This paper presents an approach in educational development of resources and programs based on multidisciplinary concept. The development is built around the process of mechatronics program delivery that is currently introduced in tertiary education within RMIT University. Mechatronics is a multidisciplinary engineering area that incorporates mechanical, electrical, electronics, computer and information systems. Students studying Mechatronics Engineering expand their knowledge of various systems and scientific areas and integrate them in a working system. Through work integrated learning, students are encouraged to obtain new knowledge and skills by doing the job, not just learning from the textbooks and attending lectures. Subject material is delivered in variety of ways, started with face-to-face delivery, seminars, tutorials and lab sessions. The key component of this education is project work conducted in small teams. Finally, University conducts surveys after every single subject delivery and the results of the latest survey are presented here. According to the survey, students are extremely satisfied with the new approach that focuses on problem solving, project and exploration work

Mo, J

Simic, M

RMIT Research Repository

Simic and Mo, Holistic Educational Development Integrated Through Mechatronics Design 
Proceedings of the 2008 AaeE Conference, Yeppoon, Copyright © Simic and Mo, 2008 
1 
Holistic Educational Development Integrated Through 
Mechatronics Design 
 
Milan Simic 
RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia 
Milan.Simic@rmit.edu.au 
 
John P.T. Mo 
RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia 
John.Mo@rmit.edu.au 
 
Abstract: This paper presents an approach in educational development of resources and 
programs based on multidisciplinary concept. The development is built around the 
process of mechatronics program delivery that is currently introduced in tertiary 
education within RMIT University. Mechatronics is a multidisciplinary engineering area 
that incorporates mechanical, electrical, electronics, computer and information systems. 
Students studying Mechatronics Engineering expand their knowledge of various systems 
and scientific areas and integrate them in a working system. Through work integrated 
learning, students are encouraged to obtain new knowledge and skills by doing the job, 
not just learning from the textbooks and attending lectures. Subject material is delivered 
in variety of ways, started with face-to-face delivery, seminars, tutorials and lab sessions. 
The key component of this education is project work conducted in small teams. Finally, 
University conducts surveys after every single subject delivery and the results of the latest 
survey are presented here. According to the survey, students are extremely satisfied with 
the new approach that focuses on problem solving, project and exploration work. 
 
