Date of Submission
Spring 4-17-2020
Project Type
Senior Design
Major
Industrial Engineering
Department
Systems & Industrial Engineering
Committee Chair/First Advisor
Adeel Khalid
Abstract
Mohawk Industries, Inc. is one of the leading flooring manufacturers of the world. Mohawk supplies various types of flooring to various markets around the world like the contiguous United States and Southeast Asia. A significant aspect of Mohawk that allows the organization to supply quality flooring products to various markets around the world is their packaging. Recently however, the company has been experiencing damages to their packages being shipped to Southeast Asia, specifically their vinyl flooring packaging. As a result, this team was created with goal in mind of formulating a solution to eliminate the damaging of vinyl flooring packaging transported to or from Southeast Asia. Research was conducted to determine possible causes of the problem, and to develop potential solutions to the cause of the problem. The result of the research conducted determined the most likely cause of the damaged packaging to be that the packaging lacked impact protection and/or the packaging sealant to keep packages closed was being compromised during transport. Our team developed three possible solutions that could be implemented to address the packaging impact protection and/or security:
- Solution 1: Increase the thickness of the cardboard used for packaging to increase the impact protection of packages.
- Solution 2: Use tape to secure packages to a pallet to increase the stability and security of packages on a pallet during transport.
- Solution 3: Place dunnage (bubble wrap) on the two ends of a pallet where packages experience the most damage during transport to increase the impact protection of the packages.
Our team conducted both quantitative analysis (cost-benefit) and qualitative analysis (aesthetic) to determine which of our solution could resolve the issue being experienced. We determined each solution to be a viable option to implement for Mohawk Industries to eliminate damage to their packaging. Unfortunately, we were only able to submit one of our solutions to ISTA (International Safe Transit Association) for testing of the solutions impact protection and security, so we elected to test solution 1 (thicker cardboard), prior to our designing of solution 2 (tape) and solution 3 (dunnage). The thicker carboard solution submitted to ISTA for testing was able to pass all the tests administered, and thereby being able to address the issues of insufficient packaging impact protection and insufficient packaging security. As a result, our final recommendation to Mohawk Industries was to implement solution 1 (thicker cardboard) because:
- Solution 1 was submitted and passed ISTA testing
- Solution 1 would not add additional steps to Mohawk Industries’ packaging process
- The savings made as a result of implementing solution 1 were quantifiable
- More testing (ISTA) would be needed to prove the efficacy of the redesigned versions of solution 2 (tape solution) and solution 3 (dunnage solution)
Sen_Design_Present.pdf (725 kB)
Senior_Project_Video.mp4 (6437 kB)
Comments
Link to Project Video: https://vimeo.com/406132773