Minimizing Average Handling Time In Contact Centers By Introducing A New Process: Rowan Support Desk Case Study, Niusha Jafari

Theses and Dissertations

Quality of a call center performance is an important factor in insuring customer satisfaction. Customers, the "callers", want their requests solved quickly, permanently and to their satisfaction. Often, there are staff constraints, budget or cost limitation, and the Service Level Agreement (SLA) which is resource availability to accomplish a task within a deadline. The purpose of this research is to analyze feasible approaches to minimize the long-lasting open requests and enhance a call center's performance. Multiple challenges that a call center often faces in handling requests are studied to identify key bottlenecks in the process of handling requests. Rowan University …

Measuring And Analysing The Effect Of Openings And Vibration On Reusable Pharmaceutical Insulated Boxes With Daily Distribution, Péter Böröcz, Ákos Mojzes, Péter Csavajda

Journal of Applied Packaging Research

To control the climate when temperature sensitive drugs are delivered is an essential consideration of shippers and freight forwarders. It is common practice to utilize insulated boxes. A survey was conducted to determine the properties of these daily deliveries and factors were observed that influence the climate environment of drugs during travel. These factors included opening intervals, number of openings, trip times and distances. Then the results of the survey were used to perform the recorded circumstances of distribution in laboratory tests as close to reality as possible and analyse the effect of the above-mentioned factors. During real distribution the …

Toe Joint Replacement Models, Tarun Goswami, Allison L. Van Horn, Alexander O. Sheets

Biomedical, Industrial & Human Factors Engineering Faculty Publications

In various embodiments, provided are implantable devices for replacing all or a portion of a metatarsophalangeal joint, comprising (i) a metatarsal component comprising a Substan tially convex bearing Surface; or (ii) a phalanx component comprising a Substantially concave bearing Surface; or (iii) both. In various embodiments, also provided are methods of treating hallux Valgus by replacing all or a portion of a meta tarsophalangeal joint with one or more of the provided implantable devices.

Increasing The Independence Of Children With Spina Bifida Through The Designing And Building Of A Mechanical Aide, Andrew Duffek, Robert Brent, Michael Hamada, Melissa Rodriguez

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

In order to assist Silas Hopper, a child with spina bifida, with getting into his wheelchair independently when being on the ground, the senior project team set out to construct a device that would fulfill that purpose. They did this through coming up with a strict definition of the problem to be solved, designing a number of potential solutions for the problem, prototyping to determine the feasibility of the solutions, making design modifications after testing the prototype, and building the final device.

The end product was a device that was able to operate mechanically, with a design that considered safety …

Exploring Bridge-Engine Control Room Collaborative Team Communication, Aditi Kataria, Eric Holder, Gesa Praetorius, Michael Baldauf, Jens-Uwe Schröder-Hinrichs

Journal Publications

The EC funded CyClaDes research project is designed to promote the increased impact of the human element in shipping across the design and operational lifecycle of ships. It addresses the design and operation of ships and ship systems. One of the CyClaDes’ tasks is to create a crew‐centered design case‐study examination of the information that is shared between the Bridge and Engine Control Room (ECR) that helps the crew coordinate to ensure understanding and complete interconnected tasks. This information can be provided in various ways, including communication devices or obtained from a common database, display, or even the ship environment …

Small Scale Erp Engine Design, Colyn Muir Dickson, Matthew Wade Haymond

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

This project set out to create a 1) low-cost, 2) dynamic, and 3) user-friendly small scale ERP software tool. These three key attributes position this product against complex and expensive systems such as SAP or Oracle. While the product still retains the dynamic and financial capabilities any good ERP system should have, the biggest value proposition is its simple and user-friendly interface. The software has a dual product-market fit: for small businesses as a low-cost planning tool, and for universities as a teaching tool. In the design phase, the team kept a primary focus on ergonomic software development while maintaining …

Tesla Motors Quality Engineering Application And Implementation, Nick Kwan

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Tesla Motors, in Winter 2013 during the author’s coop,had a variety of potential improvement areas regarding their quality engineering team. There were too many overall defects on the vehicles. Those defects were recognized as the cars were passing through inspection, coming off the line, as well as brought by customers to after-purchase service. One of the defects was the Charge-port Door Malfunction, in which the door of the Model S would not open on command. An additional defect was the Windshield Wiper Malfunction, in which the fluid was not hitting the car at the desired angle. Both of these defects …

Database Design For The Collection And Visualization Of Sustainabilty Data, Henry A. Kozlowski, Nikhila Perugupalli

