"The 24 senior design projects involved 176 students and nine faculty advisors. The teams worked with a broad range of industries including manufacturing, logistics, hospitals, warehouses, energy, retail, airlines, and D1 college athletics. Two teams completed senior design through the entrepreneurship-focused multi-disciplinary create-x capstone course. Teams explored and delivered solutions involving machine learning-based decision-support tools, system design, and predictive and prescriptive dashboards.” said Dima Nazzal, Director of Professional Practice and Senior Design coordinator and projects co-examiner.

“Every team delivered significant value to their client based on a thoroughly evaluated design solution. Much like every semester, narrowing down the top three is difficult.” said Leon McGinnis, Professor Emeritus and Senior Design projects co-examiner. “This is a testimony to the quality of the work our students produce, the strength of our curriculum, and the high standards we hold for ourselves and our students.” Nazzal and McGinnis added.

From the 24 ISyE teams that completed their senior capstone real-world design projects, three teams placed as finalists for the best of ISyE Senior Design teams: “Improving Coca-Cola's Concentrate Supply Chain,” “Georgia Power ‘Off the GRID’” and “Recruiting the Next.”

Georgia Power’s “Off the GRID,” was the winner for the Spring 2024 Best of ISyE Senior Design.

This team had a great challenge with their project, and they were able to methodically understand the system and provided a range of solutions, including redesigning system aspects.

They were also outstanding in their professionalism and communication and had a strong endorsement from their client sponsor, Mr. Bill Harrop. Collectively, the group was awarded $1,500 with plaque recognition for the 2024 season.

This team also was awarded first place among all competing ISE programs in the capstone design competition at the Annual Conference for the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineering.

The second award category was Design with Implementation and Impact, sponsored by KS2 Technologies, featuring “Project Pelican Warehouse.” Finally, the third category featured ISyE Create-X project “PopUp Space,” who won Honorable Mention at Capstone Expo.

Senior Design Team, “Delta Tech Ops Pelican Warehouse” will receive $1,250 from the KS2 Technologies Design with Impact Award for their focus on implementable and piloted solutions with millions of dollars in value, at minimal investment.

Category 1: Top 3 Finalists  

Client: Georgia Power 

Project Title: Georgia Power “Off the Grid” 

Team Members: Vaishnavi Duvvuri, Irene Feijoo, Annette Gisella, Shawna Kalladanthyil,  Ami Patel, Sreya Srinivas, Clara Wu, Shanru Xu 

Client Sponsor: Bill Harrop 

Advisor: Dr. He Wang 

 ISyE Senior Design team “Off the GRID” collaborated with the Georgia Power GRID Investment Program, a multi-year initiative aimed at enhancing service and reliability across Georgia’s energy grid. The team's mission was to implement a data-driven solution with both short and long-term strategies to reduce and prevent surplus inventory within the program. 

Grid Investment Program Overview: The initiative focused on improving the reliability of the worst-performing areas, with a goal of eliminating project risks and reducing existing surplus inventory. On average, 105 projects were completed per year, with 57% of the inventory value classified as surplus. 

System Dynamics: The team identified a cyclical process within the program: engineers estimated items for projects, procurement purchased with a buffer, construction-built projects, and the cycle repeated. 

Phase 1: Reducing Existing Surplus Inventory: The team developed an automated inventory cleanup tool with three recommended actions: clean, delete, and as is. By identifying surplus items and providing recommended actions, they targeted areas of opportunity such as item label discrepancies, existing buffer strategy inefficiencies, and communication gaps. 

Phase 2: Preventing Future Surplus Inventory: To prevent future surplus inventory, the team devised an improved buffer method aimed at increasing accuracy in estimating high-issue items. They also established a communication link between engineering and construction to streamline the process. 

Value Added: The team's efforts yielded significant results. Evaluation of recommended actions led to an $800k reduction in surplus inventory, while the cleanup tool identified $2M in disabled inventory. The improved buffer method had the potential to reduce surplus inventory by 75%, amounting to an overall impact of $43M identified as surplus.  

"Working across 3 different organizational units is a challenge,” Harrop said. Their circumspec analysis was impressive. They’ve created an invaluable tool to automate a previously manual process. This analysis will significantly improve our forcasting model.”  

Client: Coca-Cola 

Project Title: Improving Coca-Cola's Concentrate Supply Chain 

Team members: Sheza Chaudhry, Ayushee Kalura, Simran Kaur, Benjamin Liu, Mahzuza Rahaman, Michael Rizzo 

Client Contact: Saeed Siddiqi 

Advisor: Dr. Alex Shapiro 

“After seeing that Coca-Cola held the same safety stock across every type of inventory, we saw two opportunities: a SKU specific approach with the Kings Method Calculation, and a Multi-Echelon Network to guide a holistic creation of safety stock to mitigate risk and reduce cost.” shared Micheal Rizzo during their presentation.  

The applicability of this project to other parts of Coca-Cola that also use concentrate is noteworthy. 

“Concentrate is the most valuable part of our supply chain … but before this group arrived, we didn’t have the manpower for this high-stakes project,” Siddiqi said. “Impressed with this team – they were clearly articulate, took feedback well and communicated clearly both verbally and visually.” 

Client: Georgia Tech Football 

Project Title:  Recruiting The Next 

Team Members: Elijah Ballew, Isaac Barnett, Nathanael Barnett, Jihun Jeong, Sam Kent, Iris Kim, Amanda Lee, Cheuk Lo 

Client Contact: Pat Boyle 

Advisor: Dr. He Wang 

Client Pat Boyle emphasizes the project's significance, stating, "This is the future of college football and helps us with a dynamic world of recruiting."  

The core of the project lies in the development of two tree-based prediction models and Tableau dashboards, providing actionable insights for better player assessment. 

"These tools will lead to the evaluation of a larger and better fit candidate pool, allowing Georgia Tech to better predict and address roster overturn, ultimately leading to improved recruiting classes," Boyle explains. 

Category 2: Design with Implementation and Impact, sponsored by KS2 Technologies 

Client: Delta Airlines Tech Ops 

Project Title: Project Pelican Warehouse 

Team Members: Breanna Jones, Kelsey Marks, Kyle Parker, Esha Patra, Alex Pham, Melanie Webster, Anna Whitford, Megan Yi  

Client Contacts: Tyanna Pleasant, Aimee Smith 

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Nicoleta Serban 

Category 3: Featured ISyE Create-X project (Honorable Mention Winner at Capstone Expo) 

Project Title: PopUp Spaces 

Team Members: Kirti Bharadwaj (IE), Matthew Kaminsky (IE), Ayaan Momin (CompE), Garret Moore (IE), Bethanie Penna (IE), Keerthana Thotakura (CS), Kya Wiggins (IE)  

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Xin Chen   

We celebrate the remarkable achievements of these teams. Their innovative solutions not only showcased the transformative power of engineering but also underscored our commitment to shaping a brighter future through interdisciplinary collaboration and forward-thinking problem-solving.