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New trends on e-Procurement applying semantic technologies: Current status and future challenges
Abstract
The present paper introduces and reviews existing technology and research works in the field of e-Procurement. More specifically this survey aims to collect those relevant approaches that have tackled the challenge of delivering more advanced and intelligent e-Procurement management systems due to its relevance in the industry to afford more timely, adaptable and flexible decisions in purchasing processes. Although existing tools and techniques have demonstrated their ability to manage e-Procurement processes as a part of a supply management system there is a lack of interoperability among tools, tangled dependencies between processes or difficulties to exploit existing data and information to name a few that are preventing a proper use of the new dynamic and data-based environment. On the other hand semantic-based technologies emerge to provide the adequate building blocks to represent domain-knowledge and elevate the meaning of information resources through a common and shared data model (RDF) with a formal query language (SPARQL) and accessible via the Internet Protocols. In this sense the Linked Data effort has gained momentum to apply the principles of the aforementioned initiative to boost the re-use of information and data across different tools and processes. That is why authors review both existing open issues in the context e-Procurement with special focus on public procurement and semantic-based approaches to address them. To do so a preliminary research study is conducted to assess the state of the art in the context of e-Procurement and semantic-based systems. Afterwards main drawbacks of existing e-Procurement systems are presented to narrow down in semantic-based approaches applied to this field. Once the current status in both areas is reviewed, authors purpose the use and creation of an e-Procurement index to evaluate the quality of service of procurement systems. In this light the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method is used to set up an initial weight for each indicator in the index and to perform a first comparison between traditional and semantic-based approaches. Finally some discussion, conclusions and future challenges are also outlined.
... With a spending in the range of trillions of euros 1 , governments are facing a real responsibility to ensure that this money is used in the best way possible and that decisions are made considering inclusive, long-term goals and strategies. The release of a growing amount of open procurement data means that we are increasingly able, and even have the obligation, to scrutinize and analyse public spending for delivering better quality of public services, optimizing costs, preventing fraud and corruption, and building healthy and sustainable economies [1]. ...
... This at the end generates a lot of heterogeneity. Procurement domain can take advantage of applying the Semantic Web approach by reusing existing vocabularies, ontologies, and standards [1]. Specifically in the procurement domain, these include among others PPROC ontology [6] for describing public processes and contracts, LOTED2 ontology [3] for public procurement notices, PCO ontology [7] for contracts in public domain, and MOLDEAS ontology [9] for announcements about public tenders. ...
... Finally, existing ontologies for suppliers and procurement data are being reviewed for re-use (cf. [1]) and requirements are being collected from business cases. ...
The release of a growing amount of open procurement data means that we are increasingly able, and even have the obligation, to scrutinize and analyse public spending for delivering better quality of public services, optimizing costs, preventing fraud and corruption, and building healthy and sustainable economies. The TheyBuyForYou project addresses this challenge by developing an integrated technology platform, with a cross-lingual and cross-border procurement knowledge graph, core services, open APIs, and online tools, and validating them in several business cases in public/corporate procurement in Slovenia, Spain and Italy. This paper gives an overview about the project’s goals and challenges.
... (Brandon Jones, 2017;Alvarez-Rodríguez et. al.,2014;Rajkumar, 2001). In past two decades, the use of eprocurement has seen an upward trend. The Forrester Wave™ e-Procurement, Q2 2017 report, while evaluating the 12-leading e-procurement platform products, reported that these products drive more than $3 trillion in business-to-business B2B e-commerce. The increase in usage of e-procurement ...
... E-procurement is referred as the process from requisition of good or services to the supplier or service provider payment which utilizes software tools such as e-auction, e-catalogue and ecertificate for value addition in the procurement function. (Alvarez-Rodríguez et al.,2014;Croom & Brandon Jones, 2007;Rajkumar, 2001). The sub processes of e-procurement include e-requisition, e-notification, eaccess, e-submission, e-evaluation, e-awarding, e-ordering, e-invoicing and e-payment (Alvarez-Rodríguez et al., 2014, ECIM report (2010). ...
