This paper describes the incorporation of life cycle assessment issues for teaching students from a variety of engineering disciplines. Green energy manufacturing is an emerging field and also provides a sustainable development model for modern manufacturing industries. Sustainable green manufacturing encompasses the design of manufacturing processes to prioritize energy conservation, pollution prevention or reduction, and increased health and safety of communities, employees, and consumers. In this age of global warming and diminishing fossil fuel stores, society is becoming increasingly aware that seemingly small decisions can have surprisingly far-reaching implications on the environment and future generations. An engineering solution’s life cycle includes all of the inter-related stages of its existence, from design to manufacturing and, ultimately, disposal. Life cycle is commonly used to assess environmental impact in each of these stages. Academic disciplines such as industrial ecology and life cycle assessment, which are part this incorporation, are essential in helping engineers understand the importance of using scientific assessment to evaluate systematic sustainability impacts. The overall goal of this paper is to share the teaching experience in more details of this process for life cycle assessment and broaden the thinking of sustainability for engineering education in design and manufacturing.
Dr. Richard Chiou is Associate Professor within the Engineering Technology Department at Drexel University, Philadelphia, USA. He received his Ph.D. degree in the G.W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology. His educational background is in manufacturing with an emphasis on mechatronics. In addition to his many years of industrial experience, he has taught many different engineering and technology courses at undergraduate and graduate levels. His tremendous research experience in manufacturing includes environmentally conscious manufacturing, Internet based robotics, and Web based quality. In the past years, he has been involved in sustainable manufacturing for maximizing energy and material recovery while minimizing environmental impact.
Dr. Ertekin received his BS degree in mechanical engineering from Istanbul Technical University. He received MS degree in Production Management from Istanbul University. After working for Chrysler Truck Manufacturing Company in Turkey as a project engineer, he received dual MS degrees in engineering management and mechanical engineering from Missouri University of Science and Technology (MS&T), formerly the University of Missouri-Rolla. He worked for Toyota Motor Corporation as a quality assurance engineer for two years and lived in Toyota City, Japan. He received his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from MS&T in 1999 while he worked as a quality engineer for Lumbee Enterprises in St. Louis, Missouri. His first teaching position was at the architectural and manufacturing Sciences department of Western Kentucky University. He was a faculty at Trine University teaching mainly graduate courses as well as undergraduate courses in engineering technology and mechanical engineering departments. He is currently teaching in Engineering Technology Program at Drexel University. His area of expertise is in CAD/CAM, Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machining, rapid prototyping and quality control. His research interest includes sensor based condition monitoring of CNC machining, machine tool accuracy characterization and enhancement, non-invasive surgical tool design, reverse engineering and bio materials.
Dr. Bill Tseng is a Professor and Chair of Department of Industrial, Manufacturing and Systems Engineering at the UTEP. He is also a Director of Research Institute for Manufacturing & Engineering Systems, the host institute of Texas Manufacturing Assistance Center at UTEP. He received his two MSIE degrees (MFG & DS/OR) from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Iowa. Dr. Tseng is also a Certified Manufacturing Engineer from Society of Manufacturing Engineers. Dr. Tseng’s research area cover emergency management, systems engineering, computational intelligence/data analytics and cyber engineering technology. Over the years, he has served more than 10 million dollars as principle investigators sponsored by NSF, NIST, USDT, DoEd, KSEF and industry like LMCO, GM and Tyco Inc. Dr. Tseng delivered research results to many refereed journals such as IEEE Transactions, IIE Transactions, International Journal of Production Research, Journal of Manufacturing Systems, Expert Systems with Applications and other conferences (over 260 refereed publications). He is currently serving as an editor of Journal of Computer Standards & Interfaces (CSI) and editor boards of International Journal of Data Mining, Modeling and Management (JDMMM) and American Journal of Industrial and Business Management (AJIBM). He is currently a Senior Member of Institute of Industrial Engineers, Society of Manufacturing Engineers and the Division Chair of Manufacturing Division of American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE). He is also actively involved in several consortia activities.
Shraman Kadapa completed his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Purdue University, West Lafayette. He is currently pursuing a masters' degree in mechanical engineering and mechanics at Drexel University. He is a research and teaching assistant in the mechanical and mechatronics lab at Drexel. He is also a researcher in Scalable Autonomous Systems Lab. His research interests are mainly in robotics which include motion planning and localization of ground robots.
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