Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, Technology, Management, and Policy Program, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references. / Environmental regulations are typically portrayed as an outside force stimulating development of environmental technologies in regulated industries. In reality, firms influence regulation by communicating their technological progress, which helps form a basis for future standards. Because of differences in each firm's technological capability and environmental performance, regulations affect the competitive position of firms. Firms with advanced technologies stand to gain competitive benefit from more stringent environmental regulations, and may therefore choose to introduce a more costly but cleaner technology ahead of regulation. Such a competitive regulatory strategy has the potential to bring competitive benefits to the lead firm(s) and environmental benefits to the public. This research explains the conditions under which competitive regulatory strategies are pursued in the diesel vehicle and fuel industry. Growing public concern about the health effects of diesel exhaust has led countries to implement several cycles of increasingly stringent emission and fuel regulations over the past two decades. / (cont.) Taking a comparative case study approach, this work studies multiple regulatory cycles for light-duty vehicles, heavy-duty engines, and diesel fuel sulfur in the European Union, Japan, and the United States. For each region's regulatory cycles, cases of corporate behavior, including early adoption, first-mover behavior, and noncompliance, are identified and analyzed for their context, motivation, influence on regulatory policy, and public and private effects. Source material consists of documentary sources, descriptive statistics, and semi-structured interviews with experts. This methodology generates multiple cases for comparison across countries, cycles, sectors, and firms. While early- and first-mover behavior was observed in the regulatory cycles, firms do not aggressively pursue competitive regulatory strategies. They are guided by other motivations, such as fiscal incentives, diesel market share protection, and technology development/testing. A weak business case, risk aversion, industry pressure, and lack of supporting infrastructure pose strong disincentives. / (cont.) The final recommendations address issues pertinent to regulators, firms, and environmental groups: fiscal incentives as an effective means to encourage rapid technology adoption; environmental NGOs as a vehicle for communicating technological progress; use of technology demonstrations by lead firms to show regulatory readiness; and combination of short-term and long-term targets with mechanisms to encourage technology-based competition. / by Christine Bik-Kay Ng. / Ph.D.

Thesis (S.M.M.O.T.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Management of Technology Program, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. / Inkjet printing has proven to be a remarkable disruptive technology. From its humble beginnings in 1984 it has grown to become the dominant technology for personal computer-based printing. However, after almost two decades of strong growth, the Inkjet printing market is maturing. Companies large and small are now beginning to explore use of inkjet in a diverse range of new applications ranging from manufacture of next generation flat panel displays and low cost circuits to generation of biochips and fast-prototyping of 3-D objects. These new applications present existing inkjet players with exciting opportunities to leverage their knowledge and assets to exploit these new markets. This thesis explores the opportunities for inkjet technology in two emerging industries: 1) next-generation flat panel displays based on organic light-emitting diodes and 2) low cost, disposable circuits required for products such as radio-frequency identification tags and smart cards. These are likely to be the two biggest opportunities for non-traditional applications of inkjet technology. In both cases, inkjet provides a flexible, low cost manufacturing method that is a very compelling alternative to the expensive wafer fab processing required to produce today's flat panel displays and circuits. Each of these industries is analyzed in considerable depth to provide context for assessing the disruptive potential of inkjet. The potential of inkjet to become an important enabling technology is then analyzed using ideas and frameworks from the management ofteclmology literature. Both organic LED displays and low cost circuits appear likely to become disruptive technologies. The best early opportunity for non-traditional application of inkjet technology appears to be in display manufacturing. Here the technology fit with Inkjet capabilities is good and the strength of competing manufacturing technologies is relatively weak. Establishment of inkjet as an important production method for low cost circuits appears more challenging. The technology fit is not as good and competing low-cost technologies are further along in their development. It is recommended that existing inkjet players first address the display opportunity to gain experience with transitioning inkjet from a consumer printing technology to one well suited to high-volume electronics manufacturing. Once this capability has been demonstrated the bigger challenges in circuit manufacturing can be addressed. / by Todd A. Cleland. / S.M.M.O.T.

