The IE department has four laboratories: Human Factors Engineering Lab (HFEL), Logistics Engineering Lab (LEL), Production Engineering Lab (PEL), and Computing and Simulation Lab (CSL).

1       Human Factors Engineering Lab (HFEL)

HFEL serves both for teaching and research. Table 1 lists the objectives, facilities, and supported courses of these sub-Labs.

Table 1  Human Factors Engineering Lab

Physical Ergonomics and Occupational Safety (Room 524A) Objectives: To support teaching and research in anthropometry, physical environment measurement, biomechanics, work analysis, and hazard handling etc.
Facilities	¨ Traditional anthropometric measurement tools ¨ 3D laser scanning (FastSCAN) device ¨  Noise, wind speed, illumination, luminance, temperature measuring devices ¨ Weight, force measurement devices ¨ Foot pressure measuring device
Courses	¨ “Fundamentals of Human Factors” (40160323) ¨  “Advanced Human Factors” (40160213)
Management and Organizational Ergonomics (Room 524A) Objectives: To support teaching and research in working team study (individual characteristics, working environment, performance measurement and improvement, etc.)
Facilities	May use the devices above
Courses	¨“Essentials of Contemporary Management” (30160112)  ¨“Work Organization” (80160022) ¨“Human Factors” (70160542)
Cognitive Ergonomics and Human-Computer Interaction (Room 524B)  Objectives: To support teaching and research in developing methods and tools for evaluating and improving human’s performance for information products and services, especially in the cognitive ergonomics and HCI domains.
Facilities	Usability testing and user study room
Courses	¨Advance Human Factors Seminar (80160332) ¨  Human Computer Interaction (80160132) ¨Advanced Human Factors (40160213) ¨Systematic Product Design& Development (80160283) ¨ Ergonomics and Work Organization (70160043) ¨ Human Factors (70160542)
Cross-Culture and Ubiquitous Design (Room 524C)  Objectives: To support teaching and research in developing methods and tools for studying culture effect for some important aspects, such as hazard perception, interface design, buying decision-making, and internet use interactions.
Facilities	Usability Lab
Courses	¨Ergonomics and Work Organization (70160043) ¨Advance Human Factors Seminar (80160332) ¨Human Computer Interaction (80160132) ¨Advanced Human Factors (40160213) ¨Systematic Product Design& Development (80160283) ¨Business Communication (40160432)
Usability and User Experience (Room 524D)  Objectives: To support teaching and research in developing methods and tools for evaluating and improving the usability and user experience of products and services.
Facilities	Usability Lab
Courses	¨Advance Human Factors Seminar (80160332) ¨Human Computer Interaction (80160132) ¨Systematic Product Design& Development (80160283) ¨Advanced Human Factors (40160213)
Driving Safety and Human-System Simulation (Room 521B) Objectives: To support teaching and research in developing methods and simulation tools to measure driver’s characteristics, capabilities, and driving skills, and change driver’s intentions for some unsafe behaviors.
Facilities	¨Desktop simulator, full-scale driving simulator, and developed driving scenarios     Motion tracking system with 8 CCD cameras and human-in-the-loop simulations   ¨Polhemus magnetic motion tracking system (Fastrack and Patriot) ¨Modeling and simulation softwares, Vega, 3DMAX, Virtools, etc.
Courses	¨Research Seminars for Freshmen (university level course) ¨Advance Human Factors Seminar (80160332) ¨“Fundamentals of Human Factors” (40160323) ¨“Advanced Human Factors” (40160213)
Human Error and System Safety (Room 524E)  Objectives: To support teaching and research in developing methods and tools for evaluating and analyzing human’s reliability and improving system safety.
Facilities	Software to simulate nuclear operations.
Courses	¨Safety Engineering (40160192) ¨Reliability and Maintainability Engineering (40160532) ¨Contemporary Safety Engineering (80160052) ¨Advanced Human Factors (40160213)
Social Computing and Mobile Computing (Room 524F) Objectives: To support teaching and research in developing methods and tools for studying social computing and mobile computing.
Facilities	Usability Lab
Courses	¨Advance Human Factors Seminar (80160332) ¨Human Computer Interaction (80160132) ¨Systematic Product Design& Development (80160283) ¨Advanced Human Factors (40160213)

2       Logistics Engineering Lab (LEL)

LEL was established to support teaching and research. Currently, the experiments for both undergraduate and graduate courses can be conducted in the lab, as shown in Table 2.

