Proceedings of the Conference on Software & Systems Engineering Essentials 2008 (SEE 2008)

In 2008, the conference "Software & Systems Engineering Essentials" was organized by 4Soft, a software and consulting company from Munich, and the Clausthal University of Technology. These proceedings provide an overview of the conference's purpose and summarize its content

Design of location-enabled e-government services

This document provides guidance on the design of location enabled e-Government services. It is part of the European Union Location Framework (EULF) toolkit that helps Member States to improve the use of location information in the context of e-Government. The document explains what location enabled e-Government services are, and how they can support the many G2G, G2B and G2C process interactions. Examples are given for the different types of e-Government services: information, contact, transaction, participation and data transfer services (Bekkers, 2007a). The document also provides an approach to describe and document e-Government business processes as a starting point for identifying where location enabled e-Government services could add value to the process by using process modelling techniques and standards. Finally, the document explains in detail the organisational and technological aspects related to the design, implementation and evaluation of location enabled e-Government services. A series of recommendations are provided in the form of ‘to-do’s’ and ‘not-to-do’s’. Examples are given throughout the text to illustrate best practices. This document should be read in conjunction with the companion guidance document “EULF Improving the use of location information in e-government processes: methodology and use case”, which provides a methodology and worked example of improving an existing process.JRC.B.6-Digital Econom

