Industrial Engineering Commons^™

Rfid-Based Business Process And Workflow Management In Healthcare:Design And Implementation, Xiaoyu Ma

Wayne State University Dissertations

The healthcare system in the United States is considered one of the most complex systems and has encountered challenges related to patient safety concerns, escalating costs, and unpredictable outcomes. Many of these problems share a common cause - a lack of efficient business process management and visibility into the real-time location, status, and condition of medical resources. The goal of this research is to propose a newly integrated system to model, automate, and monitor healthcare business processes using an automatic data collection technology to record the timing and location of activities and identify their various resources.

This dissertation makes several …

Evaluating Human-Robot Implicit Communication Through Human-Human Implicit Communication, Andrew Xenos Richardson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) research is examining ways to make human-robot (HR) communication more natural. Incorporating natural communication techniques is expected to make HR communication seamless and more natural for humans. Humans naturally incorporate implicit levels of communication, and including implicit communication in HR communication should provide tremendous benefit. The aim for this work was to evaluate a model for humanrobot implicit communication. Specifically, the primary goal for this research was to determine whether humans can assign meanings to implicit cues received from autonomous robots as they do for identical implicit cues received from humans. An experiment was designed to allow …

Decision Support Models For The External Variety Of Configurable Products, Erkan Isikli

Wayne State University Dissertations

The decision of what configurations of a product to offer is a difficult one for marketing and sales departments. In this study, we developed decision support models that can help decision makers when using operational models to manage external variety of configurable products. Our main objective is to reduce the number of product variants offered in a proper way so that inventory and demand models do not suffer from the curse of dimension. Due to its ability and flexibility, our framework can be employed under various marketing actions. We applied our framework to both qualitative and quantitative data.

Impact Of Rotated Aisles On Travel Distance In Manufacturing Facilities, Dale Masel, Samantha Hedges

12th IMHRC Proceedings (Gardanne, France – 2012)

To design a facility, expected flows between the resources is one of the most important input. Flows are usually calculated given some statistics of previous periods or from the expected demand and the process required. However, in a refurbishing and recycling facility, flows are very fluctuating and not trivial to predict. The quantity produced by such facility not only depends on the demand but also on the supplies which are returned products under guaranty or discarded products after their end-of-use. The uncertainty and the variability on these supplies are often higher than the one on the demand which makes it …

Simulation-Based Performance Improvement Of A Defense Logistics Warehouse, Banu Y. Ekren, Gerald W. Evans, Sunderesh S. Heragu, John S. Usher

12th IMHRC Proceedings (Gardanne, France – 2012)

Warehouses play a critical role in supply chains. They serve as a vital link between manufacturers and customers. In this study, we investigate performance of the largest warehouse (Eastern Distribution Center - EDC) of the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) located in New Cumberland, PA and propose a near optimum design for the receiving area of the warehouse to improve its performance. First, we develop a simulation model of the system. Second, we interface an optimization model with the simulation in order to optimize the number of people working at the induction stations. In the optimization model, our goal is to …

Optimal Design Of Container Terminal Layout, Debjit Roy, Ren´E De Koster

12th IMHRC Proceedings (Gardanne, France – 2012)

Due to rapid growth in foreign trade using sea vessels, there is a growing focus in improving the infrastructure and operational efficiencies at the container terminals. Particularly, the operational responsiveness of loading and unloading of containers, affects the vessel idle times and profitability of the shipping liners. In this research, we deter- mine optimal stack layout design, which minimizes the container unload times using Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs). To analyze alternate stack layout designs, we develop integrated queuing network models that capture the stochastic interactions among the container terminal processes (quayside, vehicle transport, and stack side), and provides realistic estimates …

Cycle Time Models For Aisle Changing As/Rs Considering Acceleration/Deceleration, Jörg Oser

12th IMHRC Proceedings (Gardanne, France – 2012)

In multi-aisle AS/RS systems one or more S/R machines serve several aisles with storage racks on both sides of the aisle. An important feature of multi-aisle configurations are aisle changing devices with transfer cars, curve guided aisle switching mechanisms or closed loop rail tracks with curved sections for a two-aisle layout. These systems offer an economic solution, when the number of storage and retrieval transactions is low and storage volume is high. One or several S/R machines each serving a specified number of aisles can be arranged in various layouts to meet the required storage capacity and throughput.

