Other Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering Commons^™

Three Essays On Data-Driven Optimization For Scheduling In Manufacturing And Healthcare, Ekin Koker

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three essays on data-driven optimization for scheduling in manufacturing and healthcare. In Chapter 1, we briefly introduce the optimization problems tackled in these essays. The first of these essays deals with machine scheduling problems. In Chapter 2, we compare the effectiveness of direct positional variables against relative positional variables computationally in a variety of machine scheduling problems and we present our results. The second essay deals with a scheduling problem in healthcare: the team primary care practice. In Chapter 3, we build upon the two-stage stochastic integer programming model introduced by Alvarez Oh (2015) to solve …

Topology Network Optimization Of Facility Planning And Design Problems, Ravi Ratan Raj Monga

Masters Theses

The research attempts to provide a graphical theory-based approach to solve the facility layout problem. Which has generally been approached using Quadratic Assignment Problem (QAP) in the past, an algebraic method. It is a very complex problem and is part of the NP-Hard optimization class, because of the nonlinear quadratic objective function and (0,1) binary variables. The research is divided into three phases which together provide an optimal facility layout, block plan solution consisting of MHS (material handling solution) projected onto the block plan. In phase one, we solve for the position of departments in a facility based on flow …

Prioritizing Strategic Cyberspace Lethality, Andrew J. Schoka

Military Cyber Affairs

The primary concern of United States national security policy, as detailed in the 2018 National Defense Strategy, has shifted from asymmetrical counter-insurgency operations to countering inter-state strategic competition by rogue regimes and revisionist powers. This doctrinal shift has prompted an increased emphasis on military lethality, particularly in strategic-level cyberspace operations intended to counter open challenges to the global security environment and United States preeminence. Drawing from the theory of constraints in industrial engineering and Bayesian search theory in operations research, this paper identifies the key organizational constraints that hinder the lethality of the Department of Defense’s strategic-level cyberspace operations units …

Data-Driven Predictive Maintenance Scheduling Policies For Railways, Pedro Cesar Lopes Gerum, Ayca Altay, Melike Baykal-Gürsoy

Supply Chain Management

Inspection and maintenance activities are essential to preserving safety and cost-effectiveness in railways. However, the stochastic nature of railway defect occurrence is usually ignored in literature; instead, defect stochasticity is considered independently of maintenance scheduling. This study presents a new approach to predict rail and geometry defects that relies on easy-to-obtain data and integrates prediction with inspection and maintenance scheduling activities. In the proposed approach, a novel use of risk-averse and hybrid prediction methodology controls the underestimation of defects. Then, a discounted Markov decision process model utilizes these predictions to determine optimal inspection and maintenance scheduling policies. Furthermore, in the …

Generalized Relay Network Design And Collaborative Dispatching In Truckload Transportation, Amin Ziaeifar

Operations Research and Engineering Management Theses and Dissertations

The truckload industry faces a serious problem of high driver shortage and turnover rate which is typically around 100\%. Among the major causes of this problem are extended on-the-road times where drivers handle several truckload pickup and deliveries successively; non-regular schedules and get-home rates; and low utilization of drivers dedicated time. These are by-and-large consequences of the driver-to-load dispatching method, which is based on point-to-point dispatching or direct shipment from origin-to-destination, commonly employed in the industry. In this dissertation, we consider an alternative dispatching method that necessitates careful design of an underlying network. In this scheme, a truckload on its …

Minimodal: Dimensional Domain Of Miniature Shipping Containers For Intermodal Freight Transportation, Lee Stapley

Ursidae: The Undergraduate Research Journal at the University of Northern Colorado

This study explores the feasibility of miniature shipping container usage within existing intermodal transportation (IT) supply chains. Smaller intermodal container shipments may help realign freight shipments with the most efficient transportation mode, rail. These containers embolden the dimensional domain (DD) of shipping. The shipping container dimensional domain (container size variation and modal fluidity) is widespread and results in shipments that are often larger or more infrequent than needed. The DD impacts transport mode, shipping frequency, shipment velocity, intermodal supply chain accessibility, and regional shipping networks. This study suggests that container size impacts the DD and, therefore, mode choice. As miniature …

A Computational Simulation Model For Predicting Infectious Disease Spread Using The Evolving Contact Network Algorithm, Buyannemekh Munkhbat

