Offer Smart Services Research Articles

Gaining acceptance for digital servitization: the role of legitimacy in the development of a smart service in established manufacturing ecosystems

Purpose Digital servitization research has focused on how manufacturing firms use digital technologies to change business models and offer smart services; less attention has been devoted to the degree to which external actors in the existing ecosystem accept these smart services. Therefore, the authors pose the following research question: How does a manufacturing firm introduce and gain acceptance of new smart services within an established ecosystem? Design/methodology/approach Building on servitization, ecosystem and legitimacy theories, this paper addresses the research question through an in-depth case study of a world-leading original equipment manufacturer that is currently developing and introducing new smart services in its existing ecosystem. Findings The findings suggest that external actors emphasize different types of legitimacy in deciding whether to accept a new smart service. The findings also show that the type of legitimacy required to gain acceptance changes throughout the development of the smart service, from the definition of the value proposition to the design and delivery of the service. Practical implications This study can assist smart service providers in identifying which type of legitimacy is important for each ecosystem actor and strengthening these types of legitimacy to gain acceptance from the ecosystem. Originality/value This study develops a framework to help describe the thresholds for acceptance of a smart service through the development phases, as well as to indicate the types of legitimacy that smart service providers must relate to when seeking to gain acceptance for their new offering.

A contemporary survey of recent advances in federated learning: Taxonomies, applications, and challenges

The Internet of Things (IoT) has embedded itself in our daily lives, offering smart services and AI-driven applications. However, traditional AI methods face challenges due to centralized data management in vast IoT networks and privacy concerns. Federated Learning (FL) solves this by training AI directly on distributed IoT devices, avoiding extensive data sharing. This article provides interested researchers of FL with an in-depth and up-to-date exploration of the multifaceted of FL in a privacy-centric era. This study is structured with three principal objectives. Firstly, within the realm of taxonomies for FL, the study aims to identify and categorize the existing frameworks utilized in FL research. Furthermore, it seeks to provide a thorough overview of how FL is delineated and conceptualized in current literature. Secondly, the study endeavors to explore the applications of FL by scrutinizing and classifying various use cases across diverse domains and industries. This objective aims to illuminate the applications and industries benefitting from FL implementations. Thirdly, the study addresses the inherent challenges in FL by examining the associated limitations. The study strives to offer insights into the technical and practical obstacles encountered in FL scenarios, contributing to a comprehensive understanding of the challenges within this dynamic field. This survey serves as a roadmap towards establishing sustainable massive IoT networks. Additionally, it paves the way for interested researchers to pursue and advance the vision of FL's evolving role in IoT.

Software Size Measurement of Smart Digital Tourism Project based on Use Case Point

In recent years, the tourism sector has evolved into a key strategic business for boosting local economic output. This industry has been dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic impact since the end of 2019. The tourism sector was, however, expected to bounce back and carry on expanding as it had in the past. For the purpose of enhancing services for stakeholders, this sector must transition from the conventional approach to digitization. Regarding the ability to include stakeholders in offering smart services, a smart digital tourism should be prepared. The creation of this clever solution should follow a quantifiable software development approach, such as measurable software design. The purpose of this study is to provide a case point method for measuring software design in relation to project budget and schedule. The study's findings showed that the size of the project would be 112.27 Use Case Points, it would take 2,133.13 hours to complete, and it would cost 28,530,613.8 Indonesian Rupiah (IDR) to develop the software. The findings will aid in the management of software development at a later stage in terms of making decisions and planning additional quantifiable projects.

