Cooperation, combat, or competence building:what do we mean when we are ‘empowering children’ in and through digital technology design?

Abstract This paper contributes by offering a refined understanding of what empowerment means in today’s digital technology design context. Research on children and digital technology design often calls for children’s empowerment, while little attention has been paid to discussing what empowerment of children really means. Information Systems research offers useful points of departure for scrutinizing the concept. We maintain that also Information Systems researchers and practitioners should see empowering of children in digital technology design as one of their tasks, while we also show that this empowerment can be achieved in a variety of ways. Our results bear relevance to the concept of empowerment in more general, not only regarding children

Inköp i Virtual Design and Construction : En fallstudie

Construction firms currently spend more than half of revenue on purchase of materials and services. This makes effective management of suppliers an important part of corporate strategy. Also, since firms become more specialized, more services have to be purchased; the consequence is an increased dependence of suppliers. This suggests that construction companies need to aim towards long-term open collaboration with suppliers. However, currently, purchasing is performed in a short-term and competitive manner. The current fixation on price obstructs a reduction of total costs of the entire supply chain. Price is just the tip of the iceberg and under the surface there are hidden costs for management of: operations, supplies, inventory, capital and supplier relationship as well as cost of administration, R&D, support and maintenance which all have to be considered in order to reduce the total cost of ownership. Also, alongside this, virtual construction technologies are introduced to improve the product. This creates opportunity for integration of new information in BIM-models to support the purchasing process. Only using BIM limits users to the product, which creates the risk of organizational and process costs being left behind. Virtual Design and Construction, VDC, is a more holistic approach that also takes into account the organization which designs and builds and the process followed by the organization to design and build the product. In this study VDC is explored as a possible aid in the construction company’s purchasing activities.The study is based on existing theory in the fields of purchasing, construction process and Virtual Design and Construction and a case study of the purchasing process at Veidekke Entreprenad AB. In the case study the purchasing process is mapped during tendering, production preparation and production through interviews. To make sure the entire process was covered respondents were selected to cover different roles in the construction company. From covered purchasing theory a specification for purchasing was created for comparison with the studied purchasing process.In the case study, a manual and experience-based purchasing process was identified where relationships with suppliers was primary transactional. Purchasing activities are primarily based on paper-based documentation and streamlining tools to facilitate the purchasing process is missing. Supplier selection is primarily based on past experience and available information about past suppliers are stored in old project archives which requires that a person looking for information have to know where to look. Selection of final supplier is based on price or estimated total cost. In the process, similar activities are carried out but a standardized approach to procurement is missing and the only measurement performed regarding purchasing was reduction of purchasing price from tendering estimates. However, the case study also showed a purchasing process in transition and henceforth project buyers will be responsible for all project purchases. Based on theory and the case study three areas are presented, where VDC can support the purchasing process:• Implementation of location-based scheduling (LBS) enables project management in aspects of time as well as in space. LBS creates an opportunity to improve delivery schedules and visualization of the production in time and space. These delivery schedules can be the basis for procurement of materials and delivery based on production needs. Visualisation of production can be used to prioritize purchasing work and to support material and service supplier selection. During negotiation visualization can be used as a tool to ensure that criteria for negotiation improve production flow.• At the centre of VDC lies continuous measurement to enable control and predictions of the process. Objectives are established in three levels: Project outcome objectives which are measurable at the end of the project; Project process objectives which influence project outcome are measured regularly; Project controllable factors used by leaders to support daily decisions. This framework can also be used for measuring purchasing- and supplier performance to support supplier selection and continuous improvement. • Integrated Concurrent Engineering (ICE) can be used to make sure that purchasing flexibility is not compromised. Through the usage of cross-functional teams of buyers, planning managers and production managers and an ICE procedure it is possible to explore alternative products and solutions. It is also possible to maintain flexibility in negotiation with suppliers to develop the most favorable technical- and financial solution. The method also opens up for the early involvement of suppliers in order to secure production flow. To achieve full effect, a procedure in which the construction company can affect project design is needed.The results show room for improvement in several areas. To facilitate the development of Veidekke’s future work in the field of VDC, a development model which covers all sub-disciplines of VDC is presented, exemplified using the purchasing process. The model is based on the three maturity levels of VDC implementation. The purpose is to provide support to the implementation and integration of the purchasing routines in the VDC process within the company.Validerat; 20130226 (global_studentproject_submitter