Engineering Commons^™

A Value Model For Product Development Process Using Lean Principles, Salik Yadav

Masters Theses

"This research presents a value quantification model for multi-stage product development Process (PDP) using lean value principles. The PDP stages considered in this research include conceptual development, systems design, detailed design and prototyping stages. The value at any of the PDP stages is formulated as a function of 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. Factors (a)-(d) are adequately addressed in the literature. This study focuses on information evolution and risk reduction factors. These two factors are defined by …

Strategic Process Integration Of Energy And Environmental Systems In Wastewater Treatment Plants, Bharath Kumar Gangichetty

Masters Theses

"Green environmental practices are increasingly important in combating serious global energy and environmental issues. Most wastewater treatment facilities were built when energy costs were not a concern; however, an increasing demand for energy, changing climatic conditions, and constrained energy supplies have resulted in the need to apply more energy-conscious choices in the maintenance or upgrade of existing wastewater treatment facilities. A detailed analysis of the majority of water and wastewater treatment services shows that most facilities operate far below the efficiency levels needed for effective energy use. Failure to comply with regulated environmental standards is also a problem. Although standards …

Strategic Criteria For Evaluating Inland Freight Hub Locations, Robert Tyler Lipscomb

Masters Theses

"The aim of this thesis is to develop criteria that can be used to evaluate the current capabilities and sustainability of inland freight hubs. A review of the literature highlights the need for a more efficient freight distribution system to combat supply chain deficiencies and the important role that inland freight hubs play in creating this system. Also in the literature is a call for a more comprehensive approach to hub development decisions and the use of multi-criteria decision analysis. The decision to devote resources to logistics developments in a specific region must consider many factors that are both quantitative …

The Effects Of Personal Protective Equipment Level A Suits On Human Task Performance, Yvette L. Simon

Masters Theses

"First response teams dealing with hazardous substances often require the highest level of protection provided by Level A suits. These suits are fully encapsulating, bulky, and heat retentive. The effect of these suits on the wearer's ability to perform various tasks is of interest when it comes to human performance analysis. This research effort examined the effect of the Level A suit on fine motor and gross motor dexterity. Seven members of the National Guard's Civil Support Team (CST) performed a battery of six tasks designed to test these abilities. Tasks comprised the Minnesota Dexterity test and the Mirror Tracer …

Detection Of Explosive Threats By Using Embedded Wireless Sensor Based Networks, Jake Daniel Hertenstein

Masters Theses

"This thesis focuses on the development of novel schemes for the detection of unintended electromagnetic emissions (UEE) from passive radio frequency (RF) receivers and chemical and biological (CB) agents for the purpose of locating explosive threats (ET) to improve survivability for equipment and personnel in the surrounding environment. The methods and architectures used in this work were developed for use with wireless sensor networks (WSNs). While previous work has shown that highly sensitive equipment is capable of long-range detection of UEE the intention of this work is to develop a network of small, low cost smart sensor nodes (SSNs) capable …

Improving Resiliency Using Graph Based Evolutionary Algorithms, Jayakanth Jayachandran

Masters Theses

"Resiliency is an important characteristic of any system. It signifies the ability of a system to survive and recover from unprecedented disruptions. Various characteristics exist that indicate the level of resiliency in a system. One of these attributes is the adaptability of the system. This adaptability can be enhanced by redundancy present within the system. In the context of system design, redundancy can be achieved by having a diverse set of good designs for that particular system. Evolutionary algorithms are widely used in creating designs for engineering systems, as they perform well on discontinuous and/or high dimensional problems. One method …

Development Of A Framework To Evaluate Human Risk Towards Sustainable Risk Management, Ra'ed M. Jaradat, Rani A. Kady, C. Ariel Pinto

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

Risk managers are constantly faced with the challenge of making decisions at various levels of their organizations. One of the challenges, which often times is unavoidable, lies in assigning a monetary value to human risks. Such challenge necessitates engineering managers to make educated decisions on the level of risk that the organizations and businesses should accept when it comes to human. The purpose of this study is to suggest a suitable framework that captures this aspect of engineering Risk Management in order to make rational and sustainable decisions about such assessed risk. This will be accomplished by exploring the tools, …

Investigating Fabrication Methods For Micro Single-Chamber Solid Oxide Fuel Cells, Man Yang

Dissertations

A Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) is a green energy technology that offers a cleaner and efficient alternative to fossil fuels. The efficiency and utility of SOFCs can be enhanced by fabricating miniaturized component structures within the fuel cell footprint. This research focuses on the microfabrication of parallel-connected inter-digitized design of micro single chamber SOFC (µ-SC-SOFCs). In this dissertation, candidate micro/nano fabrication techniques to precisely fabricate micro patterns on planar substrates have been studied. These include EBL, soft lithography, photolithography, and direct-writing. After analyzing preliminary results, two combinational approaches were further investigated. The first method involves the combination of the …

