Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 169-175). / This dissertation refines the understanding of economic performance of firms, using data and practical insights from the automotive supplier industry. Firms in this industry are characterized as either product or process firms, reflecting the importance of technological capabilities in manufacturing industries. Specialized capabilities in product markets define product firms, whereas capabilities in materials processing and manufacturing technologies define process firms. A measure of technological coherence is introduced, which expresses the relatedness of capabilities of a firm. The measure is based on a concentration index and a hierarchical classification of products and processes in the automotive supplier industry. Using this measure of coherence, analysis shows that firms with stronger coherence are able to better exploit corporate synergies and therefore achieve superior economic performance. That is, firms focusing on a specialized and related set of capabilities are able to outperform less coherent firms. Analysis further reveals a significant difference in performance between product and process firms. Product firms in the automotive supplier industry exhibit negative returns to scale, whereas process firms exhibit positive returns to scale. These differences are attributed to the underlying corporate logic of product and process firms, supported with studies of value creation in corporate acquisitions and interviews with corporate executives. The findings have implications for strategic choices of firms, such as choosing between product and process focus, and choosing between focus and diversification. The dissertation contributes to strategic management theory with a framework of product and process firms that is based on a technological view of the firm, and with a measure of technological coherence that facilitates empirical research of corporate coherence. / by Patrick P. Steinemann. / Ph.D.

Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2014. / 19 / "June 2014." Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 125-127). / This paper highlights the issues associated with and presents a modeling framework for long-term capacity planning problems constrained in a similar fashion to satellite capacity acquisition. Although ambiguities exist, the satellite capacity planning problem also contains many clearly defined constraints. In the immediate time horizon, universal satellite capacity is fixed, as satellite launches are rare, and each incremental satellite launch only marginally increases capacity. In the world of Commercial Satellite Communications (COMSATCOM), satellites have fixed coverage areas as they are typically in geo-synchronous orbit. Other military applications such as observation and satellite phone require, low-earth orbit and medium-earth orbit satellites. The contracts used to acquire satellite capacity from the commercial sector also clearly define constraints, such as start and end date, bandwidth, price per unit bandwidth and allocated satellite system, which also implies frequency and available capacity. The paper first reviews the issues involved with planning capacity acquisition, and then presents a modeling framework for developing strategies to meet criteria and minimize cost. A simulation environment is developed for testing contracts and satellites of different parameters against varying demand distributions. A dynamic program is used to solve the integer program associated with selecting satellite capacity levels to cover demand. / by John M. Lydiard, IV. / S.M.

Thesis (M. Eng. in Logistics)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2006. / Vitae. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 113-115). / This research investigates the order promising and fulfillment and customer and channel collaboration functions of a company. In addition to presenting more precise definitions, we identify and analyze current and emerging innovative practices in these two functions implemented by leading companies across nine industries, namely aerospace, apparel, automobile, computer, consumer packaged goods, petroleum, pharmaceutical, retail, and telecommunication. Based on our analysis, we propose a framework for categorizing order promising/fulfillment and customer/channel collaboration business models and strategies as well as future trends. Significance of integration of these two functions is also analyzed. Finally, we present guidelines for companies to optimize their operations vis-à-vis Customer and Demand management and prepare themselves for business success as far as into the year 2020. / by Yimin An and Samuel Srethapakdi. / M.Eng.in Logistics

Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, June 2015. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. "February 2015." / Includes bibliographical references (pages 223-241). / According the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), 2008 marked the first year in which the majority of the planet's population lived in cities. Urbanization, already over 80% in many western regions, is increasing rapidly as migration into cities continue. The density of cities provides residents access to places, people, and goods, but also gives rise to problems related to health, congestion, and safety. In parallel to rapid urbanization, ubiquitous mobile computing, namely the pervasive use of cellular phones, has generated a wealth of data that can be analyzed to understand and improve urban systems. These devices and the applications that run on them passively record social, mobility, and a variety of other behaviors of their users with extremely high spatial and temporal resolution. This thesis presents a variety of novel methods and analyses to leverage the data generated from these devices to understand human behavior within cities. It details new ways to measure and quantify human behaviors related to mobility, social influence, and economic outcomes. / by Jameson Lawrence Toole. / Ph. D.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, February 2013. / "October 2012." Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 88-92). / The demand for Saudi oil is increasing locally and internationally, and being one of the major oil exporters in the world, the government of Saudi Arabia needs to balance between local consumption and international demand. To address this challenge, Saudi Arabia is adopting an aggressive strategy to use solar energy instead of oil to generate electricity. This strategy creates an opportunity to diversify the country's GDP by building solar manufacturing industry. This thesis uses the Enterprise Architecture Framework, developed by Nightingale and Rhodes, to propose the optimal architecture for the Saudi solar manufacturing in terms of organization, policy, strategy, product, services, infrastructure, and R&D. The first stage of the framework identifies the landscape and the major stakeholders in the solar manufacturing, and then studies the current situation of the Saudi solar manufacturing. The second stage analyzes the different proposed architectures. The third stage evaluates the different architectures, and the fourth stage selects and validates the winning architectures. The evaluation criteria for the different proposed architectures are based on three angles: "Attractiveness", which measures the level of compatibility between the architecture and the needs of the Saudi government. The "Effort", measures the human and financial effort required to deploy the architecture. The "Risk", which measures the different risks associated with the architecture. The winning architecture encourages Saudi businessmen to acquire international companies along with building local manufacturing for products in the lower end of the solar manufacturing value chain. The strategy in this architecture is to build fast capabilities in the technology and process side by acquiring international companies and steady capabilities in the production side by gradually moving up in the value chain. Also, the architecture proposes focusing and building the local R&D capabilities to improve the productivity, and profitability of the solar manufacturing companies. / by Bassel F. Alsultan. / S.M.

Thesis (M. Eng. in Logistics)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 46-48). / The purpose of the thesis is to identify practical challenges that are being addressed by companies implementing RFID related technologies in a variety of supply chain management applications. The test engagements undertaken by companies are intended to investigate the economic, functional and process related benefits that might be derived from adoption of this emerging technology. Field research will uncover both challenges and possible solutions being developed by companies, in addition to understanding the impact of challenges may have on wide spread adoption of RFID technologies. The challenges observed in this research project will be evaluated using a simple analytical framework, and field case studies are to be developed to provide summaries of current RFID pilot project activities. / by Nathan Christopher Roost. / M.Eng.in Logistics

Thesis (M. Eng. in Logistics)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2013. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 60). / Truckload (TL) is the principle mode of freight transportation in the United Sates. Buyers of TL services are shippers with significant amount of shipments throughout a year. Due to the complexity of their network and the large expenditure on transportation, shippers select their carriers through auctions and using optimization methods, and enter into long-term contracts with winners with the best prices. Shippers subsequently request their carriers to fulfill shipment every time there's a load, a procedure called 'tender'. Despite the sophisticated selection and the existence of contracts, shippers' tenders are frequently rejected by their carriers, a phenomenon called tender rejection. When this happens, the shipper has to find alternative carriers and most of the time the price for the load increases. With weekly rejection rate as a dependent variable, and with variability of volume, length of haul, or the differential in prices as independent variables, this research mainly used the linear regression method to examine how well these independent variables account for rejections for a given lane. The analysis used the data including TL shipment and tender records of 17 shippers for five years. This research also attempted to discover any geographic patterns of frequent rejections. The analysis of the relationship between truckload rates and rejection rates suggested a potential trade-off between price and rejection, which questions the generally accepted strategy of shippers minimizing truckload expenditures by unconditionally reducing rejections. / by Yoo Joon Kim. / M.Eng.in Logistics

