Collaborative, Sequential, and Isolated Decisions in Design

1998 ◽  
Vol 120 (4) ◽  
pp. 643-652 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Lewis ◽  
F. Mistree
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Design Research ◽  
Systems Design ◽  
Massachusetts Institute Of Technology ◽  
Sequential Decision ◽  
Industrial Productivity ◽  
Game Theoretic ◽  
Institute Of Technology ◽  
Passenger Aircraft

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Commission on Industrial Productivity, in their report Made in America, found that six recurring weaknesses were hampering American manufacturing industries. The two weaknesses most relevant to product development were 1) technological weakness in development and production, and 2) failures in cooperation. The remedies to these weaknesses are considered the essential twin pillars of CE: 1) improved development process, and 2) closer cooperation. In the MIT report, it is recognized that total cooperation among teams in a CE environment is rare in American industry, while the majority of the design research in mathematically modeling CE has assumed total cooperation. In this paper, we present mathematical constructs, based on game theoretic principles, to model degrees of collaboration characterized by full cooperation, approximate cooperation, sequential decision making, and isolated decision making. The design of a pressure vessel is given to illustrate the theory, and the design of a passenger aircraft is given to illustrate the application to a large-scale systems design.

Collaborative, Sequential, and Isolated Decisions in Design

1997 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kemper Lewis ◽  
Farrokh Mistree
Keyword(s):  
Development Process ◽  
Design Research ◽  
Massachusetts Institute Of Technology ◽  
Sequential Decision ◽  
American Industry ◽  
Industrial Productivity ◽  
Game Theoretic ◽  
Institute Of Technology ◽  
Passenger Aircraft ◽  
Made In

Abstract The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Commission on Industrial Productivity, in their report Made in America, found that six recurring weaknesses were hampering American manufacturing industries. The two weaknesses most relevant to product development were 1) technological weakness in development and production, and 2) failures in cooperation. The remedies to these weaknesses are considered the essential twin pillars of CE: 1) improved development process, and 2) closer cooperation. In the MIT report, it is recognized that total cooperation among teams in a CE environment is rare in American industry, while the majority of the design research in mathematically modeling CE has assumed total cooperation. In this paper, we present mathematical constructs, based on game theoretic principles, to model degrees of collaboration characterized by approximate cooperation, sequential decision making and isolation. The design of a pressure vessel and a passenger aircraft are included as illustrative examples.

Fundamental Techniques

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jie Jack Li ◽  
Chris Limberakis ◽  
Derek A. Pflum
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Nobel Laureate ◽  
Social Benefit ◽  
Chemistry Laboratory ◽  
Massachusetts Institute Of Technology ◽  
Environmental Health And Safety ◽  
Eye Protection ◽  
Institute Of Technology ◽  
Organic Chemistry Laboratory

What we do in a modern organic chemistry laboratory is serious business. While it can provide social benefit, basic scientific discoveries, and intellectual satisfaction, chemical experiment is not just fun, it can also be very hazardous, some experiments inherently so. Complacency is often observed by veterans and novices alike. One often forgets that chemistry is a potentially dangerous enterprise; a cavalier attitude often results in disastrous consequences. Therefore, extreme caution should be exercised at all time, especially when one handles large-scale reactions that are exothermic or when dealing with toxic chemicals. If a chemical splashes into your eyes, it could do serious and sometimes permanent damage to your vision. The most common forms of eye protection include safety glasses (with sideshields), goggles, and face shields. Prescription eye glasses are acceptable provided that the lenses are impact resistant and they are equipped with side shields. While at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Professor K. Barry Sharpless, the 2001 chemistry Nobel laureate, experienced an event that forever changed his life. Professor Sharpless normally wore his safety glasses, but one evening in 1970 he was examining a sealed nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) tube without safety glasses. Unfortunately for Professor Sharpless, the tube exploded, spraying glass fragments into one of his eyes. The damage was so severe that he lost functional vision in the injured eye. Professor Sharpless’s own words summarize the importance of eye protection, “The lesson to be learned from my experience is straightforward: there’s simply never an adequate excuse for not wearing safety glasses in the laboratory at all times” (Scripps Research Institutes’ Environmental Health and Safety Department Safety Gram, 2000 (2nd quarter), www.scripps.edu/researchservices/ehs/ News/safetygram/). Laboratory gloves are an essential part of safe laboratory practice and must be worn while handling chemicals. Despite practicing good safety techniques, tragedy may still strike.

