Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering Commons^™

A Qualitative Look Into Repair Practices, Jumana Labib

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

This research poster is based on a working research paper which moves beyond the traditional scope of repair and examines the Right to Repair movement from a smaller, more personal lens by detailing the 6 categorical impediments as dubbed by Dr. Alissa Centivany (design, law, economic/business strategy, material asymmetry, informational asymmetry, and social impediments) have continuously inhibited repair and affected repair practices, which has consequently had larger implications (environmental, economic, social, etc.) on ourselves, our objects, and our world. The poster builds upon my research from last year (see "The Right to Repair: (Re)building a better future"), this time pulling …

Combining Green Metrics And Digital Twins For Sustainability Planning And Governance Of Smart Buildings And Cities, Casey R. Corrado, Suzanne M. Delong, Emily G. Holt, Edward Y. Hua, Andreas Tolk

VMASC Publications

Creating a more sustainable world will require a coordinated effort to address the rise of social, economic, and environmental concerns resulting from the continuous growth of cities. Supporting planners with tools to address them is pivotal, and sustainability is one of the main objectives. Modeling and simulation augmenting digital twins can play an important role to implement these tools. Although various green best practices have been utilized over time and there are related attempts at measuring green success, works in the published literature tend to focus on addressing a single problem (e.g., energy efficiency), and a comprehensive approach that takes …

Infrastructure Systems Modeling Using Data Visualization And Trend Extraction, Jacob Marshal Hale

Doctoral Dissertations

“Current infrastructure systems modeling literature lacks frameworks that integrate data visualization and trend extraction needed for complex systems decision making and planning. Critical infrastructures such as transportation and energy systems contain interdependencies that cannot be properly characterized without considering data visualization and trend extraction.

This dissertation presents two case analyses to showcase the effectiveness and improvements that can be made using these techniques. Case one examines flood management and mitigation of disruption impacts using geospatial characteristics as part of data visualization. Case two incorporates trend analysis and sustainability assessment into energy portfolio transitions.

Four distinct contributions are made in this …

Moving Toward Prevention: Rural Water Maintenance And Sustained Service Delivery, Caleb Cord, Jeffrey P. Walters, Harold Lockwood, Pranav Chintalapati, Amy Javernick-Will, Karl Linden

Faculty Publications - Biomedical, Mechanical, and Civil Engineering

This paper outlines a research plan to be conducted across the Sustainable WASH Systems (SWS) Learning consortium to learn from maintenance approaches both internal and external to the partnership. It follows a study commissioned by IRC WASH and SWS which gathered information on prominent existing approaches from key informants.

System Dynamics Modelling As A Tool For Assessing Rural Water Sustainability, Pranav Chintalapati, Jeffrey P. Walters, Amy Javernick-Will, Karl Linden

Faculty Publications - Biomedical, Mechanical, and Civil Engineering

System dynamics modelling is a tool that has been used for decades in business management and economics applications, but little focus has been applied to the WASH sector.

Specifically, this paper discusses the use of causal loop diagrams and stock flow diagrams as methods to better understand the systemic drivers affecting sustainability of rural water service delivery.

Natural Resources Governance Employing Blockchain-Based Decision-Making, Farinaz Sabz Ali Pour, Adrian Gheorghe

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

Natural resources are essential structures of socio-economic systems which shape the well-being of humanity, environment, and the economy. Human actions have become the critical responsibility for environmental changes and pressuring many planetary boundaries. Having a systematic approach can provide a governance platform including the inherent characteristics of the resource, the historically established form of use, and transaction costs. A natural resource governance framework is developed by applying Blockchain technology as the primary goal of this study to regulate and manage the extraction and trades. Blockchain technology provides a distributed concurrency monitoring system for sustainable resource management. Persistent and pervasive cooperation …

Multi-Criteria Decision Making When Planning Sustainable Multimodal Transportation Routes In A Linear Corridor, Marie Louis

Doctoral Dissertations

In urban and suburban locations, public transit can be seen as an effective mode of daily transportation. The majority of the time, travelers would seek the cheapest, shortest, and possibly most eco-friendly means of transit. When designing public transit network systems, transportation planners and decision-makers, with input from stakeholders, should strive to optimize transportation services to meet the needs of the population most efficiently and at the lowest cost, that is, providing a transportation system that s the three E's of the sustainability concept: environment, social equity, and economic. Previous studies have focused on sustainability as the primary concern in …

Working With Complexity: A Participatory Systems-Based Process For Planning And Evaluating Rural Water, Sanitation And Hygiene Services, Jeffrey P. Walters, Kate Neely, Karla Pozo

Faculty Publications - Biomedical, Mechanical, and Civil Engineering

Individuals working within the water, sanitation and hygiene for development (WASH) sector grapple daily with complex technical, social, economic, and environmental issues that often produce unexpected outcomes that are difficult to plan for and resolve. Here we propose a method we are calling the ‘Participatory Systems-based Planning and Evaluation Process’ (PS-PEP) that combines structural factor analysis and collaborative modeling to guide teams of practitioners, researchers, and other stakeholders through a process of modeling and interpreting how factors systemically and dynamically influence sustained access to WASH services. The use and utility of the PS-PEP is demonstrated with a regional team of …

Improving Carbon Efficiency Through Container Size Optimization And Shipment Consolidation, Nang Laik Ma, Kar Way Tan, Edwin Lik Ming Chong

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Purpose: Many manufacturing companies that ship goods through full container loads found themselves under-utilizing the containers and resulting in higher carbon footprint per volume shipment. One of the reasons is the choice of non-ideal container sizes for their shipments. Consolidation fills up the containers more efficiently that reduces the overall carbon footprint. The objective of this paper is to support decisions on selection of appropriate combination of container sizes and shipment consolidation for a manufacturing company. We develop two-steps model which first takes the volumes to be shipped as an input and provide the combination of container sizes required; then …

Planning Rural Water Services In Nicaragua: A Systems-Based Analysis Of Impact Factors Using Graphical Modeling, Jeffrey P. Walters, Paul S. Chinowsky

Faculty Publications - Biomedical, Mechanical, and Civil Engineering

The success or failure of rural water services in the developing world is a result of numerous factors that interact in a complex set of connections that are difficult to separate and identify. This research effort presented a novel means to empirically reveal the systemic interactions of factors that influence rural water service sustainability in the municipalities of Darío and Terrabona, Nicaragua. To accomplish this, the study employed graphical modeling to build and analyze factor networks. Influential factors were first identified by qualitatively and quantitatively analyzing transcribed interviews from community water committee members. Factor influences were then inferred by graphical …