Interactive situation modelling in knowledge intensive domains

Interactive Situation Modelling (ISM) method, a semi-methodological approach, is proposed to tackle issues associated with modelling complex knowledge intensive domains, which cannot be easily modelled using traditional approaches. This paper presents the background and implementation of ISM within a complex domain, where synthesizing knowledge from various sources is critical, and is based on the principles of ethnography within a constructivist framework. Although the motivation for the reported work comes from the application presented in the paper, the actual scope of the paper covers a wide range of issues related to modelling complex systems. The author firstly reviews approaches used for modelling knowledge intensive domains, preceded by a brief discussion about two main issues: symmetry of ignorance and system behaviour, which are often confronted when applying modelling approaches to business domains. The ISM process is then characterized and critiqued with lessons from an exemplar presented to illustrate its effectiveness

Alignment of Partnering with Construction IT: Exploration and Synthesis of network strategies to integrate BIM-enabled Supply Chains

Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Building Information Modelling (BIM) are seen as innovations that can manage complexities in construction by focusing on integrating processes and products respectively. Whereas these two innovations have been considered compatible, their practical combi-nation has been mainly anecdotal. The Netherlands was the locale of this study, where both SCM and BIM have been popular approaches. The research objective is to explore their real-world combination and propose strategies for the alignment of SCM and BIM, by viewing Supply Chain (SC) partnering as the inter-organisational proxy of SCM. The main question is: “How to align the SCM philosophy with BIM technologies to achieve integration in the construction industry? What aspects contribute to this alignment?â€. The methodology was mixed and both qualitative and quantitative data were analysed. The overarching method was case study research and the unit of analysis was the firm, also referred to as ‘actor’. After a semi-chronological review of the relevant literature, the two constructs of SCM and BIM were found interdependent in product-, process-, and actor-related (P/P/A) dimensions. The study consisted of four other consecutive studies. First, empirical insights into the practical implementation of SC partnering and BIM were obtained via the exploration of five cases. Second, a conceptual model for the quantitative analysis of the product-, process-, and actor-related dimensions was designed. Third, this model and mixed methods were applied to two polar (ex-treme) cases to analyse the contractual (typically SC-related), digital (typically BIM-related), and informal interactions among the involved actors. Fourth, an additional theoretical exploration of the BIM-enabled SC partnerships took place with focusing also on intra-organisational relations within the involved firms. After the four studies, the findings were systematically combined to cre-ate the theoretical synthesis, i.e. generate theory. Three consecutive steps of ‘construct’, ‘internal’, and ‘external’ validity took place after the synthesis, to define the transferability of findings. The systematic combination of findings deduced two routes to achieve SC integration in construction: (a) product-related (emphasis on BIM tools), and (b) actor-related (emphasis on SCM philosophy). The two observed routes to SC integration emerged from the data of the polar cases. Two com-plementary sets of strategies for SC integration were derived afterwards. These strategies could ease the identification of which route is the ‘closest fit’ to SC integration, and then support the decision-making of how to pursue it. As the concept of BIM is currently a hot topic, it might be wise to undertake a ‘product-related’ route to integration and gradually introduce strategies from the ‘actor-related’ route. However, the ‘actor-related’ route could attain long-term integration and thus, long-lasting relations among the multi-actor networks. The key aspects of the alignment of partnering with construction IT for BIM-enabled SC partnerships are: - The identification of whether the SC complexity is of process-, product- or actor-related nature;- The deployed BIM collaboration patterns, i.e. ad-hoc, linear or distributed;- The SC coordination mechanisms, e.g. centralised or decentralised;- The relation between formal and informal aspects, e.g. symmetric or asymmetric;- The emerging intra-organisational relations due to BIM and SCM implementation;- The hierarchical level that BIM-enabled SC partnership decision-making pertains. As the construction industry evolves into an information-driven sector, the alignment of construc-tion IT with inter-organisational management is preeminent for managing the inherent com-plexities of the industry. In parallel, embracing inter-organisational approaches for information management such as BIM is a promisingway forward for SCM and construction management

