Leverage the COBIT 2019 Design Toolkit in an SME Context: A Multiple Case Study

Organizations today exploit IT to achieve business value and competitive advantages; it is the disruptive effect of digital transformation. However, investing in IT without proper control and governance over enterprise IT (GEIT) can expose organizations to cyber-risks and IT project failures. This problem affects both multinationals and small organizations. In particular, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) struggle to implement IT-governance also due to the complexity of the standard IT-governance frameworks. In this study, five case studies were conducted with five manufacturing companies in Italy whose headquarters are located in the Lombardy region to investigate the potential benefits for IT practitioners of using the COBIT 2019 Design Toolkit, an Excel spreadsheet that facilitates the development of a governance system. The results are encouraging, the IT practitioners appreciated the COBIT 2019 Design Toolkit to map the IT resources and issues, prioritize the most important governance and management objectives, and align business and IT strategy. However, some criticalities emerged, for instance, the limited prescriptive power of the tool and the language, which is sometimes difficult to understand for IT practitioners. It should also be noted that current IT-governance implementation in Italian manufacturing SMEs appears to be very limited. Further, it should be highlighted that this study was using COBIT 2019 before ISACA issued “COBIT for Small and Medium Enterprises Using COBIT 2019” which could already have a positive impact on the level of comprehension. Keywords: COBIT 2019, IT-governance, IT-governance frameworks, multiple case stud

Internet-of-Things as an enabling factor for user-centered service engineering

Questa tesi tratta i sistemi Internet-of-Things (IoT) in cui gli utenti sono entità del sistema stesso: le persone interagiscono con i dispositivi IoT per perseguire un obiettivo e in tale contesto i principi di User-Centered Design si applicano nella progettazione di prodotti e servizi che incorporano sistemi IoT. I sistemi IoT di questo tipo si dicono sistemi User-Centered IoT e il loro contesto è indicato come UCIoT. Linee guida efficaci per la progettazione e l'adozione dei sistemi UCIoT sono poco trattate in letteratura. Per definire una possibile logica di adozione dei sistemi UCIoT è stata applicata la Design Science Research Methodology: un’ontologia sulla UCIoT è presentata come concettualizzazione delle linee guida per la progettazione e l'adozione di sistemi UCIoT. L’applicabilità nel dominio considerato è dimostrata attraverso l'analisi di due istanze: studi di caso di sistemi UCIoT progettati, sviluppati e rilasciati al pubblico nel corso delle attività di ricerca.This thesis investigates Internet-of-Things (IoT) systems where users are entities of the system itself: people interact with IoT devices to pursue a specific goal and User-Centered Design principles can be applied in the design of products and services that embeds IoT systems. IoT systems of this kind are User-Centered IoT systems and their context is referred as UCIoT. While an extensive literature about IoT is available, effective guidelines and design patterns for the adoption of UCIoT systems are scarce. Design Science Research Methodology was applied to define a possible framework for the adoption of UCIoT system. An UCIoT ontology artifact is described and presented as a conceptualization that provides the required guidance in the design and adoption of UCIoT systems. Its applicability in the domain is demonstrated through the analysis of two instantiations that are case studies of UCIoT systems designed, developed and released to the public during the course of the research.Gestione integrata d'aziend

Service Science Education for Industry Employability in Management Engineering: An Integrated Pathway from Bachelor to Master Level

The School of Industrial Engineering at LIUC Università Cattaneo offers Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Management Engineering, carefully designed to nurture engineers with managerial skills. The curriculum combines fundamental areas like mathematics and physics with advanced topics, including innovation management, organizational design, marketing, and operations management. The program stresses five main areas: analysis, design, implementation, validation, and management, preparing students to apply engineering methodologies to complex processes in various contexts. A unique Business Services specialization focuses on equipping management engineers for the service sector and steering digital transformation in businesses. The undergraduate program includes modules such as Digital Enterprise Management and IoT Systems Design, while the graduate program incorporates Management Information Systems and offers optional courses. The school partners with Microsoft Italia, promoting educational innovation in digital business management using tools like MS Power BI and Azure cloud services. Offering a range of internships and international experiences, the School of Industrial Engineering at LIUC successfully secures an employment rate of 89.1% for graduates within three months post-graduation

How additive manufacturing adoption would influence a company strategy and business model

