Supply Chain Systems Maturing Towards the Internet-of-Things: A Framework

The Internet-of-Things (IoT) concept has been gradually developing, but it is unclear how extensive this concept is adopted within the supply chain domain. We derive an architectural framework to investigate four layers of ICT deployment. This framework enables practitioners and scientist to specify a status quo on different architectural levels and to identify possibilities for further improvement. Four extensive cases are investigated with this framework. One of the important conclusions is that “IoT” like technology and applications are pioneered in research programs, but operational logistic systems in diverse organizations primarily rely on less advanced technology, organizational structures- and work forms. This work can help in identifying gaps where IoT can strengthen future applications

Information Systems and Healthcare XXIII: Exploring Interoperability of Electronic Healthcare Records by Studying Demand and Supply in the Netherlands

Every year, the Dutch Minister of Health promises that by the following year, all citizens in the Netherlands will have an Electronic Health Record (EHR). Until now this promise has not been met. One of the main requirements for realizing a national EHR is an interoperability framework, agreeable to the government, vendors and users. This paper first studies the demand side using the results of twenty two interviews with physicians, asking them about their core processes and their expected value of an EHR. This provides us with the adoption perspective on the EHR market. Next we look at the current EHR market, investigating the suppliers and their achievements and market share. Finally we take a look at the government side with an overview of the interoperability requirements dictated by the national IT-agenda for healthcare. The contribution of this paper is twofold: o First, our main conclusion is that success in the EHR market in the Netherlands is not yet motivated by interoperability requirements. o Second, from a detailed analysis on micro level the following result stands out: A majority of the end users (demand side) do not get support in their relevant working processes

Can agile software tools bring the benefits of a task board to globally distributed teams?

Software-based tooling has become an essential part of globally disitrbuted software development. In this study we focus on the usage of such tools and task boards in particular. We investigate the deployment of these tools through a field research in 4 different companies that feature agile and globally distributed development teams. We interviewed a total of 15 developers and concluded that the paper-based task board currently still has many advantages when compared to its software-based solution. Our findings indicate that the majority of the investigated companies that use the agile method Scrum also work with a software tool to support Scrum. While distributed teams use a software only approach, a large portion of collocated teams we studied utilize a combination of a paper based task board and the archiving and integration properties of the software solution. We reflect on these findings through the lens of media synchronicity theory and conclude that this theory is useful for explaining the current use and future development of software tools to support agile globally distributed development teams