Thesis (M. Eng. in Logistics)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 61-62). / Cost evaluations do not always include the costs associated with risks when organizations make strategic sourcing decisions. This research was conducted to establish and quantify the impact of risks and risk-related costs on sourcing decisions for the automotive industry. The focus is on comparing distant, global suppliers entailing long supply chains with domestic, US-based suppliers. The risk factors effecting supplier selection were classified into eight categories. A model was developed using Monte Carlo simulation for scenario generation and Value-at-Risk methodology from finance theory for developing the risk-cost relationship. The model was tested using multiple scenarios which were generated by varying the risk profiles of suppliers. The results indicate that there is distinct and quantifiable relationship between supplier-related risk and total costs of sourcing. Furthermore, under high risk conditions, distant, global suppliers with relatively lower contract costs can exceed cost budgets as well as the cost of domestic sourcing. The model developed through this research can be used to compare two or more suppliers and map the total cost variation for suppliers under particular risk scenarios. Thus, the model can be used for strategically selecting low-cost and long-term suppliers. / by Avani Jain. / M.Eng.in Logistics

Thesis (S.M. in Engineering and Management)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2013. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 79-80). / Information Technology has always been considered a major pain point of enterprise organizations, from the perspectives of both cost and management. However, the information technology industry has experienced a dramatic shift in the past decade - factors such as hardware commoditization, open-source software, virtualization, workforce globalization, and agile IT processes have supported the development of new technology and business models. Cloud computing now offers organizations more choices regarding how to run infrastructures, save costs, and delegate liabilities to third-party providers. It has become an integral part of technology and business models, and has forced businesses to adapt to new technology strategies. Accordingly, the demand for cloud computing has forced the development of new market offerings, representing various cloud service and delivery models. These models significantly expand the range of available options, and task organizations with dilemmas over which cloud computing model to employ. This thesis poses analysis of available cloud computing models and potential future cloud computing trends. Comparative analysis includes cloud services delivery (SaaS, PaaS, IaaS) and deployment models (private, public, and hybrid). Cloud computing paradigms are discussed in the context of technical, business, and human factors, analyzing how business and technology strategy could be impacted by the following aspects of cloud computing: --Architecture --Security --Costs --Hardware/software trends (commodity vs. brands, open vs. closed-source) --Organizational/human Factors To provide a systematic approach to the research presented in this paper, cloud taxonomy is introduced to classify and compare the available cloud service offerings. In particular, this thesis focuses on the services of a few major cloud providers. Amazon Web Services (AWS) will be used as a base in many examples because this cloud provider represents approximately 70% of the current public cloud services market. Amazon's AWS has become a cloud services trend-setter, and a reference point for other cloud service providers. The analysis of cloud computing models has shown that public cloud deployment model is likely to stay dominant and keep expanding further. Private and Hybrid deployment models are going to stay for years ahead but their market share is going to continuously drop. In the long-term private and Hybrid cloud models most probably will be used only for specific business cases. IaaS service delivery model is likely to keep losing market share to PaaS and SaaS models because companies realize more value and resource-savings from software and platform services rather than infrastructure. In the near future we can expect significant number of market consolidations with few large players retaining market control at the end. / by Eugene Gorelik. / S.M.in Engineering and Management

Thesis (M.Eng. in Logistics)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2004. / "June 2004." / Includes bibliographical references (p. 53-56). / (cont.) hand inventory. The key of RFID implementation is to broaden the collaboration with retailers. / This thesis discusses the vertical relationship between vendors and retailers in both the barcode and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) enabled environments. Its purpose is to find best practice in demand planning and customer fulfillment for vendors to improve customer service and reduce cost. Interviews were used to collect the information about current processes. A model was built to simulate the customer demand and inventory record accuracy, and this tool was used to analyze the different processes of demand planning and customer fulfillment. The results show that, in order to improve the shelf availability and reduce cost, suppliers may consider (1) using Point of Sale (POS) data as a demand driven signal to facilitate Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) to store level, which eliminates the retailer ordering process, and (2) monitoring the store traffic and backroom inventory by periodically checking the POS data and the information collected at the backroom-in and backroom-out points. Comparing the in-store traffic in different data points can reduce the time of out-of-stock, and reduce the possibility that products are in the backroom but not on the shelf. Retailers might still need their distribution center (DC) to reduce the transportation cost, but the retailer DC should do more cross-docking activities rather than build up inventories for stores. Retailers will receive immediate benefits from this process change. Suppliers, on the other hand, will also enjoy significant reduction in inventory and increased product availability at the store level. Increasing the replenishment frequency, reducing the overall lead-time, and collaborating on promotion plan will all have notable impacts on improving customer service level and reducing on / by Qiang Rose Mei. / M.Eng.in Logistics