Project And Risk Management: A Systematic Approach, Baqer Alali, C. Ariel Pinto, Andreas Tolk, Rafael Landaeta

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

The main purpose of this paper is to discuss three related topics of project management, systems management, and risk management. The issue that would be addressed in this paper is how risks are addressed in project and systems management, and how risks are propagated between projects and systems. A framework is proposed to overcome the problem of risk propagation from project to the systems. It was shown that the proposed framework can be deployed to existing risk management process with reasonable interventions (e.g. process prescribed by PMI). Finally a proof-of-concept application shows potential of the framework for various types of …

Enterprise Business Alignment Using Quality Function Deployment, Multivariate Data Analysis And Business Modeling Tools, Diala Gammoh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation proposes two novel ideas to enhance the business strategy alignment to customer needs. The proposed business alignment clock is a new illustration to the relationships between customer requirements, business strategies, capabilities and processes. To line up the clock and reach the needed alignment for the enterprise, a proposed clock mechanism is introduced. The mechanism integrates the Enterprise Business Architecture (EBA) with the House of Quality (HoQ). The relationship matrix inside the body of the house is defined using multivariate data analysis techniques to accurately measure the strength of the relationships rather than defining them subjectively. A statistical tool, …

Knowledge Management Determinants Of Continuance Behavior: Evaluating The Air Force Knowledge Now Knowledge Management System, Eric Tucker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Knowledge management (KM) encompasses the set of capabilities, processes, tools, and techniques for the most effective use of knowledge by an organization. The goal of KM is to improve the organization's ability to create, transfer, retain, and apply knowledge. Knowledge management is a goal that many organizations seek to achieve. Organizations apply their strategies, plans, and implementation to achieve KM. Organizations use technology to implement their KM strategy. For some, this approach has worked well; however, for others, the results have fallen short. KM shortcomings revolve around employees' infrequent use of the technology. This research seeks to understand what influences …

Time Depedent Queuing Models Of The National Airspace, Chatabush Roongrat

Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Air transportation in the US system has dramatically changed in the past few decades. The National Airspace System (NAS) has increasingly become congested. A high volume of air traffic demand is one of the major challenges of the NAS. However, air traffic is very difficult to study due to many uncertainties involved. It is important that we be able to understand the relationship under uncertainties due to aviation operations, precision of navigation and control, and traffic flow efficiency. Many queuing models have been studied to better understand and quantify these relationships. In the past decade, most queuing network models assume …

Hazard Identification, Risk Assessment And Risk Control (Hirarc) In A Corrugated Box Manufacturer., Fraziel Barahim

Student Works (2010-2019)

Packaging is one of the biggest industries in the world. It involves paper, glass,metal, flexible and plastic. The corrugated paper packaging worldwide has been growing at 3% to 4% per annum. In line with the expansion of the corrugated paper packaging manufacturing, the potential hazards to human physical and health, property and the environment posed by its operations and production activities have created an increase in awareness and brought up safety issues amongst industry, government and public. The hazard identification and risk assessment plays a role in a number of areas in the safety management, including regulatory policies and guidelines, …

Synergy Between Biology And Systems Resilience, Ashik Chandra

Masters Theses

"Resilient systems have the ability to endure and successfully recover from disturbances by identifying problems and mobilizing the available resources to cope with the disturbance. Resiliency lets a system recover from disruptions, variations, and a degradation of expected working conditions. Biological systems are resilient. Immune systems are highly adaptive and scalable, with the ability to cope with multiple data sources, fuse information together, makes decisions, have multiple interacting agents, operate in a distributed manner over a multiple scales, and have a memory structure to facilitate learning. Ecosystems are resilient since they have the capacity to absorb disturbance and are able …

An Analysis Of The Integration Of Lean And Safety, Pankaj Mahesh Pai

Masters Theses

"The lean philosophy has proven potential to help businesses improve productivity and reduce its losses. Lean can give businesses a cutting edge in this age of global competition. The fundamental principle of lean is to identify wastes in the system and reduce or eliminate them. There is a concern that during lean implementations, the focus on productivity may result in health and safety issues being ignored or worse, changes driven by lean may introduce new hazards. The relationship between lean and safety is not clearly understood. Lean and safety should be compatible. Both strive to improve processes. Both are against …

Incorporating New Technology Into Healthcare: An Analysis Of Performance, Acceptance, And Safety, Anthony Joseph Strawhun

