Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, 2015. In conjunction with the Leaders for Global Operations Program at MIT. / Thesis: M.B.A., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 2015. In conjunction with the Leaders for Global Operations Program at MIT. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 67-70). / Research and development of biologic drugs is a time- and resource-intensive process that can span several years and billions of dollars. Any improvements in the efficiency and end-to-end cycle time of this process provide value to producers in the form of reducing at-risk investment in new drug programs and improving speed to market. Cell Line Development (CLD), a major portion of the research and development lifecycle, is responsible for creating the parent cell for these new drug programs. The biotechnology industry has made great gains in CLD technologies and procedures, though many fields continue to advance and can further contribute to improved operational efficiency. This thesis proposes a methodology for evaluating CLD systems, characterizing alternative processes and technologies, and determining the ideal investments that can maximize system efficiency and processing speed. Approaches that are currently available in the industry are reviewed and used as model inputs to determine realistic short-term gains. Furthermore, nascent technologies that may reach industrial applicability are considered for an additional potential system design. Pfizer's CLD system is used as a case study, in which it is shown that total system utilization and cycle time can be improved by 29.6% and 8.8%, respectively, through the use of currently available technologies and procedures. The costs and risks of the new approaches are reviewed and found to be significantly low when compared with these gains. As technologies continue to develop in the future, they may further improve CLD system performance. However, the majority of gains are achieved by applying currently available approaches. / by Ryan Shofnos. / S.M. / M.B.A.

Thesis: M.B.A., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 2016. In conjunction with the Leaders for Global Operations Program at MIT. / Thesis: S.M. in Engineering Systems, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, 2016. In conjunction with the Leaders for Global Operations Program at MIT. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 84-86). / Baked-in siliconization of glass cylinders, primary insulin containers, is a manufacturing process that is critical to the performance of drug delivery devices. Delivery devices are evolving and placing additional burden on production processes. Variability in siliconization and baking processes affects the resulting friction characteristics that are related to device performance criteria such as injection time and velocity, which are critical to the patient experience. The principal objective is to better characterize the performance of siliconized and baked glass, enabling improvement of device injection performance. A controlled study was conducted in order to strip away extraneous variables and enhance experimental control. State-of-the-art nanoscale measurement techniques and tribological (friction) equipment were employed to test the physical characteristics of silicone-coated glass. Data collected was statistically analyzed to determine relative significance of primary factors as well as variable interactions, with respect to friction of the rubber versus coated glass system. Lack of silicone or "dry spots" were found to be a key concern for siliconized glass. Siliconization amount was empirically modeled and found to have an exponential relationship with the coefficient of friction. High velocities exacerbated issues arising from lack of silicone. Based on the test results, a clearer definition of proper baked-in glass siliconization has emerged. Recommendations included minimum siliconization amount and an awareness of significant variable effects and interactions on system friction. Groundwork has been laid for further work including process optimization in the pursuit of improving insulin delivery device injection performance. The opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Sanofi. / by Jeffrey D. Schacherl. / M.B.A. / S.M. in Engineering Systems

Thesis: M.B.A., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 2016. In conjunction with the Leaders for Global Operations Program at MIT. / Thesis: S.M. in Engineering Systems, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, 2016. In conjunction with the Leaders for Global Operations Program at MIT. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 97-99). / This thesis presents an optimization framework to model the trade-offs in strategic supply chain decision-making for a new product introduction in a real-world setting. The focus of the thesis is on a consumer medical device that Johnson & Johnson's Calibra business will launch in the future. As with any new product introduction, the launch exposes the J&J business to risk and uncertainty. We develop a mixed-integer optimization model to guide the optimal design of a global consumer medical device supply chain network comprising component suppliers, assembly facilities, sterilizers, and distribution centers. The model evaluates strategic decisions over a seven-year time horizon related to the location and capacities of various supply chain facilities and partners, transportation costs, and strategic inventory required to satisfy global demand. We developed a stochastic optimization extension of the model to protect the supply chain decision maker from demand uncertainty. Comparison of the output of the model assuming deterministic demand to a managerial heuristic resulted in total supply chain network cost reductions of 19% - 27%, amounting to hundreds of millions in present-value dollars. The stochastic optimization solution reduces infeasibility related to either not meeting the demand or transportation lead time constraints. The two models presented in this thesis enable J&J supply chain decision makers to gauge the additional costs and benefits of different network design concepts, develop a network strategy that can adapt to uncertain demand, and create a strong strategic foundation for future tactical and operational decisions. / by Samer Haidar. / M.B.A. / S.M. in Engineering Systems

