Aggregating Industrial Engineering Concepts Through Cookie Manufacturing

Aimee T. Ulstad; Lora Mavrouli

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Conference: 2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Tampa, Florida
Publication Date: June 15, 2019
Start Date: June 15, 2019
End Date: June 19, 2019
Conference Session: Industrial Engineering Division Technical Session 1
Tagged Division: Industrial Engineering
Page Count: 31
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--32049
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/32049
Download Count: 919

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Paper Authors

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Aimee T. Ulstad Ohio State University orcid.org/0000-0001-8523-2502

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Aimee Ulstad, P.E is an Associate Professor of Practice in the Integrated Systems Engineering Department at The Ohio State University. Prior to joining the faculty at Ohio State, Aimee was an industry professional in various field in engineering for over 30 years. Aimee received her degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Masters in Business Administration from Ohio State. She began her career as a packaging equipment engineer at Procter and Gamble, then moved to Anheuser-Busch where she worked for over 27 years. She worked as project manager, engineering manager, utility manager, maintenance manager, and finally as the Resident Engineer managing all technical areas of the facility. During her tenure, the brewery saw dramatic increases in productivity improvement, increased use of automation systems, and significant cost reductions in all areas including utilities where they received the internal award for having the best utility usage reduction for 2014. Since joining Ohio State, Aimee has joined the American Society of Engineering Educators and serves as the treasurer of the Engineering Economics division.

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Lora Mavrouli Ohio State University

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Abstract

The new ABET 1-7 outcomes require students to demonstrate skills where they can comprehensively integrate concepts from different course subjects to solve problems. Specifically, ABET Outcome 1 is an ability to identify, formulate, and solve complex engineering problems by applying principles of engineering, science, and mathematics. In IE, like most engineering majors, we can demonstrate that students can solve math and science problems, but it is more difficult to create assignments and assess the ability to solve complex engineering problem using all those elements.

Capstone is often seen as an opportunity to give students the broad application method, but the challenge with capstone projects is students do not all get the same capstone project, so it is difficult to assess their ability to apply the same tools.

In a Production Planning and Facility Layout course at a large Midwest institution, a relatively new, half-semester project has been introduced affectionately called the “Cookie Project.” This project has the following elements:

1. Lab: Because the university has a food science/pilot plant, 5-6-person student teams are taken to the facility to make a batch of cookies. Half the group collects data on takt time of various processes, quality factors, and human/cognitive systems factors while the other half bakes the chocolate chip cookies. The purpose of this data is to help them determine requirements to design a production facility capable of producing about 1200 cookies per day. 2. Homework assignments: Because the course focuses on elements of supply chain management including demand forecasting, inventory management, and material requirements planning, homework assignments are developed using these concepts around their cookie project data. 3. Full Business/Operational Plan: Over the term, progress reports are generated where the team discusses their business strategy and KPI’s, how much inventory will need to be kept and how it will be ordered economically, how their production will be scheduled and the staffing requirements. At the end of the term, they turn in a report with a full business plan which they have been ‘hired’ as consultants to produce including a scaled layout of the facility. 4. Quality: To bring in the quality aspects, food science sensory experts evaluate the quality of their lab cookies and help them identify quality aspects in ingredient preparation, mixing, and baking that affect their product with the goal of helping them consider this in their process design. 5. Resilient Systems: Since students have taken courses in resilience engineering, we introduce real world articles via social media related to problems like supply chain disruptions from hurricanes, to Pepperidge Farms salmonella outbreaks, and labor shortages. This is constructed to help the students evaluate whether their recommended business plan is not just cost effective but has resilience for possible. The students are assigned to peer-assess each other’s preliminary reports relative to a selected resilience challenge.

The purpose of this paper is to disseminate the observations from this student project to share with education faculty in the field of industrial engineering.

Citation
Format

Ulstad, A. T., & Mavrouli, L. (2019, June), Aggregating Industrial Engineering Concepts Through Cookie Manufacturing Paper presented at 2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Tampa, Florida. 10.18260/1-2--32049

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - The new ABET 1-7 outcomes require students to demonstrate skills where they can comprehensively integrate concepts from different course subjects to solve problems.  Specifically, ABET Outcome 1 is an ability to identify, formulate, and solve complex engineering problems by applying principles of engineering, science, and mathematics.  In IE, like most engineering majors, we can demonstrate that students can solve math and science problems, but it is more difficult to create assignments and assess the ability to solve complex engineering problem using all those elements. 

Capstone is often seen as an opportunity to give students the broad application method, but the challenge with capstone projects is students do not all get the same capstone project, so it is difficult to assess their ability to apply the same tools.

In a Production Planning and Facility Layout course at a large Midwest institution, a relatively new, half-semester project has been introduced affectionately called the “Cookie Project.”   This project has the following elements:

1.	Lab:  Because the university has a food science/pilot plant, 5-6-person student teams are taken to the facility to make a batch of cookies.  Half the group collects data on takt time of various processes, quality factors, and human/cognitive systems factors while the other half bakes the chocolate chip cookies.  The purpose of this data is to help them determine requirements to design a production facility capable of producing about 1200 cookies per day.
2.	Homework assignments:  Because the course focuses on elements of supply chain management including demand forecasting, inventory management, and material requirements planning, homework assignments are developed using these concepts around their cookie project data.
3.	Full Business/Operational Plan:  Over the term, progress reports are generated where the team discusses their business strategy and KPI’s, how much inventory will need to be kept and how it will be ordered economically, how their production will be scheduled and the staffing requirements.  At the end of the term, they turn in a report with a full business plan which they have been ‘hired’ as consultants to produce including a scaled layout of the facility.  
4.	Quality:  To bring in the quality aspects, food science sensory experts evaluate the quality of their lab cookies and help them identify quality aspects in ingredient preparation, mixing, and baking that affect their product with the goal of helping them consider this in their process design. 
5.	Resilient Systems:  Since students have taken courses in resilience engineering, we introduce real world articles via social media related to problems like supply chain disruptions from hurricanes, to Pepperidge Farms salmonella outbreaks, and labor shortages.  This is constructed to help the students evaluate whether their recommended business plan is not just cost effective but has resilience for possible.  The students are assigned to peer-assess each other’s preliminary reports relative to a selected resilience challenge.

The purpose of this paper is to disseminate the observations from this student project to share with education faculty in the field of industrial engineering. 


AU  - Aimee T. Ulstad
AU  - Lora Mavrouli
CY  - Tampa, Florida
DA  - 2019/06/15
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Aggregating Industrial Engineering Concepts Through Cookie Manufacturing
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/32049
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--32049
ER  -