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Thesis (PhD)--University of Stellenbosch, 2004. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Please refer to full text for abstract.

published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / The size, diversity and continued growth of the World Wide Web combine to make its understanding difficult even at the most basic levels. The focus of our work is in developing novel methods for measuring and analyzing the Web which lead to a deeper understanding of its performance. We describe a methodology and a distributed infrastructure for taking measurements in both the network and end-hosts. The first unique characteristic of the infrastructure is our ability to generate requests at our Web server which closely imitate actual users. This ability is based on detailed analysis of Web client behavior and the creation of the Scalable URL Request Generator (SURGE) tool. SURGE provides us with the flexibility to test different aspects of Web performance. We demonstrate this flexibility in an evaluation of the 1.0 and 1.1 versions of the Hyper Text Transfer Protocol. The second unique aspect of our approach is that we analyze the details of Web transactions by applying critical path analysis (CPA). CPA enables us to precisely decompose latency in Web transactions into propagation delay, network variation, server delay, client delay and packet loss delays. We present analysis of pe1formance data collected in our infrastructure. Our results show that our methods can expose surprising behavior in Web servers, and can yield considerable insight into the causes of delay variability in Web transactions. / 2031-01-01

This study is concerned with the problem of resource-constrained project scheduling which includes splittable and nonsplittable jobs, renewable and nonrenewable resources, variation in resource availabi1ity, time-resource tradeoff, time-cost tradeoff, and multiple objectives. The problem is formulated as a zero-one integer programming model. A specialized solution technique is developed for the preemptive goal programming, resource-constrained project. scheduling problem for time, cost, and resource leveling objectives. In addition, single objective algorithms are also provided for the time, cost, and resource leveling objectives. These algorithms are based on the idea of the implicit enumeration process, and use the special structures of the problem to expedite the search process. Computer-generated problems are used to test each of the single objective algorithms. The results show that the algorithms give optimal solutions to tested problems with time and cost objectives using a reasonable computation time; however, heuristic solutions are more feasible for problems with resource leveling objective. The multiple objective algorithm is illustrated through application to a warehouse project problem. / Graduation date: 1993

Verifica-se uma crescente necessidade de gerenciar melhor a execução de obras de construção civil. Desta forma, este trabalho tem como enfoque demonstrar a aplicabilidade de uma nova metodologia de gerenciamento de projetos, baseada na Teoria das Restrições, chamada de Gerenciamento de Projetos por Corrente Crítica (CCPM), a fim de auxiliar a gestão de obras. A metodologia da pesquisa foi realizada por meio da pesquisa-ação na obra de uma construtora de médio porte, com duas fases de implementação da CCPM. Na primeira fase, formulou-se o planejamento do processo de construção de dois sobrados geminados. Após detalhamento do cronograma de atividades, a CCPM foi implementada e os resultados foram analisados. Na segunda fase, buscou-se entender e melhorar o processo de execução, na tentativa de eliminar ou reduzir os obstáculos identificados na primeira fase. Os resultados obtidos na segunda fase evidenciaram que a abordagem da CCPM aumentou o foco da equipe nas atividades; apresentou um controle simples e visual do andamento da obra; motivou as pessoas e o trabalho em equipe; aumentou a produtividade e reduziu a multitarefa nas atividades. No entanto, exigiu tempo de preparação e dedicação para realização do planejamento, mudança de hábitos, cultura e pensamento, além da necessidade de obtenção de consenso entre os envolvidos. / There is a growing need to improve management in civil construction. Therefore this work focuses on demonstrating the applicability of a new project management methodology, based on the Theory of Constraints, called Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM), which can collaborates with civil construction management. The research method was an action research in a medium company with two implementation phases. In the first phase, the construction of two semi-detached houses planning was formulated and the results were analyzed. The second phase was to understand and improve the implementation process in an attempt to eliminate or reduce the problems identified at the first phase. The second phase results showed that the CCPM approach increased the team's focus, presented a simple and visual control of the work status, motivated people and teamwork; increased productivity and reduced the multitasking. However, the process required time and dedication for the planning, changed habits, culture and thoughts, besides that it required consensus among stakeholders.

