Industrial Engineering Commons^™

Rfid Classroom Management System, Andrew W. Wright

Master's Theses

Professors who manage large classes are unrealistically expected to grade each student fairly and accurately.  Even with all of the technological advancements that have occurred in the past thirty years, very little progress has been made in classroom management, and as a result, professors are not equipped with enough tools to successfully manage large class sizes.  Because radio frequency identification (RFID) technology is making its way into student issued identification cards, there is an opportunity to use it as a tool to aid professors in the classroom.  The focus of this paper is to discover the most effective system that …

The Effectiveness Of Milestone Versus Duration Projects In A University Environment, Nicholas James Mehas

Master's Theses

The Critical Path and Critical Chain project management methodologies have different and unique characteristics; both methods are used by project managers to manage projects. This research develops and implements two methodologies, milestones (critical path) versus duration (modified critical chain), in a university environment. The implementation of the two methods allows for the comparison of the effectiveness of both styles. The intent is to determine if there is a significant difference in the project management methodologies in a university setting. The design of both projects allows for easy implementation and the ability to easily record determined measureable statistics.

An Optimization Approach To Employee Scheduling Using Fuzzy Logic, William G. Spence

Master's Theses

An Optimization Approach to Employee Scheduling Using Fuzzy Logic

William G. Spence

Selection of sales employees is critical because the sales employees represent the company’s image, competitive advantage, technology, and values. In many service systems the majority of consumer contact is with the sales department. Since there are different types of customers, scheduling quality salespersons who can adequately help consumers may affect revenue.

This thesis proposes a new methodology for the scheduling of employees in a service system. The methodology uses Fuzzy Logic to calculate possible sales and Linear Programming to create an optimal schedule. This approach enables the rating …

Recording Of Elevated Temperature Fatigue Crack Growth Data By Dcpd System, N. Ramachandran, N. Arakere, Tarun Goswami

Biomedical, Industrial & Human Factors Engineering Faculty Publications

The growth of "long" fatigue cracks, in α-β titanium alloy forging, subjected to cyclic stresses, is studied in this paper. The fatigue crack growth rate (FCGR) data were recorded at room temperature, 350, 450, 550 and 650°F using the Direct Current Potential Difference (DCPD) technique. The DCPD method, used in this investigation, was found to record and correlate the potential difference in terms of crack growth rate (da/dN) and Mode I stress intensity factor range satisfactorily. Various factors related to error minimization and calibration equations for compact tension specimens have been elaborated. Also discussed were the means to enhance the …

Development Of A Ram Shared Service Tool For The Service Availability Of On-Board And Trackside Systems, Bailey Frazier

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

A decision-support tool designed specifically to be used by technical specialists is an aid that would be helpful to many different companies, departments and projects – regardless of industry. With the intent of making manual processes quicker, less error-prone, and more userfriendly, decision-support tools are becoming more desired as they grow increasingly more common in the business world today.
The decision-support tool created for the purpose of this project is not an exception to any of these reasons. The ALSTOM Transport Information Solutions Reliability, Availability, and Maintainability (RAM) Shared Service Team bears the burden and tedious process of working with …

Re-Estimating And Remodeling General Aviation Operations, Ryan Black

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The objective of this project is to understand the usual or “acceptable” characteristics of general aviation flights and airports so that unusual activity can be detected, analyzed, and resolved. To do this, a quality control model may be built to determine whether an airport is at high risk for a terrorist attack. For an appropriate model to be built there must be an adequate amount of data that describes the general aviation airport and its operations. In order to facilitate this data the general aviation industry must “continue to improve intelligence and information sharing (Homeland Security Advisory Council 2008).” This …

Incorporating Vertical Travel Into Non-Traditional Cross Aisles For Unit-Load Warehouse Designs, Kirby A. Clark

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

We propose modifications to the travel-time models for non-traditional warehouse layouts, Flying-V Fishbone, by incorporating a vertical travel dimension. The Flying-V model determines a cross aisle intersection for every picking aisle, while the Fishbone model determines a single point where the inserted cross aisle intersects the side of the warehouse. The shape and angle of the cross aisle is unrestricted for the Flying-V layout, while the angle is unrestricted for the Fishbone layout. The resulting non-linear optimization models incorporate Chebychev travel within the picking aisles. We compare both the shape of the aisle and the percent improvement over a traditional …

Migration Models - Comparison Of Pvc, Pet And Pla Diffusivity, Combined With A Production Cost Model For Westridge Laboratories, Shelley Cooke, Sarina Surrette

Materials Engineering

This project has two parts: [1] a migration and diffusivity model for candidate plastics used in containers, and [2] a product cost model for Westridge Laboratories (Santa Ana, CA).

