Session F4F AN INTERDISCIPLINARY TEAMING LABORATORY ON INDUSTRIAL NETWORKS María Feldgen1 , Osvaldo Clúa2 and Fabiana Ferreira3 Abstract - A theme emerging from industry in the last years was the need for better education in logic control for manufacturing systems. The topic is interdisciplinary in nature. Modern manufacturing operation is a very complex issue and has to stem from various engineering disciplines, but in most academic settings the different disciplines are taught in isolation and are not representative of the type of experiences students will encounter in industry. We made an experience with four different discipline engineering students sharing the same laboratory. We are working with Electric, Electronic, Industrial and Informatics Engineering senior students, because these are the fields that converge in the design, management and operation of a CIM centre. Index Terms - Interdisciplinary teaming, Control Engineering, Industrial networks, Capstone Course.
INTRODUCTION Control systems for complex systems with physically distributed components interconnected by industrial networks, such as processing plants, manufacturing processes, aerospace vehicles, and power plants, are themselves very complex. Notions of "control" are expanding from the traditional loop-control concept to include such other functionalities as supervision, coordination and planning, situation awareness, diagnostics and optimization [1]. Control systems synergistically combine engineering design (also called industrial engineering), mechanics, electronics, electrical and computer technologies among others. Therefore, engineers are required to work in teams, generally composed of individuals with very diverse backgrounds and experiences. Supporters of engineering education have recognized the need to integrate teamwork more fully and formally into an undergraduate education to provide students with an experience that serves as a transition from academic to professional life [2]. In the School of Engineering of the University of Buenos Aires, the Advisory Boards of the different field engineering Departments and the senior (fifth year) students claimed for undergraduate capstone courses with an interdisciplinary approach on automation, after the first courses for Electronic Engineering Students.
A first experience was made with different courses oriented to different field disciplines (Electrical and Industrial Engineering). As a result, it increased the trend students have to underestimate the contribution made by the other field disciplines. They focused their work on tasks actually related to "other" disciplines instead of solving the problem related to their own field. As a consequence, task time and complexity were underestimated and the assignment could not be successfully finished. Obviously, this was the opposite result of what everyone was seeking. The next step was to build a multidisciplinary team project (Electrical and Industrial Engineering Students), that should integrate several aspects of Industrial Networks. These activities were designed to give the team opportunities to experiment with the presented material focusing on their own discipline. The solution to the assigned problem required contributions of different engineering fields. The assignment had the objective of developing a better understanding on how the different disciplines fit into a real world manufacturing problem. But in a loser or winner society mood, the overall effect was self-defeating. Again students did not focus on their own discipline and this time they tried to solve the entire problem by themselves, running out of time and knowledge. In spite of not being the approval requirement the success or failure of the project and that their findings and experiences were the goal of the project, they felt that they had failed [3]. Our following attempt was to integrate in a team several students from the different engineering disciplines a manufacturing project requires. Also we introduced some teaming activities in order to prepare students to accept the contribution of the "others". In this paper we present this first interdisciplinary experience and draw the first conclusions on how to encourage students to solve a problem using the framework that teaming provides to leverage their existing technical expertise in their own discipline.
THE COURSE'S RATIONALE As a workable introduction to control systems , we made our students work on different Industrial Network assignments. The industrial network technology applies the multiple advantages of the well-known OSI model [4] in automation. This fact is useful not only to explain the control concepts,
1 Maria Feldgen, Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad de Buenos Aires,
[email protected]. 2 Osvaldo Clúa, Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad de Buenos Aires,
[email protected]. 3 Fabiana Ferreira, Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad de Buenos Aires,
[email protected].
