Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering Commons^™

Modeling And Analysis Of Patient Care Assistants’ Workflow, Ewing Tiong

Research and Creative Activities Poster Day

Background

While there is a considerable amount of research on medium-to-long decision support models for healthcare systems, little emphasis is placed on research that focuses on short-term operational decisions made by healthcare providers. Patient care assistants (PCAs) provide both indirect and direct patient care under the supervision of a registered nurse (RN). Main responsibilities include:

• Gathering patient data
• Assisting patients with activities of daily living (ADLs)

Single-Depot Vehicle Routing Problem For Home Delivery Of Pharmaceutical Products, Kimberly Starr Harms

Masters Theses

Some retail pharmacies offer home delivery services to establish a competitive advantage in the growing healthcare market. The handling of orders for home delivery includes several internal and external processing and transportation activities. In this work, models were developed for use in a pharmacy delivery system to assist personnel in their daily activities. This work includes standard operating procedures for picking, packing and loading of delivery orders and the assignment and routing of vehicles to deliver customer orders. Results from simulated delivery areas identified interesting tradeoffs when comparing densely populated areas to sparsely populated areas. In addition, recommendations for order …

Use Of Polymer Rapid Tools As Functional Injection Mold Tooling, Sean Derrick

Masters Theses

Conventional tool making for injection molded plastics is expensive, time consuming, and generates a great deal of waste. Presently, industry is waiting for what is commonly referred to as Rapid Tooling (RT). The greatest opportunity for RT implementation would be the use of Additively Manufacturing (AM) technology. Specifically, AM techniques which use a high strength polymer resin substrate.

The following research is an initial feasibility study to determine if Polymer Rapid Tools (PRTs) could be used as functional injection mold tooling. The objective of the research was to determine if a PRT could mold a variety of features to a …

S-Stem Scholars, A Second Generation: Support For At-Risk Upper Division And Transfer Students In Ceas, Andrew A. Kline, Betsy M. Aller

Academic Leadership Academy

Begun in 2010, the S-STEM Scholar Program increases opportunities for financially needy but academically talented students. These students:

•Are first-time, first year students •Demonstrate financial need through FAFSA applications

•Will enter a major in the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences

•Have a math ACT of 24 or above

Student awardees receive up to $3,000 per semester, and continue to receive this amount for up to eight semesters with continued academic success and progress to degree.

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

Dissertations

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

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

Dissertations

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

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

Dissertations

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

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

Development Of A Task Assignment Tool To Customize Job Descriptions And Close Person-Job Fit Gaps, Bryan W. Booker

Dissertations

Does the knowledge worker fit the job or should the job fit the knowledge worker? This research developed a methodology and a tool to customize a knowledge worker’s job design to better fit their knowledge, skills, abilities and characteristics. The research outcomes support the customization of the job design to improve person-job fit, the documentation of the customized job design as a position description, and the use of a structured person-task assignment process. The recommended task assignment process includes a job aid that uses multivariate equations to predict expected task performance. Data were collected from two knowledge worker sub-groups: lean …

A Decision Model For Nurse-To-Patient Assignment, Ilgin Acar

Dissertations

A critical consequence of the current nurse shortage in the US may be an increase in the workloads on hospital nurses. Heavy workloads have been identified as a major cause of job dissatisfaction among hospital nurses and may ultimately lead to a reduction in the quality of patient care. A focus on the balancing of the workload among scheduled nurses through patient assignments can help to alleviate the chance of assigning excessive workloads to one or more nurses during a shift. Nurse-to-patient assignment, the final stage of the nurse planning was the main intention of this study. It is reasonable …

Optimum Failure Truncated Testing Strategies, Erik Kostandyan

Dissertations

Accumulated fatigue damage on mechanical components due to random stress loads eventually causes failure. Therefore products with lower failure rates are more desirable. Testing mechanical components for their intended purpose under predetermined working conditions is a common practice used by industries to prevent failures. Fatigue tests are categorized as Time Truncated or Failure Truncated, known in the literature as Type I and Type II tests, respectively. In failure truncated tests, the mechanical components are tested until the desired number of results is obtained. The parameters of a typical failure truncated test include the capacity of the test facility, the actual …

