Project Details

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Walk-In Cooler Door Gasket Inventory Optimization

Company: TMP Manufacturing Company, Inc.

Major(s):
Primary: ME
Secondary: IE

Non-Disclosure Agreement: NO

Intellectual Property: NO

TAFCO is a central Pennsylvania manufacturer with over 65 years of experience producing walk-in coolers, freezers, and modular insulated panels for food service, pharmaceutical, government, and military customers. Because TAFCO builds highly customized products to client specifications, their door configurations require hundreds of unique perimeter gaskets. These gaskets come in U-shaped, L-shaped, and four-sided profiles, in right- and left-handed variants, across multiple materials. All of them must be stocked, protected from damage, and reliably located at the time of assembly. Current storage practices result in significant gasket damage and waste, and simply finding the right gasket when needed is a recurring challenge. This project has two connected goals: reduce inventory complexity and improve gasket storage. On the inventory side, students will evaluate one baseline solution: stocking a smaller number of oversized gaskets and trimming them to size at assembly. Gasket material affects whether this modification is feasible, so students will need to account for this constraint. Students will also identify and compare other SKU-reduction strategies and develop SOPs for any recommended process changes. On the storage side, students will gather requirements, survey commercial solutions, and, if none are adequate, design and prototype a custom system that prevents damage and supports easy retrieval. Students have freedom to explore and justify their own approaches to both problems, and they will deliver a comparative analysis with a clear recommendation, supporting SOPs, and a prototype or design concept as warranted.