The Research Improvement in Minority Institutions (RIMI) program was established to provide support to strengthen the research environments and capabilities of predominantly minority institutions that have substantial minority student enrollments. Eligible institutions must also have graduate programs in science or programs in engineering. Funding is provided for faculty research in fields of science and engineering supported by the Foundation and for the acquisition of research instrumentation. North Carolina A&T State University will use RIMI support to study how efficient material handling contributes to the successful operation of an automated factory system. Although several researchers have addressed the issue of selecting patterns, sizes and methods for stacking uniform cartons on pallets, most have ignored the practical aspects of automated palletization, such as robot motion economy and safety. This study will generalize the work of Puls and Tanchoco to deal with non-uniform size cartons. A prototype palletizing station will be constructed using an IBM 7545 robot to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed methodology. The Foundation has supported this project because North Carolina A&T State has perhaps the only accredited industrial engineering program at a predominantly minority institution. Students in this program will have opportunities to participate in meritorious applied and basic engineering research.