... (Alvarez-Rodríguez et al.,2014;Croom & Brandon Jones, 2007;Rajkumar, 2001). The sub processes of e-procurement include e-requisition, e-notification, eaccess, e-submission, e-evaluation, e-awarding, e-ordering, e-invoicing and e-payment (Alvarez-Rodríguez et al., 2014, ECIM report (2010). ...
Purpose
The purpose of this research paper is to identify the non-financial e-procurement performance measures and find out whether these non-financial performance measures are leading indicator of impact on firm financial performance by adoption of e-procurement in terms of reduction in production cost.
Design/methodology/approach
The research model has been tested with the data collected from target procurement professionals in India. Structural equation modelling has been used for testing conceptual model hypotheses including mediation. The phantom model approach for testing multiple mediators has deployed.
Findings
The present empirical study found that non-financial performance measure of e-procurement, namely, transparency, coordination, efficiency and effectiveness are leading indicators of the impact of e-procurement adoption on production cost. This paper suggests that managers should try to design the e-procurement platform or opt for third party platform which reduces transaction cost to a minimum for enhanced coordination, work on transparency policy with maximum disclosure of information for enhanced transparency and ask for a fast and responsive system for enhanced efficiency and effectiveness.
Originality/value
This study, first time, attempted to identify non-financial performance measures of e-procurement and tried to understand how these intermediate non-financial performance measures impact the firm financial performance. The interdependence of non-financial performance measures has also been explored, and the research model has been developed to empirically examine the interdependence of these financial measures and its impact on production cost.
... Procurement processes as a part of a supply management system, there is a lack of interoperability among tools, tangled dependencies between processes or difficulties to exploit existing data and information to name a few that are preventing a proper use of the new dynamic and data-based environment [119]. ...
... Procurement platforms to ease the management of the processes involved in a purchasing process. In the same way, the definition of necessities in e-Procurement in both public and private marketplaces has become a major objective with a lot of derived works trying to model and manage this complex business process applying [119]. ...
... Strategy planning [25] Skill in monitoring [115] Connection within stakeholder [116,117] Profit margins [105,118] Procurement method [119] Conflict to lower down construction productivity [25,88,120] ...
This research focuses on the influence of the ASEAN Economic Community
(AEC) on the construction industry of Cambodia, particularly to find out problems
and factors cause problems in construction industry of Cambodia in AEC. Moreover,
it is to find out recommendation to improve construction industry of Cambodia to
survive in AEC. As construction industry is one of the priority sectors among few
important sectors to push up the national economy of Cambodia, which could
contribute of almost 7% to the total national GDP yearly. Construction industry of
Cambodia is still low and lack behind many other countries in the South East Asia
region, and it needs to be strengthened to survive in AEC from 2015 on-wards. This
would be a stage of challenging for Cambodia as well as all other ASEAN members.
This research is to offer for Cambodian construction development, growth,
improved delivery, performance and empowerment in AEC. The research undertaken
looks at how to improve construction industry of Cambodia to survive in AEC by
grouping the important factors considered to be the problems and its causes for the
implementation of policy makers and construction stakeholders in Cambodia. The
research limits itself to the public concerned construction ministries, and private
construction sectors operate in Cambodia as the main key stakeholders to be
responders for the questionnaires. This research drawing from a reflection of who is
an active participant within a targeted group elucidated above at the national level.
The quantitative research methodology was followed through this study as its
nature was such that there was requisitioned for the range of knowledge and
experience measure. The quantitative research methodology followed in this study
was used to gain insight into the key construction stakeholders’ attitude towards AEC
within their concerns, policy, operation, behaviors, their motivations and aspirations.
Then factor analysis was used as a tool for analysis to group problems and
causing factors. The main findings of the research were two groups of problems that
are: (i) organization's vision and skill, and (ii) knowledge and motivation towards
AEC. There are three main groups of factors cause problems were found: (i) soft
infrastructure, (ii) construction investment and policy, and (iii) construction
organization management. The implications of these findings are that, there would
now be measurable problems and factors cause problems in construction industry of
Cambodia in AEC. The recommendation to improve each factor then taken place
from responders as well as from literatures of related research within the construction
industry, which could help to minimize the problems that would benefit to the
construction industry Cambodia to survive in AEC.
