With the pandemic in effect, the companies had to ensure to put extra safety measures in place so they could prevent any outbreak of infections and stay open all the while ensuring safe working environment for the workers. Due to this, a lot of companies had to restructure their workspace and Witko was no different. In order to maintain the same efficiency in terms of quality and cost, and to avoid any waste, the team recommended using Value Stream Mapping with Infection mitigation (VSMI) – a variant of VSM, developed by the center team. This entailed the team to identify efficiency limiting steps and waste which would require attention for resolution. The team helped develop steps by revising the system to mitigate infection risk and add value to the bottom line.
Student Team: Colby Phipps, Marissa CabreraWabash National was trying to select a site/city to explore the notion of expansion/relocation ideas. This required understanding the market in that city which would assist the management to develop a business strategy. The market data was acquired by engaging with companies – potential partners or competitors and cold calling some businesses. This market data was used by the board-level management to decide on investment strategy for one area of the business.
Student Team: Kim Cahoon, Johanna KingBootmakers is a local company in West Lafayette, which is focused on manufacturing custom made horseback riding footwear and uniform footwear. The main objective of the project was to develop a mobile/web application for order placement and inventory management for their products. It was paramount for Bootmakers to have a digital platform for order placement, which would decrease the time dedicated for order placement by clients and help eliminate possible errors while processing the order on Bootmakers side. Another important capability of the app was an inventory management. Whenever the order will be shipped by Bootmakers, the inventory will decrease for the respective amount of UOM. Additionally, that would help customers be aware of in stock items, while placing an order.
The team developed an application using Appsheet, a no code app platform, that let bootmakers’ customers have an easy access to the bootmakers products and place order using the app in addition to providing analytics on orders and inventory for the business.
This project was devised to establish a system for tri-lingual tracking of maintenance, relocation tasks to improve management of tasks and the communication between staff with different first-language. The system would need to integrate with both IT and worker resources. Consideration of two leading solutions (incorporating digital app-based communications to reach all involved) led to the choice of Microsoft (MS) ‘PowerApps’ supported by other MS apps. The team set up the instructions and forms for the system to bring the project closer to realization of a working pilot system for appraisal.
Student Team: David Ramirez, Joshua Reilly-Grim, James Grimm
Bio town farm has difficulty finding tools that are used through-out farm by workers. They need a process/system to track tools to ensure they are return to maintenance area. Initial phase concluded with recommendation of potential electronic tool tracking system. Next step is to get client approval and initiate a Tiles pilot.
Tiles are Bluetooth trackers than can be connected to the Tile App on both iPhones and other phones. Each tile registered on the app can be given a name for tracking:
It will be much harder to lose an item with multiple people being on the network, and even if it is left behind you will be able track where it last was and hear it
Student Team: Ana Paula Trejo Mendez, Johanna King, Kevin Zeiba
Ability to analyze our pricing easily, quickly for each item. Material price increases are occurring on every order. When costing and pricing data is extracted from the system, it is thousands of rows. We need the ability for a program to analyze the data and make the appropriate pricing suggestions. Once the pricing suggestions are approved, we will need it put in a txt delimited file to upload in our system.
Student Team: Jacob Halfhill, Kartik Maheshwari
The Wabash National AME Materials Engineering Group would like to commend Jacob Raspe and Hui Zeng for their excellent work over the Spring 2021 semester on our Plan For Every Part (PFEP) project. During this semester they accomplished the following,
Considering the obstacles of remote work and connectivity to WNC system, Hui and Jacob did an outstanding job. Their work benefited our group immensely by allowing us to focus on other activities related to this project. We are looking forward to working with the DCMME team again over the summer and hopefully into the fall semester.
Student Team: Hui Zeng, Jacob Raspe
'Need all documentation on floor throughout plants to be verified being correct revision, update and proper location to match what is shown through our electronic log 'controlled documents'. If found to be incorrect, the logged information needs to be updated/corrected. If found to be using documents on the floor that are not within the electronic 'controlled document' system, it will need to be added to the 'controlled document' system to match. All forms must be reviewed on an annual basis. This is typically done by printing documents and physically signing them when reviewed and then stored in a binder until the next years review. This method does not 100% prevent undocumented changes or use of a previous version on the floor. In addition to ensuring the correct documents are being used, a student could help design a user-friendly e-system that will document and schedule annual form reviews and changes, and help transition to e-signature approval, e-document control, and e-use of these controlled documents on the shop floor.
Student Team: Kim Cahoon, Cherag Keswani, Colin Lee-Au
