86 research outputs found
Strategic role of internet-related technologies in supply chain networks
PhD ThesisOrganisations are operating in increasingly competitive market places. To enhance
competitiveness, organisations are shifting their focus from individual supply chains
to improving the responsiveness of the whole Supply Chain Network (SCN) that
serves and impacts the level of final product or service provided to customers.
Consequently, there has been a major upsurge of interest in the role of Internet-related
technologies (IRT) in advancing SCNs. This area was examined by conducting case
studies with large organisations from a range of industries that focused on the
function of IRT in inter-organisational supply chain processes.
A number of major themes emerged. Firstly, it is clear that IRT will be at the heart of
future SCN communication surrounding enabling, operational and strategic supply
chain processes. IRT provide a mechanism for integrating different supply chainrelated
systems thus leading to improved information sharing and visibility.
Furthermore, it widens the scope and flexibility of intra-organisational and interorganisational
linkages and pathways that are available between different network
members. In addition, IRT is being used to broaden and deepen relationships with key
partners and within teams formed around supply chain processes. IRT can also be
personalised to suit different organisations and people in the SCN and to provide
appropriate access to web links, information and applications.
However, it is important to understand that IRT cannot be equally applied throughout
the supply chain. A number of factors will influence its suitability including the type
and stage of supply chain processes, the nature of activities, the content of
communication and the people communicating. The thesis will provide guidance to
academics and practitioners on the strategic role of IRT. Finally, future research is
recommended to investigate the additional impact that smart tags and mobile
technologies will have and the long term effects of technological linkages on social
relations between different network members.Division of Business Information
Management and the Department of Computing, of Glasgow Caledonian University
The United States Marine Corps Data Collaboration Requirements: Retrieving and Integrating Data From Multiple Databases
The goal of this research is to develop an information sharing and database integration model and suggest a framework to fully satisfy the United States Marine Corps collaboration requirements as well as its information sharing and database integration needs. This research is exploratory; it focuses on only one initiative: the IT-21 initiative. The IT-21 initiative dictates The Technology for the United States Navy and Marine Corps, 2000-2035: Becoming a 21st Century Force. The IT-21 initiative states that Navy and Marine Corps information infrastructure will be based largely on commercial systems and services, and the Department of the Navy must ensure that these systems are seamlessly integrated and that information transported over the infrastructure is protected and secure. The Delphi Technique, a qualitative method approach, was used to develop a Holistic Model and to suggest a framework for information sharing and database integration. Data was primarily collected from mid-level to senior information officers, with a focus on Chief Information Officers. In addition, an extensive literature review was conducted to gain insight about known similarities and differences in Strategic Information Management, information sharing strategies, and database integration strategies. It is hoped that the Armed Forces and the Department of Defense will benefit from future development of the information sharing and database integration Holistic Model
The State of the Electronic Identity Market: Technologies, Infrastructure, Services and Policies
Authenticating onto systems, connecting to mobile networks and providing identity data to access services is common ground for most EU citizens, however what is disruptive is that digital technologies fundamentally alter and upset the ways identity is managed, by people, companies and governments. Technological progress in cryptography, identity systems design, smart card design and mobile phone authentication have been developed as a convenient and reliable answer to the need for authentication. Yet, these advances ar enot sufficient to satisfy the needs across people's many spheres of activity: work, leisure, health, social activities nor have they been used to enable cross-border service implementation in the Single Digital Market, or to ensure trust in cross border eCommerce. The study findings assert that the potentially great added value of eID technologies in enabling the Digital Economy has not yet been fulfilled, and fresh efforts are needed to build identification and authentication systems that people can live with, trust and use. The study finds that usability, minimum disclosure and portability, essential features of future systems, are at the margin of the market and cross-country, cross-sector eID systems for business and public service are only in their infancy. This report joins up the dots, and provides significant exploratory evidence of the potential of eID for the Single Digital Market. A clear understanding of this market is crucial for policy action on identification and authentication, eSignature and interoperability.JRC.DDG.J.4-Information Societ
Wireless Application Protocol -teknologian hyödyntäminen kansainvälisessä extranet -liiketoiminnassa
An Examination of Small Businesses\u27 Propensity to Adopt Cloud-Computing Innovation
