Engineering Commons^™

Risk-Sensitive Preventive Maintenance Policies Using Semivariance, Venkata Manojramam Tirumalasetty

Masters Theses

"Preventive maintenance is an important tool that increases the reliability of the production system by reducing downtime due to failures. In the literature, maintenance and replacement policies for productions systems have been widely studied and modeled. Traditionally preventive maintenance has focused only on minimizing expected costs without considering variability in costs. Cost variability is also commonly known as risk. In a 2003 paper, Chen and Jin used variance of costs as a measure of risk for formulating preventive maintenance policies. The variance criterion that they used ignored the probability of costs exceeding monthly or yearly budgets provided to managers. The …

Development Of A New Evolutionary Algorithm Based On Adaptive Echolocation Applied To A Multi Objective Version Of The Redundancy Allocation Problem, Karla Rocio Gutierrez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The intention of this research is to develop a new algorithm that it is mainly focus in the principle of echolocation or also called biosonar. This principle is active in many animals such as: birds, shrews, dolphins and bats, these last ones are going to be a fundamental part of our study. These animals use it as radar in order to find food, obstacles or just to locate objects.

These animals use ultrasound beams with a certain degree of angle and multiple receivers; such as the two ears that are located slightly apart, so at the time of the returning …

Perspectives On Quality Coordination And Assurance In Global Supply Chains, Ling Li, John N. Warfield

Information Technology & Decision Sciences Faculty Publications

The 2007 recall of Berko Electric Toe-Space Heaters made in the US, the recall of backpack blowers made in Japan, the recalls of toys and pet food produced in China have exposed the potential of global supply chain disruptions. This product recall storm leads to the issue of quality assurance in global supply chain management. Product recalls indicate that manufacturing companies are particularly vulnerable to ensure quality when they source via a global supply chain with poor visibility. Obviously, a supply chain cannot afford this kind of sourcing and supply structure that threatens the supply-chain integrity. This special issue on …

The Equivalence And Generalization Of Optimization Criteria, Surachai Charoensri

Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Engineering Dissertations - Archive

In this dissertation we first show that existing optimization criteria are equivalent to the maximization of a real-valued function in a one-dimensional Euclidean space. The criteria are said to be scalar equivalent. All solutions and only solutions to an optimization problem involving the original criterion can be obtained by scalarization without the typical convexity or concavity assumptions on the original objective functions and feasible region. Examples include Pareto (including the scalar case), satisficing, maximin, and cone-ordered optimization, as well as the more general notion of set-valued optimization in abstract spaces. Moreover, equivalences between various different optimization criteria are also established …

The Development Of A Human Centered Methodology For The Identification Of Communication Needs And The Assessment Of Hand-Held Communication Devices Used To Support Communication Flow In High Consequence Emergency Management, Mohammad Imraan Jeelani

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Communication has been identified as a critical component in the outcome of emergency response. Post-mortems of “what went wrong” in disaster responses often point toward breakdown in communication between first responders, those directing rescue efforts, and the general population as one of the primary impediments to rendering timely aid and communicating adequate safety and weather information. Due to the high resilience, relatively low costs, and advanced features of modern hand-held communication devices, these devices are in a position to drastically improve communication flow during emergency management situations. Due to the lack of official implementation of these devices and the lack …

Modeling And Characterization Of Acute Stress Under Dynamic Task Conditions, Angel M. Millan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Stress can be defined as the mental, physical, and emotional response of humans to stressors encountered in their personal or professional environment. Stressors are introduced in various activities, especially those found in dynamic task conditions when multiple task requirements must be performed. Stress and stressors have been described as activators and inhibitors of human performance. The ability to manage high levels of acute stress is an important determinant of successful performance in any occupation. In situations where performance is critical, personnel must be prepared to operate successfully under hostile or extreme stress conditions; therefore training programs and engineered systems must …

Management Of Wind Power Generation With The Attachment Of Wind Tunnel, Ulan Dakeev

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

This study presents a new approach in which a wind tunnel apparatus is used to identify the efficiency of power output by a wind turbine with a 400W rating. Moreover, the study addresses a significant issue concerning the turbulence formed by a natural wind which can be eliminated or reduced with the use of the proposed wind tunnel. Wind power characteristics that indicate power output versus wind velocity are obtained by performing a number of case studies. The case studies include normal operation of the experimental wind turbine at variable wind velocity values with and without proposed wind tunnel. A …

A Study To Determine The Influence Of Workload On Nursing Personnel, Supreeta G. Amin

