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Product-Service Systems (PSS) in the fashion industry : an analysis of intra-organizational factors
(2018)
The fashion industry is a vast industry that has grown tremendously over the last decades. This growth causes significant environmental impact since the production of clothes involves high input of energy, water, chemicals and generates great volumes of waste. Even though fashion firms have started to address this challenge by adopting environmental standards, it has turned out that the sole use of eco-friendly material and new manufacturing techniques is insufficient. Instead, sustainable business models are increasingly gaining attention to solve the environmental problems. Offers to rent, swap, repair or redesign clothes are among the most prominent and promising examples. For analytical purposes, these concepts can be assigned to the growing research stream of Product-Service Systems (PSS) that shift the focus from the pure sale of a product toward complementary or substitutional service offers. This decouples customer satisfaction from material consumption, prolongs the garments' lifetime and thus diminishes both material input and appertaining waste. Besides environmental sustainability, PSS imply potential economic benefits for organizations. Particularly in highly competitive industries like the fashion industry, PSS allow firms to differentiate, better compete with cost pressure and mitigate the risk of being imitated by rivels since service is more difficult to replicate. However, fashion PSS are still mainly operated in a niche market by small firms and have yet to be anchored in the mainstream fashion industry.
Der Zusammenbruch des Systems der Arbeiterselbstverwaltung und der sich daran anschließende Transformationsprozess zogen einen sektoralen Strukturwandel der kroatischen Volkswirtschaft nach sich. Die forcierte Deindustrialisierung und Tertiarisierung führte allerdings zu massiven Fehlentwicklungen, die bis eute die wirtschaftliche Lage des Landes bestimmen.
In der Untersuchung wird daher der Frage nachgegangen, inwieweit ein Tertiarisierungsprozess für ein Transformationsland wie Kroatien als Option für eine erfolgreiche wirtschaftliche Entwicklung zu bewerten ist. Dafür müssen zunächst grundlegende theoretische Ansätze zu den Themengebieten Wachstum und Strukturwandel beschrieben, beurteilt und systematisiert werden. Hierbei zeigt sich, dass neuere modelltheoretische Untersuchungen weiterhin an der demand bias- und productivity bias-Hypothese gemäß Fourastié (1949) und Baumol (1967) ansetzen, um die Triebkräfte der wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung hin zu einer Dienstleistungsgesellschaft zu erklären. Die Autorin identifiziert dabei zwei Theoriestränge: Einerseits wird in der Literatur versucht, die Überlegungen zum strukturellen Wandel mit der Wachstumstheorie "zu versöhnen", d. h. zu verbinden. Andererseits werden "Heilungschancen" der Baumolschen Kostenkrankheit auf Basis der Determinanten der Endogenen Wachstumstheorie und der Innovationsmerkmale von Dienstleistungen formuliert. Empirische Untersuchungen zum sektoralen Strukturwandel in ausgewählten europäischen Wohlfahrtsstaatssystemen zeigen weiterhin auf, dass die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung eines Landes zudem von gesellschaftlichen und politischen Faktoren bestimmt wird.
Im zweiten Teil der Studie werden mithilfe des theoretischen Instrumentariums die drei Entwicklungsstufen der kroatischen Volkswirtschaft seit dem Zweiten Weltkrieg nachgezeichnet. Dabei zeigt sich, dass in der ersten Phase die Mängel der Arbeiterselbstverwaltung einen strukturellen Wandel und Produktivitätswachstum behinderten, während in den 1990er Jahren insbesondere die verfehlte Wirtschafts- und Sozialpolitik zu negativen volkswirtschaftlichen und gesellschaftlichen Folgen führte. Während des forcierten Integrationsprozesses in die EU wirkte sich die in der zweiten Hälfte der 2000er-Jahre einsetzende Wirtschaftskrise negativ auf den kroatischen Arbeitsmarkt aus. Die Analyse der Innovationsfähigkeit der kroatischen Wirtschaft sowie die Zusammenfassung der zentralen Erkenntnisse im letzten Teil der Studie zeigen auf, dass Wachstum und Beschäftigung zukünftig gefördert werden können, wenn in Kroatien der strukturelle und gesellschaftliche Wandel weiter fortgesetzt wird.
