Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering Commons^™

A Retrospective Analysis And Field Study Of Nanotechnology Related Ergonomic Risk In Industries Utilizing Nanomaterials, Wanda Greaves-Holmes

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The National Science Foundation estimates that two million skilled nanotechnology workers will be needed world wide by 2015 – one million of them in the United States (2001). In the absence of scientific clarity about the potential health effects of occupational exposure to nanoparticles, guidance in decision making about hazards, risk, and controls takes on new importance. Currently, guiding principles on personal protective equipment for workers who come in contact with nanomaterials have not been standardized universally. Utilizing the NASATLX, this dissertation investigates the adequacy and shortcomings of research efforts that seek to determine whether or not occupational exposure to …

Critical Success Factors For Evolutionary Acquisition Implementation, Brig J. Bjorn

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Due to extensive challenges to the efficient development and fielding of operationally effective and affordable weapon systems, the U.S. employs a complex management framework to govern defense acquisition programs. The Department of Defense and Congress recently modified this process to improve the levels of knowledge available at key decision points in order to reduce lifecycle cost, schedule, and technical risk to programs. This exploratory research study employed multiple methods to examine the impact of systems engineering reviews, competitive prototyping, and the application of a Modular Open Systems Approach on knowledge and risk prior to funding system implementation and production. In-depth …

An Approach For Measuring The Confidentiality Of Data Assured By The Confidentiality Of Information Security Systems In Healthcare Organizations, Shawn Michael Gallaher

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Because of the expansion in health information technology and the continued migration toward digital patient records as a foundation for the delivery of healthcare services, healthcare organizations face significant challenges in their efforts to determine how well they are protecting electronic health information from unauthorized disclosure. The disclosure of one’s personal medical information to unauthorized parties or individuals can have broad-reaching and long-term impacts to both healthcare providers and consumers. Although several classes and types of methodologies exist for measuring information security in general, a number of overarching issues have been identified which prevent their adaptation to the problem of …

Multi-Vehicle Dispatching And Routing With Time Window Constraints And Limited Dock Capacity, Ahmed El-Nashar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows (VRPTW) is an important and computationally hard optimization problem frequently encountered in Scheduling and logistics. The Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) can be described as the problem of designing the most efficient and economical routes from one depot to a set of customers using a limited number of vehicles. This research addresses the VRPTW under the following additional complicating features that are often encountered in practical problems: 1. Customers have strict time windows for receiving a vehicle, i.e., vehicles are not allowed to arrive at the customer’s location earlier than the lower limit of …

An Index To Measure Efficiency Of Hospital Networks For Mass Casualty Disasters, Maria Bull Torres

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Disaster events have emphasized the importance of healthcare response activities due to the large number of victims. For instance, Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, in 2005, and the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C., on September 11, 2001, left thousands of wounded people. In those disasters, although hospitals had disaster plans established for more than a decade, their plans were not efficient enough to handle the chaos produced by the hurricane and terrorist attacks. Thus, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) suggested collaborative planning among hospitals that provide services to a contiguous geographic area …

Optimal Charging Scheduling For Battery Electric Vehicles Under Smart Grid., Nur Dayana Abd Rahman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A projected high penetration of battery electric vehicles (BEV s) in the market will introduce an additional load in the electricity grid. Furthermore, uncontrolled BEV charging from residential users will exacerbate the existing peak load during evening hours. In this thesis, we propose two optimization models to alleviate the impact of extra demand from electric vehicles on the power grid. The first is a centralized charging scheduling model that coordinates the charging among BEV users under the goal of minimizing the total electricity cost for all users. The second model uses a decentralized agent-based approach to scheduling the BEV charging. …

Development Of A Cognitive Work Analysis Framework Tutorial Using Systems Modeling Language, Wilfred Henry Wells

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

At the present time, most systems engineers do not have access to cognitive work analysis information or training in terms they can understand. This may lead to a disregard of the cognitive aspect of system design. The impact of this issue is system requirements that do not account for the cognitive strengths and limitations of users. Systems engineers cannot design effective decision support systems without defining cognitive work requirements. In order to improve system requirements, integration of cognitive work requirements into the systems engineering process has to be improved. One option to address this gap is the development of a …

