Efficient Plant May 2018 - 18

feature | workforce development
"These companies let us know what's going
on," he said. "They come talk to our classes,
and they lead senior design projects. There
is a lot of day-to-day interaction going on
with a lot of different companies. Students
are getting both internships and full-time
jobs, and the companies are getting qualified
workforce."
One thing that makes a difference for the
program is the integration of sophisticated
digital tools.
"Companies are telling us they are not
seeing students who have used these tools, or
sometimes even heard of the tools," Van Til
said. "This has affected and impressed a lot
of companies. We promote year-round internships, which gives our students a level of
work ethic and maturity that hiring companies really like. Our students also don't seem
to leave here with a sense of entitlement.
They want to work, and they want to learn."
Van Til was part of the faculty team that
developed the 10-yr.-old ISE program. Before
it was established, there was an existing
systems-engineering program with the focus
on manufacturing.
The ISE program offers an undergraduate
degree in industrial and systems engineering.
Oakland is one of six schools in the United
States with an undergraduate degree accredited in industrial and systems engineering.
The program offers three master's degree
programs-industrial and systems engineering, engineering management, and systems
engineering. Engineering management
provides access to some MBA courses for
engineering students.
The ISE degrees have curriculums that
focus on traditional industrial-engineering
areas such as manufacturing, supply chain,
and flow-type systems. The systems-engineering program has more of a product-development focus, involving requirements
planning and project management. There is
also a Ph.D. program in systems engineering
for research.

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Program chair Robert Van Til works with students in the Industrial and Systems Engineering program.

"The inspiration for the ISE programs
came from the fact that we were trying to
run a manufacturing program under the title
of systems engineering," Van Til said. "We
tried that for several years, but this is just not
a brand name. People in manufacturing just
don't know what systems engineering is-few
students would pursue it, few employers
would hire from it, few HR departments
were familiar with it. So finally, we decided to
pick something that had better brand value.
We looked at employment data and discovered there are a lot of industrial engineers in
Michigan-almost twice as many as electrical
engineers. We realized this made huge sense
from a market-value standpoint. We are a
mechanical and industrial engineering state."

GROWTH AND EVOLUTION
The ISE degrees were launched in 2007, as
well as taking over the existing engineering-management degree, which was revised
and re-launched. In 2009, the undergraduate
program (with only about a dozen students)
was accredited. Marketing began in 2010,

and the program has seen steady growth
since then. There are now about 90 students
in the undergraduate program. Once the
program was accredited, it began to focus on
product life-cycle management.
"The use of digital tools makes us unique,"
Van Til said. "We offer a lot in the digital
domain. Today's students are into apps and
animation and gaming. Many places are
still trying to recruit by building robots and
racecars but, to me, that's very 1950s and
'60s. Students now are into computers and
technology. This makes a lot of sense from
the recruiting side and also from where
the industry is going. We think we are on
the cutting edge of moving into this digital
domain. And we began this right as Industry
4.0 was really starting to catch on."
In 2011, the program joined the Siemens
Corp. USA, Washington (siemens.com) GO
PLM (Product Life-Cycle Management)
program, which is the company's Global
Opportunities in PLM academic program.
"This gave us access to the Siemens PLM
tools," Van Til said. "We are primarily an

MAY 2018

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