Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering Commons^™

Effects Of Data Resolution And Human Behavior On Large Scale Evacuation Simulations, Wei Lu

Doctoral Dissertations

Traffic Analysis Zones (TAZ) based macroscopic simulation studies are mostly applied in evacuation planning and operation areas. The large size in TAZ and aggregated information of macroscopic simulation underestimate the real evacuation performance. To take advantage of the high resolution demographic data LandScan USA (the zone size is much smaller than TAZ) and agent-based microscopic traffic simulation models, many new problems appeared and novel solutions are needed. A series of studies are conducted using LandScan USA Population Cells (LPC) data for evacuation assignments with different network configurations, travel demand models, and travelers’ compliance behavior.

First, a new Multiple-Source-Nearest-Destination Shortest Path …

Testing Virtual Machines For Cadrc Server Hosting, Robin Verweij

Computer Science and Software Engineering

No abstract provided.

Single-Depot Vehicle Routing Problem For Home Delivery Of Pharmaceutical Products, Kimberly Starr Harms

Masters Theses

Some retail pharmacies offer home delivery services to establish a competitive advantage in the growing healthcare market. The handling of orders for home delivery includes several internal and external processing and transportation activities. In this work, models were developed for use in a pharmacy delivery system to assist personnel in their daily activities. This work includes standard operating procedures for picking, packing and loading of delivery orders and the assignment and routing of vehicles to deliver customer orders. Results from simulated delivery areas identified interesting tradeoffs when comparing densely populated areas to sparsely populated areas. In addition, recommendations for order …

Parcel-Level Redevelopment Strategies For Distressed Neighborhoods, Michael P. Johnson Jr., Justin Hollander

Michael P. Johnson

Certain distressed neighborhoods cannot support traditional residential-focused development. For these communities, we develop decision models for acquisition and redevelopment of chronically vacant lands and structures for primarily non-residential and greening uses. We address social benefits and costs of redevelopment strategies, parcel clustering to exploit economies of scale, and conflicting values among stakeholders. We illustrate our models using data from Baltimore, MD.

Algorithmic And Mathematical Programming Approaches To Scheduling Problems With Energy-Based Objectives, Kan Fang

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation studies scheduling as a means to address the increasing concerns related to energy consumption and electricity cost in manufacturing enterprises. Two classes of problems are considered in this dissertation: (i) minimizing the makespan in a permutation flow shop with peak power consumption constraints (the PFSPP problem for short) and (ii) minimizing the total electricity cost on a single machine under time-of-use tariffs (the SMSEC problem for short). We incorporate the technology of dynamic speed scaling and the variable pricing of electricity into these scheduling problems to improve energy efficiency in manufacturing.The challenge in the PFSPP problem is to …

Development Of Availability And Sustainability Spares Optimization Models For Aircraft Reparables, Edmund K.W. Pek

Theses and Dissertations

The Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) conducts Logistics Support Analysis (LSA) studies in various engineering and logistics efforts on the myriad of weapon systems. In these studies, inventory spares provisioning, availability and sustainability analyses are key focus areas to ensure asset sustenance. In particular, OPUS10, a commercial-off-the-shelf software, is extensively used to conduct reparable spares optimization in acquisition programs. However, it is limited in its ability to conduct availability and sustainability analyses of time-varying operational demands, crucial in Operations & Support (O&S) and contingency planning. As the RSAF seeks force structure expansion to include more sophisticated weapon systems, the …

Predicting Hospital Patients' Admission To Reduce Emergency Department Boarding, Mohammadmahdi Moqri

Graduate Masters Theses

Emergency Department (ED) boarding - the inability to transfer emergency patients to inpatient beds- is a key factor contributing to ED overcrowding. This paper presents a novel approach to improving hospital operational efficiency and, therefore, to decreasing ED boarding. Using the historic data of 15,000 patients, admission results and patient information are correlated in order to identify important admission predictor factors. For example, the type of radiology exams prescribed by the ED physician is identified as among the most important predictors of admission. Based on these factors, a real-time prediction model is developed which is able to correctly predict the …

A Multi-Echelon Inventory System With Supplier Selection And Order Allocation Under Stochastic Demand, Cong Guo

Masters Theses

This article addresses the development of an integrated supplier selection and inventory control problems in supply chain management by developing a mathematical model for a multi-echelon system. In particular, a buyer firm that consists of one warehouse and N identical retailers wants to procure a type of product from a group of potential suppliers, which may require different price, ordering cost, lead time and have restriction on minimum and maximum total order size, to satisfy the stochastic demand. A continuous review system that implements the order quantity, reorder point (Q, R) inventory policy is considered in the …

