MAY 2016 Selected Pages

A widened gaze at the Panama Canal
FIGURE 11
FIGURE
The fght heads east

Once the Panama Canal completes its current expansion project, a battleground region representing 15 percent of U.S. GDP will be in
play between West Coast and East Coast ports.
Figure copyright The Boston Consulting Group
least-congested rail and trucking routes for getting there.

New York-New Jersey; Norfolk, Virginia; Savannah,
Georgia; and Charleston, South Carolina (the latter two are
distinct ports but operate in close proximity to each other)
all stand to gain share. They are relatively close to the battleground region and the attractive rail routes to major markets.
They are in a strong position to be on the routes of the postPanamax vessels, which tend to make fewer and longer stops
than smaller vessels.
Houston and the New Orleans-Gulfport complex, while
not major container ports today, also should grow as they beneft from upgrades and from being able to serve the greater
Gulf Coast region.
Other ports on the East and Gulf Coasts may feel little impact or may fnd that they need to rethink their value proposition to shippers and carriers. Some will continue to serve
mainly regional markets, markets that are too small to be
served effciently by the largest vessels. Others are likely to
need to position themselves as uniquely suited to serving specifc industry sectors. Some ports will fnd that they have in-
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ISE Magazine | www.iise.org/ISEmagazine
vested in equipment and deeper channels to handle the largest

vessels only to fnd that the traffc does not materialize.
On the West Coast, Oakland, California, and Seattle-Tacoma are less likely to be directly impacted. Los Angeles-Long
Beach is likely to lose the most with the Panama Canal expansion. It continues to be well-positioned to handle traffc to
major population centers and always will be the fastest option
for reaching a large share of the U.S.
But the port will face new competition in the region east
of Chicago once the Panama Canal is able to handle postPanamax vessels.
The recent labor dispute at the Los Angeles-Long Beach
complex also may motivate shippers to reduce their dependence on the West Coast. It remains to be seen whether shippers will fundamentally change their routing decisions to
minimize disruptions when the next labor contract is set to
expire. Absolute volume levels from Asia-to-U.S. container
trade should not decline at Los Angeles-Long Beach, but it is
likely to see slower growth levels than other ports, leading to a
shift in share over time.
Photo courtesy of www.industrytap.com
The executive summary

The Panama Canal expansion is expected to open in June
after years of delays and cost overruns. Last year, The Boston
Consulting Group and C.H. Robinson researched the impact
of a widened canal for their report How the Panama Canal
Expansion Is Redrawing the Logistics Map.
The authors, two of whom are the co-authors of this
article, concluded the following:
How the logistics landscape will change: Growth
rates for the larger ports on the West Coast will decrease.
Competition among East Coast ports will intensify. And rail
and truck traffc patterns may shift in response.
The time vs. cost trade-off: The West Coast always
will be the fastest option for reaching much of the United States, but the East Coast will become the least costly option for some shippers
and some commodities.
The battleground: The battleground where U.S. ports compete for customers could move several hundred miles west to a region
that accounts for more than 15 percent of U.S. GDP.
Urgency to act: The expansion underscores the need for shippers, carriers and logistics service providers to adapt their strategies
and operations in light of the growing complexity of the logistics feld.
The cost, time and fexibility trade-offs

Shippers make different choices based on the value of their
cargo, transportation costs, transit time and fexibility. To understand these trade-offs, our analysis looked at tires, couches,
T-shirts and industrial pumps that would be shipped from East
Asia to the battleground market of Columbus, Ohio.
Those products broadly represent the range of goods in the
top four categories of imports that make up more than threequarters of East Asia container traffc into the United States.
They also represent different combinations of proftability, size
and time sensitivity.
If cost were all that mattered, shippers would route all these
products through an expanded Panama Canal to reach Columbus, Ohio, via rail from the New York-New Jersey port
(under specifc scenarios for major cost drivers). At typical
market rates, that route would be about 4 percent cheaper than
one going through Oakland, California.
But it also would take 11 days longer. That time difference
affects shippers in two ways. First, the amount of inventory
in transit will increase. Second, to avoid running out of indemand products, the shipper will need to stock more inventory as a buffer to account for unpredictable demand during
those 11 days.
For some shippers, the 4 percent savings is pivotal. But for
others, the extra time matters more.
The savings gained by transporting tires and couches to
the battleground region through the Panama Canal are large
enough to more than make up for the extra inventory that
shippers will need to carry. But the analysis works out the opposite way for T-shirts and industrial pumps. The time advantage of shipping through the West Coast trumps the cost
savings of East Coast travel.
Do the math
Industrial pumps and T-shirts have very little in common
other than the fact that, even after the Panama Canal expansion opens, these products most likely will continue to move
through U.S. West Coast ports to reach the battleground states
where U.S. ports compete with one another for customers.
For both products, transportation constitutes up to 3 percent
of revenues at most, so shippers often do not believe that there
will be signifcant savings or that the savings from alternate
routes will outweigh the increases in transit time and managerial complexity. By routing a shipment of T-shirts through
the East Coast to Columbus, Ohio, for example, a retailers
savings would total just 0.13 percent. And the savings would
be half that for industrial pumps. Not surprisingly, the cost of
the extra inventory that retailers or distributors would need to
carry exceeds these savings.
Shippers of both products also do not want inventory in
transit any longer than necessary, though for very different
reasons. Since T-shirts often feature trendy colors or the logos
of winning sports teams, retailers want shorter lead-times and
low inventory levels in order to keep up with changes in fashion and avoid obsolescence.
Pump makers, on the other hand, accept higher inventory
May 2016 | ISE Magazine
31
A widened gaze at the Panama Canal
FIGURE 21
FIGURE
The math is important

Shippers must calculate the time vs. cost trade-off by commodity.
Figure copyright The Boston Consulting Group
levels because having inventory in warehouses, not on ships,

allows them to take advantage of every opportunity to make
sales and provide high levels of customer service when a critical part fails. For both products, careful planning of inventory
levels is required.
Tires and couches, however, are much more expensive to
ship to the U.S. from East Asia, so the calculations work out
differently. Transportation makes up 44 percent of the cost of
goods sold for tires and 23 percent for couches. Even though
the cost of holding extra inventory is higher for these products
than for pumps and T-shirts, the savings of routing through
the East Coast to the battleground region more than make up
the difference.
In fact, by transporting tires to Columbus, Ohio, by way of
the East Coast, shippers can expect to save about 1.5 percent
a big number for a low-margin product.
All shippers will need to conduct exercises similar to those
shown in Figure 2 for their product portfolios, assessing the
relative importance of minimizing shipping costs, maximizing time to market and properly gauging inventory levels.
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The full picture

These projections of cargo fows are the product of an economic model that simplifes reality. Several other factors
could alter traffc through an expanded Panama Canal.
Three developments, in particular, likely would magnify
the shift in volume through the Panama Canal to U.S. East
Coast ports.
A proposed canal through Nicaragua could be built if fnancing and other issues are resolved, providing an additional route for shippers to reach the East Coast.
Carriers could increase their use of transshipment and make
a stop in the Caribbean to offoad containers, a move that
could favor smaller U.S. and South American ports.
The use of liquefed natural gas as bunker fuel for ocean
vessels could reduce transportation costs substantially.
The impact of most of the other potential developments,
however, is unclear. While many of these key factors look different now than they did when the Panama Canal expansion
began, what is certain is that these will continue to change

over time.
Ocean and rail carriers could alter their schedules, creating
changes in both the transit time and the costs of using specifc shipping lanes.
Energy and other commodity prices are volatile and affect
the cost of shipping as well as the availability of capacity on
certain modes.
Even larger vessels, too large to go through an expanded
Panama Canal, could call upon West Coast ports, which
may allow them to regain an eroded cost advantage.
Labor relations could affect the cost and reliability of water
routes terminating at ports on either coast.
A shortage of drivers could affect the cost and reliability of
trucking routes.
Foreign exchange movements and macroeconomic policy
could alter the costs of carrying inventory and the choice of
manufacturing locations.
The evolution of e-commerce, such as the rise in demand
for same-day delivery, could alter the strategies of a wide
variety of logistics providers.
Time to act
The uncertainty surrounding the expansion of the Panama
Canal has caused many shippers and carriers to take a waitand-see approach, operating under the misguided notion that
taking action now would be premature because the outcome
is unpredictable. But the uncertainty surrounds only the size
of the shift in ocean traffc from west to east. There almost
certainly will be a shift in the mix of West Coast vs. East Coast
traffc as well, and shippers and carriers should start preparing
for that shift now.
With the expansion of the Panama Canal, shippers will enjoy greater options but also face greater complexity. Companies accustomed to shipping to the West Coast and relying on
relatively fast rail service to reach much of the U.S. are likely
to take a much more segmented and dynamic approach. When
time is of the essence, as it is for some products, that routing
may continue to make sense. But for other products, the cost
savings of shipping through the Panama Canal likely will outweigh the extra time in transit.
Shippers need to do the analysis. There is no shortcut. The
exercise might show that it makes sense to open or expand East
Coast distribution centers. It almost certainly will show the
need to partner with a new or expanded set of ocean and land
carriers and logistics service providers.
Carriers have a series of interrelated decisions to make to
prepare for canal expansion. These decisions will revolve
around investments, pricing, routing and customer development. If they havent already done so, many ocean and rail
carriers will need to make investments in terminals at the East
Coast ports that are most likely to gain traffc in the future.
Ocean carriers likely will need to consider longer-term
moves, such as revising their schedules and experimenting
with scheduling innovations for example, more south frst
services versus those that have New York-New Jersey as the
default frst stop on the East Coast.
On the West Coast, carriers might need to offer selective
discounts to hold onto traffc. But they will need to do so
wisely, as a large chunk of time-sensitive cargo probably will
continue to move through the West Coast with or without
discounts.
Trucking companies will have opportunities to win new
customers and serve new markets. But they will need to ensure that they have business development activities in place
and an adequate supply of drivers for new routes. In light of
the shortage of long-haul drivers, becoming an employer of
choice is critical. Fortunately, some of the expected growth
in volume will occur on routes that are more attractive than
others to drivers.
The widening of the Panama Canal underscores the growing complexity of the world of logistics. The relative attractiveness of lanes will shift over time, and managers will need
to evaluate these shifts. Most importantly, managers will need
to distinguish between short- and long-term risks as they place
different types of bets.
Where to build the next distribution center, for example, is
a long-term bet that requires looking beyond the time horizon of near-term volatility (such as oil prices or delays in port
expansion projects). On the other hand, where to route cargo
over the next 90 to 180 days is a near-term decision that should
refect current and expected near-term conditions.
Supply chain managers will need to be able to work across
multiple time horizons. Logistics service providers have an
opportunity to help customers navigate this complexity. For
most players, analyze and act makes a lot more sense than
wait and see.
Dusti urke is a part er i he Chicago offce of The Bosto o sulti g Group. He specializes i dvisi g clie ts i o sumer products
a d i dustrial goods o upply chai a ageme t, as well as worki g with logistics a d distributio compa ies o strategy, operatio s
a d commercial effective ess. Burke has a
BA from the Wharto
School at the U iversity of Pe sylva ia a d a B.A. from the U iversity of Virgi ia.
Steve Raetz is director of research a d market i tellige ce at C.H.
Robi so . He has bee ith C.H. Robi so i ce 1989. He curre tly supports strategies desig ed to e ha ce the realized value that
logistics operatio s have o upply chai d busi ess i itiatives. Raetz
is a graduate of Mi esota State U iversity, Ma kato, a d serves o
supply chai dvisory boards at the U iversity of Mi esota a d Iowa
State iversity.
33
The chameleons of engineering