Globale Beschaffungsstrukturen, Konsumgüterproduktion in Entwicklungsländern, Unternehmensethik und Sozialstandards - Sachverhalte, die im Zeitalter der Globalisierung an Bedeutung gewinnen und darauf hinweisen, dass Länder der Dritten Welt eine zunehmend wichtige Rolle in weltweiten Wertschöpfungsketten westlicher Unternehmen einnehmen. Dieser wachsende Anteil vieler Entwicklungsländer am Welthandel ist entwicklungspolitisch als großer Fortschritt zu sehen, weil diese stärker als in der Vergangenheit an Wachstum und Wohlstand teilhaben können. Leider verläuft dieser Aufholprozess aber nicht störungsfrei, da der damit einhergehende Verlagerungsprozess arbeitsintensiver Produktion oftmals zur Folge hat, dass westliche Konsumgüter in diesen Ländern unter menschenrechtlich untragbaren Bedingungen hergestellt werden, um Arbeits- und Herstellungskosten auf ein Minimum zu reduzieren sowie arbeitsrechtlichen Regelungen auf globaler Ebene zu entgehen. In einer übergeordneten Sichtweise geht es also um das Spannungsfeld von Ökonomie und Ethik, was seit langem Leitthema der Wirtschaftsethik ist. Dabei stellt sich die Frage, inwieweit diese einen Beitrag zu einer Globalisierung mit menschlichem Antlitz leisten kann. Zu diesem Zweck untersucht das vorliegende Buch, ob das Managementkonzept der Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) zu einer Lösung und schrittweisen Annäherung von Ökonomie und Ethik im Globalisierungskontext führen kann. Angesichts der mangelnden Durchsetzbarkeit staatlich dirigistischer Strukturen auf internationaler Ebene wird daher die Frage nach dem Ort der Verantwortung neu gestellt und damit beantwortet, dass es vor allem Unternehmen und deren weltweiten Netzwerke sind, die durch ihr ethisch reflektiertes Handeln zu einer sozialeren Globalisierung beitragen können. Um diese jedoch verstärkt dazu zu motivieren, dieser Verantwortung nachzukommen, liegt ein besonderer Schwerpunkt dieses Buches auf der Entwicklung des CSR Business Case und der Frage, welche Faktoren entscheidend sind, wenn es um den betriebswirtschaftlichen Erfolg ethischen Engagements geht. Dafür ist es neben einer prozessorientierten Umsetzung in Produktion und Beschaffung ebenso wichtig, dieses Engagement mit Hilfe CSR-relevanter Marketinginstrumente an die Verbraucher zu kommunizieren und damit in ihr Bewusstsein sowie auf ihren Konsum- und Kaufradar zu bringen. In diesem Sinne werden die jeweils erforderlichen Implementierungsschritte und -instrumente so detailliert ausgearbeitet, dass sie unmittelbare Praxisrelevanz bekommen und zeigen, wie man von der hohen Abstraktionsebene der Globalisierung auf die Umsetzungsebene der Unternehmen gelangt und wie mit der anfänglichen Polarität zwischen Ethik und Ökonomie umgegangen werden kann. Somit soll das, was kurzfristig als Dilemma und Zielkonflikt erscheint, langfristig in ein produktives Handlungsfeld übersetzt werden, indem v.a. mittelständischen Unternehmen konkrete CSR-Handlungskompetenz an die Hand gegeben wird, weil diese aufgrund ihres enormen Stellenwerts in der deutschen Wirtschaft eine wichtige Rolle einnehmen können, CSR auf breiter Ebene durchzusetzen.
Context: Fast moving markets and the age of digitization require that software can be quickly changed or extended with new features. The associated quality attribute is referred to as evolvability: the degree of effectiveness and efficiency with which a system can be adapted or extended. Evolvability is especially important for software with frequently changing requirements, e.g. internet-based systems. Several evolvability-related benefits were arguably gained with the rise of service-oriented computing (SOC) that established itself as one of the most important paradigms for distributed systems over the last decade. The implementation of enterprise-wide software landscapes in the style of service-oriented architecture (SOA) prioritizes loose coupling, encapsulation, interoperability, composition, and reuse. In recent years, microservices quickly gained in popularity as an agile, DevOps-focused, and decentralized service-oriented variant with fine-grained services. A key idea here is that small and loosely coupled services that are independently deployable should be easy to change and to replace. Moreover, one of the postulated microservices characteristics is evolutionary design.
Problem Statement: While these properties provide a favorable theoretical basis for evolvable systems, they offer no concrete and universally applicable solutions. As with each architectural style, the implementation of a concrete microservice-based system can be of arbitrary quality. Several studies also report that software professionals trust in the foundational maintainability of service orientation and microservices in particular. A blind belief in these qualities without appropriate evolvability assurance can lead to violations of important principles and therefore negatively impact software evolution. In addition to this, very little scientific research has covered the areas of maintenance, evolution, or technical debt of microservices.
