Daniel Whitney Daniel WhitneyDaniel E. Whitney got his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at MIT in 1968 and taught in the MIT Mechanical Engineering Department until 1974. From that time until October, 1993 he was at the Draper Laboratory. At both MIT and Draper he has done research on robotics, mechanical assembly, design for automation, and use of CAD in the product development process. He has also taken part in many product design activities with industrial companies, dealing with assembly problems for both military and commercial products. Dr. Whitney has traveled extensively and lived in Japan and Europe, and has written articles about product design methods in other countries.
At MIT, Dr. Whitney works with engineering, management, and policy researchers and students in connection with the Leaders for Manufacturing Program (LFM), the International Motor Vehicle Program (IMVP), and the Lean Aircraft Initiative. His interests include agile manufacturing, the use of computers in product design, understanding the role of assembly in the design and manufacturing process, and understanding how companies decide what design and manufacturing skills and facilities are core competencies.Dr. Whitney is the Principal Investigator on a new Fast and Flexible Manufacturing study in the aircraft industry, the leader of a IMVP study of automotive engine plant productivity, and the MIT contact for the LFM research committee on Rapid and Effective Product Development. He is also the co-author of several books and over 80 articles in scholarly journals. Be sure to visits Dr. Whitney's web page of online research papers, which features over 50 reports from his visits to Japanese, European, and U.S. companies and universities.
You can contact Dr. Whitney via e-mail at dwhitney@mit.edu