IE skills are perfect for a world that is c
By Rona Howenstine
34
At what point in your life did you know that you

wanted to be an industrial engineer? When the
other kids were answering the question in your
grade school classroom, did your friends say they
wanted to be a teacher, freman, policeman, artist, pilot, doctor, dentist, astronaut, sports legend
or rock star? It is highly unlikely that anyone raised their hand
and espoused the desire to be an IE.
Maybe you didnt know in frst grade, your senior year, or
even your frst few semesters of college, but the tenets behind
what makes a successful IE seem to appear at an early age and
are most likely part of a persons natural disposition. IEs might
just be born that way without even knowing it, and that makes
them quite fortunate.
Considering the future

Disruption is a constant these days. A primary driver of disruption in every industry is the fact that all people customers, suppliers, shareholders and even family members are
raising their expectations on every front at an unprecedented
rate. Digital technology, radical new business models and the
agility of a virtual on-demand workforce are challenging the
defnition of business as usual every day.
Business author Michael Grothaus recently published a
piece in Fast Compa y, The Top Jobs in 10 Years Might Not
Be What You Expect, where he interviewed three futurists.
The article provides predictions about what the top jobs of
2025 will and will not be. Graeme Codrington, one of the fu-
turists, states, History tells us that somehow the labor market

creates new jobs when it destroys some old ones.
The question that arises is will the next generation go to
college for a specifc education or to develop generalized understanding, analytical thinking and the most versatile toolbox
possible? They will be marketing their skills vs. the degree
they earned and must be quite adept at communicating their
personal match with a companys needs.
Some things remain constant

In 2014, economic modeling expert Joshua Wright published
The Most In-Demand (and Aging) Engineering Jobs in
Forbes.
While every engineering area has added jobs, job growth
from 2010 to 2014 has been in the double digits in four occupations: petroleum engineers (30 percent), mining and
geological engineers (12 percent), biomedical engineers (10
percent) and industrial engineers (10 percent), Wright wrote.
In some cases he even cites how the demand outweighs
supply. The best example of this is industrial engineers, an
occupation with three times more unique monthly postings
(24,740) than average monthly hires (7,737) since the start of
2012, according to Wright. Figure 1 shows the data.
The stability of the industrial engineering discipline and
continued demand is supported further by a U.S. Department
of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics analysis that indicates the
outlook is stable over a 10-year horizon from 2014 through
2024, as shown in Figure 2.
FIGURE 1
To hire an engineer
According to data from EMSI Job Posting Analytics, demand for industrial engineers was three times higher than the average number of
monthly hires.
Unique job postings vs. hires for engineering occupations

Average monthly postings (Jan. 2012-July 2014)
Average monthly hires (Jan. 2012-July 2014)
30,000
24,740
25,000
20,000
13,657
15,000
10,000
12,523
9,599
7,857
6,025
5,000
7,737
8,898
5,820
2,197
4,248 4,841
1,727 3,025
2,061 2,349
Computer
hardware
engineers
Aerospace
engineers
0
Civil
engineers
Mechanical
engineers
Engineers,
all other
Industrial
engineers
Electrical
engineers
Electronics
engineers,
except
computer
35

36
FIGURE 2
An additional source to consider is auIEs at work
thor and personal fnance adviser Bobbi
According to the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics, industrial
Dempseys Seven Most Universal Job
engineers had a median annual pay of $81,490 in 2014.
Skills, published in Forbes in 2010. She
provided a list that is closely paired with
2014 median pay
$81,490 per year
the skills that most successful IEs possess:
top-notch communication skills, creativTypical entry-level education
Bachelors degree
ity, curiosity, good writing ability, ability
Number of jobs, 2014
241,100
to play well with others, re-engineering
Job outlook, 2014-2024
1 percent (little or no change)
skills and computer skills
Employment change, 2014-2024
2,100
Likewise, in 2013, Seek, an Australian
job site, published its own version of
Seven Most Universal Job Skills, which
had a list that is even more closely aligned with the IE skillset: artifcial intelligence, big data/analytics, as well as in the tradigreat communication skills; fexibility, adaptability and inno- tional IE role as understood by most.
vation; creativity and problem-solving; results focused; great
It is even more encouraging to recognize that some IEs have
interpersonal skills; computer skills; and ability to research.
become astronauts, CEOs (Apple, UPS, Accenture), company
All of this information should make current IEs very com- presidents (Walmart, BAE Systems, Raytheon), lieutenant
fortable with their personal career choice, even when all indi- governor (Indiana) and even an NFL football coach (Dallas
cations are that we need to get comfortable being uncomfort- Cowboys). Industrial engineering applies to every industry
able, as the well-known self-help author Peter McWilliams and every household in the world, which makes the discipline
would suggest.
extremely versatile. Like most engineers, IEs are usually quite
Additionally, while the concentration of IE careers tradi- methodical and disciplined in their approach to work and to
tionally has been in the automotive, aerospace, electronics, their personal lives, which may drive our peers, friends and
medical devices and pharmaceutical industries, IE engagement families mad.
has broadened and shifted toward felds such as healthcare and,
Consider how IEs approach and accomplish their work, and
most recently, fnancial services and insurance.
therein lies the secret sauce to their versatility. Here are some
These facts should provide a level of confdence to IEs, examples of what makes IEs unique:
highlighting that they have been solid contributors historically, are able to adapt over time, and possess the skills to continue 1. How they think: IEs consider the entire system. They
to evolve into the roles they will play in the future. One might
examine processes from end to end and can immediately
refer to IEs as the chameleons of engineering. The data also
identify waste and variation.
should provide every industrial engineer inspiration to bring 2. How they infuence: IEs enable and convince individuals
others along into such a stable and remarkable discipline where
and teams to make positive change with every engagement,
every day brings a new opportunity.
which requires great communication skills, the ability to
facilitate, high energy and, in challenging cases, a large inWhat makes IEs so versatile?
vestment of emotional capital.
IEs beneft from the consistent consideration of all situations 3. How they approach situations: IEs can affect improvefrom a systems standpoint. Their purpose is to enable people,
ment in incremental or monumental undertakings. Their
processes and technology to work together synergistically to
approach is always scalable, and they choose tools that are ft
create value for the world.
for a purpose. IEs will take the time to teach and explain in
IEs have long been considered the bridge between business
order to bring a team along and to ensure their fngerprints
and engineering able to speak both languages and to bring
are on the fnal solution. Proliferation of knowledge, facilidisparate and diverse groups together to develop a common
tating through challenging situations and dispelling fear are
solution. In many ways, IEs appear to be balanced from a left
an IEs specialty.
brain and right brain aspect, with almost equal comfort em- 4. How they plan: IEs have all taken a project management
ploying the appropriate combination of technical skills and
course and adapted their knowledge and style to the situasoft skills.
tion. They are well-versed in the quote attributed to both
Just think for a moment of all the different ways an IE could
Benjamin Franklin and Winston Churchill, If you fail to
specialize: lean Six Sigma, project management, organizaplan, then plan to fail.
tional change management, fnancial management, opera- 5. How they measure: IEs need to know what is being
tions management, process engineering, quality management,
measured, why, what success looks like and if the team is
winning. They are hooked on operational defnitions and

scorekeepers, sometimes to a fault. IEs understand that what
gets measured gets managed and that inappropriate measures drive bad behavior.
6. How they analyze: IEs begin with the notion that there
has to be a story that can be told from the data (if there is
data). Then, they dig for the information and have been
known to torture data sets until they scream for mercy. An
IEs best friend is usually Microsoft Excel, Minitab or any
program that allows them to codify, stratify, classify, evaluate and visually display their data in a meaningful manner
that is easily explainable. IEs enjoy interpreting and simplifying information and never suffer from analysis paralysis.
Oh, and Visio might be their second best friend.
7. How they solve problems: IEs seek to fnd and prove
root cause and to implement a permanent fx, without exception. It is never enough to fx a process for the short
term, and the worst thing for an IE is to revisit the same
issue a second time or, gasp, a third time.
8. How they make decisions: IEs have clear and concise
methods they use for decision-making. It doesnt matter whether they are buying a house, choosing a daycare,
or transforming an entire operation, IEs know what factors matter in each situation. They can always calculate a
weighted average of all the factors so their team (or family)
can narrow the feld and make the best choice in a timely
manner.
9. How they consider risk: IEs actually consider risk and
quantify it without fearing it, both at work and home.
Have you ever alerted someone to a risk that was very

likely to happen? Then when they ignored you and it actually occurred, you didnt even say I told you so. An IE
would take this as an opportunity to help them resolve the
issue by assembling a full FMEA (failure mode and effects
analysis).
This list just highlights some of the more common behaviors one may encounter when observing an IE in the workplace. What is even more interesting is to observe an IE apply
tried-and-true methods at home. If you have visited the garage
of an IE, you most likely will fnd a clean epoxy foor, shadow
boards, racks and cabinets with an enviable level of organization. Thats where they try out all the workplace organization
and visual management concepts they learn.
On a similar note, it is probably safe to assume that every
IE has encountered the concept of inventory management.
However, they might not have heard of the concept of closet
inventory management. For some overzealous IEs, there are
a fxed number of hangers and no more in each closet in
the house.
This means that if someone gets something new, then something of theirs must go. You cant steal hangers from others
closets when they are not looking. This also makes for a fun
game of keep or give, enabling a family to donate to others.
Now, it might be debatable whether this is IE or obsessivecompulsive disorder or a beautiful combination of both, as
hangers should be equally spaced on the rod and clothes should
be grouped by category in color order, right? Just checking.
37

38
Training workers minds

Peter Bostelmann, a former SAP industrial engineer, is a great example of how IEs
can go in new directions and add value to their employers.
Bostelmann brought mindfulness training to his company. And according to the
San Jose Mercury-News, a growing number of companies, including Facebook,
Twitter, eBay and Aetna, are incorporating such practices as meditation, yoga and
mindfulness into their workplaces.
The theory is that the traditional hard-charging nature of American business
makes workplaces toxic, driving employee disengagement. Improving employees
emotional intelligence can help them feel more clarity, creativity and selfconfdence, which can drive innovation and engagement.
People think this is touchy-feely Kumbaya-in-the-meadow stuff. But this
is cutting-edge mental training, said Bostelmann, who is now SAPs director of
mindfulness.
The IE likened meditation to physical workouts that build strength and
endurance. According to the concept of neuroplasticity, the brain forms new neural
pathways in response to changes in behavior, environment, thinking and emotions.
Just like you work your muscles, you train your brain, Bostelmann said.
Sustaining the IE legacy