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Session F4F but as a pedagogical tool. The cleanness of the layer model • In the norming stage people are able to put issues out aids in understanding the cooperation among different for group consideration, and the group establishe ground devices with well-defined functions. rules and its own norms for acceptable behavior. The layered architecture calls for a well-structured and • In the performing stage the group can diagnose and defined way of presenting the material in an undergraduate solve problems. course. It also allows different abstraction levels, according To help students form effective teams and deal with the on how the different engineering fields view the automation. different stages in every class we scheduled some previous This helps to integrate students from different field labs and lectures before they began with the project. disciplines, in the same way that the industrial networks The laboratory's equipment also had to map the learning integrate different devices to deploy a complex field environment open-ended conditions, allowing the students to communication and control network. In this way, Industrial play with different ideas. We found that network systems Engineers see the industrial networks as the integrating with common bus architectures as industrial networks [9] automation device they need for their processes, considering allowed for flexible, reliable and low cost configurations, them at the application level and concentrating their interest well suited to a sequencing and spiraling presentation of the in requirements' specification. Electronic Engineers are material [10]. They also had some advantages for a interested in sensors and actuators, so they deal with the laboratory such as small volume of wiring and distributed physical and data link layers in order to interconnect the processing, connecting sensors, actuators and controllers, devices. Communication Engineers take care of the factory like in an actual environment. There also existed a profusion network integration and its connection with CAD, CAM, of software tools for simulation, data collection, and systems inventory and logistic applications. Software Engineers state inspection widely accessible, allowing to visualize the assure the work of layers 4 to 7, and integrate or develop outcomes of systems operation for validation and formal applications in order to get the information properly verification. presented to the user, e. g. using the enterprise intranet and The laboratory helped us to set up a discovery learning the requirements specification. Control Engineers design the environment [11]. Students were allowed to devote a overall control and monitoring applications to meet the significant amount of time to "unguided exploratory work" industrial specification. without limitations or directions imposed by the instructor. We chose to develop an integrating application project After having created interest and ownership senses in the supported by team presentations on selected issues and lab students, and a background in the disciplines under study, work [5] [6]. The students' presentation assignment had three they were given formalized options to investigate. These objectives. options allowed them to investigate specific problems of • It played the role of a team-integrating task. their own interest while working at their own pace. In the • It was an introduction on how to explore (and final project they should be able to summarize their findings understand) the influences of new technologies on the and to apply them. specific engineering field. THE INTERDISCIPLINARY EXPERIENCE • It was aimed at developing students' communications skills. The course had two professors and three assistants, every The integrating application project goal was to outline one from a different engineering discipline. They used their the whole life cycle of an engineering project, from the own discipline's technical language during lectures and lab conception phase until the phase out [7]. Different aspects work. This approach helped students to overcome the were emphasized, according to the discipline the students language differences introducing them in the others' were pursuing. discipline-specific problem solving approach. It also helped Bruce W. Tuckman [8] stated that a group of people in stressing the synchronization points between the different goes through well-defined developmental stages so as to discipline-focused activities. becomes an effective team. In the first course there were 20 Industrial Engineering • In the forming stage, people act in a socially appropriate Students, 10 Software Engineering Students and 4 Electronic manner. They tend to focus on their territories and do Engineering Students, 80% male members. For all students things in the established way. the course was elective. It was a selected and highly • In the storming stage, team conflict begins. People are motivated group. They were the seniors students who busy having differences and learning how to deal with insisted on this interdisciplinary experience. them. They begin to gain confidence bringing up issues Preparatory work without going on the attack and blaming others. They also learn to listen to other's concerns without going on The creation of an appropriate interdisciplinary environment the defensive and counterattacking. Successfully dealing began by introducing control systems and teaming concepts. with conflict gives team members a sense that they can At this stage we used traditional lectures and lab work with bring problems to the group, and that the group will deal highly structured tasks such as step by step procedures with them. 0-7803-7444-4/02/$17.00 © 2002 IEEE November 6 - 9, 2002, Boston, MA 32 nd ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference F4F-8
