CDIO FRAMEWORK AND SKILLSFUTURE: REDESIGN OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING CURRICULUM AFTER 10 YEARS OF IMPLEMENTING CDIO

Abstract

This paper shares the experience of the Diploma in Chemical Engineering (DCHE) Course Management Team in using the CDIO Framework to help formulate its approach to redesign its DCHE curriculum to align it to the requirements of the SkillsFuture Initiative. The SkillsFuture Initiative was launched by the Singapore Government in 2015 and aimed at helping Singapore manufacturers improve their operations to remain competitive in the global marketplace, promoting lifelong learning by providing workers with avenues to deepen their existing skills and acquire new ones, so that they can stay relevant amid ever-changing workplace demands. It is the country’s response to the challenge of Industry 4.0. Two key elements of SkillsFuture of relevance to education are the Skills Framework and Enhanced Internship. This paper first explains Chemicals 4.0 – the chemical industry’s equivalent of Industry 4.0, and briefly summarises its implications for the chemical industry in general, and chemical engineering education in particular. Next, the paper shares how the CDIO approach is used to guide the curriculum review process, i.e. in addressing the questions of what knowledge, skills and attitudes are required for Chemicals 4.0. The outcome of the process is to establish a course structure that is able to meet the needs of learners in term of preemployment training (i.e. students) as well as continuing education and training (i.e. adult learners). The paper then provides a summary of the authors’ review of pertinent literatures to specifically address the need of the DCHE curriculum, narrowing the focus into the following knowledge areas: predictive asset management, process management and control, energy management, safety management, and production simulation. As for the skills and attitudes, the paper argues that most of the skills needed are already addressed in our “CDIO-enabled” curriculum. However, with the emphasis on Chemicals 4.0, some skills now take on greater importance, such as sense-making, data analysis, resource management and virtual collaboration. The paper then provides a summary of our revamp effort over the past 4 years since the last self-evaluation exercise in 2012 (i.e. from 2013-2016), and the plan for the next 4 years (2017-2020) to implement a new course structure based on a spiral curriculum. The paper concludes with a brief explanation on why a spiral curriculum is suitable for DCHE, and provides an approach to transition the existing curriculum to the spiral one.