Who generally leads teams during a business transformation?
A reorganization? A process improvement? Daily problemsolving?
There are examples in every issue of ISE (formerly I dustrial
E eer) where talented and creative people are fnding new
and better ways to apply the IE discipline to situations that
had never been considered. You may have stumbled across this
quote with the elusive source: Engineers make things. Industrial engineers make things better.
This all places a greater responsibility on IEs to ensure that
their brand and its versatility are widely understood and their
discipline is sustained for the future. Based on the fact that the
discipline considers people, processes and technology, IEs are
well-positioned to participate in outreach and mentoring and
to coach the next generation on career innovation and setting
goals.
Outreach. Korn Ferry recently shared a presentation on
LinkedIn titled Next Generation Employee Branding. According to the employment agency, Maximizing STEM outreach is therefore not just a good thing to do for education and
industry its a vital part of building a talent pipeline for the
future.
Author Shoshanna Delventhal wrote in Investopedia, Its
no shock that the top skills in demand for 2016 derive from
STEM education-oriented initiatives (science, technology,
engineering and math).
IEs should have a primary goal to get others interested and
involved at an early age, even as early as the frst grade, to
consider STEM and specifcally IE as a promising and versatile
career path. Others dont know what they dont know.
That is why investing your personal time, engaging your
company and supporting your peers in outreach is critical to
the survival of the discipline. IE is one of the least understood
but most fexible of the engineering careers, and this is where
a focus on communication of the brand will yield the most
beneft.
Mentoring. In 2014, leadership guru Karl Moore wrote an
article for Forbes called The Modern Mentor in a Millennial
Workplace. Moore turned the notion of traditional mentoring on its head with the introduction of reverse mentoring.
Most IEs have been part of a mutually benefcial mentoring
relationship, where a more experienced leader at a company
provides insight, guidance and options to a newer employee
to help that person navigate the organization with his or her
growth in mind.
In order to be an effective mentor going forward, you must
be able to fex your style to relate to mentees and their generational norms, which may be quite different than in the past.
IEs possess interpersonal, collaboration and problem-solving
skills that, coupled with their agility, should provide a distinct
advantage here.
Career innovation. The idea that the employment landscape is changing radically was introduced at the beginning of
this article. Consider some of the titles that IEs hold today. Did
they exist 20 years ago or even 10 years ago?
IEs can use their diverse viewpoints and innovative minds
toward examining holes in the organization and being bold
enough to propose new roles to meet the ever-changing needs
of the company or industry. In this way, they create opportunities for themselves and others in a proactive manner.
Setting goals. Based on IEs systems perspective and their
proclivity for measurement, they are logical leaders for setting
goals in the workplace, which is fortuitous. Going forward,
employees are seeking improved work-life integration. One
way to accomplish this is through holistic personal goal planning, which includes an employees work goals in the equation.
IEs are born with an optimization gene that predisposes
them to coach others in this arena where goals are considered
on multiple fronts: performance, personal and developmental.
Almost anything can be accomplished if you clearly understand the goal and its priority, defne the path and make consistent progress.
Continuing to make a difference

Do I think the work set out in this article will enable a frstgrader to state explicitly, I want to be an industrial engineer?
Well no, not anytime soon. But at least the children will have
a vision for their future that is much more intentional than
anything they may have had before. Lets not have them cross
their fngers and just hope for a solid future and a purposedriven career.
IEs can ensure that the next generation, from frst-graders
to high schoolers to college students and new employees, guarantee themselves lifetime employment and fulfllment of their
personal purpose in any industry in which they are passionate.
Opportunities for IEs are everywhere, and for this reason we
should seek constantly to pay our good fortune forward for
the good of ourselves, the next generation and the world.
Ro a Howe sti e is vice preside t operatio al excelle ce a d claims
for O eAmerica Fi a cial Part ers. She rece tly authored Perfectly
Possible: Defning Your Path to Success When the Odds Are
Not in Your Favor. Prior to her curre t positio , she held sig ifca t leadership roles i he areas of operatio s ma ageme t, quality
a d co ti uous improveme t at Rolls-Royce. Howe sti e ear ed her
lea igma black belt a d executive master black belt accreditatio rom
Rolls-Royce a d holds a lea ro ze accreditatio hrough the Society
of Ma ufacturi g E gi eers. She has published a d lectured widely o
i dustrial e gi eeri g a d has receive umerous awards for her work
a d leadership. Howe sti e holds a B.S. i pplied mathematics with
a co omics mi or, alo g with a
.S. a d Ph.D. i dustrial
e gi eeri g, all from the U iversity of Pittsburgh.
39
Imagine for a moment that you are responsible for managing a manufacturing facility that has a few specialized
assembly lines producing a handful of variations of the
same widget.
You drive into work each morning and have key questions that you need answered immediately to begin creating your priorities for the day. Are any machines down for
repairs? Have any members of my team called in sick today? Are there any high priority or special orders that I need
to account for? What is my production schedule today, and
what should I prioritize?
These are all pieces of daily information that you require,
40
and you likely have set up reports, analyses and regular communication methods to address these issues.
Now switch the manufacturing setting with a diagnostic
service department (X-ray, MRI, CT scan, ultrasound, etc.)
in a hospital. Which questions do you ask yourself as you begin
each day?
As it turns out, the information required for optimal performance in service areas involves many of the questions listed
above, albeit with a patient-care focus. Yet many healthcare
facilities around the nation have not identifed or implemented
such a standard set of questions, along with the communication of daily logistical information. This is what performance
POP quiz:
What are the
right questions
in hospitals?
Perfor
der prior
huddles help diagram daily priorities
vice areas
By Alex Bohn
and order prioritization huddles aim to address.

Performance and order prioritization (POP) huddles are a
framework for diagnostic departments in hospitals to address
effciency barriers and prioritize patient services on a daily basis. They are attended by all department staff (technologists,
managers, director) and led by the shift team lead or lead technologist, although other staff can lead the huddle, generally in
a weekly rotation. These huddles shouldnt take longer than
15 to 20 minutes, depending on the size of the department.
The huddles have two main components. The frst is performance, where huddle participants discuss, document,
address and escalate departmental effciency and logistical
barriers or challenges. The second is order prioritization,

where huddle participants review known outpatient schedules, inpatient orders and competing resources to decide
which orders to prioritize.
The performance elements of POP huddles are not paradigm-shifting for the majority of service areas. Many diagnostic departments in hospitals already verbally discuss these
barriers on a daily basis. However, they often do not have a
standardized method of documentation to provide at-a-glance
visibility to all department staff.
POP huddles are a forum for staff to align and identify challenges that may impede utilization throughout the day. All diagnostic departmental impediments are categorized into one
of three groups:
1. Machines and equipment: Diagnostic machines or patient-care equipment that is down for repairs, in short supply or not able to be utilized. Examples include a broken
MRI machine or a low supply of liquid contrast.
2. Staffng: Scheduled department or support staff members
who will not be working their shift, have been pulled to
other departments or are otherwise unavailable. Examples
include a technologist called off work, a transport department that is short on transporters (which will hinder timely
patient movement), or an X-ray tech who unexpectedly has
to support surgery procedures.
3. Procedures: Some diagnostic service areas have to provide
resources and equipment for procedural departments like
surgery and cath lab. This category identifes known procedures and times that the department will have to provide
secondary support. Examples include a C-arm machine
that is being used by the surgery machine department all
morning, cath lab procedures that will require multiple
PICC line insertions and validation of correct placement
with diagnostic equipment.
Every barrier identifed is recorded on a POP huddle board,
shown in Figure 1. These boards are displayed prominently
in the center work area of the department. The foundation of
the performance portion of the POP huddle is simply to allow
staff to verbalize daily barriers and display them visually for
staff or leadership who did not attend the huddle.
However, the POP leader can take this a step further and
document the barriers by category each day, possibly with
high-level details or notes. This record is maintained and analyzed to look at root causes of logistical issues that the department experiences on a regular basis. For example, perhaps 75
percent of daily barriers fall into the machines and equipment
category. Leadership can use this information to begin to look
at the specifc instances and how to anticipate downtime in
the future.
The order prioritization focus of POP huddles is often a new
41
POP quiz: What are the right questions in hospitals?
FIGURE 11
FIGURE
Keep staff informed

This POP (performance and order prioritization) huddle board example comes from a CT department. Such boards should be displayed
prominently in the center of the departments work area.
POP huddle: CT department
Date: Tuesday 1/26
Machines and equipment
Staffng
Procedures
CT machine 2 down for repairs

until Friday
Kelly called in sick for today's shift.
CT-guided biopsies scheduled

for 10:30 a.m. and 2 p.m.
Low supply of liquid contrast,

back-ordered until Wednesday
Transporters are understaffed

by two; expect to have to
self-transport some patients.
concept for diagnostic staff, or at least a new way of thinking

about how they approach their daily workload. Every order
(and associated patient) has a priority based on many different
factors. Too often, diagnostic areas prioritize their patients in
a way that optimizes their silo but does not create effciency
within the entire system or align with hospital performance
goals.
Some factors, like the daily outpatient appointment schedule, are easy to predict day-of and also not very fexible, so
they are used as the starting point for patient prioritization.
After that, diagnostic areas begin the day with a pile of stat
and routine order requisitions (tests and services for patients)
from inpatients and emergency room patients throughout the
hospital.
Currently, priority is often given to stat orders, emergency
patients and then whichever inpatients have been waiting the
longest. Some departments will slightly refne their schedules
to group inpatients by unit (critical care patients frst, for instance) or time of day depending on the test type and requirements.
With the implementation of POP huddles, a specifc priority hierarchy is created (per department) to help guide staff on
which patients to begin their day with. An example of such
a hierarchy is in Figure 2. System-level factors must be taken
into consideration when creating this hierarchy so that one
department doesnt inadvertently become a barrier for patient progression by attempting to optimize only their area
or schedule.
Examples of these systemwide factors, in no particular priority order, include the following four types of patients:
1. Patients who are approaching discharge: Are any of
these inpatients well enough and scheduled to be discharged
from the hospital today? If so, the department should make
sure to complete these tests today to avoid holding the
patient in a bed longer than necessary. Progressing these
42
S.C. is checking that list

