Engineering Commons^™

Optimal Route Planning Using Computer Simulation In The Context Of Distributor-To-Consumer Supply Network, Miriam Aguilera Nava

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Effective route planning for distribution centers is a multifaceted challenge crucial tobusiness success, as it directly impacts time and cost savings while enhancing overall delivery efficiency. Oversight of proper planning can lead to problems and inefficiencies in the distribution process. Hence, this work undertakes a comparative experiment of two delivery strategies in a distributor-to-consumer supply network. While the first strategy investigates the delivery process by zip area, the second strategy considers the clustering of the areas for more streamlined delivery fulfillment. The effectiveness of the delivery process is gauged based on a set of metrics, including total distance traveled, average …

A Novel Approach For Defect Detection Of Wind Turbine Blade Using Virtual Reality And Deep Learning, Md Fazle Rabbi

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Wind turbines are subjected to continuous rotational stresses and unusual external forces such as storms, lightning, strikes by flying objects, etc., which may cause defects in turbine blades. Hence, it requires a periodical inspection to ensure proper functionality and avoid catastrophic failure. The task of inspection is challenging due to the remote location and inconvenient reachability by human inspection. Researchers used images with cropped defects from the wind turbine in the literature. They neglected possible background biases, which may hinder real-time and autonomous defect detection using aerial vehicles such as drones or others. To overcome such challenges, in this paper, …

Digitizing Work Instructions Through Technology Using Internet Of Things (Iot), Priscila Balanzar Almazan

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Smart manufacturing is fundamentally changing the industry so fast; for this reason, modern industrial processes must be intelligently and digitally automated. Digitalization of work instructions has taken an important role in improving the efficiency of industry and traditional manufacturing processes. TULIP is a frontline operations platform that allows users to digitize operations using friendly apps that operators can deploy in their daily shopfloor processes. This Industry 4.0 tool is important because it optimizes the development of processes by enabling IoT with the use of sensors, connectors, and machines to collect real-time production data. In this research, a manufacturing station equipped …

Challenges, Limitations, And Strengths For An Optimal Predictive Maintenance Application, Erick Armando Rosales

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Industry 4.0, the fourth industrial revolution, has emerged as the most recent digital transformation worldwide, expanding and reshaping the manufacturing industry by introducing novel technologies. In Industry 4.0, Smart Manufacturing (SM) and the Internet of Things (IoT) have collaborated to bring the best of both worlds and make the new manufacturing era more cost-effective, automated, and digitized. As a result, many businesses are putting sensors, intricate networks of integrated systems, big data analytics, cloud computing, and storage in place to use predictive maintenance (PdM) best. PdM uses IoT to convert physical activities into digital activities, also known as digitization. Predictive …

Cyber-Physical Production Systems And Their Practical Integration And Application With Simio Software, Jose Carlos Garcia Marquez Basaldua

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Industry 4.0 comprises a diverse array of technologies and components that are revolutionizing the manufacturing industry, from Digital Twins, Cyber-Physical Systems and Augmented Reality. The elements that englobe Industry 4.0 vary from framework to framework. Nevertheless, there are similarities in the available literature on what constitutes Industry 4.0. Some of the most critical components specified by the available literature include Digital Twins and Cyber-Physical Systems. A Factory Digital Twin is a virtual representation of a production system that can mimic the behavior of the physical asset. Moreover, a digital twin must have synchronization with its physical twin (i.e., production floor), …

Evaluation Of Maternal Patient Experience During Covid-19 Using Natural Language Processing, Debapriya Banik

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Healthcare policymakers are constantly investigating how to improve this situation and provide a more patient-centered care. Delivering excellent medical care involves ensuring that patients have a positive experience. Most healthcare organizations use patient survey feedback, like HCAHPS, to measure their patients' experiences. The United States has the highest maternal mortality or morbidity rate of the developed countries, so we used maternal patients as the patient cohort to evaluate various touchpoints. The power of social media can be harnessed to provide researchers with valuable insights into understanding patient's experience and care. We used the "COVID-19Tweets" Dataset, which has over twenty-eight million …

