Thesis (S.M. in Engineering and Management)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2010. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 81). / A strong and growing desire exists, throughout society, to consume electricity from clean and renewable energy sources, such as solar, wind, biomass, geothermal, and others. Due to the intermittent and variable nature of electricity from these sources, our current electricity grid is incapable of collecting, transmitting, and distributing this energy effectively. The "Smart Grid" is a term which has come to represent this 'next generation' grid, capable of delivering, not only environmental benefits, but also key economic, reliability and energy security benefits as well. Due to the high complexity of the electricity grid, a principle based System Architecture framework is presented as a tool for analyzing, defining, and outlining potential pathways for infrastructure transformation. Through applying this framework to the Smart Grid, beneficiaries and stakeholders are identified, upstream and downstream influences on design are analyzed, and a succinct outline of benefits and functions is produced. The first phase of grid transformation is establishing a robust communications and measurement network. This network will enable customer participation and increase energy efficiency through smart metering, real time pricing, and demand response programs. As penetration of renewables increases, the high variability and uncontrollability of additional energy sources will cause significant operation and control challenges. To mitigate this variability reserve margins will be adjusted and grid scale energy storage (such as compressed air, flow batteries, and plugin hybrid electric vehicles or PHEV's) will begin to be introduced. Achieving over 15% renewable energy penetration marks the second phase of transformation. The third phase is enabling mass adoption, whereby over 40% of our energy will come from renewable sources. This level of penetration will only be achieved through fast supply and demand balancing controls and large scale storage. Robust modeling must be developed to test various portfolio configurations. / by Gregory Sachs. / S.M.in Engineering and Management

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2012. / This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. / Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 88-90). / In todays' global economy, having a lean operation is no longer considered a competitive edge; rather has become the new necessity and norm [15]. The new source of this competitive edge is innovation [15]. What sets an organization apart from its competitors is the ability to develop products that constantly meet customers' demands. An organization must have a New Product Development Process (NPDP) that enhances, expedites and fosters development of innovative products on consistent basis in order to tie innovation to market success. Many organizations have a difficult time determining whether or not the NPDP they are using is adequate because there are no standard methods or processes that organization can use to assess their NPDP [16]. In order to assist a specific medical device organization to assess its NPDP, a partnership with Performance Measure Group (PMG) was established. PMG is a leader in benchmarking and performance measurement. This thesis gives insight into the various new product development and benchmarking processes that are in practice today. It also explores the challenges and benefits associated with conducting benchmarking. Finally, this thesis reveals some of the challenges that this particular medical device company confronts with their NPDP. / by Sassan Zelkha. / S.M.

Thesis (M. Eng. in Logistics)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2010. / Page 98 blank. Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 91-92). / Do demographic factors play a role in the choice of supply chain risk management practices by supply chain professionals? Are there stronger relationships between certain demographic factors and supply chain risk management practices? Most supply chains today cuts across multiple countries, cultures, languages, income levels, and industries just to name a few. This means there are differences in supply chain risk management behaviors or attitudes. Is there a way to understand some of these differences better and will the management of global supply chains benefit from this knowledge? / by Kenneth Kanyagui. / 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. 55-57). / Third party spend accounts for a significant amount of a business' costs. When procuring unique, highly-engineered components, this cost is often negotiated with suppliers during the procurement process. Due to the limited understanding of the suppliers' true production cost, various techniques and models for determining how much a procured product should cost have been tried. One such approach is known as "should-cost modeling," where estimates for the cost of a product or service are made based on product architecture and/or firm financials. Both these approaches to should-cost modeling require extensive data collection and are time consuming. In this thesis, we expand an approach that uses aggregate industry-specific financial data to develop a simple, scalable tool to estimate a product's should-cost. One major challenge in building this tool is unifying the simple aggregate data available into an estimated price for a complex product. This is a major challenge of developing a should-cost estimate using existing methods. We develop an approach to simplifying a complex product, construct our model, and create a ready-to-use tool. We demonstrate the working of the model and the tool using the case of a semi-complex product (the fluid end of a pump) representative of a company's procured products. We then compare the price estimated by our model with that currently negotiated with our sponsor company's supplier and solicit qualitative feedback from procurement professionals regarding the should-cost tool's accuracy. The price estimated by our tool is within 9% of the actual negotiated price and required significantly less time to compute compared to the current approach based on product architecture. The company's sourcing and procurement executive strongly endorses the benefits of our approach. This tool can remove the reliance on supplier-supplied quotes and strengthen the purchasing company's negotiating position. The tool developed in this thesis is shown to provide a more accurate estimate of product cost, with significantly less estimation effort. / by Clayton M. Mealer and Sung Hwan Park. / M.Eng.in Logistics

