Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering Commons^™

Enhancing Undergraduate Engineering Education Of Lean Methods Using Simulation Learning Modules Within A Virtual Environment, Elizabeth A. Cudney, Steven Corns, Jennifer A. Farris, Stephen Gent, Scott Erwin Grasman, Ivan G. Guardiola

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper highlights the use of an integrated user-centered virtual learning environment throughextensible simulation learning modules that is currently being developed to enhance undergraduate curricula to meet the industrial needs for engineers with education in lean. The purpose of the research is to address these expectations by developing learning modules that incorporate lean simulation models into various Engineering Management, Industrial Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering courses at Missouri S&T, Texas Tech, and South Dakota State, respectively. In recent years, increasing global competition, rapidly changing technology, and a deficit of U.S. engineering graduates have intensified the need to produce graduating engineers who …

Wolf Ant, Gilbert L. Peterson, Christopher M. Mayer, Kevin Cousin

Faculty Publications

Ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithms can generate quality solutions to combinatorial optimization problems. However, like many stochastic algorithms, the quality of solutions worsen as problem sizes grow. In an effort to increase performance, we added the variable step size off-policy hill-climbing algorithm called PDWoLF (Policy Dynamics Win or Learn Fast) to several ant colony algorithms: Ant System, Ant Colony System, Elitist-Ant System, Rank-based Ant System, and Max-Min Ant System. Easily integrated into each ACO algorithm, the PDWoLF component maintains a set of policies separate from the ant colony's pheromone. Similar to pheromone but with different update rules, the PDWoLF policies …

The Effectiveness Of Milestone Versus Duration Projects In A University Environment, Nicholas James Mehas

Master's Theses

The Critical Path and Critical Chain project management methodologies have different and unique characteristics; both methods are used by project managers to manage projects. This research develops and implements two methodologies, milestones (critical path) versus duration (modified critical chain), in a university environment. The implementation of the two methods allows for the comparison of the effectiveness of both styles. The intent is to determine if there is a significant difference in the project management methodologies in a university setting. The design of both projects allows for easy implementation and the ability to easily record determined measureable statistics.

The Canonical Decomposition Fuzzy Comparative Methodology For Assessing Architectures, Jason P. Dauby, Cihan H. Dagli

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The challenge for system architects is to perform a realistic assessment of an inherently ambiguous system concept. Many existing assessment methods are available, but these are often subjective and unrepeatable. Repeatability, objectivity, and increased fidelity are desired. an architecture assessment methodology capable of achieving these objectives is possible by drawing on the strengths of existing approaches while addressing their collective weaknesses. the proposed methodology is the Canonical Decomposition Fuzzy Comparative approach. the theoretical foundations of this methodology are developed herein and tested through the assessment of three physical architectures for a peer-to-peer wireless network. an extensible modeling framework is established …

Improving Cal Poly Space Systems Infrastructure, Tyler Richier

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The goal of this project was to increase the usable space for the club Cal Poly Space Systems to work on its projects, improve the safety for its members, and reduce the time it takes to manufacture its products. The project demonstrated the effectiveness of 5S in improving a workspace. Club members were measurably more comfortable in the work environment and spent less time looking for tools. Current rooms were made more professional by ridding the workplace of non-valued items and finding sensible locations for high-traffic items. Additional rooms were added and they should indisputably support club projects the upcoming …

5s Implementation Plan For The Shipping Department At Helical Products Co., Eric William Walker

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Helical Products Company is a business that manufactures flexure products, such as couplings and u-joints. As part of a movement towards lean manufacturing, Helical Products Company of Santa Maria, California is in need of a principle that will help them continuously improve their shipping department. A study of 5S, a lean principle focused on waste reduction, will be done to investigate opportunity for implementation. A literature review takes a peek on research of lean manufacturing history, lean workbook/ tutorials and lastly case studies and journal articles. The output of research provides a design plan for Helical using 5S and other …

Ackermann Steering Geometry Applied To A Skateboard Truck, Daniel D. Downs

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Conventional skateboard trucks are currently unable to meet the challenges of the modern enthusiast. They are lacking in key performance metrics such as handling, stability, and traction. Longboard enthusiasts, whom rely heavily on handling performance, are hungry for new and innovative technology to help bring the sport to the next level. The aim of this project was to solve these problems by applying specific aspects of automotive steering geometry and best engineering practices. Three successive prototypes were designed, with the first two prototype sets being manufactured and extensively tested. The first prototype served as a proof of concept, but suffered …

