Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering Commons^™

Open-Source Optimization For Green Last Mile Delivery And Other Applications, John Sooter

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Solving combinatorial optimization problems at scale and of sufficiently interesting context has historically required commercial solvers and access to proprietary company data. The development of performant open-source mathematical programming software and crowdsourced datasets has created an opportunity for individuals and enterprises alike to consider alternative solutions to problems with social and personal implications. This honors thesis represents a summary of my undergraduate research work, an application of optimization to three distinct problems connected to these developments. First, we present an optimization study of a last mile delivery system that shows optimization for energy consumption can generate vehicleindependent fuel savings at …

Optimization Of Human Interactions In The College Campus Model Via Simio Integration, Benjamin E. Chaback

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

College campuses are a significant part of life in some cities. Many students each year attend university, pursuing additional knowledge from faculty members. Both staff and faculty members rely on these students to have successful jobs and to ensure the university functions. Yet recently, more and more students are attending, leading to overcrowding, lower admission rates, and difficulty getting into good programs. Previous work exists on qualitative student affairs and quantitative retention data, yet little on using simulations to model this problem. This work aimed to (a) Determine the ability to successfully model human interactions/people flow on a college campus, …

Drivers’ Hazard Avoidance During Vehicle Automation: Impact Of Mental Models And Implications For Training, Ganesh Pai Mangalore

Doctoral Dissertations

Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) are vehicle automation systems that have become more accessible and prevalent in vehicles in recent years. But the introduction of such technologies introduces new human factors challenges. Past literature suggests that users of vehicle automation lack the necessary and appropriate knowledge about their automation system. This may play a negative role in their hazard avoidance abilities when driving with automation features. Improving mental models and knowledge could generally lead to safer interactions with vehicle automation systems, but any effort to develop hazard avoidance skills when driving with vehicle automation is impeded by the lack of …

Assessing Adoption Barriers Of Sustainable Packaging In Egypt, Carol Ramses Morgan

Theses and Dissertations

Sustainable packaging has become an essential part of business decisions and corporate directions. With the rise of environmental damages due to improper waste management and unsustainable practices, businesses have a major responsibility to analyze their products’ life cycles and redesign them with sustainability in mind. Applying sustainable packaging could save companies large amounts of resources, therefore cutting costs, while also achieving the legal and social duty as a corporation towards society and the environment. Many developing countries, with specific focus on Egypt, have recently focused on legislative and corporate decisions in order to encourage more sustainable practices. Egypt’s new Waste …

Containerization Of Seafarers In The International Shipping Industry: Contemporary Seamanship, Maritime Social Infrastructures, And Mobility Politics Of Global Logistics, Liang Wu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation discusses the mobility politics of container shipping and argues that technological development, political-economic order, and social infrastructure co-produce one another. Containerization, the use of standardized containers to carry cargo across modes of transportation that is said to have revolutionized and globalized international trade since the late 1950s, has served to expand and extend the power of international coalitions of states and corporations to control the movements of commodities (shipments) and labor (seafarers). The advent and development of containerization was driven by a sociotechnical imaginary and international social contract of seamless shipping and cargo flows. In practice, this liberal, …

Essays In Robust Optimization With Applications To Finance And Renewable Energy, Hao Jiang

Operations Research and Engineering Management Theses and Dissertations

Real-world optimization problems are often sensitive to uncertainties caused by estimation errors, forecasting inaccuracy, and imprecise data information. These uncertainties bring significant challenges to decision-making in many areas. Robust optimization (RO) is a tool for addressing the challenges of parameter uncertainty. In this dissertation, we focus on the studies of RO on two problems. (1) In the study of finance, we proposed a tractable RO model for a Mean-Variance portfolio selection problem. We consider Markowitz's Mean-Variance Optimization when stock returns are modeled using Sharpe's single-index framework, but the model coefficients Alpha and Beta, are not precisely known. This study assumes …

Reliability Modeling And Improvement Of Critical Infrastructures: Theory, Simulation, And Computational Methods, José Carlos Hernández Azucena

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation presents a framework for developing data-driven tools to model and improve the performance of Interconnected Critical Infrastructures (ICIs) in multiple contexts. The importance of ICIs for daily human activities and the large volumes of data in continuous generation in modern industries grant relevance to research efforts in this direction. Chapter 2 focuses on the impact of disruptions in Multimodal Transportation Networks, which I explored from an application perspective. The outlined research directions propose exploring the combination of simulation for decision-making with data-driven optimization paradigms to create tools that may provide stakeholders with optimal policies for a wide array …

Exact Models, Heuristics, And Supervised Learning Approaches For Vehicle Routing Problems, Zefeng Lyu

