Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design & Management Program, 2004. / This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 146-149). / Design of Experiments (DoE) strategies in robust engineering determine which prototypes and how many of each are created and tested. A better strategy is one that delivers a closer-to-optimal performance at a lower experimental cost. Prototype testers who may use statistical DoE, design-build-test, or one-at-a-time methods in a wide variety of industries were sought out and interviewed to examine the strategies used in practice and how they fit into a proposed five-layer process support model. From these interviews, we see that DoE are competently and widely practiced. Some improvements to the state of the practice may include: contracts to specify and reward quality engineering among suppliers to complex product systems and wider use in light of new computing power of system level mathematical models for experimentation on complex systems. This thesis also examines the relative value of strategies in a particular response surface using a software-based comparator. The data is modified to simulate data environments with other levels of repeatability and interactions, and the way that these variables effect the performance of strategies is examined. The concept of an optimal design of experiments strategy is developed by abstracting the characteristics of a generic strategy and letting it develop in a genetic algorithm in that comparator. The framework for the evaluation of DoE strategies is one significant output to come out of this work that may be of use in future research. Further, the particular abstraction chosen for DoE strategies is offered to other researchers as an exemplar of a particular perspective, to help engender dialogue about methods for optimizing prototype testing policy. / by Ion Chalmers Freeman. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 137-139). / Introduction: A great part of the world today is engaged in excruciating conflicts that threaten the afflicted regions locally besides holding global peace to ransom. Most of these conflicts take the form of territorial disputes that are often protracted and sap the energies out of the nation states. Kashmir, Sudan, Israel-Palestine and Sri-Lanka today are embroiled in a bitter dispute embittered by relentless bloodshed and deep-rooted animosity carried forward through generations. The disputed regions in themselves are a mute testimony of the abject neglect of its subjects by the central ruling body (could be a democratic government! a dictator or a monarch) and failure to provide some of the important political goods across the board for a long period of time. When weighed against some of the accepted norms of development indices like the GINI index, GDP, GDP per capita, infant mortality rates, HDI index, TI index, etc one would see that the disputed regions perform quite pathetically across most of the metrics and not without a reason. Nation states exist to provide political goods to people (Ref 1). However, quite unabashedly nation-states continue its tirade against each other over a piece of land pumping huge sums of public assets that could otherwise be diverted towards development efforts depressing benefits in both the disputed territory and on the whole. Territoriality is dogma that invokes strong reactions. As per Zartman (Ref 2) a state's territory is a collective good that is equally shared by the citizens of the state. This means that the territory is indivisible and is available in the same proportion to all the citizens. It is considered to be one of the three basic components--together with people and a government--which endow a state with a sovereign moral personality universally recognized by the law and the community of nations. Till the time the territoriality is perceived as a collective good, there is no room for territorial claims to erupt. They however occur when the "national territory"--or, what the state's authorities suppose to be the "national territory"--is no longer perceived as a common good by a concerned group of citizens and becomes a "need" for this specific group. Territorial claims are about the desacralization of this territorial absoluteness. They represent iconoclastic uprisings from "politically active communal groups" determined to question the absolutely sacred dogma of the state's territorial integrity. Thus fundamentally a territorial dispute is a process of deconstruction and de-institutionalization of the nation state's order and boundaries. The focus of this thesis is to understand the epistemology of a territorial dispute and develop a framework for creating a more effective conflict resolution design. This by no means is aimed at churning out a cook book kind of a recipe to solve all the territorial disputes that afflict the world. On the contrary, this work makes an attempt to trace the path as we move from a dispute system to a resolution system by understanding the underlYing architecture. It is in fact akin to taking a step backwards and revisiting the delicate theme of territorial disputes by dissecting it deeper to peel off the layers that wrap the core problem. We use the principles of systems thinking and system architecture in understanding the intrinsic nature of a territorial dispute by treating it as a system operating in a given environment. The systems thinking paradigm allows us to view the problem in an unbiased and objective manner without getting fixated on a particular solution or a problem area. It attempts to view the conflict holistically and tries to lay threadbare the embedded structural units in the system by decomposing it into its lowest entity. The objectivity that would (in all likelihood) emerge from such an exercise may provide plausible steps to architect a resolution system design template or at least strengthen the intuitive logic of the negotiators