AN INTEGRATED DIGITAL PLATFORM FOR MANAGING VOCATIONAL TEACHING FACTORY: DESIGN, IMPLEMENTATION, AND EVALUATION AT MANADO STATE POLYTECHNIC

The effective management of Teaching Factory (TEFA) activities in vocational education remains a challenge due to manual processes and disjointed academic systems.This study addresses these issues by designing, implementing, and evaluating e-TEFA, an integrated digital platform developed at Manado State Polytechnic.This research presents e-TEFA, a modular digital platform that leverages a service-oriented architecture built on the Laravel framework, RESTful APIs, and a MySQL database.The platform automates core Teaching Factory workflows, including student verification and grade synchronization through RESTful integration with the institution's Academic Information System (AIS).The platform's deployment led to a 90% reduction in project initiation time and eliminated data entry errors in grade reporting.A user-centered design approach was employed, resulting in high-fidelity prototypes for role-specific dashboards (students, lecturers, industry partners, leaders).System evaluation through black-box testing confirmed 100% functional correctness, while User Acceptance Testing (UAT) with 20 participants yielded an excellent average System Usability Scale (SUS) score of 84.0.Comparative analysis demonstrated significant improvements: a 90% reduction in processing time for project initiation, elimination of manual grade entry errors, and real-time reporting capabilities.The study concludes that e-TEFA effectively enhances operational efficiency, accuracy, and transparency in TEFA management.Future work will focus on developing a native mobile application and integrating financial modules aligned with Public Service Agency (BLU) policies to support broader institutional autonomy.Overall, this research contributes to advancing the digital transformation of vocational education by establishing a scalable model for integrating teaching factory operations with academic systems.