South Carolina is undergoing a statewide experiment to see
if checklists can reduce errors in surgery, reported Modern
Healthcare magazine.
Project leaders say the pre-surgical safety checklist process,
a tool adapted from high-risk industries like commercial
aviation, could prevent enough mistakes to save 500 lives a year.
Many hospitals thought they were safe, even when surgical
teams would start procedures without speaking a word to each
other, Clemson University industrial engineer Ashley Childers
told the magazine. She has traveled more than 19,000 miles to
help more than 50 hospitals with their checklist procedures.
While some hospitals now have nearly 100 percent
compliance with their checklist procedure, others continue
pushing back. And since the program is still gathering data,
Childers said, advocates dont have the numbers yet to prove
that the system works.
And results from other projects have been mixed. For
example, a 2014 New England Journal of Medicine study
found that checklists in more than 100 hospitals in Ontario,
Canada, did not signifcantly reduce complications or deaths,
according to Modern Healthcare. But checklists in the state
of Michigan virtually eliminated catheter-based infections in
that state.
patients through the system increases throughput for the entire hospital and positively affects patient care factors, such
as decreasing the chances of a hospital-acquired infection.
2. Patients under observation: Do any of my morning
orders concern patients who are in an observation status
who are very time-critical to have a decision (discharge or
admit) made for them? If so, the department should look to
FIGURE 21
FIGURE
Prioritizing orders
This chart shows an example of order prioritization to move patients through hospital
diagnostic service areas.
Start
Outpatient schedule
Previously scheduled daily outpatient appointments from scheduling systems
Current ER and stat orders
all of the services sequentially? Coordinating services results in patients being

transferred fewer times throughout the
day. This impacts both patient satisfaction and the utilization of transporters in
the hospital.
4. Patients who have been hospitalized for a long time: Have any of
these patients been in the hospital for
an exceptionally long time? If so, this
test result may be part of the discharge
plan put into action to progress the
patient to discharge or go to the next
level of care.
Top-priority, time-sensitive orders and patients
Priority order
These factors often can be ascertained

by the POP huddle leader prior to the
huddle with a quick review of the patient
charts in a hospitals electronic medical
record system.
Observation patients
The huddle lead can come prepared
Patients with a current status of "observation"
to review which patients the departwho need to be progressed or discharged
ment should prioritize early in the day
and why. Therefore, staff members are
aligned and have an understanding of
why they are working on patients in a
meaningful order.
Discharge patients
Throughout the shift, new orders will
come
in and the priority order likely will
Inpatients with an order for discharge or who are
be
adjusted.
For example, if a patient who
likely to be discharged today
comes into the emergency room requires
a handful of stat CT scans immediately,
the CT department will need to move
some noncritical patients around or adMultiple services
dress them later in the day to accommodate. Unforeseen variability causing
Inpatients who have multiple services ordered and
minor deviations from the order priority
can be coordinated across multiple departments
should be expected and planned for.
Effective communication is both a key
to success and an outcome of the POP
huddle program. The format encourages
perform and obtain results of tests for these patients as early staff input and problem-solving, along with providing a daily
in the day as possible. Observation patient management is means for staff to discuss and escalate logistical obstacles to
often a pain point for hospital effciency and operations be- department leadership.
cause the time to decide whether to admit or discharge is
Throughput, effciency, staff and patient satisfaction are all
generally 24 to 48 hours. Test results are key for clinical staff improved by applying fundamental industrial engineering
to make timely and educated decisions about the patients concepts to the diagnostic service area operations.
care.
3. Patients who require multiple services: Does my CT Alex Boh s a tra sformatio gi eer with Care Logistics who helps
patient also have any orders for an X-ray, an MRI, etc.? hospitals i crease effcie cy a d improve patie t care. He has a degree
If so, what time will they be receiving these services, and i i dustrial e gi eeri g from Ketteri g U iversity a d is a former
can I coordinate with those areas so the patient can receive preside t of IISEs You g Professio als group.
43
How to play nice

and add value
help employees boost service through tec
By Joseph A. Michelli
44
Increasingly, technology impacts every facet of our life.

From the moment we awake to fnal actions before bed
(digital, mobile, automation and user-friendly apps),
technology aids us in everyday tasks at work and home.
Futurists spend a considerable amount of time hypothesizing about extreme applications of technology,
including genetically engineered designer babies by 2053
or longevity treatments to stop aging by 2065. The rest of us
simply try to manage the information age and the technology
boom happening around us now. In a world where goods and
services depend on the smooth integration of people and technology, leaders in manufacturing and service-based businesses
are challenged to maximize the unique strengths of people as
well as computer-based technology. And many of the lessons
and opportunities faced in the service sector, particularly those
involved in helping people add value to technology, have application in a broader set of manufacturing industries.
Let us use Mercedes-Benz as our benchmark.
Assessing the challenges

Mercedes-Benz faced mission critical challenges in the United
States dating back to 2011. Despite the companys innovative
engineering and outstanding marketing, leaders at MBUSA
feared the brand couldnt sustain sales levels. Customer studies conducted by outside research frms validated what leaders
inside the company were already recognizing the dealership
experience of Mercedes-Benz customers was falling far short of
the brand promise to be best or nothing. In essence, the organization hadnt innovated nor integrated people, process and
technology solutions in ways that resonated with customers.
As customer experience issues were becoming more apparent, senior leadership at Mercedes-Benz USA was also changing. On Jan. 1, 2012, Stephen Cannon moved from vice president of marketing for Mercedes-Benz USA to president and
CEO. From the onset, Cannon prioritized the Mercedes-Benz
sales and service experience. In his frst 60 days, he sat down
with people in every department to identify the companys
strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
What crystallized to me from those conversations was that
we had an extraordinary opportunity to improve the experience customers encountered when they purchased or received
service on their vehicles, Cannon recalled. As a leadership
team, we believed that an investment in this area would result
in a disproportionate return.
In order to generate that level of return on investment, leaders at Mercedes-Benz USA had to overcome two rather large
obstacles: An existing and dominant product-centric culture
and limited ability to exert control over the experiences delivered by the brands 370-plus independently owned and operated dealer partners.
A companys greatest strengths are often its greatest weaknesses. From the perspective of Daimler, engineering excel-
45
How to play nice and add value

46
lence, safety and innovation are the foundation that have led
to a very product-focused mindset. Many Mercedes-Benz
dealers in the United States (many of whom had been in business for decades) relied heavily on product quality to build
customer loyalty, and they hadnt addressed the need to design
and engineer the overall experience of customers in MercedesBenz dealerships.
Because of such a strong product focus at Mercedes-Benz,
new competitors entered the marketplace offering to add value
to their products by creating a better dealership experience.
They were integrating effective human services and leveraging technology tools to make the experience easier for customers.
Peter Collins, a retired area manager for MBUSA and current general manager of the Mercedes-Benz dealership in Alexandria, Virginia, explained how things were changing.
When I started with the brand in 1984, there was no Lexus.
There was no Infniti. There was no Acura. Heck, there wasnt
even the Internet, Collins said. Truthfully, whatever Daimler sent us, we sold. That was the luxury market. That clearly
was an era where you were privileged to get a Mercedes-Benz.
However, as the age of consumerism, competition and technology advanced at warp speed, we became vulnerable if all
we offered was a great product.
Mercedes-Benz of Virginia Beach service manager Pat Evans highlighted changing consumer attitudes as a risk factor
encountered by the Mercedes-Benz brand over the last several
years.
Ive been with Mercedes for 30 years. In the 1980s and
early 1990s, we were selling 50,000 to 60,000 cars a year, and
our customers were so in love with our product it didnt matter
what happened to it. Just fx it and get me my car back, Evans
said. Now were selling 400,000. Theres a clientele buying
our product who simply dont want the cars any longer if there
is even the slightest problem, and that includes a simple rattle
or squeak. Mercedes-Benz leadership is faced with positioning the brand in a changing consumer marketplace. Newer
customers, especially those who havent been committed to
the product for fve to 10 years, not only want the best cars in
the world, but they also want the best reliability and the best
consumer experience in the world too.
Rather than designing an optimal customer experience
from the onset and selecting distribution partners who were
contractually obligated to deliver that experience (the foundation of the Lexus brand), Mercedes-Benz USA, under Cannons new leadership, faced the challenge of transforming
the mindset and behavior of longstanding dealers beyond an
established product-centric perspective entrenched through
generations of dealer ownership.
To achieve that transformation, leaders at MBUSA understood that they needed their people to look for technology
solutions that would make the lives of customers easier and
that would help their people develop skills to add uniquely

human value. Lets start with an example of the technology
improvement deployed at MBUSA and then move to a review
of a human skills development approach. We then conclude
with likely applicable lessons for your industry.
Digital Service Drive

Digital Service Drive is the pinnacle of MBUSAs integration
of processes, technology and human service. It is designed not
only to set standards for what specifc components of the Mercedes-Benz service experience should entail, but also to integrate technologically various aspects of the customers overall
service experience.
Before Digital Service Drive, for example, while most dealers purported to have online-scheduling, the claim could
mean anything from state-of the-art scheduling platforms
with mobile integration and texting capabilities to making
sure the service department phone number was on the dealership website so customers could call in and make an appointment.
By contrast, the major elements of the Digital Service Drive
program are:
Online service appointment scheduling: Customers
are given the opportunity to schedule their vehicle service
needs and arrange a courtesy vehicle at any time using a
smart device or computer. They also can automatically update customer information prior to a service appointment.
Service drive tablets: The use of iPads and Digital Service Drive technology enables a service advisor to complete
the write-up, vehicle history, walkaround, customer information collection and loaner contract processes all from
the advisors tablet. These activities take place in the service
drive, and customers dont have to leave their vehicles.
Status notifcation automatically sent via customerpreferred method: The customer receives updates on the
service process and a summary of the work being completed
in easy-to-understand language.
Flexible bill pay
Online bill pay: This feature enables customers to use
their devices to make self-service payments by delivering
fnal parts and service invoices via text and email. It also
allows customers to pay anywhere and anytime that is
convenient to them.
Active service cashiering: Service advisors can complete the payment process on the service drive via their
tablet and enterprise payment system. Customers no longer have to go to a cashier (or wait in line) to pay.
From a dealers perspective, Digital Service Drive results in
greater customer satisfaction by providing patrons with choices and offering cutting-edge tools that project a professional
Lab boosts
human performance
Iowa State University recently established
a human factors lab to study how
engineering can augment and
understand human performance.
The Augmentation and Training
of Humans with Engineering in North
America Lab (ATHENA), which opened
in November 2015, is one of four
augmented human research labs in the
world and the only one in North America.
In this lab, we take humans and
make them better, said Richard Stone,
an associate professor of industrial and
manufacturing systems engineering who also
is the labs director and co-founder. Through
technology, training and the principles of engineering, we
can make most tasks better.
Examples include more effective and comfortable body armor and
better and faster training routines for welders and other professionals. One project involves an exoskeleton that helps soldiers and
police offcers learn to fre handguns.
The training tool, made of sheet metal, wraps around a wrist like a sleeve. Wearing the exoskeleton is like having a frearm
instructor holding your hand to help with wrist and fnger control. The technology could be paired with a laser gun, making training
easier and cheaper than live-fre exercises.
The lab also supports courses in occupational biomechanics, human factors, applied ergonomics and work design, cognitive
engineering and human factors in product design.
image for the dealership while also demonstrating their investment in progressive, technology-rich retail experiences. From
the customer vantage point, the Digital Service Drive simply
means ease, convenience and more productive use of time at
the dealership.
The Mercedes-Benz journey to the Digital Service Drive is
largely predicated on addressing changing consumer expectations. Frank Diertl, general manager of aftersales business development, noted that the service was designed to address the
needs of customers who interact with brands through technology and to offer them tools that ft the way they go through
their daily life.
These consumers choose brands based upon the way those
companies enable them to technologically interact, Diertl
said. Not every customer fts into that higher technology
group, but their numbers are increasing. Today, many consumers are looking for ease and for an app that facilitates that
ease. Our customer base is changing right before our eyes.
Zappos, Starbucks and even Dominos Pizza are setting the
retail environment expectations that our customers are going

to judge us by. Not only do we want to keep up with the way
those other brands integrate people, processes and technology,
but we want to be a leader as well.
In addition to investing in technology solutions that improve ease and effciency, Mercedes-Benz leaders helped all
brand representatives develop skills that maximize the value
that only humans can deliver. One such example of this emphasis on human value came in the form of a training program referred to as Driven to LEAD.
Driven to LEAD
Driven to LEAD was the largest customer experience training
program ever initiated by Mercedes-Benz USA. The LEAD
acronym stands for listen, empathize, add value and delight.
The development of the training materials was consistent
with the frst behavior that MBUSA wanted brand representatives to demonstrate: listening. Prior to crafting curriculum
materials, team members at MBUSA interviewed 10 percent
47
How to play nice and add value

