Development of a product-oriented manufacturing processes laboratory

Presented is the development of a Manufacturing Processes Laboratory for an undergraduate Mechanical Engineering program. The course underwent a comprehensive redesign for several core reasons. The primary goal was to integrate a single product to be manufactured as part of all lab sessions. The product design was developed to integrate mostly machining processes that are conducted throughout the semester. The product, a bench vise, had design criteria that were imposed primarily a result of educational needs. These criteria included generous dimensional tolerances, constrained component dimensional sizes, use of a variety of materials, time-constrained process limits, and use of some commercial off-the-shelf parts in the assembly. A course development objective was to include as many students as possible per section due to the rapid enrollment growth in Mechanical Engineering over the past five years. This objective resulted in a 'flexible manufacturing' approach to the product design, whereby some components could be processed at different stations independently of the order in which the processes occurred. New equipment integration was also included in the laboratory development. Presented are student evaluations of the laboratory plus design modifications implemented and/or planned after two semesters and six sections of the laboratory offering.