Thesis (M. Eng. in Logistics)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2011. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 95-98). / Electric (EV) and Plug-in Hybrid Electric vehicles (PHEV) continue to gain attention and market share, not only as options for consumers but also for corporate fleets. EVs and PHEVs can contribute to lower operating costs through reduced maintenance requirements and enhanced fuel economy. In addition, a fleet of EVs or PHEVs, when parked and aggregated in a sizeable number, can provide regulation services to the grid through the electricity stored in the vehicle's batteries. This opportunity is known as Vehicle-to-grid technology (V2G). This thesis evaluates the economics for V2G-enabled fleets to participate in the regulation services market. In order to build a business case for fleet managers, we constructed a 10-year cash flow model that compares the operating, infrastructure, and capital costs, as well as the revenue opportunities for EVs, PHEVs, and ICEs. To quantify potential revenues, we adapted a tool that the ISO New England has used to simulate the revenues of participants in the regulation market for an alternative energy pilot. We show that ICEs, while having the lowest retail value, actually have the greatest NPV due to their high operating costs and inability to participate in the regulation services market. EVs have the highest retail value, but due to their large battery size are able to provide the most regulation services. The opportunity for V2G is critical for the attractiveness of the EV. PHEVs offer lower V2G revenue opportunity than the EVs but have greater operational flexibility. We determined that V2G revenue potential is driven by the charger capacity and battery size and there are tradeoffs associated with these components. A larger battery and charger will generate more money from regulation services, but their high investment cost may outweigh these benefits. The correct combination of charger capacity, battery size, and state of charge (SOC) is important. If the charger capacity is too large and SOC too high or low, a small battery can be charged or depleted too quickly, hindering its ability to provide regulation services. / by Andrés De los Ríos Vergara and Kristen E. Nordstrom. / M.Eng.in Logistics

Thesis (M. Eng. in Logistics)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2007. / This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 74-76). / This thesis looks at two back-to-back disruptive supply chain events, one due to a sole-supplier's bankruptcy and the other caused by Hurricane Rita, that occurred at a specialty chemical company, and uses these examples to demonstrate how managing crises is more costly than managing risks. In examining the events surrounding the sole-supplier bankruptcy, managing a crisis cost this specialty chemical company 45% more money than managing a risk. Through the findings of these two disruptive events, a framework, the Eye of Providence, is created to manage supply chain risks. First, an organization must determine how developed its risk-management protocol is. Next, by studying past disruptive events and determining the key impact factors, an organization could calculate and learn about the opportunity cost of managing crisis. Then, by continuously evaluating its suppliers and rigorously applying those key impact factors to the analysis of its supply chain practice, an organization could evaluate and identify its current vulnerabilities. / (cont.) Finally, by proactively monitoring event-based warning signals, or disruption indicators, an organization could assess its potential supply chain risks, and plan accordingly. Whether a company is low on the risk-maturity level or has already integrated risk management into its corporate culture, the process developed in this thesis serves as a versatile tool that can help businesses structure a more dynamic, resilient supply chain. / by Garrett J. Lee [and] Zen-Lee M. Chang. / M.Eng.in Logistics

Thesis (M. Eng. in Logistics)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 54-55). / With the globalization of industries since the 1980's, logistics parks have emerged as a solution for the consolidation of operations and logistics services for global companies. In the beginning, logistics parks were limited to enabling companies to centralize their operations using shared warehousing and transportation infrastructures; however, these logistics parks now additionally offer a range of value-added services to enhance the supply chain. Most of these logistics parks were developed in the past decade, and there is little research on these facilities and the value-added services they are providing. The impact of these services on the global supply chain is also not well understood. Managers of logistics parks from around the world were interviewed and surveyed about the general infrastructures at their parks, and about the value-added services they provide for the companies operating at their facilities. Elements of the physical infrastructure and value-added services were grouped and ranked based on their impact on supply chains, and attractiveness to customers. / (cont.) The physical location and infrastructure of these facilities represent the most important factors in selecting logistics parks; however, other value-added services are gradually gaining importance and attractiveness due to increasing customer requirements and supply chain complexities. To cope with this change, logistics parks must carefully select the value-added services that are the most attractive to their customers, and which have the most positive impact on their supply chains. / by Ali El Amrani. / M.Eng.in Logistics

