Engineering Commons^™

Investigating Michigan’S Skilled Construction Laborer Shortage Within The Great Lakes Region, Jennifer E. Russell

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

The construction industry has been facing a decline in skilled trade labor for decades. This study asks three overarching questions: (a) What are the causes and influencing factors of Michigan’s skilled construction laborer shortage? (b) How are Michigan stakeholders in the Great Lakes Region remedying the shortage? (c) What new solutions can be implemented to remedy Michigan’s skilled construction laborer shortage? A literature review was conducted to identify causes, influencing factors, and research gaps. Closed surveys questioning 69 construction project managers and 101 skilled trade laborers in Michigan were conducted online and on construction sites. A quantitative analysis of the …

Reducing False Starts Among It Employees—A Study Of Hiring Professionals’ Perceptions, Swatee B. Kulkarni

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

One of the biggest challenges facing organizations is recruiting and retaining talented employees. A false start is an issue where an employee is hired for a certain position following the organization’s recruiting process; however, within the first year, the employee or the employer realizes that it is not a right fit, and the employment is terminated. The unexpected loss of employees is recognized as a global issue that affects overall business performance regardless of industry. The economic impact of false starts is estimated to be $1.28 billion per year according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). This study examines …

Improvement Of The Break And Steering System For The Golf-Cart, Rami Raed Mustafa

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

This project aims to gain knowledge and test theories related to autonomous vehicles using an electric golf cart as a test platform. There are several goals set, including obtaining electrical and controls experience related to autonomous driving and expanding their electrical engineering skills. The project has the potential to benefit the general population, as the electric golf cart shares similar attributes to a motor vehicle. Through diligent work and research, three key objectives have been achieved: transforming the previous single Arduino system into two mega Arduinos, reconfiguring the placement of the steering motor, and implementing an emergency braking system. Improving …

Design And Implementation Of A High-Fidelity Virtual Reality Manufacturing Planning Framework, Hamza Anwar Al-Jundi

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Manufacturing applications of virtual reality (VR) technology are growing. The challenge is to design, implement, and integrate VR simulation for manufacturing systems that improves the effectiveness of the planning process. This dissertation provides the industry with the technical infrastructure necessary to design a high-fidelity, collaborative virtual manufacturing planning system. It introduces the VR setup, the VR planning process, and the use of integrated hardware and software to produce high-fidelity simulations. The dissertation also provides a framework and set of guidelines for the architecture of the VR system. The framework is demonstrated by a high-fidelity VR simulation of a stamping process. …

Arab American Women In Engineering: How Did Their Culture Influence Their Achievement?, Iktimal Bia Hamed

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This body of research examined the Arab American culture and its impact on women who studied the male-dominated major of engineering. Through a qualitative approach, women born and raised in an Arab American home unpacked their experiences since childhood that made them who they are today. The 10 female Arab American participants shared how they made it through and successfully completed their major in engineering. This study focused on engineering, since there has been little to no growth in women who major in this male-dominated subject. This research examined how the participants’ parents, extended family, friends, community, and both K-12 …

Arkhe - Unmanned Detection Robot, Hannah Klooster

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

Our project is an Unmanned Thermal Detection Robot. Our robot contains a visual camera, a sonar sensor, and a thermal sensor. This project involves hardware building and coding of the sensors and robot itself. The purpose of this project is to create an accessible and affordable unmanned robot with sensors capable of being able to detect human life forms in disaster areas, or areas inaccessible to humans, and to protect the lives of rescuers, find people in disaster areas quicker, and to help save lives. Our project has successfully created an affordable robot that uses sensors to detect and avoid …

Uv-Curable Organic-Inorganic Hybrid Polyurethane Coating, Shiyin Yu

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This thesis explored a series of organic-inorganic hybrid polyurethane oligomers with varying molecular weights and functional groups (acrylate and/or silane) that were cured with a single ultraviolet (UV) trigger but two photo-initiators. Upon UV irradiation, the free-radical initiator initiated a free-radical reaction for acrylate cross-linking, and the photo-latent base initiated a sol-gel reaction for condensation of the silanes. This study explored the cure extent of both reactions by FTIR for acrylates and silanes and a weight-loss method for silanes as a function of functional group concentration and time. The general film properties were also studied. The results showed that the …

Impact Of Highway Work Zones On Traffic Crashes: A Case Study In Michigan, Qadri Hafez Shaheen

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Infrastructure in the US is severely aged and outdated. This presents a seemingly paradoxical problem in the field of construction management: In order to fix and make roads and highways more safe, construction zones must become inherently less safe in the process. There is a high cost to taxpayers and drivers, as work zones experience a significant amount of crashes and fatalities each year. To mitigate some of the factors that contribute to these crashes, this paper attempts to deliver guidelines on how to update relevant crash data, identify relevant factors, and create recommendations accordingly. The research focused particularly on …

The Influence Of Employee's Perceptions Of Top Management Support, Information Technology Competence, Technology Strategy, Organizational Climate, And Organization's Nationality On Information Systems Security, And Quality Success, Saud Fawwaz Alsahli

