Dr. Azab teaches industrial engineering and manufacturing systems at the University of Windsor, and he taught sequencing, data science, and senior design at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in 2024 and 2025. The courses are the classroom side of the lab: operations research, machine learning, process planning, and the software engineering of a decision-support system.
How the courses are taught
Classes are built on three things: depth, a working connection with the students, and their ownership of the work. A lecture is still the way threshold ideas get laid out. It is mixed with questions, short in-class problems, and labs or solver exercises in the same week, so that a method is used before the class ends. Larger assessments then ask students to put the pieces together.
Course design follows constructive alignment. Learning outcomes, class activities, and assessments are written to match. In the technology courses, students work in the same class of tools the lab uses: Python for data and learning, algebraic modeling languages and solvers for scheduling, and Siemens plant-simulation software for manufacturing systems.
Graduate supervision is taught the same way. Coursework is chosen around the thesis. Where a course does not exist, the material is covered in directed study: uncertainty in a model, hybridization of optimization and machine learning, and decomposition. Students are coached in technical writing across the degree.
Dr. Azab completed the University Teaching Certificate at the University of Windsor Centre for Teaching and Learning. He received the IEOM Outstanding Teaching and Learning Award in 2024. He has coordinated the Industrial Engineering program and taken part in Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board and institutional quality-assurance reviews of the undergraduate and graduate programs.
Fall 2026 at Windsor
Both graduate courses are special-topics offerings under INDE-8900. They are face to face, three hours a week.
INDE-8900-6, Introduction to Data Science and Machine Learning
The course covers the data-science workflow: preparation, exploratory analysis, visualization, and feature engineering, then shallow learning. Supervised methods are regression and classification. Unsupervised work is clustering. Students implement the methods in Python and cross-validate the results. The lab meets in the computer lab in the same time block as the lecture.
INDE-8900-7, Introduction to Sequencing and Scheduling
The course covers single-machine, parallel-machine, flow-shop, and job-shop problems. Students formulate them as mathematical programs and solve them with algebraic modeling languages and commercial solvers. Exact methods include dynamic programming and branch-and-bound. The course also introduces heuristics, metaheuristics, and machine-learning methods for problems that are too hard for a direct exact solve. The required text is Pinedo, Scheduling: Theory, Algorithms, and Systems, available through the Leddy Library.
Summer 2026 at Windsor
TRON-4035, Computer-Integrated Manufacturing
A fourth-year experiential course in intelligent manufacturing. It treats product design, production, and operational control as one enterprise, integrated by information technology. Students model manufacturing systems in Siemens Tecnomatix Plant Simulation. Topics include manufacturing metrics and paradigms, material handling, automation, and process planning. The course connects directly to the lab’s work on hybrid manufacturing and shop-floor models.
Other courses
| Course | Title | Level | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| INDE-3110 | Computer-Aided Design and Manufacturing | Undergraduate | Windsor |
| INDE-3120 | Operations Research I | Undergraduate | Windsor |
| INDE-3170 | Systems Analysis and Design | Undergraduate | Windsor |
| INDE-8360 | Computer-Aided Design: An Introduction to Product Lifecycle Management | Graduate | Windsor |
| ISE-219 | Introduction to Data Science | Undergraduate | KFUPM, Spring 2025 |
| ISE-448 | Sequencing and Scheduling | Undergraduate | KFUPM, Fall 2024 |
| ISE-412 | Senior Team Design | Undergraduate | KFUPM, Fall 2024 |
| ISE-548 | Sequencing and Scheduling | Graduate | KFUPM, Spring 2025 |
Earlier Windsor courses include Manufacturing Process Design, Decision Support Systems, and Engineering Economy. For two years he also ran the graduate seminar, with sessions on writing, library research tools, and computational topics in manufacturing.
Sections have ranged from small graduate classes to undergraduate classes of about 70 to 140. The Fall 2022 offering of INDE-8360 had 65 students. At KFUPM, Sequencing and Scheduling was offered to classes of 30, and Introduction to Data Science and Senior Team Design to classes of 18.
From the classroom into the lab
Students who join the lab usually need four skills, and the courses above are where those skills are taught:
- Operations research, for mixed-integer and stochastic models
- Machine learning, for prediction, dispatching rules, and generative process planning
- Systems analysis and design, for turning a model into a decision-support system
- CAD and product lifecycle management, including the digital-twin ideas used in the research program
Prospective graduate students can read the current problems on the Welcome page and write to azab@uwindsor.ca.