Towards The Internet Of Production – How To Increase Data Sharing For Successful Supply Chain Collaboration

Numerous start-ups and now even some major corporates are currently trying to improve visibility and foresight in the manufacturing industry through connected supply chains, or in other words, through increased data sharing. This study strives to support companies in leveraging the potential of increased data sharing in supply chain collaborations. Despite the great potential of digitizing manufacturing and automated data sharing throughout the supply chain, most companies are not yet able or willing to implement this kind of openness. The main reason for this lack of transparency in the supply chain is the high complexity and high cost of the required interfaces. In practice, instead of automated and extensive data sharing, companies exchange spreadsheets and PDFs with minimum information. This study supports companies in the pre-stage before automated data sharing is technically implemented. We find that building trustful relationships is a necessary step towards extended and automated data sharing. Moreover, we find that social capital provides a means to partially compensate for a lack of automation in terms of shortening lead times and dealing with disruptions. Introducing a supply chain collaboration typology and showcasing descriptive and qualitative results for 36 firms, we show how to navigate the frontend of the Internet of Production

Interaction design for open innovation platforms: A social exchange perspective

We investigate the interaction design preferences of solution seekers and problem solvers on open innovation (crowdsourcing) platforms. Drawing on social exchange theory (SET), we hypothesize that seekers and solvers have different preferences for the configuration of four central interaction design features of a crowdsourcing platform: communication channels, collaboration options, selection of winning submissions, and feedback mechanisms. Based on a conjoint study with 842 respondents, we show conflicting preferences for the configuration of these features, but also find a surprisingly consistent “best” configuration that can balance the individual preferences of both seekers and solvers. In addition, we identify social trust, risk aversion, and the need for cognition as three personal characteristics of individuals in seeker organizations and solvers that influence their preferred configuration of platform design. Our findings help intermediaries operating a crowdsourcing platform to offer nuanced platform interactions that align how individuals in seeker organizations (e.g., project managers) and individual solvers create and capture value in crowdsourcing. Furthermore, we contribute to the micro-foundations of open innovation by proposing SET as a novel perspective to examine how the expectations and value drivers of all parties involved in a crowdsourcing project can be balanced

New European Driving Cycle assessment by means of particle size distributions in a light-duty diesel engine fuelled with different fuel formulations

In this study, an experimental investigation of particle size distribution emission over performance of transient conditions in a high speed diesel engine fuelled with diesel, biodiesel and Fischer Tropsch fuels have been assessed. Six fuels with different properties have been tested in a 4-cylinder light-duty diesel engine typically used for European passenger cars. The cycle used in this study was the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC) and each test was carried out after a stabilization warming period in order to avoid cold start effects. A comparative analysis between nucleation and accumulation particle mode concentration, particle size distributions and a geometric mean diameter calculation are presented in this paper. In this sense, a reduction in the range of particle diameter emitted and a decrease in accumulation particle mode concentration with Fischer Tropsch fuel during the EUDC were found. In contrast, all biofuels used show an increase of particle number concentration in nucleation-mode during the urban cycles (ECE-15) related to combustion damage at low load conditions. Finally, an increase in the sulfur content diesel fuel leads to an increase in the geometric mean diameter of particle size distribution related to the increase in accumulation particle concentration during the entire cycle.The equipment used in this work has been partially supported by FEDER project funds "Dotacion de infraestructuras cientifico tecnicas para el Centro Integral de Mejora Energetica y Medioambiental de Sistemas de Transporte (CiMeT), (FEDER-ICTS-2012-06)'', framed in the operational program of singular scientific and technical infrastructure of the Ministry of Science and Innovation of Spain.Bermúdez Tamarit, VR.; Lujan Martinez, JM.; Ruiz Rosales, S.; Campos, D.; Linares Rodríguez, WG. (2015). New European Driving Cycle assessment by means of particle size distributions in a light-duty diesel engine fuelled with different fuel formulations. Fuel. 140:649-659. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2014.10.016S64965914

A review of advanced catalyst development for Fischer-Tropsch synthesis of hydrocarbons from biomass derived syn-gas

Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (FTS) is a process which converts syn-gas (H2 and CO) to synthetic liquid fuels and valuable chemicals. Thermal gasification of biomass represents a convenient route to produce syn-gas from intractable materials particularly those derived from waste that are not cost effective to process for use in biocatalytic or other milder catalytic processes. The development of novel catalysts with high activity and selectivity is desirable as it leads to improved quality and value of FTS products. This review paper summarises recent developments in FT-catalyst design with regards to optimising catalyst activity and selectivity towards synthetic fuels

Impact of Open Innovation on Industries and Firms – A Dynamic Complex Systems View

