Sample Senior Design Projects of Industrial Engine
Sample Senior Design Projects of Industrial Engine
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Abstract
A senior design course provides engineering students the opportunity to identify, formulate, and solve complex real-world
engineering problems. This outcome is one of the seven student outcomes adopted by The Accreditation Board for Engineering
and Technology (ABET). Therefore, the senior design course is a part of the curriculum of most of the international engineering
programs. Hence, it is also a required course in the curriculum of the Industrial and Management Systems Engineering (IMSE)
program of Kuwait University (KU). In the senior design course of IMSE program at KU, students select a company and conduct
their project at the company. In this paper, three of these companies are briefly described along with identified problems,
proposed solutions, and obtained results. Student evaluation by the company’s representatives is also discussed. It has been
shown that the senior design students improved the operations of the selected companies significantly. It has been also observed
that the students are enthusiastic by applying the methodologies and tools of Industrial Engineering that they learned in their
earlier courses to solve real life problems.
Allahverdi, A. (2020). Sample Senior Design Projects of Industrial Engineering Program at Kuwait University. ASEAN Journal of Engineering Education, 4(1), 11-
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Senior design course of the curriculum of Industrial selected companies, their identified problems, and their
and Management Systems Engineering (IMSE) of Kuwait proposed solutions are briefly explained. Moreover,
University (KU), which is accredited by ABET, provides company evaluation of the students is briefly discussed
the opportunity for the students to obtain all the seven in Section 5, and the conclusions are made in the final
student outcomes. section.
The senior design course of the IMSE program at KU
including the learning practices and its relation to the Company 1
other courses in the curriculum was described by Savsar This company is a manufacturer of plastic products.
& Allahverdi (2008). The syllabus of the course is given The company produces around 500 different types of
in Appendix B. Moreover, Allahverdi (2015) provided products. The products range from everyday household
the answer of four questions about the course; how a items, to plant pots, crates, jerrycans, industrials items,
company is selected? How a problem is identified? How and many more. It uses one of three methods to
the course outcomes map to the ABET student manufacture their products: Blow molding, Injection
outcomes? And how the course is evaluated. molding or Vacuum forming. The company classifies
Furthermore, Allahverdi (2018) provided samples of their products into two main categories; customized
senior projects of industrial engineering at Kuwait products, and general market products. Customized
University. In this paper, we provide three more products, which are products made using molds that
companies (organizations) where students conducted were designed according to the customers’ requirements
their senior design projects. The students in the course (around 55% of the company’s sales). On the other hand,
are usually divided into three groups where each group unbranded products which are made for the general
addresses a different problem in the selected company. market, account for 45% of the company’s sales.
The objective of this research is to show how the Each of the three groups addressed a different
students solve real life problems by using Industrial problem and proposed a solution for the identified
Engineering tools. problem by using suitable Industrial Engineering tools to
The class is met three times a week where the improve the efficiency of the organization. Group 1
instructor monitors and helps in identifying of a problem improved warehouse efficiency of the company, Group 2
in the company with each group. This task is the most increased the production rate, while the objective of
challenging task in the course. In the identification of the Group 3 was to reduce defect rate.
problem, students may need to get some data so that the Group 1 suggested an improvement for the
significance of the identified problem may become clear. warehouse of the company since it currently has several
For example, students find a problem where some shortcomings resulting in inefficient space utilization,
products are rejected due to quality reasons. When some order processing and material handling. The analysis of
data are collected, it was found that if the rejection of the warehouse indicated that the product allocation is
products were reduced to a certain level, the company random, the warehouse is disorganized, and that the
would save an amount which is not significant. order process can be significantly improved. These
Therefore, the identified problem was not appropriate, factors contribute to delays in order collection time
and another problem was identified instead. Another which costs the company a yearly loss of over $ 20,000
example is that students find a very good problem, in worker salary only. After an intensive analysis of the
however, the solution of the problem may not be feasible warehouse, a new ordering process was presented and
to reach within the semester period. Such cases are an effective warehouse management method (Class
frequently encountered. Based Storage Method) was proposed. By implementing
Once the problem is identified, students propose the suggested ordering process and warehouse
solutions for the identified problems with the help of management methods, it was shown that the warehouse
their instructor. The proposed solutions are based on utilization can be increased by 12%, the time taken to
what students have learned throughout the other locate an item can be decreased by 69%, and the total
courses. The instructor monitors the process of distance travelled can be decreased by 41% without any
proposed solutions with the students throughout their additional cost.