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation presents contributions to the field of vehicle routing problems by utilizing exact methods, heuristic approaches, and the integration of machine learning with traditional algorithms. The research is organized into three main chapters, each dedicated to a specific routing problem and a unique methodology. The first chapter addresses the Pickup and Delivery Problem with Transshipments and Time Windows, a variant that permits product transfers between vehicles to enhance logistics flexibility and reduce costs. To solve this problem, we propose an efficient mixed-integer linear programming model that has been shown to outperform existing ones. The second chapter discusses a practical …

Parameter Estimation For Patient Enrollment In Clinical Trials, Junyan Liu

Undergraduate Honors Theses

In this paper, we study the Poisson-gamma model for recruitment time in clinical trials. We proved several properties of this model that match our intuitions from a reliability perspective, did simulations on this model, and used different optimization methods to estimate the parameters. Although the behaviors of the optimization methods were unfavorable and unstable, we identified certain conditions and provided potential explanations for this phenomenon and further insights into the Poisson-gamma model.

Task Optimization Utilizing Digital Transformation Concepts - Automation Project Execution Via Agile Methodology, Anthony Steven Maiello

Theses and Dissertations

Task Optimization via the use of automated process improvements is becoming more widespread as more industries lean into the concepts surrounding digital transformation. This shift also necessitates a complementary adaptation in project management methodologies to support the rapid and ever-changing environment, requirements, and innovations. This thesis examines the effectiveness of Agile methodology in managing digital automation projects, with a specific focus placed on process improvements with systems engineering. It accomplished this by contrasting the original model, designed and derived utilizing traditional project management techniques, with the proposed model which is a direct result of the application of Agile project practices. …

Resource Allocation In Subsidy Welfare Programs: Managerial Insights For Nonprofits, Governments, And Service Providers, Wei Wei

Doctoral Dissertations

Subsidy welfare programs provide financial assistance to economically disadvantaged individuals and families to access essential and life-altering services (e.g., education, child care, and housing) that they might not otherwise have access to. Access to these services is considered critical to achieving a better and more sustainable future for all. As such, these high-quality services are directly related to several United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, which were adopted as a universal call to action to end poverty, save the planet and improve the lives and prospects of everyone, everywhere." In particular, the need for these affordable and high-quality services has been …

Mining High Impact Combinations Of Conditions From The Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, Arjun Mohan

Masters Theses

The condition of multimorbidity — the presence of two or more medical conditions in an individual — is a growing phenomenon worldwide. In the United States, multimorbid patients represent more than a third of the population and the trend is steadily increasing in an already aging population. There is thus a pressing need to understand the patterns in which multimorbidity occurs, and to better understand the nature of the care that is required to be provided to such patients.

In this thesis, we use data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) from the years 2011 to 2015 to identify …

Optimal Sequencing And Scheduling Algorithm For Traffic Flows Based On Extracted Control Actions Near The Airport, Sharmistha Chakrabarti

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

This dissertation seeks to design an optimization algorithm, based on naturalistic flight data, with emphasis on safety to perform a benefits' analysis when sequencing and scheduling aircraft at the runway. The viability of creating a decision-support tool to aid air traffic controllers in sequencing and optimizing airport operations is evaluated through the benefits' analysis. Air traffic control is a complex and critical system that ensures the safe and efficient movement of aircraft within the airspace. This is particularly true in the immediate vicinity of an airport. Unlike in en-route or terminal area airspace where aircraft usually traverse well established routes …

A Digital Twin Framework For Production Planning Optimization: Applications For Make-To-Order Manufacturers, Ron Mallach

Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation, we develop a Digital Twin framework for manufacturing systems and apply it to various production planning and scheduling problems faced by Make-To-Order (MTO) firms. While this framework can be used to digitally represent a particular manufacturing environment with high fidelity, our focus is in using it to generate realistic settings to test production planning and scheduling algorithms in practice. These algorithms have traditionally been tested by either translating a practical situation into the necessary modeling constructs, without discussion of the assumptions and inaccuracies underlying this translation, or by generating random instances of the modeling constructs, without assessing …

Scheduling Problem With Drying Requirements, Machine Eligibility Restrictions, Setup Times, And Assembly Requirements For An Injection Molding Facility, Ashley Owens

Doctoral Dissertations

Previous research only focused on an unrelated parallel machine scheduling problem with setup and processing resources. However, some manufacturing environments, such as plastic injection molding, need different sequential and parallel processes before the facility can process jobs in the machines. For example, some raw materials are hygroscopic, and a dryer must remove moisture before being processed in the injection molding machine. These dryers are portrayed as parallel machines. The job rather than the machine determines the drying time. Once the drying stage is complete and the raw materials are transferred to the actual machines to run jobs, the scheduling problem …

Modeling And Solution Methodologies For Mixed-Model Sequencing In Automobile Industry, Ibrahim Ozan Yilmazlar

