Competency requirements in the Greenfield paradigm: the manufacturing engineer of the 21st century

This paper describes the need, source, structure, and role of competencies in the Greenfield coalition for new manufacturing education. The need for competencies both as design specifications and as a common vision for all parties involved in the project is presented. The competency development process leverages industrial experience by describing the career path of a manufacturing engineer in industry. An evolutionary organizing strategy is used to define four core competencies that build upon each other. Competencies developed by Greenfield's curriculum committee are organized in a hierarchical fashion with each level being explained more fully by succeeding level sub-competencies. The resulting competencies and their organization have provided a platform for a meaningful arrangement of knowledge areas; furthermore, faculty are now using the competencies as the high-level goals of their curriculum development project proposals.