Industrial Engineering Commons^™

A Retrospective Analysis And Field Study Of Nanotechnology Related Ergonomic Risk In Industries Utilizing Nanomaterials, Wanda Greaves-Holmes

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The National Science Foundation estimates that two million skilled nanotechnology workers will be needed world wide by 2015 – one million of them in the United States (2001). In the absence of scientific clarity about the potential health effects of occupational exposure to nanoparticles, guidance in decision making about hazards, risk, and controls takes on new importance. Currently, guiding principles on personal protective equipment for workers who come in contact with nanomaterials have not been standardized universally. Utilizing the NASATLX, this dissertation investigates the adequacy and shortcomings of research efforts that seek to determine whether or not occupational exposure to …

Critical Success Factors For Evolutionary Acquisition Implementation, Brig J. Bjorn

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Due to extensive challenges to the efficient development and fielding of operationally effective and affordable weapon systems, the U.S. employs a complex management framework to govern defense acquisition programs. The Department of Defense and Congress recently modified this process to improve the levels of knowledge available at key decision points in order to reduce lifecycle cost, schedule, and technical risk to programs. This exploratory research study employed multiple methods to examine the impact of systems engineering reviews, competitive prototyping, and the application of a Modular Open Systems Approach on knowledge and risk prior to funding system implementation and production. In-depth …

An Approach For Measuring The Confidentiality Of Data Assured By The Confidentiality Of Information Security Systems In Healthcare Organizations, Shawn Michael Gallaher

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Because of the expansion in health information technology and the continued migration toward digital patient records as a foundation for the delivery of healthcare services, healthcare organizations face significant challenges in their efforts to determine how well they are protecting electronic health information from unauthorized disclosure. The disclosure of one’s personal medical information to unauthorized parties or individuals can have broad-reaching and long-term impacts to both healthcare providers and consumers. Although several classes and types of methodologies exist for measuring information security in general, a number of overarching issues have been identified which prevent their adaptation to the problem of …

Multi-Vehicle Dispatching And Routing With Time Window Constraints And Limited Dock Capacity, Ahmed El-Nashar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows (VRPTW) is an important and computationally hard optimization problem frequently encountered in Scheduling and logistics. The Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) can be described as the problem of designing the most efficient and economical routes from one depot to a set of customers using a limited number of vehicles. This research addresses the VRPTW under the following additional complicating features that are often encountered in practical problems: 1. Customers have strict time windows for receiving a vehicle, i.e., vehicles are not allowed to arrive at the customer’s location earlier than the lower limit of …

An Index To Measure Efficiency Of Hospital Networks For Mass Casualty Disasters, Maria Bull Torres

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Disaster events have emphasized the importance of healthcare response activities due to the large number of victims. For instance, Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, in 2005, and the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C., on September 11, 2001, left thousands of wounded people. In those disasters, although hospitals had disaster plans established for more than a decade, their plans were not efficient enough to handle the chaos produced by the hurricane and terrorist attacks. Thus, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) suggested collaborative planning among hospitals that provide services to a contiguous geographic area …

An Empirical Study On Quality Management Practices, Organization Performance And Suppliers' Selection In Southern Minnesota Manufacturing Firms, Rachel Yetunde-Abiodun Awoku

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Quality management systems (QMS) have been widely applied successfully by many manufacturing companies to improve their process, increase profits and organizational performance. The most applied of the quality programs are ISO 9001, Total Quality Management (TQM), Just-In-time (JIT), Lean Management and Six Sigma. Although past studies on quality management have identified and studied the implementation of quality management practices, there is little or no research on quality management practices and business performance in Southern Minnesota manufacturing companies. Many researchers have concluded that the implementation of quality management practices has led to significant improvements in companies' business performance while others have …

The Design And Evaluation Of Wireless Sensor Networks For Applications In Industrial Locations, Hameed Madwar

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

In manufacturing industries, there exist many applications where Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN's) are integrated to provide wireless solution for the automated manufacturing processes. It is well known that industrial environments characterized by extreme conditions such as high temperature, pressure, and electromagnetic (EM) interference that can affect the performance of the WSN's. The key solution to overcome this performance issue is by monitoring the received Signal Strength Index (RSSI) at the received sensor of the WSN device and track frame error rate of wireless packets.

