Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 125-128). / The main purpose of this thesis is to present an approach for analyzing product development organizations in a globalizing world. The fragmentation and distribution of several product development activities in the global market have generated a variety of strategies. In addition, an increasing visibility of the influence of cultural diversity in these strategies and an intensified sensitivity to sustainability issues motivate this research. Retaking the questions of which is the best strategy for product development organizations to succeed and, even further, which is the measure of success for these organizations are also part of the motivation behind the research. The methodology followed for constructing the socio-technical framework presented in this document mainly consisted of gathering, analyzing, and integrating existing literature and frameworks from systems engineering, social, and management studies. Utilizing a macro-framework with three spectra -space, time, and context- the framework allows the decomposition of the product development system into three levels, identifying the key stakeholders and roles within the system. The framework includes four different angles -structural, human resources, political, and symbolic- from which a product development organization can be diagnosed. Also, the knowledge of predictable reflexive human responses is presented as a means for stabilizing an organization. In parallel, the study includes an exploratory approach for finding a robust way of measuring a product development organization. Finally, an intervention strategy is proposed as an outcome of both the research process and the framework presented. An automotive product development organization was selected for testing the applicability of the framework. / by Víctor Takahiro Endo Martínez. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design & Management Program, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 87). / by Charles M. Hura. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 105-110). / The automotive industry has undergone significant changes in recent years with increased competition and the introduction of new manufacturers into the market. With this changing market, a more efficient approach to Noise Vibration and Harshness (NVH) development is needed to foster better decisions and support the compressed product development timing required by the market.To address this, the "Slider Bar" process and meta-model are presented. Based on the failure mode avoidance approach, the process and model allow the engineering teams to uncover and avoid potential tire/wheel and driveline NVH failure modes. Therefore, early in the product development process, development teams can identify control and noise factor limits and system level effects, avoid potential NVH failure modes, and develop appropriate countermeasures.Using insights from innovation diffusion theory, the process and tool were deployed systematically to NVH community, with user insights used to adapt and improve the process and tools. Based on this work, a strategy is introduced for the development and adoption of a failure mode avoidance initiative. / by Paul R. Braunwart. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design & Management Program, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 92-94). / Product development challenges companies to produce designs that meet customer requirements yet, that are within their technological and financial means to do so. The proliferation of customized or unique designs may tax the resources of a firm if product variety cannot be achieved in a cost-effective manner. A product platform strategy allows a set of core elements or subsystems to be shared across all or part of a company's product portfolio, while design flexibility allows differentiated functions to satisfy specific customer needs. A framework for identifying potential platform elements from among key system design variables is provided. This framework supports the hypothesis that system design variables with low normalized coupling and low normalized variation across a set of conceptual product designs should be considered as potential platform elements. A system level approach for identifying the coupling and variation of these elements is facilitated through the formulation and use of a modified quality function deployment (QFD) mapping procedure. Normalized coupling is quantified as the relative importance of relationships between stakeholder needs, system requirements and system design variables, divided by a ranking of the difficulty in their achievement. Normalized variation of system design variables from a sample of parameter data is calculated as the standard deviation divided by the mean. The proposed framework and hypothesis is validated with a case study of the Pratt & Whitney PW4000 family of commercial gas turbine engines where predicted platform elements were consistent with actual design choices. / by Habs M. Moy. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design & Management Program, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 83-85). / This thesis investigates multiple autonomous vehicle mission planning and management. It begins by introducing the basic concepts and objectives of the multivehicle mission-planning problem. Then it formulates the problem mathematically and analyzes parameters in the objective function. The solution approach uses a hierarchical mission-planning scheme to take advantage of a scalable architecture. We develop a heuristic-based algorithm to solve the multiple-vehicle mission-planning problem. The algorithm has two phases: goal-point partitioning and routing. Goal-point partitioning uses a sweep procedure to group goal-points. Routing uses an implementation of simulated annealing combined with well-known TSP heuristics. Through the computational experiments conducted on both traveling salesman problem test cases, the TSPLIB library, and randomly generated test data, the routing algorithm performs quite well. It has been able to find TSP tours within one percent of optimality, and typically within one-half of one percent. The integration of the two-phase approach provides a solution to the multiple autonomous vehicle mission planning problem. / by Wei Zhao. