Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering Commons^™

Acuta Enews January 2014 Vol 43, No. 1

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1. Living in a 3D World

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4. From the Listserv

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5. 10 Most Costly Pitfalls of DAS Deployment

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Optimal Dredge Fleet Scheduling Within Environmental Work Windows, Heather Nachtmann, Kenneth N. Mitchell, Chase Rainwater, Ridvan Gedik, Edward A. Pohl

Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Faculty Publications

The U. S. Army Corps of Engineers oversees dredging in hundreds of navigation projects annually, through its fleet of government equipment and through individual contracts with private industry. The research presented here sought to examine the decision to allocate dredge resources to projects systemwide under necessary constraints. These constraints included environmental restrictions on when dredging could take place in response to the migration patterns of turtles, birds, fish, and other wildlife; dredge equipment resource availability; and varying equipment productivity rates that affected project completion times. The paper discusses problem definition and model formulation of optimal dredge fleet scheduling within environmental …

Characterizing Forced Communication In Networks, Samuel C. Gutekunst

HMC Senior Theses

This thesis studies a problem that has been proposed as a novel way to disrupt communication networks: the load maximization problem. The load on a member of a network represents the amount of communication that the member is forced to be involved in. By maximizing the load on an important member of the network, we hope to increase that member's visibility and susceptibility to capture. In this thesis we characterize load as a combinatorial property of graphs and expose possible connections between load and spectral graph theory. We specifically describe the load and how it changes in several canonical classes …

A Framework For The Development Of A Model For Successful, Sustained Lean Implementation And Improvement, Julie Sisson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Lean is a business philosophy focused on shortening lead times by removing waste and concentrating on value-added processes. When implemented successfully, it not only allows for cost reduction while improving quality, but it can also position a company to achieve tremendous growth. The problem is that though many companies are attempting to implement lean, it is estimated that only 2-3% are achieving the desired level of success. The purpose of this research is to identify the key interrelated components of successful lean transformation. To this end, a thorough literature review was conducted and the findings indicate six key constructs that …

Facilitating Information Retrieval In Social Media User Interfaces, Anthony Costello

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As the amount of computer mediated information (e.g., emails, documents, multi-media) we need to process grows, our need to rapidly sort, organize and store electronic information likewise increases. In order to store information effectively, we must find ways to sort through it and organize it in a manner that facilitates efficient retrieval. The instantaneous and emergent nature of communications across networks like Twitter makes them suitable for discussing events (e.g., natural disasters) that are amorphous and prone to rapid changes. It can be difficult for an individual human to filter through and organize the large amounts of information that can …

An Analytics Approach To Designing Patient Centered Medical Home, Saeede Ajorlou

Wayne State University Dissertations

Recently the patient centered medical home (PCMH) model has become a popular team based approach focused on delivering more streamlined care to patients. In current practices of medical homes, a clinical based prediction frame is recommended because it can help match the portfolio capacity of PCMH teams with the actual load generated by a set of patients. Without such balances in clinical supply and demand, issues such as excessive under and over utilization of physicians, long waiting time for receiving the appropriate treatment, and non continuity of care will eliminate many advantages of the medical home strategy. In this research, …

An Analytics Approach To Reducing Hospital Readmission, Issac Shams

Wayne State University Dissertations

One of the significant sources of waste in the Unites States health care systems is preventable hospital readmission. About 2.3 million Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries are re-hospitalized within 30 days after discharge which incurs an annual cost of $17 billion. However, it is reported by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission that about 75% of such readmissions can and should be avoided because they are the results of factors such as poor planning for follow up care transitions, inadequate communication of discharge instructions, and failure to reconcile and coordinate medications. Hence, reducing unnecessary rehospitalization through care transition and systems engineering principles has …

Introduction To Special Issue Of Journal Of Defense Modeling And Simulation: Novel Approaches To Defense And Military Modeling And Simulation, Scott D. Snyder, James M. Taylor Jr.