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2012. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 42-43). / A vision of distributed energy generation, storage, electric vehicles and a "smart-grid" has been the driving force of a number of regulations and policies to promote a steady evolution of the existing & future infrastructure relating to the generation, transmission, distribution and retailing of electrical energy. Demand Response (DR) is often cited for smoothing this evolution as it has the ability to shave peaks and provide flexibility in load to dynamically adapt to an increasingly variable supply from renewable energy resources. In general, there are regulations and policies which are inadvertently increasing supply volatility (e.g., wind & solar). There are regulations and policies increasing technology adoption to decrease supply volatility (e.g., storage). There are regulations and policies which are inadvertently increasing demand volatility (e.g., electric vehicles). Finally, there are regulations and policies to increase technology adoption to decrease demand volatility (e.g., demand response). While the individual regulations are well-intentioned, from a holistic point-of-view, it is unclear how the combination of these government regulations will influence the electricity industry. The approach to answer this question is the creation of a System Dynamics Model of the Electricity industry highlighting demand response, energy efficiency initiatives, electric vehicles, storage, and variable energy resources and associated regulatory levers. The model was used to analyze the impact of regulations on the medium to long term dynamics of the industry. The result is a hypothesis that there will be a need for extra government incentives to increase the adoption of distributed generation, storage and demand response to align with the forecasted adoption rate of variable energy resources and electric vehicles in order to maintain grid reliability. / by Neil Kamal Gadhok. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M. in Engineering and Management)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2013. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 91-93). / Engineering change management (ECM) is an essential but challenging cross-functional discipline within modern product development firms. ECM is best explained as a discipline because no single process can characterize the complex interactions between stakeholders, processes, information systems, knowledge management practices and cultural factors that enable the control of technical design change. One major challenge to product development projects is gaining actionable a priori insight into the risk of technical design change in order to allocate resources to mitigate specific risks. This thesis employs systems thinking skills to identify and analyze corresponding a priori factors within a product development firm that designs large complex systems. A case study framework provides qualitative ECM analysis from an enterprise perspective with supporting empirical stakeholder interview data. Furthermore, the research design employs more than 7,000 design defects from three large system development programs to experiment with data-mining models for classifying and predicting technical defects. This research reveals some ECM risk factors and corresponding enterprise policies in the context of process, information, and stakeholder interactions. This study also offers both executable and conceptual quantitative defect models that are appropriate for proactive risk mitigation within specific ECM processes. Ultimately, this holistic analysis provides policy recommendations for the selected enterprise, and identifies factors that have general implications for contemporary industry. / by Matthew T. Knight. / S.M.in Engineering and Management

Thesis (M. Eng. in Logistics)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2011. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 65-66). / Pharmaceutical companies have traditionally placed little emphasis on supply chain efficiencies and operations costs. With the changing landscape of expiring intellectual property rights and increased market segmentation, the need for improved supplier relations and inventory management is becoming paramount. This thesis presents a study of a procurement system within a biopharmaceutical company. The many sources of variation in delivery lead times from both suppliers and internal departments coupled with variation in manufacturing demand, has resulted in excess raw-material inventory at the company. By using discrete-events-simulation software to model the system and its inputs, we generate insights that can help the materials management team maximize their efforts to improve the system performance. In this particular case, it was found that reducing supplier lead time variability was far more effective in reducing the need for inventory than reducing average lead times or even internal lead times from the Quality Control department. The pharmaceutical company involved in this study would be best served by focusing its efforts on working with suppliers to increase the consistency of delivery for their raw materials. This increased consistency will allow them to reduce total inventory costs by reducing the variability of the raw-material supplies. / by Jake T. Wheeler. / M.Eng.in Logistics

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2009. / Vita. Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 390-409). / As the complexity and influence of engineering systems in modern society increases, so too does their potential to create counterintuitive and catastrophic accidents. Increasingly, the accidents encountered in these systems are defying the linearized notions of accident causality that-though developed for the simpler engineered systems of the past-are prevalently used for accident prevention today. In this dissertation, an alternative approach to accident prevention based on systems theory-the Systems-Theoretic Accident Model and Processes (STAMP) and STAMP-based hazard analysis (STPA)-is augmented with the notion of using phase space attractors to evaluate how well STAMP safety control structures enforce system safety constraints. Phase space attractors are mathematical results that emerge from the behavior of systems with dynamic structures that draw or constrain these systems to specific regions of their phase space in spite of a range of conditions. Accordingly, the goal in using this notion for the evaluation of safety constraint enforcement is to identify and analyze the attractors produced by a safety control structure to determine if it will adequately "attract" the system to safe states in spite of a range of unforeseeable conditions. Support for this approach to evaluating STAMP safety control structures is provided through the study of a safety control structure in an existing complex, socio-technical system. This case study is focused on a safety control process-referred to as Procedure Rework-used in Space Shuttle Mission Control to update procedures during in-flight operations as they are invalidated by changes in the state of the Space Shuttle and its environment. / (cont.) Simulation models of procedure rework are developed through physical and human factors principles and calibrated with data from five Space Shuttle missions; producing simulation results with deviations from the historical data that are-as characterized by Theil Inequality Statistics-small and primarily due to cycles and noise that are not relevant to the models' purpose. The models are used to analyze the attractor produced by the Procedure Rework Process across varied conditions, including a notional crewed spacecraft mission to a distant celestial body. A detrimental effect in the process is identified-and shown to be potentially far more severe than light delay on a mission to a distant celestial body-and approaches to mitigating the effect are explored. Finally, the analysis conducted is described as a generalizeable process for using phase space attractors to evaluate system safety constraint enforcement in engineering systems. / by Brandon D. Owens. / Ph.D.

