Research | ESD Research Domains

Extended Enterprises

The global supply chains that keep food in supermarket aisles, medical supplies at hospitals, clothes on store shelves, and parts on hand for manufacturing demand extensive global coordination. The complexities of global supply chains, the interaction of corporate objectives with trade policies, currency fluctuations, and distributed product and process design, present an intricate set of engineering challenges that are central to ESD. These challenges involve the optimization of these global networks under demand and supply uncertainties throughout many regulatory regimes and cultures.

Research projects:

Carbon-Efficient Supply Chains
There is increased interest in the business community to reduce carbon-based energy consumption as well as the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the products and services they provide. Research at MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics addresses three main challenges in developing carbon-efficient strategies for supply chains, including finding ways to calculate and measure the carbon footprint of a supply chain, determining the best strategies to reduce the energy and carbon emissions throughout the supply chain, and effectively communicating the carbon footprint to consumers and stakeholders. Read more.

Change Propagation Analysis in Complex Technical Systems
This research develops and applies change propagation analysis methods and extended prior reasoning through examination of large data sets from industry. One such data set at Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems included 41,500 change requests, spanning eight years during the design of a complex sensor system. The research used graph theory to define how specific network relationships of connected “parent,” “children,” and “sibling” changes are resolved over time and mapped to various subsystem areas. Read more.

Strategic Materials Decisions: Systems Insights to Improve Recyclabilty
Materials choices affect every aspect of the life cycle of every product, from materials production to manufacture to use, end-of-life, and materials recovery. Product and materials recycling can limit the environmental impacts of manufacturing processes, but its implementation has been largely opportunistic, rather than grounded in an appreciation of the interactions among materials science, production technology, materials markets, and product life cycles. Using simulation and stochastic optimization methods, the ESD research team has developed recycling strategies that include redesign of materials, products, recycler processes, recovery infrastructure, and policy. Read more.

Wal-Mart Transportation Portfolio Management
Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, is also one of the largest private fleet owners with over 8,000 drivers operating more than 60,000 pieces of equipment. In addition to using its own equipment, the company is a major purchaser of for hire-trucking services—both with dedicated fleets and individual lane contracts. Each type of resource (private fleet, dedicated fleet, and for-hire carrier) has a different cost structure and risk profile. The MIT Center for Transportation and Logisitcs is working with Wal-Mart to address challenges of determining, at a strategic level, when and where to use these different types of transportation resources. Read more.

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News items:

Daniel Roos interviewed about auto industry on "Marketplace" (Marketplace (American Public Media) - July 10, 2009)

“MIT takes on global transportation problems” (Boston Globe - Associated Press, March 4, 2009)

“What You Should Do About Tainted Goods from China and Other Global Supply Chain Risks” (CIO Magazine – October 1, 2008)

“FedEx: Leaders aim to guide growth” (Greensboro News Record (NC) – September 18, 2008)

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Videos:

"Design of Adaptable Supply Chains"
ESD PhD student Shardul Phadnis shares his research on the design of adaptable supply chains.
View on TechTV.

"Perception & Coordination in Product Development"
ESD PhD student Joao Castro shares his research on how product development teams engage in coordination and indentify who they need to work with.
View on TechTV.

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Publications:

The Machine That Changed the World: The Story of Lean Production – Toyota's Secret Weapon in the Global Car Wars That Is Now Revolutionizing World Industry
James P. Womack, Daniel T. Jones, Daniel Roos

Designing and Managing the Supply Chain: Concepts, Strategies and Case Studies
David Simchi-Levi, Phillip Kaminsky, Edith Simchi-Levi

Lean Enterprise Value: Insights from MIT’s Lean Aerospace Initiative
Earll Murman, Tom Allen, Kirkor Bozdogan, Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld, Hugh McManus, Deborah Nightingale, Eric Rebentisch, Tom Shields, Fred Stahl, Myles Walton, Joyce Warmkessel, Stanley Weiss, Sheila Widnall

Clock Speed: Winning Industry Control in the Age of Temporary Advantage
Charles H. Fine

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