AN APPROACH TO TEACH MECHANICAL ENGINEERING IN
ORDER TO AVOID CURRICULUM FRAGMENTATION
AMONG TECHNICAL AND MANAGEMENT CLASSES
Adriano Fagali de Souza, Edgar Augusto Lanzer
Institute Superior Tupy – IST/SOCIESC, Albano Schmidt, 3333, Joinville-SC, Brazil
Carlos Mauricio Sacchelli, Leonidas Cayo M. Gilapa
CEFETSC, Joinville-SC, Brazil
Keywords: Engineering education, Disciplines integration, Current education demands.
Abstract: Today, engineering education, especially for technical subjects, is quite a challenge due to the high amount
of new technologies available in the modern world along with the market competition. The current
education system finds difficulties to follow the real speed of world’s development and its requirements.
Besides technological limits, a lack of integration between academic subjects is commonly observed. Many
times, students struggle to link themselves to the knowledge obtained in correlated subjects, and understand
how it all works together in real industry. Taken this issue into account, lecturers of Tupy Superior Institute
- IST/SOCIESC, a modern engineering school in the south of Brazil, developed a successful education
methodology for teaching engineering, by focusing on manufacturing plastic products. South of Brazil holds
one of the most important clusters for metal mechanic and plastic industry in Latin America. The proposed
educational method aims to improve students` view on process integration and minimizing the impact on the
real industrial world after leaving university. It is achieved by simulating a Virtual Industry which produces
plastic products. Each field in this manufacturing chain is considered one department of the Virtual
Industry, and it is managed by a group of students. The method integrates the mechanical graduation course,
propitiating a great improvement in the way of teaching engineering. The proposed approach of teaching
engineering has been proved to be very capable and adequate in enhancing students` knowledge, in
technical, scientific, management, human behaviour, working as a team. It also helps students` feeling about
the real industrial world. The proposed method aids in avoiding educational fragmentation and giving
support for engineering graduation in the contemporary world.
1 INTRODUCTION
Considering the high speed of the current
technological evolution, it is quite a challenge for
engineering professors and lectures to keep up dated
with the latest technical development, especially for
non-basic classes, usually faced by engineering
courses. There is a consensus among educators and
practitioners that engineering education must
significantly change in order to support the current
world’s demands. Learning-by-doing can be one
important concept to hold these new world
requirements (Carlson and Sullivan 1999). An
integrated laboratory for manufacturing education
has been proposed by (Shiue et al 1999), to enable
students for productive careers in industry by
applying education with hand-on projects.
Connecting technical topics like manufacturing
and design to others like management, process
planning and costing analyses is another challenge
for students. The influences in these fields are
crucial for industry; however, students have
struggled to realize this. It usually happens due to
the lack of integration between the classes in under
graduation degree. The current industrial world
claims for it.
In order to improve the way of teaching, some
proposals have been developed. (Meek et al 2003)
implemented a methodology to integrate classes of
the mechatronic under graduation at University of
Utah. In this proposal, groups of students work for
238
Fagali de Souza A., Augusto Lanzer E., Mauricio Sacchelli C. and Cayo M. Gilapa L. (2010).
AN APPROACH TO TEACH MECHANICAL ENGINEERING IN ORDER TO AVOID CURRICULUM FRAGMENTATION AMONG TECHNICAL AND
MANAGEMENT CLASSES.
In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Computer Supported Education, pages 238-245
DOI: 10.5220/0002795602380245
Copyright
c
 SciTePress

one year to develop robots which have to compete in
a sport game such football, basket, and others.
Wesselingh (2001) integrated some classes in a
chemistry engineering course in order to develop a
product made by students. Tolf et al (2003) present a
methodology for integrating two engineering classes
in order to solve project’s flaws.
Hargrove (2002) integrates some disciplines of
an engineering course to develop and construct a
vehicle for manipulating blocks of raw material,
aiming at following priorities: a) vehicle design, b)
sensors for the raw block detection, c) capacity of
choice, d) removing block approach.
