Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering Commons^™

Modeling A Reparable Supply Chain And Applying Cpfr Concepts, Sandra A. Mayhall

Theses and Dissertations

The Air Force supply chain includes parts required to build, fix, or maintain aircraft delivered to the warfighter to carry out missions. Industry has shown that following Collaborative Planning, Forecasting, and Replenishment (CPFR) concepts, particularly reducing inventory through accurate demand forecasts, has increased profits in part by lowering the holding costs of inventory and increasing sales. This is analogous to the Air Force increasing aircraft availability. There is scant evidence that demand forecasts generated at any level in the Air Force are shared with the intent of coordinating replenishment. This thesis uses a simple discrete-event stochastic simulation model to show …

User Friendly Computer Software For Construction Projects Delay Analysis, Kamel Ahmed Salem El Sayed

Archived Theses and Dissertations

Construction industry around the world is facing a huge revolution in terms of number of executed projects. Projects are no longer simple ones managed by few persons. Commercial buildings, high rise towers and bridges are being built everywhere. The majority of these projects are complex ones that face a lot of obstacles. Delays are one of the major obstacles that construction projects face and are very likely to occur. Generally, claims are the result of any delay in the construction progress. To be able to analyze the claim and assign the responsibility, the analyst has to perform a delay analysis. …

Acuta Enews May 2006, Vol. 35, No. 5

ACUTA Newsletters

In This Issue

Nominees for ACUTA Board of Directors 2006-2007

From ACUTA Headquarters................. Jeri A. Semer, CAE, ACUTA Executive Director

Info Links................. Randy Hayes, Univ. of Northern Iowa

Tech Talk: R U Protected from the Dangers of IM?.................. Kevin Tanzillo, DUX PR

Audio Seminar: Wireless Network Security

Be a Monitor or Moderator at the Annual Conference

Web Tip: Conference 2006: Register & Details Online....... Aaron Fuehrer, ACUTA Information Tech. Mgr.

Dues Notices to Mail May 1

Board Report................. Riny Ledgerwood, San Diego State Univ., ACUTA Sec./Treasurer

DC Update..................... Whitney Johnson, Retired, NO. Michigan Univ.

Welcome New Members

ACUTA Online Press …

Robust Airline Fleet Assignment, Venkata Pilla

Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Engineering Dissertations - Archive

The fleet assignment model allocates the fleet of aircraft types to the scheduled flight legs in the airline timetable published 90 days prior to the departure of the aircraft. The objective is to maximize profit. While costs associated with assigning a particular fleet type to a leg are easy to estimate, the revenues are based upon demand, which is realized close to departure. The uncertainty in demand makes it challenging to assign the right type of aircraft to each flight leg based on the forecasts taken 90 days prior to departure. Therefore, in this dissertation a two-stage stochastic programming framework …

Winning Back The Cup For Distributed Pomdps: Planning Over Continuous Belief Spaces, Pradeep Varakantham, Ranjit Nair, Milind Tambe, Makoto Yokoo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Distributed Partially Observable Markov Decision Problems (Distributed POMDPs) are evolving as a popular approach for modeling multiagent systems, and many different algorithms have been proposed to obtain locally or globally optimal policies. Unfortunately, most of these algorithms have either been explicitly designed or experimentally evaluated assuming knowledge of a starting belief point, an assumption that often does not hold in complex, uncertain domains. Instead, in such domains, it is important for agents to explicitly plan over continuous belief spaces. This paper provides a novel algorithm to explicitly compute finite horizon policies over continuous belief spaces, without restricting the space of …

Acuta Enews April 2006, Vol. 35, No. 4

ACUTA Newsletters

ln This lssue

From the President............... Patricia Todus, Northwestern Univ., ACUTA President

Tech Talk: Working Up a Sweat over Power Consumption............ Kevin Tanzillo, Dux PR

Nominate for ACUTA Ruth A . Michalecki Award

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

How to Negotiate a Cell-Site Leasing Agreement............... Riny Ledgerwood, San Diego State Univ.

