Engineering Commons^™

Use On Multinomial Logistic Regression In Work Zone Crash Analysis For Missouri Work Zones, Paul Robin

Masters Theses

"This study focuses on the use of statistical data analysis procedures in identifying factors which affect the severity of crashes in work zones. Work zones are unsafe for the traffic passing through as well as the workers. Multinomial Logistic Regression has been used to analyse Missouri work zone crash data to identify significant factors which affect the severity of crashes. This particular type of regression analysis was used due to the mixed nature of data. Multinomial regression was used to compare crashes with severity Property Damage Only against crashes with Minor Injuries and Disabling Injuries/ Fatal. The factors considered were …

Sustainability Analysis In Integrated Inventory Control And Transportation Systems, Brian Joseph Schaefer

Doctoral Dissertations

"Due to the importance of costs as well as environmental effects of logistical activities throughout supply chains, such as inventory holding, freight transportation, and warehousing activities, this dissertation models and analyzes four integrated inventory control and transportation problems that account for economic and environmental aspects of a supply chain agents related decisions.

The first model presents an integrated inventory control and transportation problem in a single item deterministic demand setting. A supply chain agents inventory control and transportation mode selection problem is solved under carbon cap, carbon cap and trade, carbon cap and offset, and carbon tax regulations. The second …

A Decision Modeling For Phasor Measurement Unit Location Selection In Smart Grid Systems, Seung Yup Lee

Wayne State University Theses

As a key technology for enhancing the smart grid system, Phasor Measurement Unit (PMU) provides synchronized phasor measurements of voltages and currents of wide-area electric power grid. With various benefits from its application, one of the critical issues in utilizing PMUs is the optimal site selection of units.

The main aim of this research is to develop a decision support system, which can be used in resource allocation task for smart grid system analysis. As an effort to suggest a robust decision model and standardize the decision modeling process, a harmonized modeling framework, which considers operational circumstances of component, is …

Human Capital Management Within The Federal Government Utilizing Generational Stratification With A Focus On Generation Y, Ian Nathaniel Barford

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

With many individuals in the Baby Boomer generation eligible to retire, many open positions will need to be filled by other Baby Boomers, or those from Generation X or Generation Y. Private industry has taken note of this and has been exploring workplace differences between Generation Y, Generation X, and Baby Boomers. Unfortunately for the federal government, data shows Generation Y is also separating; specifically quitting for unknown reasons. Understanding this apparent dichotomy between Generation Y and Generation X and Baby Boomer federal government employees is a current knowledge gap within the federal government's strategic human capital management focus.

From …

A Production Planning System For A Lubricating Oil Production Company, Panisorn Saerevatanawoot

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

The objective of this research is to develop a production planning system for a lubricating oil company. The company is facing a problem of excessive inventory of finished goods and packaging materials resulting from the minimum stock levels that were established by its customer. The scope of the system covers class A products, consisting of 14 of 45 products in the company, and their packaging materials. The causes of the inventory problem were brainstormed with the use of Cause-and-Effect Diagram, then the Cause-and-Effect Matrix was used to identify potential root causes. It was concluded that master production schedule (MPS) of …

Scheduling In A Textile Dyeing Factory, Nattakarn Uttamapinant

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

The objective of this research is to develop a scheduling system for a textile dyeing factory in order to reduce production lead time and late deliveries. The factory has 9 un-identical groups of machines with capacities ranging from 10 kg to 800 kg. On average, it processes 140 jobs per week. It has a problem of late delivery caused by jobs that have different fabrics to be dyed to the same colors and must be dyed together in the same dyeing machine. Scheduling these jobs is complicated because a large portion of them will need re-dyeing and it is not …

Efficiency Improvement Of Picking Process At An Automotive Parts Retailer Warehouse, Phunyisa Saerevatanawoot

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

The objective of this research is to improve efficiency of picking process to meet customer expectation, hence, increase customer satisfaction and trust. This research proposes three phases of methodology, which are define, propose and implement phase, to increase efficiency of picking process by controlling and minimising picking time. Define phase describes warehouse picking process activities and procedures and defines problems and their effects. Key performance indices are brainstormed based on the problems to identify factors that are able to indicate level of picking process efficiency. In propose phase, customer behaviours, customer types, and time expectations are observed. Opportunities for improvement …

Determination Of Interconnection Rate For Thailand's Mobile Telecommunication Industry, Thanoot Yamajinda