Alignment of Partnering with Construction IT

Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Building Information Modelling (BIM) are seen as innovations that can manage complexities in construction by focusing on integrating processes and products respectively. Whereas these two innovations have been considered compatible, their practical combination has been mainly anecdotal. The Netherlands was the locale of this study, where both SCM and BIM have been popular approaches. The research objective is to explore their real-world combination and propose strategies for the alignment of SCM and BIM, by viewing Supply Chain (SC) partnering as the inter-organisational proxy of SCM. The main question is: “How to align the SCM philosophy with BIM technologies to achieve integration in the construction industry? What aspects contribute to this alignment?”. The methodology was mixed and both qualitative and quantitative data were analysed. The overarching method was case study research and the unit of analysis was the firm, also referred to as ‘actor’.After a semi-chronological review of the relevant literature, the two constructs of SCM and BIM were found interdependent in product-, process-, and actor-related (P/P/A) dimensions. The study consisted of four other consecutive studies. First, empirical insights into the practical implementation of SC partnering and BIM were obtained via the exploration of five cases. Second, a conceptual model for the quantitative analysis of the product-, process-, and actor-related dimensions was designed. Third, this model and mixed methods were applied to two polar (extreme) cases to analyse the contractual (typically SC-related), digital (typically BIM-related), and informal interactions among the involved actors. Fourth, an additional theoretical exploration of the BIM-enabled SC partnerships took place with focusing also on intra-organisational relations within the involved firms. After the four studies, the findings were systematically combined to create the theoretical synthesis, i.e. generate theory. Three consecutive steps of ‘construct’, ‘internal’, and ‘external’ validity took place after the synthesis, to define the transferability of findings. The systematic combination of findings deduced two routes to achieve SC integration in construction: (a) product-related (emphasis on BIM tools), and (b) actor-related (emphasis on SCM philosophy).The two observed routes to SC integration emerged from the data of the polar cases. Two complementary sets of strategies for SC integration were derived afterwards. These strategies could ease the identification of which route is the ‘closest fit’ to SC integration, and then support the decision-making of how to pursue it. As the concept of BIM is currently a hot topic, it might be wise to undertake a ‘product-related’ route to integration and gradually introduce strategies from the ‘actor-related’ route. However, the ‘actor-related’ route could attain long-term integration and thus, long-lasting relations among the multi-actor networks. The key aspects of the alignment of partnering with construction IT for BIM-enabled SC partnerships are: - The identification of whether the SC complexity is of process-, product- or actor-related nature; - The deployed BIM collaboration patterns, i.e. ad-hoc, linear or distributed; - The SC coordination mechanisms, e.g. centralised or decentralised; - The relation between formal and informal aspects, e.g. symmetric or asymmetric; - The emerging intra-organisational relations due to BIM and SCM implementation; - The hierarchical level that BIM-enabled SC partnership decision-making pertains. As the construction industry evolves into an information-driven sector, the alignment of construction IT with inter-organisational management is preeminent for managing the inherent complexities of the industry. In parallel, embracing inter-organisational approaches for information management such as BIM is a promisingway forward for SCM and construction management

Interactive situation modelling in knowledge intensive domains

Interactive Situation Modelling (ISM) method, a semi-methodological approach, is proposed to tackle issues associated with modelling complex knowledge intensive domains, which cannot be easily modelled using traditional approaches. This paper presents the background and implementation of ISM within a complex domain, where synthesizing knowledge from various sources is critical, and is based on the principles of ethnography within a constructivist framework. Although the motivation for the reported work comes from the application presented in the paper, the actual scope of the paper covers a wide range of issues related to modelling complex systems. The author firstly reviews approaches used for modelling knowledge intensive domains, preceded by a brief discussion about two main issues: symmetry of ignorance and system behaviour, which are often confronted when applying modelling approaches to business domains. The ISM process is then characterized and critiqued with lessons from an exemplar presented to illustrate its effectiveness.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF A HOSPITAL SECURE MESSAGING AND COMMUNICATION PLATFORM: A CONCEPTUALIZATION

