Industry 4.0 for SME

Dissertation presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Data Science and Advanced Analytics, specialization in Business AnalyticsIndustry 4.0 has been growing within companies and impacting the economy and society, but this has been a more complex challenge for some types of companies. Due to the costs and complexity associated with Industry 4.0 technologies, small and medium enterprises face difficulties in adopting them. This thesis proposes to create a model that gives guidance and simplifies how to implement Industry 4.0 in SMEs with a low-cost perspective. It is intended that this model can be used as a blueprint to design and implement an Industry 4.0 project within a manufactory SME. To create the model, a literature review of the different fields regarding Industry 4.0 were conducted to understand the most suited technologies to leverage within the manufacturing industry and the different use cases where these would be applicable. After the model was built, expert interviews were conducted, and based on the received feedback, the model was tweaked, improved, and validated

Digitization and internationalization : a study on portuguese companies during the covid-19 crisis

Mestrado Bolonha em Economia e Gestão de Ciência, Tecnologia e InovaçãoNos últimos anos a globalização se mostrou uma ferramenta muito utilizada por empresas como facilitador da internacionalização, visto que o processo auxilia a integração entre as diferentes partes do globo. Com isso nasceram diversas teorias que buscam explicar como funciona o processo de expansão das empresas para além-fronteiras, como A teoria do Ciclo do Produto de 1966, o Modelo Uppsala de 1977, a Teoria do Paradigma Eclético de 1980. No decorrer dos anos, o contexto mudou com a utilização dos meios de comunicação e, consequentemente, o surgimento da internet. Teorias que estudam a internacionalização e a digitalização, como as Born Globals e Born Digitals Companies, surgiram com o intuito de trazer uma abordagem mais atualizada dos processos que se tornaram mais dinâmicos e velozes, atrelado muitas vezes as empresas menores, mas não menos competitivas, diferente do que era visto nas primeiras teorias. Em um momento em que muito se avançou em relação as trocas internacionais, surge a pandemia de Corona vírus, levando o mundo a entender a sua interdependência e levando todos a uma espécie de caos generalizado gerado pelo fechamento de escolas, comércios, indústrias, levantando incerteza e imprevisibilidade. A digitalização dos negócios, antes vista como uma evolução lenta, tornou-se obrigatória e acabou por salvar empresas que tiveram agilidade para entender o momento em que se encontravam. As gigantes da tecnologia valorizaram-se graças a busca por soluções para negócios, estudos e relações. O trabalho a seguir busca, através de uma abordagem quantitativa, entender se o grau de digitalização apresentado por empresas portuguesas durante a crise de Covid-19 mitigou o impacto negativo gerado pela crise. Para isto, foi realizada uma pesquisa através de questionário, com 260 empresas internacionalizadas portuguesas, observando aspectos estruturais (visão internacional, capacidade de gestão operacional e de gestão), estratégias (grau de digitalização, internet como facilitador de internacionalização, internet como fator relevante no combate a crise, rápida internacionalização e impacto geral do covid) e performance destas empresas (crescimento do grau de internacionalização eperformance durante a crise). Foram criadas 8 hipóteses a partir dos três grupos(aspetos estruturais, estratégias e performance), para identificar possíveis relações que influenciassem os resultados no combate a crise, sendo que 75% das hipóteses obtiveram comprovação estatística. Os resultados encontrados demonstram que a performance durante a crise é impactada diretamente por dois fatores: o impacto generalizado da Covid na empresa e a rápida internacionalização. Já a digitalização (grau de digitalização, internet como fator relevante e internet como facilitador de internacionalização) não foi um fator diferencial para mitigar os impactos negativos, ressaltando que a pesquisa foi realizada com empresas portuguesas de diversos setores, podendo diferenciar-se em outros contextos ou em áreas específicas.In the recent years, globalization has proved to be a tool widely used by companies as a facilitator of internationalization, since the process helps the integration between different parts of the globe. With this, several theories were born to explain how the process of expansion of companies beyond borders works, such as The Product Cycle Theory of 1966, the Uppsala Model of 1977, the Eclectic Paradigm Theory of 1980. Over the years, the context has changed with the use of the media and, consequently, the emergence of the Internet. Theories that study internationalization and digitization, such as Born Globals and Born Digitals Companies, emerged in order to bring a more up-to-date approach to processes that have become more dynamic and faster, often tied to smaller but no less competitive companies, different from what was seen in the early theories. At a time when much progress has been made in relation to international trade, the Corona virus pandemic arises, leading the world to understand its interdependence and leading everyone to a kind of widespread chaos generated by the closure of schools, shops, industries, raising uncertainty and unpredictability. The digitization of the business, once seen as a slow evolution, became mandatory and ended up saving companies that had the agility to understand the moment they were in. The technology giants have valued themselves thanks to the search for solutions for business, education and relationships. The following work seeks, through a quantitative approach, to understand whether the degree of digitization presented by Portuguese companies during the Covid-19 crisis mitigated the negative impact generated by the crisis. For this, a questionnaire was conducted with 260 Portuguese internationalized companies, observing structural aspects (international vision, operational management and management capacity), strategies (degree of digitization, internet as a enabler of internationalization, internet as a relevant factor in combating the crisis, quickly internationalization and overall impact of covid) and performance of these companies (growth of the degree of internationalization and performance during the crisis). Eight hypotheses were created from the three groups (structural aspects, strategies and performance), to identify possible relationships that influenced the results in combating the crisis, and 75% of the hypotheses obtained statistical proof. The results show that performance during the crisis is directly impacted by two factors: Covid's widespread impact on the company and rapid internationalization. On the other hand, digitization (degree of digitization, internet as a relevant factor and internet as a enabler of internationalization) was not a differential factor to mitigate the negative impacts, emphasizing that the research was conducted with Portuguese companies from various sectors, being able to differentiate in other contexts or in specific areas.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Os três pilares da sustentabilidade e gestão ágil de projectos: como é que eles se influenciam

