Academics / Undergraduate Program / Client Project Challenge / ProjectImproving service level by optimizing safety stock in a space-constrained environment
June 3, 2024
USG recently completed a capstone project called Client Project Challenge with students from Northwestern’s Industrial Engineering (IEMS) program.
USG is continually working to provide faster service levels to customers.
This 10-week project evaluated safety stock at one of the USG facilities. Besides the standard inventory challenges, USG’s products take up a lot of space, so the safety stock analysis needs to account for space constraints.
The student team developed ideas for improving the current safety stock optimization, including methods to account for capacity, SKU prioritization algorithms, and analyzing make-to-order vs. make-to-stock SKUs.
Matt Sylvester, USG, Senior Director of Supply Chain, said, “What the students have provided can be used as a framework to improve our overall inventory planning strategies.”
The student team was Adriana Aranguren, Aimee Chooi, Angela Ma, and Melanie Rudolph. Their faculty advisor was Prof. Karen Smilowitz.
Jacki Van Hout, USG, Sr. Manager, Supply Chain Planning | Logistics, said, “We were impressed with the project output from Angela, Adriana, Aimee, and Melanie. They quickly worked through all the data and USG nomenclature, had a great approach, and completed a thorough analysis within the 10-week window. They were also very articulate in their presentation and thoughtfully answered all our questions.”
The full USG team was Jacki Van Hout, Matt Sylvester, Srinivas Veeramasuneni, Kyle Lucas, Sarah Fischer, and Catherine Schouten.
About USG:
Headquartered in Chicago, we serve construction markets around the world with wall, ceiling, flooring, sheathing and roofing products that enable our customers to build the outstanding spaces where people live, work and play.
Our network of plants, mines, quarries and other facilities includes 49 manufacturing locations and 6,900 employees across North America.