Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering Commons^™

Process Improvement For The Department Of Surgery Sierra Vista Medical Center, Jessica Paz

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

This report proposes and analyzes process improvement methods for the Surgical Services Department at Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center. The department currently operates with an average of 25% of elective cases starting on time. This can be attributed to a number of inefficiencies that occur throughout the hospital.

The following Industrial Engineering methods were utilized to improve patient flow:  creation of a data collection system to quantify delays  use of simulation and facility redesign techniques to determine feasibility and benefits of moving towards a surgical center model  development of a user interfaced database to record and analyze …

Police Operations Simulation, Robert Mcgee

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

In this report, the author explains the process of creating the Police Operations Simulation, shows step-by-step how it works, and statistically analyzes the results from SLOPD’s own proposed and current schedules. The data-gathering from the department and the simulation itself will receive the bulk of the coverage in this report, followed by sample results from SLOPD and a business plan for future sale to other departments.

Using the given numbers, it appears that the proposed schedule will result in significantly improved coverage for the city of San Luis Obispo. While any increase in the number officers on patrol tends to …

Laser Clean Room Re-Design: A Manufacturing Facility Re-Layout, Jennifer J. Siu

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Alcon’s Laser Clean Room fosters inefficient production practices, is outdated for its current process, and lacking in clear process/product flow. A facility re-design is applied to bring order, efficiency, and optimize flow in the laser production lines.

Deliverables include a new layout that decreases product travel distances and increases productivity as well as an implementation plan and cost/savings analysis. Major design decisions include downsizing the clean room, sorting to find waste and establishing clear process/product flows. The design was implemented within three weeks and results yield 29% reduction of product travel distance, 10.4 hrs/day saved from eliminated gowning time and …

Cable Time Estimation Database, Joshua L. Okerman

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The use of time standards are the basis for a high efficiency system in the manufacturing environment. This project will investigate the process followed to design and develop a database used to calculate accurate cable assembly time standards used for scheduling at General Atomics. This project will then justify the use of the Cable Time Estimation Database, through an economic analysis compared to the current methods applied.

Preference Driven University Course Scheduling System, Heather A. Bellardo

Master's Theses

University course planning and scheduling is the process of determining what courses to offer, how many sections are needed, determining the best term to offer each section, assigning a faculty member to instruct each section, and scheduling each section to a timeslot to avoid conflicts. The result of this task has an impact on every student and faculty member in the department. The process is typically broken down into three major phases: course offering planning, faculty assignment to planned course sections, and course scheduling into timeslots.

This thesis looks at each of these phases for the Industrial and Manufacturing department …

Screen Printing Scheduling Methodology, Brandon Wolfe, Kyle Naylor

Graphic Communication

As the shift towards offshore business within the screen printing industry increases, American businesses must find a way to remain competitive. Due to manufacturing costs and regulation it is impossible for Americans to compete with the low per unit cost of foreign suppliers. By decreasing the time to market, American businesses will be able to remain competitive and recover lost business. In order to achieve this, a flexible scheduling model must be developed in order to increase throughput of a production process. This model serves to account for variables and variances that occur within the screen printing process, allowing for …

Application Of Satellite-Derived Wind Profiles To Joint Precision Airdrop System (Jpads) Operations, David C. Meier

Theses and Dissertations

The Joint Precision Airdrop System has revolutionized military airdrop capability, allowing accurate delivery of equipment and supplies to smaller drop zones, from higher altitudes than was previously possible. This capability depends on accurate wind data which is currently provided by a combination of high-resolution forecast models and GPS dropsondes released in the vicinity of the dropzone shortly before the airdrop. This research develops a windprofiling algorithm to derive the needed wind data from passive IR satellite soundings, eliminating the requirement for a hazardous dropsonde pass near the drop zone, or allowing the dropsonde to be dropped farther from the dropzone. …

Axle Assembly Takt Time Change, Punit Shivji

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The Toyota managed New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. automotive plant is currently going through difficult economic times. To prepare for future production demands, the plant will need to decrease production output and maintain a lower volume of vehicles produced with a high level of quality and efficiency. This project will take on the reorganization of the rear axle assembly lines and the departments that are involved to ensure a cost effective, efficient, and safe approach in manufacturing Toyota's Tacomas. Toyota recommends the Toyota production system as well as any knowledge and experience obtained from previous jobs and coursework to be …

Decision Analysis Tool For Appropriate Water Treatment Technologies In Improverished Villages, Conner David Johnston

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

No abstract provided.

Funeral Services Marketing Interface To Enhance Customer Service And Overall Productivity, Alyssa R. Habing

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Customer satisfaction is the ultimate goal of any business regardless of the industry it resides in; it’s the sole driver of a company’s productivity levels and overall success within the market. Although numb to most market fluctuations, the funeral industry needs to reinvent their business strategies continuously in order to increase their market share. It’s especially important for smaller funeral homes across the world to take this idea to another level in order to stay competitive with the larger, corporate establishments. In the past twenty years, the industry has grown exponentially due to more interest and popularity. The increase in …

Energy Audit And Optimization For "Arches Etc.", James Ross Dixon

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Arches etc. is a San Diego business, which specializes in the manufacture, distribution, and installation of custom designed doors, windows, mouldings, and hardware. Due to the recent economic downturn, which has hindered the construction industry, Arches etc. believed that an analysis and optimization of their energy usage would provide additional assistance towards their goal to lower overhead and maintain current operations.

