A short survey of expert systems in UK business

The paper summarises the results of a survey on behalf of the Alvey Directorate, conducted in 1983—4, of the use made of expert systems in twelve large UK firms. The survey points clearly to the conclusion that firms do not need to start with large state-of-the-art expert systems. A practical and useful entry point is provided by simpler systems, that is, those for which the knowledge base is clear cut, the expert is available and forthcoming, the knowledge is certain, the hypotheses definite and the ancillary data are valid. The author urges influential persons in an institution uncertain whether to use expert systems to make an exploratory entry and observe the results before making a final decision.
The author believes that in the longer term expert systems will have to be designed to interface with 'popular' business language databases and with other systems. He gives some guidelines to relevant developments.     

Introducing new computer-based systems into Zenbank

Here the author examines the development and implementation of a computer-based system within a financial services organization. It highlights emerging paradoxes within the developments of systems design which utilise quality management methodologies to support IT intensive business processes.     

Architectures,methods and tools for enterprise engineering

In today's highly competitive global economy, the demand for high-quality products manufactured at low costs with shorter cycle times has forced a number of manufacturing industries to consider various new product design, manufacturing, and management strategies. Recently, due to the rapid advances in Information Technology (IT), new paradigms have successively emerged such as CIM, JIT, lean manufacturing, concurrent engineering, business process engineering and more enterprise engineering (EE). Enterprise modeling is currently in use either as a technique to represent and understand the structure and behavior of the enterprise, or as a technique to analyze business processes, and in many cases as support technique for business process reengineering. However, architectures and methods for EE have also to cover the integration of quality, information system, cost, human and organizational aspects and have to support the EE process from goal and requirements definition up to implementation and operation (Vernadat, 1999. Proceedings of CARS&FOF 99 Conference, Aquas de Lindoia, Brazil).This paper provides an overview of architectures, methods and tools for EE. It then points out substantial results achieved so far as well as presents a methodology and a related tool in more detail, which supports all phases and aspects of EE.     

Research opportunities in the study of B2B new ventures: Perspectives from the entrepreneurship literature

The goal of this article is to identify research opportunities for scholars interested in B2B new ventures. The author focuses on opportunities that arise from a consideration of three important topics in the entrepreneurship literature: business model development, venture legitimacy, and top management teams. It is argued that significant opportunities exist for research that expands our understanding of (1) entrepreneurial paths from initial means to a fully specified business model, (2) the design of a portfolio of legitimation strategies, and (3) the impact of top management team characteristics and processes on venture characteristics, venture performance, and top management team outcomes.     

Business processes inter-operation for supply network co-ordination

In a global supply network, the overall improvement of operational efficiency and customer satisfaction can only be achieved through greater co-ordination and collaboration of all the network members. However, full benefits of close co-operation within a global supply network can only be achieved when the business processes of the individual companies can inter-operate. Currently available commercial solutions are inadequate in supporting full network co-ordination in terms of business process changes and technical arrangements. This paper proposes a system that aims to improve the co-ordination of production planning and control activities across the supply network. To achieve this, it is important to develop new business processes and principles for company collaboration and corresponding information systems. This process starts from the identification of business and system requirements, which underlie the general business solutions for network co-ordination, developing the guiding design principles and subsequent process design and system implementation.     

The components of risk in new product development: Project New Prod

Although new product development is one of the riskiest activities of a modern corporation, relatively little account is taken of risk measurement in the R & D project selection literature. The existing consensus is that risk is measured by some combination of the total amounts at stake and the uncertainties of the situation. The paper describes a project aimed at more exactly identifying and defining the components of risk as perceived by a decision-maker within a firm undertaking new product ventures. The project is based on data from a study of the behaviour of 103 firms and 197 ventures.
The results show broadly that managers perceive risk to be highest when the product shows least synergy with the firm's current business. In contrast, the possibility of reducing uncertainty components of risk through information-seeking seems to be of little account in risk perception. The author concludes from this that decision-makers are much more influenced by factors that control the amounts at stake (in general, the less the synergy the greater the resources needed to back a new product entry) than by uncertainty as to the outcome. The latter must constitute an important element of risk in reality. Its neglect may be because managers find they can deal conceptually more easily with concrete matters like the amount at stake than with the intangibles of uncertainty reduction. This may explain why many firms fail to integrate information into their new product development process.     