Dissertations

The alarming number of adverse medical events and associated costs have placed immense importance toward the safety and health of both patients and medical personnel. A shrinking nurse workforce, an aging patient and nursing population coupled with a mismatch between hospital demands and the available nursing staff have created a situation detrimental to both patient and nursing personnel. Long working hours, working more than one job, low staffing ratios, high patient acuity, minimal social support, low experience level, complicated equipment, complex procedures and varying workload are some factors that may have a negative impact on the quality of care provided …

Benefits Of Cpfr And Vmi Collaboration Strategies In A Variable Demand Environment, Dattaraj Kamalapurkar

Dissertations

In recent years, practitioners and academic researchers have emphasized that organizations need to collaborate with suppliers and customers to improve their competitive advantage. The availability of cost efficient information technologies like EDI, XML, etc. have made it possible to develop and implement many forms of collaboration strategies. Among them, Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) and Collaborative Planning, Forecasting and Replenishment (CPFR) are most popular, which are considered for this study. While many studies have identified the benefits of demand information sharing in supply chains; however the benefits gained by implementing collaboration strategies like VMI and CPFR in a variable demand environment …

Emerging M&S Application In Risk Management, C. Ariel Pinto, Andreas Tolk, Michael Mcshane

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

There has been compelling signs of the great potential of building further synergy with academics, researchers, and industry practitioners from the areas of Modeling and Simulation (M&S) managing risk events. This paper provides an introduction to risk management and how M&S has permeated the risk management process. The trend has been to harness the advantages of M&S tools and techniques in terms of efficiency and effectiveness in managing risks. However, the more important contribution of M&S may be in how it provides a way for specialists in various disciplines or industries interact to manage risks that require multi-disciplinary approach. This …

Virtual Design Verification And Process Improvement Of Composite Sheet Material Products Using Intelligent Finite Element Analysis (Ifea), Sathyanarayanan Narasimhan

Dissertations

Engineering design decisions influence more than 70% of product costs. Various computational analysis tools such as Finite Element Analysis (FEA) are typically utilized, to achieve an effective design cycle. Literature review in design process indicates a striking reality that about 75% of design errors can be eliminated through analysis and about 20% of analyses are misrepresented, leading to inadequate or faulty design. Also, analyses in general, generate more information about the problem than is often looked into, leading to a vast potential to study the knowledge creation.

This research bridges these gaps in design process through efficient use of computer-based …

Virtual Ed: Utilisation Of A Discrete Event Simulation-Based Framework In Identifying "Real-Time’ Strategies To Improve Patient Experience Times In An Emergency Department, Waleed Abo Hamad, John Mcinerney, Amr Arisha

Articles

Objectives and Backgrounds Emergency Department (ED) overcrowding and associated excessive Patient Experience Times (PETs) have proven deleterious impacts on patient mortality, morbidity and overall length of hospital stay. Health systems constantly seek cost-effective organisational strategies to reduce ED crowding and improve patient outcomes, but complex change implementation is constrained by the necessity of maintaining concurrent safe patient-care. Computer modelling in a “virtual reality” has been successfully utilised in industries outside medicine, in providing innovative “real-time” solutions to outdated practices. Therefore a bespoke “Virtual ED” computer model, based on a Discrete Event Simulation (DES) -Based Framework was constructed to determine the …

Estimating Industrial Building Energy Savings Using Inverse Simulation, Franc Server, J. Kelly Kissock, Dan Brown, Steve Mulqueen

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

Estimating energy savings from retrofitting existing building systems is traditionally a time intensive process, accomplished by developing a detailed building simulation model, running the model with actual weather data, calibrating the model to actual energy use data, modifying the model to include the proposed changes, then running the base and proposed models with typical weather data to estimate typical energy savings. This paper describes a less time-intensive method of estimating energy savings in industrial buildings using actual monthly energy consumption and weather data. The method begins by developing a multivariate three-parameter changepoint regression model of facility energy use. Next, the …

Managing A Solar Sensor Array Project: Analyzing Insolation & Motivation, Beth A. Yount

Masters Theses

"The renewable power industry is rapidly growing today and is in need of much data to augment the advancement of the field. Photovoltaic technology, while making substantial improvement over the last 60 years, still has some significant hurdles to overcome. When shading, dust, or damaged cells reduce the power output of one panel, the traditional series-parallel configurations make it so every panel in series with that lower current panel, will also have its current lowered; this lowers the overall power output of the array significantly. Advancements in configurations and converters could change this phenomenon and dramatically increase a solar array's …

Integration Of Model-Based Systems Engineering And Virtual Engineering Tools For Detailed Design, Akshay Kande

