This book identifies, analyzes and discusses the current trends of digitalized, decentralized, and networked physical value creation by focusing on the particular example of 3D printing. In addition to evaluating 3D printing's disruptive potentials against a broader economic background, it also addresses the technology's potential impacts on sustainability and emerging modes of bottom-up and community-based innovation. Emphasizing these topics from economic, technical, social and environmental perspectives, the book offers a multifaceted overview that scrutinizes the scenario of a fundamental transition: from a centralized to a far more decentralized system of value creation.

The book gives a systematic and detailed description of a new integrated product and process development approach for sheet metal manufacturing. Special attention is given to manufacturing that unites multidisciplinary competences of product design, material science, and production engineering, as well as mathematical optimization and computer based information technology. The case study of integral sheet metal structures is used by the authors to introduce the results related to the recent manufacturing technologies of linear flow splitting, bend splitting, and corresponding integrated process chains for sheet metal structures.

This book provides a review of advanced topics relating to the theory, research, analysis and implementation in the context of big data platforms and their applications, with a focus on methods, techniques, and performance evaluation. The explosive growth in the volume, speed, and variety of data being produced every day requires a continuous increase in the processing speeds of servers and of entire network infrastructures, as well as new resource management models. This poses significant challenges (and provides striking development opportunities) for data intensive and high-performance computing, i.e., how to efficiently turn extremely large datasets into valuable information and meaningful knowledge. The task of context data management is further complicated by the variety of sources such data derives from, resulting in different data formats, with varying storage, transformation, delivery, and archiving requirements. At the same time rapid responses are needed for real-time applications. With the emergence of cloud infrastructures, achieving highly scalable data management in such contexts is a critical problem, as the overall application performance is highly dependent on the properties of the data management service.

An in-depth analysis of how the Fortune 1000 companies have dealt with the strategic use of computers and communications, what applications have been successful and which have faltered, and how upcoming technologies will provide the foundation for a new generation of strategic applications.

Managing Corporate Information Systems Evolution and Maintenance addresses the recent developments of systems maintenance research and practices ranging from technicality of systems evolution to managerial aspects of the topic. It includes very contemporary issues such as evolving legacy systems to e-business, applying patterns for reengineering legacy systems to web, architectural recovery of legacy systems, evolving legacy systems into software components. The book offers insight on how information systems evolution and maintenance could be initiated, managed, and engineered. The book is a collection of new ideas, latest techniques and experiences in systems evolution and maintenance.

Combining conceptual, pragmatic and operational approaches, this edited collection addresses the demand for knowledge and understanding of IT in the healthcare sector. With new technology outbreaks, our vision of healthcare has been drastically changed, switching from a 'traditional' path to a digitalized one. Providing an overview of the role of IT in the healthcare sector, The Digitization of Healthcare illustrates the potential benefits and challenges for all those involved in delivering care to the patient. The incursion of IT has disrupted the value chain and changed business models for companies working in the health sector, and also raised ethical issues and new paradigms about delivering care. This book illustrates the rise of patient empowerment through the development of patient communities such as PatientLikeMe, and medical collaborate platforms such as DockCheck, thus providing a necessary tool to patients, caregivers and academics alike.

This book presents the proceedings of the 2nd Pacific Rim Statistical Conference for Production Engineering: Production Engineering, Big Data and Statistics, which took place at Seoul National University in Seoul, Korea in December, 2016. The papers included discuss a wide range of statistical challenges, methods and applications for big data in production engineering, and introduce recent advances in relevant statistical methods.

This book develops a common understanding between the client and the provider in each of the four stages of strategic outsourcing. These stages range from discovery, where the parties envision their future collaboration; planning, where they lay the ground work for the contract and the project; building, where they effectively carry out the work; and lastly to running, where they orchestrate the relationship on a daily basis to ensure that the new, enlarged company achieves the results sought. In a simple yet direct style, it highlights the dos and don'ts the parties should bear in mind at each stage of the process and combines both the client's and the provider's perspectives by comparing their respective involvement at each stage of the process and considering, equally, their obligations in establishing a balanced relationship. The book is primarily intended for those in the private sector with experience of dealing with complex outsourcing situations and who are looking for the small or bigger differentiators that will support their decisions and actions. The target audiences include, on the client side: CCOs, CIOs, lawyers, procurement managers, outsourcing consultants and IT Service managers and, on the provider side: account managers, bid managers, outsourcing project managers, operation managers and service managers. However, it is also useful for anybody involved in outsourcing who is seeking to develop a global understanding of the main processes and roles upstream and downstream in the chain.

