Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Engineering, System Design and Management Program, 2017. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 69-71). / A payment is a transfer of value from one party to another and cash is the simplest form of payment. However, the cost of cash transactions increases as the volume of transactions or distance between the parties involved increases. Various electronic payment systems have evolved over time to enable different types of transactions in the economy. Payment systems are now the backbone of the economy and trillions of dollars are exchanged on the payment system rails every year. Central banks, payment processors, payment gateways, credit card issuers and banks are just a few of the counterparties which enable payments across a multitude of counterparties for their specific needs. An extremely complex technological architecture enables these transactions. Central banks are now considering the issuance of digital currencies to increase efficiency in payments. Blockchain could potentially simplify payments systems and reduce market inefficiencies. It can provide a way for multiple counterparties to connect on the same platform and reduce the time for clearing and settlement. In this thesis, I study the technology and stakeholder needs to propose novel architectures that could be adopted for payments processing. / by Akshay Bagai. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Engineering, System Design and Management Program, 2017. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (page 64). / This thesis introduces a low-volume, high variation manufacturing company that is experiencing issues managing its supply chain. Issues include lack of process ownership, poor requirements flow down to vendors, and an ineffective supplier selection process. This example uses a systematic approach for addressing re-occurring problems related to supply chain management. The premise underlying the approach exemplifies that modem process improvement techniques such a Lean Manufacturing boast large efficiency gains in operations, but fail to address pre-operation process issues such as supplier selection based on capability alignment. By breaking down the current condition, issues within the current process and their associated root causes were identified. These included: inadequate internal processes, lack of access to information on supplier capabilities, and responsibility ambiguity. Corrective actions and countermeasures to these root causes such as: defined roles for the supplier selection process; a Supplier Capability Matrix; and internal requirements for supplier selection serve as a basis for a redesigned process. This results in a target condition that differs from the current in organizational structure, internal process requirements for supplier selection, and fewer non-conformance identified at incoming inspection. This thesis also provides a proposal for transitioning towards the target condition via an incremental implementation. This process utilizes the scientific method as a methodology for incorporating new processes, and to validate their effectiveness on the overall system in a step by step fashion. Verification of improvement can serve as a business case for additional change and implementation. This case study of a small electronics manufacturing company demonstrates the method in practical application. Results suggest that application is best suited for organizations that are looking to optimize their supply chain by reducing the risk of receiving non-conforming, or unusable material from their suppliers. The approach for identifying process issues, determining root causes, and implementing countermeasures provides a robust example for process improvement efforts. / by David Parry. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2018. / 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 (pages 71-73). / Increases in the volume of data and the availability of compute power have driven a number of advancements in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI), and AI technologies and applications are getting a flood of publicity in the media. While four in five executives agree that AI is a strategic opportunity for their organization, only about one in five has incorporated AI in some offerings or processes, and only one in 20 has extensively incorporated AI in their offerings or processes. There is a gap between expectation and action, and we are still in the early days of enterprise AI adoption. This thesis explores the path enterprises need to take to close this gap and to build an enterprise AI capability, thereby realizing the full value of this disruptive technology. Through a literature review it proposes a seven component holistic framework that can guide enterprises through this journey. The framework is more 'wide than deep', and it is supplemented with five case studies that take deep dives into the real life journeys of enterprises from different industries. These stories provide a vivid illustration of best practices and challenges. The case studies cover Danske Bank fighting financial fraud with deep learning, Deutsche Telekom improving customer service with an intelligent digital assistant, General Electric deploying machine learning applications for monitoring workflows in the Industrial Internet of Things, General Mills automating insights for marketers, and Kaiser Permanente using state of the art Natural Language Processing techniques on unstructured triage notes to improve patient flow forecasting. Learnings from the case studies are synthesized into recommendations to aid practitioners on the road to enterprise Artificial Intelligence. / by Saleha Saulat Siddique. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2018. / 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 (pages 77-79). / Identifying patients with aggressive cancers is a major healthcare challenge in resource-limited settings such as sub-Saharan Africa. Holographic imaging techniques have been shown to perform diagnostic screening at low cost in order to meet this clinical need, however the computational and logistical challenges involved in deploying such systems are manifold. This thesis aims to make two specific contributions to the field of point-of-care diagnostics. First, it documents the design and construction of low-cost holographic imaging hardware which can serve as a template for future research and development. Second, it presents a novel deep-learning architecture that can potentially lower the computational burden of digital holography by replacing existing image reconstruction methods. