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 133-134). / The systems that we are attempting to build today are becoming increasingly complex, as we ask for more function, more performance, more robustness, more flexibility, and more interconnectedness. At the same time, design and implementation of these systems is becoming a highly collaborative process across countries, cultures and goals, driving an increase of interfaces, interaction, and concurrency of work, ultimately adding complexity to the way teams work. In the face of both increased product complexity and organizational complexity, project teams need to be equipped with processes and tools that enhance their individuals' and collective cognitive abilities. Recent developments in social science research about teamwork indicate that individual intelligence, personality, or skill, matter less than the pattern of idea flow in a team: the characteristics of higher performing groups are a large number of ideas, dense interactions, and diversity of ideas. Also, this body of research argues that the number of opportunities for social learning is often the largest single factor in company productivity. Social learning is learning happens when people learn from one another. How is this body of research relevant to engineering design teams? Can we think about social learning happening in multi-stakeholder, design workshops? What are the signals of social learning in such settings? Can we detect those signals and find patterns? This thesis project has initiated the development of a new class of teamwork experiments concerned with exploring the dynamics of engineering teams during the early stages of architecture selection in design of complex systems. In contrast to much of the teamwork research available, this class of teamwork research is model-based: teams engage in a design activity supported by a system of systems model of the problem, and product subject of design. Moreover, these series of experiments implement novel software user interfaces that include interactive visualization and passive collection of socio-metric data regarding design and experience. This research has been developed on a case study from the Japanese commercial maritime shipping industry in response to the new revision of IMO MARPOL Annex VI requirements setting limits on sulphur oxides and nitrous oxides emissions from ship exhausts. According to Japanese authorities, it is expected that the transition from the currently predominant use of Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO) to Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) will proceed, and LNG-fueled ships have already launched in part of North America and Europe where emissions control is advanced. In this transition, different stakeholders (incl. shipping operators, ship building companies, cargo owners, port operators, fuel suppliers, regulatory bodies and classification societies) might follow different strategies in order to fulfill these new regulatory requirements, and the associated choices will be in trade-off with other technology and business requirements. The design problem that teams face in this series of teamwork experiments consists in modifying a reference crude oil shipping system involving a tankers' fleet composed of Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs), currently fueled with HFO and transporting crude oil from a supply port in the Persian Gulf to a delivery port in Japan. The design goal is to reduce SOx emissions and NOx emissions, while fulfilling shipping contracts, at the lowest possible cost. In the teamwork design challenge proposed, individuals representing various stakeholders and teams consider, enumerate, and evaluate feasible system architectures according to pre-defined system goals and performance metrics in a tradespace, whereby the Pareto frontier of non-dominated architectures is sought, and a set of preferred architectures is selected. During the design process, data is collected about key teamwork phenomena, such as attention allocation, decision, and learning. This series of experiments has been developed and piloted in collaboration with University of Tokyo and a committee of Japanese maritime shipping professionals over four workshop sessions between October 2017 and March 2018 at University of Tokyo in Kashiwa-no-ha (Japan), and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA). The pilot experimentation tested and rehearsed, between others, the viability of different versions of the design case, and the feasibility of proposed sensors for capturing teamwork phenomena. The pilot experimentation phase also served for prototyping the computer simulator that implements the system of systems model and the interactive visualization software user interface. The main experiment took place at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA). For the specific domain problem and solution set explored in these experiments, the results support the claim that higher-performing teams explore more options, analyze options from more viewpoints, and learn more, than lower performing teams. The experimental results also suggest that those teams with clear goals, learn more. This thesis project has also demonstrated that it is possible to sense and visualize learning cycles, including surprises (events that trigger reflection and reframing), as well as path-dependent sequences (course of action or moves) that lead a team to decision in the selection of a best option. Furthermore, it has been observed that social learning in diverse teams can be facilitated with computerized interactive visualization tools. These results suggest an enormous potential for "engineering" high-performance design teams at the meso-scale with collaborative machine-human systems. More pilots in industry cases could provide more data to support/ refute this proposition, and gradually transition