Cardiac Staging Facility Workflow Redesign, Ryan Chang

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

This study analyzes and proposes Cardiac Staging nurse workflow improvements along with a new Cardiac Staging facility design at French Hospital. Currently, patients spend an expected 125 minutes in Cardiac Staging. It was found that 60% of the time in Cardiac Staging was spent waiting to be transferred into the Cath Lab. The following Industrial Engineering methods were utilized to eliminate waste in staging and design a new staging area:

 Use of Lean and Six-Sigma tools to recommend new patient arrival time

 Manufacturing product scheduling to reduce patient wait time

 Use of facility redesign techniques to improve …

Rfid Classroom Management System, Andrew W. Wright

Master's Theses

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 the most effective system that …

An Optimization Approach To Employee Scheduling Using Fuzzy Logic, William G. Spence

Master's Theses

An Optimization Approach to Employee Scheduling Using Fuzzy Logic

William G. Spence

Selection of sales employees is critical because the sales employees represent the company’s image, competitive advantage, technology, and values. In many service systems the majority of consumer contact is with the sales department. Since there are different types of customers, scheduling quality salespersons who can adequately help consumers may affect revenue.

This thesis proposes a new methodology for the scheduling of employees in a service system. The methodology uses Fuzzy Logic to calculate possible sales and Linear Programming to create an optimal schedule. This approach enables the rating …

Online Fault Detection Of Induction Motors Using Frequency Domain Independent Components Analysis, Zhaoxia Wang, C. S. Chang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper proposes an online fault detection method for induction motors using frequency-domain independent component analysis. Frequency-domain results, which are obtained by applying Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) to measured stator current time-domain waveforms, are analyzed with the aim of extracting frequency signatures of healthy and faulty motors with broken rotor-bar or bearing problem. Independent components analysis (ICA) is applied for such an aim to the FFT results. The obtained independent components as well as the FFT results are then used to obtain the combined fault signatures. The proposed method overcomes problems occurring in many existing FFT-based methods. Results using laboratory-collected …

Supervisory Evolutionary Optimization Strategy For Adaptive Maintenance Schedules, Zhaoxia Wang, C. S. Chang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

No abstract provided.

A Feature Based Frequency Domain Analysis Algorithm For Fault Detection Of Induction Motors, Zhaoxia Wang, C. S. Chang, Zhang Yifan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper studies the stator currents collected from several inverter-fed laboratory induction motors and proposes a new feature based frequency domain analysis method for performing the detection of induction motor faults, such as the broken rotor-bar or bearing fault. The mathematical formulation is presented to calculate the features, which are called FFT-ICA features in this paper. The obtained FFT-ICA features are normalized by using healthy motor as benchmarks to establish a feature database for fault detection. Compare with conventional frequency-domain analysis method, no prior knowledge of the motor parameters or other measurements are required for calculating features. Only one phase …

Systems Ideas For The Scientific And Societal Imperatives Of The Coastal Ocean: Case Of The Bp Oil Gusher In The Gulf Of Mexico, Spring & Summer 2010, Christopher Mooers

Systems Science Friday Noon Seminar Series

In recent decades, great progress has been made in advancing the scientific understanding of the coastal ocean (i.e., the 200 nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ)) across a broad set of disciplines. Simultaneously, the societal use of the coastal ocean has skyrocketed through, for example, increased shipping & boating, sports & commercial fishing, and exploitation of non-living resources, such as, oil & gas extraction and sand & gravel mining. International law and national policy assign coastal nations the responsibility for stewardship (i.e., wise management) of their respective EEZs. The scope of the stewardship and applications can be summarized as (1) …

A-10 Thunderbolt Ii (Warthog) Systems Engineering Case Study, Air Force Center For Systems Engineering, David R. Jacques, Dennis D. Strouble

AFIT Documents

No abstract provided.

Public Transit Accessibility And Need Indices: Approaches For Measuring Service Gap, Sha Mamun

Master's Theses

The integration of transit needs into transit accessibility indexing is important for the evaluation of existing transportation systems and, service gaps, and for the identification of priority areas for future investments in transportation infrastructure. This thesis details an accessibility-based transit need indexing model that focuses on the necessity of evaluating transit needs and transit accessibility simultaneously. A need index is developed to identify areas in high need of public transit services using economic and socio-demographic information and a composite accessibility index is developed to identify levels of access to transit services and shortcomings in service provision. The need for transit …

Recording Of Elevated Temperature Fatigue Crack Growth Data By Dcpd System, N. Ramachandran, N. Arakere, Tarun Goswami

