Videos

Cross-industry Applications of the Systems Thinking Approach

Lisa Cratty
Director of Research and Development, Preclinical Systems, Becton, Dickinson and Company; SDM Alumna

From the 2012 MIT SDM Conference on Systems Thinking for Contemporary Challenges

Using a systems design approach can improve problem-solving across industries and companies. The belief that the "widget" or end-product determines an approach to problem-solving can lead to failure or less than optimal results. Managers in older, established companies assume they know the best approach through repeated experiences. Managers in newer, less mature businesses "don't know what they don't know." In either case, a critical variable may be omitted in the problem-solving process. The systems-thinking approach, can be applied to product development and research & development efforts in any company or industry. The systems thinking approach also aids in developing strong business relationships and effective managing of people. It offers a useful framework for improving cross-functional collaboration, the hiring process, and career management. Whatever the "widget"—whether it be a product or service—or the business function, systems thinking offers a transferable model for developing effective workflows and problem-solving.

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The Art and Science of Systems Thinking and Systems Engineering

Ellen Ferraro
Director of the Systems Architecture, Design and Integration Directorate (SADID), Raytheon Company

From the 2012 MIT SDM Conference on Systems Thinking for Contemporary Challenges

Systems Engineering and Systems Thinking are both needed to design complex systems in dynamic environments. Reports from the Department of Defense have shown that our current systems which are developed using traditional systems engineering processes only are often too expensive and take too long to be fielded. The government needs affordable systems that can be delivered quickly, but these complex systems need to meet continually changing threats and volatile security challenges. This talk will provide examples of how the art of systems thinking and systems engineering can result in effective solutions that can be adapted to meet current and future complex needs.

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Connecting System Architecture to Engineering Practice

Genevieve Flanagan
System Lead for Technology Development Product Verification and Validation for John Deere Power Systems; SDM Alumna

From the 2012 MIT SDM Conference on Systems Thinking for Contemporary Challenges

The applicability of my very first class in system architecture was immediately apparent to me, but reality quickly set in when I returned to my day job. In industry, very few of the core principles of system architecture are given time and resources under current processes and a number of challenges make it difficult to implement those principles. The decisions that need to be made early in the design process are heavily constrained by legacy products, which in the end have a larger impact on the system performance envelope than do the results of a value flow analysis. This session will present some of the many challenges experienced in industry when implementing the principles of system architecture and will describe what we are doing to bridge the gap.

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Business Transformation and Optimization using Systems Thinking

Heidi Grenek
Western Hemisphere Post Sale Supply Chain New Product Launch Manager, Xerox Corporation

From the 2012 MIT SDM Conference on Systems Thinking for Contemporary Challenges

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Adressing Complexity and Innovation in Energy, Big Data and Diverse Industries

Pat Hale
Executive Director, MIT System Design and Management Program
Senior Lecturer, MIT Engineering Systems Division

From the 2012 MIT SDM Conference on Systems Thinking for Contemporary Challenges

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Electricity Generation Alternatives

Ralph Izzo
Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Public Service Enterprise Group Incorporated

From the 2012 MIT SDM Conference on Systems Thinking for Contemporary Challenges

For more than 100 years, the United States has built an infrastructure that reliably provides electricity to customers whenever it is needed. This infrastructure relies on generation technologies with stable, low-cost fuel supplies. As global demand for energy continues to grow, it has become increasingly important that electricity is produced in a manner that is sustainable over the long-term. Meeting future energy needs while also reducing environmental risks requires a set of solutions that include energy efficiency, renewable energy, and clean central station power — including nuclear power and environmentally responsible coal facilities.

While conventional generation and renewable technologies share trade-offs between cost and environmental impacts, energy efficiency is often forgotten as a proven, low-cost and environmentally-benign alternative resource. In order to overcome the real barriers that exist to tapping this potential, innovative approaches and supportive public policies are needed to continue to provide safe, reliable, economic and green energy for generations to come.

