28 ISE Magazine | www.iise.org/ISEmagazine

The COVID-19 pandemic that caused campuses

and businesses to shut down last spring also derailed

or altered summer internship plans for many indus-

trial and systems engineering students.

Yet three Georgia Tech ISE students found

themselves on the front lines of pandemic response

by helping to improve shipping processes for a company that

makes and distributes medical scrubs.

The trio – senior Mary Claire Solomon and sophomores

Gabi Falcone and Annie Robinson from Georgia Tech’s H.

Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering

– worked with the metro Atlanta consulting company, Argon

& Co. North America. Their summer assignment paired them

with a client that produced a variety of medical equipment and

uniforms in the north Atlanta suburb of Lithia Springs.

Their main task was to help smooth out the system of pre-

paring shipping orders, a process that was bogged down trying

to ﬁll “short” orders, those that were missing certain items

and faced lengthy delays. The pandemic’s effect on the critical

need for medical supplies had the company scrambling to ship

its orders on time, sometimes as many as 20,000 units per day.

Short orders created backups that needed to be untangled so

all shipments could go out on time.

“When we ﬁrst got there, they had very little data,” Solo-

mon said. “Once we were able to gather some of that data,

we were able to do some more. Customer service had a lot of

customers calling asking why their orders were late and they

would not be able to tell them anything. Some of the stuff I

was working on in the beginning was doing some analysis to

look at their data and see where each order was in the process

Georgia Tech ISE students, front row from left, Mary Claire Solomon, Annie Robinson and

Gabi Falcone, pose with Rachel Patel and Steve Mulaik of Argon & Co.

Photos courtesy of Gabi Falcone

ISE interns pitch in to help

move medical scrubs, stat

Georgia Tech students break order logjam while learning from warehouse staff

By Keith Albertson

January 2021 | ISE Magazine 29

so that customer service had some-

thing they could tell their custom-

ers.”

As the company tried to ramp

up its stafﬁng to meet the increased

demand, some workers stayed

away because of the pandemic. To

keep operations going, it took on

untrained part-time workers who

were not yet up to speed, adding to

the bottleneck.

“They had never seen this kind

of volume before,” said Falcone,

an IISE student member. “It blew

up probably to 10 times what they

normally see. Then they also had

to just start putting in place social

distancing rules in the warehouse

and they lost some workers who

couldn’t work because of COVID,

so they had a lot of temporary peo-

ple. It was just not same staff and routines they were used to,

especially with this much volume.”

“We started with analyzing how many orders were being

put on short order blocks per day,” Robinson said. “They had

a little bit of data from before the pandemic and they didn’t

have many short orders and very

few things to be ﬁxed. Once

they started bringing in tents and

bringing in people who were

not full-time workers and didn’t

know the setup of the warehouse,

they started piling up these big

orders. We were analyzing about

how many they were getting and

how fast it took, how long they

would sit on those blocks.”

Falcone, Robinson and Solo-

mon put their ISE training to

work creating an “order hospital”

to prioritize short order shipments

and get them out quicker. The

process assigned a select group of

item pickers to check those or-

ders, determine what items were

missing and which were available or needed to be ordered.

The incomplete order would then go out to medical facilities,

with the missing items to be provided once they were in stock.

The process they created cut shipping time for short orders

from ﬁve days or more to one or less, and eased the logjam.

“When we started, before the order hospital was set up, they

would sit between three and ﬁve days on a block without any-

one looking into them,” Robinson said. “Eventually once the

order hospital was set up, we were getting everything looked

at and sorted through the day of.”

“Toward the end, things were getting ﬁxed within an

hour,” Falcone added. “The main thing we were looking

at was percentages of just how

many orders were short, or how

many orders were placed on the

short pallet but the item was

actually in right location. We

did some recog analysis to ﬁg-

ure out why they were missing

short orders and why their in-

ventory was messed up. We had

to learn about their warehouse

management system and then

talk directly to the employees

and problem-solve and think of

the best way to have them go

out and ﬁx them.”

To fully learn how the com-

pany operated, the students

donned masks and joined work-

ers in the warehouse to research

the full process from start to ﬁnish so they could better un-

derstand problems and ﬁnd solutions. Doing so helped both

the students and workers learn from each other and develop

mutual trust.

“The people working in the warehouse, some of them had

just lost their jobs and were coming from all different walks

of life, and they were interesting people to talk to,” Solomon

Georgia Tech ISE students, front row from left, Mary Claire Solomon, Annie Robinson and

Gabi Falcone, pose with Rachel Patel and Steve Mulaik of Argon & Co.

‘The way the workers responded to

us, everybody just went with our

ideas. They were really willing to

pitch their own ideas and tell us

what they thought of everything so

they could make sure we weren’t

coming up with solutions that were

not going to actually or realistically

work for them.’

– Gabi Falcone

Rachel Patel, an Argon & Co. consultant, and Mary Claire Solomon work to prepare orders

at the “order hospital” set up to take care of backlogged short orders of equipment.

30 ISE Magazine | www.iise.org/ISEmagazine

ISE interns pitch in to help move medical scrubs, stat

said.

Interacting with the

warehouse crew also gave

the students a different per-

spective on work processes,

one they wouldn’t be able to

glean from a classroom or a

project taken on remotely.

“They were glad to have

us,” Falcone said. “The way

the workers responded to

us, everybody just went

with our ideas. They were

really willing to pitch their

own ideas and tell us what

they thought of everything

so they could make sure we

weren’t coming up with so-

lutions that were not going

to actually or realistically

work for them. It was really

helpful working with them

side by side, and that made

the leaders more willing to

step up, too.”