The industrial world is becoming more competitive with each passing day. Companies face new challenges and to survive, they need to find ways to stand out from the rest. One way for companies to do this is to improve the quality of the products, this can be achieved by improving production planning. The goal of this thesis is to investigate a novel perspective within the theoretical area of agile project management and sustainability. The goal of the study is to prove that there are links between Agile Project Management and Sustainability, as well as to learn how Agile Project Management affects organization’s social, environmental, and economical dynamics from the triple bottom line standpoint. The research examines how agile project management ideas are connected to concepts from the three pillars of the triple bottom line using many case studies. The analysis task consisted of analyzing these concepts and relationships qualitatively to create a network diagram that graphically reproduced the existing links. The findings reveal that implementing Agile Project Management has a variety of effects on an organization's social, economic, and environmental dynamics. When the bulk of these interactions were examined, it was discovered that there is a favorable effect on all of them. This work also aims to explore the concepts related to Agile Project Management. In doing so, the author explores the questions of what the need for Project Management is, where did Project Management begin, what are the different approaches that a project can take, why the need for Agile Project Management, which methodologies exist within the Agile Project Management and what tools can help Agile Project Management to achieve results faster.O mundo industrial está a ficar mais competitivo a cada dia que passa. As empresas enfrentam novos desafios e para conseguirem sobreviver precisam, de encontrar maneiras de se destacarem das demais. Uma forma de as empresas fazerem isso é melhorar a qualidade dos produtos, o que pode ser alcançado, melhorando o planeamento da produção. Por esta razão, ter uma boa gestão de projetos torna-se crucial. O objetivo desta tese é investigar uma nova perspetiva dentro da área teórica da sustentabilidade em gestão de projetos. O objetivo do estudo é provar que existem ligações entre a gestão ágil de projetos e a sustentabilidade, bem como aprender como a gestão ágil de projetos afeta a dinâmica social, ambiental e económica das organizações, do ponto de vista do tripé da sustentabilidade. A pesquisa examina como as ideias de gestão de projetos ágeis estão conectadas aos conceitos dos três pilares do tripé da sustentabilidade, por meio do uso de vários estudos de caso. A tarefa de análise consistiu em avaliar qualitativamente esses conceitos e relações, a fim de criar um diagrama de rede que reproduzisse graficamente as relações existentes. Os resultados revelam que a implementação da gestão ágil de projetostem vários efeitos na dinâmica social, económica e ambiental de uma organização. Quando estas interações são examinadas, os resultados mostram que este método de gestão tem um efeito positivo. Este trabalho tem também como objetivo explorar os conceitos relacionados com a gestão ágil de projetos. Para tal, o autor explora as questões sobre qual a necessidade da gestão de projetos, onde começou a gestão de projetos, quais são as diferentes abordagens que um projeto pode tomar, o porquê da necessidade de uma gestão de projetos ágil, quais as que existem dentro da gestão ágil de projetos e quais as ferramentas que podem ajudar a gestão ágil de projetos a alcançar resultados mais rapidamente

