RESEARCH AND
TEACHING PLAN
Presentation to:
Department of Information and
Decision Sciences
College of Business Administration
University of Texas at El Paso
1
PRESENTATION OUTLINE
• Describe an “interesting” research
project
• Present an overview of current research
and teaching interests/projects
• Discuss my vision for the future
2
“Interesting” Research Project:
KABOM
knowledge/activity based operations modeling
With
Carey McCleskey, Edgar Zapata, Russ Rhodes
Advanced Projects, NASA
Kennedy Space Center, FL
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Outline for this section
• Introduction
• Previous work
• KABOM
• Project Extensions
• Project Status
4
Introduction
do you know?
• The cost per space shuttle flight?
• During the design of shuttle, the
designers expected/planned the time
between flights to be:
a) < 1 week
b) < 1 month
c) 1 - 2 months
d) 3 - 4 months
e) > 5 months
• From the above, what is the current average time
between flights?
• What is the shuttle’s design reliability?
5
Introduction
the design to operations gap
• A view of operations
by the designers
• Operations at the
Orbiter Processing
Facility (OPF) today.
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Introduction
the causes
• Space vehicles are complex systems
• Operations was not a primary concern of designers
– Design process focused on the rocket equation
– Primary operations concern: how do we use existing facilities
– Once the vehicle worked - up to Kennedy to make it work.
• Minimizing cost was an objective (NASA’s budget
has had its ups and downs), BUT it was a “myopic”
view, minimize development cost or minimize
manufacturing cost, seldom a total cost view.
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Introduction
things are changing
• NASA is changing.
– Moving from a service provider to a support and
monitoring entity
• Space business environment is changing
– Commercial launch capabilities have increased.
• Facilities in old USSR, Guyana, Brazil, China, and even sea
launches
– Need for launches has increased, exceeding capacity
– Interest in other commercial uses of space
• Hilton Space Hotels?- spacehotels
– The X Prize
8
Outline for this section
• Introduction
• Previous work
• KABOM
• Project Extensions
• Project Status
9
Previous work
vision spaceport
• Team approach > ground operations modeling
– Includes NASA KSC and Ames, Lockheed Martin, Boeing,
SIAC, and other related government, university, and private
organizations.
– My role: NASA fellow for the summers of 1998 and 1999.
• Objectives:
– Develop models to asses new designs: spaceport operations
- life cycle costs
– Educate vehicle designers on spaceport operations
– Connect model to design/development models and
manufacturing models
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Previous work
vision spaceport
• First approach
– Knowledge based utility functions
– Mapped vehicle inputs to spaceport functions.
• Functions provided sense of direction: was the design an
improvement over the baseline for a function. Cost and times
derived from the deviation
• Developed a tool in Excel/VB: AATe.
– NASA Copyright.
– Used in several studies at Marshal and Langley.
– Modeling approach was applied in a second tool application developed by CCT.
11
Previous work
vision spaceport
Umax
$ or CT
Umin
0
1
F(Mc)=Si1.I, j1..Ji (Xij*SiMc/(Sy =1..ISyMc))
I
Ji
Xij
SiM
F(Mc)
# of design/assessment questions
# of options for design question i
Value of option j for design question i (0 - 1)
Strength of relation, design/assessment question i to Mc
Score for spaceport function M and characteristic c
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Outline for this section
• Introduction
• Previous work
• KABOM
• Project Extensions
• Project Status
13
Knowledge/Activity based
Operations Modeling (KABOM)
• Objective:
– To asses the operational requirements of a vehicle
design. Determine:
• Cost per flight (cost per pound) and Cycle time
• Processes and Resources required
– Present to vehicle designers the processes required
for operation
– Address limitations of the utility function approach
• Dissipate effect an expert will have captures
• Difficult to calibrate as inputs increase
• Limited representation of reliability effect
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KABOM Basics
Origins
• Related to ABC models - used in manufacturing and
SCM
• Similar to the approach used by Christenson and Komar
(1998) to model/ analyze reusable rocket engine
operability
• Primarily for online functions (landing, turnaround,..)
• Model is a component of total spaceport analysis model
which should capture the other spaceport modules (not
in flow).
