Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2008. / MIT Barker Engineering Library copy: issued printed in pages. / Also issued printed in pages. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 115-116). / In many real world systems, two types of uncertainties exist: those that evolve in small, continuous increments and those that may create large, discrete changes in the system. The field of engineering real options posits that flexible system designs can improve system performance in the face of such uncertainties. However, up to now, most analyses of engineering real options deal with one type of uncertainty at a time. One common analysis method for the incremental uncertainty is done by using binomial lattices, while the discrete changes are typically analyzed using traditional decision analysis. This thesis develops a new hybrid method which combines the lattice and decision analyses for the evaluation of real options. This method makes it possible to account for and display both types of uncertainties at the same time while drawing on the strengths of the two traditional methods. The main advantage is that decision makers are able to compare distributions resulting from strategies rather than only comparing single value evaluations such as expected net present value. The description of the distributions is made via Value at Risk and Gain (VARG) graphs. Also, risk preferences of decision makers are considered directly, rather than by the use of artificial utility functions or by evading the issue entirely. The main disadvantage of the method is that its complexity grows exponentially if many time periods, decision, and chance events are introduced. Therefore, the procedure is outlined for two stages of analysis step by step, and it has been programmed in Excel. To illustrate the method, an application to a supply chain strategy is developed for a computer wholesale company. The situation facing the company is whether to set up a local distribution mode (LDM) in a region experiencing increasing demand. / (cont.) The competition may also decide to establish local distribution in the region. In this light, the incremental uncertainty is the growth of demand while the discrete uncertainty is the competition's decision to enter the market locally. / by Nestor Quispez-Asin. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M. in Engineering and Management)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2011. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 69-73). / The design and development of a gas turbine engine for aircraft applications is a highly integrated process, and requires the integration of efforts of large numbers of individuals from many design specialties. If the design process is well defined and the product architecture is stable, the outcome of the process will become highly predictable and repeatable. In the case that there are significant architecture changes due to technology insertion, customer requirements or overall changes in component configuration for performance, this large and integrated design process may become more challenging. Communication of design intent, requirements and predicted performance for all of the components, systems and subsystems must be made without error to all involved in the development of the product. Pratt & Whitney is a large gas turbine engine design company, and has been in the engine business since it's inception in 1925. In 2008, P&W designed, built and flew a large "Geared Turbofan" engine which was a demonstrator for a new product architecture being developed, the first of the new product family being the PWl 524G. This new engine architecture is different from the more traditional turbofan engine architecture in the use of a reduction gear set between the fan and the turbine shaft which drives it. Earlier work in examination of gas turbine engine product-design process interactions has been performed with a traditional high bypass ratio gas turbine engine architecture using the PW4098. Using two test cases, the PW4098 and PW1524G, this work seeks to map the architecture of a gas turbine aero engine in the Design Structure Matrix format, with all major connectivity shown, and then to apply organizational information in the form of Domain Matrix Maps to the physical architectural connectivity to determine which portions of the architecture result in additional or functional group interactions. The determination of the architecture driven changes in the number of functional group interactions is made first, and then isolation of "novel" functional group interactions is made with the original architecture serving as the baseline for organizational interaction. Analysis of these results is then performed to examine the potential organizational impact of moving from traditional turbofan architecture to a geared turbofan architecture. The potential impact to the organization in assessed and recommendations are made to minimize the potential impact of the change. The analysis presented shows that the change in engine architecture represents a move to a more distributed and less modular architecture. The DSM shows a 20% increase in density of connectivity between components. From an organizational impact perspective, there is a 30% change overall in the total number of functional group interactions in the integration of the engine. The impact of these changes on particular design functional groups is discussed, and the data suggests that the more distributed architecture of the PW1524G likely will require more system integration effort than the traditional turbofan architecture of the PW4098. / by Denman H. James. / S.M.in Engineering and Management

Thesis (M. Eng. in Logistics)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2003. / Paged continuously. Each page no. is preceded by a chapter no. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 88-89). / In today's supermarket world, consumers apart from demanding 'higher and higher quality at lower and lower prices', want more and more product choices. This has put tremendous pressure on supermarkets and their infrastructure. With better information technology, forecasting techniques, planning tools, demand fulfillment and supplier relationships supermarkets can meet the rising demand much better than ever before. But inorder to meet this demand at the lowest price they need to rethink their inbound logistics and re-optimize their warehouses. This has spurred a growth in warehousing outsourcing. The study is concerned with evaluating the cost benefit between the internal and the external warehousing for the food retail industry, while addressing the following issues: 1. Advantages and disadvantages of an internal and external warehouse. 2. Importance of alignment of logistics strategy and corporate strategy. 3. Vendor items which should be outsourced or insourced The study was conducted by evaluating the economic value for fifteen different vendors of a regional supermarket chain with the objective to help the supermarket chain reassess its warehousing strategy. / by Vikas Mehrotra. / M.Eng.in Logistics

