J Intell Manuf DOI 10.1007/s10845-009-0326-2
Global education in manufacturing strategy David O’Sullivan · Asbjørn Rolstadås · Erastos Filos
Received: 14 April 2008 / Accepted: 15 December 2008 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009
Abstract Since the onset of the global economic crisis, manufacturing organizations in developed economies such as Europe, Japan and the United States are in the process of transition. This transition is made even more marked with the economic downturn taking place across the world. There is a strong movement of cost based manufacturing to offshore and low wage economies. The remaining onshore manufacturing activities now focus on innovative new processes and exceptional customer service. The technology and processes required for onshore manufacturing can be complex and challenges the existing skills of engineers and managers to continuously operate and change such systems. Educational bodies struggle to keep up to date. The pace of change has meant that curricula in universities are frequently out of date and the skills of teachers, researchers and even some professors are out of touch with reality. These and other issues were discussed recently by leading experts from academia and industry from around the world. Their deliberations coupled with a number of related sources of documented research are presented in this paper. The main findings reiterate that high-tech manufacturing will continue to be a major player in the landscape of developed economies but that the research thrusts and skill sets of young engineers and how they receive D. O’Sullivan (B) College of Engineering and Informatics, National University of Ireland, Galway, Galway, Ireland e-mail:
[email protected] A. Rolstadås Department of Production and Quality Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, S. P. Andersens vei 5, Valgrinda, 7491 Trondheim, Norway E. Filos European Commission, Information Society and Media Directorate-General, BU3103/43, 1049 Brussels, Belgium
these skills will need to change. The paper provides a number of suggestions for strategic change to research and education in manufacturing in the future. Keywords Manufacturing · Strategy · Education · Pedagogy · Curricula
Introduction Manufacturing has been in the news since the first days of the industrial revolution, when increasing wealth and availability of cheap products created consumers that in their turn, created demand for even more products and services. As one of the primary wealth creating activities in any economy, we watch the performance of manufacturing industry with interest. The role of manufacturing as a major wealth creation industry is not likely to change in the future: indeed it is likely to continue to grow well into the future as consumers demand ever more products and services that increase their standard of living and general well-being (Duesterberg and Preeg 2003). In the EU for example, manufacturing activity represents approximately 21% of the GDP and involves about 20% of all jobs. 27 million people work in 230,000 enterprises with 20 or more employees. It is estimated that in total 75% of the GDP and 70% of the employment in Europe is related to manufacturing (Zobel and Filos 2006). The figures are similar in the USA and Japan although the number of those employed is decreasing. Decreasing employment is often mistaken for a decreasing contribution by manufacturing to growth, when in fact the opposite is often the case. Decreasing employment is an indication that manufacturing is becoming more efficient and less labour intensive as it moves up the value chain. The relative size of total contribution to the economy is often overlooked. In the U.K., the birthplace of the industrial
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revolution, manufacturing accounts for four times the output of the financial intermediation sector and employs three and a half times as many people (Hewitt 2002). Despite the significant size of the manufacturing sector, or perhaps because of it, when there is downturn in manufacturing growth or a decrease in employment levels, some analysts begin to think the worst, that manufacturing is heading overseas and that Asia and other low cost economies will harness all manufacturing activity in the future. Such a perception is at best naïve and perhaps at worst can become a self-fulfilling prophesy, as decision makers panic into moves that may make no financial sense in the long term. As we shall see later, there are many reasons why manufacturing will stay ‘onshore’ and it makes commercial sense for it to continue to do so long into the future. In her speech on the future of manufacturing in the U.K., the right honourable Patricia Hewitt talks about the three myths around the death of manufacturing in the developed economies (Hewitt 2002): • Manufacturing is out of date • Manufacturing must move to low cost economies • Services can replace manufacturing Manufacturing is out of date The technological revolution is being faced by every sector of the economy, especially manufacturing industry. The reality is that some manufacturing systems have gone hightech and reaped enormous dividends. Others have not, and these will clearly suffer in the future. A major cause of the technological revolution is information and communications technology. Information and communications technology is currently being applied in manufacturing as much as, if not more than, in any other sectors. Manufacturing leads the technology revolution with demands for new systems that stretch from product innovation to production and on to monitoring and control systems and logistics. New technologies are transforming every facet of manufacturing in Europe. Manufacturing must move Labour intensive manufacturing will of course move to low wage economies but high technology manufacturing which makes up the majority of wealth creation activity, demands a highly skilled and stable workforce found mainly in the traditional economies. Considering the car industry alone, cars are still manufactured in economies such as Japan, the UK and Germany despite the fact that the wages there are significantly higher than in most developing countries. High-tech manufacturing not only demands higher skills but also a culture of doing things leaner, to higher quality and