The Order Picking Problem In Fishbone Aisle Warehouses, Melih Celik, Haldun Sural

12th IMHRC Proceedings (Gardanne, France – 2012)

A recent trend in the layout design of unit load warehouses is the application of layouts without conventional parallel pick aisles and straight middle aisles. Two examples for such designs are flying- V and fish bone designs for single and dual command operations. In this study, we consider the same layout types under the case of multiple-item pick lists and show that, for both layout types, the routing problem can be solved in polynomial time. We also propose simple heuristics for this problem inspired by those put forward for parallel-aisle warehouses. Our computational results reveal that under certain cases, fish …

How To Choose An Order-Picking System, Marita Ellinger, Tim Geißen, Detlef Spee

12th IMHRC Proceedings (Gardanne, France – 2012)

Order-Picking-Systems are the parts of material flow systems, which have the largest variance of deployment alternatives. Since a long time there have been many attempts to systematize the way of identification of the order-picking- ystem that the “correct” solution can be found. The previous methods could not be enforced universally. Thus nearly all the material handling system suppliers have their own approach to find the right system, as it turned out at a market analysis of Fraunhofer IML. With the presented concept of finding a solution, a structured, fast method for system identification shall be presented. A stepwise approach to …

Evaluation Of Environmental Benefits Of Che Emerging Technologies By Using Lca, Nenad Zrnić, Andrija Vujičić

12th IMHRC Proceedings (Gardanne, France – 2012)

In the era of climate change combat transport industry is recognized as a sector with one of the largest environmental footprints. A part of transport industry is container shipping and handling division, which is currently growing with the fastest rate. This massive growth of container sector is due to containers pouring from Asia, mainly from China. Thus, container port operations are also experiencing significant increase in port emissions. This fact puts port authorities in position to find a way to reduce environmental impact of port operations and at the same time withhold increase in number containers being handled. In response …

Robust Design Of Public Storage Warehouses, Yeming Yale Gong, Rene De Koster

12th IMHRC Proceedings (Gardanne, France – 2012)

We apply robust optimization and revenue management in public storage warehouses. We optimize the expected revenue of public storage warehouses against the worst cases with a max-min revenue objective, and the decision variables are mainly the number of storage units for each storage type. With the robust design, we can observe worst-case revenue improvement.

Refurburshing And Recycling Facilities Design Methodology, Suzanne Marcotte, Benoit Montreuil

12th IMHRC Proceedings (Gardanne, France – 2012)

To design a facility, expected flows between the resources is one of the most important input. Flows are usually calculated given some statistics of previous periods or from the expected demand and the process required. However, in a refurbishing and recycling facility, flows are very fluctuating and not trivial to predict. The quantity produced by such facility not only depends on the demand but also on the supplies which are returned products under guaranty or discarded products after their end-of-use. The uncertainty and the variability on these supplies are often higher than the one on the demand which makes it …

Functional Design Of Physical Internet Facilities: A Road-Rail Hub, Eric Ballot, Benoit Montreuil, Collin Thivierge

12th IMHRC Proceedings (Gardanne, France – 2012)

As part of the 2010 IMHRC, Montreuil, Meller and Ballot enumerated the type of facilities that would be necessary to operate a Physical Internet (PI, π), which they termed, “π-nodes.” This paper is part of a three-paper series for the 2012 IMHRC where the authors provide functional designs of three PI facilities. This paper covers a PI road-rail hub. The purpose of a PI road-rail node is to enable the transfer of PI containers from their inbound to outbound destinations. Therefore, a road-rail π-hub provides a mechanism to transfer π-containers from a train to another one or a truck or …

Safe Control Of Manufacturing Vehicles Research Towards Standard Test Methods, Roger Bostelman, Will Shackleford, Geraldine Cheok, Kamel Saidi

12th IMHRC Proceedings (Gardanne, France – 2012)

