Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering Commons^™

Reducing Selection Bias In Case-Control Studies From Rare Disease Registries, J. Alexander Cole, John S. Taylor, Thomas N. Hangartner, Neal J. Weinreb, Pramod K. Mistry, Aneal Khan

Biomedical, Industrial & Human Factors Engineering Faculty Publications

Background: In clinical research of rare diseases, where small patient numbers and disease heterogeneity limit study design options, registries are a valuable resource for demographic and outcome information. However, in contrast to prospective, randomized clinical trials, the observational design of registries is prone to introduce selection bias and negatively impact the validity of data analyses. The objective of the study was to demonstrate the utility of case-control matching and the risk-set method in order to control bias in data from a rare disease registry. Data from the International Collaborative Gaucher Group (ICGG) Gaucher Registry were used as an example.

Methods: …

Characterization Of Key Process Parameters In Injection Blow Molding For Improving Quality, Aspen D'Costa

Online Journal for Workforce Education and Development

The purpose of this study was to discover the performance of significant process parameters in manufacturing 20 oz. plastic beverage bottles. An experimental methodology was carefully designed to examine the characteristics of key variables such as ambient and operating temperatures, process line operators, resin types, resin colors and operating lines associated with a plastic bottle manufacturing line. More explicitly, this study seeks to identify the definitive relationship between the selected process parameters for the production machine (Sidel™) and the ensuing product quality. Also, this study was conducted to evaluate the performance characteristics of Post Consumer Resin (PCR), virgin resin and …

The Effects Of Weather Recognition Training On General Aviation Pilot Situation Assessment And Tactical Decision Making When Confronted With Adverse Weather Conditions, Chansik Kim

All Dissertations

Previous general aviation (GA) accident studies showed that decision errors were more associated with fatal GA accidents than other kinds of human errors, and weather related accidents, especially continued visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC), remained the major cause of fatal GA accidents. Thus, finding the underlying causes of GA pilots' decision errors and continued VFR flight into adverse weather conditions are needed to reduce weather related GA accidents as well as fatal GA accidents.
Causal factors and hypotheses of weather related GA accidents show that knowledge, experience, motivation, and weather information frequently have been referred …

Metaheuristics For Hub Location Models, Ornurai Sangsawang

All Dissertations

In this research, we propose metaheuristics for solving two p-hub median problems.. The first p-hub median problem, which is NP-hard, is the uncapacitated single p-hub median problem (USApHMP). In this problem, metaheuristics such as genetic algorithms, simulated annealing and tabu search, are applied in different types of representations. Caching is also
applied to speed up computational time of the algorithms. The results clearly demonstrate that tabu search with a permutation solution representation, augmented with caching is the highest performing method, both in terms of solution quality and computational time among these algorithms for the USApHMP. We also investigate the performance …

Anticipating U.S. Population-Level Health And Economic Impacts Using Discrete-Event Simulation To Guide Health Policy Decisions, Odette Reifsnider

All Dissertations

This dissertation presents two applications of discrete-event simulation (DES) to represent clinical processes: (1) a model to quantify the risk of the maternal obese and diabetic intrauterine environment influence on progression to adult obesity and diabetes, and (2) a model to evaluate health and economic outcomes of different smoking cessation strategies. The first application considers the public health impact of the diabetic and obese intrauterine environment's effect on the prevalence of diabetes and obesity across subsequent generations. We first develop a preliminary DES model to investigate and characterize the epidemiology of diabetes during pregnancy and birth outcomes related to maternal …

Improving Quality Of Service In Ems Systems By Reducing Disparities Between Service Zones, Sunarin Chanta

All Dissertations

Emergency medical service (EMS) systems respond to emergency or urgent calls so as to provide immediate care, such as pre-hospital care and/or transportation, to hospitals. Care must be provided in a timely manner; in fact quality of service is usually directly associated with response time. To reduce the response time, the number and location of vehicles within the service area are important variables. However with limited capacity, increasing the number of vehicles is often an infeasible alternative. Therefore, a critical design goal is to decide at which facilities stations should be located in order to serve as much demand as …

Applying Inventory Control Practices Within The Sisters Of Mercy Health Care Supply Chain, Server Apras

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research lays a foundation for the better understanding of the application and acceptance of more advanced inventory control practices within the health care supply chain. The demand characteristics and optimal control policies for pharmaceutical items within a multi-echelon provider network are examined within the framework of a case study. Demand forecasting algorithms were applied to forecast demand for inventory control procedures. A spreadsheet-based inventory planning tool was used to minimize the inventory holding and ordering costs subject to fill rate constraints. The costs of inventory control models are compared to the current ordering and inventory control strategies to document …

