Engineering Commons^™

Statistical Modeling, Learning And Computing For Stochastic Dynamics Of Complex Systems, Mohammadmahdi Hajiha

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With the recent advances in sensor technology, it is much easier to collect and store streams of system operational and environmental (SOE) data. These data can be used as input to model the underlying behavior of complex engineered systems and phenomenons if appropriate algorithms with well-defined assumptions are developed. This dissertation is comprised of the research work to show the applicability of SOE data when fed into proposed tailored algorithms. The first purposes of these algorithms are to estimate and analyze the reliability of a system as elaborated in Chapter 2. This chapter provides the derivation of closed-form expressions that …

Third Party Risk Management And Cyber Supply Chain Risk Management, Jerald Garner

Operations Management Presentations

Today’s business environment continues to be a challenge. Businesses whether small, or large leverage third-party vendors to provide critical services like data handling (security, transmitting, and storage), cloud storage/applications, and systems security monitoring.

Each business must ask themselves a few simple questions about one of their most valuable assets “Data”. If or when it leaves your secure working environment:

• How secure is your customer data in transit and storage?
• Do your third-party vendors handle your “critical information”?
  • Provide a secure environment for processing?
  • Comply with a proven Cyber Security Framework?
  • Perform a “Due Diligence” on-boarding step for the Nth vendors …

Hidden In Plain Sight: Why Sustainment Is So Critical To The Circular Supply Chains For Technical Products, Dave Peterson

Operations Management Presentations

• Technical products are typically complex, long-lived and high-cost equipment—such as: aircraft, vehicles, ships, capital equipment/machinery and utilities infrastructure. While many technical products are manufactured via traditional linear supply chains, their useful lives often rely upon sustainment systems incorporating significant aspects of circular supply chains. This webinar takes a closer look at technical products and the critical role of systems sustainment to achieve and fulfill circular supply chains. The key takeaways from this webinar are:
  • The Earth is running out of resources which will have a direct impact upon maintaining/improving our quality of life.
  • The circular economy philosophy has definite relevance …

Critical Chain – Or Why Wedding Planners Get Ulcers, Greg Hutto

Operations Management Presentations

Planning a wedding is one of the most challenging projects in a young life… So much to do! A respected journal in the project management literature -- Southern Bride -- advises well-off young couples to escape stress and employ a professional wedding planner+. In today's webinar we will contrast two project planning methods in examining one such wedding project -- hastily planned and beset with troubles. We will shed light on the science & art of project management and possibly help our wedding planners (both professional and amateur) avoid stress-induced medical complications. In this webinar, we’ll be spending time with …

Knowledge Discovery From Complex Event Time Data With Covariates, Samira Karimi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In particular engineering applications, such as reliability engineering, complex types of data are encountered which require novel methods of statistical analysis. Handling covariates properly while managing the missing values is a challenging task. These type of issues happen frequently in reliability data analysis. Specifically, accelerated life testing (ALT) data are usually conducted by exposing test units of a product to severer-than-normal conditions to expedite the failure process. The resulting lifetime and/or censoring data are often modeled by a probability distribution along with a life-stress relationship. However, if the probability distribution and life-stress relationship selected cannot adequately describe the underlying failure …

Quantitative Set-Based Design For Complex System Development, Nicholas J. Shallcross

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation comprises a body of research facilitating decision-making and complex system development with quantitative set-based design (SBD). SBD is concurrent product development methodology, which develops and analyzes many design alternatives for longer time periods enabling design maturation and uncertainty reduction. SBD improves design space exploration, facilitating the identification of resilient and affordable systems. The literature contains numerous qualitative descriptions and quantitative methodologies describing limited aspects of the SBD process. However, there exist no methodologies enabling the quantitative management of SBD programs throughout the entire product development cycle. This research addresses this knowledge gap by developing the process framework and …

Efficiently Estimating Survival Signature And Two-Terminal Reliability Of Heterogeneous Networks Through Multi-Objective Optimization, Daniel Bruno Lopes Da Silva

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The two-terminal reliability problem is a classical reliability problem with applications in wired and wireless communication networks, electronic circuit design, computer networks, and electrical power distribution, among other systems. However, the two-terminal reliability problem is among the hardest combinatorial problems and is intractable for large, complex networks. Several exact methods to solve the two-terminal reliability problem have been proposed since the 1960s, but they have exponential time complexity in general. Hence, practical studies involving large network-type systems resort to approximation methods to estimate the system's reliability. One attractive approach for quantifying the reliability of complex systems is to use signatures, …

Enabling The “Easy Button” For Broad, Parallel Optimization Of Functions Evaluated By Simulation, Andrew Gibson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Java Optimization by Simulation (JOBS) is presented: an open-source, object-oriented Java library designed to enable the study, research, and use of optimization for models evaluated by simulation. JOBS includes several novel design features that make it easy for a simulation modeler, without extensive expertise in optimization or parallel computation, to define an optimization model with deterministic and/or stochastic constraints, choose one or more metaheuristics to solve it and run, using massively parallel function evaluation to reduce wall-clock times.

