"A New Course in Statistical Process Control Integrating an Industrial Production Facility as The On-line Laboratory"

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Providing a meaningful applied statistics learning experience in a traditional classroom setting is a dilemma faced by colleges and universities that offer courses in manufacturing engineering or applied statistics. One of the major challenges is in engaging all students as active learners. Another challenge of educators in the quality control field is in getting students to think critically about applications at a full-scale production facility. Both of these challenges can be addressed by giving students an opportunity to participate in projects and to ask a broad range of questions to professionals in the field. This initiative is resulting in the creation of a new course in Statistical Process Control (SPC) that incorporates uploading real-time quality data directly from the factory floor of a production facility operated by an industrial sponsor. Computers located at the sponsor site will electronically transfer the data to a university computer laboratory in a matter of seconds. Students will: (i) be shown how to upload current quality data from the factory floor, (ii) complete four multi-week team projects, and (iii) make oral presentations and submit written reports to the professors and to industry representatives. Essentially, each student performs as a member of the quality control team for industry. This project represents an opportunity for industry to share their expertise and their billions of dollars in equipment investment with academia. Since good data is a critical need of applied statistics courses, the solution proposed offers an affordable source of real-time production data for several applied statistics courses. In addition, this approach is highly transportable to other institutions. The cooperative climate between industry and academia resulting from this project is novel. It will show students how to apply statistics to help make American industry competitive at a global level.