Engineering Commons^™

Prognostic Algorithm Development For Plant Monitoring And Maintenance Planning, Them Hill Bui

Doctoral Dissertations

The economic goals in a typical industrial plant are to improve product quality, maximize equipment up-time, reliability, and availability, and minimize spare part inventories and maintenance costs. Modern facilities are comprised of thousands of subsystems with critical unique components. Simple components and more complex engineering systems alike are typically engineered to perform satisfactorily. Their lives can be predicted under normal operation runtime. It should be the same with chronological time lapse from the moment of installation. However, their ages accelerate faster than chronological time lapse if they are operated under unfavorable working conditions, making their remaining life predictions likely not …

Fault Diagnosis And Failure Prognostics Of Lithium-Ion Battery Based On Least Squares Support Vector Machine And Memory Particle Filter Framework, Mohammed Ali Lskaafi

Doctoral Dissertations

123456A novel data driven approach is developed for fault diagnosis and remaining useful life (RUL) prognostics for lithium-ion batteries using Least Square Support Vector Machine (LS-SVM) and Memory-Particle Filter (M-PF). Unlike traditional data-driven models for capacity fault diagnosis and failure prognosis, which require multidimensional physical characteristics, the proposed algorithm uses only two variables: Energy Efficiency (EE), and Work Temperature. The aim of this novel framework is to improve the accuracy of incipient and abrupt faults diagnosis and failure prognosis. First, the LSSVM is used to generate residual signal based on capacity fade trends of the Li-ion batteries. Second, adaptive threshold …

Swerve, Kaitlin A. Castillo, Cichasky A. Catherine

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Carpooling yields great benefits environmentally, socially, and economically for carpooling, however there is no easy to use, safe, and enjoyable application for people to connect with others who are both close in proximity and have schedules that match currently. By creating a database and visual mock ups, our senior project creates the basis for an application called Swerve that matches users by location and schedules and has social and economic incentives. Our research allowed us to further understand the social, environmental and economic benefits and incentives of carpooling. We also looked into current carpooling websites and applications and could not …

Multi-Restaurant Delivery Service Design And Financial Analysis, Dylan Davis Fuller

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

When found on campus all day and in need of a quick meal before the next class what are the options for you as a Cal Poly student or faculty? Campus dining is the only option that can meet the typical demand you have of speed and convenience. Restaurants with food delivery often don’t have the variety or take to long for delivery. The goal is to provide a delivery service with the speed of getting a meal on campus but with the variety and quality of the restaurants found in downtown San Luis Obispo. Looking at existing businesses providing …

Startup Social Responsibility: A Concentrated Social Audit Of Halt Medical Inc., Matthew Frank Rosa

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Halt Medical Inc. is a biomedical device startup whose managers are interested in assessing their levels of employee satisfaction and organizational well-being. They want to know if their employees are cooperating, if departments are cohesive, and if everyone is happy. To evaluate Halt Medical’s social capital and environment, a social responsibility audit will be conducted concentrated specifically on the organization’s social and ethical initiatives to its employees. This analysis requires interviews of managers, observations of cultural diffusion, and employee opinions on a variety of business areas. The five areas of focus for this audit are the company’s accommodation of each …

An Economical Model Development For A Hybrid System Of Grid Connected Solar Pv And Electrical Storage System, Mohammad Hasan Balali

Theses and Dissertations

Energy sources management is one of the most important concern in the recent decades. There are finite amount of non-renewable energy sources and one day they will run out if they have been used as primary sources of energy. Renewable energy sources have been significantly reduced the environmental effects. For most of them the source of energy is non-depletable.

One of the concerns associated with renewable resources is uncertainty or unavailability. Energy Storage Systems (ESSs) can help to have more reliable and more efficient systems by adjusting the charge and discharge time and rate. In this study, an economic model …

Warranty Period And Product Price Optimization For Remanufactured Products, Yuxi Liu

Theses and Dissertations

This study considers a remanufactured electrical product under a tiered warranty policy. Warranty is key in ensuring a good manufacturer—consumer relationship. Manufacturers hope to minimize warranty costs while consumers believe that good warranty promises better product quality and reliability. This Thesis presents an optimal warranty period from the perspective of a manufacturer to maximize the total expected profits, while ensuring sustained consumer relation. We use real data from a local company with a global supply chain to provide a numerical example.

