Early investigation towards defining and measuring sustainability as a quality attribute in software systems

Sustainability in software system is still a new practice that most software developers and companies are trying to incorporate into their software development lifecycle and has been largely discussed in academia. Sustainability is a complex concept viewed from economic, environment and social dimensions with several definitions proposed making sometimes the concept of sustainability very fuzzy and difficult to apply and assess in software systems. This has hindered the adoption of sustainability in the software industry. A little research explores sustainability as a quality property of software products and services to answer questions such as; How to quantify sustainability as a quality construct in the same way as other quality attributes such as security, usability and reliability? How can it be applied to software systems? What are the measures and measurement scale of sustainability? The Goal of this research is to investigate the definitions, perceptions and measurement of sustainability from the quality perspective. Grounded in the general theory of software measurement, the aim is to develop a method that decomposes sustainability in factors, criteria and metrics. The Result is a method to quantify and access sustainability of software systems while incorporating management and users concern. Conclusion: The method will empower the ability of companies to easily adopt sustainability while facilitating its integration to the software development process and tools. It will also help companies to measure sustainability of their software products from economic, environmental, social, individual and technological dimension.

Corporate Social Responsibility in the Oil and Gas Industry: Environmental Management Systems as a Source of Sustainable Development

The environmental aspect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) expressed through the process of the EMS implementation in the oil and gas companies is identified as the main subject of this research. In the theoretical part, the basic attention is paid to justification of a link between CSR and environmental management. The achievement of sustainable competitive advantage as a result of environmental capital growth and inclusion of the socially responsible activities in the corporate strategy is another issue that is of special significance here. Besides, two basic forms of environmental management systems (environmental decision support systems and environmental information management systems) are explored and their role in effective stakeholder interaction is tackled. The most crucial benefits of EMS are also analyzed to underline its importance as a source of sustainable development. Further research is based on the survey of 51 sampled oil and gas companies (both publicly owned and state owned ones) originated from different countries all over the world and providing reports on sustainability issues in the open access. To analyze their approach to sustainable development, a specifically designed evaluation matrix with 37 indicators developed in accordance with the General Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines for non-financial reporting was prepared. Additionally, the quality of environmental information disclosure was measured on the basis of a quality – quantity matrix. According to results of research, oil and gas companies prefer implementing reactive measures to the costly and knowledge-intensive proactive techniques for elimination of the negative environmental impacts. Besides, it was identified that the environmental performance disclosure is mostly rather limited, so that the quality of non-financial reporting can be judged as quite insufficient. In spite of the fact that most of the oil and gas companies in the sample claim the EMS to be embedded currently in their structure, they often do not provide any details for the process of their implementation. As a potential for the further development of EMS, author mentions possible integration of their different forms in a single entity, extension of existing structure on the basis of consolidation of the structural and strategic precautions as well as development of a unified certification standard instead of several ones that exist today in order to enhance control on the EMS implementation.

Applying software performance engineering methods to development of IT device management systems

Ohjelmiston suorituskyky on kokonaisvaltainen asia, johon kaikki ohjelmiston elinkaaren vaiheet vaikuttavat. Suorituskykyongelmat johtavat usein projektien viivästymisiin, kustannusten ylittymisiin sekä joissain tapauksissa projektin täydelliseen epäonnistumiseen. Software performance engineering (SPE) on ohjelmistolähtöinen lähestysmistapa, joka tarjoaa tekniikoita suorituskykyisen ohjelmiston kehittämiseen. Tämä diplomityö tutkii näitä tekniikoita ja valitsee niiden joukosta ne, jotka soveltuvat suorituskykyongelmien ratkaisemiseen kahden IT-laitehallintatuotteen kehityksessä. Työn lopputuloksena on päivitetty versio nykyisestä tuotekehitysprosessista, mikä huomioi sovellusten suorituskykyyn liittyvät haasteet tuotteiden elinkaaren eri vaiheissa.

