Industrial Engineering Competition
Step into the role of an industrial engineer to design, schedule, and optimize a small factory while balancing production efficiency, sustainability, and innovation.
Point of Contact
ON-SITE Competition
This competition requires no advance preparation and will be completed onsite using the materials and instructions provided on the event day.
Mini Factory Production Planning and Sustainable Facility Design: Teams act as industrial engineers for a small factory producing different products through shared workstations. Using a problem brief released on competition day, they calculate station workloads, schedule production, arrange the stations, and propose sustainability improvements. They represent their independent design with LEGO and later use generative AI to visualize and explain the submitted layout.
Learning objectives: apply basic calculation to demand and processing times; recognize shared capacity and possible bottlenecks; justify a feasible schedule and layout; consider environmental, social, economic, technical, functional and governance improvements; use AI transparently as a communication aid.
Competition Rules
Technical Specifications
The day-of brief provides each team with product demand, ordered routes through shared workstations, processing time per unit, available production time, and layout constraints.
01 / Calculate
Assess Workload & Capacity
Calculate the workload for each workstation and assess available production capacity, identifying potential constraints or bottlenecks.
02 / Schedule
Plan Production
Create a batch production schedule that respects route order, processing times, and the requirement that each workstation can process only one unit at a time.
03 / Design
Map the Factory
Draw all product routes on an A3 floor plan and build the corresponding LEGO model during the independent planning stage.
04 / Sustain
Improve Sustainability
Propose workable improvements toward a more sustainable setup. Sustainability claims must clearly identify the assumptions used to support them.
Final Visualization
Create a 2D or 3D digital view that accurately matches the frozen paper floor plan and LEGO model.
Must Match
Paper Plan + LEGO Model
Evaluation
Each judge scores independently using the six criteria below. The completed paper plan and LEGO model are recorded before the AI stage. Several feasible schedules and layouts may receive full credit when justified.
Judges should score calculations, reasoning, design fidelity, and communication under their respective criteria without penalizing the same error twice.
01 / Technical Performance
Technical Performance / Correctness
02 / Problem Solving
Problem-Solving & Engineering Approach
03 / Innovation
Innovation / Creativity
04 / Final Result
Quality of Final Result
05 / Communication
Presentation / Communication
06 / Team Conduct
Teamwork / Professionalism
Total
Meaningful participation by team members; respectful collaboration; submission within the stated time; compliance with the no-device rule and no Gen-AI tool requirements for applicable tasks; and honest disclosure of AI prompts for tasks where generative AI is permitted, such as visualization and presentation.
Constrains and Requirements
Challenge Duration
Students complete the challenge within the designated competition period.
Planning & Sustainability
Digital Assistance Restricted
Students work without digital assistance during the planning and sustainability stages. One workstation of each supplied type serves one batch at a time unless the day-of brief states otherwise.
Design Freeze
Original Design Is Recorded
The paper and LEGO design are frozen before visualization. Each team presents its original design and at least two sustainability improvements.
Required Resources
Connectivity contingency: An offline drawing alternative will be available if connectivity fails.
Submission & AI Integrity
Original Design Comes First
The organizer will collect or photograph the original paper layout and LEGO model at minute 55. AI use begins only in the designated digital stage.
Generated visuals must faithfully represent the submitted workstation locations and product routes.
Any correction discovered later must be identified explicitly. An undisclosed alteration affects the Quality of Final Result and Teamwork / Professionalism scores under the published rubric.
Sustainability Task
Teams must select at least two improvements and explain their environmental, social, economic, technical, functional, or governance effects.
A simple before-and-after estimate is encouraged where common data are provided. Otherwise, teams must identify the assumption and state what they would measure to validate it. Safety and product quality must also be considered.
Safety & Fairness
Competition Flow
The competition runs for 120 minutes, with planning, sustainability, digital visualization, presentation preparation, and final evaluation completed within the scheduled stages below.
Up to
Orientation
Getting Started
Receive the Competition Materials
Receive the factory brief, processing times, rules, worksheets, stationery, and identical LEGO kit.
Task 1
Minutes
Plan, Schedule & Build
Task 1: Plan, Schedule, and Build
Calculate station workloads; identify the busiest station and assess capacity; prepare a batch schedule; draw the facility layout and three colored product routes; and build a matching LEGO layout.