Optimizing Green Sand Properties Of Fluidized Sand From Aeration And Developing New Green Sand Testing Technique, Ananda Mani Paudel

Dissertations

Aeration sand filling is a new molding technique in foundry. Using this technique, sand with smooth flow can be filled in any orientation and shape using low-pressure air. This is not possible by conventional gravity and high-pressure blow filling techniques. Aeration was introduced as an energy-efficient and environmentally- friendly sand molding technique. In addition, aeration has its niche on quality of molds it could produce. Friability, one of the crucial green properties for the quality mold was significantly low in aeration in comparison to the gravity and high-pressure blow filling. The fluidization action in aeration acted upon the sand clay …

Guidelines To Select A Computerized Maintenance Management System, Dattaraj Kamalapurkar

Masters Theses

In today's highly competitive global economy, maintenance personnel are presented with more difficult challenges than at any previous point in time. In order to meet these challenges, many maintenance managers tend to rely . on Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS). When properly selected and implemented, CMMS is one of the most powerful cost reduction tools in any organization. However in reality, many CMMS implementations fail rather than achieve success. While there are many contributing factors, one major factor that greatly impacts successful implementation is selecting the right CMMS system. With more than 200 CMMS systems to choose from, selecting the …

Simulating Discriminatory Profiling, Oscar Neal

Masters Theses

There is a concern that racial profiling is being used to invoke searches and stops in spite of its violation of the fourth amendment. Simulation methods are used to study the correlation test of stops, searches and citations with race, age, and gender. The design uses sensitivity analysis of inputs to determine their relationship to outputs statistics of a police department's citations and stops. Experimental results are than used to verify and predict departmental bias. A simulation program written in Visual Basic is used as a tool to explore simulation techniques. A formulation of simulation uses in studying discriminatory profiling …

Development Of A Statistical Model For Process Control To Eliminate Sink Marks In Injection Molded Products, Kurt Frederick Hayden

Masters Theses

Customer demands for high-quality, defect-free injection-molded products are ever increasing. In order to satisfy these quality requirements, much effort is spent monitoring and controlling variable data such as cycle time, part weight, and dimensions. Attribute defects such as sink or splay are often overlooked in the development of process control systems. However, customers reject products because of these attribute defects. Industrial control systems based upon process variables and product design variables can detect conditions that may result in the molding of products with attribute defects. The systems can then correct the process prior to the molding of these defective products. …

A Method For Classification Analysis On Simultaneous Product Defects, Jason S. Trahan

Masters Theses

There have been many advancements that share similar tools and techniques that help reduce the manufacture of nonconformities. These include computer-aided analysis, design reviews, total quality management, multivariate analysis, process monitoring and control, and root cause analysis to mention a few.

This work details the methodology developed for manufacturing companies to predict attribute defects. Injection molding was used to demonstrate the proposed methodology. Data were collected on a variety of tool design and construction attributes thought to affect the performance of a tool. The independent variables consisted of categorical and numerical data types. The dependent variable was a nominal four-tuple …

Using Simulation Techniques To Evaluate Group Technology Heuristics: A Recommended Methodology For Comparison And Optimization, Ashley Nolen Akerman

Masters Theses

Machine cell formation is an important issue in industrial and manufacturing engineering. Properly assigned machine cells can improve manufacturing system efficiencies and decrease unnecessary material movement. To address the need for proper cell formation techniques a myriad of heuristics have been created that attempt to optimize the grouping of machines. Further, much industrial engineering research has been conducted on the application of simulation technology to manufacturing system evaluation.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the combination of traditional machine grouping heuristics with simulation technology and to create a generalized meta-model based upon this evaluation. This investigation analyzes the …

Modeling And Validation Of A Brake Hose, Jai Thomas

Masters Theses

Various computer aided design (CAD) softwares have the capability to depict rigid bodies in space accurately. However, the same is not true for the flexible components. This is because flexible components in an automobile are subject to large elastic deformations during the movement of the rigid components to which they are attached.

