Eco‐Holonic 4.0 Circular Business Model to Conceptualize Sustainable Value Chain Towards Digital Transition

The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize a circular business model based on an Eco-Holonic Architecture, through the integration of circular economy and holonic principles. A conceptual model is developed to manage the complexity of integrating circular economy principles, digital transformation, and tools and frameworks for sustainability into business models. The proposed architecture is multilevel and multiscale in order to achieve the instantiation of the sustainable value chain in any territory. The architecture promotes the incorporation of circular economy and holonic principles into new circular business models. This integrated perspective of business model can support the design and upgrade of the manufacturing companies in their respective industrial sectors. The conceptual model proposed is based on activity theory that considers the interactions between technical and social systems and allows the mitigation of the metabolic rift that exists between natural and social metabolism. This study contributes to the existing literature on circular economy, circular business models and activity theory by considering holonic paradigm concerns, which have not been explored yet. This research also offers a unique holonic architecture of circular business model by considering different levels, relationships, dynamism and contextualization (territory) aspects

From Personal Data to Service Innovation – Guiding the Design of New Service Opportunities

Stimulated by an ongoing digital transformation, companies obtain a new source for digital service innovation: The use of personal data has the potential to build deeper customer relationships and to develop individualized services. However, methodological support for the systematic application of personal data in innovation processes is still scarce. This paper suggests a comprehensive approach for service design tools that enable collaborative design activities by participants with different data skills to identify new service opportunities. This approach includes the systematic development of customer understanding as well as a process to match customer needs to existing personal data resources. Following a design science research approach, we develop design principles for service design tools and build and evaluate a service opportunity canvas as a first instantiation