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Big Data Analytics for Managing Product & Portfolio Systems

Nitin Joglekar
Associate Professor of Operations and Technology Management at Boston University's School of Management, is visiting faculty at MIT's Sloan School in 2012-2013

From the 2012 MIT SDM Conference on Systems Thinking for Contemporary Challenges

The confluence of internal and external data from emergent sources such as social networks and social media provides product and portfolio managers with big data sets. These data have the potential to identify high-leverage opportunities that range from enhancing project learning rates to changing the market positioning of new products. Yet, collection and deployment of big data in innovation contexts raises more questions than answers at many companies. Innovation teams are often faced with rising task complexity, along with dynamic and unstructured data, that confounds rapid pattern recognition. Dependency Structure Matrices (DSMs) and System Dynamics modeling, along with methods such as machine learning and Baysian updates, offer novel opportunities to improve pattern recognition and analytics. A variety of problem classes may be addressed using these techniques. For instance: How could identical types of rework be scaled down across successive design iterations, and to what extent will this scaling improve the project performance? And, when will the rate of learning rise, rather than attenuate, when personnel are shared across a portfolio of agile projects? Reliance on real-time data and analytics-based decision-making create their own delays and pathologies while teams work with imperfect information and debate inferences. Therefore, implementation of big data-driven innovation analytics ought to be accompanied by changes in style of leadership, real-time tracking of key parameters, leveraging networks of communication, and realigned organizational structures. Such changes can be best guided through systems thinking.

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Generating Solutions at GE: A Business-Wide Systems Approach

Gary Mercer
Vice President and General Manager for Technology and Sciences; Chief Engineer for Engines Engineering; GE Aviation

From the 2012 MIT SDM Conference on Systems Thinking for Contemporary Challenges

General Electric (GE) is a global company with diverse holdings and a history of creating and applying technology to overcoming complex challenges. This discussion will present case studies from GE Aviation, GE Oil and Gas, and GE Energy to show how those businesses optimize their ability to solve challenging problems with a systems approach. Mr. Mercer will discuss the ways that GE leverages its Global Research Centers and businesses to meet increasing market requirements and define new product capabilities focused on customer value. A problem-solving approach must integrate technology, management, and business solutions to be competitive. This session will provide examples of how elements of system design combined with fundamental technological advancement have allowed GE to expand its customer base and continue to grow.

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The New Race to the Moon: Old World Ideas versus New World Opportunities

Robert (Bob) Richards
Chief Executive Officer, Moon Express, Inc.

From the 2012 MIT SDM Conference on Systems Thinking for Contemporary Challenges

The health of our home planet and the survival of our species will only be secured through the use of space resources and the expansion of Earth's economic sphere to the Moon and beyond. We must create an off-Earth economy and multi-world civilization to safeguard the long-term prospects for humanity. Between 1969 and 1972, twelve human beings walked on the Moon. After what many view as the most awesome technological and psychological achievement of the human species, they left, and have yet to return. Why? Was the effort to put human beings on the moon—however briefly—a useless waste of human ingenuity? Why did humanity abandon its first toehold on another sphere? More importantly, why should we return? What new forces and motivators are in play today that might make the story a different one than the Apollo dead end? Today there are people in many nations who have a rebirth of interest in going back to the Moon. However, while bureaucrats and legislators plan and strategize how to navigate the political minefields and conflicting national priorities that would justify the value of Moon expeditions to taxpayers, there are some new kids on the block who are not so constrained. They are the privateers—though some might call them visionaries—whose driving metric for going to the Moon is sustainable business and commerce. The announcement of the $30M Google Lunar X Prize on September 13th, 2007, has energized these contestants and catalyzed a New Race to the Moon.

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A Journey to Solutions

Phil Sherburne
Vice President
Enterprise Smart Solution Engineering, Cisco Systems, Inc.

From the 2012 MIT SDM Conference on Systems Thinking for Contemporary Challenges

Cisco has been known throughout its history as a great product company. The company has grown dramatically since its founding in 1984 — organically, acquisition and technology partnerships. One of Cisco's cultural pillars is focusing on and listening to customers. More and more as Cisco's portfolio has grown and our customer are looking to Cisco to not simply be a technology product provider but rather providing systems and solutions that address the business problems.

The talk will describe Cisco's journey from Product to Systems to Solutions. A perspective on what has worked — as well as some of the false starts — are described including process, methodology and organizational insights of the journey. As this journey is one that clearly continues today, challenges that remain and our direction forward are discussed.