into a more social and productive engineering experience for teams. / by Lorena Pelegrin Alvarez. / 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 32-33). / Delivering quality user experience is the most critical goal of any product development and marketing team in any organization. With the advancement of technologies in the fields of data science and data computation, it is now possible to know users more efficiently and create solutions that satisfy their needs to the fullest. In this thesis, I explore how the digital e-commerce and online content provider companies are utilizing many different personalization methods which are helpful in increasing the rate of successful transactions, however, a similar trend is not visible in SaaS applications. Cloud computation has made software both easily accessible and replaceable, putting a lot of stress on both the value of the product as well as the user experience. Many software companies still follow the traditional approach of creating static personas for product design and marketing purposes and create one fits all solution. Machine/application data, which is continuously generated by the software applications, tracking each and every user activity, can be extremely useful in understanding the user behavior and thus giving companies the ability to create more personalized and adaptive solutions. I explore data generated about a pedagogical website at MIT which is used to support instruction in computation-open to students from all the departments. I applied machine learning algorithms to show that there are different clusters/classes of students in a class. By tracking student activity and performance on class website, it can be predicted which class they belong to. This information can be used to develop customized solutions for all the students. / by Priya Kher. / 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 57-69). / This thesis assesses the status of sustainable development in Indonesia, identifies the systemic barriers, and offers holistic development pathways toward sustainability. The framework employed in this research looks at the interactions between the economy, employment, and environment while taking into account the forces of technology and globalization. It concludes that the development in Indonesia is not yet on a sustainable path. The economy is performing well and unemployment is low, but inequality is very high, capacity to adapt is low, and the environment is quickly degrading. The major barrier towards sustainability are fundamentally politics: messy decentralization, pervasive corruption, and persistent elite capture. Other systemic barriers are the low level of education, fragmented innovation system, and low awareness of sustainability issues. To make progress towards sustainability, the systemic barriers must be cleared. Local governments need to be made clean and competent; lifelong learning systems established; local innovations boosted; pollutions prevented at the source using technological or organizational innovations; and awareness of sustainability issues raised. The findings in this thesis are summarized and mapped to the UN Sustainable Development Goals in the concluding chapter. / by Aditya Yodha. / 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 84-85). / The United States Air Force (USAF), like many large enterprises, has struggled to keep up with industry in developing state of the art systems in a timely manner. Although many argue that the landscape for the Department of Defense (DoD) has complex and unique factors this does not make the needs of the warfighter to be less urgent. To improve its current state, the USAF has been trying to transform software acquisitions from a Waterfall to Agile approach. Progress towards an Agile transformation appears to be somewhat stagnant. This thesis analyzes the status of the USAF Agile transformation; evaluates challenges for the USAF in becoming truly Agile -and proposes recommendations to the USAF, DoD and government leaders on how to make the USAF Agile transformation successful. A main finding of this investigation is that the USAF Agile transformation is experiencing the same challenges felt by many large corporations; however, they have a very unique set of stakeholders. The current approach needs modification to include these stakeholders' needs. There are actions that can be taken by personnel at very different levels to make the Agile transformation successful. Challenges such as regulations that reflect Waterfall methodologies are best address by high level leadership while others are best addressed by employees such as creating a grassroots movement. Agile could be a major contributor for helping the USAF to succeed at becoming more effective at quickly deploying needed systems. By utilizing a holistic view, the USAF will be better able to address the current challenges of Agile transformation to deliver capability to the warfighter. / by Elizabeth A. Bieler. / 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 67-70). / Power outages are exponentially increasing because extreme weather conditions are occurring more frequently. In addition, the duration of the power outages are increasing. Unfortunately, the will to expand or convert the current electric grid is not there. The objective of this thesis is to design a new system - at a high level - that would protect homeowners from the effects of power outages. To do this, interviews were conducted with people who have actually experienced power outages during winter. Their preference for continued space heating during power outages prompted a design that uses natural gas fuel cell to power a furnace (or boiler) independent of the electric grid. The same system could also provide electricity to the homeowners, if the furnace is turned off. In addition to the system architecture design, surveys were conducted to