About

Kristin Thoney-Barletta is a Professor and the Interim Department Head of the Textile and Apparel, Technology and Management Department at NC State University. She holds a B.S. in Mathematics from Valparaiso University, obtained in 1994, and earned her M.Sc. in Operations Research from NC State University in 1997. She completed her Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research at NC State University in 2000. Her research focuses on textile and apparel supply chain modeling, apparel sourcing, textile and apparel cost competitiveness, logistics including recycling, production scheduling, and inventory control, as well as military logistics organizations. Dr. Thoney-Barletta is actively involved in professional organizations such as INFORMS, IIE, ITAA, and ACRA. She teaches courses related to retailing, supply chain management, and fashion business, contributing her expertise to the education of students in textile and apparel management.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Computer Security
• Engineering
• Artificial Intelligence
• Operations research
• Transport engineering
• Systems engineering
• Aerospace engineering
• Business
• Economics
• Mathematical optimization
• Computer network

Selected publications

• Implementing Trades of the National Football League Draft on Blockchain Smart Contracts

  2025-02-24 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen access

  Purpose - Demonstrate proof-of-concept for conducting NFL Draft trades on a blockchain network using smart contracts. Design/Methodology/Approach - Using Ethereum smart contracts, we model several types of draft trades between teams. An example scenario is used to demonstrate contract interaction and draft results. Findings - We show the feasibility of conducting draft-day trades using smart contracts. The entire negotiation process, including side deals, can be conducted digitally. Originality/value - This research demonstrates the new application of smart contracts in the intersection of sports management and blockchain technology. Research limitations/implications - Further work is required to incorporate the full-scale depth required to integrate the draft trading process into a decentralized user platform and experience. Practical implications - Cutting time for the trade negotiation process buys decision time for team decision-makers. Gains are also made with accuracy and cost. Social Implications - Full-scale adoption may find resistance due to the level of fan involvement; the draft has evolved into an interactive experience for both fans and teams.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Air movement operations planning heuristic improvement

  Journal of Defense Analytics and Logistics · 2025-01-16

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Purpose The purpose of this paper is to improve the air movement operations planning heuristic in the literature to generate better solutions in a shorter time period. Design/methodology/approach Through a rigorous design of experiments (DOEs), we make significant heuristic improvements by evaluating alternative modular methodologies and tuning heuristic parameters for two scenarios. This includes a new approach to considering refueling operations. Findings We find the fine-tuned heuristic averages a 33% objective improvement and 70% reduction in computation time over the heuristic with original parameters for one of the scenarios. Additionally, we analyze the heuristic's quality of solution over time. Research limitations/implications Further analysis is required to generalize heuristic settings, which would require significant access to operational data or a portfolio of scenarios of interest. Practical implications Tuned heuristic parameters reduce the computation time from hours to minutes. This also makes it practically feasible to adjust parameters in the objective function to generate multiple courses of action (COAs) for a given instance. Originality/value This research provides novel vehicle assignment and routing heuristic improvement alternatives and demonstrates a DOEs-based heuristic tuning procedure.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Implementing a Letter of Credit Style Business Process for Small-Scale Contracting Using Smart Contracts

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Mechanisms for Dealing With the Unexpected in Small-Scale Contracting Using Smart Contracts

  2024-10-28

  articleOpen access

  Purpose - Demonstrate proof-of-concept for an expanded blockchain smart contract based small-scale contracting process that includes an internally managed arbitration service to manage disputes. Design/Methodology/Approach - Using Ethereum smart contracts, we model a small-scale general contracting scenario with disruptions. Execution is demonstrated with the Remix Integrated Development Environment (IDE). Findings - We show the feasibility of managing general contracting disputes with an internal arbitration service, completely encompassed within blockchain smart contracts. Originality/value - This research continues an original effort to model the small-scale general contracting scenario on a blockchain network. Research limitations/implications - Further work is required to expand the scope of dispute management and account for additional external factors. Also, full-scale decentralized application is not explored here. Practical implications - This process expands the scope of current practices and tools, such as Angi, in a decentralized manner with blockchain. Social Implications - Full-scale adoption at the small scale is likely difficult due to disbelief in technology, cost, and resistance to change.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Implementing trades of the National Football League Draft on blockchain smart contracts

  International Journal of Sports Marketing and Sponsorship · 2024-01-12 · 4 citations

  article

  Purpose Demonstrate proof-of-concept for conducting NFL Draft trades on a blockchain network using smart contracts. Design/methodology/approach Using Ethereum smart contracts, the authors model several types of draft trades between teams. An example scenario is used to demonstrate contract interaction and draft results. Findings The authors show the feasibility of conducting draft-day trades using smart contracts. The entire negotiation process, including side deals, can be conducted digitally. Research limitations/implications Further work is required to incorporate the full-scale depth required to integrate the draft trading process into a decentralized user platform and experience. Practical implications Cutting time for the trade negotiation process buys decision time for team decision-makers. Gains are also made with accuracy and cost. Social implications Full-scale adoption may find resistance due to the level of fan involvement; the draft has evolved into an interactive experience for both fans and teams. Originality/value This research demonstrates the new application of smart contracts in the inter-section of sports management and blockchain technology.