Pagers and phone conversations have been the stalwarts of hospital communication. With good reason, they are simple, reliable and relatively inexpensive. However, with the increasing complexity of patient care, the need for greater speed and the general inexorable progress of health technology, hospital communication systems appear to be increasingly inefficient, non-secure, and inadequate. It is unsurprising then, that methods other than pagers and phone-calls, are often utilized; be it residents communicating with other residents, nurses seeking consultant feedback, or patients seeking advice from their clinicians. Thus, this study seeks to develop a conceptual framework for the theoretical underpinning for a larger study and to answer the key research question: How can ICT (information communication technology) solutions ameliorate the current challenges regarding communication inefficiencies within healthcare? To answer this question, this study has served to develop a theoretical research framework by integrating two socio-technical theories namely Actor-network theory and Activity Theory to investigate the possibility of designing a bespoke ICT solution for a specific context at one of the largest private hospital in Australia

Process Based Management and the Central Role of Dialogical Collective Activity in Organizational Learning. The Case of Work Safety in the Building Industry

The notion of “process”, which describes the cooperation of heterogeneous practices and competences for a given output, has gained a major position in managerial practices for the last twenty years. This paper presents three ideas about organizational dynamics and processes and tests their applicability in the case of work safety improvement in a building company. The first idea is that the success of the process notion shows the central role of “conjoint” (as opposed to “common”) collective activity in organizational learning. Conjoint collective activity is dialogical (“acts speak”) and mediated by the utilization of semiotic systems (languages and technical and managerial tools). The second idea is that organizational learning is neither based on the actors’ individual subjectivity nor on the technological and objective artefacts engaged in the processes, but rather on the reflexive understanding and ongoing redesign of processes by the process actors themselves, in the frame of a reflexive inquiry, a “collective activity about collective activity” which is triggered and kept in motion by axiological judgments (process evaluation). The third idea is that the possibilities to configure processes in a given organization are multiple. The reflexive inquiry enacts a specific social, spatial and time configuration of the process, its “chronotope” in Bakhtin’s vocabulary, which plays a major role in the way actors can make sense of their collective activity and transform it. A longitudinal case study about work safety on the building yards shows that it is difficult to “control out” risk at work once designs have been established, in the frame of the “project execution” process, but it is easier to “design out” risk, when the actors of the process collectively design and redesign their collective activity, from the very first phases of a building project to the end. Therefore a major way to improve safety consists in extending the chronotope of the collective activity under consideration, overcoming the traditional separation between “design / planning” and “execution”. The conclusion summarizes the main theoretical, epistemological and practical issues involved in this research about conjoint collective activity.Business Process; Chronotope; Collective Activity; Collective Sense Making; Dialogism; Inquiry; Process-based Management; Safety Management

Roles '07 – Proceedings of the 2nd Workshop on Roles and Relationships in Object Oriented Programming, Multiagent Systems, and Ontologies : workshop co-located with ECOOP 2007 Berlin, July 30 and 31, 2007

Roles are a truly ubiquitous notion: like classes, objects, and relationships, they pervade the vocabulary of all disciplines that deal with the nature of things and how these things relate to each other. In fact, it seems that roles are so fundamental a notion that they must be granted the status of an ontological primitive. The definition of roles depends on the definition of relationships. With the advent of Object Technology, however, relationships have moved out of the focus of attention, giving way to the more restricted concept of attributes or, more technically, references to other ob- jects. A reference is tied to the object holding it and as such is asymmetric – at most the target of the reference can be associated with a role. This is counter to the intuition that every role should have at least one counter-role, namely the one it interacts with. It seems that the natural role of roles in object-oriented designs can only be restored by installing relationships (collaborations, teams, etc.) as first-class programming concepts. By contrast, the relational nature of roles is already acknowl- edged in the area of Multiagent Systems, since roles are related to the interaction among agents and to communication protocols. However, in this area there is no convergence on a single definition of roles yet, and different points of view, such as agent software en- gineering, specification languages, agent communication, or agent programming languages, make different use of roles. Like its pre- decessor “Roles, an interdisciplinary perspective” (Roles’05) held at the AAAI 2005 Fall Symposium (see the website of the Symposium http://www.aaai.org/Press/Reports/Symposia/Fall/fs-05-08.php), this workshop aimed at gathering researchers from different dis- ciplines to foster interchange of knowledge and ideas concerning roles and relationships, and in particular to converge on ontolog- ically founded proposals which can be applied to programming and agent languages