ZigBee is a wireless sensor network (WSN) standard designed for specific needs of the remote monitoring …

Using Metarules To Integrate Knowledge In Knowledge Based Systems. An Application In The Woodworking Industry, Alvaro Villavicencio

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The current study addresses the integration of knowledge obtained from Data Mining structures and models into existing Knowledge Based solutions. It presents a technique adapted from common KADS and spiral methodology to develop an initial knowledge solution using a traditional approach for requirement analysis, knowledge acquisition, and implementation. After an initial prototype is created and verified, the solution is enhanced incorporating new knowledge obtained from Online Analytical Processing, specifically from Data Mining models and structures using meta rules. Every meta rule is also verified prior to being included in the selection and translation of rules into the Expert System notation. …

Dock Assignment And Truck Scheduling Problems At Cross-Docking Terminals, Ching-Jung Ting, Amanda G. Rodríguez López

12th IMHRC Proceedings (Gardanne, France – 2012)

In this paper, we consider the integration of dock assignment and truck scheduling problem at cross-docking terminals. The problem is first formulated as a 0-1 integer programming model. Since both dock assignment and truck scheduling problems are NP-hard, its integration is more difficult to solve. Thus we propose reduced variable neighborhood search (RVNS) algorithms to solve the problem. Computational experiments are carried out on four set of instances. The results show that RVNS is capable of finding good solutions in a much shorter computation time when it is compared with optimization solver Gurobi’s solutions.

New Mathematical And Evolutionary Optimization Methods To Achieve Fair Division In Multi-Agent Resource Allocation, Emmanuel Gurrola Molina

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The problem of resource allocation among a group of agents naturally arises in a wide range of real-life events. The subject has earned popularity across the disciplines of Economics, Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence Operations Research and Social Welfare. This resource allocation problem can be commonly referred to as Multi-Agent Resource Allocation (MARA). This work considers a MARA problem where a central agent decides to allocate a set of divisible and non-divisible goods. MARA is considered to be part of an interdisciplinary research area in which the literature is vast and rapidly developing. However, most of the available literature mainly focuses …

Decision Rule Induction For Service Sector Using Data Mining- A Rough Set Theory Approach, Zhonghua Hu

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Nowadays, data mining is more widely used than ever before; not only by the academic area, but also in the industry and business area. Apart from execution of business processes, the creation of knowledge base and its utilization for the benefit of the organization is becoming a strategy tool to compete. Despite of having ever growing data bases, the problem is that the finance company fails to fully capitalize the true benefits which can be gained from this great wealth of information. The data mining technology instead of classic statistical analysis is developed to help the people to discover the …

Implementation Of Evolutionary Algorithms On The Power Industry And Aviation Security, Anuar Jesus Aguirre

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The main objective of the power electric power grid is to supply reliable electricity to all the customers. Customers could be industrial, commercial, household, transportation and others. The power grid is a complex and large, and it formed by the conjunction of the generation, transmission and distribution system. The present research is focused in power distribution system. A new component replacement analysis method to solve component replacement problems for complex electricity distribution systems using Genetic Algorithms is developed. In the present model a Taylor series expansion is used to approximate the associated opportunity cost for each component in the system. …

Extending Origami Technique To Fold Forming Of Sheet Metal Products, Ala Qattawi

All Dissertations

This dissertation presents a scientific based approach for the analysis of folded sheet metal products. Such analysis initializes the examination in terms of topological exploration using set of graph modeling and traversal algorithms. The geometrical validity and optimization are followed by utilizing boundary representation and overlapping detection during a geometrical analysis stage, in this phase the optimization metrics are established to evaluate the unfolded sheet metal design in terms of its manufacturability and cost parameters, such as nesting efficiency, total welding cost, bend lines orientation, and maximum part extent, which aides in handling purposes. The proposed approach evaluates the design …

An Integrated Framework For Freight Forwarders:Exploitation Of Dynamic Information For Multimodal Transportation, Farshid Azadian

Wayne State University Dissertations

Advent of real-time information broadcasting technologies, growth in demand for air-cargo, and increased congestion and variability on air-road network, are the main forces compelling today's air-freight forwarders to improve their operational decision-making to be more competitive and responsive to needs of customers. This research studies the air-cargo transportation on both road (short-haul) and air (long haul) network from the perspective of a mid-size freight forwarder.

