Engineering students look to improve Sheriff’s Office systems
October 25, 2011
Groups of industrial engineering students are taking their senior project downtown – or more specifically, to the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office.
Two or three times per week, Beth Nowacki, an industrial engineering senior graduating in December, heads to the Warrants department at the station to work on reducing the redundancy of it’s warrant entry system.
Nowacki is part of a group, which also includes industrial engineering seniors Patrick Bride and Trentan Lancaster, tasked with improving a section of the office’s data systems.
“We’re not fixing anything broken,” Nowacki said. “We’re just making it better.”
While Nowacki focuses on the warrant entry system, Bride tackles the foreclosures system and Lancaster is working with the fines department. All are subheading of the civil department of the EBRSO.
The group’s senior design class is taught and advised by undergraduate industrial engineering coordinator Dr. Gerald Knapp, who organized the project in conjunction with Baton Rouge engineering firm General Informatics.
General Informatics was originally sought by the EBRSO to help make their systems run smoother, and the company reached out to LSU engineering students to help get the job done. General Informatics is owned by LSU alumnus Mohit “Mo” Vij, who worked with Knapp to bring the project to the classroom.
Two other groups in the class are responsible for making similar improvements to a separate division of the EBRSO, including prisons and criminal records.
Deputy Keva Vessel, who has been on the force for three years and worked in Warrants for two, introduced Nowacki to the system at EBRSO.
Vessel explained to her how the warrants are entered and scanned into new databases, among other functions.
“Beth is a very nice person and was eager to know what we do,” said Vessel, a Baton Rouge native.
Nowacki spent the first month of the project gathering data and analyzing it, which included time studies to determine how long it took to fill out the average warrant. In the month of June, according to Nowacki, the EBRSO processed 2000 warrants, 1000 of which were traffic-related.
Her goal is to reduce the average time for warrant entry from 60 seconds to 20 seconds, saving indirect labor expenses through employee time.
“If something has 20 steps, we want to make it five,” Nowacki said.
The current system was created by Application Data Systems Inc., who designs software systems for law enforcement and other municipal services.
This is not Nowacki’s first experience with streamlining institutional processes. During an internship with Halliburton this summer, the Dallas native worked to improve the mobility of a piece of industrial equipment used by the company.
The fourth-generation LSU student said she was able to build a quick rapport with the employees of EBRSO, who often have suggestions on how to improve the system. She was even invited to a department birthday party earlier this month.
Nowacki and her group will present their final proposal on Dec. 8, after which General Formatics will help the EBRSO implement the changes.
Although it was different than other projects she had previously worked on, Nowacki felt prepared to tackle the EBRSO’s system.
“Dealing with the Sheriff’s Office was a surprise, but we still use the same concepts we learn in class,” she said.
As for Vessel, she is looking forward to the changes being implemented and feels the project is constructive for the engineering students.
“It’s a good application of skills for students who will have to do the same for businesses in the future,” Vessel said.
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Article excerpted from LSU Manship student Christopher Seeman's original blog post. For more information, contact Cassie Arceneaux, carcen6@lsu.edu or 225-578-0092.
If you would like to read the original blog post, click here.
