Cyber-physical business systems modelling : advancing Industry 4.0

Abstract: The dynamic digital age drives contemporary multinationals to focus on delivering world-class business solutions with the use of advanced technology. Contemporary multinationals relate to a present-day business primarily engaged to generate profits. These complex multinationals offer value through the manufacture, sale, and management of products and services. Disruptive strategies in operations driven by emerging technological innovations demand continuous business improvements. These insightful opportunities are inclusive of operations, enterprise systems, engineering management, and research. Business sustainability is a strategic priority to deliver exceptional digital solutions. The Fourth Industrial Revolutions (4IR) offer significant technological advancements for total business sustainability. The underlying 4IR technologies include Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). The collective challenges of a large global business are not easy to predict. CPS protocols deliver sustainable prospects required to integrate and model physical systems in real-time driven by the 4IR implementations. The goal of this thesis is to develop a model (CPS) suitable for self-predicting and to determine ideal operational practice driven by technologies of the 4IR. The model (CPS) seeks a novel tool effective for comprehensive business evaluation and optimisation. The competence of the anticipated tool includes suitability to collaborate current operations and predict the impact of change on a complex business. ..D.Phil. (Engineering Management

An Integrated Service-Oriented Development Platform for Realization of e-Business Systems

Enterprises need to be responsive to meet dynamic businesses and requirements. Service-oriented architecture can improve e-Business applications in integration and flexibility. Therefore, service-oriented architecture has been envisioned as an appropriate computational paradigm for e-business applications. This paper proposes a multi-model driven collaborative development platform for building service-oriented e-Business systems. The platform supports service-oriented software engineering and application developments. It employs three views, i.e., business view, process view, and service view to support business and technical consultants’ operations. Consultants can collaborate from distributed sites of, e.g., clients and IT vendors to provide their clients’ with rapid system development and demonstration. The proposed platform is service-oriented and driven by three models, i.e., service meta-model, process model and business model. All of these three models are supported by a semantic reasoning engine to facilitate intelligent service discovery, process execution and business-business integration. A simple example has been used to demonstrate its functionality

Utilisation of ANFIS in analysing impact of cost structure on Croatian maritime companies development

The modern approach to growth analysis and development of enterprises includes the analysis of defined business models progressively. One of the essential factors of any business model is the cost structure, mostly intended to analyse and define better the processes of transferring value to the customer, maintain customer relationship and generate revenue. An analysis of the costs incurred in these processes should facilitate the effective definition of key resources, key activities and key partnerships. Modern theory distinguishes two types of business models from a cost perspective: a cost-driven model and a value-driven model. The cost-driven model is focused on minimizing costs wherever possible and such an approach has the propensity to create and maintain the lowest possible cost structure using low-cost value propositions. The value-driven model is focused on value creation and superior value propositions. The aim of this research, by using Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) approach, is to create models for analysing the impact of cost structure on sustainable development and business survival with respect to selected financial indicators. Based on clustering methods, model creation is preceded by a search of the link between the business performance indicators and parameters that increase or decrease a particular cost component. The sample for creation of the model is based on financial data of five maritime Croatian companies obtained through four business years. Thus, by analysis of the companies’ business operations based on such created models it is possible to define the limits, namely the degrees of increase or decrease of a particular type of cost at which companies achieve sound business growth and development. Consequently, the management of a company is enabled to form effective business strategies. Such strategies in modern context imply innovation in business, new technological processes, efficient stock management, and improved relationships with customers and suppliers

Influence of blockchain technology in SME internationalization: Evidence from high-tech SMEs in India