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TIBCO Software, Inc.

Murat Sönmez
Executive Vice President, Global Field Operations, TIBCO Software, Inc.

From the 2012 MIT SDM Conference on Systems Thinking for Contemporary Challenges

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Creating Value through Systems Engineering

Tina P. Srivastava
Deputy Technical Director, Electronic Warfare, Raytheon,
SDM Fellow 2011

From the 2012 MIT SDM Conference on Systems Thinking for Contemporary Challenges

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Uncovering and Explaining the Rate of Improvement in Energy

Jessika Trancik
Assistant Professor of Engineering Systems, MIT

From the 2012 MIT SDM Conference on Systems Thinking for Contemporary Challenges

The costs and environmental impacts of energy systems are dynamic, changing dramatically over time. Given the changing performance of technologies, how should we compare energy supply options to one another? Which technologies are poised to significantly decrease greenhouse gas emissions? Can we sustain or even increase the rate of improvement in new energy technologies? I will present recent research that combines the development of novel quantitative models and theory with the analysis of large datasets to evaluate energy systems. In addition to producing new insights on the rate of technological improvement, this research has generated new guidelines for technology design.

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Alumni Discuss Value of SDM

This video features several SDM alumni, all senior level execs in their companies, who describe why they chose to pursue an MS in engineering and management through SDM, how they apply their SDM education on the job, and the benefits this brings to SDM alums and their companies.

Systems Thinking in Aero Engine Control System Development

Malvern Atherton
Chief Design Engineer, Control Systems, Rolls-Royce Corporation, SDM alumnus

From the 2011 MIT SDM Conference on Systems Thinking for Contemporary Challenges

Systems engineering is critical to the development of successful control systems for gas turbine engines. Rolls-Royce develops a wide range of gas turbine engines for military, commercial aerospace, and industrial applications. This presentation focuses on the use of systems thinking on a project at the US division in Indianapolis to develop new control systems for engines used on small helicopter and light turboprop applications.

A key challenge was to address military and commercial applications with a common system architecture. Military customers focus on capability and system availability, whereas commercial customers focus on minimizing operating cost. Other considerations include adaptability for future applications, and export restrictions for commercial applications.

The presentation looks at how the company has used systems engineering and systems thinking to face these challenges, including by leveraging its capability in processes and tools and by employing a global supply chain strategy.

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Systems Thinking in Personalized Medicine

Devon Campbell
Head (Director) of Engineering and Systems, Novartis Molecular Diagnostics (MDx)

From the 2011 MIT SDM Conference on Systems Thinking for Contemporary Challenges

In 2008, Novartis established Molecular Diagnostics (MDx), an integrated unit within the Novartis Pharmaceuticals Division that leverages the company’s strengths and capabilities in pharmaceutical research, development, and commercialization to translate identified biomarkers into high-quality diagnostic tests. Through the creation of the MDx unit, Novartis has demonstrated a systems approach at the foundational level in its pursuit of advancing the future of personalized medicine. The successful and efficient delivery of personalized medicine requires both an effective drug and a targeted companion diagnostic test. Fundamentally, our basic strategy comprehends the need to have an integrated systems approach to the myriad complex issues that exist along the interfaces between drug discovery, drug development, and in vitro diagnostic (IVD) system development. In practice, the creation of a successful IVD system demands the adoption of a strong, systems thinking perspective as multiple, completely disparate technologies must be synthesized into a single, cohesive, well-characterized system.

This presentation will broadly examine how the application of systems thinking has uniquely positioned Novartis in this complicated and highly regulated healthcare arena. We will also investigate specific, technical examples of how systems thinking is being implemented within the MDx organization toward the holistic development of highly complex, yet innovative, IVD tests and systems.

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Systems Thinking in Creating Value

Edward Crawley
Ford Professor of Engineering, Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and of Engineering Systems, Codirector, Bernard M. Gordon-MIT Engineering Leadership Program, Cofounder SDM

From the 2011 MIT SDM Conference on Systems Thinking for Contemporary Challenges

How do you become a systems thinker? This talk will present a template for how to think about system problems. It will offer a rational, task-based approach to thinking of a set of entities as a system and then identifying what will emerge from that system. Examples will be drawn from a wide variety of systems, including processes, products, human behavior, and politics. You will leave with a set of tools to apply in your own domain.