Biomedical, Industrial & Human Factors Engineering Faculty Publications

The growth of "long" fatigue cracks, in α-β titanium alloy forging, subjected to cyclic stresses, is studied in this paper. The fatigue crack growth rate (FCGR) data were recorded at room temperature, 350, 450, 550 and 650°F using the Direct Current Potential Difference (DCPD) technique. The DCPD method, used in this investigation, was found to record and correlate the potential difference in terms of crack growth rate (da/dN) and Mode I stress intensity factor range satisfactorily. Various factors related to error minimization and calibration equations for compact tension specimens have been elaborated. Also discussed were the means to enhance the …

Acuta Enews May 2011, Vol 40, No. 5

ACUTA Newsletters

ln This lssue

Corinne Hoch Appointed lnterim Executive Director

From the President: Priorities for 2011-2012 ..............Joe Harrington, Boston College

Donations in memory of Jeri Semer

ACUTA: Getting Personal............................ Jeffry Handat, LSU

View 8 Sessions from the Annual Conference at Your Desktop

Why ACUTA Remains Vital

lT's Funny!

lnfo Links ........... .. Randy Hoyes, Univ. of Northern lowa

Annual Dues lnvoices Mailed May 2

The Daily Grind: What's on Your Desk Today? ....., Jeanne Jansenius, Sewanee, University of the South

Board Report........ George Denbow, Univ. of Texas, Austin

Another Great conference, More Terrific Prizes!

Thanks to Exhibiton and Sponsors at Annual …

Development Of A Ram Shared Service Tool For The Service Availability Of On-Board And Trackside Systems, Bailey Frazier

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

A decision-support tool designed specifically to be used by technical specialists is an aid that would be helpful to many different companies, departments and projects – regardless of industry. With the intent of making manual processes quicker, less error-prone, and more userfriendly, decision-support tools are becoming more desired as they grow increasingly more common in the business world today.
The decision-support tool created for the purpose of this project is not an exception to any of these reasons. The ALSTOM Transport Information Solutions Reliability, Availability, and Maintainability (RAM) Shared Service Team bears the burden and tedious process of working with …

Re-Estimating And Remodeling General Aviation Operations, Ryan Black

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The objective of this project is to understand the usual or “acceptable” characteristics of general aviation flights and airports so that unusual activity can be detected, analyzed, and resolved. To do this, a quality control model may be built to determine whether an airport is at high risk for a terrorist attack. For an appropriate model to be built there must be an adequate amount of data that describes the general aviation airport and its operations. In order to facilitate this data the general aviation industry must “continue to improve intelligence and information sharing (Homeland Security Advisory Council 2008).” This …

Incorporating Vertical Travel Into Non-Traditional Cross Aisles For Unit-Load Warehouse Designs, Kirby A. Clark

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

We propose modifications to the travel-time models for non-traditional warehouse layouts, Flying-V Fishbone, by incorporating a vertical travel dimension. The Flying-V model determines a cross aisle intersection for every picking aisle, while the Fishbone model determines a single point where the inserted cross aisle intersects the side of the warehouse. The shape and angle of the cross aisle is unrestricted for the Flying-V layout, while the angle is unrestricted for the Fishbone layout. The resulting non-linear optimization models incorporate Chebychev travel within the picking aisles. We compare both the shape of the aisle and the percent improvement over a traditional …

Impact Of High-Speed Inkjet On Digital Printing And Traditional Offset Lithography, Caroline Sellars

All Theses

This thesis was prepared in order to examine the impact of high-speed inkjet printing on the offset lithography market within the commercial printing and publishing segments. Digital printing has become more widespread in recent years, but high-speed inkjet is making advances in its capabilities and technologies. With the printing industry evolving and print consumers preferring shorter print runs and in a shorter amount of time, print technologies are evolving to meet these needs. Print-on-demand is growing tremendously in the publishing industry, and personalization and 1-to-1 marketing is growing in the commercial printing segment as well. Market demand is changing in …

Migration Models - Comparison Of Pvc, Pet And Pla Diffusivity, Combined With A Production Cost Model For Westridge Laboratories, Shelley Cooke, Sarina Surrette

Materials Engineering

This project has two parts: [1] a migration and diffusivity model for candidate plastics used in containers, and [2] a product cost model for Westridge Laboratories (Santa Ana, CA).

