Events Calendar

Studies in System Architecture

Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering SeminarSTUDIES IN SYSTEM ARCHITECTUREPart 1: An Engineering Systems Design Case ApplicationPart 2: An Algorithmic Approach to System Architecting Using Shape Grammar-Cellular Automata"Dr. Thomas H. Speller, Jr.Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems DivisionABSTRACT: This talk begins by briefly reviewing as a case study a product development effort and organizational change within the presenter's past company that incorporated lessons learned in systems engineering and system architecture. It is quite a remarkable and nontrivial occurrence in the history of this corporation, an automatic fastening system producer for aerostructure assemblies, that a product family should be created with extensibility, encompassing new technologies for competitive advantage and covering anticipated automatic fastening requirements for commercial airplanes over the foreseeable next ten years. Heretofore, the products developed appeared similar from a distance, but in fact were not related products; instead they were individual prototypes bearing certain similarities. In an extensible product family, world economic influences, competing technological trajectories, the customer supply chain, competition, and organizational structure and policies are seen as critical components that must be considered when shaping the system architecture of these products.This talk then moves on to the recent doctoral research, which was in a broad sense intended to expand upon the understanding of the fundamentals of system architecting in order to more effectively apply this process to engineering systems. A universal concern about the system architecting process is that the needs and wants of the stakeholders are not being fully satisfied, primarily because too few design alternatives are created and ambiguity exists in the information required. At the same time, it is noted that nature offers a superb example of system architecting and therefore might be considered as a guide for the engineering of systems. Key features of nature's architecting processes include self-generation, diversity, emergence, least action (balance of kinetic and potential energy), system-of-systems organization, and selection for stability. Currently, no human-friendly method appears to exist that addresses the problems in the field of system architecture while at the same time emulating nature's processes.By adapting nature's self-generative approach, a systematic means is offered to more rigorously conduct system architecting and better satisfy stakeholders. This algorithmic methodology was developed to generate a space of architectural solutions satisfying a given specification, local constraints, and physical laws. The approach combines a visually oriented human design interface (shape grammar) that provides an intuitive design language with a machine (cellular automata) to execute the system architecture's production set (algorithm). The manual output of the flexible shape grammar, the set of design rules, is transcribed into cellular automata neighborhoods as a sequenced production set that may include other simple programs (such as combinatoric instructions). The resulting catalog of system architectures can be unmanageably large, so selection criteria (e.g., stability, matching interfaces, least action) can be defined by the architect to narrow the solution space for stakeholder review. The shape grammar-cellular automata algorithmic approach was demonstrated across several domains of study, with an example on generating graphene presented here. This algorithmic methodology improves on a design's clarification and the number of design alternatives produced, which should result in greater stakeholder satisfaction. Of additional significance, this approach has shown value both in the study of the system architecting process, leading to the proposal of normative principles for system architecture, and in the modeling of systems for better understanding.WEDNESDAY, APRIL 30, 2008, GERONTOLOGY BUILDING (GER) ROOM 309, 2:00 – 3:00 PMBIO: Thomas Speller recently received his doctorate from the Engineering Systems Division of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Previously, he had worked for 27 years at Gemcor Systems Corporation, an aerospace industry end-to-end engineering-manufacturing company, where he was the Chief Executive Officer for over 12 years. He received an MBA (finance and marketing) from the University of Chicago and A.B. in Economics (with concentrations in psychology and chemistry) from Ohio University. In addition, he received an MS Degree in Engineering and Management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research interests are focused on system architecture, new product development, system dynamics, sustainability and growth, and automated design and assembly, and he has published on topics in system architecture, system dynamics, organizational systems, systems engineering, and complex systems.

Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - 309

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Georgia Lum