Procurement, Quality and Productivity Enhancements and Manufacturing Strategy Formulation Applying Product Life Cycle Method

The objective of the thesis was to create a framework that can be used to define a manufacturing strategy taking advantage of the product life cycle method, which enables PQP enhancements. The starting point was to study synkron implementation of cost leadership and differentiation strategies in different stages of the life cycles. It was soon observed that Porter’s strategies were too generic for the complex and dynamic environment where customer needs deviate market and product specifically. Therefore, the strategy formulation process is based on the Terry Hill’s order-winner and qualifier concepts. The manufacturing strategy formulation is initiated with the definition of order-winning and qualifying criteria. From these criteria there can be shaped product specific proposals for action and production site specific key manufacturing tasks that they need to answer in order to meet customers and markets needs. As a future research it is suggested that the process of capturing order-winners and qualifiers should be developed so that the process would be simple and streamlined at Wallac Oy. In addition, defined strategy process should be integrated to the PerkinElmer’s SGS process. SGS (Strategic Goal Setting) is one of the PerkinElmer’s core management processes. Full Text: Null

Describing and Analyzing Information Technology through Total Quality Management and Process Management: Case Stora Enso Newsprint

Laatu on osaltaan vahvistamassa asemaansa liike-elämässä yritysten kilpaillessa kansainvälisillä markkinoilla niin hinnalla kuin laadulla. Tämä suuntaus on synnyttänyt useita laatuohjelmia, joita käytetään ahkerasti yritysten kokonais- valtaisen laatujohtamisen (TQM) toteuttamisessa. Laatujohtaminen kattaa yrityksen kaikki toiminnot ja luo vaatimuksia myös yrityksen tukitoimintojen kehittämiselle ja parantamiselle. Näihin lukeutuu myös tämän tutkimuksen kohde tietohallinto (IT). Tutkielman tavoitteena oli kuvata IT prosessin nykytila. Tutkielmassa laadittu prosessikuvaus pohjautuu prosessijohtamisen teoriaan ja kohdeyrityksen käyttämään laatupalkinto kriteeristöön. Tutkimusmenetelmänä prosessin nykytilan selvittämiseksi käytettiin teemahaastattelutta. Prosessin nykytilan ja sille asetettujen vaatimusten selvittämiseksi haastateltiin IT prosessin asiakkaita. Prosessianalyysi, tärkeimpien ala-prosessien tunnistaminen ja parannusalueiden löytäminen ovat tämän tutkielman keskeisemmät tulokset. Tutkielma painottui IT prosessin heikkouksien ja parannuskohteiden etsimiseen jatkuvan kehittämisen pohjaksi, ei niinkään prosessin radikaaliin uudistamiseen. Tutkielmassa esitellään TQM:n periaatteet, laatutyökaluja sekä prosessijohtamisen terminologia, periaatteet ja sen systemaattinen toteutus. Työ antaa myös kuvan siitä, miten TQM ja prosessijohtaminen niveltyvät yrityksen laatutyössä.

Remote Condition Monitoring and Asset Management in Offshore Power Systems

Condition monitoring systems for physical assets are constantly becoming more and more common in the industrial sector. At the same time an increasing portion of asset monitoring systems are being remotely supported. As global competitors are actively developing solutions for condition monitoring and condition-based maintenance, which it enables, Wärtsilä too feels the pressure to provide customers with more sophisticated condition-based maintenance solutions. The main aim of this thesis study is to consider Wärtsilä remote condition monitoring solutions and how they relate to similar solutions from other suppliers and end customers’ needs, in the context of offshore assets. A theoretical study is also included in the thesis, where the concepts of condition monitoring, condition-based maintenance, maintenance management and physical asset management are introduced.

