Students, faculty and industry leaders from across the country gathered last month at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas to discuss innovations in logistics and distribution as part of a program led by the University of Arkansas Industrial Engineering Department.

Kansas State Engineering Dean, Matthew J. O’Keefe, opened the meeting with his welcome. Other keynote speakers at the event included, Edwin Keh, CEO of The Hong Kong Research Institute of Textiles and Dan Vanden Brink, partner at Decision Spot.
Faculty and student research presentations are the focus of the meeting, with projects presented by the primary investigator of the project.

This year’s projects included:

• Data Sourcing for Weather Alert Classification
  Brenda Hernandez, Eric Specking, Gregory S. Parnell, Ed Pohl, Hyeyon Bastian, Brendon Hoch and George E. Gallarno – University of Arkansas; John Richards and Randy Buchanan – U.S. Army Engineer and Research Development Center.
• Performance Evaluation in Multi-model Transportation Network
  Stasia Colgan and Ashesh Kumar Sinha – Kansas State University.
• Intelligent Decision Support System for Steel Market Analytics
  Pyam Oveys, Mahima Naznin, Thomas Willerth, Sharan Srinivas, James Noble, Kihyhung Kim and Anthony Ross – University of Missouri.
• Lead Time Distribution Modeling Based on Item Characteristics
  Manuel D. Rossetti (University of Arkansas), Andy Parrish (Defense Logistics Agency), Wesley Tate and Marshal Ray – University of Arkansas.
• Process Optimization for Manufacturing Environmentally-friendly Hair Extensions
  Ray Wood, Parth Jahagirdar, Sienna Schreiber, Stephen Swingle, Sharan Srinivas and Suchithra Rajendran – University of Missouri.
• Identifying Areas of Low-Access to the COVID-19 Vaccine: A New Objective Framework Incorporating Mobility Data
  Joseph Agor – Oregon State University
• Process Optimization in Cheese Production
  Meghna Maity, Ashesh Kumar Sinha, Shing Chang, Jayendra Amamcharia – Kansas State University.
• Understanding Weather Events and How They Are Tracked
  Samuel Kreinberg, Eric Specking, Gregory S. Parnell, Ed Pohl, Martin Tran, Brenda Hernandez – University of Arkansas; John Richards and Randy Buchanan – U.S. Army Engineer and Research Development Center.
• Supply Chain Network Resilience Optimization Incorporating Risk Diffusion
  Hector Vergara – Oregon State University.

The annual Speed Mentoring Session was of particular interest to the students attending. They were able to connect for mentoring with some of the best industry representatives in the country briefly. The valuable experience of these sessions cannot be overstated.

During the industry panel session, attendees were able to ask questions and hear the interactions among those participating. The panel consisted of: Ashton Kappelman – Senior Manager at US Foods; Anita Ranhotra – Distribution Engineering Manager at Hallmark Cards, Inc.; Chris Tonn – Simulation and Data Management Engineer at Spirit Aerosystems; Dan Vanden Brink – Partner at Decision Spot; Dennis Haner – PCES Executive, Chief Logistics Officer at United States Postal Service.

Students presented their projects to industry members during the poster session. Each poster was evaluated, and remarks were submitted. The student with the best poster was then presented with an award.

This year, Wesley Tate from the University of Arkansas received the CELDi Outstanding Undergraduate Student Achievement Award. He is advised by Manuel Rossetti. In his nomination letter Rossetti commented “He analyzed data, developed, and tested predictive models for predicting administrative and production lead time. Wesley also developed and presented slides to our sponsor. He has provided summary results and meaningful insights that I would typically expect from graduate students.” Wesley’s research was titled “Lead Time Distribution Modeling based on Item Characteristics.”

Tate Hansenclever, also of the University of Arkansas received an Honorable Mention. Nominated by Eric Specking, Tate has excelled in the research of Specking’s team. In his letter Specking commented, “Since joining our team, he has contributed greatly to our CELDi project and to the systems engineering community. He used and is using multiple systems engineering and decision analysis artifacts to improve the understanding of our product’s requirements in an agile development process and our communication among the overall geographical diverse and multidisciplinary teams. Additionally, he connected these artifacts to INCOSE’s systems engineering principles and found by using these artifacts in an agile development environment one can find knowledge gaps among team partners and identify gaps among interfaces.” Hanseclever’s research title was “Smart Base Installations: Improving the Agile Development of Multidisciplinary Systems of Systems Projects Using Systems Engineering Techniques.”

The meeting, open to all industry members, invited guests, faculty and students from partner universities was a success.