A mutually beneficial partnership
The Wm Michael Barnes '64 Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Texas A&M University is looking for small businesses and companies interested in providing valuable hands-on experience to our graduating seniors, while reaping the benefits of our faculty's experience and expertise.
Industrial and systems engineering is a broad discipline with applications in nearly every aspect of the corporate/industrial world. As industrial engineers, we deal with systems and their design, implementation, improvement and integration. These may be systems of people, material, information or energy. Past capstone projects have addressed issues of forecasting, scheduling, travel/transportation/logistics, facility layout, inventory control, quality assurance, six sigma and lean manufacturing, and production.
Here's how it works
- Groups of four to five students are paired with a corporate partner by course instructors.
- Together, the company and the students identify problems or areas of concern within the business.
- The students propose methods for verifying, analyzing and solving those problems.
- A final report containing the students' observations, analysis and recommendations is provided to the company. (Note: you are not required to implement any of the students' recommendations, though we are quite confident you will want to.)
Throughout the 15-week course, students are supervised by the course instructors and a faculty mentor from the department and provide updates to the project sponsor.
Your company can benefit
We are dedicated to preparing our students for careers as industrial engineers and are proud to have this opportunity to partner with highly-qualified, respected and dedicated industry professionals. For the recommended donation to the department, your company can benefit from this expertise.
Sponsors are continuously sought for our fall (August–December) and spring (January–May) semesters. If you are interested in becoming a sponsor and establishing or continuing your relationship with the department, please contact us for more information.
Become a sponsor
Sponsorship helps our students and our sponsors. Over the years, the industrial and systems engineering department has had many different types of projects with different types of sponsor arrangements.
The objective of the design course is to teach senior engineering students a top-down, systems design process that enables and encourages innovation, and have them apply this process to a challenging design project to help them internalize the process. Thus, the nature and scope of potential projects is broad and open to discussion.
A wide range of projects are suitable. The ideal project challenges the students both creatively and technically. Design problems that require or benefit from the design and construction of a prototype or physical experiment (that can be constructed within the time frame of the class) are also desirable. Projects should be of current interest to the company to maximize sponsor benefit. Sponsors provide a point-of-contact mentor that serves as both a key customer and provides technical feedback to the students.
Though students do acquire technical domain knowledge related to the design problem and the sponsor’s industry and challenges, problems that require significant experience and specific domain knowledge are generally not preferred. The students are graduating undergraduate engineers, thus, they have a solid knowledge of industrial and systems engineering basics, but lack experience in a specific technical domain.
Submit a Proposal for a Senior Design Project
You can create, edit and submit your senior design project ideas electronically. Proposals can be submitted at any time, so please be sure to indicate which semester you would like your proposal project to be run.
Thank You!
We would like to acknowledge and thank our past and current corporate sponsors for their time and effort in support of our senior capstone design course. We look forward to continuing the growth of these corporate relationships, in addition to establishing new partners for the future. Thank you to those involved in cultivating the next generation of industrial and systems engineers.