Thesis (S.M.M.O.T.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Management of Technology Program, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 109-112). / Disruptive innovations in network systems are forcing mobile carriers to manage difficult network software development. Within the limited development time, mobile carriers are required to develop large scale, high quality and robust network software, and accomplish smooth transition/upgrading. In the drastic transition of the network architecture, network carriers often fail to develop platform network software. Compared with KDDI, NTT DoCoMo (DoCoMo) has been coping with network migration problems. The critical difference in both mobile carriers is whether the platform-based approach was applied sufficiently in the network software development. DoCoMo's insufficient platform-based approach led to migration difficulties. On the other hand, the consistent platform-based approach allowed KDDI to enjoy successful migration. In order to identify the critical factors in network software development related to this problem, this thesis (1) explores the characteristics of network innovations and (2) analyzes the platform innovations in mobile network software. The ultimate goal of this thesis is to (3) suggest how incumbent mobile carriers can avoid the potential threats and develop the platform network software in future disruptive network innovations. In the future, management of telecommunication systems design and development will face more challenging and more complicated migration because the network concepts and architecture will be completely different from those in the existing 3G networks. The lessons learned from the case studies DoCoMo and KDDI suggest ideas that mobile carriers can utilize to address tough situations. / (cont.) The platform-based approach definitely will help the migration strategies of mobile carriers and reduce the potential threats in current and future network systems. / by Yujiro Mochizuki. / S.M.M.O.T.

Thesis (S.M.M.O.T.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Management of Technology Program, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 85-86). / Over 99% of enterprises in US and Japan are of small- or medium-size. Some will enjoy successful growth whereas most will suffer from poor growth, though all have started from being small. Analogy exists between those successfully growing start-ups and people who want to leverage the days spent in noted universities to a better job and to leverage the experiences in the better workplace to their further business career. Even in a world of business, it seems to be very essential in the growth of firm to leverage resources acquired. When searched in the Google.com, 'leverage' hits 2,640,000 pages and 'by leveraging' hits 220,000 pages. Also, words of 'leveraging' as abundant as stars in the sky are found in speeches, presentations and brochures. Nevertheless, there are no comprehensive frameworks or papers on the corporate strategy about leveraging, though a lot of papers refer to a portion of it through, for instance, resource-based view and financial leverage. Hence, attempted in this thesis was to develop a basic framework for leveraging business strategy, Leverage Driver Model (LDM) first. LDM consists of three parts: 1) product lever, 2) reputation driver, and 3) market lever, with consideration, with the consideration of dilution with time. Chapter 2 reviewed the past studies related to strategic leverages or related to growth paths of firms. In chapter 3, a basic mechanism of leverages in business was analyzed by introducing the Leverage Driver Model. In chapter 4, the scope of the LDM was expanded to applying itself to leveraging between products and between firms. Chapter 5 consists of case analyses on the practical leverage approaches some firms actually employed along their growing paths, and discussion was made to the / (cont.) attributes of leverages to the current success of some firms. / by Kenji Yamanami. / S.M.M.O.T.

Thesis (S.M.M.O.T.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Management of Technology Program, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 134-136). / For firms entering new markets there are numerous variables impacting the focus and the scope of the new venture. For foreign companies entering the US biotech space this is even more so. Getting early relevant data is critical towards mission critical decisions and tactics. The firm in focus, Axis Shield, is launching a new point of care device to attract practitioners all over the US. They have been meticulous in getting secondhand data from various surveys and research reports. The focus of this thesis is to assist them in their primary data gathering testing assumptions and dimensions carved out to be instrumental for commercial success. Thus, the main thesis focus is concerned with the identification, structuring, collecting and analysis of these primary data. The company will eventually use both the second hand and the primary data to complete their overall market analysis. Hence, the market survey will give the firm valuable data on which to base their US launch in 2004. Finally, the thesis will give personal insights regarding the complexity of planning and carrying out a marketing study for novel products in an inaccessible market. / by Jone Smedsvig. / S.M.M.O.T.