This edited two-volume collection presents the most interesting and compelling articles pertaining to the formulation of research methods used to study information systems from the 30 year publication history of the Journal of Information Technology (JIT).

This book presents a comprehensive introduction to Integrated Business Planning (IBP), building on practitioner's experience and showcasing the value gains when moving from disconnected planning to IBP. It also proposes a road map for the transformation of planning, including technological initiatives, business priorities and organizational processes, and demonstrates how to motivate different IBP stakeholders to work together, when and how to connect strategic (to be understood as long term SC&O), tactical and operational planning and how to leverage functional and data integration features of SAP IBP. Real-world business-process use cases help to show the practical implications of implementing SAP IBP. Furthermore the book explores new capabilities, talent acquisition and retention, career development leadership, IBP Center of Expertise. A discussion of how disruptive technology trends like big data, Internet of Things, machine learning and artificial intelligence can influence IBP now and in the near future rounds out the book.

This book systematically examines and quantifies industrial problems by assessing the complexity and safety of large systems. It includes chapters on system performance management, software reliability assessment, testing, quality management, analysis using soft computing techniques, management analytics, and business analytics, with a clear focus on exploring real-world business issues. Through contributions from researchers working in the area of performance, management, and business analytics, it explores the development of new methods and approaches to improve business by gaining knowledge from bulk data. With system performance analytics, companies are now able to drive performance and provide actionable insights for each level and for every role using key indicators, generate mobile-enabled scorecards, time series-based analysis using charts, and dashboards. In the current dynamic environment, a viable tool known as multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) is increasingly being adopted to deal with complex business decisions. MCDA is an important decision support tool for analyzing goals and providing optimal solutions and alternatives. It comprises several distinct techniques, which are implemented by specialized decision-making packages. This book addresses a number of important MCDA methods, such as DEMATEL, TOPSIS, AHP, MAUT, and Intuitionistic Fuzzy MCDM, which make it possible to derive maximum utility in the area of analytics. As such, it is a valuable resource for researchers and academicians, as well as practitioners and business experts.

This book describes the setup of digital enterprises and how to manage them, focusing primarily on the important knowledge and essential understanding of digital enterprise management required by managers and decision makers in organizations. It covers ten essential knowledge areas of this field: * Foundation of Digital Enterprise * Technology Foundation and Talent Management for Digital Enterprise * Digital Enterprise Strategy Planning and Implementation * B2C Digital Enterprise: E-tailing * B2C Digital Enterprise: E-Services * B2B Digital Enterprise and Supply Chain * Digital Platforms * Digital Marketing and Advertising * Digital Payment Systems * Mobile Enterprise Overall, this text provides the reader with the basics to understand the rapid development of digitization, facilitated by the dramatic advancements in digital technologies, extensively connected networks, and wider adoption of computing devices (especially mobile devices), as more and more organizations are realizing the strategic importance of digitization (e.g., sustainable growth of the organization, competitive advantage development and enhancement) and are embarking on digital enterprise.

Knowledge management has been growing in importance and popularity as a research topic and business initiative. ""Knowledge Management in Modern Organizations"" documents the latest key issues of knowledge management. The innovative chapters in this book discuss the philosophical foundations of knowledge management, serving as a viable resource for academicians, practitioners, researchers, and students. ""Knowledge Management in Modern Organizations"" depicts a global perspective as the contributors come from Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and the United States, and adds value to any course focused on KM in organizations.

The proliferation of computers in business requires increased managerial expertise in decision support systems and expert systems. Managers, executives, and scholars will find this in-depth examination of the latest tools and technologies available for decision support invaluable. The book provides a clear and complete discussion of the foundations and management applications of decision support, expert systems, artificial intelligence, and other management support systems. Practical examples are provided throughout, giving the business professional a useful tool for evaluating and utilizing the variety of decision support and information technologies available. In addition, Bidgoli explores the growing field of applicable artificial intelligence, including expert systems, fuzzy logic, and neural networks. This book enhances expertise in a succinct, practical, and readable way.

This book presents a comprehensive and up-to-date treatise of a range of methodological and algorithmic issues. It also discusses implementations and case studies, identifies the best design practices, and assesses data analytics business models and practices in industry, health care, administration and business.Data science and big data go hand in hand and constitute a rapidly growing area of research and have attracted the attention of industry and business alike. The area itself has opened up promising new directions of fundamental and applied research and has led to interesting applications, especially those addressing the immediate need to deal with large repositories of data and building tangible, user-centric models of relationships in data. Data is the lifeblood of today's knowledge-driven economy.Numerous data science models are oriented towards end users and along with the regular requirements for accuracy (which are present in any modeling), come the requirements for ability to process huge and varying data sets as well as robustness, interpretability, and simplicity (transparency). Computational intelligence with its underlying methodologies and tools helps address data analytics needs.The book is of interest to those researchers and practitioners involved in data science, Internet engineering, computational intelligence, management, operations research, and knowledge-based systems.