Influence Of Process Parameters On Health Outcome, Vijaya K. Musunuru

Department of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In the recent years, healthcare organizations have realized that quality in providing service is critical for their survival in this competitive world. This increased attention to service quality has forced many health care providers to reevaluate their systems to stay in business. The main purpose of this study is to test the hypothesis “Process Quality predicts the Product quality (patient satisfaction) in the healthcare domain”. The objective of this study was three- fold. The first objective is to analyze historical data both on patient satisfaction and on provider attributes to yield process parameters for a particular area in a hospital. …

Evaluating The Capacity Of A Proton Therapy Facility, Ridvan Gedik

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A relatively new consideration in proton therapy planning is the requirement that the mix of patients treated satisfy desired percentages. Since it is very dicult to satisfy an integer number of patients in light of these requirements, deviations from patient mix preferences and their impacts on operational capabilities are of particular interest to healthcare planners. Therefore, we propose a bicriteria mathematical programming model that determines an outpatient schedule maximizing the number of fractions and minimizing the deviations from the patient mix ratios over the planning horizon. The tradeos between the two objectives are identied through analysis of ecient frontiers. Our …

An Empirical Investigation Of Supply Chain Excellence In Healthcare, Brian Keith Smith

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research is motivated by opportunities to improve the cost and quality of healthcare delivery through improved supply chain processes. This research assesses the quality of the healthcare supply chain and identifies factors that are driving supply chain excellence among organizations in the healthcare industry. The first objective of this research is to assess the state of quality measurement in the healthcare supply chain. The achievement of this first objective is presented in Chapter 3 of this dissertation in the form of a manuscript accepted for publication in The Quality Management Journal. The second research objective is to develop …

The Inside-Out Classroom: A Win-Win Strategy For Teaching With Technology, Daniel J. Waldorf, Lizabeth Schlemer

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

As costs of higher education soar and many universities face uncertain funding models, institutional pressures have increased to improve instructor efficiency. At the same time, U.S. industry leaders and leading educators have called for improvements in engineering education based on more interactive, hands-on student learning experiences. Although many efforts have been made to take advantage of technology to either improve student learning or to maintain student learning while increasing instructor efficiency, few approaches have been shown to improve both learning and efficiency. A teaching method is proposed to improve student learning and increase student satisfaction while also addressing the instructors’ …

Evolving A Summer Engineering Camp Through Assessment, Katherine Chen, Lizabeth Schlemer, Heather Scott Smith, Teana Fredeen

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

EPIC (Engineering Possibilities in College) is a one-week summer program for high school students (entering 9th-12th grades) to learn about engineering and experience hands-on labs in a university atmosphere. It's an opportunity for students to explore the different types of engineering available at many universities. The aim of EPIC is to expand the College of Engineering mission to K-12 students: "To educate students for careers of service, leadership and distinction in engineering or other fields by using a participatory, learn by doing, ‘hands-on’ approach".

Design Projects With Out-Of-Town Companies, Lizabeth Schlemer

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The capstone design class in the industrial engineering department at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly) includes projects with companies. The projects are large ambiguous facilities design problems that allow students to incorporate many aspects of the IE curriculum. For the past 15 years students have been participating in these projects with local companies. Over the past several years, companies from out of town (200 miles to the north in Mountain View or 200 miles to the south in Oxnard) have participated. These out of town companies have presented certain logistical issues, but they have proven to …

Microfiche Digitization And Process Improvement For Cal Poly Senior Projects, Kyle Gaunt

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

This project addresses the need to digitize Senior Projects available on microfiche at the Cal Poly Robert E. Kennedy Library. Microfiche is an outdated document archival medium and is unfamiliar to most students, making Senior Project research inconvenient and frustrating to students. To make this process easier and more accessible to students, the University Library should consider digitizing its Senior Project collection and improving the current system in the mean time.

