What Does It Mean for an Organisation to Be Intelligent? Measuring intellectual bandwidth for value creation

The importance of electronic collaboration has risen as successful organisations recognize that they need to convert their intellectual resources into goods and services their customers will value. The shift from personal computing to interpersonal or collaborative computing has given rise to ways of working that may bring about better and more effective use of intellectual resources. Current efforts in managing knowledge have concentrated on producing, sharing and storing knowledge while business problems require the use of these intellectual resources to create value. This paper draws upon Nunamaker et. al.'s (2001) Intellectual Bandwidth Model to measure an organization's potential to create value. Following an analysis of initial data collected at the Netherlands branch of Cap-Gemini Ernst & Young, conclusions are drawn with respect to what it means for an organisation to be intelligent and how such organisations can create value through the use of information and collaboration technologies to increase its intellectual bandwidth

Collaborative Infrastructures for Mobilizing Intellectual Resources: assessing intellectual bandwidth in a knowledge intensive organization

The use of intellectual assets of key professionals to provide customized goods and services is seen to be a key characteristic of knowledge intensive organizations. While knowledge management efforts have become popular in organizations that depend on the knowledge and skills of their employees, it is unclear what the benefits of such efforts are and how these intellectual resources may actually create value for the organization. At the same time, vast information and communication technology infrastructures are being implemented to tap into the diverse intellectual resources to little effect. This paper uses the Intellectual Bandwidth Model originally developed by Nunamaker et al. (2001) to investigate the extent to which do collaborative technologies support the mobilization of intellectual resources to create value for an organization. Following a investigation of the intellectual bandwidth of a large multinational consulting company, this paper provides insight into the role of technology for mobilizing intellectual resources and offers implications for developing infrastructure to support core business processes

THE INNOVATION ENGINE AT RITE-SOLUTIONS: LESSONS FROM THE CEO

I spent over 30 years  in a highly structured, hierarchical organization where good ideas could only flow top-down and where the firm’s intellectual capital was more defined by the level of organizational “box” that a person occupied than by the actual insight that person possessed.  In January 2000, as a “second career”, I set out to build a company that would be liberated from such restrictions of thought and, instead, would capitalize on the intellectual bandwidth of the entire organization to “Innovate Every Day”.  Such a company would be based upon two of my most fundamental beliefs:  “No one is as smart as everyone”, that is to say that good ideas are not bounded by organizational structure, but can come from anyone, in any place, at any time; and second, that the Hierarchical Pyramid as an organizational business structure is an enigma in the 21st century knowledge economy. An enigma more suited to controlling information flow than fostering innovation.My challenge in building such a company was two-fold: to develop a mechanism that could “operationalize” innovation by tapping the collective genius in my organization in a non-intimidating, fun way to generate these good ideas continuously; and, second, to institute a new organizational model with enough control to operate as a responsible, profitable business, but with sufficient flexibility to leverage and disseminate brilliant, innovative ideas across the organization – that’s all!

Crew Rostering for the High Speed Train

At the time of writing we entered the final stage of implementing the crew rostering system Harmony CDR to facilitate the planning of catering crews on board of the Thalys, the High Speed Train connecting Paris, Cologne, Brussels, Amsterdam, and Geneva. Harmony CDR optimally supports the creation of crew rosters in two ways. Firstly, Harmony CDR contains a powerful algorithm to automatically generate a set of rosters, which is especially developed for this specific situation. As the user has some control over the objectives of the algorithm, several scenarios can be studied before a set of rosters is adopted. An important feature of the automatic roster generator is that it respects requirements, directives, and requests stemming from legal, union, and/or company regulations and/or from individual crew. Secondly, Harmony CDR provides user-interface data manipulation at various levels of detail. The user interface enables the planner to easily obtain many different views on the planning data and to manipulate the planning manually. So again, the planner gets optimal support from the system while he or she is still in control. Also, violating a requirement, directive, or request is detected and displayed, but can be accepted by the planner. In this paper we describe the crew rostering problem for the catering crews of the High Speed Train and the Harmony CDR solution in more detail.decision support systems;railways;crew rostering

Estrategias colaborativas que apoyan la gestión del conocimiento en organizaciones

Significant work has addressed the role of knowledge and its impacts on business organizations. The construction of effective environments implies time and cost pressure, allowing staff to seek immediate solutions from knowledge management (KM). Some studies have shown that collaborative knowledge generation through storage, access, dissemination, and application could help organizations collaborate with partner firms to share supply chain knowledge and improve their work. However, it is not clear how to structure activities that convey real collaboration. In that way, this paper proposes a mechanism using collaborative strategies supporting effective transfer knowledge in different kinds of organizations.Un trabajo significativo ha abordado el papel del conocimiento y su impacto en las organizaciones empresariales. La construcción de ambientes efectivos implica presión de tiempo y costos, permitiendo al personal buscar soluciones inmediatas desde la gestión del conocimiento (KM). Algunos estudios han demostrado que la generación de conocimiento colaborativo a través del almacenamiento, el acceso, la difusión y la aplicación podría ayudar a las organizaciones a colaborar con empresas asociadas para compartir el conocimiento de la cadena de suministro y mejorar su trabajo. Sin embargo, no está claro cómo estructurar actividades que transmitan una colaboración real. De esa manera, este artículo propone un mecanismo que utiliza estrategias colaborativas que apoyan la transferencia efectiva de conocimiento en diferentes tipos de organizaciones

THE CHALLENGE OF INCENTIVE ALIGNMENT IN THE APPLICATION OF INFORMATION MARKETS WITHIN AN ORGANIZATION

Prediction markets have captured the imagination of business thinkers—much like chaos theory captured it a decade ago.  The urge is to apply prediction markets to a host of business challenges just like the urge was to apply insights of chaos theory to business challenges.  However, the intelligent application of prediction markets within organizations may be no easier than the intelligent application of chaos theory to business strategy.I have chosen the comparison to chaos theory for two reasons.  First, the excitement about prediction markets seems to me to have the same type of buzz that chaos theory carried in the late 1990s.  Second, and more to the point, Jim Lavoie’s reference to the business potential of Web 2.0 tools arguably offers a platform for capturing some of the more realistic goals of those who once urged businesses to operate “on the edge of chaos”—as captured by the title of this popular-audience book: Surfing the Edge of Chaos: The Laws of Nature and the New Laws of Business

One and Two Way Packaging in the Dairy Sector

Choosing packaging material for dairy products and soft drinks is an interesting issue at the moment. Discussions arise on the costs impacts and environmental impacts of both one way packaging and reusable packaging. The aim of this article is to develop an evaluation tool providing costs and environmental impacts of the PC-bottle and the GT-packs in the dairy sector, considering forward and return flows. The evaluation tool enables the user to analyse the costs and environmental impacts of a supply chain with and without return flows using scenario analyses with respect to the use of various carrier types and the number of return loops. It appears that costs differences between PC-bottles and GT-pack are quite small. The PC bottle has a better environmental profile than the GT-pack. Scenario analysis on the carriers results in the advice to use preferably roll-in-containers with direct delivery, secondly roll-in-containers with delivery via distribution centers, thirdly in case of direct delivery either cartons or crates and cartons in case of delivery via distribution centers.pricing;supply chain management;reverse logistics;environment;life cycle assessment