Masters Theses

"Design and development of a system can be viewed as a process of transferring and transforming data using a set of tools that form the system's development environment. Conversion of the systems engineering data into useful information is one of the prime objectives of the tools used in the process. With complex systems, the objective is further augmented with a need to represent the information in an accessible and comprehensible manner. The importance of representation is easily understood in light of the fact that the stakeholder's ability to make prompt and appropriate decisions is directly related to his understanding of …

Life Expectancy Evaluation And Replacement Schedule Development For Led Traffic Indicators, Casey Robert Noll

Masters Theses

"LED (light-emitting diode) technology is being widely adopted for use in sustainable traffic signal management. However, the useful life and luminosity characteristics have not been sufficiently studied in the field to provide departments of transportation with cost-effective replacement strategies based on the realities for LED indicators. LED indicators fail when their luminous intensity (LI) falls below a pre-specified threshold, posing a danger to traffic. This research details a field study of LED indicators in Missouri and develops a replacement schedule based on key findings. Rates of degradation and subsequently the useful life of each type of LED indicator were calculated …

Presentation: Proving Sustainability: The International Development Monitoring Initiative, Evan A. Thomas

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Presentation detailing the activities and products of the Sustainable Water, Energy and Environmental Technologies Laboratory at Portland State University (SWEETLab). The lab also works to develop standards to help evaluate and compare projects and outcomes around the world. Water treatment and sanitation practices, as well as newly designed cookstoves, are highlighted.

Indentifying And Understanding User Preferences In Generic Planning Tools, Grisel Ventura

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Planning is an important cognitive work activity. To support this complex task, the development of planning tools is important to support people during decision-making and problem-solving tasks. Nowadays, a large number of manual and electronic tools support this complex activity; manual and electronic planning tools aid people in creating strategies for effective work performance. However, there is limited information on the design of generic planning tools people use for their activities, and why people choose to use the planning tool they do. Some examples of generic tools for planning are calendars, checklists, agendas, etc.

To answer this question, this research …

Adaptive Reconfiguration Of Complex System Architecture, Khaled Haris, Cihan H. Dagli

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this paper, an approach for adaptive reconfiguration of architecture of a complex system using computational intelligence techniques is proposed. This paper establishes that the simulated change in the relative importance of rules reflecting the significance of customer's key performance attributes could be used to affect architectural evolution. the proposed approach was demonstrated on a sample system. It was also extended to a general system. the evolving system architecture gave the system an adaptive feature in the sense that it accepted alternative components based on the simulated changes in the environment. Architecture alternatives were generated through genetic algorithms (GA), while …

Model Development Of A Virtual Learning Environment To Enhance Lean Education, Akalpit Gadre, Elizabeth Cudney, Steven Corns

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Modern day industry is becoming leaner by the day. This demands engineers with an in-depth understanding of lean philosophies. Current methods for teaching lean include hands-on projects and simulation. However, simulation games available in the market lack simplicity, ability to store the results, and modeling power. the goal of this research is to develop a virtual simulation platform which would enable students to perform various experiments by applying lean concepts. the design addresses these deficiencies through the use of VE-Suite, a virtual engineering software. the design includes user-friendly dialogue boxes, graphical models of machines, performance display gauges, and an editable …

Cognitive Cyber Weapon Selection Tool Empirical Evaluation, Preethi Vinayak Ponangi

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Keeping in pace with the latest technological innovations in the cyber world, the misuse of this powerful infrastructure has also increased proportionally. Although a lot of recent attacks have been documented in the mainstream media, counter measures for cyber defense mechanism have only received some attention in the recent research literature. Most of the global attacks in the cyber space have proved to be carefully planned premeditated attacks. Considering that most of these attacks are co-coordinated by humans, a new area of psychological weaponry is being investigated by the research community. This study aims to empirically evaluate the effectiveness of …

An Exploratory Study Of Mixed-Width Aisle Layouts For Order Picking In Distribution Centers, Corinne H. Mowrey

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Order picking is arguably the most expensive operational activity for a distribution center (DC), constituting upwards of 50% of total operating costs. Designing an optimum order picking system (OPS) for a DC depends on several system parameters, such as aisle layout, storage system configuration, storage policy, picking method, and picking strategy. From an aisle layout standpoint, traditional DCs utilize either entirely wide or entirely narrow aisles in their picking systems. Wide aisles allow pickers to pass each other, reducing blocking and requiring fewer pickers. However, the space required for wide-aisle systems is high. Narrow aisles utilize less space than wide …

Drop-Shipping At A Promotional Products Distributor, Ramanan Veeraragavan

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

During the current economic times, companies are trying to reduce costs by incorporating new strategies into their business plan. Supply chain, in particular the distribution network is one area where an improvement can bring in a healthy return on investment to a company. Drop-shipping is a distribution strategy whereby customer orders are fulfilled by directly delivering products from manufacturer's facility, instead of storing these products at the warehouse. Drop-shipping helps in reducing inventory and material handling costs at the warehouse, but may increase transportation costs due to frequent shipments. This research was motivated by the current operations at a promotional …

