Fall

It's 59 degrees outside.  Hurray!  The birds and animals are very active...I have chickadees, titmice, cardinals, a brown thrasher, hummingbirds, chipmunks and squirrels at my feeders.  We had rain all day on Sunday, steady soaking rain.  It was just what we needed and made for a good day to study.  I'm still studying queueing theory and Markov chains for my Thursday meeting with Dr. Gue.  I certainly know a lot more now than I did six weeks ago; I hope I know enough.

I've been watching "Education Nation" and listening to Alma and Colin Powell--they are passionate supporters of education.  They haven't mentioned New Orleans or any city or state in the South though and I'm a little disappointed in that.  You'd think that the only problems are in New York and also that the only good things happening in education are happening in New York.  One of the PhD students in our department is passionate about education.  He will be teaching mathematics at West Point when he finishes his degree and he's writing his dissertation about education reform and the importance of STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) education in our country.  He's an impressive young man and I'm glad I've had the opportunity to talk with and get to know him.

One more item of interest!  I'm feeling more confident on the unicycle, but still not completely comfortable.  There are three youngish (in their late 20's or early 30's) men in my class this quarter.  One of them is the father of a 2nd grader in the class and the other two are his friends.  They are having so much fun and have each other to practice with when we're not in class.  I need to ride every day.  I wish I had someone to walk beside me when I ride; I've done something to my right knee and I'm afraid of making it worse.  Getting old is the pits!

A day in my life

I had a VERY busy day yesterday.  I left here at 7:15 to get gas, pick up two of my classmates and drive to Columbus, GA to tour the AFLAC warehouse.  We got back to campus about 11:30 and I had to finish a 2-page paper before a meeting at 2:00.  I finished it, but it wasn't my best writing.  That really didn't matter much since it was really for my own benefit, not for a grade.  My meeting lasted until 3:45.  I went from the meeting to discuss a computer program with the Chinese visiting professor I'm working with.  We had a programming problem and I spent the next hour trying to resolve the problem.  I left the problem unsolved to go home and walk Coma, but as soon as she was settled, I worked on the problem again.  I managed to find the error about 8:30 and sent an email to the professor.  After the problem was solved I started some research about "smart meters" and it turns out I have one on my house.  Pretty cool technology.  If your electricity usage is metered by a smart meter the power company doesn't have to come to your house to read your meter.  The reading is "magically" transmitted to the utility company via cell tower or satellite.  I've emailed Alabama Power Company to see if I can see my electricity usage via the Internet.  I think smart meters can do that, but I'm not sure if they have the features implemented here.  By the end of 2011 all homes in Alabama will have smart meters installed.  In New Orleans, NOPSI is putting 11,500 smart meters on homes of low income families to help them manage their electricity usage.

Off to campus to mingle with the 100,000 football fans here for the AU vs South Carolina game.  War Eagle!

Disney World?

The following is an excerpt from an email I received this morning.  The video is a good overview of what industrial engineers do.  Every company could use a good industrial engineer.  


Walt Disney Parks and Resorts is currently looking for Industrial
Engineers (both full time and co-op/intern levels) with a wide range of
experience and immediate availability.

The Industrial Engineering teams at Disneyland(r) Resort and Walt
Disney World(r) Resort provide analytical decision-making support to
executive management and operations.   They handle multiple project
assignments on an ongoing basis that contribute to improvements in Guest
Satisfaction, Cast Excellence and/or operational/financial results.  To
learn more about what Industrial Engineers do for the Disney Parks
around the world, we invite you to view a video
(http://www.iienet2.org/media/disney/flowplayer.htm) created to
provide a glimpse at the exciting work Industrial Engineers do every
day.

We are looking for strong candidates who have a passion for Industrial
Engineering and Disney. We need candidates who are versed in all areas
of Industrial Engineering...from capacity/demand analysis to
simulation/OR to process improvement. They must also have strong
interpersonal skills since we are internal consultants at Disney and
must be able to interact with all levels of the organization.

Currently recruiting for the following positions:

*   Senior Industrial Engineer - 5-7 yrs of Industrial Engineering
experience.
*   Industrial Engineer - 2-5 yrs of Industrial Engineering
experience.
*   Associate Industrial Engineer - BS or MS in Industrial Engineering
or related program.
*   Industrial Engineer/Operations Research - MS or Ph.D in Industrial
Engineering/Operations Research or 1-3 yrs of Operations Research
experience.
*   Co-op/Internship - must be currently enrolled in an Industrial
Engineering or related program with an overall GPA of 3.0 or higher. 
Note that Disneyland (r) Resort and Walt Disney World(r) Resort have
available intern/co-op positions year round (Summer, Fall/Winter,
Spring).

