Students develop manufacturing software in ORNL–Tennessee Tech partnership

Engineers in manufacturing plants often walk from machine to machine reading small, faded metal nameplates and manually typing specifications, such as horsepower and voltage, into software systems - a time-consuming process that can limit efficiency.

At Tennessee Tech University, a group of undergraduate seniors worked with the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory to change that through the Capstone course, a two-semester program that pairs students with industry clients to tackle real-world technical challenges.

The course is a client meeting, a code review and a class deadline all rolled into one. This combination makes Capstone a unique opportunity for students majoring in fields such as computer engineering, data science or cybersecurity, providing valuable work experience with real companies rather than just turning in a paper at the end of the course. For ORNL, the Capstone program provides a pipeline of ideas for improving manufacturing software tools.

Mark Root, a software developer in ORNL's Secure and Digital Manufacturing Section, has led the lab's participation in the Capstone program for the past three years.

"I did a capstone project myself in college, working on a banking application," Root said. "That experience helped me land a job right after graduation."

Building tools for manufacturing data

The partnership between Tennessee Tech and ORNL was originally spearheaded by Gina Accawi, group leader for Research Application Development in ORNL's Secure and Digital Manufacturing Section. After learning about Capstone from one of her staff, she met with Bill Eberle, Capstone coordinator for Tennessee Tech, to explore how to get involved. Accawi started leading the ORNL Capstone team in 2021 before passing the mantle to Root.

The student teams have contributed to a suite of web-based tools developed by Accawi and her research team at ORNL, including MEASUR and VERIFI - software that helps manufacturers collect operational and energy data to analyze performance, improve efficiency and ensure American industrial competitiveness.

"A lot of our applications are about making it much easier to pull in data," Root said. "We have a backlog of ideas for features we'd like to add, so we give the students access to the code and say, 'Here's the project. Build a proof of concept.'"

If a student-built feature meets ORNL's standards, it may eventually be integrated into the production software. In other cases, Root and his colleagues refine the work and incorporate the ideas later.

Past Capstone projects have included an application that automatically pulls in weather-related data that users previously had to enter manually. Another project extracted energy usage from utility bill PDFs and fed it into VERIFI, allowing manufacturers to track energy use across facilities and measure efficiency improvements over time.

The project for 2026 tackles another time-consuming task: gathering machine specifications. The student team has developed a tool to automatically extract key details listed on manufacturing equipment nameplates. Their software processes a cellphone image of the nameplate, extracts the text and organizes it into labeled data fields that can be edited or exported into systems such as MEASUR.

Students tackle real-world challenges

When students begin the Capstone course, they receive only brief descriptions of about 10 possible projects and then rank them in order of preference. The identities of the participating companies and organizations are not revealed during the selection process.

"That way you wouldn't pick favorites," said Avantika Laine, student team member. "After we're placed on teams, we learn who we'll be working with."

After the students discovered they'd be working for ORNL, they connected with Root and he gave a presentation on what he wanted the team to achieve. The team follows an agile development process common in industry, meeting weekly with Root to provide updates, ask questions and review progress. At the end of each development cycle, the team records a demonstration video showing the latest features they've implemented.

"All five of us help with coding and reports, so there are a handful of tasks that we all share," said Brent Maxwell, student team member. "But we also have individual tasks we need to take care of."

Each member of the team takes on the role of "scrum master" for at least one of the seven development cycles. Team member Geovany Rodriguez said they've been given significant freedom to determine how to approach each problem. "Mr. Root gives us feedback and general direction, but we get to decide how we want to move forward," Rodriguez said. "He always tells us that we're in charge of the show."

For team member Samuel Warren, that freedom makes the project very different from a typical college assignment.

"One of the cooler parts has been seeing the team leave behind the gradebook and focus on creating a team that functions to achieve a goal," he said. "Rather than 'I was told to do this, and I have to do it this way,' it's more about charting the way you get there."

Working on a professional project with tangible applications for a national laboratory has motivated them to put forth their best effort.

"Everyone on the team is equally determined to make the project succeed," said Ian Chandler, student team member. "It's improved my teamwork skills, and that's made me more confident going into the job market."

At the end of the academic year, the team presented its work during Tennessee Tech's Senior Expo, where students demonstrate their projects to faculty, industry clients, and community members.

A program built on industry collaboration

Capstone coordinator Bill Eberle is also a professor of computer science and co-director of Tennessee Tech's Machine Intelligence and Data Science Center. Each year he gathers project proposals from companies and organizations and then assigns students to teams.

"Because the students come with different experiences, they're not all necessarily on the same playing field," he said. "I match them not only based on their preferences and skills, but also on what the student still needs to know or learn."

As the program continues to grow - Tennessee Tech graduated more than 130 computer science students this year - Eberle hopes to expand participation with more companies and research groups.

He is also launching a new applied industry experience track in Tennessee Tech's master's program that would pair graduate students with industry partners for internships and individual projects.

"Anything we can do to help students understand what it's really like to work in their field and prepare them for those careers is valuable," Eberle said.

The Capstone tools and student projects for ORNL are funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's Industrial Technologies Office.

UT-Battelle manages ORNL for DOE's Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. DOE's Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit energy.gov/science.