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This research investigated the relationship between levels of top management, information technology, competence, technology strategy, and organizational climate within an organization and organization’s success of information systems. The study conducted a quantitative study of 120 employees working for two organizations within the Ministry of Interior in Saudi Arabia and determine whether organizational attributes affect changes in information systems success. In addition, an American organization (40 employees) was used as a comparison. The analysis of the study found that top management support, information technology competence, technology strategy, and organizational climate were strongly correlated with information systems success in Saudi organizations. In …

Quality Improvement Of Recycled Concrete Aggregate Using Polymers, Ahmed Ali Abdrabbou

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Crushed concrete is one of the main resources for sustainable material. As this material should not be wasted, this research aims to assess the reuse of crushed concrete material as a resource of sustainable construction material. In this thesis, two types of polymer were mixed with crushed concrete to improve its fragmentation resistance, water absorption, and permeability. Water base polymer is an eco-friendly and cost-effective material, which has been used frequently to improve the quality of crushed concrete. This thesis contributes to the improvement of crushed concrete performance by improving the aggregate properties when it is mixed with a polymer, …

The Effect Of Organization Centralization, Organization Climate, Knowledge Management And Supply Chain Integration Perception On The Success Of Product Launch In The U.S. Automotive Industry, Raed Jalal Anabtawi

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This study examines variables that may affect new product launches in the automotive industry. The automakers need to have capabilities to address product launch issues when converting their efforts into automotive products that meet consumer requirements. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of organization centralization, organizational climate, knowledge management, and supply chain integration perception on the success and effectiveness of a product launch. The survey samples consisted of 101 respondents from automotive companies. Organization centralization perception, where decisions are made solely by upper management, had no significant correlation to the success of product launch. Analysis of …

Developing A Website For The Sword Of The Spirit Using An Agile Development Approach, James Smith

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

This creative project was created using an agile development process. Working in coordination with an organization called the Sword of the Spirit, a website was developed for their use. Using the agile approach, multiple iterations of the project were created and brought back to the organization for testing and feedback. The website was developed and is currently working here: https://sites.google.com/view/sosovemight/home.

For this project, a website, administrative email, and data collection and storage process were created. Security was added to ensure only registered profile holders would be able to view the information on the website. This was developed solely for the …

A Study Of Positions Available In Additive Manufacturing/3d Printing And The Education And Skill Requirements For These Positions, Renee Christine Colletti

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Additive manufacturing is defined as the process of joining materials to make objects from 3D model data, as opposed to subtractive manufacturing methodologies. Additive manufacturing positions are growing at an exponential rate, and the adoption of this disruptive technology is projected to have a significant impact on corporate strategies and culture. The purpose of this study was to identify the types of positions available in the additive manufacturing field and the skills and educational background required. A mixed-methods research design was employed. Two content analyses were conducted. The first was an analysis of 286 position descriptions obtained from five job …

An Analysis Of The Factors Associated With Adoption Of Electronic Supply Chain Management (E-Scm) Procurement Systems Within The U.S. Automotive Industry, Joseph James Joyce

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

The U.S. automotive industry is a vitally important industry to our nation; over 7,000,000 individuals directly rely on this industry for their livelihood (Hill, K. (2014). Just How High‐Tech is the Automotive Industry? Ann Arbor, MI: Center for Automotive Research (CAR)). This study investigated the use of electronic supply chain management (e-SCM) system usage within this industry and its influence on work-related procurement outcomes. An electronic questionnaire was used to gather perceptions consistent with the constructs of the technology acceptance model, or “TAM” (Davis, F. D. (1985). A technology acceptance model for empirically testing new end-user information systems: theory and …

Detection Of Malicious Content In Json Structured Data Using Multiple Concurrent Anomaly Detection Methods, Brett N. Miller

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Web applications and Web services often use a data format known as JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) to exchange information. An attacker can tamper with these exchanges to cause the Web service or application to malfunction in a way that is detrimental to the interests of the owners of the Web application or service. Many such applications or services are involved in processes critical to safety or are vital to business interests. Unfortunately, such critical applications cannot always be relied upon to validate the data sent to them. This creates a need for protection external to the applications themselves. This need …

Information And Communication Technology (Ict) Literacy: Refining A Construct For Assessment, Louis Michael Verdusco

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This research effort conceptualized, developed, implemented, and examined the psychometric properties of an Information & Communication Technology (ICT) literacy assessment instrument designed for students entering college. This process began with the development of a working definition of the ICT literacy based on the literature and the input of a panel of experts regarding the proposed literacy sub-constructs and the individual test items. A pilot test was conducted to identify areas for improvement. Once these improvements were incorporated, the final assessment instrument was administered to the freshmen class at a private Midwestern comprehensive university with religious affiliation.