... Procurement operations have been an important part of retailing operations in facilitating supply chain executives to manage product sales for competitive gain toward maintaining enterprise resources (Alvarez-Rodríguez et al., 2014). Thus, procurement management through the internet also known as e-procurement has become an imperative area for businesses (Dzeng and Wang, 2017). ...
... Although, existing procurement approaches have demonstrated their ability to manage procurement operations in retailing enterprise, there are fewer autonomous approaches that offer adequate support to provide information accessible through the web (Dhaouadi et al., 2014). Similarly, current approaches do not capture knowledge of retailing enterprise in enhancing business operations in which an effective procurement initiative can be generated based on users' needs (Alvarez-Rodríguez et al., 2014). ...
... Accordingly, over the years several techniques such as Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) (Alvarez-Rodríguez et al., 2014), ontology (Dhaouadi et al., 2014;Sarkar and Kundu, 2007), case-based reasoning (Jahani et al., 2012), agents (Sun et al., 2012;Liu et al., 2011) have been integrated to facilitate procurement operations. The concept of "agent" has become significant in computer science, where software agents are autonomous entities that operate autonomously without the direct intervention of humans (Liu et al., 2011). ...
Purpose-
This study aims to develop a software agent-knowledge procurement management tool to address uncertainties from external and internal environments, such as record failure, slow logistics auditing, and distribution delay towards improving procurement management in retailing enterprises.
Design/methodology/approach-
Quantitative methodology was employed to collect data using a self-administered survey from randomly selected procurement staffs, marketers and customers to measure their perception regarding the feasibility and acceptance of the implemented agent-knowledge based procurement management tool.
Findings-
Results from empirical analysis reveal that the implemented tool facilitates collaboration and interaction among buyers, sellers and procurement managers towards enhancing procurement managers’ flexibility to handle unexpected exceptions. In addition, results confirm the feasibility of the implemented tool in supporting procurement management towards handling inventory failure exception which occurs in traditional procurement approaches. Moreover, descriptive results from user acceptance test verify that the tool was accepted by the respondents.
Research limitations/implications-
The limitation of this study is that the implemented tool is evaluated using data collected from respondents in Malaysia retailing enterprise only, thus the results cannot be generalized to other enterprises and country. In addition, research implications from this study design a methodological and comprehensive software agent-knowledge based model that support buyers, sellers and procurement manager with information to facilitate buying and selling operations.
Practical implications-
Practically, the designed software agent-knowledge based model describes how software agents collaborate with each other to facilitate procurement tasks and also utilize the knowledge base in the implemented tool to provide information sharing platform that manage the dynamics of procurement operations.
Social implications-
This research integrates software agents which are autonomous programs that carryout pre-defined task on behalf of end users. Socially, this study would be useful for procurement managers in developing mechanisms for instilling insights in retailing operations.
Originality/value-
This research is among the first to attempt to develop a software agent-knowledge based model to support procurement management in retailing enterprise domain. It contributes to promote e-procurement practices by implementing a software agent-knowledge oriented tool to address uncertainties experienced in retailing enterprise. It is envisaged that this study will provide basis for future research into e-procurement practices for retailing businesses in Malaysia and beyond.
... However, a precondition for these advantages to unfold is the adoption and efficient usage of E-Procurement systems that is hindered by challenges which can concern the organizational and environmental, as well as the technological and user context (Brandon-Jones 2017; Nandankar and Sachan 2020;Sánchez-Rodríguez et al. 2020). While the organizational and environmental context includes challenges such as organization's readiness (Ocloo et al. 2020) or business climate (Nandankar and Sachan 2020) that can mostly be addressed by managerial approaches, challenges in the technological context often occur due to the IT systems in use, e.g., the lack of security, data processing capabilities or interoperability of system components, that can be resolved by new technological approaches such as semantic databases (Alvarez-Rodríguez et al., 2014) or advanced data analytics (Hallikas et al. 2021). The user context, however, entails challenges that show conspicuous similarities with another discipline of electronic business (E-Business), i.e., E-Commerce. ...