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The Future of Engineering Design

Steven Eppinger, ScD
General Motors Leaders for Global Operations Professor of Management, MIT
Professor of Management Science and Engineering Systems
Codirector, System Design and Management Program

From the 2011 MIT SDM Conference on Systems Thinking for Contemporary Challenges

The engineering design profession is undergoing substantial changes at this time. This presentation highlights important trends in three areas:

1. Engineering design processes, which have become almost entirely digital through the use of CAD, CAE, and PDM tools 2. Engineering organizations, which are now more globally distributed through the adoption of outsourcing and offshoring business models 3. Engineering culture, which is changing with the influx of Generation Y engineers who have grown up using the internet and social networking tools and, as a result, think and work differently than their predecessors

These changes have profound impact on the engineering design profession, on the ways we must develop engineers today, on the kinds of jobs that engineers will have in the near future, and on the challenges of engineering leadership.

The impact of these changes will be far-reaching.

Engineering-based businesses must learn to utilize engineering talent in more open and collaborative ways. Most will struggle to adapt to the relatively rapid changes of methods and business models.

Engineering design methods will continue to evolve through the incorporation of collaborative and distributed tools for the execution of more and more of the development process. Entirely new design and development processes will become feasible with the incorporation of advanced networking methods.

The engineering design profession has always been evolving to include new types of engineering jobs. The profession will now also face new challenges of leadership, as technical managers struggle to coordinate global projects and to mentor young engineers who have new and different career aspirations.

Engineering design education faces an immediate challenge to engage students in relevant project-based experiences that can expose them both to traditional technical material and to new ways to connect and apply those tools.

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IBM's Watson, Analytics, and the Implications for Industry and Society

Katharine Frase, PhD
Vice President, Industry Solutions and Emerging Business, IBM Research
Doug Hague, PhD
Small Business Analytics Executive, Consumer and Small Business Banking, Bank of America, SDM alumnus
David Hartzband, ScD
Lecturer, Engineering Systems Division, MIT
Irving Wladawsky-Berger
Visiting Lecturer, MIT Engineering Systems Division and MIT Sloan School of Management
Adjunct Professor, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Group, Imperial College Business School
Senior Fellow, Levin Institute, State University of New York

From the 2011 MIT SDM Conference on Systems Thinking for Contemporary Challenges

In the last few years, we have seen incredible advances in information analytics, which involve processing large amounts of information with sophisticated algorithms running on powerful supercomputers. The implications of having these powerful new analytic tools are deep and pervasive.

Dr. Irving Wladawsky-Berger will lead a panel of experts in discussing the impact of this new technology, specifically how people use it and how it changes what people do. As importantly, they will explore how it can be leveraged for business value, to raise the standard of living and the quality of life in our societies, and to empower individuals to do a better job. Dr. Katharine Frase, Vice President of Industry Solutions and Emerging Business at IBM Research, will begin the panel discussion with an overview of Watson, including its application in healthcare. ESD Visiting Scholar Dr. David Hartzband, who has a long history in academia and industry and whose current work focuses on healthcare information technology, will talk about advanced analytic tools in healthcare. SDM alumnus Dr. Doug Hague, who, as a small business analytics executive in consumer and small business banking at Bank of America leads a team that analyzes business performance, client behaviors, and strategic initiatives, will discuss advanced analytic tools in finance. This will include risk management, identity management, and security.

The overarching theme will be using systems thinking both to build these tools and to empower the people who will use them.

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Katharine Frase, PhD
Doug Hague, PhD
David Hartzband, ScD
Irving Wladawsky-Berger

Systems Thinking and Medical Devices

Julian Goldman, MD
Medical Director of Biomedical Engineering for Partners HealthCare System
Principal Anesthesiologist, Massachusetts General Hospital "Operating Room of the Future"
Director of the Program on Medical Device Interoperability at MGH and the Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology (CIMIT)

From the 2011 MIT SDM Conference on Systems Thinking for Contemporary Challenges

Medical devices are where the rubber meets the road — where systems theories actually touch the patients. To build a more efficient healthcare system, there’s an urgent need to consider all components of care — technical, management, and socio-political — from a systems-thinking perspective.

