Engineering Commons^™

Database Implementation For Fines Management Of Student Organization, Parker K. Nomura

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The Delta Upsilon fraternity at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California, currently has no formal system for fines management. This facilitated over $9000 in uncollected dues and fines during the 2016-17 academic year. The executive board have difficult access to accurate financial information and general members have difficult access to personal fines information. This project aims to design, implement, and test a fines management system to reduce the annual amount of unpaid dues by $4500. The system is to be cost-effective, which will be measured as a decrease in uncollected dues. The system will be beneficial to …

Development Of An Additive Manufacturing Compression Molding Process For Low Cost In-House Prototyping, Grant Forrester Warden

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Composite parts can be manufactured using various processes. Generally, a mix of resin and fiber is formed into the desired geometry using a mold and pressure. One process used by Dr. Joseph Mello in his research is known as compression molding. Compression molds are generally made from large billets of aluminum or stainless steel, are machined by a CNC mill, and are then hand-finished with polishes and mold preparation products. This process is expensive, requires large machinery and experienced operators, and introduces long lead times relative to the design cycle of the part being manufactured. The nature of Dr. Mello's …

Designing A Manufacturing System To Reduce Production Learning Curve, Nicholas Devin Kuhnsman

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The goal of this project was to design a new manufacturing system for Patio Pacific that would reduce the learning curve and the skilled labor required in the production process. Multiple ideas to decrease the scrap rate in the vert manufacturing process were tested. It was determined that outsourcing the manufacturing of the vertical frame piece was the most optimal because it would reduce overall cost and increase product quality. A new facility and production layout were designed in order to accommodate the new pre-manufactured parts. The approved facility design included a new production flow that transitioned manufacturing from single …

Reducing Overall Overtime Hours Accumulated By San Luis Sourdough, Marie Scholl, Emily Vallejos, Randall Yonce

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The packaging department of San Luis Sourdough Company was redesigned to increase bread throughput and decrease overtime hours issued to employees. Time studies were performed to get an accurate representation of the average throughput of bread with the current packaging conveyor system. After collecting data and surveying the employees and management, we came up with three design solutions to improve their current packaging system. The first design recommendation has a low-investment and is quick to implement as it pertains to changing the worker’s schedule to alleviate the employees from working long hour shifts while increasing the bread throughput. The second …

The Design Of A Digital Scheduling Solution For Healing Alternatives, Hailey A. Malin, Krista L. Mcallester, Anne E. Shields

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The focus of this senior project is to assist Healing Alternatives, an acupuncture clinic located in San Luis Obispo, in developing a business management software to fit their needs and boost their overall organization. The approach to finding the right fit for this business included assessing their current system while simultaneously investigating other providers. Once alternatives were found that met all of Healing Alternatives’ initial requirements, trial demos were generated in order to perform user experience testing. The presented final solution, a scheduling software called Acuity Scheduling, was implemented in a three-phase move plan that occurred over the period of …

Slm Materials Development, Justin G. Reiner, Michael T. Schembri

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The purpose of this project was to create a procedure to efficiently determine a “recipe” of parameter values that create a desired set of mechanical properties. Research was conducted into the laser powder bed fusion process with focus on underdeveloped materials. A design of experiment was used with a set of density correlated parameters to establish a method of producing nearly dense parts. Our methods include SLM printing, metrology, and statistical analysis. An experimental procedure for materials development was designed, but unable to be validated during the scope of this project, due to unforeseen safety issues (exposure to Chromium 6, …

Julian's Forecasting, Krista R. Bowdle

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

This report focuses on developing a solution to a current problem faced at Julian’s Cafe and Bistro. The problem is that inaccurate order quantities are leading to inventory shortage and surplus which is causing unnecessary profit loss. After accessing and analyzing historical sales data, several forecasts were created using various approaches. After assessing each method and applying a mean absolute percentage error to see how accurate the forecasts were, the seasonal forecast with removing outliers initially was the selected method. After, this method was used to forecast the top three selling items at Julian’s and make demand predictions for busy …

Healing Alternatives Workspace Remodel, Lissandra Ilcyn, Jenifer Astrid Colmenares, Grace E. Kuffner

