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Industry 4.0 is a commonly used term to refer to the fourth industrial revolution that is currently underway. The hallmark of this transformation is the effect of digital technologies such as Internet of Things, Robotics, Cloud Computing, Additive Manufacturing, Artificial Intelligence and others on the way we make things and the way we do business. Unlike in earlier transformations, technological change is happening at an exponential rate; as a result, artifacts, knowledge, and expertise are becoming obsolete at a very fast rate.
In this climate of exponential technological change as educators we need to ask hard questions, such as: Is the current system of engineering education appropriate for the current time? Are we behind our times by many decades? What should the new model of engineering education be? Should we have an Education 4.0 movement to go hand-in-hand with Industry 4.0? What would Education 4.0 look like? Naturally all of these are difficult questions to answer. We explore these questions critically and in the context of engineering education and discuss pockets of efforts that are underway in different corners of the education landscape to address these critical questions.
Dr. Shuvra Das started working at University of Detroit Mercy in January 1994 and is currently Professor of Mechanical Engineering. Over this time, he served in a variety of administrative roles such as Mechanical Engineering Department Chair, Associate Dean for Research and Outreach, and Director of International Programs in the college of Engineering and Science. He has an undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, and Master’s and Ph.D. in Engineering Mechanics from Iowa State University. He was a post-doctoral researcher at University of Notre Dame and worked in industry for several years prior to joining Detroit Mercy.
Dr. Das has taught a variety of courses ranging from freshmen to advanced graduate level such as Mechanics of Materials, Introductory and Advanced Finite Element Method, Engineering Design, Introduction to Mechatronics, Mechatronic Modeling and Simulation, Mathematics for Engineers, Electric Drives and Electromechanical Energy Conversion. He led the effort in the college to start several successful programs: an undergraduate major in Robotics and Mechatronic Systems Engineering, a graduate certificate in Advanced Electric Vehicles, and a thriving partnership for student recruitment with several universities in China. He has also been the dissertation advisor for and graduated many Ph.D. students.
Dr. Das’s areas of research interests are modeling and simulation of multi-disciplinary engineering problems, modeling multi-physics problems in manufacturing, engineering education, and curriculum reform. He has worked in areas ranging from mechatronics system simulation to multi-physics process simulation using CAE tools such as Finite Elements and Boundary Elements. He has authored or co-authored five books on these topics.
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