48
of the Mercedes-Benz dealer principals in the United States

and sent surveys to 3,000 of their employees to gather their
insights and perceptions about the quality of the customer experiences being delivered in dealerships.
By listening to feedback from dealer partners and their employees, relevant training materials were produced by a team
of 15 content developers. That content was then piloted and
delivered by 20 trainers over 83 training dates in a 23-city
tour. In essence, the focus of the training was to help develop
advanced skills to deliver experiences that technology cant
provide.
Here is the essence of the skills targeted.
Listen. Business author Steven Covey noted that most people listen with the intent to reply, not with the intent to understand. Listening to understand is the foundation of human
service excellence. Listening is an active process of clarifcation
and summarization. It requires lots of questions and statements
like: Can you tell me more? Let me make sure I understand. And When did the problem start?
Empathize. While listening is an intellectual process of
comprehension, empathizing involves emotionally understanding another person. It typically requires a willingness to
hypothesize about the likely emotional experience of another.
It also is an opportunity to connect with a customer prior to
addressing their need or preference. It often involves phrases
like, So I can imagine how you might be feeling, or Wow,
that probably was frustrating.
Add value. People have become accustomed to having an
app for this and an app for that and even apps to help us organize our apps. While technology tools can make our life easier,
help us gain information with a push of a button and keep us
connected in a virtual sense, they cannot replace the need for
human contact.
When customers opt to be served by a human (for example,
passing up self-service on the web to reach out to a companys
call center or passing up an ATM to be served by a teller),
those customers look for people who can do things that automation simply cant. They are looking for people to add value
by resourcefully offering expertise or options beyond what
fxed computer programs or algorithms can offer.
For example, one team at MBUSA sought to add value by
changing the way vehicles are launched. Rather than reacting
to product issues that emerged at launch, this team formed a
rapid response unit that met daily and tracked input from
dealers and social media. Any emerging issues were fagged
immediately, and solutions were expected within 24 hours.
Departments were not allowed to silo or write defensive
emails. Collaborative answers needed to be forged daily.
Delight. Solid service brands remove pain points for their
customers. They get service right and make things right
when there are those occasional breakdowns in product or service delivery. By contrast, outstanding customer service pro-
viders do all the things solid service brands do and forge strong
emotional connections with customers. Those connections
build customer loyalty and referrals.
Customers often talk about brand connections by suggesting they are delighted or wowed. So what are wow and
delight? They are exceeding customer expectations in small
and large ways. It is demonstrating to customers that you not
only care for them through service excellence but also care
about them through your personal interest, thoughtfulness,
compassion and concern for their needs, well-being and future.
Heres a quick example of how Mercedes-Benz dealership
staff members work to deliver delight to customers. A woman
brought a car in for service and asked the service advisor to let
her know if the team found an earring on the foor. In addition
to performing the requested mechanical tune-up, the service
advisor and a Mercedes-Benz technician took the seats out of
the car to look for the earring.
The astonished customer, upon being presented with the
earring, burst into tears. As it turns out, the earrings were a
special gift from her husband and carried signifcant sentimental value. Only people can forge those types of emotional reactions and connections with other people.
Adding humanity to technology adds value

So what does all this have to do with me if I am not in a service
industry? In the past several decades it has become increasingly apparent that large swaths of the workforce have been
displaced by technological advances. Automation has taken
previously manual tasks and improved the consistent quality
of products produced, made the workplace safer and increased
the effciency of operations.
Despite heavy dependencies on technology to streamline
operations, leaders continue to be tasked to inspire their people
to add value above and beyond that derived from hardware,
software and robotics. It is the job of leaders to inspire their
people to look for needs that can be addressed by technology
and to seek technological innovations to meet those needs.
Further, it is essential that team members develop uniquely
human skills to add value for their co-workers and customers.
We might not see genetically engineered designer babies
by the year 2053, but great leaders will be challenged continually to help their people play nice with and add value to the
technology advances to come. Hopefully, you are well on your
way to contemplating solutions for those challenges.
Joseph A. Michelli is a ter atio al speaker, co sulta t a d New
York Times No. 1 best-selli g author. His books have exami ed
busi ess operatio s i orga zatio s that i clude Starbucks, Zappos a d the Pike Place Fish Market. His latest book is Driven to
Delight: Delivering World-Class Customer Experience the
Mercedes-Benz Way.
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49
case study
SSolutions
l ti iin practice
Ending hunger with lean

Just like their for-proft peers, nonproft organizations, including food banks, deal with
a lack of timely deliveries and other logistical complications. Since these problems are
just like similar issues that plague warehousing and manufacturing, lean and the Toyota
Production System (TPS) are ideal strategies to remove these obstacles.
Several years ago, The Greater Boston Food Bank in Boston faced issues with how
long refrigerated foods sat on the loading dock waiting to be picked up. The food banks
mission is to end hunger and provide at least one meal a day to every person in need in
Eastern Massachusetts. Numerous organizations pick up items from the food bank and
deliver the food to needy people.
Luckily, the food bank had a connection with Babson College. And in July 2013,
Wiljeana J. Glover, assistant professor of technology, operations and information management at the college, developed a group dedicated to improving the food banks
systems. The team included Glover, some of her students, operations and warehouse
management from the food bank, and the Toyota Production System Support Centre (TPSSC), a nonproft Toyota subsidiary that has helped implement TPS outside of
Toyota since 1992.
It was an opportunity for us as an academic institution to support that work but also a
way for us to start to think how we can train students to do more experimental learning
and learning by doing, Glover said.
At that time, The Greater Boston Food Bank was delivering about 49 million pounds
of food. The food bank had a large warehouse with a lot of space for dry goods. Unfortunately, Glover said, the refrigerated section was much smaller than the dry food section
given the volume of food that passes through. For Glover and her group, it was a matter
of developing a way to use this space more effciently to get more food out the door to
people in need.
It really was an effort to make sure that were getting or keeping the refrigerated and
freezer goods in the best quality possible, Glover stated.
In this case, lean was used in conjunction with the Toyota Production System. Glovers team wanted to use these tools to fgure out the issues, defne a plan and implement
improvements, as shown in Figure 1.
Specifcally going through the problem-solving steps of TPS ... thinking about how
do we fnd the business needs? How do we break down the problems and set a measureable target and get to the root cause?
Focusing on reducing order fulfllment lead-time in the warehouse, the team used a
number of tools to analyze and understand the current fulfllment process. For example,
the team identifed food items that had been placed in the dock area several hours prior
to scheduled delivery. The result was that refrigerated items were out of cold storage for
quite a long time. To ameliorate this, the food bank used insulation blankets to keep
foods cold. But this created potential issues with food safety and quality.
50
FIGURE 1
Targeting the root of the problem

Using lean and TPS, a team at Babson College went through these problem-solving steps to set a measurable target. The team then
determined how to implement a strategy for improvement and sustain it at The Greater Boston Food Bank.
Analyzing the
current condition
Business need
Process
walk-through
Process flow
diagram
Pareto chart
Genchi genbutsu
Spaghetti diagram
Phase 1
Phase 2
(July 2013-Nov. 2014)
(Dec. 2013-Feb. 2014)
Defining
target condition
Process flow
diagram
The team analyzed these conditions and discovered that improvement efforts could target
order picking and conveying by
reducing cycle time and standardizing work processes. With
this knowledge, the team began
picking cooler/freezer portions
in sequential order as opposed
to bulk order picking. The result
was that refrigerated and frozen
items were only placed on the
dock when the delivering agency
arrived to pick up the goods.
This reduced congestion on
the shipping dock and increased
overall productivity in the loading dock area.
Before, we were having to
pick refrigerated and freezer goods 24 hours in advance, and
by the end we were down to four hours, Glover said. I think
whats really been powerful is that we got a quantitative, tangible improvement out of the effort.
The lead-time to fulfll an order also declined dramatically,
from three hours to 20 minutes. And training warehouse employees in lean and TPS gave those workers a set of tools and
techniques that led to solutions with the warehouse and docking issues.
TPS focuses on the philosophy of the customer frst, that
people are the most valuable resource, continuous improvement and also managerial roles, Glover said. TPS has been
helpful because of the collective philosophy managerial role
and the technical tools.
Defining strategy
for improvement
Brainstorming
Employee
training-by-doing
KPIs
Kaizen event
6 steps to kaizen
TSSC TPS workshop
Update meetings
Future
improvements
5S process
Standard work
development (TCT)
Baseline
standardization
There are challenges in adapting lean to nonproft settings,

Glover said. For example, compared to a for-proft corporation, a nonproft often has more stakeholders, making it necessary to use basic instead of more complex lean techniques.
But, as the results from The Greater Boston Food Bank
project show, the end result is worth the effort.
Ashly irk
Spread the news