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, Technology, Management, and Policy Program, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 306-322). / The research contained in this thesis explores leading indicators of lean enterprise transformation in the aerospace industry, as part of the greater body of work associated with MIT's Lean Aerospace Initiative (LAI). Arguments from literature are made in support of the assumption that a lean enterprise can outperform a less lean enterprise, permitting the research to focus on identifying potential means for achieving and accelerating lean enterprise transformation in the aerospace industry. Senior enterprise leaders and their leadership committees from thirty-one enterprises in the US and UK aerospace industry utilized the LAI Lean Enterprise Self-Assessment Tool (LESAT) as a means for measuring their current state of leanness in leadership/transformation processes, lifecycle processes, and enabling infrastructure. Cross-sectional LESAT data, two-period time series LESAT data, and directed interviews and site visits were utilized to formulate the conclusions drawn in this thesis. There are four primary empirical findings of this research. First, the aerospace industry as a whole exhibits lowest maturity in practices related to establishing and deploying a lean enterprise vision, even in the presence of high maturity in lean production. Second, enterprises exhibiting high lean enterprise maturity in leadership/transformation processes also exhibit high maturity in lifecycle processes and enabling infrastructure. Third, strong leadership commitment (LC) correlates highly with setting a lean enterprise change environment (CE), which then correlates highly with lean change activities in practice (CP). / (cont.) Finally, there is evidence that the highest lean maturity enterprises have established formal information feedback mechanisms that allow the enterprise to strategically build on the lean capabilities of the enterprise, while prioritizing lean improvement activities within the context of enterprise strategic needs. From the perspective of industry, this research suggests that there must be a formal decision to pursue the lean enterprise as an operational strategy in order to achieve successful transformation. This decision will be founded on strong leadership commitment, which if established, can help support the leadership/transformation practices as a means for improving lifecycle processes and enabling infrastructure. The LAI Transition-to-Lean (TTL) roadmap provides a logical sequencing of lean enterprise transformation activities, to which formal information feedback mechanisms should be added based on the model proposed in this thesis for accelerating lean enterprise transformation. Most importantly, this model suggests a new mode of operating, not a one-time improvement effort. Further research is needed to empirically validate the model as a means for accelerating lean enterprise transformation. / by Cory R.A. Hallam. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, Technology, Management, and Policy Program, February 2006. / "September 2005." / Includes bibliographical references (p. 141-148). / The amount of electronically accessible information has been growing exponentially. How to effectively use this information has become a significant challenge. A post 9/11 study indicated that the deficiency of semantic interoperability technology hindered the ability to integrate information from disparate sources in a meaningful and timely fashion to allow for preventive precautions. Meanwhile, organizations that provided useful services by combining and reusing information from publicly accessible sources have been legally challenged. The Database Directive has been introduced in the European Union and six legislative proposals have been made in the U.S. to provide legal protection for non-copyrightable database contents, but the Directive and the proposals have differing and sometimes conflicting scope and strength, which creates legal uncertainty for valued-added data reuse practices. The need for clearer data reuse policy will become more acute as information integration technology improves to make integration much easier. This Thesis takes an interdisciplinary approach to addressing both the technology and the policy challenges, identified above, in the effective use and reuse of information from disparate sources. / (cont.) The technology component builds upon the existing Context Interchange (COIN) framework for large-scale semantic interoperability. We focus on the problem of temporal semantic heterogeneity where data sources and receivers make time-varying assumptions about data semantics. A collection of time-varying assumptions are called a temporal context. We extend the existing COIN representation formalism to explicitly represent temporal contexts, and the COIN reasoning mechanism to reconcile temporal semantic heterogeneity in the presence of semantic heterogeneity of time. We also perform a systematic and analytic evaluation of the flexibility and scalability of the COIN approach. Compared with several traditional approaches, the COIN approach has much greater flexibility and scalability. For the policy component, we develop an economic model that formalizes the policy instruments in one of the latest legislative proposals in the U.S. The model allows us to identify the circumstances under which legal protection for non-copyrightable content is needed, the different conditions, and the corresponding policy choices. / (cont.) Our analysis indicates that depending on the cost level of database creation, the degree of differentiation of the reuser database, and the efficiency of policy administration, the optimal policy choice can be protecting a legal monopoly, encouraging competition via compulsory licensing, discouraging voluntary licensing, or even allowing free riding. The results provide useful insights for the formulation of a socially beneficial database protection policy. / by Hongwei Zhu. / Ph.D.

