Advancements and Challenges in Object-Centric Process Mining: A Systematic Literature Review

Recent years have seen the emergence of object-centric process mining techniques. Born as a response to the limitations of traditional process mining in analyzing event data from prevalent information systems like CRM and ERP, these techniques aim to tackle the deficiency, convergence, and divergence issues seen in traditional event logs. Despite the promise, the adoption in real-world process mining analyses remains limited. This paper embarks on a comprehensive literature review of object-centric process mining, providing insights into the current status of the discipline and its historical trajectory

Teaching ERP Systems: Results of a Survey at Research-Oriented Universities and Universities of Applied Sciences in Germany

Because of the increasing importance of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and their educational value, as well as the rapidly-changing ERP market, many universities use, or want to use, ERP systems for their courses. The aim of these courses is to teach and demonstrate different ERP-related concepts and processes. To support these courses, some ERP manufacturers co-operate closely with universities and offer their systems and resources for academic teaching. However, there are very few empirical insights on system usage in academia. Therefore, we developed a questionnaire to determine the current status of ERP system usage and integration in courses at IS chairs of German-speaking, research-oriented universities (response rate 41.4%) and universities of applied sciences (response rate 53.1%). The results show that, among the respondents, more than two-thirds of the universities and nearly all of the universities of applied sciences use ERP systems practically in their courses. Though, almost every university chair (35 out of 38) and every professor/lecturer at the universities of applied sciences (47 out of 47) that are providing practical courses for students are using at least SAP ERP systems. In comparison with a former study we could show that the taught ERP functionalities have shifted throughout the last years from selected transactions towards selected modules or even towards the complete ERP system’s core

Teaching ERP systems: A Multi-Perspective View on the ERP System Market

In order to increase the diversity in IS education, we discuss an approach for teaching medium-sized ERP systems in university courses. Many of today’s IS curricula are biased toward a few large ERP packages. Nevertheless, these ERP systems are only a part of the ERP market. Therefore, this paper describes a course outline for an additional course on medium-sized ERP systems. Students had to study, analyze, and compare different ERP systems on their own during a semester. The seminar took place at three universities at the same time. The paper introduces a procedure model and a scenario for setting up similar courses at other universities. Furthermore, it discusses some of the students’ outcomes and evaluates the contribution of the course with regard to a practical but also academic IS education in a comparison of the three universities

Semantic Model Alignment for Business Process Integration

Business process models describe an enterprise’s way of conducting business and in this form the basis for shaping the organization and engineering the appropriate supporting or even enabling IT. Thereby, a major task in working with models is their analysis and comparison for the purpose of aligning them. As models can differ semantically not only concerning the modeling languages used, but even more so in the way in which the natural language for labeling the model elements has been applied, the correct identification of the intended meaning of a legacy model is a non-trivial task that thus far has only been solved by humans. In particular at the time of reorganizations, the set-up of B2B-collaborations or mergers and acquisitions the semantic analysis of models of different origin that need to be consolidated is a manual effort that is not only tedious and error-prone but also time consuming and costly and often even repetitive. For facilitating automation of this task by means of IT, in this thesis the new method of Semantic Model Alignment is presented. Its application enables to extract and formalize the semantics of models for relating them based on the modeling language used and determining similarities based on the natural language used in model element labels. The resulting alignment supports model-based semantic business process integration. The research conducted is based on a design-science oriented approach and the method developed has been created together with all its enabling artifacts. These results have been published as the research progressed and are presented here in this thesis based on a selection of peer reviewed publications comprehensively describing the various aspects

