Team 21 Proposal:
Addressing line queuing and wait times
in University Dining Courts
for
Purdue Dining & Catering
Report from Team 21 as a part of IE 431: Industrial Engineering Design
Team 21 members:
Simran Ahuja
Kyle Alvarado
Peiran Gu
Jessica Stahly
Cluster Leader: Bobby Vaziri
February 13, 2014
Addressing Line Queuing and Wait Time in University Dining Courts
Team 21
Febrary 13, 2014
IE 431: Industrial Engineering Design
Table of Contents
Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................. i
1. Introduction/Statement of Need............................................................................................... 1
2. Recommended Approach ........................................................................................................ 2
3. Expected Results...................................................................................................................... 4
4. Project Cost.............................................................................................................................. 6
5. Appendix A: Project Cost ........................................................................................................ 7
6. Appendix B: Gantt Chart ......................................................................................................... 9
7. Appendix C: Team Resumes ................................................................................................... 9
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Addressing Line Queuing and Wait Time in University Dining Courts
Team 21
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IE 431: Industrial Engineering Design
Introduction/Statement of Need
Purdue Dining and Catering is a division of Purdue University Housing and Food
Services that encompasses residential dining, retail dining, catering, and food stores on Purdue
University’s campus. Purdue Housing and Food Services values a highly collaborative
environment that is focused on learning. They seek to be stewards of their resources, accountable
and respective, clear in their purpose and vision, team-oriented and community builders while
seeking excellence and innovation.
Purdue Dining’s mission includes inspiring students, staff, and community success. To
accomplish this mission, they look to provide a safe and healthy environment, foster diversity
and inclusion, operate in a fiscally responsible manner, maintain a progressive sustainable
approach, improve food quality, increase access to dining options, and continuously improve
services.
The current problem associated with Purdue Dining Courts includes long wait times and
overcrowding of the dining courts’ lobbies. With the growing number of students and projected
growth in the future, this is an essential issue that needs immediate attention.
Team 21 is expected to observe guest wait times at the university dining courts and
propose a solution to queuing the lines and also increasing student awareness of the line situation
during peak operational hours.
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IE 431: Industrial Engineering Design
Recommended Approach
Purdue Dining is in need of a better system of queuing students and also getting the
students out of the elements while they are waiting in line at the dining courts. Team 21 has
developed a multi-tiered approach to research the problem and come up with the best possible
solutions.
Observation and Research
First, Team 21 will spend time in the dining court lobbies, observing the lines and student
behavior. Observation in the lobbies will help the team see how line formation occurs at each
dining court. There are many differences between the various dining court lobbies that will
contribute to queuing of the lines, including:

Number of doors

Lobby layouts

Space Constraints

Location with respect to other buildings
By observing the lobbies, the team should also get a feel for what times of the day are the
peak times for each dining court. These peak times are the times line queuing problems occur
most often, so the team should focus on finding solutions for the busiest hours of the day.
Team 21 will also talk to students that use the dining courts regularly and get feedback.
In a recent survey, students listed “long line waits” as a major factor to their dissatisfaction with
the dining courts. Administrative staff at Purdue Dining indicated that they take student feedback
very seriously, and they would like to see student feedback be included as a major factor in the
final solution that is proposed.
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The team will also research how dining systems at other schools manage their lines
effectively. An approach of this manner will bring about new ideas and help the team to
brainstorm solutions to the problem.
Development of Solution
After collecting data, talking to students, and researching what other dining systems do to
reduce wait times, the team will look to develop the best possible solution to the problem. First
of all, the team will be calculating the area of the lobbies. This will also give the team an idea of
how to route the lines into the dining courts for smooth operation. Depending on the shape and
location of the doors, the team will conclude how different doors will be used for entering and
exiting. Listed below are classes that will be used in conjunction with this project.
Figure 1: Purdue courses relating to project
Other ideas includes installation of a camera in each dining court lobby and connecting
its IP address with the Purdue dining app for smartphones. This idea was suggested by Ken
Field, the Interim Director of Residential Dining. According to him, this will help the students to
look at the dining court lobby and assess where to go eat depending on the number of people
present in each lobby. Team 21 will utilize this idea and look into it further throughout the course
of the project.
Overall, there are two main objectives of this project. The first includes trying to help
students help themselves make informed decisions on which dining court to attend based on line
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wait times, menus, and location. Keeping students informed and aware of the issue should help
curb the lines. The second idea is to develop a better queuing system to maximize the lobby
space and get as many students out of the elements as possible.
3.
Expected Results
The team expects their approach to work fairly well, but there are sure to be unforseen
problems that will occur. As stated in the previous section, the team will begin by observing the
dining court lobbies. This will enable the team to see first-hand the line formation in progress.