Utilizing Atcs Data To Inform A Dynamic Reassignment System For Muni Metro Light Rail Vehicles Departing Embarcadero Station, April M. Hickey

Master's Theses

This is a report of a professional project intended to act as an informational tool for the evaluation of a dynamic dispatch system at Embarcadero Station for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA). Systems that operate dispatch algorithms do so in response to on-time performance and reliability. The optimization problem is documented in many transportation contexts including airline networks, bus dispatch, and freight routing. According to the research, optimizing available options and re-routing based on available options can create a more efficient system that would minimize operating costs and improving service reliability for customers.

The methodology presented here uses …

Calibration Of Microscopic Traffic Flow Models Considering All Parameters Simultaneously, Victor Hugo Molano Paz

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study proposes a methodology to calibrate microscopic traffic flow simulation models. The proposed methodology has the capability to calibrate simultaneously all the calibration parameters as well as demand patterns for any network topology. These parameters include global and local parameters as well as driver behavior and vehicle performance parameters; all based on multiple performance measures, such as link counts and speeds. Demand patterns are included in the calibration framework in terms of turning volumes.

A Simultaneous Perturbation Stochastic Approximation (SPSA) algorithm is proposed to search for the vector of the model‟s parameters that minimizes the difference between actual and …

A Sociotechnical Systems-Based Process To Facilitate The Development Of A Change Intervention Deployment Plan, Jorge Luis Nadal

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Projects for D. Eng. Degree

The purpose of this project was to formulate a process to facilitate the development of an effective change intervention deployment plan. The premise is that without a proper deployment plan, the successful implementation of a change intervention in an organization will be slow and require multiple revisions. This research utilized a Sociotechnical Systems (STS) approach to analyze the implementation of a major change intervention.

This research was in part prompted by a request by management of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) for the researcher to examine why it has taken so long to successfully implement this large-scale change …

Approximate Algorithms For The Combined Arrival-Departure Aircraft Sequencing And Reactive Scheduling Problems On Multiple Runways, Gulsah Hancerliogullari

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The problem addressed in this dissertation is the Aircraft Sequencing Problem (ASP) in which a schedule must be developed to determine the assignment of each aircraft to a runway, the appropriate sequence of aircraft on each runway, and their departing or landing times. The dissertation examines the ASP over multiple runways, under mixed mode operations with the objective of minimizing the total weighted tardiness of aircraft landings and departures simultaneously. To prevent the dangers associated with wake-vortex effects, separation times enforced by Aviation Administrations (e.g., FAA) are considered, adding another level of complexity given that such times are sequence-dependent. Due …

The Rq-Tech Methodology: A New Paradigm For Conceptualizing Strategic Enterprise Architectures, Christine Ann Hoyland

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this research is to develop and apply a system-theoretic based methodology and corresponding model for Enterprise Architecture development. Enterprise Architectures can assist managers by illustrating the systemic relationships within an organization and the impact changes to the organization could make. Unfortunately, today's modeling practices are proprietary, time-consuming, and generally ineffective as tools for understanding the consequences of strategic-level planning decisions across all levels of the enterprise. This research supports the conclusion that system-specific solutions produce islands of technology and can be prevented by employing better enterprise change planning.

This research combined the practice of Enterprise Architectures with …

Micro To Macro Dynamics Of Shared Awareness Emergence In Situations Theory: Towards A General Theory Of Shared Awareness, Samuel F. Kavacic

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Engineering Management is an interdisciplinary field of study. As such, Engineering Management must rely on the energies of its participants to integrate toward the problem being solved. Many techniques exist to aid the researcher towards a common goal; however, it can only be surmised on how effective the techniques have been. Not until the activity is over and the participants reflect back on their results can they know whether they shared a common understanding of the problem. This study explores the emergence of shared awareness based the interactions of disparate perspectives at a particulate level. The study builds from observations …

A Decision Support Model For The Location Of Hand Sanitizer Dispensers In Hospitals, Laila Cure Ph.D., Richard Van Enk Ph.D., Ewing Tiong Ph.D.