The Red Road of the Iberian Expansion: Cochineal and the Global Dye Trade

Between the end of the 15th century and beginning of the 16th, the Portuguese and the Spanish expanded their empires to the Americas. While the Portuguese soon dedicated to the exploitation of brazilwood, the Spanish came to establish a monopoly in cochineal that would become one of the most important commercial products in the Atlantic until the 19th century. The interdisciplinary investigation presented here, combining Analytical Chemistry and Economic History, aims to explore the impact of the American insect as a commercial product in the global circulation of dyestuffs, and its importance as a red dye in the main centres of textile production in Europe and in Asia, in relation to other local insect dyes. The historical investigation comprised a comprehensive revision of historical publications and primary printed sources regarding the Iberian transatlantic trade in dyestuffs and their impact on European and Asian dyeing traditions during the Early Modern period. Special focus was given to the acceptance of American cochineal over local insect dye sources, namely kermes, lac and Armenian and Polish cochineal. This research reveals a gradual but clear adoption of the American dyestuff in Europe and in West Asia, although local insect dyes would still have a representative role in on-going practices, especially in East and Southeast Asia. Chemical research was pursued to evaluate the historical picture presented for the impact of the American dyestuff in Europe and, especially in Asia, to which insufficient historical information was available. Given that previous publications concerning the chemical characterization of insect dyes depicted limitations that compromised the differentiation of cochineal species in red-dyed historical textiles, an ultra high-performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC) method was optimized to deliver more accurate results. Then, experiments with cochineal and kermes dyes were undertaken following several dyeing parameters. The resulting dyed fibres were characterized with UHPLC, leading to meaningful insights about the behaviour of the colorants’ dye compounds. Subsequent artificial ageing of the dyed fibres and their characterization with mass spectrometry (MS) permitted to characterize, for the first time, photo-degradation compounds in the insect’s colorant. These results were reported to be similar to those for historical fibres and, for this reason, it became possible to compare the experimentally-dyed and historical fibres through partial-least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA), for the identification of the cochineal species used to colour the analysed historical fibres. By combining the results of this successful approach, along with the results for other coloured historical fibres and their contextualization with historical evidence, it was possible to ascribe assertive interpretations about the date and provenance of the investigated textiles. Moreover, successful historical interpretations could be obtained about the dynamics of American cochineal in European and Asian societies throughout the colonial period. Therefore, the interdisciplinary combination of chemical and statistical methods developed here, along with historical evidence, has proven to be an important approach that should be adopted in future projects for the characterization of insect dyes in cultural heritage objects.Entre finais do séc. XV, início do séc. XVI, portugueses e espanhóis ampliaram os seus impérios, alargando-os ao continente americano. Enquanto os portugueses cedo se dedicaram à exploração de pau-brasil, os espanhóis estabeleceram um monopólio de cochinilha americana, a qual se tornaria num dos mais importantes produtos comerciais do Atlântico até ao séc. XIX. O desenvolvimento deste projecto doutoral combinou Química Analítica e História Económica com o objetivo de explorar o impacto deste insecto americano na circulação global de corantes, assim como a sua importância enquanto corante vermelho nos principais centros de produção têxtil na Europa e na Ásia, em relação a outros insectos corantes locais. A investigação histórica abrangeu uma ampla leitura de publicações históricas e fontes primárias impressas, sobre o comércio ibérico transatlântico de corantes e o seu impacto nas tradições de tingimento europeias e asiáticas durante o período Moderno. Especial enfoque foi dado à aceitação da cochinilha americana em detrimento de outros insectos locais - quermes, laca e cochinilha arménia e polaca. A pesquisa histórica veio evidenciar uma adopção gradual e definida do corante americano na Europa e no Sudoeste Asiático, embora os outros insectos continuassem a ser usados, especialmente na Ásia de Leste e Sudeste. A investigação química teve como objectivo avaliar a parte histórica relativa ao impacto do corante americano na Europa e, particularmente, na Ásia, para a qual a informação histórica disponível não era suficiente. Dado que publicações anteriores relativas à caracterização química de insectos apresentavam limitações que comprometiam a diferenciação de espécies de cochinilha em têxteis históricos, um método de cromatografia líquida de ultra eficiência (UHPLC) foi optimizado para oferecer resultados mais precisos. Subsequentemente, foram realizados tingimentos com cochinilha e kermes, através de vários parâmetros experimentais. As resultantes fibras tingidas foram caracterizadas com UHPLC, o que conduziu a significativas interpretações sobre a composição dos corantes. Além disso, o envelhecimento artificial das fibras tingidas e a sua caracterização com espectrometria de massa (MS) permitiu, pela primeira vez, a observação de compostos de foto-degradação nos corantes. Estes resultados revelaram-se semelhantes aos de fibras tingidas com cochinilha em têxteis históricos e, por isso, as fibras experimentalmente tingidas e as históricas foram comparadas através da análise discriminante com método de mínimos quadrados parciais (PLS-DA), para a identificação das espécies de cochinilha em têxteis históricos. Ao combinar os resultados desta metodologia com os resultados para outras fibras históricas tingidas com outros corantes, e juntamente com a sua contextualização histórica, tornou-se possível atribuir interpretações assertivas sobre a data e a proveniência dos têxteis investigados. Por outro lado, interpretações históricas mais conclusivas puderam ser obtidas relativamente à dinâmica da cochinilha americana nas sociedades europeias e asiáticas durante o período colonial. Assim, a combinação interdisciplinar entre os métodos químico e estatístico desenvolvidos neste estudo, em conjunção com evidências históricas, provaram constituir uma abordagem fundamental a ser adoptada em futuros projectos relativos à caracterização de corantes de insectos em património cultural

