Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2017. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references. / The Software Industry has been constantly growing and setting path-breaking trends over the years. Cloud Computing is one such innovation that has brought a sea of change in the way people build and use software. Businesses are shifting their perspective from a model based on 'software ownership' to a model based on 'software as a service'. This paradigm shift in the industry has forced established software vendors to reinvent their businesses by offering products in form of services. The change in 'software ownership' dynamics also warrants a change in the pricing strategy. A popular alternative to the traditional perpetual licensing model is a subscription pricing model. This involves the consumers paying a fixed amount periodically to get the software service, instead of paying a large amount upfront to own the software. The study is designed primarily to compare the effectiveness of the subscription model over the traditional perpetual licensing model, with the help of a case study of Adobe Systems Incorporated. The company is a good choice as it switched from the perpetual licensing model to subscription model in 2012. The study concludes that, while no single model is entirely perfect on all grounds, a pricing strategy based on the subscription model could be an effective strategy for any organization to increase its revenue and maintain customer satisfaction at the same time. The strategy enables the organizations to get more revenue from their subscribers over a longer period of time. It also reduces the upfront cost paid by users, making it more affordable which would help increase the number of subscribers. / by Angad Singh. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2017. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 112-113). / The Systems-Theoretic Accident Model (STAMP) developed by MIT's Dr. Nancy Leveson was applied in this thesis to a ship navigation control system used on U.S. Coast Guard buoy tenders. The legacy system installed on the Service's 16 sea-going buoy tenders experienced numerous incidents that had potential to be hazardous to the ships and their crews. Faced with the dual needs of ensuring safety of mission execution and restoring confidence in the overall ship control system, yet faced with a limited budget, Coast Guard decision-makers elected to conduct a partial recapitalization of the system's hardware and software. This thesis explores the application of system safety methods to analyze the legacy system on the seagoing buoy tenders. An accident analysis of a particular incident was conducted using STAMP methodologies, and its results were compared/contrasted with the results of a more traditional root cause failure analysis that was contracted by the Coast Guard following the incident. Several added insights pertaining to system safety and process improvement were obtained by using STAMP. Additionally, a hazard analysis was performed on the control system using STAMP techniques. This hazard analysis yielded 92 specific design requirements that may be incorporated into future system upgrades on these or similar vessels. The thesis concludes that STAMP methodologies are appropriate to generate actionable recommendations for future control system upgrades on U.S. Coast Guard buoy tenders. It also concludes that STAMP techniques may lead to safer controls in the greater hierarchical control structure for shipboard buoy tending operations. Finally, suggestions are made for future research/application of STAMP principles in the Coast Guard's management of operational safety, asset acquisition, and cybersecurity. / by Paul D. Stukus. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2017. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 124-126). / On April 20, 2010, an explosion in the rig Deepwater Horizon performing drilling operations on the Macondo Prospect Well, in the Gulf of Mexico, led to the largest oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry. Eleven crewmembers lost their lives and around 4.9 million barrels of oil were discharged into the ocean until the continuous subsea blowout of the well was contained in September 19, 2010. Given the magnitude and the complexity of the accident, several safety analyses have been proposed by the international community at different levels of the system involved in the accident. Most of these studies use accident analysis techniques based on chain-of-event models, whose main objective is to identify root-causes. However, while this approach describes physical phenomena accurately, it does not explain the role of organizational and socio-economical factors, human decisions, or design inaccuracies in accidents in complex, adaptive, and tightly coupled systems like Macondo. In response to this need, N. Leveson developed the new accident-analysis technique Causal Analysis Based on System Theory (CAST), based on her model System-Theoretic Accident Model and Processes (STAMP). In STAMP accidents are not treated as chain of failure events, but as complex processes that result from a large variety of causes including component failures and faults, system design errors, unintended and unplanned interactions among system components, human operator errors, flawed management decision-making, inadequate controls and oversight, and poor safety culture. This thesis presents management recommendations based on a CAST analysis of the Macondo Accident. The goal is to help the oil and gas offshore drilling community achieve safer operations and understand the value of systems safety in achieving organizational goals. / by María Fernanda Tafur Muñoz. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2017. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references. / In recent years, the technology in the medical industry has been advancing to provide safe and systematic medical care. However, the system of medical technologies and treatments has become more complicated year by year, which increases the risks of defects in the system. For example, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Center for Devices and Radiologic Health has reported recalls of medical devices that may lead to serious injury or death because of malfunctions. To reduce the risks, developers and makers of medical devices have been applying a wide spectrum of methodologies to improve quality. However, the growing complexity of medical systems, including devices, medical staff, organizations, and regulators, causes problems that the current safety engineering techniques are inadequate to prevent, which can result in tragic medical accidents. Therefore, it is important to apply new approaches to ensure the system safety of medical devices. This thesis