IE 4670 – Systems Design II – The process is simple … two groups of students, one problem. An Orange Team squares off against a Purple Team and both teams pitch their solution to the real-world scenario posed by a sponsoring industry client. The outcome is that one team’s presentation is selected as the best solution to the problem, but the reality is that all stakeholders walk away from the experience a winner.
The senior capstone project, i.e. – IE 4670, is the culmination of an IE student’s career. It is a semester long, group project “where the rubber meets the road” and students get a chance to apply critical thinking and tools that they have learned in their engineering training. This year’s projects truly showcased the diverse industries where industrial engineers are needed and valued. Clients included Greenville Health System (healthcare), Glen Raven (manufacturing/textiles), Meritor (manufacturing/automotive supplier), Boeing (aerospace/aviation), Milliken (manufacturing/textiles), Nutra (manufacturing/nutraceutical), and Schneider Electric (manufacturing).
Consultation services provided by IE seniors included problem analysis, running simulations, and recommendations that included return on investment and cost savings estimates. Some clients have already started testing and implementing the students’ recommendations and are already reaping benefits from the collaboration. An added bonus is that the final implementations incorporate elements suggested from both the winning and losing teams. Shannon Harris of GHS, who also happens to be a Clemson IE graduate, was quick to compliment the Clemson student teams. She noted the importance of the fact that students lend a fresh set of eyes to problems and can think outside of the box to offer suggestions for improvement. Most times the people working around the problems become conditioned to seeing things every day. When this happens, situations that have opportunities for improvement are accepted as the status quo. The IE students who are observing the problem for the first time are very quick to point out safety hazards and inefficiency. Feedback from this year’s industry partners was unanimous that the students’ work exceeded expectations and took into account the realities of the clients’ business environment and financial resources. If you would like to work with the department on a future senior capstone project, please email the department at: iedept@clemson.edu.
Go Orange and Purple!
