A Service based Development Environment on Web 2.0 Platforms

Governments are investing on the IT adoption and promoting the socalled e-economies as a way to improve competitive advantages. One of the main government’s actions is to provide internet access to the most part of the population, people and organisations. Internet provides the required support for connecting organizations, people and geographically distributed developments teams. Software developments are tightly related to the availability of tools and platforms needed for products developments. Internet is becoming the most widely used platform. Software forges such as SourceForge provide an integrated tools environment gathering a set of tools that are suited for each development with a low cost. In this paper we propose an innovating approach based on Web2.0, services and a method engineering approach for software developments. This approach represents one of the possible usages of the internet of the future

Enterprise modelling : building a product lifecycle (PLM) model as a component of the integrated vision of the enterprise

Enterprise modelling has proved to be an efficient tool to study organisations structure and facilitate decision making. The enterprise is a complex system that is required to use its processes to generate value in a given environment (concurrent, market, suppliers and humanity). We focus on three management disciplines: Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM). These business processes are so intertwined that the enterprise has to concentrate on the three to attain its economic objectives. To enhance the development of PLM, SCM and CRM models, the enterprise needs to capitalise the knowledge necessary to adapt and apply modelling techniques. Knowledge Management (KM) is a key factor to give a unified enterprise vision. Firstly, we propose an integrated enterprise model depicting the interactions between PLM, SCM, CRM and KM models. But a state of the art showed that PLM models are scarce. Most of the PLM models found depends strongly on the particular case studied and can not be used with other enterprises. After defining the most important components of the PLM vision, we propose to organise these components into a formalised way. The study of SCM and CRM models proved to be helpful to structure these components. Finally the validation methodology that is to be established in our coming research works is not only to be used with the PLM model presented in this paper but with SCM and CRM models also.Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Enterprise modelling, Enterprise systems

A decision support system for fostering smart energy efficient districts

The role of ICT is becoming prominent in tackling some of the urban societal challenges such as energy wastage and increasing carbon emissions. In this context, the concept of DAREED aims to deliver an integrated decision support system (DSS) to drive energy efficiency and low carbon activities at both a building and district level. The main aim of this paper is to present the technical concept of the Best Practices recommendation component of the DAREED system. This component seeks to compare and identify existing best practices to recommend practical actions to various stakeholders (e.g. building managers, citizens) in order to improve energy performance considering the global needs of a building. This paper also discusses the context of the three field trial sites (based in UK, Spain and Italy) in which the DAREED platform along with the best practices tool is to be tested and validated.This work evolved in the context of the project DAREED (Decision support Advisor for innovative business models and useR engagement for smart Energy Efficient Districts), www.dareed.eu, a project cofunded by the EC within FP7, Grant agreement no: 609082

A review of information flow diagrammatic models for product-service systems

A product-service system (PSS) is a combination of products and services to create value for both customers and manufacturers. Modelling a PSS based on function orientation offers a useful way to distinguish system inputs and outputs with regards to how data are consumed and information is used, i.e. information flow. This article presents a review of diagrammatic information flow tools, which are designed to describe a system through its functions. The origin, concept and applications of these tools are investigated, followed by an analysis of information flow modelling with regards to key PSS properties. A case study of selection laser melting technology implemented as PSS will then be used to show the application of information flow modelling for PSS design. A discussion based on the usefulness of the tools in modelling the key elements of PSS and possible future research directions are also presented

The EPOS Research Infrastructure: a federated approach to integrate solid Earth science data and services

The European Plate Observing System (EPOS) is a Research Infrastructure (RI) committed to enabling excellent science through the integration, accessibility, use and re-use of solid Earth science data, research products and services, as well as by promoting physical access to research facilities. This article presents and describes the EPOS RI and introduces the contents of its Delivery Framework. In November 2018, EPOS ERIC (European Research Infrastructure Consortium) has been granted by the European Commission and was established to design and implement a long-term plan for the integration of research infrastructures for solid Earth science in Europe. Specifically, the EPOS mission is to create and operate a highly distributed and sustainable research infrastructure to provide coordinated access to harmonized, interoperable and quality-controlled data from diverse solid Earth science disciplines, together with tools for their use in analysis and modelling. EPOS relies on leading-edge e-science solutions and is committed to open access, thus enabling a step towards the change in multidisciplinary and cross-disciplinary scientific research in Earth science. The EPOS architecture and its Delivery Framework are discussed in this article to present the contributions to open science and FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) data management, as well as to emphasize the community building process that supported the design, implementation and construction of the EPOS RI.publishedVersio

A lean way of design and production for healthcare construction projects

As a consequence of the lack of solid conceptual foundation, the project management concepts and techniques usually applied within the construction sector are fragmented and have proved to be incapable of solving the complex problems of design management. As a result, healthcare providers have become frustrated with the outcomes such as cost and schedule overruns, accidents, less than expected quality and inadequate functionality. However, an investigation of successful healthcare projects reveals that new approaches have been developed to tackle such problems. This study uses recent data based on six construction projects. The idea is demonstrate how successful projects are dealing with the integration between design, production, and operations, through an appropriate approach to the management of production systems. The paper aims to assist the different parties of the AEC industry to better understand how practices applied into design phase could support the efficiency in the management of production systems

Towards the Improvement of the Software Quality: An Enterprise 2.0 Architecture for Distributed Software Developments.

Software development is tightly dependent on the tools available for supporting its processes. Organizational and sociotechnical peculiarities such as indefinition of roles, geographically distributed development teams, new business models and diverse cultural interactions steer these tools. Software development supported by web-based services, built on top of Web 2.0 technologies, is emerging as a new paradigm for distributed software development. New generation software forges (web-based development environments) such as EzForge are becoming the infrastructure that provides the required features for hosting collections of software development projects. They are composed of an integrated set of tools, interacting in a mashup-like environment, each one suited for a specific task, and therefore simple enough to keep total complexity low. An adequate selection of tools helps developers to focus on the implementation of the requirements, while at the same time they cope with complex information coming from many individuals and organizations. The complexity of distributed software development requires a controlled and a strong collaboration amongst developers, which has to be supported by the selected architecture. Moreover, an increased demand on quality assurance is required by the many organizations aiming to achieve a certain quality level. A new architecture based on the Web 2.0 core ideas and methods overcomes these challenges in software development, representing a cornerstone to achieve satisfactory results in this ambitious environment