UW Madison | Manufacturing Systems Engineering

Each semester the Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE) department presents the Ratner Senior Design Project Award to the three best projects from an ISyE senior capstone design course. This year, first place and $800 went to Majid Aksari, Zariat Rahman, Kemaleddin Farrokhnia, Andreas Roenning, Vishal Labade and Advait Raje (in picture from left to right) for their project with P&H Mining Equipment, completed as part of the MSE Capstone Course 2009.

The project, titled "Reducing Delivery Lead Times for Aftermarket Parts at P&H Mining Equipment" was conducted in cooperation with P&H Mining, based in Milwaukee, Wis., a leader in manufacturing and service of large excavating and drilling machines for mining operations.

At P&H, unexpected failures of machine parts during mining operations result in requests for delivering aftermarket parts that need to be satisfied quickly, as downtimes at mines can cost around $20,000 an hour. However, the diverse nature of products offered by P&H and the unpredictability of failures pose unique challenges.

Based on a thorough analysis of the delivery process for aftermarket parts using QRM principles, the student team developed recommendations to reorganize warehouse operations and get the required parts to the site faster and more efficiently.

Second place was awarded to Lucas Bohace and Ronald Uglow for "Spine clinic access project." Third place went to Debon Dyreson and Tom Thorvaldson for "Peds specialty clinics template organization."

For more information on the Capstone Course (ISyE/ME 641 - Design and Analysis of Manufacturing Systems), please check here.