The problem researched was small business leaders\u27 early and limited adoption of cloud computing. Business leaders that do not use cloud computing may forfeit the benefits of its lower capital costs and ubiquitous accessibility. Anchored in a diffusion of innovation theory, the purpose of this quantitative cross-sectional survey study was to examine if there is a relationship between small business leaders\u27 view of cloud-computing attributes of compatibility, complexity, observability, relative advantage, results demonstrable, trialability, and voluntariness and intent to use cloud computing. The central research question involved understanding the extent to which each cloud-computing attribute relate to small business leaders\u27 intent to use cloud computing. A sample of 3,897 small business leaders were selected from a commerce authority e-mail list yielding 151 completed surveys that were analyzed using regression. Significant correlations were found for the relationships between the independent variables of compatibility, complexity, observability, relative advantage, and results demonstrable and the dependent variable intent to use cloud computing. However, no significant correlation was found between the independent variable voluntariness and intent to use. The findings might provide new insights relating to cloud-computing deployment and commercialization strategies for small business leaders. Implications for positive social change include the need to prepare for new skills for workers affected by cloud computing adoption and cloud-computing ecosystem\u27s reduced environmental consequences and policies
THE STRATEGIC ASSOCIATION BETWEEN ENTERPRISE CONTENT MANAGEMENT AND DECISION SUPPORT
To deal with the increasing information overload and with the structured and unstructured data complexity, many organizations have implemented enterprise content management (ECM) systems. Published research on ECM so far is very limited and reports on ECM implementations have been scarce until recently (Tyrväinen et al. 2006). However, the little available ECM literature shows that many organizations using ECM focus on operational benefits while strategic decision-making benefits are rarely considered. Moreover, the strategic capabilities such as decision making capabilities of ECM are not fully investigated in the current literature. In addition, the literature lacks a strategic management framework (SMF) that links strategies, business objectives, and performance management although there are several published studies that discuss ECM strategy. A strategic management framework would seem essential to effectively manage ECM strategy formulation, implementation, and performance evaluation (Kaplan and Norton 1996; Ittner and Larcker 1997). The absence of an appropriate strategic management framework keeps organizations from effective strategic planning, implementation, and evaluation, which affects the organizational capabilities overall. Therefore, the objective of this dissertation is to determine the decision support capabilities of ECM, and specify how ECM strategies can be formulated, implemented, and evaluated in order to fully utilize the ECM strategic capabilities. Structural equation modeling as well as design science approaches will be adopted to achieve the dissertation objectives
Exploring the development of a framework for agile methodologies to promote the adoption and use of cloud computing services in South Africa
The emergence of cloud computing is influencing how businesses develop, re-engineer, and
implement critical software applications. The cloud requires developers to elevate the
importance of compliance with security policies, regulations and internal engineering standards
in their software development life cycles. Cloud computing and agile development
methodologies are new technologies associated with new approaches in the way computing
services are provisioned and development of quality software enhanced. However adoption and
use of agile and cloud computing by SMMEs in South Africa is seemingly constrained by a
number of technical and non-technical challenges. Using Grounded Theory and case study
method this study was aimed at exploring the development of a framework for agile
methodologies to promote the adoption and use of cloud computing services by SMMEs in
South Africa. Data was collected through survey and in-depth interviews. Open, Axial and
Selective coding was used to analyse the data.
In tandem with its main objective the study, besides exploring the development of the envisaged framework, also generated and made available valuable propositions and knowledge
that SMMEs in South Africa using agile development methodologies can use to work better
with cloud computing services in the country without compromising on software quality. The
findings of this study and the emerging insights around the development of the framework,
which in itself also constitutes an important decision making tool for supporting adoption and
use of cloud computing services, are a substantial contribution to knowledge and practice in
the ICT field of information systems in South AfricaInformation ScienceD. Phil. (Information Systems
A Pattern-Based Approach to Scaffold the IT Infrastructure Design Process
Context. The design of Information Technology (IT) infrastructures is a challenging task
since it implies proficiency in several areas that are rarely mastered by a single person,
thus raising communication problems among those in charge of conceiving, deploying,
operating and maintaining/managing them. Most IT infrastructure designs are based
on proprietary models, known as blueprints or product-oriented architectures, defined by vendors to facilitate the configuration of a particular solution, based upon their services and products portfolio. Existing blueprints can be facilitators in the design of solutions for a particular vendor or technology. However, since organizations may have infrastructure components from multiple vendors, the use of blueprints aligned with commercial product(s) may cause integration problems among these components and can lead to vendor lock-in. Additionally, these blueprints have a short lifecycle, due to their association with product version(s) or a specific technology, which hampers their usage as a tool for the reuse of IT infrastructure knowledge.