Thesis (M. Eng. in Logistics)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 105-106). / Prediction Markets hold the promise of improving the forecasting process. Research has shown that Prediction Markets can develop more accurate forecasts than polls or experts. Our research concentrated on analyzing Prediction Markets for business decision-making. We configured a Prediction Market to gather primary data, sent out surveys to gauge participant views and conducted in-depth interviews to explain trader behavior. Our research was conducted with 169 employees from General Mills who participated in Prediction Markets that lasted from two to ten weeks. Our research indicates that short term forecasting Prediction Markets are no more accurate than conventional forecasting methods. It also presents and addresses three interesting contradictions. First, the Sales Organization won the majority of the Prediction Markets, yet the overall performance of Sales as a group was worse than that of other groups. Second, Prediction Markets were able to gain access to more information than General Mills' current process, yet the impact on forecast accuracy was not significant. Third, with a MAPE of 11% for promotional Prediction Markets, it would seem that promotional demand was well understood up-front, yet when we dissected the promotional forecasts we discovered that participants changed their minds over time degrading overall forecast accuracy. We believe that we have extended the current body of work on Prediction Markets in ways that will increase the utilization in business environments. / by Kai Trepte and Rajaram Narayanaswamy. / M.Eng.in Logistics

Thesis (M. Eng. in Logistics)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2004. / "June 2004." / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 48-51). / One of the entry points of radio frequency identification technology in supply chain applications is at the manufacturing line, after production, as packaged goods leave for the next link of the network of suppliers, carriers, distributors and retailers. To RFID-enable packaged products, an RFID device needs to be attached to the packaging and an identification number needs to be generated and stored accordingly. Today, a few early adopters of the technology already started to apply RFID tags to some of their cases and pallets and to collect and store the information. These processes however, are still to a large extent done at a slow pace, manually or in an experimental mode, and that may not be suited for large scale applications. To address this issue, this research document focuses on the implementation of an RFID enabled process under strict time and performance constraints, for case packaged goods and pallets. This document reviews the currently published information on the topic and the Auto-ID technology standards. It analyses system integration challenges, proposes a process for case and pallet level encoding, application and association and discusses some of information systems requirements for the implementation. It proposes a framework of options with the requirements and considerations the author believes to be most relevant. / by Herbert Moreti Fonseca. / M.Eng.in Logistics

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2013. / 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. / Traditional methods to identify and document hazards, and the corresponding safety constraints, are lacking in their ability to account for human, software and sub-system interactions in highly technical systems. STAMP, a systems-theoretic accident causality model, was created to overcome these limitations. The application of STAMP hazard analysis method STPA to five sub-systems of the Paul Scherrer Institute's experimental PROSCAN proton therapy system demonstrated how STPA can augment design and risk review of existing complex systems. Two of the five human controllers active in treatment delivery, two of the four process attributes controlled by the PROSCAN facility, and one of the four control loops that control the beam to target alignment attribute were analyzed. In doing so, the following contributions were made: - Analyzed the regulations currently in place in the US and Europe for the marketing of external beam radiotherapy devices and, more generally, medical devices that do not contain radioactive materials, concluding that STPA would be acceptable in both regulatory systems; - Provided experience in applying STPA to a complex device. Information on efficacy was derived by comparing STPA results with an existing safety assessment but a more formal counterpart is needed for stronger evidence. Information on learnability and usability was obtained when an informal workshop showed that system designers, in the course of one day, could be taught to use STPA to push their thinking about yet to be designed system elements; - Demonstrated the applicability of STPA to an experimental radiotherapy facility and, through this feasibility check, potentially influenced the state of the art in hazard analysis of medical devices and health care delivery; - Advanced the STPA methodology by creating notations and a process to document, query and visualize the possibly large number of hazardous scenarios identified by STPA analyses, with the goal of facilitating their review and use by their intended audience; Showed how STPA is complementary to more traditional hazard analysis techniques such as fault and event trees. Their respective strengths can be summoned when STPA is used to identify areas on which to focus the investigation lens of traditional hazard analysis techniques. Keywords: STAMP, STPA, hazard analysis, risk analysis, risk management, proton therapy, medical devices, safety, certification / by Blandine Antoine. / Ph.D.

