Professors receive $400K NSF grant for Lean Manufacturing education
Industrial and Systems Engineering
By Carla Nelson
Three Auburn University professors have been awarded a nearly $400K grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to enhance Lean Manufacturing education.
Over the next three years, Tom Devall, Tiger Motors Lab director, Jorge Valenzuela, Philpott-WestPoint Stevens Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering and Chih-hsuan Wang, professor in the Department of Educational Foundations, Leadership and Technology in the College of Education, will lead this project.
The goal of the project is to expand access to experiential training beyond campus to the Tiger Motors Lab, often referred to as the Lego Lab. The lab provides students with hands-on experience in a 4,000-square-foot integrated manufacturing facility, which simulates high-volume automotive manufacturing environments like those used by Toyota and Honda.
“We know we’ve got something special in that lab,” Devall said. “I have conducted research that shows the lab’s impact on students helps them perform better. It’s more effective than classroom lectures alone, so we wanted to make this experience available to distance learners.”
Currently, online students observe lab production runs but cannot actively participate. The NSF project aims to change that by developing immersive 360-degree video modules that allow students to walk through the lab virtually and complete assignments based on real data collection.
“If done well, it will feel as though they’re physically in the lab,” Devall said. “This opens the lab to anyone in the world, bringing credibility to our program as it impacts both industry and academia.”
