Improving Business Processes with the Internet of Things - A Taxonomy of IIoT Applications

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) paradigm constitutes the connection of uniquely identifiable things to the internet in an industrial context. It provides disruptive capabilities and value propositions, especially for the management and improvement of business processes. To exploit these, many companies have already implemented manifold IIoT applications along their value chain activities aiming at beneficial Business Process Improvements (BPI). However, research on IIoT-based BPI is low on theoretical insights. To add to the descriptive knowledge of the IIoT, a structured synoptic view and classification scheme are required. The work at hand addresses this need by providing a taxonomy of IIoT-based BPI applications. Based on the combination of an inductive and deductive research methodology, the created taxonomy consists of six dimensions, seven subdimensions, and 40 characteristics. The taxonomy is evaluated on a sample of 30 IIoT applications from the literature and 10 real-life applications from a market-leading company

Die Internet-Wirtschaft als Reformmotor der Wirtschafts- und Sozialpolitik

Die Internet-Wirtschaft stellt das Ordnungsmodell der Sozialen Marktwirtschaft vor fundamentale Herausforderungen. Welche aktuellen Reformprozesse laufen in der Wirtschafts- und Sozialpolitik ab? Welche Gestaltungsoptionen haben die politischen Entscheidungsträger? --

Entropic contributions to the stability of electrochemically adsorbed anion layers on Au(111): a microcalorimetric study

We measure the entropy of formation of the interface upon anion adsorption (Cl$^−$, Br$^−$ I$^−$ and SO$_4$$^{2−}$) on Au(111) as an important indicator for the structure, order and composition of the interface. The entropy of formation of the interface exhibits a rather universal behaviour for all anions with a steep decrease upon initial adsorption followed by a shallow minimum at intermediate anion coverages and a strong increase close to the completion of the adsorbate adlayer. The strong variation of the entropy signals significant entropic contributions to the free enthalpy of the adsorption process and thus the stability of the adsorbed phase. At low anion coverages, close to the potential of zero charge, we attribute the entropy variations to the rearrangement of the interfacial water structure. At intermediate and high anion coverages, a comparison with the results of a lattice-gas model, considering pairwise repulsive interactions within the quasi-chemical approximation, shows that the entropy changes upon anion adsorption can be explained by the configurational entropy of the adsorbed phase. Thus, entropic contributions from both the solvent and the adsorbate are important for the stability of surface phases, particularly for disordered systems

Digital Transformation and Improvement of Business Processes with Internet of Things: A Maturity Model for Assessing Readiness

Companies of all industrial sectors are increasingly integrating Internet of Things (IoT) technology into their processes to realize a data-driven transformation of their businesses. The generation and use of comprehensive process data in real-time and the connection of process entities enables an improvement and beneficial redesign of business processes of all kinds. However, a goal-oriented exploitation of IoT technology for digital transformation and Business Process Improvements (BPI) is challenging due to the complexity of integrating IoT into existing processes. Companies require appropriate guidance to evaluate and scope their initiatives regarding IoT-based BPI. We therefore propose a holistic IoT-based BPI Maturity Model that assists organizations to determine their current state and get assistance to optimize or develop specific capabilities. This paper provides an overview about the structured development process of the maturity model comprising an extensive literature review and a six-round Delphi study

Paradigm Shifts in Social Housing After Welfare‐State Transformation : Learning from the German Experience

Welfare‐state transformation and entrepreneurial urban politics in Western welfare states since the late 1970s have yielded converging trends in the transformation of the dominant Fordist paradigm of social housing in terms of its societal function and institutional and spatial form. In this article I draw from a comparative case study on two cities in Germany to show that the resulting new paradigm is simultaneously shaped by the idiosyncrasies of the country's national housing regime and local housing policies. While German governments have successively limited the societal function of social housing as a legitimate instrument only for addressing exceptional housing crises, local policies on providing and organizing social housing within this framework display significant variation. However, planning and design principles dominating the spatial forms of social housing have been congruent. They may be interpreted as both an expression of the marginalization of social housing within the restructured welfare housing regime and a tool of its implementation according to the logics of entrepreneurial urban politics