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with more precision. From many successful manufacturing companies’ practices in the UK, success in manufacturing comes from constantly innovating, investing in new products, new designs, new materials and new production technologies, and it also comes from raising people’s skills, improving management technologies, and creating high-margin and high-value goods from skilled and well-paid workers. Services can replace manufacturing Manufacturing adds wealth and creates jobs. Without wealth and jobs the need for services diminishes. Success in manufacturing does not only give us the money to consume more services, it also boosts the service industry directly through the supply chain. Services and manufacturing are actually inextricably linked. As productivity improves each individual firm needs fewer people to produce the same amount of goods. Efficient manufacturing creates a paradox: better manufacturing means fewer but more highly skilled jobs. Innovation and product development needs to take place in a manufacturing setting and a successful manufacturing sector needs to innovate continuously to create new products and eventually new companies. It is a self renewing process. Manufacturing exports create significant wealth and manufacturing efficiency and growth are what create prosperity for people who use their wealth to buy services. Duesterberg and Preeg (2003) echo the sentiments of Hewitt and many other economists in emphasising that manufacturing is the engine for wealth creation in modern economies and will continue to be so well into the future. Talking down manufacturing is not only factually incorrect but potentially damaging by discouraging potential students of engineering, science and management who will be the innovators and entrepreneurs of the future. There is no denying that manufacturing is currently going through an adjustment as some labour intensive organisations move east, but for every organisation that considers a move, many others are being established onshore that will grow to dominate entire sectors of industry in the future. Innovation is a driving force not only for growth in current manufacturing industry, but also for growth in industry yet to come. Innovation is also not limited to so-called high-tech industry such as pharmaceuticals. In steel, for example, 70% of the steel used in cars today did not exist 10 years ago (Hewitt 2002). And even in the ship building industry, long regarded as having migrated east, economies such as the UK continue to lead the world in ship building, although these days the ships are not tankers but powerboats and yachts. Concerns about the changes in manufacturing and in particular the negative perception of change were recently the subject of a major meeting of leading stakeholders from around the world. The event, co-organized by the EU and the Swiss branches of the Intelligent Manufacturing Systems
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(IMS) at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) attracted over 120 leading experts from academia and industry (IMS Zurich 2007). Their discussions revolved around some of the major themes related to the Manufacturing Technology Platform (MTP) Program (IMS Platform 2008): • • • • •
Sustainable Manufacturing Industrial Integration of ICT Manufacturing Interoperability & Standards Key Technologies and Education
The first four themes investigated the state of the art and future research directions for manufacturing. The final theme, and the subject for this paper, looked at directions for providing a new education in manufacturing that reflects changes in both technologies and processes. This paper focuses on the best practices in the development of curricula and delivery of content to students of manufacturing. To a lesser extent this paper also presents some of the research issues facing manufacturing in the future. The paper begins by looking at a number of the issues identified at the workshop as changing the face of manufacturing and putting pressure on the need for changes to manufacturing curricula. The paper then looks at the role of education and in particular at the need for a new approach to curriculum development. The paper presents a number of broad areas which education in manufacturing needs to focus on and presents a framework for understanding many of the topics that need to be included in manufacturing education curricula. The paper then looks at some ideas on how curriculum content may be delivered, looking in particular at emerging learning platforms such as serious games and teaching factories that mimic the role of teaching hospitals. The paper concludes by reiterating a number of the emerging research issues that will need to be addressed by researchers in the future.
