Engineering Commons^™

Utilization Of Integer Programming For Scheduling Maintenance At Nuclear Power Plants, Timothy Gallacher

Doctoral Dissertations

This thesis develops a thought that naturally explores three specific motifs for solving the complexities of scheduling maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants (NPP). The first chapter of this paper will develop the initial thought around creating a schedule for a given work week, including all the various constraints inherent to this problem. Such constraints include but are not limited to personnel availability, allowable component out-of-service time, and the Plant Risk Assessment. The objective function being to minimize the total cost of worker’s compensation for that given week.

The second chapter addresses the question of whether this simple schedule can be …

2nd Annual Girls Build Summer Academy: Logistics And Scheduling, Matteo Cade Cuccaro

Construction Management

This paper discusses the logistics and scheduling involved for Cal Poly construction management department’s second annual Girls Build Summer Academy. The week-long academy was hosted to introduce construction related activities to 19 high school-aged girls so they could learn more about the careers available within the architecture, engineering, and construction industry, while learning skills to build individual and team projects. To achieve this goal, a full schedule was developed for each day of the camp, allowing for a variety of activities, including listening to guest speakers, completing building projects, and training to safely use tools. There were many challenges that …

Heuristics For Lagrangian Relaxation Formulations For The Unit Commitment Problem, Stephen Opeyemi Fatokun

Doctoral Dissertations

The expansion of distributed energy resources (DER), demand response (DR), and virtual bidding in many power systems and energy markets are creating new challenges for unit commitment (UC) and economic dispatch (ED) techniques. Instead of a small number of traditionally large generators, the power system resource mix is moving to one with a high percentage of a large number of small units. These can increase the number of similar or identical units, leading to chattering (switching back and forth among committed units between iterations). This research investigates alternative and scalable ways of increasing the high penetration of these resources.

First, …

Standardizing Hands-On Building Activities In Commercial Construction Management And Recommendations For Semester Conversion Adaptations, Lauren T. Mcclurg

Construction Management

CM 313 Commercial Construction Management at Cal Poly is an integrated lab course and one of the main hands-on learning experiences construction management students participate in. It is currently administered in the quarter system and as the university transitions to the semester calendar, the lab needs to be converted in order to accommodate this change. The main purpose of this project was to document existing practices and improve the process and experience for students, instructional students assistants, Simpson Strong Tie coordinator, and other professors of CM 313. This project included creating a builders guide to help the student assistants by …

Research On Modeling And Scheduling Of Virtual Power Plant With Dual Demand Response, Qiang Chen, Yi Wang, Kangshun Li

Journal of System Simulation

Abstract: Virtual power plant technology provides an effective means to aggregate distributed power and user side resources to participate in power scheduling. Most of the existing research focus on the scheduling optimization of distributed energy instead of the demand response of user side. The user side resources are divided into contracted reliable response load and non-contracted random response load, and the load response is regulated through price adjustment mechanism to adapt to the change of distributed. A virtual power plant optimal scheduling model with dual demands response is constructed, in which the maximizing overall profit of the power grid is …

Scheduling Optimization Of Aluminum Extrusion Production Line Based On Timed Petri Net And Bso Algorithm, Yali Wu, Shuting He, Yanxi Yang, Lianqiang Feng, Fuqiang Wang, Yulu Chen

Journal of System Simulation

Abstract: For the problems of long production period and low efficiency caused by the complicated processes and large scheduling capacity of aluminum extrusion production line in industrial production, a timed Petri net (TdPN) scheduling model of aluminum extrusion production line is proposed and analyzed for reasonableness. The brain storm optimization (BSO) algorithm is introduced into the model, and an optimized scheduling algorithm for aluminum extrusion scheduling problems is proposed based on the individual encoding and decoding methods. The simulated annealing local search mechanism is used to improve the performance of BSO algorithm in the later stage, which can achieve the …

