Teaching Manufacturing Processes from an Innovation Perspective

Abstract

The manufacturing innovation that underlies advanced products comes about through rational, reasoned design, motivating the need for a manufacturing engineering curriculum within higher education that teaches methodologies for designing manufacturing processes. As an alternative to conventional manufacturing process courses, the authors propose learning outcomes and methods for teaching process design and innovation. Proposed learning outcomes for new process design courses include describing key relationships and directionality between product and process design functions, determining whether a component can be made with a process, selecting process sequences for products based on cost and/or environmental impact, specifying new process designs when needed, and choosing between product/process alternatives. Examples of instructional materials and approaches that are being developed to help meet these outcomes are discussed.