Twelve students from the University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering were recently recognized as the Best Student Chapter at the Region 5 Institute of Industrial Engineers Student Conference.
The conference is organized around a technical paper competition. But the student chapters were also able to compete as teams in contest that involved building a sorting machine and duct taping a member of their team to a concrete wall.
"We had to figure out what was the best method to keep them up on the wall the longest," said Robert Whitaker, president of the IIE Student Chapter at UH.
The UH students were accompanied to the conference in Fayetteville, Arkansas, by their faculty advisor, Lawrence Schulze, associate professor of industrial engineering. Two students, Philip Kurtz and Veronica Gonzalez, presented technical papers.
"The way the system works is that each Industrial Engineering department in the region gives students an opportunity to present some kind of industrial engineering technical paper," Schulze explains. "The school selects one or two people to present their papers at the regional conference."
The other part of the conference is the Student Chapter Competition, which is factored by scores from the technical papers and the student competitions. Teams can earn points in various ways, including points awarded for the number of students at the conference and the distance they traveled.
Philip Kurtz presented a technical paper on improving chemical dispensing systems, like cleaning chemicals, in secured facilities like jails or prisons. "It is something I do in my work and I thought it would be a good topic for industrial engineering because it is about improving an existing system," Kurtz says. "I was pleased with how well-received it was."
Schulze described Veronica Gonzalez's paper as very unique because it was the only paper that talked about engineering management. "She compared corporate organizational theory to beehives," Schulze says. "She looked at natural interrelationships of working bees and compared it to cross-training in the workplace. The judges were visibly impressed with her choice of topic."
The students felt that they benefited particularly from the networking opportunities. Both Gonzalez and Kurtz were approached afterward by judges and professors who wanted to know if they could pass along their papers to other people. "It was gratifying to see the professionals come up to us and say they liked our ideas," Kurtz says.