Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Engineering, System Design and Management Program, Engineering and Management Program, 2016. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. "June 2016." / Includes bibliographical references (pages 88-90). / How can we construct socio-technical system such that they constantly evolve to improve themselves? This is the central question of this thesis. We propose a "senseable Kaizen" philosophy. This involves the central tenets of the Kaizen strategy while incorporating passive and active sensing data collection to analyze the easily missed social cues critical to understand and improve a socio-technical system. We test our hypothesis by applying it to three disparate systems ranging in size, complexity, and processes. In the LVPEI experiment, we identified that prolonged patient wait times were the outcome of the lack of adherence to appointment-based system. Only 33% of the patients showed up on time. The large volume of walk-in patients resulted in build-up of patients during peak-times (11am - 3pm) this contributed to 23% drop in time for patient work-up, 39% drop in patient-doctor time, and 16% increase in cross-referrals for patients. To compensate the staff worked 24% over their allotted hours. In Santiago, Chile working with urban logistics carriers, we found that the institutional knowledge of drivers plays a key role in understanding and building delivery routes. Only 53% of the drivers adhered to the "optimized" route provided to them by the dispatcher. Traffic congestion, delays at customer sites, familiarity with the customer, and on-site parking led to drivers making decisions that best suited their needs. At the Roskilde Music Festival experiment, we use crowdsourcing to collect data incidents that go unreported at a large gathering. We learned about the close social ties that develop due to the shared experience of festival attendees and the need to preserve privacy and security of users in a platform like ours. Finally we propose a refined model of Kaizen strategy incorporating a "living lab" approach to managing socio-technical systems. We portray a world where socio-technical systems are continuously evolving using the bytes of data collected from an open innovation ecosystem. / by Ali S. Kamil. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Engineering, System Design and Management Program, Engineering and Management Program, 2016. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 92-96). / The number of people and things connected to the Internet continue growing at an exponential rate. This record setting growth along with the reduction in small sensor costs and machine learning enabled a concept called the Internet of Things (IoT) to thrive. With numerous applications in both commercial and government spaces, the IoT has the ability to transform any organizations network capabilities. The Air Force has a unique set of requirements centered on cyberspace superiority and the ability to command and control people and things. This paper leverages the traditional systems engineering "'V" model as a framework to develop and analyze a concept for an Air Force command and control network. Methods and tools such as stakeholder analysis, hierarchical control structures and object-process diagrams are used to develop the concept of operations, system architecture, and the preliminary design. The programs technology readiness is also assessed before outlining key milestones and deliverables required for transitioning the program forward in the acquisition life-cycle. / by Ryan N. Seekins. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Engineering, System Design and Management Program, Engineering and Management Program, 2016. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 94-100). / Enhancing the practice of Product Development has been addressed in multiple works and published in documents of all kind ranging from theses and consultancy studies to papers in specialized journals. Regardless of the focus, either on processes, tools, methods or organizational design what is common is a reactive -"gapflling"-approach. In this work I propose that enhancing the practice of product development is better achieved when it is addressed from a holistic perspective in which either the improvement, optimization or enhancement of the product development practice is in essence an adaptation of the product development organization. Seeing the practice of product development from the adaptability lens, allows us to create enhancements that go beyond the traditional "gap-filling" approach of fixing issues using information from the past, and opens up a broader -yet richer-set of alternatives to design improvements that not only prevent issues to occur but that also are meant to change the game. The main focus of this work is the design of a disruptive adaptation for Ford Motor Company Product Development Organization focused on its capabilities for the development of in-vehicle features which are instrumental in the customer experience that is delivered by Ford automobiles. This design was developed following a systems thinking approach for large complex systems and is aligned to Ford Motor Company objective of changing the way the world moves. The design concept for this disruptive adaptation focuses on elaborating a desired future state of the capabilities to develop an unparalleled customer experience in Ford vehicles. It also considers the future context of a platform-based business model where the automobile is the platform. As starting point, I researched the current state of Ford capabilities for the development of in-vehicle features and realized that the Electronic Control Units (ECUs) of the vehicle play a fundamental role. Then, I used systems modeling tools such as Domain Mapping Matrix (DMM) and Design Structure Matrix (DSM) to understand and quantify the patterns of interaction among vehicle features that occur across all Electronic Component Units (ECUs) of an automobile. Finally I developed a holistic proposal to adapt the strategy, methods, tools and organizational structure that is meant to support Ford Motor Company in its pursuit to disrupt the mobility paradigm. / by Jóse Guillermo Saavedra Román. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Engineering, System Design and Management Program, Engineering and Management Program, 2016. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 99-101). / Online education is changing traditional models of learning both in schools and the outside world. The developments of learning pedagogies and technology have also contributed to the adoption of online education. Some benefits of online education include the immense variety of content, lower costs, higher flexibility, increased interaction, and easy access. This is substantiated by the steady rise in student enrollment and the use of either Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) or Blended Courses in institutions. However there is a growing sense of skepticism for MOOCs owing to low retention, and less control over the learning process and educators prefer the adoption of a blended model for their courses. The report details the research conducted leading to the selection of a blended learning approach for MIT's course in "Sustainable Energy" (1.818/2.65/10.391/11.371/22.811/ESD.166). The report outlines a design blueprint to create an online course. Some of the components of design are identifying the key tenets of learning that improve knowledge and skill, suitable learning pedagogies to transform the content for an online course, understanding the system behaviors, and our experimentation with the edX Platform. This end goal of this report is to create a template to help instructors and designers in creating an online course on the edX platform. / by Amrita Srivastava. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Engineering, System Design and Management Program, Engineering and Management Program, 2016. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 100-106). / Sharply rising disease prevalence and associated healthcare costs are placing an increasingly significant economic burden on society. Biomedical research and industry have struggled to adequately address this challenge, as evidenced by the stagnation and even decline of new therapeutics development success rates. Recent work in the MIT Laboratory for Financial Engineering has explored the potential of using financial engineering in the form of biomedical "megafunds" to help tackle this problem. New methods will be needed to better assess systematic financial risks for these therapeutic project portfolios. This primarily methodological thesis seeks to explore the opportunity to leverage multilayer network models as tools to help measure this risk, specifically the biologically-derived component of risk resulting from project correlations generated through the underlying biological networks. Historical examples of coupling between drug development projects are used to motivate a framework in which project correlations emerge from a combination of indication and target similarity. This framework motivates the construction of a multilayer network model, drawing upon multiple systems biology databases for its construction and using a sample of FDA orphan designations as a representative project set. Using shortest path distance and Random Walk with Restart (RWR) relevance, indication and target similarity between projects are quantitatively evaluated. Comparing average sales correlations to the log of average RWR relevance for classes of compounds reveals notable relationships between correlation and network similarity. This relationship is shown to be stronger for the case of disease relevance (R2 = 0.99) than for target relevance (R2 = 0.93). A potential approach is finally described for integrating biological network similarity with financial models useful for portfolio analysis, and implications on portfolio selection are discussed through synthetic construction of hypothetical orphan drug portfolios.. / by Andrew R. Walz. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Engineering, System Design and Management Program, Engineering and Management Program, 2016. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 111-115). / With the launch of the Tesla Model S all-electric premium sedan, it is evident that, in at least some segments of the automotive market, there is significant demand for battery electric vehicles (BEVs) that have fundamentally different, and for these segments at least, superior attributes to conventional gasoline-powered, gasoline-electric hybrids or previous generations of battery-powered electric vehicles. It appears that BEVs may be in the trajectory to become the dominant design in the automotive industry, replacing the internal combustion engine (ICE) architecture. Tesla's architectural innovation is both in the product and the process domains, its essential difference being how the system architecture evolved from clearly defined stakeholder's needs to elements of function and form as embodiment of a state-of-the art concept. Tesla architected a BEV system that goes significantly beyond the pre-established requirements and outdated standards of the industry, enabling a dynamic organization and a faster product development process focused on rapid improvement and sub-system innovation. It has also built the entire supporting architecture around the product, at the system-of-systems level, resulting in a delightful end-to-end experience. Tesla is leading the transformation of the automotive ecosystem and, by doing so, it is challenging incumbent automakers in the race to sustainable transportation. / by Juan J. Romeu Lezama. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Engineering, System Design and Management Program, Engineering and Management Program, 2016. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 104-107). / Countrywide Financial was acquired by Bank of America on January 11th , 2008 for $4.1 B after losing $1.3B in 2007. Not only was it losing money, its financial prospects at the time looked bleak due to their large stake in subprime mortgages. This effective failure of Countrywide Financial set off a chain of events that eventually ended up almost crippling the global economy in late 2008 into early 2009. It will be shown that the financial crisis hit the housing market hard in 2007-2009 due to low mortgage standards in the preceding few years and an oscillating federal funds rate. Using publically available data from Countrywide Financial, prices of individual mortgage backed securities will be calculated using the standard pricing models and an author-developed simple pricing model that utilizes actual default rates at the time. Using these mortgage backed securities' prices along with a stakeholder value network analysis and system dynamics, it will be shown that Countrywide Financial could have been predicted to fail in the 2007-2008 time period. Suggestions for architecting a new housing market are then given after reviewing what was learned. / by Andrew P. Friedl. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Engineering, System Design and Management Program, Engineering and Management Program, 2016. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 75-76). / In the past, home buyers and sellers of existing residential homes relied on real estate agents to buy and sell a home. Real estate agents are experts at fulfilling consumers' needs and often gatekeepers of vital information required to buy or sell a home. However, with more information publically available online, consumers are increasingly turning to the internet as their first and primary source of information in their real estate searches. Given that the majority of real estate interests begin online and consumers are continually turning to a more self-service and self-reliant method of home buying and selling, the value proposition between a real estate agent and their client has diminished. Onlookers have been surprised by the seemingly resilient business model that is still in place within the real estate industry. Is it still justified for real estate agents to charge substantial commissions as the value they provide to their clients is arguably reduced by changing consumer behaviors? Several companies have tried to disrupt the industry with limited success. The thesis investigates why current companies have failed by first studying the underlying stakeholder needs and their top priorities under numerous macroeconomic conditions. Then, exogenous factors on the system boundary are researched to provide context and a holistic view of the industry in which a proposed system would exist. Following this, concepts are generated using an intra-industry morphological matrix approach. However, in the concept selection phase, the previous approach reveals significant gaps in unmet primary stakeholder needs using technology. As such, inter-industry morphological matrix techniques are used to refine and improve the solution. Finally, various pricing strategies are studied and an appropriate pricing architecture for the propose system is hypothesized. This thesis proposes a disruptive solution to empower consumers to move the residential real estate industry forward and redistribute value within the real estate ecosystem. The proposed system allows consumers to buy and sell their own homes using a pure technology-based solution developed using a systems approach. Overall, by utilizing a systems approach, all insights discovered would have otherwise been unknown. It is because of the use of relevant frameworks, that strong underlying system architecture could be designed into a solution that fulfills all the needs of the primary beneficial stakeholder using technology. / by David Sung-Tat Chiu. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Engineering, System Design and Management Program, Engineering and Management Program, 2016. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 119-124). / Cloud computing represents the next generation of disruptive technologies in computing. However, there are several barriers to massive adoption of cloud and among them security remains one of the principal concerns. Traditional failure analysis and prevention frameworks fall exceedingly short to address cybersecurity as is evident by every increasing cybersecurity breaches. New frameworks for cybersecurity are required which take a holistic view of the problem and a systems perspective. Migrating to cloud also represents a key decision point for CEO/CTO's today, especially from security perspective. The objective of this thesis is to illustrate the effectiveness of taking a Systems Approach to cybersecurity and provide a framework for migration to cloud with specific emphasis on critical cybersecurity issues pertaining to various cloud deployment models and delivery services. The thesis is divided into three phases. Firstly, it will aim to explore the major security threats and critical areas of focus for security in cloud. It will explore the major security frameworks, metrics and controls, especially the major ones from NIST, CIS and CSA. SLA's for different cloud service models will then be presented. A high level cloud migration framework strategy and framework, with special emphasis on cybersecurity will also be discussed. In the second phase, System- Theoretic Accident Model and Processes (STAMP) which is based on Systems Theory will be applied to Target security breach and key recommendations as well as new insights will be presented. The analysis will highlight the need for holistic approach and Systems Thinking to cybersecurity and new insights that are not produced by traditional methods will be presented. Finally, in the third phase, the cloud migration framework discussed in phase one will be applied to Target. A case will be made that in certain scenarios, moving the less critical applications to cloud and utilizing the security benefits of cloud can actually reduce the threat vectors and security exposures and bring IT systems from a higher risk state to lower risk state. The thesis integrates cybersecurity methods and frameworks as well as security metrics with the cloud migration strategy. Additionally, it also presents STAMP/CAST failure model for cybersecurity breaches and highlights the need for integrated view of safety and security and Systems Thinking in cybersecurity both in traditional systems and cloud. / by Ravi Raina. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Engineering, System Design and Management Program, Engineering and Management Program, 2016. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 102-107). / The United States has achieved defense superiority in air, land, and sea while using some of the most advanced defense systems in the world. However, underlying this success is a troubled procurement system. Enterprise-wide problems such as poor integration between the three components (JCIDS, DAS, PPBE) of DoD acquisition and inadequate management of procurement personnel have undermined the potential of the Department of Defense. One particular area for improvement is the need for understanding the overlaps, gaps, and interdependencies of the capability portfolio. Information is a precondition to attaining that knowledge. Information is embodied in capability documents and architecture frameworks and drives the critical process of determining the right capability requirements upfront, a vital task in saving costs. (Wirthlin, 1994) The stakeholders need a comprehensive understanding of the capability portfolio during this validation process but information can be trapped in functional stovepipes. DoD Architecture Framework (DoDAF) holds much promise in enhancing the visibility and traceability of information in the capability portfolio to the stakeholders. It is a more structured way to capture and analyze information than free-text documents. The most recent JCIDS manual published in February 2015 added a new requirement to submit seven DoDAF viewpoints during the ICD submission. This indicates the potential of DoDAF viewpoints to be able to provide a full representation of a capability requirement so it can be validated in light of a holistic understanding of the portfolio. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze whether DoDAF alone can provide a holistic understanding of a capability requirement during this early front-end validation. The analysis examines the information captured by the viewpoints by comparing it to ICD information requirements. The results of the analysis reveal the benefits of DoDAF in its ability to capture more detailed information such as resource flows in structured form. A second finding revealed that the seven DoDAF viewpoints were missing key information elements about the capability requirement such as related missions and strategy documents that limit holistic visibility of the capability portfolio. Lastly, there were additional limitations such as the challenge of determining the level of specificity in the viewpoints. Recommendations include changing particular optional data fields to mandatory and adding the CV-1 and OV-3 viewpoints to provide more information about the capability requirement. / by Michael N. Lee. / S.M. in Engineering and Management