Georgia Tech SCL Georgia Tech SCL Georgia Tech SCL

This semester, 26 teams comprised of 197 students from the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE) presented their projects at the Georgia Tech Capstone Expo (virtual) on April 27, 2021. In addition, three top teams were selected to participate in the ISyE Best of Senior Design competition; two teams — Amazon Freight and Robins Air Force Base — placed first and third, respectively, in the Institute of Industrial & Systems Engineers (IISE) Outstanding ISE Capstone Senior Design Project national competition.

“The spring semester Capstone Senior Design teams worked across several industries, from public service and government agencies to healthcare providers,” said Dima Nazzal, Senior Design coordinator and projects evaluator. “They not only designed solutions that impacted the bottom line for businesses, but also increased social equity, efficiency of tax dollar spending, and battle readiness for the US Air Force.

“We had many outstanding teams, and it was very difficult to select the finalists,” she added. “The three selected were very representative of the depth of excellence in methodology, impact, professionalism, and technical communication.”

Georgia Tech Capstone Expo

Senior Design team “New Homes for Radomes,” the ISyE Capstone winner, worked with the 402 Commodities Maintenance and Electronics Maintenance Groups at Robins Air Force Base to repair and test aircraft radomes, which house radar and other electronics. The project goal was to design a process flow and workstation layout for a new facility to decrease cycle times, increase capacity, and add capability for managing demand variation. The facility layouts and trade-off analysis provide a customizable solution that will meet increasing demands on-time and remain adaptable as Air Force requirements change.

The team included Vishal Hansali, Rahil Manji, Matthew Oswald, Kathryn Otte, Harper Power, and John Raj. They were advised by ISyE Professor Emeritus Gunter Sharp.

The Capstone Expo’s People’s Choice Award went to Senior Design team “Forecasting MoDELL,” who worked with client Dell Technologies to improve the drive return process to decrease overage and shortage costs. The team included Marc Al Haj, Mukram Aljandali, Heewoon Jeong, Juan Redondo Albetos, Joan Saheb, Jiamzhe Xu, and Haolin Ye. They were advised by A. Russell Chandler III Chair and Professor Alexander Shapiro.

ISyE Best of Senior Design

Out of the 26 teams from the Stewart School, three were chosen to participate in the virtual ISyE Best of Senior Design competition on May 4, 2021. The finalists included Team “The Fastest Picker Upper” and their project with National Automotive Parts Association (NAPA); Team “Watt-lanta” and their project with the City of Atlanta Department of Transportation (DOT); and Team “Cold Chain Soul Train” and their project with Amazon Freight. DOT and NAPA were selected as tied winners. Each winning team will receive $1,500 to split among their team members.

The Fastest Picker Upper partnered with NAPA, an aftermarket automotive parts provider, to improve the labor productivity of their newest distribution center (DC) in Nashville, Tennessee. The team’s solution strategies addressed the putaway, picking, and consolidation operations — the three most important areas within this high-volume DC. The team delivered three tools that NAPA can easily integrate into their warehouse management system. Results of a two-week pilot at the DC coupled with extensive backtesting of the proposed solutions demonstrate that NAPA can expect to improve productivity by more than 7%.

Team members included Sofia Carvajal, Ethan Channell, Paulina Cucalon, Jay Lee, Ved Mohan, Isabella Pappaterra, Camila Pozo, and Michael Tang. They were advised by Associate Professor Steve Hackman.

The other winning team, Watt-lanta, worked with the Atlanta DOT, a government entity tasked with managing and promoting transportation infrastructure. Specifically, the team wanted to provide the Atlanta DOT with a data-driven methodology that maximized the impact of investments made into streetlights, with the goal of reducing overall crashes and crime. The team’s approach was centered around building a sociodemographic-conscious priority model of roads and a costing tool to give the Atlanta DOT the ideal level and order of intervention. This will ultimately transform the City’s installation of streetlights from a reactive to proactive system. As a result of this project, the mayor’s office has announced a historic expansion of 10,000 streetlights in the City of Atlanta.

Watt-lanta team members included Monica de Armas, Andres Farach, Willem Hartog, Isaac Hergott, Gabriella Marenco, Jordi Sabria, Alyssa Sullivan, and Esteban Ulloa. They were advised by ISyE Professor Emeritus Leon McGinnis.

The third finalist team, Cold Chain Soul Train, worked with Amazon Freight and spent the semester working to create a cold chain design for the company. Despite offering a variety of refrigerated goods to their customers, Amazon does not currently have the capability to transport refrigerated goods without contracting to third parties. The team developed a computational engine that provides recommendations about the strategic acquisition and operational deployment of a cold chain fleet. The proposed solution will reduce both total system cost and reliance on third-party logistics, helping Amazon to continue building a better customer experience.

Team members included John Browning, Thomas Culwell, Charlie Howard, Isabelle Liffiton, Matthew Link, Riley Martin, Viviana Osorio, and Shrey Udhaya. They were advised by Associate Professor Steve Hackman.

ISyE Teams Win IISE National Competition and CREATE-X Capstone

Cold Chain Soul Train and New Homes for Radomes also competed in the IISE Outstanding ISE Capstone Senior Design Project competition with 21 other teams from across North America. This award “recognizes individual students or teams for practical application of ISE knowledge and skills, resulting in significant impact to an organization.” Cold Chain Soul Train was selected as the overall winner, and New Homes for Radomes placed third.

“The fact that Georgia Tech ISyE teams placed first and third in a national capstone competition is another testimony to the strength of our program, the dedication of our faculty advisors, and the excellence of our students. We should be very proud of our graduates who contribute to our No. 1 ranking,” said Nazzal.

In addition, for the first time ever, ISyE students joined the CREATE-X Capstone course to complete their Senior Design project. Team “Helluva Energy-neers,” an ISyE-dominated team that worked with the Georgia World Congress Center (GWCC), won the Best Project award across 13 teams. The team worked with the GWCC to predict an event’s electricity usage and cost more accurately, which could lead to an estimated increase in annual profit of 17%.

Team members included Abdulhafiz Abdullahi, Ronnie Bian, Jackson Burke, Aarushi Khajuria, Sonakshi Mishra, Junzhe Ruan, Jordan Rodrigues, Vale Tolpegin, Laura Zhang, and Sam Zimmerman. They were advised by Professor Craig Tovey.

“For the first time ever, ISyE students participated in the CREATE-X Capstone course as an alternative pathway for completing their Senior Design requirement. ISyE students are increasingly interested in entrepreneurship and multi-disciplinary projects, which motivated us to explore this pathway. It turned out to be a successful experiment with excellent potential for expansion and continuity,” said Nazzal. “We’re proud of the 15 students who agreed to be in this inaugural cohort and of how well they represented our program and managed to partner with other disciplines to design original products. We wish them well in their future entrepreneurial endeavors.”