Thesis (M. Eng. in Logistics)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2007. / "June 2007." / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 65-69). / Understanding business needs arising out of both, external and internal environments, is an essential first step in determining the value of logistics in a large pharmaceutical firm. In this research, we have used a variety of conceptual models and frameworks to explore and understand the pharmaceutical business environment and its present & future business needs. Specifically, two questions anchored the research: What will be the impact of drug technologies on logistics activities? And, should logistics activities be outsourced? Drug technology contributes significantly to a pharmaceutical firm's revenue, but marketing also play an important role in a drug's success by influencing doctors' decisions in favor of the firm's drugs. Since it is difficult to ascertain the true value of a pharmaceutical drug, perception of service plays a critical role in conveying the positive attributes of the drugs to the potential consumers. In this context, this thesis investigates if logistics & supply chain strategy should be aligned with marketing and drug technology strategies to maximize pharmaceutical firm's competitive advantage. / (cont.) To this end, we investigated the impact of dominant drug technologies on the logistics function in the pharmaceutical industry as technology drives revenue growth in the industry. It was found that business & competitive needs lead firms to develop new drugs using different types of innovative drug technologies. Indeed, the requirements of different drug technologies are different and impact business decisions related to procurement, inventory, transportation, and facility network design in different ways. Therefore, by ignoring the impact of chosen technology on supply chain design, a firm will find itself in a difficult position. Thus, we strongly believe that supply chains play an important role in extracting the maximum value out of its huge investment in drug development and marketing. Therefore, outsourcing of logistics activities should be done only after analyzing how different drug technology categories will affect operational metric requirements of logistics activities and if logistics activities can protect the economic profits. / by Prasoon Tiwari. / M.Eng.in Logistics

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2013. / This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. / Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 152-164). / This thesis considers behavior change strategies to increase CT residential energy efficiency uptake in the context of an action research pilot. Action research includes experimental pilot deployment within a realworld system, continuously analyzing customers participating in their daily lives. The approach allows for simultaneous planning, execution, and evaluation, as well as concurrent development of major program changes, real-time solutions, and innovative responses. The Connecticut Neighbor to Neighbor Energy Challenge (N2N), in which my research was conducted, was designed to determine the minimum conditions necessary to administer cost-effective community and behavior-based energy efficiency programs. Customers in 14 small towns complete energy savings actions, such as efficient lighting, weatherization, and upgrades, like insulation, appliance upgrades, advanced air sealing, and renewable energy installations. N2N meets customers where they are already going (e.g., in the field) by partnering with local community groups, town governments, low income and senior organizations, faith communities, education facilities, and business organizations, and using social and earned media channels. I describe the N2N opportunity; program design, execution, and evaluation; primary behavioral research, especially the DOE Home Energy Score behavioral economics experiment; and the post-grant transition process. Four main pilot implementation components were used, including: lead generation using behavioral marketing, research, and outreach approaches; a technology platform closely tracking the customer; a continuous process of evaluation; and frequently published results dashboards. The research discovered gaps in program performance that will hinder meeting CT's long-term energy, efficiency, and carbon reduction goals. N2N is also finding evidence of increasing rates of upgrade uptake, where word of mouth and self-herding (e.g., where people follow past behavior) leads to action for others, as well as additional actions in individual households, respectively. The research finds two main recommendations for CT energy efficiency programs: 1) Continue to fund fast-paced, testing grounds for efficiency programs outside of current regulatory constraints to: inform program design and policy decisions, as well as direct market innovation, and 2) Use social and behavioral approaches to encourage viral spreading of efficiency uptake. / by Kat A. Donnelly. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2009. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [301]-314). / Today, the design of business enterprises is much more art than science. The complex structure and behavior of enterprises makes it difficult to untangle cause and effect amidst its components and their relationships. In order for managers to understand how an enterprise's architecture affects its behavior, they need tools and techniques to help them to manage the complexity of the enterprise. The practice of enterprise architecting continues to make advances in this area with reference frameworks that can be used to guide the decomposition and communication of enterprise architectures, but it does not provide tools to analyze the potential behavior of a proposed enterprise architecture. This research seeks to extend the practice of enterprise architecting by developing an approach for creating simulation models of enterprise architectures that can be used for analyzing the architectural factors affecting enterprise behavior and performance. This approach matches the content of each of the "views" of an enterprise architecture framework with a suitable simulation methodology such as discrete event modeling, agent based modeling, or system dynamics, and then integrates these individual simulations into a single hybrid simulation model. The resulting model is a powerful analysis tool that can be used for "what-if" behavioral analysis of enterprise architectures. This approach was applied to create a hybrid simulation model of the enterprise architecture of a real-world, large-scale aerospace enterprise. / (cont.) Simulation model analysis revealed potential misalignments between the current enterprise architecture and the established strategy of the enterprise. The simulation model was used to analyze enterprise behavior and suggest relatively minor changes to the enterprise architecture that could produce up to a 20% improvement in enterprise profitability without increasing resources to the enterprise. / by Christopher Garrett Glazner. / Ph.D.

Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2015. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 121-124). / Solar panels are not installed on an off-grid farm to save on home energy bills. Those systems are installed to enable communities to do activities that they could not do before. This thesis studies the application of design for value to distributed solar energy systems by considering how the energy system will enable new income generating activities. The work here couples business and energy models to optimize with value as an objective function. The interaction between energy production and value creation is complex, so multi-objective optimization is used as a tool to explore the design space and analyze the feasibility of such projects. This methodology is practiced in two case studies. One case study considers the design of a solar irrigation pump that is specifically designed for marginal-holding farmers in east India. The other case study analyzes the feasibility of small-scale concentrated solar powered (p-CSP) food processing with an organic Rankine cycle (ORC). In both cases, preliminary economic feasibility is established with the use of analysis by optimization and design for value. It was found that a solar pump could be produced which costs less than 500 USD cap-ex and meets 99% of a marginal-holding farmer's water demand. The solar food processing analysis showed that a system could be produced which costs 29,000 USD with a 15-year NPV of 33,400 USD at a discount rate of 18%. The programmatic tools that are used to explore this design space include genetic algorithms, pattern search, adaptive weighted sums, and Pareto fronts. / by Kevin Patrick Simon. / S.M.

Thesis (M.Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 60-66). / commerce will have to prove its reliability and convenience. Operational excellence and coordination among the supply chain will allow e-vendors to offer services like on-time delivery and simple return processes, vital factors for electronic vendors' success. The purpose of this thesis is to identify the differences across the reverse logistics process. To accomplish this, the return policies and procedures of ninety-three leading companies that sell products on the Internet directly to consumers were carefully studied. Seven different return processes and four main activities included in them were identified and formally described. Each process is designed to satisfy a specific set of needs, thus they differ considerably from each other. Since logistics is a major part of the cost structure of operating a virtual store (e-tailer) every aspect of it has to be carefully studied and efficiently performed. The author has selected this sole aspect of reverse logistics to focus the research of this thesis and identify and describe the different processes that are currently used by e-vendors. / by Hector Lozano Pruneda. / M.Eng.

Thesis (M.Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 69-70). / Management of reverse logistics is becoming an important research area. Within this body of research, very little work has been done on proactively reducing returns. The current writing on returns management is almost exclusively efficiency focused. In essence, authors attempt to answer the question, how do we react well to errors and unaligned motivation in a system? A more proactive way of thinking of the problem is to ask how can we reduce errors and align motivation in a system so there is nothing to react to. This paper takes a first look at the opportunities of proactively working to reduce returns in a manufacturer distributor relationship. Findings suggest that returns come from both direct and indirect drivers. Direct returns come from linked causal relationships such as damages (DOA), incorrect shipments, and off schedule deliveries. Indirect returns are products returned at the discretion of distributors to minimize several different risks. Several methods of reducing returns are discussed and metrics are proposed. / by Lucas A. Zaientz. / M.Eng.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 96-98). / Air Force sustainment operations are the focus of an intensive internal effort to improve performance and reduce costs. Past improvement initiatives have often failed to produce the intended results, and have caused performance to decline in some cases. Exploratory research was conducted at an Air Logistics Center to study how improvements are executed. Two conclusions are drawn from this research. The first is that changing sustainment operations is a problem of high dynamic and behavioral complexity. The second conclusion is that system models are well suited to coordinating change at the ALC because they provide insight into how a complicated system can be managed and improved. Three key findings support these conclusions. First, there is significant correlation between categories of unavailable F-16 aircraft such that reductions in one category are associated with increases in another. Second, an analysis of change efforts in two parts of the ALC shows that systemic influences, such as the inability to reinvest in improvements, are hindering change initiatives in one part of the ALC. / (cont.) The third finding is that a model of sustainment operations suggests that independent improvement initiatives are outperformed by coordinated efforts driven with an understanding of systemic interactions. Leaders throughout the sustainment community have expressed their desire to understand how sustainment operations function as a system. A hybrid approach to change is offered as a method for understanding and improving sustainment operations. System models are used to quantify and model system interactions; then policies and recommendations are drawn from the models. Recommendations may include process-level improvements utilizing change methods already in use at the ALC. / by Justin M. Hemann. / S.M.

