Benchmarking performance management systems

The Balanced Scorecard and associated performance management approaches, has become a widely practiced and popular management reporting method in recent times. Moreover, enabling technology, which assists in the delivery and personalisation of corporate performance information, is having a deeper and more rapid impact than ever before. This paper presents a brief comparative benchmarking study of leading enterprise performance management systems. Also, the author discusses the merits of bespoke internet technology development and out-of-the-box portal functionalities. An analysis of key business drivers and implementation risks of such approaches is highlighted via a case study example, and concludes the paper

Investigating the IT Silo problem: From Strict to Adaptive mirroring between IT Architecture and Organisational Health Services

A crucial problem reducing efficient information flow within healthcare is the presence of siloed IT architectures. Siloed IT Architectures causes disruptive and disconnected information flow within and between health institutions, and complicates the establishment of qualitative health services to practitioners and citizens. In this paper, we analyze this challenge using a mirroring lens. Our research question is, how can we establish a supportive IT architecture that reduces the IT silo problem? Our empirical evidence comes from a case in Norway, where we analyzed a transformation initiative on the national, regional, and local levels. Our investigation into the IT silo problem contributes to the literature on information flow and IT architecture within healthcare in two ways. First, we find that strict mirroring that leads to sub-optimization and silofication, is a major cause for the presence of IT silos. Second, we demonstrate how adaptive mirroring – a modular strategy for combining global and local requirements in IT architecture – improves the changeability and manageability of IT architectures

An Internet of Things Platform Based on Microservices and Cloud Paradigms for Livestock

With the growing adoption of the Internet of Things (IoT) technology in the agricultural sector, smart devices are becoming more prevalent. The availability of new, timely, and precise data offers a great opportunity to develop advanced analytical models. Therefore, the platform used to deliver new developments to the final user is a key enabler for adopting IoT technology. This work presents a generic design of a software platform based on the cloud and implemented using microservices to facilitate the use of predictive or prescriptive analytics under different IoT scenarios. Several technologies are combined to comply with the essential features¿scalability, portability, interoperability, and usability¿that the platform must consider to assist decision-making in agricultural 4.0 contexts. The platform is prepared to integrate new sensor devices, perform data operations, integrate several data sources, transfer complex statistical model developments seamlessly, and provide a user-friendly graphical interface. The proposed software architecture is implemented with open-source technologies and validated in a smart farming scenario. The growth of a batch of pigs at the fattening stage is estimated from the data provided by a level sensor installed in the silo that stores the feed from which the animals are fed. With this application, we demonstrate how farmers can monitor the weight distribution and receive alarms when high deviations happen.This research was partially supported by the Intelligent Energy Europe (IEE) program and the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad under contract TIN2017-84553-C2-2-R, by the European Union FEDER (CAPAP-H6 network TIN2016-81840-REDT) and the demonstration activity financed by the Operation 01.02.01 of Technological Transfer from the Program of Rural Development in Catalunya 2014–2020 cofinanced by DARP and FEDER

Traceability system for capturing, processing and providing consumer-relevant information about wood products: System solution and its economic feasibility

Current research and practice reports indicate the existence of purchase barriers concerning eco-friendly products, e.g. wood products. These can be ascribed to consumers' mistrust regarding the non-observable environmental impact of wood products. To counter the mistrust, wood products are commonly endowed with eco-labels, which may be perceived mostly as a marketing tool, therefore not fulfilling their intended purpose. Current studies have shown that providing consumers with wood product information based on traceability systems increases product trust and purchase intentions, with those information items most valued by consumers being identified as well. Based on this, the paper proposes a traceability information system for the capturing, processing, and provision of product information using examples of wood furniture. Furthermore, a cost-benefit model for the proposed solution is developed. The calculations indicate the possibility of implementing traceability at the item level based on a four-layer system architecture enabling the capture and delivery of all information valued by consumers at acceptable costs. The proposed system helps to overcome purchase barriers of eco-friendly products, increasing consumers' product trust and purchase intentions

A Unified Software Architecture to Enable Cross-Layer Design in the Future Internet

Abstract—While research on cross-layer network optimization has been progressing, useful implementations have been lagging because the current Internet architecture does not accommodate cross-layering gracefully. As part of our FIND project, we propose a software architecture for the future Internet that is designed to accommodate such interactions. We present a conceptual overview as well as high level software design and an early prototype implementation, and point out the strengths of our architecture. I

Architectures for the Future Networks and the Next Generation Internet: A Survey

Networking research funding agencies in the USA, Europe, Japan, and other countries are encouraging research on revolutionary networking architectures that may or may not be bound by the restrictions of the current TCP/IP based Internet. We present a comprehensive survey of such research projects and activities. The topics covered include various testbeds for experimentations for new architectures, new security mechanisms, content delivery mechanisms, management and control frameworks, service architectures, and routing mechanisms. Delay/Disruption tolerant networks, which allow communications even when complete end-to-end path is not available, are also discussed

Service-Oriented Process Models in Telecommunication Business

The thesis concentrates on to evaluate challenges in the business process management and the need for Service-oriented process models in telecommunication business to alleviate the integration work efforts and to reduce total costs of ownership. The business aspect concentrates on operations and business support systems which are tailored for communication service providers. Business processes should be designed in conformance with TeleManagement Forum's integrated business architecture framework. The thesis rationalizes the need to transform organizations and their way of working from vertical silos to horizontal layers and to understand transformational efforts which are needed to adopt a new strategy. Furthermore, the thesis introduces service characterizations and goes deeper into technical requirements that a service compliant middleware system needs to support. At the end of the thesis Nokia Siemens Networks proprietary approach – Process Automation Enabling Suite is introduced, and finally the thesis performs two case studies. The first one is Nokia Siemens Networks proprietary survey which highlights the importance of customer experience management and the second one is an overall research study whose results have been derived from other public surveys covering application integration efforts