At home

For the second morning in a row I didn't have Internet access, so I called Charter at about 8:45 and spent about an hour on the phone--first with their automated system and then with a person in the call center.  The automated system had me unplug power to the modem, wait a few minutes, shut down my computer, plug in the modem, identify which lights were blinking, which lights were on and which lights were off before transferring me to a live technician.  The technician had me unplug all of the cords coming into the modem, wait a few minutes and plug them all back in.  Again, I reported the status of all of the lights.  He could not "ping" the modem and finally, since the "online" light was not on, he agreed that I had a problem and scheduled a repair visit for this afternoon between 1:00 and 3:00.   At about 12:30, the "online" light came on and when I started my computer, I had Internet access.  I cancelled the appointment, but I'm not convinced that I won't continue to experience intermittent problems.  A situation I can deal with for three more months.

I didn't have any classes today and since I thought I had to be here at 1:00 I spent the day at home--first time in awhile that I didn't go to campus at all.  I vacuumed and cleaned all of the surfaces of the little house then spent the rest of the day studying Queueing Theory and Markov Chains.  I have a meeting on 9/30 with one of my professors for him to judge whether my current understanding of these subjects is sufficient to allow the courses I took in them in 1975 to count toward my degree.  It's my last hurdle (assuming I pass the warehousing course) to graduation.  In a nutshell, queueing theory is the study of lines and Markov chains are discrete processes where future behavior, given the past and the present, only depends on the present--not the past.  They are related since a common model for queueing systems is M/M/1.  A Markov arrival process...a Markov service process...1 Server.  I'll continue to study the articles and reference books each morning before I go to campus, but I think I'm ready for my meeting!

Game Day

War Eagle!  A nail-biting game, but Auburn prevailed in the end and as Brandon says, "A win's a win!"  Game Day in Auburn is such a wonderful experience--the campus is transformed from about 30,000 students and faculty in pursuit of education to close to 100,000 fans in pursuit of victory.  Students, faculty, alumni, parents and future Auburn Tigers intermingle under canopies and party tents furnished with bar-b-que grills and ice chests, portable satellite dishes and flat screen TVs, foldable pic-nic tables and camping chairs--all you need on a beautiful almost fall day in Auburn.  On a walk up Magnolia Street past Toomer's Corner I heard "War Eagle" hollered by someone every few minutes.  It is an atmosphere charged with joy and excitement and one more thing to love about Auburn.

Jo Ann Fabrics

I spent yesterday afternoon at the Jo Ann Fabric distribution center in Opelika.  It is a 700,000 square foot building that distributes merchandise to stores in 17 states.  They store over 34,000 different items.  The workers in the receiving area (sorters) empty the trailers and sort the boxes for stowing.  The sorters wear headphones and the Warehouse Management System (WMS) software tells the worker on which pallet to stack which box.  Then workers on lift trucks take the sorted and stacked boxes and stow them in huge pallet racks.  That space is reserve storage where some of the racks are almost 50 feet high.   It is near smaller flow racks in the "picking area".  The flow racks are replenished from the reserve storage area as needed.   Workers called pickers receive orders and move up and down the picking area gathering the merchandise into totes that are labeled and placed on conveyors.  At the other end of the warehouse is the shipping area.  It is VERY automated.  Totes and boxes from all of the pickers flow into the sortation area where the labels are scanned and a special type of conveyor with "shoes" pushes the correct box or tote onto the conveyor that leads to the trailer on which it is to be shipped.  We were there for a "wave" when all of the orders are released to the sortation device and it was amazing.

They employ an industrial engineer to make this entire warehouse process run smoother, safer and faster.  He's done things like raise the stacking tables to about waist height (better on the back), lower the picking racks, and re-slot some of the items to be closer to the conveyors.  Having a dedicated industrial engineer in the warehouse has improved operations by 20% in the five years he's been there.  I don't think I'd want to work in a warehouse, but it would be fun to design the sortation devices!  And, I think Allan would love driving the fork lift trucks.