To begin this task, a comprehensive energy audit was conducted to establish an initial state from which to base improvements. Arches etc.’s current monthly utility bill averages $996, which solidifies the accuracy of this project’s performed energy audit, estimating …

Recycling Made Easy: An Ergonomic Approach To Home Recycling And Trash Containers, Landon P. Boisclair

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The purpose of this project is to create an ergonomically sound recycling/trash container, with the ultimate hope of making the recycling process easier and more intuitive, thereby increasing recycling rates. Currently, while there are many recycling/trash containers available for purchase, there is no product that has a design without glaring ergonomic flaws. An ergonomic design and product prototype was created as a part of this project, and was subsequently tested against a conventional prototype model. The data collected from the experiments conducted suggests that the new ergonomic model makes the waste disposal process and the container transportation process easier, while …

Nonprofit Management Through Effective Database Utilization, Jennifer Muscat

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

This project addresses problems found within a specific department within Lifewater International. Lifewater faces many unique challenges operating as a nonprofit. Like most nonprofits, elaborate costly solutions are simply not an option when solving department problems. This project addresses three interrelated problems within Lifewater’s Development and Communications Department. The three issues addressed are Volunteer Management, Donor Management, and Project Management. Each problem was examined to determine the areas for improvement that this project can handle and solve. Each problem was given an improved design. A Volunteer Management System was designed to increase volunteer utilization and appropriately match volunteers with appropriate …

T.K. Ripper: A Multidisciplinary Group Project, Logan Hunt

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The purpose of this project is to provide solutions to objectives that require an industrial engineering (IE) background for a multidisciplinary group senior project. The group is creating a portable winch pulley, dubbed the T.K. Ripper, which will be used for extreme water sports. The group is interested in creating a business using this product, and has forecasted demand for the next three years. The objectives that were assigned from the group were a flow process chart, the cost of producing the product themselves in their own facility, the cost of producing the product if outsourced to China, how many …

Layout And Procedure Re-Design Of Dcpp Receiving Warehouse, Nicole Elizabeth Riegel

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The receiving warehouse at Diablo Canyon Power Plant, owned by Pacific Gas and Electric, serves as a place to recognize the receiving of items into an ERP system, repackage and label items for long-term storage, and organize items for delivery inside the secured area. The warehouse managers would like to redesign the layout and procedures of the warehouse. Currently items are not received, scanned, or shipped in a timely manner. The flow of people and items in the receiving and shipping area is chaotic and space is limited especially during plant outages. The objective of this project is to: • …

Ernie Ball Guitars Woodshop Facilities Redesign, Cameron Lea Schlemer

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

This report details a facilities design for Ernie Ball’s guitar and bass guitar manufacturing facility in San Luis Obispo, CA. Specifically, this project will redesign the layout for the Woodshop, the largest of the 5 manufacturing cells in the facility. This project was completed using the Systematic Layout Planning procedure and focused mostly on phase II and III in which the specifics for a layout are determined, however, space requirements were not evaluated as it was not within scope.

The first step was to develop departments in the facilities; two master departments were identified for the neck manufacturing process and …

Non-Profit Management System For Friends Of The Elephant Seal, Matthew Justus, Robert Macasi, Jeff Zinn

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Friends of the Elephant Seal (FES) are a non-profit organization based in San Simeon, California. Their current method of tracking and reporting information is inefficient. A project was proposed to develop a new information management system for FES, install it at their office and provide training including a user manual. The project was divided into three parts: Database Design and Implementation; User Interface Design and Ergonomics; and User Manual & Help System.

The objective of the project was to design a user-friendly interface specifically for the FES worker that allowed for easy access to data entry functions, reporting functions and …

Alleviation Of Spindle Transfer, Blake Ochs, Whitney Bone

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Haas Automation, Inc. is one of the largest CNC machine tool builders in the world. They produce an assortment of machines that come in many different sizes, however, all machines have in common the central tool that allows them to perform their surfacing and bore functions, the spindle. As with the machines themselves, the spindles can also range in size depending on the type of machine they are going into. These spindles are assembled step by step and as components are added to them, several models become so heavy that it is not feasible to have operators lift them by …

Design For Manufacturing Of Sports Equipment, Cedrick Bit, Christopher L. Head

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The purpose of this project was to validate industrial designs for a product in its conceptual stage and suggest/implement design changes that suit the contracting company’s needs while assuring the product maintains its basic functional requirements. Techniques and methods used to validate the design include 3‐D solid modeling, physical product application using rapid prototyping to produce the product. Methods of design for manufacturing were analyzed in the design. Processes used in the validation and verification of the design include solid modeling design, methods of measurements, fixture design and manufacturing processes. Full design specifications and solid model files were finalized and …

Digester Selection And Operation For Heybeli Island, Spencer Fackler, Joseph Violetti

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The Heybeli Digester project originated with Sema Alptekin in her personal research and was incorporated into a Senior Project opportunity at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. The aim of this project was to select and design a plan for the use of a digester for the island of Heybeli, Turkey. The objective of this plan was to incorporate economic, social, and environmental justifications to evaluate if a digester would be a benefit to the community.

