Team topics
As a systems engineering
design project focused on a specific technology domain, the class had to cover
issues which involved both systems engineering
process and domain-specific technology elements. Five teams were
identified:
development: project organization,
milestones, consolidation of results
processes: specific unit processes
and models for them
equipment: equipment choices and
logistics modeling
factory: factory decisions and
logistics optimization
cost-of-ownership: unit process COO
modeling
Cross-disciplinary organization
The class consisted of 31
students, with 13 enrolled in the materials course ENMA659S and 18
enrolled in either the systems engineering course ENSE623 or its
professional masters counterpart ENSE643. The materials students
represented several departments and programs, including materials science
and engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and
chemical engineering.
Cross-disciplinary integration in the
course was intentionally sought, and achieved through cross-listing,
because of the potential pedagogical synergy and because systems
engineering practice depends substantially on effective team integration
with technology domain expertise. Indeed, this cross-disciplinary
integration was considered a major benefit of the course by both systems
and materials students at the end of the course.
In the case of this project, the team
topics represented gradations from fairly intensive materials and process
issues (processes team) to strongly systems centric topics (e.g., factory
team). All teams except processes included both systems and
materials students.
It is important to note the mutual benefit
expected in this course:
Materials students received a
substantial experience with the manufacturing and systems issues which
drive the microelectronics industry. Specifically, the use of
modeling at the process level, discrete event simulation for logistics
within cluster tools and in the factory, cost of ownership considerations
at the tool level, and overall project coordination are all important to
the process engineers and others in semiconductor manufacturing.
Systems students obtained direct
experience in working with engineers from a very different technical
discipline, in extracting models and constructs necessary to carry out
systems engineering for that domain, and in applying several types of
systems modeling and strategies in team environments.
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