Engineering education: eManufacturing Lab at University of Cincinnati

The Industrial Automation Group of Advantech and the University of Cincinnati are creating the Advantech e-Manufacturing Lab to promote research, development, and educational programs for students and professionals. Students, from first-year students to doctoral students, in manufacturing courses will use the lab, with controllers, human machine interfaces, and I/O modules, as part of their coursework.

By Control Engineering Staff September 25, 2007

taxonomy: info, embedded, software, HMI; discrete, machine; process, process; system integration, I/O

Cincinnati, OH —The

Industrial Automation Group of Advantech

and the

University of Cincinnati

are creating the Advantech e-Manufacturing Lab to promote research, development, and educational programs for students and professionals. Students, from first-year students to doctoral students, in manufacturing courses will use the lab, with controllers, human machine interfaces, and I/O modules, as part of their coursework.

Advantech has provided the University of Cincinnati with embedded automation controllers (UNO-2171) with flat panel monitors (FPM-2150) and USB I/O modules (USB-4711) to monitor machines for changes and to provide a predictive failure analysis. A lab station has been equipped with AStudio and a touch panel computer (TPC-1570) so results can be posted on the Web.

The new lab will be under the guidance of professor Jay Lee, Ohio Eminent Scholar in the Department of Mechanical, Industrial, and Nuclear Engineering (MINE). He noted that one of his goals is to rejuvenate the manufacturing disciplines. “Combining manufacturing and information technology makes us smarter. The center is a focus of research that benefits education through our teaching with students learning by working on projects. With industrial collaboration, what the students learn is then fed back into the first step: research.”

Teik Lim, chair of the MINE department, explained, “The Advantech Lab will be a bridge between research and undergraduate education, and graduate students, as well.” During the grand opening of the lab, Ming-Chin Wu, president of Advantech’s Industrial Automation Group, said, “This e-manufacturing laboratory hits exactly our target market for customers to enhance productivity and reliability. Advantech is also a good corporate citizen.”

Carlo Montemagno, dean of the College of Engineering, added, “Universities serve two functions: first, to promote the advancement of science and technology, second, to promote the application of that technology for economic prosperity.”

Control Engineering News Desk
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