Masters Theses

Commonly used simulation models for predicting outbreaks of re-emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) take an individual-level or a population-level approach to modeling contact dynamics. These approaches are a trade-off between the ability to incorporate individual-level dynamics and computational efficiency. Agent-based network models (ABNM) use an individual-level approach by simulating the entire population and its contact structure, which increases the ability of adding detailed individual-level characteristics. However, as this method is computationally expensive, ABNMs use scaled-down versions of the full population, which are unsuitable for low prevalence diseases as the number of infected cases would become negligible during scaling-down. Compartmental models use …

Application Of Big Data Analytics In Agriculture Supply Chain Management, Sankara Narayanan Mangalam Ananthapadmanabhan

Master's Theses

The increasing trend in frequency of natural disasters in tandem with globalization of business makes the agricultural supply chain significantly vulnerable to disruption. This thesis presents a pragmatic approach for creating a Business Continuity Model that can notify supply chain planners when there is an increase in risk of agriculture supply chain disruption due to natural disasters. The methodology presented in this thesis applied big data analytics and machine learning algorithms along with agriculture product related exponential decay function to create a regionalized composite risk score, that incorporated both direct and indirect risk associated with the Agriculture Fresh Supply Chain. …

Data Visualization Of Treatment Outcomes For Tuberculosis Patients, Joy Jenkins

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Tuberculosis is an infectious disease, and different treatments have been discovered over the years. However, patients may develop various drug resistance levels that affect the likelihood of becoming cured or dying. In this study, we sought to employ data visualization to explore the relationship between treatment trajectory, as indicated by smear and culture results in the follow-up tests and patient outcomes. A large sample of patients have been broken down by demographics including age, gender, and drug resistance status. Sankey diagrams were used to visualize the pathway progression of the patients over time split between two time periods- months 0-6 …

Bmap/G/C Queueing Model With Group Clearance Useful In Telecommunications Systems – A Simulation Approach, Srinivas Chakravarthy, Alexander Rumyantsev

Industrial & Manufacturing Engineering Publications

Queueing models in which customers or messages arrive in batches with inter-arrival times of batches possibly correlated and services rendered in batches of varying sizes play an important role in telecommunication systems. Recently queueing models of BMAP/G/1-type in which a new type of group clearance was studied using embedded Markov renewal process as well as continuous time Markov chain whose generator has a very special structure. In this paper, we generalize these models to multi-server systems through simulation approach. After validating the simulation model for the single server case, we report our simulated results for much more general situations.

Foster Care Support Foundation Volunteer And Capital Outreach Analysis, Abeer Bhatti, Alexandro Martinez, Sunny Patel, Desmond Vail

Senior Design Project For Engineers

Care Support Foundation (FCSF) provides free goods to children in Georgia. Annually, 11,000 volunteers are needed to deal with the massive influx of donations and fundraising events. Through our analyses, we aim to make recommendations to the FCSF, which can help raise funds and implement mitigating strategies that would increase funds and improve the foundation.

Smart Flow Facility Analysis, Chantal Ann George, Pete Suktankar, Eric Wilson, Matthew Geiger

Senior Design Project For Engineers

The SMART Flow Design Team has been tasked in providing a physical layout for a single building facility used to consolidate three separate business units. The objective for the new facility will be to manufacture, receive, ship, and store the company's finished products. When designing the physical layout, the team must take into consideration stable and seasonal business volumes, current and future volume demand growth, designated inbound, outbound, and storage areas, and product turn rates. All specifications must be met while determining an efficient flow of goods. The team has designed indoor and outdoor layouts using Microsoft Visio, performed various …

Supply Chain Network Analysis For Outboard Motors At Motor Boaters Usa, Seyedalireza (Ali) Ghiasi, Chase Griffith, Djanene Manuel, Yesenia Pérez, Alvand Rafiee

Senior Design Project For Engineers

Motor Boaters USA found themselves possibly spending too much on their current network distribution of small and large outboard motors and requested new distribution alternatives for the U.S. Through past network distribution data analysis, the team devised 3 scenarios it believed would provide one or more cost effective distribution networks applicable to the request. Through what-if analysis, the teams' calculations produced solid results, which were then presented to Motor Boaters USA for reflection and possible implementation.

