Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2009. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 51-52). / A nation's ability to innovate is paramount for its success and survival among other nations. But capitalizing on these innovations and bringing them to the marketplace are what gives a nation its competitive edge and provide sustainable growth over time in this highly dynamic global economy. In the United States' complex innovation ecosystem, small businesses and entrepreneurs play a crucial role in innovating new technologies and commercializing them. Indeed many of the nation's large, successful and innovative firms started out as small entrepreneurial firms. Microsoft, Intel, AMD, FedEx, Qualcomm, Adobe are examples to these firms. These small entrepreneurial firms with new ideas need to garner fair amount of funding before they can bring their ideas into the marketplace. However for entrepreneurial companies with science based innovative ideas, due to the unproven nature of these ideas and the lack of sufficient public information, there exist knowledge asymmetries. Therefore possibility of getting direct venture capital and/or angel investment becomes very slim for these firms unless the idea's commercial potential is obviously clear or a customer is already available. To address this early stage financing gap and to increase private sector commercialization of innovations, the Federal government offers funding through its three phase private-public partnership innovation program, called Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. / (cont.) The purpose of this study is to investigate the existence of any correlations between commercialization of SBIR funded projects, specifically Phase II programs, and various characteristics of the involved entities in attempt to enhance commercialization performance of an SBIR funded company. We hope that the results of this study will be practical in defining commercialization strategies to achieve faster and stronger capitalization on R&D investment for both the awarded company and the federal government and hence the tax payers. / by Teoman E. Ustun. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 98). / The Smart Mobile device industry is witnessing rapid growth with the increased convergence of voice-centric mobile phones and data-centric personal digital assistant systems. Improving capabilities in device hardware have allowed development of complex user interfaces, multimedia and communication capabilities on these devices. Modem Mobile Operating Systems manage this complexity in the mobile device by administering hardware resources and providing a platform for development of new consumer and enterprise applications. This thesis studies the architecture, design goals and services offered by the three major mobile operating systems - Palm OS, Symbian OS and Windows Mobile.The Mobile Operating Systems studied in this thesis differ in their architectures, services and programming interfaces offered to application software developers, independent hardware vendors and OEM licensees. Their design reflects the OS vendor's strategy toward the mobile platform which is decipherable based on a study of the OS architecture and application programming interface. Three conclusions are made based on this study each of them suggests a strategy that the vendor has attempted to use to gain platform leadership through product architecture and degree of openness of interfaces. / by Ashok Chakravarthy Mandala. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design & Management Program, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 148-151). / High-technology, new-economy firms seem to operate under different rules than their old-economy counterparts. The fast pace of disruptive invention, rapid product development cycles, short product market life and intense, frequently unanticipated competition drive technology strategies. Organizational growth and tight labor markets for talented employees influence technology capacity and capabilities. Valuation and profitability measurements seem to violate long-standing financial trends. All these reinforce a perception that these firms represent a radical departure from the stoic, traditional organization. This thesis explores the product development and organizational history of a leading high technology firm, Sun Microsystems. Using a model based upon the organizational life cycle and principles of systems architecture, we capture the common and unique characteristics of how the firm is dealing with changing markets, technology, complexity and growth. The study tests the hypothesis that, while Sun competes in a fast-paced arena, many problems experienced during periods of rapid growth are, in fact, endemic to any organization under similar circumstances. As this hypothesis holds, we look at current technology and process initiatives in the company to assess whether they are appropriately addressing the right issues. / by Steven W. Klosterman. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design & Management Program, 2002. / This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 86-91). / by Freddie Douglas, III. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 108-110). / The development of complex, safety-critical systems for aero-engine control is subject to the, often competing, demands for higher safety and reduced development cost. Although the commercial aerospace industry has a general good safety record, and has placed much emphasis on process improvement within a strong safety culture, there continues to be a large number of design and requirements errors found during development and after entry into service. 