Development of a Virtual Enterprise Engineering Laboratory

许多美国制造组织正在采用“敏捷”产品开发实践，以努力在当今快速变化的全球环境中保持其主导地位。日益增长的产品复杂性和由此产生的各种技能需求强调了组织作为“虚拟企业”共同工作的必要性。虚拟企业（VE）是一个由公司组成的临时联盟，旨在快速探索快速变化的机会。在这种情况下，需要毕业的工程专业学生精通VE学科领域中使用的方法、概念和软件。该项目正在开发一个虚拟企业工程（VEE）实验室，以促进学生的学习过程。这一开发适应并融合了德克萨斯州农工大学、休斯顿大学和芝加哥伊利诺伊大学的相关实验室经验，并支持犹他州立大学正在进行的课程开发。

Many American manufacturing organizations are adopting "agile" product development practices in an effort to retain their predominant position in today's fast changing global environment. The growing product complexity and resultant diverse skill requirements underscore the need for organizations to work together as a "Virtual Enterprise". A Virtual Enterprise (VE) is a temporary consortium of companies formed quickly to explore fast-changing opportunities.In this context, there is a need for graduating engineering students that are proficient in the methods, concepts, and software used in the VE subject areas. This project is developing a Virtual Enterprise Engineering (VEE) laboratory to facilitate the learning process for students. This development adapts and merges the related laboratory experiences at Texas A&M, the University of Houston, and the University of Illinois at Chicago and supports on-going curriculum development at Utah State University.