Thesis (M. Eng. in Logistics)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 66-67). / (cont.) boundary and leave more demand uncertainty to the pull part of the system. / Based on a particular case study, this paper presents two approaches to buffer management under demand uncertainty, which is characterized by high lumpiness, dispersion and volatility. The common theme of both of the two approaches is not to find an advanced statistical method to improve demand forecast on the basis of historical data. Rather, these approaches provide new business paradigms to deal with demand uncertainty. The first approach, make-to-anticipated-order (MTAO), takes advantage of the mechanism of make-to-order (MTO) and develops a process that the production is pulled by anticipated orders instead of being pushed by the forecast of unpredictable future demand. The implementation of this method, on one hand, breaks through the precondition of MTO that the total production cycle time should be less than customers' desired lead-time. On the other hand, MTAO enjoys the advantage of arranging production by responding to customer demand to reduce inventory costs and obsolescence risks of MPS level items. The second approach makes use of postponement and commonality strategy to lower demand uncertainty. The basic principle is that aggregate demand is more stable than disaggregate demand. Thus, if a common module instead of various individual modules in a module family acts as a MPS item, the demand of the common module will represent the aggregate demand of all individual modules in the module family and more accurate forecast can be made. Then by using the forecasted demand distribution of the common module, we can figure out optimized multistage inventory placement to buffer demand uncertainty with the minimum holding cost of total safety stock. In effect, by implementing postponement and commonality strategy, we change the push-pull / by Zhiyu Xu. / M.Eng.in Logistics

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (v. 2, p. 311-316). / The electric power system in the US developed with the assumption of exogenous, inelastic demand. The resulting evolution of the power system reinforced this assumption as nearly all controls, monitors, and feedbacks were implemented on the supply side. Time invariant, averaged retail pricing was a natural extension of the assumption of exogenous demand and also reinforced this condition. As a result, the market designs and physical control of the system exclude active participation by consumers. Advances in information and communications technologies enable cost effective integration of demand response. Integrating demand into the US electricity system will allow the development of a more complete market and has the potential for large efficiency gains. Without feedbacks between supply and demand, attempts to develop competitive markets for electricity will suffer from a greater potential for market power and system failure. This thesis provides an analysis of the technical, regulatory, and market issues to determine a system structure that provides incentives for demand response. An integrated, dynamic simulation model is utilized to demonstrate the effects of large scale adoption of demand response technologies. The model includes distributed decision making by both consumers and investors in generation capacity, the effects of their decisions on market prices, and the feedbacks between them. Large scale adoption of demand response technology is simulated to quantify the potential benefits of responsive demand. The effects of technology improvement via learning, long term demand elasticity, and policies to promote adoption are considered. / (cont.) The simulations show that diminishing returns for adopters and free rider effects limit the attractiveness of individual adoption. A subsidy to alleviate the costs to adopters can be justified by the significant system level savings from widespread participation. Several pernicious effects can emerge from large scale demand response, however, including increased price volatility due to reductions in generation capacity reserve margin, increases in long term demand, and increased emissions from the substitution of peak generation capacity, such as natural gas and renewables by intermediate capacity. Significant rent transfers will also occur, and stakeholder analysis is conducted to determine interests and distributional effects of large scale demand response. / by Jason W. Black. / Ph.D.

Thesis (M. Eng. in Logistics)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2011. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 73). / A large U.S. based retailer underwent a large, complex multi-year supply chain network transformation. This transformation resulted in significant savings in logistics costs. Additionally, the regional distribution center that was introduced as part of this transformation as a new node between the supplier and the store became the decision making center for placing purchase orders with suppliers and for receiving and shipping the purchase order to individual stores. This resulted in longer lead times causing a change in the in-store units held and therefore, directly impacting the net sales. This thesis focuses on establishing the relationship between the stores performance and lead-time, review-time combinations in both supply chain networks, the original direct to store and the new regional distribution based networks. / by Sunil Anand and Xiaobei Song. / M.Eng.in Logistics

Thesis (M. Eng. in Logistics)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2012. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 85-89). / The Internet has changed the way people purchase goods in the 21st century: many types of goods and services have become available online. Luxury goods followed this trend after an initial delay, primarily due to the nature of these goods. At the time of the preparation of this document, there were no proven guidelines for building the most successful e-retail website for luxury goods from the brand management and profitability perspectives. Ralph Lauren (RL) is an established American brand, well known for quality and consistent style in the following categories: clothing for women, men, and children; home goods, accessories; and fragrances. RL Corporation houses many labels that constitute premium and luxury offerings. RL currently sells through the Internet in many countries, in addition to countless company owned stores, 9 flagship stores, department stores and boutiques distributed around the world. To continue growth, RL wants to launch an e-retail website for Canada. This thesis aims to provide supply chain network considerations for the successful operation of the Canadian e-retail website for RL. These considerations stem from a careful look into potential luxury website characteristics that would meet the company objective of elevating the brand towards the luxury category. It is recommended that RL secure expansion capacity that will likely be necessary for B2C operation at its Toronto distribution center (DC). In addition, material handling equipment that will process a high volume of small orders should be placed in this DC. The Vancouver cross-docking facility could be expanded in the future as prompted by sales volume and coupled with a DC to cater to the West Coast of Canada. Also, it is recommended that advanced customer tracking systems and databases be employed, especially to determine high value customers for tailored offerings in the luxury segment. / by Dilek Tansoy and Yi Linn Teo. / M.Eng.in Logistics