Interesting production technologies and IoT applications

A total of approximately 6,400 PowerPoint slides covering manufacturing technology, production management, data science, etc. were used in the "Production Systems Design" course at Tokyo Metropolitan College of Industrial Technology from 2020 to 2024. Student reports on these lecture slides were analyzed, and the following trends were found: 1) There is high interest in 3D printers, CNC, laser processing, and Gigacast. 2) 70% of students had experience using IoT, and 50% of students expressed a desire to be actively involved with it after employment. If negative attitudes are included, 90% of students were positive. 3) Regarding AI, there is a high level of interest in AI after employment. 55% of students expressed a desire to be actively involved, and if negative attitudes were included, 95% of students were positive.4) The social issues that generated the greatest interest were the energy crisis, global warming, global population trends, soil pollution, and marine plastics.5) The fields of application of IoT proposed by students were smart factories (35%), agriculture and forestry (20%), food and beverage/logistics (20%), and when medical and welfare are added, service work accounted for 35%, showing an expansion in the field of IoT applications.6) Video lecture materials were easy to understand (40%) or somewhat easy to understand (45%), so the use of explanatory videos of about 3 minutes was effective.