Raymond Elliot Levitt, Ph.D.

Professor of  Civil and Environmental Engineering
Professor, by Courtesy, Medical Informatics
Academic Director,  Stanford Advanced Project Management Executive Program, SCPD
Director,  Collaboratory for Research on Global Projects

Winter 2008 Office Hours -- Wed 10:30 am - 12:00 noon, Y2E2 Rm. 241


 
  • Work Experience
    Ray Levitt worked in design and construction of marine structures with Christiani & Neilsen in Cape Town, South Africa from 1971-1972. He worked with V.K Mason in Toronto, Canada as a Project Engineer in Summer, 1973, and with Bechtel Corporation in San Francisco as a Manpower Planning Consultant in Summer, 1974. He served on the MIT Civil Engineering faculty from 1975-80 before moving to Stanford in 1980. He co-founded and was Associate Director/Director of Stanford’s Center for Integrated Facility Engineering from 1988-2001. In 2003, he founded, and serves as Director of, Stanford's     Collaboratory for Research on Global Projects.
  • Research
    Dr. Levitt’s Virtual Design Team (VDT) research group has developed new organization theory, methodology and computer simulation tools to design organizations that can optimally execute complex, fast-track, projects and programs. VDT is currently being extended to model and simulate service/maintenance work processes such as health care delivery and offshore platform maintenance. Ongoing research by Professor Levitt through the Collaboratory for Research on Global Projects (CRGP), which he directs, attempts to model and simulate the significant “institutional costs” that can arise in global projects due to substantial differences in goals, values and cultural norms among project stakeholders. This research is supported by the National Science Foundation, CIFE, CRGP and the Center for Edge Power at the Naval Postgraduate School.
  • Teaching
    Dr. Levitt teaches classes in strategic planning and organization design for project/matrix organizations to to engineering undergraduate, MS and Doctoral students, and to corporate executives. Current classes include: CEE242-Designing Organizations for Projects & Companies; CEE342-Computer Modeling of Organizations; CEE246-Managing Engineering & Construction Companies; CEE316-Research Methodology, and a Sophomore Seminar, CEE 48N-Designing Organizations for Global Projects. He conceived the award-winning Stanford Advanced Project Management (SAPM) executive program in 1999, and is Academic Director of SAPM.
  • Consulting and Start-Up Activity
    • Co-founded Design Power, Inc. in 1989 to automate many kinds of semi-custom engineering work, including process plant layout and pipe routing, and data network configuration.
    • Co-founded Vité Corporation in 1996 to commercialize work process and organization modeling and simualtion software developed by his Virtual Design Team research group at Stanford for designing organizations to execute complex, fast-track projects. Took a leave from Stanford to serve as Chairman and CEO of Vité from 1996-1997.
    • Co-founded Visual Network Design, Inc., in 2003 as a spin-off from Design Power, Inc., to automate the design, assembly and asset management of rack-mounted data networking equipment.
    • Currently serves as a Director of Vité Corporation and Visual Network Design, Inc. 
    • Has consulted to more than 30 Fortune 500 companies and goverment agencies engaged in architectural and engineering services, construction, real estate development, facilities operation and management, semiconductors, biotechnology, consumer products, computers, networking equipment, financial services and software development on the design of project/matrix organization structures.