Designing better complex systems by understanding people: from mobility solutions to dev. economies

Designing better complex systems by understanding people: from mobility solutions to developing economies

The goal of my research group is to move us towards a world in which complex engineered systems perform better, are more sustainable, and have a positive social impact. Towards that end, we study how engineering teams can incorporate an understanding of human behavior into formal complex system design processes. From mobility solutions to developing economies, we seek to ground complex system modeling techniques in real-world phenomena uncovered through rigorous qualitative inquiry. Through the study of actual organizations and product ecosystems, we create new design methods which take how people behave into account.

This talk explores this paradigm across a number of different scales, from modular transportation systems to the informal e-waste recycling ecosystem in Thailand. In one example, interviews with transportation system stakeholders ground large-scale simulation models of novel modular transportation networks. Simulation results suggest possible strategic directions and key design parameters for ongoing vehicle development. We also demonstrate how the use of similar techniques for modeling product ecosystems can help teams understand the potential economic and social impacts of future technologies. Our work in this area will come together with our other work on prescriptive design processes to enable engineering teams to design truly sustainable complex systems.

Jesse Austin-Breneman
Assistant Professor, Director of the Global Design Lab
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Jesse Austin-Breneman is an assistant professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan and directs the Global Design Laboratory. Working towards his vision of sustainable design methods which incorporate an understanding of system-level social impact, his research interests include design for development, design optimization, complex system design by teams, and modeling socio-technical systems in real organizations.

He earned his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT in 2014 from and was a MIT Tata Center Post-doctoral Fellow in 2015. There he studied design processes used by teams of practitioners in both developing economies and aerospace organizations. Prior to his academic career, he worked as a development engineer in Peruvian NGOs, working with rural communities and local doctors' groups. He also spent two years as a high school mathematics teacher in Boston, MA. Prof. Austin-Breneman is currently the co-chair of the ASME Engineering for Global Development Research Committee and is a recipient of the 2020 ASME Ben C. Sparks Medal.