Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering Commons^™

Practical Requirements Elicitation In Modern Product Development: A Multi-Case Study In Discontinuous Innovation, Michael King

Theses and Dissertations

Practical modern product development, specifically rapid, lean efforts to create new disrupting or specialized products, face constraints that require modified requirements elicitation (RE) techniques. Requirements elicitation conventions have not been updated to address the challenges of these approaches, and industry practitioners lack the tools to select the most efficient techniques. This study examines the RE approaches performed by three resource-limited teams conducting discontinuous new product development through a multi-case study to identify gaps between the literature and practice, with suggestions to fill them. Our findings suggest modern RE practices and challenges closely reflect those found by studies on RE in …

Towards Structured Planning And Learning At The State Fisheries Agency Scale, Caleb A. Aldridge

Theses and Dissertations

Inland recreational fisheries has grown philosophically and scientifically to consider economic and sociopolitical aspects (non-biological) in addition to the biological. However, integrating biological and non-biological aspects of inland fisheries has been challenging. Thus, an opportunity exists to develop approaches and tools which operationalize planning and decision-making processes which include biological and non-biological aspects of a fishery. This dissertation expands the idea that a core set of goals and objectives is shared among and within inland fisheries agencies; that many routine operations of inland fisheries managers can be regimented or standardized; and the novel concept that current information and operations can …

A Novel Approach To Orbital Debris Mitigation, Timothy S. Turk

Doctoral Dissertations

Since mankind launched the first satellite into orbit in 1957, we have been inadvertently, yet deliberately, creating an environment in space that may ultimately lead to the end of our space exploration. Space debris, more specifically, orbital debris is a growing problem that must be dealt with sooner, rather than later. Several ideas have been developed to address the complex problem of orbital debris mitigation.

This research will investigate the possibility of removing orbital debris from the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) regime by using a metaheuristic algorithm to maximize collection of debris resulting from the February 2009 on-orbit collision of …

Novel Hitch Cargo Cart, Cesilio Sanchez Ramirez, Lance Haidet, Richard Lontoc, Tyler Selinka

Mechanical Engineering

This document presents the engineering design process used to develop, manufacture, and test a new and improved iteration of a hitch cart prototype. This process was performed by a team of four mechanical engineering seniors as part of California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo’s senior design pathway. The goal of this project was to develop a sturdy and reliable iteration of our sponsor’s hitch cart prototype, that integrated the functionality of a vehicle hitch cargo platform and that of a height adjustable cargo cart into a single streamlined and easy to use product. This design could be used by …

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 …

Cooperative Wide Area Search Algorithm Analysis Using Sub-Region Techniques, Shawn Whitney

Theses and Dissertations

Recent advances in small Unmmaned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) technology reinvigorates the need for additional research into Wide Area Search (WAS) algorithms for civilian and military applications. But due to the extremely large variability in UAV environments and design, Digital Engineering (DE) is utilized to reduce the time, cost, and energy required to advance this technology. DE also allows rapid design and evaluation of autonomous systems which utilize and support WAS algorithms. Modern WAS algorithms can be broadly classified into decision-based algorithms, statistical algorithms, and Artificial Intelligence (AI)/Machine Learning (ML) algorithms. This research continues on the work by Hatzinger and Gertsman …

Project Selection In Facility And Infrastructure Maintenance Organizations, Bayram M. Kurbanov

Theses and Dissertations

The current Air Force Civil Engineer Center (AFCEC) built infrastructure Facility Sustainment Restoration and Modernization (FSRM) portfolio management methodology results in an unbalanced project portfolio. The consequence of this unbalance is that majority of the funding goes towards buildings on the flightline and Facility Support Services activities do not get adequate funding which leads to further deterioration of those facilities. This research investigates whether decision support framework based on Value-Focused Thinking (VFT) process yields better project selection outcomes for facility and infrastructure maintenance organizations. To accomplish that, the investigation focuses on understanding current AFCEC decision support methodology, building an alternative …

Novel Mixed Integer Programming Approaches To Unit Commitment And Tool Switching Problems, Najmaddin Akhundov

Doctoral Dissertations

In the first two chapters, we discuss mixed integer programming formulations in Unit Commitment Problem. First, we present a new reformulation to capture the uncertainty associated with renewable energy. Then, the symmetrical property of UC is exploited to develop new methods to improve the computational time by reducing redundancy in the search space. In the third chapter, we focus on the Tool Switching and Sequencing Problem. Similar to UC, we analyze its symmetrical nature and present a new reformulation and symmetry-breaking cuts which lead to a significant improvement in the solution time. In chapter one, we use convex hull pricing …

Evaluating Performance Competencies In The Royal Saudi Air Force Engineering Directorate And Squadrons, Faisal A. Al Dawood

Theses and Dissertations

The effectiveness of tasks performed by the directorate of aeronautical engineering and squadrons in RSAF directly impacts flight safety, which in turn influences the organization either positively or negatively. Therefore, improving engineers' competencies will improve the overall performance of the organization. The study refined and reconstructed a model, namely a T-shape competency model, to assess the engineers' competencies which revealed some management and competency-related deficiencies and concluded with managerial recommendations.