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the algorithm by reconstructing biological samples and quantifying their structural similarity relative to spatial deconvolution methods. The approaches explored in this work could enable a standalone holographic platform that is capable of efficiently performing diagnostic screening at the point of care. / by Ismail Degani. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2018. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 101-109). / Inflexibility, failure to adapt technology, and overly regulatory processes frustrate construction industry productivity and reduce the likelihood that large infrastructure projects will be delivered on-schedule and on-budget. Divergence from entrenched project delivery methods can provide flexibility to project managers and offers advantages for improving quality, collaboration, costs, and timeliness. The objective of this research is to provide the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) recommendations for their Project Management Business Process (PMBP). This study reviews the current state of project management in USACE, conducts a structured systems architecture analysis of the PMBP, evaluates USACE project statistics, assesses alternative project delivery methods through a literature review, and provides case studies to consider the implementation impediments of alternative methods for public and private projects. USACE serves as the nation's largest public engineering agency with responsibilities in military construction, civil works, water navigation, environmental restoration, and disaster response. This research concludes with recommendations for selecting alternative project delivery methods best-fit to meet the distinct needs of each USACE business program. Explicitly, the application of Integrated Project Delivery is best suited for highly specialized, technical projects for military construction and interagency support, but also presents contractual challenges notyet adapted for USACE. Public Private Partnerships show promise for possible future implementation in civil works projects, but require further refinement through the USACE Pilot Program. Lastly, Construction Management at Risk is the most mature alternative method for USACE, and can provide Project Managers with additional options in fast-tracking and early contractor involvement. Essentially, the flexibility of PMBP project delivery should match the vast diversity of USACE's missions. / by Brian T. Williams. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2018. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 99-101). / Engineers and managers of software projects have the daunting task of successfully delivering the right product at the right time for the right price. The path to achieving these lofty goals is commonly not a straightforward endeavor. Due to the dynamic nature of software development, varying organizational circumstances, and situational idiosyncrasies of each project this can be a very difficult and sensitive process. Ideally, software development methodologies bring order to the chaos of software development. An ill-fitting development strategy, however, can create unnecessary friction and further complicate the prospect of a successful product delivery. Researchers and private organizations alike spend substantial resources to understand the strengths and weaknesses of commonly used development practices - the validation of which is highly problematic due to conflicting variables. This research ventures to bring clarity to the question: "Which development methodology is right for a particular situation?" Treating the software development project life-cycle as a socio-technical system, it can be decomposed to the most fundamental elements. Using these elements as the architectural building blocks of a project, Agile, Waterfall, Set-Based, and Spiral are each compared at the molecular level. This thesis evaluates these comparisons and how subsequent research applies to today's software projects. / by Christian J West. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2018. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 139-141). / When many companies are presented with the knowledge of new tools and techniques for System Architecture, Systems Engineering and Project Management as part of a System Thinking approach, they initially show great interest and a desire to institute change to their current culture. Yet, when presented with an opportunity to apply these new tools and techniques in the next project, they perhaps become reluctant to institute the change because of a perceived risks in integrating unfamiliar methods. This reluctance may be a bias based primarily on their own perception of past success using the company's internally developed processes and practices, and a belief that change may negatively affect results. But are these modern System Thinking techniques really new to them? Is it possible that these companies have naturally evolved toward practicing the newer System Thinking techniques without realizing it, driven by the accumulation of practical knowledge and lessons learned, but performed in an unstructured manner. This paper's research has found in looking at a well-established company with a track record of successful projects, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), that there are indications that they have become significantly align to the current System Thinking approaches. The success of LLNL's current processes and practices relies heavily on the experience and the expertise of individuals who can process many of the projects architectural assessments, trades, plans and analytics within their cognitive abilities and derived practices. This paper, however, finds that this reliance on Experts may not be the primary force behind their success and the natural progression to Systems Thinking. The success and progression in System Thinking seems to be stimulated by the project team mix of Experts and Non-Experts, and by empowering the Non-Experts with the ability to question and request clarification of rationale concerning the Expert