We develop a routing algorithm for congestion avoidance on air-network based on historical data and introduce an innovative approach to incorporate real-time information to enable dynamic routing of cargo on a stochastic air-network. In the …

An Investigation On In-Process Spc Sampling Frequency For Shaft Bearing Turning Process, Jiaxu Chu

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The machining processes have the uniqueness of discrete production and flexible scheduling as cellular manufacturing design. To ensure the quality of machining products, control charts for Statistical Process Control (SPC) has been implemented in the company to monitor the machining process. Sampling is an essential part of data collection for SPC control charts and sampling should be done for machining processes becomes an issue in the company.

This study focused on the investigation of SPC sampling frequencies for shaft bearing turning process using the technique of Average Production Length (APL). The purpose of the study was to identify the SPC …

Engineering Of A Knowledge Management System For Relational Medical Diagnosis, Maria Carolina Herrera-Hernandez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The increasingly high costs of health care in the U.S. have led the general public to search for different medical approaches. Since the 1990's, the use of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) has radically increased in the U.S. due to its approach to treat physical, mental, and emotional causes of illness. In 2009, the National Health Statistics reported the impact of CAM in the U.S. health care economy, with population expenditures of $14.8 billion out-of-pocket on natural Medicine and $12.4 billion out-of-pocket on visits to CAM providers as a complement to Western Medicine care.

CAM interconnects human functions to reach …

Empirical Analysis Of The Relay Network Design Problem, Sergio Maldonado Soria Galvarro

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Definition and optimization of alternative methods for truckloads routing.

Optimal Charging Scheduling For Battery Electric Vehicles Under Smart Grid., Nur Dayana Abd Rahman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A projected high penetration of battery electric vehicles (BEV s) in the market will introduce an additional load in the electricity grid. Furthermore, uncontrolled BEV charging from residential users will exacerbate the existing peak load during evening hours. In this thesis, we propose two optimization models to alleviate the impact of extra demand from electric vehicles on the power grid. The first is a centralized charging scheduling model that coordinates the charging among BEV users under the goal of minimizing the total electricity cost for all users. The second model uses a decentralized agent-based approach to scheduling the BEV charging. …

City Of Industry: Los Efectos Concretos En El Condado De Los Angeles En La Economía, El Medio Ambiente Y La Salud Pública, Christina Andrea Hernandez

World Languages and Cultures

This project attempts to document the development of the City of Industry, located in eastern Los Angeles County, and to examine the environmental as well as socio-economic effects this industrial hub maintains on its surrounding neighborhoods. City of Industry, since its incorporation in 1957, has established an alarming precedent as a privatized city that has informed concrete changes in the local economy, the environment, and the public health of the surrounding communities that are predominantly Latina(o).

The research undertaken for this project represents an interdisciplinary intersection of a special topic in the study of Industrial Engineering: the global logistics industry, …

Adaptive Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy Planning Optimization With Changing Tumor Geometry And Biology Enforcing Both Cumulative And Fraction Size Dose Constraints, Behlul Saka

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT) is a modern technique of delivering radiation treatments to cancer patients. In IMRT technology, intensities must be chosen for the many small unit grids into which the beams are divided to produce a desired distribution of dose at points throughout the body with the goal of maximizing dose delivered to the tumor while sparing healthy tissues from excessive radiation and keeping dose homogeneous across the tumor. Although IMRT plans are optimized as a single overall treatment plan, they are delivered over 30-50 treatment sessions (fractions) and both cumulative and per-fraction dose constraints apply. The extended …