weekly meetings (three times a week). Then, the The objective of Group 2 was to increase production
proposed solutions are evaluated based on the cost rate since the company delayed some orders. The
analysis. For example, if a certain modification of the company delay the incoming orders about a month due
considered system is proposed, then a break-even to a high demand for three of its products which account
analysis is conducted to see if the implementation of the for 41% of its production. Moreover, about 10% of the
solution is cost effective or not. orders of these three products is turned down. As a
Savsar & Allahverdi (2008) and Allahverdi (2015) result, the company has a total annual loss of about $
described the the course in detail. Hence, it is not 150,000. An analysis of the blow molding machine used
repeated in this paper. In the next three sections, student to produce these products revealed that the machine
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capacity is limited. Therefore, in order to increase the identified shortcomings. The management will
production of these products, the feasibility study of implement the new layout after the reconstruction of the
purchasing a new blow molding machine was conducted. location, which will take place soon. The new layout was
The feasibility study indicated that by purchasing the developed by using several industrial engineering tools
new blow molding machine, the delay of orders will be including the Systematic Layout Planning to allocate
eliminated, and no orders will be turned down. departments to locations according to their relationships
Moreover, the company can meet its increasing demand scoring. The new layout plan increases space utilization,
for the forecasted several years to come. The breakeven improves current operations and promotes smoother
time was computed to be about 7 months with an annual worker flow.
of saving of at least $ 150,000. The objective of Group 2 was to reduce customer long
The objective of Group 3 was to reduce defect rate wait time in the queue to buy products from the sales
since the defect rate was more than one third. Sleeving shop. After analyzing the system, it was observed that the
and Blowing are the main operations in the production worker is forced to bring orders of large quantities for
of some plastic bottles that the company produce. It was the customers all the way from the raw materials
observed that inefficient sleeving and blowing storage. The sales shop products are stored in the raw
operations (old sleeving and blowing machines) results materials storage which currently takes up to 50% of its
in about 35% defect products. 25% of products are space, and this leads to the extra trips to bring in raw
defective as a result of sleeving operation which costs materials from the main factory. Utilizing the storage
above $ 120,000 per year. On the other hand, as a result space by reconstructing the sales shop, making it larger
of blowing operation, 10% of products are defective and converting it into a mini market would help in
which costs the company above $ 60,000 per year. reducing transportation and labor cost, and get customer
Therefore, the feasibility study of purchasing a new satisfaction. By allowing the customers to observe all the
sleeving machine or purchasing a new sleeving machine available products that they are not aware of, and
and a new blowing machine is conducted. The feasible selecting them directly, they would help increase the
study indicated that purchasing a new sleeving machine shops’ sales by more than 50%. With a construction cost
will result in a reduction of defects by 68%. The of less than $ 150,000 that will breakeven within 8
breakeven time of purchasing a new sleeving machine is months and leads to an additional annual profit of about
4.18 months with an annual saving of $ 120,000. The more than $ 100,000.
feasibility study also indicated that purchasing both a The objective of Group 3 was to improve the
new sleeving machine and a new blowing machine will packaging process for the Biscuit factory of the company.
