Internet of robotic things : converging sensing/actuating, hypoconnectivity, artificial intelligence and IoT Platforms

The Internet of Things (IoT) concept is evolving rapidly and influencing newdevelopments in various application domains, such as the Internet of MobileThings (IoMT), Autonomous Internet of Things (A-IoT), Autonomous Systemof Things (ASoT), Internet of Autonomous Things (IoAT), Internetof Things Clouds (IoT-C) and the Internet of Robotic Things (IoRT) etc.that are progressing/advancing by using IoT technology. The IoT influencerepresents new development and deployment challenges in different areassuch as seamless platform integration, context based cognitive network integration,new mobile sensor/actuator network paradigms, things identification(addressing, naming in IoT) and dynamic things discoverability and manyothers. The IoRT represents new convergence challenges and their need to be addressed, in one side the programmability and the communication ofmultiple heterogeneous mobile/autonomous/robotic things for cooperating,their coordination, configuration, exchange of information, security, safetyand protection. Developments in IoT heterogeneous parallel processing/communication and dynamic systems based on parallelism and concurrencyrequire new ideas for integrating the intelligent “devices”, collaborativerobots (COBOTS), into IoT applications. Dynamic maintainability, selfhealing,self-repair of resources, changing resource state, (re-) configurationand context based IoT systems for service implementation and integrationwith IoT network service composition are of paramount importance whennew “cognitive devices” are becoming active participants in IoT applications.This chapter aims to be an overview of the IoRT concept, technologies,architectures and applications and to provide a comprehensive coverage offuture challenges, developments and applications

Overcoming barriers and increasing independence: service robots for elderly and disabled people

This paper discusses the potential for service robots to overcome barriers and increase independence of elderly and disabled people. It includes a brief overview of the existing uses of service robots by disabled and elderly people and advances in technology which will make new uses possible and provides suggestions for some of these new applications. The paper also considers the design and other conditions to be met for user acceptance. It also discusses the complementarity of assistive service robots and personal assistance and considers the types of applications and users for which service robots are and are not suitable

Using Transaction Utility Approach for Retail Format Decision

Transaction Utility theory was propounded by Thaler to explain that the value derived by a customer from an exchange consists of two drivers: Acquisition Utilities and Transaction utilities. Acquisition utility represents the economic gain or loss from the transaction. Where as transaction utility is associated with purchase or (sale) and represents the pleasure (or displeasure) of the financial deal per se and is a function of the difference between the selling price and the reference price. Choice of a format has been studied from several dimensions including the cost and effort as well as the non-monetary values. However, the studies that present the complete picture and combine the aspects of the tangible as well as intangible values derived out of the shopping process are limited. Most of the studies, all of them from the developed economies, have focussed on the selection of a store. They represent a scenario where formats have stabilised. However, in Indian scenario formats have been found to be influencing the choice of store as well as orientation of the shoppers. Also, retailers are experimenting with alternate format with differing success rates. The author has also not found a study that has applied this theory. It is felt that the Transactional Utility Theory may provide a suitable approach for making format decisions.

Omni-channel retailing:Some reflections

In this paper, I discuss some reflections on the emerging literature on multi- and omni-channel retailing. I discuss four important area’s of prior research and briefly describe some general findings. Next, I consider three important emerging trends: 1) digital only, 2) Covid-19 effects and 3) New Technologies. I discuss the implications of these trend for omni-channel retailing and provide some ideas for future research on these trends

New Concepts for Efficient Consumer Response in Retail Influenced by Emerging Technologies and Innovations

