Intelligent wireless web services: context-aware computing in construction-logistics supply chain

The construction industry has incurred a considerable amount of waste as a result of poor logistics supply chain network management. Therefore, managing logistics in the construction industry is critical. An effective logistic system ensures delivery of the right products and services to the right players at the right time while minimising costs and rewarding all sectors based on value added to the supply chain. This paper reports on an on-going research study on the concept of context-aware services delivery in the construction project supply chain logistics. As part of the emerging wireless technologies, an Intelligent Wireless Web (IWW) using context-aware computing capability represents the next generation ICT application to construction-logistics management. This intelligent system has the potential of serving and improving the construction logistics through access to context-specific data, information and services. Existing mobile communication deployments in the construction industry rely on static modes of information delivery and do not take into account the worker’s changing context and dynamic project conditions. The major problems in these applications are lack of context-specificity in the distribution of information, services and other project resources, and lack of cohesion with the existing desktop based ICT infrastructure. The research works focus on identifying the context dimension such as user context, environmental context and project context, selection of technologies to capture context-parameters such wireless sensors and RFID, selection of supporting technologies such as wireless communication, Semantic Web, Web Services, agents, etc. The process of integration of Context-Aware Computing and Web-Services to facilitate the creation of intelligent collaboration environment for managing construction logistics will take into account all the necessary critical parameters such as storage, transportation, distribution, assembly, etc. within off and on-site project

Conceptual modelling of upstream offshore seaweed supply

A new form of offshore aquaculture is currently under development in Norway. This article argues for an ecosystem-based development of this future supply chain rooted in experiences in petroleum logistics, aquaculture and cold chains. A conceptual model provides basis for further research to facilitate designing this form of supply chain as a sustainable system. Keywords: aquaculture, cold chains, ecosystems, petroleum logistics, seaweed, supply chain management, traceabilitypublishedVersio

A human-centric perspective exploring the readiness towards smart warehousing: the case of a large retail distribution warehouse

YesThe explosive rise in technologies has revolutionised the way in which business operate, consumers buy, and the pace at which these activities take place. These advancements continue to have profound impact on business processes across the entire organisation. As such, Logistics and Supply Chain Management (LSCM) are also leveraging benefits from digitisation, allowing organisations to increase efficiency and productivity, whilst also providing greater transparency and accuracy in the movement of goods. While the warehouse is a key component within LSCM, warehousing research remains an understudied area within overall supply chain research, accounting for only a fraction of the overall research within this field. However, of the extant warehouse research, attention has largely been placed on warehouse design, performance and technology use, yet overlooking the determinants of Artificial Intelligence (AI) adoption within warehouses. Accordingly, through proposing an extension of the Technology–Organisation–Environment (TOE) framework, this research explores the barriers and opportunities of AI within the warehouse of a major retailer. The findings for this qualitative study reveal AI challenges resulting from a shortage of both skill and mind-set of operational management, while also uncovering the opportunities presented through existing IT infrastructure and pre-existing AI exposure of management

Process Oriented Dependency Modelling for Service Identification

Part 3: Finance and Service ScienceInternational audienceService-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is important for organisations to achieve dynamic business process and build business agility. One of the first step for service oriented applications implementation is to properly identify a set of fine-grained services. A right service granularity is necessary to satisfy lower coupling and higher cohesion principles for reusable software services. To meet this challenge, a lot of efforts have been attached to support service identification. In this paper, by considering the dependency combined with the idea of graph partition, a service identification method is proposed from the business process’s perspective. The illustration example has shown its promising and it is expected that the proposed service identification method can offer researchers further insight into service granularity analysis

An Overview of Reverse Logistics Management in the Australian Manufacturing Industries

This paper is a discussion of reverse logistics management literature, a conceptual model showing the recovery processes and their relationships, preliminary research data, analysis and implications for the manufacturing organisations. A discussion of the findings and their implications highlighting the important role of information technologies for efficient data collection and processing of recovery operations lead to capturing value from effective management of reverse logistics

Customer-engineer relationship management for converged ICT service companies

Thanks to the advent of converged communications services (often referred to as ‘triple play’), the next generation Service Engineer will need radically different skills, processes and tools from today’s counterpart. Why? in order to meet the challenges of installing and maintaining services based on multi-vendor software and hardware components in an IP-based network environment. The converged services environment is likely to be ‘smart’ and support flexible and dynamic interoperability between appliances and computing devices. These radical changes in the working environment will inevitably force managers to rethink the role of Service Engineers in relation to customer relationship management. This paper aims to identify requirements for an information system to support converged communications service engineers with regard to customer-engineer relationship management. Furthermore, an architecture for such a system is proposed and how it meets these requirements is discussed