Browsing by Author "Gallegos, Erika, committee member"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3

Open Access
Framework for optimizing survivability in complex systems
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2024) Younes, Megan Elizabeth, author; Cale, James, advisor; Gallegos, Erika, committee member; Simske, Steve, committee member; Gaofeng, Jia, committee member
Increasing high probability low frequency events such as extreme weather incidents in combination with aging infrastructure in the United States puts the nation's critical infrastructure such as hydroelectric dams' survivability at risk. Maximizing resiliency in complex systems can be viewed as a multi-objective optimization that includes system performance, survivability, economic and social factors. Systems requiring high survivability: a hydroelectric dam, typically require one or more redundant (standby) subsystems, which increases system cost. To optimize the tradeoffs between system survivability and cost, this research introduces an approach for obtaining the Pareto-optimal set of design candidates ("resilience frontier"). The method combines Monte Carlo (MC) sampling to estimate total survivability and a genetic algorithm (GA), referred to as the MCGA, to obtain the resilience frontier. The MCGA is applied to a hydroelectric dam to maximize overall system survivability. The MCGA is demonstrated through several numerical case studies. The results of the case studies indicate that the MCGA approach shows promise as a tool for evaluating survivability versus cost tradeoffs and also as a potential design tool for choosing system configuration and components to maximize overall system resiliency.
Open Access
Qualitative comparative analysis of software development practices translated from scene to screen using the real-to-real method for inter-industry learning
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2024) Hawkey, Barry, author; Vans, Marie, advisor; Simske, Steve, committee member; Gallegos, Erika, committee member; Rodgers, Tim, committee member
Many projectized industries, in fields as diverse as healthcare, live theater, and construction, have developed sets of specific project management practices that are consistently associated with success. These practices – assignable activities, tasks, processes, and methods – have been acquired through decades of lessons painfully learned by project teams. Well-known, existing processes allow project teams to capture and disseminate these best practices and lessons learned between projects and across organizations, allowing new teams to benefit from previous efforts. Although overall progress may at times seem fitful, these knowledge-sharing processes have allowed each industry to improve their project management methodologies over time. Unfortunately, the specificity required to make a practice actionable, assignable, and beneficial within the domain of one industry also renders it difficult to apply in another. There is no formal method, or method in widespread use, for the translation of specific project management practices across the boundaries of industry and knowledge domains. As a result, most of the benefits of these learnings - each industry's collective knowledge of best practices – are restricted to their original domain, providing little guidance to project teams in other industries. This research examines several previous attempts to apply project management practices across multiple domains and synthesizes a novel method for such inter-industry learning. The Real-to-Real method presented here begins by identifying potential barriers to project success within a target industry. Next, an industry that has developed different approaches to similar challenges is chosen as a source of inspiration. After holistically examining project management practices within that source industry, a set of evident principles is synthesized through an iterative process of inductive reasoning which explain that industry's approach to project management and these shared challenges. Using these principles as a transformative intermediary, a set of specific practices suitable for the domain of the target industry can then be identified or developed, mirroring or paralleling practices used in the source industry. These practices may lead to improved project outcomes when used in target industry projects that have characteristics similar to those found in the source industry. This method may allow for the translation and practical application of hard-won project management expertise across many projectized industries, potentially improving project outcomes in multiple fields. To provide an illustrative example of the Real-to-Real method in use, the software development industry is selected as an example target, and barriers to project success in that domain are examined. A review of the existing literature finds that the lack of simple, heuristic guidance on tailoring existing practices to better support hedonic requirements, which specify the intended emotional response of the user, may be a significant source of risk within the target industry, although the effect of hedonic requirements on project outcomes has not yet been empirically determined. With this potential source of risk in mind, the film industry is selected as a source of inspiration, as projects there share many similarities with software development projects and must routinely consider hedonic requirements. A holistic evaluation of film production project management practices suggests four evident, explanatory principles guiding that industry's approach to managing projects. This research then identifies and proposes a set of specific practices, suitable for software development projects, which also support or adhere to these same principles, thus mirroring practices used in film production projects. To support these findings, the identified software development practices are situated within existing theory, and potential mechanisms by which they may consistently lead to improved project outcomes when used in projects with high levels of hedonic requirements are discussed. A series of semi-structured interviews with experienced practitioners in the film industry are then conducted to verify an accurate understanding of film production project management practices, the synthesized explanatory principles, and the pairing of each principle to a set of related practices through. Next, a second series of interviews with experienced practitioners in the software development industry is used to verify the selection of software development practices supporting these principles. To empirically validate these findings, and to determine the effect of hedonic requirements on project outcomes, a practitioner survey is then conducted, measuring project success, use of the identified practices, and the level of hedonic requirements in 307 software development project cases in five culturally similar countries. First, the perceived criticality of hedonic requirements is compared to five measures of project success, to determine the impact of such requirements on project outcomes. Then, using Qualitative Comparative Analysis, causal recipes of the identified practices that consistently resulted in project success, across these same measures, are identified for projects with varying levels of hedonic requirements. These results validate the benefits of the identified principles and practices to projects with high levels of hedonic requirements, and provide simple, heuristic guidance to software development project teams on how to quickly and effectively tailor their management practices to better support individual projects based on the criticality of such requirements. This guidance may serve to significantly improve outcomes in software development projects with high levels of hedonic requirements. These results also help to validate the Real-to-Real method of translating management practices across industry and knowledge domains, potentially enabling additional opportunities for valuable inter-industry learning.