Objectives. The objectives of this dissertation are (i) to mitigate the inability to reuse
knowledge in terms of best practices in the design of IT infrastructures and, (ii) to simplify the usage of this knowledge, making the IT infrastructure designs simpler, quicker and better documented, while facilitating the integration of components from different vendors and minimizing the communication problems between teams.
Method. We conducted an online survey and performed a systematic literature review
to support the state of the art and to provide evidence that this research was relevant
and had not been conducted before. A model-driven approach was also used for the
formalization and empirical validation of well-formedness rules to enhance the overall
process of designing IT infrastructures. To simplify and support the design process, a
modeling tool, including its abstract and concrete syntaxes was also extended to include the main contributions of this dissertation.
Results. We obtained 123 responses to the online survey. Their majority were from
people with more than 15 years experience with IT infrastructures. The respondents
confirmed our claims regarding the lack of formality and documentation problems on
knowledge transfer and only 19% considered that their current practices to represent IT Infrastructures are efficient. A language for modeling IT Infrastructures including an abstract and concrete syntax is proposed to address the problem of informality in their
design. A catalog of IT Infrastructure patterns is also proposed to allow expressing best
practices in their design. The modeling tool was also evaluated and according to 84%
of the respondents, this approach decreases the effort associated with IT infrastructure
design and 89% considered that the use of a repository with infrastructure patterns, will
help to improve the overall quality of IT infrastructures representations. A controlled
experiment was also performed to assess the effectiveness of both the proposed language and the pattern-based IT infrastructure design process supported by the tool.
Conclusion. With this work, we contribute to improve the current state of the art in
the design of IT infrastructures replacing the ad-hoc methods with more formal ones to
address the problems of ambiguity, traceability and documentation, among others, that
characterize most of IT infrastructure representations. Categories and Subject Descriptors:C.0 [Computer Systems Organization]: System architecture; D.2.10 [Software Engineering]: Design-Methodologies; D.2.11 [Software
Engineering]: Software Architectures-Patterns
Context-aware information delivery for mobile construction workers
The potential of mobile Information Technology (IT) applications to support the
information needs of mobile construction workers has long been understood.
However, existing mobile IT applications in the construction industry have
underlined limitations, including their inability to respond to the changing user
context, lack of semantic awareness and poor integration with the desktop-based
infrastructure. This research argues that awareness of the user context (such as user
role, preferences, task-at-hand, location, etc.) can enhance mobile IT applications in
the construction industry by providing a mechanism to deliver highly specific
information to mobile workers by intelligent interpretation of their context. Against this
this background, the aim of this research was to investigate the applicability of
context-aware information delivery (CAID) technologies in the construction industry.
The research methodology adopted consisted of various methods. A literature review
on context-aware and enabling technologies was undertaken and a conceptual
framework developed, which addressed the key issues of context-capture, contextinference
and context-integration. To illustrate the application of CAID in realistic
construction situations, five futuristic deployment scenarios were developed which
were analysed with several industry and technology experts. From the analysis, a
common set of user needs was drawn up. These needs were subsequently translated
into the system design goals, which acted as a key input to the design and evaluation
of a prototype system, which was implemented on a Pocket-PC platform.
The main achievements of this research include development of a CAID framework
for mobile construction workers, demonstration of CAID concepts in realistic
construction scenarios, analysis of the Construction industry needs for CAID and
implementation and validation of the prototype to demonstrate the CAID concepts.
The research concludes that CAID has the potential to significantly improve support
for mobile construction workers and identifies the requirements for its effective
deployment in the construction project delivery process. However, the industry needs
to address various identified barriers to enable the realisation of the full potential of
CAID
- …