The team believes that first-hand experience will be the best way to learn about the line situation
in each dining court. Knowledge is key in this case, and learning as much as possible by
observation is the first step. Problems with lobby observation may include the lobby becoming
too crowded to observe comfortably, not being able to see the entire lobby at once, and
inconsistency in lobby queuing on different days and at different times.
The next course of action for Team 21 will be interviewing students at the dining courts.
This step should be fairly easy to execute, but the details will take longer to figure out. Obstacles
that will come up while interviewing include keeping the interviews standardized and making
sure to ask similar questions to all students. The team does not want to skew the results by
adding a bias to the data. Also, sometimes it is difficult to summarize this data that is collected
from the students. If all students have different ideas, the team will have to sort through the ideas
and weed out the good and bad information. Hopefully there will be much overlap between
student responses so that the team can easily interpret the interview results.
Next, the team will research ways other schools and similar operations handle lines and
queuing. This research may be difficult to complete online, and the team may have to visit other
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schools or locations to compare. This might be an obstacle for the team’s research, but they will
figure out how to learn about lines at other schools one way or another.
After reviewing valuable feedback from the students and reviewing comparable research,
Team 21 will look at ways to queue the lines in a more efficient and effective manner in each of
the dining court lobbies. A layout of each lobby will be used, including dimensions and current
stanchion locations. The team plans to draw out the lobbies when onsite at the location. The
stakeholders in the project will also be able to provide the team with blueprints of the lobby in
order to determine the exact dimensions of the lobbies.
As suggested by the team’s stakeholder, Purdue Dining and Catering, cameras may be
added to the lobbies at each of the dining courts. A large part of this project is keeping students
informed about lines and line waits, and this is a tool that can give students more knowledge of
the situation in order to make informed decisions. Obstacles to the camera idea include
estimating costs of equipment, installation, and upkeep. Not all cameras are alike; they vary
greatly by cost, size, and abilities. Much research will need to be done about cameras to produce
an accurate budget. Also, Team 21 will need to look into the technology that is behind installing
cameras and allowing live video streaming to students. These are expected hurdles for the team,
and they will work to overcome these obstacles.
Benefits of the completed project should be numerous. The first benefit should be
increased student awareness. The team wants to inform students of lines at the dining courts to
help them make informed decisions. Students are aware that lines can become long at the dining
courts, but there needs to be a way for students to wait comfortably in line as well as preview the
lines (using cameras) before getting to the dining courts. Secondly, students should be able to
wait comfortably inside dining court lobbies when waiting in line. At this time, many dining
court lobbies are not arranged so that many students can all stand inside at one time; many
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students are left waiting out in the rain, snow, or cold to get their favorite foods. Team 21 would
like to rearrange the pathways in the lobby to allow for more space inside of the lobbies for
students to get out of the elements.
After completion of the project, Team 21 has to be able to measure their results. Criteria
for measuring the results include (1) increased lobby line capacities, (2) increased student
awareness of lines, and (3) increased student satisfaction. The team will note the approximate
number of students that can comfortably fit in line at each of the dining court lobbies when the
project begins, and this number will be counted again at the end of the project. At the end of the
project, the team will distribute a survey to students to see if they are more aware of the line
situation and to check their satisfaction with the lines. These tools will all help Team 21 to
measure their success.
4.
Project Cost
Team 21’s initial overall maximum project budget is $50,000. However, the team is
confident that the final total project expenses will be much lower. Costs associated with the
project are project management and implementation. The total student and consulting hours will
significantly impact the overall project cost. The first two weeks project costs can be seen in
Appendix A.
Using this data, the team can project an estimated cost of $25,200 over the 14-week
project. Additionally, there will be equipment and instillation costs as our client wishes to install
camera surveillance equipment in the dining courts to monitor line length. The desired
surveillance equipment will approximately cost $200-$300 per camera plus instillation costs. The
number of cameras need is not yet known, so one camera per dining court is assumed in the
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estimate. Therefore equipment cost will be roughly $2000, and Team 21’s final estimated project
budget is $27,200.
5.
Appendix A: Project Cost
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Week of Jan. 27
Hours
Week 1
Total Individual Hours:
Total Team Meeting Hours:
Account Exective Hours:
Total Cost (Week)
Total Cost (Cumulative)
Week of Feb. 3
0
4
0
Hours
Week 2
0
12
1
-
Total Individual Hours:
Total Team Meeting Hours:
Account Exective Hours:
Total Cost (Week)
Total Cost (Cumulative)
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Hourly
Wage
100
100
200
Hourly
Wage
100
100
200
-
Cost
0
400
0
400
400
Cost
0
1200
200
1400
1800
Addressing Line Queuing and Wait Time in University Dining Courts
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IE 431: Industrial Engineering Design
Appendix B: Gantt Chart
Task Name
1 Initial Meeting&Project Understanding
February
March
April
May
1 3 6 9 12 15 18 21 24 27 30 1 3 6 9 12 15 18 21 24 27 30 1 3 6 9 12 15 18 21 24 27 30 1
2 Prepare Project Proposal&Presentation
3 Collect Data& Team Meeting
4 Working on First Status Report
5 Collect Data&Team Meeting
6 Spring Break
7 Working on Second Status Report
8 Team Meeting&Client Meeting
9 Prepare Final Project
10 Final Project Presentation
7.