determine pricing and financial analyses were performed to determine the commercial viability of the design. Consequently, the design proved to be too expensive. What's more, prices would have to drop significantly and / or other stakeholders, such as utility companies, insurance companies and governments, would have to cover most of the cost of the product for there to be a mass adoption. / by Olawale A. Akinwale. / 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 62-67). / Nucleic acid memory (NAM) is the storage of digital data by encoding the information into the medium of nucleic acids. This is often called DNA storage, as typically, but not necessarily, the information is stored in the nucleobases that comprise DNA. Baum first introduced this idea in 1995, but it wasn't until 2012 that Church proved the idea on a larger scale. NAM has a number of features that make it very promising as a data storage medium. The three typically highlighted are capacity density, data retention (i.e., durability), and energy usage. NAM should enter the data storage market, as a hardware product, through the ~$4.5B archiving market, by targeting large storage service providers and large data-intensive corporations with on-premise operations. A NAM product has the potential to reduce the capital and operational cost base of these companies, by millions of dollars per year. An architecture strategy should be employed to enter the market, relying on control over underlying ideas and partnerships to barricade the company from competition. NAM is a decade away from commercialization, making this a very risky early stage venture. The costs need to come down at least 100,000-fold before the technology is cost competitive with current solutions. Additionally, there are a number of scientific and engineering issues that need to be carefully resolved. Due to the risks, the only viable funding source is government grants. If early stage funding were secured, IP should be developed in the core NAM technology of storage and access and an interim revenue source established. This would allow the company a strong chance to thrive in the competitive storage industry, if and when NAM becomes cost competitive. / by Ryan de Ridder. / 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 133-139). / With the growth of the smartphone industry a commensurate growth in the volume of electronic waste has occurred. Electronic waste is any electronic or electrical device that has reached the end of its useful life and has been disposed of by a consumer. The volume of this waste stream is the fastest growing waste stream globally and has begun to impact the developing world disproportionately as these regions are often at the receiving end of an endless stream of hazardous waste components. The industries that handle electronic waste must be thought of as a System of Systems or ecosystem if real improvement is to be made. The ecosystem can be decomposed into three major systems: collection, which collects electronic waste from consumers and introduces it to the recycling process; pre-processing, which turns electronic waste into discrete material streams for ultimate recycling; and end-processing, which turns individual material streams into raw materials with market value. Improving the overall recycling ecosystem is a critical component of making global industrialization sustainable. This improvement must address both the individual challenges facing each component system in the ecosystem as well as the broader challenges that span the whole ecosystem. The three component systems of the ecosystem face economic, social, environmental, and technological challenges. As a result, the available solution space is broad and varied. However, from an ecosystem perspective, the greatest challenges exist at system interfaces and the greatest opportunity exists in improving these interfaces. In so doing, improved communication between systems and stakeholders will drive the overall improvement of the ecosystem. This communication should generate a uniform set of requirements for how the system should operate. In turn, measuring success in the ecosystem and meeting the requirements requires alignment of goals for each system with those of the broader ecosystem. Finally, a fourth member of the ecosystem-the device manufacturers-must play a crucial role in facilitating this interface management; in this sense, manufacturers have the opportunity to become the de facto architects of this evolving system. As architects, manufacturers could exert more power to realize the changes required while also guiding the ecosystem to more sustainable ground. / by Joseph Lessard. / 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 90-94). / Microgrids enhance resilience in power distribution by providing the capability to be islanded from the utility grid and sustain electricity delivery using distributed energy resources. Microgrids are also able to accommodate a higher mix of renewable energy sources that bring about reduced carbon emissions. However, the increasing complexities that come with decentralizing power generation and the integration of cyber elements pose new challenges in making design decisions. In this thesis, two tradespace based methods are proposed for choosing value-robust microgrid designs during the conceptual design stage. A value-robust design is one that is able to sustain delivery of perceived value to stakeholders, even when subjected to changes in contexts and needs. Multi-Attribute Tradespace Exploration (MATE) enables decision makers to evaluate a large number of design alternatives against utility and expense metrics that capture the stakeholder-perceived value. A full tradespace exploration avoids premature fixation on local point solutions and provides a more in-depth appreciation of the design space. Epoch-Era Analysis (EEA) provides a dynamic perspective of the