Thesis (S.M.M.O.T.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Management of Technology Program, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 95-99). / Japanese banking firms have been in a turbulent period from the last decade due to deregulations and bad loans from collapse of a bubble economy. As a result, there have been many bankruptcies and merger & acquisitions (M&As) among Japanese banking firms. On the other hand, U.S. banking firms have already met with similar experiences from the 1970s to 1980s. After these turbulent eras, U.S. banks revived by restructuring and focusing on their core competence. They are strong from the viewpoint of profitability, size and stability. In this sense, it is generally said that U.S. banking firms are 10 years ahead from Japanese banking firms. Therefore, I think it is useful for Japanese banks to research and learn how U.S. banks corresponded to turbulence situations and how they revived. In this thesis, I focus on knowledge management in banking firms, because human resource and both internal and external knowledge is one of the most important assets for banks. Even though banking firms have many business fields for which knowledge is useful, I pick up and examine following aspects by using comparative analysis between Japanese and U.S. banking firms. 1. Employment System and Organizational Structures: The employment systems and organizational structures of banking firms are key to how they manage their knowledge because knowledge belongs to the employees and organizations. 2. Customer Relationship Management: How to make the best use of customers' knowledge is important for banks, and banks need to focus not only on internal knowledge but a!so external knowledge. 3. Outsourcing: Acquiring knowledge and skills from outside sources is becoming more and more important for banks because of innovations in information technology and severe competition among many rivals. / by Kazunori Yamagata. / S.M.M.O.T.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Technology, Management, and Policy Program, February 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 197-216). / This investigation, conducted under the auspices of the Lean Aerospace Initiative (LAI), studied how engineers from different specialties interpret and communicate about technical design problems while working on product development teams. Data was collected on 98 cases via interviews with engineers at LAI member companies. For approximately one-third of the cases, two engineers with different backgrounds were interviewed, allowing comparisons to be made between their descriptions of the problems under study. For the remaining cases, one interview was conducted per case. The most important finding of this study was that engineers from different specialties do interpret the same problem differently. Specifically, two engineers were likely to evaluate the benefits or drawbacks of a potential solution using different sets of criteria. Thus, some design disputes were the result not of mutually exclusive needs but of a failure to recognize the different ways in which engineers were evaluating solutions to the problem. Furthermore, data collected during this study illustrated that in some cases these differences were the result of engineers addressing related, but unique problems. Therefore, a solution to one engineer's problem often created a new problem for another engineer on the team. / (cont.) A second conclusion of this study was that how design tools were used had a greater impact on a team's problem solving abilities than what tool was used. In this context, design tools included objects such as real or "virtual" prototypes as well as processes like simulations and tests. The results of this investigation suggested that such tools offered their greatest benefits when they were used in a participatory fashion in which a large fraction of a team shared in their use. Additionally, the more elements of a problem's context that were captured in a design tool, the greater its utility. Under such conditions, team members were able to create a shared evaluation system to judge potential solutions to the problem they were confronting, thereby facilitating problem resolution. Based on these results, the traditional model of engineering communication derived from the information processing framework requires modification. The information processing model assumes that individuals have a shared understanding of meaning when they communicate. This study, however, suggests that such shared understandings do not exist in advance, but are instead ... / by Joshua I. Bernstein. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Technology, Management, and Policy Program, February 1999. / Includes bibliographical references. / In the future, it is unlikely that complex system products will compete solely on the basis of technical performance. What will differentiate such systems and their developers is the ability to balance all the dimensions of product performance, including product pricing and timing (which are functions inclusive of development cost and cycle time). Furthermore, this balance must be congruent with customers' perceptions of value. Once this value is ascertained or approximated, complex system developers will require the capability to adjust the design process to meet these expectations. The required amount and sophistication of project planning, control, information, and flexibility is unprecedented. The primary goal of this work is a method to help managers integrate process and design information in a way that supports making decisions that yield products congruent with customer desires and strategic business goals. This work consists of three parts. Part one contains two exploratory studies that further understanding of complex system product development processes. One study explores process iteration and seeks to explain why some aircraft development programs do not address iteration with existing project planning and control methods. The other study examines sources of risk, classifying these into six categories (cost, schedule, performance, technology, business, and market risks) and building causal frameworks to represent their relationships. Both studies point to avenues for improving existing process '·models and in some cases reveal process characteristics requiring new methods. These results, while derived from projects in the aerospace industry, are highly applicable across a variety of complex system development projects. Part two entails an effort to model some of the characteristics observed in part one. After a review of four types of dependency structure matrices (DSMs), notably the activity-based or schedule DSM, extensive data are collected from an uninhabited aerial vehicle (UAV) design process. Part two thus describes how to build a DSM model and provides data for example applications of the detailed models developed in part three. Based on the foundational work of parts one and two, part three develops a new methodology and models for understanding product development process cost, schedule, and performance. The methodology complements activity-centric schedule models such as DSM in that activities provide direct contributions to process cost and schedule and design performance. This approach sets the stage for integrated cost, schedule, and performance analyses. A cost and schedule model is presented first, and it is extended to account for the effects of activities on product performance. The stochastic, simulation model generates distributions of possible cost, schedule, and performance outcomes. These distributions represent uncertainty and are analyzed in relation to impact functions and targets to determine levels of risk. The model outputs enable the exploration of the costs and benefits of several management options and yield interesting insights. The goal is to improve product development planning and control though the capability to balance cost, schedule, and performance appropriately. / by Tyson Rodgers Browning. / Ph.D.