compares Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) and System-Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA). STPA is one of the analysis techniques based on the systems-theoretic approach of system safety (STAMP) to identify what should be done to establish the design safety of medical systems. Presently, FMEA, as a risk management technique, is widely used as a major methodology to ensure the safety of medical devices; therefore, it is worth comparing with STPA as a fundamental methodology. This thesis identifies the basic design of tomographic treatment and applies STPA to the TomoTherapy system. This tomographic treatment system treats hard-to-reach tumors and reduces radiation exposure to nearby healthy tissues. To ensure the quality of TomoTherapy, STPA is an effective means to conduct hazard analyses because STPA holistically analyzes the safety of this system, considering both human and mechanical factors. After that, I compare the results of STPA and FMEA. STPA analysis found 99 unsafe control actions, 10 causal scenarios, and 29 possible requirements, in contrast with FMEA, which identified a total of 74 failure modes. The potential causes of failure in the results of FMEA include only human factors. However, STPA analyzes the system from various viewpoints, such as the physical system, human factors, organization, management, and so on. Thus, it can be seen that STPA can be used as a technique to identify potential causes as causal scenarios more comprehensively than FMEA. / by Shinichi Yamaguchi. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2017. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 76-80). / In recent years, intense competition, fueled in large part by globalization and digitalization, has been accelerating the process of commoditization of products and services. Even when design is deployed to shape the product and distinguish it from competitors, the design often remains product-centric and easy to replicate. These dynamics have created an abundance of material wealth in developed economies, and people are often choosing to devote discretionary income to paying for fulfilling, unique experiences. In response, more companies are beginning to offer experiences to their customers as a way of differentiating themselves. Experiences, first recognized as a distinct economic offering in the late 1990s, are more holistic and subjective than products or services, appeal to higher order needs than the purely functional, and facilitate the development of customer-company relationships in place of transactional exchanges. The imperative of offering experiences presents significant challenges for nearly all companies, as they will be required to shift from being product-centric to being customer-centric. Recognizing that experiences reflect many technology products in their complexity, this thesis seeks to combine the fields of human-centered design and systems design to make experience design more accessible to all companies. Then, based on analysis of design systems and transmedia, it presents the concept of creating a design platform that permits extension and further development of the experience. This strategy balances consistency with the ability to respond to customer needs and adoption of new technology platforms. Finally, ideas for future research into this nascent field are presented. / by Matthew R. Tucker. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2017. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 116-121). / The popularization of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) applications gives designers and developers tremendous opportunities to shape the evolution of new interaction paradigms. Current human machine interaction models are built on top of the command and control metaphors dating back to the industrial revolution, where input has to be initiated with user's full conscious thought in a non-parallel and discrete manner. Further, many people experience the adverse side effects of software products that are designed with the goal of increasing engagement. Mental states like email anxiety are driving down the wellness and productivity of the general population, and as VR and AR devices replace our physical spaces with digital experiences, these problems will become far more serious. This thesis explores methodologies for designing to promote the state of Flow through VR and AR experiences that bring interactions with virtual information closer to how humans consciously and subconsciously perceive, process, and interact with the real world. Designing interfaces to promote the state of Flow has several benefits. First, it requires interfaces to respect people's focus, which increases productivity and quality. Second, Flow has been shown to give people a sense of enjoyment, leading people to feel happier and more fulfilled. Drawing on research suggesting that encouraging the characteristic expressions of Flow such as focus and an implemental mindset can help induce the Flow state, the thesis explores techniques VR and AR applications can use to promote the state of Flow and overall wellbeing through the design of their interfaces. / by Yiwei "Sophia" Yang. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2017. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 96-103). / Cellular agriculture is an emerging field to develop in-vitro agricultural products. Despite overwhelming public attention towards the field's trajectory, there are significant research hurdles to overcome in order to validate scalable applications. These challenges, referring to the translational development of cell lines, serum-free media, cell-scaffolds, and bioreactor designs with regulatory and market assessment efforts, require new models for industry collaboration. The Open-Innovation Network Map was used to prioritize key collaboration networks to address the translational challenges of cellular agriculture, and three in-depth case studies from open-source models, big-science collaborations, and pre-competitive consortia were evaluated. Nine best practices to support open innovation across translational development were surfaced: Open-Source Models I OpenCompute Foundation, a community for open-source data center hardware designs, highlights the focus on: (1) the modularization of biological parts, equipment and protocols to encourage reproducibility, (2) the scalability of proof-of-concepts through industry participation, and (3) the self-assembly of industry clusters to initiate standardization. Big-Science Collaborations I The Human Genome Project, a large-scale collaboration to complete the sequencing of the human genome, exhibits attributes of successful research-intensive organizations, such as: (4) the centralization of leadership in distributed networks, and (5) policies to increase data-sharing frequency. Pre-competitive Consortia I SEMATECH, a semi-conductor manufacturing consortium established to address bottlenecks in the product development process, reveals that: (6) a crisis is critical for industry cohesion, (7) investment in innovation hubs increases translatability across stakeholders, (8) 'honest brokers' should be created to promote trust, and (9) feedback loops with end-users are critical to test market applications for new scientific advancements. The building of cellular agriculture's communities, channels, and technologies with appropriate open innovation models can enable stakeholders to collaborate and maintain a competitive edge. The conclusions of the thesis represent a convergence point among industry, academia and policy to discuss how to best shape and execute open innovation efforts in the future. / by Kevin Ka-Chun Yuen. