Each semester, ISE seniors get to partner with local companies to come up with innovative solutions to the companies’ real-world problems. This semester’s student teams did not disappoint. The winner will represent the ISE Department at this year’s IISE Outstanding Capstone Senior Design Project Competition, along with last fall’s winning team USAF — Sam Cynamon, Mariel Jeffris and Jason Wheeler.
And the winners are …
1st Place – Pfizer (Team A)
Student team: Rachel Bricker, Catherine Chirichillo, Annemarie Marshall, Matthew McGovern and David Trombley
Pfizer’s current instrument management and acquisition process in its Rocky Mount quality laboratory is disjointed and lacks a digital data management platform, wasting time and money and risks violating Good Manufacturing Practices. The senior design team recommended key data metrics based on Pfizer’s goals, proposed a data collection method to track these metrics and proposed an accessible visualization method for the data.
2nd Place – Vanguard Furniture
Student team: Harrison Johnson, Chris Pennella, Steven Rehard and Taylor Seeling
As part of its 5-year automation plan, Vanguard Furniture wants to add new machinery and design an ideal future state layout using lean methodologies. The senior design team conducted a root cause analysis to determine the shop areas most affected by waste. They created a simulation model to support purchasing a new CNC router and validate machinery and shelving relocation. The model also gave valuable data on reducing non-value-added travel, improving worker utilization and increasing profits by adding the new machinery.
3rd Place – Pfizer (Team B)
Student team: Georgia Burgess, Nicole Gorrell, Madelaine Hiriak, David Labrador and Jackson Proctor
Pfizer wants to reduce the costs and eliminate the non-value-added time of its manual pH data collection process at its Rocky Mount facility. The student team developed programs to automate the data collection process and store the information in a centralized database. Additionally, they provided an SOP and rollout plan to ease the transition from a manual to an automated process.
Health Systems Engineering Certificate Program
1st Place TIE – Durham VA Dermatology
Student team: Kylee Alons, Maddie Morello, and Jessica Williams
The Durham VA Dermatology Unit has been collecting data on biopsies performed since 2017 but does not have a method for analyzing this data or measuring their current performance. The HSECP student team analyzed the current accuracy of the Dermatology Unit’s diagnoses. By identifying key accuracy influences, they proposed methods to improve accuracy and eliminate unnecessary biopsies.
1st Place TIE – UNC Rex Cancer Center
Student team: Kaitlyn Roberts, Matt Traenkle, and John Watson
UNC Rex is building a new cancer center in the hospital that will open in January 2022. The administrative staff wanted to know if the center’s five registration bays would be sufficient to serve their current patient volume and a future increase in patient volume. Through observations, distribution fitting and simulation, the student team was able to show that the five registration bays, using the team’s schedule, kept waiting times below 10 minutes and the waiting room’s maximum capacity under 20 patients.
Need a good reason to sponsor a senior design project? We will give you five reasons why this is a golden opportunity for your company. Want more information? check out our Senior Design Sponsorship Program.
