduate manufacturing engineering programs in the U.S. universities accredited by ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, Inc.). A database was compiled to document the curricular requirements of these programs. Course and topical requirements were then categorized using the SME Four Pillars of Manufacturing Knowledge model. The subsequent benchmarking results documented here provide an opportunity for universities and industries to identify topical areas that have garnered attention of curriculum developers, as well as identifying potential programmatic deficiencies relative to comparator programs. Thus, benchmarking study results can be used as a basis for defining how an undergraduate manufacturing engineering curriculum could be revised to better meet the human resource needs of advanced manufacturing industry.
2017
During the first decade of the 21st century, globalization, modernization, and rapid advances in technology have changed industry’s expectations of industrial engineers (Streiner, Vila-Parrish, & Warnick, 2015). By the turn of the century, many schools had begun to change their engineering curricula to provide graduates with the requisite attributes that will lead to entry-level employment (Shuman, Besterfield-Sacre, & McGourty, 2005). Aligning undergraduate industrial engineering curricula to the needs of hiring organizations could lead to increased career opportunities for graduates and speed their integration into the workforce (Altbach, Reisberg, & Rumbley, 2009, p. x; Eskandari et al., 2007, p. 54; Kirkpatrick, 2012, p. 1). The current Industrial Engineering Management degree granting process at Elizabethtown College was assessed against performance metrics established by a project champion and a guiding coalition composed of process, institutional, and industry subject matter experts. Chapter I contains both a list of the subject matter experts involved and a customer requirements matrix, which shows the selected metrics ranked by importance. This action research project used a multi-phased, mixed-methods design to establish a direct relationship between the requirements of hiring organizations and the learning experiences of industrial engineering students in order to redesign Elizabethtown College’s undergraduate industrial engineering program. Firstly, three qualitative studies, including a Delphi study, were conducted to identify the skills, knowledge, attitudes, and experience that hiring organizations desire of job candidates seeking industrial engineering-related employment at regional employers. Then, ABET accredited industrial engineering programs were benchmarked to identify what academic content they offer in their learning processes to provide requisite attributes. This research identified key program elements with which to construct a new curriculum model. Comparative, mixed method research was conducted to evaluate industry professionals’ reactions to the redesigned program model. Concurrently, two model courses were designed and delivered in a flipped classroom environment to determine student reaction to a student-centered pedagogy grounded in Kolb’s theory of experiential learning. As the result of the research, the writer took specific action to improve the industrial engineering curriculum by designing a program that resulted in a B.S. degree in Engineering with a concentration in Industrial and Systems Engineering. Elizabethtown College’s program now aligns its student learning experiences more favorably with those of industrial engineering students from competing schools.
From Traditional to Applied:A Case Study in Industrial Engineering Curriculum
Proceedings of the 2013 International Conference on Advanced ICT, 2013
Applied Industrial Engineering is the application of management and technical skills for the design of new products, integration of production and/or information systems and the improvement of manufacturing processes. The purpose of this case study is to present the results of an initial research study conducted to identify the desired professional characteristics of an industrial engineer with an undergraduate degree and the emerging topic areas that should be incorporated into the curriculum to prepare industrial engineering (IE) graduates for the future workforce.
Emerging Topics For Industrial Engineering Curriculum
2006 Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings
He received dual degrees in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering from the University of Panama and Master degrees from the Florida Institute of Technology and the University of Missouri-Rolla. He received a Ph.D. in Engineering Management from the University of Mis-souri-Rolla in 1990. He also holds dual MS degrees in Aerospace Systems Engineering & Management from the
A Multi-Institutional Study of Student Perceptions of Industrial Engineering
Proceedings. Frontiers in Education. 36th Annual Conference, 2006
In a previous paper [1], we described students' perceptions of industrial engineering (IE) as a field, but that analysis was based on 26 interviewees from only one institution. In this paper, we expand that set to 117 students at four institutions and 12 faculty. As part of the interview protocol, we asked participants to describe IE as a field and characteristics of effective IEs, as well as to discuss their perception of what non-IEs think of IE. From the initial and expanded data sets, we have identified attributes that students commonly use to describe the field, such as people-oriented and about efficiency. We examined the data for gender and institution differences, finding only one consistent difference: men were more likely than women to mention the status potential afforded by an IE degree. It was striking that so many aspects of IE that are attractive to women are also appealing to men. 0-7803-9077-6/05/$20.00
Smart and Sustainable Manufacturing Systems, 2020
Advanced manufacturing, through the application of science and technology, compels an expanded view of the role of engineers in driving innovation. Advanced manufacturing requires engineers to imagine new ways of making products for smart, rapid, flexible, sustainable and competitive production. Such manufacturing innovation is driving operational, tactical, and strategic advantages for industry, while also creating a demand for a dynamic global workforce and market. The work herein supports the preparation of next-generation engineers for careers in academia and industry by developing and implementing a framework for adaptive manufacturing engineering curricula. The framework is founded upon a benchmarking study that applied the SME Four Pillars of Manufacturing Knowledge Model to examine ABET-accredited undergraduate manufacturing engineering programs in the United States. Results of this work will enable universities, along with their industry partners, to identify topics that have garnered the attention of other curriculum developers, and to define opportunities for improvement. Thus, the adaptive framework can serve as a basis for defining how individual undergraduate programs can best meet the human resource needs of affiliated advanced manufacturing industry. To illustrate, a resulting revision to the manufacturing engineering curriculum at Oregon State University is described. The curriculum consists of a set of foundational courses and supporting thrusts in manufacturing systems and product development. The framework enables keystone options addressing needs for educating students in manufacturing systems, product development, smart manufacturing, and sustainable manufacturing. The framework supports local industry needs while taking advantage of faculty expertise. Initial implementation has demonstrated a positive student reception of the revised program, which also facilitates dual majors with industrial engineering and mechanical engineering.
Assessing Industrial Engineering Courses Using Benchmark, Faculty Experience and Fe Requirements
IJAEDU- International E-Journal of Advances in Education, 2016
Faculty of Engineering at King Abdulaziz University plans to redesign its undergraduate courses, which is required for students in 14 different programs. These courses have an annual enrolment of about 2,500 students each year. The Operations Research Teaching Area in the Department of Industrial Engineering will be presented as a case study. This area involves two core and three elective courses.
2013
The four pillars of manufacturing have been developed as a framework to promote understanding of the ideal content of an undergraduate program in manufacturing engineering. It has been proposed that the four pillars could also provide direction for enhancing the content of other related engineering programs (e.g. mechanical engineering) in order to better prepare these engineering graduates for entering the manufacturing workforce. This paper describes the application of the four pillars as a tool for analysis of the curricular content of a general engineering degree with a concentration in mechanical engineering. Many graduates from this program (located in the state of Michigan) have gone on to work in various manufacturing industries, even though the concentration has not previously been tailored specifically toward the preparation of manufacturing professionals. In particular, the content of a required manufacturing processes course was evaluated using the four pillars structure...