Objectives: To address this, the aim of this research is to support developers of microservices with appropriate methods, techniques, and tools to evaluate or improve evolvability and to facilitate sustainable long-term development. In particular, we want to provide recommendations and tool support for metric-based as well as scenario-based evaluation. In the context of service-based evolvability, we furthermore want to analyze the effectiveness of patterns and collect relevant antipatterns. Methods: Using empirical methods, we analyzed the industry state of the practice and the academic state of the art, which helped us to identify existing techniques, challenges, and research gaps. Based on these findings, we then designed new evolvability assurance techniques and used additional empirical studies to demonstrate and evaluate their effectiveness. Applied empirical methods were for example surveys, interviews, (systematic) literature studies, or controlled experiments.
Contributions: In addition to our analyses of industry practice and scientific literature, we provide contributions in three different areas. With respect to metric-based evolvability evaluation, we identified a set of structural metrics specifically designed for service orientation and analyzed their value for microservices. Subsequently, we designed tool-supported approaches to automatically gather a subset of these metrics from machine-readable RESTful API descriptions and via a distributed tracing mechanism at runtime. In the area of scenario-based evaluation, we developed a tool-supported lightweight method to analyze the evolvability of a service-based system based on hypothetical evolution scenarios. We evaluated the method with a survey (N=40) as well as hands-on interviews (N=7) and improved it further based on the findings. Lastly with respect to patterns and antipatterns, we collected a large set of service-based patterns and analyzed their applicability for microservices. From this initial catalogue, we synthesized a set of candidate evolvability patterns via the proxy of architectural modifiability tactics. The impact of four of these patterns on evolvability was then empirically tested in a controlled experiment (N=69) and with a metric-based analysis. The results suggest that the additional structural complexity introduced by the patterns as well as developers' pattern knowledge have an influence on their effectiveness. As a last contribution, we created a holistic collection of service-based antipatterns for both SOA and microservices and published it in a collaborative repository.
Conclusion: Our contributions provide first foundations for a holistic view on the evolvability assurance of microservices and address several perspectives. Metric- and scenario-based evaluation as well as service-based antipatterns can be used to identify "hot spots" while service-based patterns can remediate them and provide means for systematic evolvability construction. All in all, researchers and practitioners in the field of microservices can use our artifacts to analyze and improve the evolvability of their systems as well as to gain a conceptual understanding of service-based evolvability assurance.
In dieser Arbeit wird ein Modell vorgestellt, das die Planung der direkten Wiederverwendung bei der Vermietung mobiler und langlebiger Investitionsgüter in Closed-Loop Supply Chains optimiert. Insbesondere die Entwicklung von Planungsalgorithmen zur Verbesserung der Vorhersagewahrscheinlichkeit zukünftiger Rücklieferungen und deren betriebswirtschaftliche Auswirkungen für Unternehmen stehen im Vordergrund. Das Optimierungsmodell betrachtet dabei sowohl die Positionierung des Unternehmens im Innen- als auch im Außenverhältnis und liefert die Entscheidungsgrundlage für entsprechende strategische Initiativen.
Human recognition is an important part of perception systems, such as those used in autonomous vehicles or robots. These systems often use deep neural networks for this purpose, which rely on large amounts of data that ideally cover various situations, movements, visual appearances, and interactions. However, obtaining such data is typically complex and expensive. In addition to raw data, labels are required to create training data for supervised learning. Thus, manual annotation of bounding boxes, keypoints, orientations, or actions performed is frequently necessary. This work addresses whether the laborious acquisition and creation of data can be simplified through targeted simulation. If data are generated in a simulation, information such as positions, dimensions, orientations, surfaces, and occlusions are already known, and appropriate labels can be generated automatically. A key question is whether deep neural networks, trained with simulated data, can be applied to real data. This work explores the use of simulated training data using examples from the field of pedestrian detection for autonomous vehicles. On the one hand, it is shown how existing systems can be improved by targeted retraining with simulation data, for example to better recognize corner cases. On the other hand, the work focuses on the generation of data that hardly or not occur at all in real standard datasets. It will be demonstrated how training data can be generated by targeted acquisition and combination of motion data and 3D models, which contain finely graded action labels to recognize even complex pedestrian situations. Through the diverse annotation data that simulations provide, it becomes possible to train deep neural networks for a wide variety of tasks with one dataset. In this work, such simulated data is used to train a novel deep multitask network that brings together diverse, previously mostly independently considered but related, tasks such as 2D and 3D human pose recognition and body and orientation estimation.