Root-Cause Analysis Of Rsaf Maintenance-Related Flight Safety Mishaps, Heaf H. Alqahtani

Theses and Dissertations

Poor maintenance is a major factor in many aviation mishaps. This is due to the fact that some maintenance activities are carried out improperly or overlooked as a result of human error. It is important to acknowledge that maintenance mistakes are a visible sign of deeper organizational issues. Therefore, adequate solutions to maintenance issues must consider organizational influences. Despite efforts to reduce the accident rate within the Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF), the RSAF suffers from an increasing trend in mishaps attributed to maintenance. Therefore, safety data was analyzed to examine trends. Additionally, the Human Factors Analysis and Classification System …

Evaluating Safety And Productivity Relationship In Human-Robot Collaboration, Aayush Jain, Shakra Mehak, Philip Long, John D. Kelleher, Michael Guilfoyle, Maria Chiara Leva

Conference papers

Collaborative robots can improve ergonomics on factory floors while allowing a higher level of flexibility in production. The evolution of robotics and cyber-physical systems in size and functionality has enabled new applications which were never foreseen in traditional industrial robots. However, the current human-robot collaboration (HRC) technologies are limited in reliability and safety, which are vital in risk-critical scenarios. Certainly, confusion about European safety regulations has led to situations where collaborative robots operate behind security barriers, thus negating their advantages while reducing overall application productivity. Despite recent advances, developing a safe collaborative robotic system for performing complex industrial or daily …

Project Khepri: Mining Asteroid Bennu For Water, Erika Frost, Gowtham Boyala, Adam Gremm, Ahmet Gungor, Amirhossein Taghipour, Massimo Biella, Jiawei "Jackson" Qiu, Athip Thirupathi Raj, Arjun Chhabra, Adam Gee, Saanjali Maharaj, Erin Richardson, Julia Empey, Haidar Ali Abdul-Nabi, Lindsay Richards, Ariyaan Talukder, Aaron Groh, Brie Miklaucic, Jd Carlson, Kristina Kim, Maverick Cue

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

Deep space asteroid mining presents the opportunity for the collection of critical resources required to establish a cis-lunar infrastructure. In specific, the Project Khepri team has focused on the collection of water from asteroid Bennu. This water has the potential to provide a source of clean-energy propellant as well as an essential consumable for humans or agriculture on crewed trips to the Moon or Mars. This would avoid the high costs of launching from Earth - making it a highly desirable element for the future of cis-lunar infrastructure. The OSIRIS-REx mission provided a complete survey of asteroid Bennu and is …

Introduction To Pub/Sub Systems Using Opcua, Mete Isiksalan

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

The purpose of the project was to learn and implement the fundamental basics of OPCUA system architecture using pub/sub systems. The system allows the users to create multiple different publishers and subscribers while accessing data from a local server and a primary HTTP server. The system is designed to be a multi-client and multi-server system to simulate real-life scenarios while having two different sources of generated values to send via sockets in OPCUA protocols, multiple different APIs were used for the clients on how they retrieve data as well.

Improving Patient Safety, Patient Flow And Physician Well-Being In Emergency Departments, Vishnunarayan Girishan Prabhu

All Dissertations

Over 151 million people visit US Emergency Departments (EDs) annually. The diverse nature and overwhelming volume of patient visits make the ED one of the most complicated settings in healthcare to study. ED overcrowding is a recognized worldwide public health problem, and its negative impacts include patient safety concerns, increased patient length of stay, medical errors, patients left without being seen, ambulance diversions, and increased health system expenditure. Additionally, ED crowding has been identified as a leading contributor to patient morbidity and mortality. Furthermore, this chaotic working environment affects the well-being of all ED staff through increased frustration, workload, stress, …

Manufacturing & Service Systems, Robert S. Keyser

KSU Distinguished Course Repository

An analysis of decision making in the current production environment and the tools and optimization models needed for finding solutions to problems relating to production planning and scheduling, inventory, and warehouse design.

