Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Space Operations In The Suborbital Space Flight Simulator And Mission Control Center: Lessons Learned With Xcor Lynx, Pedro Llanos, Christopher Nguyen, David Williams, Kim O. Chambers Ph.D., Erik Seedhouse, Robert Davidson

Pedro J. Llanos (www.AstronauticsLlanos.com)

This study was conducted to better understand the performance of the XCOR Lynx vehicle. Because the Lynx development was halted, the best knowledge of vehicle dynamics can only be found through simulator flights. X-Plane 10 was chosen for its robust applications and accurate portrayal of dynamics on a vehicle in flight. The Suborbital Space Flight Simulator (SSFS) and Mission Control Center (MCC) were brought to the Applied Aviation Sciences department in fall 2015 at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach campus. This academic and research tool is a department asset capable of providing multiple fields of data about suborbital simulated flights. …

Product Complexity: A Definition And Impacts On Operations, Mark A. Jacobs

Mark A. Jacobs

The difficulty for organizations arises because neither complexity nor its impacts on performance are well understood (Fisher & Ittner, 1999b). The mechanisms through which it affects cost, quality, delivery, and flexibility need to be explained (Ramdas, 2003). However, this cannot happen until complexity can be explained theoretically. But, to build theory there must first be a common understanding about the construct of interest (Wacker, 2004). Only then can researchers operationalize it and search for meaningful relationships. In light of this, I develop a definition of complexity below. A sampling of the operations management literature is then presented within the context …

Volume And Cost Implications Of Product Portfolio Complexity, Mark A. Jacobs

Mark A. Jacobs

Business leaders are concerned about the impacts of increasing levels of product portfolio complexity since many sense that complexity related costs such as order management, procurement, and inventory threaten to undermine operational efficiencies and consume profits. Even so, managers do not fully understand the extent and breadth of the impacts of product portfolio complexity. A more complete understanding of the operational effects of product portfolio complexity is lacking partially because researchers have not yet offered a robust theoretical perspective or studied it in a focused controlled way; until now. Herein, measures of product portfolio complexity are developed and related to …

How Cios Overcome The Competing Values Challenge: Irish Cios’ Perspectives, Harvey Enns, Dean B. Mcfarlin, Paul B. Sweeney

Paul B. Sweeney

Competing values are a fact of organizational life. However, there are gaps in our understanding about how these opposing beliefs hinder influence processes. This article draws on interview data to demonstrate how Irish Chief Information Officers (CIOs) are able to convince their colleagues to support new projects within their firms in the face of competing values. Focused interviews were used to explore the influence process and the competing values phenomenon, since this type of research is at an early stage and qualitative methods and analysis serve as a rich source of theory development. The data showed that the CIOs who …

Pricing And Product Mix Optimization In Freight Transportation, Michael F. Gorman

Michael F. Gorman

We propose improved pricing and market mix can improve the profitability of the freight transportation provider through the reduction of equipment repositioning costs. We hypothesize that because of complexities surrounding pricing and equipment repositioning costing, existing pricing strategies in freight transportation fail to fully consider these costs. We test this hypothesis in an applied setting in which Monte Carlo simulation captures the stochasticity of market conditions inherent in the problem. We use a heuristic to improve the nondifferentiable, discontinuous objective function. Our results from test cases show with high confidence that current prices are not optimal, as indicated by a …

Integrating Strategic And Tactical Rolling Stock Models With Cyclical Demand, Michael F. Gorman

Michael F. Gorman

In the transportation industry, companies position rolling stock where it is likely to be needed in the face of a pronounced weekly cyclical demand pattern in orders.

Strategic policies based on assumptions of repetition of cyclical weekly patterns set rolling stock targets; during tactical execution, a myriad dynamic influences cause deviations from strategically set targets. We find that optimal strategic plans do not agree with results of tactical modeling; strategic results are in fact suboptimal in many tactical situations. We discuss managerial implications of this finding and how the two modeling paradigms can be reconciled.