Supply chains have evolved into dynamic, interconnected supply networks, which increases the complexity of achieving end-to-end traceability of object flows and their experienced events. With its capability to ensure a secure, transparent, and immutable environment without relying on a trusted third party, the emerging blockchain technology shows strong potential to enable end-to-end traceability in such complex multitiered supply networks. However, as the dissertation’s systematic literature review reveals, the currently available blockchain-based traceability solutions lack the ability to map object-related supply chain events holistically, which involves mapping objects’ creation and deletion, aggregation and disaggregation, transformation, and transaction. Therefore, this dissertation proposes a novel blockchain-based traceability architecture that integrates governance and token concepts to overcome the limitations of existing architectures. While the governance concept manages the supply chain structure on an application level, the token concept includes all functions to conduct object-related supply chain events. For this to be possible, this dissertation’s token concept introduces token ‘blueprints’, which allow clients to group tokens into different types, where tokens of the same type are non-fungible. Furthermore, blueprints can include minting conditions, which are, for example, necessary when mapping assembly or delivery processes. In addition, the token concept contains logic for reflecting all conducted object-related events in an integrated token history. This ultimately leads to end-to-end traceability of tokens and their physical or abstract representatives on the blockchain. For validation purposes, this dissertation implements the architecture’s components and their update and request relationships in code and proves its applicability based on the Ethereum blockchain. Finally, this dissertation provides a scenario-based evaluation based on two industrial case studies from a manufacturing and logistics perspective to validate the architecture’s capabilities when applied in real-world industrial settings. The proposed blockchain-based traceability architecture thus covers all object-related supply chain events derived from the two industrial case studies and therefore proves its general-purpose end-to-end traceability capabilities of object flows.
Gegenstand dieser Arbeit ist die Darstellung und Charakterisierung einheitlicher, mesoporöser Silica-Partikel (MPSM) im Mikrometerbereich mit maßgeschneiderten Partikel- und Porendesign für die Hochleistungsflüssigkeitschromatographie. Die Synthese umfasst die Einlagerung von Silica-Nanopartikeln (SNP) in poröse organische Template, welche anschließend bei 600°C zersetzt werden. Die Impfsuspensionspolymerisation von Polystyrol-Partikeln, unter Verwendung von Glycidylmethacrylat, Ethylenglycoldimethacrylat und Porogenen, ermöglicht die Herstellung hochgradig einheitlicher, poröser p(GMA-co-EDMA)-Template. Der Einfluss wesentlicher Faktoren, einschließlich des Monomer-Porogen-Verhältnisses, des Monomerverhältnisses und der Porogenzusammensetzung, werden systematisch untersucht sowie ihre Auswirkungen auf die Porengröße, das Porenvolumen und die spezifische Oberfläche erläutert. Die Anbindung aminofunktionalisierter Substanzen erfolgt durch die Ringöffnung der Epoxidgruppe. Im anschließenden basischen Sol-Gel-Prozess werden die Silica-Nanopartikel aufgrund der Ladungsunterschiede in die funktionalisierten p(GMA-co-EDMA)-Template eingebaut. Die Partikelgröße der SNP beeinflusst wesentlich die Poreneigenschaften der MPSM und hängt von drei Faktoren ab: (i) der Wachstumsgeschwindigkeit in der kontinuierlichen Phase, die durch die Einstellungen des Sol-Gel-Prozesses gesteuert wird, (ii) der Diffusionsrate, die durch elektrostatische Anziehung reguliert wird und vom Grad der Funktionalisierung abhängt und (iii) der Porosität des Polymer-Templats. Die gezielte Anpassung der Poreneigenschaften durch die Prozesseinstellungen erlaubt die präzise Herstellung von MPSM, die auf spezifische Trennherausforderungen zugeschnitten werden und somit die Qualität der HPLC verbessern. Die vorgestellte Synthesestrategie ermöglicht, aufgrund des stufenweisen molekularen Aufbaus, eine bessere Adaption der stationären Phase an spezifische Trennherausforderungen.
Primäres Ziel und Aufgabe dieser Arbeit ist ... die Entwicklung einer neuen Recyclingmethode für PET, die die Nachteile der bisherigen Verwertungsmethoden vermeidet und unter weitgehendem Erhalt der bereits erbrachten Syntheseleistung definierte Oligomere liefert. Aus diesen können in Folge hochwertige Produkte hergestellt werden.
In modern collaborative production environments where industrial robots and humans are supposed to work hand in hand, it is mandatory to observe the robot’s workspace at all times. Such observation is even more crucial when the robot’s main position is also dynamic e.g. because the system is mounted on a movable platform. As current solutions like physically secured areas in which a robot can perform actions potentially dangerous for humans, become unfeasible in such scenarios, novel, more dynamic, and situation aware safety solutions need to be developed and deployed.
