Ohio River Valley Supply Chain and Scenario Analyses

Lydia Knutsen*, Leily Farrokhvar, Behrooz Kamali and Kenneth Currie, Department of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26505

Field (Broad Category): Engineering (Physical Sciences & Engineering) 

Student’s Major: Industrial Engineering 

The Upper Ohio Valley transports materials through waterways, trucks, air, and rail. In this area, the Weirton Area Port Authority established a company specializing in transportation, commerce, technology, and related infrastructure, the Inter-Modal Holding, LLC (IMH). The main purpose of this study is to establish a data management plan to identify a thorough set of data related requirements for automating the IMH process of data collection and tracking commodities. To form the data management plan, we need to identify data types in IMH and develop a standardization plan to evaluate the existing data and how it can be related to the data to be collected. We need to define various metadata for capturing and documenting data, as well as determine approaches and standards for capturing metadata. We need to include policies like privacy regulations, protocols needed, and policies for accessing and sharing data. This includes developing processes for making data available, giving access, determining potential users, and provisions for reuse and redistribution. Lastly, we need to develop strategies for long-term storage of data, during and beyond the project, and determining storage location, format types, and backup approaches. The main findings hope to provide IMH with a data management system that can be used to alter the previous process of data collection and track commodities for the company. The installation of this system will overall improve the distribution planning of IMH to improve the efficiencies of domestic and international trade and harmonize communication services in the region. 

Funding: Intermodal Holding LLC 

Program/mechanism supporting research/creative efforts: WVU's Research Apprenticeship Program (RAP) & accompanying HONR 297-level course