If more devices could communicate with each other, hospital staff could avoid injuries and deaths that occur each year. Dr. Goldman and his team at Partners HealthCare are developing new life-saving technology to enable this — smarter, safer devices that can exchange information seamlessly across networks. He will discuss some of the specific technological solutions in his presentation, as well as ways to address the managerial and socio-political challenges in implementation.

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Samples of Systems Research in Healthcare and Education

Sahar Hashmi, MD
SDM alumna and current MIT Engineering Systems Division (ESD) PhD candidate
Richard C. Larson, PhD
Mitsui Professor of Engineering Systems, MIT Engineering Systems Division
Director, MIT Center for Engineering Systems Fundamentals

From the 2011 MIT SDM Conference on Systems Thinking for Contemporary Challenges

More than 25 percent of US GDP is devoted to healthcare and education, which are the largest two service sectors in the United States. Both are undergoing radical changes, leveraged by information technologies and motivated by costs and performance. In this talk, Professor Larson will give an overview of his MIT team's R&D in these two areas and Dr. Hashmi will present details of two of her projects in health systems. The education component will feature new advances in Technology-Enabled Learning, including a prototype new software platform, Guided Learning Pathways. Also featured will be MIT's initiatives in Open Educational Resources, for learners of all ages. The health systems research will focus on high-consequence, low-probability events having potentially disastrous public health consequences. These include acts of nature, industrial accidents, and terrorist attacks. The detailed case studies will include work on pandemic flu and effective handling of patients reporting to emergency rooms.

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Sahar Hashmi, MD
Richard C. Larson, PhD

A Systems Approach to Food Safety

John Helferich
Former Senior Vice President of R&D, Mars Inc.
ESD PhD student, SDM alumnus

From the 2011 MIT SDM Conference on Systems Thinking for Contemporary Challenges

Food-borne illnesses lead to 3,000 deaths per year in the United States. Some industries, such as aviation, have made great strides in increasing safety through careful accident analysis and follow-up changes in industry practices. In the food industry, the current methods of accident analysis are grounded in regulations developed when the food industry was far simpler than it is today. The food industry has become more complex with international supply chains and increasing consumer demand for fresher food. The application of a system theoretic accident analysis method, CAST, results in more learning than the current method of accident analysis. This increased learning will lead to improved safety performance in the food production system.

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Systems, Design, and Management and the Educational and Research Mission of Today’s Universities

Thomas L. Magnanti, PhD
Institute Professor; Dean of the School of Engineering 1999–2006; Professor of Management Science and Electrical Engineering;
President, Singapore University of Technology and Design; Cofounder, SDM

From the 2011 MIT SDM Conference on Systems Thinking for Contemporary Challenges

The US National Academy of Engineering’s list of the greatest engineering achievements of the last century was populated by both innovative, path-breaking products and the development of complex technical systems. These innovations have had a profound effect on our everyday lives, on national and global economies, and on the very social fabric of the world. Today’s most pressing problems in energy, heathcare, the environment, and transportation require the same type of imaginative innovations. How should leading universities in their curricula and research help to deal with these issues? What is the role of industry? The creation of a brand new university provides a singular opportunity to address this question. This talk will describe one such opportunity: the conception of the Singapore University of Technology and Design, which is being established in collaboration with MIT.

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Systems Integration: Business Strategy and Organizational Evolution

Thomas Pelland
Vice President and General Manager, Air Management Systems, Hamilton Sundstrand, SDM alumnus

From the 2011 MIT SDM Conference on Systems Thinking for Contemporary Challenges

Airplanes and associated aerospace products continue to become increasingly complex as the economic demands force the industry to drive higher and higher performance. To achieve these results, systems are becoming more highly integrated to lower weight and increase performance. To compete, aerospace companies, such as Hamilton Sundstrand, must continue to evolve and take on increasing system integration responsibilities.

This presentation will broadly explore the considerations of increased systems integration responsibilities, including a perspective on what "systems integration" is, as well as the organizational and business aspects.