Book Reviews

2011 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 1273-1278
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Banking Regulation ◽  
Massachusetts Institute ◽  
Massachusetts Institute Of Technology ◽  
New York University ◽  
Industrial Economics ◽  
Institute Of Technology ◽  
Recent Financial Crisis

Matthew Richardson of New York University Stern School of Business reviews “Balancing the Banks: Global Lessons from the Financial Crisis” by Mathias Dewatripont, Jean-Charles Rochet, and Jean Tirole. The EconLit abstract of the reviewed work begins, “Three previously published papers explore what happened in the recent financial crisis and consider the lessons to be learned in order to avoid a repetition of the large-scale meltdown of financial markets, industrial recession, and public deficits. Papers discuss lessons from the crisis (Jean Tirole); the future of banking regulation (Jean-Charles Rochet); and the treatment of distressed banks (Mathias Dewatripont and Rochet). Dewatripoint is Professor of Economics at the Free University of Brussels, Annual Visiting Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Research Director of the Center for Economic Policy and Research. Rochet is Professor of Economics at the University of Toulouse I. Tirole is Chairman of the Foundation Jean-Jacques Laffont at the Toulouse School of Economics, Scientific Director of Toulouse's Industrial Economics Institute, and Annual Visiting Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Index.”

Automatic Clustering of Sequential Design Behaviors

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Molla Hafizur Rahman ◽  
Michael Gashler ◽  
Charles Xie ◽  
Zhenghui Sha
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Systems Design ◽  
Sequential Design ◽  
Sequential Decision Making ◽  
Behavioral Patterns ◽  
Clustering Methods ◽  
Sequential Decision ◽  
Design Heuristics ◽  
Design Process Model

Design is essentially a decision-making process, and systems design decisions are sequentially made. In-depth understanding on human sequential decision-making patterns in design helps discover useful design heuristics to improve existing algorithms of computational design. In this paper, we develop a framework for clustering designers with similar sequential design patterns. We adopt the Function-Behavior-Structure based design process model to characterize designers’ action sequence logged by computer-aided design (CAD) software as a sequence of design process stages. Such a sequence reflects designers’ thinking and sequential decision making during the design process. Then, the Markov chain is used to quantify the transitions between design stages from which various clustering methods can be applied. Three different clustering methods are tested, including the K-means clustering, the hierarchical clustering and the network-based clustering. A verification approach based on variation of information is developed to evaluate the effectiveness of each method and to identify the clusters of designers who show strong behavioral similarities. The framework is applied in a solar energy systems design problem — energy-plus home design. The case study shows that the proposed framework can successfully cluster designers and identify their sequential decision-making similarities and dissimilarities. Our framework can support the studies on the correlation between potential factors (e.g., designers’ demographics) and certain design behavioral patterns, as well as the correlation between behavioral patterns and design quality to identify beneficial design heuristics.

scholarly journals The regional concept of Zhang Jian

2006 ◽  
Vol 73 (436-441) ◽  
pp. 207-213
Author(s):  
Wu Tinghai
Keyword(s):  
Urban Planning ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Institutional Design ◽  
Spatial Development ◽  
Development Planning ◽  
Associate Professor ◽  
World Society ◽  
Massachusetts Institute Of Technology ◽  
The World ◽  
Institute Of Technology