  PublisherDOI

• Implementing A Letter Of Credit Style Business Process For Small-Scale Contracting Using Smart Contracts

  2024-08-19

  articleOpen access

  Purpose - Demonstrate proof-of-concept for negotiating and executing a small-scale contracting job based on letter of credit within a blockchain network using smart contracts. Design/Methodology/Approach - Using Ethereum smart contracts, we model a small-scale general contracting scenario under perfect conditions. Execution is demonstrated with the Remix Integrated Development Environment (IDE). Findings - We show the feasibility of conducting a small-scale contracting job using smart contracts. The entire process, including job details, payment, and verification, can be conducted digitally. Originality/value - This research continues the efforts of previous research on letters of credit on blockchain but applies it to the general contracting scenario at small scale. Research limitations/implications - Further work is required to investigate variations in the assumptions, such as dishonesty and incompetence. Also, full-scale decentralized application is not explored here. Practical implications - This process expands the scope of current practices and tools, such as Angi, in a decentralized manner with blockchain. Social Implications - Full-scale adoption at the small scale is likely difficult due to disbelief in technology, cost, and resistance to change.

  PublisherDOI

• Identifying Best Performance Scenarios For Micro Nuclear Reactors During Grid Disruption

  2024-11-04

  articleOpen access

  Micro Nuclear Reactors (MNRs) are an emerging innovation in nuclear technology as small, portable, and self-sufficient reactor units in the size of a standard 40-foot shipping container. An MNR functions as a "nuclear battery," where each unit can power load capacities from 500 kilowatts (kW) to 5 megawatts (MW) over the lifetime of 1–10 years. This technology may deploy by the end of the 2020 decade, so private and government organizations have prepared for potential operational use for energy resilience. This research develops an emergency grid disruption timeline with MNR deployments to respond and recover grids after severe weather events. This response integrates a series of models for transportation networks, power distribution, and decision strategies that utilize MNR capabilities while using real-world disruption events within the past decade for scenarios. The study then seeks to analyze the performance of MNRs when using different deployment strategies for emergency grid disruption response. First, this research investigates the trade-offs between time and cost in the emergency grid disruption timeline when integrating MNRs. This research also explores the conditions of disruption scenarios that contribute to the best MNR performance in grid recovery.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Air Movement Operations Planning Heuristic Improvement

  2023-11-06 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  Purpose - Improve the air movement operations planning heuristic in the literature to generate better solutions in a shorter time period. Design/Methodology/Approach - Through a rigorous design of experiments, we make significant heuristic improvements by evaluating alternative modular methodologies and tuning heuristic parameters for two scenarios. This includes a new approach to considering refueling operations. Findings - We find the fine-tuned heuristic averages a 33% objective improvement and 70% reduction in computation time over the heuristic with original parameters for one of the scenarios. Additionally, we analyze the heuristic's quality of solution over time. Research limitations/implications - Further analysis is required to generalize heuristic settings, which would require significant access to operational data or a portfolio of scenarios of interest. Originality/value - This research provides novel vehicle assignment and routing heuristic improvement alternatives and demonstrates a design of experiments-based heuristic tuning procedure. Practical implications - Tuned heuristic parameters reduce the computation time from hours to minutes. This also makes it practically feasible to adjust parameters in the objective function to generate multiple courses of action for a given instance.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Two-stage stochastic programming model of US Army aviation allocation of utility helicopters to task forces

  The Journal of Defense Modeling and Simulation Applications Methodology Technology · 2023 · 3 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Operations research
  • Computer Science

  US Army aviation units often organize into task forces to meet mission requirements. The manner in which they allocate assets affects their long-term capabilities to provide aviation support. We propose a model to allocate utility helicopters across geographically separated task forces to minimize the total time of flight and unsupported air movement air mission requests (AMRs) by priority level. We model the allocation problem with a two-stage stochastic program, with the first-stage problem allocating a fleet’s helicopter teams to task forces. The stochastic demand for each task force is then revealed. The second-stage US Army aviation air movement operations planning problem is modeled as a stochastic mixed integer linear program (MILP). A practical application uses the air movement operations planning heuristic to solve the second-stage problem at scale and generate an optimal stochastic solution task force allocation. This paper provides evidence for the practical use of the proposed two-stage stochastic programming model for US Army aviation asset allocation by military decision-makers. Furthermore, this research provides a novel first formulation of a stochastic programming dial-a-ride problem with multinode refuel and a sound framework for military aviation asset allocation decision-making.

  PublisherDOI

• US Army Aviation air movement operations assignment, utilization and routing

  2023-09-22

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Russell E. King

  North Central State College

  32 shared

• Thom J. Hodgson

  North Carolina State University

  23 shared

• Brandon M. McConnell

  North Carolina State University

  22 shared

• Michael G. Kay

  North Carolina State University

  18 shared

• Jeffrey A. Joines

  North Carolina State University

  18 shared

• Iurii Sas

  North Carolina State University

  7 shared

• Jack Werner

  5 shared

• Donald P. Warsing

  North Carolina State University

  5 shared

Education

• B.S., Mathematics

  Valparaiso University

  1994

• M.S., Operations Research

  NC State University

  1997