Comprehensive Experiment Design of Production Logistics Based on CDIO
Ying-de Li, Xiu-ju Lan
Mechanical Engineering College, Zhejiang University of Technology
(liyingde2008@sina.com)
Abstract - Production logistics engineer in
manufacturing plant is one of the important potential
employments for logistics engineering students. The training
purpose of our school is to provide some professionals who
are familiar with the production logistics and from the
logistics engineering graduates. Based on the CDIO concept,
a comprehensive experiment is designed, which include the
production forecasts and orders issued, facilities planning,
production line design, production planning and scheduling,
quality control and analysis, just in time and material
distribution, to simulate the production logistics in the
typical manufacturing factory. We will put forward the
experiment design, group and role allocation, experiment
procedures, experiment result analysis, the effect evaluation
and improvement and so on.
Key words - CDIO concept, production logistics,
comprehensive and project-based experiment, role exchange
I. Analysis of teaching problems
Production and Operation Management, Facilities
Planning and Logistics are the important courses for the
students whose major is the Logistics Engineering, the
core contents of the two courses are closely related to
actual operation of enterprises (especially the
manufacturing plants) and are the core curriculum to
cultivate production logistics professional[1]. The two
courses cover the market demand analysis, facilities
planning and layout, logistics systems analysis and
design, organization and design of flow line, production
planning and control, quality control, work study and time
study, business process reengineering, advanced
manufacturing systems and so on, which have strong
practical[2,3].
Among the many interesting facts we know about how
experiences affect learning, one relates especially to
CDIO[4]: Engineering students tend to learn by
experiencing the concrete and then applying that
experience to the abstract. Unlike their counterparts of
yesteryear, many engineering students these days don’t
arrive at college armed with hands-on experiences like
tinkering with cars or building radio [5,6]. CDIO has open
and accessible channels for the program materials and for
disseminating and exchanging resources. CDIO
collaborators have assembled a unique development team
of curriculum, teaching and learning, assessment, design
and build, and communications professionals. They are
helping others to explore adopting CDIO in their
institutions[7].
Current teaching model pays more attention on the
basic theory[8,9], the teacher mainly use the lecture notes,
the students are accepted the basic knowledge passively.
It is lack of comprehensive, systematic experiment course,
teachers and students are lack of communication deeply,
the students are lack of real feeling to the knowledge, it is
difficult to achieve the teaching effectiveness. Although
the teacher use some auxiliary teaching material and
tools[11,12,13], such as cases study, video explore, basic
understanding of practice, there are some problems in
teaching model, which include as follows:
(1)In case study, there are some descriptive content, but
there are lack of actual data, the case is far away from the
practices, which is hard to attract the students interesting.
(2)The comprehensive video is lack of production
logistics, the special subject of production logistics is
lack, it is difficult to integrate the curriculum content
closely.
(3)The understanding of the practice is too short a, it is
difficult for students to understand the application of
professional knowledge deeply. The existing curriculum
design is limited to theoretical and lack of practices
supporting.
(4)The experiment teaching software pay more
attention on the solution of the model of production and
management activities, not on the production logistics
analysis which is play more roles on culturing. It is hard
to achieve the teaching purpose which is to culture the
applying and innovative ability.
(5)The knowledge and emotional experience of juniors
are far away from the actual business operation, with the
abstraction and boring the course knowledge, which lead
to the lack of study interesting for students.
In response to these problems, it is necessary to
design a comprehensive experiment on the logistics
engineering and industrial engineering laboratory
platform based on the CDIO engineering education
philosophy[14]. The comprehensive experiment will
integrate many courses to improve the understanding and
application to the organization, design, operation and
control for the production logistics in manufacturing
factory[15]. The comprehensive experiment can attract the
interesting in professional courses.
