Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 62-63). / Increased computing power has helped virtual engineering become common practice amongst product development firms. However, while capabilities increase, the desire to simulate even larger systems has increased as well. To deal with the complexity and size of these systems, several techniques have been developed to decompose the system into smaller, more tractable subsystems. The drawback of this approach is a substantial decrease in computational efficiency. Therefore the use of simplified models is encouraged and often required to reach convergence.In this thesis, a test model is introduced where different forms of error can be introduced at each level. Error derived from both measurement inaccuracy and modeling inaccuracy is examined coupled with the effect of system constraints as well. A hierarchical decomposition method is selected for its similarity to a typical enterprise organizational structure. In this manner, the results of the examination should be applicable to both system engineering methods and enterprise level problems. The direction of error propagation within the hierarchical decomposition is determined and the effects of robust design considerations and simple system constraints are revealed. / by Jeffrey Lloyd. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 123-127). / Raytheon Canada in Waterloo, Ontario offers a very interesting but challenging research case. As one of the international divisions of Raytheon Corporation, the company has a business model similar to its parent company. The company however is facing new trends in its business environment which have characteristics different than those of its parent company. The main focus of this thesis is to identify the key missing elements in the company's current business model and propose solutions in order to assist the company to adopt the best strategy to successfully operate in this evolving market.The company's interactions with the rest of Raytheon are limited due to the recent tightening of ITAR regulations. Although the company's organization structure is still tightly integrated to the rest of Raytheon, Raytheon US restricts the company's access to the best practice from the rest of the corporation in US. Another interesting observation relates to the company's two major product lines. ATM, Raytheon Canada's legacy product line is being disrupted by the recent arrival of ADS-B technology. This new technology has the potential of providing a major threat to company's sustainability. At the same time Raytheon Canada is introducing HFSWR, which is a disruptive technology, to maritime surveillance market. The company is facing the challenges of commercializing this breakthrough technology to a highly regulated and fragmented market. Raytheon Canada needs to operate in this complex business environment. This makes the company a remarkable research case for analyzing its current business model and ways to improve it through integrating the latest business knowledge from both industry and academia. / (cont) The goal of the thesis is to assist Raytheon Canada to transform its business model by determining the key characteristics of its future business model through detailed assessment of the company's current business model and study of the enterprise future business environment. This is obtained by studying the market research data, the strategic goals of parent company, trends in the technology and product landscape, and the customer behavior. Solutions are proposed for developing a realistic roadmap to transform the current business model of the company to address the future business environment challenges. / by Reza Mokhtari-Dizaji. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design & Management Program, February 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 91-95). / This thesis demonstrates that the use of platform design for medium lift helicopters can provide opportunities for reduced time to market and faster return to service of helicopters through faster design generation and reduced planning requirements. Through historical review of the S70 helicopter and the derivatives oft he basic model this thesis demonstrates that platform design methodologies address and minimize many of the difficulties associated with both the manufacture and post-deployment modification of the basic vehicle. Platform designing is used in a large number of industries with the rotorcraft industry being an exception. Point designs to specific customer requirements have been the historical norm. Given the high non-recurring costs associated with the development and certification of new aircraft systems, there remains a tendency in the rotorcraft industry to prolong the timeframe in which a specific aircraft continues to be manufactured by a particular supplier. Furthermore, after these aircraft are fielded they tend to have useful lives that could exceed thirty years and in many cases long after the circumstances for the original requirement have been removed. Also, the embedded technologies within the aircraft continue to evolve after the aircraft is fielded. Changing requirements and roles sometime require that these newer technologies be incorporated into the aircraft. Due to the high value of these already fielded aircraft there is a tendency of the operators to modify the fielded aircraft to adapt to the new mission and role as opposed to procuring newer a aircraft with the newer technologies already installed. This thesis concludes that through an understanding of the architecture of the air vehicle coupled with an assessment of the likely sections of that architecture that will change the enterprise is better positioned to respond to customer requirements with lower development investment. This thesis provides a review of the architecture of the S70A with particular attention to the instrument panel and allows for demonstration of protocols of platform designing. Various perspectives for assessing the architecture and maintaining the flexibility of the architecture are provided in the platform design context using the S70A helicopter as the central figure with the goal of providing a case study for reference during development of the next medium lift helicopter. / by Christopher Edward Holmes. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 79-81). / This thesis uses systems thinking and system dynamics modeling to explore how open source communities such as OpenSPARC can lead to enhancement of the performance of Sun's multithreaded systems and thereby increase its market share by increasing its share of the CMT ecosystem, and the share that CMT systems have within the overall computer server business ecosystem. This study explores Sun's motivation behind its investment in the OpenSPARC community, and explains how OpenSPARC creates value for Sun. The insight into Sun's value creation and capture strategy gained from this study can be generalized and applied to similar companies who are entering a new market where the ecosystem is not yet fully developed. The companies who benefit most from this study are ones which are strategically positioned to disclose relevant knowledge of a critical component within the ecosystem that enables its development without thereby compromising the full potential for value capture within the market. The key findings of this study include: a) Market adoption of multitcore and multithreaded servers is dependent on the rewriting of software applications with parallelization in order to boost the performance of multicore and multithreaded systems. b) The overhaul of these software applications will take the coordination and involvement of all the major players in the computer industry. c) The specific business structure of Sun allows for open sourcing the components of its systems while still gaining revenue on the sale of the system as a whole. / (cont.) d) Factors attracting open source developers to write software for a particular platform include a developer's belief that his program will be successful in the market. e) The information leakage to competitors from open sourcing Sun's multithreaded processor implementation does not diminish Sun's value capture of the market. f) The benefits that open source communities can have on market adoption of multicore and multithreaded servers, provided that the disclosure of the chip hardware implementation actually improves the technical performance and economics of the application software. This thesis will explore the reasons that Sun believes the open source community can be a catalyst for the wide-spread adoption of multithreaded processors and multithreaded software required simultaneously by all the major players in the computer industry. / by Julie Mitchell. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design & Management Program, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 92). / by John H. Johnson, III. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design & Management Program, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 80). / This thesis applies the design structure matrix (DSM) methodology to streamline the automotive hood subsystem development process, addressing the development phases from upstream product strategies to manufacture and assembly. In this analysis, a two-dimensional index called task volatility is used to describe the level of dependency and probability of rework between two tasks. Task volatility is the product of two independent dependency attributes: task sensitivity and information variability. In addition to these dependency data, the models integrate initial costs and durations as well as those associated with rework. This thesis also discusses the concepts of process flexibility and process reliability, and how these attributes can be used together to optimize the product development process. It proposes that iteration is a tradeoff between these attributes, suggesting that optimal process performance can be achieved with a hybrid (reliable / flexible) process. The analysis begins with a baseline process model that describes the current development process. This model is correlated to the actual process by adjusting rework probabilities until the appropriate process duration is obtained. The baseline process model is progressively streamlined through the use of traditional DSM techniques such as task sorting and partitioning. Finally, the baseline model is restructured in the last phase of this analysis using a strategy that leverages currently available technologies to decrease cycle time and rework cost. The refined models are simulated at each step of the analysis. The simulation results are compared to preceding models in order to arrive at a recommended process. / by Antonino Paolo Zambito. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design & Management Program, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 113-115). / by Bryan K. Smith. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design & Management Program, 2001. / This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 82). / by W. Geoffrey Andrew. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design & Management Program, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. / It is broadly recognized in the aerospace industry, as well as many others, that organizations which effectively execute development projects to meet desired cost, schedule, and performance targets for their customers produce higher levels of customer satisfaction and also a significant source of competitive advantage. Continually meeting the needs of the customer through effective project execution allows a company to become a preferred supplier favored in source selection for follow-on contracts and new development projects necessary for business growth. This research effort examines one aerospace company, which has multiple, diverse development projects on-going at any one time across several business units. The motivation for this thesis is to explore the product/system development capacity of the enterprise by analyzing the historical program performance of major projects, understanding the level of problem projects or fire fighting within the project pipeline, and the perceived causes of poor project performance. In addition, system dynamics models are developed to analyze the dynamics associated with project planning and resource planning strategies for both multi-project and single project scenarios. This analysis provides insight into the potential for project pipeline "tipping" and the effects of various project management and resource planning strategies in an aerospace product/system development context. Such analysis is believed to provide greater insight and opportunity to improve the product/system development performance for the enterprise. / by Allan J. McQuarrie, Jr. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, February 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 95-97). / A strategic alliance has been one of the core methods for expanding the business of many corporations in terms of geographic presence, business domain, and technological scope. The strategic alliance includes many different types of partnerships, including licensing in and out, joint product development, minority equity investments, joint ventures, and mergers and acquisitions. These alliances involve many distinctive participants inside and outside a corporation and for this reason, the alliance-forging process and management tend to be quite complicated for systematic analysis. Therefore in this thesis I employ system architecture frameworks to analyze strategic alliances in a systematic way from a holistic viewpoint. I apply an object process methodology (OPM) to understand interactions among different participants during the process of forging alliances, analyze the upstream and downstream influences, and finally adopt a holistic framework to illustrate detailed interactions during the process. The alliance process basically consists of four distinctive phases: formulation, partner selection, negotiation, and management. Comparing the results with the DuPont case, I realized that the alliance management phase should be augmented for more comprehensive management. Strategic alliances and mergers and acquisitions are discussed in the corporate-level context. They have many driving forces in common at the level of corporate context, but in mergers and acquisitions the economic conditions are more critical components than others during a strategy- formulation phase. / by Gwang Gyu Kim. / S.M.