Erfolgsfaktoren bei der Einführung von ERP-Systemen in klein- und mittelständischen Unternehmen und deren Implikationen für die Hochschullehre: Erfolgsfaktoren bei der Einführung von ERP-Systemen in klein- und mittelständischen Unternehmen und deren Implikationen für die Hochschullehre

Bedingt durch oftmals schnelle und fortschreitende Änderungen im wirtschaftlichen Umfeld stehen Unternehmen vor zahlreichen externen sowie internen Anforderungen und Herausforderungen, was wiederum eine effektive Steuerung und Koordination der innerbetrieblichen aber auch der überbetrieblichen Geschäftsprozesse und -abläufe erfordert. Um diesen Herausforderungen zu begegnen, ist der Einsatz von adäquaten Anwendungssystemen zwingend. Speziell die Nutzung von Enterprise Resource Planning-(ERP-)Systemen, die als standardisierte Systeme die gesamten unternehmerischen Aktivitäten und Geschäftsprozesse unterstützen können, ist zu einem wichtigen Bestandteil der Unternehmen geworden. Ein richtig ausgewähltes und implementiertes ERP-System bietet zahlreiche Vorteile sowohl für Großunternehmen aber auch für klein- und mittelständische Unternehmen (KMU). Die Implementierung eines ERP-Systems stellt jedoch ein komplexes und zeitintensives Projekt dar, welches den Unternehmen große Möglichkeiten eröffnet, diese aber gleichzeitig mit enormen Risiken konfrontiert. Dabei realisieren immer mehr KMU die möglichen Vorteile dieser Systeme, woraus eine konstante Nachfrage nach ERP-Systemen für kleine und mittlere Unternehmen resultiert. Um jedoch von den Vorteilen zu profitieren anstatt von den Risiken „verschlungen“ zu werden, ist es zwingend erforderlich, sich genau auf die Faktoren zu fokussieren, die zur einer erfolgreichen Einführung eines ERP-Systems beitragen. An diesem Punkt knüpft die vorliegende Dissertation mit einem ersten Forschungsschwerpunkt an. Dieser Schwerpunkt befasst sich mit kritischen Erfolgsfaktoren im Zusammenhang mit der ERP-System-Einführung und der ERP-System-Nutzung in klein- und mittelständischen Unternehmen. Ziel dieses ersten Schwerpunktes ist es, einen Einblick in die Erfolgsfaktoren bei ERP-System-Implementierung in KMU zu geben und die Unterschiede zu den Faktoren bei ERP-Projekten in Großunternehmen aufzuzeigen. Als konkretes Ergebnis dieses Forschungsstrangs wird dabei ein Vorgehensmodell für ERP-Einführungen in KMU entwickelt, welches auf Basis der Erfolgsfaktoren von ERP-Projekten aus bestehenden Modellen abgeleitet und an die Bedürfnisse und Anforderungen der KMU angepasst wird. Hierbei werden die Erfolgsfaktoren direkt in das Modell mit einbezogen. Des Weiteren resultiert ein zweiter Schwerpunkt dieser Dissertation erneut aus der hohen und konstanten Nachfrage nach ERP-Systemen, welche zu einem sehr stark fragmentierten ERP-Markt vor allem im Bereich der KMU geführt hat mit einer Vielzahl von Herstellern und Systemen. Hier erschwert es diese hohe Marktfragmentierung den Anwenderunternehmen nicht nur, die „richtige“ Software zu finden, sondern auch für das von ihnen ausgewählte System entsprechende Fachkräfte an sich zu binden. Daraus ergibt sich unter anderem auch die Notwendigkeit für Hochschulen, ihren Studierenden und späteren Absolventen dieses geforderte und benötigte Fachwissen, insbesondere in informationssystembezogenen Studiengängen zu vermitteln. Jedoch gibt es dafür keinen standardisierten Ansatz. Die Systemwahl und die Anzahl der Systeme sowie der Aufbau und die Anzahl der ERP-Kurse divergieren von Hochschule zu Hochschule, wobei in diesem Punkt eine Dominanz großer ERP-System Hersteller zu verzeichnen ist. Allerdings ist eine diversifiziertere Einbindung von ERP-Systemen vor allem aus dem Bereich der KMU sinnvoll. An diesem Punkt stehen die Hochschulen und die Lehrenden vor der Herausforderung, wie viele Systeme in die Curricula integriert werden sollten und auf welche Art und Weise und in welchem Umfang diese Systeme vermittelt werden sollten. Daher werden im Rahmen dieses zweiten Schwerpunktes Möglichkeiten und Kursmodelle beschrieben, durch die eine praktische Vermittlung einzelner oder auch mehrerer ERP-Systeme ermöglicht und unterstützt wird. Ziel dabei ist es, einen Beispielcurriculum zu entwickeln, in dem über verschiedene Kurse hinweg, Kenntnisse zu ERP-Systemen vermittelt werden. Die Kurse dieses Curriculums werden dabei auf Basis der Literatur und der Anforderungen von Unternehmen an spätere Absolventen (vor allem resultierend aus den Erfolgsfaktoren des ersten Forschungsstrangs) entwickelt. Des Weiteren werden diese Kurse und die darin eingesetzten Systeme mit den Ergebnissen einer Umfrage an Universitäten und Fachhochschulen zum ERP-System-Einsatz in der Lehre verglichen und auf Basis dieser Ergebnisse angepasst und modifiziert. Als konkrete Resultate dieses Forschungsstrangs werden mit dem zu entwickelnden Beispielcurriculum Handlungsempfehlungen gegeben, mit denen Hochschulen sowohl Kenntnisse zu ERP-Systemen für Großunternehmen als auch zu Systemen für KMU vermitteln können. Dabei steht auch die praktische Kenntnisvermittlung von kleineren Systemen im Fokus, um den Studierenden einen weiteren Blick auf die Verschiedenartigkeit von ERP-Systemen zu bieten