Thesis: M.B.A., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 2016. In conjunction with the Leaders for Global Operations Program at MIT. / Thesis: S.M. in Engineering Systems, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Biological Engineering, 2016. In conjunction with the Leaders for Global Operations Program at MIT. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 71-75). / Building biological understanding of the Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) system used to manufacture therapeutic proteins is paramount to efficient CHO bioprocess optimization. This understanding can be built by analyzing and synthesizing biological data; such as transcriptomic (gene expression), proteomic (protein levels), or metabolomic (metabolite levels). This thesis describes a streamlined workflow for analyzing transcriptomic data. This streamlined workflow not only reduced the barrier to conducting the analysis but also reduced the analysis cycle time. With the use of this workflow, a number of historical Amgen microarray datasets were mined to identify gene expression signatures indicative of productivity. The result of this mining identified key biological pathways specific to a highly productive Amgen cell line. This work suggests that these pathways are critical to heightened levels of protein production. Using this information to engineer future cell lines could enable Amgen to improve cellular protein production by over 30%, impacting costs associated with drug substance manufacturing. More broadly, this example of streamlining and standardizing transcriptomic data provides a framework for how Amgen Process Development can leverage biological data to improve CHO systems understanding and achieve operational impacts. / by Kerry Rachel Weinberg. / M.B.A. / S.M. in Engineering Systems

Thesis: M.B.A., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 2016. In conjunction with the Leaders for Global Operations Program at MIT. / Thesis: S.M. in Engineering Systems, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2016. In conjunction with the Leaders for Global Operations Program at MIT. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 115-121). / A need exists for utility companies to incorporate unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) into their operations to reduce the cost and increase the safety of asset inspections. The FAA is allowing the use of UAS for commercial purposes under strict operational restrictions that would limit utility companies from realizing the full potential of UAS operations. The goal of this thesis is to provide a comprehensive risk analysis for National Grid as well as other utility companies to guide some of the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) imposed restrictions to enable wider use of UAS in utility operations. Through a probability-based risk analysis, a level of safety (LOS) was determined for utility applications based upon two major failure modes identified by a hazard tree analysis: midair and ground collisions. The factors considered in the ground collision model include: UAS reliability, wind gust data, population density, time use survey data and the FAA-published LOS for aircraft in the National Airspace (NAS). These factors were combined to determine the minimum UAS mean time between failure (MTBF) required to meet the FAA LOS requirement. The results of this analysis determine that the UAS must have a minimum MTBF of 478 hours to operate within National Grid's service territory. This MTBF measurement varies per town due to differences in wind speed and population density. For the midair collision, the factors considered were helicopter flight patterns near power lines, UAS potential flights patterns, and the reliability of system processes to keep UAS and helicopters out of conflict. For the New England territory, an 88.2% measure of reliability of the system is required to maintain the stated LOS, while New York requires 60.7%. This difference is due to a larger amount of lockout patrols over a smaller overall mileage area in New England. Various mitigation factors can be used to ensure even further safer operation, including geofencing and see-and-avoid systems. Through this risk analysis, National Grid and other utilities have additional data on the safety of operating UAS for their use cases. This analysis will be used as supporting data for Edison Electric Institute's request to the FAA for a beyond visual line of sight pilot study on utility assets. / by Jacquelyn Nowicke Mohl. / M.B.A. / S.M. in Engineering Systems