Appendix C: Team Resumes
Kyle Alvarado
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13002 Knights Way, Fishers, IN 46037
kalvarad@purdue.edu, 3176504370
Objective To obtain a challenging career in Industrial Engineering with special interests in Operations
Education
Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana
B.S. Industrial Engineering expected May 2014
Minor Statistics
Technical Skills
Computer
 MiniTab, SAS, Arena, CATIA, MATLAB, VBA, AutoCAD, Inventor, C programming,
Microsoft Office Packages
Languages
 Spanish (conversational)
Experience
Standard Locknut, Westfield, Indiana, Summer 2013
Engineering and Analytics Intern
 Developed relationship databases using SQL for inventory management.
 Assisted in the acquisition process and implementation of a new manufacturing line.
 Analyzed current warehouse management system to improve overall processes and
inefficiencies related to short shipment.
o Using various analytical methods, conducting activity sampling, and creating a process
map I was able to identify the root causes of inefficiency, waste, and error.
o The solution I developed was highly effective in reducing human errors, thus, lowering
the short shipping rate.
Standard Locknut, Westfield, Indiana, Summer 2012
Industrial Engineering Intern
 Performed time and motion studies on different workstations to enhance throughput and reduce
production cost.
o Implemented revised work instructions and minor station layout changes, resulting in
increased station productivity and a 20% decrease in cycle time.
 Utilized AutoCAD to create and revise products.
 Worked with sales engineers on business expansion and marketing tools.
 Completed Indiana Department of Environmental Management plant emissions application
ahead of schedule.
Notable Projects
 Led a group of engineering students on a project to evaluate robotic vehicle data, construct a
program to analyze test results, and develop a solution.
 While working within a team environment, developed a plan as a team to transform West
Lafayette’s transportation system into a more environmental and efficient system.
Awards and Activities
 Delta Chi Fraternity – Recruitment Chair, Social Chair
 Seminar for Top Engineering Prospects
 Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE)
 Purdue Ski/Snowboard Club
SIMRAN AHUJA
810 David Ross Road, West Lafayette, IN 47906
ahuja3@purdue.edu, 765-269-6218
OBJECTIVE
To obtain an internship in the field of Industrial engineering that utilizes my process optimization, operational research, work
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analysis and design and project management skills.
EDUCATION
Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana
December 2014
Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering,
Minor: Psychology
SKILLS
Technical skills: C, C++, MATLAB, Python and SQL, Google Sketch up, Catia, AutoCAD, Minitab, GAMS
Relevant Coursework: Optimization, Data minng, Statistics, Operations Research, Manufacturing processes, Work analysis and
design, Six Sigma, Project management, Lean manufacturing, Forecasting, Regression analysis, Mapping.
EXPERIENCE
VE Commercial Vehicles Limited (A Volvo Group and Eicher Motors Joint Venture)
May 2013- August 2013
Intern, Project and Process Engineering
-Worked with the engineering team to minimize assembly cycle time for the transmission assembly line.
- Utilized Volvo Production System to optimize assembly area for operators on the line.
- Learned how the Kanban system is implemented and its advantages.
VE Commercial Vehicles Limited (A Volvo Group and Eicher Motors Joint Venture)
May 2012- August 2012
Human Resource Intern
-Analyzed employee interaction and connection for human resources.
-Identified the gap areas and created a cohesive action plan for filling the discrepancies and lacking areas.
-Measured the employee awareness about the existing policies.
-Identified the important policies for the set of people and prepared a training material resolving all issues.
LEADERSHIP EXPERIENCE
EngineeringBecause, Campus Manager
August 2013-present
- Share info about Purdue campus and work experience of different people with the EngineeringBecause community.
- Gather feedback about engineering internships and job applications to share with the EngineeringBecause community
Boiler Gold Rush Purdue University, Team Leader
January 2013-August 2013
-Acted as mentors and role models for new students attending Purdue University.
Human Factor and Ergonomics Society, Undergraduate Representative
March 2012-May 2013
-Represent the undergraduates of the society and help other board members with their duties.