Masters Theses

"Each year, advances in the healthcare industry allows for better patient care and increased ability to save lives. Looking at standardized and common healthcare devices for both inside and outside the hospital environment, this research studied the tradeoffs and human factors that affect operator performance and patient survival. This research studied the impact of human factors and technology in the development and implementation of the automated external defibrillator for out-of-hospital use and the incremental advantages of SMArT infusion pump technology over traditional intravenous infusion pumps for in-hospital care. The study highlights the complex human factors of both products and establishes …

Using Value Stream Mapping For Cost Modeling, Emily Marie Tucker

Masters Theses

"This thesis presents an effective cost model for the Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) process used in additive manufacturing practices. The various factors that influence the total cost of a build on both small and large frame machines are discussed. These attributes, which include labor and overhead rates, material costs, and process times, combine to generate the driving force behind a manufacturer's decision to use the small or large SLS machine for mass production. By developing and evaluating a current state value stream map for the small SLS machine, a financial analysis of the SLS process can be performed. By assigning …

Development Of A Contingency Capillary Wastewater Management Device, Evan A. Thomas

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The personal body-attached liquid liquidator (PBALL) is conceived as a passive, capillary-driven, contingency wastewater disposal device. In this contingency scenario, the airflow system on the NASA crew exploration vehicle is assumed to have failed, leaving only passive hardware and vacuum vent to dispose of wastewater. To meet these needs, the PBALL was conceived to rely on capillary action and urine wetting conditions from 0° < θadv ∼ 90°, be adaptable for both male and female use, collect and retain up to 1 L of urine, minimize splash-back, and allow continuous draining of the wastewater to vacuum while minimizing cabin air loss. A subscale PBALL test article, which was tested on NASA's reduced-gravity aircraft in April 2010, successfully demonstrated key components of this design.

Fusion Of Imprecise Qualitative Information, Florentin Smarandache, Xinde Li, Xianzhong Dai, Jean Dezert

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

In this paper, we present a new 2-tuple linguistic representation model, i.e. Distribution Function Model (DFM), for combining imprecise qualitative information using fusion rules drawn from Dezert-Smarandache Theory (DSmT) framework. Such new approach allows to preserve the precision and efficiency of the combination of linguistic information in the case of either equidistant or unbalanced label model. Some basic operators on imprecise 2-tuple labels are presented together with their extensions for imprecise 2-tuple labels. We also give simple examples to show how precise and imprecise qualitative information can be combined for reasoning under uncertainty. It is concluded that DSmT can deal …

Theoretical Exploratory Investigation On Reliability Of Advanced Ceramics By Discrete Element Simulation, Ana Laura Quezada Lara

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The increasing application of silicon nitride in biomedical and other engineering fields has elevated the necessity to understand its reliability. Due to the complexity of producing pure material researchers have been analyzing the behavior of the material with flaws. In this thesis several scenarios are simulated with the support of PFC2D to analyze microcrack propagation depending on the position, quantity and size of the voids to understand the effect each of the cases have on the material. A four point bending test was applied to each case twice recording the loading force. Having two runs allows doing a statistical analysis …

Component Replacement Analysis For Electricity Distribution Systems Using Evolutionary Algorithms, Vasukumar Chenna

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The main objective of the electric power grid is to supply economical and reliable electricity to industrial, commercial, household, transportation, and other end-users, including agricultural, educational institutions and hospitals. The power system is a very large and complex network consisting of generation, transmission, and distribution systems. The main focus of the present research is in the area of power distribution systems. Almost all the areas of the power grid uses simpler radial distribution systems to distribute electricity to the end consumer, it is the final and therefore vital link between the consumer and the rest of the power grid. Therefore …

E-Quality: Using Dimensional Index Values Towards Improving Classification Accuracy, Prashanth Devaram

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

E-quality is a process through which inspection of the process and quality of the part produced is done online resulting in the improvement of the process and reduction in the amount of time consumed for the overall process. Automated quality control involves using a methodology to classify the parts based on the dimensions of the features on a part. However, achieving 100% classification accuracy is not an easy task, especially in area of quality control where small differences in dimensions result in part fall into a different category. In this study, a novel approach for modifying the data before being …

Optimization Models For The Economic And Non-Economic Level Of Repair Analysis, Carlos Marco Ituarte-Villarreal

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Every component, equipment or system will eventually fail. All failures produce a maintenance cost and, repair costs are especially hard to estimate ahead of time. Research shows that maintenance costs are the most substantial costs of development and use of equipment, reason why the cost of the product or equipment through its life is a major concern. Therefore, the main objective of this thesis is to provide a new optimization model to determine the minimum cost maintenance policy for complex systems.

