Business Commons^™

The Lean Bookstore, Joshua Hirahara, Scott Santore

Industrial Technology and Packaging

The bookstore industry has been changing in recent years with the growing popularity of e-books and self-publishing. The publishing houses are losing their grip on the industry because a greater portion of books are being sold by companies who don’t need to sell books to stay afloat, and overproduction is rampant, with 40% of all printed books being pulped. Bookstores have been suffering because of the high costs associated with the current value stream. E-books aimed to reduce these costs but have been cannibalizing their print counterpart and do not generate enough revenue to offset the loss of print sales. …

Design And Implementation Of Iso:9001 Standards At Sigma 6 Electronics, Inc., Robert Kirkpatrick, Dylan Geisen, Simon Schermerhorn

Industrial Technology and Packaging

ISO 9001 certification is a very long process that can take even the most dedicated team years to complete. For smaller companies such a process could be costly, confusing, and arduous. While many resources exist, it takes nearly the same amount of effort to tailor fit the examples as it does to create a whole new set.

The purpose of this senior project is to research examples and help fit them to a small manufacturing company, Sigma 6 Electronics, Inc. An interlinked, or combined, quality manual/procedures were chosen to aid Sigma 6 Electronics through making the documentation clear and perfectly …

Portable Hammock Stand Design And Business Model Development, Evan Keith

Industrial Technology and Packaging

Currently hammocks are thought of as stationary relaxation devices that use tress as support structures. The industry mainly focuses on hammock innovation over the way in which the hammock is actually hung. Having been around for thousands of years, reinventing the idea of the hammock is not something that is occurring or has been thought of.

This senior project proposes the idea of a portable or more adaptable hammock stand. It takes the idea of hammocks as stationary devices to them being something that can be taken almost anywhere. Shifting how hammocks are thought of and exposing the potential they …

Artisan® Romaine Proof Of Concept: Impact Of Packaging Materials On The Shelf Life Of Romaine Lettuce, John Pessagno

Industrial Technology and Packaging

The purpose of this project is a proof of theory that analyzes different packaging materials, substrates, and package designs to analyze the effects they have on romaine lettuce. Analysis was performed on materials including bulrush, PET, PS, PE-PP shrink film, and a specially engineered film from Dow Chemicals. There are two rounds of testing that dive into the impacts of headspace, moisture content, and distribution on sensory analysis from a six-person panel.

It was shown that the packaging materials used had a strong impact on shelf life and the sensory qualities of the romaine lettuce. Even though the trays that …

Time To Graduation Improvement Study - A Lean Flow Chart Approach At California Polytechnic State University, Angel Morales, Quentin Greenlaw

Industrial Technology and Packaging

In order for Cal Poly to continue to stand out among other universities, there is a strong need to graduate their students in the typical 4 years. With a falling economy, both the budgets of Cal Poly and the student are decreasing. The longer a student takes in receiving their bachelors, the higher the costs will be in both money and time for the student and the university. Today, the average Cal Poly Industrial Technology student takes 5 years to graduate. That extra year of school will cost the student on average $8,523 in tuition fees on top of costs …

Blunt Impact Performance Evaluation Of Helmet Lining Systems For Military And Recreational Use, Jaclyn Siniora, Ryan Taylor, Darren Suey

Industrial Technology and Packaging

With the increasing problem in collegiate athletes experiencing injuries to the brain, different helmet liners where put to the test to see which liner provided athletes the greatest protection under specific conditions.

This senior project evaluates five different liners in football helmets. Each of the helmet liners were tested at three different temperatures: hot, cold, and ambient. Each helmet had seven different impact locations which were put to the test. The project was designed to be used to test ACH military combat liners as well. Due to shipping bottle necks the ACH combat liners have been left to future Cal …

Design Of A Packaging Solution For Ifixit’S Retail Venture, Myles Bradwell, Torrance Terzian

Industrial Technology and Packaging

One of the chief concerns of any business is to maintain steady, profitable growth in a rapidly evolving marketplace. The only way to achieve this goal is to constantly evaluate the company’s strength and position within that marketplace, and look for ways to improve. The iFixit company has established itself as a leader in providing quality replacement components, tools, and repair instruction for customers who wish to repair their own modern electronic devices. iFixit approached the students at Cal Poly to develop a solution for differentiating their primarily online business into a retail sales environment.

This senior project is a …

Evaluation Of Alternative Sustainable Materials For A Drug Delivery Package, Keith Thompson

Industrial Technology and Packaging

No abstract provided.

Gerber Project For Lockheed Martin, Andrew Callahan, Sean Lawyer

Industrial Technology and Packaging

Lockheed Martin, the world’s premier aerial combat vehicle manufacturer was pressed to find an eco-friendly way to package their impregnated epoxy. In the current system, the epoxy would be cut on the Gerber table to a pre-determined length and then sandwiched inside of two corrugated fiberboard sheets for storage inside of a freezer. The current process was not only labor intensive, but the corrugated fiberboard had to be disregarded after one use. In conjunction with the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo Packaging program and Melmat Incorporated, we were able to find a corrugated plastic substrate to replace the currently non-reusable …

Continuously Improving Cash-Gift Process, Alejandra Sanchez

Industrial Technology and Packaging

Cal Poly is in process of executing a strategic plan with the vision of becoming the “Premier Comprehensive Polytechnic University”. Working to optimize University Advancement Services’ (UA) donation processing and gift acceptance is critical for future success of the campaign. In order to accomplish UA’s vision, Industrial Technology professor Eric Olsen applied a lean process tool known as Kaizen to promote continuous improvement. The Kaizen event was focused on reducing delays in the cash-gift processing and ensuring donations are properly allocated while donors recognized in a timely manner.

The Kaizen event engaged key players from all levels of the process. …

Effectiveness Of Electronic Transfer Device On Passive Tag Readability, Michael Anthony Montero

Industrial Technology and Packaging

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) has been around for roughly 40 years, yet the technology has not been widely implemented. Bar codes currently dominate supply chains as the main method for tracking asset, but RFID has the potential to completely remove the need for bar codes. While bar codes need to be individually scanned RFID tagging allows for instantaneous scanning of complete pallet loads. This drastically reduces the amount of time and labor needed to monitor and track assets throughout supply chains. Yet, at this time RFID tagging is unable to be adopted by the majority of manufacturers due to the …