Natural Resources Management Framework For Agricultural Irrigation Systems Optimization, Juan Valentin Fernandez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Water scarcity has increased substantially in the last decades in many parts of the world, and it is expected to worsen due to the significant increase in global water withdrawals, intensive population growth, and climate change. Water is easily one of the most essential and invaluable global resources due to its many uses, such as drinking, industrial processes, and irrigation. The agriculture sector is one of the most significant water users globally, accounting for nearly 70% of global freshwater withdrawals. Cities and industries compete with the agriculture sector for water sources, producing alarming levels of stress and pollution in the …

Evaluation And Implementation Of Lean Engineering Principles For Improving A University Rocket Team, Alan Garcia

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In the present day, lean is a tool applied to manufacturing industries trying to reduce wasteand non-value-added work to every process during the supply chain. While implementing lean thinking in the industry has been highly effective, it is less common for academic purposes. However, it can also improve performance if the concept is correctly applied. The purpose of this thesis is to show and analyze the application of Lean Engineering thinking and its six principles to the Sun City Summit Rocket Team from the University of Texas at El Paso which competed in the Intercollegiate Rocket Engineering Competition (IREC) Spaceport …

Interoperability In An Electrified Pavement System: A Model-Based Systems Engineering Perspective, Beatriz Irene Soto

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In a 2021 statement provided by The White House, (The White House, 2021), the Biden administration announce the goal for electric vehicles to account for 50% of new vehicle sales in the United States by 2035. In addition, the legislation allocates a budget of $7.5 billion to build out a national network of EV chargers along highway corridors to facilitate long-distance travel and within communities to provide convenient charging where people live, work, and shop. This investment will support the President's goal of building a nationwide network of 500,000 EV chargers to accelerate the adoption of EVs, reduce emissions, improve …

Investigation Into The Economic Viability Of Industry 4.0 Practices In A Small Start-Up Setting: A Case Study, Joseph Lindley

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Industry 4.0 has been a hot button topic since the first rumouringâ??s of a fourth industrial revolution taking place in the early 2010s. Since that time many companies have attempted to transform their process, procedures, and systems to become streamlined, efficient, and overall, more profitable. An example of this can be seen in companies such as Microsoft and IBM, Mitsubishi and Siemens who have gained a stronger foothold in their respective markets by their efficient implementation of Industry 4.0. Before we can address how small start-up companies can begin to compete with these behemoths, we must address the question; what …

Productivity And Quality Evaluation In Assembly Using Collaborative Robots, Carlos F. Manzanares Vega

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In Industry 4.0, various technologies have been applied to achieve automation for traditional manufacturing and practices. For this reason, Smart Manufacturing (SM) environments utilize collaborative robots for process optimization by integrating the Internet of Things (IoT). Cobots are equipped with sensors and/or other devices to be able to transmit data in real-time while performing their tasks. Consequently, such SM implementations improves the decision making and business development, such as supply chain and operations, by sharing real-time data from a plant operational level. The collaborative robots are also designed to safely interact and collaborate with humans to perform tasks and optimize …

Analyzing The Supply Chain Operation Of A Fast-Food Restaurant Using Simulation Modeling And Developing A Cost Estimation Optimization Model In The Disruption Period, Amit Kumar Saha

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Supply chain operation performance is a much-discussed topic over the last decade which will lead to optimizing the resources required to provide the necessary level of customer service to a specific segment and improve customer service through increased product availability and reduced order cycle time. During disruption in supply chain, performance parameter changes, and the overall supply chain cost at each stage increases. External factors such as labor shortages, delayed and costly supplies, and decreased demand also contribute to this cost. This thesis work presents a research-focused analysis of a small pizza shop, under circumstances that include the loss of …

Efficient Approaches To Steady State Detection In Multivariate Systems, Honglun Xu

