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Session 3548

Integrating Team Development into a Manufacturing Technology Course

Karen J. Horton University of Maine

Abstract

As manufacturing companies have made known their need for engineers who can communicate well, work on diverse teams, and engage in concurrent engineering, the Mechanical Engineering Technology Department at the University of Maine has responded to those needs by revising and updating its manufacturing courses. “Manufacturing Technology” (MET 270) is designed for second year students, Fall semester. MET 270 was previously taught as a lecture course describing a wide range of manufacturing processes. Student teams presented studies of local companies at the end of the course. MET 270 now focuses on the concurrent engineering of products. The technical content is presented using a variety of media including lecture, cooperative learning activities, web-based training, films, and student tours. Communication and team skills are practiced during in-class exercises. For three families of processes, small student teams design simple products, develop CADD drawings and engineering analyses to support the designs, and describe in detail how the products will be fabricated and what the impacts of the fabrication processes are on the designs. The teams submit written reports and make oral presentations to the class describing their products. The class syllabus is designed to support the new ABET criteria for accrediting Engineering Technology programs.

Introduction

At the University of Maine, students in the Mechanical Engineering Technology (MET) program complete a core of courses focusing on manufacturing. Five of these courses are laboratory based. The remaining course, MET 270 Manufacturing Technology, is a lecture class which introduces manufacturing processes for metal, plastic, paper, and assembled products. This second-year Fall semester course has undergone major revision over the past two years. Previously students were introduced to many manufacturing processes but at a superficial level. MET 270 now focuses on concurrent engineering of manufactured products. Students investigate fewer processes but in greater depth. Those processes that are treated in the laboratory courses were removed from the MET 270 syllabus and processes relevant to Maine industries were added.

The new program evaluation criteria established by the Technology Accreditation Commission (TAC) of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) and the graduate competency gaps cited in the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) Manufacturing Education Plan Phase I Report were addressed in the new course design.1, 2 Students must practice and demonstrate teamwork, communication, and lifelong learning skills. Team-based projects have replaced individual question-and-answer homework assignments. Teams are

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Horton, K. (2000, June), Integrating Team Development Into A Manufacturing Technology Course Paper presented at 2000 Annual Conference, St. Louis, Missouri. 10.18260/1-2--8477