Towards a functional characterization of collaborative systems

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-23734-8_30Proceedings of 8th International Conference, CDVE 2011, Hong Kong, China, September 11-14, 2011.In this paper we present major results of a detailed study about the functionalities that are present in different collaborative systems, realized as collaborative components. We have used this study to establish a methodology for the automatic generation of collaborative applications supporting group needs. The methodology is directed to any community of end users, who do not need to have any programming skills.This research was partly funded by the Spanish National Plan of R+D, project number TIN2008-02081/TIN and by the CAM (Autonomous Community of Madrid), project number S2009/TIC-1650

Smart technologies: Enablers of construction components reuse?

Purpose: The exploitation of smart technologies such as, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and Building Information Modelling (BIM) for tracking and archiving the properties of structural components, is an innovative disruption in the construction sector. It could stimulate reuse of construction components, rather than their wastage addressing a serious pressing problem. Methods: This study explores the potential of smart technologies to facilitate construction components reuse, and develops a guidance list for promoting their redistribution back to the supply chain. A preliminary assessment of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the RFID technology is presented in order to depict its current and future potential in promoting construction components’ sustainable lifecycle management, and in capturing and creating value. Results: For both RFID and BIM technologies to operate successfully, the right amount and flow of information at each stage of the design-construction-deconstruction-reuse-disposal process is a prerequisite. Although a number of limitations related to the technical operability and recycling of RFID tags currently withhold its roll-out, technological innovation may provide solutions for the future, enabling it to become mainstream. Conclusions: the use of RFID in the construction sector can create the right conditions for the development of new business models based on the reuse and lifecycle management of components, unlocking multiple technical, environmental, economic, and social benefits. With technological innovation enhancing the capabilities of RFID, and with policy interventions controlling and managing its uptake at all stages of the supply chain, its use as a construction components reuse enabler might soon become realised

The use of smart technologies in enabling construction components reuse: A viable method or a problem creating solution?

© 2017 The Authors. The exploitation of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) for tracking and archiving the properties of structural construction components could be a potentially innovative disruption for the construction sector. This is because RFID can stimulate the reuse of construction components and reduce their wastage, hence addressing sustainability issues in the construction sector. To test the plausibility of that idea, this study explores the potential pre-conditions for RFID to facilitate construction components reuse, and develops a guidance for promoting their redistribution back to the supply chain. It also looks at how integrating RFID with Building Information Modelling (BIM) can possibly be a valuable extension of its capabilities, providing the opportunity for tracked components to be incorporated into new structures in an informed, sound way. A preliminary assessment of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the RFID technology is presented in order to depict its current and future potential in promoting construction components’ sustainable lifecycle management, while emphasis has been laid on capturing their technical, environmental, economic and social value. Findings suggest that the collection of the right amount of information at the design-construction-deconstruction-reuse-disposal stage is crucial for RFID to become a successful innovation in the construction sector. Although a number of limitations related to the technical operability and recycling of RFID tags seem to currently hinder its uptake for structural components’ lifecycle management, future technological innovations could provide solutions that would enable it to become a mainstream practice. Taken together these proposals advocate that the use of RFID and its integration with BIM can create the right environment for the development of new business models focused on sustainable resource management. These models may then unlock multiple values that are otherwise dissipated in the system. If the rapid technological development of RFID capability can be allied to policy interventions that control and manage its uptake along the supply chain, the sustainable lifecycle management of construction components could be radically enhanced.UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) who funded this work (Grant No. EP/K012398/1) in the context of the Infrastructure Business models, valuation and Innovation for Local Delivery (iBUILD) project

Efficient Decision Support Systems

This series is directed to diverse managerial professionals who are leading the transformation of individual domains by using expert information and domain knowledge to drive decision support systems (DSSs). The series offers a broad range of subjects addressed in specific areas such as health care, business management, banking, agriculture, environmental improvement, natural resource and spatial management, aviation administration, and hybrid applications of information technology aimed to interdisciplinary issues. This book series is composed of three volumes: Volume 1 consists of general concepts and methodology of DSSs; Volume 2 consists of applications of DSSs in the biomedical domain; Volume 3 consists of hybrid applications of DSSs in multidisciplinary domains. The book is shaped upon decision support strategies in the new infrastructure that assists the readers in full use of the creative technology to manipulate input data and to transform information into useful decisions for decision makers