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IBM's Watson, Analytics, and the Implications for Industry and Society

Irving Wladawsky-Berger, PhD
Vice President Emeritus, IBM; Visiting Lecturer, Sloan School of Management and Engineering Systems Division, MIT

From the 2011 MIT SDM Conference on Systems Thinking for Contemporary Challenges

In the last few years, we have seen incredible advances in information analytics, which involve processing large amounts of information with sophisticated algorithms running on powerful supercomputers. The implications of having these powerful new analytic tools are deep and pervasive.

Dr. Irving Wladawsky-Berger will lead a panel of experts in discussing the impact of this new technology, specifically how people use it and how it changes what people do. As importantly, they will explore how it can be leveraged for business value, to raise the standard of living and the quality of life in our societies, and to empower individuals to do a better job. Dr. Katharine Frase, Vice President of Industry Solutions and Emerging Business at IBM Research, will begin the panel discussion with an overview of Watson, including its application in healthcare. ESD Visiting Scholar Dr. David Hartzband, who has a long history in academia and industry and whose current work focuses on healthcare information technology, will talk about advanced analytic tools in healthcare. SDM alumnus Dr. Doug Hague, who, as a small business analytics executive in consumer and small business banking at Bank of America leads a team that analyzes business performance, client behaviors, and strategic initiatives, will discuss advanced analytic tools in finance. This will include risk management, identity management, and security.

The overarching theme will be using systems thinking both to build these tools and to empower the people who will use them.

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Nada Hashmi, Legatum Fellow

Nada Hashmi
SDM '08

Nada Hashmi, an alumna of MIT's System Design and Management Program and now a fellow in MIT's Legatum Center for Development & Entrepreneurship, discusses health care, technological innovation, and entrepreneurship in the Middle East.

Boeing's 787 and the Challenges of Complex Global Systems

Mark Jenks
Vice President of Development, 787 Program, Boeing Commercial Airplanes

From the 2010 MIT SDM Conference on Systems Thinking for Contemporary Challenges

The design, development and production of Boeing’s 787 represent a highly integrated, complex and fundamentally global system. An overview of the 787 program is provided as context, describing not only the airplane’s technical innovations, but the unique elements of the business model used to design and integrate its extended global supply chain. Wide ranging elements of the development process, including the fundamental selection of technologies, supply chain design, intellectual property protection, labor relations, logistics, competitive marketing strategy and program financing are in fact all elements of a highly integrated system.

Many aspects of this process may be viewed as "classic", albeit highly complex, examples of systems engineering analysis. Deciding to design and build a small fleet of modified 747’s as the program’s logistics solution was part of a systems engineering analysis that included the basic elements of supplier selection, manufacturing process efficiency and inventory holding costs. On the other hand, understanding the cultural nuances associated with relocating a centuries old olive grove in Southern Italy or leveraging and integrating the different decision-making processes used by Japanese and American engineering teams represent less obvious, but no less critical, elements of successfully managing within this system.

Having recognized the diverse and highly integrated nature of this process, we must develop leaders who can understand and integrate the wide ranging technical, business and cultural elements of this complex global system.

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Systems Issues in Nuclear Reactor Safety

George Apostolakis
Commissioner, US Nuclear Regulatory Commission

From the 2010 MIT SDM Conference on Systems Thinking for Contemporary Challenges

The presentation addresses the important role system modeling has played in meeting the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s expectation that the risks from nuclear power plants should not be a significant addition to other societal risks. Nuclear power plants are designed to be fundamentally safe due to diverse and redundant barriers to prevent radiation exposure to the public and the environment. A summary of the evolution of probabilistic risk assessment of commercial nuclear power systems will be presented. The summary will begin with the landmark Reactor Safety Study performed in 1975 and continue up to the risk-informed Reactor Oversight Process. Topics will include risk-informed decision making, risk assessment limitations, the philosophy of defense-in-depth, importance measures, regulatory approaches to handling procedural and human errors, and the influence of safety culture as the next level of nuclear power safety performance improvement.