Smart Service Innovation: Organization, Design, and Assessment

Background: The emergence of technologies such as the Internet of Things, big data, cloud computing, and wireless communication drives the digital transformation of the entire society. Organizations can exploit these potentials by offering new data-driven services with innovative value propositions, such as carsharing, remote equipment maintenance, and energy management services. These services result from value co-creation enabled by smart service systems, which are configurations of people, processes, and digital technologies. However, developing such systems was found to be challenging in practice. This is mainly due to the difficulties of managing complexity and uncertainty in the innovation process, as contributions of various actors from multiple disciplines must be coordinated. Previous research in service innovation and service systems engineering (SSE) has not shed sufficient light on the specifics of smart services, while research on smart service systems lacks empirical grounding. Purpose: This thesis aims to advance the understanding of the systematic development of smart services in multi-actor settings by investigating how smart service innovation (SSI) is conducted in practice, particularly regarding the participating actors, roles they assume, and methods they apply for designing smart service systems. Furthermore, the existing set of methods is extended by new methods for the design-integrated assessment of smart services and service business models. Approach: Empirical and design science methods were combined to address the research questions. To explore how SSI is conducted in practice, 25 interviews with experts from 13 organizations were conducted in two rounds. Building on service-dominant logic (SDL) as a theoretical foundation and a multi-level framework for SSI, the involvement of actors, their activities, employed means, and experienced challenges were collected. Additionally, a case study was used to evaluate the suitability of the Lifecycle Modelling Language to describe smart service systems. Design science methods were applied to determine a useful combination of service design methods and to build meta-models and tools for assessing smart services. They were evaluated using experiments and the talk aloud method. Results: On the macro-level, service ecosystems consist of various actors that conduct service innovation through the reconfiguration of resources. Collaboration of these actors is facilitated on the meso-level within a project. The structure and dynamics of project configurations can be described through a set of roles, innovation patterns, and ecosystem states. Four main activities have been identified, which actors perform to reduce uncertainty in the project. To guide their work, actors apply a variety of means from different disciplines to develop and document work products. The approach of design-integrated business model assessment is enabled through a meta-model that links qualitative aspects of service architectures and business models with quantitative assessment information. The evaluation of two tool prototypes showed the feasibility and benefit of this approach. Originality / Value: The results reported in this thesis advance the understanding of smart service innovation. They contribute to evidence-based knowledge on service systems engineering and its embedding in service ecosystems. Specifically, the consideration of actors, roles, activities, and methods can enhance existing reference process models. Furthermore, the support of activities in such processes through suitable methods can stimulate discussions on how methods from different disciplines can be applied and combined for developing the various aspects of smart service systems. The underlying results help practitioners to better organize and conduct SSI projects. As potential roles in a service ecosystem depend on organizational capabilities, the presented results can support the analysis of ex¬ternal dependencies and develop strategies for building up internal competencies.:Abstract iii Content Overview iv List of Abbreviations viii List of Tables x List of Figures xii PART A - SYNOPSIS 1 1 Introduction 2 1.1 Motivation 2 1.2 Research Objectives and Research Questions 4 1.3 Thesis Structure 6 2 Research Background 7 2.1 Smart Service Systems 7 2.2 Service-Dominant Logic 8 2.3 Service Innovation in Ecosystems 11 2.4 Systematic Development of Smart Service Systems 13 3 Research Approach 21 3.1 Research Strategy 21 3.2 Applied Research Methods 22 4 Summary of Findings 26 4.1 Overview of Research Results 26 4.2 Organizational Setup of Multi-Actor Smart Service Innovation 27 4.3 Conducting Smart Service Innovation Projects 32 4.4 Approaches for the Design-integrated Assessment of Smart Services 39 5 Discussion 44 5.1 Contributions 44 5.2 Limitations 46 5.3 Managerial Implications 47 5.4 Directions for Future Research 48 6 Conclusion 54 References 55 PART B - PUBLICATIONS 68 7 It Takes More than Two to Tango: Identifying Roles and Patterns in Multi-Actor Smart Service Innovation 69 7.1 Introduction 69 7.2 Research Background 72 7.3 Methodology 76 7.4 Results 79 7.5 Discussion 90 7.6 Conclusions and Outlook 96 7.7 References 97 8 Iterative Uncertainty Reduction in Multi-Actor Smart Service Innovation 100 8.1 Introduction 100 8.2 Research Background 103 8.3 Research Approach 109 8.4 Findings 113 8.5 Discussion 127 8.6 Conclusions and Outlook 131 8.7 References 133 9 How to Tame the Tiger – Exploring the Means, Ends, and Challenges in Smart Service Systems Engineering 139 9.1 Introduction 139 9.2 Research Background 140 9.3 Methodology 143 9.4 Results 145 9.5 Discussion and Conclusions 151 9.6 References 153 10 Combining Methods for the Design of Digital Services in Practice: Experiences from a Predictive Costing Service 156 10.1 Introduction 156 10.2 Conceptual Foundation 157 10.3 Preparing the Action Design Research Project 158 10.4 Application and Evaluation of Methods 160 10.5 Discussion and Formalization of Learning 167 10.6 Conclusion 169 10.7 References 170 11 Modelling of a Smart Service for Consumables Replenishment: A Life Cycle Perspective 171 11.1 Introduction 171 11.2 Life Cycles of Smart Services 173 11.3 Case Study 178 11.4 Discussion of the Modelling Approach 185 11.5 Conclusion and Outlook 187 11.6 References 188 12 Design-integrated Financial Assessment of Smart Services 192 12.1 Introduction 192 12.2 Problem Analysis 195 12.3 Meta-Model Design 200 12.4 Application of the Meta-Model in a Tool Prototype 204 12.5 Evaluation 206 12.6 Discussion 208 12.7 Conclusions 209 12.8 References 211 13 Towards a Cost-Benefit-Analysis of Data-Driven Business Models 215 13.1 Introduction 215 13.2 Conceptual Foundation 216 13.3 Methodology 218 13.4 Case Analysis 220 13.5 A Cost-Benefit-Analysis Model for DDBM 222 13.6 Conclusion and Outlook 225 13.7 References 226 14 Enabling Design-integrated Assessment of Service Business Models Through Factor Refinement 228 14.1 Introduction 228 14.2 Related Work 229 14.3 Research Goal and Method 230 14.4 Solution Design 231 14.5 Demonstration 234 14.6 Discussion 235 14.7 Conclusion 236 14.8 References 23

