2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Research suggests that the inclusion of case studies in courses helps make engineering concepts more realistic and relevant for learners. In the area of automated manufacturing system design, case studies can help convey the steps involved in designing systems to automate industrial processes. Interviews with automated system integrators have shown that they often recall other systems they have seen or worked on previously (i.e., cases) when designing new systems. However, the actual design process is complex, and the designs tend to be closely guarded, proprietary information. Therefore, the availability of case studies for industry automated system design is limited, especially case studies that illustrate the control logic behind the steps of an automated manufacturing process.
This paper describes the development of three interactive animated case studies related to the design of systems that automate manufacturing processes. Automated manufacturing processes can be categorized into three broad types: discrete, continuous, and hybrid. Hybrid processes include both discrete and continuous elements. The case studies illustrate the design of automated lines for each type of process—discrete (engine block), continuous (iron bar), and hybrid (chocolate).

Each case study includes a problem statement, system setup, and a case analysis. The system setup section provides a verbal description and an animated illustration of the system operation. The case analysis includes a description of the inputs and outputs, assignment of programmable logic controller (PLC) I/O ports for each input and output, sequence of events, PLC ladder logic program, and an animated schematic illustrating each step of the wiring process needed to interface the various hardware components. At the end of the case analysis section, learners have an opportunity to practice interfacing the system components.

Survey results suggest that the case studies helped learners to understand how to translate a manufacturing process into control logic and enhanced their interest in industrial automation and control.