Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2019 / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 93-95). / The Construction Industry, unlike many other industries, has struggled to keep up pace with the adaption of evolving IoT ecosystem. The industry has been slow to the digital technological advancements in general and IoT advancements in particular. As a result, the Construction Industry has not been able to address the business pain points in the same effective manner as other industries who have embraced technological advances. The inventory management, safety and compliance regulations, and employee safety have been areas of concern since long and have by far remained unaddressed. This thesis analyzes the commercial potential of the loT Digital Transformation in the Construction Industry. It evaluates the business and technological challenges in integrating the existing systems in IoT and emerging cloud infrastructure. It further proposes solutions on how to capitalize on the emerging technologies to address the existing industry pain points and save on operating costs thus generate revenue. The thesis investigates the various stakeholders needs and their reluctance to adapt the technological advancements, the pain points of industry that can be addressed by IoT and Cloud Integration solutions, and the several potential mechanisms and proposed solutions to address the areas of concern. IoT and Cloud integration could be a potential solution to address many prevalent Industry problems of revenue loss, safety and regulatory violations and resulting accidents arising of poor asset tracking, inefficient employee clock-ins/clock-outs, and employee tracking. / by Abhijit Bhadra. / S.M. in Engineering and Management / S.M.inEngineeringandManagement Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2019 / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 92-107). / As Charles Darwin explained his theory of evolution "It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent but the one that is most responsive to change". This statement holds good for the role of IT in the Biopharma world. Today the role of IT is rapidly evolving, and the IT organization's role has shifted from being a technologist to the role of change agent. This is mainly driven by the technological advancements in finding new drugs at a faster pace. This is expected to undergo this transformation for a foreseeable future. The IT organization should ensure that it is led by business priorities rather than delivering the business solutions and at a lower cost. This can be done through the organizational design, process and governance. The IT strategy must function in lock steps with the business strategy. The biopharmaceutical industry is experiencing a strong growth over the past decade compared to the other industries. / Almost all the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies are under tremendous pressure from the government agencies such as FDA and other financial regulations to ensure compliance as well as provide therapies to the patients at a reduced cost. With the new trends like predictive analytics, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Digital medicine and Outcome based pricing models, it is very important for the IT function within the biopharma organizations to innovate itself constantly. Maintaining the right balance between organizational performance and value delivery are the key drivers for architecting the IT enterprise. The research explores different architectural approaches through various different lens from a business point of view, stakeholder point of view, regulatory point of view etc. to determine the optimal organizational structure for an enterprise IT group in a biopharma organization. / The thesis also discusses the pros and cons of different types of IT organizational models and provides a recommendation on the future IT enterprise. / by Sriram Balaji Bhashyam. / S.M. in Engineering and Management / S.M.inEngineeringandManagement Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2019 / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 76-80). / This thesis helps find limits within which automated methods can support and surpass the capabilities of medical professionals and the limits beyond which these methods are not yet adequate. This will inform later exploration about (a) what improvements in data collection, interpretation, and visualization will enhance technology's capacity and (b) what changes clinicians can make to improve their decision making-augmented or not. This thesis includes (a) describing clinical decisions, informed by literature and clinical case studies and (b) reviewing current capabilities of machine methods. This led to (c) a test experiment-how to use data about a particular condition (e.g. in-hospital mortality rate prediction) from a particular source (the MIMIC III data base). The results will help define current limits on augmenting clinical decisions and establish direction for future work including more demanding experiments. / Artificial Intelligence (AI) includes Machine Learning (ML), Natural Language Processing (NLP), Computer Vision, Speech Recognition, and Robotics. As an important branch of Al, ML builds statistical models to learn from sample data, known as "training", identifies patterns, and makes predictions based on new data, known as "inference." In this way, ML is useful in rationalizing and predicting in uncertain environments, with minimum human interventions. Decision making is central to the healthcare practice, with many decisions made under conditions of uncertainty. Clinicians must integrate a huge variety of data while pressured to decrease diagnostic uncertainties and risks to patients. Deciding what information to gather, which test to order, how to interpret and integrate this information to draw diagnostic conclusions, and which treatments to give are essential. / In typical situations, clinicians evaluate patient symptoms and potential disease patterns, confirmed by a variety of tests, and they initiate treatments based on their experience and customary practice. This is complicated when multiple illnesses coexist, the illness may be rare, the information may be conflicting, or prior interventions may affect the presenting symptoms. / by Hua Xu. / S.M. in Engineering and Management / S.M.inEngineeringandManagement Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2019 / Page 99 blank. Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 96-98). / In recent years, voice-powered digital assistants have exploded into the consumer mainstream as an important new form of human-computer interaction. Powered by dramatic improvements in speech recognition and artificial intelligence (Al) technologies over the last decade, digital voice assistants are now abundantly prevalent in modem consumer electronic devices ranging from mobile phones, to smart speakers, to wearables. As the technology matures and the availability of big data used by digital assistants proliferates, voice will soon become a primary modality by which people interact and accomplish tasks. Many of these tasks will be accomplished in consumer homes and digital voice assistants present a significant new opportunity where voice and the physical home intersect to dramatically reshape how consumers live in their home. / This also represents a tremendous opportunity for companies in the digital assistant industry, and, in order to successfully leverage this nascent technology, they will need to understand both their own strategic goals as well as their direct and indirect competitors' strategies in building a business ecosystem around voice-first digital assistants. A fierce struggle has begun - not just amongst current technology titans (i.e. Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft), but also involving key incumbent players in the home media and electronics industry (e.g. Samsung, Sonos, Bang & Olufsen). / The goals of this thesis, with respect to the current industry leaders in the digital assistant and smart home space, are to 1) understand the current landscape of the digital assistant voice ecosystem, 2) elucidate each major players' current voice-powered digital assistant platform strategy, 3) analyze the consumer adoption, selection, and diffusion mechanisms for digital voice assistants in the consumer smart home, and 4) determine what the likely outcomes are for each major player as well as the likelihood of success and associated risks with the current ecosystem and platforming strategies employed. Finally, through additional market analysis and industry projections, strategic recommendations will be presented to guide each key player over the next decade. Following these recommendations will be key to winning the digital assistant voice wars and for creating a successful and sustainable voice technology ecosystem in the personal digital assistant market. / by Hans Wang. / S.M. in Engineering and Management / S.M.inEngineeringandManagement Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2019 / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 152-159). / Integrating small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS) into the national airspace system (NAS) represents a challenging problem set that requires consideration through multiple lenses. Like most complex problems, considering one class of constraints is inadequate to developing a solution that satisfies all interested stakeholders. Rather than focusing solely on the technological limitations of sUAS operation, this work employs the Architecting Innovative Enterprise Strategy (ARIES) Framework to understand the current and future landscapes for the NAS. This work considers the ecosystem that influences the NAS and the key stakeholders with decision-making authority. The author uses the ARIES elements (strategy, information, infrastructure, products, services, processes, organizations, and knowledge) to holistically describe the current architecture that allows for very limited sUAS operations in the Mode C Veil. / After considering the ongoing efforts to integrate sUAS into the NAS, the envisioned future describes how the enterprise may transform under ideal conditions. This thesis incorporates aspects of the current architecture for sUAS operations and provides a recommended future architecture that expands sUAS use. By identifying current limitations and incorporating emerging mitigation techniques, the author is able to develop and evaluate different alternatives. These alternatives seek to address externalities that emerge from the increased use of sUAS in close proximity to the general public. Such externalities include safety, security, privacy, and transparency concerns. The recommended future architecture relies on airborne systems to detect and avoid manned aircraft and utilizes an unmanned traffic management system for information sharing and flight coordination. / This architecture requires significant investment in developing a shared database to manage unmanned vehicle operations, but provides the structure and functions required to make sUAS operations feasible when considering constraints, externalities, and public acceptance. / by Raymond Thomas Vetter. / S.M. in Engineering and Management / S.M.inEngineeringandManagement Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2019 / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. Vita. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 93-96). / The Air Force is currently paying a cost for the mismanagement of its software development activities. Software-intensive systems are consistently plagued with cost, schedule, and performance issues, which in the current fiscal environment is unsustainable. There has been much research on the benefits of process improvement, yet the concept of product health is largely ignored. Technical debt - the consequence of making short-term design decisions at the expense of long-term health - has been accumulating within code bases as developers and managers struggle to identify, quantify, and manage it properly. In this thesis, an extensive literature search is performed to define technical debt, explain its implications, and highlight methods to quantify and visualize it so organizations can address it explicitly. Through the use of architectural health analysis tools, a set of metrics is defined and used in case studies to highlight the extent to which the Air Force has lost control of its software and the price it has to pay because of it. Ultimately, eleven recommendations are given on how to incorporate architectural health analysis tools into software development activities to prevent, identify, manage, and reduce the amount of technical debt across product lifecycles. / by Austin M. Page. / S.M. in Engineering and Management / S.M.inEngineeringandManagement Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program