This thesis mainly contributes to the bigger picture of such a collaborative scenario by presenting a data-driven convolutional neural network-based approach to estimate the two-dimensional kinematic-chain configuration of industrial robot-arms within raw camera images. This thesis also provides the information needed to generate and organize the mandatory data basis and presents frameworks that were used to realize all involved subsystems. The robot-arm’s extracted kinematic-chain can also be used to estimate the extrinsic camera parameters relative to the robot’s three-dimensional origin. Further a tracking system, based on a two-dimensional kinematic chain descriptor is presented to allow for an accumulation of a proper movement history which enables the prediction of future target positions within the given image plane. The combination of the extracted robot’s pose with a simultaneous human pose estimation system delivers a consistent data flow that can be used in higher-level applications.
This thesis also provides a detailed evaluation of all involved subsystems and provides a broad overview of their particular performance, based on novel generated, semi automatically annotated, real datasets.
Intralogistics operations in automotive OEMs increasingly confront problems of overcomplexity caused by a customer-centred production that requires customisation and, thus, high product variability, short-notice changes in orders and the handling of an overwhelming number of parts. To alleviate the pressure on intralogistics without sacrificing performance objectives, the speed and flexibility of logistical operations have to be increased. One approach to this is to utilise three-dimensional space through drone technology. This doctoral thesis aims at establishing a framework for implementing aerial drones in automotive OEM logistic operations.
As of yet, there is no research on implementing drones in automotive OEM logistic operations. To contribute to filling this gap, this thesis develops a framework for Drone Implementation in Automotive Logistics Operations (DIALOOP) that allows for a close interaction between the strategic and the operative level and can lead automotive companies through a decision and selection process regarding drone technology.
A preliminary version of the framework was developed on a theoretical basis and was then revised using qualitative-empirical data from semi-structured interviews with two groups of experts, i.e. drone experts and automotive experts. The drone expert interviews contributed a current overview of drone capabilities. The automotive experts interview were used to identify intralogistics operations in which drones can be implemented along with the performance measures that can be improved by drone usage.
Furthermore, all interviews explored developments and changes with a foreseeable influence on drone implementation.
The revised framework was then validated using participant validation interviews with automotive experts.
The finalised framework defines a step-by-step process leading from strategic decisions and considerations over the identification of logistics processes suitable for drone implementation and the relevant performance measures to the choice of appropriate drone types based on a drone classification specifically developed in this thesis for an automotive context.
Development of an indoor positioning system to create a digital shadow of production plant layouts
(2023)
The objective of this dissertation is to develop an indoor positioning system that allows the creation of a digital shadow of the plant layout in order to continuously represent the actual state of the physical layout in the virtual space. In order to define the requirements for such a system, potential stakeholders who could benefit from a digital shadow in the context of the plant layout were analysed. In order to generate added value for their work, the requirements were derived from their perspective. As the core of an indoor positioning system is the sensory aspect to capture the physical layout parameters, different potential technologies were compared and evaluated in terms of their suitability for this particular application. Derived from this analysis, the selected concept is based on the use of a pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) camera in combination with fiducial markers. In order to determine specific camera parameters, a series of experiments were conducted which were necessary to develop the measurement method as well as the mathematical calculation method and coordinate transformation for the determination of poses (positions and angular orientations) of the respective facilities in the plant. In addition, an experimental validation was performed to ensure that the limit values for individual parameters determined in the requirements analysis can be met.
Reconstructing 3D face shape from a single 2D photograph as well as from video is an inherently ill-posed problem with many ambiguities. One way to solve some of the ambiguities is using a 3D face model to aid the task. 3D morphable face models (3DMMs) are amongst the state of the art methods for 3D face reconstruction, or so called 3D model fitting. However, current existing methods have severe limitations, and most of them have not been trialled on in-the-wild data. Current analysis-by- synthesis methods form complex non linear optimisation processes, and optimisers often get stuck in local optima. Further, most existing methods are slow, requiring in the order of minutes to process one photograph.
This thesis presents an algorithm to reconstruct 3D face shape from a single image as well as from sets of images or video frames in real-time. We introduce a solution for linear fitting of a PCA shape identity model and expression blendshapes to 2D facial landmarks. To improve the accuracy of the shape, a fast face contour fitting algorithm is introduced. These different components of the algorithm are run in iteration, resulting in a fast, linear shape-to- landmarks fitting algorithm. The algorithm, specifically designed to fit to landmarks obtained from in-the-wild images, by tackling imaging conditions that occur in in-the-wild images like facial expressions and the mismatch of 2D–3D contour correspondences, achieves the shape reconstruction accuracy of much more complex, nonlinear state of the art methods, while being multiple orders of magnitudes faster.
Second, we address the problem of fitting to sets of multiple images of the same person, as well as monocular video sequences. We extend the proposed shape-to-landmarks fitting to multiple frames by using the knowledge that all images are from the same identity. To recover facial texture, the approach uses texture from the original images, instead of employing the often-used PCA albedo model of a 3DMM. We employ an algorithm that merges texture from multiple frames in real-time based on a weighting of each triangle of the reconstructed shape mesh.
