| Week | Progress | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1: Jan. 12, 13 | Introduction to Industrial Math | Brief overview with a few toy problems. |
| Week 2: Jan. 19, 21 | Selection of teams and projects. | Background research on clients and nature of problems. Focus on software tools each team will need. |
| Week 3: Jan. 26, 28 | Team work begins. | Teams will take an in depth look at the research questions, meet the clients, and clarify the objectives/constraints. |
| Week 4: Feb. 2, 4 | Time management plan. | Having explored solution strategies, the team will agree on a basic plan. The importance of realistic goals cannot be overstressed! Anticipate pitfalls and avoid icing the cake before it is baked. |
| Weeks 5-7: Feb. 9-25 | Primary work on problem. | Avoid getting hung up on one single step of the problem. Look for compromises and heuristics that will allow you to move forward. (Once you have a workable final product, you can later return to intermediate steps you'd like to improve.) |
| Week 8: March 1,3 | Begin drafting final report. | You should now have workable results. While drafting your report make an assessment of deliverables and room for improvement. |
| Week 9-12: March 15 - April 7 | Secondary work. | Bi-weekly progress reports. Having come up with a working result, you can now focus on optimizing certain steps. |
| Week 13: April 12, 14 | Final presentations (to class). | |
| Week 14: April 19, 21 | Final presentations (to clients). | |
| May 1 | Final written report due. |