Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering Commons^™

Path Forward To Design And Implement An On-Going Engineering Management Handbook, Robert B. Kring

Masters Theses

The purpose of this thesis was to determine a path forward to design and implement an on-going Engineering Management Handbook. A review was performed to establish a definition of Engineering Management, the history of Engineering Management, how this history has impacted the Body of Knowledge in Engineering Management over the years, and the current state of the Engineering Management Handbook. Two surveys were performed to discover how users perceive the Handbook. It was found that there was a desire for a useful on-line EM Handbook. This research allows for decisions to be made in the future as the Handbook is …

Demand Forecasting Model For Emergent Manufacturing, Naveed Ahmed Nasar Ahmed

Masters Theses

Emergence of outsourcing and global partnerships has driven the need for emergent manufacturing. Emergent manufacturing is a concept and mechanism that allows manufacturing based organizations to mitigate the risk of outsourcing their manufacturing functions. The implementation of emergent manufacturing is on a rise and yet many industrial facilities have to decide when to switch to emergent manufacturing.

To achieve a strategic fit of emergent manufacturing with the existing manufacturing facilities is the current need of the Industry. There is a strong need to develop a body of literature and models specifically for this task.

This thesis aims to develop a …

The Engineering Management Online Handbook: An Evaluation Of Content, Stephanie Slagle

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to gather a detailed understanding and encompassing list of topics for an Engineering Management Online Handbook. To better understand the profession of Engineering Management, the history of the profession is discussed. Although an Engineering Management Handbook currently exists on the World Wide Web, this study incorporates surveys of practicing engineers and current literature research. General perceptions and comments were collected from practicing engineers about the current state of the Handbook as it exists at the website of the American Society for Engineering Management (www.ASEM.org). It seems as though the main contributors currently are professors …

Quantifying The Desired Degree Of Supply Chain Flexibility, Poorna Marappa

Masters Theses

"The dynamic nature of today's market drives the need for flexibility in supply chains. The ever-growing need for and importance of flexibility in supply chains has motivated researchers to develop frameworks to achieve supply chain flexibility. Much of the research on supply chain flexibility focuses on drivers of the need for flexibility and classification of supply chain flexibility. Existing frameworks for determining the desired degree of flexibility in supply chains give an overview methodology; however, a comprehensive framework is absent. This research proposes a comprehensive framework to quantify the desired degree of flexibility in supply chains and accordingly determine its …

A Systematic Approach To Project Portfolio Selection For Economic Development In Municipalities: A Case Study In Vienna, Missouri, Amanda Danielle Alpaugh

Masters Theses

"Economic development is essential for the survival of all municipalities in the United States. Economic growth, created through project implementation, brings new capital into municipalities by increasing the tax base. Smaller municipalities often struggle to implement projects that promote economic growth. These municipalities run into problems because they lack resources to hire an economic consultant and capabilities to independently complete the strategic planning process. This thesis describes an easy-to-use and easy-to-implement systematic ten-step approach to project portfolio selection for economic growth within smaller municipalities...The ten-step approach was employed in a case study performed in Vienna, Missouri. The case study involved …

Carbon Credits And Energy Subsidies In Economic Decision Making For Confined Animal Feedlot Operation Waste Treatment, Taresh Grover

Masters Theses

"Released waste into the environment has always had a societal cost. Current issues with swine waste suggest that improved treatment is needed as agricultural production has become more industry-like and also as we now globally value the mitigation of global warming. The current need for and the economic support of advanced waste treatment has converged for animal agriculture, and now improved waste treatment is possible with concurrent economic benefit through alternative energy and carbon emissions. Recent changes have resulted in renewal of interest in anaerobic digestion (AD) technology with methane capture and energy production. An economic model was constructed to …

Application Of Product Family Design For Engineered Systems In Changing Market Space, Mohit Goswami

Masters Theses

"The focus of this paper is on the design of an engineered system for a changing market space. Due to the dynamic nature of the customer requirements, the specification of product offerings in a particular market may change. Manufacturers need to strategically design their product portfolio in such a way that their profitability is maximized, while deploying the right number of platforms necessary for deriving product variants. Depending on the system architecture, subsystems can be classified into one of the two types: scalar subsystems and modular subsystems. Each subsystem is defined by various parameters, performance criteria, and physical compatibility constraints. …

