Re-envisioning the role of benefits realisation in a world dominated by robots

In recent years there has been a great deal of academic and practitioner interest in the role of 'benefits realisation management' [BRM] approaches, as a means of proactively leveraging value from IT investments. However, as automated technologies are increasingly being introduced on the basis that they deliver more cost-efficient solutions than their human counterparts, important questions needs to be asked about how value should be defined in a world that is increasingly dominated by robots. Consequently, the aim of this work-in-progress paper is to explore, using the literature, how automated systems continue to replace the human agent, in a growing number of organisational contexts, before looking at how tools such as benefits realisation, may need to be modified to ensure that there is an appropriate balance between the social and the technical in the planning of future IS/IT investments. In so doing, this essay seeks to develop a provisional research agenda, which will hopefully help to shape future contributions to the domains of benefits realisation, sociotechnical approaches and IT evaluation

Systems Scenarios: A tool for facilitating the socio-technical design of work systems

The socio-technical systems approach to design is well documented. Recognising the benefits of this approach, organisations are increasingly trying to work with systems, rather than their component parts. However, few tools attempt to analyse the complexity inherent in such systems, in ways that generate useful, practical outputs. In this paper, we outline the ‘System Scenarios Tool’ (SST), which is a novel, applied methodology that can be used by designers, end-users, consultants or researchers to help design or re-design work systems. The paper introduces the SST using examples of its application, and describes the potential benefits of its use, before reflecting on its limitations. Finally, we discuss potential opportunities for the tool, and describe sets of circumstances in which it might be used

Rethinking Service Design: A Socio-Technical Approach to the Development of Business Models

This chapter introduces socio-technical systems thinking as a tool for the concurrent development of organizational business models and associated service offerings that deliver value to customers and suppliers. As organizations offer integrated products and services, interactions and relationships between customer and supplier have assumed greater importance. Traditionally, importance was placed on the customer need and requirements for a physical product. Socio-technical systems thinking advocates a holistic perspective of complex work systems, ensuring the consideration of both technical and social aspects of a system. As illustrated through the three case studies in this chapter, product-service systems are becoming increasingly common within organizations. The first discusses the growing trend for manufacturing organizations to move from traditional transactional business models, with a focus on the delivery of physical products, to the inclusion of service delivery. The second case study provides details of manufacturing supply networks and the associated changing business models needed to support the development of supplier capability. Finally, the third case study considers changing business models and service delivery in the emerging context of technology-intensive healthcare services in the UK. To conclude, a socio-technical framework is proposed as a tool to aid in the development of business models and service delivery using these case studies as examples

Acquisition and sharing of innovative manufacturing knowledge for preliminary design

This study investigates the identification, acquisition and sharing of innovative manufacturing knowledge for the preliminary design of complex mechanical components. Such components need to satisfy multiple, often conflicting design and performance requirements. Some degree of innovation may be required, involving the development of new manufacturing processes. The innovative nature of this manufacturing knowledge makes it difficult to define, codify and share, especially during preliminary design, where this can present significant risks in the design process. Current methods of knowledge sharing do not account for the immature nature of innovative manufacturing knowledge and the combined explicit and tacit elements needed to express it. A flexible interpretive research study with inductive and hypothesis testing elements was undertaken to explore this novel knowledge management problem. During the inductive phase, two data collection activities were undertaken to investigate the manufacturing knowledge required for the preliminary design of gas turbine engines. Using a data driven approach, the main findings which emerged were: the need to include an assessment of the maturity of the design process; the need to use a range of tacit and explicit knowledge to effectively share this and the need to manage knowledge across different domain boundaries. A conceptual framework of the findings was used to develop a hypothesis of knowledge requirements for preliminary design. For the hypothesis testing phase, a systematic methodology to identify, acquire and share innovative manufacturing knowledge for preliminary design was developed from the knowledge requirements. This approach allowed both explicit and tacit knowledge sharing. An evaluation of the methodology took place using three different industrial cases, each with a different component / manufacturing process. The evaluations demonstrated that using the range of knowledge types for transferring knowledge was effective for the specific cases studied and confirmed the hypothesis developed.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

The Biopolitics of Resilience

This thesis analyses resilience as a value which constitutes a telos for contemporary liberal security initiatives. In recent years, resilience strategies have been increasingly employed within liberal states a means of responding to the radical contingency of threat. Rather than seeking to protect a referent through prophylactic measures, resilience strategies aim to optimize the capacity of complex systems to rapidly adapt to, and evolve through, crises.The advent of resilience strategies is premised upon a radical re-evaluation of the referents of security as complex systems. The discovery of the natural resilience of systems integral to liberal life has enabled strategies of emergency governance seeking to harness these processes, and optimize their conditions of ‘freedom’. By naturalising resilience these accounts serve to render its value self-evident. This thesis problematises these accounts by offering a biopolitical genealogy directed at elucidating the historical conditions of possibility for resilience to emerge as a security value.This thesis takes as its empirical referent the case of the historical evolution of a British machinery of governance for responding to emergencies. Analysis makes explicit distinct, and indeed rival, rationalities of governance which can be read from its evolving design. Resilience is demonstrated to be an expression of an emergent neoliberal order of governance. Applying a biopolitical security analytic inspired by Foucault, this genealogy traces the historical consolidation of this order in respect of transformations in the regime of power/knowledge enacted by apparatus of security.A biopolitical genealogy demonstrates that resilience is the correlate of a broader restructuring of the rationalities and practices comprising liberal security governance. By drawing attention to the complex historical processes and significant governmental efforts required to make resilience possible this thesis aims to open up a space through which the value of resilience may be more critically interrogated