IISE Purdue Student Chapter, Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering Host Great Lakes Region Conference
IISE Purdue Student Chapter, Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering Host Great Lakes Region Conference
The two-day event, with the theme of "Emerging Domains" featured panels and keynotes with several Purdue IE alumni.
The event kicked off with a welcoming mixer that included food, drinks, and some fun rounds of Family Feud. Saturday kicked off with a keynote speaker (Mike Heard, CEO of Davies Life & Health) followed by an industry panel breakout, and then a company information breakout.
IE Alumna Allison McFadden delivers her address to attendees.
Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering Professor Barrett Caldwell, who also serves as the advisor for the Purdue IISE Student Chapter, remarked on the effectiveness of keynote speaker Mike Heard's talk. "Mike was very effective in talking about the difference between rapidly changing trends and the consistent and long-standing core principles and skills of IE. I especially enjoyed his stories talking about concepts of strategy and organizational management, and how you have to be able to communicate simply and effectively to a variety of audiences about the how, the why, and the what (means, way, and end, or situation, strategy, and vision)."
The afternoon began with another breakout session, followed by a fun paper airplane group activity. Attendees were then given a tour of the Build @ Scale Lab in Dudley Hall and ended the day with a networking dinner.
As part of the tour of the Gateway facility, guests were given a look at the latest updates within the Build @ Scale Lab in Lambertus Hall. During the tour students like MS student Dhanushraj "Dhanush" Balraj presented their research and efforts into developing a fully automated "lights out manufacturing" facility. "I got the opportunity to showcase the enhanced version of the Purdue Model I developed, and how separating the Business and Controls layer could improve segregation of duties and efficient data transfers for M2M communications."
Industrial Engineering Master's Student Dhanushraj Balraj
In addition to Purdue, students came from Ohio State University, Ohio University, University of Dayton, University of Louisville, Wayne State University, and Western Michigan University. Industry professional attendance represented a wide range of companies, such as such as Deloitte, Bain & Company, PwC, Indiana Packers Corporation, Amazon, Redwood Materials, NorthStar Aerospace, Relativity Space, United Airlines, Rheem manufacturing, PepsiCo, and Accenture.
IISE board members Rhea Bawa and Mihika Sane added "We are thrilled with the success of this event! It was an incredible opportunity to bring together so many students, and we received amazing feedback about our speakers, Purdue’s facilities, and the meaningful connections made throughout the conference."
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