The Six Sigma DMAIC method was used to discover root cause problems of the current system, define performance metrics, and to develop data driven solutions for improving the current …

Radio Frequency Identification Classroom Management System, Andrew W. Wright

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Professors who manage large classes are unrealistically expected to grade each student fairly and accurately. Even with all of the technological advancements that have occurred in the past thirty years, very little progress has been made in classroom management, and as a result, professors are not equipped with enough tools to successfully manage large class sizes. Because radio frequency identification (RFID) technology is making its way into student issued identification cards, there is an opportunity to use it as a tool to aid professors in the classroom. The focus of this paper is to discover an effective system that can …

Setup Reduction Time At A Batch Manufacturing Plant, Mario A. Aguilar

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

This project documents the efforts to reduce setup times at a batch manufacturing culture media production plant. The company is one of the leading producers in medical and laboratory supplies, including culture media. In the production of culture media, the production line requires to switch between solutions once or twice a day depending on the production schedule.

The report provides the production plant with a concrete analysis of their current changeover method, which tends to be lengthy and complicated, and suggest alternatives in short and long term periods of time to reduce setup time.

After analyzing the time studies of …

Ms Access Database Designed For Community Service Office, Juan P. Ojeda Pedraza

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The purpose of this senior project is to reduce the number of data entry errors in the community service worker system at the EcoSLO office. EcoSLO is a community service office located in San Luis Obispo, CA that seeks to better the environment through various events and programs such as recycling projects and environmental clean-up projects. Currently the EcoSLO office uses Microsoft Excel to store and keep track of community service workers. A Microsoft Access database will be designed to help minimize data entry errors and to make it easier to generate reports that must be submitted to the San …

A Database Design For Cvs Pharmacy's Patterson, California Distribution Center, Jason Kenneth Okajima

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

CVS Pharmacy’s Patterson, California Distribution Center did not have an efficient and cost effective method for auditing shipped out products. The purpose of this project was to create a new system and procedure for the Patterson Distribution Center to audit shipped out container totes. The distribution center’s original method was slow, inefficient, and involved paper waste, considerable travel time, and several manual procedures. This project was meant to develop a new process and database system to provide a solution to their problem. The end goal of this project was to implement the designed method and system of auditing for daily …

Antique Aircraft Avionics Modernization: Process And System Design For A Transponder Installation In A 1946 Luscombe 8a, Nicholas Camacho

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The general aviation population is full of vintage aircraft. Built in the heyday of personal aviation, these machines embody the spirit of aviation; freedom afforded from the everyday monotony of earthbound people. As technology advanced and air traffic became more congested, new requirements were set forth by governing bodies to ensure the safety of aircraft. These regulations limited the capability of vintage general aviation aircraft. This report was commenced to understand the necessary steps required to add modern technology to old aircraft, as well as design a system that would enhance the capability of vintage aircraft while keeping their antique …

Chevrolet Upper Control Arm Re-Design, Christopher Mclean

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The purpose of this project is to design and manufacture an improved upper control arm for a 1988-1998 Chevrolet K2500 truck. This component controls the suspension of a vehicle and will be redesigned to improve the many shortcomings of the current design. The objectives of this project were met by redesigning the stock upper control arm, designing and manufacturing a weld fixture, manufacturing a prototype component, and performing a cost analysis. This component was designed to improve performance, reliability, serviceability and strength while maximizing manufacturability. The fixture and upper control arm were manufactured using computer aided design, CNC methods and …

San Luis Obispo Public Winery Transit System, Amanda Crissman

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

This project designs a small scale transit system that runs between five wineries in San Luis Obispo. San Luis Obispo County is known for its many wineries ranging up and down the central coast. Transportation options for wine tasters are limited to tour bus, limousine, taxi, and private cars. This does not leave an option for wine tasters who prefer a cheaper mode of transportation than limo, tour bus, or taxis, and do not want the hassle of driving and worrying about how much alcohol they consume. Selection criteria methods were used to choose bus stop locations at a specified …

Warehouse Design For Polygait, Colby Spear

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Professor Tali Freed, advisor of POLY GAIT, needs a warehouse built to accommodate the testing of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology with Automatic Storage and Retrieval Systems (AS/RS). This report explores a 5-step warehouse designing technique. The five steps are as follows: Overall Structure, Sizing and Dimensioning, Operation Strategy Selection, Equipment Selection, and Department Layout. Each of these is analyzed in turn to cover everything necessary in designing a warehouse. Furthermore, a cost analysis was conducted in order to give Professor Freed a better understanding on the cost required to build this warehouse. A smaller 25’x22’ foot is optimal because …

Preference-Driven Assignment Decision-Support System For Multiple Sets Of Pairs, Stephen J. Gilmore