Required output: Submit the paperwork showing your calculations and explanation, and leave the LEGO model in place.
Task 2
Minutes
Sustainability
Task 2: Sustainability Improvement
Choose a minimum of two ideas provided and explain their sustainability-related benefits.
Required output: Submit a sustainability improvement card.
Task 3
Minutes
Digital Stage
Task 3: AI-Supported Visualization
Use generative AI or digital tools to create a clear 2D or 3D representation of the submitted Task 1 layout.
Required output: Record the prompts and check the output against the paper plan and LEGO model.
Task 4
Minutes
Presentation Preparation
Task 4: Prepare the Final Presentation
Explain the schedule, layout, capacity finding, sustainability proposal, and how AI was used.
Required output: Prepare up to three slides.
Final Pitch
Minutes
Presentation & Evaluation
Final Pitch
Each team briefly presents. Judges may ask questions while circulating during earlier tasks or during the final presentation. The first 10 minutes of the final stage are used for the pitch, followed by evaluation during the final 10 minutes.
Resources
01 / Read
Understand the Handout
Read and understand this handout and get acquainted with the topic.
02 / Watch
Recommended Videos
Facility Layout in Operations Management - Product vs Process Oriented Layout & Fixed
Think About
Where does each item go next? Where might work wait? What would you check before suggesting the factory layout?
Factories receive customer orders and have limited time, people, and equipment. Industrial engineers plan where work happens and when it happens so orders can be completed safely, efficiently, and with less waste.
This handout explains the ideas you will use. The competition problem and its figures will be provided on the day.
01 / Fundamentals
Customer Demand & Processing Time
Demand is the number of items customers order. Processing time is how long one item needs at a workstation. A workstation could be a machine, a workbench, or an inspection point.
Example: A printing desk needs 2 minutes for each poster. An order of 5 posters requires 5 × 2 = 10 minutes of printing. This is the printing workload for that order.
02 / Flow
A Product Route Describes the Order of Work
A route shows the steps a product takes. Consider two everyday products:
Printed Greeting Card
Plain Envelope
Both products share the Fold and Pack stations, but their first steps differ.
A layout is a plan of where stations, storage, and exits are placed. A useful layout makes product routes clear and reduces unnecessary carrying or crossing. There can be more than one sensible arrangement.
03 / Capacity
Workload & Available Capacity
If several orders use the same station, add their required times. Suppose folding 5 cards takes 10 minutes and folding 4 envelopes takes 8 minutes. Folding has 18 minutes of workload. If that desk is available for 20 minutes, it has enough total time for both orders, with 2 minutes left.
Important: Having enough total time at every station does not automatically guarantee that every order finishes by a deadline.
Products may wait for an earlier step or for a shared station to become free. A schedule shows when each batch starts and finishes each step.
04 / Bottlenecks
What Is a Bottleneck?
A bottleneck is a step whose limited capacity restricts the flow of work or prevents a required output or deadline from being met.
Work may queue before it while later stations wait for products. Think of a narrow part of a bottle: liquid can pass through only at the rate allowed by that narrow section.
Example: A juice stand can wash 12 bottles and fill 6 bottles in one hour. If all bottles need every step, filling limits the stand to 6 finished bottles per hour. Washing faster alone will not raise that limit.
Wash
Can supply bottles faster than filling can use them.
Fill
Limits the finished output.
Important Distinction
When products take different routes, the busiest station deserves attention, but it is not automatically the bottleneck. Compare each station’s workload with its available time, then examine when work arrives and the deadline. A station can be heavily loaded yet still finish its work on time.
Why It Matters
Why Industrial Engineers Look for Bottlenecks
Finding a bottleneck helps a team decide where an improvement may matter most. They may change the order of work, avoid interruptions, move some work to another suitable station, or improve that step. The choice must preserve safety and product quality. After a change, another station may become the new bottleneck.
Putting It Together
A Basic Way to Plan
Read the customer orders and trace each product route in its correct order. Then identify the workload for each station and suggest a layout that supports the flow of materials.
Trace each route
Calculate workloads
Check capacity
Plan the schedule
Design the layout
Reduce waste
Check the plan against the deadline and consider ways to reduce wasted movement, energy, or materials while enhancing the sustainability of the factory.