DEVELOPING AN ASSESSMENT SYSTEM FOR DOD DEMAND REDUCTION INITIATIVES

The DOD developed a new Joint Warfighting Concept (JWC) to address how the United States will confront the nation’s most pressing national security challenges. The focus of the JWC was the importance of logistics during combat operations and the ability to sustain a large force over strategic distances. The DOD’s shift of focus to near-peer threats requires sustainment demand reduction across the services. Many demand reduction initiatives (DRI) are under consideration to lessen the burden of logistics at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels. Due to the relative newness of the JWC, the LOG FCB does not have a quantitative, credible, repeatable process to effectively assess, compare, and prioritize implementation of demand reduction initiatives. This study implemented several systems engineering (SE) concepts that include the completion of stakeholder analysis, functional analysis, mapping of function to form, creating a top-level and detailed systems design, the use of value modeling, and the application of sensitivity analysis. The use of these SE tools and processes resulted in the development of a DRI Assessment System which includes instructions for use of the system, questionnaire for data collection, Excel calculation sheets, and the metrics and definitions for the selected attributes. These products provide the logistics functional capability board (LOG FCB) the capability to objectively prioritize current and future DRIs to implement across the DOD.Major, United States ArmyMajor, United States ArmyCaptain, United States ArmyMajor, United States ArmyApproved for public release. Distribution is unlimited

A Sustainability Catalogue for Software Modelling

Sustainable development is the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the needs of our future generations. It covers five different dimensions: environmental, economic, social, technical, and individual. Such dimensions are also of interest for software. For example, memory and power efficiency have an impact on the environmental dimension, the reduction of costs in software development and evolution relates to the economic dimension, the use of software for general improvement of people’s lives affects the social dimension, the software’s ability to cooperate with other systems impacts the technical dimension, and the improvement of well-being of individuals relates to the individual dimension. These various dimensions and their properties impact on each other and on the base requirements of a system. Therefore, well-informed design decisions require improved support to reason on such intra- and inter-relationships and impacts, early in development. The objective of this dissertation is to propose a catalog of sustainability requirements for later reuse during the software development process. The envisioned solution involves using requirement engineering activities to address sustainability in the early stages of the software development. The first step towards a solution was to perform a (agile) systematic mapping study in order to gain a complete and profound knowledge about the existing sustainability and requirement engineering techniques. This study was the base of our work. Our final artifact is a sustainability catalogue. This catalogue addresses four out of the five dimensions of sustainability, as well as their qualities and relationships. We did not treat the individual dimension, for sake of simplicity and time constraints, although we consider that some of its properties are included in the social dimension. The catalogue was developed using the iStar framework, and it was implemented in the piStar Tool. Such catalogue offers a generic approach that can be instantiated for particular application domains, and for any combination of dimensions. Hence, this work will contribute to the field of sustainable software development

Army Information Technology Procurement: a Business Process Analysis

This thesis presents a business process analysis of the Army\u27s ICT procurement system. The research identified several inefficiencies and proposes several potential solutions. the contributions of this research include a unified taxonomy, a method to prioritize requests, and system architecture products for development of an automated and sustainable collaboration interface for the CIO/G6 to streamline their IT acquisition process. Development of a centralized system would reduce waste in the request process from submission to formal accounting, hasten the movement of requests between stakeholders, maintain a digital signature authorization for each approval authority, provide a reporting database to recognize reprogramming thresholds, and deliver relevant metrics and analysis to help inform the Army\u27s IT resourcing decisions

A Framework for Integrating Transportation Into Smart Cities

In recent years, economic, environmental, and political forces have quickly given rise to “Smart Cities” -- an array of strategies that can transform transportation in cities. Using a multi-method approach to research and develop a framework for smart cities, this study provides a framework that can be employed to: Understand what a smart city is and how to replicate smart city successes; The role of pilot projects, metrics, and evaluations to test, implement, and replicate strategies; and Understand the role of shared micromobility, big data, and other key issues impacting communities. This research provides recommendations for policy and professional practice as it relates to integrating transportation into smart cities