The retail industry is continuously confronted with new challenges and experiences a transformation from a supplier’s market to a buyer's market. It is, thus, essential for the retail industry to consequently focus on, anticipate and fulfil consumer’s demands. Technologies and innovative business solutions can help to support to establish a required customer experience and, thereby, gain a competitive advantage. A multitude of new services and products, channels as well as players can already be identified which drive the transformation. Therefore, retailers need to understand current trends and technologies and identify as well as implement relevant solutions for their transformation since otherwise, new players will dominate the market. Hence, this dissertation aims to review and analyse new technologies which are coupled with innovative business activities in order to provide customer-centric retailing. For this purpose, this dissertation consists of five articles and derives four major contributions which introduce different approaches to establishing consumer satisfaction. Firstly, a core technology for retail is artificial intelligence (AI) which can be meaningful applied along the entire value chain and improve retailers’ positions. Two focus areas have been identified in this context which are (i) the optimisation of the entire retail value chain with the help of AI with the aim to derive transparency and (ii) the improvement of consumer satisfaction and relationship. Secondly, focussing on the consumer-retailer relationship in the digital era, a concept with a data architecture is proposed based on a real use case. The outcome was that a specific customer orientation based on data can increase the brand value and sales volume. Thirdly, the work presents that new shopping concepts, named unmanned store concepts, gain continuous growth. Unmanned store concepts employ a variety of new technologies, are characterised by attributes of speed, ease, as well as comfort, and are deemed to be the new ideal of the expectations of modern buyers. Two different directions have been deeper analysed: (i) walk-in stores and (ii) automated vending machines. The critical success factors for the usage of unmanned store solutions are distance as well as high consumer affinity for innovations. In times of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has a huge impact on retail, a continuous innovation capability still needs to be established. Finally, this work introduces a tool for systematic innovation management considering the current circumstances. Taken as a whole, this dissertation with its five articles deals with significant research questions which have not been approached so far. Thereby, the literature is extended by the introduction of novel insights and the provision of a deeper understanding of how retailers can transform their business into a more consumer-oriented way

The future of grocery stores : Omnichannel and AI technologies and Next-Generation Brick-and-Mortar Grocery Stores

In recent years the grocery retail industry has been experiencing tremendous change, driven mainly by advances in technology. Traditional brick-and-mortar grocery stores are under threat from industry disruptors who incorporate new technologies into their business models and operate with online channels. Therefore, this paper introduces omnichannel and artificial intelligence (AI) use cases as factors influencing the future success of brick-and-mortar grocery stores. To identify critical drivers for success, semi-structured expert interviews were conducted to discover how grocers can implement an omnichannel strategy and combine various AI technologies to remain competitive. Furthermore, a customer survey tested the acceptance of specific use cases and scrutinized the resulting increase or decrease in shopping frequency due to omnichannel in conjunction with AI. The analysis indicates an upcoming change in the grocery industry. A move towards a combination of an online and offline world is rising. Moreover, use cases like online shopping, personalized prices and offers, and cashier-free checkouts have the highest potential to increase the points-of-delight by consumers while grocery shopping. Therefore, grocers must adopt an omnichannel strategy and incorporate several AI-driven technologies to increase profits and remain competitive.Nos últimos anos, a indústria retalhista de mercearia tem vindo a sofrer mudanças tremendas, impulsionadas principalmente pelos avanços da tecnologia. As mercearias tradicionais de tijolo e cimento estão ameaçadas pelos disruptores da indústria que incorporam novas tecnologias nos seus modelos de negócio e operam com canais em linha. Por conseguinte, este documento introduz casos de uso omnichannel e de inteligência social (AI) como factores que influenciam o sucesso futuro das mercearias de tijolo e de marfim. Para identificar factores críticos para o sucesso, foram realizadas entrevistas semi-estruturadas com peritos para descobrir como os merceeiros podem implementar uma estratégia de omnichannel e com-bine várias tecnologias de AI para se manterem competitivos. Além disso, um inquérito aos clientes testou a aceitação de casos específicos de uso e examinou o aumento ou diminuição da frequência de compras resultante devido ao omnichannel em conjunto com a AI. A análise indica uma próxima mudança na indústria de mercearia. Está a aumentar uma tendência para uma combinação de um mundo online e offline. Além disso, casos de utilização como as compras online, preços e ofertas personalizadas, e caixas sem caixa têm o potencial mais elevado para aumentar os pontos de venda dos consumidores enquanto fazem compras de mercearia. Por conseguinte, os merceeiros devem adoptar uma estratégia omnichannel e incorporar várias tecnologias impulsionadas pela AI para aumentar os lucros e permanecer competitivos

