Assessing the business value of electronic order-to-payment cycle

In this paper, we build an evaluation tool for assessing the business impacts of an electronic order-topayment cycle. Based on a literature review and expert interviews, we formulate a three-stage model which includes performance indicators for electronic order, electronic invoice, and electronic payment processes. In addition, we pinpoint the inter-process linkages. We test the proposed evaluation tool in a business context and find that the impacts of automating the order-to-payment cycle relate closely to cost avoidance. However, a strong emphasis on asset utilization can be observed as well – better use of IT could enhance utilization of existing human resources and capital, affecting company profitability

Improving resilience of infrastructure: the case of bridges

PublishedThree well-known examples-I-35W bridge failure, London Hammersmith Flyover closure, and the UK M1 motorway under-bridge fire-highlight the need for a reliable decision support methodology to enable better informed decisions on timely intervention and/or resilient recovery from a damaging event. It seems that, quite apart from extreme man-made or natural hazards, our transportation infrastructure is not resilient under man-made or natural loads, and we need to leverage technology to better understand and respond to societal risks due to a lack of resiliency. The challenge to improve infrastructure resilience has led to major infrastructure research initiatives that are relevant to the case of bridges. FHWA created the Long Term Bridge Performance Program, while in the UK, EPSRC recently promoted the two themes of resilient infrastructure and monitoring and field investigation of existing infrastructure. The paper will describe these initiatives and how they aim to improve the resilience of bridges, which are key components in our transport infrastructure. It will also suggest some specific activities for developing closer interactions between a wide range of academic and industry stakeholders leading to development effective decision support methodologies. © 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers

Re-Designing Infrastructure as a Strategy for Crafting Coherence Across Three Networks Focused on the Implementation of the Next Generation Science Standards

This design-based research project reports on three multilevel networks that were focused on implementing the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Given the recent attention to understanding infrastructure to craft coherence in NGSS implementation, this research investigated how these networks iteratively re-designed infrastructure as they engaged in implementing the NGSS. This focus is particularly important in the current context of NGSS implementation since needed infrastructure did not accompany the dissemination of the standards. The three networks were the following: mentor teachers, district specialists, and interim assessment specialists. Qualitative cases based on recordings of network working sessions, interviews with members, and artifacts of their work were generated for each network and then compared and contrasted. Findings show the work on infrastructure re-design across the networks not only involved identifying useful NGSS-designed resources and frameworks, but also translating these into meaningful supports or scaffolds that could ultimately lead to productive forms of engagement for either supporting teacher professional learning or student learning. Also, collegial workspaces were beneficial for institutionalizing networks\u27 foci by creating spaces for all actors to share their experiences, challenges, and needs. This meant focusing on curriculum and instructional routines for mentor teachers, focusing on NGSS instructional principles for district leaders, and focusing on the development of an interim assessment practice brief for interim assessment leaders—foci identified as central to and immediately applicable in the day-to-day work of the respective network members

Business Modelling Agility: Turning ideas into business

Business Model Innovation is attracting more and more attention from business as well as from academics. Business Model Innovation deals with both technological and knowledge related changes that either may disrupt or sustain existing product/market strategies. Timing of Business Model Innovation both with regard to the right moment as well as speed of implementing competitive concepts becomes crucial. In this conceptual paper we discuss and evaluate possibilities for shortening the lead-time and increasing impact of Business Model Innovation aiming at low-end and new market disruptions. We are building our discussion on recent findings and identifying anomalies for further research by reflecting on exemplary business design cases

SUCCESS FOR THE WHOLE FOOD CHAIN: TESTING THE MODEL OF NETWORK SUCCESS IN UKRAINE

Supply Chain Networks, Network Goals, Alignment of Interests, Alignment of Actions, Agribusiness,

Gobernanza, administración institucional e identidad local: la experiencia de los Planes Territoriales Regionales de Área en Lombardía

This paper analyses the planning implementation conducted by the Lombardy Region, in two different inter-municipal realities, as a useful example in a local context: the Area Regional Territorial Plan Alpine Valleys and the Area Regional Territorial Plan of the Franciacorta geographical area. These two complex experiences suggest positive conditions for the implementation of policies of Urban-Rural/Mountain partnerships to reach common goals and enhance urban-rural relationships, and complex institutional/administrative frameworks for activating multi-level governance processes.Este artículo analiza la ejecución de los planes aprobados por la Región de Lombardía en dos realidades intermunicipales diferentes, como ejemplo útil en un contexto local: el Plan Territorial Regional de Área de los Valles Alpinos y el Plan Territorial Regional del Área Geográfica de la Franciacorta. Estas dos complejas experiencias sugieren condiciones positivas para la aplicación de políticas de asociación entre las zonas urbanas y rurales y la montaña para alcanzar objetivos comunes y mejorar las relaciones urbano-rurales, y marcos institucionales y administrativos complejos para activar procesos de gobernanza multinivel