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

This project focuses on designing a computerized decision support system (DSS) to assist the Cal Poly Alumni Association with scheduling their Mustang Mentoring day. The current scheduling process is time intensive, error prone, and does not consider student preferences. The decision support system optimally generates multiple sets of pairs of students and mentors and schedules them avoiding conflicts and duplicates. The system was developed in Microsoft Excel using its Solver add-in. Excel was selected as the system platform also because of its relative popularity compared to alternative platforms. The DSS utilizes integer linear programming to maximize the total student satisfaction …

Technological Advancement For Vehicles Operable By The Visually Impaired, Heather L. Brown

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

This senior project aims to provide blind persons with the ability to effectively experience driving. This report includes the project background, literature review, designs, methodologies, results, and conclusions with project management, human factors engineering, and electronic manufacturing focuses. Other universities and professionals have accepted the Blind Driver Challenge presented by the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) or studied systems to improve vehicle feedback. The Virginia Tech vehicle, named "Odin", includes tactile and audio interfaces in order to relay information to a blind driver about vehicle heading and speed. The QFD results reveal that the amount of available information from …

The Analysis Of Electure Creation & Distribution Systems At Cal Poly, Jason Carian

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

This report details the analysis of potential eLecture creation and distributions for Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Specifically, this project will focus on a system for the College of Engineering. This project was completed using the Systems Engineering process and concentrated more specifically on the Systems Evaluation phase, in which the specifics for potential system solutions are discussed. The first step was to define the problem that must be addressed; Cal Poly currently uses eLectures in the classroom, but with the wide variety of eLecture creator and distribution alternatives available, there is no optimal system at the University. The next …

Parker Aerospace Fluid Systems Division Product Support Facility Redesign, Sean Walker

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

With growing popularity for commercial air travel and aerial military operations comes an increase in demand for innovative, technological solutions of aircraft system components. As OEM sales of these components rise, this creates a burden on the aftermarket side of the business when these parts and systems require service in order to continue functioning properly. Parker Aerospace, Fluid Systems Division, and its Product Support Team are experiencing this growth burden and want to reconfigure necessary means within the layout to succeed in accommodating new program areas on the aftermarket side. During this process, cost reduction opportunities will be explored and …

Human Factor And Ergonomic Considerations And Improvements For A Table-Free Card Game Product, Enrique Daniel Aguirre

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The purpose of this project is to design a table-free Yu-Gi-Oh! Card Game product that will make the transition of said game from table to user more fluid and intuitive, improving on past designs in the process. Despite there currently being many similar products in the market, there has not yet been one that adequately fulfills game requirements and comfortably adapts to the range of players associated with the game. Taking ergonomic and human factor considerations into account during the development of the design, a prototype was created as part of this project that was subsequently tested against a past …

Flexi-Focus Lens: Pdms Variable Focal Length Lens, Patrick Angulo, Alex Doyle, Dylan Mcdaniel, Michael Olivarez

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The design of a variable focal length, or flexi-focus, polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) lens incorporating a light emitting diode (LED) source is intended for future use on board commercial aircraft. Specifically, the design is intended for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft, serving as a personal reading light for the passengers seated in the cabin. Most current reading lights on board aircraft are rigid, incandescent, and have very limited freedom in terms of adjusting the emitted light. Incandescent lamps are also inefficient with respect to energy consumption and light output as well as a high heat output. In an economy of increasing demand …

Quality Of Life Plus (Ql+) 2011 Rideable Tour, Daniel J. Pelisek

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Quality of Life Plus (QL+) does important work supporting members of the United States armed forces. Without significant funding, it is unlikely they could continue doing that work. Our goal was to hold a charity bike ride, the 2011 QL+ RideABLE Tour, to help them raise the funds they need. We approached the ride from two different perspectives, event planning and project management, with the hope that the two approaches could work in synergy towards a successful event. The project management approach focused on industrial engineering tools like work breakdown structures (WBS), cost analysis, and risk assessment. The goal was …

Continuous Improvement Efforts In J. Carrol's Screen Printing Process, Millan Arellano

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The following report details the analysis and procedure taken not only to determine the issues limiting J. Carroll’s screen printing capacity, but also provides the solutions necessary to address these issues. The report addresses one crucial operation in the screen printing process, changeovers, which contribute to roughly 24% of the screen printing process time and more than any other operation in the screen printing process. Within the changeover operation two specific tasks appear to be plaguing long changeover times: they are test print and design approval. The report elaborates on the Fishbone Diagrams utilized to bring up the potential causes …