Políticas de Copyright de Publicações Científicas em Repositórios Institucionais: O Caso do INESC TEC

A progressiva transformação das práticas científicas, impulsionada pelo desenvolvimento das novas Tecnologias de Informação e Comunicação (TIC), têm possibilitado aumentar o acesso à informação, caminhando gradualmente para uma abertura do ciclo de pesquisa. Isto permitirá resolver a longo prazo uma adversidade que se tem colocado aos investigadores, que passa pela existência de barreiras que limitam as condições de acesso, sejam estas geográficas ou financeiras. Apesar da produção científica ser dominada, maioritariamente, por grandes editoras comerciais, estando sujeita às regras por estas impostas, o Movimento do Acesso Aberto cuja primeira declaração pública, a Declaração de Budapeste (BOAI), é de 2002, vem propor alterações significativas que beneficiam os autores e os leitores. Este Movimento vem a ganhar importância em Portugal desde 2003, com a constituição do primeiro repositório institucional a nível nacional. Os repositórios institucionais surgiram como uma ferramenta de divulgação da produção científica de uma instituição, com o intuito de permitir abrir aos resultados da investigação, quer antes da publicação e do próprio processo de arbitragem (preprint), quer depois (postprint), e, consequentemente, aumentar a visibilidade do trabalho desenvolvido por um investigador e a respetiva instituição. O estudo apresentado, que passou por uma análise das políticas de copyright das publicações científicas mais relevantes do INESC TEC, permitiu não só perceber que as editoras adotam cada vez mais políticas que possibilitam o auto-arquivo das publicações em repositórios institucionais, como também que existe todo um trabalho de sensibilização a percorrer, não só para os investigadores, como para a instituição e toda a sociedade. A produção de um conjunto de recomendações, que passam pela implementação de uma política institucional que incentive o auto-arquivo das publicações desenvolvidas no âmbito institucional no repositório, serve como mote para uma maior valorização da produção científica do INESC TEC.The progressive transformation of scientific practices, driven by the development of new Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), which made it possible to increase access to information, gradually moving towards an opening of the research cycle. This opening makes it possible to resolve, in the long term, the adversity that has been placed on researchers, which involves the existence of barriers that limit access conditions, whether geographical or financial. Although large commercial publishers predominantly dominate scientific production and subject it to the rules imposed by them, the Open Access movement whose first public declaration, the Budapest Declaration (BOAI), was in 2002, proposes significant changes that benefit the authors and the readers. This Movement has gained importance in Portugal since 2003, with the constitution of the first institutional repository at the national level. Institutional repositories have emerged as a tool for disseminating the scientific production of an institution to open the results of the research, both before publication and the preprint process and postprint, increase the visibility of work done by an investigator and his or her institution. The present study, which underwent an analysis of the copyright policies of INESC TEC most relevant scientific publications, allowed not only to realize that publishers are increasingly adopting policies that make it possible to self-archive publications in institutional repositories, all the work of raising awareness, not only for researchers but also for the institution and the whole society. The production of a set of recommendations, which go through the implementation of an institutional policy that encourages the self-archiving of the publications developed in the institutional scope in the repository, serves as a motto for a greater appreciation of the scientific production of INESC TEC

Development of interactive and distributed virtual environments for immersive communication in the furniture, fixture and equipment sector

