Industrial Engineering Commons^™

Decomposition Approach To Parametric Nonconvex Regression; Nuclear Resonance Analysis, Jordan L. Armstrong

Masters Theses

Parameterized nonconvex regression is a difficult problem for any optimization solver packages, often resulting in approximations and linearizations of the problem in order to be able to arrive a solution, if the problem is even solvable at all. These changes to the initial problem are largely dependent upon having appropriate domain knowledge and still often times result in a sizable gap between the achieved solution and the best true solution. We propose a novel method of decomposing the global problem into small, overlapping windows. Thus, the independent windows are now solvable. Subsequently, we offer a novel, sequential method of parameter …

Comparing And Improving The Design Of Physical Activity Data Visualizations, Peter M. Frackleton

Masters Theses

Heart disease is a leading cause of death in the United States, and older adults are at highest risk of being diagnosed with heart disease. Consistent physical exercise is an effective means of deterring onset of heart disease, and physical activity tracking devices can inspire greater activity in older adults. However, physical activity tracking device abandonment is quite common due to limitations on what can be learned from the activity data that is collected. Better data visualization of physical data presents an opportunity to surpass these limitations. In this thesis, a task-based human subject study was performed with three different …

Periodic Replenish And Recount Policy To Address Record Inaccuracy From Stock Loss, Colton K. Ku

Masters Theses

Inventory record inaccuracy (IRI) often arises in retail environments due to unaccounted stock loss. Theft, misplacement, spoilage, and transaction errors will reduce the true inventory values without changing the inventory record. As previous inventory replenishment policies assume perfect record accuracy, increasing IRI can cause unexpected stockout events, mistimed reorders and replenishment freezes. Solutions to rectifying IRI vary from the use of improved tracking technologies to prevent it initially occurring at all to recounting programs which estimate true inventory value. Unfortunately, in retail environments, high‑tracking technology is unsuitable and continuous counting programs are too costly. To address the limitations of current …

Uht Milk: Supply Chain Based Shelf Life Assessment And Risk Mitigation, Sagar Rameshwar Padghan

Masters Theses

Transportation and storage conditions in the perishable food supply chain play a vital role in product shelf life. This study focuses on UHT milk, a variant of milk that has a shelf life of up to 12 months in ideal conditions. However, poor transportation and storage practices can diminish its shelf life and result in quality losses resulting from milk spoilage. UHT milk literature focuses on chemical and physical analysis of changes in milk. There have been limited number of studies that characterize supply chain effects on the shelf life of milk and other perishable products.

This study analyzes supply …

Examining The Empirical Relationship Between Subjective Fatigue And Employee Work Engagement In A Heavy Workload Manufacturing Environment, Prashanth Balasubramanian

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine the empirical relationship between Subjective Fatigue and Employee work engagement among employees working under heavy workload conditions in Tennessee, USA. The questionnaire was developed by reviewing extant literature and the factors that were chosen were subjected to exploratory factor analysis. Post elimination of the weakly loaded factors, a questionnaire based on the selected factors was designed to measure the subjective levels of fatigue. The data was collected from two manufacturing company sites from East Tennessee and was subjected to analysis using IBM SPSS and SmartPLS softwares. As a part of the SEM …

The Effects Of Rigid Polyurethane Foam As A Confinement Material On Breaching Charge Detonations, Nathan Franz Paerschke-O'Brien

Masters Theses

"The effects of a rigid polyurethane foam used as a confinement material on four types of breaching explosives were tested, focusing on the changes in shockwave peak pressures, detonation load compression forces, and brisance cratering abilities. The Plate Dent testing procedure was modified to incorporate a load cell force sensor, and two air overpressure sensors were included adjacent to the blast to quantify each test result. The testing variables focused on the polyurethane foam cure times and thickness volumes around the breaching explosives to determine the breaching charges' optimal energy output capabilities when confined by the foam material. The rigid …