IoT Machinery Monitoring: An elective course to promote Industry 4.0 in the mechanical engineering curriculum (#993)

Authors

Morales, Juan C.

Laboy, Jesús M.

Abstract

This paper describes a new elective course that was created to start promoting Industry 4.0 skills in the mechanical engineering (ME) curriculum. The course is titled “IoT Machinery Monitoring” and was successfully offered in the Fall of 2022. It was created jointly with an engineer from industry that is currently implementing the Internet of Things (IoT) to conduct condition monitoring and predictive maintenance in manufacturing plants in North, South, and Central America while monitoring remotely from their Puerto Rico office. This course is an example of how to incrementally introduce Industry 4.0 into the ME curriculum, starting as an elective, and then observing and analyzing student response to determine how to best implement it as required content in the curriculum. The paper discusses possibilities on how to conduct this transition. In addition, it discusses the creation of the course, its content, exercises, and student response in its first offering. The paper may be of interest to faculty who are considering options on how to implement Industry 4.0 in their programs.