Well, it appears this thread has run out of steam, so I'll share my vision now. I am planning first to have 10 stations (20 student capacity) for both robotics and PLCs. I believe I am going to use the AB Micro 1100 because it gives me the flexibility and "room to grow" that I need plus it has the built-in ethernet. Each station will also contain a small, industrial, 6-axis robot, probably a Mitsubishi (but maybe a Fanuc) and a gamut of I/O devices and widgets to move around. There will be other robots throughout the lab, some of which will tend machines or perform assembly operations in the new CIM cell.
The CIM cell will be built with Intelitek hardware and designed to allow lots of different projects. This cell will become the platform for a new capstone course, which will be open to our Architectural and Manufacturing Sciences majors, as well and majors from engineering, physics, computer science, and business. In this new course, students will come up with a product which can be manufactured in the cell; they will form a Board of Directors and delegate responsibilities among themselves as both directors and workers; they will fund their company with their own money (like they're buying shares of stock); they will market the prodcut to the community and take orders; they will build the product JIT (the cell sits idle until orders are sent via the ERP software); and finally, they will divide the profits among themselves in proportion to their initial contribution.