Design Of The Layout Of A Manufacturing Facility With A Closed Loop Conveyor With Shortcuts Using Queueing Theory And Genetic Algorithms, Vernet Michael Lasrado

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

With the ongoing technology battles and price wars in today's competitive economy, every company is looking for an advantage over its peers. A particular choice of facility layout can have a significant impact on the ability of a company to maintain lower operational expenses under uncertain economic conditions. It is known that systems with less congestion have lower operational costs. Traditionally, manufacturing facility layout problem methods aim at minimizing the total distance traveled, the material handling cost, or the time in the system (based on distance traveled at a specific speed). The proposed methodology solves the looped layout design problem …

A Model To Integrate Sustainability Into The User-Centered Design Process, Adrienne Shevonne Brown

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

With concerns for the environment becoming more prevalent in business and the government, it is increasingly important to re-evaluate and update processes to include sustainability considerations early in the design process. In response to this charge, this research effort was designed to integrate sustainability factors into the usercentered design process. The results of this research highlight the benefits of sustainability requirement planning, as well as those derived from integrating sustainability into the current user-centered design model

A Framework For Quantifying Sustainability Of Lean Implementation In Healthcare Organizations, Haitham Ahmed Bahaitham

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Due to the remarkable positive effect of lean adoption in various firms in the manufacturing sector, it has been adopted by several organizations within the healthcare industry. Although the rate of adopting lean by hospitals in the developed countries is slower than it should be, it proved to be effective in helping healthcare organizations maintain or even improve their quality of care while containing their related costs. However, such adoption did not take place until the beginning of the new millennium. And with such adoption, it has been accompanied with major challenges related to proper lean implementation, sustainability of achieved …

The Development Of A Human Centered Methodology For The Identification Of Communication Needs And The Assessment Of Hand-Held Communication Devices Used To Support Communication Flow In High Consequence Emergency Management, Mohammad Imraan Jeelani

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Communication has been identified as a critical component in the outcome of emergency response. Post-mortems of “what went wrong” in disaster responses often point toward breakdown in communication between first responders, those directing rescue efforts, and the general population as one of the primary impediments to rendering timely aid and communicating adequate safety and weather information. Due to the high resilience, relatively low costs, and advanced features of modern hand-held communication devices, these devices are in a position to drastically improve communication flow during emergency management situations. Due to the lack of official implementation of these devices and the lack …

Modeling And Characterization Of Acute Stress Under Dynamic Task Conditions, Angel M. Millan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Stress can be defined as the mental, physical, and emotional response of humans to stressors encountered in their personal or professional environment. Stressors are introduced in various activities, especially those found in dynamic task conditions when multiple task requirements must be performed. Stress and stressors have been described as activators and inhibitors of human performance. The ability to manage high levels of acute stress is an important determinant of successful performance in any occupation. In situations where performance is critical, personnel must be prepared to operate successfully under hostile or extreme stress conditions; therefore training programs and engineered systems must …

Improving Throughput And Predictability Of High-Volume Business Processes Through Embedded Modeling, Joseph S. Dekeyrel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Being faster is good. Being predictable is better. A faithful model of a system, loaded to reflect the system's current state, can then be used to look into the future and predict performance. Building faithful models of processes with high degrees of uncertainty can be very challenging, especially where this uncertainty exists in terms of processing times, queuing behavior and re-work rates. Within the context of an electronic, multi-tiered workflow management system (WFMS) the author builds such a model to endogenously quote due dates. A WFMS that manages business objects can be recast as a flexible flow shop in which …

An Active Study Of A Roller Coaster Project In Asia., Robert Leamon Bridges

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A roller coaster manufacturer became aware that improperly heat treated track couplings were sent to a construction site for assembly. Concerns were that suspect couplings might not meet the engineering specifications and could be vulnerable to sudden failure. A testing company in Oak Ridge, TN that specializes in in-situ and laboratory mechanical testing was contacted by the manufacturer for help in this endeavor. The construction company elected to enlist a local testing firm to perform field tests on the components instead of the company in Oak Ridge. The test methods used are incapable of providing quantitative results that could be …

A Safeguards Design Strategy For Domestic Nuclear Materials Processing Facilities., Jonathan Long

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The outdated and oversized nuclear manufacturing complex within the United States requires its transformation into a smaller, safe, and secure enterprise. Health and safety risks, environmental concerns, and the end of the Cold War have all contributed to this necessity. The events of September 11, 2001, emphasized the protection requirements for nuclear materials within the U.S. as well as abroad.