Board Report................. Riny Ledgerwood, Son Diego State Univ., ACUTA Sec..Treasurer

Web Tip: Visited the ACUTA Press Room Lately?................... Aaron Fuehrer, ACUTA lnformation Tech. Mgr.

DC Update...................... Whitney Johnson, Retired, No. Michigan Univ.

Welcome New Members

ACUTA Online Press Room

Semester Project For Engineering Management, Paul Savory

Department of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering: Instructional Materials

This is the team-based, semester project for my advanced engineering management course at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. This project focuses on having student teams plan a successful, professional, innovative and enjoyable professional conference. This is an activity that many of of them will have the opportunity to be involved with during their career. The project is divided into nine tasks with peer feedback and rework part of the process.

Evaluation Of Time-Varying Availability In Multi-Echelon Spare Parts Systems With Passivation, Hoong Chuin Lau, Huawei Song, Chuen Teck See, Siew Yen Cheng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The popular models for repairable item inventory, both in the literature as well as practical applications, assume that the demands for items are independent of the number of working systems. However this assumption can introduce a serious underestimation of availability when the number of working systems is small, the failure rate is high or the repair time is long. In this paper, we study a multi-echelon repairable item inventory system under the phenomenon of passivation, i.e. serviceable items are passivated (“switched off”) upon system failure. This work is motivated by corrective maintenance of high-cost technical equipment in the miltary. We …

Measuring Plant-Wide Energy Savings, J. Kelly Kissock, Carl Eger

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

This paper presents a general method for measuring plant-wide industrial energy savings and demonstrates the method using a case study from an actual industrial energy assessment. The method uses regression models to characterize baseline energy use. It takes into account changes in weather and production, and can use sub-metered data or whole plant utility billing data. In addition to calculating overall savings, the method is also able to disaggregate savings into components, which provides additional insight into the effectiveness of the individual savings measures.

Although the method incorporates search techniques and multi-variable least-squares regression, it is easily implemented using data …

The Analytic Hierarchy & The Analytic Network Processes In Multicriteria Decision Making: A Comparative Study, Ali K. Taslicali

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The objective of this investigation is to identify the critical benefits and factors of decision making models in a changing technological environment. Decision making models are helping tools for the managers or decision makers to make future plans by using qualitative or quantitative data. In this research, a general idea about decision making models and, comparison between the two important models, the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the Analytical Network Process (ANP), are introduced. The research was done by using the information in the literature and expert judgment. This paper can be used by academics as a foundation for further …

National Internet Repository For Course Portfolios, Paul Savory, Amy M. Goodburn, Amy Nelson Burnett

Department of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Faculty in higher education are increasingly asked to document, assess, and make public their teaching practices. Course portfolios are a valuable medium for capturing the scholarly work of one’s teaching by combining inquiry into the intellectual work of a course with a careful investigation of the quality of student understanding and performance. It enables a faculty member to document the careful, difficult, and intentional scholarly work of planning and teaching a course. Since a course portfolio can be read, evaluated, and used by others, it offers mechanisms for valuing teaching as scholarship and for improving student learning. This poster will …

Developing And Integrating A Campus Program For Scholarship Of Teaching And Learning Initiatives, Paul Savory, Amy M. Goodburn, Amy Nelson Burnett

Department of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Based on the successful campus model that the University of Nebraska-Lincoln has developed over ten years, and those of our project consortium partners (Texas A&M, Kansas State University, Indiana University–Bloomington, University of Michigan, and University of Kansas), this panel offers suggestions for creating a campus peer review program designed to promote the intellectual work of teaching generally and the scholarship of teaching and learning more specifically. We offer our perspective on approaches for getting started, establishing the project leadership, seeking funding to support a project, recruiting and supporting faculty participants, developing strategies for running the program, and assessing the project’s …