The changing face of manufacturing Since the onset of the global economic crisis, economies are moving towards the so called post-industrial age. A profound transformation is under way not only in societies worldwide, but also in particular in manufacturing organizations (Drucker 2002; Hirsch et al. 1998). In the nineteenth century, the success of Henry Ford helped us to understand that new technology was one of the key success factors in manufacturing. After the Second World War, Numerically Controlled (NC) machines transformed the manufacturing landscape by providing increased levels of productivity. The early Seventies brought the microchip, which made it possible to make a computer from tiny components and consequently, a new
revolution in manufacturing automation began in the Eighties. As a result of this, a new form of labor appeared in the shape of a robot. The factory system itself changed dynamically from mechanized powered systems to the present day trend towards the application of advanced manufacturing technology. In the Eighties, techniques such as computerized design and planning emerged as standard entities in the manufacturing paradigm (Mital et al. 1999). In parallel, the operational aspect of manufacturing also underwent a transformation. During the latter years of the twentieth century a formidable increase in business-to-business (B2B) transactions over the Internet changed the workings within the supply chain of manufacturing industries, bringing manufacturing into the Internet age. Complex information based processes were added to machine technology as key enablers of ever increasing productivity. There are many drivers of change in manufacturing. Four drivers came to the foreground at the IMS meeting in Zurich (IMS Zurich 2007): • • • •
Globalization Extended enterprise Digital Business Innovation
Globalization Globalization of markets has existed for many decades. Early onshore manufacturing used globalization to find markets around the globe for their products. The initial threat came from offshore manufacturers that could find onshore markets for their products. This threat is perhaps best exemplified by the automobile industry, where cars manufactured in Japan could be sold economically in Europe. A more recent phenomenon has been the globalization of manufacturing, where traditionally onshore manufacturing has found it easy to establish offshore manufacturing plants and suppliers around the world (Rolstadås 2000). This recent effect has created the threat that much of manufacturing may migrate to low wage economies. The type of manufacturing suitable for location offshore is determined by two major factors: the importance of cost and the importance of customer service (Eloranta 2007). Cost includes factors such as direct and indirect cost, energy costs and taxes. Low cost clothing for example is often determined purely by cost. This industry clearly has a high offshore potential. Customer service on the other hand includes factors such as quality, lead time, demand volatility, customization, labor skill levels and so on. This industry has low offshore potential. Figure 1 illustrates both alternatives and the battleground in between. Manufacturing that is positioned in the top-left quadrant is destined to remain onshore for various customer service related issues. Manufacturing that is positioned in the
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Importance
Service
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High High Onshore Onshore Potential Potential
ucts have been developed, poses a threat for manufacturing companies. Battleground
The extended enterprise
High High Offshore Offshore Potential Potential
Battleground
Cost Importance Fig. 1 Onshore versus Offshore manufacturing
bottom-right quadrant is destined to move offshore primarily because it can be done cheaper and issues related to customer service are less important. In between is the battleground where industry may stay or go. There are a number of factors that will determine onshore or offshore potential for manufacturing firms in the battleground area. From the perspective of an onshore manufacturing organization these can be viewed through the strengths of the existing onshore site versus the threats of the potential offshore site. These strengths and threats have been listed by Chryssolouris et al. (2006) in Table 1. American, European, Japanese and other advanced manufacturing economies have strengths in the areas of law, regulations and tradition. They also have strengths in the areas of innovation and highly skilled workforce. When products and manufacturing facilities depend heavily on these factors for providing customer value, manufacturing is unlikely to find favorable conditions to move offshore. The threats from an offshore move can be severe. IPR theft has been shown to be a common threat and clearly where new innovative prod-
Table 1 Onshore strengths and offshore weaknesses Strengths
Threats
• Well-established rule of law
• Loss of sovereignty
• IPR protection
• Fluctuating currency
• Leader in science, technology and innovation • Dispute resolution
• Political instability • Institutional bureaucracy
• Superior financial system
• IPR theft
• Equity/Venture capital culture
• Health and environmental risks
• Educated, flexible workforce • Good economic infrastructure • Size, wealth, and sophistication of market • Open trade and investment