Despite the significance of the furniture fixture and equipment (FFE) sector to the UK’s economy and the construction industry, this sector faces challenges that impede its productivity and performance, including an inability to meet end-user expectations in the delivery of its services. Lack of adoption of digitalisation and poor design communication between the stakeholders have been identified as one of the issues leading to challenges in the FFE Sector. In this context, visual representation offered by virtual reality (VR) can play a critical role in communicating the designs with the stakeholders effectively. However, evidence suggests that the current state of the VR application in the FFE sector lacks three critical advancements namely BIM-data interaction (interaction with the meta-data associated with the FFE elements), human-building interaction (interaction of stakeholders with FFE elements in the virtual environment) and human-human interactions (multi-user interaction). Therefore, the aim of this study was to bridge this gap through the development and testing of novel virtual environments for immersive communication between FFE and its construction project stakeholders. Furthermore, pre-conditions for the successful implementation of the developed VR applications were evaluated in this study through experimentation.A sequential, exploratory, mixed-method research design was adopted for this study in three phases. In phase one, an extensive literature investigation was carried out to acquire deeper knowledge of existing literature to understand the state-of-the-art developments of immersive technologies in the construction industry with a specific focus on the current challenges and benefits of implementing immersive technology. Phase two of the study involved the development and testing of immersive, distributed and interactive VR applications for various scenarios of the FFE communications for construction. Each application was developed by applying rapid application development methodologies and combining BIM, game engine and low latency cloud server development paradigm. The developments were tested through quasi-experiments and evaluation by stakeholders to ascertain usefulness and utility in the FFE sector context. The first development focused on interactive VR for FFE and was tested among (n = 12) stakeholders using a quasi-experiment in a single-group, pre-test-post-test design. The second development focused on distributed immersion for FFE design communication and was tested among construction stakeholders involved in FFE design decision-making (n = 26). The distributed VR application was further tested further among (n = 9) stakeholders in the context of FFE retail and showcasing of FFE products. The experimental approaches in the second phase adopted combined quantitative and qualitative evaluations to ascertain system usability which fed into further development and finetuning of applications. Finally, in the third phase of the study, the interactive and distributed VR applications were validated among wider group of construction stakeholders (n = 117) using a survey to ascertain industry-wide utility and usefulness as well as establish factors that influence their wider adoption in the sector. A combination of descriptive and inferential statistics was applied to establish findings including Kruskal-Wallis and ANOVA to measure variations in views across different segments of the population of respondents.Findings indicated that the interactive distributed immersive virtual FFE environment can enhance the productivity of the design team through a collaborative virtual workspace offering a synchronised networked design testing and review platform. Furthermore, it can reduce the time required for the stakeholders (Client/end-user, architect, FFE designer/contractor, FFE manufacturer) to comprehend and test the design options. In addition, the developed VR applications can enhance the design communication and quality of the design and encourage a collaborative culture in the industry and improve the design satisfaction of the stakeholders. It was also identified that the VR applications developed for this study can reduce the time required for design decision-making significantly when compared with traditional methods. In the retail and product showcasing context, the system was found to be a highly efficient and viable tool, which can deliver a compelling and richer experience similar to an FFE in-store experience. The testing also revealed that the proposed system not only improves the sense of presence but also brings in a new dimension of a sense of being together, which has a positive impact on decision making. Cumulative findings of this study revealed that distributed and interactive VR has become essential to digitalising the FFE sector’s design communication, with improved design communication being regarded as the most important benefit of its use. Conversely, the most critical challenge that inhibits the implementation of these two VR applications in the FFE sector is the perceived cost. This research proposes a step change in the way furniture design is communicated and coordinated through an immersive virtual experience, thus allowing informed decisions making and creating shared understanding before the commencement of the construction activity