result in a reduction of a defect by 94%. The breakeven Biscuits of different sizes, including 25-gram, are
time of purchasing both machines is about a year with an produced from the production lines of the factory. The
annual saving of about $ 200,000. flow rate of two production lines for the 25-gram is faster
than the workers performance, which leads to having
Company 2 bottleneck in the packaging area. The bottleneck leads to
The second organization is a large bakery company uncollected biscuits at the end of the production lines
which produces a wide range of products, including but causing defects. Analysis of the production lines revealed
not limited to macaroni, biscuits, vegetable oil, Arabic the possibility of replacing the manual packaging with an
and European baked goods. The company imports wheat Automated Machine for the 25-gram biscuits. The time to
and other grains, processes at the company's port and breakeven of purchasing the Automated Machine is 4.78
silo complex, and operates its own flour mills, and months and the annual saving from the defects and the
bakeries. Group 1 redesigned the facility layout of the worker’s salary is above $ 150,000. Moreover, the
company, Group 2 reduced the customer waiting time, possibility of purchasing a multi-size Automated
while Group 3 improved the packaging process for the Machine, using sensor to identify the size of the biscuit,
Biscuit factory of the company. for the packaging for all the remaining sizes was
Group 1 redesigned the facility layout of the company. investigated. The time to breakeven of purchasing the
The layout of a facility plays a vital role in the multi-size Automated Machine is 15.7 months and the
productivity and efficiency of a factory. A detailed annual saving from the defects and the worker’s salary is
analysis of the current facility layout of the company was about $ 300,000.
conducted and several problems were identified;
including the unsystematic warehouse and distribution Company 3
area that slowed down processes in the facility, the The third organization is a food distribution
storage rooms that are at their maximum capacity and company. It has more than two thousand products from
the idle machines that take up to 66% of their production different brands of frozen foods (poultry, meat,
area. The aim of this project was to develop a new facility vegetables, potatoes, pizzas, …), cereals, chips, water,
layout for the administration by addressing the and so on as well as a variety of dry items. Group 1
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ASEAN Journal of Engineering Education, 4(1) Ali Allahverdi (2020)
worked on reducing the percentage of market return, finding whether increasing the number of manpower or
Group 2 worked on increasing utilization of the having employees working overtime was cost effective.
warehouse while Group 3 addressed the issue of The analysis indicated that increasing the number of
warehouse utilization. manpower was cost effective. The analysis also indicated
The current cost of products returned from the that it was possible to reduce the time of processing a
market is one-third of a million KD per year. The container to less than 1.5 hours just by increasing the
objective of Group 1 was to identify the main causes and number of manpower by 2. By doing so, the number of
reduce the cost of the return. Analysis of the current containers processed can be increased from the current
system indicated that the most important causes were number 15 to 20 containers per day.
expiries in showrooms and wrong orders. The analysis
also indicated that the most important factor in expiries Company Evaluation of the Students
of items was wrong forecasting. Therefore, new The “IMSE-496: Design in Industrial Engineering –
forecasting methods were proposed, which led to a Employer Survey” is a survey completed by the
decrease in market return by 23% that resulted in a supervisors at the company where the students are
saving of one-quarter of a million dollar per year. The evaluated based on the earlier stated seven student
analysis further indicated that high workload, on data outcomes. The survey is administered by the IMSE
entry labors, was the main cause of wrong orders. department which was initiated in the Fall 2011. A copy
Group 2 analyzed the current warehouse system of the survey is given in the Appendix A. In this course,
which indicated an ineffective utilization and poor students are divided into groups to work in a selected
housekeeping, where some pallets block some aisles organization where each group is assigned to a
contributing to various problems such as misplacement department or a division and supervised by professional
and picking wrong items. The analysis also indicated that top-level personnel from that department. The students
not all of the current racks were fully utilized as a result frequently visit the organization to identify problems,
of weight and height constrains of the current rack types. collect data, perform analysis, and propose solutions.
In order to overcome these problems, a new rack type, Students give three presentations; two to the faculty
Very Narrow Aisle (VNA), was proposed. The analysis members and a third to the public where company
showed that the proposed VNA rack type increased both representatives are present. The employer survey is
rack utilization and capacity of the warehouse. completed by the company supervisors; where they
Moreover, the proposed VNA rack type increased worker express their assessment of the students’ achievement of
productivity by 50% and eliminated misplacement and the seven aforementioned ABET student outcomes (SOs)
blocking in storage locations within the warehouse. throughout the semester at the company.