The National Institute of Standards and Technology‟s Intelligent Systems Division has been researching several areas leading to safe control of manufacturing vehicles to improve automated guided vehicle (AGV) safety standards. The research areas include:  AGV safety and control based on advanced two-dimensional (2D) sensors that detect moving standard test pieces representing humans;  Ability of advanced 3D imaging sensors, when mounted to an AGV or forklift, to detect stationary or moving objects and test pieces on the ground or hanging over the work area; and  Manned forklift safety based on advanced 3D imaging sensors that detect visible and …

Humanitarian Logistics – The First Week, Selina Begum, Bill Ferrell

12th IMHRC Proceedings (Gardanne, France – 2012)

Decisions made on material flow during the first week of a natural disaster are critical for victims. Currently, decision makers appears to be making important choices based on experience and intuition with little or no support from quantitative approaches because they do not exist. This research proposes a paradigm and offers two supporting models that will assist decision makers regarding the routing of materials during the first week of a disaster. It explicitly includes information regarding the victims’ needs and the degree to which routes are available in a quantitative way that allows updating as information improves. The paradigm involves …

A High-Density, Puzzle-Based Order Picking System, Kevin R. Gue, Onur Uludag

12th IMHRC Proceedings (Gardanne, France – 2012)

We present a new semi-automated system for carton and piece picking operations in the distribution centers. The system features decentralized control based on a message-passing protocol in which cells communicate with their neighbors to determine action in each step. The result is a dynamically changing pick face that provides high sku density and reduced worker travel. We describe an example in which pickers are 20% to 50% more productive than they would be in an equivalent ow rack system.

Using Buffers And Work-Sharing For Minimizing Makespan Of Small Batches In Assembly Lines Under Learning Effects, Yossi Bukchin, Efrat Wexler

12th IMHRC Proceedings (Gardanne, France – 2012)

The effect of workers’ learning curve on production rate in manual assembly lines is significant when producing relatively small batches of different products. This research analyzes this effect and suggests applying work-sharing among the workers in such an environment to improve the time to complete the batch, namely, the makespan. Work-sharing refers to a situation where adjacent workers help each other in order to reduce idle times caused by blockage and starvation. The effect of work-sharing and existence of buffers on the makespan is examined and compared to a baseline situation, with no work-sharing and buffers. We present mixedinteger linear-programing …

Knowledge-Based Methods For Efficient Material Handling Equipment Development, Dirk Jodin, Christian Landschützer

12th IMHRC Proceedings (Gardanne, France – 2012)

This paper focuses on the Knowledge-based engineering (KBE) method and general Knowledge-based technologies for automated design of material handling products. As in vehicle and aerospace engineering this is a widespread technology, the authors try to introduce the main benefits of KBE for the material handling equipment design. The benefits of KBE, as faster and more accurate (safer) product development, customized products and knowledge of employees captured within a knowledge management system, let KBE hold many promising possibilities within, to deal with nowadays demands on engineering development, driven by cost reductions and time shortcuttings. The authors introduce the actual stage of …

Understanding And Modeling Sustainability Issues In Facility Logistics, Brett A. Peters, Astrid Garcia Ramos

12th IMHRC Proceedings (Gardanne, France – 2012)

Environmental issues have been the focus of much discussion and debate. In light of environmental concerns, many companies have focused on creating sustainable products and systems. While there is still much disagreement about what is “sustainable,” there is a lot of on-going activity cover a wide range of areas and topics. However, relatively speaking, there is much less attention and activity within a facility logistics context. In this paper, sustainability issues related to facility logistics are explored. An overview of existing related research across a range of areas is provided. Major issues of concern for facility logistics will be discussed …

Column Generation For The Container Relocation Problem, Elisabeth Zehendner, Dominique Feillet

12th IMHRC Proceedings (Gardanne, France – 2012)

Container terminals offer transfer facilities to move containers from vessels to trucks, trains and barges and vice versa. Within the terminal the container yard serves as a temporary buffer where incoming containers are piled up in stacks. Only the topmost container of each stack can be accessed. If another container has to be retrieved, containers stored above it must be relocated first. Containers need to be transported to a ship or to trucks in a predefined sequence as fast as possible. Generally, this sequence does not match the stacking order within the yard. Therefore, a sequence of retrieval and relocation …