Enhanced Load Balancing Based On Hybrid Artificial Bee Colony With Enhanced Β-Hill Climbing In Cloud, Maha Zeedan, Gamal Attiya, Nawal El-Fishawy

Mansoura Engineering Journal

This paper proposes enhanced load balancer based artificial bee colony and β-Hill climbing for improving the performance metrics such as response time, processing cost, and utilization to avoid overloaded or under loaded situations of virtual machines. In this study, the suggested load balancer is called enhanced load balancing based on hybrid artificial bee colony with enhanced β-Hill climbing (ELBABCEβHC) to improve the response time, processing cost and the resource utilization. Our proposed approach starts by ranking the task then the greedy randomized adaptive search procedure (GRASP) is used in initializing populations. Further, the binary artificial bee colony (BABC) enhanced with …

Essays On Perioperative Services Problems In Healthcare, Amogh S. Bhosekar

All Dissertations

One of the critical challenges in healthcare operations management is to efficiently utilize the expensive resources needed while maintaining the quality of care provided. Simulation and optimization methods can be effectively used to provide better healthcare services. This can be achieved by developing models to minimize patient waiting times, minimize healthcare supply chain and logistics costs, and maximize access. In this proposal, we study some of the important problems in healthcare operations management. More specifically, we focus on perioperative services and study scheduling of operating rooms (ORs) and management of necessary resources such as staff, equipment, and surgical instruments. We …

The Living Breakwaters Pdr Efforts Econcrete Resource Analysis, Guianina Ferrari, Shervon Stephens, Calvin O. Walters Jr.

Publications and Research

On October 29, 2012, Superstorm Sandy impacted 443,000 people and caused nearly $19 billion (about $58 per person in the US) worth of damage within New York City. As part of the New York City infrastructure reparation plan, the Living Breakwaters project in Tottenville addressed coastal resilience, allocating $100M of public funds to a series of artificial breakwaters by the southwest coast of Staten Island. Each breakwater is constructed and designed to mitigate water flow in storm events. ECOncrete, a primary element of the breakwater, is a specialty cast cementitious product that is marine organism-friendly that encourages biocalcification and photosynthesis. …

Pull Planning Workshop - Central California Valley, Thomas A. Camargo

Construction Management

Lean scheduling and pull planning are both excellent methods of scheduling and sequencing a project. It has made huge impacts on scheduling for general contractors in southern and northern region of California. However, Central California has not been able to see the benefits and impacts of these scheduling tools because of the regions lack of use of lean scheduling and pull planning. Lean scheduling is a technique that encourages communication and collaboration between the project stakeholders. Pull planning offers project stakeholders a chance to rally together and collaborate. These pull planning sessions are useful for sequencing work to meet milestones …

Optimal Scheduling Of Aircraft Test And Evaluation Fleets To Balance Availability For Testing And Training, Sarah E. Hoops

Theses and Dissertations

The 96th Test Wing at Eglin Air Force Base manually schedules a fleet of approximately 26 aircraft to conduct a range of missions over a one-to-two year planning period. This study automates the scheduling process, does so in a manner that optimizes multiple planning goals related to aircraft availability for training, and provides the 96th Test Wing with a software tool for the implementation that can be used by operational analysts within the command. We formulate the scheduling problem as a multiobjective, nonlinear, binary integer math program that seeks to maximize both the lowest percent of time any aircraft is …

Scheduling, Complexity, And Solution Methods For Space Robot On-Orbit Servicing, Susan E. Sorenson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research proposes problems, models, and solutions for the scheduling of space robot on-orbit servicing. We present the Multi-Orbit Routing and Scheduling of Refuellable On-Orbit Servicing Space Robots problem which considers on-orbit servicing across multiple orbits with moving tasks and moving refuelling depots. We formulate a mixed integer linear program model to optimize the routing and scheduling of robot servicers to accomplish on-orbit servicing tasks. We develop and demonstrate flexible algorithms for the creation of the model parameters and associated data sets. Our first algorithm creates the network arcs using orbital mechanics. We have also created a novel way to …