JOBS is supported by a new language independent, application programming interface (API) for remote simulation model evaluation and a serverless computing environment …

A Machine Learning Approach To Understanding Emerging Markets, Namita Balani

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Logistic providers have learned to efficiently serve their existing customer bases with optimized routes and transportation resource allocation. The problem arises when there is potential for logistics growth in an emerging market with no previous data. The purpose of this work is to use industry data for previously known and well-documented markets to apply data analytic techniques such as machine learning to investigate the uncertainty in a new market. The thesis looks into machine learning techniques to predict miles per stop given historical data. It mainly focuses on Random Forest Regression Analysis, but concludes that additional techniques, such as Polynomial …

Optimization Of Vaccine Supply Chains In Low- And Middle-Income Countries Utilizing Drones, Maximilian Kolter

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Despite tremendous efforts from governments and humanitarian organizations, millions of children in low- and low-middle-income countries (LICs and LMICs) are still excluded from the benefits of immunization. The vaccine distribution in LICs and LMICs is challenging for several reasons, such as limited cold chain capacities, vaccine wastage, uncertain demand, and lack of access to immunization services. A promising avenue to address these issues is the utilization of drones for vaccine delivery. Drones can fly at high speed on direct paths and could enable on-demand deliveries to mitigate limited storage capacities. Further, their independence of road networks could allow them reaching …

Resilience-Driven Post-Disruption Restoration Of Interdependent Critical Infrastructure Systems Under Uncertainty: Modeling, Risk-Averse Optimization, And Solution Approaches, Basem A. Alkhaleel

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Critical infrastructure networks (CINs) are the backbone of modern societies, which depend on their continuous and proper functioning. Such infrastructure networks are subjected to different types of inevitable disruptive events which could affect their performance unpredictably and have direct socioeconomic consequences. Therefore, planning for disruptions to CINs has recently shifted from emphasizing pre-disruption phases of prevention and protection to post-disruption studies investigating the ability of critical infrastructures (CIs) to withstand disruptions and recover timely from them. However, post-disruption restoration planning often faces uncertainties associated with the required repair tasks and the accessibility of the underlying transportation network. Such challenges are …

Decision Making Within An Nfl Context Using Multiple Objective Decision Analysis, Lawson Porter

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The National Football League (NFL) is the most popular sports league in the world, with millions of viewers every game and billions of dollars generated every season. Statistics are an important part of an NFL team’s business operating model and contribute greatly towards their decision making. Every season, general managers try to sign players that give the team the highest probability of winning games throughout the year. There are many factors that go into this decision, including the amount of money the team has to spend and the value that available players can bring to a team. Teams must abide …

Regression Analysis Of Pacing When Running A Marathon, Hawkin Starke

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Regression analysis can be an effective way of examining performance in the marathon event. By splitting up the race into segments or in runner terminology “splits” the significance of each segment as it relates to the total finish time can be explored. Because the idea of splits is already ingrained into the minds of runners, it makes intuitive sense to use these as the metrics to define a race. Additionally, marathons generally make participant age and gender date publicly available which can then be used to find trends within specific demographics. This tailors trends to smaller groups of people, making …

Improving Logistics Efficiency Through Collaborative Truck Routing, Patrick Dougherty

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The logistics industry is among the world’s largest and most essential. Specifically, trucking is a massive component of the modern logistics system. In 2012, truck transportation carried 68% of all freight tonnage in the U.S. However, trucking currently faces significant problems with efficiency and sustainability. Of all miles driven by trucks yearly in the U.S., 25% are driven with empty loads and 36% are driven with underutilized loads. In addition to this economic inefficiency, the industry faces social and environmental challenges. Driver turnover rates are near 100%, and trucking accounts for a significant level of greenhouse gas emissions. One potential …

Locating Drone Battery Supply Stations To Facilitate The Delivery Of Medical Supplies In Low And Middle-Income Countries, Madeline Suellentrop

