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Using the Integration of QFD and IDEF Techniques for Mobile Wireless Classroom Process Improvement

Rungchat Chompu-inwai, Toni L. Doolen

Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering Oregon State University Corvallis, Oregon, 97331-2407 Phone: 1.541.737.2365 Fax: 1.541.737.5241 E-mail address: toni.doolen@orst.edu.

Introduction

ABET 2004-2005 criteria for accrediting engineering programs require that institutions assure quality and foster the systematic pursuit of improvement in the quality of engineering education, satisfying the needs of constituencies in a dynamic and competitive environment1. Each engineering program seeking accreditation must have in place a process based on the needs of the program’s various constituencies in which the objectives are determined and evaluated1. For this purpose, a systematic approach for educational process improvement and reengineering is needed.

Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is a quality improvement tool for determining customer requirements and translating them into product or service specifications. QFD has been applied for extracting customer requirements, as well as for designing elements based on those requirements in both university settings and other educational institutions in previous studies 2,3,4,5. However, only the question of what is needed to achieve the requirements is answered. The question of how the design elements or requirements can be achieved is unanswered. Integrated Definition Language 0 (IDEF0) functional modeling is a structured approach for system design and analysis and can be used to answer these questions. With the use of IDEF0, functions, inputs, as well as mechanisms that are required to get the desired outputs under specific constraints can be identified.

This paper explores the complementary use of two different engineering modeling tools in describing educational processes associated with mobile wireless technology (MWT) classrooms. QFD and IDEF0 are integrated to determine the requirements and to specify the processes of the mobile wireless classroom. For this study, mobile wireless classrooms are defined as classrooms where MWT (e.g. personal digital assistants (PDA’s), laptops and other customized devices with wireless capabilities) have been used with the goal of improving teaching processes and learning. The methodology presented in this paper provides a comprehensive framework for process improvement and reengineering. A specific application of this methodology was used to compare MWT classrooms in Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering (IME) at Oregon State University (OSU) with non-MWT classrooms. This was completed to illustrate how the methodology could be applied.

“Proceedings of the 2005 American Society of Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright  2005, American Society for Engineering Education”

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Doolen, T., & Chompu-inwai, R. (2005, June), Using The Integration Of Qfd And Idef Techniques For Mobile Wireless Classroom Process Improvement Paper presented at 2005 Annual Conference, Portland, Oregon. 10.18260/1-2--14169