Table 2  IE courses served by the LEL

Figure 1 shows the relationships between logistics system components and four courses, as well as seven related experiments that support the courses. Figure 2 shows the framework and layout of the LEL with four mixed parts. They are mixed model assembly line (MMAL), automatic storage and retrieval system (AS/RS), sorting center, and network platform. Figure 3 shows experimental designs.

Figure 1  The framework of logistics systems

Figure 2  Layout of the Logistics Engineering Lab

Figure 3  Examples of experimental design

Through years of effort, we have achieved significant impact on IE education in China as well as in the world, as proved by the following facts:

• The LEL has been the best among the IE programs in China, as unanimously acknowledged by all the attendees.

• The LEL has provided laboratory design and construction consultancy for many universities in other IE programs.

• The LEL won the 2007 Innovations in Curriculum Award, IIE.

The impact of the LSL extends beyond campus. The industry practitioners in our continuing education programs benefit as well. Through the experiments, they learned to combine their experience with the theories covered in our IE training program.

3       Production Engineering Lab (PEL)

The PEL provides an industry-oriented training platform, prepares students with systematic view and practical skills, and cultivates highly competent industrial engineers for global manufacturing. The objectives of PEL are to become an educational platform for creative thinking in manufacturing engineering and to explore the next generation manufacturing modes.

The PEL is designed to demonstrate a wide collection of industrial systems and provide a platform for research of various manufacturing industries. The following list is the facilities in the lab:

• Production lines, including sewing production and assembly lines

• Single piece and small batch production with robot operations, CNC milling, and CNC turning

• Batch processes with molding production

• Continuous processes with bottling

• Engraving machine (quantity: 2)

• CNC Lathe (1)

• Industrial robot (2)

• Multi-functional sewing machine (3)

• Integrated embroidery and sewing machine (1)

• Belt conveyor (1)

• Bottling machine (1)

• 3-D laser scanner (1)

Figure 4  Facilities in the production engineering laboratory

Figure 5  The Students in the Lab and Products of the Student Experiments

Table 3 lists some of the experiments in courses.

Table 3  IE courses served by the PEL

4       Computing and Simulation Lab (CSL) 

CSL is aimed at providing computing and simulation support for teaching and research for the dep

artment. It was re-constructed in April, 2008, with significant upgrade of high performance computing workstations and software packages. CSL now has two major units, with the high performance computing server groups and workstations located in Room 601, and the system simulation unit located in Room 512. The total space is 120 m2. Currently, CSL has the following hardware facilities:

• High performance computing servers such as Sun Fire X4600, HP ProLiant DL580 G5, IBM System X3400, and DELL PowerEdge2900 with high storage capacity devices.

• High performance graphic workstation, Sun Ultra 40 with high-end graphics card and high-resolution rendering performance

• Thirty-eight high performance computers, each with many software packages installed, for various simulation purposes.

• Image acquisition device, projectors, and video- conference system

CSL has the following licensed commercial and self-developed software packages:

• Logistics Practice Network Experimental Platform

• Production Management System

• Modeling software: Matlab, Mathematica,

• Statistics and optimization software: MiniTab, Spss, CPLEX, Xpress-MP, etc.

• Simulation software: Arena, Enterprise Dynamic, Anylogic, Simo, Flexsim.

• Reliability software: Weibull++, ALTA Pro, BlockSim FTI, Xfmea, Lambda Predict

• Enterprise Planning Resource software: Proplanner Product Engineer (Time Estimation, Line Balancing, Work Instructions, Ergonomics Assessments)

• CAD software: Catia, Pro/Engineer, AutoCAD, 3ds max

Figure 6 shows the logistics system experiment platform software that was developed by ourselves.

Figure 6  Logistics system experiment platform

CSL supports experiments of the following courses:

• Modeling and Simulation (40160083)

• Management Information Systems I (40160243)

• Introduction to Supply Chain Management (80168122)

• Facilities Planning (40160052)

• Theory and Practice of Project Management (80160082)

• Transportation and Distribution Management (80160322)

• Enterprise Information Management (80160032)

• Introduction to Modern Manufacturing System and Experiment (40160573)

• Distribution Systems Modeling and Analysis (80160152)