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design & Management Program, February 2004. / Includes bibliographical references. / As microprocessors have become smaller and cheaper, they are embedded in more and more non-computing products, such as washing machines, elevators, MP3 players and printers. It has been estimated that these products consumed 99% of the worldwide production of microprocessors. I In general, "Embedded system" means a computer system sitting inside a product other than a computer to make the product more flexible and controllable. For example, a modem washing machine has a control software system to execute different "washing programs" for different types of clothes. Embedded systems usually have strict requirements on response time, and the response must be generated within a finite and specified period, though depending on the situation, the time could be within a few milliseconds or a few seconds. Because of the special requirement on response time, embedded systems are sometimes called real-time systems. Embedded systems can be divided into two categories: hard and soft, according to the degree of required "timeliness" 2 . A hard embedded system is stringent on that the response must occur within a specified timeline. Typical examples are flight-control systems and missile control systems. A soft embedded system is less strict: response time is important but the system still can function properly given occasionally missed deadline. Examples are mobile phones, printers, and medical devices. This paper is only concerned with development of the soft-embedded systems, and hence the term "embedded systems" in the paper means "soft embedded systems". / by Wei Hu. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design & Management Program, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 71-73). / Product development is a creative and interdisciplinary activity that transforms a market opportunity and technological innovation into successful products. It is a set of activity-based processes in a product-oriented enterprise, and is essential to the economic success of such organization. Determining important processes in the product development and determining their relationships with organizational capability are crucial to the sustainable success in product development. Studying their relationships would give us insights into the product development dynamics. The objectives of this research are to provide a framework to determine the importance of product development processes and their relationship with organizational capabilities, to provide an assessment vehicle that helps organizations assess their capabilities and make improvements, and to improve predictions of project outcomes as the ultimate goal. To fulfill the objectives and to achieve the goal of this research, a step-based approach was adopted: first, Identify important processes in product development, second, identify an organization's capability using important product development processes identified through literature review and survey. Third, study various factors that influence the determination of importance of product development and the capability of product development were studied. Forth, test two hypotheses based on the statistics. The work in this thesis illustrates how various factors such as company size, industry sectors, and professional experience may influence the dynamics of product development process. / by Bing Liu. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 34). / High variability of demand and inflexible capacity are inevitable in a make-to-order production despite its cost savings. A computational method is proposed in this thesis to exploit pricing opportunities in the price elasticity of demand and the up-to-date order transactions. Software development possibility was considered based on such pricing optimization method. Based on experiments conducted using a software prototype, we concluded that using the proposed computational method and software developed following the method with acceptable performance and scalability, pricing optimization was able to increase the revenue of a make-to-order production. / by Zhiyong Wang. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 166-169). / As companies are increasingly relying on information technologies (IT) to help maintain their existing and develop new competitive advantages, investing effectively in IT is becoming more and more important. One of the biggest challenges facing an enterprise IT organization is how to select a project portfolio that is best aligned with the business strategies and to deliver highest value using limited IT resources. In this research paper, I examined in detail a recently proposed IT governance framework, designed a System Dynamics model based on this framework, and developed a simulation application to investigate constructs, relationships and scenarios suggested by the framework. My research identified and examined several levers through which IT managers can achieve better alignment with business goals and more efficient use of IT resources. I examined alternative IT governance regimes (combinations of rules and policies for selecting among opportunities and retaining existing systems) in terms of their effects on efficiency, feature satisfaction, and cost of the resulting legacy asset base. By choosing the right combination of relatively straightforward selection and retention policies, IT managers can steer their legacy assets toward a desired efficiency or satisfaction goal in concert with company strategies. / by Bin Zhou. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, February 2005 [first author]; and, (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, February 2006 [second author]. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 111-113). / Warranty is important financially to American manufacturers, especially automotive companies. Carmakers and suppliers must work aggressively to improve their warranty management approach as warranty cost often equals or exceeds their investment in engineering. This thesis focuses on studying warranty management in a supply chain from a systems perspective. Warranty data in the automotive industry, focused upon a "Tier one" supplier, is analyzed to obtain general warranty trends and typical failure types. Following the data analysis and hypothesis formation, a sequential series of surveys and interviews within the supplier are conducted in attempt to determine the root causes of warranty failures. A major finding of the study is the lack of a cross-company and long-term approach for dealing with warranty. Other root causes (though not as deeply imbedded as that noted first) include the lack of design discipline, design knowledge, and resources in the product development process. In addition, unclear accountability, poor communication, and lack of a supplier management process delay the warranty resolution process. Furthermore, the culture and mindset in an organization is a critical element in effective warranty management. A reactive warranty firefighting mindset is inadequate to attack the significant warranty issues. Based upon solving the root causes found in the research, the thesis provides five specific recommendations. These recommendations appear likely to be useful to a wide variety of automotive companies as well as manufacturers in other industries. / by Wei Shen and Wangquan (Winston) Cheng. / S.M.