Introduction 
The School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering (the School) is a large multi-
disciplinary engineering school in Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), offering full 
range of educational programs.  The School is located in a spacious campus that has been developed 
over the last decade for senior undergraduate students and postgraduate research studies.  The 
Manufacturing and Materials (M&M) Engineering Discipline is the first teaching and research area 
established on the campus.  Since early 2007, the M&M Discipline commenced with the development 
and delivery of a new degree more suitable to modern industry needs.  To be capable of participating 
in the manufacturing industry of the 21st
• Elaborately manufactured 
 century, our graduate engineers need to maintain their 
relevance in broader industry perspectives.  Through industry consultations and graduate surveys, the 
following sectors of engineering are identified as potential employers of a “manufacturing” graduate: 
• Supply chain and logistics 
• Virtual organisations and services 
• Project and one-off manufacturing 
Following that, graduate engineers should have manufacturing management skills and knowledge, 
combined with expertise in mechatronics, process control engineering and quality control.  
Multidisciplinary knowledge of mechatronics is significant for Manufacturing Engineers responsible 
for the design and management of automated systems.  This comprehensive, multidisciplinary, 
engineering is a global trend.  Smart manufacturing is the only way Australian industry could stay 
competitive in the international arena.  The ability to analyse, control and design mechatronics systems 
is therefore essential, and forms part of the knowledge base required to make our graduates job ready.  
Simic and Mo, Holistic Educational Development Integrated Through Mechatronics Design 
Proceedings of the 2008 AaeE Conference, Yeppoon, Copyright © Simic and Mo, 2008 
2 
The new Bachelor of Engineering (Advanced Manufacturing and Mechatronics) program evolves 
from several significant iterations since 2003.  The latest change to the undergraduate program has 
been designed to deal with the issues of duplication of topics, loss of program focus and lack of 
currency in educational philosophy.  One of the main outcomes of this program change is the 
emphasis on practical aspects of mechatronics, which is a foundation for supporting many other areas.  
It is necessary to establish laboratory facilities that can invoke further thinking and investigation 
capability suitable for degree level students’ learning.  Using mechatronics knowledge, supplemented 
by the comprehensive systems approach, students develop ability to conceptualise engineering 
problems, both at system level, as well as component level.  The system level capability enables them 
to develop solutions irrespective of scale.  The component level enables them to attend to the details 
that will realise the implementation, i.e. to make it work.  
The key to this approach is the holistic way to designing the courseware as well as the laboratory 
facilities that support the new engineering knowledge requirement (Sonntag, 2003; Hassett et al, 
1987).  This paper describes the holistic design approach and the process through which the objective 
is achieved. 
Computer Integrated Manufacturing 
The application of Information Technology (IT) has changed the way manufacturing engineers tackle 
the problems in industry and production environments.  The concept of computer integrated 
manufacturing aims at providing computer processing support in different phases of the product 
development, manufacturing and management.  Integration in this context means to form the 
interfaces and implement the information links among computer aided activities to allow direct and 
timely cooperation among them (Xu and Newman, 2006; Konig et al, 1994).  Consequently, one 
important aspect of integration has become the provision of interoperable systems that allow easy 
coupling between distributed elements of the manufacturing system. 
Advanced Manufacturing is the use of sophisticated manufacturing equipment for different system 
level application tasks.  The equipment is generally expensive and complex in control.  A five layer 
manufacturing factory model is normally used to provide a general conceptual framework of activities 
in a typical industrial environment (Gowan and Mathieu, 1996).  Integration is an on-going process 
rather than a one time effort.  In developing an integrated system, one could find the need to 
implement multi-vendor systems both in terms of hardware and software and of easiness of re-
configurability through standard interfaces.  Irrespective of the level of integration capability, it is 
clear that the foundation for integration is the physical level, which governs system activities and 
interconnectivity.  Hence, the purpose of computer integrated manufacturing is to provide appropriate 
information and resources, when and where it needs to be, so that people and machines can cooperate 
to in order to create high quality products. 
 
Factory 
System 
Cell 
Workstation 
Equipment 
acquisition 
cost & utilisation 
monitoring 
performance 
monitoring  
flow monitoring 
suborders 
orders 
process &      capacity plans 
jobs 
instructions process monitoring 
Order control 
Process and 
production control 
Shop floor 
(workshop) control 
Workstation control 
Equipment control  
Figure 1: Five layer manufacturing system model  
Simic and Mo, Holistic Educational Development Integrated Through Mechatronics Design 
Proceedings of the 2008 AaeE Conference, Yeppoon, Copyright © Simic and Mo, 2008 
3 
Mechatronics plays an important role in all integrated systems (Jederman et al, 2006; Gerkšič et al, 
2006; Bruno et al, 2000).  It is an engineering area that enables manufacturing engineers to combine 
electronics technologies with traditional machines to achieve high efficiency in product design, 
automation, manufacturing processes, system control, logistics and other businesses (French, 1991).  
In essence, mechatronics can be regarded as the backbone of computer integrated manufacturing. 
The essence of advanced manufacturing is to be able to manufacture products with minimum human 
intervention.  The most sophisticated process is the control of equipment to produce manufacturing 
tools (e.g. moulds and dies) and large, or heavy, end products (e.g. knuckles, engine blocks, etc).  In 
conjunction with the mould and die development, the advanced manufacturing development also 
includes requirements for automated materials handling equipment, such as high speed robots and 
automated guided vehicles.  Expanding on the requirements from the 5 layer manufacturing 
integration model to support advanced manufacturing studies, the laboratory concept map, shown in 
Figure 2, is developed.   
 
