In the manufacturing industry, quality drives productivity. Pursuing high productivity with high quality is a strategy of sustainable development for manufacturing and diverse industries. However, improving productivity with high quality is a source of greater revenues, employment opportunities and technological advances. More importantly, employees/operators with the fundamental knowledge of quality control and product excellence are highly demanded for certifying product quality and durability to ensure their ‘fitness for purpose’ during each step of manufacturing processes.

As a result, learning quality control and product excellence techniques is giving individuals an opportunity to understand industrial process control and applications and to join small businesses and manufacturing industries for managing product quality and manufacturing processes. Nevada offers a unique opportunity for both students and industry interested in manufacturing quality control and product excellence. Especially, TESLA pursues world-class manufacturing and is building the world’s largest and most advanced battery factory in Nevada which means nearly $100 billion in economic impact to Nevada over the next 20 years. The factory will have large employments and do prefer employees/operators with the fundamental knowledge of manufacturing quality control and product excellence.

Learning outcomes and objectives

This rapidly expanding manufacturing industry such as TESLA requires highly educated individuals who understand the fundamentals of product quality control in manufacturing processes in terms of design, engineering, operation, assessment, testing and data analysis.

The objective of the interdisciplinary minor in Manufacturing Quality/Product Excellence (MQ/PE) is to provide students with skills and experiences that will help them better apply the knowledge gained in their majors to specialized problems in the field of product quality control in manufacturing process.

How to enroll

The minor is open to all students in the Departments of Chemical and Materials Engineering (CME), Computer Science and Engineering (CSE), Electrical and Biomedical Engineering (EBME), and Mechanical Engineering (ME).

Students must develop a plan of study that fulfills the minor requirements and have the plan approved by both an advisor from their major program of study and an advisor from the MQ/PE minor program. The plan is designed to ensure that students receive appropriate advising and must be approved at least two semesters prior to graduation.

Minor on Manufacturing Quality/Product Excellence (with TESLA)

Course requirements

You must complete a minimum of 18 credits from the courses listed below. At least nine of those credits must be in upper-division courses, and no more than nine of the credits can also count toward your major.

Substitutions for courses on this list must be approved by the director of the MQ/PE minor program (with Tesla).

Required courses (Tentative)

For All students:

SCM 352 – Operations Management (3 units)Quantitative methods and models for decision making. Topics include linear programming, plant layout, technological change, quality control, line balancing, inventory models and simulation

ME 3XX- Computer-aided Design and Manufacturing (3 units)Topics include SoildWorks (CAD); Drafting standards; Geometric dimensioning and tolerancing; CNC machining; 3D printing; Introduction to manufacturing processes (casting, extrusion, welding, etc.); Fasteners, gears, belts, pulleys, bearings, etc.

This course plans to offer it as part of ME 151 in Spring 2017 and plans to start offering it as a 300-level required ME class in Fall 2017 or Spring 2018.

Elective courses

The remaining 12 credits can be selected from the following list:

CHE 473 Chemical Process Safety (3 units)

CS 302 Data Structures (3 units) CS 326 Programming Languages, Concepts and Implementations (3 units) CPE 470 Autonomous Mobile Robots (3 credits) EE 320R Electronics I & Lab (4 units) EE 340 Power System Fundamentals (3 units) EE 362 Signals and Systems (3 credits) EE 370 Control Systems I (3 credits) EE 491 Engineering Design/Analysis (4 units) EE 492G Image Processing and Analysis (3 units) ME 310 System Analysis and Design (4 units) ME 351 Mechanical Design (4 units) ME 354 Introduction to Manufacturing Processes (3 units) ME 493 Special Topic on Friction and Wear (3 units) CS/EE/ME 492 Topics in Autonomous Systems (3 credits)

Contact

Please contact Dr. Indira Chatterjee, associate dean of engineering, at indira@unr.edu, with questions about the MQ/PE minor.