All Dissertations

The global competitive environment leads companies to consider how to produce high-quality products at a lower cost. Mixed-model assembly lines are often designed such that average station work satisfies the time allocated to each station, but some models with work-intensive options require more than the allocated time. Sequencing varying models in a mixed-model assembly line, mixed-model sequencing (MMS), is a short-term decision problem that has the objective of preventing line stoppage resulting from a station work overload. Accordingly, a good allocation of models is necessary to avoid work overload. The car sequencing problem (CSP) is a specific version of the …

Visibility Based Hospital Inpatient Unit Design., Uttam Karki

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Patient fall is one of the adverse events in an inpatient unit of a hospital that can lead to disability and/or mortality. Healthcare literature suggests that increased visibility of patients by unit nurses is essential to improve patient monitoring and, in turn, reduce falls. However, such research has been descriptive in nature and does not provide an understanding of the characteristics of an optimal inpatient unit layout from a visibility-standpoint. This dissertation fills significant voids in this domain and adds much-needed realism to develop insights that hospital decision-makers can use to design their inpatient unit layout. Our first contribution (Chapter …

Improving Mobility And Safety In Traditional And Intelligent Transportation Systems Using Computational And Mathematical Modeling, Shahrbanoo Rezaei

Doctoral Dissertations

In traditional transportation systems, park-and-ride (P&R) facilities have been introduced to mitigate the congestion problems and improve mobility. This study in the second chapter, develops a framework that integrates a demand model and an optimization model to study the optimal placement of P&R facilities. The results suggest that the optimal placement of P&R facilities has the potential to improve network performance, and reduce emission and vehicle kilometer traveled. In intelligent transportation systems, autonomous vehicles are expected to bring smart mobility to transportation systems, reduce traffic congestion, and improve safety of drivers and passengers by eliminating human errors. The safe operation …

Resources Based Planning Framework For Infrastructure Maintenance And Rehabilitation Projects, Heba Gad

Theses and Dissertations

Infrastructure maintenance and rehabilitation projects involve activities scattered over a large geographical area (e.g., scattered road segments maintenance, telecom towers maintenance program, etc.). Planning such projects require a resource-based approach that accounts for the implications of resource mobility between activities’ locations in terms of time & cost. Existing scheduling techniques fall short of addressing the unique challenges of the scattered nature of these projects in combination with organization's limited resources availability. To address this need, this research presents a resources-based planning framework for infrastructure maintenance and rehabilitation scattered projects with the objective of enhancing resources utilization achieving time and cost …

Optimization And Information Problems In Operations, Puping Jiang

Olin Business School Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The main purpose of this dissertation is to study the optimization problems and the value of information in various commercial settings, especially in the emerging platform economy.

Chapter 1, “Data-Driven Asset Selling”. Motivated by online asset selling marketplace business (e.g., used cars and real estate), we formulate a data-driven asset selling dynamic pricing framework which utilizes platforms’ access to customers’ online behavioral data. With mild assumptions on the demand model, careful characterization of the problem structure shows that the model admits some ideal properties that facilitate our regret analysis under our dynamic programming setting. Instead of studying the policy performance …

Data-Driven Platform And Digital Operations, Bing Bai

Olin Business School Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this dissertation is to study the emerging operations issues on data-driven platforms and digital operations. With the increasing availability of data and the development of information technologies, platforms process a large amount of data in order to efficiently make daily operational decisions. Understanding human behaviors and the human-algorithm connection is instrumental to the success of this process. In my research, I implement field experiments and use structural models to study in-warehouse worker behavior and out-of-warehouse customer behavior in the last mile of logistics.

In Chapter 1, “The Impacts of Algorithmic Work Assignment on Fairness Perceptions and Productivity: …

Optimizing Wedding Venue Selection Process Using Integer Programming, Luis Rodriguez

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

Choosing the right wedding venue can be extremely difficult for the unsuspecting engaged couple. There is a myriad of variables that must be taken into account prior to the illustrious wedding date; these variables include the option for a reception, the location, and food requirements, to name a few. Consequently, the typical couple seems to spend multiple months researching and visiting many wedding spaces. However, even though months go into planning, it still is not a guarantee that all variables are accounted for. Furthermore, without a wedding planner, these couples may second-guess their chosen site due to seemingly arduous issues …

Efficient Routing For Disaster Scenarios In Uncertain Networks: A Computational Study Of Adaptive Algorithms For The Stochastic Canadian Traveler Problem With Multiple Agents And Destinations, Neel Chanchad