This paper develops novel behavioural models of open innovation (OI) for competitive markets and uses them to compare the impact of two types of OI frameworks – open source (OS) and patent-licensing (PL). The dynamic consequences of OI, for both OS and PL, are studied using a complex adaptive systems approach. We examine how profits, technology levels, R&D investment, technology adoption and market structure evolve under each and are impacted by underlying market characteristics. While both OS and PL are found to be equivalent in technology outcomes, OS comes with additional advantages to participating firms. Firms in the OS framework earn higher profit and are more efficient with their R&D investments. The industry is less concentrated under OS than under PL, except when market size is very large. In both frameworks, consumer preference for new product adoption has a significant impact. When consumers adopt newly introduced products relatively quickly, market concentration is the higher and overall rate of technological progress slower. These results contribute towards a deeper theoretical understanding of OI, opening new avenues for future research

A social capital perspective on open innovation ecosystems and platform governance

Both theory and industry practice have come to acknowledge social exchange as a key driver of innovation, moving away from viewing innovation as a proprietary and mostly entrepreneurial, individual or firm-centric process to a more open and largely social process (Liu et al. 2018). Researchers and practitioners have therefore expanded their focus from internal innovation capabilities to external innovation ecosystems with diverse actors and intricate social relations. Acknowledging the resulting opportunities for knowledge exchange, the notion of open innovation has had a great impact on management research and practice (Chesbrough, 2003; Nambisan et al., 2018). Yet, in order to successfully manage and sustain knowledge exchange in an open innovation ecosystem, it is important to identify appropriate governance mechanisms that promote social exchange in a way that benefits all parties involved (Kohler, 2015).This dissertation investigates open innovation ecosystems and platform governance from the lens of social capital theory. With regard to search distance and social ties, the advent of digitization has decoupled network building from geographically restricted regional ecosystems and has increased the opportunities to make geographically unrestricted connections via digital means (Nambisan et al., 2017). While local approaches are limited in outreach, they provide potential for deeper and more trusting connections. In contrast, digital approaches provide easy access to a wide range of ideas and highly specialized knowledge on a global scale, but the connections tend to be superficial in nature. For open innovation management, both local and digitally enabled global platforms provide vast opportunities to make novel and important connections. Both approaches enable seekers to overcome different hurdles in finding external knowledge, but also bring different challenges. My thesis explores these two overarching research themes of local and digitally enabled global open innovation platforms. The first theme examines a “local open innovation” (LOI) approach that – fostered by different innovation intermediaries and social capital – enables organizations to open up to external ideas (Essays I and II). The local context facilitates to uncover the social dynamics of the open innovation process and its success factors. The second theme explores governance structures and platform design parameters for building social capital in the digital context. Essays III and IV are of quantitative nature and build on the qualitative findings of the first two studies. Overall, I seek to adapt the concepts that explain social dynamics in the local context to the digital realm, where maintaining knowledge exchange proves more difficult due to the lack of social ties or a shared common background. In Essay I, focusing on public actors as network promoters, I derive policy implications for implementing LOI as an instrument for facilitating regional innovation ecosystems. Essay II takes a close look at how spatial proximity supports seekers and solvers in benefitting from the local open innovation approach and concludes with a conceptual framework based on social capital theory. Both essays are backed by qualitative primary data and comprehensive secondary data sources, triangulating perspectives across stakeholder groups and multiple local events. In sum, my empirical findings of the first research theme demonstrate that social capital is the key success factor for the local open innovation approach, enabling seekers and solvers to open up to new valuable connections outside their current network and across industries, boosting mutual understanding and building trustful relationships for collaborative solution implementation. However, the “predominantly local nature of social capital” is also the main reason why building social capital underlies challenges in the context of virtual collaboration (Lorenzen, 2007, p. 810). On digital open innovation platforms, the spatial and temporal offset deprives seekers and solvers of face-to-face interactions, leading to barriers in the development of social capital (Dissanayake et al., 2014), and initially weaker ties (Striukova & Rayna, 2008). Therefore, in Essay III, I address the challenge of building social capital in the context of digital open innovation platforms. The innovation intermediary, striving to sustain the digital platform through appropriate governance structures and design, thus comes into focus (Foege et al., 2019; Pollok et al., 2019). My empirical study is based on survey data from C-level managers of open innovation platforms to test my hypotheses. In Essay IV, I further examine the preferences of seekers and solvers for designing social exchange on digital open innovation platforms. More precisely, I conduct a discrete choice experiment with 842 respondents to study the differences in individual preferences for platform interaction design features. Both data collections are backed by multiple qualitative and quantitative pre-studies. In Essay III, I identify antecedents and mechanisms for building social capital on digital open innovation platforms. As a result of Essay IV, I contribute individual-level findings on seekers’ and solvers’ interaction design preferences for social exchange. As a key theoretical contribution, I extend a conceptual framework for open innovation value processes

"To eat at another's table:" the evolution and fluidity of a word

Color poster with text, illustrations, and chart.University of Wisconsin--Stout. Research Service