... In the technological context, challenges exist in relation to the digital procurement system itself and its integration in the existing system landscape (IT infrastructure) as well as the quality of the E-Procurement system which is strongly interrelated with the user context. The IT infrastructure is crucial to guarantee an expedient usage of the E-Procurement system and must be maintained, contain standards, allow for the integration with other entities, such as the supplier system, to exchange, e.g., product information, and provide both flexible and secure processes (Alvarez-Rodríguez et al. 2014;Angeles and Nath 2007;Brandon-Jones andCarey 2011, Sánchez-Rodríguez et al. 2020). Otherwise, new technological approaches, such as efficient data analytic systems (Hallikas et al. 2021), are not of use in the E-procurement processes. ...
Since managing E-Procurement processes via technology is considered as crucial, the exploration of contemporary technology has become a chief concern for organizations. One technology that has emerged as a relevant medium to electronically conduct business is Augmented Reality (AR). However, while AR has taken a foothold in E-Commerce, it seems that it has not yet established itself as a relevant technology in E-Procurement. Therefore, this study emphasizes current challenges that persist in E-Procurement as well as whether and how AR may be capable of addressing these challenges based on expert interviews. The results reveal several challenges pertaining to the organization, technology, and quality of E-procurement systems, for which this study provides a discourse on how AR may be used to overcome these challenges. However, whether AR diffuses in E-Procurement depends on the ability to integrate AR in existing systems, user education and flow, and the availability of virtual product replicas.
... Tatsis et al. [15] defined e-procurement as a set of prerequisites and empowerments of the procurement process of an organization based on equipment, technology, electronics and web applications. E-procurement is the process of requesting goods or services until the payment of a supplier or service provider uses software tools in purchasing performance [16]. ...
... Sub-processes of e-procurement are electronic application, electronic notification, electronic access, electronic submission, electronic evaluation, electronic awarding, electronic ordering, electronic invoicing and electronic payment [16,22]. IT applications in the procurement process result in increased value by decreasing transaction and administrative costs, reducing conflicts, reducing errors in orders, precision in decision-making, clarity, and buyer-supplier synchronization [21,22]. ...
A procurement system is a crucial part of supply chain management in firms. International companies are looking forward to how much it is possible to save through implementing the strategies of e-procurement fully. In this paper, we study e-procurement and its application along with its added value for the firms. In addition, we discuss its drivers and barriers as well as demonstrating a supplier selection framework. We also adopt Critical Success Factors (CSF) for e-procurement. Findings indicate that e-procurement will decrease lead time, providing agility for the supply chain management. Added values are: strategic, operational and opportunity which varies depending on to what extent each organization emphasizes it and implements it. E-procurement systems implementation is hard due to its barriers by various technologies, varied organizational culture and changing users’ interacting skills with Information systems/technologies. E-procurement is a complex system in firms and firms’ staff are the main contributors of the technology. We need to write down the hierarchy tree and have a category titled “electronic transaction” that can help for quantitative decision making for the supplier selection in the e-procurement process. We found that all of the CSFs are not crucial in all of the firms and indicators for performance should be categorized into firms’ structures, managerial criteria, and key activities. These three indicators are strongly interrelated.KeywordsE-procurementSupply chainBenefitsDriversBarriersPerformance
... Ronchi et al. [21] believe that e-procurement is gaining more popularity in business practices due to IT platform development. Another study by Alvarez-Rodríguez et al. [33] predicted that semantic technology would be the new trend in e-procurement applications. A semantic technology protocol, through a standard and shared data model, formal query language, and accessible via the internet, would tackle the challenges of delivering intelligent e-procurement. ...
... Senior internal management of the organization should provide a platform or appropriate technology for e-procurement and its infrastructures. The selection of platforms for the usage of e-procurement should consider the risk [63], the future trend [33], the effectiveness, and the costs [20]. The selection of e-procurement platforms should also consider the type of organizations and users who use them. ...