Crisis Management In Projects, Senol Nazikkol

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The objective of this investigation is to identify the processes, benefits and important tools of crisis management in projects. Crisis management is a system that helps managers to prevent and overcome crises. In this research, a general review about crisis, crisis management processes and tools are discussed. The research was done by using the information in the literature and expert judgment. This paper can be used by academics as a foundation for further research and development in the area of crisis management in projects. Managers of projects can use this study for improving their projects and project-based organizations' crisis management …

Development Of Integrated Process Simulation System Model For Spent Fuel Treatment Facility (Sftf) Design: Quarterly Progress Report January 1-March 31, 2006, Yitung Chen, Sean Hsieh

Separations Campaign (TRP)

The UNLV developed TRPSEMPro software package can access engineering modeling software, ASPEN Plus through its own interface. The new interface eliminates the user interaction with the complex ASPEN Plus package and also provides input and output results for analysis purpose. The current interface will keep improving on collecting multiple scenario runs and database population.

Two separation processes, acid and plutonium separations, are near completion. The unit operations were finished while some sensitive chemical data for certain species are unknown. Graduate student, Matthew Hodges, continues on finishing those processes using dummy values for those restricted variables. Once the processes complete, researchers …

Reliability Of Systems Using Event Occurrence Networks, Gregory M. Steeger

Theses and Dissertations

The study of a system's reliability has played a crucial role in business and industry since the dawn of modern technology. Current graphical models utilized in reliability theory are limited in that no one model or technique allows for a thorough analysis of system reliability. This research introduces a new graphical model and methodology to be used in the field of reliability that addresses this concern. Event Occurrence Networks (EONs) and their solution methodologies provide an all-inclusive graphical model that allows for the manipulation of several important reliability measures. An EON is a probabilistic network that represents the superposition of …

Technology Transition: Guidance Versus Practice, Walter E. Espy

Theses and Dissertations

The transition of technologies ensures that U.S. warfighters have the necessary capabilities to fight ever increasing and changing global threats. The purpose of this study is to discover to what extent the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) is implementing known technology transition best practices. The research will look at the current guidance on technology transition and determine if it is being used by program managers within AFRL. The study will consider the technology transition process or processes expressly exercised within AFRL by surveying the perspectives and knowledge of program managers. An understanding of this process from the science and technology …

Reducing Uncertainty In Effects-Based Operations, Wilburn B. Mclamb

Theses and Dissertations

Known as the fog of war, uncertainty has been prevalent in the conduct of military operations throughout human history. Intelligence collection efforts are tasked to reduce this uncertainty through the collection of information. Utilizing Shannon's entropy as a measure of the expected information gain due to an intelligence collection effort, a methodology is developed to prioritize and allocate intelligence assets in an efficient manner. Incorporated in this methodology are target priority and the requirement to reassess dynamic targets. The application area for the methodology is Effects-Based Operations. A generalized state model is developed to conduct adversary system-of-systems analysis. This model …

A Graph Theoretic Analysis Of The Effects Of Organizational Structure On Employee Social Networks, John R. Hutzel

Theses and Dissertations

A simulation technique was used to investigate the impacts of organizational structure on an organization's social network. By simulating personnel in an organization as vertices in a graph and the aging of the corporation as the aging of the same graph, the maturation of an organization was realized. The characteristic path length of the graph was measured after each year returning an optimistic average organizational distance. Results include the finding that, per this model, an organization's characteristic path length can drop over 50% in a 20 year period with consideration of edges of all strengths. Next a series of random …

Modeling Network Centric Warfare (Ncw) With The System Effectiveness Analysis Simulation (Seas), Jason B. Honabarger

Theses and Dissertations

Significant technological advances over the past few decades have fueled the continual and rapid development of an information-based world. Network Centric Warfare (NCW) has become the buzzword of the young millennium within the Department of Defense (DoD) and is quickly becoming a popularly shared vision and rallying cry for force transformation among United States military leaders. An essential element in fully implementing this network-centric way of thinking is to develop useful measures to help gauge the effectiveness and efficiency of both our military networks and our strategic NCW doctrine. The goal of this research is first to provide a comprehensive …

