Business Commons^™

Warranty Period And Product Price Optimization For Remanufactured Products, Yuxi Liu

Theses and Dissertations

This study considers a remanufactured electrical product under a tiered warranty policy. Warranty is key in ensuring a good manufacturer—consumer relationship. Manufacturers hope to minimize warranty costs while consumers believe that good warranty promises better product quality and reliability. This Thesis presents an optimal warranty period from the perspective of a manufacturer to maximize the total expected profits, while ensuring sustained consumer relation. We use real data from a local company with a global supply chain to provide a numerical example.

Optimal Cyclic Control Of A Buffer Between Two Consecutive Non-Synchronized Manufacturing Processes, Wenhuan Hsieh

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents methods for efficiently controlling a buffer that is located between two non-synchronized manufacturing processes. Several machines with different cycle times and/or batch sizes perform each manufacturing process. The overall operation cycles every T time units. The first objective of the problem is to minimize the average buffer inventory level during one cycle. The second objective is to minimize the maximum inventory level observed at any point during the cycle. This new optimization problem has not been previously considered in the literature. An integer program is developed to model this problem. In addition, two heuristic methods—a simulated annealing …

Three Research Essays On The Effects Of Culture Across It Diffusion Within Social Networks, Organizations, And Hospitals, Yu Zhao

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on two research streams: IT diffusion and culture, and each can be examined in various contexts. Specifically, this study investigates IT diffusion through online social network use, knowledge sharing towards the general organizational information systems, and hospital information systems usage. In terms of culture, espoused national cultural values, IT occupational subculture, and organizational cultural variables are examined in the following essays.

Essay1: Espoused National Cultural Values and Online Social Network Use: Towards an Extension of UTAUT

Prior research has developed a number of models for examining the acceptance and use of technology. This paper extends the unified …

The Effect Of Cultural And Emotional Intelligence On Mentor And Protege Perceptions Of Attitude Homophily And Relationship Quality In Culturally Diverse Mentoring Relationships, Gloria J. Miller

Theses and Dissertations

Mentoring has become more common in organizations as firms have discovered the benefits of this process, such as the retention and cultivation of employees who create the work and products of the organization. To meet the challenges associated with increasing diversity within organizations, researchers have focused on understanding diverse mentoring relationships (Athey, Avery, & Zemsky, 2000; Clutterbuck & Ragins, 2002; Hardy, 1998; Knouse, Hill, & Webb, 2005; Ragins, 1997). The demographic (e.g., ethnicity, gender, age) and situational (e.g., position, power) disparities between mentors and protégés often make it more difficult for diverse partners to develop quality relationships that are needed …

The Effect Of Stages And Levels Of Automation And Reliability On Workload And Performance For Remotely Piloted Aircraft Operations, Stephen P. Katrein

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates incorporating different stages and levels of automation with varying degrees of reliability into a remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) surveillance task in order to determine how automation implementation and reliability affect operator workload and system performance. The study uses IMPRINT discrete event simulation to evaluate three levels of reliability in twelve different baseline automation implementations within a remotely piloted vehicle task. Three stages and four levels are modeled, for a total of twelve combinations, along with a baseline task with no automation. The stages modeled are the information acquisition stage, the decision and action selection stage, and the …

Pragmatic Divestment Of Kc-135 Navigators In The Special Operations Air Refueling Mission, Andrew P. Nation

Theses and Dissertations

In the late 1990s, the Air Force eliminated over 200 KC-135 navigators, leaving 50 remaining for the aircraft's most complex Special Operations Air Refueling (SOAR) mission. As the Air Force unveils the KC-46 Pegasus, this mission will continue but without a position for the navigator. Instead, navigators will undergo divestment as the SOAR mission transfers to the KC-46. Current plans indicate navigators will not only remain as the KC-46 arrives, but inbound navigators will continue arriving until 2018. This thesis applies the Delphi method, a process eliciting analysis anonymously from a panel of experts, in order to examine the elements …