Thesis (M. Eng. in Logistics)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 72-74). / As supply chains become more sophisticated, difficulties with their operation can become more complex as well. An organization must ensure the flow of goods and services end- to-end across the supply chain at the promised level and at the anticipated cost. This thesis describes the redesign and centralization of the supply chain operating model of a large industrial company, and suggests a structure capable of mitigating supply chain risk subsequent to the change. The appropriate organizational framework suggested for ensuring an uninterrupted flow of goods and services through the supply chain is the company's internal audit department. A redefinition of the audit department is explored, with the transformation of the audit role suggested to take the form of a process design centered on the Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) model of Plan, Source, Make and Deliver. / by Randy L. Fike. / 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. 69). / Redesigning the distribution networks for the company's various supply chains to lower the cost of delivering products to customers is crucial to company's competitiveness. Redesign includes changing warehouse locations for a specific product to be closer to customers and warehouse consolidation, which requires sharing warehouse space by more than one product type and closing some existing warehouses that are not cost efficient to operate. The objective of this project is to develop a decision tool to help an industrial conglomerate makes decisions related to the redesign its distribution networks. The data collection was done through collaboration with company's representatives. A Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) model was developed as a tool to solve the optimization problem, which involves moving 9 product types from 21 manufacturing plants, through 22 warehouses, and to 26 destination zones,. The results from the model provides a useful information for the company about which warehouses should be retained, which warehouses should be closed, and what would be the new distribution networks, in order to minimize total distribution costs while still satisfy the customers' demand. / by Phol Sridurongkatum. / M.Eng.in Logistics

Thesis (S.M. in Engineering and Management)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2010. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references. / This thesis analyzes the potential for existing natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) power generation to displace coal generation thereby reducing emissions of CO₂ and criteria pollutants regulated under the Clean Air Act. It also examines the potential for unused NGCC capacity to eliminate transmission congestion while simultaneously reducing CO₂ and other criteria pollutant emissions. The average capacity factor of the entire natural gas fleet in year 2008 was 26%. The average capacity factor of NGCC units, a subset of the gas fleet, is 41%. NGCC units, however, are designed to operate at capacity factors as high as 85%. The delta of these two numbers has generated significant policy interest as a means for reducing C02 emissions through some type of environmental dispatch that would favor NGCC over coal generation without the need for additional capital investment. The maximum potential of natural gas power generation to displace inefficient coal generation was determined. This upper limit can provide regulators and policy makers with guideposts for further review. Various operational constraints including transmission limitations were then modeled to determine the extent to which these constraints limit fuel switching opportunities. An analysis was conducted to estimate the effects of fuel switching on transmission congestion. The conclusion of this analysis was that generation from potentially available NGCC capacity located in regions with high load centers can help alleviate the transmission congestion problem with minimal or zero capital investment for building new generation capacity. Next, an hourly dispatch model was developed that incorporates many of the complexities of the power system. This model dispatches generation from various power plants under two scenarios: a carbon unconstrained scenario (base case); and a carbon constrained scenario. Under the carbon constrained scenario, dispatch preference is give to NGCC generation over coal generation. Two regions were modeled: the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which is primarily Texas; and the Florida Reliability Coordinating Council (FRCC), which is primarily Florida. Results from the two cases indicate that, without compromising system reliability: In the ERCOT region, displacing some coal generation with existing and available NGCC generation would lower CO₂ emissions by nearly 22%, SO2 by 70% and NOx by 49%, compared to the base case. * In the FRCC region, displacing some coal generation with existing and available NGCC generation would lower CO₂ emissions by nearly 10%, 502 by 38% and NOx by 25%, compared to the base case. The model results also indicate that for both ERCOT and FRCC, these emissions savings can be achieved with a 10% increase in electricity prices. This translates into a cost of emissions reductions of $20/ton of CO₂ in ERCOT and $40/ton of CO₂ in FRCC. This compares to the cost of emissions reductions from corn ethanol, which is about $750/ton of CO₂, as reported by Congressional Budget Office'. Finally, a comparison was made between the results of the hourly dispatch model and the ReEDS model, a more complex model developed by Department of Energy's (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). / by Anil Rachakonda. / S.M.in Engineering and Management