Out of seventeen teams of undergraduate students in the Stewart School of Industrial & Systems Engineering (ISyE), the Interface team has been selected to receive the coveted first place award in the Fall 2012 Senior Design Competition.  Students Sarah Broadley, Gilda Carbo, Hongfan Chen, Eran Mordel, Adrian Villarreal, and Kyle Zeman, guided by faculty advisor Pinar Keskinocak, were chosen for their project “Yarn-to-Needle Process Improvement and Order Release Scheduling.” 

Interface, Inc., is the world’s largest modular carpet manufacturer. As a result of significant growth, their facility in West Point, GA has experienced extended order lead times due to lack of capacity, high overtime expenses, constrained space, and delayed orders. The team delivered process improvement and capacity expansion recommendations based on a simulation, and an order scheduling decision-support tool. Interface can expect approximately 20% increase in capacity, $2 million in annual savings, and up to 85% reduction in delayed orders.

Finalists in the competition were the three Senior Design teams who worked with The Home Depot (Inbound), Volunteer Express, and Walmart.

Students Shashank Bharadwaj, Marybeth Black, Lynn Blau, Nakul Chitalia, Maria Isabel Guzman, Caitlin Hogan, John Miller, and Siddhartha Penakalapati, guided by faculty advisor Xiaoming Huo, made up The Home Depot (Inbound) team.  For their project “Inbound Shipment Coordination,” the team worked with The Home Depot to reduce its inbound transportation cost by building an optimization model that created multi-stop truck routes. These routes were then consolidated to form groups of frequently combined vendors. The developed tool could save the company over $9M/year.

Students Sangho Bae, Nilesh Balakrishnan, Vineet Desai, Ankita Mehrotra, Luke Venable, and Steven Winton, guided by Jye-Chyi Lu, made up the Volunteer Express team. Volunteer Express, a less than truckload logistics provider, traditionally routed all shipments through its hub in Nashville, TN. The routing procedures and capacity constraints adversely affected operational efficiency. For their project “LTL Logistics Network Optimization,” the team developed several optimized routing solutions that were compared using statistical analyses. The best routing strategy generated a potential annual savings of approximately $1.2 million.

The Walmart Senior Design team was comprised of students Anne Boliere, Sheereen Brown, Matthew King, Virginia MacGowan, Jessica Solana, Catherine Thaliath, and Victoria Ulloque, and advised by Damon P. Williams.   The goal of the project was to increase throughput capacity at the Walmart.com distribution center in Carrollton, GA. The team utilized various methodologies to develop tools and pick module designs as deliverables. By applying these recommendations, the DC is projected to increase throughput by 32% with an estimated annual savings of $6.9M.

All senior students in ISyE culminate their undergraduate educational experience with the Senior Design course in order to provide firsthand experience at solving real world problems in a team environment. Students typically work in teams of six to eight individuals with 15-25 Senior Design teams running each semester. Each group is advised by an ISyE faculty member, and the faculty coordinator manages the overall course. Companies interested in submitting a project for consideration can either contact Joel Sokol, at 404 894-6484 or can post a project through the ISyE webpage at http://www.isye.gatech.edu/seniordesign/. Senior design teams look for projects before the start of the fall and spring semesters.