FRONTLINE - College of Engineering - North Carolina State University

engineering
without borders
Engineering students
help “Stop Hunger Now”
Senior design projects help global food aid program
Each day more than 30,000 people die of starvation around
the world. It is a crisis highlighted during World Refugee
Day and in the national and international media. While the
causes vary, the short-term solution is the same — send food
aid to the areas hardest hit. It is a monumental task requiring
countless hours of work by volunteers and aid workers.
At North Carolina State University, a group of students in
the Edward P. Fitts Department of Industrial and Systems
Engineering used their industrial engineering skills to help
a global food aid organization improve its process for pre-
paring and shipping meals to more than 55 countries in
crisis. The students, all seniors completing their capstone
design course, worked with Stop Hunger Now to improve its
Raleigh warehouse operation. The projects were coordinated
through the Engineers Without Borders chapter at NC State.
“The projects actually started as a result of efforts by one of
our students, Kate Hensley, who was working with the uni-
versity’s Engineers Without Borders chapter,” said Clarence
Smith, assistant head of the department and project design
course instructor. “Unfortunately she wasn’t able to work
NC State University College of Engineering
with this first set of projects, but she was able to coordinate
the senior design students’ projects with the needs of Stop
Hunger Now.”
The students formed three design teams, each with a specific
task assigned. Team 1 studied the warehouse layout and
developed a new layout for storage and production and to
improve the flow of materials from delivery of raw goods to
finished product ready to ship. Team 2 focused on the supply
chain functions, and Team 3 created an inventory control and
management database. Dr. Michael Kay, associate professor
of industrial and systems engineering at NC State, served as
project adviser.
After the students assessed the operation and the areas
needing the most improvement, they worked through the
semester to find workable solutions. At the end of the semes-
ter the teams presented their recommendations to Chad
Stutsman, program director for Operation Sharehouse, the
food distribution arm of Stop Hunger Now. The students’
reports helped Stutsman improve the organization and flow
of materials at the Raleigh facility. The inventory control and
management database will be used in the Raleigh facility
and at the Charlotte and new South Hill, Va., facilities, which
opened in July 2006.
“The students’ projects helped organize the warehouse and
programs in a way that I can adapt to future growth,” said
Stutsman. “I used most of the recommendations in the
warehouse, and the database was very well done. It will be
used in all of our current facilities and in the planned facility
in Mississippi. I’m very grateful to the NC State students for
their hard work on this project.” �