IBIT

Engages with industry to develop digital knowledge and talent

DIF Project

Cencora – Digitally transforming the tracking of pharmaceutical products

Every day, healthcare solutions leader Cencora (a Fortune 10 company) ships pharmaceutical products and treatments to customers such as pharmacies and hospitals. Each shipment leaves from one of the company’s state-of-the-art distribution centers in totes. The totes are durable and designed to be reused — but there was currently no process in place to track what happened to the empty totes after initial use.

DIF Role

Create an enhanced tracking methodology to track totes, considering cost, reliability, usability, and integration with existing systems. Additionally, the solution should account for change management and its impact on team member processes.

Cencora Representatives

Pablo Mora
Cencora
Dharmesh Patel
Cencora

DIF Consultant

Russell Abernethy
Russell Abernethy
Computer Science
Eric Wolfe
Mechanical Engineering

DIF Awards

Russell Abernethy, Recipient of the Fall 2022 Digital Innovation Foundry Scholarship

Impact

“The work was relevant and useful. We are often heads down into our day-to-day operations, and so greatly benefited from a new perspective that our partnership with the Digital Innovation Foundry brought” Tanmay Bandyopadhyay

 Jeremy Shafer and Yan Wang managed this project for DIF

Lab-scale Testbed for Mixed Human-Autonomous Vehicle Traffic Research

Lab-scale Testbed for Mixed Human-Autonomous Vehicle Traffic Research

Led by Dr. Philip Dames and students from Temple’s College of Engineering, the project developed a scaled robotic testbed for connected and automated vehicles (CAVs). The testbed can be used to study system-level flow characteristics of mixed human-CAV traffic, which, to date, has received very little attention compared to existing traffic flow or the safety of automated vehicles.

There are many simulation-based studies of traffic, however, there are few experimental results. This project bridges the divide by reducing the cost, effort, and risk. The project will enable the CAV community to (a) rapidly prototype and study levels of connectivity between CAVs and human-driven vehicles, and (b) evaluate coordinated CAVs algorithms to modulate traffic flows.

The DIF project laid the foundation for an NSF award, which is currently under review.

Lab-scale Testbed for Mixed Human-Autonomous Vehicle Traffic Research

Led by Dr. Philip Dames and students from Temple’s College of Engineering, the project developed a scaled robotic testbed for connected and automated vehicles (CAVs). The testbed can be used to study system-level flow characteristics of mixed human-CAV traffic, which, to date, has received very little attention compared to existing traffic flow or the safety of automated vehicles.

There are many simulation-based studies of traffic, however, there are few experimental results. This project bridges the divide by reducing the cost, effort, and risk. The project will enable the CAV community to (a) rapidly prototype and study levels of connectivity between CAVs and human-driven vehicles, and (b) evaluate coordinated CAVs algorithms to modulate traffic flows.

The DIF project laid the foundation for an NSF award, which is currently under review.

Employee Professional Development and Engagement

In today’s fast changing environment, the upskilling, development, and engagement of employees has become critical, especially when the economy is near full employment.  Led by Munir Mandviwalla, Laurel Miller, and Manoj Chacko, the DIF team is working with Scholastic, Inc. to apply the PRO Community platform to develop and engage employees. To date, a pilot was successfully completed focused on reskilling and retention. A larger scale deployment is being planned.

The platform is now a Temple University spin-off company that applies a data driven, visible, and measurable approach to employee engagement and development.

Lab-scale Test-bed for Mixed Human -Autonomous Vehicle Traffic Research

There are many simulation-based studies of traffic, however, there are few experimental results. This project bridges the divide by reducing the cost, effort, and risk. The project will enable the connected and automated vehicle (CAV) community to (a) rapidly prototype and study levels of connectivity between CAVs and human-driven vehicles, and (b) evaluate coordinated CAVs algorithms to modulate traffic flows.

DIF Role

The project developed a scaled robotic test-bed for connected and automated vehicles. The DIF project laid the foundation for an NSF Award.

Temple Faculties

Philip Dames
Dr. Philip Dames
Associate Professor
Temple University

DIF Consultant

Philip Cameron
Mechanical Engineering

Nissan Gelb
Mechanical Engineering

Chad Martin
Electrical Engineering

Von Kaukeano
Electrical Engineering

Thomas Painadath
Electrical Engineering

Nelson Chan
Mechanical Engineering

Natalie Walker
Mechanical Engineering

DIF Awards

Philip Cameron, Digital Innovation Foundry Scholarship
Nissan Gelb, Digital Innovation Foundry Scholarship
Chad Martin, Digital Innovation Foundry Scholarship
Von Kaukeano, Digital Innovation Foundry Scholarship
Thomas Painadath, Niraj & Cara Patel Endowed Scholarship
Nelson Chan, Fadem Endowed Scholarship
Natalie Walker, Persson-Barbour Endowed Scholarship