Current Nuclear Safeguards regulations contain minimal prescriptive requirements relating to the design of new production facilities. Project management and engineering design guides require that design documents contain specific and measureable statements relating to systems requirements. The systems engineering process evaluates …

Controllability And Observability Of A Large Scale Thermodynamical System Via Connectability Approach, Virdiansyah Permana

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study presents a new approach to determine the controllability and observability of a large scale nonlinear dynamic thermal system using graph-theory. The novelty of this method is in adapting graph theory for nonlinear class and establishing a graphic condition that describes the necessary and sufficient terms for a nonlinear class system to be controllable and observable, which equivalents to the analytical method of Lie algebra rank condition. The graph theory of a directed graph (digraph) is utilized to model the system, and the rule of its adaptation in nonlinear class is defined. Subsequently, necessary and sufficient terms to achieve …

An Interval Based Approach To Model Input Uncertainty In Discrete-Event Simulation, Ola Batarseh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this research is to increase the robustness of discrete-event simulation (DES) when input uncertainties associated models and parameters are present. Input uncertainties in simulation have different sources, including lack of data, conflicting information and beliefs, lack of introspection, measurement errors, and lack of information about dependency. A reliable solution is obtained from a simulation mechanism that accounts for these uncertainty components in simulation. An interval-based simulation (IBS) mechanism based on imprecise probabilities is proposed, where the statistical distribution parameters in simulation are intervals instead of precise real numbers. This approach incorporates variability and uncertainty in systems. In …

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

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

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

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

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

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

A Methodology To Stabilize The Supply Chain, Alfonso Sarmiento

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In today's world, supply chains are facing market dynamics dominated by strong global competition, high labor costs, shorter product life cycles, and environmental regulations. Supply chains have evolved to keep pace with the rapid growth in these business dynamics, becoming longer and more complex. As a result, supply chains are systems with a great number of network connections among their multiple components. The interactions of the network components with respect to each other and the environment cause these systems to behave in a highly nonlinear dynamic manner. Ripple effects that have a huge, negative impact on the behavior of the …

An Analogy Based Costing System For Injection Molds Based Upon Geometry Similarity With Wavelets, Cyrus Clinton Hillsman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The injection molding industry is large and diversified. However there is no universally accepted way to bid molds, despite the fact that the mold and related design comprise 50% of the total cost of an injection-molded part over its lifetime. This is due to both the structure of the industry and technical difficulties in developing an automated and practical cost estimation system. The technical challenges include lack of a common data format for both parts and molds; the comprehensive consideration of the data about a wide variety of mold types, designs, complexities, number of cavities and other factors that directly …

New Heuristics For The 0-1 Multi-Dimensional Knapsack Problems, Haluk Akin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation introduces new heuristic methods for the 0-1 multi-dimensional knapsack problem (0-1 MKP). 0-1 MKP can be informally stated as the problem of packing items into a knapsack while staying within the limits of different constraints (dimensions). Each item has a profit level assigned to it. They can be, for instance, the maximum weight that can be carried, the maximum available volume, or the maximum amount that can be afforded for the items. One main assumption is that we have only one item of each type, hence the problem is binary (0-1). The single dimensional version of the 0-1 …

Direct Manipulation Of Virtual Objects, Long Nguyen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Interacting with a Virtual Environment (VE) generally requires the user to correctly perceive the relative position and orientation of virtual objects. For applications requiring interaction in personal space, the user may also need to accurately judge the position of the virtual object relative to that of a real object, for example, a virtual button and the user's real hand. This is difficult since VEs generally only provide a subset of the cues experienced in the real world. Complicating matters further, VEs presented by currently available visual displays may be inaccurate or distorted due to technological limitations. Fundamental physiological and psychological …

The Integrated User Experience Evaluation Model: A Systematic Approach To Integrating User Experience Data Sources, Roberto Champney