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

In the sub-Saharan region of Africa, the inability to perform emergency blood transfusions due to an inadequate blood supply has led to high fatality rates, especially among women and children. The prevalence of disease in this region limits the supply of local blood donations and, if blood is imported, then the region’s poor infrastructure inhibits fast distribution. There is a need for a technological update in the current process that overcomes the limitations of regional transportation, and drones present one promising solution for delivering small, lightweight items such as blood units. The current focus of this new delivery method is …

Quantifying The Benefits Of A Collaborative Supply Chain Network Using A Discrete-Time Vehicle Routing Model, Matthew Walters

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The transportation industry contributed around one trillion dollars to the economy in 2016 accounting for 8.9% percent of the GDP. In 2017, it was responsible for 1.5 billion tons of CO₂ emissions. With the American Trucking agency predicting a 35% growth in the trucking industry between 2016 and 2027, there are rising concerns about the impact the trucking industry will have on the economy and the environment. The trucking industry is also very inefficient with many trucks driving with empty loads or with less than full capacity loads. There is potential to save billions of dollars and cut back …

Do Your Projects Support Your Strategy? Applying Benefits Realization Management, Phil Jones

Operations Management Presentations

In this webinar, foundational concepts of Benefits Realization Management will be presented and discussed. Benefits Realization Management (BRM) is a both a discipline and a process used to align projects undertaken by an organization with the organization’s strategy and culture.

Agile Thinking And Innovative Technology Development, Rocky Gay

Operations Management Presentations

Agile Project Management approaches have grown beyond software development and are being incorporated in many industries at a rapid pace. This expansion has created a need for a common language and methodology that fosters self-organized collaboration and an innate desire to deliver products that maximize customer satisfaction. There are a broad range of tools and techniques nested in a framework that facilitate a flexible and steady cadence of product delivery. Organizations have options in managing projects. Shifting to an agile mindset, values and principles may necessitate a culture change in project teams.

Better And Faster: How To Leverage Award-Winning Operations Management Techniques, Carrie Beam

Operations Management Presentations

The INFORMS Franz Edelman Award for Achievement in Advanced Analytics, Operations Research, and Management Science identifies innovative applications of operations management in fields as diverse as sewer district management, school bus scheduling, polio vaccinations, and of course transportation. In this seminar, 2021 Edelman Prize Chair Dr. Carrie Beam will introduce the keys of stakeholder engagement, iterative development, and scaled-up implementation of operations management techniques and how they apply to the Franz Edelman Award and to MSOM courses.

• Edelman Overview: https://youtu.be/_fiTelkcHi4
• Edelman 2020 Competition: http://info.informs.org/2020edelman

Scheduling Allocation And Inventory Replenishment Problems Under Uncertainty: Applications In Managing Electric Vehicle And Drone Battery Swap Stations, Amin Asadi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, motivated by electric vehicle (EV) and drone application growth, we propose novel optimization problems and solution techniques for managing the operations at EV and drone battery swap stations. In Chapter 2, we introduce a novel class of stochastic scheduling allocation and inventory replenishment problems (SAIRP), which determines the recharging, discharging, and replacement decisions at a swap station over time to maximize the expected total profit. We use Markov Decision Process (MDP) to model SAIRPs facing uncertain demands, varying costs, and battery degradation. Considering battery degradation is crucial as it relaxes the assumption that charging/discharging batteries do not …

Sports Analytics: Putting The Fun Back Into Analytics, Walt Degrange

Operations Management Presentations

With the recent success of sports teams heavily using analytics (Dodgers, Patriots, Capitals, Warriors, Leicester City F.C.), does this mean that analytics has gained a foothold in the sports world? I use a k-means clustering model to determine if performance since 2015 in the four major US sports can support this question. And is there a career path that a high school student can use to become a sports analytics professional? This presentation attempts to answer that question by exploring all the areas of the application of analytics in sports. The final point the brief makes is that by using …

Change Management: Increasing The Odds Of Adoption, Travis Mcneal

Operations Management Presentations

With rapid changes happening all around, organizations are finding themselves in positions where they need their workforce to adapt to new ways of working (technology, structural, process). Organizations develop strategies, programs and projects intended to address these changes. Unfortunately, history is littered with strategies and programs that fail to live deliver on expected results. This has led to the recent rise and proliferation of Change Management as a practice and skill set. Often times, however, Change Management theory is given preeminence over practicality. This webinar will explore practical and actionable ways you can take to immediately increase the odds …

Resilient Design And Crisis Management, Rich Ham

Operations Management Presentations

Explores the techniques to design resilience into systems, business functions, compliance, quality assurance and response to uncertainty. Includes an overview of Federal Emergency Management Agency principles in resilient design and crisis management, including implementation of National Incident Management System processes and industry standards to frame resilient design, procedures and planning documents. Learn to focus on the use of testing, exercises, and implementation of Plan, Do, Check, Act model to continually improve government, business and personal continuity through periods of cascading uncertainty.

