Multidisciplinary Senior Design

Project Readiness Package

Project Title: / ABVI Fabric Shredding Process and Facility Design
Project Number:
(assigned by MSD) / P16702
Primary Customer:
(provide name, phone number, and email) / Joe Kells, ABVI
, 585-697-5787
Sponsor(s):
(provide name, phone number, email, and amount of support) / ABVI
Preferred Start Term: / Fall 2015
Faculty Champion:
(provide name and email)
Other Support: / George Mason University team finishing Fall 2015
Project Guide:
(assigned by MSD)
Beth DeBartolo / August 6, 2015
Prepared By / Date
Received By / Date

Project Information

* Overview:

The Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired (ABVI) is a not-for-profit organization that is “dedicated to carrying out its mission to prepare and empower people who are blind or visually impaired to be self-sufficient and contribute to their families and communities” (ABVI mission statement). In order to accomplish their mission, ABVI provides employment opportunities for blind and visually impaired workers. Many of these job opportunities are part of ABVI businesses that manufacture products for sale. These businesses generate revenue that is used to fund other ABVI projects such as accessibility technology and vision rehabilitation.

Currently one of ABVI’s businesses is taking surplus textile donations that Goodwill received but could not sell in stores, and selling this surplus material to other companies to be processed and transformed into other products. ABVI would like to increase the revenue they produce in these areas by processing and re-purposing the textiles in house, rather than selling them to an outside party that will add value of some sort to the surplus material and sell it for a greater profit. This would entail a significant investment in infrastructure on ABVI’s part, and they have engaged RIT to come up with a design and simulation to help them decide the best way to turn this goal into a reality.

To put the need for surplus textile processing into context, consider the Field of Jeans event sponsored by Levi Strauss in Santa Clara, CA in November 2014 (see photo below, and information at http://www.levisstadium.com/fieldofjeans/ ). They collected nearly 19,000 pairs of jeans for donation in Bay Area Goodwill stores. While some of these can be re-sold, others can’t, and this is a considerable amount of volume to be added to landfills. A 2013 article (http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2013/05/21/185596830/the-global-afterlife-of-your-donated-clothes) cites an estimate of 3.8 billion pounds of clothing per year that is recycled: approximately 30% is turned to rags and another 20% to other products such as insulation, stuffing, or carpet padding.

Since this would be a completely new line for ABVI, they need to understand what will be required, from receiving surplus materials off a delivery truck all the way through shipping the final product after processing. A basic process could be something like:

A team of students at George Mason University is exploring possible products that could be created at ABVI using the processed textiles, and the RIT team should investigate the requirements for including this production into the proposed facility as well.

ABVI needs to understand what equipment will be required to set up such a line (types of equipment and how many of each), how the line will be staffed (# workers, # shifts), a proposed and simulated flow of material through the line, and a proposed facility layout – as well as the initial cost and potential ROI. They are also interested in how much waste would be generated and what the energy consumption of such a facility would be.

* Preliminary Customer Requirements (CR):