Human Systems Integration: Training And Education Needs Analysis, Hao Zhang

Masters Theses

"Over the past decade, the military (both US and foreign) has developed a wide range of tools, techniques, and technologies for integrating human factors into systems engineering. Human Systems Integration (HSI) came forth as a new multidisciplinary field of study composed of several basic areas including Human Factors Engineering, System Safety, Health Hazards, Personnel Survivability, Manpower, Personnel, Training, and Habitability. An online survey was designed to examine education and training in HSI. 19 HSI experts responded to the survey. The feedback showed that there is a lack of high qualified practitioners in HSI. Many HSI practitioners are lacking of required …

Wireless Mote-Based In-Process Diagnostics Using Hand-Held Tools In Network Enabled Manufacturing Environments, Reghu Anguswamy

Masters Theses

"When complex manufacturing systems are considered, post process inspection can be a very time consuming and costly. In addition, no inspection data is typically collected unless a major problem is encountered. Real-time monitoring of the manufacturing processes and verification of its product quality are two important factors to reduce the manufacturing lead time and to ensure safety and quality.

In this thesis, a diagnostics and root-cause analysis scheme with a single channel wireless routing protocol for real-time monitoring of process quality of pull-type fastening operations is first presented. The overall architecture has been implemented on a Huck45 pull-type tool, which …

Approaches To Learning In A Classroom Environment: Observational & Experiential, Raj Kanwar Singh

Masters Theses

"Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) has established a set of criteria that requires engineering graduates to be able to effectively communicate, work in teams with ethics and professionalism understanding the contemporary issues. There are different approaches for teaching and learning these skills, two of which are discussed in this thesis. The intention of this research is to understand the impact of observational and experiential learning on team and individual performance"--Abstract, page iv.

Application Of Artificial Neural Networks And Colored Petri Nets On Earthquake Resilient Water Distribution Systems, Nandini Kavanal Balakrishnan

Masters Theses

"Water distribution systems are important lifelines and a critical and complex infrastructure of a country. The performance of this system during unexpected rare events is important as it is one of the lifelines that people directly depend on and other factors indirectly impact the economy of a nation. In this thesis a couple of methods that can be used to predict damage and simulate the restoration process of a water distribution system are presented. Contributing to the effort of applying computational tools to infrastructure systems, Artificial Neural Network (ANN) is used to predict the rate of damage in the pipe …

Forecasting Using The T-Method, Parthiv Akshay Shah

Masters Theses

"The T-method is a technique developed by Genichi Taguchi to calculate an overall prediction based on the signal-to-noise ratio without the use of Gram-Schmidt orthogonalization. The Taguchi Methods, also known as robust design principles, is used to determine the optimal levels of control factors through planning and conducting experiments, and evaluating their results. The primary goal of Robust Design is to minimize variance in the presence of noise factors to achieve a robust process. T-Method is one of the techniques evolved from Taguchi Methods. This thesis illustrates the use of the T-method and outlines it steps using four forecasting case …

Business Risk In Early Design: An Approach, Rahul Basavaraj Patil

Masters Theses

"The Business Risk in Early Design (B-RED) method is a tool used to determine the potential risks in business, in the early business development stages. In order to launch a successful business in today's competitive market environment, the business should equip itself to face the risks involved in business. If the potential risks are identified even before the launch of the business, then there is an opportunity to avert risks with little or no impact to the budget and schedule. The B-RED method presented in this thesis helps entrepreneurs and people with little or no experience in business to identify …

Formulating Hedging Strategies For Financial Risk Mitigation In Competitive U.S. Electricity Markets, Karthik Viswanathan

Masters Theses

"The challenges currently facing participants in the competitive electricity markets are unique and staggering: unprecedented price volatility, fluctuations in the demand, a lack of historical market data on which to test the new modeling approaches, increased competition and continuously changing regulatory structure...Electricity plant owners and purchasers of electricity may benefit from various techniques to manage price volatility. For electricity, however, no futures market is actively traded. The electricity forward market in NYMEX is in its nascent stage and is low in liquidity. Producers and purchasers of electricity may find cross-hedging electricity with natural gas futures contracts to be effective in …