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The goal of the project was to create a database that would be a repository for the high volume of sustainability data Illumina would like to collect. To couple with the database the project team’s goal was to design a system for visualizing the data graphically. Illumina required a database system that would be user-friendly, easy to add, delete, and edit data inputs, as well as a program that would allow the user to easily sort and graph data. The intent of the graphical representation of the data is to publish the graphs in a monthly report that would be …

Industrial Engineering Consulting, Blake J. Ahrold, Torrey M. Plana

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

This paper documents the senior project of Blake Ahrold and Torrey Plana. This project was created to provide a solution to the problem of small to medium Sized enterprises (SMEs) being under represented by lean consulting companies. The project was at first intended to be a lean consulting startup and then pivoted to The Systems Optimization Club. A project charter, Gantt chart, and business model canvas were created for the startup and used as guidelines in the creation of the Systems Optimization club. The club is to be run like a lean consulting company. The club will provide teams of …

Strasbaugh Nonconforming Report Optimization, Eden Andersen, Angela Asgekar, Rebecca Gregg

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

This paper strives to convey the problems and proposed solutions for Strasbaugh’s Nonconforming Report (NCR) Optimization. Strasbaugh is a world leader in silicon wafer polisher and grinder technologies. After a significant down size to the company parts they used to manufacture now have to be purchased, and many of these incoming parts do not conform to Strasbaugh’s high standards. This has led to an increase in NCRs that need to be processed, which takes up time, resources and money.

The objective therefore became to update the multi-sheet carbon copy paper system to better optimize the use of these reports and …

Designing A Supply Chain For Wine Imports, Italy To California, Neil Magnuson, Sam Bucher

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Executive Summary

In this report a framework for a hypothetical business will be covered. Bucher & Magnuson Wine Import Inc. has provided a business plan as well as a detailed supply chain design for operations. In addition, a model for scaling and a redesign of a possible storage facility will be found. This comprehensive document outlines end to end the supply chain model of the hypothetical business and moreover a framework for starting a wine import business in San Luis Obispo.

The conclusions of the results from this model are the following:

• Unconcerned with time, the cheapest route for 1 …

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An Automated Solution For Analyzing Supply Chain Performance, Paul Ringelstein

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The world is becoming increasingly connected as technology progresses and globalization reaches more countries. This interconnection creates new challenges and new relationships for both people and businesses. Now, more than ever, businesses have to work together to satisfy the high demands of customers.In a world full of complex organizations that do business together, the supply chain has become the heartbeat of corporations. The interconnectedness of the organizations in the supply chain is critical to the success of all components of the supply chain. In order to gain an advantage in markets today, data needs to be used to determine where …

Analysis Of 3d Printer Schedule, Colin B. Mclane

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

With recent innovations in technology, 3D printing has become a rapidly expanding manufacturing method that is being used for a wide range of applications. Their ability to build parts layer by layer instead of cutting away initial material allows this method to have almost no wasted material, creating the potential for a much more efficient, cost effective process. In order to continue the growth of this manufacturing strategy, the performance of 3D printers need to be enhanced to ensure equal or higher quality of produced parts in comparison to other manufacturing methods that are more commonly used. One important part …

Cost Effective Analysis Of Big Data, Steven J. Litzsinger, Nehad Dababo

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Executive Summary

Big data is everywhere and businesses that can access and analyze it have a huge advantage over those who can’t. One option for leveraging big data to make more informed decisions is to hire a big data consulting company to take over the entire project. This method requires the least effort, but is also the least cost effective. The problem is that the know-how for starting a big data project is not commonly known and the consulting alternative is not very cost effective. This creates the need for a cost effective approach that businesses can use to start …

Design Of An Automated Vehicle Detection System For Bicycles: Fireworks Cycling Sensor, Jason Cheng, Peter Kim, Tory Morgan, Clayton Young

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Abstract

This report explores the necessity for increased cyclist safety in urban settings, leading to the birth of a product which aims to drastically reduce the risk of accidents while heightening the sense of safety overall. The project outlines and details the product development process of a consumer-friendly vehicle detection system, with a holistic scope which includes technical rapid prototyping and coding, team dynamics, decision making process, and change management. Two formal prototypes were developed before a functional final product was identified and constructed, each iteration drastically improving practicality and efficiency of detection. The final product underwent extensive testing in …

Economic Analysis And Justification For Automated Welding Systems, Roxanne Raye

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

This report looks at designing a new welding process for a company in the Oil & Gas industry, ensuring method consistency and performance quality of their steel drill bit while increasing overall production. The current product is welded manually with a flux core wire, resulting in high cycle times and numerous cases of required rework.

