VIDEOCONFERENCE : Real Options and Flexibility in Engineering Systems Design and Architecture: An Emerging Research Paradigm
Event details
| Date | 25.05.2016 |
| Hour | 09:15 › 10:15 |
| Speaker | Dr Michel-Alexandre Cardin, NU Singapore |
| Location | |
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
VIDEOCONFERENCE :
Engineering systems are socio-mechanical systems that perform crucial tasks for society and cities (e.g. car sharing, emergency services, power plants, waste to energy systems). Architecting, designing, and managing such systems are becoming increasingly challenging tasks for engineers. This is because the systems are called to operate and perform well over a long lifecycle (e.g. 10-15 years), inevitably facing a wide range of changing conditions and uncertainty in their operating, markets, regulatory, and technological environments. Designing engineering systems for flexibility – referred in the talk as real options – 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 improved performance from uncertainty. Inspired from the fields of finance and economics, this paradigm aims to improve engineering design and system architecture practice by focusing on better management of the distribution of performance outcomes and risks. This is done by exploiting the emerging concept of flexibility in socio-mechanical design, leading to designs and architectures that offer 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 enabling flexibility in engineering systems design under uncertainty. The framework provides supports for the main phases involved in system design and architecture for flexibility. An example study focusing on the evaluation of a flexible systems design concept generation procedure is presented in the area of energy systems. Another study focusing on stochastic optimization of flexible energy systems is discussed, considering the deployment in the large-scale of a new waste to energy technology in an urban environment. The talk concludes with future research directions in this emerging area of mechanical engineering design and systems architecture.
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 affiliations at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Singapore-ETH Center, and Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology. He is an Associate Editor for the INCOSE journal Systems Engineering, serves on the Editorial Review Board of the journal IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, and is the founding chairman of the organizing committee for the conference on Complex Systems Design and Management (CSD&M Asia). His research focuses on the development, experimental evaluation, and applications of novel procedures to design and architect engineering systems for uncertainty and flexibility (i.e. real options) in sectors including energy, transportation, and water management. 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.
Engineering systems are socio-mechanical systems that perform crucial tasks for society and cities (e.g. car sharing, emergency services, power plants, waste to energy systems). Architecting, designing, and managing such systems are becoming increasingly challenging tasks for engineers. This is because the systems are called to operate and perform well over a long lifecycle (e.g. 10-15 years), inevitably facing a wide range of changing conditions and uncertainty in their operating, markets, regulatory, and technological environments. Designing engineering systems for flexibility – referred in the talk as real options – 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 improved performance from uncertainty. Inspired from the fields of finance and economics, this paradigm aims to improve engineering design and system architecture practice by focusing on better management of the distribution of performance outcomes and risks. This is done by exploiting the emerging concept of flexibility in socio-mechanical design, leading to designs and architectures that offer 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 enabling flexibility in engineering systems design under uncertainty. The framework provides supports for the main phases involved in system design and architecture for flexibility. An example study focusing on the evaluation of a flexible systems design concept generation procedure is presented in the area of energy systems. Another study focusing on stochastic optimization of flexible energy systems is discussed, considering the deployment in the large-scale of a new waste to energy technology in an urban environment. The talk concludes with future research directions in this emerging area of mechanical engineering design and systems architecture.
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 affiliations at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Singapore-ETH Center, and Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology. He is an Associate Editor for the INCOSE journal Systems Engineering, serves on the Editorial Review Board of the journal IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, and is the founding chairman of the organizing committee for the conference on Complex Systems Design and Management (CSD&M Asia). His research focuses on the development, experimental evaluation, and applications of novel procedures to design and architect engineering systems for uncertainty and flexibility (i.e. real options) in sectors including energy, transportation, and water management. 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
- Informed public
- Free
- This event is internal
Organizer
- IGM
Contact
- Prof J. Botsis