Optimal Scheduling Of Connected And Autonomous Vehicles At A Reservation-Based Intersection., Muting Ma

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Reservation-based intersection control has been evaluated with better performance over traditional signal controls in terms of intersection safety, efficiency, and emission. Controlling connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs) at a reservation-based intersection in terms of improving intersection efficiency is performed via two factors: trajectory (speed profile) and arrival time of CAVs at the intersection. In an early stage of the reservation-based intersection control, an intersection controller at the intersection may fail to find a feasible solution for both the trajectory and arrival time for a CAV at a certain planning horizon. Leveraging a deeper understanding of the control problem, reservation-based intersection …

The Living Breakwaters Pdr Efforts: Conceptual Scheduling, Calvin O. Walters Jr.

Publications and Research

On October 29, 2012, Superstorm Sandy caused nearly $19 billion in damages in New York City including 69,000 residential units across the five boroughs. This disaster precipitated a post-disaster-rebuilding (PDR) project including roughly $4.2 billion in a Community Development Block Grant allocated towards PDR projects. A portion of the grant was used to construct a living breakwater in Tottenville, Staten Island, consisting of a resiliency approach to risk reduction through erosion prevention, wave energy attenuation, and enhancement of ecosystems and social resiliency to improve resistance to storms for the community of Tottenville. The ridges of each breakwater are designed with …

A Study Of Scheduling Problems With Sequence Dependent Restrictions And Preferences, Nitin Srinath

All Dissertations

In some applications like fabric dying, semiconductor wafer processing, and flexible manufacturing, the machines being used to process jobs must be set up and serviced frequently. These setup processes and associated setup times between jobs often depend on the jobs and the sequence in which jobs are placed onto machines. That is, the scheduling of jobs on machines must account for the sequence-dependent setup times as well. These setup times can be a major factor in operational costs. In fabric dyeing processes, the sequence in which jobs are processed is also important for quality, i.e., there is a strong preference …

Design And Development Of A Simulation System For Scheduling In Cloud Manufacturing Based On Microservice Architecture, Yongkui Liu, Ming Zeng, Lin Zhang, Jinwei Guo, Siyang Yuan, Yaoyao Ping

Journal of System Simulation

Abstract: In view of the lack of the low coupling and highly extensible cloud manufacturing scheduling simulation system, that leads to inconvenience of the performance test on scheduling algorithms, a scalable cloud manufacturing scheduling model with the scheduling goal of the minimization of cost and completion time and the maximization of quality of service is proposed. A micro-service architecture based cloud manufacturing scheduling simulation system is designed and developed, which realizes the functions of system management, resource management, task management and simulation management, and has the characteristics of flexible autonomy, stability and scalability. The simulation system facilitates the …

A Deep Reinforcement Learning Approach With Prioritized Experience Replay And Importance Factor For Makespan Minimization In Manufacturing, Jose Napoleon Martinez

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In this research, we investigated the application of deep reinforcement learning (DRL) to a common manufacturing scheduling optimization problem, max makespan minimization. In this application, tasks are scheduled to undergo processing in identical processing units (for instance, identical machines, machining centers, or cells). The optimization goal is to assign the jobs to be scheduled to units to minimize the maximum processing time (i.e., makespan) on any unit.

Machine learning methods have the potential to "learn" structures in the distribution of job times that could lead to improved optimization performance and time over traditional optimization methods, as well as to adapt …

Research On Optimization Of Network Resource Utilization In Static Segment Of Flexray Bus, Xinhang He, Erkang Li, Hongchao Zhang

Journal of System Simulation

Abstract: In order to improve the utilization of the network resources of the FlexRay bus, the network is optimized for static segment scheduling. The FlexRay communication mechanism is analyzed, the message model is established and the calculation method of bandwidth loss is derived, while considering the protocol overhead and network idling, taking the number of static frames and the length of the static frame payload as design variables, the overall optimal packaging scheme is obtained by solving this multi-objective optimization problem. This solution is finally applied to the vehicle chassis integrated control system for simulation analysis and verification. The results …

