Manufacturing professionals within universities tend to view manufacturing systems from a global perspective. This perspective tends to assume that manufacturing processes are employed equally in every manufacturing enterprise, irrespective of the geography and the needs of the people in those diverse regions. But in reality local and societal needs influence the manufacturing processes employed by a region's manufacturers. Manufacturing processing needs in one geographical locality are often different from the needs in others. Addressing these regional differences in manufacturing process utilization constitutes the rationale for this study. To investigate how this applies to the manufacturing systems curriculum at San Jose State University (SJSU), a case study was undertaken in the spring of 2002. The results of this study are contained in this article, which examines the processing needs of manufacturers in the Silicon Valley of Northern California and compares the findings with the contents of SJSU's manufacturing system program.