Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, February 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 116-117). / Background: CEO's and top management teams of large corporations in developed countries acknowledge that globalization is the most critical challenge they face today. They are also keenly aware that it has become during the past decade to identify internationalization strategies and to choose which countries to do business with. Still most companies have stuck to the strategies' they have traditionally deployed, which emphasize standardized approaches to new markets with some local twists. As a result they are struggling to come up with successful strategies. Aerospace as a sector has traditionally been much localized to the developed world. This makes leveraging globalization even a bigger challenge.Correlations can be drawn to the field of systems engineering, where specific processes and tools are employed to understand the stakeholder interactions and hence treat Aerospace and emerging markets as a system. EA, System Dynamics, clock speed and Game theory are some of the tools that can analyze such a system accounting for unskilled intermediaries and less skilled legal and contract enforcing systems. Results: The thesis suggests a framework that can help organizations identify the institutional voids existing in Emerging markets and Aerospace sector as a system. An introduction to Aerospace manufacturing and the emerging markets help understand the advantages and disadvantages. The framework is able to do a thorough qualitative assessment of all the potential aspects of building a new value chain Further, it shows that the framework is flexible enough to accommodate the unique aspects of Aerospace as an industry and Emerging countries as a market.Conclusions: Despite the fact that the thesis does not develop a full fledged system dynamics model and do a complete case study, it is still a beneficial framework. It provides a sound process that could be used to design and implement robust value chains. / (cont.) It will help organizations understand the institutional differences between countries thus being able to choose the best market to enter, the most optimal strategy and make the most out of operating in Emerging markets. It also leverages each of the system tools such that they deliver most value by providing the best suited magnification lens. / by Rishi Grover. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design & Management Program, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 74-75). / William Taylor, III. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 69-70). / The increasing use of digital design tools and broadband information networks is creating an environment that permits the geographic distribution of design engineers. In order to successfully distributed engineering the consequences need to be understood. Through the examination of records of project execution, this thesis investigates whether the decision to geographically distribute engineers has a measurable impact on the pace of engineering development. A task-based Design Structure Matrix (DSM) was developed and showed that the projects studied were developed using a highly integral process. It is hypothesized the unanticipated consequences of distributing engineers geographically will slow the pace of engineering development to such an extent that costs incurred in protracted engineering development outweigh the benefits. / (cont.) Three findings result from of this study. First, the geographic distribution of design engineers proved to have a negative affect on schedule performance causing distributed projects to overrun their schedules by more than twice as much as localized projects. Second, the development process for the systems studied was found to be highly iterative rather than adhering to the anticipated waterfall model espoused by the process documentation. Third, the level of task aggregation used to study this phenomenon affects the ability to identify the impact of distributed engineering. / by David A. Schiller. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 102-103). / According to U.S. government surveys, 12% of Americans used taxi service in the previous month' and spent about $3.7 billion a year for cab fare.2 Taxi service is one of the major modes of public transportation. Despite providing services 24 hours a day, driving relentlessly with an empty taxicab in search of passengers and answering dispatch calls instantaneously, taxi service is ranked the most unsatisfactory mode of transportation by the public. Charging higher fares than other major modes of transportation and averaging 10 to 12 hours work day, taxi drivers have a difficult time to earn a sustainable income.Approximately half of all the taxi mileage is paid mileage; this means a significant portion of a taxi's time and fuel is spent on non-revenue generating activities, i.e. without passengers. Current taxi allocation is inefficient. The number of taxis and the geographical service areas which they serve are heavily regulated in most cities. With limited competition and strict regulations, taxi service suffers with customers having to endure long wait times and inferior services. The current taxi systems in most U.S. cities may be greatly improved from their current state. / (cont.) This thesis investigates the factors of inefficiency in the current taxi system, reviews previous taxi efficiency studies, and suggests possible solutions. After extensive literature reviews and field research, a computer simulation model has been built in the MATLAB environment. This computer model tests various attributes that affect logistic optimizations for taxi services. In particular, the effect of taxi fleet size, the quantity of hotspots, and the concentrations of customers at hotspots are analyzed in detail using the model. The metric of interest includes the customers' wait time, taxi revenue, and costs of operations. Results from the computer simulation experiments, field research, and literature review are analyzed and synthesized. Possible solutions are proposed as part of this thesis. / by Sonny Li. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, February 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 151-158). / This thesis explores the limitations of classic models of supply chain management, and proposes a new view based on the concept of value-driven supply chains, and a method of analysis and design based on the concepts of System Architecture. A new supply chain process reference map proposed by Simchi-Levi and Fine is used to frame the architecture. The model revises and extends the de-facto standard reference model in the industry, SCOR 6.0, to reflect the new scope and concerns. A method of analysis based on the understanding of the strategic intent of the firm, the characteristics of the environment in which the firm will operate, and the capabilities of the firm is proposed. Building on analysis frameworks by Shapiro and Fine, the analysis attempts to align the characteristics of the supply chain with the requirements of the different competitive strategies the firm may pursue, and explores environmental constraints through six lenses-regulation, industry structure, business dynamics, technology dynamics, customer preferences, and capital markets. The process reference map is used to frame the analysis of the capabilities of the firm in three dimensions: the production system, product development process, and the distribution system. A prescriptive framework is developed and applied to two case studies: INDITEX (Zara) and General Motors. / by Fernando Cela Díaz. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design & Management Program, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 92-94). / by William F. Biberstein. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 81-83). / Over the years, scholars studying technology-based innovation have uncovered patterns of success and failure. Many of the lessons learned from these observations can serve as powerful guidelines for leaders of industry as they guide their firms into new markets or help defend against emerging challengers. Most of the studies to date, however, have been based on research in manufactured product industries, while relatively little has been done to understand technology and innovation in service industries. The initial motivation behind this thesis was to interpret established principles of innovation in the context of services-based industries. In proposing this topic, I assumed that certain aspects of product-based principles also describe patterns in service industries. My research revealed that some principles apply to both sectors. Others need to be extended. Still others apply selectively, depending on the nature of the service that is being examined. In the process of synthesizing the lessons learned from my literature review and the case studies I examined, Professor James Utterback pointed me to the convergence of product and services and the role of product platforms in this paradigm. What emerged was the idea of a technology delivery platform and throughout the latter parts of this thesis, I explore different implications of this concept. / by Regan Wong. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design & Management Program, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 80-84). / by Arjun V. Bhutkar. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design & Management Program, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 77-79). / by Timothy D. Root. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design & Management Program, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 74-75). / Software defects (colloquially known as "bugs") have a major impact on the market acceptance and profitability of computer systems. Sun Microsystems markets both hardware and software for a wide variety of customer needs. The integration of hardware and software is a key core capability for Sun. Minimizing the quantity and impact of software defects on this integration during new product development is essential to execution of a timely and high-quality product. To analyze the effect of software defects on the product development cycle for a midrange computer system, I have used a particular computer platform, the Productl server, as a case study. The objective of this work was to use Sun's extensive database of software defects as a source for data-mining in order to draw conclusions about the types of software defects that tend to occur during new product development and early production ramp. I also interviewed key players on the Productl development team for more insight into the causes and impacts of software defects for this platform. Some of the major themes that resulted from this study include: The impact of defects is not necessarily proportional to their quantity. Some types of defects have a much higher cost to fix due to customer impact, time needed to fix, or the wide distribution of the software in which they are embedded. Software Requirements need to be vetted extensively before production of new code. This is especially critical for platform-specific requirements. The confluence of new features, new software structure and new hardware can lead to a greater density of software defects. The higher number of defects associated with the new System Controller code supports this conclusion. Current Limitations of Defect Data Mining: Automated extraction / (cont.) of information is most efficient when it can be applied to numbers and short text strings. However, the evaluation of software defects for root cause cannot be easily summarized in a few words or numbers. Therefore, an intelligent classification methodology for root causes of software defects, to be included in Sun's defect database, would be extremely useful to increase the utility of the database for institutional learning. Software Defect Data Mining seems to be underutilized at Sun. I have barely touched the surface of the information that can be extracted from our "BugDB" defect database. This data resource is rich with history. We should extract and analyze this type of data frequently. / by Lisa A. Curhan. / S.M.