Quality and analysis of administration processes in server operations

IT outsourcing refers to the way companies focus on their core competencies and buy the supporting functions from other companies specialized in that area. Service is the total outcome of numerous of activities by employees and other resources to provide solutions to customers' problems. Outsourcing and service business have their unique characteristics. Service Level Agreements quantify the minimum acceptable service to the user. The service quality has to be objectively quantified so that its achievement or non-achievement of it can be monitored. Usually offshoring refers to the transferring of tasks to low-cost nations. Offshoring presents a lot of challenges that require special attention and they need to be assessed thoroughly. IT Infrastructure management refers to installation and basic usability assistance of operating systems, network and server tools and utilities. ITIL defines the industry best practices for organizing IT processes. This thesis did an analysis of server operations service and the customers’ perception of the quality of daily operations. The agreed workflows and processes should be followed better. Service providers’ processes are thoroughly defined but both the customer and the service provider might disobey them. Service provider should review the workflows regarding customer functions. Customer facing functions require persistent skill development, as they communicate the quality to the customer. Service provider needs to provide better organized communication and knowledge exchange methods between the specialists in different geographical locations.

Agent-based management systems for many-core platforms : rigorous design and efficient implementation

Due to various advantages such as flexibility, scalability and updatability, software intensive systems are increasingly embedded in everyday life. The constantly growing number of functions executed by these systems requires a high level of performance from the underlying platform. The main approach to incrementing performance has been the increase of operating frequency of a chip. However, this has led to the problem of power dissipation, which has shifted the focus of research to parallel and distributed computing. Parallel many-core platforms can provide the required level of computational power along with low power consumption. On the one hand, this enables parallel execution of highly intensive applications. With their computational power, these platforms are likely to be used in various application domains: from home use electronics (e.g., video processing) to complex critical control systems. On the other hand, the utilization of the resources has to be efficient in terms of performance and power consumption. However, the high level of on-chip integration results in the increase of the probability of various faults and creation of hotspots leading to thermal problems. Additionally, radiation, which is frequent in space but becomes an issue also at the ground level, can cause transient faults. This can eventually induce a faulty execution of applications. Therefore, it is crucial to develop methods that enable efficient as well as resilient execution of applications. The main objective of the thesis is to propose an approach to design agentbased systems for many-core platforms in a rigorous manner. When designing such a system, we explore and integrate various dynamic reconfiguration mechanisms into agents functionality. The use of these mechanisms enhances resilience of the underlying platform whilst maintaining performance at an acceptable level. The design of the system proceeds according to a formal refinement approach which allows us to ensure correct behaviour of the system with respect to postulated properties. To enable analysis of the proposed system in terms of area overhead as well as performance, we explore an approach, where the developed rigorous models are transformed into a high-level implementation language. Specifically, we investigate methods for deriving fault-free implementations from these models into, e.g., a hardware description language, namely VHDL.

Power and Performance Management Strategies on NoC-Based Multicore Platforms, Using DVFS, Adaptive Algorithm and Task Parallelism

This work presents synopsis of efficient strategies used in power managements for achieving the most economical power and energy consumption in multicore systems, FPGA and NoC Platforms. In this work, a practical approach was taken, in an effort to validate the significance of the proposed Adaptive Power Management Algorithm (APMA), proposed for system developed, for this thesis project. This system comprise arithmetic and logic unit, up and down counters, adder, state machine and multiplexer. The essence of carrying this project firstly, is to develop a system that will be used for this power management project. Secondly, to perform area and power synopsis of the system on these various scalable technology platforms, UMC 90nm nanotechnology 1.2v, UMC 90nm nanotechnology 1.32v and UMC 0.18 μmNanotechnology 1.80v, in order to examine the difference in area and power consumption of the system on the platforms. Thirdly, to explore various strategies that can be used to reducing system’s power consumption and to propose an adaptive power management algorithm that can be used to reduce the power consumption of the system. The strategies introduced in this work comprise Dynamic Voltage Frequency Scaling (DVFS) and task parallelism. After the system development, it was run on FPGA board, basically NoC Platforms and on these various technology platforms UMC 90nm nanotechnology1.2v, UMC 90nm nanotechnology 1.32v and UMC180 nm nanotechnology 1.80v, the system synthesis was successfully accomplished, the simulated result analysis shows that the system meets all functional requirements, the power consumption and the area utilization were recorded and analyzed in chapter 7 of this work. This work extensively reviewed various strategies for managing power consumption which were quantitative research works by many researchers and companies, it's a mixture of study analysis and experimented lab works, it condensed and presents the whole basic concepts of power management strategy from quality technical papers.