Session F4F introducing them in control systems using a traditional environment well known by our students. Students were grouped according to their background and disciplines in different laboratories. There were common lectures and specific discipline lectures. Common lectures were about PLC's (Programmable Logic Controllers) and their programming languages, applications, DC's, HMI (Human Machine Interface), industrial networks and CIM (Computer Integrated Manufacturing) concepts. Examples of specific lectures for Software Engineering Students were reviews of analysis and design ObjectOriented methodologies, Industrial human interfaces. PLC's high-level programming, HMI programming to find out the points at which data needed to be collected, archival elements and presentation issues for supervisory or control systems. Specific lectures for Industrial and Electric Engineering Students focused on classification of devices, sequenced protection design, performance measurements, selection and interfaces, planning and design activities in CIM centers. Specific lectures for Electronic Engineering focuses on industrial communications, devices and controller programming and configuration. We also introduced the usage of simulation software as a way of evoking a problem solving scenario where novices can play without fear. Some demos of commercial products were allowed in lecture hours, made by the manufacturers or salespersons. We asked for an outline previous to the presentation in order to avoid excess propaganda. After the demos, short reports were asked and discussed showing the different approaches different students have. During lab work, we explicitly introduced the notion of teamwork, handing out specific instruction regarding team members aiming at contributing successful teaming. To exercise some specific skills required for teaming, after the traditional lab work, they were asked to meet in informal teams and to make reports about the lab work, summarizing results and drawing conclusions. The reports showed how the different discipline students introduced the new vocabulary of control systems in their specific culture and language. The Forming and the Storming stage After the first 4 weeks of the semester we shifted smoothly to a student centered model. In this activity the professor's role was to create conditions within which students could construct meaning from new material retaining it in longterm memory where it remains open to further processing and possible reconstruction [12]. Students worked in informal teams in the laboratory. The focus was on problem solving. In the previous experiences we found that students were not able to deal with an unknown technology, not even regarding it as a black box. We believed that the overall problem was the lack of problem solving experience.
Industrial Engineering Students worked on control loops simulations while Electronic Engineering students and Software Engineering students worked on an Industrial Network. Both activities shared the same Lab room and we saw Software Engineering students helping Industrial Engineering students with programming, installation and configuration problems, while Electronic Engineering students helped with some aspects of general control theory. As a feedback tool, we asked for an individual report on some industrial network implementation. We monitored how students used the new concepts and language, how they dealt with unknown technology and how they maintained focus on their own discipline. The reports were used in the common lectures to show how different disciplines obtain different deliverables from the same documentation. This activity built a sense of mutual confidence among students, who learned somehow to respect the complexity of each other's discipline. Also they began to rely on each other knowledge for some parts of the work, allowing themselves to focus on their own discipline. The Norming and the Performing stage After the middle of the semester the teams from the different engineering disciplines were grouped in interdisciplinary teams. They had to suggest a manufacturing process problem. They had to do the work breakdown of the problem assigning tasks to the different discipline's sub-teams. Faculty played the role of team coordinators. They worked with the team to establish a task plan helping team members in identifying dependencies and deadlines, creating agendas and clarifying individual and intra-team responsibilities. Four interdisciplinary teams were formed. Each team had two sub-teams, an Industrial or Electrical Engineering with 5 members and a Software Engineering sub-team with 2 or 3 members. There were two Electronic Engineering sub-teams working for two teams each, resembling a consulting environment. Each assignment was developed in 5 stages, or more precisely with 5 control points to assess the overall progress and to identify potential conflicts as shown in earlier attempts. Problem selection: The big team, i.e. the Industrial Engineering and Electrical Engineering team plus the Software Engineering Team and using the Electronic Engineers as consultants had to hand out the work proposal. The proposal had to describe the problem and the need for an automatized solution, specifying time and required budget. The Work Breakdown and the work each team had to develop had to be included. The work was supervised by a team coordinator and was approved by the professors in an open discussion with the whole course. Problem Analysis: Mitchell's Multilayer Model for the Study of Design Principles [13] was used. It is a five-layer model. Resource materials are provided as the input to Layer 1, the material processing layer. Layer 2 is the process function layer which contains the knowledge and
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Session F4F information base that describes the functions to be performed to achieve the desired process. Layer 3, the organizational/management layer describes the functioning of people within the organization. Layer 4, the information function layer deals with the Information flow and Layer 5, the control layer consists of equipment and human workers who provide control over the process taking place. Industrial and Electrical Engineers worked with Layer 3 in this stage defining the organizational structure and a sketch of the required function process. Electronic Engineers defined sensing and actuating devices, as well as the communication network. Software Engineers worked with the Web tools required for a supervisory system. Solution design: Each team report was discussed during one or two lab meetings. The Layer 1 (processing) was defined by the whole team defining devices and human resources, and Industrial/Electrical Engineers had to work out the details. They also had to deal with Layer 5 (control) resources. Software Engineers worked out the Layer 4 (information) using the gathered data as requirements for a supervision system design. The Electronic "consultants" had to specify the details of the required PLC and controllers. The overall budget had to be met. Implementation: after some meetings, the team chose a solution and parts of it were implemented using the available equipment. Actuators and sensing data were simulated using numerical input to digital controllers. The supervisory Web system was built in detail using UML as design tool. Assignment assessment: the proposal was handed in by the teams with a cost and alternatives analysis, as well as reports of the meetings and "landmark" decisions analysis. The 5 layers of the chosen design had to be presented with some detail about component devices and the whole supervisory Web system. Each team member was graded separately by his own discipline professor. Each one of the four projects was delivered on time with outstanding results. Two of them were based on real cases and are being further developed.