Scheduling Surgical Cases In A Constrained Environment, Bharathwaj Vijayakumar

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

This research examines a complex surgical case scheduling problem for a publicly-funded hospital in the Midwest United States. Publicly-funded hospitals are typically under tight budget constraints and these hospitals strive to maximize the utilization of their resources such as beds, staff, equipment, operating rooms, etc. These resources are relatively fixed for a publically funded hospital. A manual scheduling approach followed by this hospital does not guarantee optimal solutions and consequently has led to large variation in the utilization of resources. This real-world problem is described in this research as a multi-day, multi-resource, and patient-priority-based surgical case scheduling problem with the …

Determining The Optimal Aisle-Width For Order Picking In Distribution Centers, Sheena R. Wallace-Finney

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Many companies use distribution centers (DC) as hubs for storing and distributing products to customers (e.g., wholesalers, retailers, or consumers). Order picking, a critical activity in every DC, refers to retrieving products from the storage locations to fulfill customer orders. It accounts for over 50% of the DC operating cost. Order picking system design involves several decisions, such as layout of the picking area, storage policy, picking method, material handling equipment, and information technology, to name a few. Aisle configuration (number, length, width, and orientation) is a critical layout decision as it directly affects picker productivity and required space. Previous …

Developing A Time And Motion Study For A Lean Healthcare Environment, Michael Winston Patton Jr.

University of Kentucky Master's Theses

This thesis outlines the development of a standard methodology for performing a time and motion study in a lean healthcare environment. Time and motion studies have been used in healthcare environments in the past, however they have nearly all been exclusive to a particular healthcare enterprise. To develop the time and motion study methodology, a study was designed to examine how resident doctors spend their time. This study was performed in response to coming changes in the work hours for all residents. Once the methodology was developed, trial observations were conducted. The data from these observations was analyzed to determine …

Improving Service Through Just-In-Time Concept In A Dynamic Operational Environment, Kar Way Tan, Hoong Chuin Lau, Na Fu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper is concerned with the problem of Just-In-Time (JIT) job scheduling in a dynamic environment under uncertainty to attain timely service. We provide an approach, based on robust scheduling concepts, to analytically evaluate the expected cost of earliness and tardiness for each job and also the project. In addition, we search for a schedule execution policy with the minimum robust cost such that for a given risk level (epsilon), the actual realized schedule has (1 - epsilon) probability of completing with less than or equal to this robust cost. Our method is quite generic, and can be applied to …

Instance-Based Parameter Tuning Via Search Trajectory Similarity Clustering, Linda Lindawati, Hoong Chuin Lau, David Lo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper is concerned with automated tuning of parameters in local-search based meta-heuristics. Several generic approaches have been introduced in the literature that returns a ”one-size-fits-all” parameter configuration for all instances. This is unsatisfactory since different instances may require the algorithm to use very different parameter configurations in order to find good solutions. There have been approaches that perform instance-based automated tuning, but they are usually problem-specific. In this paper, we propose CluPaTra, a generic (problem-independent) approach to perform parameter tuning, based on CLUstering instances with similar PAtterns according to their search TRAjectories. We propose representing a search trajectory as …

Fine-Tuning Algorithm Parameters Using The Design Of Experiments Approach, Aldy Gunawan, Hoong Chuin Lau, Linda Lindawati

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Optimizing parameter settings is an important task in algorithm design. Several automated parameter tuning procedures/configurators have been proposed in the literature, most of which work effectively when given a good initial range for the parameter values. In the Design of Experiments (DOE), a good initial range is known to lead to an optimum parameter setting. In this paper, we present a framework based on DOE to find a good initial range of parameter values for automated tuning. We use a factorial experiment design to first screen and rank all the parameters thereby allowing us to then focus on the parameter …

Life Cycle Inventory Of Hdpe Bottle-Based Liquid Milk Packaging Systems, Jay Singh, Aric Krasowski, S. Paul Singh

Industrial Technology and Packaging

This study aims at providing a relatively straightforward methodology to serve as a decision-making tool when more than one packaging solution could be available to a user. It involves a life cycle inventory (LCI) analysis and comparison of three currently available 3.79 l (1 gallon) packaging systems for liquid milk. Two of the primary container types studied use reusable plastic crates (RPCs) for stacking and shipping,
while the third type is a heavier duty container that does not require secondary shipping containers. The three primary containers studied are identified as original, cube and stackable throughout this paper. The study shows …