OREM 4395 – Senior Design Archive

Client: Methodist Dallas Medical Center
Team: Kyle Chester, Kristin Evanto, and Emily Gray
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Barr
Year: 2010
Documents: Final Report, Presentation

A “hub” of activity at MDMC is the Outpatient Services department. Outpatient Services exists to serve the needs of physicians and surgeons alike with routine x-rays, blood draws to test for Tuberculosis or other ailments, or diagnostics to assess patient health. Many patients who come to Outpatient Services are preparing for surgery and thus need to undergo preliminary screens such as blood draws and EKGs.

The focus of this project is the observation and analysis of the administrative and technical operations within the laboratory component of Outpatient Services. Outpatient Services aims to reduce its patient wait times throughout the entire duration of a patient’s stay in Outpatient Services. Management has expressed a desire to reduce patient wait times such that 95% of all patients wait less than 15 minutes for the Outpatient laboratory department. Read more…

Client: Lennox Industries
Team:  Diana Batten, Maddie Kamp
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Siems
Year: 2011
Documents: Final Report, Presentation

Lennox Industries is a residential and commercial heating and air-conditioning company with a 13-15% market share in about 80 countries. Lennox is unique in that they operate as both the manufacturer and distributor of their products selling directly to their customers, typically contractors.

This project identified correlations between customers’ buying patterns and their attrition, or loss of their business. Based on transaction-level data of 4,500 customers over a three-year period, an early-warning model was developed to signal the potential loss of a customer and enable Lennox to act preemptively. The analytics were based on a ranking procedure based on key indicators and a Markov chain analysis with categorical transition probabilities derived from historical data. With this model encapsulated in spreadsheet form with the ability to customize the analysis geographically and seasonally, the results give Lennox management a new tool to maintain their current customers and evaluate new markets.

Client: Arlington Texas Police Department
Team: Ron Andrews, Blake Robinson
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Siems
Year: 2011
Documents: Final Report, Presentation

The Arlington Police Department is responsible for policing the city of Arlington to achieve a safer community. The policing of the city is divided roughly into four main areas (north, south, east, and west) with each respective area possessing its own police station. The Arlington Police Department requested insight into the placement of the police stations to see if they were effectively located to process the level one crimes that originate from each main area. If a main area was not adequately covered, areas could be hypothetically redrawn to accommodate effective policing.

Our method of analysis included the use of in-depth data analysis and a pure network model that had the potential to take into consideration Euclidean distances, time schedules, crime severity and political issues. Our findings indicated that the placement of police stations given current population levels were placed reasonably close to where our model suggested they should be placed. It was also discovered that complex issues such as political issues and crime severity are hard to quantify within a model given due to the ambiguous nature of the data.

Client: Lake Highlands Soccer Association
Team:  Sherif Khalifa
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Barr
Year: 2008
Documents: Final Report (Word), Presentation (PPT)

The scheduling of sports competitions is a challenge for both professional teams, such as the NBA, to amateur leagues. In this project an effective strategy to model sports scheduling is developed.

Lake Highlands Soccer Association was formed in 1972 to promote the sport of Soccer in Dallas’ Lake Highlands area and throughout North Texas and serves as the “Home Association” for about 1,800 youth players from neighborhoods in the Dallas and Richardson school districts. The LHSA’s Boys League Director provided data that is needed in developing their schedules and a constraint-programming model was implemented  that meets all their requirements and delivers a far more effective solution.

Similar to many leagues, Lake Highland Soccer Association uses an inefficient method of scheduling to determine all leagues games. There is no model in place, and schedules are done manually, leading to many wasted hours to determine a schedule that may be suitable to the each league’s constraints. Read more…

Client: Heeling Sports Limited
Team: Gustavo Carrere and Marcus Klintmalm
Faculty Advisor:  Dr. Siems
Year: 2005
Documents: Final Report (PDF)

The Heeling Sports Limited is a Dallas-based footwear designer, manufacturer and distributor. The Company’s mission is to generate new and exciting footwear utilizing contemporary and progressive styles with comfort-enhancing performance features. To generate new footwear style HSL will introduce one product per year through acquisition or in-house development.

