Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management; and, (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering; in conjunction with the Leaders for Manufacturing Program at MIT, 2002. / "June 2002." / Includes bibliographical references (p. 129-130). / by Eric P. Schmidlin. / S.M.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management; and, (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering; in conjunction with the Leaders for Manufacturing Program at MIT, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 75). / by Gregory T. Webb. / S.M. / M.B.A.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management; and, (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering; in conjunction with the Leaders for Manufacturing Program at MIT, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. / by Jason T. Chen. / S.M. / M.B.A.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering; and, (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management; in conjunction with the Leaders for Manufacturing Program at MIT, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [102]-103). / by Brianne L. Metzger. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering; and, (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management; in conjunction with the Leaders for Manufacturing Program at MIT, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 91-93). / by Garret J. Caterino. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management; and, (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering; in conjunction with the Leaders for Manufacturing Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2000. / Also available online at the MIT Theses Online homepage <http://thesis.mit.edu>. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 46-47). / Customized options are costly to produce using the current production and design methods of the Boeing Commercial Airplane Group (BCAG). The company is redesigning its engineering and manufacturing processes in order to enhance its ability to deliver customized options cost effectively. The majority of the company's continuous improvement efforts to date have centered on either its manufacturing operations or its engineering processes, and significant progress has been made in the areas of lean production and reduced flowtimes. While there is still plenty of room for improvement within each functional group of the business, there is arguably much more opportunity for improvement in the relationships between functional groups. The thesis analyzes the potential for significant cost improvements of initiatives that focus on formalizing cross functional continuous improvement relationships between the engineering and manufacturing groups. The analysis is conducted in the form of a case study of the company's Wire Responsibility Center (WIRC), which has the distinction of handling more customization, variability and change than most other areas of the company. This high degree of variation is coupled with large volumes of product - hundreds of units per plane - to produce fertile ground for the study of process improvements between engineering and manufacturing teams. This study shows the significant impact of the WIRC's Change, Error, and Rework (CER) Initiative on the quality and cost of its products and offers suggestions for further improvement. The thesis concludes with a discussion of how effective application of the lessons learned from this pilot project could greatly improve the profitability of The Boeing Company's Commercial Airplane Group. / by Matthew Kirk Napier. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management; and, (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering; in conjunction with the Leaders for Manufacturing Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2000. / Also available online at the MIT Theses Online homepage <http://thesis.mit.edu>. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 95-96). / For many companies, new product development is a major component of growth. For many luxury goods, such as high-end automobiles, watches, or furniture, product development organizations focus on quality and ultimately, protection of the brand. Frequently, growth is created through incremental improvements to the existing platforms. However, many of these firms choose to expand into other geographic and demographic markets, rather than increase current market share to preserve price premiums and the exclusiveness of the brand. Customers buy the style of these products and firms who have created this style are reluctant to change the process that created it. Quantifying style is nearly impossible and thus, development requires a degree of "magic." However, new products may require more advanced technologies than the current product line and the question arises whether the company's traditional product development model will suffice. Continuous improvement of the development process is required to deliver these new products. However, few methodologies exist to assess and change such a highly ambiguous and cross-functional process. This thesis details a postmortem assessment process using a luxury goods company as a case study. This thesis addresses several areas that are not prevalent in documented processes. The first area is the collection and analysis of quantitative data, especially that which represents a decisionmaking process across the entire organization. The second area is a portfolio view rather than a project by project review. The utilization of this process for the case company led to determination of high leverage such as problem discovery predominantly at the prototype builds, problem prioritization and resolution, and concurrency of development. Cultural ramifications of a style driven company are also explored. Finally, a general framework for improvement across the organization is presented along with a discussion of the implementation process. / by Christopher Albert Morrison. / S.M.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management; and, (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering; in conjunction with the Leaders for Manufacturing Program at MIT, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 156). / Value Stream Mapping is a powerful tool for identifying sources of waste and for creating the vision for the future state of a production system. As a management tool, however, it lacks in specific focus of roles, responsibilities, and actions required to achieve the future state vision. The limitations become more evident and the problems of execution become exacerbated when multiple value stream projects are launched with limited human resources available. This thesis describes a set of management tools to complement Value Stream Mapping. The tools are expected to improve management visibility and accountability. The design of a lean production system is also proposed in this thesis. The lean production system includes a newly designed layout for the manufacturing cell as well as the "operating system" for the cell. The layout is based on the principles of cellular manufacturing in order to promote flow and improve quality. The operating system includes such things as production batch sizes, product routings, and strategic inventory locations. Based on the future state value stream map and supported by a discrete-event simulation, the new operating system is designed to align the lean strategy with the technical capabilities of the manufacturing line. As confirmed by the simulation, implementation of the new production system is expected to reduce lead time for the cell by 2/3, realize a corresponding one-time reduction in inventory of $350,000, and increase on-time delivery of the cell to over 97%. In total, the project has a three-year net present value exceeding a quarter of a million dollars. / by Matthew David Gates. / S.M. / M.B.A.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management; and, (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering; in conjunction with the Leaders for Manufacturing Program at MIT, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references. / This thesis proposes an approach to supply base management that relies on differentiation between categories of suppliers. The objective of this thesis is to illustrate, through a real company's example, how profitability analysis can be combined with more typical supply base management approaches to improve a company's bottom line. The central innovation in the proposed approach is the use of an indication of suppliers' impact on company profits to segment the supply base. Previous work on supplier segmentation uses factors such as amount spent at the supplier and the importance of the purchased products to distinguish between suppliers. This thesis builds upon those approaches by adding an analysis of the profit contribution from the supplier and the cost of managing the supplier. Suppliers that cost a lot to manage and contribute little profit require improvement or become targets for supply base reduction. Suppliers that work to reduce the customer's cost of managing them and contribute positively to the customer's bottom line deserve reinforcement and stand as examples for the rest of the supply base. The approach proposed in this thesis provides managers with a tool to evaluate and improve the profitability and performance of their supply base. / by Joshua R. Binder. / S.M. / M.B.A.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management; and, (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering; in conjunction with the Leaders for Manufacturing Program at MIT, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 73-74). / Successive transformations within manufacturing have brought great efficiencies to producers and lower costs to consumers. With the advents of interchangeable parts between 1800 and 1850 in small arms manufacturing (Hounshell, 1984, pp. 3-4), mass production in the early 1900s in automobile manufacturing (Hounshell, 1984, pp. 9-10), and lean production in the early 1950s in automobile manufacturing (Womack, Jones, & Roos, 1990, p. 52), the state of manufacturing has continued to evolve. Each time, the visionaries that catalyzed the transformations were forced to overcome the inertia of the status quo. After convincing stakeholders of the need for change, these change agents: 1. Established a vision for the future 2. Committed resources to attain that vision 3. Studied the root causes for current methods 4. Proposed a new solution 5. Implemented the new solution 6. Quantified the results and sought future improvements. This basic process to implementing change is remarkably simple yet incredibly powerful. By explicitly emphasizing the need for root cause analysis, the process recognizes that improvements will be transient if the root causes of prior problems are not fully understood and resolved. When deploying a lean production system, an understanding of lean principles and tools is necessary but therefore not sufficient. Rather, implementing a lean production system should follow: 1. An analysis mapping the root causes of current production methods back to technical issues and the organization's strategic design, culture, and political landscape. Only by fixing the problems that led to the current production system can a lean transformation be sustained. 2. A detailed plan which achieves a transformation in both the organization / (cont.) production system. / by Satish Krishnan. / S.M. / M.B.A.