The provision of smart service at academic libraries and associated challenges

Technological advancement has forced academic libraries to change their traditional services by adopting emerging technologies to respond to the changing information needs of their users, who are now more technologically inclined and prefer remote and timely access to scholarly information. Smart technologies are the recent trend in academic libraries. Smart technologies have the potential to enhance academic library services provision and also support the distance learning environment, especially now as higher education embraces online and distance learning. Therefore, it is essential to investigate the level of implementation of smart services at academic libraries and the challenges they face in developing and/or providing smart services. A questionnaire was developed to collect the required data from library staff ( N = 340) at academic libraries in Jordan, where (246) responded and completed the questionnaire. The results indicate a moderate level of implementation of smart services at academic libraries in Jordan ( M = 3.12). The result also shows that the challenges facing the libraries to implement and offer smart services was also moderate ( M = 3.57). Resistance to change was the main challenge libraries face in their attempt to embrace smart technology to offer smart services. Also, privacy and confidentiality appeared to be one of the top rated challenges libraries have to deal with when planning for smart services deployment. Moreover, financial-related issues, such as poor infrastructure and staff training were among the main challenges librarians face to develop/offer smart services. Most importantly, challenges negatively affect the level of smart services at academic libraries in Jordan. This paper provides insights for academic librarians and decision-makers in planning for the provision of smart services at their libraries. It highlights the main challenges that might hinder the implementation and provision of smart services.

The role of smart cities to promote smart governance in municipalities

The main focus of this paper is to provide a contextualized reflection about what smart cities are and their primary contribution in promoting smart governance.
 Objectives
 Objectives include amongst others, the definition of the smart city concept and how it can be used as a means to achieve more efficient and sustainable cities. It further elucidates the use of internet enhanced public service delivery to promote smart governance in municipalities.
 Prior Work
 This paper is built upon existing prior work that has been done in the emerging trends in smart cities. Researchers have identified several different “discourses” related to smart cities However, this paper delves deeper into how innovation and the concept of internet of things can enhance public service delivery. It further contextualizes the use of internet enabled public services with the purpose of making municipalities smart cities, with smart governance by offering smart services to its communities.
 Approach
 A qualitative research approach was used to fulfil the objectives of the paper through an in-depth desktop analysis of existing literature from recent journals.
 Results 
 The research findings traverse that although a plethora of challenges remain, it is the amenability of both the political and administrative leadership and the gravity attached to technology that determines the extent of depth of transforming municipalities towards the goal of being smart cities.
 Implications
 The overall goal of this paper is to lay a foundation for the development of a comprehensive framework to redirect administrators and political office bearers towards smart city and smart governance inclined policy directives as suggested in the research findings. Inferences drawn from the paper will assist in further research in the field of innovation, smart cities and smart governance as wheels and machinery of service delivery.
 Value
 Finally, this paper attempts to merge theory and practice to work towards understanding of what a smart city means for South African cities through smart governance manage and minimize challenges confronted by municipalities through the use of technology.

Value Creation Framework and Roles for Smart Services

For several years now, the two megatrends of servitization and digitalization have had a major impact on business in manufacturing. Servitization means the addition of complementary services to products aiming for increased revenues, margins, and differentiation from competitors. Digitalization refers to the rapidly evolving information and communication technologies, enabling intelligent and interconnected products. The convergence of the two megatrends leads to so-called smart services; digital services that generate additional value from data of smart products. Smart services enable new promising business models going far beyond traditional services. Consequently, the value creation in manufacturing is shifting drastically. Manufacturing companies striving to offer smart services need to plan for their future value network (VN) and must define their position in it. However, this is not a trivial matter. Manufacturing companies must extend their often historically grown value creation with new mechanisms, such as processing machine data, and structures, such as digital platforms. Hence, the complexity of the underlying VN of a successful smart service business is far greater than traditional VNs in manufacturing. To tackle these challenges, our research aims for a design support for smart service VNs. The research follows the guiding principles of design science research, utilizes the design research methodology, and integrates a systematic literature review. This results in a framework giving a general understanding of smart service value creation. The framework is supplemented by 44 value creation roles for smart services, which help planning the VN and positioning of the focal company in it. Hence, we empower managers to design their companies’ future value creation for smart services. The framework and roles further extend the scientific knowledge base regarding the understanding of value creation through and with smart services.

How to Improve the Quality of Living in Smart Cities: Recommendations for a Citizen-centric Strategic Approach for Msheireb?