Utilizing Multimedia Case Studies To Teach The Professional Side Of Project Management, Cassandra C. Elrod, Susan L. Murray, Barry B. Flachsbart, Karl E. Burgher, Drew M. Foth

Business and Information Technology Faculty Research & Creative Works

This research was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of using a LITEE multimedia case study to teaching concepts in engineering courses. The LITEE Superstar case study was implemented in an engineering Project Management course. Numerous surveys regarding student expectations, outcomes, and attitudes were collected and results are presented herein. Overall, the study provided evidence that the students felt that the LITEE case study added value to the course via the different methods of teaching material, aided in the understanding of the project selection process, and ultimately helped them be successful in their course project which was conducted for a real …

An Improved Methodology For Filling Missing Values In Spatiotemporal Climate Data Set, Antti Sorjamaa, Amaury Lendasse, Yves Cornet, Eric Deleersnijder

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In This Paper, an Improved Methodology for the Determination of Missing Values in a Spatiotemporal Database is Presented. This Methodology Performs Denoising Projection in Order to Accurately Fill the Missing Values in the Database. the Improved Methodology is Called Empirical Orthogonal Functions (EOF) Pruning, and It is based on an Original Linear Projection Method Called Empirical Orthogonal Functions (EOF). the Experiments Demonstrate the Performance of the Improved Methodology and Present a Comparison with the Original EOF and with a Widely Used Optimal Interpolation Method Called Objective Analysis. © Springer Science + Business Media B.v. 2009.

A Continuous Regression Function For The Delaunay Calibration Method, Francesco Corona, Elia Liitiäinen, Amaury Lendasse, Roberto Baratti, Lorenzo Sassu

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The Delaunay Tessellation and Topological Regression is a Local Simplex Method for Multivariate Calibration. the Method, developed within Computational Geometry, Has Potential for Applications in Online Analytical Chemistry and Process Monitoring. This Study Proposes a Novel Approach to Perform Prediction and Extrapolation using Delaunay Calibration Method. the Main Property of the Proposed Extension is the Continuity of the Estimated Regression Function Also Outside the Calibration Domain. to Support the Presentation, an Application in Estimating the Aromatic Composition in Light Cycle Oil by Near Infrared Spectroscopy is Discussed. © 2009 Ifac.

Use Of Web-Based Lessons Of Statistical Concepts With Graphics And Animation To Enhance The Effectiveness Of Learning, Lavanya Pillala

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Statistics is of critical importance to engineers. However, many engineering students struggle to grasp the meaning of statistical concepts and the idiosyncrasies of statistical methodologies. Because of this problem, instructors of statistics are constantly searching for better ways to help students understand statistical concepts. The goal of this project is to design and develop web-based lessons that use graphics and animations to enhance the effectiveness of students' learning of statistical concepts.

Lessons of three important statistical concepts have been developed for this thesis - normal distribution, central limit theorem and confidence & tolerance intervals - following well-recognized instructional design development …

Manual Handling Workload And Musculoskeletal Discomfort Among Warehouse Personnel, Terrance N. Knox

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WRMSD), specifically physical and muscular discomfort in the upper arm, lower arm, thigh, lower leg, wrist, shoulders, back, or neck, are among the most frequently reported workplace injuries in the United States. The dearth of knowledge about the types of workloads that may contribute to the development of WRMSD was the impetus of this research. The study aimed to identify antecedents of WRMSD among warehouse workers in order to reduce WRMSDs and increase productivity as expressed in a systems perspective on industrial health. The research questions examined the prevalence of specific WRMSDs, the relationship of high-risk tasks …

Renewable Energy Integration: An Approach For Micro-Grid Optimization., Nicolas Lopez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This thesis explores the Renewable Energy Integration Problem beginning with a literature review on the different sources of electrical energy classified as Non-Renewable and Renewable, stating that the integration of renewable sources within the pre-existing Power-Grids is a current worldwide problem that is being addressed with different approaches.

The impossibility to exactly model the different equations relating the electric output of the renewable energy sources as they relate with meteorological factors, makes the renewable sector a stochastic component of the overall mathematical model, where it can be concluded that most of the problem is in the area of the forecast. …

An Improved Genetic Algorithm For Knapsack Problems, Taskiran, Gamze Kilincli

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

In this study, an improved genetic algorithm (GA) is presented to solve the multidimensional 0-1 knapsack problem (MKP). The MKP is a well-known combinatorial optimization problem and has received wide attention from the operations research community for decades. Although recent advances in computing and optimization technologies have made the solution of small and medium size instances possible, this NP-hard problem, in general, still remains one of the challenging problems yet to be solved.

Of the various algorithms developed to solve the MKP, GA seems to be one of the best methods pointed out in the literature. A GA is an …