Infusing Advanced Manufacturing into Undergraduate Engineering Education (2023) / Chapter Skim
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Pages 16-21
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From page 16... ...
But gaps remain. One of the largest -- and the main concern of this report10 -- is that most of today's undergraduate engineering students are provided with very little, if any, knowledge or understanding of manufacturing.11 Manufacturing topics are offered predominantly as electives, and advanced manufacturing topics are typically not integrated into the curriculum at the undergraduate level.12 Furthermore, while opportunities exist for undergraduate students to learn about manufacturing through participation in extracurricular activities (e.g., involving racing cars, rockets)
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From page 17... ...
Unfortunately, despite the growing importance of introducing undergraduate engineering students to manufacturing -- and to advanced manufacturing in particular -- there has been little movement in this direction in the U.S. university system.
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A request for information by the study committee shows that only 28 percent of the respondents from academia commented positively that the ABET assessment criteria include advanced manufacturing knowledge or skills as objectives or outcomes.14 While most in academia consider advanced manufacturing to be an important topic, they also express the concern that the engineering curricula are already packed solid, leaving little room for adding new content such as advanced manufacturing. Instead, most schools offer a single manufacturing course as part of their required courses, with advanced manufacturing topics typically offered as electives in a structured way to serve as a link between the BS degree and corresponding 3+2 and 4+1 MS programs.
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From page 19... ...
This is not a major problem for large manufacturers, such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, or General Dynamics, which have their own in-house training for engineers, but it is a significant challenge for smaller manufacturers. These companies often cannot afford in-house training programs, and while new engineering hires entering these companies can learn from fellow employees about machines that have been around for 20 years, there may be no one to teach them about advanced manufacturing techniques.
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From page 20... ...
.17 While manufacturing workforce concern is usually focused on skilled technicians, the challenge of developing, adopting, and optimizing new technologies such as advanced manufacturing also requires engineers with new skills to capture the innovations' benefits. For this reason, the study committee was charged with recommending ways that undergraduate engineering education could better serve the DIB, its supply chain vendors, and U.S.
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From page 21... ...
being asked of the workshop attendees, she said: Have engineering programs kept pace with the growing importance of manufacturing processes, and, if not, what should those programs look like? "The gap between an idea for a product and the successful production of that product -- that is, the manufacturing step -- is often referred to as the ‘valley of death,'" she said, because good ideas often fail to be transformed into viable products.
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