Computers ind. En@n~ Vo]. 13, Nos 1-4, Pp.lg9-202, 1987 0360-8352/87 $3.00+0.00 Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved Copyright c 1987 Pergamon Journals Ltd

INTEGRATING MICROCOMPUTERS INTO THE INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING CURRICULUM

ABSTRACT

Michael Branson, Ph.D.

Terrence Beaumariage

Morteza Abtahi

Industrial Engineering and Management Oklahoma State University

Stillwater, OK 74078

Microcomputers have brought about many changes in industry over the past five years. Industrial Engineering graduates must be able to operate effectively in this changing environment. This paper reports on the evolutionary changes in the Industrial Engineering and Management curriculum at Oklahoma State University. Current planning efforts are also presented.

INTRODUCTION

The rapid development of microcomputers over the last five to seven years has brought about many changes in manufacturing and service industries as well as society as a whole. The power of PC's and other microcomputers continues to increase as the cost continues to decrease. In the early 1980's, a wide variety of business related software became available for PC's. This software includes word processing, spreadsheet, and file management packages as well as various accounting software. In more recent years a wide range of Industrial Engineering related software has become available for PC's in areas such as statistics, quality control, forecasting, project management, simulation, CAD, etc. Improvements to current software and new applications for microcomputers are continuing to be developed and introduced at a rapid rate.

Industrial Engineers, as those individuals assigned the task of introducing new techniques within the manufacturing environment, must be able to deal with all of these changes in computer hardware and software. Industrial Engineering students need to develop skills in the traditional programming languages such as FORTRAN. At the same time, they need to become more computer literate in the use of PC's. Undergraduates need to learn how to use the computer as a problem solving tool. As a result, an

Industrial Engineering undergraduate curriculum needs to not only develop computer skills, but to see that these skills are utilized throughout the curriculum.

The purpose of this paper is to report on the changes in the undergraduate IE curriculum at Oklahoma State University (OSU). To provide some background, we describe the evolution of the program over two time periods, 1980 to 1984 and 1985 to 1987. In addition, we present our current planning activities.

ENVIRONMENT PRIOR TO 1985

During this period, the hardware environment at OSU consisted primarily of mainframe and minicomputers. The University Computer Center (UCC) provided the services of an IBM 3081 and a VAX 11/780. These computers were accessible from a number of terminal clusters around the campus as well as through dial up access from remote sites. The IE&M School maintained an HP-3000 Series 30 minicomputer. This machine had .75 Megabytes of main memory, two disk drives with 140 Megabytes of storage and a tape drive. The system had 16 ports with one dedicated to the command console and another used for a modem. The computer facility was located in a room with 14 terminals available for student use as well as a line printer for a hard copy output. Eight of the terminals were connected to switch boxes so that the terminals could be used to access either the IE&M HP 3000 directly, or the IBM 3081 and VAX 11/780 through the UCC network. Students were given an open account to the HP 3000 for use in course work and related projects. Accounts on the IBM 3081 and VAX 11/780 were assigned in those courses requiring use of packages on those computers. Through 1984, the IE&M School acquired a small number of IBM PC's, primarily for faculty use. In addition, several early model Radio Shack TRS-80 computers were used within the Physical Simulation and Robotics Laboratory. Student use of these microcomputers was primarily restricted to several graduate level courses as well as research projects.

During this time period, the OSU undergraduate IE curriculum included a fairly stable and traditional computer content. As freshman, all engineering students had a two credit FORTRAN programming course. In their third year, Industrial Engineering students had a three credit course in advanced FORTRAN programming. In addition,

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students of this course were exposed to topics such as data structures and machine representation of numeric and character data. Students were required to write eight to ten programs of varying difficulty levels. These programming assignments usually emphasized some IE application such as engineering economy, operations research or data base manipulation. A major emphasis in grading these assignments was on program documentation and analysis of results. Students also had a required two credit course in simulation. This course was usually taken in their last year. The course was divided into two main parts. The first part used SIMLIB, a FORTRAN based simulation language developed primarily as an educational vehicle for teaching simulation concepts. The second part of the course introduced GPSS simulation language. SIMLIB was used on the HP 3000 and GPSS on the IBM 3081.

In addition to these required courses, students often took advantage of computer related elective courses such as Information Systems within the IE&M School or one of the courses offered by the Computer Science Department. Students were also encouraged or required to use the computer in a variety of other courses in the IE curriculum. For example, use of several facility layout packages such as CORELAP and ALDEP was required in the Facility Layout and Material Handling course. In the Operations Research course, packages such as LINDO and MPSX were available for student use. Most of these software was used in a batch or interactive mode on the mainframe or minicomputer available through the UCC.