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

Relatively high and unbalanced level of termination rates can cause conflict between operators, and create burden for the consumers. It is within the regulator’s responsibility to step in and intervene with the situation. This thesis aims to find an appropriate solution to determine the mobile interconnection rate of Thailand. The calculation utilized a bottom-up cost model developed with modern efficient operation assumption. Three possible costing approaches, i.e. Long Run Incremental Cost (LRIC), Long Run Average Incremental Cost (LRAIC), and Long Run Average Incremental Cost Plus (LRAIC+) were studied. LRAIC+ was chosen as the standard basis for the calculation framework to …

Production Process Improvement For The Marinated Pork Factory, Patcharaporn Musuwan

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

A marinated pork manufacturing company of Thailand has been wanting to expand its sales channels by moving its marinated pork products from solely lower market sales channel into Thailand’s hypermarket in order to attract more customer target groups. To do so, the company needed to adapt all Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) standards in its factories and become GMP certified by Thailand’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to satisfy the requirement of most popular hyper markets in Thailand. The aim of this thesis is to implement solutions that would help this marinated pork company achieve GMP standards and improve its production …

E-Quality Control Using 3d Reconstruction And 3d Measurement, Jun Zheng

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Recently more and more industrial applications use image acquisition to improve product manufacturing. The observed growth in the last few years is mainly due to the great advances in acquisition devices which are now affordable for more industrialists. Moreover, the increasing demands in the quality requirements of the products are a great stimulus to apply vision tools which allow a better understanding of the impact of the manufacturing process on the product quality. Vision tools have been used in many industrial fields. But the traditional 2D vision is not as reliable as 3D measurement due to the limitations of the …

Human System Engineering Applications From Distracted Driving Simulations, Holly A.H. Handley, Cansu Kandemir, S. Long (Ed.), E.-H. Ng (Ed.), C. Downing (Ed.)

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

Most of the studies to explore the impact of distracted driving have been descriptive in nature; i.e. the research is conducted in naturalistic settings to evaluate the performance of the driver with and without distracters. However simulation models can also be used that predict the workload for driving tasks. Using concepts from process modeling, baseline models of driving tasks can be created for different driving sequences that include the associated fine motor, visual and cognitive human resources. These models can then be used to evaluate incidents of workload overload caused by different distracters, from both the internal and external vehicle …

A Framework For Workforce Management An Agent Based Simulation Approach, Mario Marin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In today's advanced technology world, enterprises are in a constant state of competition. As the intensity of competition increases the need to continuously improve organizational performance has never been greater. Managers at all levels must be on a constant quest for finding ways to maximize their enterprises' strategic resources. Enterprises can develop sustained competitiveness only if their activities create value in unique ways. There should be an emphasis to transfer this competitiveness to the resources it has on hand and the resources it can develop to be used in this environment. The significance of human capital is even greater now, …

Where Are The People? The Human Viewpoint Approach For Architecting And Acquisition, Holly A. H. Handley, Beverly G. Knapp, Defense Acquisition Univ Ft Belvoir Va

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

The U.S. Department of Defense Architecture Framework (DoDAF) provides a standard framework for transforming systems concepts into a consistent set of products containing the elements and relationships required to represent a complex operational system. However, without a human perspective, the current DoDAF does not account for the human performance aspects needed to calculate the human contribution to system effectiveness and cost. The Human Viewpoint gives systems engineers additional tools to integrate human considerations into systems development by facilitating identification and collection of human-focused data. It provides a way to include Human Systems Integration (HSI) constructs into mainstream acquisition and systems …

Lean Fire Management: A Focused Analysis Of The Incident Command System Based On Toyota Production System Principles, Jeremiah S. Fugate

Theses and Dissertations--Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

A primary role of the Incident Command System is to learn from past incidents, as illustrated by its origins in the wildland firefighting community. Successful emergency response operations under the Incident Command System has prompted its nationwide spread, this promulgation critically relies on the system’s capability to stabilize and continuously improve various aspects of emergency response through effective organizational learning. The objective of this study is to evaluate the potential to apply fundamental principles of the Toyota Production System (Lean manufacturing) to improve learning effectiveness within the Incident Command System. An in-depth review of literature and training documents regarding both …

Stochastic Optimization For Integrated Energy System With Reliability Improvement Using Decomposition Algorithm, Yuping Huang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As energy demands increase and energy resources change, the traditional energy system has been upgraded and reconstructed for human society development and sustainability. Considerable studies have been conducted in energy expansion planning and electricity generation operations by mainly considering the integration of traditional fossil fuel generation with renewable generation. Because the energy market is full of uncertainty, we realize that these uncertainties have continuously challenged market design and operations, even a national energy policy. In fact, only a few considerations were given to the optimization of energy expansion and generation taking into account the variability and uncertainty of energy supply …