The author obtained both his Bachelors degree in Economic Geography and Urban & Rural Planning, and his Masters degree in Human Geography from the Department of Geography, NanjingUniversity, Nanjing, P.R. China, and his Ph.D in Urban Planning and Design from the School of Architecture, Tsinghua University, Beijing, where he is currently Associate Professor of Architecture, acting as both Teacher and Researcher on Urban Geography and Regional Planning as well as on the history and culture of cities and regions. Based on personal research efforts or in collaboration with Professor Wu Liangyong for whom Dr Wu Tinghai acted as a research and teaching assistant, he has dealt with research on: Regional Innovative Milieu; Physical Support and Institutional Design; Regional Form Affected by Large-scale Infrastructure Construction; Spatial Development Planning for Beijing; Rural and Urban Spatial Development Planning for Greater Beijing Region; and Spatial Development Planning for Xuzhou inJiangsu Province. His publications include, among others, A Geographical Study on Urban Spatial Development in Western-Zhou Dynasty and The Regional Concept in the Study of the History of Chinese Cities. Two of his works which received high distinction in National Academic Thesis Competitions for Young Planners in China were published in the Urban Planning Review, UK in 1997 and 2001. In recent years, Dr Wu Tinghai has been a Visiting Scholar at Cambridge University, UK; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Boston, USA; and Dortmund University, Germany. He is also a member of the World Society for Ekistics. The text that follows was made available to participants at the international symposion on "Globalization and LocalIdentity," organized jointly by the World Society for Ekistics and the University of Shiga Prefecture in Hikone, Japan, 19-24 September, 2005, which Dr Wu Tinghai was finally unable to attend.

Course Scheduling Under Sudden Scarcity: Applications to Pandemic Planning

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cynthia Barnhart ◽  
Dimitris Bertsimas ◽  
Arthur Delarue ◽  
Julia Yan
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Curriculum Planning ◽  
Problem Definition ◽  
Effective Capacity ◽  
Massachusetts Institute Of Technology ◽  
Scheduling Problems ◽  
Integer Optimization ◽  
Course Scheduling ◽  
Institute Of Technology ◽  
The Impact

Problem definition: Physical distancing requirements during the COVID-19 pandemic have dramatically reduced the effective capacity of university campuses. Under these conditions, we examine how to make the most of newly scarce resources in the related problems of curriculum planning and course timetabling. Academic/practical relevance: We propose a unified model for university course scheduling problems under a two-stage framework and draw parallels between component problems while showing how to accommodate individual specifics. During the pandemic, our models were critical to measuring the impact of several innovative proposals, including expanding the academic calendar, teaching across multiple rooms, and rotating student attendance through the week and school year. Methodology: We use integer optimization combined with enrollment data from thousands of past students. Our models scale to thousands of individual students enrolled in hundreds of courses. Results: We projected that if Massachusetts Institute of Technology moved from its usual two-semester calendar to a three-semester calendar, with each student attending two semesters in person, more than 90% of student course demand could be satisfied on campus without increasing faculty workloads. For the Sloan School of Management, we produced a new schedule that was implemented in fall 2020. The schedule allowed half of Sloan courses to include an in-person component while adhering to safety guidelines. Despite a fourfold reduction in classroom capacity, it afforded two thirds of Sloan students the opportunity for in-person learning in at least half their courses. Managerial implications: Integer optimization can enable decision making at a large scale in a domain that is usually managed manually by university administrators. Our models, although inspired by the pandemic, are generic and could apply to any scheduling problem under severe capacity constraints.

scholarly journals Pedagogy and content evolution in cross-border higher education: Evidence from an American-Singaporean cross-border partnership

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dara R Fisher
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Massachusetts Institute Of Technology ◽  
Business Economics ◽  
Cultural Contexts ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
University Of Technology ◽  
Institute Of Technology ◽  
Future Work

Reflecting larger trends in business, economics, and communications, the field of higher education has undergone a rapid period of globalization and internationalization over the last half century.  While much scholarship has been devoted to the policies and practices of cross-border higher education work, little research has examined the mechanisms by which educational practices and approaches are modified and adapted when moved across cultural contexts. This paper addresses this gap by examining the processes by which foreign and local partners adapted and modified American educational approaches to fit the needs of Singaporean students in a large-scale cross-border higher education partnership.  Developed based on a year of immersive ethnographic fieldwork at the Singapore University of Technology and Design – a new university established in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – the findings of this paper show that local and foreign partners utilized three distinct strategies to modify American pedagogical and curricular approaches to fit the needs of the Singaporean context: collaborative mentorship and guidance, incremental modification of content and practice, and enabling and facilitating student-driven change.  This paper presents an overview of these findings, as well as their implications for future work.

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