Many authors discuss the lacks of engineering
education for technical disciplines. Integration and
relationship among groups is usually not mentioned.
There is also lack of integration in technical and
managing classes. According to Ziemian (2001), two
key issues continue to warrant attention and
improvement in engineering education:
a) Separation of the product design functions from
manufacturing steps.
b) Misunderstanding of manufacturing process as an
integrated system.
A network of different Computer Aided Systems
(also known as CAx, i.e.: CAD, Computer Aided
Design; CAE, Computer Aided Engineering; CAM,
Computer Aided Manufacturing, and others) has
been developed to support different tasks and
occupational profiles, ranging from product
development to manufacturing.
Dankwort et al (2004) discuss about ‘CAx
education’. According to the authors in the
contemporary industry the product development can
not seen on its own, as CAx and CAx education can
not be considered stand-alone. Historically CAD
was in the focus. Today, a network of CAx systems
support quite different tasks in product development
and manufacturing engineering. CAx education
always has to be tailored to a specific group of
person and/or jobs.
Many times engineers leave school knowing how
to push buttons and icons of a commercial CAx
software, but still don’t know how to apply the CAx
for aiding a whole manufacturing chain, and its
integration with the diverse fabrication stages,
through the integration of other CAx. They struggle
to extract all potential that these technologies can
offer. CAD is the most popular system in the CAx
family. Although the CAD technology is well
spread, the education of this subject at school still
has a lack of efficiency (Ye 2004; Briggs 2001).
Having this general context of engineering
education in mind a group of lecturers at Tupy
Superior Institute - IST/SOCIESC, Brazil, has
implemented an educational project in order to
improve the mechanical engineering education at the
college, focus on manufacturing plastic products,
applying diverse CAx technologies. This educational
project aims at integrating students and academic
classes, joining technical and managing fields in
order to close the manufacturing chain for a
proposed plastic product.
Students from all different phases of the under
graduation course are involved. The educational
project consists in a ‘Virtual Industry’, which
produces plastic products, accessing all the stages of
this manufacturing chain, such as: market survey,
product geometrical design, mold project, finite
element analyses, manufacturing process, costs,
production planning and industrial viability.
This educational project will allow students to
get a better feel on the influences of different fields
in engineering on the final product, considering
costs, demand, information exchange during product
development phase, and so on.
The current paper presents the proposed
educational project, which has been propitiating a
great improvement on the way of teaching
engineering and attending to industrial demand.
2 DESCRIPTION OF THE
EDUCATIONAL PROJECT
Academically the mechanical engineering under
graduation offered by IST is divided into 6 (six)
semesters, and was made to attend one of the most
important industrial clusters for plastic and metal
mechanic industry in Latin America, located in
south of Brazil. Both sorts of industries, in this
region, converging into plastic product development
and molds manufacture. Figure 1 shows the main
technical fields involved in manufacturing chain for
mold and plastic transformation (Souza et al 2006).
Considering this atmosphere, the mechanical
engineering course at IST purposes to make
engineers who attend the regional demand for plastic
and metal mechanic industry. The pedagogic project
emphasizes the development of knowledge and
abilities rooted in: product development, mold
design, mold manufacturing, organization and
managing, production planning, further ordinary
skills. The activity intends to simulate an industry
that produces plastic products. A group of students
from each semester of the course runs one process
involved in this manufacturing chain, as following:
AN APPROACH TO TEACH MECHANICAL ENGINEERING IN ORDER TO AVOID CURRICULUM
FRAGMENTATION AMONG TECHNICAL AND MANAGEMENT CLASSES
239

Figure 1: Manufactured chain focused (Sousa et al., 2006).
- Semester 1: Identifying products demands and
specifications.
- Semester 2: Drawing the mold and product
using CAD 2D software.
- Semester 3: Modeling the product and the
respective mold by CAD 3D. Simulation analyses
are also done by the students from this semester by
using CAE software.
- Semester 4: Fabricating the mold by using a
CAM software.
- Semester 5: Analyzing the cost of the product
and the investment return based on the information
got from the other semesters.