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The primary objective of this research is to develop adaptive online algorithms for solving the Canadian Traveler Problem (CTP), which is a well-studied problem in the literature that has important applications in disaster scenarios. To this end, we propose two novel approaches, namely Maximum Likely Node (MLN) and Maximum Likely Path (MLP), to address the single-agent single-destination variant of the CTP. Our computational experiments demonstrate that the MLN and MLP algorithms together achieve new best-known solutions for 10,715 instances. In the context of disaster scenarios, the CTP can be extended to the multiple-agent multiple-destination variant, which we refer to as …

Urban Public Transportation Planning With Endogenous Passenger Demand, Yifei Sun

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

An effective and efficient public transportation system is crucial to people's mobility, economic production, and social activities. The Operations Research community has been studying transit system optimization for the past decades. With disruptions from the private sector, especially the parking operators, ride-sharing platforms, and micro-mobility services, new challenges and opportunities have emerged. This thesis contributes to investigating the interaction of the public transportation systems with significant private sector players considering endogenous passenger choice. To be more specific, this thesis aims to optimize public transportation systems considering the interaction with parking operators, competition and collaboration from ride-sharing platforms and micro-mobility platforms. …

Mitigating Supply Chain Disruptions In Retail Discount Department Stores, Anthony T. Patton

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Supply chain disruptions can have adverse effects on business outcomes. Retail industry supply chain leaders are concerned with supply chain disruptions because supply chain disruptions can lead to dissatisfied customers and loss of profits. Grounded in game theory, the purpose of this multiple case study was to explore strategies four retail industry supply chain leaders in Northern Illinois and Northwest Indiana implemented to mitigate the effects of supply chain disruptions. Data were collected using semistructured virtual interviews with four retail industry supply chain leaders and a review of company documents. Through thematic analysis, four themes emerged: (a) choosing appropriate inventory …

A Holistic Work System Approach To Creating Flow During Transactional Work, Steven Clapp

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

Psychological flow is a positive mental state where one is so fully concentrated in a challenging task that self-consciousness falls away, time seems to stand still, and the reward is the experience of meeting the challenge. Previous research on flow in the workplace has been performed on how to create conditions to promote its occurrence in workers, to describe its attendant individual and organizational benefits, and to measure it through self-reported means and physiologically. Such research has been focused on creative endeavors (such as the arts, sports, medicine, teaching), where individuals have high agency over the execution of activities needed …

The Sensitivity Of A Laplacian Family Of Ranking Methods, Claire S. Chang

HMC Senior Theses

Ranking from pairwise comparisons is a particularly rich subset of ranking problems. In this work, we focus on a family of ranking methods for pairwise comparisons which encompasses the well-known Massey, Colley, and Markov methods. We will accomplish two objectives to deepen our understanding of this family. First, we will consider its network diffusion interpretation. Second, we will analyze its sensitivity by studying the "maximal upset" where the direction of an arc between the highest and lowest ranked alternatives is flipped. Through these analyses, we will build intuition to answer the question "What are the characteristics of robust ranking methods?" …

Understanding Outgroup Aversion Effects On Innovation Adoption And Polarization In Network Environments, Bruce G. Miller

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation 2023-2024

Individuals' decisions to adopt an innovation can be influenced by the group identity of previous adopters or non-adopters in their social network. Previous research in innovation diffusion considered initial innovators and word-of-mouth imitator effects using analytical models. Simulations and agent-based models have been developed to address the heterogeneity of decision makers and the non-linearity of the process. A further refinement modeled adoption based on networks of social relationships between potential decision makers, analogous to the spread of disease on networks. In addition, adoption or non-adoption of some innovations has been characterized as a means of signaling identification with or aversion …

Understanding Workforce Agility At Nasa Kennedy Space Center, Ledlyne H. Vazquez

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation 2023-2024

This study aims to define workforce agility via a literature review and a conducted research survey of the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) Engineering workforce. The survey results will help us determine the workforce agility of the KSC engineering team and understand what has allowed them to transition from the Space Shuttle Program to the new Exploration Ground System (EGS) program. Structural Equation Modeling was used to develop a model of relationships to test the hypotheses. The results show that organizational practices and psychological empowerment significantly support workforce agility. The implications of this study for understanding the characteristics of workforce agility …

Simulating The Impact Of Emissions Control On Economic Productivity Using Particle Systems And Puff Dispersion Model, Najam Khan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A simulation platform is developed for quantifying the change in productivity of an economy under passive and active emission control mechanisms. The program uses object-oriented programming to code a collection of objects resembling typical stakeholders in an economy. These objects include firms, markets, transportation hubs, and boids which are distributed over a 2D surface. Firms are connected using a modified Prim’s Minimum spanning tree algorithm, followed by implementation of an all-pair shortest path Floyd Warshall algorithm for navigation purposes. Firms use a non-linear production function for transformation of land, labor, and capital inputs to finished product. A GA-Vehicle Routing Problem …