The objective of Group 3 was to increase the number The evaluation results for the employer surveys are
of processed containers per day. An arriving container to summarized in Table 1 from Spring 2014 to Spring 2018.
the warehouse is offloaded, and the products are stocked The results generally show that they greatly exceed the
in the warehouse. The analysis of the current processing satisfactory level of 60%, all the scores of all the seven
system indicated that, on average, it takes 1.8 hours to outcomes are above 80%. The high scores provided by
process a container. However, due to a big difference employers may be attributed to the fact that this is a
between the temperature of the offloading area and that capstone course where students supposedly have
of the storage area, a container has to be processed in achieved high level of performance. This shows that the
less than or equal 1.5 hours. The main factor affecting the impact of the senior design course is significant.
time of processing of a container was found to be
manpower. A detailed cost analysis was conducted in
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Appendix A
IMSE-496: Design in Industrial Engineering - Employer Survey
Evaluator Name:
Company/Organization:
Department/Division:
Position:
Email:
Tel:
Name of the project:
Student names:
We would appreciate if you rate our students according to the following abilities where
1 = very weak, 2 = weak, 3= satisfactory, 4 = very good, 5 = excellent, NAE= not able to evaluate
1) an ability to identify, formulate, and solve complex engineering problems by applying principles of engineering,
science, and mathematics
1 2 3 4 5 NAE
2) an ability to apply engineering design to produce solutions that meet specified needs with consideration of
public health, safety, and welfare, as well as global, cultural, social, environmental, and economic factors
1 2 3 4 5 NAE
1 2 3 4 5 NAE
4) an ability to recognize ethical and professional responsibilities in engineering situations and make informed
judgments, which must consider the impact of engineering solutions in global, economic, environmental, and
societal contexts
1 2 3 4 5 NAE
5) an ability to function effectively on a team whose members together provide leadership, create a collaborative
and inclusive environment, establish goals, plan tasks, and meet objectives
1 2 3 4 5 NAE
6) an ability to develop and conduct appropriate experimentation, analyze and interpret data, and use engineering
judgment to draw conclusions
1 2 3 4 5 NAE
7) an ability to acquire and apply new knowledge as needed, using appropriate learning strategies
1 2 3 4 5 NAE
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ASEAN Journal of Engineering Education, 4(1) Ali Allahverdi (2020)
Appendix B
IMSE 496 : Design in Industrial Engineering
Fall 2019
Objectives
This course aims at developing certain skills that are both essential and helpful to new engineering graduates in their
career. These skills involve
Orientation Meeting
This meeting is held at the very first day of the class in which students get to know each other, be familiar with the course
requirements, agree on fixed days in a week for meetings, and discuss the plant (organization) at which they will perform
their project.
Meetings
Each group has to meet the instructor three times a week at an appropriate time in which students will present, discuss
and analyze all collected data during previous periods and go over the methodologies and tools required to analyze these
data. Students should inform the instructor about any problem with any team member for the work done during the
previous week, as well as inform the instructor the work still in progress and all barriers that might have faced them
during their visits.
Proposal Presentation
Students are required to present their proposals at the date given below. After a thorough observation of the methods of
operation and organizational structure, students are required to give two presentations (along with written
documentation) proposing all possible areas of improvement within the facility and the tools that they will use. The IMSE
faculty members will attend the presentations.
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ASEAN Journal of Engineering Education, 4(1) Ali Allahverdi (2020)
be attended by the people from the organization, the IMSE faculty members, students' relatives, and other people. If
possible, the presentation will be held at the organization.
Grading
The group will receive a grade on each of the items listed below and then it will be adjusted to arrive at an individual grade
that reflects the contribution of the individual and the group. The graded material consists of:
Attendance
Meeting performance
Written progress reports
Introduction report about the organization (this is going to be the introduction chapter of the first and the final reports)
First report to include identified problems and proposed solution methods
Oral presentation of the proposal
Final technical presentation to the faculty members (grades by other IMSE faculty members)
Final technical presentation to the public (grades by other IMSE faculty members)
Final report (grades also by two other IMSE faculty members)
Team member evaluation (each member will evaluate other members in the team)
College exhibition preparation
Meeting deadlines
Important Deadlines
Selection of an organization Sept 15
Decision on selected areas and problems Sept 22
Finalizing solution methodologies October 6
Proposal Presentation to the IMSE faculty members October 20
Submission of the first written report October 27
Finishing the project November 28
Final technical presentation to the IMSE faculty members December 4
Submission of the final written report December 10
General presentation to the organization (public) December 12
Exhibition at the college December 14-15
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