This research details the application of the principles of computation of the orientation of entities in a simplified coordinate system, vector mathematics, the file I/O features and structured C++ programming to view the rubber hose in CAD after modeling the hose using simulation software. Further validation of the …

Evaluation Of The Distribution Of Taguchi's Signal-To-Noise Ratio And The Effectiveness Of The Signal-To-Noise Ratio For Detecting Changes In The Mean And/Or Variance, Jinsuk Lee

Masters Theses

The concept of parameter design developed by Taguchi to achieve robust engineering is widely promoted in industry as a means to design a product whose output is largely immune to noise in the system. Taguchi has used the signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio to summarize measures over the noise factor settings at the parameter design and to allow control of the experiment.

The objectives of this investigation are: 1) to infer distributions of S/N ratios (lower-the-better S/N, higher-the-better S/N, and nominal-the-best SIN), and 2) to determine the effectiveness of the S/N ratio as a means for identifying changes in the mean and …

Maximum Acceptable Oral Reading Speed For Voice Input Systems, Nirari M. Oda

Masters Theses

The objective of this thesis was to study the effect of vocal duration period and background noise on psychophysical oral reading speed. Ten healthy white males (21-28 years old) were used as subjects. Experiment one was designed to determine Maximum Acceptable Oral Reading Speed (MAORS) for an 8-hour period using psychophysical methodology. Results indicate that 114 words/min was an acceptable oral reading rate for an 8-hour day. Furthermore, 2 hours and 20 minutes is an acceptable testing period ( equivalent to the 8-hour day). Acoustical and physiological variables support these findings. Experiment two was designed to study the effect of …

Study Of Automotive Hydromount Mechanism, Min Lu

Dissertations

The hydromount mechanism is studied. It was determined that the dynamic characteristics of the hydromounts are related to the rubber static stiffness, rubber damping coefficient, volumetric stiffness, and effectiveness of the oscillating fluid in the inertia track. At high frequencies the motion of the fluid in the inertia track diminishes so that its effect is negligible and may be ignored. It is also concluded that the rubber damping has a minimal effect on the hydromount dynamic properties and may be neglected. The maximum loss angle, which corresponds to the maximum damping coefficient of the hydromount, occurs near the inertia track …

The Development Of A Fmea Process For Design And Maintenance, Tearesa Lynn Wegscheid

Masters Theses

Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) is a systematic way to identify and evaluate potential product and process related failure modes, the associated causes of failures, and the necessary actions to eliminate or reduce the chance of the failure. There are a number of published manuals and books on FMEA. The materials provide a definition of the FMEA form and examples of the Design and Process FMEA. However, there are many inconsistencies throughout the literature. As a result, FMEA is not always value-added.

The thesis is twofold. First, it documents a case study that uses Design FMEA extensively. The case …

Quantifying A Key Injection Molding Attribute Defect, Kristopher Bryan Horton

Masters Theses

A mounting demand for high quality, low cost plastic injection molded products brings with it goals such as low or even zero defects. In order to achieve these types of "world class" expectations, resources are used to monitor and control variable data such as cycle time, part weight or dimensions. Despite this emphasis on variable data, parts are often rejected based on attribute molding defects such as sink marks or splay that are measured by subjective criteria and therefore difficult to control. Appearance of a part once considered acceptable may no longer be, due to changing expectations or subjective interpretation …

Psychophysically Derived Work Frequencies For Manual Pouring Operations In The Foundry, Sadat Karim

Masters Theses

This paper presents a study on a combination lift and carrying task and was designed to simulate a metal pouring operation commonly found in foundries. Two laboratory experiments were conducted. The first experiment was designed to study the effects of two different mold heights (0.6096 m. and 0.4572 m.) and two carrying distances (1.2192 m. and 4.572 m.) on physiological response variables and on subjects' rating of perceived exertion while performing a simulated pouring operation at a documented foundry frequency. The second experiment was designed to determine maximum acceptable task frequencies (MAF) for males performing a simulated pouring operation at …