Figure 2: Concept map for advanced manufacturing laboratory 
The undergraduate program of study is developed with a mould design and manufacture strategy in 
mind.  Students learn the processes of transforming design information into control programs for the 
Computer Numerical Control (CNC) equipment through a series of hands on project activities.  They 
learn how to setup and run the computerised equipment to produce plastic moulds, which are tested on 
the injection moulding or stretch moulding machines.   
Simic and Mo, Holistic Educational Development Integrated Through Mechatronics Design 
Proceedings of the 2008 AaeE Conference, Yeppoon, Copyright © Simic and Mo, 2008 
4 
The support of mechatronics to achieving the above goal is vital, as shown by the dotted curves on 
Figure 2.  The trend to increase automation by mechatronics will continue for the next 5 years 
extending into die sets, automated on machine processing and online quality control.  The laboratory 
areas, i.e. activities, described in this document, have natural affinity to one another and are closely 
connected as indicated by the relationship links. 
Mechatronics in Quality Control 
The drive for high quality and reliable products in industry has raised the standard in competitive 
manufacturing.  The success of Toyota in developing its own quality strategy has reinforced the need 
for in-depth study of quality control systems for supporting manufacturing systems.  Traditional 
quality control investigations are conducted mostly in the areas of dimensional and form 
measurements, which deal with visible quality.  Modern quality control focuses on the whole product 
and its ability to carry out the designed function. 
A strategic development, catering for the philosophy of zero defect at all times, is condition 
monitoring of manufacturing processes.  Conditioning monitoring includes both static and dynamic 
monitoring of structures, plant and equipment.  It involves both destructive testing and non-destructive 
testing (NDT) of materials.  The latter requires application of relatively sophisticated testing 
equipment, such as sensors and vibration monitoring equipment. According to that, a higher level of 
instrumentation and data processing will be required for this type of testing.  Destructive testing 
implies a more extreme form of testing – usually to determine the limit of a material’s mechanical 
properties, such as tensile strength and fracture toughness. 
There are many types of manufacturing processes.  Existing equipment can be used in investigations in 
metal forming, material removing, welding, laser, automatic sorting, electric discharge, wire-cut and 
others.  Static measurement technologies are the basis of quality control of these processes, but they 
are not efficient when compared to modern manufacturing process requirements.  Future 
manufacturing industry demands zero defect, which means that it is necessary to establish continuous 
condition monitoring and application of early process variation mitigation strategies.  The 
development plan for quality control area is focussed on developing fully automated condition 
monitoring systems and intelligence in system diagnosis.  It is also important to increase the accuracy 
of these capabilities through precision engineering and more sophisticated micro, and possibly nano, 
materials technologies.  To achieve this, interfacing capabilities with micro scale sensors and non-
contact measurement techniques will be investigated.  Close working relationship of this area with the 
mechatronics area is essential. 
The expectation is that the future facility will be an integrated environment that will include the 
world’s best and most up-to-date equipment available within the limits of the budget.  The integrated 
quality control laboratory facility will enhance the learning experience of the undergraduate (UG) 
students by underpinning the theoretical knowledge with a hands-on insight into its professional 
implementation.  The postgraduate (PG) research students should find this facility to be an enabling 
environment – a facility to make possible research discoveries by validating theoretical and 
computational creations of researchers. 
Design and Build 
The strategy in the manufacture of moulds has significant implication to the mechatronics courses.  
The need to re-develop a gantry robot existed for many years, but just the last year it was initiated as a 
Mechatronics Design projects, a real life project for student. The idea of this particular project is to 
redesign / refurbish an old robot using existing frame, as shown in Figure 3. NI LabVIEW based 
hardware and software is used with other compatible hardware. Students are working in an 
environment and conditions that are closely matching factory surroundings. The project is great 
example of an integrated engineering and is a real job. Most student projects, including this one, are 
conducted in small groups. Students are exercising project management and communication skills. 
The first step in this case is to learn about safety rules and regulation, Australian standards that have to 
be followed when working with robots and in robot cells. Students are not learning in the classroom 
Simic and Mo, Holistic Educational Development Integrated Through Mechatronics Design 
Proceedings of the 2008 AaeE Conference, Yeppoon, Copyright © Simic and Mo, 2008 
5 
and labs only. Team members attend external seminar on safety, organised by ABB in certain time 
intervals. From the finance point of view, students are given funds to purchase drive system and new  
 