Using Agent-Based Modeling To Search For Elusive Hiding Targets, Jeffrey E. Rucker

Theses and Dissertations

The SCUD hunt problem that emerged during Operation Desert Storm has become a source of great interest to major commands like Air Combat Command. One of the metrics used to measure the effectiveness of our operations in a SCUD hunt is time to detect and target. We use the agent-based System Effectiveness and Analysis Simulation (SEAS) to provide a simulation environment in which all the elements of a SCUD hunt mission can adequately be modeled. Our Blue Force agents are modeled as multirole fighters, satellites and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) with various sensor capabilities. The Red Force agents are modeled …

Processing Model For Tungsten Powders And Extention To Nanoscale Size Range, Randall M. German, J. Ma, X. Wang, E. Olevsky

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Nanoscale tungsten powders promise access to very hard, strong and wear resistant materials via the press–sinter route. A small particle size changes the response during sintering, requiring lower temperatures and shorter times to attain dense but small grain size structures. On the other hand, oxide reduction and impurity evaporation favour high sintering temperatures and long hold times. Accordingly, press–sinter processing encounters conflicting constraints when applied to small particles. Presented here is an analysis of press–sinter tungsten particle processing to isolate conditions that balance the temperature and size dependent effects. The calculations are pinned by existing data. Opportunities are identified for …

Acuta Enews March 2006, Vol. 35, No. 3

ACUTA Newsletters

In This lssue

From ACUTA Headquarters............ Jeri A. Semer, CAE, ACUTA Executive Director

Nominate for ACUTA Board of Directors

Tech Talk: Reputation Services Help Wage War on Spam................. Kevin Tanzlllo, Dux PR

Hunt for Unused Lines and Save.................. Mario Garcia, Cal State Dominguez Hills

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

ACUTA Audio Seminar: How to Negotiate a Cell-Site Leasing Agreement

Web Tip: Members Helping Members.............. Aaron Fuehrer, ACUTA lnformation Tech. Mgr.

Member Site to See

Board Report............ Riny Ledgerwood, Son Diego State Univ. ACUTA Sec./Treasurer

LambdaRail Completes Backbone

DC Update............... Whitney Johnson, Retired, No, Michigon Univ.

Welcome New …

A Systems Engineering Approach To Integrated Structural Health Monitoring For Aging Aircraft, Alan P. Albert, Efstathios Antoniou, Stephen D. Leggiero, Kimberly A. Tooman, Ramon L. Veglio

Theses and Dissertations

The United States Air Force and many of its Coalition partners have extended the original service life of some of their aging aircraft due to fiscal constraints. This life extension often requires increased periodic and in-depth inspections; increasing maintenance costs and resulting in longer periods of aircraft downtime. A structural health monitoring system for aging aircraft could reduce the current inspection burden, and thus decrease costs and system downtime. This presentation describes a baseline systems engineering methodology for system definition of an aging aircraft structural health monitoring system. Analysis was performed to quantify the potential benefit a structural health monitoring …

A Discrete Event Simulation Model For Evaluating Air Force Reusable Military Launch Vehicle Prelaunch Operations, Adam T. Stiegelmeier

Theses and Dissertations

As the control and exploitation of space becomes more important to the United States military, a responsive spacelift capability will become essential. Responsive spacelift could be defined as the ability to launch a vehicle within hours or days from the time a launch order is given, instead of the weeks or months it takes currently. As the Air Force contemplates moving toward a reusable military launch vehicle (RMLV) capability, it faces key design and ground processing decisions that will affect the vehicle regeneration timeline. This thesis develops a computer simulation model that mimics RMLV prelaunch operations-those activities that take place …