This study was conducted to determine the performance impact of e-procurement adoption in Indonesian manufacturing companies. This study consists of four variables: top management support, information quality, implementation of e-procurement, and company performance. Pilot testing questionnaires were used to test whether the respondents understood the questions given by the researcher. After conducting the pilot test, the final questionnaire was distributed to respondents. The pilot test results and the final questionnaire were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 21 and SmartPLS v3.0 software to determine the relationship between variables. The results of this study support the acceptance of three hypotheses. The results indicate that top management support has a significant effect on e-procurement implementation. Other results show that information quality has a significant effect on e-procurement implementation, while e-procurement implementation has a significant effect on company performance. From the findings of this article, recommendations from a management perspective are discussed to increase management awareness in adopting electronic procurement.
... In times of slow economic recovery and enhanced transparency and accountability, there is a pressing need for better insight into, and management of government spending (cf. [1]). In the absence of data and tools to analyse and oversee this complex process, too little consideration is given to the development of vibrant, competitive economies when buying decisions are made. ...
... This at the end generates a lot of heterogeneity. Procurement domain can take advantage of applying the Semantic Web approach by reusing existing vocabularies, ontologies, and standards [1]. Specifically in the procurement domain, these include among others PPROC ontology [10] for describing public processes and contracts, LOTED2 ontology [5] for public procurement notices, PCO ontology [11] for contracts in public domain, and MOLDEAS ontology [14] for announcements about public tenders. ...
Procurement affects virtually all sectors and organizations particularly in times of slow economic recovery and enhanced transparency. Public spending alone will soon exceed EUR 2 trillion per annum in the EU. Therefore, there is a pressing need for better insight into, and management of government spending. In the absence of data and tools to analyse and oversee this complex process, too little consideration is given to the development of vibrant, competitive economies when buying decisions are made. To this end, in this short paper, we report our ongoing work for enabling procurement data value chains through a knowledge graph based platform with data management, analytics, and interaction.
... In times of slow economic recovery and enhanced transparency and accountability, there is a pressing need for better insight into, and management of government spending (cf. [1]). In the absence of data and tools to analyse and oversee this complex process, too little consideration is given to the development of vibrant, competitive economies when buying decisions are made. ...
... This at the end generates a lot of heterogeneity. Procurement domain can take advantage of applying the Semantic Web approach by reusing existing vocabularies, ontologies, and standards [1]. Specifically in the procurement domain, these include among others PPROC ontology [10] for describing public processes and contracts, LOTED2 ontology [5] for public procurement notices, PCO ontology [11] for contracts in public domain, and MOLDEAS ontology [14] for announcements about public tenders. ...
Procurement affects virtually all sectors and organizations particularly in times of slow economic recovery and enhanced transparency. Public spending alone will soon exceed EUR 2 trillion per annum in the EU. Therefore, there is a pressing need for better insight into, and management of government spending. In the absence of data and tools to analyse and oversee this complex process, too little consideration is given to the development of vibrant, competitive economies when buying decisions are made. To this end, in this short paper, we report our ongoing work for enabling procurement data value chains through a knowledge graph based platform with data management, analytics, and interaction.
... The term e-Procurement refers to the use of electronic communications to deal with business process between sellers and buyers, through linking and integrating inter-organization business processes and systems with the use of Internet-based protocols [2]. E-Procurement has been providing more efficient trading methods as well as new trading opportunities in the supply networks. ...
... E-Procurement is considered to be a strategic tool for improving the competitiveness of organizations and generating scale economies for both sellers and buyers. In this context, one critical issue is to tackle problems existing in ensuring a trustworthy environment in which business interrelationship risks can be minimized [2]. ...
In the last two decades the intelligent agents have improved the lifestyle of human beings from different aspects of view such as life activities and services. Considering the importance of the safety and security role in the e-procurement, there have been many systems developed including trust engine. In particular, some of the first systems were modeled though trust evaluation concepts as crisp values, but now a days to adjust the systems with real world cases, the uncertainty and impreciseness parameters must be considered with the use of fuzzy sets theory. In this paper to minimize the number of exceptions related to suppliers, Trust Management Agent (TMA) is considered to prioritize candidate suppliers based on trust criteria. Due to lots of uncertainties, type-2 fuzzy sets prove to be a most suitable methodology to deal with the trust evaluation process efficiently. In this regard, a new evaluation process based on hierarchical Linguistic Weighted Averaging (LWA) sets is proposed. The solution method was then illustrated through a simple example which clarifies the suitability as well as the simplicity of the proposed method for the category of the defined problem.