Towards an agile methodology for industrial problem solving

In order to survive to the unstable and highly changing market-place, modern organisations need to adapt their business processes to be more agile. Such is, particularly, the case of problem solving processes. Problem solving is a key activity that companies perform on a daily basis to improve quality and to obtain sustainable and continuous improvement. Such processes are built following standard rigid frameworks as Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA), Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve, Control (DMAIC), or 8 Disciplines (8D)/ 9 Steps (9S). In these methods, the generalization and reuse of knowledge is facilitated by standardization. However, it is sometimes difficult to react to unexpected events due to over-constrained standards. Then, a need arises to define a problem solving process sufficiently structured but not over constrained by standards, which can be reconfigured and adapted to unexpected situations, and that is based on experience feedback principles. This thesis work describes a proposition of an agile problem solving process driven by the reuse of experiences and knowledge. For this purpose, based on Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) principles, the complete lifecycle of an agile problem solving process is proposed. Following the five steps that compose the agile lifecycle, the agile process can be defined, executed and stored in a dedicated knowledge and experience base. An application of the model to a specific problem solving process of a surface treatment company is presented. The process is analysed, deploying the complete agile lifecycle. It is shown how the standard problem solving method used within the company could become more agile through the application of our method

Requirements reuse and requirement patterns: a state of the practice survey

Context. Requirements engineering is a discipline with numerous challenges to overcome. One of these challenges is the implementation of requirements reuse approaches. Although several theoretical proposals exist, little is known about the practices that are currently adopted in industry. Objective. Our goal is to contribute to the investigation of the state of the practice in the reuse of requirements, eliciting current practices from practitioners, and their opinions whenever appropriate. Besides reuse in general, we focus on requirement patterns as a particular strategy to reuse. Method. We conducted an exploratory survey based on an online questionnaire. We received 71 responses from requirements engineers with industrial experience in the field, which were analyzed in order to derive observations. Results. Although we found that a high majority of respondents declared some level of reuse in their projects (in particular, non-functional requirements were identified as the most similar and recurrent among projects), it is true that only a minority of them declared such reuse as a regular practice. Larger IT organizations and IT organizations with well-established software processes and methods present higher levels of reuse. Ignorance of reuse techniques and processes is the main reason preventing wider adoption. From the different existing reuse techniques, the simplest ones based on textual copy and subsequent tailoring of former requirements are the most adopted techniques. However, participants who apply reuse more often tend to use more elaborate techniques. Opinions of respondents about the use of requirement patterns show that they can be expected to mitigate problems related to the quality of the resulting requirements, such as lack of uniformity, inconsistency, or ambiguity. The main reasons behind the lack of adoption of requirement patterns by practitioners (in spite of the increasing research approaches proposed in the community) are related to the lack of a well-defined reuse method and involvement of requirement engineers.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Méthode agile pour la conception collaborative multidisciplinaire de systèmes intégrés : application à la mécatronique