Various countries across the globe have implemented smart city initiatives to enhance the quality of living (QoL) for their citizens and other frequent users by offering smart services and innovative solutions. However, in many cases, end-users are often neglected during the planning, designing, and implementation phases of smart cities, which can impact the success of locally-based initiatives because their needs are not always fully taken into consideration. This research aims at exploring the approach of citizen-centricity in smart cities, define their key components, investigate the gap and challenges as perceived by citizens, users, and developers, and propose strategic recommendations for ways to enhance the QoL in Msheireb Smart City (MSC). The primary research was conducted to investigate citizens’ satisfaction, experience, usage of services, and to collect their feedback on areas of improvements in MSC. The results show that MSC’s users had low level of awareness about the smart services offered in the city, which resulted in less frequent use of the services. Based on this research, the strategic recommendations advise that smart city decision-makers should recognize citizens’ needs and preferences by implementing a customer relationship management strategy, promote citizens’ inclusion and engagement by establishing a citizen-centric inclusion strategy, and improve their awareness and usage of services by implementing a marketing campaign strategy.

Smart Cities Development During and Post COVID-19 Pandemic – A Predictive Analysis

Purpose: The Smart Cities due to their important role in infrastructure building activities and offering smart services to their residents in living an enjoyable life are always in the limelight and discussions. The current COVID-19 pandemic has however changed the situation, and has forced us to rethink the way we operate, carry out day to day activities and services. COVID-19 pandemic has changed the normal routine life to a significant extent, damaged the economies of many countries, shifted our business priorities, and so on. In such situations, how can Smart Cities remain unaffected due to COVID-19? This paper has analysed and discussed in detail the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Smart Cities operations and development and also, how this impact can be measured. It has described in detail how Smart Cities has changed their priorities and how they are more focusing on building Smart Healthcare facilities, Smart Isolation Wards, Smart Medicare facilities, services related to Telemedicine, Virtual Doctor, dedicated COVID-19 Command and Control Centres and so on. The paper has also highlighted the post COVID-19 Pandemic era for Smart Cities development and operations. Finally, the paper has concluded that Smart Cities development during and post COVID-19 Pandemic has witnessed a short obstacle in its growth journey, Smart Cities are definitely going to win the war against COVID-19 and will become Smarter in the future to tackle such pandemics. Design/Methodology/Approach: This research paper made use of available secondary data in research journal papers, online books, white papers, and dedicated websites on the research subject area to analyze the impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Smart Cities Development and Operations. Findings/Result: Due to COVID-19 Pandemic, it is observed that many sectors growth slow down due to budget cut and financial constraints, however, certain sectors such as Medical Infrastructure, Insurance, and eCommerce have seen booms, this has made Smart Cities to have a strong focus on certain Smart Services related to Medical facilities, IT infrastructure to facilitate contactless transactions, Telemedicine Service, Smart Isolation Wards, etc. whereas services with respect to entertainment parks, tourism, etc. slowed down due to less priority and budget constraints. Originality/Value: Based on the available secondary data, this research has identified the impact of COVID-19 on ongoing Smart Cities development and also how its priorities and focus got shifted to build up certain services and infrastructure. The paper has also highlighted post COVID-19, how Smart Cities development, operations, and maintenance activities will be affected. Paper Type: Secondary data-based Research

Are smart service manufacturing providers different in cooperation and innovation flexibility, in innovation performance and business performance from non-smart service manufacturing providers?

Abstract To overcome the challenges posed by increasing competition, many traditional manufacturing companies are moving from the mere production of manufacturing goods to the integration of services that are more or less integrated into the product, which is also due to the constant development of the industry. Moreover, many manufacturing companies offer products that use smart technologies. This paper focuses on the importance of smart service provision for cooperation and innovation flexibility, innovation performance and business performance in small and medium manufacturing companies. The paper aims to find out if smart service manufacturing providers are different in cooperation and innovation flexibility and innovation and business performance from non-smart service manufacturing providers. To better understand the issue, research was undertaken in 112 small and medium manufacturing companies of the Czech Republic. The problems of smart service provision were investigated in the first empirical research held among the electric engineering companies (CZ-NACE 26 and CZ-NACE 27) in the Czech Republic. The findings show that smart service manufacturing providers are better in internal cooperation flexibility, innovation flexibility related to product and to accompanying services and in business performance than non-smart service manufacturing providers. Theoretical implication contributes in two specific ways: first, in the presentation of the interconnection of smart services and cooperation flexibility, innovation flexibility, innovation performance and business performance; and second, in the identification of the impact of smart services in manufacturing SMEs and in finding out which areas affect the provision of smart services. The findings can have a positive influence in several areas; therefore, they can be important factors for many manufacturing companies which still need some persuasion to offer smart services.

