Towards a situation-awareness-driven design of operational business intelligence & analytics systems

With the swamping and timeliness of data in the organizational context, the decision maker’s choice of an appropriate decision alternative in a given situation is defied. In particular, operational actors are facing the challenge to meet business-critical decisions in a short time and at high frequency. The construct of Situation Awareness (SA) has been established in cognitive psychology as a valid basis for understanding the behavior and decision making of human beings in complex and dynamic systems. SA gives decision makers the possibility to make informed, time-critical decisions and thereby improve the performance of the respective business process. This research paper leverages SA as starting point for a design science project for Operational Business Intelligence and Analytics systems and suggests a first version of design principles.

Engineering design of an integrated sustainable process system for cassava biobased materials

Cassava contributes significantly to biobased material development. Conventional approaches for its bio-derivative-production and application cause significant wastes, tailored material development challenges, with negative environmental impact and application limitations. Transforming cassava into sustainable value-added resources requires redesigning new approaches. Harnessing unexplored material source, and downstream process innovations can mitigate challenges. The ultimate goal proposed an integrated sustainable process system for cassava biomaterial development and potential application. An improved simultaneous release recovery cyanogenesis (SRRC) methodology, incorporating intact bitter cassava, was developed and standardized. Films were formulated, characterised, their mass transport behaviour, simulating real-distribution-chain conditions quantified, and optimised for desirable properties. Integrated process design system, for sustainable waste-elimination and biomaterial development, was developed. Films and bioderivatives for desired MAP, fast-delivery nutraceutical excipients and antifungal active coating applications were demonstrated. SRRC-processed intact bitter cassava produced significantly higher yield safe bio-derivatives than peeled, guaranteeing 16% waste-elimination. Process standardization transformed entire root into higher yield and clarified colour bio-derivatives and efficient material balance at optimal global desirability. Solvent mass through temperature-humidity-stressed films induced structural changes, and influenced water vapour and oxygen permeability. Sevenunit integrated-process design led to cost-effectiveness, energy-efficient and green cassava processing and biomaterials with zero-environment footprints. Desirable optimised bio-derivatives and films demonstrated application in desirable in-package O2/CO2, mouldgrowth inhibition, faster tablet excipient nutraceutical dissolutions and releases, and thymolencapsulated smooth antifungal coatings. Novel material resources, non-root peeling, zero-waste-elimination, and desirable standardised methodology present promising process integration tools for sustainable cassava biobased system development. Emerging design outcomes have potential applications to mitigate cyanide challenges and provide bio-derivative development pathways. Process system leads to zero-waste, with potential to reshape current style one-way processes into circular designs modelled on nature's effective approaches. Indigenous cassava components as natural material reinforcements, and SRRC processing approach has initiated a process with potential wider deployment in broad product research development. This research contributes to scientific knowledge in material science and engineering process design.

Design principles for an enterprise systems chartering method

Our research follows a design science approach to develop a method that supports the initialization of ES implementation projects – the chartering phase. This project phase is highly relevant for implementation success, but is understudied in IS research. In this paper, we derive design principles for a chartering method based on a systematic review of ES implementation literature and semi-structured expert interviews. Our analysis identifies differences in the importance of certain success factors depending on the system type. The proposed design principles are built on these factors and are linked to chartering key activities. We specifically consider system-type-specific chartering aspects for process-centric Business Intelligence & Analytics (BI&A) systems, which are an emerging class of systems at the intersection of BI&A and business process management. In summary, this paper proposes design principles for a chartering method – considering specifics of process-centric BI&A.