- Semester 6: Constructing the process planning
for production the respective product, considering
demand all characteristics involved.
Virtual Industry activity can implicates one or
more disciplines from each of the 6 phases of the
graduation course. Each phase represents one sector
of the Virtual Industry. Thus, 6 industrial sectors
compound the Virtual Industry and its
manufacturing chain.
Considering the complexity and expenses of this
chain, the tasks such as plastic transformation
process; mold manufacture; and try-outs, cannot be
accomplished. However, simulations of the
manufacturing process are done by CAD/CAM/CAE
systems, together to financial analyses.
2.1 Work Methodology
Each phase of the under graduation course
represents one industrial sector; therefore the Virtual
Industry has six sectors which represent its whole
manufacturing chain. And in each phase of the under
graduation course 8 (eight) teams are formed by
students. Each group has about 4 (four) students.
Therefore, there are 8 (eight) Virtual Industries
running and each Virtual Industry has 6 (six) sectors,
as presented in table 1.
The sector of the Virtual Industry has to network
with one another in order to develop the proposed
product.
During the team formation, lectures from
respective classes are stimulated to look for
individual student’s abilities, considering three main
characteristics: manager ship ability; communication
ability; and technical ability. After that, the teacher
has to form teams made up of: one chief manager;
one communicator response; and students
responsible for technical know how. The entire
group is duly responsible for all assigned tasks.
The activity of the Virtual Industry starts with
one product being produced. Each sector has to
communicate with counterparts in order to obtain
production information on the product, such as:
geometrical data; manufacturing process; production
management; individual costs; investment viability
and others.
All the 8 (eight) Virtual Industries have to
develop similar activities, considering the product to
be manufactured, production batch and others.
General variables along the development process
can be defined by the team and explained in a final
report.
In this activity a meeting is holding with lectures
involved before the beginning of each school period.
This meeting is used for set the dates and
deliverables. Suggestions and improvements are
suitably discussed.
2.2 Deliverables and Requirements
Each sector of the Virtual Industries has to generate
and exchange information about its respective
production activities. That information is divided in
technical and management data. Technical data
correlates mainly to:
- Product design, as geometry and special
features.
- Design of the mold necessary for its production.
- Technical 2D draft for production line.
- NC programs for the mold manufacture.
- Analyses and simulations.
Software CAD/CAM/CAE are the most used tools in
this stage.
Manufacture chain of plastic products fabricated by moulds
Product
development
Materials analyses
Mould
manufacture
Inspection and
try-out
Transformation
processes
Mould
design
CSEDU 2010 - 2nd International Conference on Computer Supported Education
240

Table 1: Manufacture sector of each Virtual Industry.
Phases of
the course
Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4 Phase 5 Phase 6
Industrial
sector
Marketing
survey
Drafting
department
Design
department
Manufacture
department
Financial
department
Industrial
department
Phases of
the course
Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4 Phase 5 Phase 6
Industrial
sector
Marketing
survey
Drafting
department
Design
department
Manufacture
department
Financial
department
Industrial
department
Figure 2: Flow of information, requirements, suppliers and deliverables from each phase.
Management data correlates mainly to:
- Market research and product definition.
- Demand forecast.
- Expenses in each phase to accomplish the
related work, concerning: number of workers;
labor costs and its legislative fees; computers
and software requirements; direct cost of heavy
machines, maintenance, equipment amortization
and depreciation; staff training; raw material;
and so on.
If convenient, students can also contract outside
services. It must be listed in final report.
Many times, a specific sector requires
information from the other sectors. Therefore, in
order to complete the production cycle, all data
involved must flow accordingly to its requirements.
Figure 2 illustrates the requirements, suppliers and
deliverables from each sector of the Virtual Industry.
Virtual Industry activity takes up a full educational
period. Students have to meet the whole team and
exchange information regarding the project. E-mail
is also used as an instrument for data exchange.
Working in concurrent engineering technique is
stimulated by the lecturers. A group which identifies
and makes optimization along the process increases
their final grade. Reports on the work flow have to
be elaborated as well.
