Embracing open innovation to acquire external ideas and technologies and to transfer internal ideas and technologies outside

The objective of this dissertation is to increase understanding of how organizations can embrace open innovation in order to acquire external ideas and technologies from outside the organization, and to transfer internal ideas and technologies to outside the organization. The objective encompasses six sub-objectives, each addressed in one or more substudies. Altogether, the dissertation consists of nine substudies and a compendium summarizing the substudies. An extensive literature review was conducted on open innovation and crowdsourcing literature (substudies 1–4). In the subsequent empirical substudies, both qualitative research methods (substudies 5–7) and quantitative research methods (substudies 8–9) were applied. The four literature review substudies provided insights on the body of knowledge on open innovation and crowdsourcing. These substudies unveiled most of the influential articles, authors, and journals of open innovation and crowdsourcing disciplines. Moreover, they identified research gaps in the current literature. The empirical substudies offer several insightful findings. Substudy 5 shows how non-core ideas and technologies of a large firm can become valuable, especially for small firms. Intermediary platforms can find solutions to many pressing problems of large organizations by engaging renowned scientists from all over world (substudy 6). Intermediary platforms can also bring breakthrough innovations with novel mechanisms (substudy 7). Large firms are not only able to garner ideas by engaging their customers through crowdsourcing but they can also build long-lasting relations with their customers (substudies 8 and 9). Embracing open innovation brings challenges for firms too. Firms need to change their organizational structures in order to be able to fully benefit from open innovation. When crowdsourcing is successful, it produces a very large number of new ideas. This has the consequence that firms need to allocate a significant amount of resources in order to identify the most promising ideas. In an idea contest, customarily, only one or a few best ideas are rewarded (substudy 7). Sometimes, no reward is provided for the selected idea (substudies 8 and 9). Most of the ideas that are received are not implemented in practice

Procedimento di valutazione di un prodotto

Viene previsto un sistema automatico per rilevare, elaborare e fornire informazioni sintetiche di impatto ambientale dovuto al trasporto di merci lungo l’intera catena logistica. Il sistema interagisce, attraverso connessioni cablate (wired) e/o non cablate (wireless), con: utenti; sistemi standard di identificazione e memorizzazione dati delle merci; sistemi satellitari globali di navigazione (GNSS); dispositivi elettronici per l’elaborazione e la comunicazione dei dati. I principali componenti del sistema sono: (1) lettore di informazioni abbinate alle merci trasportate; (2) sistema non ambiguo di localizzazione geografica; (3) sistema di elaborazione dati; (4) sistema di visualizzazione delle informazioni elaborate; (5) interfaccia utente per inserimento dati; (6) interfaccia di connessione con altre periferiche. Il sistema rileva, automaticamente e senza possibilità di manipolazione, i dati in ingresso, li elabora e fornisce in uscita le informazioni di impatto ambientale dovuto al trasporto della merce dal luogo di inizio della catena logistica fino alla posizione geografica di rilevazione e elaborazione

You solve, I learn: a novel approach to e-learning in collaborative crowdsourcing

In collaborative crowdsourcing, the problem of maintaining solvers’ motivation and participation plays a crucial role. It has been noticed that one of the major issues is related to the scarce capacity of novices to face expert users in finding good solutions, which leads to an high rate of community abandonment. In order to overcome such a problem the best solvers should be asked to illustrate the rationale of their solutions and to share the adopted heuristics before receiving the award. This procedure allows the less expert to learn by doing and see how best solvers innovate products. The paper presents the “You solve, I learn” approach and how it has been implemented in an original platform able to promote innovation, creativity and effective knowledge sharing. The software use and achieved results are demonstrated through a case study

Method and system for preparing code to be executed by programmable control devices

The present invention is directed to methods and systems for preparing and transferring code to a memory of a programmable control device, particularly a non-volatile memory image representing ROM of a device hosting a virtual machine (VM)

Sustainability assessment by analogy in early design stages

The paper presents a systematic approach for sustainability assessment of products since the very early phases of concept design. The procedure helps the designer in redesigning a product (but also the related processes and services) to reduce its overall impacts. Moreover, for the sustainability assessment since the concept phase, it makes use of a strategy based on assessing the product impacts by analogy with respect to similar products. The paper ends with a case study which illustrates the method and proposes a redesign of the product-process-service related to a pram. The consequences of the redesign spread also to the business level

A Blockchain Tokenizer for Industrial IOT trustless applications

The Blockchain is a novel technology with a wide range of potential industrial applications. Despite a vast range of tests, prototypes, and proof of concepts implemented in the last years, the industrial use of Blockchain technology is still in the early stages. Enabling the interaction of industrial Internet of Things (IOT) platforms with Blockchain might be challenging because standards are still missing in both these technologies. Moreover, integrating productive assets with distributed data exchange and storage technologies is a kind of activity that needs to take into account various aspects, in particular: interoperability, portability, scalability, and security that need to be guaranteed by design. This paper describes the implementation of a portable, platform-agnostic and secure Blockchain Tokenizer for Industrial IOT trustless applications. The Industrial Blockchain Tokenizer (IBT) is based on an industrial data acquisition unit able to gather data from both modern and legacy machines while also interfacing directly with sensors. Acquired data can be processed locally enabling an edge filtering paradigm and then sent to any Blockchain platform. The system has been designed, implemented and then tested on two supply chain scenarios. Tests demonstrated the system capability to act as a bridge between industrial assets and Blockchain platforms enabling the generation of immutable and trust-less “digital twins” for industrial IOT applications

Biosimilar erythropoiesis-stimulating agents are an effective and safe option for the management of myelofibrosis-related anemia

Objectives: Erythropoiesis-stimulating agents (ESA) have an established role in treating anemia in hematological malignancies. However, their role, particularly biosimilar ESA (B-ESA), in myelofibrosis (MF) is not well established. Methods: This study retrospectively collected data on 96 MF patients treated with B-ESA (alpha/zeta) for the management of anemia to assess safety, efficacy (anemia response [AR]), and survival. Results: Seventy-seven patients (80%) obtained AR. The median time to AR was 2.5 months. In multivariate analysis, significant predictive factors of AR were transfusion independency (p =.006) and ferritin levels 8.5 g/dl (p =.047) at baseline were significantly associated with improved survival, with a trend for longer survival in AR patients (p =.06). Conclusions: B-ESA seems to be an effective and well-tolerated option for anemia treatment in the MF setting. This strategy deserves further clinical investigation