In other courses, such as Quality Control, students were encouraged to write programs to solve problem assignments involving substantial repetitive calculations. In these cases students tended to use the HP 3000 in the IE&M School, writing their programs in FORTRAN. Students also used the computer as a problem solving tool in the Senior Design course. For instance, depending on the project, the computer was used as an aid in facility layout problems or for the statistical analysis of data.

There has been a great emphasis on developing communication skills throughout the IE&M curriculum. Many courses required report writing and project presentation. However through 1984, students did not make extensive use of word processors and reports were either typed or handwritten.

CURRENT HARDWARE CONFIGURATION

During the past three years, the IE&M School has purchased more microcomputers for faculty and student use. There are currently two

microcomputer laboratory areas in IE&M. The Robotics Laboratory has five PC's. These are used to interface with Mini- mover robots through software designed and implemented by the graduate students and, also, to interface with newly acquired Computer Interface Devices in performance of physical simulation projects. This lab is primarily used in several graduate level courses and in graduate student research projects. A second microcomputer lab has seven PC's used for general purpose tasks such as word processing, spreadsheet analysis and graphics. These computers are also used for software such as GPSS/PC and SLAM II, the simulation languages taught within the simulation courses. All of the twelve PC's mentioned are stand alone computers with 256K or 64OK of RAM, two disk drives, color monitor and a dedicated printer.

The objective of the IE&M school has been to provide open access for students in these lab areas. In order to achieve this goal, students may sign out a key to the computer labs for overnight or weekend use in addition to having complete access to the facilities during typical working hours. With this approach, students have 24 hour per day, seven day a week access to the facilities. However, since the rooms are not monitored, only a minimal number of manuals (DOS, BASIC, Guide to Operations) are kept in these areas. Students are expected to bring their own software for use on these machines except for limited software supplied in courses. Use of the computer facilities is limited to IE&M students in order to allow the IE&M School adequate control over their use. This approach has worked successfully over the past few years with the cooperation of the faculty and students. There are no other micro- computer labs on campus that are accessible on a full time basis. Several other departments and colleges have microcomputer labs but these are generally staffed by graduate assistants and only accessible for limited hours.

The terminal room for the HP 3000 minicomputer is also operated on an open basis. Most of the terminals in this room can access either the HP 3000 operated by the IE&M School or the IBM 3081 and VAX 11/780 available on the university computer network. The HP 3000 was also connected into the university network during the last year. This allows students to access the HP 3000 from a number of terminal clusters around the OSU campus as well as from off campus through a terminal or PC equipped with a modem.

During the past year, all of the remaining faculty offices were equipped with PC's. These computers are directly connected to the university computer network to Allow the faculty

Branson et al . : Integrating microcomputers 2DI

direct access to the IBM 3081, VAX II/780, or HP 3000 as well as several other computers on the university network. With these setups, both faculty and students have access to a broad range of computer hardware and software.

CURRENT USE OF MICROCOMPUTERS IN THE CURRICULUM

Over the past few years, we have not introduced new courses using microcomputers and the formal content of most existing courses has not changed dramatically. However, the use of microcomputers in the IE&M curriculum has increased significantly. In a number of courses which include team projects or case studies, students are required to turn in typed papers. A degree of emphasis on spelling and grammar in grading has provided students with ample encouragement to use a word processor. Students have also found spreadsheets and graphic packages very useful in dressing up reports.

In some courses in the management area students are currently required to use software that is integrated into the courses. Microcomputers have replaced mainframes in a large portion of both the undergraduate and graduate simulation courses. GPSS is used exclusively on the PC while many of the SLAM II simulation assignments are run on the PC. Students are also using several PC packages which solve linear programming models within the Operations Research course.

Project assignments in a number of courses also involve use of PC software. For example, students in courses such a Project Management, Network Modeling and Analysis, and Forecasting and Time Series Analysis have evaluated various software packages for term projects. In other courses, students converted FORTRAN programs for use on the PC's. These types of projects tend to be, but are not limited to, projects in formal courses. In addition, an increasing number of research projects for graduate students have involved PC use.

Outside of the curriculum, students have been involved in microcomputer projects through the IIE University Chapter and Alpha Pi Mu pledge projects. The IIE University Chapter uses the PC's extensively in compiling their Chapter Development Report and in all correspondence, as well as to maintain their roster of members and produce the monthly newsletter. As an experimental project, the IIE University Chapter put on a PC Literacy short course in the fall semester. This was done in response to the need of students in IE&M who had little previous exposure to PC's. The course included four evenings of instruction over four consecutive weeks at the

s t a r t of the fall semester. The topics covered were:

I, Introduction to PC's and DOS. 2. Introduction to Word Processing. 3. Introduction to Spreadsheets and

File Management. 4. Survey of Existing IE Related

Software.

