Towards an Understanding of Cyber-physical Systems as Industrial Software-Product-Service Systems

AbstractNew forms of solutions with a declined share of mechanics or hardware and instead an increased share of software and (software-enabled) services on the overall customer value proposition, so called cyber-physical systems (CPS), have been emerging for some time now. Current research highlights the underlying technical challenges but lacks a well-founded conceptualization for CPS that reflects its character as a software-enabled hybrid solution, consisting of software as well as of service and tangible product parts. The latter may facilitate research on CPS from a business-oriented and a customer value creation perspective rather than solely from a technical perspective. For this purpose, the present contribution proposes the conceptualization of the industrial software-product-service system. It is based upon empirical findings as well as theoretical considerations on the concept of industrial product-service systems and substantiated by suggested future research directions, derived with the help of the proposed conceptualization

Changeable Manufacturing on the Network Level

AbstractAgility in the sense of changeability on the manufacturing network level, and here especially the business perspective, has received less attention than the other dimensions of changeability on the lower production levels, as well as in relation to the technological perspective. The present paper aims to enrich the concept of agility in the aforementioned sense, taking strategic management concepts into account that have so far received less attention in relation to changeability. Namely, we consider the concepts of lead factory, capacity pooling and allying, operational flexibility, and the concept of combining products, services and software as fruitful enrichments of the umbrella concept changeability. In so doing, we highlight interdependencies between agility and the analyzed concepts as well as the other changeability dimensions on the lower production level of factories or sites. On this basis, we formulate six hypotheses in consideration of the presented theoretical derivations. Hence, the methodological approach of our research is conceptual and hypothesis generating. Our work is supposed to build the basis for continuative conceptual and empirical research on agility

Looking for a Few Good Concepts and Theories for Digitized Artifacts and Digital Innovation in a Material World

Physical objects get increasingly augmented with digital technology resulting in digitized artifacts and digital innovation. We adapt an analysis framework geared towards the structural nature of theories in IS research to investigate how digitized artifacts, digital innovation and the relationship between the two are conceptualized. We identify and juxtapose research on 1) ‘ubiquitous and pervasive computing’, 2) ‘digital product innovation and digitized products’, 3) ‘digitized service innovation’, and 4) ‘digitized product service systems’ as four research streams that conceptualize digitized artifacts and related innovation. We discuss how the individual research streams contribute to the body of knowledge by recommending how the existing concepts can be utilized and when their application is most suitable. We furthermore reveal ambiguities and blind spots as potential avenues for further research. For scholars, our work provides guidance in choosing an adequate theoretical foundation for research on digitized artifacts and digital innovation

Raising Awareness of IoT Sensor Deployments

The IoT is increasingly being used to support smart spaces and physical analytics and yet much of this smartness is made deliberately invisible to the user–echoingWeiser’s vision of calm computing and technology that fades into the background. However, this means that users may not be aware or may not understand how the IoT is being deployed in their area. In other domains we know that a lack of awareness and a lack of understanding can lead to poor user experience/frustration, mistrust, suspicion, inability to capitalise on benefits and, security vulnerabilities. In this paper we present preliminary work that explores the issue of user awareness of IoT-based data collection