Last, we make the proposed real-time 3D morphable face model fitting algorithm available as open-source software. In contrast to ubiquitous available 2D-based face models and code, there is a general lack of software for 3D morphable face model fitting, hindering a widespread adoption. The library thus constitutes a significant contribution to the community.
Unternehmen stehen aktuell aufgrund der Digitalisierung, des stetigen technologischen Fortschritts und immer kürzer werdenden Produktlebenszyklen vor großen Herausforderungen. Um am Markt bestehen zu können, müssen Geschäftsmodelle öfter und schneller an sich verändernde Marktverhältnisse angepasst werden als dies früher der Fall war. Eine schnelle Anpassungsfähigkeit, auch Agilität genannt, ist in der heutigen Zeit ein entscheidender Wettbewerbsfaktor. Aufgrund des stetig wachsenden IT Anteils in Produkten sowie der Tatsache, dass diese IT-gestützt hergestellt werden, haben Änderungen des Geschäftsmodells große Auswirkungen auf die Unternehmensarchitektur eines Unternehmens.
Eine Unternehmensarchitektur umspannt das Unternehmen, indem diese die fachlichen und technischen Strukturen, insbesondere die gesamte IT, des Unternehmens beinhaltet und integriert. Das Management der Unternehmensarchitektur ist die Disziplin zur Beherrschung und Abstimmung dieser Strukturen. An der Gestaltung der Unternehmensarchitektur wirken viele Stakeholder mit individuellen und teils gegensätzlichen Interessen aus den unterschiedlichsten Bereichen des Unternehmens mit. Dies macht die Entscheidungsfindung zu einer komplexen Aufgabe.
Die in dieser Arbeit entworfene integrative Methode für die Entscheidungsfindung hat das Ziel, die Betroffenen und Beteiligten, im Folgenden Stakeholder, bei ihren Entscheidungen zu unterstützen. Die Grundidee hierbei ist die systematische Einbeziehung der Interessen der Stakeholder und davon abgeleiteter Visualisierungen. Dies verleiht der Methode ihren integrativen Charakter und hilft Abhängigkeiten zwischen Stakeholdern zu erkennen. Dadurch wird die Zusammenarbeit zwischen den an Entscheidungen beteiligten Stakeholdern gefördert. Neben der systematischen Einbeziehung von Visualisierungen wird im Rahmen dieser Arbeit das Konzept der Technik eingeführt. Techniken werden ebenfalls von den Interessen der Stakeholder abgeleitet und dienen der Unterstützung bei der Durchführung von Aktivitäten der Entscheidungsfindung, indem Vorgehensweisen bei bestimmten Aufgaben vorgegeben oder Teilprozesse der Entscheidungsfindung sogar automatisiert durchgeführt werden. Das Konzept der Technik, die systematische Ableitung von den Interessen der Stakeholder sowie das Zusammenspiel mit Visualisierungen wird in dieser Arbeit in Form einer erweiterten Konzeptualisierung der Architekturbeschreibung definiert.
Da die Werkzeugunterstützung in der Praxis häufig eine Herausforderung darstellt, rundet diese Arbeit ein eigens konzipiertes und prototypisch validiertes Architekturcockpit ab. Das Cockpit ist eine auf einem elektronischen Sitzungsraum basierende Werkzeugunterstützung der eingeführten integrativen Methode.
High Performance Computing (HPC) enables significant progress in both science and industry. Whereas traditionally parallel applications have been developed to address the grand challenges in science, as of today, they are also heavily used to speed up the time-to-result in the context of product design, production planning, financial risk management, medical diagnosis, as well as research and development efforts. However, purchasing and operating HPC clusters to run these applications requires huge capital expenditures as well as operational knowledge and thus is reserved to large organizations that benefit from economies of scale. More recently, the cloud evolved into an alternative execution environment for parallel applications, which comes with novel characteristics such as on-demand access to compute resources, pay-per-use, and elasticity. Whereas the cloud has been mainly used to operate interactive multi-tier applications, HPC users are also interested in the benefits offered. These include full control of the resource configuration based on virtualization, fast setup times by using on-demand accessible compute resources, and eliminated upfront capital expenditures due to the pay-per-use billing model. Additionally, elasticity allows compute resources to be provisioned and decommissioned at runtime, which allows fine-grained control of an application's performance in terms of its execution time and efficiency as well as the related monetary costs of the computation. Whereas HPC-optimized cloud environments have been introduced by cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure, existing parallel architectures are not designed to make use of elasticity. This thesis addresses several challenges in the emergent field of High Performance Cloud Computing. In particular, the presented contributions focus on the novel opportunities and challenges related to elasticity. First, the principles of elastic parallel systems as well as related design considerations are discussed in detail. On this basis, two exemplary elastic parallel system architectures are presented, each of which includes (1) an elasticity controller that controls the number of processing units based on user-defined goals, (2) a cloud-aware parallel execution model that handles coordination and synchronization requirements in an automated manner, and (3) a programming abstraction to ease the implementation of elastic parallel applications. To automate application delivery and deployment, novel approaches are presented that generate the required deployment artifacts from developer-provided source code in an automated manner while considering application-specific non-functional requirements. Throughout this thesis, a broad spectrum of design decisions related to the construction of elastic parallel system architectures is discussed, including proactive and reactive elasticity control mechanisms as well as cloud-based parallel processing with virtual machines (Infrastructure as a Service) and functions (Function as a Service). To evaluate these contributions, extensive experimental evaluations are presented.