Advanced manufacturing technologies such as Additive Manufacturing (AM) are rapidly revolutionizing business processes within European and, in particular, Italian SMEs. A clear example is represented by the success of 3D printers that are achieving a huge impact on the market from both the companies and the customers’ point of view. This paper aims at investigating how manufacturing and logistic pro-cesses have changed drastically in the last years according to the in-troduction of the above-mentioned advanced manufacturing technologies. Recent academic literature is focusing on the integration of any ad-vanced technology with other infrastructures and technologies already implemented in a company. By considering 3D printing adoption, both in the product design and in the production management processes, it turns out to be necessary a proper integration with other technologies such as the software used to design a product (CAD) and the manufac-turing control cameras adopted to control the production process. At the same time, a proper strategic alignment has to be assured be-tween the implementation of advanced manufacturing technologies and the company innovation strategy. Consistency and coherence among all the strategic decisions must be guaranteed in order to create and in-crease the company business value. Furthermore, the acquisition of new assets, either tangible (e.g. 3D printers) or intangible (e.g. know how), has to be properly integrated with other tangible and intangible resources in order to combine them in the best way, so that the goal of gaining a sustainable competitive advantage would be reached

A sustainable ambient intelligence enabled management model for the valorization and revitalization of cultural heritage

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) pervasiveness is changing the visitors’ expectation in the fruition of cultural heritage assets (e.g. artefacts, buildings, monuments). While owners of such assets have to face new challenges in the protection, conservation, management and active promotion of places they are responsible for, pervasive ICT systems (e.g. mobile devices and the Internet-of-Things) show significant opportunities as facilitators of innovative ways to engage visitors and measure their experience during the visit. New ICT based tools enable new data-driven business models that effectively aid the sustainable revitalization and valorization of Cultural Heritage. This paper aims at investigating how cultural heritage owners could digitalize the visiting process, measure the engagement of visitors with digital tools and turn data collected during the visits into value for their business model. In particular, results achieved by the AMAmI (Ancient and Modern, Ambient Intelligence) Project will be presented: a multi-site real world experimentation of the adoption of digital tools (proximity technologies, mobile, sensors, user-location-based content delivery platforms and big data analytics systems) to deliver an Ambient Intelligence enabled user experience and thus strengthen the management policies of cultural heritage assets. Two case studies with different management model and physical environment will be discussed and compared: MAGA Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art sited in Gallarate and Masnago Castle Museum of Modern Art sited in Varese.20-22 June 201

A sustainable ambient intelligence enabled management model for the valorization and revitalization of cultural heritage

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) pervasiveness is changing the visitors’ expectation in the fruition of cultural heritage assets(e.g. artefacts, buildings, monuments). While owners of such assets have to face new challenges in the protection, conservation, management and active promotion of places they are responsible for, pervasive ICT systems (e.g. mobile devices and the Internet-of-Things) show significant opportunities as facilitators of innovative ways to engage visitors and measure their experience during the visit. New ICT based tools enable new data-driven business models that effectively aid the sustainable revitalization and valorization of Cultural Heritage. This paper aims at investigating how cultural heritage owners could digitalize the visiting process, measure the engagement of visitors with digital tools and turn data collected during the visits into value for their business model. In particular, results achieved by the AMAmI (Ancient and Modern, Ambient Intelligence) Project will be presented: a multisite real world experimentation of the adoption of digital tools (proximity technologies, mobile, sensors, user-location-based content delivery platforms and big data analytics systems) to deliver an Ambient Intelligence enabled user experience and thus strengthen the management policies of cultural heritage assets. Two case studies with different management model and physical environment will be discussed and compared: MAGA Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art sited in Gallarate and Masnago Castle Museum of Modern Art sited in Varese

How additive manufacturing adoption would influence a company strategy and business model

Advanced manufacturing technologies such as Additive Manufacturing (AM) are rapidly revolutionizing business processes within European and Italian SMEs. A clear example is represented by the success of 3D printers that are achieving a huge impact on the market from both the companies and the customers’ point of view. This paper aims at investigating how manufacturing and logistic processes have changed drastically in the last years according to the introduction of the above-mentioned advanced manufacturing technologies. Recent academic literature is focusing on the integration of any advanced technology with other infrastructures and technologies already implemented in a company. By considering 3D printing adoption, both in the product design and in the production management processes, it turns out to be necessary a proper integration with other technologies such as the software used to design a product (CAD) and the manufacturing control cameras adopted to control the production process. At the same time, a proper strategic alignment has to be assured between the implementation of advanced manufacturing technologies and the company innovation strategy. Consistency and coherence among all the strategic decisions must be guaranteed in order to create and increase the company business value. Furthermore, the acquisition of new assets, either tangible (e.g. 3D printers) or intangible (e.g. know how), has to be properly integrated with other tangible and intangible resources in order to combine them in the best way, so that the goal of gaining a sustainable competitive advantage would be reached.20-22 June 201