First Group 2 meeting

Our group's meeting last night went very well (except that we didn't connect well with our members who are not in Auburn--I'm working on this issue).  The group is diverse in home country, but everyone is intelligent and interested in our project.  We have a big job ahead of us in resolving three defined issues in the warehouse:

1. picking congestion--When an order is received, pickers (people who fill the orders) move from inventory location to inventory location gathering the items in an order.  At the same time, restockers (people who move product from a bulk storage part of the warehouse to the picking part of the warehouse) are moving from inventory location to inventory location replenishing product.  In this warehouse order shipment is being delayed because there is congestion in some of the warehouse aisles.  We have not been told what is causing the congestion.   There are many ways to resolve this problem and we have to figure out the best combination of all of them.  We'll likely develop several mathematical models of the process and run simulations to help us choose the best solution.
2. putting each product in the best location--This issue goes hand in hand with #1.  "Best" location is different depending on the particular use of the location.  The best locations for stocking are different from the best locations for re-stocking and these are different from the best locations for picking cartons which are different from the best locations for picking pallets or for picking "eaches".  Again, we'll develop mathematical models and some graphical representations of products and locations and run simulations to help us solve the problem.
3. changing the "cut off time" for shipment--Currently the warehouse has a policy that if an order is received by 10 am, it will ship out before 8 pm that same day.  This would work fine if everyone were in the time zone, but for orders coming from California (the warehouse is in Columbus--eastern) 10 am is like 7 am.  Management thinks that the cut off time can be moved later in the day.  Our job is to determine the latest possible cut off time that will guarantee that all orders received by that time are shipped by 8 pm that same day. 

We spent about 1 1/2 hours discussing the project, strategies for solving the problems, skills we all have and how best to organize ourselves.  We'll meet again on Monday afternoon.  At that time we'll begin talking about some mathematical models.  Between now and then, we'll all be studying our text as well as the data that we've been given by AFLAC.  We're still in the definition stage of our project--if we do this right, the rest will fall into place.

Work...work...work!

I'm so glad I dropped the Systems Engineering course--I'm stressed enough without it!  Here's what I'm working on:

• My research with Dr. Smith--I am now working with a visiting professor from China on the Double Row Layout Problem (DRLP).  I've described this before, the goal of the problem is to optimize a layout of machines on two sides of an aisle where an Automated Guided Vehicle (AGV) travels back and forth between the machines.  The layout is optimized when the flow cost between the machines is minimized.  I've spent lots of time this week trying to work out version control on my program so that we can both work on it, make progress and not interfere with each other.  Last week I worked with the professor to help him get my program and Matlab set up on his computer.  He has a Dell laptop, but everything is in Chinese!  I think this relationship will be very interesting!
• My project in the Distribution Center Management course--I've been assigned the role of group leader for one of the 5 groups.  There are ten of us in my group--four of us are American, one is from Taiwan, three are from Turkey and two are from India.  At least in this project everyone speaks pretty good English.  Two members of our group are not on campus--one is in California and one is in Birmingham.  We have our first meeting on Monday evening (I have to miss unicycling class!!!) and our out of town members will be meeting with us using a Virtual Classroom program.  It'll be interesting.  The group is actually quite talented and we should do well on the project.  Our project is to work for AFLAC and help them to improve their warehouse management.  They have a 34,000 square foot warehouse where they store forms and merchandise--mostly ducks.  Interesting fact...since they adopted the duck as a marketing ploy in 2000 their market penetration has risen from 44% to 95%.
• In addition to the project in the Distribution Center Management course I also have to keep up with the reading and be prepared for a test at the end of September.  
• New work on the power industry which I will research as a PhD student (assuming I'm accepted)-- I can do the PhD work from New Orleans thanks to the Internet and email.  My first step is to decide if I want to study transmission, generation or distribution so I'm reading lots of papers.  Working for Entergy in the late 70s and early 80s gave me a good overall understanding of the industry, but much has changed due to the restructuring of utility regulation.  Now transmission, generation and distribution are separate entities.  I'd really like to figure out a way to work with industry and not simply do academic research that may never be applied to the real world.  What a shame that so much intellectual energy is expended studying problems and developing solutions that industry seldom uses.  
• I still have a hurdle to overcome before I can finish the MISE.  I will be meeting with a professor on September 30 to discuss queueing theory and Markov processes.  I have to convince the professor that I remember the information sufficiently to justify the use of courses I took in the 70s so I'm reading and trying to refresh my memory of the topics.  I've already "passed" the test for advanced statistics and for simulation.
• Finally, the work that is funding my education--department accreditation through ABET.  The accreditation team visits October 31-November 2 so all documentation has to be complete and polished by then.  I'm creating at least one book for every course the department teaches to document how the department accomplishes its educational objectives.  We've already written a comprehensive self-study that is the central piece of information for the team.  This work would better serve the department if it were managed as a continuous improvement process rather than a once every 5 years document-generation process right before the team arrives.  The ABET coordinator from our department has proposed that my position be funded annually and that I be assigned the position while I finish my PhD.  No word yet from the department chair--I hope that pans out.

I did take some time this week to watch the Auburn game and the Saints game and a little bit of tennis on television.  I'm busy, sometimes feel overwhelmed, but happy with the decision to continue my education.  My brain is energized and I really love learning new things.