ISE Senior Design competition showcases real-world solutions, industry impact
Published: May 1, 2024 2:30 PM
By Carla Nelson
The ISE Department concluded spring semester with its annual Senior Design competition, which coincided with the spring Alumni Council meeting. It was an opportunity for alumni to interact with students and offer professional feedback.
The Senior Design class, managed by professor Tom Devall, offers students the opportunity to gain real-world industry experience by working with a company to solve a complex problem. Sixteen teams of seniors completed projects for companies that included CARE Humane Society, Workshops Empowerment Inc. and Hyundai.
The student team that completed the CARE Humane Society project was awarded first place in the competition, which was judged by ISE faculty and graduate students. Assistant Professor Greg Purdy served as the faculty advisor.
After several weeks of observing CARE’s processes, the team decided that the intake section of the facility was where feasible changes could be made within their budget and operating structure.
“Over more than 35 hours, we performed a time study on all of their operations that would later be the foundational data to create our model,” said team member Caroline Thomas. “During this time, the team concluded that utilization levels were too high in the afternoons as both scheduled appointments and unscheduled strays would arrive all at once, while their morning employee utilization levels were quite low, and they had a lot of idle time.”
The team concluded that by making a simple change and moving scheduled arrivals to occur in their slower morning hours, they could effectively reduce the organization’s high utilization rates in the afternoons, reducing queues and benefiting employees.
“We learned so many things through the application process that classrooms simply cannot teach or mimic,” Thomas said. “It was eye-opening to see how constraints really affect the solution creation step in the real world. Often, constraints are presented to us as mere equations on a homework assignment, but these were actual budget, schedule and layout constraints that we had to accept and deal with. We also got to see hands-on how important good data collection is in the modeling process.”
Thomas added that the team also learned how big of an impact good engineering practices can make on a facility.
“While we are proud of the change we have recommended and think it will alleviate some issues in intake, we all wanted to do even more,” she said. “We hope to see other senior design teams pick up where we left off and continually improve CARE each semester.”
Debbie Flint, Alumni Council chair, said it is always a pleasure to attend the Senior Design poster sessions.
“This year's poster sessions did not disappoint as we had a variety of team projects related to manufacturing, healthcare and even baseball,” Flint said. “It is so exciting to see how our students apply what they have learned in the classroom to a real-life opportunity for improvement. It is such a win-win for both the students and the sponsoring organization.”
ISE Undergraduate Student of the Year, Savannah Chernetsky, and ISE Student of the Year nominees were also awarded at the event. Alumni recognized included Ed Lewis, Samuel Ginn College of Engineering’s senior advisor to the dean, as Outstanding Alumni of the Year and Margaret Haack for almost 10 years of service on the Alumni Council.
Additional Senior Design poster winners:
Second Place: Tiger Motors Lab project.
Team members: Ben Elliott, Chris Dudas, Isaac Burton, Connor Beaty, Emma Mueller
Third Place: Workshops Empowerment Inc.
Team members: Dawson Blalock, Jack Parnell, Jared Peters, Christopher Harrell, Robbie Schneider
Third Place: Hyundai Assembly Plant
Team members: James Buchholz, Conrad Saucer, Maggie Whittle, Trey Reynolds, Trent Estes
If your company is interested in sponsoring a senior design project, email professor Tom Devall.
Media Contact: , carla@auburn.edu, 334-844-1404
The student team (Pictured left to right: Alex Lawing, Dawson Kennedy, Brooke Dandrade, Caroline Thomas, and Harrison Hall) that completed the CARE Humane Society project was awarded first place in the competition. Pictured with the students is Assistant Professor Greg Purdy, who was the faculty advisor for the project, and doctoral student Madison Evans, who served as the simulation consultant.