... Technology integration in procurement involves the use of digital tools and platforms to manage procurement processes. This includes e-procurement systems, electronic tendering, and procurement management software (Alvarez-Rodríguez et al., 2014). Technology can enhance efficiency by automating processes, reducing human error, and providing real-time data for decision-making (Grandia & Voncken, 2019). ...
This study explores the impact of public procurement rules on the efficiency of procurement processes in the health sector of Punjab, focusing on the mediating role of technology integration. In the context of public sector procurement, stringent rules and regulations are designed to ensure transparency, accountability, and fair competition. However, these rules can also introduce complexity and delays. This research examines how the adoption of advanced technology solutions can streamline procurement processes and mitigate the challenges posed by regulatory frameworks. Using a mixed-methods approach, data were collected through surveys and interviews with key stakeholders in the health sector, including procurement officers, suppliers, and policy makers. The findings indicate that while public procurement rules impose necessary checks and balances, their rigid application can impede procurement efficiency. The integration of technology, such as e-procurement systems, has shown significant potential in enhancing process efficiency by automating workflows, reducing manual errors, and improving transparency. The study concludes that technology integration acts as a crucial enabler in balancing the dual objectives of regulatory compliance and operational efficiency in the health sector's procurement processes. Recommendations for policy adjustments and further technology adoption are provided to optimize procurement practices and improve health service delivery in Punjab.
... El open data asociado a la contratación pública está también evolucionando intensamente debido, principalmente, a factores tecnológicos (desarrollo de modelos y software para el e-Procurement [38]), burocráticos (estandarización del lenguaje de la contratación y digitalización de las AA.PP.), políticos (mayor transparencia en la toma de decisiones políticas), económicos (globalización, empresas compitiendo cada vez en mercados más lejanos a su origen) y sociales (menor tolerancia a la gestión pública y política, ineficaz y el interés por tener más información sobre las AA.PP. y sus contrataciones con empresas privadas). ...
Este trabajo tiene como objetivo explicar a un lector no técnico la Tesis Doctoral realizada por el autor: aplicar la ciencia de datos a la contratación pública.
... It is a positive experience that leads individuals to prefer one product, system, or service over another due to several factors . For instance, users of e-procurement systems face several problems, such as lack of interoperability, privacy, lack of transparency, and information provenance during their business transactions (Alvarez-Rodríguez et al., 2014;Maleki et al., 2017). ...
The use of e-procurement is needed for business transactions, especially regarding procurement activities. However, system users always demand and expect to use the system without problems. Existing studies on e-procurement do not focus on user experience (UX). Only a few studies have identified dimensions for UX evaluation; however, they are for e-government online services and construction. Identifying the UX dimensions for e-procurement is important for measuring user experience to provide better services. Therefore, this study attempted to investigate and determine the dimensions of 466 user experience for e-procurement. The method for selecting articles was adopted from the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA). The study analysed the data using thematic analysis based on the Systems and software Quality Requirements and Evaluation (SQuaRE) standards, such as ISO 25022:2016 and ISO 25023:2016, as guidance. The findings showed that among the most used UX dimensions in the e-procurement literature were satisfaction, security, transparency, efficiency, and reliability. Other UX-related dimensions identified from the review were usability, compatibility, effectiveness, performance efficiency, functional suitability, attractiveness, explainability, fairness, and visibility. The study was conducted to identify the UX dimensions for e-procurement from literature studies by organising them using ISO 25022:2016 and ISO 25023:2016 standards. This study could serve as a guideline for designers, developers, and researchers to develop an e-procurement system by referring to the proposed UX dimensions to produce a positive user experience. Moreover, the findings are beneficial to practitioners on software quality attributes.
... El open data asociado a la contratación pública está también evolucionando intensamente debido, principalmente, a factores tecnológicos (desarrollo de modelos y software para el e-Procurement (Alvarez- Rodríguez et al., 2014)), burocráticos (estandarización del lenguaje de la contratación y digitalización de las AA.PP.), políticos (mayor transparencia en la toma de decisiones políticas), económicos (globalización, empresas compitiendo cada vez en mercados más lejanos a su origen) y sociales (menor tolerancia a la gestión pública y política, ineficaz y el interés por tener más información sobre las AA.PP. y sus contrataciones con empresas privadas). ...