Category / CR# / Importance (9=high, 1=low) / Requirement
Expand Current Business Capabilities / CR1.1 / 3 / Project expands customer base.
CR1.2 / 1 / Utilize existing resources.
Increase Profitability / CR21. / 3 / The process is competitive in the US market and potentially in the global market.
CR2.2 / 9 / Quick return on investment (Time to Market).
Ethics / CR3.1 / 9 / ABVI maintains status of having high integrity and consciousness.
CR3.2 / 9 / The final products need to have a reliable and sustained market for product viability.
CR3.3 / 9 / The recycling manufacturing process is safe for employees.
CR3.4 / 1 / The recycling manufacturing process is operational by people with barriers to employment.
Usage / CR4.1 / 3 / ABVI will upcycle the material instead of selling it to an outside manufacturer to upcycle.
CR4.2 / 9 / The recycling process needs to maximize profit per pound of donated material.
CR4.3 / Critical / The upcycling process needs to be more profitable than selling the material to a secondary company.
Resources / CR5.1 / 9 / Recycle the cotton from unusable textiles donated to Goodwill stores all over the country.
CR5.2 / 9 / The cotton needs to be sorted from the other textiles before being recycled.
CR5.3 / 1 / One Goodwill location per region will grind up the textiles for that region.
Capabilities / CR6.1 / 1 / Create pilot upcycling program at Rochester ABVI location
CR6.2 / 1 / For this region, the cotton textiles from Buffalo and NYC can be transported to a central location in Rochester.
CR6.3 / 3 / The process is capable of processing a wide range of materials (mostly cotton, but clothes are not 100% cotton)
CR6.4 / 3 / The textile upcycling process has a high throughputs
CR6.5 / 3 / Minimize the power consumption required to upcycle process
CR6.6 / 3 / The mechanical system is low maintenance
CR6.7 / 9 / The process is safe for the operators
CR6.8 / 1 / The cotton textiles should be cleaned and sanitized before the shredding occurs.
CR6.9 / 3 / The rivets/zippers (metal) should be separated from the shredded cotton.
CR6.10 / 9 / Seek product opportunities to increase the value of the shredded fabric (Sound deadening, insulation, cotton based non apparel, paper).
CR6.11 / 9 / Separating specific fabrics, turning shredded material back into thread or other useful commodities
Decision-making Information / CR7.1 / 9 / Includes information on personnel (staffing per shift, # of shifts)
CR7.2 / 3 / Includes information on energy consumption
CR7.3 / 9 / Includes information on projected initial investment
CR7.4 / 9 / Includes information on projected return on investment
CR7.5 / 3 / Includes information on expected waste

* Constraints:

Maximize the number of steps in the process that can employ

blind/visually impaired people

people who face other barriers to employment

Make use of any information available on already-existing commercial textile processing operations.

* Project Deliverables:

Minimum requirements:

·  All design documents (e.g., concepts, analysis, facility layout, simulation results)

·  Simulation of the production facility

·  technical paper

·  poster

·  All teams finishing during the spring term are expected to participate in ImagineRIT

† Budget Information:

This is a no-cost project.

Project Resources

† Required Resources (besides student staffing):

Faculty list individuals and their area of expertise (people who can provide specialized knowledge unique to your project, e.g., faculty you will need to consult for more than a basic technical question during office hours) / Initial/date
Environment (e.g., a specific lab with specialized equipment/facilities, space for very large or oily/greasy projects, space for projects that generate airborne debris or hazardous gases, specific electrical requirements such as 3-phase power) / Initial/date
Access to ABVI to observe current facility operations, talk with employees
Equipment (specific computing, test, measurement, or construction equipment that the team will need to borrow, e.g., CMM, SEM, ) / Initial/date
Materials (materials that will be consumed during the course of the project, e.g., test samples from customer, specialized raw material for construction, chemicals that must be purchased and stored) / Initial/date
Other / Initial/date

† Anticipated Staffing By Discipline:

Dept. / # Req. / Expected Activities
BME
CE
EE
ISE / 4 / Facility layout, engineering economics analysis, production system design
ME
Other

* Skills Checklist:

Indicate the sills or knowledge that will be needed by students working on this project. Please use the following scale of importance:

1=must have

2=helpful, but not essential

3=either a very small part of the project, or relates to a “bonus” feature

blank = not applicable to this project

Industrial & Systems Engineering

/ ISE Core Knowledge / ISE Elective Knowledge /
Statistical analysis of data: regression / Design of Experiment
Materials science / 1 / Systems design – product/process design
Materials processing, machining lab / Data analysis, data mining
1 / Facilities planning: layout, mat’l handling / 1 / Manufacturing engineering
1 / Production systems design: cycle time, throughput, assembly line design, manufacturing process design / 1 / DFx: manufacturing, assembly, environment, sustainability
1 / Ergonomics: interface of people and equipment (procedures, training, maintenance) / Rapid prototyping
Math modeling: OR (linear programming, simulation) / 2 / Safety engineering
1 / Project management / Other (specify)
1 / Engineering economy: Return on Investment
Quality tools: SPC
1 / Production control: scheduling
1 / Shop floor IE: methods, time studies
2 / Computer tools: Excel, Access, AutoCAD
Programming (C++)
RIT – Kate Gleason College of Engineering
Multidisciplinary Senior Design / Project Readiness Package
Template Revised Jan 2015