Logistics Engineering Technology Work-Study
The Central Ohio Region boasts 4,000 logistics companies employing more than 76,000. It is one of the fastest-growing economic sectors, with a projected 12.1 percent 10-year growth. Columbus State Community College is collaborating with universities, high schools, and employers to educate next-generation technicians in Logistics Engineering Technology (LET).
The Logistics Engineering Technology Associate of Applied Science degree will incorporate a multi-disciplinary foundation in computer science, industrial engineering, and supply-chain principles. This initiative will enhance an existing logistics engineering technology career pathway by integrating paid, real-world experiential learning. The program will leverage a proven work-study model and adopt and adapt it to the growing Central Ohio logistics industry. The project will focus on recruiting recent high school graduates, underemployed adults, incumbent workers, and military veterans.
Project Objective:
The primary project goal is to enhance the career pathway for logistics engineering technicians with experiential learning and directed employment opportunities. The project will produce four deliverables that will be extensively evaluated and disseminated to a national audience for replication.
Project Deliverables:
- Work-Study Model in Logistics Engineering Technology: The project will create a career pathway for Logistics Engineering Technicians that integrates technology applications (e.g. programming, data mining, and simulation modeling) with engineering systems (e.g. automation systems, controls logic, stochastic processes, 3D/CAD modeling, and electro-mechanical and industrial engineering), with supply-chain operations. The pathway begins with an intensive introduction, then a full, one-year curriculum. Year two involves a paid work-study experience and, during the academic year, students take classes two days per week and work the remaining three days.
- Logistics Engineering Technology Work-Study Summer Institute: Targeted at high school seniors, the Summer Institute is an intensive one-week introduction to logistics engineering technology. Participants receive exposure to the opportunity to earn college-level credit during their final year in high school.
- Bridge Program with Prior Learning Assessment for adult learners: This deliverable will address the needs of adult learners—especially the unemployed, under-employed incumbent workers, and military veterans. A formalized Prior Learning Assessment process will recognize past training, and incoming students will complete a learning module to help reintegrate them into higher education.
- Logistics Engineering Technology Laboratory for hands-on application: The principal investigators of the project will develop an automated work cell to simulate a smart conveyor used in regional warehouses. It will contain a flat-belt conveyor and chip-belt conveyor controlled by a mechanical-drive learning system to provide students with experience installing, operating, and maintaining state-of-the-art technologies used by logistics companies in Central Ohio.
What is ATE?
The Logistics Engineering Technology Work-Study project is being funded by a National Science Foundation Advanced Technological Education (ATE) Grant (DUE 1700520). With an emphasis on two-year colleges, Advanced Technological Education program focuses on the education of technicians for the high-technology fields that drive our nation's economy. The program involves partnerships between academic institutions and industry to promote improvement in the education of science and engineering technicians at the undergraduate and secondary school levels. The ATE program supports curriculum development; professional development of college faculty and secondary school teachers; career pathways to two-year colleges from secondary schools and from two-year colleges to four-year institutions; and other activities.