Introduction Of Iowa System Of Curves To Reliability Engineers, Alamgir Alvi

Masters Theses

The reliability engineers have been using different techniques and a good number of theoretical models to analyze and predict the performance of the designed systems and products. While, most of the engineers working in the area of life analysis, have been using the empirical model named Iowa systems of curves to analyze and forecast the service life of industrial properties. Two different groups of experts have obviously been working toward almost the same objective but using different techniques and tools. The purpose of this study is to introduce to reliability engineers the Iowa systems of curves and compare this empirical …

Design And Development Of A User Interface Between Mapics/Db And Factor 5.2, Raghu Pothuri

Masters Theses

An interface program was designed to transfer production data from MAPICS/DB, a MRP II software, to FACTOR 5.2, a Finite Capacity Scheduling software. Since FACTOR 5.2 is designed to be used in a stand-alone mode with its own independent data base, this interface program extracts data from the MRP II System and converts it to formats specified by the Scheduling System. To create a computer model of the manufacturing process, information about manufacturing orders, routings, and production facilities was obtained from MAPICS/DB files. Certain information needed by FACTOR 5.2, which is not available in MAPICS/DB, was supplemented by the program …

Synergistic Decision-Making Systems: Using Models Of Decision-Making Behaviors And Resources To Design Better Decision-Making System, Ronald R. Carter

Masters Theses

Despite advances in decision-making systems, many practical issues remain unaddressed and much of the computer's potential for supporting decisions is unrealized. The existing systems are often limited to specific decision-making activities or domains, and they force the decision-maker to adopt a closed and inflexible way of doing things. What is needed is a new approach to building decision-making systems, one that is not focused on how decisions should be made, but on the behaviors and resources involved in decision-making and how they affect the results. This paper explores such an approach. It examines how models of decision-making behaviors and resources …

Applications Of Artificial Neural Networks In Interactive Simulation, Payman Jula

Masters Theses

Although there have been many improvements in simulation technology over the past few years, it still suffers from many limitations. Simulation methods are usually time consuming and hence not suitable for the interactive decision making processes.

In this project, applications of Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) to simulate manufacturing systems have been studied. The backpropagation Multiple Layer Perceptrons (MLPs) have been applied to simulate manufacturing systems. Some guidelines for developing appropriate ANNs have been presented. The results of ANN approach have been compared to those of conventional simulation methods.

Cumulative Average Pricing Method For Estimating Average Service Life, Mahendra Babu Hosangadi

Masters Theses

The study determined if accuracy of estimation of retirement price of industrial equipment was affected by using a cumulative average pricing (CAP) method at varying conditions of inflation rate, service life, and life characteristics. The study also determined the accuracy of estimating the average life of unaged data by simulated plant record (SPR) method. Thirty-six experiments were conducted at varying conditions of inflation rate, curve type and average life. The study was conducted for two left modal curves, two symmetrical modal curves and two right modal curves at 20 and 40 years average life using three different inflation rates: 3%, …

Addition Of Automatic Dimensioning Feature To D-M-E’S Ultimate Mold Base Design Software, Cori L. Brown

Masters Theses

There have been many improvements in the plastics industry over the past few years. One of these areas is in the design of injection molds. This area has been enhanced by the use of Computer-Aided Design systems and furthered by the creation of specialized mold design software. The Ultimate^® design system from D-M-E has made a mold designer's job much easier by automating much of this process. This project extends the function of this software by adding an automatic dimensioning feature that will make the mold design process less tedious and less time consuming. This addition will also standardize …

Development Of A Mold Trial Procedure For Establishing A Robust Process, Marc R. Vander Kooi

Masters Theses

To reduce variation in the injection molding process it is essential to understand the effect of process, mold, and material variables on critical part characteristics. Gaining a thorough understanding of these variables is often difficult due to the limited time manufacturers typically have available for mold trials. To address this issue, the Premier Class Injection Molding consortium (PCIM) has performed numerous experiments relating to shot-to-shot repeatability. Using the PCIM data set and experimentation procedures as a base, a procedure was developed to collect data during a mold trial. Incorporating small experiments and statistical analysis, the new procedure allows meaningful data …