Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

5-2009

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Industrial Engineering

Major Professor

Denise Ford Jackson

Abstract

Evaluation of a given system's effectiveness has numerous pitfalls. System objectives may be poorly defined, may shift during the system life, or may be hard to quantify. Further, individual perceptions of the quantifications may differ. Whatever the cause, system effectiveness has been an elusive term to quantitatively define. This research posits a quantitative system effectiveness model and establishes a utilitarian approach for use with an illustrative application to n operating nuclear safeguards system.The Department of Energy (DOE) defines domestic safeguards, which are applied to nuclear material as; "an integrated system of physical protection, material accounting, and material control measures designed to deter, prevent, detect, and respond to unauthorized possession, use, or sabotage of nuclear materials." This research includes the investigation of the utility coefficients and simulation of a domestic nuclear safeguards system, as well as simulation of an airport passenger screening system consisting of: an identification screening system; an X-ray system for checking bags and computers; and a walk through metal detector. Expert judgment was used to determine the relative importance (utility) of the individual subsystems through a statistically analyzed web survey. The survey population is nuclear material protection, control, accounting, and plant management experts.The mean utility coefficients determined during the survey were applied to the system components developed assigned randomly generated values of component effectiveness and combined to produce an overall system effectiveness. Simulated Type I and Type II error rates are used for illustration of the probabilistic methodology currently used by DOE (calculating protection effectiveness) and the posited and heuristically based methodology (system effectiveness). Use of the heuristically based system effectiveness methodology illustrates an approach that combines the subsystem components of plant management, physical protection, material accounting, and material control for a domestic safeguards system. The system effectiveness methodology is complimentary to and more robust than the protection effectiveness calculation and can offer opportunities for cost savings during the system lifecycle.

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