Smart Service Innovation: Organization, Design, and Assessment

Background: The emergence of technologies such as the Internet of Things, big data, cloud computing, and wireless communication drives the digital transformation of the entire society. Organizations can exploit these potentials by offering new data-driven services with innovative value propositions, such as carsharing, remote equipment maintenance, and energy management services. These services result from value co-creation enabled by smart service systems, which are configurations of people, processes, and digital technologies. However, developing such systems was found to be challenging in practice. This is mainly due to the difficulties of managing complexity and uncertainty in the innovation process, as contributions of various actors from multiple disciplines must be coordinated. Previous research in service innovation and service systems engineering (SSE) has not shed sufficient light on the specifics of smart services, while research on smart service systems lacks empirical grounding. Purpose: This thesis aims to advance the understanding of the systematic development of smart services in multi-actor settings by investigating how smart service innovation (SSI) is conducted in practice, particularly regarding the participating actors, roles they assume, and methods they apply for designing smart service systems. Furthermore, the existing set of methods is extended by new methods for the design-integrated assessment of smart services and service business models. Approach: Empirical and design science methods were combined to address the research questions. To explore how SSI is conducted in practice, 25 interviews with experts from 13 organizations were conducted in two rounds. Building on service-dominant logic (SDL) as a theoretical foundation and a multi-level framework for SSI, the involvement of actors, their activities, employed means, and experienced challenges were collected. Additionally, a case study was used to evaluate the suitability of the Lifecycle Modelling Language to describe smart service systems. Design science methods were applied to determine a useful combination of service design methods and to build meta-models and tools for assessing smart services. They were evaluated using experiments and the talk aloud method. Results: On the macro-level, service ecosystems consist of various actors that conduct service innovation through the reconfiguration of resources. Collaboration of these actors is facilitated on the meso-level within a project. The structure and dynamics of project configurations can be described through a set of roles, innovation patterns, and ecosystem states. Four main activities have been identified, which actors perform to reduce uncertainty in the project. To guide their work, actors apply a variety of means from different disciplines to develop and document work products. The approach of design-integrated business model assessment is enabled through a meta-model that links qualitative aspects of service architectures and business models with quantitative assessment information. The evaluation of two tool prototypes showed the feasibility and benefit of this approach. Originality / Value: The results reported in this thesis advance the understanding of smart service innovation. They contribute to evidence-based knowledge on service systems engineering and its embedding in service ecosystems. Specifically, the consideration of actors, roles, activities, and methods can enhance existing reference process models. Furthermore, the support of activities in such processes through suitable methods can stimulate discussions on how methods from different disciplines can be applied and combined for developing the various aspects of smart service systems. The underlying results help practitioners to better organize and conduct SSI projects. As potential roles in a service ecosystem depend on organizational capabilities, the presented results can support the analysis of ex¬ternal dependencies and develop strategies for building up internal competencies.:Abstract iii Content Overview iv List of Abbreviations viii List of Tables x List of Figures xii PART A - SYNOPSIS 1 1 Introduction 2 1.1 Motivation 2 1.2 Research Objectives and Research Questions 4 1.3 Thesis Structure 6 2 Research Background 7 2.1 Smart Service Systems 7 2.2 Service-Dominant Logic 8 2.3 Service Innovation in Ecosystems 11 2.4 Systematic Development of Smart Service Systems 13 3 Research Approach 21 3.1 Research Strategy 21 3.2 Applied Research Methods 22 4 Summary of Findings 26 4.1 Overview of Research Results 26 4.2 Organizational Setup of Multi-Actor Smart Service Innovation 27 4.3 Conducting Smart Service Innovation Projects 32 4.4 Approaches for the Design-integrated Assessment of Smart Services 39 5 Discussion 44 5.1 Contributions 44 5.2 Limitations 46 5.3 Managerial Implications 47 5.4 Directions for Future Research 48 6 Conclusion 54 References 55 PART B - PUBLICATIONS 68 7 It Takes More than Two to Tango: Identifying Roles and Patterns in Multi-Actor Smart Service Innovation 69 7.1 Introduction 69 7.2 Research Background 72 7.3 Methodology 76 7.4 Results 79 7.5 Discussion 90 7.6 Conclusions and Outlook 96 7.7 References 97 8 Iterative Uncertainty Reduction in Multi-Actor Smart Service Innovation 100 8.1 Introduction 100 8.2 Research Background 103 8.3 Research Approach 109 8.4 Findings 113 8.5 Discussion 127 8.6 Conclusions and Outlook 131 8.7 References 133 9 How to Tame the Tiger – Exploring the Means, Ends, and Challenges in Smart Service Systems Engineering 139 9.1 Introduction 139 9.2 Research Background 140 9.3 Methodology 143 9.4 Results 145 9.5 Discussion and Conclusions 151 9.6 References 153 10 Combining Methods for the Design of Digital Services in Practice: Experiences from a Predictive Costing Service 156 10.1 Introduction 156 10.2 Conceptual Foundation 157 10.3 Preparing the Action Design Research Project 158 10.4 Application and Evaluation of Methods 160 10.5 Discussion and Formalization of Learning 167 10.6 Conclusion 169 10.7 References 170 11 Modelling of a Smart Service for Consumables Replenishment: A Life Cycle Perspective 171 11.1 Introduction 171 11.2 Life Cycles of Smart Services 173 11.3 Case Study 178 11.4 Discussion of the Modelling Approach 185 11.5 Conclusion and Outlook 187 11.6 References 188 12 Design-integrated Financial Assessment of Smart Services 192 12.1 Introduction 192 12.2 Problem Analysis 195 12.3 Meta-Model Design 200 12.4 Application of the Meta-Model in a Tool Prototype 204 12.5 Evaluation 206 12.6 Discussion 208 12.7 Conclusions 209 12.8 References 211 13 Towards a Cost-Benefit-Analysis of Data-Driven Business Models 215 13.1 Introduction 215 13.2 Conceptual Foundation 216 13.3 Methodology 218 13.4 Case Analysis 220 13.5 A Cost-Benefit-Analysis Model for DDBM 222 13.6 Conclusion and Outlook 225 13.7 References 226 14 Enabling Design-integrated Assessment of Service Business Models Through Factor Refinement 228 14.1 Introduction 228 14.2 Related Work 229 14.3 Research Goal and Method 230 14.4 Solution Design 231 14.5 Demonstration 234 14.6 Discussion 235 14.7 Conclusion 236 14.8 References 23

Value creation with big data analytics for enterprises: a survey

The emergence of Big Data applications has paved the way for enterprises to use Big Data as a value-creation strategy for their business; however, the majority of enterprises fail to know how to generate value from their massive volumes of data. Big Data Analytics results can help the enterprises in better decision-making and provide them with additional profits. Studying different researches dedicated to value creation through Big Data Analytics. This paper (a) highlights the current state of the art proposed for creating value from Big Data Analytics, (b) identifies the essential factors and discusses their effects upon value creation, and (c) provides a classification of the cutting-edge technologies in this field

