Collaborative Research: Organizational and Uncertainty Impacts of Couplings in a System Design Framework

该合作项目的研究目标是研究三个假设，重点是在大规模复杂工程系统设计中，组织耦合和基于物理的耦合对不确定情况下决策的影响。将制定和测试因固定要求和组织激励而造成的系统设计价值损失的衡量方法。三个研究目标如下：1)评估在系统价值模型中纳入基于物理的耦合信息以更好地实现权衡的影响；2)纳入与基于物理的耦合相关的不确定性以确定对系统价值的影响；以及3)评估固定需求对系统设计的影响。这项工作将为使用基于价值的方法的大规模系统设计理论提供基础性的理论和实证研究。这项研究将确定组织和技术耦合造成的价值差距及其对由此产生的系统设计的影响，从而为改变目前的做法提供明确的基础。如果成功，本研究的结果将证明，需求、组织结构和激励结构可以严重影响系统价值，从而影响系统设计。此外，这项研究将提供替代方案来减轻这种影响，从而增加系统价值并改进系统设计。这可能会对从事复杂工程系统设计的行业和联邦机构产生重大影响。对于这些工程化的系统，在详细设计阶段，可能有数千个人在分布在多个组织的团队环境中工作，其中许多人在地理上和时间上分布，其中这些人以不同的偏好、信念、组织结构和激励结构运行。这项研究可能会导致改进的理论、方法和流程，以在整个组织内保持连续性，而不考虑组织的结构，以产生最大的系统价值。结果将通过各种会议和期刊机制传播，最重要的外联工作将集中在一个网站上，该网站还将包含一个“通用语言”，以跨越多学科设计优化(MDO)、价值驱动设计(VDD)和决策分析(DA)等领域。制作的论文和工具也将出现在这个网站上。向代表性不足群体的学生进行宣传将是一项主要努力，特别强调社会科学方面的挑战与技术问题一起解决。

The research objective of this collaborative project is to investigate three hypotheses focusing on the impact of organizational couplings and physics-based couplings on decision-making under uncertainty in the design of large-scale complex engineered systems. Methods to measure loss in value of a system design due to fixed requirements as well as to organizational incentives are to be developed and tested. Three research objectives are pursued as follows: 1) evaluate the impact of incorporating physics-based coupling information in a system value model to better enable trade-offs; 2) incorporate uncertainties associated with physics-based couplings to determine impact on system value; and 3) evaluate the impact of fixed requirements on the system design. The work will provide foundational theoretical and empirical investigations into the theory of large-scale systems design using a value-based approach. The research will identify the value gap due to organizational and technical couplings and the associated impact on the resulting system design, thereby providing a clear basis for changing present practice.If successful, the results of this research will demonstrate that requirements, organizational structure, and incentive structures can seriously impact the system value and hence, system design. Further, the research will offer alternatives to mitigate this impact, thereby enabling an increase in system value and improved system design. This can have significant impact on industries and federal agencies engaged in the design of complex engineered systems. For these engineered systems, during the detailed design stage, there may be thousands of individuals working in a team environment distributed across multiple organizations, with many of these geographically and temporally distributed, wherein these individuals operate with different preferences, beliefs, organizational structures, and incentive structures. This research can potentially result in improved theory, methods, and processes to continuity across an organization, regardless of structure, to produce the greatest system value. The results will be disseminated through a variety of conference and journal mechanisms, with the most significant outreach effort focused on a website that will also contain a "common language" established to span fields of Multidisciplinary Design Optimization (MDO), Value-Driven Design (VDD), and Decision Analysis (DA). Papers and tools produced will also be on this website. Outreach to students from under-represented groups will be a key effort, using the special emphasis of social sciences challenges being addressed together with technical issues.