News Release

Louisiana Tech, LSU engineering students present jointly at senior design forum

Event builds upon commitment to collaboration between the 2 state institutions

Business Announcement

Louisiana Tech University

RUSTON, La – Industrial engineering students from Louisiana Tech University joined their peers from Louisiana State University this week to present their work at the 2010 Jointed Industrial Engineering Senior Design Forum in Baton Rouge.

The event, hosted by the Department of Construction Management and Industrial Engineering at LSU, provided Louisiana Tech and LSU students with a unique opportunity to interact and discuss ideas for and the value of collaboration within their field of study.

The institutions will alternate hosting the annual event on their respective campuses, with the 2011 forum taking place in Ruston. Louisiana Tech and LSU are the only universities in the state to offer Industrial Engineering degree programs.

"Both LSU's and Louisiana Tech's industrial engineering senior design projects emphasize applying techniques and knowledge learned from IE courses to solve real-world industrial problems," said Dr. Jun-Ing Ker, program chair for industrial engineering at Louisiana Tech.

"We felt it would be very beneficial to students from both institutions to see how each team came up with solutions to solve problems given by various manufacturing companies and healthcare systems such as hospitals."

During the forum, LSU faculty served as judges for the Louisiana Tech students' presentations, with the Louisiana Tech faculty reciprocating for the LSU students.

"This high demand field provides students with skills and knowledge to assist the manufacturing industry in our state, and is consequently critical to the economic development of our state," said Stan Napper, dean of Louisiana Tech's College of Engineering and Science.

"This cooperation enables our two universities to motivate excellence among our students, and to share our limited resources."

The forum supports a collaborative vision for the advancement of science and research between Louisiana Tech and LSU, as stated by the leaders of the two institutions during a faculty forum on the LSU campus in April.

According to Ker, cost and time constraints often prevent students from being able to attend a professional or a regional IE conference during their study at Tech. This forum provided a platform for unique learning experiences to occur within a reasonable time frame and driving distance, allowing for maximum student participation.

Matt Creel, a senior industrial engineering student at Louisiana Tech, found the experience interesting and encouraging.

"Going in, I was curious to see how different their projects would be. It was very interesting to look at the approaches the students took in doing their projects. The best part was realizing that the [LSU] groups had the same challenges that we had while working on our projects."

"I think that this was a good start for the possibility of future collaboration between the two programs."

"This new collaboration adds to a list of at least a dozen tangible partnerships with LSU including joint funded research projects, joint intellectual property, joint and shared resources, and shared courses," said Napper.

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