Peanut Butter Cracker Sandwich Manufacturing Module

For many engineers, their first position after obtaining a B.S. degree is in manufacturing. Job titles like process engineer, product engineer, and quality engineer are common and are directly involved in manufacturing. Most engineering curricula do not cover manufacturing concepts. A student may not even have an opportunity through electives to study manufacturing since smaller engineering colleges rarely have a department of Manufacturing Engineering. A module on peanut butter cracker manufacturing was developed for the Introduction to Engineering course taken by most engineering students in their freshman year. The objective for the students is to design, build and then run a process to manufacture peanut butter cracker sandwiches. The culminating activity is a pilot production run where the students are assigned human operators for their process. The goal for the students is to make a profit during the pilot production run. Material costs, labor costs, quality specifications and selling price all determine whether or not the process was successful. The module includes activities where the students perform calculations and use Excel graphs to determine the process time required to make a profit, the impact of the number of operators on production, the interplay between fixed and variable costs, and the effect of yield on their profit. Students are required to write operating procedures and order supplies based on predictions of the quantity of sandwiches they will produce. Students also learn about quality control and process control, the cost of automation, development costs, and challenges in training operators. After more than two weeks of preparation, the students have 10 minutes to train their operators, and then the operators run the process for 10 minutes. After production day, the students write a report that includes an analysis of their production performance and suggested process modifications. Overall, the module provides a fun and informative introduction to some fundamental manufacturing concepts. Introduction Process Engineers, Manufacturing Engineers, Quality Engineers – a search on any of the common job hunting Internet sites will turn up numerous positions across the United States for these classifications of engineers. Manufacturing activities contribute significantly to U.S. industrial vitality and to research and development of products and services that drive economic growth. The requirements for an entry level position in these fields include degrees in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science, Chemistry, Physics, Chemical Engineering, and related degrees. Manufacturing, process, and quality engineering job P ge 10993.1 Proceedings of the 2005 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright  2005, American Society for Engineering Education descriptions often require experience with at least one of the following: design of experiments, statistical process control, total preventative maintenance, evaluation and selection of materials, process optimization, failure mode effect analysis, total quality management, and ISO 9000 requirements. These topics are taught in larger universities that have an Industrial or Manufacturing Engineering department. However, smaller universities typically do not have these departments, and few manufacturing concepts are taught in the typical undergraduate engineering curriculum. Even so, a large fraction of entry-level engineers are hired in manufacturing positions as their first job after graduating with a B.S. degree. Boise State University does not have an Industrial Engineering or Manufacturing Enngineering department, yet many BSU graduates go on to work as manufacturing engineers or process engineers with Micron, Hewlett Packard, or one of many smaller companies in the growing high tech-focused industry in southwestern Idaho. Graduates who find employment in the aeronautics, automotive, heavy machinery, or other traditional industries also find the same manufacturing concepts are applied in those industries. These graduates must rely on their undergraduate engineering education to prepare them to succeed at these jobs. The majority of working engineers do not pursue further graduate degrees. Only a small percentage go on to graduate school and most do not further their education in Engineering . Industry professionals have identified a strong need for manufacturing education in undergraduate engineering curriculum. Incorporating manufacturing awareness, concepts, application, and terminology, particularly in mechanical engineering departments, creates a strategy to prepare students to contribute as entry-level engineers in industry. In order to provide some foundation in manufacturing, the College of Engineering at Boise State University introduced a module on manufacturing into ENGR 120 Introduction to Engineering, a class taken by most first-year engineering students. This module was taught for the first time in the fall of 2000 and has been refined to create a learning experience that is a highlight of the class. In this three-week module, the students design, build, and then run a real process to manufacture peanut butter cracker sandwiches. They are exposed to all facets of the manufacturing process, from tooling development and procedure specification to inventory management and quality control. They also become familiar with management concepts, such as profit, labor, overhead, and development costs, which are usually outside the responsibility area of entry-level manufacturing engineers. In a survey of manufacturing engineers and managers in the Pacific Northwest, “the overall consensus was that manufacturing engineers should [not only] be well trained in the specifics of manufacturing processes, but [should also] understand how their decisions affect job scheduling, inventory control and the bottom line — company profits.”