Study On New Sampling Plans And Optimal Integration With Proactive Maintenance In Production Systems, Sinan Obaidat

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Sampling plans are statistical process control (SPC) tools used mainly in production processes. They are employed to control processes by monitoring the quality of produced products and alerting for necessary adjustments or maintenance. Sampling is used when an undesirable change (shift) in a process is unobservable and needs time to discover. Basically, the shift occurs when an assignable cause affects the process. Wrong setups, defective raw materials, degraded components are examples of assignable causes. The assignable cause causes a variable (or attribute) quality characteristic to shift from the desired state to an undesired state.

The main concern of sampling is …

Models For Data Analysis In Accelerated Reliability Growth, Cesar Alexander Ruiz Torres

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This work develops new methodologies for analyzing accelerated testing data in the context of a reliability growth program for a complex multi-component system. Each component has multiple failure modes and the growth program consists of multiple test-fix stages with corrective actions applied at the end of each stage. The first group of methods considers time-to-failure data and test covariates for predicting the final reliability of the system. The time-to-failure of each failure mode is assumed to follow a Weibull distribution with rate parameter proportional to an acceleration factor. Acceleration factors are specific to each failure mode and test covariates. We …

Maintenance Isn’T Just About Grease, Jim Burgin

Operations Management Presentations

Document maintenance is becoming a bit of a challenge. Slowly, but surely, business leaders are realizing that maintenance isn’t just a “necessary evil” but a competitive advantage that can help differentiate their company from others in the same industry. Maintenance is a broad concept, and this webinar is just to get you thinking about maintenance in a different way. Because of the “necessary evil” concept, professional maintenance resources are rare.

Maintenance costs real money. Depending on the size of the operation, labor, contractors, and material costs can be significant. While that seems like a lot of money, consider the costs …

Simulation Modeling Of Cross-Dock And Distribution Center Based Supply Chains, Ghewa Al Chall

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Companies are implementing new strategies to meet the customer requirements in terms of quality, timing, and cost. One of these strategies is cross-docking, which can be defined as the process of consolidating the products coming from different suppliers, but having the same destination, with minimal handling and almost no storage between loading and unloading of the goods. The purpose of this research is to investigate the benefits of having a cross-docking facility in a supply chain. In this research, we focus on developing discrete event simulation models using the opensource Java Simulation Library (JSL). Also, we work on augmenting an …

Characterizing Statin Use Among Prediabetic Patients With Predictive Analytics, Alexandra Gentile

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Diabetes is one of the leading causes of death in the United States and can cause severe impairments to those diagnosed. Prediabetes is a state when a patient has higher fasting plasma glucose levels than a non-diabetic person but is not quite high enough to be considered diabetes. Both diabetic and prediabetic patients are at higher risk for cardiovascular diseases (CVD), which is the leading cause of death in the United States. The primary form for prevention and treatment of CVD is through statin therapy. Statins are a class of medications used to treat and prevent CVD by limiting cholesterol …

Optimal Emergency Response Shelter Placement Based On Population Vulnerabilities, Alexander Johnson

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Hurricane Florence was a category 4 storm which caused an estimated $24 billion in damages and the loss of 53 lives. During and immediately following Florence, there were 235 shelters operating in and around the North Carolina (NC) area. These were used as temporary housing for storm victims and by emergency responders to distribute relief supplies and provide medical services. Emergency officials consider several factors when deciding where to open shelters, including, for example, proximity of victims and their levels of medical needs. Access disparities, or factors creating barriers that limit entry to shelters, put certain populations and regions at …

A Simulation Approach To Evaluate The Impact Of Breast Cancer Overdiagnosis On Patient Outcomes, Sierra Wagner

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Breast cancer overdiagnosis risk is difficult to estimate and varies significantly across current research. This research establishes a simulation approach to examine the relationship between breast cancer overdiagnosis and patient outcome and understand the impact that the range of breast cancer overdiagnosis rate estimates in the current literature has on patient outcomes. Overdiagnosis is represented in this study by a set of disease regression probabilities. Using microsimulation, we evaluate patient outcome, measured by number of mammograms and lifetime breast cancer mortality risk, as a function of treatment policy and regression probability. We use numerical experiments to evaluate treatment policies and …