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Healing Alternatives is an acupuncture office space located in a repurposed house in San Luis Obispo. Healing Alternatives’ current facility layout does not allow for an additional treatment room or the space to provide additional services because of the wasted space within the facility. Furthermore, patients can be disrupted by noise outside the treatment room causing a negative customer experience. The project team’s objectives are to:

o Design two layout alternatives

o Provide a time estimate for each alternative

o Provide a cost analysis of each alternative

o Implement 5s methodology on the storage room

o Provide a 2D-3D model …

Vial Of Life Redesign, Andrew Scott Heim, Marisonn Manalo

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Cambria Anonymous Neighbors (CAN), a nonprofit organization assisting the residences of Cambria, hopes to standardize first responder procedures and make medical information easily accessible in case of a medical emergency. Currently the container costs $3.78. CAN would like to provide 2000 containers at a lower cost. After researching materials, acrylic was found to be the best option for the container material due to its low cost and durability. A laser cutter was used to cut the acrylic pieces, and then a set of step by step instructions were created to assemble the product. To reduce the cost of acrylic, the …

Analysis Of Verification And Validation Techniques For Educational Cubesat Programs, Noah Weitz

Master's Theses

Since their creation, CubeSats have become a valuable educational tool for university science and engineering programs. Unfortunately, while aerospace companies invest resources to develop verification and validation methodologies based on larger-scale aerospace projects, university programs tend to focus resources on spacecraft development. This paper looks at two different types of methodologies in an attempt to improve CubeSat reliability: generating software requirements and utilizing system and software architecture modeling. Both the Consortium Requirements Engineering (CoRE) method for software requirements and the Monterey Phoenix modeling language for architecture modeling were tested for usability in the context of PolySat, Cal Poly's CubeSat research …

Building A Database For A Startup: Boltabout, Danielle Tran

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

BoltAbout is a young start-up based out of San Luis Obispo, CA. Their primary business is renting out bikes via monthly-subscription with the opportunity to lease to own. BoltAbout has seen great success over the past 2 years and is looking to expand. The company currently has 200 bikes, but the demand is far outweighing the supply. The CEO of BoltAbout hopes to grow to grow the company’s inventory to 500 bikes by the end of 2017 and 1500 by the end of the school year. As the company continues to expand, it will need to be able to accurately …

Reducing Same Day Missed Appointments, Lucas Madison, Tyler Moore, Jolani Chun-Moy

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Radiology Associates (RA) is a diagnostic imaging center that offers high-quality, digital medical imaging and interventional radiology services for patients, physicians and healthcare organizations across the Central Coast. They are an ongoing problem that involves a considerable portion of their patients not showing up for their appointments Our project aims to reduce same day missed appointments at Radiology Associates. Radiology Associates currently has a no-show rate of 13.48%. They lose approximately $240 for every same day missed appointment. Our goal was to find new ways to reduce their no-show rate to 8%. Based on our calculations, Radiology Associates could save …

Student Shop Access And Inventory Control In The College Of Architecture And Environmental Design Shops, Ryan Raj Mattel, Chris Steven Chen, Kevin Michael Gallagher

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The Cal Poly College of Architecture and Environmental Design shops, directed by David Kempken, give the opportunity for thousands of students to use the “Learn By Doing” philosophy and operate various machinery, tooling, and devices to complete projects inside and outside of the classroom. These students are able to check out tools and machinery to complete these projects on a weekly basis. This report will discuss the complexities and shortcomings of the current database system, FileMaker Pro, that is used for these transactions. The report will furthermore discuss the design and methodology of replacing this system with an improved integrated …

Crystal Engineering Manufacturing Facility Analysis, Maximiliano Cortes, Eric Dustin Kornrumpf, Sthefano Alvarado

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

This report will encompass a two-quarter long senior project effort to provide a recommendation for the client, Crystal Engineering. Crystal Engineering is currently in the process of introducing three new products, one now and two within the next six months. However, their existing lines already occupy the available production space and as a result, they are unable to determine how to effectively incorporate new production lines within the facility. Therefore, the main objectives of this project were to deliver several facility redesign layouts backed by a holistic justification for each. The formulation of the facility redesign layouts incorporated several industrial …

Sensel Morph: Product Communication Improvement Initiative, Kasper W. Lui-Delange, Samuel Distler, Rafael Paroli

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Sensel is a startup company that recently launched their first product. The Morph is a multi-functional touch interface that interacts with a wide range of software through touching enabled silicon overlays. The support documentation was believed to cause confusion, which is leading to limited sales and increased returns. We focused on the structures of its website and product documentation, which were initially developed without end user testing. Our team explored Sensel’s current state to develop two multiphase design alternatives. These designs provide multiple user-facing testing frameworks as well as determine the root-cause of the Morph’s current communication issues. The designs …