Customer orientation should be the core engine of every organisation. Information technology can be considered as the enabler to generate competitive advantages through customer processes in marketing, sales and service. The impact of information technologies is the biggest risk and at the same time a huge opportunity for any organisation. Research shows that Customer Relationship Management (CRM) enables organisations to perform better and focus more on their customers (e.g. market capitalisation of Amazon). While global enterprises are shaping the future of customer centricity and information technology, the question arises how German B2B organisations can shift their value contribution from product-centric to customer-centric. Therefore, these organisations are attempting to implement CRM software and putting their customers more into focus. However, the question remains, how organisations are approaching the implementation of CRM and if these attempts are paying off in terms of business performance.
Contributing to this highly topical discussion, this thesis contributes to the body of knowledge about the implementation of CRM in the German B2B sector and how it impacts their business performance. First, theoretical frameworks have been developed based on an extensive literature review. Hereby different aspects of CRM are worked-out and mapped against three dimensions of business performance, namely process efficiency, customer satisfaction and financial performance. Based on the theory, a conceptual framework was developed to test the relationships between CRM and Business Performance (BP). Therefore, a survey with 500 participants has been conducted. Based on this a measurement model was developed to test five main hypotheses.
The findings of these hypotheses suggest, that the implementation of CRM positively impacts business performance. In specific, the usage of analytical CRM and the establishment of a dedicated CRM success measurement correlate with the performance of German B2B organisations. In addition to these main findings, various key statements could be derived from the research and a measurement model was developed, which can be used for different organisational characteristics assessing BP. As a result, CRM implementations can be enhanced, and business performance can be improved.
Beschleunigung und Reorientierung des technischen Fortschritts überfordern selbst große Unternehmen im Spannungsfeld zwischen Spezialisierung und interdisziplinärer Konvergenz. So wird die Kombination interner Forschung und Entwicklung mit externem Wissen, vor allem in Hochtechnologien, zur zentralen Voraussetzung langfristigen Unternehmenserfolgs. In diesem Kontext untersucht die vorliegende Dissertation das Potenzial kooperativen Verhaltens zwischen Unternehmen zur Bewältigung technologischer Diskontinuitäten am Beispiel des bevorstehenden Paradigmenwechsels im automobilen Antrieb. Dabei wird Kooperation als superiore Strategie zur Stimulation des explorativen Innovationsmodus identifiziert und in eine übergreifende Dynamik der Koordinationseignung im Verlauf technologischen Fortschritts integriert. Bezogen auf den automobilen Antrieb ist eine nachhaltigkeitsinduzierte Destabilisierung des technologischen Paradigmas des Verbrennungsmotors festzustellen, während sich seine intensiven Möglichkeiten erschöpfen. Konsequenz dessen ist zunehmender Innovationsdruck, der konsistenzorientiert eine systemische Transformation von Kraftwerkstechnik und Energienetz sowie einen Paradigmenwechsel zu elektrischen Antrieben erzwingt. Aufgrund der bisher geringen technologischen Reife und hohen Kosten elektrischer Antriebssysteme zeichnet sich allerdings ein Übergang in Form einer graduellen Rekonfiguration über eine Hybridphase ab, deren Dynamik maßgeblich von der Entwicklung der technoökonomischen Schlüsselmodule Batterie und Brennstoffzelle abhängt. Die dazu erforderliche technologische Transformation birgt existenzielle Gefährdungen für die etablierten Unternehmen der Automobilindustrie, die sich gegenüber ihren Herausforderern explorationsbezogen in einer inferioren Ausgangssituation befinden. Eben hier bieten sich umfangreiche Potenziale kooperativer Exploration elektrischer Antriebe auf Verhaltens-, Innovationsprozess und Wissensebene. In Relation zu diesen erscheint das reale Kooperationsniveau jedoch als gering, volatil und, vor allem in Deutschland, übermäßig intrasektoral fokussiert.