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Prognostic Aging: Envisioning a Systems Approach to Well-Being Across the Lifespan

Joseph Coughlin
Director, MIT AgeLab & Senior Lecturer, Engineering Systems Division

From the 2010 MIT SDM Conference on Systems Thinking for Contemporary Challenges

Prognostics engineering seeks to predict the time when a system will fail. Typically applied to appliances, transportation vehicles and other technologies, prognostics is a data-driven approach to predict and analyze system failure, development of techniques to detect early signs of performance decline, and effective approaches to lifecycle management. Prognostics provides a useful metaphor and framework to envision how human longevity and well-being might be achieved through the creative application of technology, incentives to motivate behavioral change and personal health data to both manage and monitor progress from birth to 100+. Drawing upon survey findings from the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, this presentation will show how data, ambient intelligent systems, and agents of change such as employers, insurers, families and social networks might be strategically aligned to improve individual well-being while reducing societal healthcare costs.

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Re-engineering US Health Care with Health-Care Information Technology — Promises and Peril

Blackford Middleton, MD, MPH, MSc
Corporate Director of Clinical Informatics Research & Development, Partners HealthCare System
Assistant Professor of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health

From the 2010 MIT SDM Conference on Systems Thinking for Contemporary Challenges

Health-care information technology (HIT) holds the promise of helping to fundamentally transform US health care. Current federal, state, and local efforts are aimed at a rapid expansion of the use of HIT to help control costs, improve quality and patient safety, and provide a foundation for health-care reform. However, inattention to critical systems design issues may prevent the full value potential from being attained from a wired health-care delivery system. Dr. Middleton will present a systems perspective on clinical information management in health-care delivery, focusing on critical issues related to value and considerations that may impede full value potential. He will provide an overview of the evidence that suggests HIT can impact costs and quality of care, and describe system development and implementation opportunities and challenges. Examples will be drawn from Partners HealthCare clinical systems development.

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Clinical Knowledge Management at Scale: Fulfilling the Promise of Pervasive Computerized Clinical Decision Support for Providers and Consumers

Roberto Rocha, MD, PhD
Senior Corporate Manager for Knowledge Management and Clinical Decision Support, Clinical Informatics Research & Development, Partners HealthCare System
Faculty, Division of General Internal Medicine and Primary Care, Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School

From the 2010 MIT SDM Conference on Systems Thinking for Contemporary Challenges

Unprecedented government investments are accelerating the adoption and meaningful use of health information technology, including the widespread utilization of electronic health records by providers and consumers. Major goals of these investments include quality improvements to care delivery, reduction of errors, and decreased costs. Within the context of electronic health records, these far-reaching goals entail pervasive computerized clinical decision support capabilities that ultimately depend on the availability of computer-interpretable clinical knowledge. Sustainable and scalable clinical knowledge engineering efforts are needed to produce the necessary computer-interpretable knowledge; however, most health-care institutions have limited experience with large-scale knowledge management systems. Dr. Rocha will describe important challenges and opportunities for the implementation of knowledge management systems within and across health-care institutions. He will also outline technical and organizational requirements for innovative knowledge engineering tools and describe strategies for their optimal integration with electronic health records. Dr. Rocha will describe the different modalities of clinical decision support and explain the knowledge engineering processes required for producing, implementing, and maintaining computer-interpretable clinical knowledge at scale. Practical details and examples will be drawn from Partners HealthCare and similar health-care systems.

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The Senseable City

Kristian Kloeckl
Senseable City Laboratory, Lead, Real Time City Group

From the 2010 MIT SDM Conference on Systems Thinking for Contemporary Challenges

The real-time city is now real! This presentation will address the increasing deployment of sensors and hand-held electronics in recent years, which is allowing a new approach to the study of the built environment. This talk will explore how the way we describe and understand cities is being radically transformed—alongside the tools we use to design them and impact their physical structure.

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The Transformation of Service Industries

Richard C. Larson
Mitsui Professor of Engineering Systems, MIT Engineering Systems Division
Director, MIT Center for Engineering Systems Fundamentals

From the 2010 MIT SDM Conference on Systems Thinking for Contemporary Challenges

"Number please." These words were one once heard when picking up the telephone to make a call. Yes, a human telephone operator was involved in making each connection. This snippet from post-WWII history is illustrative of what once was and no longer is in service industries.

