Thesis (S.M.M.O.T.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Management of Technology Program, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 49-50). / This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. / Recent scientific progress has shown significant signs that fuel cells will become a tremendous and significant part of distributed energy markets in the future. Fuel Cell technology though first discovered in late 1830s by Sir William Grove, a Welsh judge and scientist only took off when NASA first introduced them in the Gemini space program in 1960s. Technology evolution and the need for a clean energy source for the space program caused the renewed interest in Fuel Cells. A significant amount of progress and numerous investments have been made securing a future for Fuel Cells. The question that remains is not if Fuel Cells will develop into an industry, but when might it evolve and deliver on the promises so intrepidly set forth by researchers, corporations, and investors. The question has been debated many times over in the popular press. For certain, no one is exactly sure what 'when' really means. What this thesis is more interested in is the "how". How will Fuel Cells technology and markets evolve? What factors will determine the industry structure that will influence the development of this industry? How large can we expect this industry to grow? What will be the key drivers for growth? How will different members of this industry facilitate the development of this technology? What form will the industry take? What are some of the current challenges facing the fuel cell manufacturing companies in their growth? This Thesis investigates the formation and growth of Fuel Cell firms in Massachusetts, New York and Connecticut (within 150 miles of Boston) and the current issues facing the upper Management / Founders of these companies. By studying the key factors and developments in these industries different lessons and patterns can be extrapolated which may help answer some of the burning questions surrounding fuel cell industry evolution and where they are on the technology S curve. The basic framework used in this study is taken from the paper written by Gransey to analyze High-tech firms' growth. Eight firms were interviewed using a questionnaire format developed earlier by Prof Elicia Maine to study the materials industry growth. The results of this analysis do indeed conclude that the firms felt that fuel cell is a great product, but it has limitations. It is impossible at this point to beat the grid in cost or reliability with a single piece of equipment- the grid has multiple redundant generating devices and is virtually free. The value of a fuel cell is the ability to have much higher power quality at your location to increase your grid reliability an additional 9 times. It is currently expensive to do this, but no other technology has this capability. Several companies have been formed with lot of optimism and potential for a huge payoff. People are less likely to share ideas in this industry compared to other industries. Secrecy is the norm in this industry and they rely on the patent protection early on and seem to have lot of interactions with the local lawyers for IP filing and protection. Most of the firms did not participate in local industry organizations for the fear of exposing their perceived advantage. Currently fuel cell firms are facing economic challenges due to the downturn in the economy which in turn resulted in the slow down in fuel cell technology research investments. Also as the company grows they are realizing that the market risk is higher than what they have anticipated when they started. This may have an interesting consequence related to the sales and marketing strategy of these companies. Risk is still high, less technology risk than economic and market risk. / by Srinivas Chilukuri. / 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 94-95). / This thesis focuses on analyses of the long distance telecom service industry in US market by a system dynamics model to analyze bubble effects. The bubble effects have not been fully analyzed from the structural perspectives, although a lot of articles and papers partially explain the bubble effect. In this thesis, the system dynamics model of capacity expansion process, pricing, demand, cost, and decision making for new fiber installation is constructed by investigating the industrial structure. The model was analyzed, key factors for the bubble were identified, and their impact on the dynamics was captured. Through the analysis, I found that the fiber glut occurred by the fact that a temporal demand soar induced by the emergence of the Internet technologies leaded the telecom service providers to estimate the future demand wrongly, and the error was amplified by the long planning horizon which is economically plausible policy for each provider. I also found that the revenue reduced in the late stage of the bubble since the competitiveness in the industry stimulated price war. / by Rintaro Kurebayashi. / 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 (p. 87-88). / Why are some industrial design firms more successful than others in consistently producing high quality products and services? Do they hire more talented people, or are they organized so as to maximize the potential of their teams? I begin this thesis with an examination of literature on teamwork, the dynamics of idea propagation, and the product development process itself. This is meant to extract some insights into successful teams across a broad spectrum of activities and what they did to generate a creative output. These examples include references to historically significant teams such as Thomas Edison's Lab and the Manhattan Project. By using such extreme examples, I am seeking similarities in more common projects and organizations. I use a workgroup framework to analyze the factors involved, including the context, the people on the teams, their task requirements and formal organization, group cultures that emerge, as well as the outcomes that define the success, or otherwise of a project. I interviewed a number of professionals in the industry. These include professionals from IDEO, Design Continuum, Modo, and sevenO2design, as well as professors at the MIT School of Engineering, Media Lab, Sloan School, and Olin College of Engineering. The main focus is in analyzing the collaborative processes and methods of these sample organizations. My objective is to identify their methodology for organizing the creative process and how they maintain a high standard across projects, industries and over time. / by Christopher Reichert-Facilides. / S.M.M.O.T.

