New Industrial Engineering Lab, Courtesy of Dieter Weissenrieder '76 and Family, Raises NJIT's Game

A game-changing gift from an NJIT alumnus and his family is providing the university’s industrial engineering students an indispensable opportunity: the experience of a small-scale version of a factory floor right here on campus.

The newly created engineering lab will give students hands-on expertise in machining, process automation, process control inspection and quality control. At its center is a small-scale automated manufacturing system capable of converting raw materials into finished and inspected parts.

“The industrial engineering program will never be the same after this,” said NCE Dean Moshe Kam, at the dedication this week of the Dieter Weissenrieder ’76 Family Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering Laboratory, which occupies 1,400 square feet of newly renovated space in NJIT’s Mechanical Engineering Center, overlooking the Makerspace.

Responsible for ensuring that manufacturing equipment and workflow processes are well-designed – safe, efficient, consistent and highly productive – industrial engineers play a key role in many industry sectors.

“The machines generate raw data that industrial engineers analyze,” noted Daniel Brateris, NCE’s director of experiential education, adding, “It’s also very important for them to understand every part of the process. They look at human factors, including machine operator fatigue, for example, in order to design a process that is less likely to lead to injury.”

 In his remarks at the dedication, Weissenrieder emphasized the importance of hands-on experience in preparing for these careers.

“Students must get their hands dirty to become engineers. You can’t be an engineer without knowing how to operate machinery and learning the limits of machines on the factory floor,” said Weissenrider, who after receiving a bachelor’s in industrial engineering at NJIT went on to co-found Weiss-Aug, a leader in custom insert molding, precision metal stamping and assembly solutions.

The lab’s machines, including a CNC mill, a shop-grade coordinate-measuring machine for inspection and a vision system for inspection, among others, together comprise an automated manufacturing line. A multi-axis robot at the center loads raw material into the mill for shaping, delivers the finished part to inspection machines for testing, and then places it into a bin for “good parts” if it passes inspection. The computer lab has CAD, CAM, inspection, statistical process control and reporting software.

The lab also contains two lathes, which Brateris described as “approachable” machines that students can practice on before working on the more complex manufacturing apparatus.

Other features of the lab include an electronic whiteboard and rows of work stations equipped with retractable computer screens. Thus, the lab doubles as a classroom and provides the computing power needed to incorporate design and analysis into the industrial work across the room.

While the space primarily caters to students in mechanical, industrial and electrical engineering, it also accommodates other types of engineering and the creation of models for science and even architecture.

Weissenrieder, named an “NCE Outstanding Alumnus in 2018, is a true American success story. He emigrated from Germany in 1960 as a tool and die maker to work for his uncle’s tooling business and quickly became the manager of the company. It was later sold to a large firm. He then founded Weiss-Aug in 1972 with his partner, Kurt Augustin, while pursuing an industrial engineering degree at NJIT.

“The commitment that Dieter and his family have made speaks volumes about what this university is about and how transformative it is. He is the personification of his generation – an immigrant and the first in his family to go to college,” said NJIT President Joel Bloom. “Now he and his family are giving others a leg up and an important opportunity.”