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 53-54). / Rich data sets exist in Major League Baseball (MLB) and the National Football League (NFL) that track players and equipment (i.e. the ball) in space and time. Using machine learning and other analytical techniques, this research explores the various data sets in each sport, providing advanced insights for team decision makers. Additionally, a framework will be presented on how the results can impact organizational decision-making. Qualitative research methods (e.g. interviews with front office personnel) are used to provide the analysis with both context and breadth; whereas various quantitative analyses supply depth to the research. For example, the reader will be exposed to mathematical/computer science terms such as Kohonen Networks and Voronoi Tessellations. However, they are presented with great care to simplify the concepts, allowing an understanding for most readers. As this research is jointly supported by the engineering and management schools, certain topics are kept at a higher level for readability. For any questions, contact the author for further discussion. Part I will address the distinction between performance and production, followed briefly by a decomposition of a typical MLB organizational structure, and finally display how the results of this analyses can directly impact areas such as player evaluation, advance scouting, and in-game strategy. Part II will similarly present how machine learning analyses can impact opponent scouting and personnel evaluation in the NFL. / by Jeremy H. Hochstedler. / 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, February 2016. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. "January 2015." / Includes bibliographical references (pages 102-107). / This work explores key factors that influence the patterns of creative destruction in Multi-Sided Platforms (MSPs) with the intent to determine which controls are likely to lead to particular patterns of success or failure of such a platform in the marketplace. This work builds on previous research in crowd-sourcing and multi-sided marketplaces by examining previously' discovered factors in the marketplace to understand their impacts, especially as they act as determinants to an MSP's success or failure. Eleven key factors of business strategy, technology strategy, and awareness-building were identified through an extensive literature review; dynamic simulations and uncertainty modeling were used to assess the level of influence of these factors. Simulation experiments for Facebook and Twitter were conducted and compared to historical adoption and financial data of both platforms, along with a hypothetical case study and a sensitivity analysis of all variables. Implications for future research are that more study of user motivations for value creation and their impact is needed. Furthermore, the macro-economic dynamics add complexity, but are critical to understanding creative destruction. Implications for business leaders are that special attention should be given to anything that can enhance or inhibit Contact Rate and Adoption Fraction, and that when assessing tradeoffs, entrepreneurs should remember this fundamental tenet: enhance adoption incentives and limit adoption inhibitors. The results of this research suggest that indirect network effects behave as amplifying or inhibiting forces acting on direct network-effect forces, and can be controlled through policy, or in some cases managed as constraints. This study finds that the key elements to focus on for understanding, forecasting, or optimizing a Multi-Sided Platform in the wild are: Coopetition, Content Per User, Awareness Effectivity, Revenue Per User, Cost Per User, Market Competitiveness, and Content Quality. / by James A Barkley. / 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 176-177). / This thesis proposes to use an adapted version of ESW (Engineering Standard Work) to develop an assessment that enables identification of opportunity areas for the implementation of ESW in an existing Product Development Organization, by integrating the consistency and quality of the work performed by the engineers, with the additional benefit of introducing lean engineering standardized processes that will help them to work in a more structured and efficient way. The standardization tools would add value to the organization by guiding the engineers throughout the product development process that are designed to minimize process variation introduced by the engineer and to eliminate unnecessary activities. The group of these standardized processes with the integrated Lean Engineering tools is named as LESW (Lean Engineering Standard Work), these would provide support defining crucial steps within a process or provide guidelines for specific characteristics of the product design using the current best practices to follow to complete their jobs. They would be based on firsthand experience and would be updated and validated regularly to incorporate any new data or technological developments. With LESW implemented, the engineers no longer have to work from memory. The process documentation provides a baseline, a standard, which would be referenced by any engineer whether experienced or not, and since the process is documented then it will also help to improve the learning curve of new hired engineers. A gap analysis is performed in order to understand the organization's current status vs. desired status, and then, based on the findings, a new way of working is proposed with the implementation of the best suitable lean engineering techniques applied to a product development organization, including LESW as part of the improvement. All this is done keeping the main target of making the organization more efficient, the process friendlier to the engineer, having a more stable and reliable process that can be duplicated in the entire organization. The management would also be benefitted, by having a better control of the programs, avoid delays and reduce costs by reducing the amount of errors committed by the engineers. / by Mario Alberto Rubio Monroy. / 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 70-71). / Stakeholder engagement is a key but often misunderstood performance indicator of project success in controversial projects. Construction projects, power production, medical research, and waste disposal are examples of such