Systems Engineering analysis is a vital tool when working with complicated projects that include multiple systems interfacing with one another. Through the use …

Determining A Reliability Factor For Photovoltaic's In San Luis Obispo, Ryan S. Roach

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

This project will analyze raw photovoltaic (PV) solar panel performance data in order to determine a reliability factor for solar panels in San Luis Obispo. This project is a subset of a larger project being performed by SLO RESCO, which is funded by a grant from the California Energy Commission. Their project will explore the use of solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass renewable resources. The scope of this project is limited to a small section of RESCO's analysis of solar panel technology and implementation in which a reliability factor will be generated.

The objective is to determine a reliability factor …

Application Of Radio Frequency Identification To An Asset Checkout System, Ma'ayan K. Bennaim

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a growing technology which is increasingly utilized throughout industry. This senior project identifies an RFID alternative to the checkout system in the tool crib of the Cal Poly Aero Hanger. A new database is designed and built to interface with an RFIDeas AIR enroll reader. The system realizes vast time savings in check in times and increases student accountability for the tools which are checked out by tagging tools.

The Optimal Warehouse Location For Cal Poly's Campus Dining, Robert Buie

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The Cal Poly Corporation and Campus Dining face the challenge of meeting the growth of students and dining venues on campus with the limited space capacity of their warehouse in building 19. Given a $250,000 budget, Campus Dining has an option to keep the warehouse at the current location at building 19 or moving the warehouse to building 82 off Mt. Bishop Road. Each warehouse location has its benefits as building 19 is in the center of campus and building 82 has much more shelving space than building 19. The objective of this project was to select the better choice …

Visual Representations Of Queried Database Results Using Google's Mapping Technologies, Steven Michael Kilbert

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Database queries have been used in business applications throughout the world to filter out specific information which is often used as a basis for making a decision. Despite the broad use of queries, there are only a limited number of ways to represent results, the most common being a dynaset, or results table. This paper describes the investigation of methods to create more visual representations of results using maps to show queried geospatial data. From these methods, applications were successfully developed to create customized maps in Google Earth and Google Maps based on queried geographical data from Microsoft Access databases. …

Practical Simulation Application: Evaluation Of Process Control Parameters In Twisted-Pair Cables Manufacturing System, Amr Mahfouz, Amr Arisha

Articles

Intensive competition and rapid technology development of Twisted-Pair Cables (TPC) industry have left no room for competing manufacturers to harbour system inefficiencies. TPC are used in various communication and networks hardware applications; their manufacturing facilities face many challenges including various product configurations with different equipment settings, different product flows and Work in Process (WIP) space limitations. The quest for internal efficiency and external effectiveness forces companies to align their internal settings and resources with external requirements/orders, or in different words, significant factors must be set appropriately and identified prior to manufacturing processes. Integrated definition models (IDEF0, IDEF3) in conjunction with …

The Analysis Of Rush Orders Risk In Supply Chain: A Simulation Approach, Amr Arisha, Amr Mahfouz

Conference papers

Satisfying customers by delivering demands at agreed time, with competitive prices, and in satisfactory quality level are crucial requirements for supply chain survival. Incident of risks in supply chain often causes sudden disruptions in the processes and consequently leads to customers losing their trust in a company’s competence. Rush orders are considered to be one of the main types of supply chain risks due to their negative impact on the overall performance. Using integrated definition modeling approaches (i.e. IDEF0 & IDEF3) and simulation modeling technique , a comprehensive integrated model has been developed to assess rush order risks and examine …

Simulation Optimisation Methods In Supply Chain Applications: A Review, Amr Arisha, Waleed Abo-Hamad

Articles

The competitiveness and dynamic nature of today’s marketplace is due to rapid advances in information technology, short product life cycles and the continuing trend in global outsourcing. Managing the resulting supply chain networks effectively is challenged by high levels of uncertainty in supply and demand, confl ict objectives, vagueness of information, numerous decision variables and constraints. With such levels of complexity, supply chain optimisation has the potential to make a signifi cant contribution in resolving these challenges. In this paper, a literature review – based on more than 100 peer-reviewed articles – of state-of-the-art simulation-based optimisation techniques in the context …

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 …

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 …

E.J. Gallo Winery Spirit-Makers Facility, Aaron Pickar

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

With growing demand for E.J. Gallo spirit brands, the cramped and cluttered facility allocated to the spirit-makers does not provide an adequate work environment to design and test new hard alcohols. E.J. Gallo Winery wants to relocate the spirit-makers to a new facility located near the brandy production floor for under 200,000 dollars. In order to do this, a revised systematic approach to facility design is used.

In this process, the departments are first defined, then the relationships between these departments and the space requirements are documented. Once these planning steps are complete, alternative layouts are constructed and analyzed until …