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As manufacturing searches for ever higher levels of productivity the emphasis changes from a high technology production facility towards more effective business processes. Focus is placed on the supply chain, distribution chain and more recently on the extended product to see where value can be added to customers, where productivity can be increased and where there is potential revenue growth. The extended enterprise encompasses all of the traditional manufacturing activities but extends them both in time and space to encompass supply chains and end of life product recovery. Figure 2 graphically illustrates the concept of the extended enterprise, in space, where the supply and distribution chains are included and, in time, where product use, product supplements and recycling are introduced. Also illustrated is the relative intensity of resources, processes and services activities. Production is a resource intensive activity requiring a significant amount of labor and high-tech machinery. Supply and distribution chains are more process intensive. The usage and products supplements phase has high service intensity. Underlying each area of the extended enterprise is intensive usage of information and communications technologies. The changing environment of the business market, with its focus on costs, quality, flexibility and technology to meet competitive challenges, is causing major changes in supply chain management (SCM). Many manufacturers are developing closer relationships with their suppliers and customers along the supply chain with the introduction of digital business (Han 1997; Bhatt 2001). According to Christopher (1998), the management of the supply chain implies process integration, both upstream with suppliers and downstream with distributors and customers – and it is not limited to integration within the organization. SCM expands the scope of the organization being managed beyond the enterprise level to include inter-organizational relationships (Strader et al. 1999). The extended supply chain is one facet of the extended enterprise. Another facet is the extended product or more accurately the extended value chain. As products become more integrated with services, the value added to customers becomes the combined result of both the product and the service. The total revenue in the automobile industry for example is comprised of 24% from manufacturing, 28% from suppliers and a massive 43% from after sales (Chryssolouris 2007a,b). A similar picture can be found from a wide range of other high-tech products. Figure 3 illustrates the large number of additional products and related services around the automobile. Transportation is only one of the many products and services provided. Also provided is entertainment,
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Supply Supply Chain Chain
Production Production
Distribution Distribution Chain Chain
Use Useand and Supplements Supplements
Resource Intensive
Process Intensive
Service Intensive
Recycling Recycling
Fig. 2 Extended enterprise Transportation Gas Purchases
Core Product Safety
TangibleProduct Prestige
Stereos/ Entertainment
Non-tangible Product Financing
Navigation
Communication Maintenance and Repair
Fig. 3 Extended product
navigation, financial services, maintenance and so on. With such a variety of customer oriented services, onshore manufacturing becomes an increasingly attractive option. Digital business Digital business is emerging as an effective weapon in the race to remain competitive. A high percentage of the world’s manufacturing is already reliant on digital transfer of designs, orders, and other logistics information (Chryssolouris et al. 2007). Digital business along the supply chain involves advanced use of information and communications technology in every link of the supply chain to simultaneously reduce cost and lead times and increase profit (Oliveira et al. 2004). For a growing number of manufacturing organizations, using digital business along the supply chain has become an important strategy to survive (Hau and Seungjin 2001). Digital business can exploit the combined power of the Internet and information technology to fundamentally transform key business strategies, techniques and processes. Digital technologies and the growing emphasis on businessto-business (B2B) electronic commerce or e-commerce are emerging as necessary allies for the extended enterprise (Wall et al. 2007). Digital technology enables the extended enterprises, i.e. knowledge management, enterprise application integration and eCommerce to accelerate intra-enterprise and inter-enterprise integration and finally reach an integrated manufacturing value chain. The impact of digital business on the extended enterprise has urged many companies to
re-invent the way they do business, altering distribution means, internal company collaboration and relations with suppliers and customers (Deliverable 2002). It requires a slow dismantling of the traditional static business model and a creation of more fluid and dynamic business networks, enabled through free flows of information and virtual trading spaces. Digital business is clearly a major driving force in defining new manufacturing processes and the extended enterprises of the future. Every manufacturing organization will change and we conclude this brief review of the drivers of change in manufacturing by looking at the process of making changes itself, i.e. innovation. Innovation and manufacturing Innovation is the process of making changes in something established by introducing something new (Fagerberg et al. 2005). That something, for the purposes of this discussion, is manufacturing. Innovations occurs to everything; products, processes and services (O’Sullivan 2002 ). Innovation in manufacturing is frequently incremental through such initiatives as lean, six sigma and conformance to quality standards, but it can also be radical or