Thesis (M. Eng. in Logistics)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2010. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 143-148). / In retail delivery companies, packaging is used to transport goods to customers while preventing damage, shrinkage and loss of the contents. With consumer preferences reflecting the growing concern for the environment, retail delivery businesses are at the crossroads of implementing a sustainable operational and financial business model of delivering packages to customers. In this thesis, we will address the issue of sustainable packaging in retail delivery companies by evaluating the financial, environmental and operational viability of such strategies. The thesis will be limited to the downstream order fulfillment cycle from the retail delivery company to the customer. We will focus on three areas applicable to sustainable packaging. The first area is materials innovation where we will analyze alternative materials suitable for retail delivery packaging. The second area involves waste elimination through reducing packaging material use and reusing of packaging materials through a returnable tote program. Lastly, we will understand the implementation challenges to increase the success rate of the strategies mentioned earlier. / by Joshua Ng and Kendall Chow. / M.Eng.in Logistics

Thesis (M. Eng. in Logistics)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2006. / Leaf 64 blank. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 60-63). / In recent years, China has become the world factory for a sizable portion of products. Most manufacturing conglomerates in the United States now have contract manufacturing plants in China. Because many of these US companies have implemented a variety of inventory reduction approaches, they are now faced with the expensive transportation of large numbers of low-weight, small- quantity shipments in international inbound transportation, transportation that covers the flows of goods from contract manufacturers (CMs) in China to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in the States. While there has been research on consolidation, little attention has been paid to international inbound freight consolidation, which provides a potential savings opportunity in international transportation by combining several small shipments into one large shipment. This paper examines how manufacturers in the United States can use freight consolidation in their international inbound transportation flow from CMs in China. It then explores a framework for designing inbound consolidation, focusing on how to implement inbound consolidation in the context of China's fast-evolving logistics industry. / by Yi Fang. / M.Eng.in Logistics

Thesis: M. Eng. in Logistics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2015. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 71-72). / This thesis focuses on the study of the carrier-shipper relationships in the US trucking market. It uses data provided by a leading third party logistics (3PL) company to explore and determine whether a relationship exists between the prices charged by the carriers and the performance that they provide to the shippers. The performance metrics defined in the thesis are measured in three dimensions: on time pick-up, on time delivery, and acceptance ratio. The research uses ordinary least square (OLS) regression to study the effect of the performance parameters on the cost per load of a shipment. The research demonstrates that there is a mild relationship between on time delivery performance and price. With increase in on-time delivery performance, the price increases till a threshold is reached, beyond which it stabilizes. We found that a relationship exists between on-time pick-up and delivery. Since carriers who pick up late are able to deliver on time 80% of the times, the research could not find a direct relationship between on-time pick-up and price. The research also found that increased lane loyalty from a shipper to a carrier can lead to lower rates. / by Nane Amiryan and Sharmistha Bhattacharjee. / M. Eng. in Logistics

Thesis (M. Eng. in Logistics)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2012. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 92-96). / Insourcing and vertical integration often allow companies to gain competitive advantage by exercising a greater degree of control over their supply chain. In the case of ABC Oilfield Services, insourcing the transportation of their products to offshore oil rigs at sea - a function currently provided by their customers - will increase asset velocity of their most important tools, and allow them to service more customers with fewer tools. This is an especially important consideration in light of the fact that the offshore drilling market will see double-digit growth in the coming years. This paper examines the effect of such increased asset velocity on Return on Assets (ROA). Using detailed historical data of ABC shipments of their biggest revenue-generating tools, we modeled both the status quo logistics system of ABC, and an alternative system based on sound insourcing assumptions. We then compared the projected ROA of the two scenarios in order to gain insights into the relationship between insourcing and its likely effect on ROA. We attempt to quantify the asset velocity benefits of insourcing, but also show the surprising result that increased asset velocity can have a negative effect on revenue under common pricing schemes. While there may be several other factors which help in ultimately making the decision to insource, the paper provides an important contribution in helping decision makers see the effects of insourcing in the oilfield services industry more clearly, and identifying the conditions under which insourcing will have the biggest benefit to ROA. / by Devjit Ghose and Kevin Murphy. / M.Eng.in Logistics

