Industrial Projects

The Center brings faculty members and technical experts from the company together to review the range of problems the company faces and develop appropriate project opportunities. Together, this group defines and refines the problem statement, discusses possible attacks on the problem, and determines the goals of and a schedule for the project.

Industrial projects can be organized in a wide variety of forms, depending on the difficulty of the project, level of funding, and the time frame required by the industrial partner. Possible options include:

One-year projects for undergraduate students
One-semester or one-year projects for Master of Science students in Industrial Mathematics, Applied Mathematics, Financial Mathematics or Applied Statistics
One-semester internship projects for Ph.D. students
Two-year projects for post-doctoral fellows
Short and long-term research projects for faculty
Summer internships for undergraduate and graduate students

In the case of undegraduate and graduate level projects, the faculty members recruit students with appropriate background. The team makes regular progress reports to the company, working with the company to refine the problem statement as progress is made. The final results of the project are made available to the company in a written report, an oral presentation and, depending on the nature of the project, software or other mathematical tools that can be of long-term use.

In the past years, faculty and students in the Department of Mathematical Sciences have worked with companies on a wide variety of projects at the graduate and undergraduate level. Project teams have:

Analyzed air flow in cooling systems for high-speed rolling mills.
Developed a fast run-time fractal cloud model for atmospheric fluid flow.
Determined optimal generation schedules for large electric utilities over long time periods incorporating realistic constraints.
Analyzed an optimal shape design problem for a metal processing operation.
Designed and conducted statistically sound experiments to improve production quality for electronic components and cosmetic products.
Organized and explored large data sets to identify patterns in fluctuating demand processes.
Analyzed and optimized health service units to improve patient care and satisfaction.
Developed strategies to improve decision making in casualty insurance.

For a complete list of projects visit the links below:

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Last modified: Nov 06, 2006, 22:08 EST