This study examines the impact of blockchain technology (BCT) on small and medium-sized enterprises’ (SMEs) internationalization. Further, it examines how Amazon as a platform reframes the global partnership environment via the BCT network that enables Indian SMEs to operate globally. Data were collected from 291 employees at 43 high-tech SMEs in India. They revealed untapped interest in how Indian SMEs will use Amazon for global operations. Several factors, such as processes to strategize, synergize, and standardize, are described as needing to be addressed before SMEs can boost integrated business efficiency, especially with regards to marketing capacity, scale, scope, and financial performance. The study represents a critical theoretical contribution to Amazon-based global operations by developing the 3S Triangle Model, which could provide a basis for future business practice. Furthermore, the study defines and addresses the evolution of BCT that Amazon has used—and continues to use—as a global operations platform. At the convergence of BCT, Amazon, and global retail activities, we propose and advance an integrated model of BCT-driven global operations among SMEs that provides a holistic view of state-of-the-art practices and exciting avenues for future study

Ontology based data warehouse modelling - a methodology for managing petroleum field ecosystems

Petroleum field ecosystems offer an interesting and productive domain for ontology based data warehousing model and methodology development. This paper explains the opportunities and challenges confronting modellers, methodologists, and managers operating in the petroleum business and provides some detailed techniques and suggested methods for constructing and using the ontology based warehouse.Ecologically sensitive operations such as well drilling, well production, exploration, and reservoir development can be guided and carefully planned based on data mined from a suitable constructed data warehouse. Derivation of business intelligence, simulations and vizualisation can also be driven by online analytical processing based on warehoused data and metadata

An Internal Perspective of Business Model Innovation in Manufacturing Companies

Business model innovation is increasingly being used as a concept in different academic fields, although it is still missing a ground theoretical conceptualization. This work aims at advancing the understanding of business model innovation from an internal perspective in manufacturing companies. It builds on a literature review regarding two main concepts – business model and business architecture – and proposes a set of key areas for internally-driven business model innovation. Six main areas have been identified: i) strategy & business goals; ii) organizational culture; iii) product and service management; iv) technology management; v) operations management; vi) performance management systems. Further research will analyze the innovation processes within each area, based on existing theoretical foundations and empirical studies. Moreover, new empirical studies will be performed to further investigate different potential pathways for business model innovation.This work builds on research initially undertaken on SustainValue project which received funding from the European Community´s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement n°262931. Further review and analysis leading to these results was supported by the EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Industrial Sustainability (grant n° EP/I033351/1).This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from IEEE via http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/CBI.2015.4

Sustainability as corporate culture of a brand for superior performance

This is the post-print version of the final paper published in the Journal of World Business. The published article is available from the link below. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. Copyright @ 2012 Elsevier B.V.Sustainability research highlights new challenges and opportunities for businesses. This paper reviews the literature to understand the ability of sustainable green initiatives when practiced as a corporate culture to individually create new opportunities for operations, management and marketing. According to current research, business opportunities exclusively available to different functions of a firm can drive its performance. The role of marketing in the achievement of superior performance by virtue of sustainability practices is also explained by the existing literature. Branding literature, however, fails to explain the influence of a brand on sustainability-driven opportunities available to a firm for superior performance. The objective of this study is to explore if a brand can strengthen the ability of sustainability-based green initiatives of managers to drive opportunities available to a firm for superior performance. A conceptual framework grounded in the triple bottom line theory is presented based on the assumption that brand as a stimulating factor can accelerate the conversion of opportunities available to a business into superior performance. Academic and managerial perspectives have been used to draw upon the implications of the model. Both practitioners and academic researchers will benefit from future research on this topic

Extracting Business Rules from COBOL: A Model-Based Framework

International audienceOrganizations rely on the logic embedded in their Information Systems for their daily operations. This logic implements the business rules in place in the organization, which must be continuously adapted in response to market changes. Unfortunately, this evolution implies understanding and evolving also the underlying software components enforcing those rules. This is challenging because, first, the code implementing the rules is scattered throughout the whole system and, second, most of the time documentation is poor and out-of-date. This is specially true for older systems that have been maintained and evolved for several years (even decades). In those systems, it is not even clear which business rules are enforced nor whether rules are still consistent with the current organizational policies. In this sense, the goal of this paper is to facilitate the comprehension of legacy systems (in particular COBOL-based ones) by providing a model driven reverse engineering framework able to extract and visualize the business logic embedded in them