Thesis: M.B.A., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, in conjunction with the Leaders for Global Operations Program at MIT, 2017. / Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, in conjunction with the Leaders for Global Operations Program at MIT, 2017. / Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 123-124). / Without the design, development, and implementation of new technologies, companies that are currently innovative will be quickly surpassed by their competitors. Company A, a large aerospace company with a long history of introducing new technologies, is aiming to improve its new technology implementation process to continue to be successful in a competitive industry. While generally successful when implementing new technologies, Company A frequently faces unexpected challenges during implementation. The ability to effectively implement technologies in production environments will increase the likelihood that the business case for a new technology will be realized. Company A is in the process of implementing an automated fabrication solution for Component 1 that could eliminate risks associated with ergonomics and potential production volume increases. The goal of this project was not only to create a plan to aid the implementation of the automated fabrication technology for Component 1, but to broadly research technology implementation to determine how industrial companies can turn implementation into a competitive advantage. While creating multiple plans to implement the automated fabrication technology, research was performed about risk management, available tools to aid the implementation process, and lessons learned from past implementations. A significant part of new technology implementation involves identifying, prioritizing, and mitigating risk associated with the technology and the production system. There are many general and company-specific tools that aim to aid this process, but most of these tools focus on the technology, not the production system. The theory of Operational Readiness was developed as a way to combine the advantages of numerous design maturity assessment tools. Operational Readiness involves confirming that the new technology satisfies its requirements, is manufacturable, and fits within the overall product system. Operational Readiness also ensures that the production system is ready to accept the new technology. By utilizing Operational Readiness, cross-functional design, development, and implementation teams will be forced to take a system-wide view of the new technology implementation. This rigorous assessment process will be challenging and time-consuming, but the results will generate significant benefits to companies that are willing and able to use the theory of Operational Readiness. / by Nicholas Luke Arch. / M.B.A. / S.M.

Thesis: M.B.A., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, in conjunction with the Leaders for Global Operations Program at MIT, 2017. / Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, in conjunction with the Leaders for Global Operations Program at MIT, 2017. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 61-62). / This project addressed challenges within the weld inspection process in one factory at Caterpillar through the implementation of phased array ultrasonic testing. The chosen factory fabricates and machines large weldments for track-type tractors. The industry trend towards lighter weight, lower cost, higher performance structures requires greater confidence in weld quality than can currently be ensured with existing inspection methods in use at Caterpillar. Previous attempts to implement phased array technology in production factories at Caterpillar were unsuccessful due to the perceived costs of the technology, a lack of training, a lack of internal standards, and a lack of a change agent. The first step in the project began with understanding the current state of weld inspections. This was accomplished through factory visits, as well as interviews with -vendors and Caterpillar's non-destructive evaluation community. Statistical analysis of quality data was conducted to understand current welding and inspection performance. This revealed several problems with the process that led to inaccurate inspection results and unnecessary factory rework. Next, the project identified a pilot case to introduce the phased array technology. After acquiring the necessary phased array equipment, a robust, repeatable, cost effective process was developed where data is stored, and can be recalled and used to improve quality and future designs. Necessary fixtures were prototyped and tested to demonstrate the value of implementation. The implementation phase focused on training the operators to use the new equipment and procedures while still ensuring that the quality of parts released downstream was not compromised. The final phase of the implementation validated the quality of the inspection data and focused on improving the speed and safety of the phased array ultrasonic inspections. This project integrated phased array ultrasonic testing into a factory and provided a framework for Caterpillar to continue to develop and deploy this technology across the enterprise. By identifying and solving gaps in the technology rollout process in collaboration with Caterpillar's non-destructive evaluation community, this project created positive change in the culture and execution of how improvements are made to weld inspection processes. / by Luke B. Boote. / M.B.A. / S.M.