transformational and sometimes even disruptive (Tidd et al. 2005). The innovation process changes the resources used by manufacturing. It changes machines and processes and it changes the product specifications and even skills levels through various kinds of organizational change. Figure 4 illustrates the symbiotic relationship between innovation and manufacturing. Manufacturing is essentially about transforming customer orders and raw materials into goods and services using available resources and product specifications. Innovation is essentially about changing how this transformation takes place by changing resources and product specifications available to manufacturing. The innovation process is often visualized by a funnel that transforms many ideas into a stream of projects that need to be managed carefully so that they can make the necessary changes to the manufacturing system (O’Sullivan 2002). While the core transformation processes in manufacturing (top right hand box) vary from say machining and assembly to planning and supply chain management, the core transformation processes in innovation (bottom left
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Requirements
Materials
New Ideas
Goods & Services
Manufacturing Resources
Innovation Resources
Fig. 4 Innovation and manufacturing
hand box) are fundamentally different. Innovation processes include performance measurement, creativity and idea generation, project and project portfolio management and finally teams and empowerment issues. Very often these processes, which are so fundamental to making all kinds of changes to manufacturing, are diminished in favor of a focus on high technology that may or may not be useful to a particular onshore manufacturing environment. Innovation and project management are transferable skills that can be transferred to any manufacturing environment, whereas skills about a particular technology such as a new type of assembly robot may be only relevant to a few. Innovation and the ability to innovate is the essence of the knowledge based economy and in a sense the essence of manufacturing industries that remain onshore. The above brief review of the major drivers of change in manufacturing highlights many of the keywords that emanated from various discussions at the Zurich IMS workshop. These drivers outline the manufacturing context for the understanding and development of educational requirements (Martinse 2007; Mereau 2007). Clearly there are major technological as well as process changes occurring that make it necessary for universities to review their approach to research and in turn their approach to education—both in the development of content they provide as well as the way in which content is delivered (Gardiner 2003; Dolinšek 2007; Pawar 2007; Riis 2007; Smeds 2007). We now turn to the role that education plays in providing the human capital necessary for manufacturing - one of the principle subjects discussed at the IMS event.
The role of education To remain competitive, enterprises need to recruit employees who provide knowledge and expertise in the new trends emerging in manufacturing. Finding ways to encourage employees to become productive knowledge workers is
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imperative for any company seeking to sharpen its competitive edge (Wang 2002; Charles 2006). Education has a significant role to play in the success of manufacturing organizations (Fukuda 2006). The present and future economic success of firms is dependent on the knowledge-set of its managers and engineers (Kurfess 2006). There is a strong need to build tight relationships between academia and industry. Universities can do innovation on their manufacturing curricula according to the practical industry requirements (Kurfess 2007). Unfortunately, the structures of manufacturing educational curricula have hardly changed in recent decades (Rolstadås 2000; O’Sullivan et al. 1997). Manufacturing education does not completely reflect the real needs of industry. This should not come as a surprise since manufacturing is changing so rapidly. New types of skills are required by manufacturing employees that will make their organization more agile – so called “intellective and connective” skills that create more mobile and adaptive knowledge workers (Hirsch et al. 1998). The future of manufacturing will be a smaller workforce with a higher order of multidisciplinary skills in management (Marinescu I.D., Lavelle 2000). Educators in the field of manufacturing struggle to keep pace with change and by their nature are often conservative both in the courses they offer and the subsequent changes necessary to reflect new industrial trends (O’Sullivan et al. 1997). Rolstadås (2000) states that old manufacturing strategy paradigms and the related manufacturing curricula are limited by their single-site, internal orientation, based on the assumption of a predictable external environment in which suppliers and customers are dealt with on a transactional basis rather than in relationships for mutual benefit. With the emergence of a more global economy in both supply and demand, coupled with ever-increasing availability of new information and communications technologies, Rolstadås calls for a consequent application of these technologies and the development of related educational qualifications in various areas of manufacturing strategy. The traditional role of the manufacturing engineer has transformed from that of the technician with various specialisms to the systems integrator who has enough breadth of knowledge to cope with systems design yet adequate depth of knowledge to lead particular technology focused projects (see Fig. 5).