This book presents a key solution for current and future technological issues, adopting an integrated system approach with a combination of software engineering applications. Focusing on how software dominates and influences the performance, reliability, maintainability and availability of complex integrated systems, it proposes a comprehensive method of improving the entire process. The book provides numerous qualitative and quantitative analyses and examples of varied systems to help readers understand and interpret the derived results and outcomes. In addition, it examines and reviews foundational work associated with decision and control systems for information systems, to inspire researchers and industry professionals to develop new and integrated foundations, theories, principles, and tools for information systems. It also offers guidance and suggests best practices for the research community and practitioners alike. The book's twenty-two chapters examine and address current and future research topics in areas like vulnerability analysis, secured software requirements analysis, progressive models for planning and enhancing system efficiency, cloud computing, healthcare management, and integrating data-information-knowledge in decision-making. As such it enables organizations to adopt integrated approaches to system and software engineering, helping them implement technological advances and drive performance. This in turn provides actionable insights on each and every technical and managerial level so that timely action-based decisions can be taken to maintain a competitive edge. Featuring conceptual work and best practices in integrated systems and software engineering applications, this book is also a valuable resource for all researchers, graduate and undergraduate students, and management professionals with an interest in the fields of e-commerce, cloud computing, software engineering, software & system security and analysis, data-information-knowledge systems and integrated systems.

This book discusses the unique nature and complexity of fog data analytics (FDA) and develops a comprehensive taxonomy abstracted into a process model. The exponential increase in sensors and smart gadgets (collectively referred as smart devices or Internet of things (IoT) devices) has generated significant amount of heterogeneous and multimodal data, known as big data. To deal with this big data, we require efficient and effective solutions, such as data mining, data analytics and reduction to be deployed at the edge of fog devices on a cloud. Current research and development efforts generally focus on big data analytics and overlook the difficulty of facilitating fog data analytics (FDA). This book presents a model that addresses various research challenges, such as accessibility, scalability, fog nodes communication, nodal collaboration, heterogeneity, reliability, and quality of service (QoS) requirements, and includes case studies demonstrating its implementation. Focusing on FDA in IoT and requirements related to Industry 4.0, it also covers all aspects required to manage the complexity of FDA for IoT applications and also develops a comprehensive taxonomy.

The Media Convergence Handbook sheds new light on the complexity of media convergence and the related business challenges. Approaching the topic from a managerial, technological as well as end-consumer perspective, it acts as a reference book and educational resource in the field. Media convergence at business level may imply transforming business models and using multiplatform content production and distribution tools. However, it is shown that the implementation of convergence strategies can only succeed when expectations and aspirations of every actor involved are taken into account. Media consumers, content producers and managers face different challenges in the process of media convergence. Volume I of the Media Convergence Handbook encourages an active discourse on media convergence by introducing the concept through general perspective articles and addressing the real-world challenges of conversion in the publishing, broadcasting and social media sectors.

The exponential growth of disruptive technology is changing our world. The development of cloud computing, big data, the internet of things, artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning, and other related autonomous systems, such as self-driving vehicles, have triggered the emergence of new products and services. These significant technological breakthroughs have opened the door to new economic models such as the sharing and platform-based economy. As a result, companies are becoming increasingly data- and algorithm-driven, coming to be more like "decentralized platforms". New transaction or payment methods such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, based on trust-building systems using Blockchain, smart contracts, and other distributed ledger technology, also constitute an essential part of this new economic model. The sharing economy and digital platforms also include the everyday exchange of goods allowing individuals to commodify their surplus resources. Information and innovation technologies are used in order to then match these resources with existing demand in the market. Online platforms such as Airbnb, Uber, and Amazon reduce information asymmetry, increase the value of unused resources, and create new opportunities for collaboration and innovation. Moreover, the sharing economy is playing a major role in the transition from exclusive ownership of personal assets toward access-based exploitation of resources. The success of online matching platforms depends not only on the reduction of search costs but also on the trustworthiness of platform operators. From a legal perspective, the uncertainties triggered by the emergence of a new digital reality are particularly urgent. How should these tendencies be reflected in legal systems in each jurisdiction? This book collects a series of contributions by leading scholars in the newly emerging fields of sharing economy and Legal Tech. The aim of the book is to enrich legal debates on the social, economic, and political meaning of these cutting-edge technologies. The chapters presented in this edition attempt to answer some of these lingering questions from the perspective of diverse legal backgrounds.

