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Procedia Manufacturing 8 (2017) 417 – 423

14th Global Conference on Sustainable Manufacturing, GCSM 3-5 October 2016, Stellenbosch,
South Africa

Incorporating Sustainability/Sustainable Development Concepts in

Teaching Industrial Systems Design courses
Ibrahim H. Garbie*
Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Oman
Department of Mechanical Engineering at Helwan, Helwan University, Cairo, Egypt

Abstract

Sustainability/sustainable development (S/SD) is considered as one of the major drivers of next industrial revolution as so called
“Industry 4.0”. Incorporating the concepts of S/SD in teaching Engineering courses especially Industrial Systems Design courses
is very highly appreciated through discussing, analyzing requirements and assessing the S/SD index for the
manufacturing/productive plants. This incorporation was followed by designing process starting from analyzing the product
design and architecture among designing the manufacturing system (either processing and/or assembly) and reconfiguration;
economic justification and how to make the industrial systems more sustainable through S/SD assessment. The results show that
incorporating S/SD concepts in teaching Industrial systems design courses is not difficult and the students are more willing to
understanding the new concepts regarding S/SD although the course was offered in the last year (senior students).
© 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
© 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-reviewunder
Peer-review underresponsibility
responsibility of the
of the organizing
organizing committee
committee of theof14th
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14th Global Conference
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Keywords: Sustainability/sustainable development, Engineering education, Industrial systems

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +968-9810-6652; fax: +968-2414-1316.

E-mail address: garbie@squ.edu.om, garbie68@gmail.com

2351-9789 © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of the 14th Global Conference on Sustainable Manufacturing
doi:10.1016/j.promfg.2017.02.053
418 Ibrahim H. Garbie / Procedia Manufacturing 8 (2017) 417 – 423

1. Introduction

As the requirements and qualifications of future engineers will be the biggest challenge of using S/SD in
engineering curricula and programs [1], incorporate the S/SD concepts, analysis and assessment in engineering
education is important as one of the key elements. Although the S/SD faced challenges in terms of economic, social
and environmental issues lead engineering programs/curriculum relied on math/science/technical skills additional to
professional engineering skills such as: behavioral science, generic, a way of thinking and community engagement
[2], teaching or learning S/SD concepts in early years in engineering school is highly recommended [3]. It is critical
to improve the capacity of the people to address S/SD issues [4-5] as a general and foster to engineering students as a
specific [1]. It needs two or three years’ worth of academic and practical experience to understand these concepts.
This leads to bad impression of students regarding S/SD which they may feel that it is not important as discussed or
at least it is just a big show and easy material in media, newspapers, etc. by the way, it was one of the most
recommendations suggested by universities forum to incorporate S/SD into all undergraduate engineering courses
[6].

The global competitive economy leads to focus on concerns of quality in engineering education. Managing a
culture and diversity, increasing the level of globalization in the world between people and push or drive the
engineering education to be standardized in evaluation and assessed to improve the quality of education are highly
appreciated. Most of the countries around the world try to adopt or develop standards as a guideline to benchmarking
their educational organizations for continuous improvement and updating their educational systems.

There are two well-known international agencies which are used to evaluate the educational institutions: ABET
and ENAEE. The ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology) is an American system and the
ENAEE (European Network for Accreditation of Engineering Education) is a European system. These two agencies
are professional and non-profit organizations. They are working by volunteers’ professors and academicians. Also,
there are some agencies used in accreditation in their countries such as engineering council of Malaysia and Japan
Accreditation Board of Engineering Education.

In the ABET system, there are eight criteria. student outcomes (ABET 3) is one served as the number three and it
of the criteria used to assess what the students achieved in the course. This is a relationship between the student
outcomes from learning industrial systems design courses and the program educational objectives (PEOs) of the
industrial engineering program. There are two main (PEOs) must be achieved from industrial systems design course
beside other courses in the program as follows according to industrial engineering (IE) program.

x PEO1: practice industrial engineering in industries, government sectors and service organizations both
nationally and globally or pursue higher studies or business entrepreneurships.
x PEO2: apply knowledge and skills to design, develop, implement and improve integrated systems that
include people, materials, information, equipment and energy.