Thesis (S.M.M.O.T.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Management of Technology Program, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 60). / This thesis intends to analyze the semiconductor value chain and identify critical factors, which impact the future industry structure. The main focus is in the dynamics among IDM (Integrated Design Manufacture), foundry and fabless companies. This analysis will utilize double helix [1] model with consideration of economics of scale, fixed cost and product life cycle. Furthermore, the cost and time-to-market factors involved in SoC (system-on-chip) and FPGA/PLD development will be explored. Based on the analysis, a tool will be developed to evaluate make-or-buy (developing own SoC or using off-shelf FPGA/PLD) decision. / by Shih-Lung Wu. / S.M.M.O.T.

Thesis (S.M.M.O.T.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Management of Technology Program, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 44-45). / This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. / The expression "disruptive technology" is now firmly embedded in the modern business lexicon. The mental model summarized by this concise phrase has great explanatory power for ex-post analysis of many revolutionary changes in business. Unfortunately, this paradigm can rarely be applied prescriptively. The classic formulation of a "disruptive technology" sheds little light on potential sources of innovation. This thesis seeks to extend this analysis by suggesting that many important disruptive technologies arise from commodities. The sudden availability of a high performance factor input at a low price often enables innovation in adjacent market segments. The thesis suggests main five reasons that commodities spur innovation: ** The emergence of a commodity collapses competition to the single dimension of price. Sudden changes in factor prices create new opportunities for supply driven innovation. Low prices enable innovators to substitute quantity for quality. ** The price / performance curve of a commodity creates an attractor that promotes demand aggregation. ** Commodities emerge after the establishment of a dominant design. Commodities have defined and stable interfaces. Well developed tool sets and experienced developer communities are available to work with commodities, decreasing the price of experimentation. ** Distributed architectures based on large number of simple, redundant components offer more predictable performance. Systems based on a small number of high performance components will have a higher standard deviation for uptime than high granularity systems based on large numbers of low power components. ** Distributed architectures are much more flexible than low granularity systems. Large integrated facilities often provide cost advantages when operating at the Minimum Efficient Scale of production. However, distributed architectures that can efficiently change production levels over time may be a superior solution based on the ability to adapt to changing market demand patterns. The evolution of third generation bus architectures in personal computers provides a comprehensive example of commodity based disruption, incorporating all five forces. / by Richard Ellert Willey. / S.M.M.O.T.

Thesis (S.M.M.O.T.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Management of Technology Program, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 145-149). / This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. / Innovation in platform industries, including mobile telecommunications, has a great impact on societies and economies; hence a migration from an existing platform to the subsequent one should be progressed under careful forecasting, weighed scenarios and strategies that encompass a broad view. This thesis analyzes why mobile network operators are struggling to move from the second generation (2G) and its derivatives to the third generation (3G) technologies and proposes migration strategies, which allow them to sustain their competitive advantage. First, a migration model is proposed as a reinforcing loop model composed of two dynamics, "Platform Migration" caused by a shortage of network capacity, and "Service Innovation" triggered by a decline in ARPU (Average Revenue Per User). Platform migration is an implementation process for new platform technologies and can be categorized into Revolution-type and Evolution-type. After these two schemes have been evaluated through case studies, Collaboration-type migration, an enhanced Evolution-type, is proposed for future, technically diversified situations. Service Innovation is a process for creating new profitable services to give further revenue growth. Empirical analysis clarifies that mental breakthrough management is a common approach in the mobile industry and proposes that a mixture of corporate, partner and market initiatives be adopted for diversified customer preference. This thesis then proposes the following strategies for future successful migration: first, mobile network operators should drive the migration cycle powerfully, concentrating on successive service innovation dynamics for their revenue growth and the next platform migration. Second, they should choose migration schemes carefully according to their level of technology leadership, value chain leadership and investment capability. Finally, service platform should be considered for realization of innovative services with Partnership Dynamics. / by Hisakazu Tsuboya. / S.M.M.O.T.

Thesis (S.M.M.O.T.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Management of Technology Program, 2003. / June 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 116-123). / This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. / Everything is connected to everything. El Aleph (1945), by Jorge Luis Borges[1] This thesis addresses the need to simplify and streamline web service network infrastructure and to identify business models that best leverage Web services technology and industry dynamics to generate positive business results. Web services have evolved from the simple page-display protocol of their origin and now reach beyond the links that simply updated web data dynamically from corporate databases, to where systems can automatically transact. These Web services represent a series of network business technology standards and capabilities that irrevocably change the way in which businesses will do business. In fact, every business today is a networked business and has opportunities to grow using Web services. This study focuses on the implementation challenges in the financial services market, specifically the On Line Transaction Processing (OLTP) sector where legacy mainframes interface with multiple tiers of distribution through proprietary EDI links. The OLTP industry operates under stringent regulatory requirements for availability and audit-ability of not only who performed what transaction, but who had access to the information about the information. In this environment organizational demands on network infrastructure including hardware, software and personnel are changing radically, while concurrently Information Technology (IT) budgets are under pressure. The strategic choices for deploying web services in this environment may contain lessons for other industries where cost effective large scale processing, high availability, security, manageability and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) are paramount concerns. In this paper we use a systems dynamics model to simulate the impact of market changes on the adoption of innovative technologies and their commoditization on the industry value chain, with the aim of identifying business models and network topologies which best support the growth of an Open Systems network business. From the results of the simulation we will derive strategic recommendations for networked business models and web services integration strategies to meet Line Of Business (LOB) objectives. / by Stephen B. Miles. / S.M.M.O.T.