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Steady state detection is critically important in many engineering fields such as fault detection and diagnosis, process monitoring and control. However, most of the existing methods are designed for univariate signals. In this dissertation, we proposed an efficient online steady state detection method for multivariate systems through a sequential Bayesian partitioning approach. The signal is modeled by a Bayesian piecewise constant mean and covariance model, and a recursive updating method is developed to calculate the posterior distributions analytically. The duration of the current segment is utilized to test the steady state. Insightful guidance is provided for hyperparameter selection. The effectiveness …

Predicting Zero Bin In The Semiconductor Manufacturing Industry: Machine Learning Algorithms, Yazmin Montoya

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The semiconductor industry has faced supply chain manufacturing shortages that ultimately led to a worldwide chip shortage during the COVID-19 pandemic. These chip manufacturers use sophisticated and advanced manufacturing machinery in their fabs to manufacture chips. As experienced during the pandemic, manufacturing unavailability is often due to the lack of critical manufacturing-related spare parts. This thesis evaluates the effectiveness of machine learning algorithms to identify significant factors contributing to manufacturing part outages (i.e., zero-bin) to keep manufacturing equipment running at total capacity within the organization. We propose clustering methods to segment the data and use logistic regression, logistic lasso regression, …

Development Of Metaheuristic Algorithms For The Efficient Allocation Of Power Flow Control Devices, Eduardo Jose Castillo Fatule

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Modern energy grids have become extremely complex systems, requiring more variable and active flow control. As a remedy to this, Distributed Flexible AC Transmission Systems (D-FACTS) are cost-efficient devices used to mitigate power flow congestion and integrate renewable energies. The objective of this research is then to propose an efficient multiple objective evolutionary algorithm to solve a stochastic model for D-FACTS allocation, which aims to optimize various objectives related to cost, grid health, and environmental impacts. The model was implemented on a modified RTS-96 test system, and the results show that optimally allocating D-FACTS modules using the proposed model can …

Supply Chain Optimization Of A Local Small Business From The Food-Service Industry Using Simulation Models, Aimee Montalvo

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Various supply chain disruptions can cause revenue losses, low productivity, and damaged reputations. Some examples of such disruptions include increased supply costs, labor shortages, pandemics, natural disasters, or transportation delays. For instance, during the COVID-19 pandemic, several small and medium enterprises (SMEs) suffered greatly from labor shortages, delayed and costly supplies, and decreased demand. In this research, we present a case study of a small local business from the fast-food industry that experienced the loss of employees and delays and analyzed the increased cost of supplies. We created visualization modules with the SMEs supply chain performance measures to see the …

Evaluation Of Patient Experience Using Natural Language Processing Algorithms, Sofia Veronica Ortega

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

INTRODUCTION: Healthcare organizations are making extensive efforts to improve the patient experience. Enhancing patient/client experience and outcomes is crucial for patient-centered care and can reveal improvement opportunities. Healthcare settings currently rely on surveys (e.g., HCAHPS) and patient feedback to measure patient experience. Studies have identified that utilizing patient journey mapping can better capture patient experience throughout all stages of the patient's journey and provide quality and process improvement recommendations at specific hotspots. However, these measurement techniques are time-consuming and resource intensive. AIM: This research aims to measure patient experience of breast cancer patients from social media data using natural language …

Adaptive Lean Manufacturing Implementation For Organizations With Rapid Leadership Turnover, Brett Babcock

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Lean Six Sigma seeks to optimize workplace efficiency and is now world renowned as the standard for how to maximize profits, perfect quality control, and emphasize workplace safety. Almost every large scale engineering company has in some shape or form a Lean Six Sigma aimed concept of operations to the point that a subset of the Lean Six Sigma Institute is focused towards compiling packages to assist those companies that have not implemented it to make the transition. These packages while efficient, operate with the understanding that the ideologies they deploy will be implemented from the top down and that …

