Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering Commons^™

A Simulation-Based Heuristic For Fleet Assignment, Sonia Rosario Anorga

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Integer programming, simulation, and rules of thumb have been integrated to develop a simulation-based heuristic for short-term assignment of fleet in the car rental industry. It generates a plan for car movements, and a set of booking limits to produce high revenue for a given planning horizon.

Three different scenarios were used to validate the heuristic. The heuristic's mean revenue was significant higher than the historical ones, in all three scenarios. Time to run the heuristic for each experiment was within the time limits of three hours set for the decision making process even though it is not fully automated. …

A Web-Based Interface For Storing And Executing Simulation Model, Ashu Guru, Paul Savory, Robert Williams

Department of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

The dominance of the Internet in the development ofinformation and communication technology has madeWeb-based distributed solutions increasingly attractive.Apart from providing other services, the World Wide Webis being looked upon as an environment for hostingmodeling and simulation applications. SIMAN is asimulation language that allows users to simulate discreteand continuous systems. In this research, a web-basedinterface or toolkit has been developed for storing andexecuting SIMAN simulation models over the Internet.This toolkit consists of a World Wide Web interface toSIMAN and a web-accessible database for storing usermodels. It provides users an easy-to-use environment fordeveloping text-based simulation models using the SIMANsimulation language. It also …

The Role Of Intelligent Transportation Systems (Its) In Intermodal Air Cargo Operations, H.-S. Jacob Tsao, Asim Rizwan

Faculty Publications

If California were a nation, it would be the sixth largest economy in the world. Efficient goods movement is crucial to California’s economy. Air freight consists predominantly of high-value, time-sensitive or time-definite goods, e.g., electronic equipment, emergency shipments, overnight packages, etc. Timely delivery of air freight has been an important element of many manufacturing and service operations in California. Therefore, the air cargo industry is a vital part of the state’s economy. The objectives of this research include (a) investigating and suggesting how the public sector in California can assist the air cargo industry in providing efficient services to businesses …

Predicting Employee Compliance With Safety Regulations, Factoring Risk Perception, Yenny Farinas Diaz

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to develop a methodology that would evaluate employees’ personality traits, demographic characteristics, and workplace parameters to predict safety compliance along with the moderating effect of risk perception.

One hundred and twenty five employees of a manufacturing facility were given questionnaires to gather their demographic and perception information. Surveys were also used to measure their personality characteristics, and periodic observations were recorded to document employee’s safety compliance. A significant correlation was found between compliance and the worker's perception of management's commitment to safety (r = 0.27, p < 0.01), as well as with gender (r = -0.19, p < 0.05). Females showed a significantly higher average compliance (78%), than males (69%). These findings demonstrated the value of developing a model to predict safety behavior that would assist companies In maintaining a safe work environment, preventing accidents, ensuring compliance, and reducing associated costs.

Plastic Solder Paste Stencil For Surface Mount Technology, Christopher K. Wong, Daniel Waldorf

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Solder paste masks or stencils are an integral part of the manufacturing process for surface mount PCBs. This study examines the feasibility of a process for rapid creation of a solder paste stencil using thermoplastic material. CNC laser cutting of the stencil geometry is replacing traditional use of chemical etching on metal sheets to produce stencils. Laser cutting has been used to improve process speed, accuracy, and cost. This research attempts to continue to simplify and reduce costs in the stencil making process by proposing as the stencil material a common thermoplastic that can be cut easily and quickly using …

Product Flexibility In Selecting Manufacturing Planning And Control Strategy, Emine Persentili, Sema E. Alptekin

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The manufacturing systems capable of producing several products simultaneously are frequently subject to changes in product types due to demand fluctuations. In such systems a product flexible manufacturing planning and control (MPC) strategy is needed to change from one product type to another with minimum deterioration to system performance levels. The objective of this research is to develop a systematic analysis and evaluation approach in order to compare the MRP-push and JIT-pull strategies quantitatively based on a product flexibility measure. A new product flexibility measure is developed based on the sensitivity to change concept and presented together with the implementation …

Dwell Fatigue I : Damage Mechanisms, Tarun Goswami

Biomedical, Industrial & Human Factors Engineering Faculty Publications

The mechanisms controlling deformation and failure under high temperature creep-fatigue conditions of materials are examined in this paper. The materials studied are solder alloys, copper alloys, low alloy steels, stainless steels, titanium alloys, and Ni-based alloys. The deformation and failure mechanisms were different (fatigue, creep, oxidation and their interactions) depending upon test and material parameters employed. Deformation mechanisms, such as cavity formation, grain boundary damage, intergranular (IG) and transgranular (TG) damage, oxidation, internal damage, dislocation cell concentration, and oxide mechanisms are very important in order to gain more knowledge of fatigue behavior of materials. The observed mechanisms can be categorized …