Thesis (S.M. in Engineering and Management)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2012. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 98-102). / Improvement of business performance is an enduring subject of research across a diverse set of disciplines such as accounting, operations management, marketing, finance, economics and even psychology and sociology. In any discipline the ability to create self-awareness, a capacity to evaluate and compare their own behavior to internal standards and values, is a pre-requisite of improvement. In an organization, self-awareness is created with assessments. The results of assessments can help the organization to adapt to changing market conditions by defining more valuable objectives to direct its new businesses as well as to restructure its operations for eliminating deficiencies that limit its abilities to achieve its business goals at lower costs. For an organization with core businesses in product development (PD), assessment of PD is an essential element of all business improvement initiatives. However, in order to perform a focused PD assessment, the analysis needs to be structured with a systematic top-down approach which relates the findings of evaluations starting from high-level business goals down to the metrics for the most detailed operational activities. In this thesis, an existing Product Development Self-Assessment tool is integrated into this context, and implementation of a top-down assessment is presented using a three-step process. Other supplemental tools and methods are also incorporated into the discussion of the implementation framework such as; Goal-Question-Metric (GQM) and IDEFO function modeling methodologies. With the use of illustrative examples, the application steps of the framework and the use of supplemental methods are presented. / by Ziya Deniz Eralp. / S.M.in Engineering and Management

Thesis (M. Eng. in Logistics)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 62 ). / To be competitive and quick-to-market in today's global marketplace, Electronic Manufacturing Service (EMS) providers should focus on their core competencies, partnership relationships and continuous improvements. As Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) Customers shift their focus on marketing and product development, EMS providers have been assuming the leading role to develop creative manufacturing solutions based on the core competencies in their supply chains. A tightly-coupled and synergistic relationship with OEM customers and key components suppliers is critical to EMS providers' success. This thesis focuses on applying system dynamics approach to supplier partnership management at FSJC, a top player in EMS industry, with the aim of gain deeper understanding on dynamics within FSJC's supply chain network and between suppliers and FSJC. We find out that to maintain its market position, FSJC must concentrate on small number of qualified suppliers and put effort to build strong partnership with these suppliers. This requires a better understanding of the impact of key parameters of partnership and manufacturing process of both suppliers and FSJC. Developing this sort of understanding can help FSJC continue to provide worldwide responsiveness to its customers by improving time-to-market, scalability and manufacturing efficiency and foster long-term partnership with both customers and suppliers by improving communications both upstream and downstream in the supply chain. / by Lihua Zhai. / M.Eng.in Logistics