1. Introducción.
2. Transparencia y organismos públicos españoles relacionados con la contratación.
3. Tecnologías digitales aplicables a la contratación.
4. Herramienta digital para la detección de licitación irregulares en España.
5. Conclusiones.
... El Open Data asociado a la contratación pública está también evolucionando intensamente debido, principalmente, a factores tecnológicos (desarrollo de modelos y software para el e-Procurement [12]), burocráticos (estandarización del lenguaje de las contrataciones y digitalización de las AA.PP.), políticos (mayor transparencia en la toma de decisiones políticas), económicos (globalización, empresas compitiendo cada vez en mercados más lejanos a su origen) y sociales (menor tolerancia a la gestión pública y política, ineficaz y el interés por tener más información sobre las AA.PP. y sus contrataciones con empresas privadas). ...
Open data from public administrations, and, in particular, public
procurement related data is a powerful source of information for supporting the decisionmaking process, both for public administrations and economic operators. In this paper,
we present the current situation of the public procurement framework in Spain, including
challenges, regulatory framework, main stakeholders involved in the process (contracting
authorities, platforms, oversight authorities, etc.). Finally, we present several use cases
that, through the application of innovative technologies (mainly Big Data, Artificial
Intelligence and Process Automation) could solve some of the current public procurement
challenges, increase the efficiency of public procurement processes and provide tools for
public sector managers to facilitate the decision-making process.
... Organizations that have overcome these challenges can gain control over and facilitate the process of purchasing goods and services indirectly (Yu et al., 2015). However, as a new trend, e-procurement still faces a number of interconnected problems, including a lack of interoperability, privacy and information source, and lack of transparency (Alvarez-Rodríguez, Labra-Gayo, & De Pablos, 2014). Although e-procurement technology is now mandated in many organizations or industries, the acceptance and compliance of individuals is often very difficult to force, with dissatisfied users usually looking for ways to avoid the existing procurement processes (Brandon-Jones, 2017; Brandon-Jones & Kauppi, 2018;Kauppi & Van Raaij, 2015). ...
E-procurement system is one an online marketing platform that provides a secured transaction for buyers and sellers. Despite e-procurement benefits, the usage of the system is remaining poor due to its module complexity, lack user-friendliness and some of the users dwelt with negative past experiences while using the system. The challenges faced in the implementation of e-procurement are not well understood even though there are past studies that focus on this phenomenon. The users were having difficult experiences while using e-procurement in the early usage of system. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate the user experience during the early usage of e-procurement so that this experience could be used to address the challenges of e-procurement and some improvement can be taken by the stakeholders. This study uses a quantitative approach that is a questionnaire survey. A purposive sampling was used in the study and 35 respondents are comprised of large companies and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia. The study showed that the industries expect that the e-procurement system, such as online applications, report generation, product and services advertising, payment and termination information, is fast, easy to learn, understandable and easy to use. However, the analysis of this survey shows that the users feel there are some modules in the e-procurement system that are difficult to be used. This study contributes to the procurement domain in terms of identifying the prior user experience and user challenges that are important to be highlighted for better system improvement. The study is very significant not only to stakeholders but also to researchers, where this information will be used to develop a UX evaluation model that are derived from an industry perspective.
... For this reason, public spending has always been a matter of interest at local, regional, and national levels, and even more so, in times of great austerity and increased public scrutiny. Primarily, governments need to be efficient in delivering services, ensure transparency, prevent fraud and corruption, and build healthy and sustainable economies [1,2]. For example, in the European Union (EU), every year, over 250.000 public authorities spend around 2 trillion euros (about 14% of GDP) on the purchase of services, works, and supplies 1 ; while the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimates that more than 82% of fraud and corruption cases remain undetected across all OECD countries [3] costing as high as 990 billion euros a year in the EU alone [4]. ...