large-scale projects. Many of these are critical assets and yet are often at risk of being shut down due to key stakeholder disengagement. It is a tragedy when a successful and needed project is terminated not because of technical, economic, or safety issues but due to a lack of proper stakeholder engagement. At a broad level it is generally understood that stakeholder relationship management is important, but how important and what must be done to ensure appropriate stakeholder engagement remains unclear. My research addresses this chronic problem using a newly developed system dynamics model that better illustrates complex relationships, how they change over time, and what must be done to gather enough support to ensure project success. To firmly root the system dynamics model, interviews were done at an unnamed nuclear power plant (NPP) in the United States. The strengths and weaknesses of the NPP's public outreach efforts were enumerated along with the strengths and weaknesses of the model itself. Ultimately, the model was shown to be plausibly useful to individuals responsible for success in managing stakeholder relationship on controversial projects. / by Adrien Laws. / 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, 2014. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 74-80). / A 2007 congressional mandate to the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) concerned instituting a center to address the ever increasing invisible wounds of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and impact to the Military Health System (MHS) by way of its excellence. The National Intrepid Center of Excellence (NICoE), constructed through private donations secured by the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund (IFHF), was established for targeting the comorbid traumatic brain injury (TBI) and psychological health (PH) conditions of these wars. There are three prongs of the NICoE's mission: the first involves the clinical care of services members through diagnosis and treatment, the second education, and the third research, which informs the other two prongs. Interdisciplinary and patient- and family-centric, the clinical care offered is cutting-edge, as well as the research conducted, which is on the forefront of efforts to understand comorbid TBI and PH conditions. The clinical care prong is in the process of being replicated to the NICoE's satellite centers at home bases across the U.S., which have already or will be established. This thesis involves characterizing the NICoE from Enterprise Architecting and Sustainability Pillars frameworks, as well as their interrelationships, to gain holistic understanding of the NICoE as an enterprise in service to the MHS and society in general, which is not evidenced in the literature. This understanding, along with information pertaining to the satellite centers and additional research, is used to recommend guidance in the form of heuristics to the NICoE for its replication to the centers. / by Christine Meier. / 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 159-161). / Breakthrough technologies sustain competitive advantage and are seen as the engine of growth. These technologies can be developed by leveraging internal know-how, but more often they come from an infusion of external technology. The task of screening and selecting innovative technologies to develop or acquire is challenging and relies on various underlying assumptions. This research proposes a systematic framework of analysis that combines network theory and game theory concepts to analyze a set of breakthrough technologies and the companies linked to them, both in the order of 0(100) . In this framework, breakthrough technologies are represented as a network where nodes represent technologies and links represent dimensions of similarities between these technologies. Network-level metrics provide proxies for estimating the benefit of a node and the cost of a link. The benefit is derived based on the position of the node in the network, and the cost of a link is estimated based on the similarities of technologies it connects. As firms consider a particular target technology, the framework offers a way to calculate the payoff of following a particular path in the network to attain the target from any one of the technologies already in the firm's portfolio. The model provides a recommendation for the best strategy under specific competitive scenarios. Finally, the application of this method is illustrated with various use cases, to analyze strategic decisions made by companies and to explore some that are ongoing. In particular, this analysis looks at hypothetical two-player strategic games in the energy sector, comparing the competitive positions of SolarCity, Siemens and Google to conclude that all three companies have dominant strategies to invest in this sector. The framework was also applied to a strategic game where Google competes with Magic Leap, in the bio-fuel sector and showed a dominant position for Google. The last three scenarios analyzed represent real-world cases, two in the autonomous vehicle domain involving Apple and Toyota and Apple and Tesla and one in the robotics domain involving Toyota and Amazon. The analysis showed the existence of a coordination game in the autonomous vehicle sector where collaboration was beneficial for all parties. Finally, in the robotics case involving the sell-off of Boston Dynamics by Google, the analysis showed that Toyota can leverage a first mover's advantage to create a dominant strategy against Amazon. / by Nissia F. Sabri. / 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 79-81). / Stakeholder relationship management is a key component for the successful design, implementation and operation of complex and socially controversial projects, yet a discipline that is often misunderstood or underrated. In a world were socially controversial projects have become and will continue to be ever more frequent and important, the need to improve the knowledge of stakeholder relationship management in controversial projects is very important. The objective of this report is to contribute to scholarship on stakeholder relationship management by using a newly developed system dynamics model developed at MIT called, the Golay-Williams stakeholder acceptance model. The model seeks to better illustrate complex stakeholder relationships, their dynamic nature and what