The College-Industry Council on Material Handling Education (CICMHE) has announced the winners of the 2014/15 Student Design Competition.

The competition, sponsored by CICMHE, is an annual student event for teams interested in the analysis and design of materials handling systems and provides students the opportunity to develop materials handling system designs that solve real-world industry problems.

Design problems are drawn from case files of various designers and manufacturers of materials handling equipment and their customers and this year's case focused on identifying opportunities for improvement for a distribution centre.

The competition was judged by five independent judges from industry and academia.

The competition was won by a team from the University of Florida (Sieggy Bennicoff Yundt, John Cassel, Sarah Huestis and Warner Olson) which took a prize of USD2,000 split among the team plus USD500 for the department

Second place went to Bianca Boll, Anne Christensen, Abigail Salkowski and Jeffrey Wientjes from South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, while the Montana State University team of Blake Buechler, Charlie Bartram, Garrett Conners and Sage Childs came third.

In addition to the individual award prize, the winning teams will receive a travel sponsorship for up to USD1,500 on behalf of MHI's Order Fulfillment Solutions Council Product Group to attend MODEX 2016 from April 4-7 in Atlanta.