The Impact of Contract Type on Service Provider Information Requirements

This paper is concerned with the role of information in the servitization of manufacturing which has led to “the innovation of an organisation’s capabilities and processes as equipment manufacturers seek to offer services around their products” (Neely 2009, Baines et al 2009). This evolution has resulted in an information requirement (IR) shift as companies move from discrete provision of equipment and spare parts to long-term service contracts guaranteeing prescribed performance levels. Organisations providing such services depend on a very high level of availability and quality of information throughout the service life-cycle (Menor et al 2002). This work focuses on whether, for a proposed contract based around complex equipment, the Information System is capable of providing information at an acceptable quality and requires the IRs to be examined in a formal manner. We apply a service information framework (Cuthbert et al 2008, McFarlane & Cuthbert 2012) to methodically assess IRs for different contract types to understand the information gap between them. Results from case examples indicate that this gap includes information required for the different contract types and a set of contract-specific IRs. Furthermore, the control, ownership and use of information differs across contract types as the boundary of operation and responsibility changes.

Adaptive sequential Monte Carlo approach for real-time applications

This paper presents an adaptive Sequential Monte Carlo approach for real-time applications. Sequential Monte Carlo method is employed to estimate the states of dynamic systems using weighted particles. The proposed approach reduces the run-time computation complexity by adapting the size of the particle set. Multiple processing elements on FPGAs are dynamically allocated for improved energy efficiency without violating real-time constraints. A robot localisation application is developed based on the proposed approach. Compared to a non-adaptive implementation, the dynamic energy consumption is reduced by up to 70% without affecting the quality of solutions. © 2012 IEEE.

An integrated service-device-technology roadmap for smart city development

Firms and other organizations use Technology Roadmapping (TRM) extensively as a framework for supporting research and development of future technologies and products that could sustain a competitive advantage. While the importance of technology strategy has received more attention in recent years, few research studies have examined how roadmapping processes are used to explore the potential convergence of products and services that may be developed in the future. The aim of this paper is to introduce an integrated roadmapping process for services, devices and technologies capable of implementing a smart city development R&D project in Korea. The paper applies a QFD (Quality Function Deployment) method to establish interconnections between services and devices, and between devices and technologies. The method is illustrated by a detailed case study, which shows how different types of roadmap can be coordinated with each other to produce a clear representation of the technological changes and uncertainties associated with the strategic planning of complex innovations. © 2012 Elsevier Inc.

Articulating current service development practices: a qualitative analysis of eleven mental health projects.

BACKGROUND: The utilisation of good design practices in the development of complex health services is essential to improving quality. Healthcare organisations, however, are often seriously out of step with modern design thinking and practice. As a starting point to encourage the uptake of good design practices, it is important to understand the context of their intended use. This study aims to do that by articulating current health service development practices. METHODS: Eleven service development projects carried out in a large mental health service were investigated through in-depth interviews with six operation managers. The critical decision method in conjunction with diagrammatic elicitation was used to capture descriptions of these projects. Stage-gate design models were then formed to visually articulate, classify and characterise different service development practices. RESULTS: Projects were grouped into three categories according to design process patterns: new service introduction and service integration; service improvement; service closure. Three common design stages: problem exploration, idea generation and solution evaluation - were then compared across the design process patterns. Consistent across projects were a top-down, policy-driven approach to exploration, underexploited idea generation and implementation-based evaluation. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides insight into where and how good design practices can contribute to the improvement of current service development practices. Specifically, the following suggestions for future service development practices are made: genuine user needs analysis for exploration; divergent thinking and innovative culture for idea generation; and fail-safe evaluation prior to implementation. Better training for managers through partnership working with design experts and researchers could be beneficial.