2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

One of the challenges faced in manufacturing engineering education is how best to teach important, traditional content while branching out into new areas that are emerging as manufacturing technologies evolve. Dealing with this challenge requires a clear understanding of what is the foundational material for a MFGE student to acquire in each area, and an ability to integrate in new topics that keeps pace with advances of the technology that are relevant to the needs of local and regional industries. One such area of the curriculum is CAD/CAM and CNC. In this paper we will review some important advances in technology in this area that are being integrated into a manufacturing engineering curriculum. These include CAM part programming using sophisticated tool path generation capabilities that promote high speed and high efficiency machining, programming multi-axis machining operations, the use of various measurement techniques to quantify variation and efficiency of CNC operations, and the use of advanced simulation and verification techniques to develop insight into and troubleshoot programs. How these advances can be effectively integrated into courses on CAD/CAM and CNC in a MFGE curriculum will be discussed using examples from two classes offered to majors in the program. To promote effective instruction in these new areas, a substantial investment in resources both software and hardware, and time of staff and faculty is required. This paper will further describe the equipment investments made in this case and explain the rationale behind adopting the resources that were selected. The impact of including these advanced topics on more traditional topics such as manual part programming will be discussed using assessment data and student feedback. Finally, some opportunities for further enhancements of the CAD/CAM and CNC instruction in one of the classes reviewed will be presented.