Our Department has made WESTEC the main annual meeting to which faculty and students participate. WESTEC is the West Coast's largest cutting edge Machine Tool & Manufacturing event. It is organized by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) every year at the Los Angeles Convention Center. We, as a department with a strong emphasis on manufacturing systems, try to keep active in the SME and have an SME student chapter. MSEM faculty present papers and organize technical sessions and/or tracks at the WESTEC Conference, are judges at the Manufacturing Challenge Competition for the Two Year Colleges teams, and encourage students to visit the WESTEC exhibition and attend conference sessions.  Many MSEM students work at WESTEC as volunteers.  The students of  the MSE488 culminating experience course participate every year with a project to the WESTEC Manufacturing Challenge Competition. In 2008 our MSEM student Dustin Halko won the Outstanding Student Award at WESTEC. Professor Ileana Costea wrote an article on this subject which appeared in the SME Newsletter – the Informer July 2008, pp. 13-15.

Professor Costea wrote another article in the Informer, February 2005.

The current issue of the Informer can be found at:
http://www.theinformerdesertpacific.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/informer1208.pdf