Systems Engineering Commons^™

Sustaining Continuous Improvement In Public Sector Services Through Double Loop Learning, Chris Buckell Msc, Mairi Macintyre Assoc. Prof.

International Conference on Lean Six Sigma

Abstract

Purpose: Public Service Organisations (PSOs) are facing continuing funding challenges and increased pressure to maintain and improve service delivery with fewer resources. One response, with the promise of improving efficiency rather than cutting services, has been to implement Continuous Improvement (CI) but success has been sporadic and unpredictable. The well documented and pervasive CI methodologies in PSOs, including Lean and Six Sigma, have general agreement across practitioners and scholars alike, thus the reasons behind their potted success must lie elsewhere, in the culture or the environment perhaps? This work explores the wider contextual issues of CI implementation with the …

From Letters To Logistics - The Enabling Role Of A Lean Transformation Programme In A National Postal Service: The Case Of An Post, Ireland, Seamus O'Reilly, Leadiing Edge Group, An Post

International Conference on Lean Six Sigma

From Letters to Logistics - The enabling role of a lean transformation programme

in a national postal service: The case of An Post, Ireland

Seamus O’Reilly (Cork University Business School), David Murray (An Post) and Joe Aherne (Leading Edge Group)

Abstract

Purpose

This paper investigates the role of a lean transformation programme in supporting the transition of a national postal (mail) service from a traditional letter delivery service to a competitive parcel delivery service.

Methodology

Given the objective an intrinsic case study (Stake, 2005) approach was adopted, as this specific case was of interest. To support this approach the researchers …

Improve Outcomes In Lean Six Sigma With Servant Leadership, David W. Hoffa, Chad Laux, Manal Alduraibi

International Conference on Lean Six Sigma

1. Purpose

The purpose of this study was to explore lean leadership within Lean Six Sigma (LSS). The objective of this paper was to explore how LSS program success might be improved by focusing Black Belt efforts on mentoring Green Belts with a servant leadership model. The importance of Green Belt projects is typically overlooked in the literature. The effects of prioritizing the development of Green Belts and building a culture of continuous improvement over the traditional Black Belt project focus is explored.

2. Design/Methodology/Approach

The methodology of this paper is inspired by the authors’ field experiences in managing LSS …

Waste As A Product Of Organisational Culture, Dobrochna Sztajerska, Karolina Pawlusiak

International Conference on Lean Six Sigma

The organisational culture was subjected to studies for many years (Schein, 1983; Svyantek and DeShon, 1993; Sułkowski 2001, Chmielewska-Muciek 2009), so was the muda (waste) concept (Womack and Jones, 1996; Rother and Shook, 2003; Liker, 2003; Lisiecka and Burka, 2015). However, there is no research linking these two constructs, especially when it comes to looking for specific waste depending on the organisational culture.

Six Sigma And Lean Approach For Enhanced Process Value Chain, Maryam Zulfiqar

International Conference on Lean Six Sigma

Abstract

This research highlight the different aspects of implementing lean and six-sigma approach, their contrasting features and integration in manufacturing organizations. Qualitative research method has been used to conduct this research as the defined period of time for the research was limited. This method was pertinent for the deep analysis of literature and case studies of concerned approaches. It helped to conduct the research in a subjective manner. The use of secondary data saved time from preparing the questionnaires or surveys also the ethical approval from the University of the West of Scotland was not required. Descriptive feature of qualitative …

Applying Lean Six Sigma And Systematic Layout Planning To Improve Patient Transportation Equipment Storage In An Acute Care Hospital, Sandra Furterer, Pratheeka Kancharla

International Conference on Lean Six Sigma

Purpose:

The purpose of this project was to optimize the patient transportation process at an acute care hospital to achieve reduced transportation times.

