At a time when 97% of Americans were under stay-at-home or shelter-in-place orders, where life as we knew it was upended in a matter of weeks, my Capstone Design course at Georgia Tech saw 218 senior undergraduates in 30 groups deliver high-value industrial and systems engineering solutions to partner clients including Delta Airlines, Starbucks, Emory Healthcare, and The Home Depot. In the design solutions that these seniors completed – and more fundamentally – how they completed them, were strong signals of how we can all realize incredible efficiencies.
In my pre-pandemic classes, I usually banned the use of cellphones. Computers would be allowed only when I’d tell the students, “Open your notebook and work on analyzing demand data, calculating throughput capacity, or estimating the value and impact of your design.” The environment I sought to curate for my students was built on decades-long history of industrial engineering working norms, which regard distractions as the enemy. And collaboration best occurs through face-to-face engagement and dynamic exchanges of ideas, coupled with rigorous data exploration and analysis.
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