35 Professionals Graduate from NJIT's Inaugural Advanced Manufacturing and Mechatronics Program
Matthew Berdel, a systems engineer who tests software during the workweek, spent his Saturday mornings in NJIT’s Makerspace last semester immersed in engineering of a very different sort: constructing a working machine from fabricated parts.
“I wanted to know more about hardware,” Berdel explained. “I was looking for a deeper understanding of electrical and mechanical systems – and to develop a new set of skills I can rely on.”
The systems engineer was one of 35 people to graduate earlier this year in the inaugural class of NJIT’s Advanced Manufacturing and Mechatronics Training Program. The participants, who earned certificates for successfully completing the 14-week course, which also included classroom sessions on weeknights, represented a range of occupations: facility managers, mechanics and technicians, engineers, production supervisors, students and even one interpreter.
The common denominator was “the desire by the program participants to learn so they can advance their careers and better provide for their families,” said ShaQueel Dyer, an adjunct professor of engineering technology and NJIT alumnus who taught the course.
“It makes troubleshooting easier if you know how to put together a machine in the first place,” Dyer said. “The students learned the foundations of mechatronics: reading manuals and drawings; using measurement equipment, tools and fasteners and drilling panels; preparing wiring; and programming with a PLC, or programmable logic controller. PLCs are industry-grade computing systems that are found in the majority of advanced manufacturing equipment and systems.”
The students’ electrical-mechanical project, on display at the graduation, contained all of the key features of advanced manufacturing equipment, including a machine frame, electrical enclosures, an AC motor, lockout-tag-out safety features and an LED light panel with switches, among others. The class learned to quickly resolve problems while building it, Dyer said.
The program was funded by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA). Last year, NJIT was one of 12 winners of the SBA’s MaTCH Pilot Competition, a program designed to help workers secure entry-level advanced manufacturing jobs and the option to pursue further training in an apprenticeship program or a college education in advanced manufacturing. Steered by three faculty members from the School of Applied Engineering and Technology, Ashish Borgaonkar, Samuel Lieber and Seyeedmoshen Azizi, NJIT secured a top-tier award designated for facilities with “successful existing programs with a strong history of training and/or workforce development” and the means to provide vocational education, develop apprenticeships and help students cultivate access to entrepreneurship.
“We realize that capital isn’t the only answer to keeping manufacturing in New Jersey. A big part of the solution will have to come from workforce development. Having enough qualified and trained workers for future job openings in the manufacturing sector is critical to the success of small manufacturers in the state,” Al Titone, the SBA’s New Jersey district director, said in a statement read at the graduation. “Partnerships, like the one we have with NJIT, will go a long way to changing the culture of manufacturing.”
Rockwell Automation, which provides automation services to industries around the globe, in sectors ranging from aerospace manufacturing, to food and beverage, to power generation, donated key pieces of equipment to the program, including variable frequency drives with motors, automation controllers and motion control systems, among many others.
“The importance of industry working with academia cannot be understated in today’s world where the pace of technology adoption, innovation and need for integrated skillsets is at unprecedented levels. Manufacturing provides well-paying and sophisticated high-tech opportunities,” said Andres Gomez, the North American visualization manager for Rockwell Automation. “NJIT, through its new programs, is changing the perception of advanced manufacturing and attracting a more diverse set of students. This program helps industrial end-users drive economic outcomes that have long-lasting impacts on local and national levels and supports key workforce development objectives.”
Randy Valerio, a maintenance supervisor for a pharmaceutical company who is responsible for more than a dozen production lines, said he took the course “because I don’t have technology knowledge and wanted hands-on experience, as well as a better understanding of how systems in general work.”
The Makerspace at NJIT is central to both the university’s hands-on learning mission and its growing relationship with New Jersey’s manufacturing community. Students and faculty use it on a daily basis to create devices for research experiments, club team contests and research capstone projects, among other ventures. But it is also available to industrial partners to participate as mentors, trainers and instructors, for companies to collaborate with students and faculty members on research and development projects, and for employees to receive customized training tailored to their needs.
The equipment inside ranges from small 3D printers to large industrial machines such as an additive metal 3D printer that uses powdered stainless steel to print parts, an optical scanner that effectively digitizes real-life objects, enabling reverse engineering, and a continuous fiber 3D printer that is capable of depositing strands of carbon fiber, fiberglass or Kevlar inside 3D-printed parts, to add considerable strength.
The 11,000-square-foot facility is currently expanding by 10,000 square feet. in order to provide additional space for collaboration, including open areas to congregate, breakout rooms to brainstorm ideas, training rooms for instruction and additional CAD stations and equipment to design, build and test early prototypes.
Daniel Brateris, the director of experiential learning for Newark College of Engineering (NCE), who designed the facility, described it as a place for “users to bring ideas from concept to reality in one facility.”
The Makerspace plays a growing role in NJIT’s curriculum and educational mission.
Providing for extensive experimentation was a driving factor in the establishment of NCE’s new School of Applied Engineering. Using the Makerspace, the school helps NCE meet the spiraling demand in the job market for applied engineering technologists in industries reliant upon production, manufacturing, process control and instrumentation.
Speaking at the graduation, NCE Dean Moshe Kam, noted that the Makerspace represents an effort to “balance” engineering education.
“In the last few years, engineering education moved increasingly toward abstract analysis and numerical simulation,” Kam said. “Here we are attempting to reconnect the engineering students with the machinery and infrastructure that connects us to the real world – the world in which engineering work and engineering achievements take place.”