Principles in Patterns (PiP) : Evaluation of Impact on Business Processes

The innovation and development work conducted under the auspices of the Principles in Patterns (PiP) project is intended to explore and develop new technology-supported approaches to curriculum design, approval and review. An integral component of this innovation is the use of business process analysis and process change techniques - and their instantiation within the C-CAP system (Class and Course Approval Pilot) - in order to improve the efficacy of curriculum approval processes. Improvements to approval process responsiveness and overall process efficacy can assist institutions in better reviewing or updating curriculum designs to enhance pedagogy. Such improvements also assume a greater significance in a globalised HE environment, in which institutions must adapt or create curricula quickly in order to better reflect rapidly changing academic contexts, as well as better responding to the demands of employment marketplaces and the expectations of professional bodies. This is increasingly an issue for disciplines within the sciences and engineering, where new skills or knowledge need to be rapidly embedded in curricula as a response to emerging technological or environmental developments. All of the aforementioned must also be achieved while simultaneously maintaining high standards of academic quality, thus adding a further layer of complexity to the way in which HE institutions engage in "responsive curriculum design" and approval. This strand of the PiP evaluation therefore entails an analysis of the business process techniques used by PiP, their efficacy, and the impact of process changes on the curriculum approval process, as instantiated by C-CAP. More generally the evaluation is a contribution towards a wider understanding of technology-supported process improvement initiatives within curriculum approval and their potential to render such processes more transparent, efficient and effective. Partly owing to limitations in the data required to facilitate comparative analyses, this evaluation adopts a mixed approach, making use of qualitative and quantitative methods as well as theoretical techniques. These approaches combined enable a comparative evaluation of the curriculum approval process under the "new state" (i.e. using C-CAP) and under the "previous state". This report summarises the methodology used to enable comparative evaluation and presents an analysis and discussion of the results. As the report will explain, the impact of C-CAP and its ability to support improvements in process and document management has resulted in the resolution of numerous process failings. C-CAP has also demonstrated potential for improvements in approval process cycle time, process reliability, process visibility, process automation, process parallelism and a reduction in transition delays within the approval process, thus contributing to considerable process efficiencies; although it is acknowledged that enhancements and redesign may be required to take advantage of C-CAP's potential. Other aspects pertaining to C-CAP's impact on process change, improvements to document management and the curation of curriculum designs will also be discussed

Designing industrial strategy for a low carbon transformation

The recent re-emergence of industrial policy as a legitimate pursuit of governments in Europe and the US has the potential to open up a new realm of policy action for climate change mitigation. This would aim to align efforts to secure national industrial opportunities with the development of low carbon industrial systems, so as to generate both socio-economic and environmental benefits. The paper discusses the role of low carbon industrial strategy in seeking to do this, thereby accelerating transitions to a low carbon economy. It sets out the elements of a more systemic low carbon industrial strategy, including providing a mission-oriented and learning-based approach, drawing on and combining insights from neo-Schumpeterian and ecological economics perspectives

Evolution of a Lean Smart Maintenance Maturity Model towards the new Age of Industry 4.0

Over the last few years, the complexity of asset and maintenance management of industrial plants and machinery in the producing industry has risen due to higher competition and volatile environments. Smart factories, Internet of Things (IoT) and the underlying digitisation of a significant number of processes are changing the way we have to think and work in terms of asset management. Existing Lean Smart Maintenance (LSM) philosophy, which focuses on the cost-efficient (lean) and the learning organisation (smart) perspectives enables a value-oriented, dynamic, and smart maintenance/asset management. The associated LSM maturity model is the evaluation tool that contains the normative, strategic, and operational aspects of industrial asset management, based on which numerous reorganisation projects have already been carried out in industrial companies. However, due to the ever-increasing development of Industry 4.0 (I4.0), it is necessary to extend the model by selected aspects of digitisation and digitalisation. Based on a structured literature review (SLR) of state of the art I4.0 maturity models, we were able to investigate the essential maturity items for I4.0. To restructure and expand the existing LSM maturity model, the principle of design science research (DSR) was used. The architecture of the LSM maturity model was based on the structure of the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI). Further development of a Lean Smart Maintenance maturity model thus covers the future requirements of I4.0 and data science. It was possible to enhance existing categories with new artefacts from the I4.0 range to represent the influence of cyber-physical systems (CPS), (big) data and information management, condition monitoring (CM) and more. Furthermore, the originally defined LSM-Model was restructured for a more simplified application in industrial use cases

