Reintroducing Industrial Engineering Students to Manufacturing through Environmental Pertinence

Abstract

Manufacturing is a key economic activity. Its know-how and its competitive advantages have shaped the history of humankind. In many Industrial Engineering (IE) programs, however, manufacturing is not taught as related to process know-how, but as systemic integration and management. It is possible to capitalize on the recent 3D printing technologies to reintroduce IE students to manufacturing principles through prototyping projects. Sparking the interest of IE students, though, can also be achieved through selecting problems of environmental awareness. This work describes a project of self-assemblies developed under the scheme of undergraduate research that makes prototyping a central endeavor with the aim to foster plastic recycling as an end goal.

3D Scanning to Enable 3D Printing in Ergonomics Projects

“…The creation of the digital model, with roots in traditional mechanical modeling, is now a computeraided skill mostly incorporated into Mechanical Engineering curricula. IEs need this modeling skill to capitalize on 3D printing as a prototyping method [3]. Ergonomics in particular, one of the IE subfields, would greatly benefit from the adoption of 3D Printing.…”