This work focuses on the multidisciplinary and collaborative design of integrated systems. These systems are subject to an ever increasing number of requirements, leading to the need for more comprehensive functional and spatial integration. These different types of product integration are also at the origin of organizational complexity. This complexity arises not only from the great number of actors performing various engineering activities but also from the diversity of disciplines involved (designated in this manuscript as “multidisciplinary integration”). To encourage this multidisciplinary integration, “preliminary design” and “detailed design” have been identified as the most significant steps, especially since they are characterized by the collaboration of multiple experts handling a large number of product definition’ technical data. Systems that have been designed thanks to multidisciplinary approaches are generally poorly integrated. This is partially due to the compartmentalization of disciplines, as well as to the “project-planned” method, where project planning is predominant and information is mainly spread out “top-down”. To ensure better cooperation between the various disciplines, to enable decision making based on operational indicators and to analyze and understand the multidisciplinary integration processes, a method inspired by the founding principles of agile methods (the agile manifesto) is proposed for the collaborative design of integrated systems. This work is based on three complementary concepts. The first is, the Collaborative Actions Framework, an operational framework for collaboration around actions. One objective of this framework is to improve the collaboration among designers, whatever their disciplinary origin. It also ensures traceability between decision making and corrections/changes made to technical data. This traceability is made possible by the useof the second concept, called Workspace. Even if this term is already well known, we propose a new definition/usage to transform it into collaboration spaces. This concept offers great possibilities, including the continuous delivering/sharing of experts’ contributions, multidisciplinary integration and change validation. The exchange of technical data between workspaces, or simultaneous work on the same data, relies on the ability to manage several parallel versions of the same item into a single datamanagement system. These opportunities are offered by the third concept, called Branch & Merge. Finally, these three concepts are illustrated through a scenario and a computer prototype. A mechatronic product, “the synergistic combination of mechanical and electrical engineering, computer science, and information technology” (Harashima et al., 1996), is used to illustrate the opportunities offered by our work in terms of multidisciplinary integration during collaborative design.Ces travaux portent sur la conception multidisciplinaire de systèmes intégrés. Ces systèmes sont soumis à un nombre d’exigences toujours croissant, entraînant des besoins en termes d’intégration fonctionnelle et spatiale. Ces différents types d’intégration relative au produit sont également la source d’une complexité organisationnelle, provenant à la fois de la multitude d’acteurs réalisant différentes activités d’ingénierie, mais également de la diversité des domaines impliqués, désignée dans ce manuscrit par « intégration multidisciplinaire ». Pour favoriser cette intégration multidisciplinaire, les phases de « conception préliminaire » et de « conception détaillée » ont été identifiées comme déterminantes, notamment car elles se caractérisent par la collaboration de nombreux experts, manipulant un grand nombre de données techniques de définition. Les systèmes conçus lors de conceptions multidisciplinaires restent faiblement intégrés. Cela est en partie dû au cloisonnement entre les disciplines et à un mode d’organisation projet basé sur une planification prédominante, caractérisé notamment par une diffusion de l’information principalement descendante (top-down). Afin d’assurer une meilleure collaboration entre ces différentes disciplines, de permettre des prises de décision éclairées par des indicateurs opérationnels et de pouvoir analyser et mieux comprendre les phénomènes d’intégration des expertises, l’introduction d’une méthode inspirée des principes fondateurs des méthodes agiles est proposée pour la conception collaborative de systèmes intégrés.La contribution de ces travaux s’appuie sur trois concepts complémentaires. Le premier, intitulé Collaborative Actions Framework correspond à un cadre de collaboration opérationnelle autour d’actions. Un des objectifs de ce framework est de faciliter la collaboration des acteurs des projets de conception, quelle que soit leur origine disciplinaire, mais également d’assurer une traçabilité entre les prises de décision et les corrections/modifications apportées sur les données techniques. Cette traçabilité est rendue possible grâce aux liens existants avec le second concept intitulé Workspace. Apportant un nouvel éclairage sur les possibilités offertes par la collaboration autour de ces espaces de collaboration, ce concept offre un certain nombre de possibilités,notamment la mise en commun continue des travaux, l’intégration multidisciplinaire et la validation des modifications. Les échanges de données techniques entre les workspaces, ou le travail simultané sur les mêmes données techniques, s’appuient quant à eux sur la possibilité de pouvoir gérer de façon parallèle différentes versions d’une même donnée technique. Ces possibilités sont proposées par le troisième concept, intitulé branch & merge, qui permet également à différents acteurs de travailler simultanément sur les mêmes données. Enfin, ces trois concepts sont ensuite illustrés par l’intermédiaire d’un démonstrateur composé d’un scénario et d’un prototype informatique. Un produit mécatronique, combinaison synergique et systémique de la mécanique, de l'électronique et de l'informatique temps réel, est utilisé afin d’illustrer les possibilités offertes par nos travaux en termes d'intégration multidisciplinaire lors de la conception collaborative