Emergency Department Triage Process Improvement, Tessa Williams

Honors Theses

This senior design project was completed at Ascension Borgess Hospital located in Kalamazoo, Michigan. The mission of Ascension Borgess Hospital is to provide patient centered care. In 2018, 562 patients left the Emergency Department (ED) without being seen, which is a large safety risk for the patients and hospital. Based on this, as well as other obstacles, this project focused on meeting the mission of Ascension Borgess by improving key ED metrics that impact patient centered care. In order to meet that mission, this study aims to improve patient experience, safety and quality of the care provided, profitability for the …

Impacts Of Freight Consolidation And Truck Sharing On Freight Mobility, Tieming Liu, Chaoyue Zhao

Data

Corresponding data set for Tran-SET Project No. 17ITSOKS02. Abstract of the final report is stated below for reference:

"The trucking industry is an important sector of the U.S. economy. However, it is quite fragmented, hindering the efficiency of cargo transportation and the ability for small carriers to identify demands to fill full truck loads. The focus of this research is to study models and algorithms in order to aid online freight marketplaces to identify efficient consolidation strategies. To accomplish this aim, a new mixed integer programming model for the pickup and delivery problem has been developed. The model is geared …

Impacts Of Freight Consolidation And Truck Sharing On Freight Mobility, Tieming Liu, Chaoyue Zhao

Publications

The trucking industry is an important sector of the U.S. economy. However, it is quite fragmented, hindering the efficiency of cargo transportation and the ability for small carriers to identify demands to fill full truck loads. The focus of this research is to study models and algorithms in order to aid online freight marketplaces to identify efficient consolidation strategies. To accomplish this aim, a new mixed integer programming model for the pickup and delivery problem has been developed. The model is geared towards identifying effective freight consolidation opportunities. A branch-and-cut algorithm to solve the model was also developed. The model …

Analogies And Comparisons For Stm Data Bodies, Phillip M. Cunio, Brien Flewelling

Space Traffic Management Conference

Space Traffic Management (STM) has already demonstrated its potential to be extremely data-intensive. The large number of objects on orbit today, if observed constantly throughout their lifetimes, could produce a staggeringly large number of observations that might in turn generate large numbers of orbits. Orbit data with a lengthy time history can be used to produce estimates of maneuver frequency, susceptibility to natural forces such as drag, and (if combined with photometric data) assessments of behavioral patterns of life.

A future of mega-constellations and a growing number of nations and organizations with assets on orbit would make it likely that …

Space Dynamics Laboratory Payload Challenge: Autonomous Water Sampling Uav, Thomas Wheeler, Zachary Williams, Joseph Stack

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The following report has been completed over the course of the Fall 2018 and Spring 2019 semesters at The University of Akron by Joseph P. Stack (Aerospace Systems Engineering), Thomas J. Wheeler (Mechanical Engineering) and Zachary M. Williams (Mechanical Engineering). The purpose of this project was to create a payload system for the Akronauts Rocket Design Team to use at the Intercollegiate Rocket Engineering Competition (IREC) Spaceport America Cup. The Competition as a challenge that is sponsored by Space Dynamics Laboratory specifically regarding payload systems. The challenge in very open-ended and allows student to identify their own scientific experiment and …

Biologically Inspired Design Of Context-Aware Smart Products, Ang Liu, Ivan Teo, Diandi Chen, Stephen Lu, Thorsten Wuest, Zhinan Zhang, Fei Tao

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

The rapid development of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and cyber–physical sys-tems (CPSs) has paved the way for the increasing popularity of smart products. Context-awareness isan important facet of product smartness. Unlike artifacts, various bio-systems are naturally characterizedby their extraordinary context-awareness. Biologically inspired design (BID) is one of the most commonlyemployed design strategies. However, few studies have examined the BID of context-aware smart prod-ucts to date. This paper presents a structured design framework to support the BID of context-awaresmart products. The meaning of context-awareness is defined from the perspective of product design.The framework is developed based on the theoretical foundations …

Material Interactions And Self-Assembly In Inkjet Printing, Karam Nashwan Al-Milaji

Theses and Dissertations

Inkjet printing has attracted much attention in recent years as a versatile manufacturing tool, suitable for printing functional materials. This facile, low-cost printing technique with high throughput and accuracy is considered promising for a wide range of applications including but not limited to optical and electronic devices, sensors, solar cells, biochips, and displays. The performance of such functional devices is significantly influenced by the deposit morphology and printing resolution. Therefore, fabrication functional devices with precise footprints by inkjet printing requires deep understanding of ink properties, material interactions, and material self-assembly.

In conventional inkjet printing process, where sessile droplets are directly …