A Curricula Assessment And Improvement Quantitative Model For Higher Education: A Design For Six Sigma Methodology, Abdullah Halawany

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Curricula assessment is an integrated process to assist higher education institutions in addressing the challenges in a designated field of study and in exploring the opportunities to better educate and prepare their students for an increasingly complex world. Although assessment as a topic has been researched extensively, there has been a lack of quantitative tools that address the requirements of many of the stakeholders that may be critical to the curriculum design and assessment processes. This research proposes the utilization of Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) to develop a quantitative model for curriculum assessment and improvement for higher education institutions. …

Cost-Sensitive Learning-Based Methods For Imbalanced Classification Problems With Applications, Talayeh Razzaghi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Analysis and predictive modeling of massive datasets is an extremely significant problem that arises in many practical applications. The task of predictive modeling becomes even more challenging when data are imperfect or uncertain. The real data are frequently affected by outliers, uncertain labels, and uneven distribution of classes (imbalanced data). Such uncertainties create bias and make predictive modeling an even more difficult task. In the present work, we introduce a cost-sensitive learning method (CSL) to deal with the classification of imperfect data. Typically, most traditional approaches for classification demonstrate poor performance in an environment with imperfect data. We propose the …

A Holistic Framework For Transitional Management, Ahmed Elattar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

For all business organizations, there comes a time when a change must take place within their eco-system. It consumes a great deal of thought and planning to ensure that the right decision is made as it could alter the entire course of their business for a number of years to come. This change may appear in the form of a brilliant CEO reaching the age of retirement, or an unsuccessful Managing Director being asked to leave before fulfilling the term of her contract. Regardless of the cause, a transition must occur in which a suitable successor is chosen and put …

Assessing Safety Culture Among Pilots In Saudi Airlines: A Quantitative Study Approach, Mohammad Alsowayigh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In high- risk industries, such as aviation, safety is a key for organization survivor. Most accidents involve human losses and bring substantial cost to organizations. Accidents can devastate the reputation and profitability of any organization. In aviation, more than 80% of aircraft accidents are related to human errors. Safety culture has substantial impact on the success of any organization. Employees' performance and behaviors are influenced by their perception of safety culture within their organization. In the aviation industry, pilots are considered the last resort to prevent accidents or mishaps in the air or ground. The focus on pilots' perception of …

A Framework For Measuring And Analyzing Customer Satisfaction At Computer Service Company Using Lean Six Sigma, Mohammed Abboodi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The computer service industry has been expanding dramatically due to the increase in the number of computing machineries in the last two decades. The entrance of large size companies in the market and the release of online tools that have the ability for diagnosing and troubleshooting hardware and software issues have boosted the competition. In the meantime, many of the small and medium size companies find themselves unable to keep their customers satisfied since their competitors provide high quality service with lower cost. The lack of a good measurement system to assess and analyze the satisfaction level with the provided …

Characterization Of The Relationship Between Firms And Universities And Innovation Performance: The Case Of Colombian Firms, Fredy Gomez, Tugrul U. Daim, Jorge Robledo

Engineering and Technology Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Within the National Innovation System, universities play a key role as the main source of knowledge that supports national productivity and as a system that seeks to improve the competitiveness of firms competitiveness and to find answers concerning market needs in today’s fast-changing and globalized economy. Innovation, as a source of competitiveness, is normally supported by a firm’s technological capabilities: internal R&D, external collaborative agreements, and relationships with universities. This study uses a cluster analysis to identify three clusters that represent respectively those firms that interact closely with universities for technology development (which include R&D projects) and technological learning activities, …

Decision Making Model For Foreign Object Debris/Damage (Fod) Elimination In Aeronautics Using Quantitative Modeling Approach, Jose Jaime Lafon

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

(FOD) Foreign Object Debris/Damage has been a costly issue for the commercial and military aircraft manufacturers at their production lines every day. FOD can put pilots, passengers and other crews' lives into high-risk. FOD refers to any type of foreign object, particle, debris or agent in the manufacturing environment, which could contaminate/damage the product or otherwise undermine quality standards. Nowadays, FOD is currently addressed with prevention programs, elimination techniques, and designation of FOD areas, controlled access to FOD areas, restrictions of personal items entering designated areas, tool accountability, etc. All of the efforts mentioned before, have not shown a significant …

Part Detection And Classification Using Integrated Machine Vision And Knowledge Based Expert System, Cristian Giovanni Lopez Ulloa

