MAE Graduate Seminar Series hosts Dr. Benjamin Kwasa

Thursday, March 7, 2019 at 3:30pm to 4:30pm

Dr. Benjamin Kwasa will be presenting a talk on, "Value-Driven Design for Complex System Optimization."

The design of Large-Scale Complex Engineered Systems (LSCESs) is an undertaking that requires large organizations made up of several teams of individuals, often spread over a significant geographical area. The structures of these organizations affect the design process of these engineered systems where design processes affect the products on which they are applied. Previous work has aptly demonstrated the improvements in design products where Value-Driven Design (VDD) is practiced, by capturing stakeholder preferences in value functions when using Multidisciplinary Design Optimization (MDO) frameworks to design complex systems. Organization structures, which are an essential part of Organization Design (OD), have been studied to understand the role that these structures play on resource management and utilization. This research invokes the augmentation of systems engineering by the inclusion of OD via the addition of organization structure attributes and parameters to the value function for complex engineered systems. This allows for a platform where system design involves an objective evaluation of systems where the systems are defined not only by their physics-based characteristics but also by the processes that are used to design these very systems. The realization of value-based systems engineering can provide platforms to incorporate soft sciences. This would enable improved decision making by better capturing system critical stakeholders’ preferences in predictive modelling.

Benjamin Kwasa is an assistant professor in the Engineering Management and Systems Engineering (EMSE) department at Missouri S&T. His research interests include system design and optimization for complex systems, systems engineering in healthcare and design for extreme environments using virtual reality and Unmanned Aerial Systems. Dr. Kwasa received a Ph.D in Aerospace Engineering, an M.ENG. in Systems Engineering and a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from Iowa State University between 2008 and 2017. In his time at ISU, he was a member of AirISU, a student club, where he got to build a Zenith CH650 alongside 20 other undergraduates. The aircraft is now displayed in the aerospace engineering building at ISU. Dr. Kwasa is a firm believer in hands on projects as learning tools. If he is not building or fixing something, he sure is breaking another.

Event Type

Meetings, Lectures and Conferences

Departments

College of Engineering and Computing, Mining and Nuclear Engineering

Website

https://mae.mst.edu/seminarsandcolloq...

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