Towards systems engineering approach applicable for small developing organisation

Includes bibliographical references.The purpose of this thesis was to create the model which could be used to optimise the operational effectiveness of the general type of small developing business/system. The small developing organisation is the system which has the same type of components as a big organisation but the structure is much simpler. These components develop a system in the Technical, Economic and Environmental areas. Each of these components has its own purpose and together these purposes optimise the entire system. The identification of the purpose of the components of the small developing organisation should be analysed by: • investigating the component's performance; • investigating the component's behavioural pattern; and • investigating the component's support requirement. Further, the analysis of the general characteristics of the small developing organisation is such that: * analysis of the performance considers only the main point of the component's operation but not the entire operational function; * the behavioural pattern (i.e. failure and repair occurrence) is random; * the evaluation of the support requirements is subjective where the statistical tools may not be applicable; • the relationship between the elements of the aforementioned three activities is often unpredictable; • the components are usually analysed according to the hierarchy of importance to the development of the entire system

Exploratory topic modeling with distributional semantics

As we continue to collect and store textual data in a multitude of domains, we are regularly confronted with material whose largely unknown thematic structure we want to uncover. With unsupervised, exploratory analysis, no prior knowledge about the content is required and highly open-ended tasks can be supported. In the past few years, probabilistic topic modeling has emerged as a popular approach to this problem. Nevertheless, the representation of the latent topics as aggregations of semi-coherent terms limits their interpretability and level of detail. This paper presents an alternative approach to topic modeling that maps topics as a network for exploration, based on distributional semantics using learned word vectors. From the granular level of terms and their semantic similarity relations global topic structures emerge as clustered regions and gradients of concepts. Moreover, the paper discusses the visual interactive representation of the topic map, which plays an important role in supporting its exploration.Comment: Conference: The Fourteenth International Symposium on Intelligent Data Analysis (IDA 2015

The Process Mining Use Case Canvas: A Framework for Developing and Specifying Use Cases

Process mining has emerged as a crucial technology for digitalization, enabling companies to analyze, visualize, and optimize their processes using system data. Despite significant developments in the field over the years, companies - notably small and medium-sized enterprises - are not yet familiar with the discipline, leaving untapped potential for its practical application in the business domain. They often struggle with understanding the potential use cases, associated benefits, and prerequisites for implementing process mining applications. This lack of clarity and concerns about the effort and costs involved hinder the widespread adoption of process mining. To address this gap between process mining theory and real-world business application, we introduce the "Process Mining Use Case Canvas", a novel framework designed to facilitate the structured development and specification of suitable use cases for process mining applications within manufacturing companies. We also connect to established methodologies and models for developing and specifying use cases for business models from related domains targeting data analytics and artificial intelligence projects. The canvas has already been tested and validated through its application in the ProMiConE research project, collaborating with manufacturing companies

Virtual Construction Simulator

In the construction sector computer simulation has been extensively incorporated to support complex decisions including automation of several different processes and also to design the novel machines or buildings The changes inhabited in the work zone configurations are reflected in the animations as the work progresses This also provides an opportunity to the construction workers as well as agency personnel and general public to visually present the complicated information This projected work presents an overview of how simulation modeling can help in learning effective decision making while performing construction activities The Virtual Construction Simulator provides a user interaction gadget through which user can feed in the inputs that addresses the system to implement those sequences of tasks The tasks that do not violate certain specified constraints operate concurrently and the operation of these tasks can be viewed on the virtual construction environment as well as the intermediate status of all the elements is updated at the backend A comparative analysis of various available alternatives can be done so as to determine the most optimal and most efficient sequence of operations that can be implemented Here in the cost of translocation of the various vehicles is taken into consideration for efficiency deterministic Some predefined constraints are accustomed to the system like the limit on the number of vehicles that can be used also the parameters involved in evaluation of the efficiency of a plan is subject to some assumptions they are an approximate to the real world attributes but they are subject to change and can be updated on demand as per the requirements of the syste