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2008. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 166-182). / The target subject of Natural Resources Planning (NRP) includes various systems and their elements, all of which are centered around the natural resource system. Given this characteristic complexity and a high degree of uncertainty, it is impossible to holistically understand the entire target system of NRP. Therefore, collecting the knowledge and experiences of all the stakeholders in all associated systems and then drawing a more adaptive agreement are regarded as the best method for dealing with this complexity and uncertainty. However, varying interests and values among stakeholders often lead to generation of deep conflicts and further prevent them from moving the process forward. The core problem lies in finding out how to reach consensus by managing conflicts arising from various group interactions; this necessitated the creation of appropriate heuristics with guidelines and framework. However, the current implementation of the appropriate and comprehensive heuristics like the Consensus Building approach faces various challenges regarding time and cost. In this thesis, I introduce the Decision Support System (DSS), which has previously been developed and utilized mainly in the management field, for providing a new platform for conducting a participatory process and facilitating the process by mitigating current challenges. I examined the various functions and aspects of multiple DSSs that could be beneficial to the process of NRP. / (cont.) Moreover, along with advanced Information Technology, (1) various heuristic guidelines and framework designed to effectively and efficiently reap the benefits of collaboration and (2) system perspective methodologies that can give comprehensive insights across the system and be used to make stakeholder deliberations are closely examined. In particular, concerning the integrated features of DSS that could potentially be specialized for the NRP participatory process, diverse efforts to incorporate system perspective methodology with other analysis tools or to embed participatory heuristics in the IT platform are more rigorously investigated. The thesis discovered various overlapping areas among the three different areas of research and propose that these can be used in effectively arranging them for further collaboration in the development of the integrated DSS specialized for the participatory process in NRP (NRP-DSS). Finally, the thesis recommends a summarized list of the necessary conditions and challenges involved in developing NRP-DSS. / by Hye Yeon Park. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2012. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 151-159). / Charged by the Chairman of the Joints Chief of Staff, the authors were members of a study to develop innovative recommendations for transforming the military enterprise to better manage post-traumatic stress and related conditions in support of service members and their families. The authors first began their study by performing a stakeholder analysis to understand the unmet needs of stakeholders across the enterprise. By assessing stakeholder values across the life cycle, we found that there was a strong need to improve the continuity of care and accessibility of services for service members and their families, in particular for the Reserve Component and National Guard population. Therefore, the authors investigated the role of technology to serve as a force extender to improve access and timeliness of care to psychological health care services. Specifically, they utilized a systems approach to evaluate the current state of telehealth within the Military Health System. By utilizing the enterprise lenses of strategy, policy, organization, services, processes, infrastructure, and knowledge to analyze the current state of telebehavioral health, they proposed a future state architecture for telehealth delivery. They highlight seven enterprise requirements for developing this future state architecture: 1. MEDCOM shall establish a core funding stream as a line item to support TH service line. 2. MEDCOM Telehealth Service line shall develop standard TBH metrics for deployment across the enterprise 3. MEDCOM Telehealth Service line shall identify eligible populations across the enterprise that could benefit from the expanded access that TBH services provide. 4. MEDCOM Telehealth Service line shall develop an enterprise solution that supports seamless flow of operational information and the electronic health record. 5. MEDCOM Telehealth Service line shall revisit specific policies that are presenting barriers to telehealth growth and sustainability. 6. MEDCOM Telehealth Service line shall encourage learning and best practice sharing across the Army TH enterprise. 7. MEDCOM Telehealth Service line shall collaborate with other Army governance organizations to develop a mobile health strategy and pilot projects for the Army enterprise. / by Andrea K. Ippolito. / S.M.

Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2015. / "June 2015." Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 55-57). / Patient safety has become a critical concept in healthcare as clinicians seek to provide quality healthcare to every patient in a healthcare system that has grown far more complex than the days of the independent doctor and his black bag making house calls. Accidents in present-day healthcare systems are complicated, with environmental factors, interactions between clinicians, and the pressures exerted by managerial decisions all contributing to these medical mishaps. Despite this complexity, accidents are analyzed using simplistic and outdated techniques modeling systems as mere linear chains of events, when the reality lies far from those neat cause and effect relationships. Further compounding efforts to promote patient safety is the reliance on reactive approaches to safety, waiting for accidents to occur before enacting changes, like a dangerous game of whack-a-mole. What little work is done in prospective hazard analysis tends to be concentrated in niche areas and relies heavily on older analytic techniques. This thesis demonstrates the use of systems theory based accident and hazard analysis techniques, CAST and STPA respectively, in healthcare systems. It shows proof of concept applications in two distinct fields of healthcare, accident analyses in cardiac surgery and a prospective hazard analysis in a radiation oncology process. These techniques were very amenable to adaptation to healthcare applications. The accident analyses a rich set of accident causal factors leading to a large number of strong design options to prevent future accidents. The hazard analysis identified 84 potential unsafe controls and over 200 possible causal scenarios requiring a design change to create a safer system. This work sets up future work into direct comparisons with other hazard and accident analysis techniques applied in the healthcare domain as well as larger scale studies to understand the potential impact on patient safety. Finally, this work highlights the growing role for system and safety engineers in the healthcare field to help deal with the complexity of ensuring that every patient receives safe and effective healthcare. / by Aubrey Samost. / S.M.