II. Experiment objectives design
The experiment purpose is to help the students to learn
how to use the theory knowledge comprehensively. The
experiment will provide a production process model by
independent design, analysis and optimization for students
to cultivate the independent analysis and problem-solving
ability. The detail objectives include as follows:
(1)To change the single teaching method and improve
the teaching effectiveness, which can improve the
application of CDIO concept in the high education;
(2)To help the students to understand the production
and operation in manufacturing enterprises deeply, to
improve the understanding on basic theory and methods
in courses, to reduce abstraction and boring feeling, and to
attract the study interesting;
(3)To improve the recognize, understanding and
application to the internal production logistics system of
manufacturing plant, to enhance recognize and interesting
on the production logistics jobs, to broaden the
employment view and choice;
(4)To improve the application ability to solve practical
problems with comprehensive knowledge, and to culture
the creativity and teamwork ability.
III. Experiment syllabus design
A.CDIO concept and philosophy
Engineering education and real-world demands on
engineers have in recent years drifted apart. Realizing that
this widening gap must be closed, leading engineering
schools in the USA, Europe, Canada, UK, Africa, Asia,
and New Zealand formed the CDIO Initiative: A
worldwide collaborative to conceive and develop a new
vision of engineering education[1].
CDIO is an initialism for Conceive-Design-Implement
-Operate, which is an innovative educational framework
for producing the next generation of engineers. The
framework provides students with an education stressing
engineering fundamentals set in the context of Conceiving
-Designing-Implementing-Operating real-world systems
and products [6,7]. Throughout the world, CDIO Initiative
collaborators have adopted CDIO as the framework of
their curricular planning and outcome-based assessment.
The CDIO concept was originally conceived at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the late
1990's. In 2000, MIT in collaboration with three Swedish
universities
(i.e.
Chalmers
University
of
Technology, Linköping University and the Royal Institute
of Technology) formally founded the CDIO Initiative. It
became an international collaboration, with universities
around the world adopting the same framework.
CDIO collaborators recognize that an engineering
education is acquired over a long period and in a variety
of institutions, and that educators in all parts of this
spectrum can learn from practice elsewhere. The CDIO
network therefore welcomes members in a diverse range
of institutions ranging from research-led internationally
acclaimed universities to local colleges dedicated to
providing students with their initial grounding in
engineering.
The CDIO Initiative is rich with student projects
complemented by internships in industry, features active
group learning experiences in both classrooms and in
modern learning workshops/ laboratories, and rigorous
assessment and evaluation processes.
The CDIO Initiative’s goals are to educate students to
master a deeper working knowledge of the technical
fundamentals, to educate engineers to lead in the creation
and operation of new products and, to educate future
researchers to understand the importance and strategic
value of their work.
The collaborators maintain a dialogue about what
works and what doesn't and continue to refine the project.
Determining additional members of the collaboration is a
selective process managed a Council comprising original
members and early adopters.
B. Experiment syllabus
Under the CDIO teaching concept, experiment includes
many professional courses, relevant principles and
theories, which includes the production demand analysis
and forecast, facility planning and layout, flow line
organization and balancing, through output analysis,
production planning and schedule, quality control and
statistical analysis, Just in Time system, Kanban system
and so on. The experiment syllabus includes:
(1)To master the market demand analysis and forecast;
to understand the JIT production model; to grasp the basic
production planning methods and production analysis
methods.
(2) To familiar with the general methods of facility
planning and layout, to use these methods to analyze the
production logistics system; and to know well the
logistics equipment and the basic process of internal
logistics and so on.
(3)To grasp the assembly line design and balancing
method, know well about the application of line balancing
software and tools; to use the general standard time
method and tools; to understand the important role of the
assembly line organization and management in
manufacturing system.
(4) To master the common tools and statistical software
in quality control and analysis; to understand the impact
on the production of the quality fluctuations; to
understand the basic quality management knowledge and
concepts, such as the qualified rate, sample testing, passthrough rate, rework rate, downgrade management and so
on.
(5)To understand the organization, design, operation
and control system in manufacturing plant, to improve the
interesting in study; to help students to grasp the core
operation
process
of
manufacturing
plants
comprehensively and systematically.
IV. Experimental instructions
A. Experiment roles
The experiment includes the background and roles design
and setting. The experiment background is a children toys
manufacturing plant, which has complete organization,
flexible assembly lines and production facilities, the
production mode is the JIT system. The third parts
supplier can provide all the materials in the BOM.
