Supporting Diffusion of IoT Solutions Exemplified by the ChainPORT Initiative

Within the ChainPORT community of port authorities (PAs) around the world, many different Internet of Things (IoT) based solutions have been piloted over the last years, successfully demonstrating how interconnected sensors and devices can improve business efficiency. The current challenge of how participating PAs can realize benefits by adopting other PAs solutions is related to the innovation diffusion process and enterprise architecture (EA) management. In cooperation with the members of the ChainPORT community, we explored their understanding of the term solution in this specific context and analyzed 24 solutions from 8 port authorities. We present (1) a conceptual definition of the solution term in the context of Internet of Things innovation and enterprise architecture management, formalized by an EA meta-model and (2) EA extensions to allow more structured and uniform communication of IoT innovation among a collaborating group of enterprises