Artificial intelligence applied to stakeholder theory

The constant evolution and change in the world have forced organizations to rethink their business model. Intelligent Systems have proved to be very promising in business management, increasing business performance by simplifying processes, increasing efficiency and decision-making. The importance of Stakeholder Theory as an integral part of business analysis becomes evident as all Stakeholders will influence the business environment at some point, and therefore its constant monitoring becomes crucial. Despite the importance of stakeholder analysis, it remains a significant gap in organizations. To find solutions to this problem, this investigation's main objective is to study the impact of Intelligent Systems on Stakeholder Theory. For this, after a literary review, two research questions were raised. The investigation is based on an inductive, exploratory study and was carried out from a non-probabilistic convenience sample. To obtain answers to the research questions, a hybrid approach of qualitative and quantitative methods was used, with an analysis of 13 interviews and 168 online questionnaires, respectively. The results obtained allow us to demonstrate that the use of Intelligent Systems related to the Stakeholder Theory in organizations becomes relevant and that the perception and knowledge of individuals, influenced or not by the benefits and challenges that the implementation of Artificial Intelligence can entail, becomes crucial in the decision to implement these systems in their companies.A constante evolução e mudança no mundo, tem forçado as organizações a repensar todo o seu modelo empresarial. Os Sistemas Inteligentes têm-se revelado bastante promissores em relação à gestão empresarial, aumentando o desempenho dos negócios através da simplificação de processos, aumento de eficiência e tomada de decisão. A importância da Teoria dos Stakeholders como parte integrante das análises das empresas torna-se evidente na medida em que todos os Stakeholders irão influenciar o ambiente empresarial em algum momento e por isso, torna-se crucial a sua monitorização constante. Apesar da importância da análise de Stakeholders, continua a ser uma grande lacuna nas organizações. No sentido de encontrar soluções para esta problemática, o principal objetivo desta investigação prende-se com o estudo do impacto dos Sistemas Inteligentes na Teoria dos Stakeholders. Para isso, depois de uma revisão literária, foram levantadas duas questões de pesquisa. A investigação é baseada em uma investigação indutiva, exploratória e foi realizada a partir de uma amostra não probabilística de conveniência. Na obtenção de respostas para as questões de pesquisa foi utilizado uma abordagem mista de métodos qualitativos e quantitativos com análise de 13 entrevistas e 168 questionários online, respetivamente. Os resultados obtidos permitem demonstrar que a utilização de Sistemas Inteligentes relacionada com a Teoria dos Stakeholders nas organizações torna-se relevante e que, a perceção e conhecimento dos indivíduos influenciada ou não pelos benefícios e desafios que a implementação da Inteligência Artificial pode acarretar, se torna crucial na decisão da implementação destes sistemas nas suas empresas