Falcone has continued to work with the company as she

pursues her degree. Solomon is scheduled to graduate in May.

Robinson said the experience helped her plan where she

wants to take her career.

“This summer taught me a lot about what I want from

my future,” she said. “Every day

I was facing a different problem,

and every project came with dif-

ferent restrictions. I really enjoyed

that every day didn’t look the same

and that’s something I want in my

future.”

Falcone said interacting with the

warehouse workers taught her how

to share process improvement ideas

back and forth in ways that beneﬁt

everyone.

“I learned a lot about explaining

processes and teaching others, but

really that I can learn from them as

well,” Falcone said. “I really liked working directly with them

and asking them questions, asking what they found helpful or

if something made sense to them or if they had any ideas. ...

It was like where if one warehouse worker thinks that way,

maybe that’s helpful to some of the other ones and we can use

that to come up with a solution that really works for them not

just us.”

Each also said that knowing their work was helping medical

professionals do their jobs in treating COVID patients made

their efforts more rewarding.

“It deﬁnitely gave it an underlying purpose knowing we

were getting stuff to the doctors and nurses who were on the

front line,” Solomon said.

“We’ve all worked on other

projects where we’re helping an

e-commerce company getting

clothes or shoes or something,

which is great to help the company.

This time we knew it was super

important to help people that were

saving lives all summer,” Falcone

said.

“It deﬁnitely gave you an ex-

tra push,” added Robinson. “You

wanted to get it done early and on

time to make sure they were get-

ting all the stuff they needed. And

all over the news you were seeing how sparse (supplies at) so

many of the hospitals were, and you’d go home and see the

news and say, ‘Oh my gosh, I almost had a direct hand in mak-

ing sure they get their stuff.’” 

Keith Albertson is managing editor of ISE magazine. Contact him at

kalbertson@iise.org.

‘The people working in the

warehouse, some of them had

just lost their jobs and were

coming from all different walks

of life, and they were interesting

people to talk to.’

– Mary Claire Solomon

Gabi Falcone works in the company’s “order hospital” gathering items to ﬁll short orders.

January 2021 | ISE Magazine 31

Summer internship blends virtual

and on-site learning

By Ally DeVall

Last summer, I interned with a top consulting ﬁrm in their federal practice as a manage-

ment consulting summer analyst, where I worked with a small team to deliver stafﬁng

recommendations for one of the client’s distribution centers. The project centered around

the client’s desire to make stafﬁng reductions and efﬁciency improvements at a speciﬁc

site to later extrapolate to all the distribution centers in their network.

Due to the speciﬁc need of this project to observe processes in-person, I was fortunate

to fully experience what the role of a government consultant involves by working both

virtually and on-site in California. Additionally, the nature of the project meant my

role heavily utilized concepts I study as a senior in industrial and systems engineering at

Virginia Tech.

My project began by me performing a baseline data analysis of the processes present

at the pilot site, virtually in Microsoft Excel using the pareto principle. I categorized the

existing standards by area and determined which standards represented 80% of the oper-

ating time within each individual area. I then analyzed the selected standards further by

determining which suboperations represented 80% of operating time within each stan-

dard. This analysis determined which sub-processes within each area would be the most value-driven to observe on-site,

given the time constraints of the project.

Once on-site, I observed the suboperations within the determined areas and updated the process steps within each

standard to accurately reﬂect the current state of the site. To verify the appropriate time estimates for current process steps,

I performed basic time studies using a stopwatch. To calculate appropriate time estimates for added process steps, I per-

formed BasicMOST calculations for each subprocess. After I updated the production rates based on the updated standards,

my team and I made stafﬁng recommendations in the determined areas based on the number of workers necessary to meet

the demand, given the cycle times for the observed standards.

Although my role was technical, my greatest accomplishment as an intern involved increasing my ability to form con-

text and problem-solving skills in unfamiliar scenarios. When I ﬁrst arrived at the client site, I knew I did not understand

the system fully and did not know how to form my questions in a way that would increase my understanding. I improved

my ability to develop context by asking questions related to subprocesses and, by walking through an entire process, ana-

lyzing each step along the way. This helped me connect how sub-processes combined to form the overall process.

By the end of my internship, I had developed an enhanced ability to apply industrial engineering concepts such as work-

ﬂow efﬁciency to get to the root of ambiguous issues through context evaluation. I was also able to better communicate

with people of different backgrounds, an imperative skill for me to develop as this profession centers around communicat-

ing with individuals from all levels and backgrounds within a company.

The most rewarding aspect of my internship was the opportunity to work and learn from a supportive, collaborative

and innovative team. I had constant support from all levels of my team, which ensured I had an enriching internship ex-

perience, regardless of whether I was completing work for my project or attending networking events with other interns

and professionals within the company.

Attending the company’s virtual Student Leadership Conference was the highlight of my summer. It was a rewarding

opportunity to learn from seasoned professionals within the company and interact with interns from across the country

from all sectors of the company’s business. My internship was an amazing experience, because I developed myself as a

professional and discovered where I want to be in the future from interacting with driven, inspiring professionals. 

Ally DeVall is president of the IISE Virginia Tech student chapter. She is a senior majoring in industrial and systems engineering. Contact

her at allyd17@vt.edu.

Virginia Tech senior Ally

DeVall sightsees in San

Francisco while visiting

on-site during her summer

internship as a management

consulting summer analyst.