– This is a subset of an LCC model that includes development,
manufacturing, and operations
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KABOM Basics
The RLV design
• The model characterizes a RLV
architecture/concept by I design variables
– I represents a particular option of the vehicle, for
example ceramic times, ultra high density
ceramics, SOFI.
– The binary variable di is used to represent the
inclusion of a design option; di = 1 if the design
option is included in the design and di = 0 if not.
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KABOM Basics
The RLV design
• This model characterizes a RLV
architecture/concept by J vehicle
characteristics/ operational drivers.
– The vehicle characteristics J represents measures
that will drive operational cost or time, for
example the number of fuel cells or the area
covered by a type of thermal protection.
– The variable qj is used to represent the quantify
of an operational driver, qj > 0 if that
operational driver exists in the design and qj = 0
if not.
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KABOM Basics
The Activities
• There are A spaceport activities.
– Activities relate to one or more design variables.
– The binary variable sa represents the inclusion of that
activity in the activity set for that design; sa = 1 if that
activity is part of the activity set and sa = 0 if it is not.
– The determination of the activity set is determined by
knowledge based equations. I.E.:
s3 =
s7 =
1 , if d1 + d12 = 2
0, otherwise
1 , if d11 = 0 and d123 = 1 or if q56 > 100
0, otherwise
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KABOM Basics
Activity Characterization
• Three characteristics for each activity: activity
time, activity cost, and need percentage.
– The process time for an activity a; pa, is determined
by a knowledge based equation.
• p1 = UNIF (35, 100) x q13 hours
• p5 = EXPO (3 x q38 ) minutes
• p42 = 50 x q38 minutes
– The cost per activity a; ca, will be characterized in a
similar fashion.
• c1 = p1 x $14,000
• c81 = $10,000 + $120 x q39
• c22 = $75,000
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KABOM Basics
Activity Characterization
• Continued:
– The need percentage for an activity a; na, is
determined by a knowledge based equation.
• n19
• n7
=
=
10% , if e45 = 1
30% , if e46 = 1
100%, otherwise
50% , if q92 < 2,000
100%, otherwise
– From these values, we can determine the expected
average time for an activity, E’(pa):
E’(pa) = na x E(pa)
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KABOM Basics
Process Modeling
• Spaceport process model
– All A activities are integrated into a spaceport
process model.
– The process model captures precedence constraints
and possible alternative routes.
LAUNCH
TURNAROUND
TRAFFIC CONTROL
TERMINAL
LANDING
ASSEMBLY/
INTEGRATION
EXPENDABLE
ELEMENTS
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KABOM Basics
Resources
• The spaceport has R resources
– Each resource r has a set r of assigned activities.
– Each resource r has a per unit of capacity fixed
operational cost, fcr and one time acquisition cost, acr.
– The capacity for a resource r, xr, is estimated by:
xr. = Round up(F x S for all a  r [E’(pa)] / T)
F = Round up(D/VC)
where
T = Time of spaceport operation
D = Annual demand (lbs.)
F = Number of flights per year
VC = Vehicle per flight capacity
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KABOM Basics
Fleet Size
• The system requires a fleet of Vn vehicles to
satisfy annual demand
– The process network and average expected activity
times are used to determine the set of activities in the
critical path .
Vct = S for all a   [E’(pa)]
Vfr = T / (Vct + Vot )
Vn = Roundup (F / Vfr)
where
Vct = Vehicle ground cycle time Vot = Vehicle orbit time
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KABOM Basics
Architecture
User
Activity
Generator
Activity Library
User Interface
Critical Path/ Resource
Capacity Generator
(Process Model)
Report Generator
Process Model/Simulation
Cost Generator
Improvement Agent
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KABOM Basics
Simulation Model
• Why the use of simulation:
– Better representation of a dynamic environment.
– Estimate bottlenecks, resource utilization, queues, ...,
costs (VS Team objective 1).
– Provide designers a graphical (animation)
representation of their system at work.. (Team
objective 2)
– Allows the evaluation of scenarios.
• For example, a version of the model could be developed
where two types of vehicles can be modeled (I.e. Shuttle
and Venture Star).
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KABOM Basics
Improvement Agent and Cost
Calculations
• Improvement Agent
– Heuristic to improve total performance.
• The heuristics will recommend changes to resource capacity
and/or fleet size parameters. Several iterations are conducted
(simulation repeated) until cost improvements are not obtained.