Effect Of Automation Level On Cognitive Workload When Collaborating With A Robotic Assistant, Mitchell A. Champagne

LSU Master's Theses

Manufacturing robotics have been used for decades to perform repetitive tasks, or tasks that require increased levels of speed, strength, or precision to meet production and specification requirements. Determining the appropriate degree of automation for both the human and robot collaborative team members is critical to optimize production as well as user experience. If the degree of automation is too high, the human will be out of the loop which can result in the loss of situational awareness and be detrimental to intervention time and accuracy. If the degree of automation is too low, then the human may experience greater …

The Intersection Of Robotic Process Automation And Lean Six Sigma Applied To Unstructured Data, Emily Mcintosh

Operations Research and Engineering Management Theses and Dissertations

While new Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies gain traction in the workplace, there seems to be more buzz around these newer advances, including Robotic Process Automation (RPA), than more established process improvement techniques such as Lean Six Sigma. This praxis research uses Lean Six Sigma as a framework for effectively deploying these emerging technologies, a challenge for 86% of companies (Ernst & Young, 2021). This research is applied to one of the legal industry’s most resource intensive processes – eDiscovery in the environment of a Big 4 accounting firm that provides services to corporations and legal professionals alike.

Electronic discovery (also …

Interdiction Models To Disrupt The Operations Of Sex Trafficking And Other Forced Illicit Labor Networks, Michael T. Clark

All Theses

Sex traffickers often force their victims to work in both commercial sex markets and perform other illicit activities (e.g., drug dealing, theft, and fraud). Current literature has failed to address interdiction models that aim to disrupt all components of a sex traffickers’ operation, including these other illicit activities. In this thesis, we present a interdiction problem, and its single-level linear optimization reformulation, to reduce the profit of a human trafficking network concurrently operating in the commercial sex market and other illicit activity markets. Our novel formulation aims to investigate the practical implications of interdiction decisions made to disrupt a human …

A Spatiotemporal Analysis Of Food Pantry Accessibility In Washington County, Arkansas, Coleman Warren

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Food pantries are an essential resource for impoverished and food insecure communities. Washington County, Arkansas has a food insecurity rate of 14.3% as compared to the national average of 10.9% (Feeding America, 2019). The Northwest Arkansas Food Bank has a robust pantry network in Washington County to support families and individuals who struggle with food insecurity.

We conducted a spatiotemporal analysis of food pantry accessibility in Washington County, Arkansas to evaluate the effectiveness of the food pantry network in Washington County at supporting communities with the most need. This analysis was conducted using the Two-Step Floating Catchment Area (2SFCA) method …

Analysis Of The Perspective On Syrian Refugees By Neighboring Countries, Norma Ghanem

Theses and Dissertations

Mass migration destabilizes neighboring states, opening the way for fragile state exploitation by enemies, including those that could undermine U.S. national interests. This study investigates an area of the Levant region, specifically countries neighboring Syria, and analyzes their perspective on Syrian refugees for the time frame of 1 June 2019 - 30 June 2020. This analysis may assist in forming policy and creating strategies to address refugee related issues, both domestic and international. There are three main questions addressed. The first inspects dominant refugee framing, the second explores sentiment (dis)similarity within each country and across countries, and the third investigates …

Identifying Characteristics For Success Of Robotic Process Automations, Charles M. Unkrich

Theses and Dissertations

In the pursuit of digital transformation, the Air Force creates digital airmen. Digital airmen are robotic process automations designed to eliminate the repetitive high-volume low-cognitive tasks that absorb so much of our Airmen's time. The automation product results in more time to focus on tasks that machines cannot sufficiently perform data analytics and improving the Air Force's informed decision-making. This research investigates the assessment of potential automation cases to ensure that we choose viable tasks for automation and applies multivariate analysis to determine which factors indicate successful projects. The data is insufficient to provide significant insights.

Analysis Of Generalized Artificial Intelligence Potential Through Reinforcement And Deep Reinforcement Learning Approaches, Jonathan Turner

Theses and Dissertations

Artificial Intelligence is the next competitive domain; the first nation to develop human level artificial intelligence will have an impact similar to the development of the atomic bomb. To maintain the security of the United States and her people, the Department of Defense has funded research into the development of artificial intelligence and its applications. This research uses reinforcement learning and deep reinforcement learning methods as proxies for current and future artificial intelligence agents and to assess potential issues in development. Agent performance were compared across two games and one excursion: Cargo Loading, Tower of Hanoi, and Knapsack Problem, respectively. …

Analyzing The Impact Of Blood Transfusion Kits And Triage Misclassification Errors For Military Medical Evacuation Dispatching Policies Via Approximate Dynamic Programming, Channel A. Rodriguez

