Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering Commons^™

Post-Project Risk Perception And Systems Management Reaction, Baqer Alali

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The objective of this research is to identify whether risk management in projects has any role in risk management in systems. Projects, systems, and risk management are three integral concepts in the management of various enterprises and agencies. Risk management is a common concept in systems and project processes. To avoid failures or crisis during their life cycles, projects and systems managers practice risk management. Projects and systems have well defined life cycles during which the risk is defined, controlled, and managed. Risk management is conducted in each phase of projects and systems. Projects are initiated to close certain operational …

The Influence Of Network Factors On Network Centric Operations, Mehmet Fidanci

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

As Information Age changes the lifestyle of all humankinds, it also changes the way how to defense and secure the borders are secured and defended. The Information Age is about information superiority. It evolves the command and control concept, proactively, to optimize the size of the units and their connections within a combat force for effective mission accomplishment. The biggest issue is how big a unit will be and how they will arrange and connect it to the command and control structure in order for the unit to be effective on the battlefield. While some arrangements connect to each other …

Developing A Lean Value Model For Product Development, Salik Yadav, Venkat Allada

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper presents a value quantification model for multistage product development using lean principles. the proposed value model considers four main stages of product development (PD) including conceptual development, systems design, detailed design and prototyping. the model determines an optimal solution for each of the design variables to maximize the value at each of the PD stages. the value at each of the PD stages is formulated as a function of the six factors: (a) importance of customer requirements (b) cost of customer's ownership, (c) parts/service availability, (d) weighted average cost of capital, (e) information evolution and (f) risk reduction. …

Validating Module Heuristics On Large Scale Products, Rachel Day, Robert B. Stone, Katie Grantham Lough

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Decreasing time and costs is a major objective in many businesses today. Including modularity in the early design phases can effectively decrease time spent on and costs associated with a project. the task of identifying modules within a product early in the design process (when decisions are less expensive) is made less daunting by using the techniques of functional modeling and module heuristics. This paper discusses the results of the initial efforts to verify the module heuristics on large products (products with functional models consisting of more than 30 sub-functions) since the module heuristics were originally developed on small products. …

Testing The Test: Validity And Reliability Of Senior Exit Exam, Lizabeth Schlemer, Daniel Waldorf

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

A senior exit exam is considered an excellent direct measure of student learning for ABET assessment, but the usefulness of the information gathered is related to the validity and reliability of the test itself. The Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering Department at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo has used a content exam for several years. This paper will discuss test development, administration, and the role it plays in the assessment process. In addition, the test is evaluated using the standard psychometric techniques of reliability and validity. The results of the evaluation are used to refine the test. The importance …

Lean Inventory Management System For Boeing Missile Defense, Danielle Partridge

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Lean inventory management is influential for business. One of the wastes businesses aim to reduce, using lean principles, is inventory. Inventory management provides the essential tools for eliminating extra inventory and cost that is tied up in capital.

Boeing’s Ground Based Missile Defense inventory area was failing at meeting their proprietary lean manufacturing goals. There was a need for an inventory system that included: lean principles, inventory management and user-friendly capability. The goal of this project’s inventory management database process was to minimize inventory investment while still meeting functional requirements. The deliverables for this project met the needs of Boeing’s …

Ergonomic Methods To Improve Safety In The Construction Sector And Reduce Costs, Mona Barjasteh

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Many small construction companies have difficulty providing a safe working environment for their employees because of their lack of resources. There is a need to provide a manual for small construction companies employing 10 or fewer workers with the best ergonomic solutions of the top most common injuries. Accidents in the construction field are very high with nearly 175,00o nonfatal injuries and 1,121 deaths in 2002. The nonfatal cases occur 7.1 times per 100 full time workers, while serious injuries occur 2.8 times per 100 full time workers. This information reveled the importance of focusing on minor injuries in order …

Statistical Quality Control In The Health Care Industry, Roberto Arce

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

In recognition to the increased length of stay of discharge patients, deteriorating patient care and staff satisfaction in a emergency department (ED), this project was set to improve these measures without reducing staff, adding new workers, and without increasing the number of beds. Lean methods such as value stream mapping (VSM) formed the basis of the project. This tool helped identify the patient process flow through the (ED) as well as the valued added and non-value added steps of the process. This project describes value stream map development in the emergency department at a community hospital. A current-state value stream …

An Alternative To Stretch Wrap Using Triple Bottom Line, Christian Guirola

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Packaging products has always been a major sector of industries. Mass producing manufacturing companies use wooden pallets to store and transport items; these products are stacked and then secured by wrapping stretch wrap around them. The main issue with this packaging method is that millions of pounds of waste is produced. Some of the other effects include green house gas emissions during its production, limited recycling, and high packaging costs. In order to reduce the amounts of stretch wrap used by industries and distribution centers, there was a need to research and evaluate alternate methods to secure products on pallets. …

Development And Assessment Of A Pcb Layout And Manufacturong Laboratory Module In Introductory Electric Circuits For Ee And Non-Ee Majors, Albert Liddicoat, Jianbiao Pan, James G. Harris, Gary Perks, Linda Shepherd

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

In standard introductory electric circuits laboratories for electrical engineering (EE) majors and non-EE majors, prototype boards are typically used to construct and test electric circuits. Students typically do not learn how to design and manufacture Printed Circuit Boards (PCB) that are commonly used in more sophisticated design projects and other engineering applications. This paper will present the development and assessment of a PCB layout and manufacturing laboratory module that has been used in introductory electric circuits laboratories for EE and non-EE majors. The feasibility of integrating the new PCB layout and manufacturing module into the electric circuit course will be …

Assessing Curriculum Improvement Through Senior Projects, Jianbiao Pan, Albert Liddicoat, James G. Harris, Linda Shepherd

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Senior project and/or capstone design courses are intended to provide a culminating design experience for students and to demonstrate their understanding of engineering knowledge and their ability to apply that knowledge to practical problems. It is expected that the quality and attributes of students’ senior design projects can be used as a good measure of determining how well the curriculum prepares students to engage in engineering design as well as a measure of faculty teaching and student learning. This paper reports the results of a study designed to assess whether the new computer engineering curriculum implemented at Cal Poly over …

Increasing Production Capacity At A Start Up Biomedical Company, Traci J. Otsuji

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The following senior project was first introduced during a summer internship at a biomedical company called Asthmatx Inc. Asthmatx is responsible for the development and manufacturing of a catheter‐based device for moderate to severe cases of asthma. Upon the approval of FDA, Asthmatx had planned to ramp up their production capacity significantly in order to accommodate the potential growth.