3D printing-as-a-service for collaborative engineering

3D printing or Additive Manufacturing (AM) are utilised as umbrella terms to denote a variety of technologies to manufacture or create a physical object based on a digital model. Commonly, these technologies create the objects by adding, fusing or melting a raw material in a layer-wise fashion. Apart from the 3D printer itself, no specialised tools are required to create almost any shape or form imaginable and designable. The possibilities of these technologies of these technologies are plentiful and cover the ability to manufacture every object, rapidly, locally and cost-efficiently without wasted resources and material. Objects can be created to specific forms to perform as perfectly fitting functions without consideration of the assembly process. To further the advance the availability and applicability of 3D printing, this thesis identifies the problems that currently exist and attempts to solve them. During the 3D printing process, data (i. e., files) must be converted from their original representation, e. g., CAD file, to the machine instructions for a specific 3D printer. During this process, information is lost, and other information is added. Traceability is lacking in 3D printing. The actual 3D printing can require a long period of time to complete, during which errors can occur. In 3D printing, these errors are often non-recoverable or reversible, which results in wasted material and time. In addition to the lack of closed-loop control systems for 3D printers, careful planning and preparation are required to avoid these costly misprints. 3D printers are usually located remotely from users, due to health and safety considerations, special placement requirements or out of comfort. Remotely placed equipment is impractical to monitor in person; however, such monitoring is essential. Especially considering the proneness of 3D printing to errors and the implications of this as described previously. Utilisation of 3D printers is an issue, especially with expensive 3D printers. As there are a number of differing 3D printing technologies available, having the required 3D printer, might be problematic. 3D printers are equipped with a variety of interfaces, depending on the make and model. These differing interfaces, both hard- and software, hinder the integration of different 3D printers into consistent systems. There exists no proper and complete ontology or resource description schema or mechanism that covers all the different 3D printing technologies. Such a resource description mechanism is essential for the automated scheduling in services or systems. In 3D printing services the selection and matching of appropriate and suitable 3D printers is essential, as not all 3D printing technologies are able to perform on all materials or are able to create certain object features, such as thin walls or hollow forms. The need for companies to sell digital models for AM will increase in scenarios where replacement or customised parts are 3D printed by consumers at home or in local manufacturing centres. Furthermore, requirements to safeguard these digital models will increase to avoid a repetition of the problems from the music industry, e. g., Napster. Replication and ‘theft’ of these models are uncontrollable in the current situation. In a service oriented deployment, or in scenarios where the utilisation is high, estimations of the 3D printing time are required to be available. Common 3D printing time estimations are inaccurate, which hinder the application of scheduling. The complete and comprehensive understanding of the complexity of an object is discordant, especially in the domain of AM. This understanding is required to both support the design of objects for AM and match appropriate manufacturing resources to certain objects. Quality in AM and FDM have been incompletely researched. The quality in general is increased with maturity of the technology; however, research on the quality achievable with consumer-grade 3D printers is lacking. Furthermore, cost-sensitive measurement methods for quality assessment are expandable. This thesis presents the structured design and implementation of a 3D printing service with associated contributions that provide solutions to particular problems present in the AM domain. The 3D printing service is the overarching component of this thesis and provides the platform for the other contributions with the intention to establish an online, cloud-based 3D printing service for use in end-user and professional settings with a focus on collaboration and cooperation

