Seeing Solutions
Alan Hoover, president of Kahiki Foods, shakes his head in amazement at what Ohio State integrated systems engineering students tell him about his company.
And Joe Cerrato, a master’s student, estimates that the company’s annual cash flow could increase by seven digits once he fully implements changes to reduce the inventory the company usually has on hand and to increase the number of times the company cycles through that inventory.
The program, directed by Scott Sink, ’73 ISE, is in its third year and already has brought corporate sponsors $2.8 million in direct and indirect benefits. Sink joined the Department of Integrated Systems Engineering at the college after spending 20 years in academia as a tenured faculty member running quality and productivity centers and then working in the private sector doing process improvement for global corporations.The students are spending two quarters at the company working on capstone projects and applying principles from a program called Lean Sigma, which uses industrial engineering methods to focus on ways companies can reduce costs and defects and improve capacity and quality.
Students who take the optional Lean Sigma course, which includes an introductory class followed by the two-quarter capstone, work toward green belt or the higher level black belt Lean Sigma Certification, a huge plus on their resumes when they join the corporate world.
Sink says the students take the course to accelerate their career paths, with the certification on their resumes differentiating them from the rest of the pack.
“They intend to better ready themselves for their first jobs. They intend to challenge themselves; they know this is not the path of least resistance,” he says. “They want to practice doing a real project, making mistakes here so they don’t make them on their first job.”
Hoover says he can’t find enough words to describe how impressed he is with the students.
Hoover intends to implement all of the students’ recommendations.
“Jared’s project has been a win in every regard,” he says. “Kahiki dramatically reduces its discharges, helping to fulfill our desire to be a better corporate citizen and steward of the environment; we save a lot of money, and Jared gets great experience and his black belt. Josh’s project is already showing solid improvement on our important bagging line.”
In the first two years of the Lean Sigma program, the students completed 27 projects, Sink says; another 28 projects are in the pipeline this year. Other sponsors of the program include Limited Brands, Ashland, Ohio State University Medical Center, Mid-Ohio Food Bank and Kroger Bakery.
“All the projects focus on reducing waste, improving quality, improving productivity and improving customer service and satisfaction,” Sink says. “Our candidates drive their capstone senior design projects through solution realization. In other words, they don’t just make recommendations; they actually see improvements through, which makes this certification program unique.”