The course was adapted from a PC Literacy course that the OSU Engineering Extension Division has offered to the public for a number of years. Course handouts were revised and expanded to include IE examples. Students were charged a nominal fee to cover the cost of copying the handouts while graduate students were recruited to present the material in the short course. The Engineering Extension provided the use of its educational equipment which includes twelve PC's for the class participants and one PC connected to a big screen projector for the s~udent instructor to use. With this setup, students had hands-on experience during the course lectures. This was a more effective learning environment than presenting the material in a straight lecture format. Due to the popularity of the program, the liE University Chapter plans to repeat the course during the upcoming fall semester.

Thus, while no new courses have been introduced, the use of PC's has increased significantly over the past few years. This increased use of microcomputers has put a strain on current facilities. The demand for time on the PC's is uneven at times and students are learning to adapt by planning ahead more. In addition to a limited number of PC's available for student use, there is also limited space to expand present computer labs. However, with the current trend in IE&M, an increasing number of undergraduate and graduate students are purchasing a PC for their own use. This helps to decrease the work load for the PC's available through the school.

Currently one of the biggest problems is handling software that students are required to use in classes. As the PC's in the microcomputer lab have no hard drives, we have to make copies of diskettes available for student use. This is inconvenient and limits the packages that can be used due to copy write laws. Some packages such as GPSS and SLAM II have structured versions that can be legally copied for student use. In these cases, we provide disks for each student team in a class. For other common areas such as word processing, spreadsheets and data base packages, a number of public domain or freeware programs are available through the University Computer Center. Another problem area Js student access to letter or near letter quality printers for printing final copies of

202 Proceedings of the 9th Annual Conference on Computers & Industrial Engineering

reports or plotters to make presentation graphics. All of the printers attached to the PC's in the lab areas are dot matrix. The IE&M School currently has two letter quality printers in faculty offices. Students have very limited access to these printers. As a temporary partial solution to this problem, the IE&M School and the liE University Chapter have jointly purchased another PC with a near letter quality 24 pin dot matrix printer and a 8-pen plotter. This equipment is being installed this semester and will he available for student use.

CURRENT PLANNING EFFORTS

During the past few years, the use of microcomputers has greatly increased in the IE curriculum at OSU. These changes were more evolutionary rather than the result of a concerted planning effort. Our experimentation with the use of microcomputers has given us insight as we work through our plans for future developments in this area. Two major efforts are currently underway.

The first effort involves a curriculum review of the undergraduate program in IE. This process began this semester. We realize the need to bring more computer content into the curriculum both through formal courses and through integrating the use of computers more fully into the broad range of courses. As this curriculum review process is in its early stages, specific plans and details are not available at this time.

The second major activity underway is to develop a plan to upgrade the computer facilities in the IE&M School. This planning effort focuses on the needs specific to the IE&M School. At the same time, an Engineering College level committee is addressing computer needs that cut across the schools.

In the IE&M School we have identified a primary need to link the PC's in the student and faculty areas through some form of a Local Area Network (LAN). One major purpose of the LAN would be to make a wide range of software easily accessible to students without copying and passing out disks. The LAN would also be used for electronic mail and communication between faculty and atudents.

With this approach, students would have read only access to files on the LAN so that they would keep their own data and text files on floppy disks. Access to the LAN would be controlled by password security. The network software should provide the capability to easily add users, establish user access rights to specified subdirectories and to assign people to user groups. The LAN approach would reduce or eliminate the need to duplicate software disks such as SLAM II or GPSS for passing out to

students. In addition, other software packages such as word processing, spreadsheet, etc. with network licenses could be made available.

The type of hardware currently being considered for the IE&M LAN is an upgrade to the HP-3000 that would serve both as a minicomputer and as a file server to the LAN. The LAN would also allow sharing of peripherals such as printers and plotters which would lead to more effective utilization of these devices. Also, PC's on the LAN could be used either as a PC with access to files on the file server or as a terminal. Again, this allows for more flexibility in the system configuration.

CONCLUSION

The IE&M School has been effectively integrating the use of PC's into both the undergraduate and graduate curriculum at OSU. We feel that students need to develop the traditional technical competence in computer use. In addition, IE students need to become increasingly competent in the use of computers as an information handling resource in the office environment or in a decision support role. To meet these needs, the IE&M School is active in both curriculum development and planning for an enhanced hardware and software environment to meet the developing needs of IE graduates.