3rd ETH Alumni New England Chapter Anniversary with Keynote Speaker MIT Professor Olivier de Weck Dear ETH Alumni New England Chapter You are all kindly invited to invite for the 3rd ETH Alumni New England Chapter Anniversary When: Thursday October 24th, 2012 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm Where: swissnex Boston, 420 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02138 Program: 6:00 Doors open 6:30 Welcome Address 6:40 From ETH to MIT: Adventures in Trans-Atlantic Socio-Technical Systems (1994-2014) 7:10 Q & A Patrick Anquetil, Vice-President, ETH Alumni NEC 7:30 Drinks, Networking ![]() Recently MIT was ranked #1 in the 2013 QS World University Rankings and ETH Zurich was rated at #12. According to this particular assessment MIT is first overall, and ETH is first globally amongst universities not located in the US or the UK. Rather than dwell on the details of such ratings I will start my presentation with a comparison of the two institutions, both of which I had the pleasure of attending as a student. There are surprisingly many similarities but also some striking differences between the two schools. Both were founded to bring society into the modern age through technology and infrastructure development starting in the mid 19th century. Beyond some basic statistics there is a philosophy at both institutions of pursuing excellence in research and education while tackling meaningful problems in society. My particular interest is in designing complex engineered systems that serve society over the long haul and are composed of intertwined technological, social and natural elements. The trans-atlantic journey begins in 1994 with a summary of what are system "lifecycle properties" also know as "Illities" and how these are embodied in the Swiss F/A-18 aircraft, currently Switzerland's premier military aircraft. I will then discuss my latest research in deliberately designing systems for lifecycle properties such as reconfigurability and evolvability under uncertainty. Examples will include aircraft, space exploration systems as well as ground-based infrastructure such as desalination plants and associated distribution networks. This talk is based in part on the book Engineering Systems: Meeting Human Needs in a Complex Technological World, which was the bestseller at the MIT Press bookstore in 2012. Prof. de Weck's research is in Systems Science and Engineering. He focuses on how complex man-made systems such as aircraft, spacecraft, cyber-physical products, and critical infrastructures are designed, manufactured and operated and how they evolve over time. His main emphasis is on the strategic properties of these systems that have the potential to maximize lifecycle value. His group has developed quantitative methods and tools that explicitly consider manufacturability, flexibility, robustness, and sustainability among other characteristics. Significant results include the Adaptive Weighted Sum (AWS) method for resolving tradeoffs amongst competing objectives, the Delta-Design Structure Matrix (DDSM) for technology infusion analysis, Time-Expanded Decision Networks (TDN) and the SpaceNet and HabNet simulation environments. These methods have impacted complex systems in space exploration (NASA, JPL), oil and gas exploration (BP) as well as sophisticated electro-mechanical products (e.g. Xerox, Pratt & Whitney, GM, DARPA). He has authored or co-authored three books, 250 peer-reviewed articles and won 8 best paper and best poster awards since 2004. He is a Fellow of INCOSE and an Associate Fellow of AIAA. From 2008 to 2011 he served as Associate Director of the Engineering Systems Division (ESD) at MIT. From 2010 to 2013 he served as Executive Director of the MIT Production in the Innovation Economy (PIE) project. Since January 2013 he serves as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Systems Engineering.
|