Filling the skills gap in U.S. manufacturing: Promoting internships and co-op experiences and integrating industrial engineering courses to improve student design and manufacturing knowledge

This paper discusses a framework for filling the skills gap in U.S. manufacturing by providing undergraduate students with practical experiences in design and manufacturing. The proposed framework is based on integrating product design and manufacturing processes courses through practical course projects. In addition, an initiative has been taken to establish collaboration between academia and industry by the manufacturing faculty in industrial engineering at Penn State Behrend. The paper also presents the involvement of the IE faculty in developing the design and manufacturing skills of the IE students. Data was collected through surveys and is used to validate the proposed framework.