Improving Warehouse Capacity For Synergy Manufacturing, Brian Garcia

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

This report aims to aid Synergy Manufacturing (a well-recognized producer of high-performance components for off-roading vehicles) to improve in-house production capacity in wake of an expanded facility space and substantial increase in the number of current available products over the span of a few years. Current warehouse issues include struggling to meet demand, high inventory, and an unsafe overcrowding of WIP on the floor space. The steps taken to resolve these issues are to collect setup times, operational times, total process times, machine tool usage, and flow process from a selected group of five high-demand items from Synergy Manufacturing’s current …

Amplifying The Social Intelligence Of Teams Through Human Swarming, Louis Rosenberg, Gregg Willcox, David Askay, Lynn Metcalf

Industrial Technology and Packaging

Artificial Swarm Intelligence (ASI) is a method for amplifying the collective intelligence of human groups by connecting networked participants into real-time systems modeled after natural swarms and moderated by AI algorithms. ASI has been shown to amplify performance in a wide range of tasks, from forecasting financial markets to prioritizing conflicting objectives. This study explores the ability of ASI systems to amplify the social intelligence of small teams. A set of 61 teams, each of 3 to 6 members, was administered a standard social sensitivity test —"Reading the Mind in the Eyes” or RME. Subjects took the test both as …

Process Management And Design Layout Of High Throughput Screening, Anthony Vasquez, Kyle Dupuy

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Calibr is a pharmaceutical company in San Diego and growing very quickly rate and need help redesigning their lab layout and in doing so reducing their cycle times and down times in machines. In addition to this, they do not currently have an accurate measurement of how long their processes take in an overall cycle. The objective of this project is to provide Calibr with a redesigned layout to accommodate new equipment as well as a software tool that can output Gantt charts for their planning of their testing. Our approach to this project first included mapping out the facilities …

Design Of A Process To Implement An Annual Community Fundraiser For Sprout Up, Katherine Lynette Phillips, Kimberly Nicole Walter

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Sprout Up—in San Luis Obispo—is currently a non-profit organization that teaches free environmental science education to first and second graders around the San Luis Obispo area. Due to recent circumstances, Sprout Up will soon be losing its non-profit status, and therefore they will be losing their funding as well. Their problem is that they need a stable annual fundraiser that will help the organization continue to provide free services to local elementary schools as a Cal Poly club rather than a non-profit. Multi-criteria analysis techniques were used to determine what would be the best solution to their problem and found …

Addressing The Existence Of Overcrowding In The Cal Poly Rec Center Exercise Rooms, Josue Alvarez, Robert Hemphill

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Cal Poly’s Rec Center is a facility that has been extremely popular among students ever since its initial creation many decades ago. Despite its popularity being a positive quality in most ways, it does ultimately yield a certain issue for the users of the facility; the issue of overcrowding. This senior project aimed to analyze the problem of overcrowding at the Rec Center and improve upon its most critical areas of impact. Ultimately, we identified the Rec Center’s exercise rooms as the most impacted area, with the issue of equipment unavailability being the largest factor. Thus, we designed alternative equipment …

Design For Waste Reduction And Efficiency Improvement For The Construction Usage Of The Tower Crane, George Merida, Roman Richard

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Webcor Concrete Group’s on-site tower crane is currently experiencing unknown forms of inefficiency. The project team used the DMAIC methodology to implement Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control in order to guide and structure the project. After the project team formulated a problem statement, observations were collected of tower crane deliveries resulting in 470 individual data points. The data was then analyzed using basic statistics, histograms, and lean manufacturing tools in order to identify wastes and inefficiencies. Once the wastes and inefficiencies were identified, root cause analysis was performed. The identified root causes were then used as the basis for …

Design Of Process Improvements To Increase Field Work Efficiency At Webcor Concrete Group, Fiona Blackburn

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

This study set out to analyze and improve field work efficiency at Webcor Concrete Group, a subcontractor working on a new housing project at the Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo campus. Specifically, they would like to access their performance in regards to end-of-break to back-to-work time and the 30-30 rule, which states that everything a field worker needs should be accessible within 30 seconds or 30 feet. The problem statement is that Webcor wishes to utilize their field hours 5% more efficiently through a study of current shortcomings and recommended improvements. A review of the literature generated process improvement ideas …

Design Of A Decision-Aiding Model Between Subtractive Manufacturing And 3d-Printing, Tuan Minh Ryan Pham, Colton Harrison