IMPLEMENTATION AND LOGISTIC ISSUES The interdisciplinary faculty team met before and during the course unifying nomenclature, defining a topical alignment and a grading structure (70% personal y 30% teamwork). Nomenclature coordination was needed because of different terminology, symbols and units. In lectures it was pointed out where they are being used and how they are related in the different dis ciplines. Topical alignment helped to create links and ensured common foundation information and prerequisite material [14]. A monthly activities plan was built and reviewed for each topic. To make the plan, each faculty member wrote guidelines of the required concepts and the Lab work. Using these guidelines, the common and specific lectures and Lab assignments were defined in a "just in time fashion",
reserving a class period for team training, team development or a speaker from industry. The use of a common sequencing of activities did not constrain the possibility of adding new activities or more time where considered appropriate and effective. Team laboratory reports were weekly evaluated in order to know the assimilation of the various knowledge constructs if some reorganization for deeper understanding was required. These writing activities provided a uniquely valuable mode of learning. Writing forces one to think, and it is an effective way to introduce discussion on current topics into the classroom. This invests the students' reports with value and provides a feedback mechanism for the students and faculty. Each faculty member scheduled additional counseling time twice a week during the project development. Team coordinators submitted assessments on how the teams were functioning, what they were doing well and what they needed to improve and helping them to improve their oral and written communications skills. It was a major overload on faculty time (3 fold increase) and we fear that the level of integration we achieved in the pilot courses will be impossible to scale up at our school in other disciplines taught by part-time professors. One of the management problems is to coordinate the use of three different Labs, belonging to different Departments, at the same time and solving collisions with other subjects.
CONCLUDING REMARKS When we offered separate courses for different disciplines, we were not able to focus the students on their own discipline regarding the other technologies as black boxes. They underestimated the complexity and with a great self overestimation put hands to work ... in someone else's areas. In the second experience, with two discipline teams, students were not able to build the concept of "group as a whole." They wasted their time discussing deliverables or who was the "sponsor" of the project. They persisted in underestimating the task complexity and they tried to finish the whole project, including tasks they were neither prepared for nor asked to perform. In the interdisciplinary experience, all the necessary skills for the project were present. To overcome the lack of integration shown before, teaming was addressed as a knowledge set of the course. This mix proved to be a success. We wanted to repeat the experience during our first (south's fall) semester 2002, but students asked to schedule the course again in the second (spring in the southern Hemisphere) semester 2001. The works from this spring semester are scheduled to be reviewed after the conference's paper deadline, but overall observations seem to confirm these conclusions based on the fall semester. There were no desertion, neither in the fall nor in the spring semesters 2001. Desertion is usually high in the first weeks of an elective course, because students are "tasting the
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Session F4F water" about course contents and orientation. Listening to their requirements was a good idea because they reflected an industry need and motivated students a lot. Another sign of high motivation was that students asked for more Lab hours. Faculty were asked to work more time and did it with a lot of fun. We admitted students in the Lab after-hour when it was not being used in another activity, or, when the number allowed, sharing it with some other course. Students developed a lot of curiosity on how different disciplines view at the same problem. When the schedule allowed it, we saw a lot of students "visiting" their teammate's lectures. Also