Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering Commons^™

A Stochastic Production Planning Model Under Uncertain Demand, Meenakshi Prajapati

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Production planning plays a vital role in the management of manufacturingfacilities. The problem is to determine the production loading plan consisting of the quantity of production and the workforce level - to fulfill a future demand. Although the deterministic version of the problem has been widely studied in the literature, the stochastic production planning problem has not. The application of production planning models could be limited if the stochastic nature of the problem, for example, uncertainty in future demand, is not addressed. This study addresses such a stochastic production planning problem under uncertain demand and its application in an enclosure …

Implementation Of Simulation For Network Service Delivery Point Capacity Analysis, Tiffany Jill Harper

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As businesses consolidate and modernize their operations, the impact on their network and computing infrastructure is a major consideration. In this thesis, discrete event simulation is used to show how implementation of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system can impact network performance and ultimately affect end-users. More specifically, the model simulates the flow of data packets across a network, through a Service Delivery Point (SDP), which is comprised of routers, switches, and firewalls that connect a Local Area Network to a Wide Area Network.

The model was used to run to determine the affect of more network traffic and additional …

A Tabu Search Heuristic For Multi-Period Clustering To Rationalize Delivery Operations, Surya Sudha Khambhampati

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Delivery operations use centralized warehouses to serve geographically distributed customers. Resources (e.g. personnel, trucks, stock, and equipment) are scheduled from the warehouses to distributed locations with the aim of: (a) meeting customer demands and, (b) rationalizing delivery operation costs. My thesis investigates the problem of clustering customers based on their geographical vicinity and their multi-period demands, while optimally scheduling resources. The problem addresses with-and-without capacity constraints of vehicles at the warehouse. This problem is proven to be NP-Hard. Hence, solutions using state-of-the-art exact methods such as branch and bound are not pertinent due to the computation complexity involved. We develop …

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 …

Predicting And Reducing Warranty Costs By Considering Customer Expectation And Product Performance, Naresh Kumar Sharma

Doctoral Dissertations

"This dissertation develops from quality loss function to warranty loss function in which customer expectation is also considered to be a variable. First, Taguchi's quality loss function for the larger-the-better case, which is different from the smaller-the better and nominal-the-best cases, has been assimilated into the other two by introducing a term called the target-mean ratio. Further topics addressed include the implications of a finite target on the classification of LTB characteristics, a new concept of a "Complementary Characteristic", operating window, complexity, and SN ratio based on complexity. A warranty is a buyer's confidence owing to the seller's assurance to …

Information Presentation On Mobile Device For Plant Operations, Raghavendra Rao Polakonda

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Process control and maintenance systems have been used in the petrochemical and refining industry for long time for improving operator performance and workforce efficiency. However, there is a need to integrate these systems with current technological innovations in a systematic and meaningful manner. Advances in mobile computing, sensor technologies, software algorithms, and computational methods provide the possibility for easy access to information anytime-anywhere. The issues associated with retrieving and reviewing this information directly affects the ability to make timely and quality decisions in high stakes environments like a petrochemical plant where time critical decisions are involved. This research investigates the …

Effects Of Leader Relationship Quality (Lmx), Supervisor Support, And Upward Influence In National Science Foundation Industry /University Cooperative Research Centers, Janet L. Bryant

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The Industry/University Cooperative Research Center (I/UCRC) is a type of partnership between industries and universities supported by the National Science Foundation. These partnerships enable the transfer of leading-edge technology developed in universities to industrial firms. Leadership plays a powerful role in the success of these research partnerships by creating an environment that is conducive to innovation. Directors of I/UCRCs must be able to successfully lead upward, that is, develop and maintain strong relationships with the university administrators to whom they report, to obtain the necessary support to sustain the center and foster innovation. This study uses leader-member exchange (LMX) theory …

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 …