Security Assurance Cases -- State of the Art of an Emerging Approach

Security Assurance Cases (SAC) are a form of structured argumentation used to reason about the security properties of a system. After the successful adoption of assurance cases for safety, SACs are getting significant traction in recent years, especially in safety-critical industries (e.g., automotive), where there is an increasing pressure to be compliant with several security standards and regulations. Accordingly, research in the field of SAC has flourished in the past decade, with different approaches being investigated. In an effort to systematize this active field of research, we conducted a systematic literature review (SLR) of the existing academic studies on SAC. Our review resulted in an in-depth analysis and comparison of 51 papers. Our results indicate that, while there are numerous papers discussing the importance of security assurance cases and their usage scenarios, the literature is still immature with respect to concrete support for practitioners on how to build and maintain a SAC. More importantly, even though some methodologies are available, their validation and tool support is still lacking

Prijedlog ontološki utemeljenog metodološkog okvira za razvoj više-platformskih mobilnih aplikacija

Software development teams are faced with the lack of interoperability during the development of mobile applications for two or more target platforms. The development for second and every other platform means a new project with a need to repeat almost all the phases defined by the chosen methodology but with a narrow possibility of reuse of the already defined artifacts. The existing efforts of professional and scientific community to solve this problem have a similar approach (code once, run everywhere) with similar advantages and drawbacks. Thus, this dissertation aims to propose a different solution and is concerned with: (1) analyzing the methodologies suitable for mobile applications development, (2) observing the implementation of prototype application in order to define artifacts that are created during the development process for two target platforms, (3) semantic description of artifacts and their meaning, and (4) defining unique ontological definition as a base for methodological interoperability. The results of a systematic literature review performed on 6761 primary studies, show that current state-of-the-art literature brings only 22 development methodologies and 7 development approaches which can be identified as eligible for multi-platform mobile applications development. Among these, Mobile-D methodology accompanied with Test Driven Development was chosen and used in the observed development processes for Android and Windows Phone platforms. Total of 71 artifacts were identified and the artifacts reusability level when developing for second target platform was 66.00%. In the last research phase, the artifacts for both platforms were semantically described into a single ontological description comprising 213 classes, 14 object properties and 2213 axioms defined in ALCRIF DL expression sub-language. Having this ontology proved as correct and valid, flexible, reusable and extensible we created the basis for development of an information system to guide the development teams in a more efficient and interoperable process of multiplatform mobile applications development.Razvojni timovi susreću se s problemom neinteroperabilnosti prilikom razvoja aplikacija za dvije ili više mobilnih platformi. Razvoj aplikacije za drugu i svaku sljedeću platformu znači novi projekt u kojem je potrebno ponovno provesti većinu faza definiranih odabranom metodikom razvoja, pri čemu se kreirani artefakti teško ili uopće ponovno ne koriste. Napori profesionalne i znanstvene zajednice za rješenjem ovog problema imaju sličan pristup (kodiraj jednom, koristi svugdje), slične prednosti, ali i zajedničke nedostatke. Stoga ova disertacija navedenom problemu pristupa na nov način i bavi se: (1) analiziranjem metodika pogodnih za razvoj mobilnih aplikacija, (2) promatranjem razvoja prototipne aplikacije u svrhu definiranja artefakata koji nastaju pri razvoju mobilne aplikacije za dvije ciljane platforme, (3) semantičkim opisivanjem definiranih artefakata i njihovih značenja, te (4) definiranjem jedinstvene ontološke definicije kao osnove za metodološku interoperabilnost. Rezultati sustavnog pregleda literature provedenog nad 6761 radom pokazali su da se trenutno u literaturi spominju 22 metodike i 7 pristupa koji su pogodni za razvoj više-platformskih mobilnih aplikacija. Između identificiranih metodika odabrani su Mobile-D metodika i pristup razvoju vođen testiranjem, koji su korišteni pri implementaciji prototipnog rješenja za Android i Windows Phone platformu. Ukupno je identificiran 71 artefakt pri čemu je ponovna iskoristivost artefakata pri razvoju za drugu platformu bila 66.00%. U posljednjoj su fazi istraživanja artefakti semantički opisani u zajedničku ontološku definiciju koja u konačnici sadrži 213 klasa, 14 objektnih svojstava i 2213 aksioma definiranih pomodu ALCRIF-DL jezika izraza. U radu je dokazano da je ontologija valjana, fleksibilna, ponovno iskoristiva i nadogradiva, čime je kreirana osnova za razvoj informacijskog sustava koji bi vodio razvojne timove u efikasnijem i bolje interoperabilnom procesu razvoja više-platformskih mobilnih aplikacija