The Promises And Challenges Of Innovating Through Big Data And Analytics In Healthcare, Donald E. Wynn, Renée M. E. Pratt

Donald Wynn

In this article, we present the promises and challenges of big data and analytics (BD&A) in healthcare, informed by our observations of and interviews with healthcare providers in the US and European Union (EU). We then provide a set of recommendations for capitalizing on the extraordinary innovation opportunities available through big data.

Choosing Management Information Systems As A Major: Understanding The Smifactors For Mis, Thomas W. Ferratt, Stephen R. Hall, Jayesh Prasad, Donald E. Wynn

Donald Wynn

Given declining management information systems (MIS) enrollments at our university, we seek to understand our students‘ selection of a major. Prior studies have found that students choose a major based on a number of factors, with subject matter interest consistently being most important. We contribute to the literature by developing a deeper understanding of what is meant by subject matter interest, which we refer to as smiFactors, for MIS as a major and career. Based on a qualitative analysis of open-ended survey questions completed by undergraduate business students, we confirm a number of smiFactors for MIS gleaned from recent studies …

Principles For Conducting Critical Realist Case Study Research In Information Systems, Donald E. Wynn, Clay K. Williams

Donald Wynn

Critical realism is emerging as a viable philosophical paradigm for conducting social science research, and has been proposed as an alternative to the more prevalent paradigms of positivism and interpretivism. Few papers, however, have offered clear guidance for applying this philosophy to actual research methodologies. Under critical realism, a causal explanation for a given phenomenon is inferred by explicitly identifying the means by which structural entities and contextual conditions interact to generate a given set of events. Consistent with this view of causality, we propose a set of methodological principles for conducting and evaluating critical realism-based explanatory case study research …

Assessing The Emphasis On Information Security In The Systems Analysis And Design Course, William David Salisbury, Thomas W. Ferratt, Donald E. Wynn

Donald Wynn

Due to several recent highly publicized information breaches, information security has gained a higher profile. Hence, it is reasonable to expect that information security would receive an equally significant emphasis in the education of future systems professionals. A variety of security standards that various entities (e.g., NIST, COSO, ISACA-COBIT, ISO) have put forth emphasize the importance of information security from the very beginning of the system development lifecycle (SDLC) to avoid significant redesign in later phases. To determine the emphasis on security in typical systems analysis and design (SA&D) courses, we examine (1) to what extent security is emphasized in …

Irish Cios’ Influence On Technology Innovation And It-Business Alignment, Harvey Enns, Joseph J. Mcdonagh

Harvey Enns

Technology is the driving force behind many of today’s new products, services, and cost-cutting measures. However, there are gaps in our understanding about how technological innovation is fostered and nurtured in organizations. Part of the answer is to examine how Chief Information Officers (CIOs) exercise influence regarding technological innovation in organizations. This is particularly important since the CIO is the head of technology in organizations, an important source of technological innovation. This article draws on an established executive influence framework to demonstrate how Irish CIOs are able to solidify Information Technology’s (IT’s) contribution to technological innovation via relational means. Most …

Synergy And Its Limits In Managing Information Technology Professionals, Thomas W. Ferratt, Jayesh Prasad, Harvey Enns

Harvey Enns

We examine the effects of human resource management (HRM) practices (e.g., career development, social support, compensation, and security) on IT professionals‟ job search behavior. Job search is a relatively novel dependent variable in studies of voluntary withdrawal behavior, in general, and for IT professionals, in particular. From a universalistic perspective, HRM practices individually and in combination exhibit independently additive effects on job search behavior. Our study contrasts this perspective with configurational theory, hypothesizing that proposed idealtype configurations of HRM practices have synergistic effects on job search behavior. We contribute to the IT and broader HRM literature by theoretically explicating and …