Diffusion modeling is a useful tool to predict migration of polymer constituents into exposed liquids.  Polyvinyl chloride (PVC), polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polylactic acid (PLA) were studied to estimate production costs, and component migration into water-based liquids from plastic containers.  Bis (2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), antimony trioxide, and stannous octoate, are components of concern in the three candidate polymers, respectively.  Normal detection limits for these constituents are about 1 - 10 ppb, …

Modeling And Optimization Of Stochastic Process Parameters In Complex Engineering Systems, Paul Goethals

All Dissertations

For quality engineering researchers and practitioners, a wide number of statistical tools and techniques are available for use in the manufacturing industry. The objective or goal in applying these tools has always been to improve or optimize a product or process in terms of efficiency, production cost, or product quality. While tremendous progress has been made in the design of quality optimization models, there remains a significant gap between existing research and the needs of the industrial community. Contemporary manufacturing processes are inherently more complex - they may involve multiple stages of production or require the assessment of multiple quality …

Pilot Weather Decision Making And The Influence Of Passenger Pressure, Jaclyn Baron

All Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to determine the effect of social pressure on general aviation (GA) pilots' weather decision making. Data have shown that GA accidents associated with visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) are more likely to result in fatalities than other types of GA accidents. This problem is compounded by the addition of passengers, who have been found to be present onboard during VFR into IMC accidents more frequently than in other types of GA accidents. The question is whether passengers influence a pilot's decision to continue flight into adverse weather. The extent …

A Decision Support System For Assessing Conveyance Options And Modeling Passenger Flow In Airport Terminals, Ping-Nan Chiang

All Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on the use of passenger conveyance systems and modeling passenger flow in airport terminals. The successfully designed airport concourse must perform at a level that meets the needs of its users - the passengers. In this research, we propose a database design methodology that allows key conveyance statistics to be analyzed within specific locations across the airport terminal. Using passenger conveyance observations collected at five North American airports, the database enables airport planners, operators and consultants to assess passenger behavior and conveyance device performance. Results from this section of the research were in direct support of the …

Micro Feature Enhanced Sinter Bonding Of Metal Injection Molded (Mim) Parts To A Solid Substrate, Thomas Martens

All Dissertations

In metal injection molding (MIM), fine metal powders are mixed with a binder and injected into molds, similar to plastic injection molding. After molding, the binder is removed from the part, and the compact is sintered to almost full density.
The obstacle to sinter bonding a MIM part to a conventional (solid) substrate lies in the sinter shrinkage of the MIM part, which can be up to 20%, meaning that the MIM part shrinks during sintering, while the conventional substrate maintains its dimensions. This behavior would typically inhibit bonding and/or cause cracking and deformation of the MIM part. It is …

Tight Polyhedral Representations Of Discrete Sets Using Projections, Simplices, And Base-2 Expansions, Stephen Henry

All Dissertations

This research effort focuses on the acquisition of polyhedral outer-approximations to the convex hull of feasible solutions for mixed-integer linear and mixed-integer nonlinear programs. The goal is to produce desirable formulations that have superior size and/or relaxation strength. These two qualities often have great influence on the success of underlying solution strategies, and so it is with these qualities in mind that the work of this dissertation presents three distinct contributions.
The first studies a family of relatively unknown polytopes that enable the linearization of polynomial expressions involving two discrete variables. Projections of higher-dimensional convex hulls are employed to reduce …

In-Wheel Coupled Suspenison And Drive System For Attitude Control And Vehicle Propulsion, Robert Clippard

All Dissertations

The automotive marketplace is a volatile and dynamic system driven by consumer desires, marketing, fuel prices, technology, and legislation. Recently many of these factors have culminated in a common effort to encourage hybrid and electric vehicle development. The technology for electric vehicles has finally found enough maturity to be implemented into consumer based vehicles from hybrid SUVs to high performance sports cars. This expansion in available propulsion systems and vehicle architectures has spurred research and development into new and novel approaches for propulsion as well as systems to provide increased ride comfort.
This work presents a dual electric motor drive …

Distributed Model Shaping For Scaling To Decentralized Pomdps With Hundreds Of Agents, Prasanna Velagapudi, Pradeep Reddy Varakantham, Katia Sycara, Paul Scerri

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The use of distributed POMDPs for cooperative teams has been severely limited by the incredibly large joint policy- space that results from combining the policy-spaces of the individual agents. However, much of the computational cost of exploring the entire joint policy space can be avoided by observing that in many domains important interactions between agents occur in a relatively small set of scenarios, previously defined as coordination locales (CLs) [11]. Moreover, even when numerous interactions might occur, given a set of individual policies there are relatively few actual interactions. Exploiting this observation and building on an existing model shaping algorithm, …