and mediators as they grapple with the specter of a territorial dispute. In taking this view on the issue, it is indeed quite well understood that architecture of systems that are laced with social and political processes is tedious as they are highly complex and non-linear in their response. The complexity stems from the deep crosscoupling between the social, political and economic processes and the non- linearity arises out of the fact that each input in a particular realm does not necessarily elicit a proportional response. There are strong causal feedback loops that make the system response counter-intuitive too. It is beyond doubt, a sizeable challenge for a resolution system architect to pick up the gauntlet and create a simple yet creative architecture that would form the vertebral column for the design of a robust resolution system. To be able to do so one needs to clearly understand the rudiments of Systems Architecture and International Relations so as to weave a concept together. / by Rajeev Sharma. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 116-120). / The growing use of electronics in automobiles designs and their dependency on it, has increased the level of complexity of the car-system and created new challenges. But at the same time, it has created new opportunities and the potential to reduce complexity through modularization. This represents a new architectural paradigm for OEMs and suppliers. This thesis suggests an approach to this new era of automobiles designs. It looks at the effect of modularization and the advent of electronics on the supply chain in other industries. It evaluates the risks of value migration in the automotive industry and studies the mechanisms of such migrations through several interviews, financial data research, systems functional decomposition and system dynamics analysis. Electronics, along with software and control algorithms, enable an encapsulation of functionalities by creating higher levels of abstraction. While early vehicles had an all-mechanical interface between operator and actuation, electronics has allowed the separation of the processing of signals coming from the operator, the control/functionality infusion, the transfer of information and the transfer of energy. Thus, what was once integral has now the potential to be modular. / (cont.) Such a separation increases the modularizability of the automobile's architecture and gives it an opportunity to get closer to a lower bound "essential complexity" floor. While integrality helps prevent knowledge from fleeing away, it limits the ability to profit from various design options. When outsourcing for a modular architecture, those exclusive functionalities that actually bring value ought to be retained in-house. In particular, outsourcing software is usually not a desirable option. Software modules are likely to remain intrinsically integral for a long time to come. OEMs should thus look at expanding their software expertise in order to eliminate any dependency to an outside source for software, because it is likely a dependency on knowledge. Suppliers, who have already taken on a greater system integration responsibility, should look outside the traditional mechanical systems box. Automotive systems today involve electric, electronics and software engineering. To gain the necessary expertise in those domains, suppliers may have to perform strategic mergers & acquisitions. The role of system engineering is what OEMs ought to focus on if they want to avoid seeing value migrate to their suppliers. The emergence of value is the fruit of architecting. / (cont.) New open standards should be regarded as opportunities to become more aggressive systems architects. Open standards also allow to reduce cost, in particular by creating economies of scale and scope. However, reducing cost without creating value is the beginning of a downward spiral. Modularization and standardization have created a dynamic reaction in the industry whereby the nature of the boundaries between firms is changing and value is created and redistributed. In order to capture that value, a player has to focus on the design process, the architecting of products, rather than on the products themselves. The role of system architect in the automotive industry has evolved and now requires expertise in the field of software development, testing and integration. / Christophe L. Gaillard. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design & Management Program, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 85-86). / by Masatomi Inagaki. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2008. / This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 145-157). / Unified Communications: Convergence of Platforms and Strategies of Two Software Vendors by Muhammad Zia Hydari ABSTRACT Unified communication (UC) is the convergence of various modes of communication - voice telephony, email, instant messaging (IM), video conferencing and so on - used by enterprise workers. Academic literature exists that discusses digital convergence in various domains. Although UC has received considerable attention in the business press, we are not aware of any academic study within the domain of UC that explains the convergence of platforms and its links to the technology strategy of UC firms. This thesis presents an academic analysis of some platforms underlying UC and the emerging strategies of two software firms within the UC market. The theory of network effects originally developed by Rohlfs is central to the analysis in this thesis. The analysis of platform strategies of the UC firms is informed by the theoretical work on platform leadership (Gawer & Cusumano), convergence (Greenstein et al.), platform envelopment (Eisenmann et al.), and two-sided platforms (Tirole et al.). The thesis first describes four platform applications underlying UC viz. voice telephony, email, IM, and video communication. The