The first step in the process improvement was a facility reconfiguration that involved the adjustment of process sequencing and the implementation of ergonomic catheter channels. Next, time studies were conducted to gain more accurate time standards of the production process. After …

Process Improvement For The Department Of Surgery Sierra Vista Medical Center, Jessica Paz

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

This report proposes and analyzes process improvement methods for the Surgical Services Department at Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center. The department currently operates with an average of 25% of elective cases starting on time. This can be attributed to a number of inefficiencies that occur throughout the hospital.

The following Industrial Engineering methods were utilized to improve patient flow:  creation of a data collection system to quantify delays  use of simulation and facility redesign techniques to determine feasibility and benefits of moving towards a surgical center model  development of a user interfaced database to record and analyze …

Police Operations Simulation, Robert Mcgee

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

In this report, the author explains the process of creating the Police Operations Simulation, shows step-by-step how it works, and statistically analyzes the results from SLOPD’s own proposed and current schedules. The data-gathering from the department and the simulation itself will receive the bulk of the coverage in this report, followed by sample results from SLOPD and a business plan for future sale to other departments.

Using the given numbers, it appears that the proposed schedule will result in significantly improved coverage for the city of San Luis Obispo. While any increase in the number officers on patrol tends to …

Mapping The Medical Device Development Process, Scott T. Ham

Industrial Technology and Packaging

This project examined the use of process mapping as a tool to show the process of developing medical devices from a broad perspective that includes research, innovation, development, regulation, and marketing. The medical device development cycle, on a broad scope, is not well defined. The lack of a universal language with which to describe this process has made it difficult to understand and communicate. In this project, data was collected from peer-reviewed sources, summarized in a literature review, drawn out by hand into a series of lower-level process maps and finally assembled into a single process map. This project is …

Maintenance Service Request Process Optimization For The Cliffs Resort At Shell Beach, John Birch

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

This process optimization project utilizes a new idea to have an Access 2007 database automatically send a text message to a given cellular telephone. The hotel’s maintenance service request process is outdated and inefficient, relying solely on paper and human memory for success. Initiation, tracking, and recording the maintenance service requests need to be automated to optimize this process. The solution is a working database which employs said automation using Access 2007 in combination with a separate program created to facilitate the automatic text messaging. Implementing this database will result in higher customer satisfaction for the hotel.

Ground Support Equipment For Northrop Grumman Massive Heat Transfer Experiment, Michael A. Manuel, Christopher J. Sparber, Greg A. Trent

Aerospace Engineering

California Polytechnic State University students designed, built, and certified ground support equipment for the Northrop Grumman Massive Heat Transfer Experiment. The Cal Poly design team built the 10000, 20000, and 30000 assemblies to meet Northrop Grumman requirements. The requirements included interface limitations, design load factors, delivery, and testing specifications. The design process consists of requirements generation, conceptual design, preliminary design, design reviews, manufacturing, and certification. The hardware was successfully completed and is used at the Johnson Space and Kennedy Space Center.

Irrigation Leak Detection: Using Flow Rate Sensors To Detect Breaks In An Irrigation System, Adam Openshaw, Kalvin Vu

Computer Engineering

This report details the exploration and invention of a mechanism that can detect breaks in an irrigation system. With the ultimate goal of conserving water, we have designed an inexpensive, self sustaining flow rate monitor that can be used to identify anomalies in an irrigation system and wirelessly communicate the status of the system to a base station. Our implementation can also determine the direction of the anomaly based on the nature of the anomaly itself. This means that multiple monitors can be used to pinpoint the location of a break within the system in addition to merely detecting its …

Forecasting Consumer Satisfaction For Vehicle Ride Using The Mahalanobis-Taguchi Gram-Schmidt Technique, Elizabeth A. Cudney, Kenneth Ragsdell, Kioumars Paryani

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Consumers assess and perceive quality and performance at the vehicle level, but important cost-effective decisions at the sub-system or component level must be made by the producer in order to economically satisfy consumer needs by providing affordable products. Consumers evaluate vehicle attributes such as ride, handling, roominess, braking, and acceleration. These vehicle level attributes are influenced by factors at all levels of the vehicle architecture, and these factors are often correlated. the goal of this research is to efficiently forecast consumer satisfaction measured as a function of available vehicle level performance data. This article presents the application of the Mahalanobis-Taguchi …

Strategies For Using Technology When Grading Problem-Based Classes, Susan L. Murray, Ruwen Qin, Ivan G. Guardiola, Abhijit Gosavi

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

More and more work is being done today using technology. Email and digital drop boxes are useful tools for professors; however the challenge comes when one is teaching a quantitative class. The issue of using technology to manage work in a quantitative class is increasing as more engineering programs embrace distance education. In this paper we will review the advantages and disadvantages of several methods of collecting, grading, and returning homework assignments to students. The techniques considered include faxing, PDF grading using a Wacom Tablet, and various email approaches. Student survey results are also included in the paper.