How Cios Overcome The Competing Values Challenge: Irish Cios’ Perspectives, Harvey Enns, Dean B. Mcfarlin, Paul B. Sweeney

Harvey Enns

Competing values are a fact of organizational life. However, there are gaps in our understanding about how these opposing beliefs hinder influence processes. This article draws on interview data to demonstrate how Irish Chief Information Officers (CIOs) are able to convince their colleagues to support new projects within their firms in the face of competing values. Focused interviews were used to explore the influence process and the competing values phenomenon, since this type of research is at an early stage and qualitative methods and analysis serve as a rich source of theory development. The data showed that the CIOs who …

Assessing The Emphasis On Information Security In The Systems Analysis And Design Course, William David Salisbury, Thomas W. Ferratt, Donald E. Wynn

William D Salisbury PhD

Due to several recent highly publicized information breaches, information security has gained a higher profile. Hence, it is reasonable to expect that information security would receive an equally significant emphasis in the education of future systems professionals. A variety of security standards that various entities (e.g., NIST, COSO, ISACA-COBIT, ISO) have put forth emphasize the importance of information security from the very beginning of the system development lifecycle (SDLC) to avoid significant redesign in later phases. To determine the emphasis on security in typical systems analysis and design (SA&D) courses, we examine (1) to what extent security is emphasized in …

Assessing The Emphasis On Information Security In The Systems Analysis And Design Course, William David Salisbury, Thomas W. Ferratt, Donald E. Wynn

Thomas Ferratt

Due to several recent highly publicized information breaches, information security has gained a higher profile. Hence, it is reasonable to expect that information security would receive an equally significant emphasis in the education of future systems professionals. A variety of security standards that various entities (e.g., NIST, COSO, ISACA-COBIT, ISO) have put forth emphasize the importance of information security from the very beginning of the system development lifecycle (SDLC) to avoid significant redesign in later phases. To determine the emphasis on security in typical systems analysis and design (SA&D) courses, we examine (1) to what extent security is emphasized in …

Choosing Management Information Systems As A Major: Understanding The Smifactors For Mis, Thomas W. Ferratt, Stephen R. Hall, Jayesh Prasad, Donald E. Wynn

Thomas Ferratt

Given declining management information systems (MIS) enrollments at our university, we seek to understand our students‘ selection of a major. Prior studies have found that students choose a major based on a number of factors, with subject matter interest consistently being most important. We contribute to the literature by developing a deeper understanding of what is meant by subject matter interest, which we refer to as smiFactors, for MIS as a major and career. Based on a qualitative analysis of open-ended survey questions completed by undergraduate business students, we confirm a number of smiFactors for MIS gleaned from recent studies …

Synergy And Its Limits In Managing Information Technology Professionals, Thomas W. Ferratt, Jayesh Prasad, Harvey Enns

Thomas Ferratt

We examine the effects of human resource management (HRM) practices (e.g., career development, social support, compensation, and security) on IT professionals‟ job search behavior. Job search is a relatively novel dependent variable in studies of voluntary withdrawal behavior, in general, and for IT professionals, in particular. From a universalistic perspective, HRM practices individually and in combination exhibit independently additive effects on job search behavior. Our study contrasts this perspective with configurational theory, hypothesizing that proposed idealtype configurations of HRM practices have synergistic effects on job search behavior. We contribute to the IT and broader HRM literature by theoretically explicating and …

Effect Of Retiring Custom Web Applications On Business And Information Technology Alignment, Shubhashree Thekahally

Shubhashree Thekahally 7340504

Web applications provide the information technology (IT) implementation of business and align IT with business. Retirement of IT applications should ensure stability of business and IT alignment. The current study investigated the alignment gaps created between business and IT resulting from retiring IT software applications. The purpose of this study was to identify IT integration points with business and provide a process-based solution that sustained IT alignment with business after retiring IT applications. The theoretical framework strategic alignment model aided in identifying 3 IT domains as the IT integration points with business: enterprise architecture, configuration management database, and service-level agreement. …

