Thesis (S.M. in Engineering and Management)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2011. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 62-68). / Food borne illnesses lead to 3000 deaths per year in the United States. Some industries, such as aviation, have made great strides increasing safety through careful accident analysis leading to changes in industry practices. In the food industry, the current methods of accident analysis are grounded in regulations developed when the food industry was far simpler than today. The food industry has become more complex with international supply chains and a consumer desire for fresher food. This thesis demonstrates that application of a system theoretic accident analysis method, CAST, results in more learning than the current method of accident analysis. This increased learning will lead to improved safety performance in the food production system. / by John D. Helferich. / S.M.in Engineering and Management

Thesis (S.M. in Engineering and Management)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, System Design and Management Program, 2012. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 109-112). / Architecting consumes a relatively small portion of the design process, yet the decisions made at this critical stage will direct the overall course of the implementation and operational process. Well architected systems can deliver competitive advantage by delivering maximized benefits at a competitive cost. These beneficial effects are vital in complex systems such as MOBI.E, which is an integrated charging station network linking various points in Portugal that will enable electric vehicles to recharge. MOBI.E's main mission is to jumpstart the Portuguese sustainable electric mobility industry, promoting the integration of the electric power from renewable sources into the functioning and development of cities. This thesis underscores the importance of electric mobility as well as technology trends that will influence the evolution of MOBI.E by constructing a standalone informal primer on MOBI.E. Application of system architecture tools including the morphological matrix to key steps in the architecting process has been demonstrated and evaluations of MOBI.E's architecture have been conducted. Further, a structured framework for architectural evaluation of complex systems, building upon other frameworks in the literature, has been proposed and utilized to critically evaluate MOBIE's current design against best practices in system architecture. The conclusion of this analysis has been that MOBI.E's design has incorporated appropriate technology, minimized future rework, offered flexibility in design & implementation, ensured scalability, as well as helped meet unexpected future needs. / by Aravind Ratnam. / S.M.in Engineering and Management

Thesis (S.M. in System Design and Management)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, System Design and Management Program, 2010. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references. / Product Development consists of activities to transforms a market opportunity and technological innovation into successful products. Several waves of improvements in technological innovation and product development have already substantially enhanced companies' ability to deliver differentiated products to markets faster, more efficiently, and with higher quality. However, the degree of success achieved has varied greatly between companies and even among units within individual companies. Determining important processes in the product development and their relationships with organizational and project performance are crucial to sustainable success in product development. Studying these relationships would give us insights into the product development dynamics. The objectives of this research are to determine important product development processes and their relationship with each other and organizational capabilities. To achieve the objectives of this research, a step-based approach was adopted. First, understand relationship between processes and firm's actual financials such as Sales, R&D Expenditure, and COGS. Second, identify relationship between processes and self-reported performance on Financials, Operational Effectiveness, Product Performance, and Customer Satisfaction. Third, identify relationship among different performance parameters to unearth indirect impact of processes on performance. In each step, processes were studied at three levels. Processes were combined based on our classification and the way they statistically cluster. Research used Linear Regression Analysis, ANOVA Analysis, Principal Component Analysis, and Cluster Analysis. Fourth, test four hypotheses based on statistics. The work in this thesis illustrates how various product development practices may influence performance measures of organization. While we focused on companies in the Automotive, Hi-Tech and Medical-device industries, I believe that product makers of all stripes could benefit from this work. / by Nisheeth Gupta. / S.M.in System Design and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, System Design and Management Program, 2014. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. Page 98 blank. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 94-96). / Nowadays in the automotive Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) most of the innovation development is done by the Research and Development (R&D) teams driven by corporate strategies, marketing understanding of customer's needs, brand aspirations, regulatory requirements, and advance engineering requirements to surpass competitors and gain market share and profit. The literature explained that innovation comes from several sources and different methods such as design thinking approach in the organization, user-centered innovation, adapting available technology from other industries, open source generation, and clear understanding of key internal and external stakeholders' wants, needs, and interests. In this thesis, I explain the innovation process and the different types of Product Development (PD) organizations, develop historical and qualitative distinctions of innovations done in the automotive industry from multiple input sources, and create an automotive OEM system by using systems architecture principles which helped me to analyze the critical stakeholders that are required to encourage and support the innovation process. Based on the literature and my experience I create a new model for integrating the innovation process and product development process by using a systems engineering approach. In addition, I survey Ford of Mexico (FoM) PD organization to understand how innovative the organization is, and integrate the innovation process into their product development organization, applying this new framework focusing on the elements that the organization can evolve to generate innovation within their design and development activities, and to improve technical capabilities to work on advance engineering concepts usually done by the corporate office in the United States (U.S). Finally, I suggest key actions that could strengthen the innovation culture within Ford of Mexico PD. / by Luis Armando L6pez Avila. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, System Design and Management Program, 2013. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 57-60). / Management researchers have long sought strategies for increasing the rate and quality of ideas generated among workers. Additionally, the advent of internet-based communications has created opportunities for valuable ideas to be generated - and harnessed - from crowds of individuals. The first section of this paper reviews the early and recent literature on measuring creativity, focusing specifically on the effects of incentives and explicit instructions on the rate of idea generation. The following section describes the crowdsourcing platform through which the research was conducted - Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT) - and reviews recent work that has utilized this platform for experimental research. The project at hand engages participants in a divergent thinking exercise to measure the rate of idea generation for the crowd-based population. The findings show more unique ideas occur later in the response period, demonstrating the presence of the serial order effect; that explicitly instructing respondents to "Be Creative" increases the rate of idea generation; and that offering a bonus incentive for "especially creative ideas" decreases the rate of idea generation for specific demographics of respondents. The paper continues with a discussion of research limitations and areas for further exploration. Conclusions and insights are offered at the end. / by Allan R. Donnelly. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis (S.M. in Engineering and Management)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, System Design and Management Program, 2011. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 61-63). / This thesis explores the use of genetic programming as a tool in the system design and innovation process. Digital circuits are used as a proxy for complex technological designs. Circuit construction is simulated through a computer algorithm which assembles circuit designs in an attempt to reach specified design goals. Complex designs can be obtained by repeatedly combining simpler components, often called building blocks, which were created earlier in the algorithm's progression. This process is arguably a reflection of the traditional development path of systems engineering and technological innovation. The choice of algorithm used to guide this process is crucial. This thesis considers two general types of algorithms-a blind random search method, and a genetic programming search method-with variations applied to each. The research focused on comparing these algorithms in regard to: 1) the successful creation of multiple complex designs; 2) resources utilized in achieving a design of a given complexity; and 3) the inferred time dependence of technological improvement resulting from the process. Also of interest was whether these algorithms would exhibit exponential rates of improvement of the virtual technologies being created, as is seen in real-world innovation. The starting point was the hypothesis that the genetic programming approach might be superior to the random search method. The results found however that the genetic programming algorithm did not outperform the blind random search algorithm, and in fact failed to produce the desired circuit design goals. This unexpected outcome is believed to result from the structure of the circuit design process, and from certain shortcomings in the genetic programming algorithm used. This work also examines the relationship of issues and considerations (such as cost, complexity, performance, and efficiency) faced in these virtual design realms to managerial strategy and how insights from these experiments might be applied to real-world engineering and design challenges. Algorithmic simulation approaches, including genetic programming, are found to be powerful tools, having demonstrated impressive performance in bounded domains. However, their utility to systems engineering processes remains unproven. Therefore, use of these algorithmic tools and their integration into the human creative process is discussed as a challenge and an area needing further research. / by Timothy Harsh. / S.M.in Engineering and Management