If you have been involved in implementing a project and can share
details, wed like to interview you for a case study. Contact Web Managing
Editor Ashlyn Kirk at (770) 449-0461, ext. 119, or akirk@iise.org.
51
r
research
Inside IISE Journals
This month we highlight two articles

providing improved methods for
industrial engineering decisions.
The frst article looks at the problem
of using simulation to select the
best system design alternative. A
method for ranking and selection
is developed that does not require
normality assumptions. The second
article examines consumer choice
behavior. Knowing if consumers
choose the brand frst and the
product type second or vice versa
can help retailers predict demand
and set more proftable inventory
strategies. These articles will
appear in the June 2016 issue of IIE
Transactions (Volume 48, No. 6).
Worry-free selection of the

best simulated system
Industrial engineers build simulations to
design and improve manufacturing, supply chain, service and healthcare systems.
Selection of the best simulated system
is one of the most basic problems in simulation output analysis.
The stochastic simulation community
has embraced the statistical methods of
ranking and selection as the go-to tool
for selecting the best from a fxed number of alternate system designs, and several commercial simulation products feature ranking-and-selection procedures.
These procedures were derived under
strong assumptions about the simulation output data, e.g., that they are normally distributed, or at least that they
come from the same distribution family.
52
Barry L. Nelson (left) of Northwestern University and Soonhui Lee of Hankuk University
of Foreign Studies developed new ranking-and-selection procedures for computer
simulation that work for all of the typical performance measures and output data.
Unfortunately, reality does not always

cooperate, and the simulation output
data may be highly non-normal (e.g.,
time-to-failure distributions of complex systems). There has been no direct
approach for such settings other than
trying to transform the output data to
achieve normality.
Even the assumption of common distribution family may fail, such as when
the alternatives under consideration involve distinct technologies: manual vs.
automated, in-house vs. outsourced, or
synthetic vs. biological. Further, different ranking-and-selection procedures
are needed depending upon whether the
industrial engineer wants to select the
best mean performance, best variance of
performance or best percentile of performance. Of course, users apply whatever
procedure they have available, and the
result can be incorrect selection and an
inferior system design.
In General-Purpose Ranking and
Selection for Computer Simulation,
professors Soonhui Lee from Hankuk
University of Foreign Studies and Barry
L. Nelson from Northwestern Univer-
sity provided a new approach to ranking and selection that is free of nearly all
distributional or performance-measure
assumptions. Their procedures work for
all of the standard performance measures
considered in IE contexts, and discreteor continuous-valued output data from
almost arbitrary distributions that need
not even be the same for each simulated
alternative.
They achieve this generality by substituting intense computation via bootstrapping in place of strong distributional
information. Their paper shows that
the new procedures achieve the desired
probability of correctly selecting the best
system without any special tailoring or
adjustments in problems that defeat existing procedures
CONTACT: Soonhui Lee; shlee2016@hufs.ac.kr;
+82-2-2173-2334; College of Business, Hankuk
University of Foreign Studies, Cyber Building 513,
107 Imun-ro, Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul, 02450, Korea
Learning brand loyalty

from sales data
When a variety of products with different brands and different features is sold
Haengju Lee (left) and Yongsoon Eun studied consumer choice for determining optimal inventory levels.
in a traditional department store setting,

consumer choice seems to occur hierarchically. If consumers have strong brand
loyalty, they choose a brand frst and
then a product type within that brand
(e.g., ice creams). This purchase pattern
is called the brand-primary process.
If not, consumers choose the type
frst and then a brand, which is called
the type-primary process (e.g., regular
coffee vs. decaffeinated coffee). If hierarchical choice behavior exits, it affects
the stock-out-based substitution pattern.
Thus, it is important to take into account that behavior in the demand estimation process.
Professors Haengju Lee and Yongsoon Eun at Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute
of Science and Technology (DGIST)
in Korea addressed this problem in the
paper Estimating Primary Demand for
a Heterogeneous-Groups Product Category under Hierarchical Consumer
Choice Model. The authors employ the
nested multinomial logit model (i.e., a
widely employed discrete choice model)
for the hierarchical choice. The expectation-maximization algorithm is applied
to estimate the primary demand (i.e.,
the true demand before the stock-outbased substitution effect occurs), while
treating the observed sales data as an
incomplete observation of that demand.
The estimation requires only realistic
data: observed sales, product availability
and market share information. If there
is no knowledge about the choice hierarchy, the hidden choice structure can
be revealed by applying the proposed
method to both the brand-primary
model and the type-primary model.
The one with the higher likelihood is
chosen as the demand structure.
The proposed procedure is tested on
simulated data sets to show how it effectively reveals the hidden hierarchical
demand structure and demand parameters. The authors show numerically why
more accurate demand estimation is important for optimal product assortment
and inventory management. Specifcally, by modeling the demand hierarchy
accurately, retailers can have its assortment plan with less diversity (i.e., fewer
available products) by using the strong
substitution within the product group.
This means that the total expected revenue decreases with less diversity, but the
inventory cost decreases more (i.e., the

cost saving outweighs the revenue loss).
CONTACT: Haengju Lee; haengjulee@dgist.ac.kr;
+82-53-785-6307; Room 409, Building E3, Yongsoon Eun; yeun@dgist.ac.kr; +82-53-785-6300;
Room 102, Building E3, Department of Information and Communication Engineering, DGIST,
333 Techno Jungang Daero, Hyeonpung-Myeon,
Dalseong-Gun, Daegu, 711-873, Korea
Ro ald Aski s a professor a d director of

the School of Computi g, I formatics a d
Decisio ystems E gi eeri g at Arizo a
State U iversity. He is editor-i -chief of IIE
Transactions a d a fellow of IISE.
About the journal

IIE Transactions is IISEs fagship research
journal and is published monthly. It aims
to foster exchange among researchers and
practitioners in the industrial engineering
community by publishing papers that are
grounded in science and mathematics and
motivated by engineering applications.
To subscribe, call (800) 494-0460 or
(770) 449-0460.
53
tools & techn logies

l
By Daren Maynard
Daren Maynard is an adjunct lecturer at the University of the
West Indies-St. Augustine and is a member of IISE's Young
Professionals group.
3C Softwares
ImpactECS is
an enterpriselevel costing and
proftability software
ideal for process
manufacturers,
distributors and
service companies.
What do your decisions cost?

Commercial and nonproft organizations make decisions every day. These
decisions have a cost associated with
them that can affect the organizations
fnancial health, whether measured by
profts or a surplus from expenditures.
As industrial and systems engineers,
working with cost models helps us to
manage the proftability of operations
and projects. These models can become unyielding as they become more
complex and exceed the manipulation techniques of Microsoft Excel and
other spreadsheet-based technologies.
54
Thats why 3C Software has developed

ImpactECS, an enterprise-level costing and proftability software for use in
process manufacturers, distributors and
service companies.
What makes ImpactECS ideal for the
costing, accounting and fnance professionals (ISEs are included in these categories) are the modular components
designed to establish enterprise-level
costing and proft management systems.
The modeling can be done by the professional independent of the information
technology departments involvement.
The costing professional uses ImpactECS costing modules to work on

activity-based costing, cost-to-serve,
net landed cost, process costing and rate
building, product and shared services
costing and chargebacks. The fnancial
and supply chain analysts use the software to work on budgeting and forecasting, inventory valuation, planning
and scenario analysis, pricing analytics,
proftability, stock-keeping unit (SKU)
rationalization, supply chain analysis and
variance analysis.
With this modular approach, the ac-
TOOLS TO TRY
Keytrollers CYBERWATCH SAT is a satellite wireless

hour, alarm and location meter designed to help monitor
and track equipment location in remote job sites such
as mines, logging sites, drilling rigs, offshore oil rigs
and international ships places that often lack Wi-Fi
connectivity. CYBERWATCH SAT uses the Iridium network
and transmits up to six-hour meter readings
and six alarm readings with
GPS location, once
per day. Operators
also can connect their
smartphones to the
device and use it as a
hub communicator.
counting professional also gets audit

capabilities to comply with audit rules,
such as the Sarbanes-Oxley regulations.
The familiar Windows environment
(C++ engine, ASP.Net web interface,
Windows graphical user interface)
makes adoption easier. The compatible
SQL and Oracle databases open the integration to other enterprise resource
planning, data warehousing and business
intelligence tools that use SQL or Oracle
as their database languages. ImpactECS
integrates Microsoft, Oracle and SAP
products to synergize their respective
Walther Trowals trowalplast HDC plastic media

is ideal for grinding and surface smoothing of
metal work pieces, especially die castings. The plastic
carrier flled with zirconium silicate combines the
advantages of lightweight plastic media with the high
density of the abrasive fller material, yielding metal
removal rates comparable to ceramic media. The HDC is
effective in all types of mass fnishing equipment.
The new Cranfeld Precision TTG machine, unlike conventional machine tool platforms, coordinates two rotary
axes and a short linear axis in a Twin Turret design.
This offers two main advantages: stiffness, as the new
machine base is effectively two rotary, highly damped
hydrostatic bearings that resist machining forces, and
thermal stability, as the design enables a simple noncontacting labyrinth seal, making the machine base almost
immune to distortions.
Mullers new
Raptor HPL
semi-automatic
turntable wrapping
machine can
wrap up to 35
loads per hour
and can create
customized wrap
patterns for each
application. In addition, patented strain-gauge technology
enables electronic flm feed and corner compensation. A
motorized power pre-stretch system with adjustable flm
tension control guarantees optimal flm usage. Film
tension control ensures superior load containment
and helps eliminate flm breaks and product
damage.
enterprise information systems.

Common language and calculation
models can be established across subsidiaries and divisional units to ensure uniformity across the enterprise. The software comes with secured databases and
user-determined access to the models,
engine and other functionalities. This
is critical, especially with a web-access
client user where a secured connection
must be made to ensure data integrity.
The software has two user interfaces
desktop client or web access client
which are supported by the backend
enterprise database server. The server

does the calculations, processing and
algorithmic operations for the fnance,
accounting and cost systems (FACS).
The client interfaces using graphic user
interfaces (GUI) to permit the users to
build cost models, perform analyses, run
queries and generate reports. While Excel may not be able to handle the complexity and demands of the FACS models, it can be used to review and analyze
the data. So ImpactECS comes with its
Excel add-in just to beneft from Excels
features and familiarity for the user.
55
the institute
Keeping pace with IISE
Come sooner, get more

Amazon facility tour kicks off Annual Conference a day early
The IIE Annual Conference and Expo always has been a
great deal for attendees, but this year all the content wouldnt
ft into the normal schedule.
So people who come a day early get the chance to visit the
Amazon Fulfllment Center in San Bernardino, California, a
key cog in the online merchandisers drive to dominate Internet retailing.
The conference is scheduled for May 21-24 at the Disneyland Resort Hotel in Anaheim, California. But the Amazon
tour will be held 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. May 20. Other visits include
facility tours to The Home Depot Distribution Center, Boeings Huntington Beach facility and Fruth Custom Plastics
Inc.s plastic extrusion/packing and manufacturing plant.
The tours cost an extra $40 for members, $50 for nonmembers. Check out the Facility Tours tab under Programs
at www.iise.org/a al for more details, including dress codes,
for each tour.
Below are more highlights of the conference:
Facility tour Amazon Fulfllment Center: Amazon

has been making history since it opened its virtual doors in
1995. Join your colleagues between 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. and
visit the online giants fulfllment center in San Bernardino.
interact with senior-level professors. Attendees must be

nominated and pre-register.
Pre-conference workshops: Strategic Lean Six Sigma Implementation using Hoshin Kanri, Error Proof
How to Understand and Minimize Daily Human Errors and The Sevens (A Collection of Quality-Related,
Problem-Solving Tools Frequently Used by Industrial Engineers to Assist Their Internal and External Clients), all
from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Networking reception: Attendees receive a complimentary ticket for this reception, which is scheduled from 6
p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Any additional guest tickets should be
bought during conference registration.
Saturday, May 21
Sunday, May 22
Doctoral colloquium: This all-day event is designed for

doctoral candidates expecting to graduate by spring 2017.
Panels of experts will lead discussions on topics that include
the job search, life in academia and industry, the tenure
process, teaching, research and professional services. Attendees must be nominated and pre-register.
New faculty colloquium: This all-day event is for new
faculty, specifcally junior faculty within their frst three
years on a tenure track. Information provided will help
participants navigate the challenges of an academic career.
Participants can ask questions, network with peers and
First-time attendee orientation: For those who never

have been to the worlds premier industrial and systems
engineering conference, this session, scheduled from 7:15
a.m. to 7:45 a.m., will educate them.
Keynote presentation Brian Betts: Betts, vice president of operations planning and insights with Walt Disney
Parks & Resorts, will speak from 9:30 a.m. to 10:45 a.m.
www.iise.org/a ual/Betts
Student networking mixer: From 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.,
sponsored by Flexsim and the Healthcare Systems Engineering Institute at Northeastern University
Friday, May 20
56
W Disney Parks and