Development of a New Welding Product Quality Control and Management System Model for China

The Chinese welding industry is growing every year due to rapid development of the Chinese economy. Increasingly, companies around the world are looking to use Chinese enterprises as their cooperation partners. However, the Chinese welding industry also has its weaknesses, such as relatively low quality and weak management. A modern, advanced welding management system appropriate for local socio-economic conditions is required to enable Chinese enterprises to enhance further their business development. The thesis researches the design and implementation of a new welding quality management system for China. This new system is called ‗welding production quality control management model in China‘ (WQMC). Constructed on the basis of analysis of a survey and in-company interviews, the welding management system comprises the following different elements and perspectives: a ‗Localized congenital existing problem resolution strategies‘ (LCEPRS) database, a ‗human factor designed training system‘ (HFDT) training strategy, the theory of modular design, ISO 3834 requirements, total welding management (TWM), and lean manufacturing (LEAN) theory. The methods used in the research are literature review, questionnaires, interviews, and the author‘s model design experiences and observations, i.e. the approach is primarily qualitative and phenomenological. The thesis describes the design and implementation of a HFDT strategy in Chinese welding companies. Such training is an effective way to increase employees‘ awareness of quality and issues associated with quality assurance. The study identified widely existing problems in the Chinese welding industry and constructed a LCEPRS database that can be used in efforts to mitigate and avoid common problems. The work uses the theory of modular design, TWM and LEAN as tools for the implementation of the WQMC system.

Multi-site -sertifikaatin vaatimukset ympäristöjohtamisjärjestelmän rakentamisessa

Diplomityö muodostuu kahdesta kokonaisuudesta. Työn teoriaosa kertoo mitä ympäristöjohtaminen on, millaisia ovat multi-site -organisaatio ja multi-site -johtamisjärjestelmä sekä mitä vaatimuksia nämä asettavat yritykselle. Työssä esitetään malli, jota käyttämällä kansainvälisten johtamisjärjestelmästandardien mukaan rakennetut laatu-, ympäristö-, terveys- ja turvallisuusjärjestelmät voidaan yhdistää yhdeksi kokonaisuudeksi, multi-site - johtamisjärjestelmäksi. Malli rakentuu kolmesta tasosta, joita ovat paikallinen, maakohtainen ja konsernitaso. Esimerkkien avulla kerrotaan miteneri lähtökohdista voidaan näiden tasojen kautta edetä kohti yhtä johtamiskokonaisuutta. Esille tuodaan myös multi-site -johtamisjärjestelmän käyttöönottoa puoltavat ja vastustavat näkökohdat. Työn konkreettinen osa on johtamisjärjestelmämallin paikallisen tason toteuttaminen. Ympäristöjohtamisjärjestelmän rakentaminen standardin EN ISO 14001:2004 vaatimusten mukaiseksi Kvaerner Power Oy:n Suomen toimipaikoille sekä tämän järjestelmän yhdistäminen sertifioituun EN ISO 9001 -standardin mukaiseen laatujärjestelmään. Työssä kerrotaan miten ympäristöjohtamisjärjestelmä on rakennettu ja miten laatu- ja ympäristöjärjestelmät on liitetty yhdeksi kokonaisuudeksi. Työn tuloksena syntyi malli johtamisjärjestelmien yhdistämisestä sekä sertifioitu ympäristöjohtamisjärjestelmä, jonka yhdistäminen laatujärjestelmään toteutettiin tavoitteiden mukaisesti.