Derybinių galių vertinimais grindžiamos tarptautinio verslo derybų strategijos

Disertacijoje nagrinėjama tematika yra ypač aktuali, nes vadybos ir verslo vadybos teorijoje nėra teorinių sprendimų, kaip vertinti derybines galias tarptautinio verslo derybose, ypač atsižvelgiant į tarptautinio verslo plėtrai itin aktualias daugiakultūriškumo aplinkybes ir į galimybes derybų metu taikyti nuotolines technologijas, o pačias derybas vykdyti elektroninėje erdvėje. Darbo tyrimų objektas – tarptautinio verslo derybų strategijos. Darbo tikslas – sukurti ir patikrinti tarptautinio verslo derybų strategijų rengimo ir įgyvendinimo modelį, pagrįstą derybinių galių vertinimais. Disertaciją sudaro įvadas, trys skyriai, rezultatų apibendrinimas, naudotos literatūros ir autoriaus publikacijų disertacijos tema sąrašai ir aštuoni priedai. Įvadiniame skyriuje aptariama tiriamoji problema, darbo aktualumas, aprašomas tyrimų objektas, formuluojamas darbo tikslas ir uždaviniai, aprašoma tyrimų metodika, darbo mokslinis naujumas, darbo rezultatų praktinė reikšmė, ginamieji teiginiai. Įvado pabaigoje pristatomos disertacijos tema autoriaus paskelbtos publikacijos ir pranešimai konferencijose bei disertacijos struktūra. Pirmasis skyrius skirtas mokslinės literatūros analizei. Čia atliekamas teorinis tyrimas, skirtas tarptautinio verslo deryboms ir jų strategijoms. Taip pat nagrinėjamos tarptautinio verslo derybų paramos sistemų, grindžiamų informacinių technologijų naudojimu, plėtros poreikiai ir perspektyvos. Antrajame skyriuje pateikiamas sukurtas derybinių galių vertinimais grindžiamos tarptautinio verslo derybų strategijos rengimo ir įgyvendinimo modelis. Šiame skyriuje pateiktas autoriaus sukurtas derybų strategijos rengimo algoritmas ir aprašyta empirinio tyrimo metodologija. Algoritmas paremtas autoriaus pateiktu derybų strategijos rengimo ir įgyvendinimo modeliu. Trečiajame skyriuje, tikrinant autoriaus pasiūlytą algoritmą, pateikiami atliktų penkių empirinių tyrimų rezultatai. Nagrinėjami tipiniai tarptautinio verslo derybų atvejai skirtingose ūkio šakose, pateikiamos šio algoritmo naudojimo perspektyvos. Disertacijos tema autorius publikavo 13 mokslinių straipsnių: vieną – tarptautinių konferencijų leidinyje, referuojamame Thomson Reuters duomenų bazėje Proceedings, dešimt – kitų tarptautinių duomenų bazių leidiniuose, du – konferencijų pranešimų rinkiniuose. Disertacijos tema perskaityta 11 pranešimų Lietuvos ir kitų šalių konferencijose

The Impact of Additive Manufacturing on Supply Chains and Business Models: Qualitative Analyses of Supply Chain Design, Governance Structure, and Business Model Change