Barry Smith an sich

Festschrift in Honor of Barry Smith on the occasion of his 65th Birthday. Published as issue 4:4 of the journal Cosmos + Taxis: Studies in Emergent Order and Organization. Includes contributions by Wolfgang Grassl, Nicola Guarino, John T. Kearns, Rudolf Lüthe, Luc Schneider, Peter Simons, Wojciech Żełaniec, and Jan Woleński

Stop and Go

"Stop and Go: Nodes of Transformation and Transition was a research project by architect and artist Michael Hieslmair and cultural historian Michael Zinganel from Vienna in collaboration with geographer Tarmo Pikner from Tallinn and historian and anthropologist Emiliya Karaboeva from Sofia. The project focused on the transformation of hubs and terminals as well as formal and informal nodes along the network of pan-European road transport corridors connecting the former East and West of Europe. The book presents several trans-disciplinary case studies in the geographical triangle between Vienna, Tallinn and Helsinki and the Bulgarian-Turkish border. Each contribution investigates how differently the networks and temporary habitats of highly mobile actors along these road corridors – both in the posturban intermediate zones and in the city centers – have undergone and continue to undergo significant changes before and after the fall of the Iron Curtain, the enlargement of the EU, and the re-expansion of transport infrastructure.

Forschungsbericht Universität Mannheim 2008 / 2009

Die Universität Mannheim hat seit ihrer Entstehung ein spezifisches Forschungsprofil, welches sich in ihrer Entwicklung und derz eitigen Struktur deutlich widerspiegelt. Es ist geprägt von national und international sehr anerkannten Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften und deren Vernetzung mit leistungsstarken Geisteswissenschaften, Rechtswissenschaft sowie Mathematik und Informatik. Die Universität Mannheim wird auch in Zukunft einerseits die Forschungsschwerpunkte in den Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften fördern und andererseits eine interdisziplinäre Kultur im Zusammenspiel aller Fächer der Universität anstreben