Founded in 1956, School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering (SMEE) is one of the earliest established schools in Tangshan University. Collaborating with Southwest Jiaotong University in 1996, the school offered undergraduate program of Mechanical Design, Manufacturing and Automation, enrolling for seven consecutive years with satisfactory educational results. With the establishment of Tangshan University in 2002, Mechanical Design, Manufacturing and Automation was designed as one of the first undergraduate programs to enroll students independently. SMEE was rebuilt and gained its current name at the end of 2021 after combining the original Department of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, the most basic part, Department of Equipment Manufacturing and relevant resources from Tangshan Branch of Hebei University of Science and Technology in 2015. Cooperating with Federal National Budget Higher Education Institution National Research University Moscow Power Engineering Institute, Russia, the University launched its first undergraduate-level Chinese-foreign Cooperative Education Program in Mechanical Design, Manufacturing and Automation in 2020.

With 107 faculty and staff, SMEE has 92 full-time teachers boasting 19 professors and 22 associate professors, accounting for 44.6% of the faculty, and 50 holding PhDs, accounting for 54.3%. Within the faculty team, there is 1 recipient of the Hebei Provincial Outstanding Youth Fund, and several teaching teams honored with various outstanding titles, such as 2 Hebei Provincial Excellent Teaching Teams, 1 Huang Danian-Style Teacher Team, 1 Hebei Provincial Excellent Innovation and Entrepreneurship Teaching Team. Many teachers also earned various honors, including 6 Hebei “Three-Three-Three Talent Project” talents, 1 Hebei Provincial Advanced Worker in “Three Aspects of Education” (Moral, Intellectual, Professional), 1 Hebei Provincial Innovation and Entrepreneurship Teaching Master, 1 Tangshan Municipal Administered Excellent Expert, 1 Tangshan Top Ten Scientific and Technological Innovation Figure, 1 Tangshan Model Worker, and 2 Tangshan Excellent Teachers. Besides, the school has engaged several distinguished domestic scholars and senior corporate engineers as visiting professors.

SMEE currently offers 6 undergraduate programs, namely Mechanical Design, Manufacturing and Automation (including cooperative education), Material Forming and Control Engineering, Mechatronics Engineering, Intelligent Manufacturing Engineering, Vehicle Engineering, and Measurement and Control Technology and Instruments, with over 2,600 students on campus. Prioritizing teaching, the school has vigorously advanced the development of the “Quality Project”. As a result, Mechanical Design, Manufacturing and Automation, and Material Forming and Control Engineering have been approved as Hebei Provincial First-class Undergraduate Major. Two courses, Engineering Drawing and Mechanical Design, have been rated as Hebei Provincial First-class Undergraduate Courses. In recent years, its students have won more than 300 awards in various domestic science and technology innovation competitions at the provincial level or beyond. With an employment rate ranking among the top in the university, the school boasts an over 16% of postgraduate admission rate.

SMEE is equipped with the Hebei Provincial Key Laboratory of Digital Design and Process Simulation for Intelligent Equipment as well as the R&D Center for Mechatronics-Hydraulics Integration Application Technology of Hebei Universities, and supporting teaching and research platforms including Tangshan Municipal Key Laboratory of Mechatronics. It has been approved as Hebei Provincial Demonstration Center for Experimental Teaching. The laboratory covers an area of 4,500 m², with 1,717 sets of experimental equipment valued at 27.63 million RMB. It is equipped with advanced teaching and research equipment, including a system of Industry 4.0 Intelligent Manufacturing Production Line, a cutting force testing system, laser profile measuring instruments, an electro-hydraulic servo proportional testing and control bench, a hydraulic fault diagnosis and repair bench, vacuum induction furnaces, direct-reading spectrometers, scanning electron microscopes (SEM), metallographic microscopes, laser particle size analyzers, 3D laser scanners, a binocular machine vision image acquisition system, a PXI data acquisition system, and a mechatronic innovation testing bench.

SMEE has achieved remarkable research outcomes through persistent and in-depth exploration. Over the past five years, 51 projects at the national, provincial, and municipal levels have been undertaken, including 1 Natural Science Foundation Project, 12 provincial or ministerial-level Vertical Research Projects (Government-funded), and 110 Horizontal Research Projects (Enterprise-commissioned). Moreover, a total of 201 academic papers have been published, among which 45 were indexed by SCI, EI, or ISTP. Four monographs have been published, and 108 intellectual property rights have been obtained, including 46 invention patents. The school has received a Third Prize of Hebei Provincial Scientific and Technological Progress Award, a Second Prize of Tianjin Municipal Science and Technology Progress Award, and a First Prize of Tangshan Municipal Science and Technology Progress Award. At present, eight scientific and technological innovation teams have been optimized and integrated, focusing on Reverse Design and Machine Vision, Metal Materials and Forming Technology, Intelligent Equipment R&D, Fluid Power Transmission and Control, Mechatronic Coupling Dynamics Innovation, Automation Control and Advanced Manufacturing Technology, and Vehicle Technology Engineering. Aiming at promoting scientific research, technical service, equipment development, transformation of scientific and technological achievements, and high-level scientific and technological talents cultivation, the teams provide service to the equipment manufacturing industry of Tangshan and address technical challenges for relevant enterprises, particularly the small and medium-sized technology-based ones.

With the development and accumulated experience of SMEE over the past half-century, faculty and students from the school have actively practiced the university motto of “ Embrace Integrity and Diligence in Conduct; Uphold Rigor and Truth in Academic Pursuit” by maintaining the fine traditions of its disciplines, shouldering the mission of academic advancement as well as cultivating high-caliber professionals for the industry, and relentlessly pursued new frontiers and innovation to build the SMEE into a high-level modern school with Mechanical Engineering as a first-class discipline in China.