Enhancing Manufacturing Planning And Control Systems Through Artificial Intelligence Techniques, Ronald S. Dattero, John J. Kanet, Edna M. White

John J. Kanet

Manufacturing planning and control systems are currently dominated by systems based upon Material Requirements Planning (MRP). MRP systems have a number of fundamental flaws. A potential alternative to MRP systems is suggested after research into the economic batch scheduling problem. Based on the ideas of economic batch scheduling, and enhanced through artificial intelligence techniques, an alternative approach to manufacturing planning and control is developed. A framework for future research on this alternative to MRP is presented.

Capacity Planning With Financial And Operational Hedging In Low‐Cost Countries, Lijian Chen, Shanling Li, Letian Wang

Lance (Lijian) Chen

The authors of this paper outline a capacity planning problem in which a risk-averse firm reserves capacities with potential suppliers that are located in multiple low-cost countries. While demand is uncertain, the firm also faces multi-country foreign currency exposures. This study develops a mean-variance model that maximizes the firm’s optimal utility and derives optimal utility and optimal decisions in capacity and financial hedging size. The authors show that when demand and exchange rate risks are perfectly correlated, a risk- averse firm, by using financial hedging, will achieve the same optimal utility as a risk-neutral firm. In this paper as well, …

A Simulation-Based Approach To Solve A Specific Type Of Chance Constrained Optimization, Lijian Chan

Lance (Lijian) Chen

We solve the chance constrained optimization with convex feasible set through approximating the chance constraint by another convex smooth function. The approximation is based on the numerical properties of the Bernstein polynomial that is capable of effectively controlling the approximation error for both function value and gradient. Thus, we adopt a first-order algorithm to reach a satisfactory solution which is expected to be optimal. When the explicit expression of joint distribution is not available, we then use Monte Carlo approach to numerically evaluate the chance constraint to obtain an optimal solution by probability. Numerical results for known problem instances are …

Re-Solving Stochastic Programming Models For Airline Revenue Management, Lijian Chen, Tito Homem-De-Mello

Lance (Lijian) Chen

We study some mathematical programming formulations for the origin-destination model in airline revenue management. In particular, we focus on the traditional probabilistic model proposed in the literature. The approach we study consists of solving a sequence of two-stage stochastic programs with simple recourse, which can be viewed as an approximation to a multi-stage stochastic programming formulation to the seat allocation problem. Our theoretical results show that the proposed approximation is robust, in the sense that solving more successive two-stage programs can never worsen the expected revenue obtained with the corresponding allocation policy. Although intuitive, such a property is known not …

Ancillary Service Capacity Optimization For Both Electric Power Suppliers And Independent System Operator, Lijian Chen, Dengfeng Sun, Guang Li

Lance (Lijian) Chen

Ancillary Services (AS) in electric power industry are critical to support the transmission of energy from generators to load demands while maintaining reliable operation of transmission systems in accordance with good utility practice. The ancillary services are procured by the independent system operator (ISO) through a process called the market clearing process which can be modeled by the partial equilibrium from the ends of ISO. There are two capacity optimization problems for both Market participants (MP) and Independent System Operator (ISO). For a market participant, the firm needs to determine the capacity allocation plan for various AS to pursue operating …

Capacity-Driven Pricing Mechanism In Special Service Industries, Lijian Chen, Suraj M. Alexander

Lance (Lijian) Chen

We propose a capacity driven pricing mechanism for several service industries in which the customer behavior, the price demand relationship, and the competition are significantly distinct from other industries. According our observation, we found that the price demand relationship in these industries cannot be modeled by fitted curves; the customers would neither plan in advance nor purchase the service strategically; and the competition would be largely local. We analyze both risk neutral and risk aversion pricing models and conclude the proposed capacity driven model would be the optimal solution under mild assumptions. The resulting pricing mechanism has been implemented at …

