Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design & Management Program, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 118-120). / The roles of systems engineering, program and project management, and engineering management are continuously blurred and challenged in complex engineering organizations. The demands made of each of these functions can lead to increasing role confusion in otherwise historically well-defined functions. It is important to understand the reasons for existing practices in defining and utilizing these roles and the functions they perform in today's engineering systems. It is the goal of this thesis to show the motivation for current practices in systems and program management, and to shed light on some of the lessons learned in managing both the technology as well as the encompassing technology programs. We look specifically at existing practices in the aerospace industry as our case-study to understand matrix organizational structures, as well as gain insights from the commercial industry and academic literature on the practices deployed in innovation and new product development and management. keywords: product development, matrix organization, systems engineering, program and project management, engineering management, managing innovation / by Talha Siddiqui. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design & Management Program, 2002. / Leaf 67 blank. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 64-66). / by Mark Jernigan. / 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 (p. 297-298). / by Gregory M. Herweg [and] Karl E. Pilon. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design & Management Program, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 106-107). / by Everado D. Ruiz. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design & Management Program, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 84-85). / by Shyn-Ren Chen. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design & Management Program, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 64). / by Thomson David. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design & Management Program, 2002. / "February 2002." / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 135-139). / Premise of the thesis is that in today's knowledge economy, competitive advantage comes from effective use of corporate knowledge. This thesis compares and contrasts current practices for knowledge sharing in Xerox with an idealized model of best practices for knowledge sharing. The study explores the hypothesis that stage gates in a product development process are important for sharing corporate knowledge across functions and organizations, and that the product development process itself serves as an infrastructure for knowledge sharing. This study involved an analysis of knowledge sharing practices during stage gates reviews and how they evolved over time after stage-gate reviews. To develop an idealized model of best practices for knowledge sharing, experts of knowledge management in academia and industry were interviewed, and an extensive literature review was completed. This served as a backdrop for analysis in the case study at Xerox. The case study at Xerox utilized a personal interview approach complemented by a survey through electronic mail, and assessment was done against the idealized model of best practices for knowledge sharing. Twenty-six senior managers at Xerox were interviewed/surveyed. Strengths of Xerox in knowledge sharing and areas of improvements were identified. Using open ended questions, a holistic view for the scope of Xerox efforts, as well as the depth and quality of the best practices during the product development process was compiled. Using Carlile's knowledge boundary framework and boundary objects, attempt was done to transform engineering knowledge from one domain to another. This framework also served as a basis for suggestions for future improvements in knowledge sharing at Xerox in the areas of improvements identified through the interviews/surveys. Though any single company has not discovered the mantra for knowledge management and sharing; several good practices, which were consistently enablers of perceived success, were identified. The effective enablers towards knowledge sharing were a synergistic gathering of "common sense" items such as morale, trust, common goals, value and criticality of knowledge, diversity, and structure, rewards/recognition, support and knowledge initiatives along multiple fronts. It was discovered, that the product managers perceive that Xerox has considerable success in promoting a knowledge culture and has an effective product development process. It was also found that knowledge boundary framework and boundary objects serve as a good vehicle to explain the difficulty of knowledge sharing across functional and organizational boundaries. Engineering tools such as critical parameter management could benefit by a uniform, standardized approach to bringing together subject matter experts from various domains and creating the environment for creating new knowledge and innovations. Systems processes like the Xerox platform approach, where the systems architecture is composed of common platform elements, and core competencies in the development of reusable components for the platform elements are the basis for the Xerox product development process. Using the knowledge acquired through practical experience and education and taking a holistic view of the product development process as the boundary framework for knowledge transfer, we used the eCPM (Engineering Critical Parameter Management Tool) to translate knowledge from a domain expert in mechanical engineering to a common semantic base for transformation into the domain of software engineering. Specific tacit knowledge on what makes a parameter critical and how it plays a role in mechanical aspects in the design of Xerox devices, such as the system itself, media and motion path, marker path and the control and image path, as well as how to control these designs is to be transformed into the domain of software engineering. It was found that use of the eCPM tool to develop similar meaning of parameters for tuning software resources such as CPU speeds, memory utilization and performance is possible. Attempt to create new knowledge in the domain of software will be proceeding with a larger number of domain experts. Specific new knowledge in establishment of which software parameters to be labeled as critical (versus design parameters allocated and controlled via Input /Output/ Constraint values), which parameters should be system control parameters (those which span over multiple subsystems, and have latitudes within which to be tweaked in various sub-systems), the failure modes and latitudes for the failure modes will be part of future work. This will be part of a knowledge sharing and management framework proposed in the thesis because of the diagnostic analysis done of the current state at Xerox. / by Tulsi D. Ramchandani. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 100-102). / This study investigates the effects trust has on the truthfulness of communications and its effectiveness within a project team. The research focuses specifically on organizational context, the situational forces that exist within this context, and the effects they have on trust within project teams. A review of previous studies of trust as it relates to human and organizational behavior is conducted, a definition of the context and situational forces of large, high tech organizations is provided, and an analysis of the information gathered through surveying various project team members and Project Managers is completed. The results indicate organizational contexts facilitating little trust between project team members and Managers are causing two significant inconsistencies. First, the information project team members claim they are willing to provide versus the information actually being communicated. Second, the information project team members are communicating versus the information Project Managers believe they are receiving. The complications encountered while soliciting project teams exposed a barrier in resolving these contradictions: Project Managers do not acknowledge the existence of such discrepancies let alone value the importance of resolving them. The study concludes by exposing the prevalence of trust issues among project teams as well as providing recommendations for management to successfully increase team trust to improve the functionality of the organizational context to ultimately increase the truthfulness and therefore effectiveness of communication throughout their corporations. Recommendations for future research are provided as well. / by Alyson Scherer. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design & Management Program, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. / by Nathan Everett. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 57-58). / Hospital Emergency Departments across the United States have been experiencing demand in excess of their capacity to treat patients for the last two decades. This research considers a hypothetical case inspired by a hospital in the Greater Boston undergoing an ED expansion to meet existing and projected demand. A traditional infrastructure expansion project approach to plan, design and immediately build for expected demand 10 to 15 years into the future is compared to a flexible design able to meet short term demands and then adapt to future demand realization. It is the overall objective of this research to identify, characterize and quantify the parameters that should be considered in ED expansion projects and provide useful modeling techniques to drive investment decisions that best allow hospital administrators to provide expected level of service to their patient population. / by Luis J. Maseda. / S.M.