Thesis (M. Eng. in Logistics)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 82-83). / Developing a cyclical schedule for producing multiple items on a single processor under stochastic demand that minimizes total setup and inventory holding costs is an important problem. This problem is faced in many continuous production environments such as chemical or petrochemical production, where the costs of switching production from one item over to another are very high. Due to high changeover costs, each item is produced in large batches and its demand is fulfilled from the finished goods inventory. Holding this inventory incurs inventory carrying costs. Therefore, good production planning policies are required to determine when and how much of each item should be produced so that the total cost of setup changeovers and holding inventory is minimized, while ensuring that sufficient inventory is available to meet customer demand which varies over time. In this thesis, I present the work done to develop production planning policies for a large chemical manufacturing company that operates in the environment described above. The problem described above is called the Economic Lot Scheduling Problem (ELSP) and is known to be NP-hard. So, optimal solutions are hard to find and one has to rely on heuristic procedures to find good solutions. / (cont.) In this thesis, I first present four fundamental inventory planning models relevant to the ELSP and discuss research works that specifically address the ELSP. I then describe the characteristics of the production and the planning processes at the chemical manufacturer where this work was carried out and present a heuristic procedure to solve the ELSP. This is followed by a demonstration of how the procedure can be applied at the manufacturing company and presentation of the results of a simulation experiment conducted to test the effectiveness of the solution. Finally, I will discuss two important issues related to the implementation of the solution at the company. / by Shardul Sharad Phadnis. / 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. / The U.S. Aerospace and Defense industry is a vital organ for national security and humanitarian disaster response as well as an economic powerhouse creating jobs and driving exports. News headlines often stop at the sale of complex, hi-tech and expensive defense systems short of capturing the critical aftersales support. However, it is the aftersales support that enables the mission to be accomplished. Without a well-functioning product support supply chain, even the most advanced fleet of fighter jets is rendered useless. This paper looks in-depth at such support supply chains within top industry companies. The investigation spans the current and desired states, and gaps the difference. It also establishes a visionary roadmap to get to the desired state and ensure optimum performance. The research proposes the "+Add Model", an easy to understand 5-level framework to achieve Global Optimization. The +Add Model acronyms stand for Aggregate Dynamic Derivatives, which are key elements in the framework. Aggregate refers to enabling a one integrated supply chain approach at the prime-integrator to benefit from economies of scale elements such as risk pooling and large discount buys. Dynamic refers to enabling a continuously improving supply chain through feedback loops making the supply chain agile. Derivatives refer to the realization that the supply chain is full of hidden derivatives (or levers). As in calculus, the derivative is a measure of how a function changes as its input changes. The +Add model identifies those main supply chain derivative functions and inputs, and then aims to fine-tune them to drive performance. By adopting the +Add Model a prime-integrator is able to improve demand forecast accuracy (Level-1), system planning lead times (Level-2) and increase collaboration with the supplier (Level-3). In turn, levels 1 through 3 enable significantly reduced supplier lead times (Level-4). Finally, as various programs apply the +Add Model approach, Aggregation (Level-5) provides additional benefits such as increased forecast accuracy, discount buys, and lower safety stock inventory through centralization. The +Add Model has a significant impact to the button line, analysis reveals substantial improvements to earnings, economic profit and cash flow while maximizing performance and reducing risk. / by Mina Riwes. / M.Eng.in Logistics

Thesis (M. Eng. in Logistics)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 148-150). / This study explores the current supply chain trends in the pharmaceutical industry. The main objective of the study is to characterize the pharmaceutical industry and identify excellent supply chain practices. Indeed, the pharmaceutical industry is not renowned for its supply chain management capabilities, unlike many other highly publicized industries that have profitably exploited their supply chains. It is, thus, an interesting topic for research. A closer look, however, reveals that our initial assessment of the industry is colored by the popular financial criteria prevalent among analysts and the investing public. This research will suggest that the pharmaceutical industry does care about its supply chain, although, a reevaluation of the supply chain strategy is necessary for addressing problems effectively. In fact, we will argue that an excellent supply chain is paramount to the pharmaceutical industry's success. We subscribe to the view that a supply chain should be considered excellent if it is able to effectively support a business strategy. The business objectives of the pharmaceutical industry include the need to ensure that the drugs are protected from adulteration and counterfeiting, removed and destroyed in a safe and environmentally friendly manner, and made available to patients at all time. Clearly, these are not commonly used metrics to assess the performance of a company or a supply chain. / (cont.) Instead, characteristics that have direct impact on the short term financial well being of the company, such as reduced lead times, increased flexibility, and lower cost are the ones that take precedence. As a result, there is a huge gap between the actual and perceived capabilities of the pharmaceutical supply chains. Furthermore, there are clear indications that a radical transformation of the pharmaceutical industry is on the horizon which will require further strengthening of its supply chains, rendering it even more critical to success. / by Mahender Singh. / M.Eng.in Logistics

Thesis (M. Eng. in Logistics)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 66). / This thesis discusses the tradeoff between transportation cost and the level of service in cold chain transportation. Its purpose is to find the relationship between transportation cost and the level of service in cold chain transportation. Regression models are built to quantify the additional cost of superior quality cold chain for both Chiquita and its carriers, and analyze the relationship between such cost and customer service level. In order to guarantee the freshness of salads and fruits, cold chain transportation has to meet strict quality standards and additional costs occur due to efforts required to maintain and monitor the transportation performance. The thesis takes quantitative approach to demonstrate the relationships among the quality standards required, the cost associated, and the customer service level reached. The temperature quality standards are mainly measured by monitoring data from RFID monitor Sensitech. The cost data are collected from Chiquita's historical carrier rates. The customer service level is measured in two dimensions, on time drop-off, and on time pick-up. The thesis also takes qualitative approach by a survey on carriers' additional cost of offering superior cold chain transportation among Chiquita's carriers. No correlation is found between transportation cost and the level of service in cold chain transportation. Therefore carriers with best cold chain management don't necessarily charge the highest. / by Saiqi Liu. / M.Eng.in Logistics