Mining And Communities In The Arctic: Lessons From Baker Lake, Canada, Leo Paul Dana, Robert Brent Anderson

Leo- Paul Dana

In this paper, we explore mining in Arctic Canada from the perspective of the people on the communities there, in particular the Inuit, the pre-colonial people of the area. To do so, we first provide a brief overview of the history of mining in Canada including recent incursions into Nunavut. Then, we examine the place of aboriginal people including the Inuit in the modern global economy. We focus on their desire to participate in this economy on their own terms, meaning the respect of traditional land rights, and the respect and incorporation of traditional environmental knowledge, culture, values and practices …

Testing And Integration Team Project Management, Tyler Leben, Jeremy Straub, Scott Kerlin

Jeremy Straub

The Testing and Integration Team plays an integral role in the development of the open source CubeSat known as Open Orbiter. Like any project, the Testing Team’s project can benefit from structure and management to effectively utilize it’s time and resources. CSCI 297 teaches the skills needed to turn a good idea into successful endeavor. By applying skills such as effective planning, setting milestones, dealing with changes and supervising to an actual project, Open Orbiter has transformed from a pipe dream to a real, obtainable goal. Doing this has turned learning about project management into more that just power points …

Project Management For The Openorbiter Operating Software Team, Kelton Karboviak, Dayln Limesand, Michael Hlas, Eric Berg, Christoffer Korvald, Jeremy Straub, Ronald Marsh, Scott Kerlin

Jeremy Straub

OpenOrbiter is producing a 1-U CubeSat spacecraft1 to facilitate the construction of low-cost2 spacecraft by others in the future. The Operating Software team is in charge of designing and creating the software that controls most of the CubeSat’s operations such as image capturing, storage management, and temperature sensing. The project management deliverables that we have worked on as a team are the Project Definition, Work Breakdown Structure, and the Project Schedule. The Project Definition defines exactly what our project team will be developing including, but not limited to, what the team is in charge of developing, what its not in …

Ground Station Software Team Project Management, Zach Maguire, Marshall Mattingly, Christoffer Korvald, Jeremy Straub, Scott Kerlin

Jeremy Straub

In CSCI 297 class we partake in learning the roles of software team leads and developers. With hands on activities that get us involved in what a real manager of a software team may do such as: defining a project, planning a project, developing a work breakdown structure, estimating the work, developing a project schedule, etc. This work is performed in the context of the OpenOrbiter project which seeks to build a low-cost spacecraft1 that can be produced with a parts budget of approxi-mately $5,0002 by schools worldwide. The ground station software team’s purpose within Open Orbiter project is to …

Improved Decision Making To Underpin The Achievement Of Strategic Goals At The University Of Wollongong, Craig Napier

Craig Napier

The Higher Education sector is an increasingly competitive environment. As such, it is prudent for institutions to seek advantages across all areas that will lead to improved research outcomes, commercial partnerships and student learning experience. The Performance Indicators Unit commenced in 1999 and has evolved to cover seven key perspectives of integration of Information Management across the University, working to avoid the operational silos that can occur within Universities. This session will explore: Utilising network relationship analysis to develop an understanding of the University of Wollongong's collaborations and facilitate improvement The importance of visualisation to translate data into meaningful information …

The International Trafficking In Arms Regulations: Precluding Innovation In Academic Spacecraft Engineering — Or Are They?, Jeremy Straub, Joe Vacek

Jeremy Straub

Government regulations and uncertainty about their enforcement can be a significant barrier to innovation. In business, it is undesirable to consume time and other resources developing a product that cannot be sold or which requires navigating significant bureaucracy for each sale. In academ-ia, where limited funding is available prior to the submission of a grant pro-posal and receipt of an award, proposal-stage compliance costs can derail a project long before it begins. This paper reviews the International Traffick-ing in Arms Regulations (ITAR) and their impact on spacecraft research in academia, private research labs and industry. It reviews the exemptions available, …