Museum of Contemporary Commodities: a research performance

The materialities and injustices of the 'prolific present' are overwhelming, making attention to the production, consumption and disposal of 'stuff' an urgent matter of concern. Presenting as automatic and only partially visible, creatively constructive acts of ‘dataveillance’ are integral to this explosion of stuff; conditioning our daily lives as milieus of consumption that channel profit to the propertied classes, often with socially and environmentally damaging consequences (Gabrys 2016, van Dijck, 2014, Tsing, 2013). Constructing the agency to intervene in these socio-technical valuing practices and cultural performances, requires us to consider our roles in those performances, as much as theorising the constituting structures, strategies, and (in)justices of their production. The Museum of Contemporary Commodities is an art geography research performance that is both a collaboratively produced dramaturgy of valuing, and an experiment in public curation as transformative process (Heathfield 2016, Graeber, 2013, Richter 2017). The project manifests as a series of digitally networked hacks, prototypes and events that attempt to configure new alignments between the social, material and digital that are localised and mobile, stable and reconfigurable, familiar and new (Suchman et al., 2002). These are art geographies as collectively produced critical making and social practices, which encourage audience-as-participant move from 'automatic' taking part in the unfolding immanence of the world, to feeling it more deeply. By extension attending to and caring for the ethical and political implications, and the material things that participation produces (Cull, 2011, Puig de la Bellacasa 2012)

Mapping Communicative Activity: A CHAT Approach to Design of Pseudo- Intelligent Mediators for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC)

The development of AAC technologies is of critical importance to the many people who are unable to speak intelligibly (or at all) due to a communication disorder, and to their many everyday interlocutors. Advances in digital technologies have revolutionized AAC, leading to devices that can “speak for” such individuals as aptly as it is illustrated in the case of the world famous physicist, Stephen Hawking. However, given their dependence on prefabricated language (and constant management by teams of people), current AAC devices are very limited in their ability to mediate everyday interactions. We argue here that the limits of AAC are firstly theoretical — grounded in prosthetic models that imagine AAC devices as replacements for damaged body parts and in transmission models of language production as communication. In contrast, our multidisciplinary team aims to design pseudo-intelligent mediators (PIMs) of communication by blending strengths of human mediators with features of current AAC technologies. To inform the design process, we report here our initial situated studies focusing on the distributed nature of everyday communicative activities conducted with potential AAC/PIM users. Our analysis focuses on the discursive alignments of these participants and their interlocutors, attending especially to the various ways their personal aides function as human mediators. Specifically, we focus on mapping the communicative activity around each of these differently-abled individuals (the majority of whom have cerebral palsy) as they navigated a university campus. We profile the everyday interactional patterns within functional systems and across settings, and present close discourse analysis of one interaction to highlight the diverse roles personal aides adopted in mediating communication. Finally, we argue that attending to differently “abled” bodies as they move through everyday communicative environments pushes CHAT to more fully theorize physicality, individual mobilities, and the roles of bodies in the laminated assemblage of functional systems.

A Store Manager's Account of His Company Strategy: A Pilot Study

A growing number of scholars in the strategic management field adopt a humanised approach to research via studying strategists and their strategising activities. However, most research is still centred on middle and top management. The pilot study described here illustrates the importance of looking at strategising among first line managers who are becoming increasingly active strategists in certain modern organisational structures. Besides serving as a pilot study for future piece of research, this study attempts to explore how a retail outlet manager perceived his organisational strategy. It also looks at the connection between some of his daily activities and the company’s strategy. This was achieved with a single case study design and analysis of data set produced from observing weekly meetings and interviewing the manager. This pilot study indicates that the store manager sees two strategies within his organisations - an overall strategy and a localised version of that strategy. Further, he is unaware of his strategic agency and that communication is an important part of strategising. These findings support the need for more studies on strategists and strategising activities and confirm the rationale for conducting a full-scale research using a comparative case study approach