Scheduling Aircraft Departures To Avoid Enroute Congestion, Johannes Martinez

Scholarly Horizons: University of Minnesota, Morris Undergraduate Journal

When scheduled flights are forecast to overcrowd sections of enroute airspace, an air traffic control authority may need to delay departures. Mixed integer linear programming can be used to compute a schedule that resolves the congestion while bringing the sum of all delays to a minimum. Standard linear programming constraint formulations for such scheduling problems, however, have poor run times for instances of realistic size. A new constraint formulation based on cycles and paths through a route graph reduces run times in computational experiments. It shows particularly strong performance for schedules that approach the worst-case solution times in standard formulations.

Development Of Minimum Delta-V Trajectories To Service Geo Assets From Cislunar Space, Alexander C. Urban

Theses and Dissertations

Orbits around Earth are becoming increasingly congested and contested, posing potential future threats to space assets. Cislunar space may offer an effective solution to these problems by offering storage for servicing and replacement vehicles. This investigation explores how to minimize the dV costs required of a network of service vehicles traveling from cislunar space to GEO using in-situ resource utilization. In this investigation the arc costs of an event-driven generalized multicommodity network flow are generated for creation of a model to be used to develop a dynamic scheduler. High-thrust trajectories between various inclinations of GEO, an Earth-Moon L1 Lyapunov orbit …

Hybrid Tabu Search Algorithm For Unrelated Parallel Machine Scheduling In Semiconductor Fabs With Setup Times, Job Release, And Expired Times, Changyu Chen, Madhi Fathi, Marzieh Khakifirooz, Kan Wu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This research is motivated by a scheduling problem arising in the ion implantation process of wafer fabrication. The ion implementation scheduling problem is modeled as an unrelated parallel machine scheduling (UPMS) problem with sequence-dependent setup times that are subject to job release time and expiration time of allowing a job to be processed on a specific machine, defined as: R|rj,eij,STsd|Cmax. The objective is first to maximize the number of processed jobs, then minimize the maximum completion time (makespan), and finally minimize the maximum completion times of the non-bottleneck machines. A mixed-integer programming (MIP) model is proposed as a solution approach …

Operating Room Scheduling Optimization Based On A Fuzzy Uncertainty Approach And Metaheuristic Algorithms, P Maghzi, M Mohammadi, S H.R Pasandideh, B Naderi

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

Today, planning and scheduling problems are the most significant issues in the world and make a great impact on improving organizational productivity and serving systems such as medical and healthcare providers. Since operating room planning is a major problem in healthcare organizations, the optimization of medical staff and equipment plays an essential role. Thus, this study presents a multi-objective mathematical model with a new categorization (preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative) to minimize operating room scheduling and the risk of using equipment. Time constraints in healthcare systems and medical equipment limited capacity are the most significant considered limitation in the present study. …

City Of Guadalupe Cultural Arts & Education Center Veterans Memorial Wall, Alejandra Arroyo Perez

Construction Management

As a student in Construction Management, the importance of firsthand experience in the construction industry should not be taken lightly. The responsibility of every construction manager is to learn how to take a project from concept to reality. The primary five elements of construction management entail project programming, design development, material specifications, estimating, and scheduling. This paper documents the construction management process related to a Veterans Memorial Wall. Through coordination with the project stakeholders (i.e. property owners, engineer consultants, material fabricators, and vendors) a fully immersive construction management experience is gained. One of the stakeholder requirements was to establish a …

Quality And Productivity Improvements In Additive Manufacturing, Huseyin Kose

Doctoral Dissertations

Additive manufacturing (AM) is a relatively new manufacturing technology compared to the traditional manufacturing methods. Even though AM processes have many advantages, they also have a series of challenges that need to be addressed to adapt this technology for a wide range of applications and mass production.