Manufacturing curricula There are many decisions or strategies that need to be taken by managers and engineers to make changes in the manufacturing environment. Chryssolouris (2007a,b) outlined impact of the main manufacturing strategies on European curricula. These strategies can relate to a number of core skills or knowledge areas necessary for the manufacturing student. In the context of curriculum development seven core
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Fig. 5 Traditional versus modern engineer
knowledge areas around which strategy may be formulated and around which new programs of learning may be created have been identified. These knowledge areas were identified following a major survey of industry requirements (Rolstadås and Moseng 2004) and a large survey of manufacturing curricula from leading universities around the world including such programs as the ‘Leaders in Manufacturing’ program at MIT and the ‘Manufacturing Leaders’ program in Cambridge (Hunt et al. 2004). The seven knowledge areas are presented in Table 2. It is important to state that underpinning each of these knowledge areas are so called ‘transferable skills’ in the area of innovation. Whereas each knowledge area may have differing emphasis in different manufacturing environments, transferable skills in innovation are applicable across all manufacturing domains and indeed all organizational domains. Innovation skills include such topics as strategic planning, performance measurement, regulatory affairs, creativity and idea generation, product development, project management and project portfolio management. The importance of transferable skills is underlined by the popularity of the ‘balanced scorecard’ technique (Kaplan and Norton 1996) and techniques such as lean manufacturing and six sigma (George 2003), which the majority of manufacturing organizations claim have led to significant levels of growth. Education has a significant role to play in the success of manufacturing organizations. The present and future economic success of firms is dependent on the knowledge-set of its managers and engineers. Therefore, it is absolutely crucial that educational establishments keep abreast of fast changing technologies and techniques, such as ‘digital business along the supply chain’ and so on. However, creating new courses and modules in particular areas of study is only ‘half the battle’: the other half is delivery of content into the minds of young engineers and managers. We now turn our attention to this topic and in particular some emerging ideas of how content can be delivered in the context of manufacturing education.
Content delivery Within higher education there is presently a lot of attention paid to new Internet-based technologies and the possibilities that they offer for learning and teaching, particularly in terms of e-learning (Rolstadås 2002; Lefrere 2007). Urdan and Weggen (2000) state that technology; the rapid outdating of knowledge and training; the desire for just-in-time training delivery; and the hunt for cost-effective methods to meet learning requirements have redefined the processes that are involved in the design, development and delivery of training and education. In this educational ‘renaissance’, several terms have been used to characterize the new methods of learning including: e-learning, distributed learning, online learning, web-based learning and distance learning. Numerous educational organizations are experimenting with electronic learning and on-line courses, using intranets, websites and computer-mediated communication (CMC), and a great deal has been written about the issues and problems encountered in these attempts (Hall and Snider 2000; Urdan and Weggen 2000 ; Berge 1998). The world is still in the early stages of electronic learning and the literature does not divulge the ‘right way’ to proceed, but there are recommendations and warnings. By giving careful consideration to the design and implementation of electronic learning environments, institutions can produce successful courses that take full advantage of the benefits made possible by the technology. The issues that need to be taken into consideration for e-learning are those of pedagogy, choice of learning communication style and maintaining interaction by the student. Asynchronous and synchronous learning The alternate use of video, audio, pictures, text (interactive) animations, quizzes and chat, and discussion boards should assure that both synchronous and asynchronous learning styles are covered (Rolstadås and Hussein 2002). Whatever the choice of learning communication, the learning success
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J Intell Manuf Table 2 Knowledge areas (Rolstadås and Dolinšek 2006) Knowledge area
Description
Learning objectives
Skills developed
A
Development of extended products
The development of a combination of a physical product and associated services enhancements that improve marketability
Technological Business
B
Digital business along the supply chain
C
End of Life planning and operation
D
Business operation and competitive strategy
E
Intelligent manufacturing processes