Stakeholder management and prioritization in a Positive Energy District project

Abstract. The purpose of this study is to construct a model for stakeholder management in a Positive Energy District (PED) project. PED projects are implemented in a context where stakeholders play a vital role in the accomplishment of the project objectives and impact project success with their actions. As all stakeholder claims cannot be fulfilled equally, they have to be balanced and prioritized by project management. Required actions for stakeholder prioritization in inter-organizational projects are examined in the literature review. In the empirical part of the research, a qualitative case study with a narrative approach is conducted in order to analyze the stakeholder prioritization of the case PED project. Based on the findings a model for PED stakeholder management was created, consisting of six steps: — Optimized detailed plans and land use agreements — Stakeholder analysis and prioritization — Early involvement of relevant stakeholders — Management of collaboration and communication — Clarification of ecosystem structure and business models — Involvement of local residents The study expanded understanding on PED projects’ complex stakeholder network and the challenges that are faced in these types of energy ecosystem projects. The findings can be utilized in future PED projects and other inter-organizational energy projects executed in an urban environment.Sidosryhmähallinta ja -priorisointi Positive Energy District -projektissa. Tiivistelmä. Tämän tutkimuksen tarkoituksena on luoda malli Positive Energy District (PED) -projektin sidosryhmähallinnalle. PED-projektit toteutetaan kontekstissa, jossa sidosryhmien rooli projektin tavoitteiden saavuttamisessa ja projektin onnistumisessa on merkittävä. Koska kaikkien sidosryhmien intressejä ja toiveita ei voida toteuttaa tasavertaisesti, niitä on tasapainotettava ja priorisoitava projektijohdon toimesta. Tutkimuksen kirjallisuuskatsauksessa esitellään vaadittavat toimet sidosryhmien priorisoinnille yhteistoiminnallisessa projektissa. Tutkimuksen empiirinen osio toteutettiin kvalitatiivisena ja narratiivisena tapaustutkimuksena, jossa analysoitiin tutkitun PED-projektin sidosryhmien priorisointia. Tulosten pohjalta muodostettiin PED-projektin sidosryhmäjohtamisen malli, joka koostuu kuudesta vaiheesta: — Optimoitu asemakaava ja maankäyttösopimukset — Sidosryhmäanalyysi ja -priorisointi — Relevanttien sidosryhmien aikainen osallistaminen — Yhteistyön ja kommunikaation johtaminen — Ekosysteemin rakenteen ja liiketoimintamallien selventäminen — Paikallisten asukkaiden osallistaminen Tämä tutkimus laajensi ymmärrystä PED-projektien sidosryhmäverkostosta ja haasteista, joita vastaavanlaisissa energiaekosysteemiprojekteissa kohdataan. Tuloksia voidaan hyödyntää tulevissa PED-projekteissa ja muissa yhteistoiminnallisissa kaupunkiympäristön energiahankkeissa

Sustainable construction logistics in urban areas: A framework for assessing the suitability of the implementation of construction consolidation centres

Transport in construction is responsible for up to 30% of freight movement in cities, with a subsequent impact in terms of pollutant emissions. Different solutions have been provided to alleviate the negative impact of freight transport related to construction activity, although no guidance has been provided for replicability in cities. One solution whose potential benefits are being studied with the support of policy makers is Construction Consolidation Centres (CCC). This paper proposes a method based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and provides an index based on 45 indicators to evaluate the suitability of the implementation of a CCC in terms of the pillars of sustainability in combination with a technical pillar. Three real construction projects were assessed in Luxembourg City, Paris, and Valencia. Two critical attributes were identified: the estimated operational costs of the construction company and the potential demand level in the area. The results of the analysis allow for: (i) the extraction of knowledge related to the sustainability of the construction project, and (ii) logistics to be integrated into the planning and design stages of the construction activity. Furthermore, a general structure is also proposed for integrating other construction solutions where CCC is not suitable. © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland

Strategic Performance Measurement and Management of Sustainable Urban Transport

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH

Architecture value mapping: using fuzzy cognitive maps as a reasoning mechanism for multi-criteria conceptual design evaluation

The conceptual design phase is the most critical phase in the systems engineering life cycle. The design concept chosen during this phase determines the structure and behavior of the system, and consequently, its ability to fulfill its intended function. A good conceptual design is the first step in the development of a successful artifact. However, decision-making during conceptual design is inherently challenging and often unreliable. The conceptual design phase is marked by an ambiguous and imprecise set of requirements, and ill-defined system boundaries. A lack of usable data for design evaluation makes the problem worse. In order to assess a system accurately, it is necessary to capture the relationships between its physical attributes and the stakeholders\u27 value objectives. This research presents a novel conceptual architecture evaluation approach that utilizes attribute-value networks, designated as \u27Architecture Value Maps\u27, to replicate the decision makers\u27 cogitative processes. Ambiguity in the system\u27s overall objectives is reduced hierarchically to reveal a network of criteria that range from the abstract value measures to the design-specific performance measures. A symbolic representation scheme, the 2-Tuple Linguistic Representation is used to integrate different types of information into a common computational format, and Fuzzy Cognitive Maps are utilized as the reasoning engine to quantitatively evaluate potential design concepts. A Linguistic Ordered Weighted Average aggregation operator is used to rank the final alternatives based on the decision makers\u27 risk preferences. The proposed methodology provides systems architects with the capability to exploit the interrelationships between a system\u27s design attributes and the value that stakeholders associate with these attributes, in order to design robust, flexible, and affordable systems --Abstract, page iii