Our Major Qualifying Project was to assess and improve the efficiency of student workspaces at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) by applying industrial engineering techniques to three different campus buildings: Gordon Library, Higgins Laboratories, and the Innovation Studio. We had set our focus primarily on Gordon Library. Each of these workspaces possesses a unique set of needs and functions. The rationale of our team completing this project was to ensure that the design of student workspaces was fulfilled by considering consumer, space optimization, and resource utilization needs. Furthermore, our team recognized that a common problem faced in industrial operations is that stakeholders are not always aware of industrial engineering principles. Therefore, the design of such spaces are sometimes inefficient, underutilized, or wasteful. For these reasons, our team completed this project to analyze the current operation of the three aforementioned workspaces to highlight potential utilization and optimization flaws, while making recommendations to ensure the development of a more efficient workspace as alterations are made in the future. To produce these recommendations, our team used several different methods including: axiomatic design and analysis, survey distribution and analysis, and space optimization techniques. Due to the unique nature of each building, the results that the methods produced differed for each building. The results for Gordon Library indicated that the area for improvement was in space optimization. Thus, our team used survey data and space optimization methodologies to recommend improvements to the floor plan. These floor plans prioritized the resources that had the highest student usage during a term. We also recommended that the library consider the usage of visual capacity and availability displays to inform library users of the current availability status. The results for Higgins Laboratories indicated a need for an inventory management system. To fulfill this need, our team recommended an inventory and parts ordering system that uses both an Excel spreadsheet and a google form. Finally, for the Innovation Studio, the results displayed a need for improved methods to track space and resource utilization. Thus, we recommended the implementation of an occupancy tracker. We also recommended techniques such as collecting student feedback on the resources used during a term as well as a training decision tree to help with issues they were experiencing. Overall, our research confirmed phenomena of Industrial Engineering principles such as the Red Bead Experiment in which a system operates only as well as the process allows, and the importance of approaching problems using Axiomatic Design methodologies.

• This report represents the work of one or more WPI undergraduate students submitted to the faculty as evidence of completion of a degree requirement. WPI routinely publishes these reports on its website without editorial or peer review.

Creator

• Dinatale, Nickalas
• Hicks, Kaelyn
• DiCroce, William
• Bae, Ethan
• Gonzalez, Erin

Publisher

• Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Identifier

• E-project-022722-145206
• 48301

Keyword

• Innovation Studio
• Gordon Library
• Industrial Engineering
• Space Optimization
• Axiomatic Design
• Higgins Laboratory

Advisor

• Towner, Walter Thomas
• Gonsalves, Edward Martins

Year

• 2022

Date created

• 2022-02-27

Resource type

• Major Qualifying Project

Major

• Management Engineering
• Industrial Engineering

Rights statement

• In Copyright