The psychometric aspects of …

A Comparative Study Of Commercially Available Comfort Fabrics, Melinda Elizabeth Finnie

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

The comfort fabric market continues to grow and become more competitive. Consumers expect their active wear to deliver performance beyond simply being a barrier between their body and the environment. Textile manufacturers have taken notice, and there is a wide range of comfort fabrics on the market. This research tests fabric samples from leading comfort fabric technologies: phase change materials, nanotechnology, modified fiber structure and blends, as well as the original comfort fiber, cotton. The most widely recognized comfort fabric properties concern the thermal and moisture management of a fabric. Using a guarded sweating hot plate, standardized test methods, and …

A Study Of The Relationship Between The Use Of Gis And Project Success In Selected Construction Organizations, Hamad Altuwaijri

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This survey research effort investigated the relationship between 11 selected Geographic Information System (GIS) functions and three (time, cost, and quality) highway and transportation construction-project success criteria. The population included engineers and information technology professionals in the United States who worked in the highway and transportation area. The sample included members of various appropriate email groups.

No significant relationship between GIS function use and construction project success criteria (time and cost) was found. The third success criterion (customers specification−quality) was not tested because of the lack of variability of the responses. There were significant differences between organizations that focused on …

Eastern Michigan University Undergraduate Catalog, 2014-2015, Office Of The Registrar

Undergraduate Catalogs

No abstract provided.

Eastern Michigan University Graduate Catalog, 2014-2015, Office Of The Registrar

Graduate Catalogs

No abstract provided.

Mobile Device Vulnerabilities & Securities, Luke Rondeau

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

An investigation on current mobile vulnerabilities and research into security. Also, a proof of concept to show the ease of injecting an Android phone with a virus.

Eastern Michigan University Honors College Application Online System, Andrew Greiner

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

A Novel Defense Mechanism Against Web Crawler Intrusion, Alireza Aghamohammadi

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Web robots also known as crawlers or spiders are used by search engines, hackers and spammers to gather information about web pages. Timely detection and prevention of unwanted crawlers increases privacy and security of websites. In this research, a novel method to identify web crawlers is proposed to prevent unwanted crawler to access websites. The proposed method suggests a five-factor identification process to detect unwanted crawlers. This study provides the pretest and posttest results along with a systematic evaluation of web pages with the proposed identification technique versus web pages without the proposed identification process. An experiment was performed with …

Visual Literacy And The Integration Of Parametric Modeling In The Problem-Based Curriculum, Matthew Benedict Assenmacher

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This quasi-experimental study investigated the application of visual literacy skills in the form of parametric modeling software in relation to traditional forms of sketching. The study included two groups of high school technical design students. The control and experimental groups involved in the study consisted of two randomly selected groups of students. The participants were exposed to eight weeks of technical drawing and parametric modeling instruction prior to the start of the study.

The potential applications of emerging technologies for the purpose of integrating visual literacy into the curriculum are not fully understood. Society is moving towards a more immediate …

Exploring Lean Implementation Success Factors In Job Shop, Batch Shop, And Assembly Line Manufacturing Settings, Daniela Todorova

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This study was motivated by the differences in manufacturing settings, which provide challenges for those organizations undertaking a lean implementation. The levels of applicability of sixteen lean tools were examined in three different manufacturing settings: a job shop, a batch shop, and an assembly line. Specifically, this study explored the perceptions of managers familiar with lean regarding which lean tools were associated with better operational performance. The level of satisfaction with the lean programs in each of the three manufacturing settings was explored as well. The data were collected through a survey that was emailed to one thousand managers working …

Eastern Michigan University Undergraduate Catalog, 2013-2014, Office Of The Registrar

Undergraduate Catalogs

No abstract provided.

Eastern Michigan University Graduate Catalog, 2013-2014, Office Of The Registrar

Graduate Catalogs

No abstract provided.

Third-Party Quality Management Audits For Automotive Component Manufacturing: Perceptions And Insights Into A Necessary Yet Debatable Practice, Christopher Kluse

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Third-party quality audits have been a continued practice within the manufacturing community since release of the ISO 9000 standard in 1987. In recent times, many within the manufacturing industry are questioning the value of the audit process. (Sayle, 1995, Sayle 1999, Douglas, 2000, Gordon, 2000, Dalgleish 2006) Consequently, a need exists to better understand the impacts and perceptions of the third-party auditing process. This research used a grounded theory approach to explore the following question: How do management representatives perceive the third-party audit process?

Collection of data consisted of 25 in-depth interviews taken from management representatives within the automotive industry. …

A Critical Examination Of The Construct Validity Of The Tti Performance DnaTm Survey For The Purpose Of Differentiating The Entrepreneurially-Minded Engineer, Sandra L. Dietrich

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

The United States needs workers with more than technical skills to meet the demands of global competition; more specifically, a new breed of engineer is necessary, one who possesses leadership skills and business acumen in addition to the technical engineering skills. One Midwestern foundation has recognized this challenge and is working with engineering universities to enhance programs to create entrepreneurially-minded engineers (EMEs). To this end, the Target Training International, Ltd. (TTI) Performance DNATM survey has been developed to measure the behaviors, values, and professional skills of these EMEs. Currently, the Foundation has collected data using this survey with engineering students …

Eastern Michigan University Undergraduate Catalog, 2012-2013, Office Of The Registrar

Undergraduate Catalogs

No abstract provided.