ANTI-FRAGILE INFORMATION SYSTEMS

As complex socio-technical systems composed of many interconnected parts, interacting in non-linear, dynamic, emergent, and unexpected ways, Information Systems are fragile. In this paper we introduce the concept of antifragility as an alternative means of apprehending the fragility of Information Systems and a novel way of dealing with risk, uncertainty, and the unknown. Antifragility is the opposite of fragility. Antifragility allows us to go beyond robustness or resilience by moving away from a predictive mode of thinking and decision making to a mode that embraces the unknown and randomness and focuses on the characteristics that render systems fragile rather than trying to assess and predict the chain of events that may harm them. We propose a set of guidelines for moving from the fragile toward the antifragile and explore, for the processes of the IT function, their applications and the questions they raise for practice and research

Collaborative networks: A pillar of digital transformation

UID/EEA/00066/2019 POCI-01-0247-FEDER-033926The notion of digital transformation encompasses the adoption and integration of a variety of new information and communication technologies for the development of more efficient, flexible, agile, and sustainable solutions for industrial systems. Besides technology, this process also involves new organizational forms and leads to new business models. As such, this work addresses the contribution of collaborative networks to such a transformation. An analysis of the collaborative aspects required in the various dimensions of the 4th industrial revolution is conducted based on a literature survey and experiences gained from several research projects. A mapping between the identified collaboration needs and research results that can be adopted from the collaborative networks area is presented. Furthermore, several new research challenges are identified and briefly characterized.publishe

From Industry X to Industry 6.0: Antifragile Manufacturing for People, Planet, and Profit with Passion

This white paper addresses the potential pathways the Finnish industry must take in order to be the strategic leader and driver towards defining “Industry 6.0”. The recent global economic situation has revealed that the Finnish industry is affected by risks caused by the pandemic, global supply chains and dependency of suppliers all around the world. Therefore, we need to build up a completely new industrial revolution, in which antifragility is the design principle to increase our resilience to future stressors and global shocks. Like earlier industrial revolutions, advances in technology have paved the way to creating growth and well-being. Disruptive technologies, such as 3D printing and AI are an opportunity in localization of manufacturing back to Finland. The global climate crisis requires us to be at the forefront of a strategy that creates an impact on the environment, economy, and society. Here, the Finnish ICT expertise can solve problems, as long as the support of taking research results out into the industry is supported. The essential component in creating intelligent solutions and new business is data. Long-term development programs are needed for understanding what the use of data unlike ever before will imply for businesses, customers, ethics and regulations.Industry 6.0 is defined in this paper as “Ubiquitous, customer-driven, virtualized, antifragile manufacturing”. It is characterized on one hand by customer-centric, highly customized lot-size-1 thinking, on the other hand by hyperconnected factories, with dynamic supply chains, where data flows across domains. These also change the role of humans as productions workers, as they become part of the interconnected environment and need to handle the digital, optimized production. While we already have strengths that prepare us to lead the next industrial revolution, we also have serious shortcomings. We need to raise the level of ICT knowledge across the industry; we need multidisciplinary research, development and innovation, and a strategy for long-term public commitment and significant investments.We propose that Finland assumes a strong vision: Industry 6.0 is defined in Finland by proactive game-changing actions. This vision is realized in a long-term commitment to implementing an agenda of the following. 1) Finland nominates a Science and Technology minister to steer the activities. Their task would be to steer the implementation of the agenda holistically. 2) Current smart-specialization strategies need to be specified more carefully in order to utilize funding from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) more efficiently and in a coordinated matter. 3) Creation of the Virtual Industry 6.0 University, and approximately 10 new Industrial ICT professors and additional postdocs are needed to fill the gaps. 4) Creation of a test factory opening access of the environments broadly and serving as a testbed for Finnish winning platforms. With the network-based test factory, we can create a new pilot model in Finland combining the models of smart specialization, smart co-creation and shared RDI environments to ensure our industrial competitiveness. 5) Establishing a digital transformation accelerator for Finnish industry, aligning the accelerator to European Digital Innovation Hubs selections.</p

Unlocking value from machines: business models and the industrial internet of things

In this article we argue that the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) offers new opportunities and harbors threats that companies are not able to address with existing business models. Entrepreneurship and Transaction Cost Theories are used to explore the conditions for designing nonownership business models for the emerging IIoT with its implications for sharing uncertain opportunities and downsides, and for transforming these uncertainties into business opportunities. Nonownership contracts are introduced as the basis for business model design and are proposed as an architecture for the productive sharing of uncertainties in IIoT manufacturing networks. The following three main types of IIoT-enabled business models were identified: (1) Provision of manufacturing assets, maintenance and repair, and their operation, (2) innovative information and analytical services that help manufacturing (e.g., based on artificial intelligence, big data, and analytics), and (3) new services targeted at end-users (e.g., offering efficient customization by integrating end-users into the manufacturing and supply chain ecosystem)

Anti-fragile ICT Systems

This book introduces a novel approach to the design and operation of large ICT systems. It views the technical solutions and their stakeholders as complex adaptive systems and argues that traditional risk analyses cannot predict all future incidents with major impacts. To avoid unacceptable events, it is necessary to establish and operate anti-fragile ICT systems that limit the impact of all incidents, and which learn from small-impact incidents how to function increasingly well in changing environments. The book applies four design principles and one operational principle to achieve anti-fragility for different classes of incidents. It discusses how systems can achieve high availability, prevent malware epidemics, and detect anomalies. Analyses of Netflix’s media streaming solution, Norwegian telecom infrastructures, e-government platforms, and Numenta’s anomaly detection software show that cloud computing is essential to achieving anti-fragility for classes of events with negative impacts

The political imaginaries of blockchain projects: discerning the expressions of an emerging ecosystem

There is a wealth of information, hype around, and research into blockchain’s ‘disruptive’ and ‘transformative’ potential concerning every industry. However, there is an absence of scholarly attention given to identifying and analyzing the political premises and consequences of blockchain projects. Through digital ethnography and participatory action research, this article shows how blockchain experiments personify ‘prefigurative politics’ by design: they embody the politics and power structures which they want to enable in society. By showing how these prefigurative embodiments are informed and determined by the underlying political imaginaries, the article proposes a basic typology of blockchain projects. Furthermore, it outlines a frame to question, cluster, and analyze the expressions of political imaginaries intrinsic to the design and operationalization of blockchain projects on three analytic levels: users, intermediaries, and institutions.</p

Microservice Transition and its Granularity Problem: A Systematic Mapping Study

Microservices have gained wide recognition and acceptance in software industries as an emerging architectural style for autonomic, scalable, and more reliable computing. The transition to microservices has been highly motivated by the need for better alignment of technical design decisions with improving value potentials of architectures. Despite microservices' popularity, research still lacks disciplined understanding of transition and consensus on the principles and activities underlying "micro-ing" architectures. In this paper, we report on a systematic mapping study that consolidates various views, approaches and activities that commonly assist in the transition to microservices. The study aims to provide a better understanding of the transition; it also contributes a working definition of the transition and technical activities underlying it. We term the transition and technical activities leading to microservice architectures as microservitization. We then shed light on a fundamental problem of microservitization: microservice granularity and reasoning about its adaptation as first-class entities. This study reviews state-of-the-art and -practice related to reasoning about microservice granularity; it reviews modelling approaches, aspects considered, guidelines and processes used to reason about microservice granularity. This study identifies opportunities for future research and development related to reasoning about microservice granularity.Comment: 36 pages including references, 6 figures, and 3 table