technizzel

Written by: Ben Jabbawy, Cornell University

Science and Engineering REALLY ARE COOL. Over the next few months, I will introduce different career paths within these fields. Since I am majoring in Operations Research (OR) Engineering, I figure its a great place to start.

Q: So what is OR anyways?

A: Today, business managers make many decisions involving time, money, labor, and materials. Because of the size and span of current manufacturing and delivery systems, there is a major need for very sophisticated methods of increasing efficiency in the combination of those crucial factors that make up many businesses. OR engineers use a combination of mathematical techniques and specialized computing tools to develop and apply the appropriate techniques.

Q: What real world applications does OR have?

A: There are infinite applications of OR in the real world. Take, for example, an automobile manufacturer. If they can figure out what process is slowing down their manufacturing line, they could save millions of dollars by adjusting that method of production. If airlines could better predict shifts in passenger demand during different seasons, they could fill more seats.

Q: What kind of classes do you take as an OR major?

A: Despite variations in different engineering programs, most OR majors require knowledge of calculus, computer programming, probability and statistics. OR also requires the understanding of the business side of manufacturing through classes such as financial and managerial accounting.

Q: What might be a typical career path for an OR major?

A: OR majors go off to work in companies like UPS managing delivery methods, managing projects at Microsoft, working as consultants and financial analysts or financial planners. The OR skill sets are also very valuable for entrepreneurs.

Let me give you an example that a professor showed my class on the first day. I present you with the following problem, also known as the Transportation problem:

You own a grand piano company with warehouses A, B, C all on the west coast. Customers want to purchase some of your pianos at points X, Y all on the east coast. Because you have been in the business for quite some time, you know the cost per piano (in thousands of dollars) associated with transporting them from…

A >> X = $4 / piano A >> Y = $7 / piano
B >> X = $6 / piano B >> Y = $8 / piano
C >> X = $8 / piano C >> Y = $9 / piano

You also know how many pianos you have stored at each warehouse:

A = 2 pianos
B = 3 pianos
C = 5 pianos

And how many pianos are demanded at each site:

X = 4 pianos
Y = 6 pianos

The problem then becomes fully satisfying the demand sites on the east coast while maximizing your profit (i.e. minimizing total transportation costs). At first glance, you’re probably thinking, ok that’s a joke. Just try out the different combinations in order to satisfy the demand at each site. But consider the same problem at a more realistic scale. Say you had to deliver 1000 pianos to 50 sites all over the world.

In this case, the plug and chug technique could take forever to figure out. OR engineers use a technique called linear programming, which involves manipulations of simple, linear equations to obtain simplified problems which are then easier to solve and still follow the restrictions of the original problem.

Oh yea, for those of you are still trying to figure out the best solution to the above problem: Send 2 pianos from A >> X, 2 pianos from B >> X, 1 piano from B >> Y, 5 pianos from C >>Y. This gives a total transportation cost of $73,000, which is the lowest possible cost while satisfying all the demand sites!

This, and similar problems and skill sets are very common for OR engineers. These techniques are highly applicable to the business world as well. Think about it, every company wants to maximize profit by minimizing costs, right!?!

Interested in how to solve this problem using linear programming?
Email me for the full explanation!

 Written by: Ben Jabbawy, Cornell University

Tom, a friend of mine who recently graduated as a Materials Science major, is very excited about his work at Intel.

What triggered your interest in applying to engineering programs?

The story you’ll hear from a lot of engineers is that they were simply good at math and science and it only seemed natural to apply to engineering schools. However for me, it was more about wanting to understand how and why things around me worked, from something as simple as an alarm clock to something much more complex like an automobile or even a computer.

Which class stands out most for you? Why?

The classes I enjoyed most were the ones that opened my eyes to amazing new technologies that could revolutionize the way we live our lives. The most impressive of these was a class focused on organic electronics. When thinking of electronics you normally imagine copper wires, lead batteries, silicon computer chips, and other inorganic materials. This class taught me about a whole new class of plastics and other organic materials which performed the functions of normal inorganic materials. What was even better about these materials is that they could be printed onto flexible plastic sheets to form futuristic devices like electronic newspapers and solar energy producing windows.

What was your major?

My major was Materials Science which focuses on the physics and theory of why materials behave the way they do. So for example we learned why metals when bent will keep their form, why plastics when bent will return to their original form, and why ceramics when bent will shatter. This major also included some revolutionary laboratory research like the organic electronics I mentioned above. This gave undergraduates the ability to apply their classroom learning in a real world situation in a cutting edge laboratory environment.

Were you apart of any cool student groups or project teams related to science?

I was part of an amazing research group which eventually became some of my best friends at Cornell. We all worked extremely hard in the lab and then loved to celebrate after successfully publishing a scientific paper or discovering something previously unknown to the scientific community.

What does Intel do?

Intel is the world’s largest computer chip producer. Chances are the computer you use daily has an Intel computer chip inside. We make computer chips for desktops, laptops, and even super powerful server computers which process the huge amounts of information that travels through the internet on a daily basis.

Where do you fit in at Intel?

Making a computer chip takes hundreds and even thousands of process steps. My position is called a Process Engineer, which basically means that I am in charge of a particular step, or process, required in making a computer chip. This involves running silicon wafers through large, highly complicated equipment capable of adding or removing extremely thin layers of material, which create billions of transistors. These transistors act as on/off switches and form the basis all computer chips.

What kind of cutting edge work are you involved in?

I currently work in Intel’s newest and most advanced computer chip manufacturing plant. This plant has equipment which is capable of creating features as small as 65 nanometers. This is 150,000 times smaller than a centimeter and far smaller than what the human eye can see. Because we can create such tiny features, we are able to cram more transistors and therefore more computing power into a computer chip. 

Written by: Ben Jabbawy, Cornell University

Speaking of OR…Just heard from my friend Julie Singer, currently a senior at Cornell, majoring in Operations Research Engineering. Julie spent a summer interning for L’Oreal USA in their manufacturing plant in Piscataway, NJ. Oh Yeah, she’s also a mean surfer on the weekends. She learned how to surf while abroad in Australia during her junior year.

Here’s what she had to say about her experience at L’Oreal:

I studied the assembly lines and made changes to the processes to make them more efficient, spending the majority of my summer working on a format rationalization project.

PROBLEM: This manufacturing plant produced their products in over 50 different types of bottles, tubes, and jars. The assembly lines had too much “downtime” because it took a while to adjust the machinery for each different package. My job was to study these packages and suggest which ones could be eliminated in order to reduce the number of assembly line change-overs that had to take place.

SOLUTION: I met with packaging engineers to find out why products were packaged using certain materials and any other constraints. ThenI discussed the average demand of each product with the finance department. By creating a database of the different products and their respective packages, the dimensions and material of the package, and the average yearly production, I was able to suggest about 15 that could be eliminated and have their products packaged differently. The changes were expected to result in a 5% increase in production for the manufacturing plant. I learned a ton about manufacturing and the consumer products industry and as a perk, got tons of free products and a major discount on all their other brands!