Sustainable Manufacturing Education Modules for Senior Undergraduate or Graduate Engineering Curriculum

Sustainable manufacturing may be defined as the creation of manufactured products using non-polluting, energy and natural resources conserving, and economically sound and safe processes. Recently, there has been renewed interest in United States manufacturing and several industrial and governmental endeavours have been launched for sustainable manufacturing initiatives. To support such initiatives and to prepare the next generation of scientists and engineers, academic institutions have a responsibility to introduce educational programs and tools in the area of sustainable manufacturing. This work provides the engineering community with structured modules for introducing the topic of sustainable manufacturing in the curriculum. Working through an NSF funded SEES RCN program, the SMART CN project delivered 21 educational modules covering various aspects of engineering with the common theme of computer aided process design. This paper summarizes the concepts for module based learning, and a brief review of these educational modules for wider use and dissemination to the academic community.