Engineers from VMASC, Engineering Management Collaborate on Research Grant Win

August 25, 2014

Barry Ezell

Researchers from Old Dominion University's Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Center (VMASC) and Department of Engineering Management and Systems Engineering (EMSE) have won a two-year grant of more than $400,000 to develop better ways to assess smart manufacturing methods.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) grant was awarded to principal investigators Barry Ezell, chief scientist and research associate professor at VMASC; Andy Collins, research associate professor at VMASC; and Patrick Hester, associate professor of EMSE in ODU's Frank Batten College of Engineering and Technology.

The grant award, "Key Performance Indicator Effectiveness for Sensing and Control Smart Manufacturing," also includes VMASC project scientists Kaleen Lawsure and David Flanagan.

The ODU team will conduct applied research combining measurement theory, modeling and simulation, and decision analysis in order to develop key performance indicators (KPI) for users in the sensing and control smart manufacturing industry.

This research will be followed by the deployment of a web-based system that allows this user community the ability to assess KPI effectiveness for manufacturing.

Ezell said the research has the potential to close an important gap in assessing and measuring KPI effectiveness, as identified by the Smart Manufacturing Leadership Consortium in 2011.

"Our contribution will allow NIST to deliver a proven, literature-based and balanced approach to much needed KPI-E standardization for sensing and control smart manufacturing," Ezell said.

The project combines the disciplines of modeling and simulation and the decision sciences in a novel approach to problem solving in this area of the manufacturing industry.

Hester's research expertise in risk and reliability engineering has led to research endeavors that span the areas of multi-criteria decision analysis, enterprise performance measurement and management and complex problem solving. While working as an analyst for the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defense, Collins applied analytical modeling and simulation techniques to a variety of practical operations research problems, such as contagion in mortgage foreclosures and the use of visual rhetoric in simulation visualizations.

Ezell's area of expertise is decision and risk analysis. He has 26 years of experience in the U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Department of Homeland Security in areas such as infrastructure protection, cyber security and industrial control systems.

NIST is the federal technology agency that works with industry to develop and apply technology, measurements and standards.