Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design & Management Program, 2004. / "February 2004." / Includes bibliographical references (p. 87-88). / As Ford Motor Company celebrates its 100th anniversary; it finds itself in a crisis due to its lack of technical proficiency. The lack of technical depth within the workforce is the result of a deeply ingrained culture that encourages employees to change positions every 18-24 months to vastly diverse parts of the company. The problem is exacerbated by years of early retirements, company sell-offs and outsourcing of technical design work to full service suppliers. In reaction to the lack of technical competency, Ford has undergone one of the largest reorganizations in their history. The new organization is now centered on function with loose ties back to the many vehicle programs. In order to encourage a new corporate culture that values technical depth over being a generalist, Ford has also developed additional projects within the organization. One of the most prominent is the Employee Stability Project (ESP) and Technical Maturity Model (TMM) that focus in on developing a technical development plan for each individual engineer. This research analyzes the rollout of the ESP/TMM project within the Body Engineering function (with some comparisons to the Chassis Organization). Data was collected through two surveys conducted nine months apart and focus group sessions. The surveys encompassed the entire Body Engineering organization. In addition, the culture at Ford was compared with the culture developed at one of its main rivals, Toyota. The data for Toyota was collected through one-on-one interviews. The result of the data collected show that entire workforce recognizes that the lack of technical depth within the company is an issue. / (cont.) In addition, the concepts and principles behind the ESP/TMM project are understood and deemed important to the company's success. However, there is still resistance to the adoption of the project and momentum behind the support of the ESP/TMM project appears to be stalling. The recommendations by the authors include reinforcing communication, recognition, and demonstration of appropriate technical behaviors at every level within the organization. Ford should also utilize the technical depth within the company (in the form of senior engineers and technical specialists) upfront in the development in new programs and as consultants at key technical milestones to maximize their effectiveness and teaching opportunities. There are also several recommendations around the Individual Technical Development Plan in order to encourage its adoption and ensure its usefulness to the technical development of the engineers. Finally, a vision of a fully functioning, highly technical organization is described to show how this organization can quickly adapt to future challenges that the company may face. / by Candy S. Chatawanich and Timothy A. Rush. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, February 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 104-106). / The objective of this thesis is to lay the foundation for developing effective strategies for coordinated use of computational simulation and experiments in engineering design. The primary research objectives are to explore the drivers behind the use of simulations and experiments in industry as related to decision making. We analyze how simulation development integrates into the engineering process, and analyze current simulation strategies as they relate to the product development. The intent is to illuminate the issues surrounding the application of simulation and experimentation that will lead to the ability to define a set of corporate strategies that will enable companies to better integrate simulations and experiment into their existing product development process. This thesis suggests a set of Hypothesis related to decision making in engineering, and probes into one of these hypotheses to investigate the confidence level engineers exhibit when required to make a decision based on the presentation method of a simulation. The Hypotheses discussed in this thesis provide a starting point from which to explore dissertations on human-engineering process integration. By better understanding the human in the engineering process, we can better understand the engineering process. / by Aristos Orpheas Dimitriou. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, June 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 97-98). / Where can things go wrong? This deceptively simple question has fascinated mankind since time immemorial. The question in fact forms the basis of risk management. The focus of this thesis is the risk management of supply chains. Any factor that is likely to disrupt the procurement, production, or delivery of a good or a service constitutes a supply chain risk. As several case studies from around the world indicate [4], disruptions to an enterprise's supply chain could be catastrophic to business, human safety, market competitiveness, and even national and international economies. It is therefore imperative that an a priori assessment of the factors that pose a risk to the supply chain be conducted and contingency plans developed at strategic, tactical, and operational levels to monitor and mitigate those risks. This thesis will identify all major risks that are likely to disrupt a supply chain; identify the data needed to continuously monitor each risk; suggest a synthesized framework for managing supply chain risks; propose different models to quantify risks and asses their consequences; and suggest guidelines for model use. Further, it will present a case study based on the models developed and propose a decision support system based on these models and necessary data. This work will help enterprises develop risk management plans at the strategic, tactical and operational levels, along various time horizons, and be able to execute them when supply chain risks are encountered. The target audience for this thesis includes a broad spectrum of supply chain professionals, consultants, supervisors, top executives, risk professionals, managers, software entrepreneurs, academicians, and students. / by Vinay Deshmukh. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design & Management Program, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 110-118). / by Luis C. Rabelo Mendizabal. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2008. / "February 2008." / Includes bibliographical references (p. 89-90). / This paper looks at agile and lean development transitions for organizations that formerly used the waterfall style of development. There has been lots written about the positive aspects of agile software development and the anticipated benefits are widely touted. Through my research I became aware of significant obstacles that organizations can encounter when adopting an agile development method. The obstacles seem to be more applicable to organizations that use the waterfall development method and are compounded when legacy products exist. The intent of this thesis is to identify positive and challenging aspects for organizations that undertake a transition from waterfall development to agile development. / by Collin Murray. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 75-78). / The Lotka-Volterra competition model has been extensively used in the study of technology interaction. It looks at the growth rate of a certain parameter of the interacting technologies through coupled nonlinear differential equations. The interaction is then modeled as a competition with a constant competition coefficient that adversely affects the growth rate. Various studies, however, have suggested that the interaction is not only pure competition and that other interactions are possible. These suggestions have remained mostly conceptual and descriptive - lacking a definite mathematical form of the interaction that can accommodate the suggested variations and the specific implication of those variations. This thesis presents a specific form of the competition coefficient that depends on the cost and benefit of the competition to a particular technology. The cost and benefit functions are patterned after density-dependent (size) interactions in ecology. The resulting competition coefficient is not a constant but varies as the density of the competing technologies changes. Based on the variable coefficient, we extracted steady states and derived conditions of stability to analyze the dynamics of the competition. Results show that the model can provide a richer set of possibilities compared to the constant coefficient. It accommodates different modes of interactions such as symbiosis and predator-prey aside from pure competition in the steady state coexistence between technologies. It allows for shifts from one mode to another during the evolution of the technologies. Lastly, it provides modifications to strategies meant to achieve "winner-take-all" scenario coveted in business. / by Matthew George Escobido. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design & Management Program, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 83-84). / by Dawn R. Paluszny. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design & Management Program, 2003. / Page 99 blank. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 73). / by Maurice Weinberg. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 88-89). / Financial panics and crashes have become an item of familiarity to many nations around the world over more than several centuries. If history has taught us nothing else, it has taught us that we can learn from the past with the aim of improving the future. In 1997 a chain of events was set off in Asia that culminated in financial panic and crisis for many of the East Asian countries. The research in this paper focuses on the economic environment in South Korea in the years immediately preceding the 1997 financial crisis. The financial liberalization policy of interest rate de-regulation is modeled using system dynamics and the resultant economic behavior is explored. The feedback structure of the model is used to explain the asset bubble that formed during the height of the build-up. The national reliance on short-term commercial paper to finance long-term investments is explored and its relationship to the crisis is discussed. System dynamics is used to model the policy decisions that were made and explore different policy decisions and scenarios to provide insight into the resulting economic behavior. / by Jessica A. Kopczynski. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design & Management Program, 2000. / Vita. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 291-299). / An idealized process framework for the front-end of product development was developed. The framework covers the process space from an initial need (or recognition of a need) to the decision for a product/development program launch. The framework focuses on the activities required for the development of requirements needed for a business case decision. The framework was developed through a thorough examination of the literature relating to product development and addresses not only the activities required to traverse the front-end of product development, but also metrics and a process maturity matrix by which an organization's process can be evaluated. Using case studies of the front-end processes of eight commercial organizations and eight military organizations in addition to the US Air Force, the applicability of the framework was tested. All of the organizations demonstrated the existence of the four fundamental activities contained in the framework but a discussion of the existing process enablers revealed various interpretations of required features. The maturity matrix was used to evaluate each of the organizations (commercial and military) relative to an idealized and mature front-end process. The analysis revealed a significant gap between commercial and military process performance. Additionally, the existence and application of the process enablers was significantly correlated with the organization's performance in the four process activities of the front-end framework. The implications of the research indicate that military organizations in general will need to reevaluate the current practices in the front-end and the application of process enablers within their organizations. Further, military organizations should reexamine if the current process structure for system development in the front-end needs significant changes. / by Joseph Robert Wirthlin. / S.M.