There are 7 roles, including one teacher and 10
students (the ID is from S1 to S10), the initial roles setting
is in the Table 1.
B. Experiment procedure
Role
Customer
Actor
Teacher
Market
S1
Production planning
S2
Assembly line
S3~S7
Material Supplier
Distribution
S8
S9
Quality
S10
The comprehensive experiment procedure flow is shown
in the figure 1 and the detailed procedure is shown in the
Table 2.
TABLE 1 Experiment roles
Responsibility
supplying the demand information dynamitic and negotiate with the manufacturer
Team leader, Collect the market demand information, capacity analysis and confirm the
orders; organize production meeting and record the production data; responsible for the
production process design and implementation.
According to orders and production conditions, draw up the production planning tasks, track
and adjust the production schedule in real-time.
Student 3,4 and 5 are responsible for assembly tasks, Student 6 and 7 are responsible for the
take-apart task. The allocation can be adjusted dynamically based on the orders.
Responsible for the material supply based on the JIT and Kanban model.
Optimize the delivery route and the products and disassembled parts distribution.
Responsible for production line quality inspection, statistical analysis and keeping
improvement.
CDIO
Group and role
allocation
Basic theory
teacher
team
Orders
Demand analysis
teacher
Flow line organization and
balancing
Material supply
Capacity analysis
Production planing
team
Team
2 times
Role reallocation
Summary
improvement
third time
Execution at lab
Team and teacher
teacher
Fig.1 The produce flow of the experiment
Step
Step 1
(2 hours)
Step 2
(2 hours)
Step 3
( 6 hours)
Step 4
(2 hours)
TABLE 2 Experiment detail steps
Tasks
Introduce the experiment theory, principle, procedures, tasks; students ask questions;
Students are divided into three groups ,each group includes 10 students, set the role for each student;
Teachers provide the production data and orders; Students discuss and decide whether or not to take
the orders; the team leader will allocate the tasks among the team to fulfill the order-demand.
Group take the production preparation meeting to analysis the capacity and draw up the detailed
production planning, finally, publish the task to the assembly line.
Change the laboratory layout based on the demand.
After receiving the production task, assembly group put forward the layout and organization, including
task assignment, balancing, material supply, product distribution.
Suppliers give the materials supply planning to ensure the operation; Distributor explore the product
distribution planning.
Do the experiment at the lab.
First time, the teacher will participate the whole process an give some advice on-site, students will
fulfill the experiment independently at the second and third time. The team leader (S1) is responsible
for the organization.
Each student should be responsible to the team leader ,and complete their own tasks.
The above three steps are repeated three times, the group members can change the role ate each
experiment based on their interests and practice. The difficulty will be improved gradually.
Summary the experience and communication;
Hand in the report document, show the PPT, do some experience exchangement;
Give some advices to improve the experiment;
Teacher reviews and scores each group and each student.
C. Experiment implementation
Experiment goes into the teaching guideline as an
independent course; the experiment needs 12 hours
totally, with group exchange model to allocate the time.
For example, there are about 30 students in the Logistics
Engineering classes, all the students can be divided into
three groups, and there are 10 members in each group.
Each group needs two hours in the laboratory, this
procedure will repeat three times for each group. The role
setting can be exchanged at each time based on the needs
and interesting. The difficulty will increase gradually.
V. Conclusion
We do some tests in the class Logistics Engineering 2008
at Zhejiang University of technology from September
2011 to December 2011. The results show that we have
made a perfect improvement on teaching; the single
teaching method has been changed. The students
generally reflected that they understand of the basic
theory through project-based experiments deeply, their
interesting to study have been increased greatly. They
learned the practice knowledge and the horizons of
employment have been broadened greatly.
Comprehensive experiment course achieved a perfect
teaching effectiveness and teaching evaluation, the total
score was 98.73, the teaching resources index, teaching
content index, teaching methods index, teaching
effectiveness index and teaching services index were
9.85,9.88,9.87,9.85 and 9.88 respectively. The experiment
results show that the comprehensive experiment has a
strong maneuverability and practice value.
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