An Empirical Study on Decision making for Quality Requirements

[Context] Quality requirements are important for product success yet often handled poorly. The problems with scope decision lead to delayed handling and an unbalanced scope. [Objective] This study characterizes the scope decision process to understand influencing factors and properties affecting the scope decision of quality requirements. [Method] We studied one company's scope decision process over a period of five years. We analyzed the decisions artifacts and interviewed experienced engineers involved in the scope decision process. [Results] Features addressing quality aspects explicitly are a minor part (4.41%) of all features handled. The phase of the product line seems to influence the prevalence and acceptance rate of quality features. Lastly, relying on external stakeholders and upfront analysis seems to lead to long lead-times and an insufficient quality requirements scope. [Conclusions] There is a need to make quality mode explicit in the scope decision process. We propose a scope decision process at a strategic level and a tactical level. The former to address long-term planning and the latter to cater for a speedy process. Furthermore, we believe it is key to balance the stakeholder input with feedback from usage and market in a more direct way than through a long plan-driven process

ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks: a literature review

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation is a complex and vibrant process, one that involves a combination of technological and organizational interactions. Often an ERP implementation project is the single largest IT project that an organization has ever launched and requires a mutual fit of system and organization. Also the concept of an ERP implementation supporting business processes across many different departments is not a generic, rigid and uniform concept and depends on variety of factors. As a result, the issues addressing the ERP implementation process have been one of the major concerns in industry. Therefore ERP implementation receives attention from practitioners and scholars and both, business as well as academic literature is abundant and not always very conclusive or coherent. However, research on ERP systems so far has been mainly focused on diffusion, use and impact issues. Less attention has been given to the methods used during the configuration and the implementation of ERP systems, even though they are commonly used in practice, they still remain largely unexplored and undocumented in Information Systems research. So, the academic relevance of this research is the contribution to the existing body of scientific knowledge. An annotated brief literature review is done in order to evaluate the current state of the existing academic literature. The purpose is to present a systematic overview of relevant ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks as a desire for achieving a better taxonomy of ERP implementation methodologies. This paper is useful to researchers who are interested in ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks. Results will serve as an input for a classification of the existing ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks. Also, this paper aims also at the professional ERP community involved in the process of ERP implementation by promoting a better understanding of ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks, its variety and history

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

Integrated Approaches to Digital-enabled Design for Manufacture and Assembly: A Modularity Perspective and Case Study of Huoshenshan Hospital in Wuhan, China

Countries are trying to expand their healthcare capacity through advanced construction, modular innovation, digital technologies and integrated design approaches such as Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DfMA). Within the context of China, there is a need for stronger implementation of digital technologies and DfMA, as well as a knowledge gap regarding how digital-enabled DfMA is implemented. More critically, an integrated approach is needed in addition to DfMA guidelines and digital-enabled approaches. For this research, a mixed method was used. Questionnaires defined the context of Huoshenshan Hospital, namely the healthcare construction in China. Then, Huoshenshan Hospital provided a case study of the first emergency hospital which addressed the uncertainty of COVID-19. This extreme project, a 1,000-bed hospital built in 10 days, implemented DfMA in healthcare construction and provides an opportunity to examine the use of modularity. A workshop with a design institution provided basic facts and insight into past practice and was followed by interviews with 18 designers, from various design disciplines, who were involved in the project. Finally, multiple archival materials were used as secondary data sources. It was found that complexity hinders building systems integration, while reinforcement relationships between multiple dimensions of modularity (across organisation-process-product-supply chain dimensions) are the underlying mechanism that allows for the reduction of complexity and the integration of building systems. Promoting integrated approaches to DfMA relies on adjusting and coupling multi-dimensional modular reinforcement relationships (namely, relationships of modular alignment, modular complement, and modular incentive). Thus, the building systems integrator can use these three approaches to increase the success of digital-enabled DfMA

Exergy: A universal metric for measuring resource efficiency to address industrial decarbonisation

© 2019 Institution of Chemical Engineers To achieve agreed targets for reducing global carbon emissions, industry must become more resource-efficient. To this end, two viable strategies exist: energy efficiency and material efficiency. Despite the inherent interdependence of energy and materials in industrial processes, policy and industry treat these two strategies as isolated pursuits, which provides only a partial insight into potential gains from resource efficiency. To resolve this disconnect, we review 34 resource efficiency metrics from the literature and evaluate their effectiveness at driving the sector's low-carbon transition. We then evaluate five selected resource efficiency metrics, in more detail, against the RACER evaluation methodology, using the criteria: Relevance, Acceptance, Credibility, Easiness and Robustness. The results point to the effectiveness of employing a Resource Efficiency metric based on the thermodynamic concept of exergy. Exergy-based Resource Efficiency metrics score highest in Relevance and Robustness, traits which are inherent to the metric and cannot be changed. However, exergy efficiency scores lower for Acceptance, indicating further advocacy is required for it to be accepted as a mainstream measure of resource efficiency. More work is required to provide simple guides, training and software tools, to facilitate wider use of exergy efficiency in the resource efficiency narrative. We hope that this paper, is a first step towards demystifying exergy and will spur further discussion about the use of exergy-based metrics for measuring Resource Efficiency

Information Systems Strategies for Small and Medium Size Enterprise Sustainability

Small and medium size business owners who do not use information systems effectively degrade business models, reduce customer value, and diminish the prospects for business stability, profitability, and growth. Grounded in the resource based view framework, the purpose of this qualitative multiple-case study was to explore the information systems strategies small business owners used to sustain their business beyond 5 years. A purposeful sample of 5 owners of 5 different small and medium sized businesses in the state of Texas participated in the study. Data were collected via semistructured, face-to-face interviews, company documents, and member checking. Data were analyzed using Yin\u27s 5-step analysis process and resulted in 3 emergent themes: online collaboration and process improvement strategy, a firm\u27s resources strategy, and an emerging technologies strategy. The key recommendation was to implement or improve information systems strategies. The implications for positive social change include the potential for owners of small and medium sized businesses to use the findings to contribute to job creation, economic growth, and the promotion of sustainable communities