Senior Research Scientist, Center for Technology, Policy and Industrial Development
Senior Lecturer in Engineering Systems
Senior Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering

Dr. Whitney holds a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, which he received from MIT in 1968.

Dr. Whitney works with engineering, management, and policy researchers and students in connection with the Leaders for Manufacturing Program (LFM), the System Design and Management Program (SDM), the Lean Aircraft Initiative (LAI), and the Ford-MIT Research Alliance. His research includes product development, the use of computers in product design, understanding the role of assembly in the design and manufacturing process, and understanding how companies decide what design and manufacturing skills and facilities are core competencies. He teaches Mechanical Assembly in the Mechanical Engineering Department and helps teach Product Design and Development in the Sloan School of Management.

Dr. Whitney is the Program Area Manager for Information-Based Product Development research in the Ford-MIT Alliance. He is also the author or co-author of several books and over 80 articles in scholarly journals. His new book is called Mechanical Assemblies: Their Design, Manufacture, and Role in Product Development, published by Oxford University Press.

Dr. Whitney has also worked at the Draper Laboratory. At both MIT and Draper he has done research on robotics, mechanical assembly, design for automation, and use of CAD in the product development process. He has also taken part in many product design activities with industrial companies, dealing with assembly problems for both military and commercial products. He consults to major corporations in technology strategy and manufacturing.

Other interests include: Product development, the use of computers in product design, understanding the role of assembly in the design and manufacturing process, and understanding how companies decide what design and manufacturing skills and facilities are core competencies. Also network analysis of complex technological and social systems with application to mechanical assemblies and product development processes.

Dr. Whitney has traveled extensively, lived in Japan and Europe, and has written articles about product design methods in other countries. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

Updated June 2007

News and announcements:

Books Published by Daniel Whitney

Complex Systems publishes “Using Shape Grammar to Derive Cellular Automata Rule Patterns" (.pdf) co-authored by ESD Ph.D. student Tom Speller, Dr. Dan Whitney, Prof. Ed Crawley (July 11, 2007)

Whitney elected IEEE Fellow (February 2003)