Thesis (M. Eng. in Logistics)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 96-99). / Humanitarian logistic organizations struggle to make strategic and tactical decisions due to their lack of resources, the unpredictability of humanitarian events and the lack of readily available information; the existing tools that assist optimal decision making require large amounts of precise information. As a consequence of all these challenges, most of the work in humanitarian logistics concentrates on the operational level that can only offer short term benefits. Alternatively, optimal strategic decisions maximize the resources of humanitarian organizations making them more flexible and effective in the long term; this directly impacts the ability to help the millions of people in need. This thesis presents a model that assists the largest humanitarian organization in the world, The World Food Programme, to make optimal strategic decisions. The model uses the Analytic Hierarchy Process, a multiple attribute decision tool that provides structure to decisions where there is limited availability of quantitative information. This methodology uses a framework that determines and prioritizes multiple criteria by using qualitative data and it scores each alternative based on these criteria. The optimal alternative will be the one that has the highest weighted score. This model solves the challenges that The World Food Programme, as any other humanitarian organization face when making complex strategic decisions. The model, not only works with easily acquired information but, it is also flexible in order to consider the ever-changing dynamics in the humanitarian field. / (cont.) The application of this model focuses on the optimization of warehouse locations for the World Food Programme in the Somali region of Ethiopia. However, this model can easily be scaled in order to be used in any other decision making process in the humanitarian field. / by Gina Malaver [and] Colin Regnier. / M.Eng.in Logistics

Thesis (M. Eng. in Logistics)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2007. / 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. 61). / Although supply chain disruptions are inevitable, frameworks have been developed for addressing supply chain risks. These frameworks present methods on mitigating, reducing or managing the risks through different approaches such as multiple sourcing. The research presented here identified two factors that contribute to successful recovery from supply chain disruptions. One factor is efficient communication between stakeholders in a supply chain. The communication needs to be present before a disruption occurs to enable fast detection. After a disruption occurs efficient communications will help minimize confusion and provide clear understanding of the recovery effort between stakeholders. The other factor is the inventory position downstream of the disruption. In particular, the available days of supply downstream from the disruption relative to the length of the disruption are crucial to the ability of a supply chain to recover from the disruption without disturbing the continuity of supply. In response to the effect of the days of supply compared to the recovery time a simple model is developed for assessing supply chain risk for an enterprise that sells products defined through a bill-of-materials. / (cont.) The model takes into consideration the complexity of a product as more parts and more levels are added to the bill of material. The supply chain risk score metric permits comparison across products, companies and industries. The model is simple to apply by analyzing each part in bill-of-materials by a ranking system comparing the recovery time to the days of supply downstream from the disruption. The supply chain risk score is to be used in parallel with other supply chain metrics in order to determine the best approach in reducing risks to an enterprise. / by Theodore Doucakis. / M.Eng.in Logistics

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2009. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 235-249). / Survivability is the ability of a system to minimize the impact of a finite-duration disturbance on value delivery (i.e., stakeholder benefit at cost), achieved through (1) the reduction of the likelihood or magnitude of a disturbance, (2) the satisfaction of a minimally acceptable level of value delivery during and after a disturbance, and/or (3) a timely recovery. Traditionally specified as a requirement in military systems, survivability is an increasingly important consideration for all engineering systems given the proliferation of natural and artificial threats. Although survivability is an emergent system property that arises from interactions between a system and its environment, conventional approaches to survivability engineering are reductionist in nature. Furthermore, current methods neither accommodate dynamic threat environments nor facilitate stakeholder communication for conducting trade-offs among system lifecycle cost, mission utility, and operational survivability. Multi-Attribute Tradespace Exploration (MATE) for Survivability is introduced as a system analysis methodology to improve the generation and evaluation of survivable alternatives during conceptual design. MATE for Survivability applies decision theory to the parametric modeling of thousands of design alternatives across representative distributions of disturbance environments. To improve the generation of survivable alternatives, seventeen empirically-validated survivability design principles are introduced. The general set of design principles allows the consideration of structural and behavioral strategies for mitigating the impact of disturbances over the lifecycle of a given encounter. / (cont.) To improve the evaluation of survivability, value-based metrics are introduced for the assessment of survivability as a dynamic, continuous, and path-dependent system property. Two of these metrics, time-weighted average utility loss and threshold availability, are used to evaluate survivability based on the relationship between stochastic utility trajectories of system state and stakeholder expectations across nominal and perturbed environments. Finally, the survivability "tear(drop)" tradespace is introduced to enable the identification of inherently survivable architectures that efficiently balance performance metrics of cost, utility, and survivability. The internal validity and prescriptive value of the design principles, metrics, and tradespaces comprising MATE for Survivability are established through applications to the designs of an orbital transfer vehicle and a satellite radar system. / by Matthew G. Richards. / Ph.D.