Real Options and Flexibility in Engineering Design: An Emerging Paradigm for Infrastructure Systems Research
Event details
| Date | 10.02.2016 |
| Hour | 14:15 › 15:15 |
| Speaker | Prof. Dr Michel-Alexandre Cardin, Assistant Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering at National University of Singapore |
| Location | |
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
Architecting, designing, and managing infrastructure systems are increasingly challenging tasks. Architects, designers and operators are required to design and manage large-scale, systems of high complexity that will perform well over long-time horizons, inevitably facing uncertainty in changing operating, markets, regulatory, and technological environments. Designing infrastructure systems for flexibility – also known as real option – is an emerging paradigm that aims to provide the system with the ability to adapt pro-actively to changing conditions, so as to extract additional economic value and performance from uncertainty. Inspired from the fields of finance and economics, this paradigm aims to improve standard engineering design and project evaluation by focusing on better management of the distribution of performance outcomes and risks through flexibility, considering architectures and designs that enable better protection against downside conditions – acting like an insurance policy – and providing contingencies to capitalize on upside opportunities – like a call option on a stock.
The talk provides an overview of the latest research developments in this emerging field by introducing a framework to enable flexibility in complex engineering systems under uncertainty. The framework can also be used as a taxonomy to classify the latest procedures developed to support this process as part of early conceptual architecture and design activities. Novel procedures are introduced covering topics such as creative concept generation techniques, design space exploration using optimization and statistical techniques, and process management using simulation games. Procedure evaluation is done through example studies in waste-to-energy and emergency medical services, two examples of distributed urban infrastructure systems.
Bio: Dr. Michel-Alexandre Cardin is Assistant Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the National University of Singapore and Lead of the Strategic Engineering Laboratory. He has research affiliation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Singapore-ETH Center, and Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology. He is Associate Editor of the INCOSE journal Systems Engineering, and served on the Editorial Review Board of the journal IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management. His research focuses on the development, experimental evaluation, and applications of novel procedures to design and architect complex systems for uncertainty and flexibility – also known as real options – in sectors including aerospace, nuclear, real estate, offshore oil exploration, and transportation. He earned a PhD in Engineering Systems and MSc degree in Technology and Policy from MIT, a Master’s in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Toronto, a honors BSc in Physics from McGill University, and is a graduate of the Space Science Program at the International Space University.
The talk provides an overview of the latest research developments in this emerging field by introducing a framework to enable flexibility in complex engineering systems under uncertainty. The framework can also be used as a taxonomy to classify the latest procedures developed to support this process as part of early conceptual architecture and design activities. Novel procedures are introduced covering topics such as creative concept generation techniques, design space exploration using optimization and statistical techniques, and process management using simulation games. Procedure evaluation is done through example studies in waste-to-energy and emergency medical services, two examples of distributed urban infrastructure systems.
Bio: Dr. Michel-Alexandre Cardin is Assistant Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the National University of Singapore and Lead of the Strategic Engineering Laboratory. He has research affiliation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Singapore-ETH Center, and Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology. He is Associate Editor of the INCOSE journal Systems Engineering, and served on the Editorial Review Board of the journal IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management. His research focuses on the development, experimental evaluation, and applications of novel procedures to design and architect complex systems for uncertainty and flexibility – also known as real options – in sectors including aerospace, nuclear, real estate, offshore oil exploration, and transportation. He earned a PhD in Engineering Systems and MSc degree in Technology and Policy from MIT, a Master’s in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Toronto, a honors BSc in Physics from McGill University, and is a graduate of the Space Science Program at the International Space University.
Practical information
- General public
- Free
Organizer
- Prof. Dr Ian F. Smith & Prof. Dr Katrin Beyer
Contact
- Prof. Dr Katrin Beyer