Modeling And Analysis Of Pca Workflow, Ewing Tiong

Masters Theses

Nursing shortage has been reported as a major problem faced not only by the United States but also by many other countries. One of the many interventions that has been used to curb nursing shortage is the increase in employment of Unlicensed Assistive Personnels (UAPs) as an alternative care delivery model. There are many types of UAP and one of them are Patient Care Assistants (PCAs). This research proposes a methodology to model and analyze the work ow of a PCA in terms of completing assigned tasks in a timely manner. The specific objectives of this research are to model …

Biomechanical Evaluation Of Three Post-Kneeling Tasks: Sitting, Walking, And Standing, Alexa Hernandez Principe

Theses and Dissertations

There are several occupations that require prolonged kneeling as part of their daily practice. Employees who kneel for a prolonged period of time have been reported to have high rates of knee and low back musculoskeletal disorders (Coggon et al. 2000, Halmstrom et al. 1992, Harkness et al. 2003, Manninen et al. 2002). These disorders result in excessive worker’s compensation costs. Gallagher el al. (2009) looked at the low seam mining industry and found that companies spent the most on knee related injuries with $4.2 million and $2.7 million for low back injuries.

There is a lack of knowledge available …

Truckload Carrier Selection, Routing And Cost Optimization, Zhixin Han

Masters Theses

The aim of this thesis was to investigate the routing decision combined with common carrier selection for dedicated contract carriers to reduce full truckload routing cost on pickup and delivery service within time windows in a multiple depots scenario. Mixed Integer Programming and some heuristic algorithms such as the genetic algorithm and annealing algorithm have been successfully used to solve vehicle routing problems for a long time, but researchers seldom simultaneously focus on issues of carrier selection, multiple depots, time window, and the government regulations for a dedicated contract carrier. Therefore, this thesis involved constraints of pickup and delivery with …

Nursing Interruption Dynamics: The Impact Of Work System Factors, Yushi Yang

All Dissertations

Interruptions occur frequently in healthcare work systems. Hands-free Communication Devices (HCDs) were implemented in healthcare work systems to support the interruption process. However, from a sociotechnical systems perspective, HCDs may introduce new complications and unintended consequences to the work system. Research gaps exist in investigating the complexity of HCD interruptions in the real-world context. This dissertation aims to understand HCD interruption dynamics in the nursing work systems, using qualitative research methods. The first study examined the major differences between face-to-face and HCD-mediated interruptions, based on 30 hours of field observations in the acute care setting. Three major differences included: (1) …

College Football Rankings: Maximum Flow Model, Jaymin Patel

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

College football is a very popular sport in the United States. There is much debate over the college football rankings every week. A maximum flow network is implemented into the CMS+ rankings to observe the effects it has on the college football rankings.

Modeling Information Reliability And Maintenance: A Systematic Literature Review, Daysi A. Guerra Garcia

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Operating a business efficiently depends on effective everyday decision-making. In turn, those decisions are influenced by the quality of data used in the decision-making process, and maintaining good data quality becomes more challenging as a business expands. Protecting the quality of the data and the information it generates is a challenge faced by many companies across all industrial sectors. As companies begin to use data from these large data bases they will need to begin to develop strategies for maintaining and assessing the reliability of the information they generate using this data. A considerable amount of literature exists on data …

Design Of A Web Application To Improve The Efficiency Of Crnas., Venkatramanan Chanchapalli Madhavan

All Theses

Physical artifacts such as whiteboards have been successfully used in healthcare facilities to keep track of dynamic changes in information and to manage work schedules. Since these whiteboards are easy- to- use and do not require any technical expertise, they have been easy- to-adopt. Additionally, they act as memory aids for the users by capturing transient information. However, they have their own limitations, the primary ones being the lack of mobility and real-time updates, both of which are crucial in a high consequence environment such as a healthcare facility. These whiteboards are usually kept in a central location with the …

Heuristic Solution For Separated Manufacturing Process, James Dee Davis

Masters Theses

Downtime is a major issue for manufactures. Downtime may occur from breakdowns, quality issues, lack of manpower, lack of materials, or in this case a lack of storage containers. A manufacturing system was studied that consists of an injection machine that supplies two assembly lines. The injection machine suffered from frequent downtime from lack of containers. The process was analyzed for root cause of downtime. After analysis of the system it was found that the injection process had high variability in production quantity and quality. The scheduling scheme called for production until all available containers were full regardless of actual …

Ergonomics Analysis Of Touchscreen Utilization As A Function Of Preferred Hand And Gender, Jordan E. Odell

Master's Theses

The growth of touchscreen technology has changed the way users interface with a wide range of computing and communication products and systems. Examples range from personal tablets and laptops to industrial applications such as process control, point-of-sales, and ticketing kiosk systems. An important area of application is the automobile industry which is designing cars with touchscreen control panels to replace the previously designed mechanical knobs and buttons. However, interacting with touchscreens does not provide the same tactile feedback as physical mechanisms, therefore they require more precise movement and visual attention, which distracts the user from the primary task.