Walt
Resorts Vice President
R
oof Operations Planning
aand Insights Brian
Betts, posing here with
B
Mickey Mouse at Walt
M
Disney World, is one of
D
tthree keynote speakers
sscheduled for the IIE
Annual Conference.
A
B
Boeing
software
eengineer Darin
Anderson
A
pprepares a Space
EEnvironmental
Nanostat
N
EExperiment
((SENSE) satellite
ffor fnal testing
aat the Boeing
Huntington Beach
H
ccampus, the site
oof a facility tour
aat this years
cconference.
The exhibit hall always draws a crowd.
Photo credit: Boeing photo
Welcome reception: Network and mingle with exhibitors and peers from 6:15 p.m. to 8 p.m. in the exhibit hall. Conference attendees receive one ticket. Any
additional tickets should be bought during conference
registration.
ABET workshop: The IISE Accreditation Advisory
Council again will sponsor this workshop from 1 p.m. to
5 p.m. to help industrial engineering and industrial engineering technology department chairs and assessment
coordinators prepare for upcoming ABET accreditation
visits. The session can accommodate up to 40 people, and
pre-registration is required. To pre-register, email Bonnie
Cameron at bcameron@iise.org.
tion centers wire-guided, VNA swing reach lifts, pick to

light, RF units, and light automation for the shipping and
outbound load stations. The tour will cover receiving, putaway, replenishment, quality control and shipping of orders
with some production-related data.
Honors and awards dinner and dessert reception:
IISE formally recognizes the accomplishments of prominent practitioners and students with a variety of awards.
This event carries an additional fee, and tickets must be
purchased before the conference. The dinner and ceremony will be held from 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., followed by
the dessert reception until 10:30 p.m.
Monday, May 23
Tuesday, May 24
Keynote presentation Phil Kaminsky: Kaminsky,

professor and chair of industrial engineering and operations research at the University of California, Berkeley,
will speak from 9:30 a.m. to 10:45 a.m. www.iise.org/
a al/Kami sky
Exhibit hall: Exhibitors will be on hand to give attendees
a chance to learn about useful products and services. The
hall will be open from 10:45 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Facility tour The Home Depot Distribution Center: The 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. tour will highlight one of
Home Depots reconfgured distribution centers. The rapid
deployment centers are a relatively new distribution concept designed to get merchandise onto store shelves faster.
Facility tour Newegg OPC Distribution Center:
This tour, from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., will show off the distribu-
Facility tour The Boeing Co.: Boeings Huntington

Beach facility, built in 1962, sits on 188 acres and has a
heritage that includes the Saturn space program. This tour
is from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. and limited to U.S. citizens.
Keynote presentation Jack ReVelle: ReVelle of
ReVelle Solutions LLC will speak from 9:30 a.m. to
10:45 a.m. www.iise.org/a ual/ReVelle
Exhibit hall: Exhibitors will be open from 10:45 a.m. to
4 p.m.
Facility tour, Fruth Custom Plastics Inc.: Tour this
plastic extrusion/packing and manufacturing plant from
1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Fruths 38,000-square-foot facility in
north Orange County now houses more than 10 extruders, multiple clean rooms and a plethora of hand and automatic machinery.
57
The institute
training
time
Intro to IE in
Healthcare
June 13-14, Norcross,
Georgia
This course will address
the differences between
traditional industry
and healthcare from an
industrial engineering
perspective and equip
you with the information and tools you need
to be a successful IE in
healthcare.
Introduction to
Industrial Engineering
June 6-8, Norcross,
Georgia
Project Management
Fundamentals
June 9-10, Norcross,
Georgia
Six Sigma Green
Belt for Process
Improvement
June 21-23, Los Angeles;
July 12-14, Norcross,
Georgia
Lean Green Belt
June 28-30, Los Angeles
Healthcare Labor
Management
June 29 - July 1, Norcross,
Georgia
For more information

and registration, go to
www.iisetraining.org.
58
Institutional transformation
President-elect Hartman wants IISE to be
the keeper of knowledge of our feld
In the next three years, IISE President-elect Joe Hartman
hopes to help transform the institute into the content provider for everyone who cares about what industrial and
systems engineers do.
I think if someone said the word productivity or quality and they assumed that it meant IISE, then wed all be
President-elect Joe Hartman said a
happy, said Hartman, who took his new post on April 1.
number of quality and productivity
Obviously, IISE isnt at that point yet. Hartman, the
professionals worldwide need
dean of engineering at the University of Massachusetts, IISE training and the industrial
Lowell, hopes that fact changes some in his next three engineering skill set.
years on the IISE board as he transitions to president and
immediate past president. He said institute members generate a ton of great content, but assembling
that information, making it accessible and sharing it in a way that maximizes its use so it can affect,
rather than react to, policy will be the key to growing the institute.
Hartman said he enjoys the monthly news updates he gets from IISE, which members can opt
to receive. But, he said, the American Society for Engineering Education sends out a daily digest
of whats going on in the world of engineering and engineering education. It has helped his life
because he doesnt have to peruse multiple media outlets to fnd what he wants. And the idea of
IISE trawling daily for key words and pointing out articles in The Wall Street Jour al, The New York
Times or The Washi gto Post about how Boeings new production scheme improved productivity
is appealing.
That stuff is happening all the time, and it fnds its way into the major news media, Hartman
said. And to attach IISEs name with these leaps forward in productivity in the real world might
help engage more folks in what we do around here, whether they be industry partners or academics
looking to partner with industry and solve real problems.
For example, Hartman recently visited an alumna of his who is a vice president of operations for
a Fortune 500 company. The materials engineering graduate had walls pasted with charts full of
production schedules, quality data, lead-times, quotas industrial and systems engineering stuff.
Hartman joked that she had become an IE, and she responded that she wished she was. So many
people without an underlying ISE degree are working in our feld, Hartman said, and they need
ISE skills.
You start to understand why our profession and our society are so important, Hartman said.
We dont own operations, but we sure know a whole lot about them. The point is that we can
help this person, and thats the exciting part about being president, knowing that theres this other
group, and I think I see that even more vividly now that Im at a [university] that doesnt have
industrial engineering.
Hartman knows the board has a lot of work to do in fnding the right channels and what people
want, but the way society communicates with each other and gets information has changed tremendously in the last decade, and IISE needs to keep up.
But I do know this: I think its imperative that IISE becomes a keeper of the knowledge of our
feld. Thats what we want to be, the one-stop shop for solutions.
IISE reaches decision makers in an

important cross-section of industries
From academia to warehousing, IIÊ unites those committed
to improving quality, efficiency and productivity. No other
organization can help your company effectively reach this
diverse audience, which looks to IIÊ to provide relevant
research and useful content on professional areas like lean,
quality, Six Sigma, project management, supply chain
management, work methods and much more.
Choose from all that IIÊ offers, including print advertising in
IÊ (formerly Industrial Engineer) and Industrial Management
magazines, custom e-blasts to your selected audience,
banner advertising in e-newsletters or on the website,
custom and sponsored webinars and more. IIÊ audiences
include more than 14,000 members and an additional
16,000 loyal customers.
We can help you create a cohesive, multfaceted presence
that will brand your company to current and prospectve
customers and will help you meet your sales goals.
For more information about IIÊs advertising options,
contact Hope Teague at (770) 349-1127 or hteague@iise.org.
59
The institute
Modeling hope
National Capital Chapter picks Idaho Future City team for IISE award
A team of middle-schoolers from Sacred
Heart Catholic School in Boise, Idaho,
took home IISEs Excellence in Systems
Integration award at the 2016 Future
City National Finals.
Daisy OSullivan, Juliette Crichton
and Coleman Froehlke designed their
city of Mottainai in the country of Sri
Lanka. Their educator was Carol Gado
and their engineer mentor was Daniel
Gado.
The team designed a system to use
anaerobic digestion to recycle the citys
waste, coordinated Mottainais control
systems with a single communications
tower and explained these systems and
their design process with detailed fow
charts and trade-off analyses.
The trade-off analysis particularly intrigued the judging team of Theodore
Nehemias, Joe Scheibeler and William
Liu from IISEs National Capital chapter.
It was really impressive how well
they knew the technologies they were
using in their cities, Nehemias said. I
mean theyre middle-schoolers, and you
think about what you were doing in
middle school, playing sports, and they
Sacred Heart Catholic School in Boise, Idaho, won the IISE Excellence in Systems
Integration award at the 2016 Future City National Finals.
are thoroughly discussing very technical

emerging technologies.
Nehemias, an IE in Baltimore and director of student affairs for the National
Capital chapter, said viewing the model
cities and talking to the 37 teams helped
encourage hope for the future.
You kind of get bogged down in
your day to day, so its kind of cool to see
whats coming up in [the] future from
the emerging technology standpoint
and also what engineers will be working
with in 15 to 20 years, he said.

Future City is a national competition
where middle-school students use SimCity to imagine, design and build model
cities of the future. This years theme
was waste management, and the fnals
were held Feb. 13-16 at the Capital Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C. Future
City is part of DiscoverEs suite of engineering outreach programs that includes
National Engineers Week, DiscoverE
Girl Day and DiscoverE Family Day.
Leaders, come forth

Nominate candidates for BOT, other posts by May 9
Nominations for election to the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers board of trustees and other leadership positions are due by May 9.
To nominate yourself or a colleague, email a brief biography
or resum and contact information to nominations@iise.org,
or mail the information to Donna Calvert, IISE, 3577 Parkway Lane, Suite 200, Norcross, GA 30092. IISE must receive
nominations by May 9.
60
The election is scheduled for December. Winners take offce in April 2017.
The three open BOT positions are president-elect; senior
vice president, publications; and senior vice president, technical operations.
Members also will pick a technical operations vice president
and region vice presidents for three regions: Mid-Atlantic,
Great Lakes and Canada.
kudos. Celebrate member achievements.
Jean Ann Larson, president of

Jean Ann Larson & Associates, has
been named leadership development
offcer for the University of AlabamaBirmingham Health System. She
also received the HIMSS 2015 Book
of the Year award for Organizational
and Process Reengineering Approaches for Healthcare Transformation. Larson is a diplomate in SHS.
Behrokh Khoshnevis, a professor

of industrial and systems engineering at the University of Southern California, took the $10,000 frst prize in
NASAs In-Situ Materials Challenge.
Planetary Fabrication of Complex
Metallic/Ceramic Objects with InSitu Resources describes how to
use native materials to reduce the
need to ship such objects from Earth.
Brion Hurley, a lean Six Sigma

consultant and webmaster for IISEs
Sustainable Development Division,
helped lead a team of Rockwell
Collins employees in Wilsonville,
Oregon, to achieve the Leaders in
Sustainability Gold Level certifcation from Clackamas County.
Ricardo Valerdi has been elected

to the Mexican Academy of Engineering. The associate professor of
industrial and systems engineering
at the University of Arizona is ISE
magazines Systems Engineering
columnist and the former co-editorin-chief of the IISE and INCOSE Journal of Enterprise Transformation.
SHARE YOUR ACHIEVEMENT

