Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2018. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 99-101). / Engineers and managers of software projects have the daunting task of successfully delivering the right product at the right time for the right price. The path to achieving these lofty goals is commonly not a straightforward endeavor. Due to the dynamic nature of software development, varying organizational circumstances, and situational idiosyncrasies of each project this can be a very difficult and sensitive process. Ideally, software development methodologies bring order to the chaos of software development. An ill-fitting development strategy, however, can create unnecessary friction and further complicate the prospect of a successful product delivery. Researchers and private organizations alike spend substantial resources to understand the strengths and weaknesses of commonly used development practices - the validation of which is highly problematic due to conflicting variables. This research ventures to bring clarity to the question: "Which development methodology is right for a particular situation?" Treating the software development project life-cycle as a socio-technical system, it can be decomposed to the most fundamental elements. Using these elements as the architectural building blocks of a project, Agile, Waterfall, Set-Based, and Spiral are each compared at the molecular level. This thesis evaluates these comparisons and how subsequent research applies to today's software projects. / by Christian J West. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2018. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 139-141). / When many companies are presented with the knowledge of new tools and techniques for System Architecture, Systems Engineering and Project Management as part of a System Thinking approach, they initially show great interest and a desire to institute change to their current culture. Yet, when presented with an opportunity to apply these new tools and techniques in the next project, they perhaps become reluctant to institute the change because of a perceived risks in integrating unfamiliar methods. This reluctance may be a bias based primarily on their own perception of past success using the company's internally developed processes and practices, and a belief that change may negatively affect results. But are these modern System Thinking techniques really new to them? Is it possible that these companies have naturally evolved toward practicing the newer System Thinking techniques without realizing it, driven by the accumulation of practical knowledge and lessons learned, but performed in an unstructured manner. This paper's research has found in looking at a well-established company with a track record of successful projects, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), that there are indications that they have become significantly align to the current System Thinking approaches. The success of LLNL's current processes and practices relies heavily on the experience and the expertise of individuals who can process many of the projects architectural assessments, trades, plans and analytics within their cognitive abilities and derived practices. This paper, however, finds that this reliance on Experts may not be the primary force behind their success and the natural progression to Systems Thinking. The success and progression in System Thinking seems to be stimulated by the project team mix of Experts and Non-Experts, and by empowering the Non-Experts with the ability to question and request clarification of rationale concerning the Expert opinions. Non- Experts appear to play a critical role in project team success in System Thinking, especially in an Expert dominate Ecosystems such as those at LLNL. The risk in the LLNL project ecosystems is that this progression to System Thinking has occurred with little structural change in terms of documentation, analytics and metrics. This structural weakness appears to be actively mitigated through management oversight, which carries its own level of risk, often generating a single point of failure opportunity in the project system. There is evidence that an integrated and distributed approach to the System Thinking activities would best support LLNL projects. With staffing turnover, retirements and natural attrition, the company's current unstructured processes and practices are challenged, often requiring retirees to return as consultants or additional resources to be added to force the current unstructured practices to succeed. This paper's research provides information to help in (1) evaluating current project approach for evidence of Systems Thinking and (2) determining the effect of the addition of System Thinking structure and methods to reduce future project risk. / by Cal Alden Smith. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2018. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 94-104). / Cities and peri-urban areas are disproportionately large producers of solid waste in an increasingly landfilled world with plastic-choked oceans. Managing waste sustainably remains a challenge, and an expensive one, often comprising 20%-50% of municipal budgets. In the last 25 years, Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) has emerged as an environmental policy approach in which a producer's responsibility for a product is extended to throughout its lifecycle, beyond the point of sale to the post-consumer stage. This thesis analyzes the effects of soon-to-be implemented EPR in Chile. Using packaged beverage PET bottles as a case study, it models the per-bottle cost of implementing EPR. The thesis explores the effect of EPR on the recycled PET market and its main substitute and competition virgin PET. It also considers how might EPR's implementation incorporate Chile's informal waste picking labor force. It proposes an integrated waste management system that connects "smart" (loT) delivery points, base-recycler-facing mobile-phone applications, and producers', retailers, and recyclers' inventory systems on an integrated public permission blockchain that tracks the flow of products, and measures and rewards every agent's contribution to proper waste management in a transparent, reliable, and groundbreaking way. Such an application of a blockchain does not yet exist and could prove to be an effective and empowering technology for implementing EPR. / by Prerna Sekhri. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2018. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (page 76). / The development of a start-up creating physical products follows a different path than those working in the digital space. The process of creation requires multiple steps, with many disparate people involved in those steps. Kalani was created to work with artisans to promote their disappearing crafts, thus supporting their economies and providing an opportunity for the continuation of the craft. The first product was to create blankets in Portugal, with artisans in a village in Serra de Estrela. The blankets are ultrafine merino wool, with fabric manipulation done by hand that are techniques unique to the artisans. The thesis aims to provide an overview of the process for physical product development, and the way in which leadership as the CEO of an international startup functions. Creating a physical product requires many iterations in concept development before actual product development is launched. Managing both product development and working with artisans in a different country and culture provided many challenges and rewards. The thesis aims to prove that products can be made that meet the demands of the luxury market, while maintaining high social and ethical standards. / by Attia Qureshi. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2018. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 70-72). / Over the last decade the aerospace industry has seen a shift in traditional architectures of an aircraft. The desire for aircraft to be lighter, more efficient, quieter, faster, and cheaper has driven trends across the industry. These trends look for ways to accomplish what many other industries such as automotive have done which is a complete transformation of the "normal." The shift has created an advanced architecture for aircraft and therefore requires a new view on certification. The traditional approach for certification is pretty straightforward since majority of aircraft have been the same over several years with minor changes in sub level aircraft systems. Aircraft manufacturers in combination with suppliers develop concepts for new or improved aircraft, requirements are outlined and implemented based on aviation authority regulations, and eventually the aircraft receives a certificate declaring the safety of the aircraft design and production. In fairness, the traditional standard approach to aircraft certification has worked. Aircraft are safer than ever and data shows a sharp decline in aviation accidents over the years. However, with changes in technology what use to be the "normal" architecture is changing significantly and the desire for the industry to be more agile both play a role in the need to view certification slightly different. The main objective of certification has been, is, and will always be safety. This thesis proposes a framework on how to approach certification of new technologies. Perhaps the two most important elements in the framework are the proposal of a threshold utilizing the technology infusion effort equation to gage the significance of a change in architecture and the proactive safety analysis utilizing a new kind of technique called STPA. The framework is developed based on an in-depth outline of the traditional certification process and a review of the historical development of safety regulations. Two parts of the proposed framework are then applied and analyzed based on the more electric aircraft concept. / by Atinuke Adebisi Oyeniya. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2018. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 45-47). / The US healthcare system is looked at from the point of view of various stakeholders and how its current structure has emerged over the years. With the shifting demographics, change in disease mix, ICT revolution and other factors at play, the system is in a state of flux. Sensor technology on the other hand has also progressed over the years to reach a point where low-cost mass-produced smart sensors are becoming omnipresent. A variety of such sensors are now available, and new ones are being developed for specific needs, like for continuous health monitoring systems. New wireless sensing technologies are redefining the care services, processes and customer expectations. This is especially true for chronic disease management and eldercare. We develop a view point to understand at a broad level how the US healthcare system is currently evolving and what role could new technologies, like wireless sensing, play in shaping its near future. These new technologies are slowly gaining foothold in the market and could possibly reach a point of inflection soon where the population starts to adopt them in masses. By creating a new mental model of how various parts in the system interact with each other, we try and develop an understanding of which factors might affect the speed of adoption of these new technologies into the system. / by Kanishka Nohria. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2018. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 155-158). / Design processes and methods for product design are not as effective when products have a systems component. Products can have a systems component when they are within the context of a system, are a component of a system or are systems themselves. A review of relevant design processes and frameworks is followed by three case studies describing the design process of three products, one in each category mentioned above. These are: a solar powered assistance system for handlooms, a biogas generation system based on food waste from the city's waste stream and a virtual assistant and online platform for people with vision impairment in India. Learnings from these projects are used to propose a preliminary framework for designing for products with a systems component. This framework proposes that the design process cannot be codified and must be approached depending on the use case. Research, concept generation, testing and post-product launch should involve research which considers the impacts of the product and system at large and small physical and temporal scales. The framework reframes the design process in terms of the design experience and capabilities of the designer. The designer constantly cycles between understanding the system and creating solutions through different parts of the design process. The thesis defines the broadened role of the designer must be capable of abstract thinking, have subject matter expertise and possess technical and interpersonal skills, enabling them to take on a leadership role. It then suggests that further professionalization of the field of product and systems design is necessary given the rising complexity of socio-technological systems and suggests changes to the education system to cope with this. Lastly, it stresses that creativity and intuition are critical and the design framework sets the ground for creativity to generate great designs. / by Pratik Modi. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2018. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 121-125). / The slow pace to field new defense weapon systems is allowing potential adversaries to catch up to the technological advantage the U.S. has maintained since World War 11. Despite hundreds of studies, and a near constant state of "acquisition reform", the problem continues. This research analyzed the defense acquisition process as a socio-technical system, focusing on the source selection process as subset of the Defense Acquisition System (DAS) for modeling purposes to investigate the value of the separation of contracting and program management authorities. Network graphs showed how Conway's law predicted the effect of the separation of authorities on the topographic structure of the source selection process and a high network distance between the separate authorities. An agent-based model was built that showed a 26% cost (112 days) in terms of schedule because of the separation of authorities. The benefit of the separation was investigated by scoring the comments received by the Multi-Functional Independent Review Team (MIRT) for five different source selections and found that less than 1 % of comments had a likely impact on the decision and less than 4% had a likely or highly likely impact on protestability. The results showed that while there is a small benefit to the separation of authorities currently implemented in the source selection process, the cost is very high. Enough data and evidence were generated to recommend taking steps to better structurally combine the two authorities and better integrate source selection expertise into the process. / by John M. Mehrman. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2018. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references. / The purpose of this text is to explore the way that firms create value for customers from an experiential point of view. The experience originated from the use of products and services is conceptualized within a customer's journey to satisfy a need. The concept of experiential friction is introduced to identify possible areas of experiential improvement for customers. A framework to perform the experiential profiling of a need-satisfaction journey is provided, allowing to identify, classify, and quantify experiential inefficiencies. An experiential theory of value is proposed in which incremental value is proportional to the total experiential improvement that a customer derives from using a product or service. Lastly, the managerial implications of the ideas presented in this text are discussed. / by José Raúl Iván Garza Rodriguez. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2018. / "June, 2018." Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 56-57). / Startups are finding it increasingly difficult to engage with their target market. Particularly in the wellness industry, where there is a lot of competition and startups need to stand out, the early stages are critical. They seek to generate leads and assess customer expectations through a landing page they host on their own domains, where users can join a waitlist to test their product idea. This can become expensive in terms of budget needed for public relations and social media to promote their site. Landing pages and waitlists allow early adopters and product enthusiasts to discover new products and services while they are still being developed. Followers gained via the waitlist help to validate proof of concept, develop of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and provide a following for successful market launch and fundraising/crowdfunding campaign. However, it can be difficult to marry potential product enthusiasts with waitlists of interest because not all products are reviewed on blogs, not all social media ads target them, and not all startups are interested in crowdfunding. Existing social media platforms, blogs, forums and crowdfunding sites that showcase new products thrive because early adopters and product enthusiasts are always looking to find out the next new thing, share it with their friends and even invest. However, these platforms have limitations that make it difficult for entrepreneurs to find and engage with quality early adopters. For example, crowdfunding sites tend to cater to hardware, are limited to certain industries, and do not allow entrepreneurs to generate leads and connect with their followers on their own platform prior to hosting a crowdfunding campaign. This thesis aims to outline a business plan and minimal viable product for a waitlist aggregator, an online meeting space for entrepreneurs and early adopters in the wellness industry. Through network effects of this proposed two-sided platform, the traffic volume generated could significantly reduce the need for paid digital marketing campaigns and help entrepreneurs find quality leads. It would also inform interested consumers about new product developments all in one place, let them join the waitlist, beta-test the product and communicate directly with the company. / by Laura Y. Facussé. / S.M. in Engineering and Management