Implementasi Teknologi IoT Pada Smart Home

Indonesia to date has implemented a variety of telecommunications technologies forImproving quality and improving quality so that improvements need to be done in all fields, one of them is Telecommunications Infrastructure. Internet of Things (IoT) technology, offering smart services and networks. But to implement IoT technology requires a lot of costs and is quite expensive, therefore it is necessary to formulate a strategy that is suitable for implementing IoT technology. To formulate a plan based on the concept of strategic management science using strategy formulation using a strategy process consisting of MEI (Evaluation Matrix Internal), MEE (External Evaluation Matrix), SWOT, External Internal Matrix, and Grand Strategy. After formulating it was found that the "3 R strategy and then slowly applying the IoT technology" is the best and workable strategy.

Service Management for IoT: Requirements, Taxonomy, Recent Advances and Open Research Challenges

The exponential growth in the number of smart devices connected to the Internet of Things (IoT), and associated with various IoT-based smart applications and services, raises interoperability challenges which could affect the sustainability of IoT services. IoT software applications are built using different software platforms and embedded in diverse types of terminals and sensing devices. Aiming to offer smart services over a range of network technologies that use different communication protocols. The concept of Web service with service-oriented solutions was introduced to cope with the heterogeneity of hardware and software, and to tackle issues of interoperability, flexibility and scalability. The main step of this solution was the integration of Web of Things technologies into smart device networks, with the utilization of IoT gateways. Service management is a crucial factor in sustaining service-oriented solutions in dynamic and highly scalable IoT systems, and is concerned with several issues associated with service provisioning, orchestration, composition and adaption. This work was motivated by the need for robust and flexible service management systems that can meet the requirements for the rapid scalability and heterogeneity associated with the exponential growth of IoT systems. In the literature there is no survey of service management issues and associated research efforts in the field of IoT. In this article, we identify the key requirements for managing IoT services as well as common service management platforms for IoT. We provide a thematic taxonomy based on the important factors, and investigate recent advances in service management for IoT systems. Finally, the major challenges that remain open are presented as a guide for future research directions.

Activity inference engine for real-time cognitive assistance in smart environments

Recent research in ambient intelligence allows wireless sensor networks to perceive environmental states and their changes in smart environments. An intelligent living environment could not only provide better interactions with its ambiance, inside electrical devices and everyday objects, but also offer smart services, even smart assistance to disabled or elderly people when necessary. This paper proposes a new inference engine based on the formal concept analysis to achieve activity prediction and recognition, even abnormal behavioral pattern detection for ambient-assisted living. According to occupants’ historical data, we explore useful frequent patterns to guide future prediction, recognition and detection tasks. Like the way of human reasoning, the engine could incrementally infer the most probable activity according to successive observations. Furthermore, we propose a hierarchical clustering approach to merge activities according to their semantic similarities. As an optimized knowledge discovery approach in hierarchical ambient intelligence environments, it could optimize the prediction accuracies at the earliest stages when only a few observations are available.

Smart servitization within the context of industrial user–supplier relationships: contingencies according to a machine tool manufacturer

Advanced manufacturing technologies (AMT) have been hailed as enablers to make industrial products and operations smart. The present paper argues that AMT can not only form a lever for developing smart goods and smart production environments, but can likewise form a basis to offer smart services and to propose servitized earning or payment models to industrial users. We do so on the basis of a literature review, followed by a case-based analysis of the AMT and servitization challenges to which a machine tool manufacturer is exposed in its industrial market environment. Consequently, the present study identifies a set of contingencies c.q. catalyzers with regard to seizing AMT for smart servitization practices within industrial business-to-business contexts. These are: the ability to capture relevant data; to exploit such data adequately and convert them into actionable knowledge; and to build trust among users and producers of capital goods in order to come to effective data exchange. We finish by deriving implications for smart servitization in a manufacturing context, and by outlining case-based lessons on how AMT and servitization can further interactive design and manufacturing practices in an industrial producer-user setting. We contend that there may be a gap between the technological and organizational readiness of (many) machine tool companies for smart servitization, on the one hand, and what different publications on AMT and Industry 4.0 are trying to make out. We also find that besides the high-tech and big data components to smart servitization, companies with an ambition in this field should take into account minimum/right information principles, to actually get to deep learning, and to establish a culture of trust with business partners, and inside implicated organizations among departments to create an environment in which smart servitized user-supplier relationships can prosper.

