Industrial Systems and Manufacturing Engineering

MEMBERS: Megan Hibschman, Walter Crowe, Augi Serrano, Peter Smith 

ADVISOR: Dr. Cindi Mason

SPONSOR: Spirit AeroSystems (Amisha Daniels and Will Sittenauer, Wichita, KS)

The goal of this project is to create an Integrated Factory Model (IFM) of the Composite Fuselage Facility (CFF) at Spirit AeroSystems. This model will combine various existing assets, such as floor plans, structural CAD, and tooling CAD, into a single virtual 3D document. This file will be able easy to modify in the future for a variety of factory planning purposes, such as asset management, future automation projects, and adoption of lean practices. To create the IFM, we need to combine all the tooling and asset models into a 3D model of the building, all done by utilizing Autodesk programs such as Inventor, Revit, and Navisworks. First, we have created the CFF building from scratch into a 3D model, following the provided architecture drawings and documentation. Next, the steps taken after obtaining the 3D models and 2D layout drawings is to simplify them, convert them into Inventor files to create assets, import the assets into Revit to position the 3D models on the 2D layout, and placing the layouts in the building model. The last step is to import it all into Navisworks to review it and show the complete 3D digital twin of the building.

MEMBERS: Murphy Ownbey, Israel Bosch, Randall D'cruz

ADVISOR: Dr. Cindi Mason

SPONSOR: Koch Invista

The goal of the 3D prototyping Pipeline project is to prove the benefits and feasibility of a 3D prototyping pipeline. The 3SP team is responsible for researching, reporting, and developing a value stream using the resources provided by Koch Invista. With this project the team hopes to implement a 3D printing process that adds value to Koch Invista"s machine shops by reducing the cost and lead time of part fabrication.

MEMBERS: Minh Vo, Vi Pham, Reshad Khalili

ADVISOR: Dr. Cindi Mason

SPONSOR: Spirit AeroSystems (Wichita, KS)

The Assembly Working Zone Project focuses on Spirit 767 section 41 lower lobe B including the passenger floor, not the crew floor at the work station ACC 002 and ACC 226. The project goal is to improve realization/reduce hours per unit by reducing overlapping work packages that put multiple mechanics in the same work zones, and increase working efficiency from 30% to 50% by determining the root cause of delays when one person is waiting for the other to complete a task before they can work and analyze actual performance for each work zone and recommend the next necessary continuous improvement.

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MEMBERS: Greg Heiman, Murphy Ownbey

ADVISOR: Huabo Lu

How can we connect passionate coffee drinkers with passionate roasters across the country? That is the question at the heart of Brewly. One issue that plagues the specialty coffee industry is the extreme localization of coffee drinkers and coffee roasters. Oftentimes, a person is limited in the coffee they drink to just the roasters that are within close proximity to them. We want to change that and allow for people all across the country to experience the high-quality coffee offered by roasters everywhere. By allowing users to track their brews and determine what they do and don’t like we can connect them to new and exciting products offered by roasters everywhere. 

MEMBERS: Trevor Bernd, Canyon Laskowsky, Trevor Bernd, Garrett Leibovitz

ADVISOR: Dr. Cindi Mason

SPONSOR: Spirit AeroSystems 

The composite stringer line is below historical throughput levels and needs to be restored to or exceed the historical baseline to be able to reach future production rates.

MEMBERS: Caden McGill, Carlos Pina, Ethan Grass, Abdulrahman Alsawagh 

ADVISOR: Dr. Cindi Mason

SPONSOR: Sedgwick County Department of Corrections (Wichita, KS)

Our project was to develop and implement an inventory management system for the Sedgwick County Department of Corrections. Their current storage area is located in the basement, spread amongst six cages. We primarily focused on cage five, which contained inmate care supplies such as hygiene equipment, clothing, bedding, etc. First, we created a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to log quantities, locations, and a reorder point of each item, and placed a sheet outside each cage for employees to write down all the input and outputs of the cage. The plan is for one employee to use those physical sheets to update the excel document periodically. To populate the spreadsheet we counted the entirety of the cage five inventory. After the count we used 5S principles to organize and label the locations of inventory. Shelves were given an alphabetical label followed by a number indicating individual rows, and like items have been located near one another. Excess inventory has been relocated to the tops of the shelves rather than being spread out around the cage like before. When relocating items we took ergonomic factors into consideration by placing heavier boxes on mid level shelves to avoid unnecessary reaching or bending. Once cage five was complete, employees were instructed on the process of counting, sorting, relocating, and labeling and were asked to repeat this process in the remaining five cages.

