Introduction

The U.S. manufacturing industry today faces high levels of local and international competition. Several factors help define a manufacturing company's competitiveness including new product development time, production lead time, flexibility in responding to changes in demand volume and variety, quality, price, responsiveness to customer delivery requirements, and use of state-of-the-art materials, processes and technologies. In every case, the company's ability to respond to these factors depends critically on the capability of its manufacturing organization.

Faculty, Manufacturing & Production Systems Specialization

Ananth Krishnamurthy
Leyuan Shi
Dharmaraj ("Raj") Veeramani
Shiyu Zhou
Harold J. Steudel (Professor Emeritus)

Affiliated Faculty

Robert G. Radwin

Program Requirements

Advising information

Enhancing Manufacturing Competitiveness

Manufacturing systems engineering researchers at UW-Madison have developed a coherent set of methodologies, computer-aided tools, and experimental testbeds to design, analyze and improve manufacturing systems. These include:

• An integrated approach to rapid modeling, analysis and simulation of manufacturing systems to answer questions related to equipment and process selection, product lot sizing and flow design.

• Computerized tools to design and optimize asynchronous automatic product assembly systems.

• Computer simulation tools to design and evaluate flexible computer-integrated manufacturing cells.

• System architectures and algorithms for distributed control of large intelligent manufacturing systems.

• Methodologies and computer-aided tools for product design assessment for manufacturability and assemblability, intelligent process planning and CAD/CAM integration.

• Methodologies for systems and product design which produce manufacturing systems that are more economical to analyze, control, and operate.

• State-of-the-art automated manufacturing equipment including a new flexible manufacturing cell, stand-alone CNC machines, robots, CMMs, and PLCs. (See details below in section on laboratory facilities.)

The industrial and systems engineering manufacturing systems specialization is intended to provide the skills and expertise necessary to compete successfully in a manufacturing environment. These skills include knowledge of manufacturing processes and machines and their control, knowledge of the essentials of manufacturing systems design and analysis, and knowledge and "hands-on" experience with modern manufacturing technology. After satisfying the necessary breadth requirements of the program, students may choose to study, in more depth, a number of specialized topics from the approved course offerings to enhance their career readiness.

Employment Prospects

Graduates of the manufacturing systems specialization enter industry with the skills and knowledge to apply theory and tools to enable manufacturing firms to become more competitive. The manufacturing systems specialization allows students to integrate coursework from the School of Business, helping them to develop insights into financial and managerial aspects of manufacturing as well as the technological components.

Managers of manufacturing enterprises today are faced with an enormous number of competitive pressures as well as a revolution in philosophy and methodologies for improving manufacturing systems. CAD, CAM, Just-in-Time, Total Quality Control, Design for Assembly, Design for Manufacturability, CIM, FMS, Kaizen, Statistical Process Control, Taguchi Methods, and a host of additional tools and methodologies have all proven to provide substantial improvements in quality, reduction in cost, increased productivity, or improved responsiveness when the concepts are applied correctly in appropriate settings. It is the job of the manufacturing systems engineer to understand and apply these new methodologies to guide the improvement of the manufacturing enterprise.

Specialists who design and operate modern, automated computer-integrated manufacturing systems face a bright future. Generic problems faced by the designers of such systems occur in virtually every manufacturing activity in the country. There is a demand for continuous improvement of product designs and manufacturing systems to help U.S. industries meet intense competition from abroad. This challenge will require a large number of manufacturing systems engineers, both now and well into the next century. This demand will occur in the face of projected declines in the number of U.S. engineers available to fill these positions.

MSIE, Manufacturing and Production Systems

PhD, Manufacturing and Production Systems

Recent dissertation titles include the following:

• Optimization of Asynchronous Flexible Assembly Systems
• Economic Feasibility and Performance Modeling of a High-Speed LIM-Based Tool Delivery System for Machining
• State-Dependent Scheduling for Manufacturing Systems
• Analytical Queuing Models of Manufacturing Workcells with Consideration of Operator Level and Assignment
• Design and Analysis of Error Recovery Strategies in Flexible Assembly Systems
• Performance Analysis & Productivity Improvement of Flexible Assembly Cells

Laboratory Facilities and Research Centers

The manufacturing systems specialization provides students access to state-of-the-art laboratories and computing resources in flexible manufacturing, simulation, CAD/CAM, visualization and systems integration. Students also have access to other campus facilities such as the Computer-Aided Engineering.