Laila Cure

Compliance with hand hygiene practices is directly affected by the accessibility and availability of cleaning agents. Nevertheless, the decision of where to locate these dispensers is often not explicitly or fully addressed in the literature. In this paper, we study the problem of selecting the locations to install alcohol-based hand sanitizer dispensers throughout a hospital unit. We investigate the relevant criteria in selecting dispenser locations that promote compliance with hand hygiene practices, propose metrics for the evaluation of various location configurations, and formulate a dispenser location optimization model that incorporates such criteria. A complete methodology to collect data and obtain …

An Investigation Of The Impact Of Requirements Engineering Skills On Project Success, Cynthia Atkins

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A survey of project managers and requirements engineers was conducted to determine what skills, qualifications, and experiences were associated with project success. Survey results indicated that projects using Joint Application Development (JAD) sessions, use cases, and prototypes to engineer requirements were most successful. Other indicators of project success, according to participants, included an adequate allotment of time for requirements engineering—at least 15% of a project's time—and the use of project managers and requirements engineers with professional work experience. In particular, data indicated that Project Managers with at least five years of experience in Information Technology resulted in more successful projects.

Modeling And Optimization Of Resource Allocation In Supply Chain Management Problems, Qi Yuan

Doctoral Dissertations

Resource allocation in supply chain management studies how to allocate the limited available resources economically/optimally to satisfy the demands. It is an important research area in operations research. This dissertation focuses on the modeling and optimization of three problems.

The first part of the dissertation investigates an important and unique problem in a supply chain distribution network, namely minimum cost network flow with variable lower bounds (MCNF-VLB). This type of network can be used to optimize the utilization of distribution channels (i.e., resources) in a large supply network, in order to minimize the total cost while satisfying flow conservation, lower …

Surveillance Planning Against Smart Insurgents In Complex Terrain, Nabil Lehlou

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study is concerned with finding a way to solve a surveillance system allocation problem based on the need to consider intelligent insurgency that takes place in a complex geographical environment. Although this effort can be generalized to other situations, it is particularly geared towards protecting military outposts in foreign lands. The technological assets that are assumed available include stare-devices, such as tower-cameras and aerostats, as well as manned and unmanned aerial systems. Since acquiring these assets depends on the ability to control and monitor them on the target terrain, their operations on the geo-location of interest ought to be …

Reliability Analysis Of Social Networks, Kellie R. Schneider

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The primary focus of this dissertation is on the quantification of actor interaction and the dissemination of information through Social networks. Social networks have long been used to model the interactions between people in various Social and professional contexts. These networks allow for the explicit modeling of the complex interrelations between relevant individuals within an organization and the role they play in the decision making process. This dissertation considers Social networks represented as network flow models in which actors have the ability to provide some level of influence over other actors within the network. The models developed incorporate performance metrics …

Load Mixing To Improve Container Utilization, Crystal Wilson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The under utilization in trucking leads to nearly 5 billion gallons of wasted fuel annually. One way to recapture part of this waste is to use collaborative logistics. This research focuses on one specific aspect of collaborative logistics: load mixing. Load mixing is the idea of mixing two or more items of different weights in the same container to reduce the number of trucks needed.

Load mixing is similar to other packing problems such as the knapsack and container loading problems. However, traditional packing problems typically only assume a single type of capacity (e.g., weight), whereas load mixing must simultaneously …

An Expert Based Multi Attribute Group Decision Making (Magdm) Model For Portfolio Evaluation: Application On Ground Force Units, Metin Gultekin

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

This main objective of this dissertation is to propose an expert based multi attribute group decision making model (MAGDM) for portfolio evaluation and demonstrate it by applying it to evaluate brigade types under different military missions. Specifically, currently used Heavy, Mechanized Infantry, Airborne Infantry, and Stryker brigades are evaluated under a set of possible future military missions. The purpose of the study is to provide a model for decision makers, engaged in a force development process.

This study combined MAGDM and simulation by using expert judgments to create distributions rather than aggregating them into point values. Excel and Monte Carlo …

Aerial Refueling Simulator Validation Using Operational Experimentation And Response Surface Methods With Time Series Responses, Alexander P. Hillman

Theses and Dissertations

An important program in the Department of Defense is the KC-46 Supertanker. Dubbed the future of the Air Force's aerial refueling inventory, the KC-46 will replace dozens of ailing previous generation tanker aircraft. The Aerial Refueling Airplane Simulator Qualification document governs the methods by which Air Mobility Command validates its simulators, some of which will be KC-46 simulators in the near future. The methodology set forward in this thesis utilizes historical data of aircraft performance from similar air frames to gain statistical insight into the performance design space of the KC-46. Leveraging this insight, the methodology provides through a framework …

