Collaboration and Virtualization in Large Information Systems Projects

A project is evolving through different phases from idea and conception until the experiments, implementation and maintenance. The globalization, the Internet, the Web and the mobile computing changed many human activities, and in this respect, the realization of the Information System (IS) projects. The projects are growing, the teams are geographically distributed, and the users are heterogeneous. In this respect, the realization of the large Information Technology (IT) projects needs to use collaborative technologies. The distribution of the team, the users' heterogeneity and the project complexity determines the virtualization. This paper is an overview of these aspects for large IT projects. It shortly present a general framework developed by the authors for collaborative systems in general and adapted to collaborative project management. The general considerations are illustrated on the case of a large IT project in which the authors were involved.large IT projects, collaborative systems, virtualization, framework for collaborative virtual systems

Conceptual Framework for Non-hierarchical Business Networks for Complex Products Design and Manufacturing

The effective creation and management of business networks is more and more an important contribution for the competitiveness and sustainability of European SMEs. In Non-hierarchical networks SMEs join their competencies and resources to grab profitablebusiness opportunities. In these networks SMEs take the leading role and control the business instead of being subcontracted bylarge companies and traditional supply chains. This paper presents a conceptual framework, including methodological approach, best practices and reference processes aiming at supporting SMEs in creating and managing non-hierarchical networks for complexproducts design and manufacturing. The framework high level structure and the most specific processes are presented, including:capacity management, collaborative operations planning, risk and event management and performance management. The framework was validated in three pilot networks, from the textile, footwear and machine tools industries.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Trade reorientation and productivity growth in Bulgarian enterprises

Although the impact of international trade is usually analyzed at the macroeconomic level or at the industry level, the authors here explicitly restrict their analysis to the microeconomic level, the level of the firm. Specifically, they investigate the relative importance of integration with world markets as a source of productivity growth in Bulgarian firms, controlling for macroeconomic forces. They focus on the potential importance to economic growth of greater access (after trade liberalization) to global markets for designs, equipment, and intermediates. By buying intermediates and equipment, firms are allowed to improve their productivity and to learn by exporting to more mature markets. The changes that occurred in trade patterns after opening the economy provide one indicator of the manager's attempts to import better technology. The partial correlations suggest that firms that reorient their trade patterns, which is arguably the most appropriate measure of trade integration for transition economies, tend to have higher growth rates for total factor productivity (TFP).Municipal Financial Management,TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform

Business integration models in the context of web services.

E-commerce development and applications have been bringing the Internet to business and marketing and reforming our current business styles and processes. The rapid development of the Web, in particular, the introduction of the semantic web and web service technologies, enables business processes, modeling and management to enter an entirely new stage. Traditional web based business data and transactions can now be analyzed, extracted and modeled to discover new business rules and to form new business strategies, let alone mining the business data in order to classify customers or products. In this paper, we investigate and analyze the business integration models in the context of web services using a micro-payment system because a micro-payment system is considered to be a service intensive activity, where many payment tasks involve different forms of services, such as payment method selection for buyers, security support software, product price comparison, etc. We will use the micro-payment case to discuss and illustrate how the web services approaches support and transform the business process and integration model.

Supply chain management and the Romanian transition

The purpose of this paper is to perform a systemic analysis of the Supply Chain Management, and to show what are the essential aspects of such a complex process. Actually, it is an integral perspective of intra- and interorganizational management activities aiming at the optimization of all important tangible and intangible fluxes and forces acting in a multifield framework. In the same time, we are looking at the Romanian transition and show how such a new perspective can be applied to the business environment. The analysis is challenging, since Romania is in a deep change process from a centrally planned economy toward a free market economy.management, supply chain management, system analysis, transition economy.

Past, present and future of information and knowledge sharing in the construction industry: Towards semantic service-based e-construction

The paper reviews product data technology initiatives in the construction sector and provides a synthesis of related ICT industry needs. A comparison between (a) the data centric characteristics of Product Data Technology (PDT) and (b) ontology with a focus on semantics, is given, highlighting the pros and cons of each approach. The paper advocates the migration from data-centric application integration to ontology-based business process support, and proposes inter-enterprise collaboration architectures and frameworks based on semantic services, underpinned by ontology-based knowledge structures. The paper discusses the main reasons behind the low industry take up of product data technology, and proposes a preliminary roadmap for the wide industry diffusion of the proposed approach. In this respect, the paper stresses the value of adopting alliance-based modes of operation

ICT-based solution approach for collaborative delivery of customised products

© 2016 Taylor & Francis. Growing interest on business collaboration motivates todays industries, especially small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to establish and manage dynamic and non-hierarchical business networks to respond to market opportunities with added business benefits. This business environment requires concurrent work and real-time information sharing between key business partners in order to design and develop customised products. The use of traditional communication media such as e-mail, phone and fax is not satisfactory to get real-time information and is time-consuming and most often ineffective. In such environments, an Information and Communication Technology (ICT)/Web-based technology supports real-time information sharing among networked SMEs for the collaborative design and manufacturing of customised products. This study proposes an innovative ICT platform supporting SMEs collaboration, through Web and the Internet of Things technologies, which follows the Net-Challenge conceptual approach and methodological guidelines for SMEs to form and operate virtual organisations for the collaborative development and delivery of customised products. The ICT Platform was assessed in three different industry domains, namely the textile and apparel, the footwear and the machine tools, respectively. This ICT solution promotes collaboration, with substantial advantages for SMEs including the reduction of costs and delivery time and improvement of the innovation potential

Supply Chain Practice, Supply Chain Performance Indicators and Competitive Advantage of Australian Beef Enterprises: A Conceptual Framework

This research focuses on an Australian agribusiness supply chain, the Australian Beef Supply Chain. The definition of the Australian Beef Supply Chain is the chain or sequence of all activities from the breeding property to the domestic or overseas consumers. The beef sector in Australia is undergoing rapid change because of globalisation, a highly competitive beef market (local and export), quicker production cycle and delivery times and consequently reduced inventories, a general speed-up of the rate of change in the business environment, the trend toward more outsourcing of activities, and the rapid development of IT. In this business environment, advanced supply chain systems have the potential to provide significant contributions to Australian beef industry performance. A conceptual framework of the research project has been proposed. There are three elements of conceptual framework. Firstly, supply chain practice of Australian beef industry consists of five sub-elements such as strategic supplier partnerships, customer relationships, information sharing, information quality and a lean system. Moreover, there is an antecedent of cooperative behaviour such as trust and commitment influencing supply chain practice and supply chain performance indicators. Secondly, supply chain performance indicators include four sub-elements such as flexibility, efficiency, food quality and responsiveness. Finally, the competitive advantage framework of the Australian beef enterprises consists of price, quality, export sales growth and time to market. As a further step of the research after developing the conceptual framework, the research project focuses the analysis on how the antecedents of the sub-elements of supply chain practice affect supply chain performance in Australian beef enterprises, how trust and commitment in trading partners affect supply chain performance, how attributes such as flexibility, efficiency, food quality and responsiveness influence the sub-elements of competitive advantage. The research project leads on to further work on how Australian beef enterprises measure their supply chain performance and what the major difficulties are arising when implementing supply chain management in the Australian beef industry and what kind of changes can be made to beef supply chains to enhance their performance.Agribusiness,