Figure 3: Gantry robot gate entrance to workspace 
motors with encoders from ABB. In addition to safety and finance tasks, as a part of the design 
process student team had to consider the following design issues:  
• Fundamental Mechanism: Degrees of Freedom (DOF), Joint types ( Rotational / Sliding ), 
Arm lengths and offsets. 
• Inner Mechanism: Motors, Transmission mechanisms’ types, Motor allocations, Reduction 
gears and their reduction ratios, Position sensing mechanisms. 
• Kinematic Evaluation: Workspace, Joint operating range, Maximum velocity and acceleration, 
Maximum joint velocity and acceleration. 
• Static / Dynamics Evaluation: Maximum motor driving torque, Total motor power, Total 
weight.  
Finally, all actuators are available offline and connected to design workstation.  Software design is 
conducted using NI LabVIEW environment.  
  
Figure 4: Mechatronics and automation in SAMME labs 
Apart from this real life project, students in Mechatronics design course are doing variety of other 
project and the most popular one is Mobile Robot design based on ATmega32 processors. For their 
projects students are using most popular engineering programming languages and environments: C 
language, LabVIEW and MATLAB, but they are not restricted to those only. They have a choice of 
design environment. Mobile robot designed by students and temperature control chamber used in 
LabVIEW based process control are shown in the Figure 4.  
In order to increase quality of teaching RMIT University is conducting student satisfaction surveys 
after every singe course delivery. Survey results of 2008 Semester One delivery are shown in Figure 5.  
This means that the students are happy with the Work Integrated Learning applied here, that the 
objectives of the course were clear and achieved, that the course have fulfilled their expectations. They 
are satisfied with the way of the course material delivery, i.e. web based support using RMIT Learning 
Hub and with the assessment methodology. Although that the results are extremely satisfactory, 
Simic and Mo, Holistic Educational Development Integrated Through Mechatronics Design 
Proceedings of the 2008 AaeE Conference, Yeppoon, Copyright © Simic and Mo, 2008 
6 
School is always trying to improve quality of teaching, resources, diversify methods of delivery and 
assessment. That activity is conducted on a continuous base.  
 
 
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23
Question Number
Ag
re
em
en
t %
 
Figure 5: Student satisfaction survey report  
Conclusion 
Engineering is becoming more and more a multidisciplinary, integrated and global profession. Any 
engineer nowadays has to use computers, but also has to be aware of sustainability and ethics issues in 
relation to products and services performed. Profession is integrated with finance, project 
management, communications and marketing as well. Finally it is a global profession, even during the 
study and more lately in the line of business. Through a holistic educational development integrated 
through mechatronics design and related courses, RMIT University is developing new academic 
program to enhance its reputation as one of the leaders in engineering education worldwide. It is 
constantly upgrading facilities and monitoring quality of teaching and research in profession and in 
education as well.  
 
References 
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Hassett, T.C., Jeary, A.P., Mo, J.P.T., Lau, K.C. (1987).  Laboratory Management in Tertiary Educational 
Institution, Hong Kong Engineer, Aug: 39-48 
Konig, W., Schmitz-Justen, C., Bieker, R., Werner, A.R. (1994).  The Evolution of Intelligent Manufacturing 
Processes.  International Journal of Flexible Automation and Integrated Manufacturing, 2(1&2): 185-184 
French, M.J. (1991).  Mechatronics and the Imitation of Nature.  Proc Instn Mech Engrs, 205(B): 1-8 
Sonntag, V. (2003).  The role of manufacturing strategy in adapting to technological change.  Integrated 
Manufacturing Systems, 14(4):312-323 
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Wide Web (prime sites and mirrors) on CD-ROM and in printed form within the AaeE 2008 conference proceedings. Any other 
usage is prohibited without the express permission of the authors. 


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