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

3D-printing is becoming more and more widely used in industry. As this happens, manufacturers are becoming unsure of when to use this new technology and when to trudge on with subtractive (conventional) manufacturing processes. Subtractive manufacturing processes are well-established within many manufacturing companies due to its high efficiencies and low costs. However, 3D-printing offers a greater level of customization, can be automated, and can easily have designs transferred via computer files. Each method has its respective advantages, however, each one also has its downfalls. Subtractive manufacturing produces unnecessary waste, is limited from creating certain geometries, and requires a skilled laborer …

Manufacturing Process And Product Design For Mass Production Of Environmentally-Friendly Fishing Lures And Weights, David Ichlokmanian, Justin Jake Bert

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The current industry standard for the manufacture of recreational fishing tackle uses lead-based weights and PVC or silicone-based lures. Both materials have serious negative effects on those who handle these products, waterfowl, fish, and other animals that may consume this discarded tackle. The goal of this project is to find and design an environmentally safe process and product alternative for this industry. To do this, we researched a large amount of viable safe materials for weights and lures and used decision matrices to decide on the best one. We found that brass would be the most suitable alternative and created …

Design Of An Automated Welding Process For Synergy Mfg., Parsa Bakhtiari

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

This senior project involves a partnership with a local off-road parts manufacturer called Synergy Mfg. Synergy is experiencing a rapid increase in demand that is difficult to meet with their current processes. Because of this issue, Synergy is exploring automation in order to decrease their cycle times and increase their production output. More specifically, this report concentrates on automating a manual welding process that has a lengthy cycle time which causes Synergy’s difficulties with meeting demand. Due to time constraints, this project focused on the automation of a welding process for only one part that Synergy produces. This part contains …

Redesign Of Good Karma Bike’S Facility Layout And Bike Storage Process, Ryan Phillip Ogan, Derek Chung, Tommy Chang

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Good Karma Bikes is a non-profit organization that services and restores bikes that customers bring into the shop. Good Karma Bikes has plans for a dramatic increase in storage capacity for the next few years. Good Karma Bike’s warehouse area is currently overflowing with bikes due to the large increase in demand. A redesign of the warehouse layout is needed to handle the increase of incoming bikes and to improve product flow through the space. The project team’s objectives are to:

• Improve accessibility and reduce time it takes to unrack a bike
• Increase space utilization by improving bike storage capacity …

Designing An Information System To Efficiently Coordinate Film Screenings, Galen Dougherty

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

This paper explains the engineering concepts design efforts used to build an information system to efficiently coordinate film screenings. The market served is an emerging group of film makers and production companies that have limited resources. The application aims to save both time and money in coordination efforts for screening films in the local community. The project case examined is a small production start-up from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo named Yellow Glass Media. The design described in the paper specifically targets their needs which are assumed to be representative of the needs of the larger emerging market. The design …

Design Of An Improved Toolbox And Connex For Webcor Builders, Veronica Ana Valley, Jamie Mari Kusumoto

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Webcor builders asked the Senior Project team to create a design of an organized job box on Solidworks that improves worker efficiency, improves jobsite organization, and limits financial losses, which are common tool-related issues for the company. As a group, the members analyzed the job box current situation using multiple perspectives to create two designs, one streamlined by each project group member. The project group developed each of the designs based on a current state analysis in which we analyzed the job box, simulated finding tools to create multiple motion studies, collected worker feedback, conducted an ergonomic analysis, conducted a …

Polar Coordinate Farm Bot Final Project Report, John Brown, Kasenia Colombo, Lucas Salem, Ning Jeng, Rory Stothers, Sam Lees

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

FarmBot Inc. is a local startup that is advancing precision agriculture through automation and open source technology. The original FarmBot model, FarmBot Genesis, operates over a rectangular area of 3 x 1.5 meters. It plants, waters, weeds and grows produce autonomously using CNC technology. Our project sponsor and inventor of FarmBot, Rory Aronson, tasked our team with developing and testing a polar coordinate farmbot capable of performing on par with the Cartesian farmbot in growing a circular vegetable garden in a user’s backyard. A successful project was defined by meeting specific customer requirements and engineering specifications predetermined and discussed with …

Predictive Analytics In Forecasting, Matthew Suarez

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Predicting future demand can be of tremendous help to businesses in scheduling and allocating appropriate amounts of material and labor. The more accurate these predictions are, the more the business will save money by matching supply with demand as closely as possible. The approach for an accurate forecast, and the goal of this project, involves using data analytics techniques on past historical sales data. Working with Campus Dining, a year's worth of their daily sales data will be analyzed and ultimately used for the end result of both an accurate forecasting technique and a way to display the results in …