Congratulations to Victoria Cuthbert, who graduated from the Manufacturing Engineering course in June 2002, for winning the IEE (Institution of Electrical Engineers) Manufacturing Project Prize for 2002.
The prize, sponsored by IBM, is awarded for the best project in manufacturing technology or management. Victoria's project combined both of these aspects as she was working on ways of improving the supply of software for video games consoles(e.g. Sony Playstations).
In that particular industry, there is a 10-day lead time from when the order is placed to when it has to be on the shelf and ready for sale. This product was selected as typifying a high value, high volume product with low levels of on-shelf availability. Victoria showed how the industry could reap the benefits of using the auto-ID technology developed by the Auto ID Center (with laboratories based at MIT and at the CUED's Institute for Manufacturing) which can identify any object anywhere in the world instantly, where this type of product tagging is used.
During her project, Victoria was based in the New York office of the MeadWestvaco Corporation , which is among the 83 industrial sponsors of the recently launched Auto-ID Center. She undertook extensive research involving collecting data from face-to face and telephone interviewing as well as desk-based research.