The Auto-ID Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a new industry sponsored lab c... more The Auto-ID Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a new industry sponsored lab charged with researching and developing automated identification technologies and applications. The Center is creating the infrastructure, recommending the standards, and identifying the automated identification applications for a networked physical world. All technologies and intellectual property developed at the Auto-ID Center are freely distributed. This white paper outlines the Auto-ID Center’s key conclusions and research progress after its first year of research.
Radio frequency identification is a wireless communication technology that lets computers read th... more Radio frequency identification is a wireless communication technology that lets computers read the identity of inexpensive electronic tags from a distance without requiring a battery in the tags. As RFID technology matures, it will likely unleash a new wave of applications that will exploit inexpensive and highly available automatic identification.
Bulk part manipulation using vibrating surfaces is an effective technique for economically transp... more Bulk part manipulation using vibrating surfaces is an effective technique for economically transporting and feeding small parts such as electronic devices. Micro-fabricated devices have often used robotic gripping and manipulation for transportation and assembly of integrated circuits into electronic devices. The vibratory technique holds the promise for improving production economics over traditional nonbulk transportation techniques such as robotic part handling, while providing greater flexibility than other bulk transportation methods. In this paper we present the mechanics of microscopic vibratory parts handling. As parts become smaller, surface forces and fluid mechanical effects become prominent compared to the gravitational and inertia effects that predominate at macroscopic scales. We consider the growth of adhesion and aerodynamic damping forces at the smaller operating scales, and describe the prominent vibratory feeding techniques available for microscopic scale parts an...
In chapter 3, we unveiled an “inversion vocabulary”: a set of engineering principles comprising f... more In chapter 3, we unveiled an “inversion vocabulary”: a set of engineering principles comprising four terms—connectedness, composability, recruitability, and immersion—that will enable engineers and designers to more effectively think about, conceptualize, and build products that fit the needs-first orientation of inversion. By building these characteristics into the products they make (or by looking for these characteristics in the products they acquire), companies will be positioned to meet needs in the deepest possible way, fully realizing the potential of inversion.
There has been a lot of research addressing the relationship between Information Technology (IT) ... more There has been a lot of research addressing the relationship between Information Technology (IT) investments and productivity. Most of the work has been based on firmlevel metrics such as total IT investment. We present what we believe is one of the first attempts to create a systematic methodology to assess the impact of IT in business process performance metrics. Our approach builds on the MIT Process Handbook as a basis to both guide the analysis and capture the resulting knowledge for future use. We will present preliminary results on how to use such methodology to analyze the impact of a given IT technology, namely RFID (radio frequency identification devices), in performance metrics of a consumer packaged goods company. We are interested in looking at how IT may impact performance metrics such as productivity, cost and value. We believe our methodology can help CPG companies prioritize their investments. We show results on how the specialization features of the MIT Process Han...
The Auto-ID Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a new industry sponsored lab c... more The Auto-ID Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a new industry sponsored lab charged with researching and developing automated identification technologies and applications. The Center is creating the infrastructure, recommending the standards, and identifying the automated identification applications for a networked physical world. All technologies and intellectual property developed at the Auto-ID Center are freely distributed. This white paper outlines the Auto-ID Center’s key conclusions and research progress after its first year of research.
Radio frequency identification is a wireless communication technology that lets computers read th... more Radio frequency identification is a wireless communication technology that lets computers read the identity of inexpensive electronic tags from a distance without requiring a battery in the tags. As RFID technology matures, it will likely unleash a new wave of applications that will exploit inexpensive and highly available automatic identification.
Bulk part manipulation using vibrating surfaces is an effective technique for economically transp... more Bulk part manipulation using vibrating surfaces is an effective technique for economically transporting and feeding small parts such as electronic devices. Micro-fabricated devices have often used robotic gripping and manipulation for transportation and assembly of integrated circuits into electronic devices. The vibratory technique holds the promise for improving production economics over traditional nonbulk transportation techniques such as robotic part handling, while providing greater flexibility than other bulk transportation methods. In this paper we present the mechanics of microscopic vibratory parts handling. As parts become smaller, surface forces and fluid mechanical effects become prominent compared to the gravitational and inertia effects that predominate at macroscopic scales. We consider the growth of adhesion and aerodynamic damping forces at the smaller operating scales, and describe the prominent vibratory feeding techniques available for microscopic scale parts an...
In chapter 3, we unveiled an “inversion vocabulary”: a set of engineering principles comprising f... more In chapter 3, we unveiled an “inversion vocabulary”: a set of engineering principles comprising four terms—connectedness, composability, recruitability, and immersion—that will enable engineers and designers to more effectively think about, conceptualize, and build products that fit the needs-first orientation of inversion. By building these characteristics into the products they make (or by looking for these characteristics in the products they acquire), companies will be positioned to meet needs in the deepest possible way, fully realizing the potential of inversion.
There has been a lot of research addressing the relationship between Information Technology (IT) ... more There has been a lot of research addressing the relationship between Information Technology (IT) investments and productivity. Most of the work has been based on firmlevel metrics such as total IT investment. We present what we believe is one of the first attempts to create a systematic methodology to assess the impact of IT in business process performance metrics. Our approach builds on the MIT Process Handbook as a basis to both guide the analysis and capture the resulting knowledge for future use. We will present preliminary results on how to use such methodology to analyze the impact of a given IT technology, namely RFID (radio frequency identification devices), in performance metrics of a consumer packaged goods company. We are interested in looking at how IT may impact performance metrics such as productivity, cost and value. We believe our methodology can help CPG companies prioritize their investments. We show results on how the specialization features of the MIT Process Han...
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