RESPONSIVE URBANISM: Sustainable Development Strategies for Small Communities with an Inter-Cultural Focus

This essay explores the development of a landscape design method referred to as Responsive Urbanism, the intention of which is to reverse the negative effects of globalization currently reordering the physical and social fabric of small communities. Responsive Urbanism utilizes a landscape based framework and systems focus that emphasizes the following series of disciplines (1) ecological networks in the natural world, (2) fabric of the built environment, (3) dynamics between land and transportation, and (4) socially networked decision making. The method also integrates community design events and cross-cultural collaboration, and concludes with multi-scaled design development that makes ecological integrity and urban landscapes the centerpiece of creating revitalizing building forms and constructed landscapes. This design method, utilized in a pilot project that spanned two years and involved more than 60 students from the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee (UWM) in Milwaukee, WI and the Technical University of Graz (TUG) in Graz, Austria, compared two communities of similar size and importance, the village of Mukwonago, Wisconsin in the United States and city of Radstadt, Austria. The project demonstrated that through structured analysis and disciplined project development communities can develop new tools to harness the increasing complexity, intensity, and global span of networks and realize the potentials of globalism’s universality, while simultaneously capturing the value of the singular and the local. A reordering of the physical and social fabric of community on a global scale is underway influencing the development of new design theories and methods to address the negative effects of this spatial transformation. In the last decade of the 20th century over 50% of the global population lived in urban settlements as compared to less than 3% at the end of the 19th century. Global urbanization has been described as the extension of capitalism and the advancement of a system of nation states as instruments of influence in the global marketplace. Although there are competing schools of thought about the reasons behind the increasing scale and pace of urbanization, significant agreement exists that patterns of finance linked to the increasing speed of transportation, communication and organizational technology are the major drivers transforming the physical landscape and global settlement patterns (Clark, 1997). While the emergence of “global cities” or global concentrations, linked to direct investments in core economies of developing nations, is taking place the spatial transformations observed in small communities within developed nations is more commonly that of dispersal and disruption. Two such small communities, one in the United States and the other in Austria, will demonstrate the challenges smaller settlements face when it comes to managing local economic pressures that have become intertwined with global networks. The same “trans-nationalization of production” that results in global brands and production patterns linked to global business structure is increasing the scale and pace of transformation as well as adding complexity to community building dynamics. The inability of small communities to make sense of these changeable, invisible and far reaching relationships is increasingly creating ecologically and urbanistically compromised building forms and landscapes. Responsive Urbanism posits that global and local dynamics can be understood through the alternative and inclusive framework of landscape, and demonstrated through visual argumentation (Waldheim, 2006). The method utilizes a systems focus and emphasizes the following series of disciplines: ecological networks in the natural world, fabric of the built environment, dynamics between land and transportation, and socially networked decision making. The method also integrates community design events and cross-cultural collaboration. Responsive Urbanism makes ecological integrity and urban landscapes visible through multi-scaled design development. Regional ecological corridors, local water and vegetation systems, and building scale energy and environmental strategies are depicted and integrated as essential components of each project. This process gives small communities tools to create new forms of urban spatiality (Sassen, 2003) that harness potentials of globalism’s universality, while simultaneously capturing the value of the singular and the local (Tzonis and Lefaivre, 2003). In this pilot project, two communities of similar size and importance have been compared, the city of Radstadt, Austria and the village of Mukwonago, Wisconsin in the USA. Both municipalities occupy a comparable position within their respective regions, and in their relationship to proximate urban agglomerations. Radstadt is located approximately 70 km/44 mi southeast from the provincial capital of Salzburg, which has a population of around 150,000 (210,000 metro. area). Mukwonago is situated around 60 km/38 mi southwest of Milwaukee, a city of approximately 600,000 (1.7 million metro. area). Radstadt is surrounded by five small communities and is conceived of a central recreation and nature zone; Mukwonago is also surrounded by five communities and has historically drawn recreation seekers from as far away as Chicago (145 km/90 mi) to visit its numerous woodlands and lakes