How will standards facilitate new production systems in the context of EU innovation and competitiveness in 2025?

Standards are very important as they provide requirements, specifications, guidelines or characteristics that can be used consistently to ensure that materials, products, processes and services are fit for their purpose. They contribute to remove technical barriers to trade, leading to new markets and economic growth for industry. They also facilitate technology transfer and they contribute to ensure safety of products thereby affecting the daily life of citizens. This report ‘How will standards facilitate new production systems in the context of EU innovation and competitiveness in 2025?’ is the outcome of a foresight process looking at how standards and standardisation can become even more relevant policy tool supporting different European policies. The study has especially looked at the areas where Europe drives innovation, where the development of new products and processes could lead to new trade of goods, services and technologies. The foresight process has dealt with standardisation by using a holistic approach. It explored at how effective standards can be developed within a European industrial landscape vision able to contribute to jobs and growth in a sustainable manner. The report provides a clear overview of the evolution of the European production system and illustrates what are the drivers of change influencing the future production system. The Industrial Landscape Vision was used to identify the its implications on the European Standardisation System and it highlights priorities for the development of standards in the future.JRC.DDG.02-Foresight and Behavioural Insight

Mobile Health Care over 3G Networks: the MobiHealth Pilot System and Service

Health care is one of the most prominent areas for the application of wireless technologies. New services and applications are today under research and development targeting different areas of health care, from high risk and chronic patients’ remote monitoring to mobility tools for the medical personnel. In this direction the MobiHealth project developed and trailed a system and a service that is using UMTS for the continuous monitoring and transmission of vital signals, like Pulse Oximeter sensor , temperature, Marker, Respiratory band, motion/activity detector etc., to the hospital. The system, based on the concept of the Body Area Network, is highly customisable, allowing sensors to be seamlessly connected and transmit the monitored vital signal measurements. The system and service was trialed in 4 European countries and it is presently under market validation

Cloud manufacturing as a sustainable process manufacturing route

Cloud Manufacturing (CM) is a service oriented business model to share manufacturing capabilities and resources on a cloud platform. Manufacturing is under pressure to achieve cost and environmental impact reductions, as manufacturing becomes more integrated and complex. Cloud manufacturing offers a solution, as it is capable of making intelligent decisions to provide the most sustainable and robust manufacturing route available. Although CM research has progressed, a consensus is still lacking on the concepts within CM as well as applications and scope beyond discrete manufacturing. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how CM offers a more sustainable manufacturing future to the industry as a whole, before focusing specifically on the application to process manufacturing (e.g. food, pharmaceuticals and chemicals). This paper details the definitions, characteristics, architectures and previous case studies on CM. From this, the fundamental aspects of the CM concept are identified, along with an analysis of how the concept has progressed. A new, comprehensive CM definition is formulated by combining key concepts drawn from previous definitions and emphasizes CM potential for sustainable manufacturing. Four key methods of how CM increases sustainability are identified: (1) collaborative design; (2) greater automation; (3) improved process resilience and (4) enhanced waste reduction, reuse and recovery. The first two key methods are common to both discrete and process manufacturing, however key methods (3) and (4) are more process manufacturing specific and application of CM for these has yet to be fully realised. Examples of how CM’s characteristics may be utilised to solve various process manufacturing problems are presented to demonstrate the applications of CM to process manufacturing. Waste is an important consideration in manufacturing, with strong sustainability implications. The current focus has been on using CM for waste minimisation; however, process manufacturing offers waste as a resource (valorisation opportunities from diversifying co-products, reuse, recycle and energy recovery). Exploring CM’s potential to characterise and evaluate alternative process routes for the valorisation of process manufacturing waste is considered for the first time. The specific limitations preventing CM adoption by process manufacturers are discussed. Finally, CM’s place in the future of manufacturing is explored, including how it will interact with, and complement other emerging manufacturing technologies to deliver a circular economy and personalised products

Guidelines for the user interface design of electronic medical records in optometry