Most services that were once labor intensive have replaced human servers with technology and/or with the customer herself performing the service, i.e., "self-service." In this presentation, we review these trends by example and then illustrate some of the decision and modeling technologies that have played key roles in the transformation. This focus has created a new field called "Service Science." We give examples in communication, retail, transportation/logistics, banking and education.

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Service Systems Innovation for Treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress in the U.S. Military: An Enterprise Systems Approach

Deborah J. Nightingale
Professor of the Practice of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Engineering Systems, MIT
Codirector, Lean Advancement Initiative
Director, MIT Center for Technology, Policy and Industrial Development

From the 2010 MIT SDM Conference on Systems Thinking for Contemporary Challenges

An estimated 300,000, or 18.5% of combat veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or major depression. However, the full continuum of care in the U.S. Military for PTSD and related disorders is reported to be insufficient to meet the current and future needs of service members and their beneficiaries (Department of Defense Task Force on Mental Health, 2007). While a systems perspective that accounts for all components of the system is advised by a number of experts, limited research has considered such an approach. This presentation highlights new MIT research that takes an enterprise perspective that enables system observation and analysis beyond the more commonly studied components of care (e.g., diagnosis and treatment) to include other critical components (e.g., prevention, resilience, and reintegration activities). This approach to analyzing the system of care for PTSD and related disorders in the U.S. military using both quantitative modeling as well as qualitative methods will be described. Initial recommendations for transformation of the enterprise will also be discussed. This case review presents implications for the use of an enterprise systems perspective to describe and ultimately improve other large-scale healthcare systems and presents areas for future research.

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A Banquet of Consequences: Systems Thinking and Modeling for Climate Change Policy

John D. Sterman
Jay W. Forrester Professor of Management, MIT Sloan School of Management
Professor of System Dynamics and Engineering Systems, MIT
Director, MIT System Dynamics Group

From the 2010 MIT SDM Conference on Systems Thinking for Contemporary Challenges

Why is the world so slow to address the risks posed by climate change? The problem is not imperfect scientific understanding, nor lack of computer models, but a failure of systems thinking throughout society, including among scientists, policymakers, the media, and the public at large. This presentation will highlight the widespread but erroneous mental models people use to think about complex systems and how these poor models can be overcome with rigorous but accessible systems thinking methods. To illustrate, fast and flexible simulation models will be presented that provide people with the ability to discover—for themselves—the complex dynamics of the climate and the likely consequences of proposals to cut greenhouse gas emissions. These models are now being used by senior policymakers in the United States and other nations.

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Technology and Innovation in the Service Economy

Irving Wladawsky-Berger
Visiting Lecturer, MIT Engineering Systems Division and MIT Sloan School of Management
Adjunct Professor, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Group, Imperial College Business School
Senior Fellow, Levin Institute, State University of New York

From the 2010 MIT SDM Conference on Systems Thinking for Contemporary Challenges

Over the past century, science and technology have been successfully applied to innovation in the industrial sector of the economy, leading to very high productivity and quality, as well as to the development of highly sophisticated and complex objects such as airplanes, skyscrapers, and microprocessors.

The services sector comprises between 70 percent and 80 percent of gross domestic product and jobs in advanced economies around the world. Services are ubiquitous across many sectors of the economy, e.g., finance, health care, retail, creative industries, business support, education, and transportation and logistics. Advances in information technologies have enabled us to bring significant innovation to services and services industries; examples include ATMs, reservation systems, and supply chain management.

We nevertheless have a long way to go in improving the productivity and quality of services, especially given their large and growing role in advanced, as well as emerging economies. Unfortunately, services are not easily visible and their nature is not well understood, which makes companies, policymakers, and universities less willing to support the kind of research and innovation programs in the services sector that have worked so well in the industrial sector.

Moreover, because innovation in services is relatively recent (compared to the Industrial Revolution), its success is highly dependent on the kind of effective leadership that can get the organization to radically rethink its processes, business models, and work styles.

This presentation will explore the differences between "classic" industrial sector innovation and innovation in the services economy. In particular, the talk will focus on the multidisciplinary and collaborative nature of services innovation, and on the new organizations and leadership structures it requires.

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