Let your peers know about hirings, promotions, awards, appointments and other notable accomplishments.
Send Kudos items to Michael Hughes at mhughes@iise.org.
chapter
check-in
Better fow for the PGA

Eastern Iowa-Western Illinois chapter gets crowds in and out of John Deere Classic
Dramatic fnishes at the PGA John Deere Classic have drawn

increasing crowds, creating a bottleneck on the two-way
road leading into the clubhouse at TPC Deere Run in Silvis,
Illinois.
The bottleneck had increased travel times for patrons, pro
golfers and tournament support staff. So tournament directors
turned to the experts, reaching out last year to the local Quad
Cities Manufacturing Innovation Hub and IISE chapter for
help.
Eastern Iowa-Western Illinois Chapter President Jonathan
Frye, a quality engineer at HNI Corp., said 12 volunteers
worked on the problem to cut wait times in half on Sunday,
the tournaments fnal day. Basically, every piece of traffc entering and leaving the tournament had to pass through one
roundabout.
The team looked at the idea of queuing, loading and sequencing of buses to get people in and out. Frye said the tournament didnt have a good queuing system, so the industrial
engineers set up fow lanes and ways to queue people properly.
They also started the lines earlier and gave traffc offcers a set
of rules on how to let people fow through.
It wasnt mind blowing stuff, just simple things, Frye said.
In 2014, it took about 3.5 hours to get everybody out of the
tournament. After the engineering interventions in August
2015, the process took about 1.5 hours, Frye said. And engineers are looking at the data to suggest more improvements.
So far, the numbers back up what the IISE team originally

thought the PGA Tour event simply has too many people
moving through one roundabout.
We have pitched the idea of adding a turnaround earlier in
the drive so that we could reduce the fow through the fnal
turnaround by kind of splitting it between the two, along with
keeping vehicles that dont belong in that area down at the
clubhouse, Frye said.
Members enjoyed the work, and one day of volunteering
got each person a pass to watch the rest of the four-day tournament.
We had a blast, Frye said. Everybody who volunteered
was excited and asking when were going to do it again.
61
The institute
Quality training makes a difference
I recently
IISE
ooffered a Six Sigma
ggreen belt course
aat the College of
EElectrical Engineers,
Mechanical and
M
IIndustrial (CIEMI)
iin Costa Rica.
TThe institutes
iinternational training
hhas increased
oover the past few
yyears with courses
iin China, Saudi
Arabia, Hungary,
A
Mexico, Nigeria, the
M
Dominican Republic
D
aand Germany.
Employ IISEs
online resources
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62
SAVE THE DATE

for the
CONFERENCE 2017
March 27-30, 2017

Disneys Coronado Springs Resort
Orlando, Fla.
63
the frontline
careers
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN
DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRIAL AND ENTERPRISE SYSTEMS ENGINEERING

Jerry S. Dobrovolny Chair in Systems Engineering and Design (F1500093)
The Department of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering at the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign invites applications for a full-time faculty position at the rank of full professor
in the area of large scale systems engineering and design. This position is supported by a $2M
endowment. We are seeki g a preemi e t scholar who uses a multidiscipli ary approach to the study of systems
e gi eeri g a d desig . We are especially i terested i
isio ary leader whose research age da will co tribute to
our campus excelle ce.
The Department offers a comprehensive research program covering many major areas in industrial and
systems engineering such as data analytics, decision and control systems, design and manufacturing,
fnancial engineering and operations research. The Department offers B.S. degrees in Industrial
Engineering and in General Engineering (to be renamed Systems Engineering and Design), and M.S.
and Ph.D. degrees in Industrial Engineering and in Systems and Entrepreneurial Engineering.
Applicants at the rank of full professor will be considered. Successful candidates are expected to direct
graduate students in research, teach in the undergraduate and graduate programs, and develop a strong
externally-funded research program in the area of systems engineering and design. Salary will be
commensurate with qualifcations and experience. Candidates must have outstanding track records,
and a PhD in Industrial Engineering, Systems Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a closely
related discipline.
Application materials must be submitted to http://jobs.illi ois.edu. The application package should
include a statement of teaching and research interests, a curriculum vitae with email contact address,
a publication list, and names and contact information of four references. Review of applications will
be ongoing, and will continue until the position is flled. The proposed start date is August 16, 2016.
Questions should be referred to Shawna Graddy, sgraddy@illinois.edu, (217) 244-8788.
The University of Illinois conducts criminal background checks on all job candidates upon acceptance
of a contingent offer. Illinois is an equal opportunity employer and all qualifed applicants will receive
consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, sex, age, status
as a protected veteran, or status as a qualifed individual with a disability. Illinois welcomes individuals
with diverse backgrounds, experiences, and ideas who embrace and value diversity and inclusivity
(www.i clusiveilli ois.illi ois.edu). We have an active and successful dual-career partner placement
program and a strong commitment to work-life balance and family-friendly programs for faculty and
staff (http://provost.illi ois.edu/worklife/i dex.html).
64
PENSKE TRUCK LEASING

Oracle Apps DBA needed to support and grow
Oracle applications environment (Oracle E-Business
Suite) and adapt Oracle application architecture
with needs of organization. Applicants will qualify
w/a Masters Degree in Comp. Science, Comp.
Applications, Info. Systems, Business, or related
feld. Alternatively, employer will accept Bachelors
Degree or equivalent combined education in one
of felds above or a related feld followed by 5 years
of progressively responsible exp. in job offered or as
a comp. programmer. Exp. must include ability to
understand needs of development staff & recommend
performance optimization for databases; Oracle
E-Business Suite; Oracle 10g, 11g RAC installation,
confguration, and upgrading; Oracle running on
RedHat Linux; RMAN; SQL and PL/SQL. Any
suitable combination of education, training, or
experience is acceptable. F/T in Reading, PA.
Send resume & cover letter by mail (no calls please)
to: Mgr. of Workforce Diversity, Penske Truck
Leasing, Rt. 10 Green Hills, P.O. Box 563,
Reading PA 19603.
INSTITUTE OF INDUSTRIAL AND SYSTEMS ENGINEERS
Leverage IISEs diverse audience that spans industries to fnd

your next quality hire. IISE reaches thousands of professionals
in industries like manufacturing, management, healthcare,
transportation, construction, retail, military and academia.
Reach more than 14,000 experienced and passionate
candidates with an ad in ISE magazine. Your ad will also
appear with clickable links in the digital copy of the magazine.
Ensure your job advertisement reaches top candidates by
advertising in this award-winning publication.
For the best results, advertise with both a print advertisement
in ISE magazine as well as an online posting on the IISE
website Career Center. With this effective strategy you will
reach both passive as well active jobseekers from the IISE
audience and receive a 10% discount on the entire order.
Contact Hope Teague
for more information and rates at
(770) 349-1127 or hteague@iise.org.
65
final five
with Hui Yang, industrial engineer

and associate professor, Penn State
Hui Yang is a professor, mentor and advisor to

students at Pennsylvania State University who
are studying industrial engineering. He is also an
IE investigator and active member of professional
and societal industrial engineer communities.
Yang earned the CAREER award for Early
Career Development from the National Science
Foundation.
What inspired you to

pursue a career in
industrial engineering?
customization, responsiveness and quality on an unprecedented scale.
Data is everywhere in the industry. I

am interested at digging into the most
useful information from the data and
leveraging them for optimal design,
management and control of state-ofthe-art industrial systems. Connecting theory with industrial practice for
broader impact to our society led me to
a career in IE.
How does industrial

engineering apply to other
aspects of your life besides
teaching?
Your project, sensor-based

modeling and control
of nonlinear dynamics
in complex systems for
quality improvements
in manufacturing and
healthcare, won the CAREER
award. What motivated you
to tackle this project?
Many industries, including manufacturing and healthcare, have identifed
the urgent need to harness and exploit
nonlinear dynamics arising whenever
multifarious entities of a system cooperate, compete or interfere to introduce
creative new products or services with
remarkable features, such as adaptation,
66
As an IE we are customized to optimize

systems of interests and achieve maximal
effciency. This is not just in teaching but
also in daily life. I am used to the optimization of time management in daily
life, and I have developed a habit to make
things effcient for example, the space
in the refrigerator, the garage or the path
taken in travel.
How do your students affect

your industrial engineering
research?
Students are big contributors to the research. We have fun working together
to brainstorm new ideas, investigate
new problems, develop new methods
and tools and disseminate the signifcant results. They learned in the process
and have grown in the process. I have
also learned to become a better mentor,
guiding them in the process of scientific discovery. I am devoted to building
the successful development of graduate

students and am so excited to witness
their growth. Everyone in the group
has a unique perspective on the research
problem (high school research students,
undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty members). We, as a team,
work on the development of new ideas
and implement them for real-world applications.
What industries do you feel

would beneft most from
your research and industrial
engineering?
As an IE, I have worked on sensor-based
modeling and control of manufacturing
systems for years. Recently, I worked
closely with clinicians and healthcare
researchers. I am always excited about
research investigations into the most sophisticated machine, the human heart,
with my collaborators. I have seen the
suffering as patients at the hospital battle
heart problems. The human machine
is very complex. I work with doctors,
physiologists, statisticians and IEs with
a long-term aim to tackle this medical
problem to improve the health of our
society.
IIE Annual Begins This Month!

You can still register for the largest ISE event of the year
On-site registration is now available for the IIE Annual Conference and Expo. Join
IISE in Anaheim, Calif., for access to top workshops, thought leadership events,
case studies, research and networking with the worlds leading industrial and
systems engineers.
Learn from the Best During Facility Tours

IISE has secured exclusive access behind the scenes at some of the nations top
continuous improvement facilities. Reserve your spot when you register on site.
May 23
The Home Depot Distribution Center
8:30 11:30 a.m.
May 24
Fruth Custom Plastics Inc.
1 3 p.m.
Newegg OPC Distribution Center

1 3 p.m.
Pre-Conference Spots Still Available

There are still spots available for the March 21 pre-conference events. Register
now to update your skills and put yourself ahead of the game.
Strategic Lean Six Sigma Implementation Using Hoshin Kanri
Error Proof - How to Understand and Minimize Daily Human Errors
The Sevens (A Collection of Quality-Related, Problem-Solving Tools
Frequently Used by Industrial Engineers to Assist Their Internal and
External Clients)
Register now at
www.iise.org/Annual
67
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Keep staff informed

POP huddle: CT department

Date: Tuesday 1/26

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CT machine 2 down for repairs

Kelly called in sick for today's shift.

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Increasingly, technology impacts every facet of our life.