The College of Engineering participates in a large number of industrial consortia-organizations of faculty, students and industrial sponsors formed for research in specified technical areas. In addition to these consortia, the manufacturing systems specialization program has strong ties with industry that provide students the opportunity to work on applied research projects and help solve industrial problems.

Flexible Manufacturing Cell Laboratory

Flexible Manufacturing Cell Laboratory (large image)

This laboratory enables integrated design, manufacturing, inspection, and assembly. It includes CAD/CAM systems, CNC milling and turning centers, an automated storage and retrieval system, a material-handling conveyor and robots, a CMM integrated with a computer-aided inspection system, and an assembly robot having tactile- and vision-sensing capabilities.

Manufacturing Enterprise Systems Optimization Laboratory

In this laboratory, students and faculty members perform interdisciplinary research on new methodologies and tools for modeling, design, and optimization of manufacturing systems. Research conducted in this laboratory utilizes many interesting mathematical models and techniques from computer science, control theory, and operations research. Resources available include personal computers, and a variety of software tools.

Manufacturing Systems Analysis Laboratory

In this laboratory, students and faculty members perform research on new techniques for modeling and analysis of manufacturing systems, and application of these techniques to enable time-based competitive manufacturing. The laboratory consists of several computers equipped with state-of-the-art system analysis tools.

UW RFID Laboratory

The UW E-Business Consortium Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) Laboratory enables faculty, staff and students in industrial and systems engineering and other campus departments to work with industry representatives to address business and technical challenges associated with RFID. This expanded laboratory includes an antenna design and performance analysis station, a conveyor system station, and a portal/dock-door station. (large image)

The UW RFID Laboratory involves a multidisciplinary group of faculty and students who conduct basic and applied research on RFID (radio frequency identification) and related automatic identification and data capture (AIDC) technologies. The laboratory comprises of multiple state-of-the-art testbeds. Our focus is on understanding the true capabilities and limitations of these technologies, and developing strategies and approaches for their successful application in a variety of industries including manufacturing, distribution, transportation, and healthcare.

Laboratory for Manufacturing System Realization and Synthesis (MA/RS)

The goal of this laboratory is to develop a scientific base for a new manufacturing system realization and quality improvement. It will bring together research on manufacturing system CAD/CAM models and statistics-based methods for design, control, and diagnostics of multistage manufacturing processes behavior/quality. In doing so it addresses the following areas: (i) system decomposition and analysis using the concept of product/process key characteristics and their causalities; (ii) developing statistical methods driven by engineering models to achieve quality improvement, i.e., integrating models of data sets with efficient CAD/CAM models of manufacturing systems instead of identifying model(s) of data set(s) alone as in the traditional SPC; and, (iii) application of the developed models towards: root cause diagnosis of manufacturing variability; distributed sensing system/networks; and manufacturing system design evaluation and optimization in early design phases. Information generated is further applied to study reusable/reconfigurable multistage manufacturing systems convertability, scalability and diagnosability. Resources available include PCs, laser tracker and various software (CAM, VSA, …).

Laboratory for Information Integration and Control of Manufacturing Processes

In this laboratory, students and faculty members perform interdisciplinary research on new methodologies of data analysis, knowledge discovery, and control of manufacturing processes for quality and productivity improvement. The research is based on the fusion of diverse information sources, such as the discrete event signals from the logic controller of the process, the in-process sensing information of the machine conditions, and the final product quality information. The research utilizes theories of engineering field knowledge, signal processing, advanced statistical analysis, and system and control. Resources available include personal computers, data acquisition systems, and a variety of software tools.

Center for Quick Response Manufacturing

Quick Response Manufacturing (QRM) is a company-wide strategy to cut lead times in all phases of manufacturing and office operations. It can bring your products to market more quickly and secures your business prospects by helping you compete in a rapidly changing manufacturing arena. QRM will not only make your firm more attractive to potential customers, it will also increase profitability by reducing non- value-added time, cutting inventory, and increasing return on investment.

See www.qrmcenter.org for more information.

Copyright 2009 The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System Date last modified: 14-Aug-2009 11:17:46 Date created: 26-May-1999 Content by: ie@engr.wisc.edu Accessibility Web services