2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Using digital twin to introduce sustainable manufacturing in engineering education

Presented at Manufacturing Division (MFG) Technical Session 3

The term sustainability is a relative term that means, which can be conserved over time. In general, this word has been broadly used in reference to practices that are reputed to be environmentally friendly. However, it’s a holistic approach that balances environment, social and economic factors. Nonetheless, Industry 4.0 is advancing exponentially and restructuring the ways of individualistic life and work and optimistically it offers opportunities for sustainability. One of the Industry 4.0 technologies is the digital twin, which is a virtual representation of physical system or process, that uses real time data to enable understanding of monitoring and optimization.
This study aims to show how state of art digital twin technology can be used to introduce sustainable manufacturing in an advanced manufacturing curriculum. For this, a digitalized physical manufacturing system connected by cyber-physical interface (CAD/CAM) is utilized. Integrating these technologies, a manufacturing system is developed that will be a combination of cognitive and machine decision in making a sustainable product. The system will predict energy consumption and the wastages in manufacturing of the product. Thus, this characterization will also render an optimal solution for sustainable manufacturing.
The outcome of this study is a teaching module that uses a digital twin model, which optimizes the process parameters for sustainable manufacturing. Also, a case study based on feminist pedagogy is included that offers hands-on learning of the digital twin system for resource efficient manufacturing, digitally and in the real-world. The module will be implemented during instruction in smart manufacturing and on internet of things courses. This module will be assessed using a pre-and-post survey of students understanding sustainable production processes, and their perceptions of how a digital twin can be used to optimize a production operation for sustainability. Moreover, the end term course evaluation also shows improvements in course ranking.

Authors

Dr. Anis Fatima http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8132-1487 Michigan Technological University [biography]

I am an accomplished academician in the Department of Manufacturing Mechanical Engineering Technology at Michigan Tech.I have developed and delivered a wide range of courses for graduate and postgraduate level and have supervised numerous PhD and Masters projects. My research is established and focused on digitalization and sustainability of manufacturing processes. My expertise covers optimization and developing processes that reduce environmental impact and yet cost effective.
Dr. John L. Irwin Michigan Technological University [biography]

As Professor for Mechanical Engineering Technology at Michigan Technological University, Dr. Irwin teaches courses in Product Design and Development, Parametric Modeling, and Senior Design. He is experienced in the manufacturing industry as well as the teaching profession with five years in engineering design, several years part time consulting in industry and over 30 total years of teaching. Dr. Irwin’s research focus is on teaching and learning in computer aided design, analysis, and manufacturing subjects.
Dr. Muhammad Wasif http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9254-9620 NED University of Engineering and Technology [biography]

Dr. Muhammad Wasif is serving as Associate Professor in Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering and Director Quality Enhancement Cell at NED University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi. He has more than 20 years of academic, research and administration experience. He completed his PhD Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. He earned his Master of Engineering Degree in Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering and bachelor’s in engineering degree in Mechanical Engineering from NED University of Engineering and Technology. He has more than 50 publications consisting of impact factor / international peer review journal articles and conference proceeding and two national patents. He is certified Project Management Professional (PMP, PMI USA) and Lead Auditor of ISO 9001:2015 standards. He is also a Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC) certified Programme Evaluator for the Outcome-based Education (OBE) System. Despite of several best teacher and best researcher awards, he won “Best University Teacher Award” of HEC in 2021 and was awarded the honor by the president of Pakistan Dr. Arif Alvi. Currently he has more than Rs. 80 million of research funding including an Erasmus+ (European Union) funding related to the capacity building of faculty members related to the digital manufacturing and National Center of Automation Technologies/Industry 4.0. His core area of research interests is digital/smart manufacturing, supply chain management, project management and relevant fields. He developed several courses related to the industrial management, manufacturing and digital transformation, he was the member of national curriculum and review committee (NCRC) of HEC for the industrial and manufacturing engineering programmes and supply chain management programmes.

Note

The full paper will be available to logged in and registered conference attendees once the conference starts on June 22, 2025, and to all visitors after the conference ends on June 25, 2025

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