2018 Design Symposium winners announced

Tuesday, March 20, 2018

The 2018 Management Engineering Design Symposium was held on Friday, March 16. Eleven teams of 4th year management engineering students showcased their innovative designs. The event was very well attended, with all projects evaluated by a number of professors, graduate students, and management engineering alumni. In addition, projects were also evaluated by all other visitors, who helped select the People's Choice Award. Videos of all projects can be viewed in the YouTube channel of the Department of Management Sciences

After the symposium, students, professors, and alumni gathered at the Bombshelter Pub for an awards reception.

The 1st place was awarded to Team 4 on their project TA Works: Improving end-to-end TA assignment process (project video), advised by Prof. Mark Smucker. The team helped design a new decision support tool to facilitate the process of assigning teaching assistants to courses in the Department of Management Sciences.

Team 4: Amy Leblond, Sarah Watts, Laura Dobson, Johnson Kan

Members (left to right): Amy Leblond, Sarah Watts, Laura Dobson, Johnson Kan

The 2nd place was awarded to Team 10 on their project Rapid Performance: A visualization on job shop statistics (project video), supervised by Prof. Bissan Ghaddar. The team worked with a local manufacturing company - Rapid Gear - to improve the visualization and accuracy of production scheduling.

Michael Cottenden, Lara Murshid, Lama Khadra, Jordan Adamich

Members (left to right): Michael Cottenden, Lara Murshid, Lama Khadra, Jordan Adamich

The 3rd place was awarded to Team 1 on their project Determining optimal operating hours at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (project video), supervised by Prof. Hossein Abouee Mehrizi. The team worked with one of the largest cancer care centres in the world to support decision making with regards to opening and closing operating rooms in order to reduce uncertainty around scheduling of nurses.

Team 1: Dale Drasnin, Maisie Brown, Patricia Hall, Connor O'Brien, Michelle Indyarta

Members (left to right): Dale Drasnin, Maisie Brown, Patricia Hall, Connor O'Brien, Michelle Indyarta

Team 1 was also previously a winner of the 2017-2018 Baylis Medical Capstone Design Awards and 2nd prize winners at the 2018 Design Analysis Competition, sponsored by ANSYS AIM.

Team 5 - Picksta: An iOS app to help users with their picture selection process (project video) - supervised by Prof. Stan Dimitrov, won the People's Choice Award. Picksta is an iOS application that helps people choose one picture from a large number of pictures by walking them through a series of steps that involve grouping algorithms, narrow down functionality and side by side comparison.

Team 5: Tulin Akdogan, Sarah Salem, Hayley Smith, Rudra Bhatt

Members (left to right): Tulin Akdogan, Sarah Salem, Hayley Smith, Rudra Bhatt

Finally, Team 6 was celebrated for their project Pistachio: We make trip planning easier (project video), supervised by Prof. Stan Dimitrov. Earlier this year, the team placed third provincially at the Ontario Engineering Competition in the Innovative Design competition.

Team 6: Tara Tsang, Shivam Sharma, Stefanno Da Silva, Julie Yu

Members (left to right): Tara Tsang, Shivam Sharma, Stefanno Da Silva, Julie Yu