一卡通在高校管理中的应用

随着信息技术的发展,高等学校的消费支付理念和管理模式正在朝信息化方向改革,逐步实现校园一卡通已成为时代发展的需要。以河北科技大学一卡通项目为背景,结合实际工作经验,从校园一卡通系统的主要功能出发,介绍了商务消费管理子系统和银行转账子系统的实现。结果表明一卡通系统的实现为学校的管理提供了有力保障。     

Provider involvement in business service definition: A typology

This paper proposes a typology for provider roles in defining business services. The starting point of the study is the underlying rationale of much of the service purchasing literature that buyers have or can easily access the necessary know-how to procure business services. If this does not hold, the implication is that buying firms would shy away from buying complex services. An alternative perspective recognizes that purchasing business services requires its own set of sourcing capabilities, which may be lacking. Buying firms may have limited know-how in terms of defining and articulating their requirements or not be fully aware of them in the first place. However, the buyer's lack of sourcing capabilities need not be an injunction to internalize the service. In these circumstances, service providers step in, help buying firms specify their requirements and play a key role in defining what is procured and how. We build on this interactive view of service definition to undertake a comparative case analysis of four business service contracting situations arrayed along two dimensions — buyer perceived uncertainty and provider's buyer-specific experience. We conclude that service providers play different roles in each case. These are classified as translating, re-engineering, developing, and fine-tuning roles.     

Visual communication technology : Priorities for the 1980s

The author considers a strategy for the study of visual communications in the 1980s. To establish a basis for this strategy, market research was carried out to ascertain major visual communications needs in leading business organizations. The systems found to have greatest potential were video conferencing, interactive information retrieval, facsimile, document processing, and office automation (integrating all four systems). In the light of these requirements, the author describes a study programme for the 1980s and shows which technologies should be developed.     

浅析纺织企业信息化发展的途径

文章阐述了纺织信息化的含义,从纺织产品设计、企业管理、生产过程控制、生产装备和企业间协作五方面对纺织企业信息化发展的途径进行介绍。     

A real-time information system for multivariate statistical process control

Statistical process control (SPC) is widely used in process industries to monitor variations in process attributes. Typically, automatic devices capture a multitude of measurements on process and product characteristics every few seconds. Operators and engineers commonly monitor only a small subset of these. Multivariate SPC has been proposed to fully utilize the available data, however, interpretation of multivariate information is often too complex for most line operators. This paper describes the design and implementation of a real-time multivariate process control system that features a graphical user interface (GUI) and provides useful information for both line operators and engineers. The information system described in this paper should provide large-scale manufacturers with better access to information for identifying opportunities in continuing to improve processes performance and business competitiveness.     

Management of development projects: how to meet corporate business goals?

Two contradictory elements affect development projects in the modern era. New advanced development projects require huge resources and long schedules. On the other hand, the resources available for development projects are decreasing, and intensive competition between companies results in increased required performance and new products which must be developed with short schedules. Development projects have a significant effect on a company's business goals, and therefore attract the attention of corporate managers. A significant part of managers' time is devoted to the control of development projects. Support tools are therefore developed and used to assist managers in controlling their projects. This paper describes a control tool to help managers make decisions on development projects. The tool described is based on Microsoft's 'Project' software package, and was developed in-house. The package performs real-time calculations and simultaneously presents several control parameters. These parameters provide a comprehensive picture of project status. The major benefits of the control tools described are: (1) The 'Project' package provides the ability to work with small and combined work packages. It allows attention to be focused on small programs as well as on entire programs. (2) It complies fully with modern decentralised computer systems consisting of a central computer, local computerised networks, parallel PCs and work stations. It provides an interactive quick response ability to follow changes in project status, which result from design changes or progress updates. The control system was implemented by RAFAEL's Missiles Division two years ago, and impressive results in terms of project efficiency were achieved. These achievements play a major role in meeting the Division's business goals. The control tools described are general and can fit a large variety of projects and companies.     

Strategic purity: A multi‐industry evaluation of pure vs. hybrid business strategies

Twenty‐five years of empirical research has failed to resolve a basic strategy question. Does strategic purity pay? Most theorists believe strategic purity—the extent to which a business pursues one type of generic strategy over another—contributes to better performance. By defining the strategy space consistent with the theory, and employing improved design and methods, our study of 2,351 businesses finds a significant relationship between strategic purity and performance. Purity does appear to pay. Some variations in strategic purity and performance relationship were observed across four major industry sectors: manufacturing, construction, retail, and business services. But in all instances pure strategies never did less well, and often did better than hybrid strategies. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