Theses and Dissertations

Members of the armed forces greatly rely on having an effective and efficient medical evacuation (MEDEVAC) process for evacuating casualties from the battlefield to medical treatment facilities (MTF) during combat operations. This thesis examines the MEDEVAC dispatching problem and seeks to determine an optimal policy for dispatching a MEDEVAC unit, if any, when a 9-line MEDEVAC request arrives, taking into account triage classification errors and the possibility of having blood transfusion kits on board select MEDEVAC units. A discounted, infinite-horizon continuous-time Markov decision process (MDP) model is formulated to examine such problem and compare generated dispatching policies to the myopic …

Game Theory Framework To Evaluate Nuclear Deterrence, Michael A. Cevallos

Theses and Dissertations

This research game theory framework evaluates the resilience of nuclear deterrence options between two players. We use lexicographic prioritization to value four priorities of political, military, economic, and civilian casualties. The value order may be varied. We demonstrate our approach with six player choices of no nuclear strike, demonstration, counterforce, tactical military, economic, or countervalue strike. We use game theory to construct and analyze the resulting damage matrix. We conclude that credible deterrence requires having at least equivalent offensive damage capabilities.

Evaluating The Military Medical Evacuation Dispatching And Delivery Problem Via Simulation And Self-Exciting Hawkes Process, Virbon B. Frial

Theses and Dissertations

The location, allocation, and utilization of military medical evacuation (MEDEVAC) resources significantly impact the quality and timeliness of medical care to injured troops. In 2009, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates introduced the Golden Hour mandate that entails the evacuation of critically-injured troops to military treatment facilities (MTFs) within an hour to prevent further complications. To develop high-quality policies that improve MEDEVAC system performance, several papers in the current literature assume that MTFs have both the capacity and capability of treating any patient, regardless of the type of injury. However, these assumptions are unrealistic when conducting high-intensity operations. While acknowledging MTF …

Simulating Autonomous Cruise Missile Swarm Behaviors In An Anti-Access Area Denial (A2ad) Environment, Kyle W. Goggins

Theses and Dissertations

The increasingly sophisticated anti-access area denial (A2AD) threat imposed by the modern integrated air defense system (IADS), coupled with the decreasingly potent advantage provided by high-end stealth platforms, has prompted Air Force senior leaders to invest in radically changing the nature of air power for the year 2030 and beyond. A prominent element of this new vision is weapon swarming, which aims to address this challenge by overwhelming the IADS with huge numbers of low-cost, attritable aerial assets emboldened by autonomous capabilities. This research proposes a framework for classifying the different levels of autonomous capability along three independent dimensions—namely ability …

Advancing Ubiquitous Collaboration For Telehealth - A Framework To Evaluate Technology-Mediated Collaborative Workflow For Telehealth, Hypertension Exam Workflow Study, Christopher Bondy Ph.D., Linlin Chen Ph.D, Pamela Grover Md, Pengcheng Shi Ph.D

Articles

Healthcare systems are under siege globally regarding technology adoption; the recent pandemic has only magnified the issues. Providers and patients alike look to new enabling technologies to establish real-time connectivity and capability for a growing range of remote telehealth solutions. The migration to new technology is not as seamless as clinicians and patients would like since the new workflows pose new responsibilities and barriers to adoption across the telehealth ecosystem. Technology-mediated workflows (integrated software and personal medical devices) are increasingly important in patient-centered healthcare; software-intense systems will become integral in prescribed treatment plans [1]. My research explored the path to …

Developing Artificial Intelligence Tools To Investigate The Phenotypes And Correlates Of Chronic Kidney Disease Patients In West Virginia, Marzieh Amiri Shahbazi

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

ABSTRACT

Developing Artificial Intelligence tools to investigate the phenotypes and correlates of Chronic Kidney Disease patients in West Virginia

Marzieh Amiri Shahbazi

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is responsible for disrupting the lives of 37 million people just in the USA, which is about 1 in 7 adults. CKD results in a gradual loss of kidney function over time. Sometimes CKD doesn’t produce any significant symptoms until it reaches an advanced stage. On the other hand, acute kidney injury (AKI) accounts for a sudden decline in the kidney’s function. As a result, the kidneys fail to filter waste materials from the …

Building Competent Teams Of Experts Based On Project Completion Time And Skill Levels, Yalda Yazdanpanah

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

With many companies quickly expanding their sizes, building the best team of experts from the applicants has evolved into an interesting subject for computer-aided decision-making tasks. In this regard, the Team Formation Problem (TFP) has been well-studied in Artificial Intelligence and operations research literature in recent years. We consider a Team Formation Problem of assigning qualified experts to a given set of positions in a given set of projects where each position is to be filled with an expert with a required skill. In our setting, an expert can be quantitatively characterized by one level per skill, and each expert …