Principles in Patterns (PiP) : Project Evaluation Synthesis

Evaluation activity found the technology-supported approach to curriculum design and approval developed by PiP to demonstrate high levels of user acceptance, promote improvements to the quality of curriculum designs, render more transparent and efficient aspects of the curriculum approval and quality monitoring process, demonstrate process efficacy and resolve a number of chronic information management difficulties which pervaded the previous state. The creation of a central repository of curriculum designs as the basis for their management as "knowledge assets", thus facilitating re-use and sharing of designs and exposure of tacit curriculum design practice, was also found to be highly advantageous. However, further process improvements remain possible and evidence of system resistance was found in some stakeholder groups. Recommendations arising from the findings and conclusions include the need to improve data collection surrounding the curriculum approval process so that the process and human impact of C-CAP can be monitored and observed. Strategies for improving C-CAP acceptance among the "late majority", the need for C-CAP best practice guidance, and suggested protocols on the knowledge management of curriculum designs are proposed. Opportunities for further process improvements in institutional curriculum approval, including a re-engineering of post-faculty approval processes, are also recommended

Principles in Patterns (PiP) : Institutional Approaches to Curriculum Design Institutional Story

The principal outputs of the PiP Project surround the Course and Class Approval (C-CAP) system. This web-based system built on Microsoft SharePoint addresses and resolves many of the issues identified by the project. Generally well received by both academic and support staff, the system provides personalised views, adaptive forms and contextualised support for all phases of the approval process. Although the system deliberately encapsulates and facilitates existing approval processes thus achieving buy-in, it is already achieving significant improvements over the previous processes, not only in reducing the administrative overheads but also in supporting curriculum design and academic quality. The system is now embedded across three faculties and is now considered by the University of Strathclyde to be a "core institutional service". Alongside the C-CAP system the PiP Project also cultivated a suite of approaches: an incremental systems development methodology; a structured and replicable evaluation approach, and; Strathclyde's Lean Approach to Efficiencies in Education Kit (SLEEK) business process improvement methodology Each is based on recognised formal techniques, providing the basis for a rigorous approach. This is contextualised within and adapted to the HE institutional context thus building the foundation not only for the project but ultimately for institution wide process improvement. This "institutional story" report summarises the principal outcomes of the Project

Exploring the role of failure in socio-technical transitions research

In this paper, we offer a comprehensive and interdisciplinary review of ‘failure’ in transitions research. What is meant by failure, and is the community biased against it? How is failure explained through different perspectives? How can failures be addressed more appropriately in transitions studies? We synthesize a large body of evidence spanning transitions studies, innovation studies, science and technology studies, organisation and management studies, policy studies and the history of technology to probe and sharpen these questions. We examine within these literatures the instances and possibilities of success with transitions and discuss why this may be problematic, organising our analysis around four types of bias (selection, cognitive, interpretive, and prescription). In addition, we review three ‘families’ of framings of failure put forward in and around the socio-technical transitions literature, notably discrete failure events, systemic failings and processual accounts of failure, and discuss how they can be constructively put to work

A service-oriented approach to embedded component-based manufacturing automation

This thesis is focused on the application of Component-Based (CB) technology to shop oor devices using a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Web Services (WS) for the purpose of realising future generation agile manufacturing systems. The environment of manufacturing enterprises is now characterised by frequently changing market demands, time-to-market pressure, continuously emerging new technologies and global competition. Under these circumstances, manufacturing systems need to be agile and automation systems need to support this agility. More speci cally, an open, exible automation environment with plug and play connectivity is needed. Technically, this requires the easy connectivity of hardware devices and software components from di erent vendors. Functionally, there is a need of interoperability and integration of control functions on di erent hierarchical levels ranging from eld level to various higher level applications such as process control and operations management services. [Continues.