MEMBERS: Ranveer Bhalla, Maryam Abdulkareem, Ahmad Alali, Sivaganeshwar Subramaniam

ADVISOR: Dr. Cindi Mason

SPONSOR: Etezazi Industries, Inc. (Wichita, KS)

Due to the lack of experience with advanced planning software (APS), there are delays and inefficiencies in operations scheduling. This lack of experience results in errors, incorrect scheduling, and poor coordination between operations, leading to delays in delivery times, decreased productivity, and increased costs. The scope of work for the Operation Scheduling project includes research, a detailed analysis of the current process and proposed solutions. The goal of this project is to incorporate a new strategy or process that accounts for previous challenges and delivers significant improvements. We are planning to overcome the problems by establishing a new software scheduling process map, utilizing a third-party scheduling operation and finding alternative automation options for scheduling processes.

MEMBERS: Maria Jimenez, Kayla Van, Jacob Schouten

ADVISOR: Dr. Cindi Mason

SPONSOR: Spirit AeroSystems

Within an autonomous line at Spirit AeroSystems, there is a disconnect between automated work instructions and worker capability/accessibility on the shop floor. The efforts of this project focus on tailoring the automated system to accommodate for two operators working simultaneously on a part. Accommodating two operators onto a single part will drastically reduce the cycle time of the product, increase throughput and eliminate waste.

MEMBERS: Logan Bramble, Hussein Qamber, Hai Nguyen, Presdi Phambu

ADVISOR: Maria Lucas

SPONSOR: Kim Patterson

Little Caesars would like to maximize profit by streamlining its operation to improve the profitability of its business. To successfully reach their goals, Little Caesars will be working with the pizza planners' group to find innovative ways to resolve issues identified by both parties. This will include resolving issues related to order identification at the boxing station to ensure proper customer delivery, analyzing and updating scheduling practices during peak and slow periods, improving storage procedures through proper product labeling, correcting ergonomic issues, and reducing waste.

MEMBERS: Jacob Robb, Nicholas Plotner, Alreda Baqer 

ADVISOR: Dr. Cindi Mason

The Sedgwick County Department of Corrections (SCDOC) makes monthly schedules for their correction officers and supervisors. They have encountered a problem with the number of mandatory overtime hours employees are having to work to cover the three 8-hour shifts every day of the week, averaging 160 overtime hours per week. This high amount of overtime hours leads to employee burnout, resulting in a high employee turnover rate where retention becomes difficult. This project focuses on developing an integer programming model that will output an optimized monthly schedule for employees to minimize the weekly overtime requirements while taking into account various staffing constraints. Through the implementation of this model, we hope that the SCDOC can begin to develop a workforce that will be retained within its current facility and in planned future DoC expansions within the Wichita area.

MEMBERS: Kayce Litzau, Alex Gutierrez, Kadyn Miller

ADVISOR: Dr. Cindi Mason

SPONSOR: Heartspring (Wichita, KS)

Heartspring currently has a fundamental and labor-intensive inventory management system. There are multiple different handwritten forms for requesting supplies, which further complicates the tracking portion of the system. Our goal is to create an excel based inventory tracking system that can record input and output of supplies and is user friendly. This will make the process faster and less laborious by lowering the amount of physical paperwork, as well as organizing the inventory data into a format that allows a smooth transition from inventory to accounting. We have created a system that will track all known and reused inventory items at heartspring. A "survey", or information collection sheet will pull data from a standard inventory item list in order to make tracking current total inventory faster and easier. This inventory tracking sheet will be compiled monthly, as well as yearly to transition inventory data from the clerk to the accounting organization.

MEMBERS: Wyatt Abell, Taarush Garg, Shawn Trask

ADVISOR: Dr. Cindi Mason

SPONSOR: D-J Engineering

D-J Engineering is a Kansas aerospace manufacturing company with varied and extensive manufacturing capabilities. This allows them to do any job whatsoever, but they have an extremely large selection of tooling which has to be stored somewhere. They have a warehouse dedicated primarily to storing all this tooling, but it was cluttered and the system was not at all optimal. The folks at D-J invited our team to come take a look, and our project was dedicated to providing a few possible solutions to the problem. We employed Lean analysis techniques, facilities warehouse and design acumen, and employee input to propose three solutions which we hope, and are confident, will help D-J sail smoother in their continuing tooling storage operations.

MEMBERS: Tara Leonard, Michelle Stratman, Cassandra Woolbert

ADVISOR: Dr. Cindi Mason

SPONSOR: Veteran Affairs (Chris Mechem, Wichita, KS)

The Wichita VA has several issues with the parking lot. One is that it is full during peak hours, partially because the ongoing construction projects. Our team was tasked with finding a clear precise method to eliminate some of the confusion that comes along with parking at the VA. We are not adding infrastructure. Primary focus is to simplify the existing system, better engineered signage and allocating each building with a designated parking lot. We are using Simio software to make real world simulation that can model which lot so with which building. We have several alternate solutions that should coincide together for a change in the parking confusion.