DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRIAL AND MECHATRONICS ENGINEERING
Prof. REUBEN MARWANGA,
ACADEMIC TEAM LEADER (ATL)
Department of Industrial and Mechatronics Engineering
- Industrial and production engineering is concerned with the optimization of complex, integrated, processes and systems of various resources including technology, finances, information, and people. Industrial engineering, as a branch of engineering, seeks to integrate the methodologies in engineering and technology, business and management, and socio-political and economics in offering optimal solutions to complex, integrated, problems in society. Industrial engineering is thus quite a broad-based discipline whose remit in fact goes way beyond the traditional understanding of engineering as such. The education of industrial engineers typically covers engineering as a discipline in the broadest sense coupled with a strong compliment of management and social science courses. The principles and methods of industrial engineering can be applied onto any system of human endeavour that can be optimized.
- Modern manufacturing engineering involves the use of modern technologies that are chiefly based on electronics and informatics. Mechatronics is a modern area of engineering that integrates, in a synergistic manner, the principles of mechanics, electronics, and informatics. Tetsuro Mori, a senior engineer at the Japanese company Yaskawa Electric Corporation coined the term ‘mechatronics’ in 1969 from the combination of mechanics and electronics. While at the time mechatronics was just considered to be a combination of mechanics and electronics, over the time however the scope of the term has been expanded to cover more technical terms, in particular, informatics. The French standard NF E 01-010 has defined the terms as follows: “approach aiming at the synergistic integration of mechanics, electronics, control theory, and computer science within product design and manufacturing, in order to improve and/or optimize it functionality”. Mechatronics is concerned with the improvement of performance and creation of technical systems that have built in artificial intelligence as to allow for the automation of such processes as far as possible.