The use of automation systems will be analyzed for their increased consistency, quality, safety, and production estimates. Specifically robotic cell design will be considered, since it can work on more parts with fewer operators, adding efficiency and flexibility to the production floor. Other areas of …

Dcpp/Polygait Inventory Control System, Logan Pace, Robert Garlinghouse

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

This report discusses a proposed system to improve upon inventory management issues experienced in the M&TE Tool room for the PG&E Diablo Canyon Power plant. Effective inventory tracking and management is an important characteristic of any organization handling physical assets, and without the proper system in place, companies may lose expensive items and waste time by not having equipment available when needed. The tool room is experiencing inventory shrinkage of M&TE equipment nearing $100,000 per year largely because of an inefficient checkout system that fails to keep employees accountable for the tools they check out. Even more costly than the …

Quality Improvement At Patio Pacific, Petdoors, Tri Minh Nguyen, In Woo Suh

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Quality is key in manufacturing any type of product. Customer expectations only rise with time, and it has become more crucial than ever for companies to produce quality products to survive. This project sets out to improve quality of flagship products at Patio Pacific. This report contains the background of the company, Patio Pacific, the process of finding critical problems, and the methodology to solve them.

Customer returns and inquiries have the ability to eat up cash flow in any type of company. This senior project sets out with introduction of the project that explains how the project came about, …

Developing Entrepreneurial Thinking In Engineering Students By Utilizing Integrated Online Modules, Ronald S. Harichandran, Maria-Isabel Carnasciali, Nadiye O. Erdil, Cheryl Q. Li, Jean Nocito-Gobel, Samuel Bogan Daniels

Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Faculty Publications

An approach to develop entrepreneurial thinking skills in engineering students by integrating online modules into existing courses is described. Eighteen online modules covering a variety of topics will be developed. Developers for the modules are selected by reviewing proposals submitted in response to a broadly distributed request for proposals. Developers undergo extensive training before embarking upon module development. Students will complete each standalone module outside of class hours. Instructors who deploy a module in their course will develop contextual course assignments that reinforce concepts covered in the modules. These instructors also undergo training and are assisted by an external consultant. …

Lessons Learned From A Simulation Project In Construction Education, Saeed Rokooei, James D. Goedert

Department of Construction Engineering and Management: Faculty Publications

Virtual Interactive Construction Education (VICE) is a simulation designed for construction education. The purpose was to provide the traditional lecture-based construction contents along with supplementary instructions in a project-based learning environment. Six modules were proposed as a curriculum delivery guideline including: single span bridge, residential building, light commercial, heavy commercial, highway, and segmental bridge. The single span bridge was the first module used for prototype development providing an opportunity to design, analyze, implement, and test for effectiveness. This paper describes the design steps and results of this three-year research project. VICE-Bridge required participants to sequentially order the construction activities and …

Don't Go Chasing Big Waterfalls, William "Ike" Eisenhauer

Engineering and Technology Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

The article focuses on the importance of simpler health systems in the U.S. Topics discussed include success of simple systems as they are well-understood, improvement of simple systems by coupling them together, handling more patient cases by larger systems by the medical laboratory technicians giving complicated results and designing simple systems by health system engineers to deal with fewer problematic cases of patients with more efficacy.

Solar Cal Poly Active Hvac Project, James Cornish, Jake Cosmo, Patrick Weston

Mechanical Engineering

For this project, the goal was to conceptualize, design, test, and implement an active HVAC system to be used in the Solar Cal Poly house competing in the Department of Energy’s 2015 Solar Decathlon. With many house iterations, it was decided to use a split system with an outdoor heat pump and indoor air handler, paired with a HRV for ventilation. Through system modeling using Design Builder and Energy Pro 6.5, the cooling load of the house was determined along with the cooling schedule. The foreseen safety precautions and limited construction time guided the entire project, along with the active …

Void Modeling In Resin Infusion, Mark Wesley Brandley

Theses and Dissertations

Resin infusion of composite parts has continually been reaching to achieve laminate quality equal to, or exceeding, the quality produced with prepreg in an autoclave. In order for this to occur, developers must understand the key process variables that go in to producing a laminate with minimal void content. The purpose of this research is to continue efforts in understanding 1) the effect of process conditions on the resultant void content, with a focus on resin infusion flow rate, 2) applying statistical metrics to the formation, location and size of voids formed, and 3) correlate these metrics with the local …

Service Dependency Analysis Via Tcp/Udp Port Tracing, John K. Clawson

Theses and Dissertations

Enterprise networks are traditionally mapped via layers two or three, providing a view of what devices are connected to different parts of the network infrastructure. A method was developed to map connections at layer four, providing a view of interconnected systems and services instead of network infrastructure. This data was graphed and displayed in a web application. The information proved beneficial in identifying connections between systems or imbalanced clusters when troubleshooting problems with enterprise applications.