Recent global crises like the COVID-19 pandemic challenge traditional global supply chains (SCs). Their disaggregated, “fine-sliced” character comes with a high risk of disruption, and current supply bottlenecks (e.g., the chip shortage in the automotive industry) demonstrate that there is often no quick fix. Firms are increasingly under pressure to react and (re-)design their SCs to increase their resilience. Additive manufacturing (AM) technologies are acclaimed for their potential to foster the shift from global SCs to shorter, decentralized, and more resilient SCs. The key feature of AM technologies lies in their inherently digital and flexible nature. Their specific characteristics are envisioned to enable location-independent manufacturing close to or even at the point of demand and lead to a commoditization of manufacturing infrastructure for flexible outsourcing to local partners. Moreover, AM technologies are expected to revolutionize the way firms do business and put traditional business models at stake. This doctoral thesis is motivated by the outlined potential of AM and the resulting impact on firms’ supply chain design (SCD) and business model choices. The extant literature raises high expectations for AM. However, concrete and real-world insights from specific application domains are still scarce. This thesis seeks to fill the gap between high-level literature-based visions and currently emerging realistic business models and SCDs for AM. Thereby, AM is understood as a potential intervention emanating from outside firms and requiring them to react by realigning their business models and SC structures to maintain a fit. This thesis aims to build an in-depth understanding of these mechanisms and, hence, of the inner causal processes involved in the AM SCD and business model choices. This concentration on the rationales and underlying behavioral patterns is formalized with primarily exploratory (how and why) research questions that are addressed with qualitative research methodologies, mainly case study research and grounded theory. These methodological practices are applied in the industrial AM context, entailing an embedding of this thesis in challenging industries where AM applications have already started to create value (i.e., in the aerospace, rail, automotive, and machinery and equipment industries). The selected research approaches are mostly inductive and, hence, strongly driven by the data collected from this context (e.g., in interviews, by reviewing documents, and by analyzing websites). Additionally, this thesis relies on grand theories, namely transaction cost economics, the resource-based view, and configuration theory, to discuss the findings in their light and to interpret and distill nuances of these theories for their application in the industrial AM context. This thesis is cumulative, consisting of four studies that form its main body. These studies are organized in two parts, part A and part B, since two domains of strategic decisions are targeted jointly, the business model development (part A) and AM SCD choice (part B) for industrial AM. Different perspectives are associated with the two parts. Logistics service providers (LSPs) are in a critical position to develop AM business models. Based on the expected shift to decentralized, shorter SCs, the traditional business models of LSPs are at risk, and their inherent customer orientation puts them under pressure to adjust to their customers’ needs in AM. In part A, study A.1 applies a process-based perspective to build a broad understanding of how LSPs currently respond to AM and consumer-oriented polymer 3D printing with specific AM activities. It proposes six profiles of how LSPs leverage AM, both as users for their in-house operations and as developers of AM-specific services for external customers. A key finding is that the initiated AM activities are oftentimes strongly based on LSPs’ traditional resources. Only a few LSPs are found whose AM activities are detached from their traditional business models to focus on digital platform-based services for AM. In contrast to the process-based perspective and focus on business model dynamics in study A.1, study A.2 takes an output perspective to propose six generic business model configurations for industrial AM. Each configuration emerges from the perspective of LSPs and is reflected by their potential partners/competitors and industrial customers. Study A.2 explores how the six generic configurations fit specific types of LSPs and how they are embedded in a literature-based service SC for industrial AM. In combination, studies A.1 and A.2 provide a comprehensive understanding of how LSPs are currently reacting to AM and an empirically grounded perspective on “finished” AM business models to evaluate and refine literature-based visions. Part B of this thesis is devoted to the mechanism of (re-)designing SCs for AM, which is investigated from the perspective of focal manufacturing firms based on their dominant position in SCs. Two dimensions are used to characterize AM SCDs, their horizontal scope (geographic dispersion) and vertical scope (governance structure). The combination of both dimensions is ideally suited to capture the literature-based vision of shorter, decentralized AM SCs (horizontal scope) with eased outsourcing to local partners (vertical scope). Study B.1 takes a firm-centric perspective to develop an in-depth understanding for AM make-or-buy decisions of manufacturing firms, the outcomes of which determine the SC governance structure. This study elaborates how the specific (digital and emerging) traits of industrial AM technologies modify arguments of grand theories that explain make-or-buy decisions in the “analog” age. In comparison, study B.2 shifts from a firm-centric to a network perspective to rely on both dimensions for investigating cohesive AM SCD configurations. More specifically, study B.2 explores four polar AM SCD configurations and reveals manufacturing firms’ rationales for selecting them. Thereby, it builds an understanding for why manufacturing firms currently have valid reasons to implement industrial AM in-house or distributed in a secure, firm-owned network. As a result, combining both studies provides an understanding of why manufacturing firms currently select specific governance structures for industrial AM and opt for SCDs that differ from the literature-based vision of decentralized, outsourced AM. Overall, this thesis positions itself as theory-oriented research that also aims at supporting managers of manufacturing firms and LSPs in making informed decisions when implementing AM in their SCs and developing AM-based business models. The three studies A.1, A.2, and B.2 contribute to initial theory building on how and why specific AM business models and SCDs emerge. With their focus on developing an understanding for the causal processes (how and why) and by assuming a process-based and output perspective, they can draw a line from firms’ current reactions to sound reflections on future-oriented, high-level expectations for AM. As a result, the studies significantly enrich and refine the current body of knowledge in the AM business model literature on LSPs and the operations and supply chain management literature on AM SCDs, focusing on their geographic dispersion and governance structure. This thesis further contributes with its context-specificity to building domain knowledge for industrial AM, which can serve as one “puzzle piece” for theorizing on how AM and other digitally dominated (manufacturing) technologies will shape the era of digital business models and SCs. In particular, study B.1 stands out by its focus on theory elaboration and the objective of developing contextual middle-range theory. It reveals that emerging digital AM is a setting where the argumentation of grand theories provides contradicting guidance on whether to develop AM in-house or outsource the manufacturing process. Such findings for industrial AM raise multiple opportunities for future research, among them are the comparison with other industry contexts with similar characteristics and the operationalization of the propositions developed in this thesis in follow-up quantitative decision-support models