Extensive interviews and observation lead us to several bottlenecks in the order process. Most often these bottlenecks concerned procedure rather than anything else. There are many simple, no-cost options to optimizing the Heelys order process. Read more…

Client: Sabre Holdings: Sabre Airline Solutions
Team: Lauren Duplantis, Hamel Husain, Francisco Villagran
Faculty advisor:  Dr. Siems  Year: 2003
Documents: Final report (PDF)

Our project involved working with Sabre Inc. on a problem that they were having with their system StaffPlan that is maintained by their Airline Solutions Division. StaffPlan is an Airline Solutions system that minimizes the number of check-in agents at an airport based on the time of day, queue, airline, destinations, and passenger arrival curve categories. Read more…

Client: Frito-Lay, Inc. and Sam’s Club
Team: Christian Edison, Ashley Mills, Stephen Rumpler
Faculty advisor:  Dr. Siems  Year: 2005
Documents: Final report (PDF)

Working with the Frito-Lay Supply Chain Department, our team has found an improved inventory process that will increase in-stock performance at Sam’s Clubs. Sam’s Club demands a 99.8% in-stock performance. Currently, Frito-Lay is not meeting this demand, therefore improvements must be made.

Analyzing Frito-Lay’s current inventory replenishment process, we discovered several problems. Some of these problems included inconsistencies in taking inventory at the clubs, negligence of inventory worksheets, and lack of communication. After further analysis, we discovered that forecasting more accurately would prevent some of these problems. There was a new challenge: finding a method of forecasting the new product line, Pick ‘N Pack. With very little historical sales, it was difficult to forecast sales. Read more…

Client: American Airlines Center
Team:  Andrew Conway, Marcos Garza, Tabatha G. Olaechea, Jennifer Keen, Marcus Wentrck
Faculty advisor: Barr   Year: 2004
Documents: Final report (Word), final presentation (PPT)

The American Airlines Center is a dual – purpose facility; they house the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks as well as the NHL’s Dallas Stars and must accommodate them both through out their respective seasons.  The AAC is setup to change back and forth to both set ups.  Making a quicker transition time when switching from a basketball court to a hockey rink would decrease scheduling conflicts between the two teams, and possibly allow for an increase in other sports; and non-sporting (i.e. concerts, seminars, rodeos, etc.) events to take place in the arena.  This could potentially increase revenue for the AAC.  As of right now they do not make much money on the Maverick’s and Star’s games, so by decreasing changeover time, they would be able to bring in other venues to increase the amount of money they make in a fiscal year.

Read more…

Client: Achieve Healthcare Technologies
Team:  Kristin March, Laura Bailey, Rachel Potter, Allison Bass
Faculty advisor: Barr   Year: 2006
Documents: Final report (Word), final presentation (PPT)

Achieve Healthcare Technologies is the largest privately held provider of information system products and services to the long-term care industry.  They serve clients across the U.S. and have long stood for higher quality and improved bottom lines for sub-acute long-term care, skilled nursing, assisted living, and continuing care retirement facilities and communities. Additionally, they have consistently led the industry in introducing new, innovative products and services. Read more…

Client: Alcon Inc.
Team:  C. Davis, C. Ngo, D. Nguyen, S. Ramdhanny, B. Long
Faculty advisor: Barr   Year: 2004
Documents: Final report (PDF), final presentation (PPT)

Alcon, Inc. has successfully progressed into a research-and-development-driven, global pharmaceutical company focused on eye care. At their headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas, Alcon operates two manufacturing plants that produce more than 10,000 unique products. In October 2003, Alcon closed their Madrid (Spain) manufacturing plant and assigned its manufacturing responsibilities to Fort Worth. The combined product lines have currently been in production with unacceptable inefficiencies, including loss in whitestock production and production time, packaging and labeling difficulties as well as capacity and scheduling issues.

The Southern Methodist University undergraduate engineering students (Team Alcon) volunteered to review current manufacturing operations and propose process improvements with the goal of achieving significant cost savings. The sole purpose of this project will be to observe, develop, evaluate, and implement management science concepts that will significantly support and impact efficiency levels. Read more…