The industrial engineering (IE) program at Sultan Qaboos University has been accredited by ABET twice before
(2008 and 2013). The main objective of this paper is to introduce the concepts of sustainability/sustainable
development in industrial systems design to reflect these concepts on designing manufacturing/production systems to
achieve the two out of five student’s outcomes (PEOs) in industrial engineering program. Industrial systems design
course represents one of the major designing courses in IE program curriculum additional to facilities design and
logistics and product design and manufacturing courses. The course syllabus is listed and after assessment of the
student outcomes can be modified as a continuous improvement. For these comments and implications, the S/SD
 Ibrahim H. Garbie / Procedia Manufacturing 8 (2017) 417 – 423 419

education is best integrated into specialist courses through learning the major topics/subjects that are firmly
achieving the goals of the degree plan [7].

The ABET (Aboard Accreditation of Engineering and Technology) outcome (ABET 3c) which stated that student
must have “an ability to design a system, component, or process to meet desired needs within realistic constraints
such as economic, environmental, social, political, ethical, health and safety, manufacturability and sustainability”
[8]. The last two statements show us that sustainability/sustainable development must be incorporated in the
industrial engineering (IE) curriculum and/or degree plans [1] not only for an academic plan changes within few
years or little more but also as a strategic plan for more than 20 years at least. Using sustainability/sustainable
development concepts in teaching design courses especially industrial systems represents this strategic planning.

The remainder of this paper is organized as follows: Section two presents literature review. Section three
describes the proposed frameworks for introducing S/SD in teaching industrial systems design. In section four, a
case study will be presented. Section five includes a conclusion which details potential contributions and
recommendations for further work.

2. Literature Review

Design and implementation of a systematic for the development assessment and update of program educational
objectives (PEOs) in industrial and management systems engineering program was described [9]. It was done
through program constituents of students, alumni, employers and faculty. The benchmarking levels for each PEO
were assigned and the comparison between the performance achievement and the attainment level was used and
adopted. Education for sustainable development (ESD) was used to discuss the importance of math, science and
technical skills in engineering schools as fundamentals [2]. Also, he mentioned other additional future engineering
skills such as: behavioral skills, generic professional skills, a way of thinking and community engagement skills.
These are considered the requirements for sustainability from engineering programs.

The importance of entrench or embedding S/SD in all teaching courses in degree plan with respect to build
environment course taking into consideration materials used, industry, carbon emission, policy and assessment was
presented [3]. The most important challenges facing US manufacturing enterprises through main issues: industrial
globalization, innovations (research and development), available technologies, customer-driven products and short
product life cycles was discussed [10]. Materials’ criticality and technology metal as one of the relevant problem
that deserves more attention in engineering education for sustainable development taken into consideration a lot of
issues was proposed [11]. These issues are innovation and application of these materials; inventory control
strategies; recyclability/substitution/elimination of the critical materials. This means Kohler et al. [11] insisted on
innovation of using materials as a whole/general and critical materials as a specific.

Integrating sustainability teaching into the engineering curriculum through identify awareness of students
regarding S/SD; a gap of knowledge between components of S/SD and its requirements; and educating engineering
students for S/SD were expressed [7]. They recommended three steps to delivery these issues. First, dedicated
lectures and tutorials on S/SD will be introduced. Second, introducing specific case studies will be presented. Third,
integrate S/SD into the overall curriculum. They were not corporation these issues with international agencies of
academic accreditation. Azapagic et al. [7] used a world-wide survey of engineering students to measure the
knowledge and understanding of S/SD. The effectiveness of a creativity fostering program in industrial engineering
420 Ibrahim H. Garbie / Procedia Manufacturing 8 (2017) 417 – 423

and management curriculum reform through three courses was examined [12]. These courses are: industrial
communication, creative problem solving and scientific research methodology.