Thesis: M.B.A., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, in conjunction with the Leaders for Global Operations Program at MIT, 2018. / Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, in conjunction with the Leaders for Global Operations Program at MIT, 2018. / "June 2018." Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 88-90). / Modular industrial robot systems are well suited for high performance-accuracy, repeatability and speed, or shorter cycle times. Additionally, modular architecture supports flexibility. Modular robot systems are easily adaptable to a wide range of customer applications. A third characteristic of the robot system-reliability-is becoming increasingly important as industrial manufacturing processes and products increase in complexity and the costs associated with robot failure such as production line downtime increase. This project melds new advances in physics of failure science for electrical components with traditional industrial reliability engineering tools. The author develops three modelling approaches for a robot controller drive system. A function block diagram, highlights the main functions in the drive and their interdependencies. Reliability block diagrams estimate the reliability of controller drive system hardware. Finally, a predictive maintainability model is developed to illustrate future use of reliability model results for real-time monitoring in robot service applications. This final model is created by adding physics of failure models at the component level to the system-level reliability models developed earlier in the thesis. The result is twofold. 1) An improved estimate of hardware module reliability and its sensitivity to the selection of components and circuit designs. 2) A new framework to monitor and predict hardware wear-out in real-time. The author identifies simple, quality metrics such as reliability and availability. These metrics are intimately connected to the customer experience. Additionally, this thesis outlays how to translate these customer-driven metrics back into measurable quality targets upstream in the value chain. This creates an integrated approach to quality across the robot system value chain. With these results, this thesis impacts tangible improvements across multiple dimensions: customer satisfaction, field service planning and investment, new product introduction projects, and next generation product design to support industry 4.0. / by Heather Hausladen. / M.B.A. / S.M.

Thesis: M.B.A., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, in conjunction with the Leaders for Global Operations Program at MIT, 2018. / Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, in conjunction with the Leaders for Global Operations Program at MIT, 2018. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 58-59). / A second wave of online grocery retailers ("e-grocers") emerged in late 2000's after dot.com companies, such as Webvan, Streamline and Homegrocer, failed to break into the grocery market despite investing heavily on automated warehouses and operations. The key success factors for e-grocers identified by literature after studying first-wave players is their ability to increase asset utilization, while adopting a cost-efficient delivery and service level. This thesis focused on improving utilization of a typical e-grocer warehouse with upstream order sortation by alleviating its mechanical throughput bottleneck: the outbound processes. Batching mechanisms are used by warehouses to consolidate orders with a certain delivery time in the same picking and routing optimization batches. Increasing number of batches eliminates WIP ("work-in-progress") inventory and increases throughput by improving area utilization, with the trade-off of higher picking and delivery costs, due to sub-optimal picking paths and delivery routes. This thesis proposes a method to determine the optimal number of batches minimizing fixed and delivery costs per order for different warehouse capacities. The proposed optimal number of batches and a set of lean principles were then applied to a case study to simulate, through a 3D discrete-time event simulation package, a new design and process for outbound operations. Statistical distributions were used for bags arrival rates and process cycle times. The design also leveraged material handling equipment and automation solutions for the shipment label application and bags sortation processes, reducing manual labor and distances walked by workers. / by Gustavo Costa. / M.B.A. / S.M.

Thesis: M.B.A., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, in conjunction with the Leaders for Global Operations Program at MIT, 2018. / Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, in conjunction with the Leaders for Global Operations Program at MIT, 2018. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 147-149). / Integration of renewable energy, general decentralization of generating power and a high degree of automation may trigger a technological change in grid infrastructure, away from electromechanical products and towards more flexible power electronics based products. Maschinenfabrik Reinhausen (MR), a premium manufacturer for specialized components and equipment for the electrical distribution and transmission grid, is seeking to expand its capabilities within the power electronics domain. The goal for this thesis was to provide MR suggestions for the design of a value chain for power electronics based products for the mid-voltage distribution grid market. Such suggestions have been developed based on the analysis of external market forces with Porter's Five Forces Model, the assessment of a possible level of vertical integration based on MR's current technical capabilities, and the analysis of uncertainties of market parameters with a NPV model and Monte Carlo Simulation. The thesis shows further how the deployment of FMEA and reliability engineering can effectively address the high costs of power electronics based products and concerns of customers regarding the reliability of the technology.. / by Julian Demetz. / M.B.A. / S.M.