With the prevalence of digitalisation in the medical industry, e-health systems have largely replaced the traditional paper-based recording methods. At the centre of these e-health systems are Electronic Health Records (EHRs) and Electronic Medical Records (EMRs), whose benefits significantly improve physician workflows. However, provision for user interface designs (UIDs) of these systems have been so poor that they have severely hindered physician usability, disrupted their workflows and risked patient safety. UID and usability guidelines have been provided, but have been very high level and general, mostly suitable for EHRs (which are used in general practices and hospitals). These guidelines have thus been ineffective in applicability for EMRs, which are typically used in niche medical environments. Within the niche field of Optometry, physicians experience disrupted workflows as a result of poor EMR UID and usability, of which EMR guidelines to improve these challenges are scarce. Hence, the need for this research arose, aiming to create UID guidelines for EMRs in Optometry, which will help improve the usability of the optometrists’ EMR. The main research question was successfully answered to produce the set of UID Guidelines for EMRs in Optometry, which includes guidelines built upon from literature and made contextually relevant, as well as some new additions, which are more patient focused. Design Science Research (DSR) was chosen as a suitable approach, and the phased Design Science Research Process Model (DSRPM) was used to guide this research. A literature review was conducted, including EHR and EMR, usability, UIDs, Optometry, related fields, and studies previously conducted to provide guidelines, frameworks and models. The review also included studying usability problems reported on the systems and the methods to overcome them. Task Analysis (TA) was used to observe and understand the optometrists’ workflows and their interactions with their EMRs during patient appointments, also identifying EMR problem areas. To address these problems, Focus Groups (FGs) were used to brainstorm solutions in the form of EMR UID features that optometrists’ required to improve their usability. From the literature review, TAs and FGs, proposed guidelines were created. The created guidelines informed the UID of an EMR prototype, which was successfully demonstrated to optometrists during Usability Testing sessions for the evaluation. Surveys were also used for the evaluation. The results proved the guidelines were successful, and were usable, effective, efficient and of good quality. A revised, final set of guidelines was then presented. Future researchers and designers may benefit from the contributions made from this research, which are both theoretical and practical

Designing ubiquitous sustainability into product design processes

Application of sustainable design is growing rapidly as companies face increasing pressure to address the environmental impacts of their products. In response, a great deal of research has been directed at the development of sustainable design methods, as early design intervention has the potential to generate radical improvements. At present however, sustainability is often considered as an afterthought, only yielding incremental improvements. As such there is a clear need to redesign our design processes, and promote embedded consideration of sustainability throughout from the earliest stages. This thesis reports on research investigating how sustainability considerations could be systematically incorporated into product design processes through the definition of a framework and the development of a methodology for evaluating established design processes and identifying and prioritising stages for sustainability considerations to be embedded into design activity. The primary objective of this research is to develop an understanding of the challenges and opportunities for the implementation of sustainable design approaches in order to move towards a situation in the future where sustainability considerations are an inherent and embedded part of product design processes or Ubiquitous Sustainability in design

Investigating the impact of e-customer relationship management on hotels ´website service quality

As online tourists are becoming more price sensitive, less brand loyal and more sophisticated, e- Customer Relationship Management (CRM) becomes a strategic necessity for attracting and increasing guests’ patronage. Despite the vital role of eCRM for e-commerce success, its deployment frequently fails or it does not always deliver the expected results. The latter has boosted research, but studies have been primarily focused on investigating eCRM implementation from a company’s perspective ignoring its customer perspective. In this vein, the purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of eCRM on hotels’ website service quality as perceived by their guests. To achieve that, first the concept of eCRM is analysed and then, a customer-centric eCRM model that directly identifies eCRM impact on e-services is proposed and used for measuring hotels’ eCRM practices. Later, a literature review synthesizes the concept and dimensions of website service quality providing a scale of website service quality measurement. Data from eCRM hotels guests were gathered and findings provide useful implications for successful implementing eCRM and enhancing website service quality. Finally, the limitations of the study and directions for future research are discussed

Positive design of smart interactive fabric artifacts for people with dementia

Confronting the expected rise of dementia as a major health care problem raises many questions about the best ways to adapt the health system to deal with it. To the extent that intelligent assistive technologies can help, there seems to be value in comforting fabric artifacts enhanced by electronic games and activities designed to support, engage and entertain people with dementia. Local cottage industries which now support the creation of textile crafts should be empowered to scale up to meet the growing demand for such products. New design concepts are required to accomplish this in the face of rising costs and limited resources. This paper proposes a four-step design process that meets this need, and provides practical suggestions about how it could be applied in this context. A number of examples are included