Competence Portfolio Assessment of Research and Development Center for Regional Development

Digitalization is rapidly increasing and enterprises must find new ways to innovate for business advantage. Engineering industry is currently living in the middle of co-evolution from being the product provider to offering smart services and even to being the provider of customer value. The right way of digitalization can lead to business differentiation by smart services. But to transform themselves, the companies must have the right digital assets, suitable organizational capability and culture, right competence structure and individuals with right mindset to succeed in co- evolution. This article concentrates on analysing the role of research and development unit HAMK Smart Services. Its mission is to support co-evolution of municipal and industrial enterprises as well as value networks and through that increasing the competitiveness of the region. For that purpose, it is important to know the overall capabilities of the HAMK Smart Services unit. In our article we categorize the competence and capability into three layers: human competence and capability, organizational capability and content management capability. This article introduces a new interrelated three layer competence portfolio model and results of survey done with Smart Services research and development unit. Case study analysis has been executed within the customer segment of Industrial digitalization and life cycle care.

Wireless Sensor Network and Convergent Technologies

Although different technologies have different objectives for different context of applications, they could be integrated or converged to achieve the required objectives. One technology can complement the weakness of another and convergence of technologies will make the system more robust and ideal. The smart environment relies first and foremost on sensory data from the real world. Sensory data comes from multiple sensors of different distributed locations. To meet the functional requirement of the various applications, it will be necessary for sensor systems to leverage and incorporate the advances and strengths in adjacent technologies to offer smart services. In this paper we discuss 3 areas of Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) related, convergent technologies (i.e. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), Agents, and Grid and how they can work together with WSN. In addition, the challenges found in convergence and the future trends beyond convergence are also discussed.

Special issue on “Intelligent systems and services for ubiquitous computing”

Ubiquitous computing is emerging rapidly as an exciting new paradigm to provide computing and communication services anytime and anywhere. To offer smart services at the right time, right place and using the right means, ubiquitous systems must possess appropriate levels of intelligence. Our special issue provides an opportunity for academic and industry professionals to present recent progress in the area of intelligent ubiquitous computing systems including models, infrastructures, new directions and novel applications associated with the utilization and acceptance of intelligent ubiquitous devices and systems. This special issue aims to foster the dissemination of high quality, original research on new intelligent systems and services. Submissions to this special issue come from an open call for papers as well as from selected papers presented at the 3rd International Symposium on Ubiquitous Application and Security Service (UASS-08) held at Ginowan, Okinawa, Japan, from 25 March to 28 March 2008. Accordingly, a number of papers included in this special issue concentrate on intelligent systems and its building blocks, including routing schemes, broadcasting protocols, collision avoidance mechanism, information processing and middleware architectures for ubiquitous computing environments. Others focus on specific intelligent services and applications based on ubiquitous computing environments. More specifically, H. Kim presents an intra-domain route optimization scheme for ubiquitous networks. Her scheme shows cost-effectiveness in every hierarchical domain that spans mesh network topology and it performs much better than the Network Mobility protocol, when the number of mobile nodes or mobile routers or correspondent nodes increases in hierarchically nested in ubiquitous networks. Vaidya also presents a routing scheme guaranteeing robustness and security, and this scheme is especially designed for wireless multi-hop networks. His routing protocol achieves better performance in terms of various metrics than other protocols. Zhang introduces concepts bringing quality of service (QoS) to peer-to-peer (P2P)-based semantic service discovery for the universal network. Generally, service discovery in the universal network is quite distinct from that of present networks. Zhang puts QoS measurements into service discovery so as to adapt to the universal network, especially P2P networks, as an infrastructure to fulfill the service discovery due to the large amount of services in the network. Peng presents adaptive broadcasting protocols, which can be used in ubiquitous intelligent VOD applications. Peng’s schemes can intelligently adjust the solution J. H. Park (&) Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Kyungnam University, Kyungnam, Korea e-mail: parkjonghyuk1@hotmail.com