Methodology:

A detailed Lean Six Sigma study on the patient transport and equipment handling processes helped to determine possible ways to reduce the equipment handling time which eventually reduces the patient transportation time. The Systematic Layout Planning (SLP) approach usually applied in manufacturing environments was used to identify which patient transport equipment was needed to be stored in which locations throughout the hospital footprint. The assignment of equipment to locations was determined based on frequency of use, …

Handling Of Stealthy Sensor And Actuator Cyberattacks On Evolving Nonlinear Process Systems, Henrique Oyama, Keshav Kasturi Rangan, Helen Durand

Chemical Engineering and Materials Science Faculty Research Publications

Cyberattacks on control systems in the chemical process industries cause concern regarding how they can impact finances, safety, and production levels of companies. A key practical challenge for cyberattack detection and handling using process information is that process behavior evolves over time. Conceivably, changes in process dynamics might cause some detection strategies to flag a change in the dynamics as an attack due to the new data appearing abnormal compared to data from before the dynamics changed. In this work, we utilize several case studies to probe the question of what might be the impacts, benefits, and limitations of cyberattack …

The Discrete-Event Modeling Of Administrative Claims (Demac) System: Dynamically Modeling The U.S. Healthcare Delivery System With Medicare Claims Data To Improve End-Of-Life Care, Rachael Chacko

Dartmouth College Undergraduate Theses

The shift of the U.S. healthcare delivery system from the treatment of acute conditions to chronic diseases requires a new method of healthcare system analysis to properly assess end- of-life (EOL) quality throughout the country. In this paper, we propose the Discrete-Event Modeling of Administrative Claims (DEMAC) system, which relies on a hetero-functional graph theory and discrete event-driven framework to dynamically model EOL care on multiple levels. The heat map visualizations produced by the DEMAC system enable the elucidation of not only patient-specific EOL care but also broader treatment patterns among providers and hospitals. As a whole, the DEMAC system …

Improving Multi-Threaded Qos In Clouds, Weiwei Jia

Dissertations

Multi-threading and resource sharing are pervasive and critical in clouds and data-centers. In order to ease management, save energy and improve resource utilization, multi-threaded applications from different tenants are often encapsulated in virtual machines (VMs) and consolidated on to the same servers. Unfortunately, despite much effort, it is still extremely challenging to maintain high quality of service (QoS) for multi-threaded applications of different tenants in clouds, and these applications often suffer severe performance degradation, poor scalability, unfair resource allocation, and so on.

The dissertation identifies the causes of the QoS problems and improves the QoS of multi-threaded execution with three …

The Probability Of Success-Through Fault Tree Analytical Binomial Result, Tyleka Riddle

Night Flight: Online Literary Journal

Prestigious Appeal Rule of Thumb (Ear Drum Plugs)

In truant fashion, with proven accidental probabilistic perception for proposed cued facial expression recognition and voice commands without filtering. The estimated cost analysis for design and development generated from the enhanced project in the word "no”: Additionally, an audio noise effect size (ES) for desired level of comprehensive sensory receptors in sound reference to noisy party syndrome. Sytoss, (2019) "Resulting in a cocktail party theory for chalkboard distinction and conversation with applied facial recognition. As well as, the enhanced project management tool, EPMT, to provide output and input determination for higher-level acoustic …

The Effects Of At-Home Remote Work Environments On Human Cognitive Performance And Work Task Performance Based On Current Societal Conditions, Angela Arias

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Home-based remote work systems present a unique set of cognitive performance and work task performance challenges to employees without remote work experience. The COVID-19 pandemic forced companies into transforming their work system structures, and their employee roles, without the preparation or education of the dynamics that surround home-based remote work systems. This thesis benefits the Human Factors community by investigating the effects of at-home remote-based work environments on cognitive performance, and work task performance, of employees who currently work remotely from home. A multimethod approach was employed to carry out this research. A survey was administered to home-based remote employees, …

Improving Logistics Efficiency Through Collaborative Truck Routing, Patrick Dougherty

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The logistics industry is among the world’s largest and most essential. Specifically, trucking is a massive component of the modern logistics system. In 2012, truck transportation carried 68% of all freight tonnage in the U.S. However, trucking currently faces significant problems with efficiency and sustainability. Of all miles driven by trucks yearly in the U.S., 25% are driven with empty loads and 36% are driven with underutilized loads. In addition to this economic inefficiency, the industry faces social and environmental challenges. Driver turnover rates are near 100%, and trucking accounts for a significant level of greenhouse gas emissions. One potential …

Decision Making Within An Nfl Context Using Multiple Objective Decision Analysis, Lawson Porter

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The National Football League (NFL) is the most popular sports league in the world, with millions of viewers every game and billions of dollars generated every season. Statistics are an important part of an NFL team’s business operating model and contribute greatly towards their decision making. Every season, general managers try to sign players that give the team the highest probability of winning games throughout the year. There are many factors that go into this decision, including the amount of money the team has to spend and the value that available players can bring to a team. Teams must abide …

Crowd-Based Requirement Engineering, Ume Sauda Ghanyani

CBER Conference

Requirement elicitation through crowdsourcing is trending nowadays and due to its major benefits, some of the organizations are implementing this idea. Our research paper discusses the traditional requirement engineering concepts and then compares them with crowd-based requirement engineering to show the benefits of crowdsourcing. Features of Crowd-Based Requirements Engineering are highlighted to give an idea of the basis on which the survey was conducted. Furthermore, we have discussed the online survey and gamification methods to motivate the crowd.