Methodological approaches and techniques for designing ontologies in information systems requirements engineering

Programa doutoral em Information Systems and TechnologyThe way we interact with the world around us is changing as new challenges arise, embracing innovative business models, rethinking the organization and processes to maximize results, and evolving change management. Currently, and considering the projects executed, the methodologies used do not fully respond to the companies' needs. On the one hand, organizations are not familiar with the languages used in Information Systems, and on the other hand, they are often unable to validate requirements or business models. These are some of the difficulties encountered that lead us to think about formulating a new approach. Thus, the state of the art presented in this paper includes a study of the models involved in the software development process, where traditional methods and the rivalry of agile methods are present. In addition, a survey is made about Ontologies and what methods exist to conceive, transform, and represent them. Thus, after analyzing some of the various possibilities currently available, we began the process of evolving a method and developing an approach that would allow us to design ontologies. The method we evolved and adapted will allow us to derive terminologies from a specific domain, aggregating them in order to facilitate the construction of a catalog of terminologies. Next, the definition of an approach to designing ontologies will allow the construction of a domain-specific ontology. This approach allows in the first instance to integrate and store the data from different information systems of a given organization. In a second instance, the rules for mapping and building the ontology database are defined. Finally, a technological architecture is also proposed that will allow the mapping of an ontology through the construction of complex networks, allowing mapping and relating terminologies. This doctoral work encompasses numerous Research & Development (R&D) projects belonging to different domains such as Software Industry, Textile Industry, Robotic Industry and Smart Cities. Finally, a critical and descriptive analysis of the work done is performed, and we also point out perspectives for possible future work.A forma como interagimos com o mundo à nossa volta está a mudar à medida que novos desafios surgem, abraçando modelos empresariais inovadores, repensando a organização e os processos para maximizar os resultados, e evoluindo a gestão da mudança. Atualmente, e considerando os projetos executados, as metodologias utilizadas não respondem na totalidade às necessidades das empresas. Por um lado, as organizações não estão familiarizadas com as linguagens utilizadas nos Sistemas de Informação, por outro lado, são muitas vezes incapazes de validar requisitos ou modelos de negócio. Estas são algumas das dificuldades encontradas que nos levam a pensar na formulação de uma nova abordagem. Assim, o estado da arte apresentado neste documento inclui um estudo dos modelos envolvidos no processo de desenvolvimento de software, onde os métodos tradicionais e a rivalidade de métodos ágeis estão presentes. Além disso, é efetuado um levantamento sobre Ontologias e quais os métodos existentes para as conceber, transformar e representar. Assim, e após analisarmos algumas das várias possibilidades atualmente disponíveis, iniciou-se o processo de evolução de um método e desenvolvimento de uma abordagem que nos permitisse conceber ontologias. O método que evoluímos e adaptamos permitirá derivar terminologias de um domínio específico, agregando-as de forma a facilitar a construção de um catálogo de terminologias. Em seguida, a definição de uma abordagem para conceber ontologias permitirá a construção de uma ontologia de um domínio específico. Esta abordagem permite em primeira instância, integrar e armazenar os dados de diferentes sistemas de informação de uma determinada organização. Num segundo momento, são definidas as regras para o mapeamento e construção da base de dados ontológica. Finalmente, é também proposta uma arquitetura tecnológica que permitirá efetuar o mapeamento de uma ontologia através da construção de redes complexas, permitindo mapear e relacionar terminologias. Este trabalho de doutoramento engloba inúmeros projetos de Investigação & Desenvolvimento (I&D) pertencentes a diferentes domínios como por exemplo Indústria de Software, Indústria Têxtil, Indústria Robótica e Smart Cities. Finalmente, é realizada uma análise critica e descritiva do trabalho realizado, sendo que apontamos ainda perspetivas de possíveis trabalhos futuros