A Survey Of The Current State Of The Practice In Bridging The Gap Between Engineering Ontologies And Modeling Profiles For Engineering Applications, John Artus

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Model-Based Systems Engineering holds the promise of enhancing systems engineering tasks and product quality through better, more efficient exchange of data across tools, personnel, and departments, a higher quality of analysis resulting from greater access to cross-discipline data, better coordination between engineering activities and those of program management, and many other benefits. Yet, there is still no standardized method for achieving commonality of architecture vocabulary across projects, across, companies, across industries such that entities operating in the same domain produce products that speak the same technical language. Some specialized domains, such as the Department of Defense (DoD), have developed Architecture …

Weather Prediction: Improving Accuracy Using Data Mining And Forecasting Techniques, Pedro Marquez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This study is focused to provide the insights of weather to understand the significance of weather changes in any parameter. Weather forecasting contributes to the social and economic welfare in many sections of the society. Weather is extremely difficult to predict because it is a complex and chaotic system. This means that small errors in the initial conditions of a forecast grow rapidly and affect predictability. Nowadays, massive real-time data is being generated by IoT devices, radars, weather stations, and satellites. The need to adopt big data analytics in IoT applications is compelling. These two technologies have already been recognized …

Mathematical Modeling, Optimal Control And Stability Analysis For Dynamic Supply Chains, Yasser Alberto Davizon

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Dynamic supply chains (SC) are important to reduce inventory, to enable the flow of materials, and maximize profits. By this, dynamic SC require proper decision-making with effective performance and synchronization. In operations and production planning processes, decision-makers develop convenient and suitable decisions, to validate their hypoThesis about which decisions incorporate more profit while reducing costs on enterprise operations. Based on this, inventory management plays a crucial point in the supply chain analysis. In general, SC processes raw material, cash, and information flows, taking into account the demand profile of the system. This research work presents the mathematical modeling, optimal control, …

Design Of Experiments Analysis Of Powder Removal Methods For Ebm Manufactured Ti-6al-4v Parts, Luis Cesar Ramos Castañeda

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Additive Manufacturing is a technology that allows the on-demand manufacturing of complex geometries that cannot be fabricated through traditional subtractive manufacturing methods. Powder Bed Fusion is one of the seven categories of Additive Manufacturing with two subcategories, the Laser Beam Melting and the Electron Beam Melting. Freedom of design, rapid prototyping, and customization are some of the benefits that this technology provides. Like any technology, there are limitations for each category and subcategory. The Electron Beam Melting uses the electron beam to pre-heat the powder bed, reducing the temperature difference between the build part and powder bed, causing the surrounding …

Applications Of A New Genetic Algorithm To Solve The Centralized Carrier Collaboration And Multihub Location Problem Considering Environmental Impacts, Eduardo Jose Castillo Fatule

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The Centralized Carrier Collaboration and Multi-hub Location Problem (CCCMLP) represents a strategy that small-to-medium sized less-than-truckload (LTL) carrier companies can use in order to improve their profit margins. It is a strategy that is being explored in order to make these companies more sustainable as they are forced to reinvent their processes and supply chains. In this work, I will present a metaheuristic approach to optimizing their hub establishment and routing policies in order to better their expected profit margins and reduce their environmental impacts. The study considers the costs of transportation, loading and unloading, maintenance, operations, and inventory holding …

Technical Project Management: Union Of Systems Engineering Processes With Project Management Processes, Deyaaldeen M. Abusal

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Today, most projects in technical fields utilize project management to complete projects as planned, and some of the projects utilize system engineering to cover the project in both technically and commercially. This Thesis investigates the relationship between Project Management (PM) and Systems Engineering (SE) to determine if a suitably professional level of management and level of quality can be achieved. When studying PM and SE separately and make a comparison between both, there is much overlap between these two mature fields. The project could be planned and completed solely by either process. This study combines both fields of Project Management …

