Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering Commons^™

Subnational Map Of Poverty Generated From Remote-Sensing Data In Africa: Using Machine Learning Models And Advanced Regression Methods For Poverty Estimation, Lionel N. Hanke

Master's Theses

According to the 2020 poverty estimates from the World Bank, it is estimated that 9.1% - 9.4% of the global population lived on less than $1.90 per day. It is estimated that the Covid-19 pandemic further aggravated the issue by pushing more than 1% of the global population below the international poverty line of $1.90 per day (WorldBank, 2020). To provide help and formulate effective measures, poverty needs to be located as exact as possible. For this purpose, it was investigated whether regression methods with aggregated remote-sensing data could be used to estimate poverty in Africa. Therefore, five distinct regression …

Inventory Locating With Quuppa: The Design And Development Of A Real-Time Process Monitoring Web Application Solution, Dylan C. Moreland, Trevor J. Howell, John W. Takiff, Patrick S. Dillon, Theo E. Fritz, William K. Mcintyre

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Viasat, Inc. requires precise inventory tracking at their production facility in San Diego, CA. Viasat has installed the Quuppa indoor real-time locating system (RTLS), which it uses to track the real-time position of high-value work-in-process items. In its current state, the system only displays in-the-moment location information, with no available functionality for storing historical data for review, analysis, or visualization. In addition, the data displayed is noisy and prone to significant random error. This paper provides an overview of RTLS methods and technologies, assesses alternative solutions to Viasat’s issue, demonstrates our RTLS integrated web app solution, analyzes its impact, and …

Development Of A Marine Biodegradable Target Balloon, Blake Samuel Robinson, Arash Sam Akhavi, David Leonardo Albarran-Martinez

Materials Engineering

The US Navy utilizes PVC target balloons, known as Killer Tomatoes, that are inflated onboard a naval vessel then deployed into the ocean to calibrate a variety of weaponry. The Navy has requested the investigation of biodegradable polymers to replace the PVC in attempts to reduce ocean waste that is generated from the leftover PVC material. After communicating with American Pacific Plastic Fabricators (APPF), the current manufacturer of the Killer Tomatoes, we gained an understanding of the manufacturing process and the material requirements that would allow a new material to be integrated into their current process. Two proprietary, trial polymers …

Minimizing Leakage In Thin Walled Structures Printed Through Selective Laser Melting, Andrew Spencer Yap

Master's Theses

In this project, the scan strategy of selective laser melting (SLM) for thin walled structures was investigated by changing laser parameters and tool path. Producing thin walled structures is difficult due to defects such as warpage and porosity. A layer on the SLM 125 consists of hatch volume, fill contours, and borders, however, for thin walls, hatch volume can become unavailable, resulting in a solely border/fill contour laser tool path.

Three central composite designs (CCD) were created to optimize the laser parameters of borders to minimize leakage rate and porosity. The two factors changed were border laser power and scanning …

Understanding The Impact Of The Covid-19 Pandemic Within Educational Communities Using Longitudinal Analysis, Alexa Steidl

Master's Theses

At California State University, Los Angeles and California Polytechnic University, San Luis

Obispo, a longitudinal survey was created in response to the COVID-19 pandemic for students within their respective engineering departments. A combination of nonparametric and longitudinal analysis is performed to evaluate the impacts of the transition to a virtual educational environment and the stressors brought on by the global pandemic. Additional qualitative evaluation is performed to gain insight and make program recommendations to enhance the resilience of individuals in the academic systems. Results demonstrate a large shift in circumstances immediately at the start of the pandemic, with a variety …

Modeling And Solving The Outsourcing Risk Management Problem In Multi-Echelon Supply Chains, Arian A. Nahangi

Master's Theses

Worldwide globalization has made supply chains more vulnerable to risk factors, increasing the associated costs of outsourcing goods. Outsourcing is highly beneficial for any company that values building upon its core competencies, but the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic and other crises have exposed significant vulnerabilities within supply chains. These disruptions forced a shift in the production of goods from outsourcing to domestic methods.

This paper considers a multi-echelon supply chain model with global and domestic raw material suppliers, manufacturing plants, warehouses, and markets. All levels within the supply chain network are evaluated from a holistic perspective, calculating a total …

Transfer Learning Approach To Powder Bed Fusion Additive Manufacturing Defect Detection, Michael Wu

Master's Theses

Laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) remains a predominately open-loop additive manufacturing process with minimal in-situ quality and process control. Some machines feature optical monitoring systems but lack automated analytical capabilities for real-time defect detection. Recent advances in machine learning (ML) and convolutional neural networks (CNN) present compelling solutions to analyze images in real-time and to develop in-situ monitoring.

Approximately 30,000 selective laser melting (SLM) build images from 31 previous builds are gathered and labeled as either “okay” or “defect”. Then, 14 open-sourced CNN were trained using transfer learning to classify the SLM build images. These models were evaluated by F1 …

Perishable Food Waste Reduction Through Technological Implementation At The Retail Level Of The Food Supply Chain, Cassandra Harriman

Master's Theses

Food waste has become a disaster of global proportion that the world can no longer turn a blind eye to. This paper aims to reduce food waste at the retail level of the food supply chain by recommending and quantifying the effects of current technology that can be implemented in traditional supermarkets. This research recommends that retailers implement electronic shelf labels in stores and employ dynamic pricing of perishable products, leading to reduction of food waste. No prior research had considered the primary goal of reducing food waste while preserving retailer profit through technological implementation. This paper quantifies the effects …

Standardizing Patient Generated Sleep And Step Data For Evidation Health, Jade Desmet, Monroe Erle, Jamie Cullen

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Since medical data has gone digital there has been a lack of standardization among wearable devices for managing the data. Evidation Health is a company that collects biometric data from a wide variety of wearable devices through their app, Achievement. Evidation is built upon a foundation of user privacy and control over permissioned health data. This project is in partnership with them, focusing on creating a standard data model and ETL tool for sleep and step data across the wearable devices Fitbit, Apple Watch, and Oura Ring. There is not yet a successful standardization for this health data, and the …

A Simulation Study On Baggage Screening At San Luis Obispo County Regional Airport, Marian Ott

Master's Theses

Efficient passenger flow is a crucial objective at both small and larger airports. One central part of this is the handling of checked luggage which is influenced by necessary security screening. Within this thesis, these processes are studied at San Luis Obispo County Regional Airport. The underlying problem of the airport is its outbound luggage system which was already suffering from delays prior to Covid-19. Delays were never measured and the bottleneck responsible for them was never identified. However, expected growth in passenger and flight volume necessitates to predict when customer dissatisfaction and extensive luggage delays are inevitable, given that …