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Manufacturing cost is a topic of interest in the automotive manufacturing industry. Even though rework and repair methods are acceptable processes in manufacturing, there is little investigation done on the classification and cost parameters of a repairable or re-workable part. Having a non-conforming part indicates a loss in revenue to a manufacturing company, thus the need to repair or rework the part. Repair and rework processes take non-conforming products of a manufacturing line and bring the parts back to conforming stage. In this study, the proposed system establishes a connection between detection of defects, classification of them based on defect …

Structure Health Monitoring (Shm) System Trade Space Analysis, Salman A. Albinali, David R. Jacques

Faculty Publications

An analytic approach to exploring the tradespace associated with Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) systems is presented. Modeling and simulation of the life cycle of a legacy aircraft and the expected operational and maintenance events that could occur is shown. A focus on the SHM system detection of a significant crack length and the possibility of False Alarm (FA), miss detection and mishap events is investigated. The modeling approach allows researchers to explore the tradespace associated with safe and critical crack lengths, sensor thresholds, scheduled maintenance intervals, falsely triggered maintenance actions, and mishaps due to missed detections. As one might expect, …

Neuromodulation Based Control Of Autonomous Robots On A Cloud Computing Platform, Cameron Muhammad

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

In recent years, the advancement of neurobiologically plausible models and computer networking has resulted in new ways of implementing control systems on robotic platforms. The work presents a control approach based on vertebrate neuromodulation and its implementation on autonomous robots in the open-source, open-access environment of robot operating system (ROS). A spiking neural network (SNN) is used to model the neuromodulatory function for generating context based behavioral responses of the robots to sensory input signals. The neural network incorporates three types of neurons- cholinergic and noradrenergic (ACh/NE) neurons for attention focusing and action selection, dopaminergic (DA) neurons for rewards- and …

Quantifying Economic Benefits For Rail Infrastructure Projects, Akhilesh Ojha

Masters Theses

"Investment in rail infrastructure is necessary to maintain existing service and to cater for future growth in freight and passenger services. Many communities have realized the importance of investment in rail infrastructure projects and set up goals and visions to achieve economic development through investing in such projects. Due to limited funds available, communities have to select a single or very few projects from a variety of projects. It is very critical that right projects must be selected at the right time for a community to realize economic development. The limited methods for quantifying the economic benefits to the stakeholders …

Hedge Fund Replication Using A Strategy Specific Modeling Approach, Sujit Subhash

Masters Theses

"Institutional investors and wealthy individuals have in the past allocated a significant portion of their portfolios to hedge funds with the expectation of unconditional and uncorrelated returns to the market. However, the financial crisis of 2008 has heightened investor sensitivity to the high fees, illiquidity, and lockup periods typically associated with hedge funds. Hedge fund indexes showing excellent returns and low volatility contain funds that are closed to new investments, while the performance of investable funds have been shown to be inferior to their non-investable counterparts. The lack of transparency and extreme variation in the performance of hedge funds make …

Economic And Environmental Comparison Of Different Ordering Policies For An Integrated Inventory Control And Supplier Selection Problem, Sepideh Almasi Monfared

Masters Theses

"This study analyzes an integrated inventory control and supplier selection problem in stochastic demand environment under carbon emissions regulations. In particular, a continuous review inventory model with multiple suppliers is investigated under carbon taxing and carbon trading regulations. We analyze and compare the optimal supplier selection and order splitting decisions with single sourcing and two alternative delivery structures for multi-sourcing, namely, sequential ordering and sequential delivery. For each of the three ordering policies, a solution method is proposed and these policies are compared in terms of their economic as well as environmental performances. A numerical study is conducted to demonstrate …

Relaxation Adaptive Memory Programming For The Resource Constrained Project Scheduling Problem, Robert Christopher-Lee Riley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The resource constrained project scheduling problem (RCPSP) is one of the most intractable problems in operations research; it is NP-hard in the strong sense. Due to the hardness of the problem, exact solution methods can only tackle instances of relatively small size. For larger instances commonly found in real applications heuristic solution methods are necessary to find near-optimal solutions within acceptable computation time limits. In this study algorithms based on the relaxation adaptive memory programming (RAMP) method (Rego, 2005) are developed for the purpose of solving the RCPSP. The RAMP algorithms developed here combine mathematical relaxation, including Lagrangian relaxation and …

Injury Prevention With Physical Therapy, Karen Kott, Margaret F. Lemaster

Rehabilitation Sciences Faculty Publications

(First paragraph) Ergonomics is the study of human performance (positioning and movement) and workplace design, such as equipment, ambience, and placement. The purpose of ergonomics is to maximize productivity by increasing safety, improving work quality, reducing operator fatigue and discomfort, and decreasing the risk of work -related musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs).^1-3