How artificial intelligence can provide support in project resource management

With the exponential advancement of technology, most companies are starting to adopt these innovative systems to improve their performance and a major player in this advancement is the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI). The following dissertation explores the application of AI in Project Resource Management in order to understand how this technology can support and improve the management of Human and Physical resources in Projects. By taking a sample of professional Project Managers in the Portuguese labour market, it was identified their major difficulties in the different Project Resource Management Processes, if they used AI before and if they would be willing to use AI to manage Resources in Projects. It was possible to understand that most Project Managers had difficulties in Human Resource Management and Physical Resource Acquisition, most of them have had contact with AI technologies and the majority perceive this technology as being useful and would use it for their daily tasks.Com o aumento exponencial da tecnologia, uma grande parte de empresas estão a começar a adotar os sistemas mais inovadores do mercado e um grande player neste desenvolvimento é sem dúvida a Inteligência Artificial (IA). Esta dissertação visa explorar a aplicação de IA na Gestão de Recursos em Projetos de modo a compreender como é que esta tecnologia consegue providenciar apoio e melhorar a gestão de recursos Humanos e Materiais em Projetos. Utilizando uma amostra de Gestores de Projetos profissionais no mercado de trabalho português, identificando quais as maiores dificuldades que estes sentem nos diferentes Processos da Gestão de Recursos em Projetos, se os mesmos já tinham utilizado IA anteriormente e se estariam dispostos a utilizar IA para gerir recursos em Projetos. Os resultados mostraram que as maiores dificuldades se encontraram nos processos de Gestão de Recursos Humanos e na Aquisição de Recursos Materiais, que muitos dos mesmos já tinham contatado com IA anteriormente e que a maior parte reconhece a utilidade desta tecnologia e estariam dispostos a utilizarem a mesma no dia a dia

Management, Technology and Learning for Individuals, Organisations and Society in Turbulent Environments

This book presents the collection of fifty papers which were presented in the Second International Conference on BUSINESS SUSTAINABILITY 2011 - Management, Technology and Learning for Individuals, Organisations and Society in Turbulent Environments , held in Póvoa de Varzim, Portugal, from 22ndto 24thof June, 2011.The main motive of the meeting was growing awareness of the importance of the sustainability issue. This importance had emerged from the growing uncertainty of the market behaviour that leads to the characterization of the market, i.e. environment, as turbulent. Actually, the characterization of the environment as uncertain and turbulent reflects the fact that the traditional technocratic and/or socio-technical approaches cannot effectively and efficiently lead with the present situation. In other words, the rise of the sustainability issue means the quest for new instruments to deal with uncertainty and/or turbulence. The sustainability issue has a complex nature and solutions are sought in a wide range of domains and instruments to achieve and manage it. The domains range from environmental sustainability (referring to natural environment) through organisational and business sustainability towards social sustainability. Concerning the instruments for sustainability, they range from traditional engineering and management methodologies towards “soft” instruments such as knowledge, learning, and creativity. The papers in this book address virtually whole sustainability problems space in a greater or lesser extent. However, although the uncertainty and/or turbulence, or in other words the dynamic properties, come from coupling of management, technology, learning, individuals, organisations and society, meaning that everything is at the same time effect and cause, we wanted to put the emphasis on business with the intention to address primarily companies and their businesses. Due to this reason, the main title of the book is “Business Sustainability 2.0” but with the approach of coupling Management, Technology and Learning for individuals, organisations and society in Turbulent Environments. Also, the notation“2.0” is to promote the publication as a step further from our previous publication – “Business Sustainability I” – as would be for a new version of software. Concerning the Second International Conference on BUSINESS SUSTAINABILITY, its particularity was that it had served primarily as a learning environment in which the papers published in this book were the ground for further individual and collective growth in understanding and perception of sustainability and capacity for building new instruments for business sustainability. In that respect, the methodology of the conference work was basically dialogical, meaning promoting dialog on the papers, but also including formal paper presentations. In this way, the conference presented a rich space for satisfying different authors’ and participants’ needs. Additionally, promoting the widest and global learning environment and participation, in accordance with the Conference's assumed mission to promote Proactive Generative Collaborative Learning, the Conference Organisation shares/puts open to the community the papers presented in this book, as well as the papers presented on the previous Conference(s). These papers can be accessed from the conference webpage (http://labve.dps.uminho.pt/bs11). In these terms, this book could also be understood as a complementary instrument to the Conference authors’ and participants’, but also to the wider readerships’ interested in the sustainability issues. The book brought together 107 authors from 11 countries, namely from Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Serbia, Switzerland, and United States of America. The authors “ranged” from senior and renowned scientists to young researchers providing a rich and learning environment. At the end, the editors hope, and would like, that this book to be useful, meeting the expectation of the authors and wider readership and serving for enhancing the individual and collective learning, and to incentive further scientific development and creation of new papers. Also, the editors would use this opportunity to announce the intention to continue with new editions of the conference and subsequent editions of accompanying books on the subject of BUSINESS SUSTAINABILITY, the third of which is planned for year 2013.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

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