Many manufacturing companies are busy running their day to day operation and struggle to find the time, technical resources, and tools to address operational inefficiencies, solutions to unmet challenges, and facility design opportunities. GENEDGE offers practical, hands-on student team resources and solutions through the Center for High Performance Manufacturing’s (CHPM) Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISE) Senior Design Program.
Participating manufacturers identify and provide projects that require the investment of 8-10 team hours per week, for the duration of the 9 month project. Senior Design Program services include, but are not limited to, a CoreValue Enterprise Value Assessment, project charter, and professional project management and coaching. Services result in a substantial business impact in one or more areas.
Project Types
- Facility Planning and/or Design
- Lean Manufacturing Process Improvements
- Manufacturing Systems
- Material Handling/Warehouse/Logistics
- Ergonomics or Human Factors Engineering
- Production or Manufacturing Systems Design/Redesign
- Robotics and/or Automation
- Operations Research/Modeling/Simulation
- Systems Engineering
- Data Management & Analysis
The Learning Factory and The Lean Manufacturing Cell
GENEDGE is a sponsor for the Learning Factory and the Lean Manufacturing Cell. Learn more about how a senior design project to create a lean cell environment can effectively teach anyone, students or laborers in the surrounding areas, on how to better apply lean thinking to any of their jobs.
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GENEDGE – Virginia Tech Partnership and Affiliation
GENEDGE offers practical, low cost-high impact, student team resources and solutions through the Center for High Performance Manufacturing’s (CHPM) Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISE) Senior Design Program. The program is designed to be the capstone, integrative experience that provides the basic skills needed to effectively plan, manage and implement technical projects. Specifically, students work in teams to apply learned skills to real-world manufacturing opportunities, improving processes and accelerating growth
During the first semester, students focus on developing a technical proposal as well as performing technical analysis related to their project. During the second semester, students focus on design and implementation as well as hone their technical writing and oral presentation skills. The yearlong capstone experience culminates with the Senior Symposium, a technical conference event at which company representatives, students, GENEDGE advisors, and faculty share and celebrate the project results.
Benefits to Participating Companies
- Improve operational efficiencies to increase profits
- Access Virginia Tech resources to address opportunities for improvement
- Connect with Virginia Tech senior students for future employment
- Develop a supply chain strategy to be more competitive and minimize risks in sourcing
- Identify solutions to unmet technology needs and challenges
- Develop a strategy to effectively and efficiently meeting future challenges and opportunities
- Acquire professional project management and advising through GENEDGE to establish project definition, maintain project focus, and to meet project objectives
- Gain access to CoreValue Unlock Enterprise Assessment to determine current enterprise value, potential enterprise value, and to identify internal/external value gaps. Companies move closer to potential enterprise value as they address value gaps.
Senior Design Symposium Class of 2022
2023 Senior Design Virtual Symposium > follow here for this year’s event!
Digital Transformation Award Winners 2023
This award recognizes a team whose proposed solutions are related to digital transformations of processes. The winner has not only selected an innovative solution but also produced a significant impact for their clients. The 2023 winner of the Digital Transformation goes to Team 38 – Republic Finance Revolutionizing Loan Acquisition with Machine Learning. Pictured here – Whit Packwood, Jarrett Johnston, Paul Blanco, Patrick Tolley (Company Contact) James Haney (Advisor) Dr. Christopher Kwaramba. Photo courtesy of ISE VT website.
Project Abstract
Republic Finance is a financial services company based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana that specializes in personal loans. Currently, Republic Finance receives a large portion of its annual origination volume through direct mail acquisition. These prospective customers are targeted using a Response Model; however, the current in-production model is not as accurate as they anticipated. To better predict the likelihood of response, the team built a more advanced response model using a gradient boosting machine. The new model was formed through multiple stages of feature selection and hyperparameter tuning and has an improved response rate of 1.2%. Compared to the current model, the team expects the new model to save Republic Finance $3.7M+ annually by eliminating excess mailing costs.
Follow here to view the > Team 38 Poster Follow here to view the entire > Symposium Presentation
Featured Projects
Previous Year
There were about 50 teams (projects) for the class of 2022. At the end of the projects, clients reported anticipated impact in the areas of increased revenue, savings, investments made resulting from the student team project. The three-year business impact, as reported by clients, averaged slightly more than $1M per project.
Cost
The cost is $2,500 for companies with 49 employees or less, and $5,000 for companies with 50 employees or more. The cost covers GENEDGE project management and coaching only. There is no cost for student services.
How to participate
GENEDGE is currently recruiting projects for the upcoming class of 2023 in the Grado School of Industrial and Systems Engineering program at Virginia Tech. Contact GENEDGE Regional Growth Manager, James Smith (Contact Information Below)
Interested in More Information?
Contact: James Smith
Regional Growth Manager
Phone: (540) 315-5081
Email: jsmith@genedge.org