Institute of Industrial Engineers -Purdue Chapter, Board Member
January 2012-May 2012
-Helped in organizing various events of the chapter, like Faculty and senior luncheon and philanthropic work like “Adopt a
Spot.”
Purdue 12th and 13th Women in Leadership Conference, Organizer
-Helped in organizing the conference and inviting speakers of different organizations and companies.
Purdue International Student and Scholar, Student Ambassador
August 2010-present
-Volunteered to become sources of information about Purdue University by telling prospective students about
academic programs and student life.
Awards and Activities
Mining towards Profit, Team Project
May 2013
- Determine parameters (in order to) maximize profit while maintaining a high reputation for a company using MERP and SQL
queries.
Nanotechnology: Size and Scale, Team Project
May 2013
- An interactive and educational MATLAB based program was created that engages engineering student in
learning how size and scale of nanoscience can be applied to different engineering disciplines.
Purdue Engineering- Ideas to innovation, Team Project
April 2012
-Awarded the best team in the “Ideas to Innovation” Engineering course.
OTHER ACTIVITIES
Standards Chair of Gamma Phi Beta Sorority
December 2013-present
Purdue Psychology Club
January 2013-present
Purdue Society of Women Engineers
August 2011-present
Information Technology at Purdue student advisory council
January 2011-present
Peiran Gu
430 Wood st, 1204, West Lafayette, IN 47906
pgu@purdue.edu, 765-418-1140
OBJECTIVE
To obtain an internship in the field of Industrial engineering.
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Education
Nanjing Foreign Language School, Nanjing, Jiangsu
September 2007-May 2010
Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN
Concentration: Industrial Engineering
Member: Chinese Engineering Student Council, Purdue Undergraduate Chinese Association
Technical Skills
Computer: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, MATLAB, AutoCAD and Minitab.
Language: fluent in English, mandarin Chinese
Experience
Purdue Wiley Dinning Court, West Lafayette, IN
Dinning Court Staff
-Managed groups by sanitizing dishware to maintain maximum efficiency for students.
-Developed problem-solving capabilities within dining staff.
-Communicated with college to solve problems for enhancing the work’s efficiency.
September 2011 – November 2011
Nanjing Library, Nanjing, Jiangsu
Volunteer
-Provide reader service
-Organize books in order
-Operate computerized register system
May 2010 - July 2010
Awards and Activities
-Bodybuilding: go to gym 3 times a week since august 2010.
-Drawing: have learned drawing and pencil sketch for 5 years.
Jessica N. Stahly
jstahly@purdue.edu
(260) 494-7845
Objective
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To obtain a full-time engineering position in the supply chain/industrial engineering field that will utilize my
analytical skills as well as interpersonal skills
Education
Purdue University, West Lafayette | Industrial Engineering | May 2014
3.90 / 4.0 Cumulative GPA
Dean’s List every semester to current
Technical skills
C-Programming Experience; JD Edwards World (ERP software); MATLAB; Articulate Storyline; Minitab;Microsoft
SharePoint; Microsoft Office; Sabre StaffPlan
Experience
United Airlines | Chicago, IL | Resource Planning Intern
May 2013 – August 2013
- Communicated with airport GMs to learn about the lobby setup in each hub
- Used my knowledge of queueing theory to standardize the airport staffing models in Sabre
StaffPlan
- The work I did to standardize the staffing models contributed to a projected reduction inFTE
equivalent to approximately $12 million per year
Franklin Electric | Bluffton, IN | Global Information Systems Summer Intern
Summers 2011, 2012
- Worked with a project manager on an ongoing project to assist in standardizing manufacturing
screens and programs within the ERP system
- Created mandatory training videos for new employees using the ERP system
- Used organizational skills to upload and categorize software documentation for a new
application on Microsoft SharePoint
Purdue First Year Engineering Program |ENGR 131 Class Grader
August 2012 – December 2012
- Grade approximately 60 studenthomeworks each week
- Assist in exam proctoring throughout the semester
The Pint | West Lafayette, IN | Server
September 2013 – Present
- Serve in a fast-paced microbrew and craft beer bar on nights and weekends
- Make beer recommendations to customers, take orders, and make change
Women in Engineering | West Lafayette, IN | I2D2 Team Leader
September 2010 – April 2011
- Visited elementary students in afterschool programs to lead them in simple craft projects
- Emphasized basic math and physics concepts involved in each project
Awards and Activities
Purdue Presidential Scholarship
August 2010 – Present
Cynthia A. Niekamp Scholarship for Industrial Engineering
August 2012 – May 2014
Jeremy S. and Edith B. Weinstein Scholarship for Industrial Engineering
August 2012 – May 2013
Northeast Indiana Engineers Week Scholarship
February 2012 and 2013
Institute of Industrial Engineers Board Member
August 2011 – May 2013
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