3. . Framework for Introducing S/SD Concepts in Teaching

As the aim of this paper is to introduce S/SD concepts in teaching industrial systems design course through
identifying a framework or procedure employed to show these concepts, there are five steps must be taken into
consideration. The first step of the framework is presenting the course outlines and contents matching the elements
of industrial system design course. The second step is used to illustrate the outcome of ABET belong to design
content which is represented as “ABET 3c” and communicate effectively (written and oral) which will be
responsible for delivery the feasibility studies of the design project (ABET 3g) [8]. The third presents the S/SD
components as a general manner and as a specific in term of industrial systems design. The fourth one is used to
mapping the design outcome from ABET 3c and 3g with sustainability issues. Sustainability/sustainable
development assessment of the industrial systems design course project with respect to the major indicators for each
pillar/dimension of S/SD will be presented in the fifth step.

3.1. Course outline and syllabus

The following topics will be covered in the industrial systems design course:
x Identifying customer needs with product specifications
x Concept generation and selection, product architecture
x Analysis and complexity of the product
x Introduction to manufacturing systems
x Designing single station manufacturing cells
x Designing focused (cellular, flexible)) and/or hybrid manufacturing systems
x Designing and balancing manual assembly lines (single)
x Manufacturing resources planning (machines and human resources…etc.)
x Reconfiguration of industrial Systems
x Economic justification of manufacturing systems
x Sustainability value creation from designing industrial systems “economic, society and environmental”
(sustainability assessment).

3.2. The ABET criteria and expected outcome of the design course
The student outcomes for the industrial engineering program consists of twelve outcomes (a-k) established by
ABET [8] adopted by the faculty and IE industrial advisory board that contributes to the achievement of program
educational objectives. They are published in the program and department website as well as in the front door and
corridor of the department as a poster. The main student outcomes belong to the design issue is the ABET 3c
which is saying “an ability to design a system, component, or process to meet desired needs within realistic
constraints such as economic, environmental, social, political, ethical, health and safety, manufacturability and
sustainability”. This outcome is divided into three sub-main outcomes to cover the definition of the ABET 3c as
follows:

x c1: identify the objectives “criteria” of designing/redesigning a system, component or process.

x c2: formulate characteristics and parameters requirements of designing/redesigning a system, component or
process within realistic constraints (economic, health and safety, environmental, ethical, social, political,
manufacturability, sustainability).
 Ibrahim H. Garbie / Procedia Manufacturing 8 (2017) 417 – 423 421

x c3: generate and evaluate feasible alternative solutions to open-ended design problems and select the best
solution(s) within realistic constraints.

Also the student outcome ABET 3g is recommended to be evaluated due to expressing and presenting the project
design (oral and written) through ABET 3g says according to [8] “An ability to communicate effectively”. The
main target of using ABET 3g is to increase the students’ preparedness and confidence in effective
communication. This outcome “ABET 3g” is also divided into two sub-main outcomes to cover the definition of
the ABET 3c as follows:

x g1: effective in written communication.

x g2: effective in oral communication.

3.3. S/SD Concepts, Analyses and Issues

In sustainability/sustainable development (S/SD), there are a lot of aspects and issues must be covered,
incorporated and assessed to evaluate the engineering design project as a general and in industrial systems design
as a specific. The major issues and aspects of S/SD concepts which are used to explain main dimensions/pillars
(economy, society and environment) are discussed and listed in references [13-14].

3.4. Mapping and assessing course content with ABET outcomes

The main goal of this paper was to incorporate the S/SD concepts and issues into industrial systems design course
that will address some of the PEOs. The PEOs were set to be achieved through this course among: (a) to increase
student’s practicing in manufacturing systems design in different fields; (b) to apply the skills to analysis, design,
reconfigure and sustainable the industrial systems. This course is divided into four phases including analysis of
designed products and their requirements of operations of manufacturing (machining and/or forming); designing
a manufacturing department (single stations or manufacturing cells, manufacturing systems, focused cells...etc);
assembly department and economic justification of the manufacturing systems. The evaluation of the courses is
based on team project (60%), quizzes (15%), one is a take home exam (10%) and the other one is a final exam
(15%) distributed among the whole phases as shown in Table 1. The typical course lectures are 45 credit hours
and team project groups are evaluated by 70 of the total course work (60%of the project plus 10% of home
exam). The 30% of the total course work is reserved for examination.