• Cost calculations
– Activity costs tracked during the simulation run.
– Total costs include activity costs and resource related
costs
– Vehicle acquisition costs are included as an input
from the designers.
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Outline for this section
• Introduction
• Previous work
• KABOM
• Project Extensions
• Project Status
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Project Extensions
• Approach used to develop design analysis tools
for manufactured products (an advanced ABC
analysis)
– Help product designers estimate costs/processes
– Evaluate what if scenarios in a design (mfg processes)
– A “real time” version of the model could estimate the
effect of a new product on current system load.
•
•
•
•
Order for “customized product” arrives
Tool determines activities, costs, ..
Order is added to current production schedule
Decision on taking the order or how to schedule it
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Outline for this section
• Introduction
• Previous work
• KABOM
• Project Extensions
• Project Status
29
Project Status
• A prototype was developed last summer
while at KSC
• Student project on a web based version of
the AATe
• Grant proposal - excellent evaluations,
waiting for funding.
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PRESENTATION OUTLINE
• Describe an “interesting” research
project
• Present an overview of current
research and teaching
interests/projects
• Discuss my vision for the future
31
Overview Of Research/ Teaching
Interests And Projects
• Research
–
–
–
–
Production Planning
Supply Chain Management
IS/OM/Simulation Interaction
Space operations
• Teaching
– Games
– Excel applications
– Advanced POM courses/ APICS/ ERP (Future)
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Production Planning Research
• Cellular manufacturing systems
– Development of tools and models to plan/schedule on
systems where production resources are organized as cells and
products into common families.
– Work with Jeet Gupta from Ball State University
– Paper in progress
• Parallel Machine Scheduling with Multiple Criteria
– Development of heuristics for difficult multi-criteria problems
in the parallel machine setting.
– Work with Jeet Gupta and Kazou Nakatani (FGCU)
– Two papers accepted for publication, several in progress.
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Supply Chain Management
Research
• Supplier Decision Making
– Evaluation of the role transportation plays on supplier
decision making.
– Work with John Tyworth from Penn State University
– One paper accepted for publication
• Supply Chain Simulation
– Development of simulation models for supply chain
environments in order to evaluate transportation and
scheduling priorities..
– Work with John Tyworth
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Interaction of IS, OM, and
simulation
• Supply Chain Management
– Development of architecture to support “real time” DM..
– Utilizes simulation to investigate “what if ” scenarios.
– Work with J. Tyworth and K. Nakatani.
• Project Management
– Development of architecture to support Web based project
management.
– Utilizes simulation to evaluate the CP and effect of “what if ”
scenarios.
– Prototype developed and tested at NASA.
– Work with K. Nakatani.
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OM Games/Exercises
• Development/application of class games to
enhance student learning
– Beer game from Jacobs web page
– In-class exercises after “lecture”.
• QFD - development of a QFD diagram for a business class
• SPC - process simulation
– JIT game with Lego/remote controlled cars
(Rokenbok)
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Excel Applications
• Use of Excel for operations analysis
–
–
–
–
Data analysis/ “real time” behavior graphs
Queue models
Forecasting
Capacity Analysis
• Use of Excel for quantitative methods
course
– Math Programming
– VB front end
– “Real world” application development
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PRESENTATION OUTLINE
• Describe an “interesting” research
project
• Present an overview of current research
and teaching interests/projects
• Discuss my vision for the future
38
My vision of the future
research
• Continue research on all four areas
– SS: applications of KABOM to manufacturing, IS/Simulation,
Production Planning, SCM
– Publication in leading journals,
– Long term - editor of leading journal
• Develop relationships with manufacturers in El Paso
and Juarez.
• Manufacturing-Logistics Center? - outreach program.
– Foster knowledge creation in the ML field - faculty and student
projects, grants, ....
– Foster business2business partnerships/creation of new businesses
– Continuing education programs?
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My vision of the future
teaching
• Teaching/POM
– Continue development of teaching games
• Program/curricula development
– Graduate program in Manufacturing Logistics?
– Integration of APICS certification into some
undergraduate and graduate courses?
– Revision of POM undergraduate program?
– ERP integration to the POM program?
• Link undergraduate POM students to faculty
research projects
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•Thanks for your
time
•Questions?
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