they asked some questions to each one of us and the faculty to taste the diversity of points of view something has. Professors and faculty have different field engineering specialization, some work in the industry and some of us are more research-oriented. Student's curiosity bring a lot of fun to us all. Each student remained in his own field, doing the work he/she was prepared for during the last years. The fears of failing because of their lack of knowledge in other fields disappeared. They were able to work with black or gray boxes, because someone else knew how the box worked. This was the first time we saw Engineering Students doing what is a commonplace in other disciplines such as Medicine. Students developed a common language, based on the common math and physics background (background that began to be acknowledged). They began to accept the other discipline's language and learned the way of incorporating them. In the project's review an increase of correctness in the technical language use with respect to the previous experiences was specially noticeable. Students began to understand the interdependence of the technologies existing in every modern device. This interdependence was reflected in their projects and was consolidated when they developed some sense of grouping. Retention was improved, all of the students who chose this course finished it. But it must be remarked that it was a pilot course and students were specially receptive about it. The grading average was also superior, averaging 8 points on a 10 points scale. Previous courses averaged 6.25 points. Again, the special nature of the course and students does not allow a systematic comparison because of the special motivation. As with a lot of other problems related to humanintensive activities, the ultimate success of the team is determined by their ability to overcome organizational and communication problems. This ability has to be specifically addressed during teaming courses. Teams ended proud of their joint achievement and perhaps this is the major achievement of the interdisciplinary experience.
REFERENCES [1] Bushnell, L. G., "Networks and Control", Special Section on Networks and Control, IEEE Control Systems Magazine, Vol 21 Nr. 1, February 2001, pp 22-23. [2] Fornaro, R., Heil, M.R and Peretti, S.W., "Enhancing Technical Communication Skills of Engineering Students: An Experiment in Multidisciplinary Design," Proceedings of the 31st. ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, Reno, Oct. 2001. [3] Ferreira, F., Feldgen M. and Clúa O. "Teaching Networks and Control in Engineering, a Fieldbus Experience" Proceedings of the FET2001 Nancy, France, Nov 2001. [4] Rose M. T., The Open Book, A Practical Perspective on OSI, Prentice Hall, 1990. [5] Feldgen, M. and Clúa O., "Introducing Software Design Abstractions using Hardware Dissection", Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Engineering and Computer Education (ICECE 2000), Sao Paulo, Brazil, 2000. [6] Feldgen, M. and Clúa O., "Hardware Dissection in Computer Science as a Tool to improve Teamwork", Proceedings of the 30th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education (FIE2000), Kansas City, Missouri, USA, 2000, pp S1C-12 - S1C-16. [7] Nicholas,J. M., Managing Business & Engineering Projects: Concepts & Implementation, Prentice Hall, 1990. [8] MacKey, K., "Stages of Team Development", IEEE Software, Vol. 16 No 4., 1999, pp. 90-91. [9] Thomese, J. P., "Industrial networks and Interoperability" Control Engineering Practice, N° 7, pp 81-94, 1999. [10] Doran, M. and Langan, D. "A cognitive Approach to Introductory Computer Science Courses", Proceedings of ACM SIGCSE 95, Nashville, TN, 1995, p.218. [11] Smith , K.and Waller, A.,"New Paradigms for Engineering Education", Proceedings of the IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, FIE'97, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, 1997. [12] Ausubel, D. P., Novak.,J.D. and Hanesean,H., Educational Psychology: A Cognitive View, 2nd Ed. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston Inc., 1978. [13] Mitchell, F: CIM Systems, An Introduction to Computer Integrated Manufacturing Prentice Hall, 1991 [14] Al-Holou,N., Bilgutay, C. et alter: "First Year Integrated Curricula Across Engineering Education Coalitions" ASEE/IEEE Fro ntiers in Education (FIE98) Tempe, AZ, USA, 1998, Session T2E
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