A Systematic Review Of Technological Advancements To Enhance Learning, Elizabeth A. Cudney, Julie Ezzell

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Assessing student learning styles and incorporating thought-provoking activities has been a focus of research for years. Virtual technology and social media are transforming traditional classrooms into training spaces that can be tailored for individual learning patterns and personalized for different skill levels. These technological tools are not only revolutionizing the conventional lecture-based classroom but also beginning to incorporate options such as flipped and blended classrooms. Students in these nontraditional settings are given additional hands-on experience that allows them to become immersed in a variety of subjects. Flipped classrooms in particular use class time effectively by challenging students to prepare prior …

Retail Precinct Management: A Case Of Commercial Decentralization In Singapore, Robert De Souza, Hoong Chuin Lau, Mark Goh, Lindawati, Wee-Siong Ng, Puay-Siew Tan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The synchronized last mile logistics concept seeks to address, through coordinated collaboration, several challenges that hinder reliability, cost efficiency, effective resource planning, scheduling and utilization; and increasingly, sustainability objectives. Subsequently, the meeting of service level and contractual commitments are competitively impacted with any loss of efficiency. These challenges, against a backdrop of Singapore, can essentially be addressed in selected industry sectors through a better understanding of logistics structures; innovative supply chain designs and coordination of services, operations and processes coupled with concerted policies and supply chain strategies.

History-Based Controller Design And Optimization For Partially Observable Mdps, Akshat Kumar, Shlomo Zilberstein

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Partially observable MDPs provide an elegant framework forsequential decision making. Finite-state controllers (FSCs) are often used to represent policies for infinite-horizon problems as they offer a compact representation, simple-to-execute plans, and adjustable tradeoff between computational complexityand policy size. We develop novel connections between optimizing FSCs for POMDPs and the dual linear programfor MDPs. Building on that, we present a dual mixed integer linear program (MIP) for optimizing FSCs. To assign well-defined meaning to FSC nodes as well as aid in policy search, we show how to associate history-based features with each FSC node. Using this representation, we address another challenging …

Measurement And Analysis Of Physical And Climatic Distribution Environment For Air Package Shipment, Sher Paul Singh, Jay Singh, Koushik Saha

Industrial Technology and Packaging

There has been a significant growth in the air package shipment business, which involves the multi-modal movement of a package in transportation and material handling systems that encompass conveyors, carts, trucks, delivery vans and aircrafts of various sizes and shapes. This study was aimed at establishing the ‘air package shipment’ conditions experienced by packages transported by air under ‘normal conditions of transport’. Air package shipment data (temperature, humidity, pressure, shock and vibration) were collected for several domestic and international routes through instrumented packages. The collected data were supplemented by previous research to measure and quantify this multi-modal shipping environment. This …

Cal Poly Dining: The Avenue Redesign, Eric Calbonero, Derek Nollsch, Casey Reilly

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Executive Summary

Campus Dining is planning to close VG’s Cafe during the 2015-2016 school year; as a result, the remaining restaurants on campus need to accommodate the additional student demand. The student team consisting of Eric Calbonero, Derek Nollsch, and Casey Reilly met with Campus Dining’s Director of Operations, Greg Yeo, about this issue—he directed the team toward a redesign of The Avenue Food Court. To redesign The Avenue, the project team focused on several key deliverables as follows:

• Study current customer trends in The Avenue

• Develop a proposed facilities layout and design

• Perform a capacity analysis of The Avenue …

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San Luis Obispo Children's Museum: The Circuit Lab, Megan Garcia, Victoria Higgins, Michael Xie

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Executive Summary

Over a nine month period, the senior project team worked closely with the San Luis Obispo Children’s Museum to develop a new interactive exhibit for the museum’s Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) floor. The initial budget given for this project was $3,000. The museum’s requirements for a new exhibit were that it must be safe for young children to use, require minimal supervision, is interactive, has learning objectives, and is economically feasible and sustainable. The team chose to build an exhibit that would teach young children about simple circuitry and electronics.

First, extensive research of circuits, children’s …