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2017. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 65-66). / The Agile Software development methodologies have changed the way software products and services are delivered in a continuous manner. Some of these Agile Software Development methodologies have been very successful in increasing the pace of innovation and raising the productivity at workplace. But there has been a constant pushback in the non-software industries against adopting some of these Agile development methodologies citing various reasons. The scope of this thesis is to identify few scenarios from non-software industries to evaluate how the Scrum framework, which is one of the various Agile methodologies, has been successful to raise the productivity and the value delivery to clients. Few of the case studies were studied and their gist is presented in this thesis. More specifically, it is reported in this thesis how the Scrum framework is adopted and adapted to a specific type of industry or product. / by Amit Kumar Tomar. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2017. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 100-102). / While research in the urban freight field has mainly focused on evaluating regulation, stakeholder preferences prior or after a policy has been implemented, or on a single type or sub-set of agents and freight policies, the core of this thesis centers on differentiating aspects of urban freight policy design. This thesis aims to uncover how a systematic evaluation of urban freight policy design for retail malls in Singapore could weave stakeholder engagement into the policy lifecycle. This work also provides a framework for assessing the impact that a wide range of urban freight solutions could have on the different system stakeholders. System design tools, including Stakeholder Value Network (SVN) analysis and tradespace exploration, were leveraged to (1) identify key architectural aspects of urban freight policy design and (2) generate multi-dimensional policy configurations. Insight from a survey administered to retail shop owners in two large malls in Singapore as well as findings from other research on stakeholder preferences and perceptions of urban freight solutions were used to evaluate the policy configurations generated from the point of view of key stakeholders. Results and findings from this framework include policy performance patterns among configurations and stakeholders, which can be further used to drive. policy decision-making and evaluate trade-offs among the system stakeholders under certain architectures. The systematic evaluation presented in this thesis revealed that according to retail shop owners, urban freight policy architectures with goods consolidation translate into higher efficiency for this group 100% of the time when compared to policy configurations without goods consolidation. Also, the results for policy efficiency as viewed by public-sector stakeholders highlighted the expense of public welfare - with average costs for incentive or subsidy-based policy architectures increasing more than three-fold compared to policies in which participation is required and two-fold compared to policies in which participation is voluntary. Future work will re-assess the urban freight policy scores with direct stakeholder participation and explore the performance of the policy architectures under different demand patterns. / by Gabriella M. Ricart Surribas. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2017. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 75-79). / Blockchain is a distributed ledger technology that records exchanges of value between parties securely, permanently, and in an easily verifiable manner. It is the technology underlying cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. Although initially used for financial transactions, blockchain's applications extend beyond finance and can impact a wide variety of industries. One such application is in supply chain management. With multiple stakeholders and business transactions, supply chains are inherently complex. Many challenges exist, including the lack of transparency and traceability, difficulty in managing risks and disruptions, and the need to build trust and reputation. Blockchain technology ushers in the potential to solve these challenges through the use of smart contracts. Smart contracts are digital agreements between transacting parties that are written in computer code and deployed to the blockchain, where they will self-execute when predetermined conditions are met. They reduce complexity in a supply chain through automated verification and execution of the multiple business transactions involved. A decentralized, immutable record also ensures all stakeholders have equal access to information and helps build trust. Smart contracts improve the transparency, traceability and efficiency of a supply chain, allowing it to be more agile while strengthening relationships among stakeholders. In this thesis, I create a proof-of-concept to explore the application of smart contracts in supply chain management. The proof-of-concept consists of three smart contracts, coded in Solidity, that can be integrated to determine the provenance of goods, track the chain of custody as goods flow through a supply chain, automatically execute payment upon fulfillment of criteria, and maintain an open database of stakeholders with a score indicating their reputation. I validate the proof-of-concept using the Ethereum platform, which was specially conceived for smart contract and decentralized application development. Preliminary testing shows that the contracts are able to interact with one another and execute their functions as intended. Further testing is necessary to evaluate the performance of the contracts on the live Ethereum network, and integration with smart sensors should be explored to create a more viable real-world solution. / by Angwei Law. / S.M. in Engineering and Management