Thesis (S.M. in System Design and Management)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2010. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 83-85). / The motivation behind this thesis came from years of work in the solid-state lighting industry at Color Kinetics. My role there was mostly technical, but a bit of market understanding was involved. I wanted to gain a better understanding of the market forces at work, yet develop this understanding within a strong technical framework. The goal of this thesis is to address the adoption of Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) into the lighting market. Lighting consumes an enormous amount of energy, and LEDs have the potential to dramatically reduce energy dependence. The approach utilized for this thesis involved first analyzing the projected performance improvements for LEDs, as these metrics are key factors to customer adoption. In addition, some of the more amorphous issues are discussed for both the market needs and the technical solutions available. Finally, a system dynamics model is developed which utilizes the data for the projected performance of LEDs and looks at how their adoption in different market segments may unfold. Variations are analyzed, and conclusions about the important factors for adoption are discussed. / by Ryan C Williamson. / S.M.in System Design and Management

Thesis (S.M. in Engineering and Management)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, System Design and Management Program, 2012. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 85-89). / While solar fuel systems offer tremendous potential to address global clean energy needs, most existing analyses have focused on the feasibility of large centralized systems and applications. Not much research exists on the feasibility of distributed solar fuel systems. This thesis is an attempt to understand the larger context of solar fuel systems, to examine the case for going distributed and to critically analyze a distributed solar fuel system available today in the context of a specific application. In doing so, this thesis seeks to a) provide a baseline analysis for the economic feasibility of a distributed solar fuel system based on state-of-the-art technology b) draw some general conclusions about the nature of such systems in order to provide guidance to those engaged in the development of the next generation of solar fuel systems. This study also compares the chosen baseline solar fuel system with a traditional fossil fuel-based alternative and undertakes a cost-to-emissions trade-off analysis. A key finding of this thesis is that for solar fuel systems to be viable, cost and efficiency improvements in individual sub-systems won't be sufficient. Due attention needs to be given to bring down cost of the entire system. Another key finding is that if carbon emissions are considered as a decision-making criterion in addition to cost, even at current cost levels photovoltaic hydrogen systems compare favorably with existing fossil fuel-based alternatives such as diesel generators. / by Alex Thomas. / S.M.in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2015. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 93-96). / In recent years, corporate accelerators have emerged as a new method to foster collaboration between startups and established companies. This thesis presents, to my knowledge, the first comprehensive database of corporate accelerator programs across the globe. On the basis of this resource, I propose a definition for corporate accelerators and show that they follow the same basic principles as non-corporate accelerators. Further, I provide evidence that corporate accelerators have been growing considerably over the past few years and have reached a level of presence close to that of corporate venture capital funds. While growth has been slowing down recently, I argue that corporate accelerators are well-suited to becoming a permanent element in the startup ecosystem and that they are likely to capture market share from non-corporate accelerators. On the basis of a population of 847 largely capitalized corporations I show that corporate accelerators are more frequently sponsored by large, information-related firms that are also investing corporate venture capital. This study provides first indications that corporate accelerators are not likely to deliver direct operating profits to the sponsoring firms. However, I provide examples of significant strategic explorations, including companies that select portfolio firms to help them innovate along their supply chain and distribution channels or to provide them with strategic gains in the marketplace. / by Florian Heinemann. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, System Design and Management Program, 2014. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (page 127) and index. / Our current Healthcare system has multiple problems and it is widely perceived that it is not able to provide quality affordable healthcare to all Americans; millions of Americans are without Health Insurance. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was signed into law to achieve goal of 'quality affordable care for all American'. The ACA has focus on Individual Health Insurance and the provision of Health Exchange Marketplaces to find and purchase Health Insurance. Disruptive Innovation is a phenomenon in which a new entrant company disrupts the existing established company. As ACA and Health Exchanges have provided level playing field for all companies - new entrants and established - will this lead to disruption of Healthcare? Disruptive Innovations is analyzed from System Approach point of view. Disruption is not limited to two companies; Disruptor System disrupts the existing system including incumbent company. Disruption will be spearheaded by new entrant Disruptor Company and disruption will take place at system level. The existing Healthcare System and Possible Disruptor Systems are defined and investigated. Relative advantage and disadvantages to these two systems with regard to ACA regulations are analyzed. Elements of the healthcare disruptor system are analyzed and information present in the public domain about Health Exchange enrolment after the end of first enrollment seasons is studied to find out who could be possible disruptor and whether disruptor system formation has started. / by Shweta Shefali. / S.M. in Engineering and Management