2.3 Activities Definition
For a first view, the project development can be
summarized in: identify a plastic product to be
manufactured; develop the mold required for its
fabrication; fabricate the mold; production and
financial analyses. The specific activity for each
phase is related to the class on the respective phase.
Table 2 presents the activities, the respective phase
of the course and the classes correlated.
The activities are detailed as follows:
 Activity 1 - Product definition: In order to be
realizable, only one product is previously defined for
the eight Virtual Industries. However, the details of
this product are broken up into eight categories, for
each industry, as following:
1- Product for men;
2- Product for women;
3- Product for both men and women;
4- Product for social class A;
Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4 Phase 5 Phase 6
Mould Design
Mould cavity
Product demand
Sector Cost
Sector
Cost
Sector Cost
Sector Cost
Sector
Cost
Product
viability and
demand
Mould draft
and bill of
materials
Product and
mould
design
Mould
manufacture
Product end-
cost
Process
planning
AN APPROACH TO TEACH MECHANICAL ENGINEERING IN ORDER TO AVOID CURRICULUM
FRAGMENTATION AMONG TECHNICAL AND MANAGEMENT CLASSES
241

Table 2: Activities of each phase representing the industrial sectors.
Activity Activity definition and deliverables Phase Class
1
Product definition 1 and 3 Mold development
2
Mold design 3D modeling 3
Mold development.
Computer Aided
Design- CAD II
3
2D mold drafting and materials 2
Computer Aided
Design- CAD I
4
Individual costs 1 to 6 -
5
Demand and product viability 1 Managing system
6
Manufacture of the mold 4
Computer aided
manufacturing CAM
7
Product end-cost 5 Industrial cost
8
Production planning 6
Production Planning
and control
9
Final presentation 1 to 6 -
5- Product for social class B;
6- Product for social class C;
7- Product for elderly;
8- Product for children.
The product geometry has to be modeled in a 3D
CAD software (Unigraphics NX4). Students should
concern about product ergonomic features and
market acceptance.
 Activity 2 - Mold design: Using the 3D CAD
product modeled in activity 1, its injection mold has
to be designed. The shrinking of plastic material,
coolant system, injection points, pressure of
injection, mold split line, the plastic flow analyses,
and others project characteristics should be taken
into account. The CAD is used to create the cavity of
the molds and flow analyses are taken using the
CAE software MoldFlow V5.
 Activity 3 - Manufacture 2D draft and bill of
materials: This phase of the course is starting
knowing 2D mechanical drafts. They receive 3D
CAD model and generates the 2D draft required to
follow the production line on the shop-flour. They
are also responsible for doing the bill of material
required for the mold construction.
 Activity 4 - Individual costs: All the phases have
to understand very well all the costs involved in the
related stage. The equipments, labor expenses,
investments end so on. The costs of all phase are
used to make the end-product cost.
 Activity 5 - Demand and product viability: A
market survey is done in order to estimate the
product demand to aid the production planning
ahead. The economical viability of the product is
also checked.
 Activity 6 - Manufacture of the mold: The
fabrication of the mold by a CNC machine center is
programmed. The students receive the 3D CAD
geometry of the mold and generate the NC program
using the Unigraphics NX 4 CAM module. They
have to generate the NC programs and simulate the
roughing, semi-finishing and finishing operation for
manufacturing the mold. The time expend, the
machine and the cutting tool used have to be defined
by the group.
 Activity 7 - Product end-cost: Using the cost
information from all the phases, join information
about the investments, returns expected, operation
and commodity expenses, the product end-cost is
defined.
 Activity 8 - Production planning: The information
about product demand together to the industry
design is used to create a production planning.
 Activity 9 - At the end of the academic semester,
each team (Virtual Industry) has to present a report
of the entire project and “release” its product. They
have to present the project. Grades are given to
compound the end-grade of each correlated
discipline.