Extraction Of Fiber Morphology From Sem Images For Quality Control Of Fiber Reinforced Composites Manufacturing, Md Fashiar Rahman

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The morphology of fibers (e.g. spatial uniformity, orientation, and length) plays a decisive role in determining the material properties or fabrication quality of fiber-reinforced nanocomposites. Hence, determining the morphology becomes a very critical issue in the field of nanocomposite quality control. The conventional way of quality inspection is to take the scanning electron microscopic (SEM) images of the cross-section of composite material and do the visual checking of these SEM images to evaluate the nanofiber alignment and length distribution. But this type of inspection is often subjective, inaccurate and time consuming. Moreover, the extremely small size of nanofibers makes the …

Economic And Environmentally Efficient Energy Management System For Optimal Microgrid Operation, Olayinka Samuel Obafemi

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The aim of this Thesis is to study and understand the economic analysis of integrating renewable energy resources for the purpose of improving the system grid, identifying and monetizing benefits and cost. This Thesis discusses the approach taken and solution created to tackle the current problems facing the production and consumption of electricity and how the microgrid has become a platform for improvement in power system operation. A microgrid in islanded and connected mode are simulated using Homer Pro for optimization and its results help gain an insight into analyzing and monetizing cost and benefits with one common goal in …

Predictive Modeling On The Piezoelectric Properties Of 3d Printed Functional Nanocomposites Using The Data Analytics Approach, Md Didarul Islam

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This paper presents research done on prediction modeling using a data analytics approach to determine various factors affecting the piezoelectric properties of the 3D printed pressure sensors. Previously, the material extrusion 3D printing technique was used to fabricate pressure sensors composed of multiwall carbon nanotubes (CNT), barium titanate (BT), and polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) using simple fabrication and low-cost methods. This sensor produced a voltage output of 725 mV (0.13 pC/N) which is enough for pressure sensing applications. However, a holistic study to determine impacts of all factors was not carried out in the previous model. In this study, the design …

Shape Detection Of Structural Electronics Using Machine Vision System Embeded Into Scara Robot, Varaha Venkat Vyas Kumar Naidu

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Additive manufacturing processes combined with enhanced technologies for electronics production enables a highly flexible manufacturing of personalized 3D electronic devices. Due to the technical progress within the last years, these technologies made their way from prototyping towards manufacturing. The growing request for products manufactured in batch size, making use of a robot to incorporate the electronic components necessary to make functional 3-Dimensional-Structural Electronics will extend the mass production possibilities. There is significant interest in automation of a process in which parameters are influential in the occurrence of assembly defects and which adjustments should be made to those variables to reduce …

Image Data Mining For Quality Control Of Nanofiber Reinforced Piezoelectric Nanocomposites Based On Sem Images, Zhonghua Hu

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Recently, portable and wireless nano-scaled devices have been widely used in environmental monitoring, medical implants, defense technology, industrial safety, and personal electronics, such as the nanowire-based gas and chemical sensors and programmable nanowire circuit for nano-processors. There has been an increasing demand for high energy density capacitors that can be engineered for various applications in advanced devices. In it, piezoelectric nanofiber materials play critical role in producing new products. A piezo-ceramic polymer composite contains a polymer of high dielectric strength and high permittivity ceramic inclusions, making it well suited as a high energy density capacitor. Furthermore, the research shows that …

Renewable Energy Systems Optimization Using Monte Carlo Simulation And Evolutionary Algorithms, Nicolas Lopez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Dissertation explores the Renewable Energy Integration Problem, and proposes a Genetic Algorithm embedded with a Monte Carlo simulation to solve large instances of the problem that are impractical to solve via full enumeration. The Renewable Energy Integration Problem is defined as finding the optimum set of components to supply the electric demand to a hybrid

microgrid. The components considered are solar panels, wind turbines, diesel generators, electric batteries, connections to the power grid and converters, which can be inverters and/or rectifiers. The methodology developed is explained as well as the combinatorial formulation. In addition, 2 case studies of a …