Information on how a business can use e-commerce and related technologies and processes to develop, expand or enhance its business activities along the facilities and functions involved in producing and delivering a product or service, from its suppliers to customers Techniques on how to develop methodologies and tools to support the end-of-life routing/processing decision (remanufacture, reclaim components, recycle materials etc) based on economic, environmental and societal criteria Explanation of how organizations function, interact with competitors and their market place, and deliver performance over time. The competitive strategy aspect of this module otters a means for accomplishing this task, and building a more confident and prosperous path into the future Elaboration of techniques applicable for handling complex production working in an uncertain, changing environment, with special emphasis on artificial intelligence and machine learning approaches
Make the student familiar with the concept of extended products and introduce the student to effective tools for such development. Train the student in business aspects of products and associated services Introduce the student to the concept of supply chain management. Give the student deep knowledge about electronic commerce and electronic work and discuss its application to supply chain management
F
Intelligent manufacturing systems design
Tools on how to model the skills and knowledge of manufacturing experts so that intelligent equipment and machines can produce products with little or no human intervention
G
Enterprise and product modelling and simulation
Information on how to develop and use computational representations of the structure, activities, processes, information, resources, people, behaviour, goals and constraints of a business, government, or other enterprise and also products
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Technological
Introduce the students to modern environmental and recycling technology. Train the student in decisions on technological, business and humanistic concerns for products and processes at end of life
Technological Business Humanistic
Expose the student to modern thinking in productivity and competitiveness. Train student in business decisions, production and project management, performance and quality management and human aspects
Technological Business Humanistic
Give the student a thorough knowledge of the most common manufacturing processes and their application in intelligent manufacturing. Train the student in process selection based on economic and quality requirements Introduce the student to the concept of intelligent manufacturing and to integration aspects using ICT. Train the student in systems design under economical, technological and human considerations Train the student in modelling and simulation and its applications in intelligent manufacturing systems. Train the student in developing models and using them for decisions
Technological
Technological Business Humanistic
Technological
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Table 3 Design guidelines Design elements
Design guidelines
Pictures and text
Improve readability (Wirth 2003); While texts suit auditory learners, pictures suit visual learners (Learnativity 2002) Enrich graphical representations for visual learners
Animations Interactive animations
Quizzes
Student interaction with graphics for visual learners (Nielsen 1995); Keep learners motivated (Neil 2003) Interactive quizzes to enhance engagement
Chat/Messaging
Collaborate via chat (Hoffmann 2001)
Video
Enhance visual experience for visual learners
Audio
Enhance the auditory experience (Nielsen 1995)
Games
Add fun to learning for visual learners
Laboratories
Interactive learning for tactile and visual learners
Industrial
Projects
Teaching Teaching Factory Factory
Knowledge Transfer
Industry
Knowledge Transfer
Academia
Fig. 6 Teaching factory
heavily depends on the actual form of mediation. According to Dale (1969), passive learning activities like reading texts or watching a demonstration result in the fact that just 10% (reading) or 30 % (watching) of the content is recalled by students. Active involvement within the learning process, like participating in a discussion, leads to the fact that the learners can remember about 70 % of the related content afterwards (Dale 1969). Accordingly, content needs to be delivered on the basis of active learning. In order to assure the appropriate employment of the mentioned design elements and the application of active learning elements, design guidelines have been used explaining the correct use of pictures and texts, (interactive) animations, quizzes, chat/ messaging video and audio. Kommers et al. (1996) present a number of design elements that can bring maximum benefit to the learner in Table 3. It is beyond the scope of this paper to do a thorough review of each of these design elements or a deeper discussion on learning technology and pedagogy, however, two techniques received widespread attention at the Zurich meeting that do deserve a brief mentioning here. These are teaching factories and serious games. Teaching factories The concept of a teaching factory or ‘living laboratory’ was presented at the Zurich event by Chryssolouris (2007a,b) as a catalyst for industry-academia interactions. Academia was accused by many at the event of not working closely enough with industry and using the practical knowledge available in industry in the education of its students. Another facet of this was that of research inactive academics; it was necessary for