Open Access
Quality control of front-end planning for electric power construction: a collaborative process-based approach using systems engineering
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2024) Nguyen, Frank Bao Thai, author; Grigg, Neil, advisor; Valdes-Vasquez, Rodolfo, advisor; Gallegos, Erika, committee member; Glick, Scott, committee member
Controlling construction costs in the electric power industry will become more important as the nation responds to new energy demands due to the transition from gasoline to electric vehicles and to emerging trends such as artificial intelligence and use of cryptocurrency. However, managing electric utility construction project costs requires that the risk of field change orders (FCOs) during construction be controlled. In the electric power industry, utility companies face increasing risk from FCOs, due to conversion from overhead to underground systems required by security and climate change factors, and subgrade work is more challenging and less predictable than the more visible overhead work. Change orders cause cost overruns and schedule slippages and can occur for reasons such as changes in scope of work, unforeseen jobsite conditions, modifications of plans to meet existing field conditions, and correction of work required by field inspectors to meet safety standards. The best opportunity to control FCOs comes during front-end planning (FEP) when conditions leading to them can be identified and mitigated. This study utilized systems engineering methodologies to address risk of FCOs in three phases: (1) defining the root causes and identifying severities of FCOs, (2) evaluating stakeholder responsibilities to find and mitigate root causes of FCOs, and (3) developing a process to identify and find solutions for the risk of FCOs. The first phase involved using a descriptive statistical analysis of the project database of an electric utility company to identify and analyze the magnitude, frequency, and causes of FCOs in overhead and underground electrical construction. The results showed that FCOs with added scopes occurred more frequently in underground projects than in overhead projects. The analysis also indicated that most causes of FCOs could be managed during the FEP process, and it laid a foundation for the next phase, to promote collaboration among stakeholders to allocate responsibility to identify and mitigate risk of FCOs. In the second phase, the study used Analytical Hierarchy Process methodologies to distribute weights of stakeholder votes to create an integrated metric of front-end planning team confidence that a desired level of quality had been achieved. This study was significant in that it showed how effectiveness of collaborative working relationships across teams during front-end planning could be improved to create a quality control metric to capture risk of FCOs. In the third phase, the study used results from the first two phases and additional tools based on Swimlane diagrams and logical relationships between tasks and stakeholders to formulate a quality control roadmap model. This model is significant because it creates a roadmap to enhance the effectiveness of interdisciplinary teamwork through a critical path of the FEP process. The roadmap model shows a streamlined process for decision-making in each phase of front-end planning to minimize risk of FCOs through a logical path prior to final design. While there have been efforts to improve the design process, this study is the first one known to the researcher to address quality control of FEP using a roadmap process for quality control in electric power construction projects. The primary contribution is to enrich the body of knowledge about quality control of FEP by creating a roadmap model based on systems engineering and enhancing the effectiveness of collaborative working relationships in a logical process that captures risk of FCOs early in the FEP process. Besides the contribution of a method to reduce the risk of FCOs, the study points to another important concern to the construction industry about safety on the jobsite. The contractor normally requires a time extension to complete the work due to an FCO, but to reduce the impact to the project schedule, overtime is normally provided to the construction workers to perform the task. Additional research on this issue is required, but it is apparent that due to the fatigue of long working hours, this overtime may impact the task performance as well as the physical and psychological well-being of the construction workers, and they may lose safety awareness and have higher risk of accidents on the construction site. Thus, reducing the risk of FCOs will lead to less overtime and is an effective way for the construction project team to reduce the risk of construction accidents.