Diffusion modeling is a useful tool to predict migration of polymer constituents into exposed liquids.  Polyvinyl chloride (PVC), polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polylactic acid (PLA) were studied to estimate production costs, and component migration into water-based liquids from plastic containers.  Bis (2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), antimony trioxide, and stannous octoate, are components of concern in the three candidate polymers, respectively.  Normal detection limits for these constituents are about 1 - 10 ppb, …

Modeling And Optimization Of Stochastic Process Parameters In Complex Engineering Systems, Paul Goethals

All Dissertations

For quality engineering researchers and practitioners, a wide number of statistical tools and techniques are available for use in the manufacturing industry. The objective or goal in applying these tools has always been to improve or optimize a product or process in terms of efficiency, production cost, or product quality. While tremendous progress has been made in the design of quality optimization models, there remains a significant gap between existing research and the needs of the industrial community. Contemporary manufacturing processes are inherently more complex - they may involve multiple stages of production or require the assessment of multiple quality …

Pilot Weather Decision Making And The Influence Of Passenger Pressure, Jaclyn Baron

All Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to determine the effect of social pressure on general aviation (GA) pilots' weather decision making. Data have shown that GA accidents associated with visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) are more likely to result in fatalities than other types of GA accidents. This problem is compounded by the addition of passengers, who have been found to be present onboard during VFR into IMC accidents more frequently than in other types of GA accidents. The question is whether passengers influence a pilot's decision to continue flight into adverse weather. The extent …

A Decision Support System For Assessing Conveyance Options And Modeling Passenger Flow In Airport Terminals, Ping-Nan Chiang

All Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on the use of passenger conveyance systems and modeling passenger flow in airport terminals. The successfully designed airport concourse must perform at a level that meets the needs of its users - the passengers. In this research, we propose a database design methodology that allows key conveyance statistics to be analyzed within specific locations across the airport terminal. Using passenger conveyance observations collected at five North American airports, the database enables airport planners, operators and consultants to assess passenger behavior and conveyance device performance. Results from this section of the research were in direct support of the …

Effect Of Gold Content On The Reliability Of Snagcu Solder Joints, Jianbiao Pan, Julie Silk, Mike Powers, Patrick Hyland

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Electroplated Ni/Au over Cu is a popular metallization for PCB finish as well as for component leads, especially wire-bondable high frequency packages, where the gold thickness requirement for wirebonding is high. The general understanding is that less than 3 wt% of Au is acceptable in SnPb solder joints. However, little is known about the effect of Au content on the reliability of SnAgCu solder joints. The purpose of this study is to determine the acceptable level of Au in SAC305 solder joints. Three different package platforms with different Au thicknesses were assembled on boards with two different Au thicknesses using …

Design And Implementation Of An Automated Pick And Place System For Johanson Technology, Inc., Alex M. Felker

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Johanson Technology, a capacitor and microelectronic part manufacturer, located in Camarillo, CA has forecasted a 50% increase in demand for single layer capacitors for the year 2011. Johanson chose to hire an intern to design and implement a robotic pick and place system to meet this demand. A complete automated system composed of a Stäubli RS20 robotic arm, CS8C-M Controller, and Electrosort Bowl Feeder needed to be integrated into an environment where no system currently existed. A bill of materials and parts list indicated that the entire system would be a fixed cost of $50,104. This proved to be the …

Process Improvement Of Kaiser Permanente Medical Group, Connie Chou, Brett Witherall

