(345i) Enhancing the Department of Energy’s Industrial Assessment Center Experience for Undergraduate Students through Real-World Problem Solving, Research, and Publication

There are 31 universities nationwide that operate Department of Energy Industrial Assessment Centers (IACs). The centers develop student-led teams that are trained to analyze the energy consumption of manufacturing processes [1]. The teams put those energy management skills to work when they visit small and medium-sized facilities located in the IACs’ region [2]. These facilities primarily focus on their manufactured products, and generally do not have dedicated energy management personnel on site. The IAC students fill the energy management role and develop a host of ideas to help the facilities minimize their utility costs and increase process efficiency. This is a powerful framework for students to gain industrial engineering experience and to provide real-world value to the manufacturing sector.

The Intermountain Industrial Assessment Center located at the University of Utah is organized with two faculty members at the head, four graduate students, and ten undergraduate students. Faculty members facilitate the connection with manufacturing facilities and quality control the final energy management report. Graduate students and experienced undergraduate students serve as energy assessment leads. Newer undergraduate students learn critical energy management skills with targeted engineering tasks and calculations performed for specific recommendations on each assessment. Common recommendations include, upgrading to LED lighting, installing variable frequency drives, and performing heat recovery.

Sometimes IAC site visits yield cutting-edge energy saving or process enhancing recommendations that can provide academic value beyond the scope of the report. When these ideas are coupled with driven undergraduate students who desire to elevate the level of their engineering analysis, an opportunity for academic research arises. Over two years, three undergraduate students have been led by a graduate student and faculty member through the process of transforming novel IAC ideas to solve real-world problems into the undergraduate students’ own research [3].

As with any educational experience, finding a balance between support and micro-management of undergraduate students during the industrial research process was critical. Fortunately, working outside of the classroom allowed for highly tailored mentorship. The general recipe was a high frequency of meetings early on to get student investment into the project and to demonstrate support. This was paired with the vivid real-world problem that was encountered on the recent facility site visit. Through trial and error, each research project then found a natural frequency for meetings as the project became more fleshed out. The content of the meetings was customized to give the student the tools or direction they lacked to model or analyze the problem without explicitly solving it. They were then assigned manageable action items to perform prior to the next meeting. More specific action items led to a higher probability of success. These accomplished tasks, strung together, developed into research papers. The open-ended nature of research can be daunting. With regular personal support, limited technical support, and big picture guidance, three undergraduate students were able to transform interesting real-world industrial solutions into publications [4-6]. For each student this was their first publication. It was important to ensure success, not guaranteed with undergraduate research, and help them get their feet wet with this novel, exciting experience [7].

[1] Dalzell, Nicole M., Gale A. Boyd, and Jerome P. Reiter. "Creating linked datasets for SME energy-assessment evidence-building: Results from the US Industrial Assessment Center Program." Energy Policy 111 (2017): 95-101.

[2] Abbas, Ahmad I., et al. "A Comparative Study of Industrial Energy Assessments for Small and Medium-Sized Industrial Facilities." ASME 2018 12th International Conference on Energy Sustainability collocated with the ASME 2018 Power Conference and the ASME 2018 Nuclear Forum. American Society of Mechanical Engineers Digital Collection, 2018.

[3] Dolan, Erin, and Deborah Johnson. "Toward a holistic view of undergraduate research experiences: An exploratory study of impact on graduate/postdoctoral mentors." Journal of Science Education and Technology 18.6 (2009): 487.

[4] Westberg, B., et al. "Proactive Automation of a Batch Manufacturer in a Smart Grid Environment." (2018): 110-131.

[5] Henning, Moriah, Derek Machalek, and Kody M. Powell. "Integrating a microturbine into a discrete manufacturing process with combined heat and power using smart scheduling and automation." Computer Aided Chemical Engineering. Vol. 47. Elsevier, 2019. 293-298.

[6] Brimley, Paige, Derek Machalek, and Kody M. Powell. "Smart Scheduling of a Batch Manufacturer’s Operations by Utilization of a Genetic Algorithm to Minimize Electrical Demand." (2019): 53-67.

[7] Alsuhaibani, Marya, et al. "Research education in an undergraduate curriculum: Students perspective." International journal of health sciences 13.2 (2019): 30.