The Problems: Steady improvements in machine tool technology equipment, processes, and quality standards have outstripped the practical capabilities of traditional manual measurement of products. This creates three urgent problems for Piedmont Technical College's MTT program (and many MTT programs): problems of quality (students can no longer measure reliably to expected tolerances), problems of complexity (current equipment cannot even measure some of the newly-important dimensions), and problems of quantity (traditional measurement to more precise tolerances takes too long, allowing fewer rather than more such activities of our students). The Objective. To alleviate these problems through creation of a Precision Machining Measurement Center which contains fifteen pieces of equipment within five systems designed to measure linear, surface, angular, coordinate, and optical dimensions of machined products. The Methods. To redesign all seventeen current MTT courses (and add an 18th) to: (a) teach and reinforce application of this equipment in all courses; (b) redesign student projects to include explicit, graded in-process measurement of products (to supplement current end-process measurement); and (c) modify capstone courses to expect students to independently select and use appropriate measurement equipment. These activities will, in effect, add quality measurement to the curriculum's current emphasis on quality production. The Impact. Eight integrated activities will answer three questions: how much, and how, did the MTT instructional program, and with what impact? We will disseminate the PMMC model statewide through presentations, a report and the S.C. ATE Center for Excellence, and nationally through presentations and letters to the chairs of all 233 similar MTT programs.