Table 1: general main topic with grade marks

Phase Main Topic Project Quizzes Exam Total marks
(%) (%) (%) (%)
I Analysis of designed products requirements (team 15 5 20
group plus individual)
II Designing manufacturing departments (team group 15 5 20
plus individual)
III Designing assembly department, plant location and 15 5 20
layout (team group plus individual)
Home Exam : Reconfiguration (team group) 10 10
IV Economic justification of the designed industrial 15 15
system (team group)
Final Exam (individual) - 15 15
Total marks 60 15 25 100
422 Ibrahim H. Garbie / Procedia Manufacturing 8 (2017) 417 – 423

3.5. Sustainability Assessment of the Industrial Systems Design Course Project

The sustainability/sustainable development of industrial systems design project is focused on economic, social
and environmental dimensions/pillars [13-14]. Each pillar of sustainability can be evaluated individually. Also,
there is an interaction between these pillars to create the index of S/SD of industrial systems. This intersection is
so called “the triple bottom line, TBL”. Based on the information used and data, students are able to assess
economic, social and environmental subjectively (qualitatively) and objectively (quantitatively). The procedures
of estimating the S/SD in each pillar and in the whole industrial system are shown in the following steps.
Sustainability assessment will be taken as a part of course evaluation and assessment.

4. Case Study

Industrial systems design helps students to integrate the subjects they have learned in previous/other courses. The
class results are used to evaluate the course ABET 3c in (c1, c2, c3) and communication skills (g1 and g2).
Communication skills are always improved through team work/group, to communicate with others not necessarily
only at the same level of education but also with non-technical people.

To examine the effectiveness of the proposed framework, Industrial Systems Design course is used to conduct the
practical implementation of the framework during the whole semester step by step and phase by another. The
students’ outcomes were used and assessed (c1, c2, c3, g1 and g2) based on the evaluation criteria with using
benchmarking or threshold index 85.0 percent. It seems that there is weakness in c1, g1 and g2 (see Table 2) which
they were representing “identifying the objectives of designing/redesigning a system, component or process” and
“written and oral communication”, respectively.

Table 2: Students’ outcomes

Outcome(PI) Final MidTerm Quizes Projs Exps HWs Other Summary(AverageScore) Summary(%ofStudentsscoring>="Threshold")
Avg % Avg % Avg % Avg % Avg % Avg % Avg %

c1 3.6 100.0 3.5 77.8 3.8 100.0 3.6 100.0 1.9 0.0 3.3 75.6
c2 4.0 100.0 3.8 100.0 3.6 77.8 3.3 77.8 3.8 100.0 3.7 91.1
c3 3.3 77.8 3.6 88.9 2.9 77.8 3.5 100.0 3.6 88.9 3.4 86.7
g1 3.9 77.8 3.0 44.4 3.5 61.1
g2 3.0 77.8 3.0 77.8

5. Conclusion and Recommendation for Further work

In this paper, the framework for incorporating S/SD concepts into industrial systems design was theoretically
mentioned and practically implemented. The results show that students can be easily using S/SD concepts in
engineering design courses. It can be observed from students’ outcome that they are willing and believing on S/SD
that it is expected. The concepts of sustainability were known very well but the tools and techniques to achieve it
 Ibrahim H. Garbie / Procedia Manufacturing 8 (2017) 417 – 423 423

still needs more clarification and understandable. This means knowledge, skill and ability are required to implement
or adopt the S/SD concepts.
It can be also noticed that the course content and syllabus can be modified and updated easily and quickly based
on the S/SD requirements and the assessment of course outcome can be improved. The S/SD assessment of the team
group project shows that it is easily to adopt and evaluate any course semester project not only for engineering
design courses but also for most of classes regarding S/SD in terms of ABET student outcome and PEOs. Also,
specific topics can be inserted or added in the course syllabus. Author thinks that there is still more room to revise
the course outline (design) and students’ outcome to put more emphasis on such outcomes c1, g1 and g2.

References

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