While costing methods have developed over time, they are often static in nature and ill-suited to the dynamic nature of production lines. Static costing systems are often developed for long-term analysis. Due to this, they lack the ability to aid short-term decision-making. In addition, the use of averaged data prohibits a static costing system from accurately tracing the cost effects of changing system behavior like random downtime events. A dynamic costing system, however, can capture the cost effects of changing system behavior in a manner that can aid short-term operational management. The proposed methodology is a dynamic activity-based costing method that relies on real-time production line data to track costs, specifically the added costs of unused capacity and downtime events. The methodology aims to trace these costs to responsible cost centers on the production line to give a better representation of the total cost of production, specifically in regards to normal production costs, added downtime costs, and added costs from unused capacity. In addition to monetary costs, the methodology provides a framework for tracking environmental costs, such as energy use, in order to aid plant managers with determining the environmental impact of their operations. The methodology addresses a gap between activity-based costing and downtime costing by combining the two under a single methodology. It traces both monetary and environmental costs to cost centers on the manufacturing line to aid continuous improvement efforts and the allocation of resources. By using real-time data, the methodology alerts management to changing system performance in a shorter time frame than static costing systems. The methodology will be shown in a case study of an automotive assembly plant. The case study will model the resource use of an automotive paint shop and trace this resource use to line segments in order to highlight areas of possible improvement.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1983.

Orientador: Andre Luiz Morelato França / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Eletrica e de Computação / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-04T08:13:24Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Mota_AlexandredeAssis_D.pdf: 2550000 bytes, checksum: d1b87870a85e6720b234c4e11cce99a8 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2005 / Resumo: O sucesso da recomposição de sistemas interligados está diretamente associado à qualidade dos planos de recomposição. Esses planos descrevem as seqüências de ações de controle que devem ser tomadas para energizar as diferentes áreas geoelétricas do sistema após a ocorrência de blecautes totais ou parciais. Nesse contexto, o objetivo deste trabalho é propor uma metodologia para avaliação da qualidade de planos de recomposição, que permita o uso de ferramentas computacionais para avaliar a qualidade de forma automática e sob alguns critérios como (a) grau de flexibilidade quanto a imprevistos durante a execução, (b) índices de qualidade globais determinados a partir da representação do plano de recomposição através de grafos conexos e (c) facilidade de acesso, visualização, atualização e treinamento. Diferentes técnicas e métodos foram empregados para atingir esse objetivo (busca de caminho mínimo, utilização de índices nebulosos, métodos de caminho crítico - CPM/PERT), visando a determinação dos índices numéricos relacionados à qualidade do plano, tais como: duração total prevista para a recomposição, eficiência da fase fluente, evolução da carga interrompida e custos estimados para a interrupção / Abstract: A successful restoration depends on the quality of the restoration plans, that describe the sequence of control actions that must be executed to reenergize different areas (of the power system) just after total or partial blackouts. This work proposes a methodology to automatically evalute the quality of power system restoration plans, related to (a) the flexibility of the plan, (b) numerical quality indexes, extracted using a graph representation for the plan and (c) the easiness of use, visualization, training and access to restoration instructions. Different techniques and methods were used to achieve this goal (minimum path search, adoption of fuzzy indexes, critical path methods), focusing on the determination of numerical indexes that express the quality of the plan, such as total restoration duration, fluent phase efficiency, interrupted load evolution and estimated interruption costs / Doutorado / Energia Eletrica / Doutor em Engenharia Elétrica

The use of accelerators in heterogeneous systems is an established approach in designing petascale applications. Today, Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA) offers a rich programming interface for GPU accelerators but requires developers to incorporate several layers of parallelism on both the CPU and the GPU. From this increasing program complexity emerges the need for sophisticated performance tools. This work contributes by analyzing hybrid MPICUDA programs for properties based on wait states, such as the critical path, a metric proven to identify application bottlenecks effectively. We developed a tool to construct a dependency graph based on an execution trace and the inherent dependencies of the programming models CUDA and Message Passing Interface (MPI). Thereafter, it detects wait states and attributes blame to responsible activities. Together with the property of being on the critical path, we can identify activities that are most viable for optimization. To evaluate the global impact of optimizations to critical activities, we predict the program execution using a graph-based performance projection. The developed approach has been demonstrated with suitable examples to be both scalable and correct. Furthermore, we establish a new categorization of CUDA inefficiency patterns ensuing from the dependencies between CUDA activities.