This edited two-volume collection presents the most interesting and compelling articles pertaining to the formulation of research methods used to study information systems from the 30-year publication history of the Journal of Information Technology .

This book describes pragmatic instruments and methods that enable business experts and software engineers to develop a common understanding of the software to be created, to determine their key requirements, and to manage the project in a way that fosters trust, encourages innovation and distributes risk fairly between clients and contractors. After an introduction to the fundamentals of agile software development in Part I, Part II describes the Interaction Room, an actual room where digitalization and mobilization strategies are developed, where technology potentials are evaluated, where software projects are planned and managed, and where business and technical stakeholders can communicate face to face, visualize complex relationships intuitively, and highlight value, effort and risk drivers that are keys to the project's success. After addressing these constructive aspects, the book focuses on the commercial aspects of software development: The adVANTAGE contract model described in Part III ensures that the insight-driven innovation process of software development does not just function, but is allowed to flourish in a trusted client-contractor relationship. Even though software contracting and construction may be grounded in two different academic disciplines, they are inseparable in practice, and how they interact is illustrated in the case study of developing a private health insurance benefit system in Part IV. Ultimately though, the success of every software project depends on the skills of the stakeholders. Part V therefore describes the qualification profile that software engineers and domain experts have to satisfy today. This book is aimed at CIOs, project managers and software engineers in industrial software development practice who want to learn how to effectively deal with the inevitable uncertainty of complex projects, who want to achieve higher levels of understanding and cooperation in their relationships with clients and contractors, and who want to run lower-risk software projects despite their inherent uncertainties.

This book presents the characteristics and benefits industrial organizations can reap from the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). These characteristics and benefits include enhanced competitiveness, increased proactive decision-making, improved creativity and innovation, augmented job creation, heightened agility to respond to continuously changing challenges, and intensified data-driven decision making. In a straightforward fashion, the book also helps readers understand complex concepts that are core to IIoT enterprises, such as Big Data, analytic architecture platforms, machine learning (ML) and data science algorithms, and the power of visualization to enrich the domains experts' decision making. The book also guides the reader on how to think about ways to define new business paradigms that the IIoT facilitates, as well how to increase the probability of success in managing analytic projects that are the core engine of decision-making in the IIoT enterprise. The book starts by defining an IIoT enterprise and the framework used to efficiently operate. A description of the concepts of industrial analytics, which is a major engine for decision making in the IIoT enterprise, is provided. It then discusses how data and machine learning (ML) play an important role in increasing the competitiveness of industrial enterprises that operate using the IIoT technology and business concepts. Real world examples of data driven IIoT enterprises and various business models are presented and a discussion on how the use of ML and data science help address complex decision-making problems and generate new job opportunities. The book presents in an easy-to-understand manner how ML algorithms work and operate on data generated in the IIoT enterprise. Useful for any industry professional interested in advanced industrial software applications, including business managers and professionals interested in how data analytics can help industries and to develop innovative business solutions, as well as data and computer scientists who wish to bridge the analytics and computer science fields with the industrial world, and project managers interested in managing advanced analytic projects.

Building and Managing Enterprise-Wide Portals discusses the technology behind portals and grid networks, gives information to the history behind grid technology evolution, and supplies the reader with the knowledge to make qualified managerial decisions. This book looks at next-generation computing platforms and global cyber-infrastructure for solving large-scale problems in science, engineering, and business. ""Building and Managing Enterprise-Wide Portals"" includes a diverse range of topics, such as deployment considerations, facilities and tools for creating and managing grid and portal applications, including tools for visually linking corporate databases into grid or portal applications. This book also provides an overview of other web technologies, such as EJB and servlets, while comparing them to portals and grids and suggesting how to approach various analysis and design challenges.

This book surveys big data tools used in macroeconomic forecasting and addresses related econometric issues, including how to capture dynamic relationships among variables; how to select parsimonious models; how to deal with model uncertainty, instability, non-stationarity, and mixed frequency data; and how to evaluate forecasts, among others. Each chapter is self-contained with references, and provides solid background information, while also reviewing the latest advances in the field. Accordingly, the book offers a valuable resource for researchers, professional forecasters, and students of quantitative economics.

As a fundamental change that is very large in scope, net centricity remains a main topic of debate among defense enterprises, industries, and contracting organizations. Net Centricity and Technological Interoperability in Organizations: Perspectives and Strategies provides understanding on the achievement of interoperability among organizations, focusing on new structural design concepts. A leading reference source for practitioners, academicians, and researchers involved in related fields of net centricity, this innovative publication is exceptional in its integration and explanation of complex topics.