opinions. Non- Experts appear to play a critical role in project team success in System Thinking, especially in an Expert dominate Ecosystems such as those at LLNL. The risk in the LLNL project ecosystems is that this progression to System Thinking has occurred with little structural change in terms of documentation, analytics and metrics. This structural weakness appears to be actively mitigated through management oversight, which carries its own level of risk, often generating a single point of failure opportunity in the project system. There is evidence that an integrated and distributed approach to the System Thinking activities would best support LLNL projects. With staffing turnover, retirements and natural attrition, the company's current unstructured processes and practices are challenged, often requiring retirees to return as consultants or additional resources to be added to force the current unstructured practices to succeed. This paper's research provides information to help in (1) evaluating current project approach for evidence of Systems Thinking and (2) determining the effect of the addition of System Thinking structure and methods to reduce future project risk. / by Cal Alden Smith. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2018. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 94-104). / Cities and peri-urban areas are disproportionately large producers of solid waste in an increasingly landfilled world with plastic-choked oceans. Managing waste sustainably remains a challenge, and an expensive one, often comprising 20%-50% of municipal budgets. In the last 25 years, Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) has emerged as an environmental policy approach in which a producer's responsibility for a product is extended to throughout its lifecycle, beyond the point of sale to the post-consumer stage. This thesis analyzes the effects of soon-to-be implemented EPR in Chile. Using packaged beverage PET bottles as a case study, it models the per-bottle cost of implementing EPR. The thesis explores the effect of EPR on the recycled PET market and its main substitute and competition virgin PET. It also considers how might EPR's implementation incorporate Chile's informal waste picking labor force. It proposes an integrated waste management system that connects "smart" (loT) delivery points, base-recycler-facing mobile-phone applications, and producers', retailers, and recyclers' inventory systems on an integrated public permission blockchain that tracks the flow of products, and measures and rewards every agent's contribution to proper waste management in a transparent, reliable, and groundbreaking way. Such an application of a blockchain does not yet exist and could prove to be an effective and empowering technology for implementing EPR. / by Prerna Sekhri. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2018. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (page 76). / The development of a start-up creating physical products follows a different path than those working in the digital space. The process of creation requires multiple steps, with many disparate people involved in those steps. Kalani was created to work with artisans to promote their disappearing crafts, thus supporting their economies and providing an opportunity for the continuation of the craft. The first product was to create blankets in Portugal, with artisans in a village in Serra de Estrela. The blankets are ultrafine merino wool, with fabric manipulation done by hand that are techniques unique to the artisans. The thesis aims to provide an overview of the process for physical product development, and the way in which leadership as the CEO of an international startup functions. Creating a physical product requires many iterations in concept development before actual product development is launched. Managing both product development and working with artisans in a different country and culture provided many challenges and rewards. The thesis aims to prove that products can be made that meet the demands of the luxury market, while maintaining high social and ethical standards. / by Attia Qureshi. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2018. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 70-72). / Over the last decade the aerospace industry has seen a shift in traditional architectures of an aircraft. The desire for aircraft to be lighter, more efficient, quieter, faster, and cheaper has driven trends across the industry. These trends look for ways to accomplish what many other industries such as automotive have done which is a complete transformation of the "normal." The shift has created an advanced architecture for aircraft and therefore requires a new view on certification. The traditional approach for certification is pretty straightforward since majority of aircraft have been the same over several years with minor changes in sub level aircraft systems. Aircraft manufacturers in combination with suppliers develop concepts for new or improved aircraft, requirements are outlined and implemented based on aviation authority regulations, and eventually the aircraft receives a certificate declaring the safety of the aircraft design and production. In fairness, the traditional standard approach to aircraft certification has worked. Aircraft are safer than ever and data shows a sharp decline in aviation accidents over the years. However, with changes in technology what use to be the "normal" architecture is changing significantly and the desire for the industry to be more agile both play a role in the need to view certification slightly different. The main objective of certification has been, is, and will always be safety. This thesis proposes a framework on how to approach certification of new technologies. Perhaps the two most important elements in the framework are the proposal of a threshold utilizing the technology infusion effort equation to gage the significance of a change in architecture and the proactive safety analysis utilizing a new kind of technique called STPA. The framework is developed based on an in-depth outline of the traditional certification process and a review of the historical development of safety regulations. Two parts of the proposed framework are then applied and analyzed based on the more electric aircraft concept. / by Atinuke Adebisi Oyeniya. / S.M. in Engineering and Management