Cybersecurity Risk Assessment Using Graph Theoretical Anomaly Detection And Machine Learning, Goksel Kucukkaya

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The cyber domain is a great business enabler providing many types of enterprises new opportunities such as scaling up services, obtaining customer insights, identifying end-user profiles, sharing data, and expanding to new communities. However, the cyber domain also comes with its own set of risks. Cybersecurity risk assessment helps enterprises explore these new opportunities and, at the same time, proportionately manage the risks by establishing cyber situational awareness and identifying potential consequences. Anomaly detection is a mechanism to enable situational awareness in the cyber domain. However, anomaly detection also requires one of the most extensive sets of data and features …

Specification, Control, And Applications Of Z-Source Circuit Breakers For The Protection Of Dc Power Networks, Sagar Bhatta

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

There is a highly-increasing demand for the DC power transmission and distribution in modern power systems for the integration of newly-installed renewable energy resources and storage systems to the existing utilities. Application of DC power systems in electric ships, battery energy devices, high-voltage DC networks, smart grids, electric vehicles, microgrids, and wind farms is a recent trend that is being highly investigated. The fault protection of DC systems is an essential but challenging issue that needs careful attention to maintain system operation reliability and device safety. In this research, the specification, control, and application of Z-source breakers (ZCBs) are investigated …

Integrated Cyberattack Detection And Handling For Nonlinear Systems With Evolving Process Dynamics Under Lyapunov-Based Economic Model Predictive Control, Keshav Kasturi Rangan, Henrique Oyama, Helen Durand

Chemical Engineering and Materials Science Faculty Research Publications

Safety-critical processes are becoming increasingly automated and connected. While automation can increase effciency, it brings new challenges associated with guaranteeing safety in the presence of uncertainty especially in the presence of control system cyberattacks. One of the challenges for developing control strategies with guaranteed safety and cybersecurity properties under suffcient conditions is the development of appropriate detection strategies that work with control laws to prevent undetected attacks that have immediate closed-loop stability consequences. Achieving this, in the presence of uncertainty brought about by plant/model mismatch and process dynamics that can change with time, requires a fundamental understanding of the characteristics …

Do Your Projects Support Your Strategy? Applying Benefits Realization Management, Phil Jones

Operations Management Presentations

In this webinar, foundational concepts of Benefits Realization Management will be presented and discussed. Benefits Realization Management (BRM) is a both a discipline and a process used to align projects undertaken by an organization with the organization’s strategy and culture.

A Fuzzy Framework For The Air Force Mission Dependency Index, Devin M. Depalmer

Theses and Dissertations

AFIMSC completed an MDI modernization to support better risk-based decision-making by utilizing tactical mission-owner knowledge to quantify the relationship between facilities and the missions they enable. The resulting facility-mission risk scores leave room for improvement for better use of their intended purposes due to (1) the vulnerability of cognitive biases affecting survey responses due to the use of a traditional risk matrix (2) the lack of resolution between scores from risk ties and (3) the failure to include information from the operational and strategic organizational hierarchy level. This research addresses these concerns through the novel implementation of a fuzzy logic …

A Method For Visualizing The Structural Complexity Of Organizational Architectures, Jacob Michael B. King

Master's Theses

To achieve a high level of performance and efficiency, contemporary aerospace systems must become increasingly complex. While complexity management traditionally focuses on a product’s components and their interconnectedness, organizational representation in complexity analysis is just as essential. This thesis addresses this organizational aspect of complexity through an Organizational Complexity Metric (OCM) to aid complexity management. The OCM augments Sinha’s structural complexity metric for product architectures into a metric that can be applied to organizations. Utilizing nested numerical design structure matrices (DSMs), a compact visual representation of organizational complexity was developed. Within the nested numerical DSM are existing organizational datasets used …