must be done to gain enough support to ensure project success. This paper studies an emblematic U.S. controversial project, the Cape Wind offshore energy project, located in the Nantucket Sound in Massachusetts, in order to test the model capabilities to represent complex stakeholder dynamics and best practices in stakeholder engagement. The assessment of the Golay-Williams model derived from the Cape Wind Project case study, suggests that the Golay-Williams model can contribute significantly to the successful management of stakeholder relationships on socially controversial projects.. / by Sebastián Luque. / 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, 2015. / 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 (pages 95-99). / The use of software to control automotive safety critical functions, such as throttle, braking and steering has been increasing. The automotive industry has a need for safety analysis methods and design processes to ensure these systems function safely. Many current recommendations still focus on traditional methods, which worked well for electro-mechanical designs but are not adequate for software intensive complex systems. System Theoretic Accident Model and Process (STAMP) and the associated System Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA) method have been found to identify hazards for complex systems and can be effective earlier in the design process than current automotive techniques. The design of a complex safety-critical system will require many decisions that can potentially impact the system's safety. A safety analysis should be performed on the new design to understand any potential safety issues. Methods that can help identify where and how the change impacts the analysis would be a useful tool for designers and managers. This could reduce the amount of time needed to evaluate changes and to ensure the safety goals of the system are met. This thesis demonstrates managing design changes for the safetyƯ-guided design of an automotive safetyƯ-critical shift-by-wire system. The current safety related analysis methods and standards common to the automotive industry and the system engineering methods and research in the use of requirements traceability for impact analysis in engineering change management was reviewed. A procedure was proposed to identify the impact of design changes to the safety analysis performed with STPA. Suggested guidelines were proposed to identify the impact of the change on the safety analysis performed with STPA. It was shown how the impact of the design changes were incorporated into the STPA results to ensure safety constraints are managed with respect to these changes to maintain the safety controls of the system throughout the design process. Finally the feasibility of the procedure was demonstrated through the integration of the procedure with requirements traceability based on system engineering practices / by John Sgueglia. / 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, 2015. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 110-112). / There has been significant excitement surrounding the potential of desktop 3D printing. Some predict that household ownership for some users is only a few years away, while others go as far as to assert desktop printers will follow a comparable trajectory to personal computers. This thesis challenges the validity of these claims and presents a more realistic future state for desktop 3D printing based on the barriers that the industry faces today. This thesis also provides valuable insight into the technological and social improvement areas on which lead users, makers paces, and manufacturers alike must focus in order to take the steps necessary to transform desktop 3D printing into a viable, valuable, and usable technology for the masses. This thesis includes four elements: 1) a thorough literature review, 2) a review of industrial and desktop 3D printers, 3) field interviews with existing and potential users, and 4) a makerspace review. Together, these study areas provide a system-level view of the current state of the desktop 3D printing industry, reveal a unique set of barriers preventing the technology from reaching the mainstream stage, and offer valuable evaluations regarding the efficacy of active enabling mechanisms. It is shown that, although the current enablers will eventually help push desktop 3D printing utilization to the mainstream stage, a significant amount of time and energy must be dedicated to this effort. Over the course of the next ten years, a sharp increase in the use of desktop 3D printing will be observed, but this use will be limited almost exclusively to users accessing 3D printers via qualified technologists in makerspaces and other educational settings. It will be crucial for lead users and manufacturers to focus on fostering the current enablers and implementing the potential enablers over the course of the next ten years in order for users to understand and be able to capture the value of desktop 3D printing. / by Kaitlyn Quinn O'Brien / 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, 2015. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 66-68). / As interaction takes place between individuals, relationships are formed and collaboration and innovation emerge. In this thesis I have applied Coolfarming (Gloor, 201 lb), a social network analysis method using Condor, a software tool to quantify communication patterns based on various data sources. I analyzed the Enron email archive to see if communication patterns of convicted employees differ from ordinary ones. Toward that goal, I compared the dynamic semantic social network metrics of 17 Enron employees convicted in the criminal trial following Enron's implosion with a control group of ordinary employees. I focused on 17 mailboxes of 24 Enron executives that were convicted. Identifying criminals based on email behaviors is possible depending on the sampling strategy. When sampling based on employees with comparable total emails, the statistical analysis of the Contribution Index (Ci) metric revealed that criminals were less active. When sampling based on employees with comparable total influence, the statistical analysis of Betweenness Centrality Oscillation (Bco) and Degree Centrality (Bc) metrics revealed that criminals were less connected to others and less creative. / by Ilias Hamdouch. / S.M. in Engineering and Management