Aus diesen Erkenntnissen ergeben sich Implikationen für Unternehmensführung, Innovationspolitik und Forschung. Managementseitig besteht die zentrale Herausforderung in der Befähigung der Organisation zu Dynamisierung von Wissen und Fähigkeiten durch simultan-heterogene Koordination explorativer und exploitativer Innovationsströme. Insbesondere die Erschließung kooperativer Potenziale setzt allerdings die Bereitschaft zur Einschränkung der eigenen Unabhängigkeit sowie zur Abweichung von bewährten Verhaltensmustern voraus. Innovationspolitisch steht die Überwindung von Beharrungskräften durch Anpassung des sozio-institutionellen Rahmens sowie die Förderung langfristiger Kooperation bei potenzialgeleiteter Intersektorialität im Vordergrund. Forschungsbezogen eröffnet speziell die Kombination von Innovations- Nachhaltigkeits- und Koordinationstheorie ein besseres Verständnis von Triebfedern und Dynamik technischen Fortschritts, das weiter vertieft werden sollte.
Melamine Formaldehyde (MF) resins are thermosetting synthetic materials. The present work deals with the evaluation of the impregnation process, modification of resin structure and abrasion resistant applications. During the industrial process paper is impregnated by aqueous oligomers. The drying procedure and the corresponding residual volatile content is a crucial step during production, because of its influence on the later surface quality. Standard measurement routines do not differentiate between physical and chemical origin. Using TGA and DSC methods, the evaporation of water could be characterized as a clear separation of solvent evaporation and the release of water during condensation. The method could be used to upgrade current quality control as well as reaction condition tuning. According to the characteristics of duroplastic material, the formed network is very dense but also brittle. Challenging applications require highly modified resins in order to decrease the network density. Substances from bio renewable resources offer chemical possibilities for covalent crosslinking. Several substance classes have been tested for compatibility via hydroxyl groups or amines. The addition of polyols under appropriate reaction conditions showed chemical incorporation into the MF prepolymer. NMR methods have been used to characterize the resins. The synthesized polymers represent a suitable alternative for the usage in challenging furniture and flooring laminate applications. MF applications for scratch and wear resistant surfaces are commonly reinforced by multiple layer setups with inorganic particles. Fulfilling normative requirements a one sheet setup of decorative paper has been developed and tested. The incorporation of special corundum particles directly on the decorative printed paper combined with a new coating system resulted in surfaces of the requested quality for wear resistance surfaces.
Die konzeptionelle Integration von Ethik in die Personalwirtschaftslehre stellt eine bislang ungelöste Herausforderung dar. Daher verwundert es nicht, dass die Diskussion ethischer Fragestellungen in der Personalwirtschaftslehre weitgehend unsystematisch und theoretisch unterbestimmt erfolgt. Auf dieser Erkenntnis aufbauend entwickelt der Autor in seinem Buch das Forschungsprogramm der Personalethik. Dieses Forschungsprogramm geht gerade nicht von einer Integration von Ethik in die Personalwirtschaftslehre aus, sondern nähert sich den ethischen Problemen der Personalwirtschaftslehre aus einer unternehmensethischen Perspektive. Dadurch können bisherige Erkenntnisse zur Ethik in der Personalwirtschaftslehre innerhalb eines systematischen Bezugsrahmens (re-)interpretiert werden. Zudem bietet die Personalethik einen integrierten und theoretisch fundierten Bezugsrahmen für künftige Forschungen.
A distinctive highlight of the dissertation at hand is the investigation of multiple apparel supply chain actors incorporating the views of a global apparel retailer in Europe and multiple suppliers in Vietnam and Indonesia.
More specifically, the dissertation presents a coherent investigation starting with the depiction of a conceptual framework for social management strategies as a means for social risk management (SRM), exclusively aiming at the apparel industry. In accordance to the identified research gaps and suggested research directions from the conceptual framework, the role of the apparel sourcing agent for social management strategies was analysed by conducting a multiple case study approach with evidence from Vietnam and Europe, ultimately suggesting ten propositions. Whereas a further multiple case study data collection in Vietnam, Indonesia and Europe allowed for the investigation of buyer-supplier relationships with regards to social compliance strategies by using core tenets of agency theory to interpret the findings and outline ten propositions. Based on the development of a conceptual framework on social SSCM in the apparel industry, the formulation of related 20 propositions with evidence from crucial developing (apparel sourcing) countries, and the application of agency theory which has been declared as a shortfall in this context, this thesis contributes with further grounding to SSCM theory and substantially contributes to the debate by addressing numerous research gaps.