2.4 Schedule
The activity is taken along one educational semester
– four months. Due to sort time, the complexity of
the project, and the deep relationship among the
phases to exchange data, the schedule should follow
strictly as previewed. Otherwise, some correlated
activities might not have sufficient time to
accomplish its task. Table 3 illustrates the schedule.
CSEDU 2010 - 2nd International Conference on Computer Supported Education
242

Fig. a. Product modeled in a 3D CAD Fig. b. 3D mold design
Fig. c.: Plastic flow analyses by CAE Fig. d. Mold manufacturing by CAM
Figure 3: Sample of project development by one of the Virtual Industries. Technical tasks.
Table 3: Project schedule.
Activity
Schedule (Month)
1 2 3 4
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
For illustrating propose, a product developed by one
of the Virtual Industries has been chosen. Figure 3
presents the main results concerning technical
issues, developed by the integration of students in
phases 2, 3 and 4, of the graduation course.
One important result of the students’ integration
can be observed in this particular project. After the
group in phase 3 modeled the product geometry, the
group of manufacturers (phase 4) identified a
geometrical limitation. The product had a fillet
radius of 2 mm which could be very hard to
manufacture. So the group decides to modify the
fillet radius to a reasonable value for manufacturing,
5 mm.
Table 4 presents the main data developed for
management tasks, involving students from Phase
number 1, 5 and 6 of the engineering graduation.
Besides the usual management, costs, and process
planning information, the students had the
possibility to amplify their feel considering
information gathered from all manufacturing chain,
which would have been difficult to get without this
project.
In order to have a feedback about the proposed
method of teaching, a simple questionnaire was
completed by the students after the graduation
course. Grades from 0 to 6 (6 is the best great) show
the students’ view about this activity, in a general
context, as presented by Figure 4.
Besides, the proposed method influences the
teaching methodology due to drive the lectures to
enclose their subjects to the industrial application
and improve the students’ concept of working in a
team. However the project acceptance is a challenge
for the leaders, to make lectures and students aware
how vital their involvement are for the project to
keep going on.
AN APPROACH TO TEACH MECHANICAL ENGINEERING IN ORDER TO AVOID CURRICULUM
FRAGMENTATION AMONG TECHNICAL AND MANAGEMENT CLASSES
243

Table 4: Sample of production and cost definition development by one of the virtual industries.
Production Cost-Volume-Profit Analysis
Monthly production (unit) 35.000 Cost-Volume-Profit Analysis 1,40
Year production (unit) 420.000 Variable cost ($/unit) 0,25
Cost production ($/unit) 1,17 Month fixed cost ($) 32.039,9
Mark Up-20% ($/unit) 1,40 CM - Contribution margin ($/unit) 1,15
*taxes -33,25%($/unit) 0,47 CM (%) 115%
Selling price (unit) 1,86
Countable break-even point
(unit/month) 27.915
Monthly production (unit) 35.000
**Economic break-even point
(unit/month) 37.464
Year production (unit) 420.000
Financial break-even point
(unit/month) 26.011
Financial analysis Period/Investment
-415.000,00
Annual net income 675.813,60 1 yr. 228.457,56
Fixed costs 384.479,88 2 yr. 228.457,56
Variables costs 105.600,00 3 yr. 228.457,56
Gross profit 185.733,72 4 yr. 228.457,56
Depreciation 83.039,88 5 yr. 228.457,56
pre-tax profit 268.773,60 6 yr. 228.457,56
Income taxes (15%) 40.316,04 7 yr. 228.457,56
Net profit 228.457,56 8 yr. 228.457,56
Incomes 228.457,56 9 yr. 228.457,56
10 yr. 228.457,56
Present value 1403773
Net present value 988773
Internal rate return 1
Value 160918
Payback=Period 2
0
2
4
6
Work informatio n Organization of the
teams
Motivation Comunication
among the phases
The time for
developing the
work
Improviment of the
student view about
manufacturing chain
Support materials
Grades
Figure 4: An average evaluation of the proposed method from the students’ point of view.