多种方法集成的商业模式创新研究

本文针对当前商业模式构成要素及创新需求,运用类别思维、TRIZ理论中技术成熟度预测、资源分析、进化法则及商业价值评估多种方法的集成使用,对现有商业模式发展现状、构成要素的关系、各要素所拥有资源的梳理等进行全方位分析。打破以往只关注商业模式本身的问题及发展,选取商业模式中价值主张和客户界面两个要素,结合中小学商业模式所呈现的特性,综合使用多种创新方法,用动态发展的角度把握商业模式创新,为商业模式创新提供更多更丰富的路径。     

交易分析:企业活动研究的范式创新

长期以来，由于缺乏统一的研究范式，企业管理理论的整合研究一直倍受困扰。因此，人们一直不断努力探索建立基础性的管理学范畴。作者发现，“企业交易”可能正是这样一个具有高度整合性、基础性的概念，它是企业活动的细胞式单位。因而，人们完全可以通过“交易分析”对企业予以整体考察。作者通过本文论证了这一创新观点和方法，并建立了一套以“价值活动网结构分析模型”为核心的交易分析实用工具。     

The dynamics of multicultural NPD teams in virtual environments

Changes in the business environment, responses of companies to these changes and the available information and communication technologies (ICT) pose a number of challenges to present and future product developers, as well as to educational institutions. An appropriate response to these challenges is to create a solid basis for strategies to combat stronger competition, since existing educational programs have provided this only to a small extent. Several European universities provided this basis with the development of an international design course European Global Product Realization (EGPR). The main objective of the EGPR course is to provide a stimulating working environment for students, where they can conquer the design competences needed for their future professional practice. The main focus is put on multidisciplinary, multinational and multicultural teams, using virtual technological developments in solving a new product development (NPD) problem at a global level. This paper studies how the growth of the course internationally affects the design process carried out. A survey was carried out among the students of the past four courses and the analysis shows that the cultural background of the students has significant effect on their perception of the courses’ processes. This is a novel challenge that the developers of the course need to face in order to provide the highest level of knowledge possible to the students.     

Information Sharing and Firm Performance in Japan

North American firms have begun to show greater interest in sharing private business information with unions and employees, a labor relations practice widely institutionalized in Japan. This study uses a survey of Japanese joint consultation committees and publicly available business data to examine the effects of information sharing on a firm's profitability, productivity, and labor cost. The results generally show a positive association of information sharing with profitability and productivity and a negative association with labor cost.     

Consumer involvement in supply networks: A cubic typology of C2B2C and C2B2B business models

Business models such as C2B and B2B2C, in which consumers get involved in companies' supply chains and business operations, are burgeoning in many industries. Academic research on the phenomenon is, however, lagging behind, and extant research has typically focused on just one or a few variants of such business models at a time. The present conceptual research addresses this research gap by developing a comprehensive typology that explicates and unpacks the full variety of consumer involvement types in supply networks of contemporary business models. The three-dimensional typology developed contributes to literature by identifying and integrating the relevant dimensions, which have been addressed in prior research only implicitly or in a piecemeal manner. This elucidates the full range and variety of the phenomenon to researchers. For managers, the three-dimensional, cubic typology offers a business development tool, facilitating the identification of altogether 56 alternative business models, wherein consumers may serve as suppliers of various inputs, including work, effort, and entrepreneurial activity; goods; platform goods; natural resources and energy; data, information, and knowledge; attention and presence; as well as money and capital.     

Industrial marketing management digital media optimization for B2B marketing

The role of digital media in B2B marketing has gained traction with academics and practitioners in recent years. However, a comprehensive framework about the use and value of these media has not been developed, leaving B2B experts uncertain about their effectiveness. In fact, whether or not digital media can impact the business development and marketing processes to achieve higher performance remains vague. Additionally, there is a paucity of research related to the impact of different media towards the enhancement of processes and outcome of marketing to generate opportunities. To provide guidance for practitioners, we consider marketing processes in the global software industry by researching practitioner experiences. We develop an assessment tool to identify and align marketing processes and digital media. This research attempts to explore and explain how digital media impacts the B2B business development process cycle at the conjunction of marketing and sales. The research tests a conceptual model by means of a cross-sectional survey of more than 530 practitioners. Our novel framework provides several contributions to knowledge and practice, defining marketing-related processes, and determining a set of digital platforms. By acknowledging the perspectives of vendors, third-parties, and buyers in a simultaneous study, we ensure optimal alignment.     

Technology management as part of strategic planning – some empirical results

During the past years R&D management has been broadened into technology management, and the fruitfulness of its integration into strategic management has become clear. Empirical research has shown that R&D contributes relatively more to conventional output measures of firms that capital, and might therefore be expanded. However, whether its strategic direction should be aligned with that of other business functions is less than clear. Better information, including competitor technological intelligence information, is needed to better support strategic decisions.