A recent senior design project of the industrial and management systems engineering program at Kuwait University
List of Authors
  • Ali Allahverdi

Keyword
  • Engineering education, Senior design course, industrial engineering, saving

Abstract
  • A senior design course is a part of the curriculum of most of the engineering programs worldwide since, in the course, the engineering students get the opportunity to identify, and next, to formulate, and finally to solve complex real-world engineering problems. This is also one of the seven student outcomes adopted by The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET). Therefore, it is also a required course in the curriculum of the Industrial and Management Systems Engineering (IMSE) program of Kuwait University (KU). The students, in the senior design course of IMSE program at KU, select a company and then identify some problems at the company. Next, the students formulate the identified problems and propose solutions for the problems. In this paper, the company selected in Spring 2020 is briefly described along with three identified problems. Next, the student proposed solutions are described along with annual saving by the proposed solutions. The students improved the operations of the selected company significantly. In fact, the analysis indicates that the company can save about $ 500,000 per year if the proposed solutions are implemented. The students were observed to be enthusiastic by applying the methodologies and tools of Industrial Engineering that they learned in their earlier courses to solve real life problems. The evaluation results from the employer surveys of the senior design students for the last few years indicate that the average result of the ABET outcome, of having an ability to identify, formulate, and solve complex engineering problems, is above 80%.

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