In recent decades, warranties have become more important in deciding the overall product quality. In this thesis, we use warranty as the planning tool to improve product quality during the customer phase. We develop an analytical framework that consists of systematic planning methods to reduce...

Energy plays a vital role in the world today, driving industry and allowing for technologies ingrained throughout the routines of daily life. The complex interactions, evolution, long time scales of change, and critical nature of the energy system makes modeling and analysis crucial to...

The State Utility Forecasting Group (SUFG) at Purdue University utilizes econometric and end-use models to develop forecasts of electricity prices and demand on a timely basis for the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission, in compliance with Indiana Code 8-1-8.5. As part of this procedure, SUFG...

In managing economic risks, it is necessary for a company in the process industries to allow for uncertainties in the amount of each product that can be sold, how much material is available for production, as well as prices and costs. The goal is to optimize a company's profit criterion without...

Uncertain electricity load variation could incur additional costs associated with some specific decisions to resolve its impacts. Price volatility also becomes one of the major concerns for the operation planning and scheduling problem, resulted from the emergence of electricity markets. Since...

In this dissertation, we consider an inventory sharing and rationing problem in continuous-review, infinite-horizon, distribution networks. Unlike previous literature on inventory sharing, we model inventory sharing as a multiple demand classes problem in which each dealer faces two classes of...

We propose a reliability growth model that incorporates data from multiple stages of testing and acknowledges fixes implemented at the end of each stage. Competitive pressure and governmental regulations compress the time that can be devoted to product development. Limitations on budgets for...

In today's global economy, firms are seeking any and every opportunity to differentiate from competitors by reducing supply chain costs and adding value to end customers. One increasingly popular option, under growing consumer awareness and increasing legislation, is to reintegrate returned...

In this thesis, we study the repair shop scheduling problem(repair-to-stock) and the production/inventory system pricing and production scheduling problem(make-to-stock). For both types of problems, we compare the performance of different scheduling policies. For the make-to-stock type problem,...

This research is based on the premises that teams can be designed to optimize its performance, and appropriate team coordination is a significant factor to team outcome performance. Contingency theory argues that the effectiveness of a team depends on the right fit of the team design factors to...