them to interact more with industry in order to update their skills and knowledge. The teaching factory is a living laboratory in much the same way as the medical schools use hospitals for much of their teaching. The purpose of the teaching factory (see Fig. 6) is to integrate research, innovation and educational activities so as to promote future perspectives of a knowledge-based, competitive and sustainable manufacturing industry (Chryssolouris and Mavrikios 2006). Cooperative research activities in the form of industrial projects could be addressed. Innovation activities such as problem solving and creativity could be enhanced in a living laboratory. Finally, education would become project based and focus on the problem solving and entrepreneurial spirit of students. Serious games The idea of serious games also received much attention at the Zurich event (Oliveira 2007; Schwesig 2007). Serious games are a fun way to learn about serious issues in manufacturing (Susi et al. 2007). The concept is to develop games much like ‘My Sims’ but focused on the manufacturing environment with all of the issues of capacity planning, supply chain management and product design. The games could be configured to allow multiplayer use, i.e. virtual suppliers looking for virtual customers and so on. They could also be configured to incorporate real time information into the game for the user (Hauge et al. 2006). For example, during the game’s set-up, users could incorporate as much information as possible about their own organization. Later as the game unfolds and the users’ real environment changes, the users can allow the game to automatically update itself with real informa-
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tion. Evidence was presented of greatly increased learning outcomes for children using similar games but also of the potentially prohibitive costs associated with programming such a gaming environment.
Conclusions Manufacturing is going through an intense period of change. At a recent IMS meeting in Zurich leading academics and industrialists from around the world identified four major issues: globalization of manufacturing and the battleground of deciding which manufacturing plants should go offshore and which should remain onshore; extended enterprises and the way manufacturing organizations are increasingly becoming collaborations of organizations in a supply, distribution and increasingly product value chain; digital business and its enormous effect on change and potential for even more change and finally; innovation with its ability to not only increase productivity but also the amount of new products that will need innovative new processes to be realized. These issues are chief among many identified at the Zurich meeting that in their turn are impacting on the curricula being used in universities to create the manufacturing leaders of the future. Scientists and managers at the meeting, referring to much research on the topic, were concerned that curricula were fast becoming out of touch with the modern realities of manufacturing. They were concerned about the disjoint between universities and industry on curriculum development, the lack of recent experience of academics and the need for more collaboration between industry and academia in the education of engineers, scientists and managers. With regard to curricula a number of core new topics were discussed including ‘digital business along the supply chain’ and ‘development of extended products’ among others. Also discussed was continued focus on transferable skills in the field of innovation management that incorporates transformation strategies, performance measurements, creativity and idea generation, and project and project portfolio management (Rolstadås 2000). The scientists also highlighted some issues around content delivery. Creating content is only half the battle, the other half is getting content into the minds of students. A number of common delivery mechanisms were highlighted that attracted some interest—including teaching factories that emulated the practice in teaching hospitals and could be used for active research and teaching of staff and students in a joint industry-academia collaboration, and serious games that could be used to help students learn by introducing simulation and fun into the learning pedagogy. The Zurich meeting concluded that manufacturing will have a long future in Europe but clearly the environment will change significantly in comparison to what exists today. Educators will need to learn about the changes taking place
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and adapt learning programs in universities so that appropriate skills are imparted to the leader in manufacturing of the future. Acknowledgments The authors would like to acknowledge the contributions of the following to the ideas and background knowledge presented in this paper: Kristian Martinsen, RTIM; Thomas R. Kurfess, Clemson University; Slavko Dolinsek, University of Primorska; George Chryssolouris, University of Patras; Paul Lefrere, Open University; Manuel Oliveira, Alfamicro; Kulwant Pawar, University of Nottingham; Valentin Kisimov, University of Sofia; Jan Frick, University of Stavanger; David Gonzalez, PRODINTEC; Max Schwesig, Phoenix; Eero Eloranta, HUT; Riitta Smeds, HUT SimLab; Jens Riis, University of Aalborg; Pierre Mereau, University of Marseille; Fouzia Ounnar, University of Marseille; Jens Schumacher, Fachhochschule Voralberg; Oliver Schneider, ETH; Katharina Bunse, ETH.
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