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 157-163). / This thesis examines the prospects of implementing fully autonomous vehicles in Singapore, and proposes flexible design and development strategies to maximize value creation. This approach recognizes the uncertainties associated with emerging technology domains, and illustrates how an adaptive policy can enable the policymaker to apply policy levers timely to leverage upside opportunities and mitigate downside risks. A review of the autonomous vehicle developments in the industry shows that there is neither a clear consensus on the technological pathway, nor an agreement on a definitive solution to achieve full autonomy. The thesis evaluates the maturity of the technology enablers for autonomous driving capabilities using the Technology Readiness Level definitions adopted by the United States Department of Defense, and concludes that fully autonomous driving capabilities are not yet ready for the road. Based on a realistic assessment of the current state of technology, the thesis identifies three areas of uncertainty: rigor in safety validation, transition from prototyping to full-scale development, and effectiveness of autonomous vehicle deployment in improving road congestion. The thesis further discusses the policy implications specific to the context of Singapore, covering: (1) Personal and societal benefits and costs, (2) Balancing regulations with encouraging innovation, (3) Transportation as a service, (4) Pricing, (5) Ethical considerations and social dilemma, (6) Data management and privacy, (7) Social acceptance, (8) Liabilities and insurance, and (9) Infrastructure. The thesis concludes with actionable recommendations to guide the policymaker to remain capability-defined but technology-agnostic; and application-specific but solution-neutral. The recommendations are based on the following guiding principles: (1) Start small, then grow - prototype and pilot to validate hypotheses before scaling up, (2) Collaborate and leverage, through public-private partnerships, and (3) Do not be in a haste to commit - diversify and keep the options open. / by Huiling Eng. / 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 (pages 73-75). / Over the last few years, continued environmental, operational, and technological changes have led to the development of multiple distribution channels in the insurance industry. As competition in insurance markets is intensifying, cost savings and customer retention has become critical, forcing insurers to look for ways to drive sales and customer convenience while keeping costs low and maintaining profitability. These factors are leading to the emergence of additional channels to reach directly to customers via call centers, mobile, and the web. The market is experiencing growth in this industry with startups competing to seize the opportunities. Digital Direct-to-customer opportunities have huge potential to improve business performance. It is imperative that the strategy for incumbents and startups in this space to consider the changing landscape to make key decisions regarding their strategy towards the direct-to-customer channel for insurance. This thesis provides a framework to navigate opportunities in this channel. The framework will guide a business professional from an established insurance company to navigate the insurance landscape of insurance, understand the existing business models and use the recommended solution approach for their business model. / by Nithila Jeyakumar. / 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 (pages 113-118). / With increased Internet connectivity and the advent of the industrial Internet, cyber-physical systems are increasingly being targeted by cyber attacks. Unlike, cyber attacks on IT networks, successfully compromising a cyber-physical environment takes considerably more time, motivation, expertise, and operational costs to the adversary. This thesis explores how a systems-theoretic approach, the Systems-Theoretic Accident Model and Processes (STAMP), can be used by an organization to complement intelligence-driven models of intrusion analysis to provide both additional insight and prioritize defensive countermeasures in order to guard against cyber-physical attacks and compromises. Specifically, in this thesis we analyze two real-world use cases of well publicized cyber-physical attacks using traditional intelligence-driven models of intrusion analysis as well as apply the Causal Analysis based on STAMP (CAST) model on one of the use cases. The STAMP/CAST based analysis afforded us deeper insights into the system causal factors that led to the successful compromise. In turn, this allowed for the generation of specific recommendations to safeguard the cyber-physical systems within the network in order to increase the overall organizational security posture. This included a recommendation to modify the existing organizational structure (i.e., the addition of a Security Operations Centre function) such that clearly defined security roles and responsibilities could be effectively implemented thus significantly improving an organization's ability to respond to cyber attacks. / by David Whyte. / 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 (pages 208-211). / This thesis addresses two questions: 1) How should an existing space telerobotic simulator be extended to incorporate Smart Electronic Procedures (SEP)? 2) Are there benefits to using a single Object-Process Methodology (OPM; ISO 19540) from the field of system engineering as an alternative to the Task Analysis (TA) methods traditionally used in human factors engineering (HFE)? A NASA sponsored EP development project provided the opportunity to investigate. HFE traditionally supports analysis and design by using multiple Task Analysis (TA) methods, including Hierarchical TA (HTA), Tabular TA (TTA), and Abstraction Hierarchy (AH). But the three techniques combined neither defines all the necessary preconditions for each task to succeed nor produces an executable model of the entire system that can be simulated and tested for logical correctness, and results are presented in a form that can be difficult for others to comprehend. To evaluate OPM usefulness, a space telerobotic operation was analyzed using successive HTA, TTA and AH techniques, and compared with a corresponding OPM analysis. A single OPM model precisely specified the preconditions and post-conditions for all the processes and described the relationships between system objects-both human and non-human-and the processes in its hierarchy of Object-process Diagrams that translate on the fly to Object-Process Language - a subset of natural English. Advantages of OPM include its holistic approach, bimodal presentation, simplicity, computability, and logical correctness testing capability via animated simulation. The OPM model also defined the architecture and logic of the SEP and the Control Panel(CP) - two essential parts incorporated into the existing telerobotic simulator. Simulated subsystems were introduced to enable simulation of setup, shutdown and off-nominal scenarios as defined by the OPM model. The SEP has several automation options, catches erroneous actions and ensures preconditions for each step are satisfied. The CP interfaces has several functions, including automating failure recovery and showing automated customize procedures to restore system to pre-failure configuration. This thesis considered only one application and further applications are needed to demonstrate the utility of OPM in the broader HFE domain. Nonetheless, the advantages of OPM over traditional TA methods demostrated OPM as a viable alternative to current HFE practices. / by Yongkai Eugene Yang. / S.M. in Engineering and Management