Ympäristötietämyksen hallintasovelluksen kehittäminen

Uudistunut ympäristölainsäädäntö vaatii energiantuotantolaitoksilta yhä enemmän järjestelmällistä ympäristötiedon hallintaa. LCP- ja jätteenpolttoasetuksen velvoitteet ovat asettaneet uusia vaatimuksia päästöjen valvontaan ja siihen käytettävien mittausjärjestelmien laadunvarmennukseen sekä päästötietojen raportointiin. Uudistukset ovat lisänneet huomattavasti laitoksilla ympäristötiedon käsittelyyn kuluvaa aikaa. Laitosten toimintaehdot määritellään ympäristöviranomaisen myöntämässä ympäristöluvassa, joka on tärkein yksittäinen laitoksen toimintaa ohjaava tekijä. Tämän lisäksi monet toimijat haluavat parantaa ympäristöasioiden tasoaan vapaaehtoisilla ympäristöjärjestelmillä. Tässä diplomityössä kuvataan energiantuotantolaitosten ympäristöasioiden tallentamiseen ja hallintaan kehitetty selainpohjainen Metso Automationin DNAecoDiary'sovellus. Työ on rajattu koskemaan Suomessa toimivia LCP- ja/tai jätteenpolttoasetuksen alaisia laitoksia. Sovelluksen avulla voidaan varmistaa energiantuotantolaitosten poikkeamien, häiriöilmoitusten, päästömittalaitteisiin liittyvien tapahtumien ja muun ympäristöasioiden valvontaan liittyvän informaation tehokas hallinta. Sovellukseen tallennetaan ympäristötapahtumiin liittyvät perustiedot sekä etenkin käyttäjien tapahtumiin liittyvä kokemustietämys. Valvontakirjaukseen voidaan liittää tapahtuman perustietojen lisäksi myös tiedostoja ja kuvia. Sovellusta ja sillä kerättyä tietoa voidaan hyödyntää laitoksella käsilläolevien ongelmien ratkaisuun, ympäristötapahtumien todentamiseen sekä ympäristöraporttien laadintaan. Kehitystyön tueksi järjestettiin asiakastarvekartoitus, jonka perusteella ideoitiin sovelluksen ominaisuuksia. Tässä työssä on esitetty ympäristötiedon hallinan perusteet, selvitetty DNAecoDiaryn toimintaperiaatteet ja annettu esimerkkejä sen hyödyntämisestä. Sovelluksen lopullinen sisältö määritellään kunkin asiakkaan ympäristöluvan ja oma-valvonnan tarpeiden mukaisesti. Sovellus toimii itsenäisesti tai osana laajempaa Metso Automationin päästöjenhallinta- ja raportointisovelluskokonaisuutta.

Service Management in IP Networks

IP-verkoissa tarjottavat palvelut ovat lisääntyneet, on tullut uusia kanavia, jotka tarjoavat IP-pohjaisia palveluja. Internet-palvelujen tarjonta on tullut mukaan kaapelitelevisio- ja matkapuhelinverkkoihin. Lisääntynyt palvelujen tarjonta ja kysyntä ovat lisänneet palvelujen hallinnan merkitystä. IP-verkoissa on ilmennyt turvallisuuteen, skaalattavuuteen ja palvelun laatuun liittyviä ongelmia. Palvelun laadun tärkeys painottuu reaaliaikaisuutta ja suurta kapasiteettia vaativissa sovelluksissa. Tulevaisuudessa IP-liikenteen on ennustettu kasvavan yli satakertaiseksi nykyisestä tasosta kolmen vuoden kuluessa. Tämän vuoksi on kehitetty uusi verkon ja palvelun hallintamenetelmiä, joista tässä työssä on tutkittu sääntöpohjaista verkon hallintaa.