Digital History Display: A Legacy for The Worcester Armenian Community

Many Armenian immigrants have settled in the area surrounding Worcester since the Genocide of 1915. Over the years, many members of the community requested that their deceased family members, including Genocide victims, be memorialized by their parish. As a team, we inherited a physical card library of 411 unorganized pictures. Many cards were becoming torn and brittle. We were tasked with upgrading this aging display of cards into a 21st century digital solution that would memorialize all of these past friends of the church. The parish leaders envision an intuitive, inviting, and easily navigable electronic display capable of showing any one of an index of memorialized parishioners. The software platform used to display this information must be easy to manage, update, and change

Improving Changeover Efficiency in Opticap XL Encapsulation Process

This project studied MilliporeSigma’s changeover efficiency within the Opticap® XL encapsulation process to alleviate throughput issues associated with increasing demand. Our team conducted time and observational studies, together with stakeholder interviews, to identify and prioritize improvement areas. We developed a production schedule optimization tool, Single Minute Exchange of Dies analysis for changeover tasks, and conditions to streamline melt-check procedures. We recommend our deliverables be implemented to improve changeover efficiency, and estimate that 230 minutes can be saved in changeover time over two days

Regulatory Fire Inspection Program for El Benemérito Cuerpo de Bomberos de Costa Rica, Unidad de Ingeniería, San José, Costa Rica

The Benemérito Cuerpo de Bomberos de Costa Rica’s (CBCR) current voluntary fire inspection program of public buildings is not sustainable. The program is unable to meet the goal of ensuring all buildings are adequately protected against fires. We developed a framework for a regulatory fire inspection program for CBCR based upon international best practices and CBCR’s current resources. We recommended that CBCR add a diagnostics team to their organizational structure, the Access database we created to systematize their records, and an educational component for both citizens and CBCR staff. We also suggested that they collaborate with the Ministry of Health to improve enforcement, thereby increasing prevention measures and potentially saving more Costa Rican lives