2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The manufacturing floor engineer and the operations technician are key components for any manufacturing process. Both have the responsibility to reduce lag; a time delay that produces an interruption in the manufacturing process. The skills used in the Industry 3.0 factory included equipment troubleshooting, preventive maintenance, repair, and replacement at every stage of the production process. Those skill sets were identified through the ATE Future of Work project. These floor-based responsibilities are identical for manufacturing professionals in the Industry 4.0 workplace. However, the additional challenge in the I4.0 work environment is the shift in process control strategy for product production, and the almost universal application of the Proportional, Integral, Differential (PID) control model as the driving force in the control strategy. Engineers and technicians currently on the floor of a facility operating in the Industry 4.0 environment adjust to the impact of this new process control strategy as they continue working within four skill areas: troubleshooting, preventive maintenance, repair and replace, and assigned duty categories. The preparation of the new manufacturing supporting workforce for the I4.0 factory requires an adjustment in the skills teaching approaches to include the new process control reality in their future workspace. Hands-on involvement with an Arduino-based controls laboratory experience provides Proportional, Integral, and Differential learning experiences. Demonstration examples are explored with details on their application as related to two-year and four-year manufacturing technical professional preparation.