Classification Characteristics Of Carbon Nanotube Polymer Composite Chemical Vapor Detectors, Huynh A. Hinshaw

Theses and Dissertations

The first step in combating a chemical weapons threat is contamination avoidance. This is accomplished by the detection and identification of chemical agents. The Air Force has several instruments to detect chemical vapors, but is always looking for lighter, faster, and more accurate technology for a better capability. This research is focused on using carbon nanotube polymer composite sensors for chemical detection. More specifically, models are developed to classify three sets of sensor data according to vapor using various multivariate techniques. Also, prediction models of a mixed sensor output are developed using neural networks and regression analysis. The classifiers developed …

Mitochondrial Dna Genome Sequencing And Snp Assay Development For Increased Power Of Discrimination, Thomas J. Parsons

United States Army: Publications

This report details the work performed over a period of five years in an NIJ-funded project intended primarily to develop a practical means for accessing the large reserve of genetic variation in the ~15,000 bp mtDNA coding region, as a means for augmenting the forensic discrimination provided by sequencing the hypervariable (HV) regions of the mtDNA control region. Our approach was to focus on the relatively small number of particularly common types present in US Caucasian, African American, and Hispanic populations, where the problem of limited discrimination is concentrated in practice. We sequenced 506 entire mtDNA genomes corresponding to 56 …

Combining Quality Of Service And Topology Control In Directional Hybrid Wireless Networks, Michael C. Erwin

Theses and Dissertations

Recent advancements in information and communications technology are changing the information environment in both quantitative and qualitative measures. The developments in directional wireless capabilities necessitate the ability to model these new capabilities, especially in dynamic environments typical of military combat operations. This thesis establishes a foundation for the definition and consideration of the unique network characteristics and requirements introduced by this novel instance of the Network Design Problem (NDP). Developed are a Mixed-Integer Linear Program (MILP) formulation and two heuristic strategies for solving the NDP. A third solution strategy using the MILP formulation with a degree-constrained Minimum Spanning Tree starting …

A Multi-Pass Construction Heuristic For The Aggregated Airlift Problem, Stephen T. O'Leary

Theses and Dissertations

To support the capabilities for precision strike, close air support, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, air mobility and air refueling the Air Force has over 26,000 Airmen deployed from over 80 military installations to Forward Operating Locations (FOLs) in over 21 countries. This research creates a multi-pass construction heuristic to solve the aggregated airlift problem associated with the transportation of these 26,000 deployed Airmen. We are given a Time Phased Force Deployment Document (TPFDD) containing a list of personnel scheduled for deployment, their base of origin, Point of Debarkation (POD), FOL, and Required Delivery Date (RDD). The goal is to aggregate the …

A Risk Assessment Methodology For Divesting Military Capabilities To Allied Nations, Jason A. Gastelum

Theses and Dissertations

The United States spent over $400 billion dollars on national defense in 2005. Even with support for the war on terrorism still strong, it is doubtful that the U.S. can sustain such a level of defense investment. One strategy to offset the increasing burden of defense spending is to divest the procurement and/or sustainment of individual defense capabilities to allied nations. The decision to divest any capability, however, introduces risk. This thesis presents a methodology to quantify the risk of the decision to divest a military capability to an allied nation, where risk is defined as the set of risk …

A Comparative Usability And End-User Satisfaction Analysis Of Two Geographic Information System (Gis) Applications, Mark E. Barner

Theses and Dissertations

The Air Force has recognized that organizations across Air Force installations often require geospatial information resources or maps to accomplish mission essential tasks. To provide an AF-wide approach to addressing this need, in 2001, the Headquarters Air Force Geo Integration Office formed the USAF GeoBase program. GeoBase is the name given to the Air Force's GIS program. As GeoBase has been implemented across the Air Force, there have been no mandated product standards for GIS applications. This thesis focuses on two different GIS applications being used across the CE community for the management of airfield obstructions. These two applications are …