Control Variates And Optimal Designs In Metamodeling, Joshua B. Meents

Theses and Dissertations

At the heart of most modeling issues is a focus on variance reduction. Experimental designs are chosen based on both efficiency and a variety of variance based criteria. In many situations due to cost, time and availability issues it is beneficial to produce metamodels of simulations. Experimental designs for the region of operability are constructed to collect the simulation output required to construct representative metamodels. Independently, the method of control variates is a well established technique often employed to reduce variance in discrete event simulations. This thesis explores the variance reduction benefits that can be obtained by combining optimal experimental …

Estimating The Probability Of Being The Best System: A Generalized Method And Nonparametric Hypothesis Test, Aaron M. Lessin

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis provides two new approaches for comparing competing systems. Instead of making comparisons based on long run averages or mean performance, the first paper presents a generalized method for calculating the probability that a single system is the best among all systems in a single trial. Unlike current empirical methods, the generalized method calculates the exact multinomial probability that a single system is best among competing systems. The ability to avoid time consuming empirical estimate techniques could potentially result in significant savings in both time and money when comparing alternate systems. A Monte Carlo simulation is conducted comparing the …

Vehicle Minimization For The Multimodal Pickup And Delivery Problem With Time Windows, Benjamin A . Clapp

Theses and Dissertations

The algorithm proposed here is used for heuristic solutions for the Multimodal Multiple Vehicle Routing Problem with Unloading Capacity, Pickup and Dropoff, and Time Windows, solved so as to minimize the number of vehicles used, subject to varying objective function values for each vehicle. The MVRP is simplified and split into a routing problem and a scheduling problem. The routing problem is addressed by Dijkstra's Algorithm. This generates a new network for the second stage of the algorithm. It is assumed that the shortest path is the correct path to use, and shipments each travel unimodally. The scheduling problem is …

Evaluating Courses Of Actions At The Strategic Planning Level, Alhmet Ozdemir

Theses and Dissertations

Like almost all real life problems, Strategic planning is a good example of a problem with more than one objective. One of the most important steps of strategic planning is to generate and evaluate the courses of actions (COA) which can fulfill the mission and vision of the organization. This is a critical process since it is impractical to start the executed COA over. In this research, value-focused thinking (VFT) is used as a decision analysis tool to assess COAs. A general model is created to select the best COA for strategic planning such as air force operation planning. To …

An Examination Of Statistical Rigor Infused Into The Kc-46 Flight Test Program, Sean C. Ritter

Theses and Dissertations

The KC-46 program is bringing on-line the replacement aircraft for the KC-135. Although not a new development program, but rather a modification program, there are extensive plans for the flight testing of the KC-46. Recent DoD emphasis mandates the use of statistical design principles for DoD test and evaluation. This project will examine the planned flight test program for KC-46 and reconsider components of that program based on principles of statistical rigor. Of particular focus will be the reliability and maintainability aspects of the flight test program. Current methodology assumes a constant failure rate in all situations, implying that the …

Polyparking, Christopher Blackmer, Michael Suttie

Biomedical Engineering

The purpose of this senior project is to analyze the various options for the implementation of a parking lot information system on the California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo campus. This system would involve three main components: physical counting hardware, a database and analysis organization system, and a user interface for disseminating the gathered information. The project investigates and provides commentary on various available and commonplace systems, and the benefits and drawbacks of these systems. During the course of the project, a flexible database and user-interface was developed in Microsoft Access, which will allow counter output to be gathered …

Location And Capacity Modeling Of Network Interchanges, Aldo D. Fabregas

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Network design decisions, especially those pertaining to urban infrastructure, are made by a central authority or network leader, and taking into consideration the network users or followers. These network decision problems are formulated as non-linear bi-level programming problems. In this work, a continuous network design problem (CNDP) and discrete network design problem (DNDP) bi-level optimization programs are proposed and solved in the context of transportation planning. The solution strategy involved reformulation and linearization as a single-level program by introducing the optimality conditions of the lower level problem into the upper level problem. For the CNDP, an alternative linearization algorithm (modified …

Using Computer Simulation To Study Hospital Admission And Discharge Processes, Edwin S. Kim

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

Hospitals around the country are struggling to provide timely access to inpatient beds. We use discrete event simulation to study the inpatient admission and discharge processes in US hospitals. Demand for inpatient beds comes from two sources: the Emergency Department (ED) and elective surgeries (NonED). Bed request and discharge rates vary from hour to hour; furthermore, weekday demand is different from weekend demand. We use empirically collected data from national and local (Massachusetts) sources on different-sized community and referral hospitals, demand rates for ED and NonED patients, patient length of stay (LOS), and bed turnover times to calibrate our discrete …