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Evaluating the user experience (UX) associated with product interaction is a challenge for current human-systems developers. This is largely due to a lack of theoretical guidance for directing how best to assess the UX and a paucity of tools to support such evaluation. This dissertation provided a framework and tools for guiding and supporting evaluation of the user experience. This doctoral research involved reviewing the literature on UX, using this knowledge to build first build a theoretical model of the UX construct and later develop a theoretical model to for the evaluation of UX in order to aid evaluators – …

Presence-Dependent Performance Differences Between Virtual Simulations And Miniature Worlds, Andre Huthmann

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of simulation is to avoid reality-based constraints by the implemen-tation of a synthetic model. Based on this advantage, interactive simulations have conquered all areas of applications from acquisition, and training, to research. Simulation results are transferred in many ways into reality and conclusions are drawn from the simulation to the application. Many anecdotal observations on human-in-the-loop simulations have shown a significant difference in actor behavior between simulations and reality-based applications. It seems that the factors that makes simulation so attractive, namely the absence of constraints and especially of imminent danger for persons and equipment, influence the behavior and …

Contributions By Individual And Group Strategies For Organizational Learning In Architectural, Engineering, And Construction Firms, Robert Beaver

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Organizations with multiple operating requirements require support functions to assist in execution of strategic goals. This effort, in turn, requires management of engineering activities in control of projects and in sustaining facilities. High level strategies include employing engineering support that consists of a project management function encompassing technical and managerial disciplines. The architecture/engineering, and construction office (AEC) is the subject of this research. Engineering and construction oriented organizations have experienced challenges to their abilities to learn and grow. This has potential detrimental implications for these organizations if support functions cannot keep pace with changing objectives and strategy. The competitive nature …

A Systematic Analysis To Identify, Mitigate, Quantify, And Measure Risk Factors Contributing To Falls In Nasa Ground Support Ope, Joylene Ware

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The objective of the research was to develop and validate a multifaceted model such as a fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) model that considers both qualitative and quantitative elements with relative significance in assessing the likelihood of falls and aid in the design of NASA Ground Support Operations in aerospace environments. The model represented linguistic variables that quantified significant risk factor levels. Multiple risk factors that contribute to falls in NASA Ground Support Operations are task related, human/personal, environmental, and organizational. Six subject matter experts were asked to participate in a voting system involving a survey where they judge risk …

The Design And Development Of An Additive Fabrication Process And Material Selection Tool, Andrew Palmer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the Manufacturing Industry there is a subset of technologies referred to as Rapid Technologies which are those technologies that create the ability to compress the time to market for new products under development . Of this subset, Additive Fabrication (AF), or more commonly known as Rapid Prototyping (RP), acquires much attention due to its unique and futuristic approach to the production of physical parts directly from 3D CAD data, CT or MRI scans, or data from laser scanning systems by utilizing various techniques to consecutively generate cross-sectional layers of a given thickness upon the previous layer to form 3D …

Data Entry Error In Mobile Keyboard Device Usage Subject To Cognitive, Environmental, And Communication Workload Stressors Present In Fully Activated Emergency Operations Centers, Samiullah Durrani

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The diversity and dynamic nature of disaster management environments necessitate the use of convenient, yet reliable, tools for technology. While there have been many improvements in mitigating the effects of disasters, it is clearly evident by recent events, such as Hurricane Katrina that issues related to emergency response and management require considerable research and improvement to effectively respond to these situations. One of the links in a disaster management chain is the Emergency Operations Center (EOC). The EOC is a physical command center responsible for the overall strategic control of the disaster response and functions as an information and communication …

Dod Acquisition Workforce Education: An Sba Education Case Study, Richard Davenport

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A Department of Defense (DoD) M&S education task force is in the process of studying the Modeling and Simulation (M&S) education of the acquisition workforce. Historically, DoD acquisition workforce education is not referred to as education, but rather what the Defense Acquisition University (DAU) refers to as "practitioner training, career management, and services." The DAU is the organization primarily responsible for training the DoD acquisition corps in conjunction with service schools and strategic partners in the civilian sector. DAU programs primarily focus on program management, contracting, and management of logistics across the system life cycle. Further, the examples and cases …