analysis of email, IM and video communication in this thesis is unique as it takes a long term view to explain the current market situation within these domains. In particular, the thesis describes technological factors, network effects, standard battles, and competition that have led to the current market state. The thesis also links insights from these platforms to repercussions for UC supplier firms. The thesis then describes the strategies of two software vendors - Microsoft and IBM - using elements from Gawer & Cusumano's work on platform leadership. / (cont.) Microsoft has defined a broad scope of innovation for its converged UC platform requiring it to enter the voice telephony market. The thesis posits that Microsoft's strategy for success is platform envelopment i.e. Microsoft is using shared components and installed user base from its email and IM platforms to create a multi-platform bundle and compete with entrenched platforms in the voice market. The thesis argues that IBM's choice for a narrower platform scope stems from its inferior market position in the email and IM markets as well as scope differences (vis-a-vis Microsoft). Convergence has created system integration opportunities that IBM's services unit has targeted. The thesis describes the implications of IBM's decisions on its ecosystem. / by Muhammad Zia Hydari. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design & Management Program, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 103-104). / by E. Dan Douglas. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2006. / Page 141 blank. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 84-87). / There exists a broad body of literature documenting organizational responses to competitive threats, including those responses which fit into the threat-rigidity hypothesis. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how a novel organizational form, the open-source software development community known as the Apache Software Foundation, responds to a specific type of threat: security issues reported to exist in its software products. An analysis of publicly available data from the Apache Software Foundation is conducted, the security issue handling process is described in detail, and an analysis on security issue origin, severity, and resolution is provided. Special attention is given to communication along the issue resolution process, as the threat-rigidity hypothesis predicts a reduction in the flow of information across the organization. / (cont.) The results show that this organization defies some central predictions of the hypothesis: there is little reduction in information flow, little or no centralization in decision-making, and no loss of group-level focus. The research results are framed within the literature of user-led innovation and organizational behavior. The implications for traditional software development organizations are discussed, and recommendations for further research are provided. / by Yoav Shapira. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design & Management Program, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 94-95). / The move toward Customer-Driven Product Development is changing the way companies operate their business and is re-defining future products. For example, phrases such as: Connecting with Customers, Customer First, Customer Focused Strategy and Customer Focused are all strategies being adopted by Ford Motor Company to help their products meet the needs of customers. The focus on customers has become a top priority within the organization through top down and bottom up implementation. Product requirements developed from the voice of the customer can provide valuable insight into the critical customer needs for a product. The ability to obtain, understand, analyze and incorporate those customer requirements into the product development system is critical to the success of a product. The challenge is developing a framework for gaining customer-voice data, analyzing that data, developing product requirements and linking those requirements to the product development system while meeting the objectives set forth for the product. The process requires an understanding of the product, engineering knowledge to develop and analyze product requirements and a familiarization of the product development process within a company. The product requirements developed from this study provided insight into the critical areas of the Mustang with customers. The effect of product requirements from the voice of the customer is moving organizations toward customer-driven product development and is changing the way business is done. This thesis provides a method to gain the voice of the customer, utilizes a framework for development and analysis of product requirements and links those requirements to the product development process. / by Ronald J. Mastronardi. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 93-95). / This thesis lays the necessary groundwork for measuring the complexity of systems architecture models. We propose a set of complexity measures, which are usable with models defined using the Object-Process Model (OPM). In order to do this, we introduce a new concept of interface complexity multiplier for compensating the hidden information at interfaces. We also define a set of complexity metrics for system architecture models. We also develop models for three different systems for mobile entertainment. The purpose of these models is to show how OPM is suitable for modeling such systems and also to provide some comparative material for complexity measurements. We use the new metrics to determine the complexity of the models of mobile entertainment systems. The thesis also contains a rigorous definition of complexity and a survey of existing complexity measurement methods. / by Matti J. Kinnunen. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 75). / by Varun Parmar. / S.M.