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

This report seeks to improve the operations of the Kaiser Permanente’s Central Refill Pharmacy. In particular, the need for better workstations became evident when witnessing the cluttered appearance of the packing workbenches in the facility. Furthermore, one of Kaiser’s largest problem areas is the physical strain caused by the repetitive motion required of the packing job function. A redesign of the packing workstations has been developed on Microsoft Visio in order to reduce clutter, be more space efficient, and decrease eye and arm movement associated with employee strain. The most significant additions are an automated slide that transfers packages from …

Improving Compressed Air Energy Efficiency In Automotive Plants: Practical Examples And Implementation, Nasr Alkadi, J. Kelly Kissock

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

The automotive industry is the largest industry in the United States in terms of the dollar value of production [1]. U.S. automakers face tremendous pressure from foreign competitors, which have an increasing manufacturing presence in this country. The Big Three North American Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs)-General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler-are reacting to declining sales figures and economic strain by working more efficiently and seeking out opportunities to reduce production costs without negatively affecting the production volume or the quality of the product. Successful, cost-effective investment and implementation of the energy efficiency technologies and practices meet the challenge of maintaining the …

A Structured Project-Risk Management And Life Cycle Framework For Complex Systems: Ship Repair And Maintenance (Sr&M) Projects, Michael Craig Plumb

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation contributes to insights regarding the implications of using Project Risk Management (PRM) and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in managing projects for a complex system. The PRM approach apprehends many forms of risk both internal and external within a given project and assists the manager in determining the level of importance of each individual project phase and component to optimize project success. The life cycle approach to project management is used with short-term limitations with respect to a product's life cycle over several years. The literature discusses many tools and techniques that assist project managers in implementing optimal solutions, …

Exploring The Effects Of Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control In Mitigating Traffic Congestion, Georges M. Arnaout

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The aim of this research is to examine the impact of CACC (Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control) equipped vehicles on traffic-flow characteristics of a multilane highway system. The research identifies how CACC vehicles affect the dynamics of traffic flow on a road network and demonstrates the potential benefits of reducing traffic congestion due to stop-and-go traffic conditions. An agent-based traffic simulation model is developed specifically to examine the effect of these intelligent vehicles on the traffic flow dynamics. Traffic performance metrics characterizing the evolution of traffic congestion throughout the road network, are analyzed. Different CACC penetration levels are studied.

The positive …

Evaluation System Design And Academic Performance Analysis Using Clustering And Simulation, Volkan Cakir

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The starting point of this study was to understand the possible causes of evaluation system change in a military academic environment. With that motivation the objectives of this study were defined as examining student profiles in a military academy, establishing the nature of academic performance, comparing student groups that were identified by course scores, analyzing student performance changes over time and developing a manageable evaluation system and curriculum by comparing different scenarios.

An analysis was performed on the literature on academic performance prediction, cluster analysis methodologies and their development, and specifically summarized cluster analytic academic performance studies where these two …

Random Keys Genetic Algorithms Scheduling And Rescheduling Systems For Common Production Systems, Elkin Rodriguez-Velasquez

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The majority of scheduling research deals with problems in specific production environments with specific objective functions. However, in many cases, more than one problem type and/or objective function exists, resulting in the need for a more generic and flexible system to generate schedules. Furthermore, most of the published scheduling research focuses on creating an optimal or near optimal initial schedule during the planning phase. However, after production processes start, circumstances like machine breakdowns, urgent jobs, and other unplanned events may render the schedule suboptimal, obsolete or even infeasible resulting in a "rescheduling" problem, which is typically also addressed for a …

Optimization Models And Approximate Algorithms For The Aerial Refueling Scheduling And Rescheduling Problems, Sezgin Kaplan

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The Aerial Refueling Scheduling Problem (ARSP) can be defined as determining the refueling completion times for fighter aircrafts (jobs) on multiple tankers (machines) to minimize the total weighted tardiness. ARSP can be modeled as a parallel machine scheduling with release times and due date-to-deadline window. ARSP assumes that the jobs have different release times, due dates, and due date-to-deadline windows between the refueling due date and a deadline to return without refueling. The Aerial Refueling Rescheduling Problem (ARRP), on the other hand, can be defined as updating the existing AR schedule after being disrupted by job related events including the …