The purpose …

A Systems Approach To Point Source Indication Of Metformin Found In Local Water Systems – The Case Of Milwaukee County, Mohamed Salem Baitelmal

Theses and Dissertations

Pharmaceutical pollutants are present in traceable concentrations in Milwaukee County water system and Lake Michigan. The actual point sources and nature of entry into the water system is difficult to determine with certainty. Pharmaceuticals have been found to persist at the South Shore Wastewater Treatment Facility (SSWTF) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The highest concentration was found to be for the pharmaceutical drug metformin. Metformin is a first line drug for the treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus.

The broad goal of this exploratory study; the first of its kind, is to correlate trace concentrations of drugs to the point sources. Particularly, …

Water Withdrawal And Consumption Reduction Analysis For Electrical Energy Generation System, Narjes Nouri

Theses and Dissertations

There is an increasing concern over shrinking water resources. Water use in the energy sector primarily occurs in electricity generation. Anticipating scarcer supplies, the value of water is undoubtedly on the rise and design, implementation, and utilization of water saving mechanisms in energy generation systems are becoming inevitable. Most power plants generate power by boiling water to produce steam to spin electricity-generating turbines. Large quantities of water are often used to cool the steam in these plants. As a consequence, most fossil-based power plants in addition to consuming water, impact the water resources by raising the temperature of water withdrawn …

Spare Parts On Demand Using Additive Manufacturing : A Simulation Model For Cost Evaluation., Stefan Jedeck

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Little is known about the impact of additive manufacturing in the spare part supply chain. A few studies are available, but they focus on specific parts and their applications only. A general model, which can be adapted to different applications, is nonexistent. This dissertation proposes a decision making framework that enables an interested practitioner/manager to decide whether using additive manufacturing to make spare parts on demand is economical when compared to conventional warehousing strategy. The framework consists of two major components: a general discrete event simulation model and a process of designing a wide range of simulation scenarios. The goal …

Evaluation Of A Training Program (Strap) Designed To Decrease Young Drivers Secondary Task Engagement In High Risk Scenarios, Akhilesh Krishnan

Masters Theses

Distracted driving involving secondary tasks is known to lead to an increased likelihood of being involved in motor vehicle crashes. Some secondary tasks are unnecessary and should never be performed. But other secondary tasks, e.g., operating the defroster, are critical to safe driving. Ideally, the driver should schedule when to perform the critical tasks such that the likelihood of a hazard materializing is relatively small during the performance of the secondary task. The current study evaluates a training program -- STRAP (Secondary Task Regulatory & Anticipatory Program) -- which is designed to make drivers aware of latent hazards …

Estimating Likelihood Of Having A Brca Gene Mutation Based On Family History Of Cancers And Recommending Optimized Cancer Preventive Actions, Mehrnaz Abdollahian

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

BRCA1 and BRCA2 are gene mutations that drastically increase chances of developing breast and ovarian cancers, up to 20-fold, for women. A genetic blood test is used to detect BRCA mutations. Though these mutations occur in one of every 400 in the general population (excluding Ashkenazi Jewish ethnicity), they are present in most cases of hereditary breast and ovarian cancer patients. Hence, it is common practice for the physicians to require genetic testing for those that fit the rules as recommended by the National Cancer Comprehensive Network. However, data from the Myriad Laboratory, the only provider of the test until …

Reliable Power System Planning And Operations Through Robust Optimization, Wei Yuan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, we introduce and study robust optimization models and decomposition algorithms in order to deal with the uncertainties such as terrorist attacks, natural disasters, and uncertain demand that are becoming more and more signicant in power systems operation and planning. An optimal power grid hardening problem is presented as a defender-attacker-defender (DAD) sequential game and solved by an exact decomposition algorithm. Network topology control, which is an eective corrective measure in power systems, is then incorporated into the defender-attacker-defender model as a recourse operation for the power system operator after a terrorist attack. Computational results validate the cost-eectiveness …

Spatiotemporal Sensing And Informatics For Complex Systems Monitoring, Fault Identification And Root Cause Diagnostics, Gang Liu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In order to cope with system complexity and dynamic environments, modern industries are investing in a variety of sensor networks and data acquisition systems to increase information visibility. Multi-sensor systems bring the proliferation of high-dimensional functional Big Data that capture rich information on the evolving dynamics of natural and engineered processes. With spatially and temporally dense data readily available, there is an urgent need to develop advanced methodologies and associated tools that will enable and assist (i) the handling of the big data communicated by the contemporary complex systems, (ii) the extraction and identification of pertinent knowledge about the environmental …