AM faces a number of challenges, including the absence of methods/models for determining whether AM is the best manufacturing process for a given part. The first study of this thesis proposes a framework for choosing specific AM processes by considering the complexity level of a part. It has been proven that the method …

Assessing The Impact Of The Lead/Lag Times On The Project Duration Estimates In Highway Construction, Mohamed Abdel-Raheem, Jennifer Reyes, Xiaohui Wang, Grecia Silva Sanchez

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The literature mentions multiple factors that can affect the accuracy of estimating the project duration in highway construction, such as weather, location, and soil conditions. However, there are other factors that have not been explored, yet they can have significant impact on the accuracy of the project time estimate. Recently, TxDOT raised a concern regarding the importance of the proper estimating of the lead/lag times in project schedules. These lead/lag times are often determined based on the engineer’s experience. However, inaccurate estimates of the lead/lag time can result in unrealistic project durations. In order to investigate this claim, the study …

Optimizing Work Zone Schedules Considering Traffic Diversion With Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm, Celina Semaan

Dissertations

Highway maintenance activities often decrease roadway capacity and intrude traffic movements. The need to finish the project on time and under a specific budget while minimizing the traffic congestion and complying with the emission standards requires an appropriate work zone schedule optimization. The objective of this research is to improve the efficiency of work zone activities and minimize the total project cost including maintenance, user, and emission cost.

While previous studies investigated the work zone optimization problem, they did not consider the implementation of emission standards nor applied a green diversion strategy. This dissertation analyzes the optimization of work zone …

Experience-Driven Control For Networking And Computing, Zhiyuan Xu

Dissertations - ALL

Modern networking and computing systems have become very complicated and highly dynamic, which makes them hard to model, predict and control. In this thesis, we aim to study system control problems from a whole new perspective by leveraging emerging Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL), to develop experience-driven model-free approaches, which enable a network or a device to learn the best way to control itself from its own experience (e.g., runtime statistics data) rather than from accurate mathematical models, just as a human learns a new skill (e.g., driving, swimming, etc). To demonstrate the feasibility and superiority of this experience-driven control design …

Experience-Driven Control For Networking And Computing, Zhiyuan Xu

Dissertations - ALL

Modern networking and computing systems have become very complicated and highly dynamic, which makes them hard to model, predict and control. In this thesis, we aim to study system control problems from a whole new perspective by leveraging emerging Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL), to develop experience-driven model-free approaches, which enable a network or a device to learn the best way to control itself from its own experience (e.g., runtime statistics data) rather than from accurate mathematical models, just as a human learns a new skill (e.g., driving, swimming, etc). To demonstrate the feasibility and superiority of this experience-driven control design …

A Matheuristic Algorithm For The Vehicle Routing Problem With Cross-Docking, Aldy Gunawan, Audrey Tedja Widjaja, Pieter Vansteenwegen, Vincent F. Yu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper studies the integration of the vehicle routing problem with cross-docking (VRPCD). The aim is to find a set of routes to deliver products from a set of suppliers to a set of customers through a cross-dock facility, such that the operational and transportation costs are minimized, without violating the vehicle capacity and time horizon constraints. A two-phase matheuristic based on column generation is proposed. The first phase focuses on generating a set of feasible candidate routes in both pickup and delivery processes by implementing an adaptive large neighborhood search algorithm. A set of destroy and repair operators are …

A Survey Of Edge Computing Resource Allocation And Task Scheduling Optimization, Wang Ling, Chuge Wu, Wenhui Fan

Journal of System Simulation

Abstract: With the rapid development of Internet of Things (IoT) and mobile terminals, the concept of edge computing arises. By moving the computation and storage capacity to the edge of network, edge computing is able to deal with a large amount of data produced by IoT devices and the responsive request from IoT application. To improve the utility of edge resource, the quality of service and quality of user experience, resource allocation and task scheduling optimization problems under edge computing attract wide attention. It becomes more difficult due to the geographic separated and heterogeneous features of edge computing resource as …