'The thesis assesses current system safety practice within the aero engine control system industry, including international standards, and reviews the current practice against the research at MIT by Professor Nancy Leveson. The thesis focuses in particular on software safety as this is the area that has proven most challenging and most likely to experience high costs. The particular research topics reviewed are Intent Specifications, the System Theoretic Accident Modeling and Processes (STAMP) technique, and requirements completeness criteria. Research shows that many problems arise from requirements and design errors rather than component failures. Several example incidents from an engine company are reviewed and these show a pattern of common problems which could have been caught by the use of more comprehensive requirements completeness checks and by the use of Intent Specifications. In particular, assumptions are not currently documented in the specifications but are kept separately, and the need to identify assumptions is not emphasized enough in existing processes. / (cont.) It is concluded that the existing development process has significant room for improvement in the coordination between the safety assessment and system development processes. In particular, more could be done by the use of requirements completeness checks, software hazard analysis, the adoption of the Intent Specification approach and in the use of the STAMP models. / by Malvern J. Atherton. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design & Management Program, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 78-80). / This thesis aims at developing a practical method to adjust product development metrics, which will enable effective management of the product development (PD) process. A set of good metrics is crucial to the success of a product, as metrics direct the development process by driving the actions and decisions of the PD team members which in turn define the product. Emphasizing or "weighting" certain metrics more than others can make the difference between success and failure. Through empirical exploration of metrics we seek to determine the weights, and the impact of different metrics on product success. Unlike its use in the engineering literature, the management use of the term "metric" includes both quantitative and qualitative measures which the PD team members can influence through their efforts. The theory used to determine the correct weight of a metric has its roots in the principles of Agency Theory and has been developed by "engineering" the theory to obtain two key parameters which define the weight of a metric. These two parameters are "leverage" and "risk discount factor" (RDF). Leverage is the amount by which a metric can impact the profitability of a product and RDF takes into account the inherent risk averse nature of the PD team members that influence their decisions. In order to evaluate the PD metrics and their weights within a firm, data was collected for a set of metrics across 17 programs at Ford Motor Company. The values for each metric were assigned based on information obtained through program documentation and interviews with multiple team members across various functions within the organization. Different success measures were collected and the impact and leverage of each metric was determined through empirical exploration of the various relationships. The key findings to date include: * Cronbach's Alpha for metrics regrouped using factor analysis average 0.7 demonstrating internal reliability. * Customer satisfaction correlates significantly with the rigor of the PD process, and internal coordination and communication between the core team and the other members of the value chain. * Time to market shows consistent correlation with profit and profit residuals. " The calculated weights suggest higher emphasis on capturing manufacturing need and using robust design practices, technology, and differentiation will increase profitability. " The measured RDF does not change the relative weightings of the metrics as obtained through the leverage calculation. / by Arpita Majumder. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design & Management Program, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 60-61). / by Thomas P. Courtney. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2009. / "December 2008." / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 104-2 [i.e. 105]). / Electronic waste (e-waste) is a rapidly growing problem as well as a business opportunity given the huge volume that is generated. While there are a number policies and philosophies that guide end-of-life handling of electronic waste, currently there is no holistic framework or model that can be applied as a policy development and management tool. Mauritius is a small island located off the coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean with a population of 1.2 million people and an area of about 787 sq. miles. According to a recent survey it is estimated that each Mauritian generates about 0.9 kilogram of waste par day, which represents about 375,000 tons of waste annually. The Government of Mauritius recently declared one of its medium term goals for the country is to make Mauritius a sustainable island. It is observed that by developing the capability to handle electronic waste, the general capability of a waste management system is significantly increased. This work, funded by grants from the MIT Public Service Center, aims to address the problem of electronic waste in general and in the context of Mauritius in particular by: - Developing a cradle-to-grave model of material and financial flows of electronic products based on extensive literature review. This model is used to conduct an in-depth analysis of the policy, practices and material and financial flows in various countries. - Providing analytical tools to visualize activities and formulate effective policy and actions to address this problem. - Conducting a household level e-waste survey to characterize its nature and content in Mauritius. / (cont.) - Recommending changes to existing infrastructure in Mauritius to enable them to be upgraded to Material Recovery Facilities to help in recovery activities on the island. / by Hrishikesh Ballal. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 80-81). / When geographers study the world and its features, distance is one of the basic measures they use to describe the patterns they observe. Distance is, however, an elastic concept. Physical distance has played the dominant role in the world's geo-politics, global economy and international trade in last centuries. But in recent times - the impact of physical distance has been diminished and transformed by the effect and advancement of IT & Telecommunication technology. Physical distance has been transformed into virtual distance. Communication from one end of the world to other has become - "Just a click away in a computer or a few finger tips in our cell phone." The focus of this thesis is on two closely related sets of questions. - (I) "How is the state of telecommunication technology in emerging countries changing? How does this technological advancement affect the productivity and international competitiveness of these economies? (II) How does this telecommunication industry development in emerging economies shifting the overall global business paradigm of the telecommunication industry and is this shift permanent or temporary? In this thesis, I will first focus on the background of world telecommunication industry and the market segmentation based on: (I) Key Economic Indicator of Telecom industry (ARPU - Average revenue per user) and (II) Technology. I will then analyze the recent development of world telecommunication industry and conduct case studies on eight global telecom operators (Vodafone, AT&T, Telenor, SingTel, China Mobile, Orascom, America Movil, and Reliance). This analysis will focus on the present situation of global telecom industry, worldwide investment in this sector, market tier & user segments, and buying power of the emerging economies. At this point, I will introduce and examine whether the business models being developed in these emerging economies are likely to impact the global economy. / (cont.) To do so, I will apply Porter's competitive advantage of nation analysis and Lessard's Globalization RAT's (Relevant, Appropriable & Transferable) test. Finally, I will conclude my research by illustrating - the evolving global telecom user triangle model and highlight a few key issues for global telecom operators to consider for their future business growth and sustainability. / by Rehan A. Asad. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2007. / Leaf 96 blank. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 88-95). / Introduction: Corporations all across the globe and of various sizes rely on their IT systems for business processes, reduction of process lifecycle and management of resources. These systems house several applications for internal sales, purchasing, finance, HR and so on. In any such typical organization, IT systems are a heterogeneous mix of hardware, operating systems and applications. Many of these applications run on different operating systems like Windows systems, Linux and Unix systems, etc. Oftentimes there is a need to consolidate data or access data from several such systems. The diversity among systems and applications makes these tasks difficult, time consuming and tedious. Furthermore, there is also a need for synchronization of data across systems and applications to ensure that the data is accurate and up-to-date. The heterogeneous nature of systems and applications lead to high levels of redundancy of data, making data maintenance a huge overhead for organizations. Today's organizations must also adapt to changes in environments both external and internal to them. Such changes could be changing market conditions, reorganization, change in business strategies within a company, addition or changing suppliers, partnerships, mergers and acquisitions and so on. There is also a growing need for integration across enterprise boundaries to facilitate fast and seamless collaboration between partners, customers and suppliers. All such needs entail changes to existing IT systems within an organization in a timely manner. There is thus a growing need for integration of such systems for consolidated decision making, accurate, up-to-date system information, better performance and system monitoring. IT Systems must also be flexible to respond to changes in the environments of their organization. Enterprise Application Integration is a process that aims to bring about such integration. The need for integration goes beyond the boundaries of an enterprise. Further, to successfully compete today, businesses need to be flexible. This means that their IT systems need to be able to keep pace with dynamic business conditions. It is evident that any solution for multiple IT systems to integrate with each other and to provide flexibility, they must be able to communicate and coordinate activities in a standard way. For almost two decades, many companies have tried to use CORBA, DCOM and similar technologies but have had little success. None of these technologies, for many reasons have become global technologies. The arrival of standards like HTTP and HTML helped linking together millions of humans across the internet but proved inadequate to link together computer systems. Moreover, internal and cross enterprise integration and coordination bring with them, security implications as both involve information exchange between organizational entities. As we will see later, the traditional methods of securing applications with firewalls prove inadequate for application security. One insight that has come from failed attempts to consolidate and coordinate IT systems is that such efforts cannot be limited to IT alone. Decision making on how interdepartmental and inter-enterprise data must data must be exchanged must be made by leaders and opinion shapers at each level or division of the organization. It is the goals of internal and external enterprise integration, flexibility of business processes, and enterprise data security that has led more and more organizations to adopt to Service Oriented Architectures (SOA). The adoption, implementation and running of a SOA does not simply involve IT department heads to design and create a new architecture for the enterprise. It involves a holistic understanding of the nature of the entire enterprise, its business and internal processes, the corporate strategy for the enterprise, an understanding of the business processes of the enterprise, its partners, suppliers, subsidiaries, etc. Such an undertaking is beyond the scope of a single department or division of the enterprise. The creation and running SOA architecture thus involves the coordination of all parts of the enterprise. / by Rajiv Ramaratnam. / S.M.