Information Technology Education in a Digital Factory Learning Environment

Abstract

This paper presents the vision, construction, and implementation of an Integrated Manufacturing Technology (IMT) laboratory for higher education. The laboratory introduces integration of Information Technology (IT) in manufacturing processes and provides hands-on learning experience in an authentic, holistic, and automated production environment, not commonly found in academic teaching. The manufacturing process includes fully-automated, semi-automated, and manual stations and is supported by a heterogeneous IT infrastructure, including manufacturing databases, shop-floor control, data warehousing, business intelligence, and enterprise systems. The IMT laboratory is used to facilitate learning in a databases course and a business intelligence course, resulting in positive feedback from the students.

Keywords::

• Digital factory
• Information technology
• Manufacturing
• Higher education
• Engineering laboratory, Robotics

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gali Naveh

G. Naveh is a lecturer in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management at Shamoon College of Engineering, Israel. She holds a B.Sc. in Computer Science and M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Information Systems. Dr. Naveh has rich practical experience with post-secondary educational institutes and information systems implementation in business organizations. Her main interests are information and communication technologies integration processes and their value in academic and industrial settings.

Adir Even

A. Even from the Information Systems group at the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (Israel), explores the contribution of data and systems to value-gain and profitability from both theoretical and practical perspectives, and studies implications for system design, data warehousing, business intelligence, and data quality management. His research has been published in IEEE/TDKE, CACM, CAIS, DSS, and Database. He received a DBA degree from Boston University School of Management.

Lior Fink

L. Fink is a senior lecturer in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. He holds a bachelor's degree in Psychology and Economics, a master's degree in Social-Industrial Psychology, and a Ph.D. degree in Information Systems from Tel Aviv University. Lior spent one year at the UCLA Anderson School of Management as a Fulbright Visiting Scholar in 2007. His research interests focus on economic and strategic aspects of IT development, outsourcing, and deployment. Lior's articles have been published in numerous information systems journals including European Journal of Information Systems, Journal of the Association for Information Systems, Journal of Information Technology, and Journal of Strategic Information Systems. His work has also appeared in economics, project management, and medical informatics journals.

Sigal Berman

S. Berman is a senior lecturer in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. She received a M.Sc. in Electrical and Computer Engineering, and a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering, both from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and a B.Sc. in Electrical and Computer Engineering, from the Technion-Israel Institute for Technology. She held a research assistant position at the Center for Autonomous Control Engineering (ACE), The University of New Mexico, and was a Post-doctoral fellow at the Department of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, Weizmann Institute of Science. Her research interests include: Robotics and motor control, computer integrated manufacturing, and human machine interfaces.