system to enable the evaluation of value robustness across time periods with changing contexts and value expectations. The value robustness of a design can be quantified by analyzing tradespaces across different value-centric time periods or epochs. Designs that are found to exhibit high value robustness can be identified as candidates for detailed design. A constructed case study of a military microgrid is presented to demonstrate the use of MATE and EEA to find highly value-robust designs. While traditional design approaches tend to limit decision-making to a choice among given alternatives, MATE and EEA focus on the fundamental values of decision makers, allowing them to generate alternatives and discover high value designs. / by Ke Wei Joel Ong. / 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 85-92). / Telecommunication (telecom) companies face increasingly tough times as digitization reshapes the industrial landscape. In 2012, telecom companies acknowledged that over-the-top (OTT) communication services have become the greatest threat to their revenues. OTT communication services use the internet to deliver an array of services such as voice, video calls, and messaging. Some of the most popular OTT companies are Skype, WhatsApp, WeChat, Google Hangouts, Viber, Line, etc. The continued business disruption is driving telecom companies to investigate platform-based business models as key ingredients to survival. Platform business models are the core of some of the most powerful and fastest-growing companies such as Alibaba, Uber, Airbnb, Facebook, etc. Platform businesses bring together producers and users in efficient exchanges of value. These models are known for leveraging network effects, which means the more participants on the platform, the greater the value produced. With the appearance of the 5th generation (5G) of mobile network connectivity, telecom companies need to know how they can protect themselves from being delegated by disruptors as commodity connectivity providers. In this thesis, we explored the areas where 5G can have an impact in the next five years. We used a technique developed by Professor Marshall Van Alstyne. The technique consists of plotting an interaction's perceived value versus interaction volume then selecting the area with the highest interaction of perceived value and volume. Results showed that immersive media has these characteristics. After we identified the area, we selected a platform using the concept evaluation methodology. The most feasible multi-sided platform (MSP) for the telecom industry in the next five years is a 3600 HD video platform with live and recorded long-tail content (large number of unique items with relatively small quantities). The MSP consists of four sides: users, content developers, advertisers, and software developers. Platform launch, monetization, openness and network effects strategies are proposed. Moreover, a financial analysis was performed. Results show the proposed MSP is a feasible option. Finally, a stakeholder analysis compares an existing digital platform versus our proposed platform. Results show similar behavior. / by Jonathan Melchor. / 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 89-90). / Each year, 385,000 needlesticks and other sharps-related injuries are sustained by hospital-based healthcare workers in U.S. (CDC, 2015). Out of the overall sharps injuries, approximately 67% are caused by needlestick devices ("CDC: Stop Sticks, Sharps Injuries," 2013). Numerous pathogens can be transmitted through needlestick injuries, but the three most common pathogens are Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, and Human Immunodeficiency Virus. There are processes in place to reduce needlestick injuries such as work-practice control, engineering control, personal protective clothing and equipment, employee training, etc., but they have not eliminated needlestick injuries. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the systematic causes of needlestick injuries in Massachusetts hospitals. System thinking process is used to define the needlestick system, interaction between stakeholders and see how injuries affect the needlestick system. System Dynamics model is also used to illustrate the pathway of the root causes of needlestick injuries. By using system thinking, current literature, stakeholder interviews, and knowledge from shadowing at one of the reputable hospitals in Boston, a systematic solution is proposed. The proposed solution addresses the root causes of needlestick injuries: professional pressure, high patient load/long hours, and patient-centric safety culture. The proposed solution also includes methods to address underreporting. Professional pressure and high patient load is addressed by creating programs that focus on improving self-care and reducing level of fatigue for the healthcare workers. In order to change the patient-centric safety culture, to patients and healthcare workers focused safety culture, the current prevention methods are reiterated. Furthermore, programs to create awareness of needlestick injuries, which forces doctors and nurses to consciously think about needlestick injury safety is proposed. An example is given of sharps injury prevention in surgeon's "time-out" checklist, similar to what is used at the Boston hospital. Finally, to address underreporting, programs to provide quick and easy reporting process are proposed for the healthcare workers. An important complement to the reporting system is a safety culture, where the healthcare workers do not feel fear of reporting due to repercussion on their jobs. A holistic solution is needed for a complex problem such as needlestick injuries. Only with a systematic solution that focuses on all of the root causes of needlestick injuries can they truly be reduced to a negligible amount. / by Jolly Pradhan. / S.M. in Engineering and Management