Thesis (S.M.M.O.T.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Management of Technology Program, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 108-111). / This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. / For organizations, the value of information is to improve decision making. In the military in particular, information's role in warfare has always been to affect decisions at all levels -- from strategic to tactical - to put one's forces in a position of advantage. In the information age, the cost of communicating such information has been so phenomenally reduced that it now becomes possible for individuals and entire organizations to tap vast amounts of information. This thesis seeks to address the question of how the modern military can best be designed to harness the power of the information revolution to enhance its ability to make faster, better decisions and thus to become more effective in war as well as in times of peace. To do so, the thesis first considers lessons from military history on the essence of decision making, analyzes the implications of the declining cost of communications and examines new organizational trends in both the corporate world and the military. With this foundation, new organizational designs for the military are proposed and scenarios for their use are described. These new organizational designs are optimized for the information age and incorporate increasingly decentralized making structures. Noting that such formal organizational restructuring by itself is inadequate, the thesis then looks at the shifts in leadership orientation and organizational culture necessary to create the environment that encourages empowerment of individuals as well as the competencies for the individual that are becoming increasingly important in an increasingly decentralized world. Finally, a framework that synthesizes the different ingredients necessary for designing the military organization in the 21st century is proposed. / by Boon Kim Tan. / 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. / The Telematics Industry faces tremendous challenges for growth. Regardless of the efforts and investment from vehicle manufacturers and suppliers, telematics has not been that profitable industry that many analyst forecasted five years ago; a 40 billion industry by 2003. This paper presents an analysis of the dynamics of the telematics industry and emphasizes on factors affecting the diffusion of telematics innovation. These factors are related to openness of telematics systems and establishment of standards, network externalities effects and attractiveness of complementors, customer's willingness to pay, telematics services pricing, and consumer knowledge of newer technology. Based on an in-depth analysis of the telematics architecture and the technologies converging in the telematics system I suggest a mixed strategy with respect to standards. This strategy favors the growth of this industry. Based on this strategy there are developed some scenarios of how the telematics value network will look like and how the interaction among the players would take place. Finally, a conceptual system dynamic model is presented to illustrate the dynamics of the industry and how the factors influencing the adoption of the telematics all play together to favor or affect the diffusion of the growing telematics industry. / by Rodrigo Luis. / S.M.M.O.T.

Thesis (S.M.M.O.T.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Management of Technology Program, 2004. / Leaf 105 blank. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 100-104). / With the increase in strategic alliances and acquisitions, the firm needs to be studied in the context of the network of relationships in which it is embedded. This network not only extends the capabilities of the firm by establishing channels to access additional resources but it also creates additional constraints that have to be accounted for. This fundamental view is the backdrop of this research on the dynamics of the diagnostic medical imaging industry. This thesis explores a variety of network-based approaches to characterize the dynamics of the medical imaging industry. After reviewing the literature on the subject of alliances and inter-organizational networks, we describe the medical imaging industry in the United States. For our analysis, we have compiled a list of alliances and acquisitions launched in the last 15 years and used that list to create an overall network for the industry where each node is an industry subgroup. Along with the visual representation, we have compiled a number of network-based statistics such as distribution of sub-industry membership and centrality. We have examined the trends of those metrics in three time periods, 1980-1989, 1990-1999, and 2000-2003 and related those trends to the information gathered through several interviews with industry experts. Those trends are consistent with the consolidation that has taken place in the industry in the last 10 years. However they also show the emergence of new centers of activity such as the medical services industry segment. Overall, this network model provides a powerful framework to "visualize" the internal structure of the industry. Leveraging on the main findings revealed by the network-based analysis, we put forward a system dynamics model that combines the main trends / (cont.) highlighted by our research. The model is the basis for a discussion on the potential evolution of the medical imaging ecosystem. While further centralization is expected, we anticipate that the role of the medical service industry segment and the contrast agent manufacturers may significantly weaken this centralization. / by Philippe Jeanrenaud. / S.M.M.O.T.