Peter Kiewit Institute: Faculty Publications

Developing solutions to complex problems in government and industry is a daunting task that often requires tremendous investment in time and resources to solve. Modeling and simulation (M&S) has incredible potential to streamline development and cut costs by conducting virtual experiments that give insight into performance under various test conditions. As many program managers in the federal acquisition process can attest, realistic testing of live equipment in an operational environment can be some of the most expensive parts of a development program. M&S can provide insight into mission success of yetto- bedesigned systems without the need to actually build and …

Simple Multi-Attribute Rating Technique For Renewable Energy Deployment Decisions (Smart Redd), James M. Taylor Jr., Betty Love

Peter Kiewit Institute: Faculty Publications

In the effort to provide electrical power service and the sustaining fuel required to run generators at forward-deployed bases in Afghanistan and Iraq over more than 10 years, the United States military spent billions of dollars and a paid a heavy toll in terms of human casualties. The green energy linear program for optimizing deployments (GELPOD) proof-of-concept model showed that a linear program could be used to optimize combat deployment of energy generation systems to minimize cost and casualties. Results indicated that reduction in both cost and casualties for renewable energy sources was highly dependent on fuel cost and deployment …

Day-Of-Discharge Planning At Acute Care Hospitals, Kylie M. Bertsch

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Hospitals provide a complex array of services to patient populations with highly variable conditions, needs, and preferences. These services are delivered with limited resources, and therefore, the synchronization of patient flow between various units in the hospital is essential for minimizing patient delay and congestion. Unfortunately, patient flow optimization is a topic in its research infancy, and, in current practice, hospitals struggle with the numerous ramifications of delays in care provision and increased costs. Emergency Department (ED) crowding and boarding have become a topic of increased interest as the ED becomes an increasingly popular entry point to acute care hospitals. …

Improving Emergency Department Patient Flow Through Near Real-Time Analytics, Shanshan Qiu

Wayne State University Dissertations

ABSTRACT

IMPROVING EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT PATIENT FLOW THROUGH NEAR REAL-TIME ANALYTICS

This dissertation research investigates opportunities for developing effective decision support models that exploit near real-time (NRT) information to enhance the "operational intelligence" within hospital Emergency Departments (ED). Approaching from a systems engineering perspective, the study proposes a novel decision support framework for streamlining ED patient flow that employs machine learning, statistical and operations research methods to facilitate its operationalization.

ED crowding has become the subject of significant public and academic attention, and it is known to cause a number of adverse outcomes to the patients, ED staff as well as …

Data Mining Based Hybridization Of Meta-Raps, Fatemah Al-Duoli, Ghaith Rabadi

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

Though metaheuristics have been frequently employed to improve the performance of data mining algorithms, the opposite is not true. This paper discusses the process of employing a data mining algorithm to improve the performance of a metaheuristic algorithm. The targeted algorithms to be hybridized are the Meta-heuristic for Randomized Priority Search (Meta-RaPS) and an algorithm used to create an Inductive Decision Tree. This hybridization focuses on using a decision tree to perform on-line tuning of the parameters in Meta-RaPS. The process makes use of the information collected during the iterative construction and improvement phases Meta-RaPS performs. The data mining algorithm …

Evaluating The Impact Of Auto Id Technologies On Oil And Gas Erp System Data Accuracy And Reliability, Gowthaman Ananta Krishnan

Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Most of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems currently use manual entry or mass upload methods to enter data collected from warehouse operations. These methods are highly unreliable and prone to manual error affecting the data accuracy. Data accuracy and accurate real-time data are required by businesses for many critical decisions. Unreliable data becomes invalid and have a negative performance impact on ERP systems that can lead to economic loss to the organization. Automatic Identification (Auto-ID) technologies are used to track and collect data in real time or near real time. They can be integrated into ERP systems automatically to provide …

Joint Kinematics, Muscle Activity And Postural Strain For Finger- Intensive Operation Of Small Hand- Held Devices, Farhana Afreen Proma

Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Background: Extensive movement of fingers while playing video games, and while browsing or texting in a smartphone often result in medically recognized repetitive strain injuries such as "PlayStation thumb" or "Blackberry thumb". In order to understand the strenuous effects of these tasks, it is important to study the geometry of the movement of fingers (kinematics), corresponding muscle activities (physiology), and the overall posture of the tasks (ergonomics). There is almost no information available in the present literature regarding the finger kinematics of video gaming. Although texting and browsing tasks have been studied, a multifaceted approach including kinematic, physiological and postural …

Stationary And Non-Stationary Time Series Prediction Using State Space Model And Pattern-Based Approach, Kin Ming Kam

Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Engineering Dissertations - Archive

The motion-adaptive radiotherapy techniques are promising to deliver ablative radiation doses to tumor with minimal normal tissue exposure by accounting for real-time tumor movement. However, a major challenge of successful applications of these techniques is the real-time prediction of target motion to accommodate system delivery latencies. Predicting respiratory motion in real-time is challenging. The current respiratory mo-tion prediction approaches are still not satisfactory in terms of accuracy and interpretability due to the com-plexity of breathing patterns and the many sources of variability across patients. In this paper, we propose a novel respiratory motion prediction approach based on future values of …

Model-Based Systems Engineering Approach To Distributed And Hybrid Simulation Systems, John Pastrana

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

INCOSE defines Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) as "the formalized application of modeling to support system requirements, design, analysis, verification, and validation activities beginning in the conceptual design phase and continuing throughout development and later life cycle phases." One very important development is the utilization of MBSE to develop distributed and hybrid (discrete-continuous) simulation modeling systems. MBSE can help to describe the systems to be modeled and help make the right decisions and partitions to tame complexity. The ability to embrace conceptual modeling and interoperability techniques during systems specification and design presents a great advantage in distributed and hybrid simulation systems …

A Framework Of Critical Success Factors For Business Organizations That Lead To Performance Excellence Based On A Financial And Quality Systems Assessment., Melissa Francisco

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

One of the most important tasks that business leaders undertake in order to achieve a superior market position is strategic planning. Beyond this obligation, business owners desire to maximize profit and maintain steady growth. In order to do this, resources must be invested in the most efficient way possible in order to achieve performance excellence. Adjusting business operations quickly, however, especially in times of economic uncertainty, is extremely difficult. Business leaders therefore need insight into which elements of organizational improvement are most effective in order to strategically invest their resources to achieve superior performance in the most efficient way possible. …

Shop Scheduling In The Presence Of Batching, Sequence-Dependent Setups And Incompatible Job Families Minimizing Earliness And Tardiness Penalties, Patricia Buchanan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The motivation of this research investigation stems from a particular job shop production environment at a large international communications and information technology company in which electro-mechanical assemblies (EMAs) are produced. The production environment of the EMAs includes the continuous arrivals of the EMAs (generally called jobs), with distinct due dates, degrees of importance and routing sequences through the production workstations, to the job shop. Jobs are processed in batches at the workstations, and there are incompatible families of jobs, where jobs from different product families cannot be processed together in the same batch. In addition, there are sequence-dependent setups between …

Successful Organizational Change: Aligning Change Type With Methods, Serina Al-Haddad

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The motivation behind this research is the prevalence of challenges and ambiguity associated with successful organizational change and the numerous available approaches in dealing with these challenges and ambiguity. Many definitions and methods have been suggested to manage change; however, organizations still report a high failure rate of their change initiatives. These high failure rates highlight the continuing need for research and investigation, and imply a lack of a valid framework for managing successful organizational change. This dissertation critically reviews the concept of having one change approach as the “silver-bullet”. In pursuit of this goal, this research contributes a roadmap …

Inventory Management Problem For Cold Items With Environmental And Financial Considerations, Ali Hajiaghabozorgi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The overarching theme of this dissertation is analytically analyzing the cold supply chain from a financial and environmental perspective. Specifically, we develop inventory policy models in the cold supply chain that consider holding and transportation unit capacities. The models provide insights for the decision maker on the tradeoff between setting order quantities based on the cost or the emission function. In Chapter 2, we review two major bodies of literature: 1) supply chain design, and 2) sustainability in supply chain design. We benefit from this literature review to map the current body of research on traditional supply chain for further …