by Martin Wallace
Dr. Bonnie Boardman’s Introduction To Industrial Engineering (Ie 1205) Maker Literacies Project Report
Related Topics
In Spring 2017 Dr. Bonnie Boardman’s Introduction to Industrial Engineering (IE 1205) students undertook an assignment in the UTA FabLab with the goal of learning about the design process by going through it in a “real life” environment. Industrial Engineers design processes more often than they design things, so the assignment was for them to design or improve a training process using the DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control) method. In terms of our draft list of maker-based competencies, the steps of DMAIC include almost all of the components of the “apply design praxis” subset of the competencies.
The students toured the FabLab and heard from and got a chance to ask questions of Katie Musick Peery, the FabLab’s director. They were encouraged to visit the FabLab throughout the semester as they worked on their assignments--there also happened to be a FabLab student employee enrolled in IE 1205; he very generously answered questions, from his perspective, throughout the semester.
Dr. Boardman reports that the assignments went well from the perspective of the students learning the steps in the DMAIC process, which was her main goal. The students got to experience the difficulties of writing a real-life improvement project charter. There are tons of variables and conflicting goals and students have to think about those things from the very beginning. The students got to see how a design methodology is helpful in starting from scratch in a project. Dr. Boardman shared case studies from current literature where the same DMAIC process was employed and students really liked knowing that they were using the same tools as real, practicing industrial engineers. Students were also very excited to be working for a real customer. They asked several times if the FabLab actually needed the work they were doing; Dr. Boardman reports witnessing genuine enthusiasm and pride when she answered that yes, they did.
The students only got to go through the first three steps of the process because they could not implement or control any actual solutions. This is to be expected, of course, in a real project as opposed to a staged one. Boardman believes that students would have taken more ownership and possibly taken more seriously their projects, had they known they were going to have to actually implement something. This also would have shown them more clearly the iterative nature of the project. Boardman states:
This is the trade-off that always happens between a staged project and a real project. I think the advantages of the real project outweigh the disadvantages in this case. They will get lots of staged and book problems throughout their education. They only get a few really open-ended projects so each is very valuable.
From this first IE 1205 class to use the FabLab in their assignments, six project charters were written, as follow (it may help to know that we have a large, continuously changing student staff, and many pieces of equipment that require being trained on, so the first two items are indeed real problems that we encounter):
- How FabLab Management can identify trained vs. untrained student staff on duty in the FabLab
- How FabLab student staff members can recognize other experienced FabLab student staff members
- Improvements to Vinyl Cutter Training
- Improvements to 3D Printer Training
- Improvements to Embroidery Machine Training
- Process for growing awareness of the FabLab (Marketing and Publicizing)
Boardman plans to continue this assignment in the FabLab in future iterations of the course. She would like to add a presentation component for students to share their processes to FabLab staff. Students would definitely benefit from this added dimension. Boardman says it would also give students a little bit of a closure knowing that their projects are being taken into consideration by the FabLab for future implementation.
Add new comment