4 CONCLUSIONS
The proposed approach to teaching engineering has
been proved to be adequate to enhance the students’
learning, besides technical and scientific, knowledge
about management, human behavior, network and
teams spirit, getting the filling about the real
industry atmosphere.
This interdisciplinary educational activity allows
future engineers feel the importance of the
integrating different stages of a manufacture chain
and how the concurrent engineering could help the
processes, improving product cycle development. It
also propitiates students a holistical overview on the
whole cycle of product development, management
and economical issues, technical problems and the
impact of each manufacturing stage on the end-
product.
This activity promotes a personal growth for the
students, once they have experienced how to work in
a work team. They have to manage conflicts,
capacity and limitation according to different way of
thinking. The students’ motivation on this work
could be observed when the students put in extra
time to develop a project in which they believe to be
worthwhile.
CSEDU 2010 - 2nd International Conference on Computer Supported Education
244

Before this methodology was implemented,
many times students finished the course knowing
quite well strict subjects. However, they are not
aware of all the others issues surrounding the
subject, such as cost involved in each industrial
sector, production time, the relation with other
sectors, and the problems that might arise in a real
application. The activity also improves students’ feel
on how all product data can influence the whole
manufacturing process.
The main difficulties and challenges to be
overcome are:
- Make lectures fully aware how vital their
involvement is for the project to keep going on.
- The time table is very strict. Each and every
phase depends on one another.
- Any phase not well carried-out can bring
setbacks and failure to the project.
Even with the above difficulties this approach to
teach engineering motivates students, avoiding
teaching-learning fragmentation and has duly proved
its potential.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors thank Instituto Fábrica do Milénio-IFM
and Sociedade Educacional de Santa Catarina-
SOCIESC.
REFERENCE
Carlson, L. E.; Sullivan, J. F. (1999). Hands-on
Engineering: Learning by doing in the Integrated
Teaching and Learning Program. Int. J. Engng. Ed.
Vol 15, N1, 20-31.
Shiue, Y.; Beard, B. B.; Santi, M.; Beaini, J. E., Integrated
Laboratory for Manufacturing Education. (1999). Int.
J. Engng. Ed. Vol 15, N1, 51-57.
Meek, S.; FIEL, S.; Devasia, S. (2003). Mechatronics
education in the Department of Mechanical
Engineering at the University of Utah. Mecharonics,
13, 1-11.
Wesselingh, J. A. (2001).Structuring of products and
education of product engineers. Power technology,
119, 2-8.
Toft, Y.; Howard, P.; Jorgensen D. (2003). Human-
centred engineers- a model for holistic
interdisciplinary communication and professional
practice. International Journal of Industrial
Ergonomics, 31, 195-202.
Hargrove, J. B. (2002). Curriculum, equipment and
student project outcomes for mechatronics education
in the core mechanical engineering program at
Kettering University. Mechatronics, 12, 343-356.
Ziemian, C. W. (2001). A System Approach to
Manufacturing as Implemented with a Mechanical
Engineering Curriculum. Int. J. Engng. Ed. Vol 17,
N6, 558-568.
Souza, A. F, Sacchelli, C. M.; Scalice, R. K.; Gilapa, L.;
Lacerda, M. M. (2006). Management Analyzes of
Production of Injection Molds. IV Mechanical
Enginnering Congress. Recife-PE, Br.
Dankwort, C. W.; Weidlich, R.; Guenther, B.; Blaurock, J.
E. (2004). Engineers' CAx Education - it's not only
CAD. Computer-Aided Design, 36, 1439-1450.
Ye, X.; Peng, W.; Chen, Z.; Cai, Y. (2004). Today's
students, tomorrow's engineers: an industrial
perspective on CAD education. Computer-Aided
design, 36, 1451-1460.
Briggs, C. (2001). On the role of CAx in Design
Education. Int. J. Engng. Ed. Vol 17, N4-5,455-459.
AN APPROACH TO TEACH MECHANICAL ENGINEERING IN ORDER TO AVOID CURRICULUM
FRAGMENTATION AMONG TECHNICAL AND MANAGEMENT CLASSES
245