Thesis (M. Eng. in Logistics)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 85). / The selection of a transportation alternative to ship perishable goods is dependent on several interconnected factors, the most important usually being speed of delivery. This study focuses on the distribution operation of Tyco Healthcare's (THC's) nuclear medicine group in the continental United States. It studies the system constraints, service requirements and costs involved in shipping highly perishable radiopharmaceuticals. The first stage of the study describes aspects of THC's radiopharmaceutical supply chain from order taking at the manufacturing plant to distribution of the prepared doses at the radiopharmacies. The second stage establishes the unit costs of shipping products to three sample regions via the four transportation alternatives currently used: ground courier, FedEx Express, commercial airline and chartered aircraft. The third and final stage of the study analyzes three hypothetical distribution scenarios. Its purpose was to challenge the restrictions and determine the opportunity cost of distributing the nuclear medicine under the current operating policies. Based on the results of all three stages, a set of cost savings recommendations is provided. / by P. Louis Bourassa. / M.Eng.in Logistics

Thesis (M. Eng. in Logistics)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 60-61). / In the consumer products industry, retail chains and manufacturers run promotions to maintain consumer and brand loyalty. The two major issues in planning and executing promotions are to accurately forecast demand and to control Out-of-Stock at the shelf. This thesis addresses both these issues. At the strategic level, "Collaborative, Planning, Forecasting and Replenishment" is used to define a process for two companies to collaboratively plan and execute promotions. At an operational level, the single period multi-item newsboy concept with a budget constraint is used to define an optimization model that helps determine the right budget and order quantities for products under a promotion at a targeted service level to improve profit or sales. The concept of Supply Contracts is researched to identify some ways that can be used to optimize the whole supply chain rather than just the retailer's. The value of optimal collaboration was confirmed in the results shown by the model. When optimizing the entire chain, the maximize profit optimization model achieved combined profit improvements of 37% as compared to an actual promotion. / (cont.) When only the retailer profit was maximized, the optimization model resulted in 5.9% profit improvements for the retailer and 0.3% profit improvements for the supplier as compared to an actual promotion. Finally, the revenue maximization model showed that after a certain point, increasing the budget did not result in increased service levels. This research can also be applied to new product launches, seasonality of products as well as daily replenishments. / by Gautam Kapur and Bin Liu. / M.Eng.in Logistics

Thesis (M. Eng. in Logistics)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 73-76). / This thesis addresses Company X's concerns about its product shipment options. The company ships over 70% of its products to its customers using the primary service provider that ensures that the product is at the customer site by 10:30 AM next day. As per the understanding with its customers, the company, absorbs the cost of premium shipping and does not pass it on to most of its customers. The company believes that this priority service is a source of competitive advantage that helps it get customer loyalty and thereby increases sales. However it is not a normal industry practice to provide this service free to the customers. Keeping in mind this enormous cost burden, Company X wants to minimize this cost. Medical device sales are non-seasonal and do not show promotional effects. We analyzed data for the months of June and October, 2006 as a part of our research. The objective of our data analysis was to validate the proposed approaches we reviewed as a basis for proposing ways to segment customers for improving service while reducing cost. We proposed three types of segmentation: by region, by order method and by division. Segmentation by region looks at dividing the customers by into 4 regions based on their location. / (cont.) Segmentation by ordering method splits the customers in terms of whether they order using phone, fax or EDI while segmentation by division breaks up the customer base in terms of the various divisions the company has. Our study revealed that the company can expect to save over 3 million dollars annually by not offering this service free of charge to its customers. If customers are not convinced that the lower level of service meets their needs, they may pay for use of premium shipping. We demonstrate that the lower level of service will likely be just as effective and hence the company can guarantee that the product would reach the customer on time. Given the criticality of the parts that the company ships, it is advised to take its customers into confidence before making major policy changes. / by Probal Basu [and] Eun Kyun Kim. / M.Eng.in Logistics