Creation And Analysis Of Checklists To Improve Raquet Stringing Performance In Tennis Warehouse, Alston S. Nguyen

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Tennis Warehouse has a need to increase the supply of strung racquets and man hours to complete these strung racquets over the course of a year. That is, the demand can be increased by up to 4 times its average load during certain hectic parts of the year (professional tournaments, holidays, and competitive seasons). Not meeting this demand can lead to upset customers, unnecessary waste and replacing of rushed items and shipping costs, and a discouraged customer service representative workforce. The objective of this project is to use a set of checklists to address this problem and attempt to increase …

Guidelines For Scheduling In Primary Care: An Empirically Driven Mathematical Programming Approach, Hyun Jung Alvarez Oh

Doctoral Dissertations

Primary care practices play a vital role in healthcare delivery since they are the first point of contact for most patients, and provide health prevention, counseling, education, diagnosis and treatment. Practices, however, face a complex appointment scheduling problem because of the variety of patient conditions, the mix of appointment types, the uncertain service times with providers and non-provider staff (nurses/medical assistants), and no-show rates which all compound into a highly variable and unpredictable flow of patients. The end result is an imbalance between provider idle time and patient waiting time. To understand the realities of the scheduling problem we analyze …

A Model For The Rapid Distribution Of Critical Medical Countermeasures To Large U.S. Populations During A Public Health Emergency Via The Sns-Rss-Pod System, Roger Ivan Fiske

Doctoral Dissertations

In the event of a large scale public health emergency in the United States, the need for emergency medical supplies may quickly exceed existing local and regional resources. In these circumstances, specific life-saving countermeasures may be released from the CDC (The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) and delivered to local Points of Dispensing (PODs) via a rapid emergency distribution system that involves multiple governmental agencies and private sector organizations. Included in this distribution system are temporary Receiving, Staging, Storage (RSS) warehousing operations. One of the primary objectives of this SNS-RSS-POD system is to …

Collaborative Models For Supply Networks Coordination And Healthcare Consolidation, Shima Mohebbi

Doctoral Dissertations

This work discusses the collaboration framework among different members of two complex systems: supply networks and consolidated healthcare systems. Although existing literature advocates the notion of strategic partnership/cooperation in both supply networks and healthcare systems, there is a dearth of studies quantitatively analyzing the scope of cooperation among the members and its benefit on the global performance. Hence, the first part of this dissertation discusses about two-echelon supply networks and studies the coordination of buyers and suppliers for multi-period procurement process. Viewing the issue from the same angel, the second part studies the coordination framework of hospitals for consolidated healthcare …

Developing An Optimal Model For Infant Home Visitation, Isaac Atuahene

Doctoral Dissertations

The United States, Great Britain, Denmark, Canada and many other countries have accepted home visitation (HV) as a promising strategy for interventions for infants after births and for their mothers. Prior HV studies have focused on theoretical foundations, evaluations of programs, cost/benefit analysis and cost estimation by using hospital/payer/insurance data to prove its effectiveness and high cost. As governments and private organizations continue to fund HVs, it is an opportune time to develop and formulate operations research (OR) models of HV coverage, quality and cost so they might be used in program implementation as done for adult home healthcare (HHC) …

Classification Of Adequate Impact Protection For Hands, Patrick Dylan Loshek

Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

CLASSIFICATION OF ADEQUATE

IMPACT PROTECTION FOR HANDS

by

Patrick D. Loshek

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2015

Under the Supervision of Professor Naira Campbell-Kyureghyan

Historically, hand injuries have been a large burden for the manufacturing, construction, mining, oil and gas industries. Specially designed gloves are commonly used in industry today to protect hands from impacts. These gloves are designed to reduce hand injuries by absorbing the impact forces workers may encounter due to objects striking the hand. However, to date, there is no standard for the testing of these gloves and quantifying the force reduction a user would experience when …

Transient Performance Analysis Of Serial Production Lines, Yang Sun

Theses and Dissertations

TRANSIENT PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF

SERIAL PRODUCTION LINES

by

Yang Sun

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2015

Under the Supervision of Professor Liang Zhang

Production lines with unreliable machines and finite buffers are characterized by both steady-state performance and transient behavior. The steady-state performance has been analyzed extensively for over 50 years. Transient behavior, however, is rarely studied and remains less explored. In practice, a lot of the real production systems are running partially or entirely in transient periods. Therefore, transient analysis is of significant practical importance.

Most of the past research on production systems focuses on discrete materials flow which utilities …