Public procurement is a large market affecting almost every organisation and individual; therefore, governments need to ensure its efficiency, transparency, and accountability, while creating healthy, competitive, and vibrant economies. In this context, open data initiatives and integration of data from multiple sources across national borders could transform the procurement market by such as lowering the barriers of entry for smaller suppliers and encouraging healthier competition, in particular by enabling cross-border bids. Increasingly more open data is published in the public sector; however, these are created and maintained in siloes and are not straightforward to reuse or maintain because of technical heterogeneity, lack of quality, insufficient metadata, or missing links to related domains. To this end, we developed an open linked data platform, called TheyBuyForYou, consisting of a set of modular APIs and ontologies to publish, curate, integrate, analyse, and visualise an EU-wide, cross-border, and cross-lingual procurement knowledge graph. We developed advanced tools and services on top of the knowledge graph for anomaly detection, cross-lingual document search, and data storytelling. This article describes the TheyBuyForYou platform and knowledge graph, reports their adoption by different stakeholders and challenges and experiences we went through while creating them, and demonstrates the usefulness of Semantic Web and Linked Data technologies for enhancing public procurement.
... Open data associated with public procurement is also increasing mainly due to technological factors (development of models and software for e-Procurement [10]), bureaucratic factors (standardization of contracting language and Public Administrations digitalization), political factors (greater transparency in political decision making), economic factors (globalization, companies competing in markets far away from their origin) and social factors (less tolerance for inefficient political management and greater transparency about contracting information between Public Administrations and private companies). ...
Open Data in Public Administrations and, in particular, the publications of public procurement (tenders) is a source of valuable information for the decision-making procedure. The analysis of public tenders can provide valuable information for the different stakeholders: politicians, public managers, project managers, executives and, indirectly, citizens. Open Data allows the application of Business Intelligent and massive data processing techniques. This study presents the current situation of the Spanish Public Procurement processes and its open data sources available for citizens. The focus of the study is the Request-For-Proposal (RFP) and tender submission related data. The European and Spanish legislation which applies to this topic is collected. The Spanish Public Sector Contracting Platform, which is the web platform where public procurement announcements and their resolutions are published, is explained. The information can be very useful for researchers who want to carry out studies applying massive data processing techniques. A use case is presented using the open data of that web platform with different approaches to demonstrate its usefulness in a Business Intelligent context. Examples describing quantitative, geographic, sectorial competitiveness and interregional mobility analysis are presented illustrating possible applications.
... (i) Technological factors: software tools to manipulate big data and machine learning algorithms to analyse data (e.g., to make predictions) [5,6]. (ii) Bureaucratic factors: standardisation of contracting language e-procurement [7,8] and the bene ts of the digitalisation of public procurement agencies [9]. (iii) Political factors: greater transparency in political decision making and design of methods of selecting suppliers for public procurement [10]. ...
The largest project managers and adjudicators of a country, both by number of projects and by cost, are public procurement agencies. Therefore, knowing and characterising public procurement announcements (tenders) is fundamental for managing public resources well. This article presents the case of public procurement in Spain, analysing a dataset from 2012 to 2018: 58,337 tenders with a cost of 31,426 million euros. Many studies of public procurement have been conducted globally or theoretically, but there is a dearth of data analysis, especially regarding Spain. A quantitative, graphical, and statistical description of the dataset is presented. Mainly, the analysis is of the relation between the award price and the bidding price. An award price estimator is proposed that uses the random forest regression method. A good estimator would be very useful and valuable for companies and public procurement agencies. It would be a key tool in their project management decision making. Finally, a similar analysis, employing a dataset from European countries, is presented to compare and generalise the results and conclusions. Hence, this is a novel study which fills a gap in the literature.
... Automation in Construction 13 (2004) 361-376,") Connection within stakeholder (Missonier & Loufrani-Fedida, 2014;R. J. Yang & Zou, 2014) Profit margins (Hwang et al., 2014;Taylan, Bafail, Abdulaal, & Kabli, 2014) Procurement method (Alvarez-Rodrı´guez, Labra-Gayo, & Pablos, 2014) Conflict to lower down construction productivity (Bowen, Edwards, Lingard, & Cattell, 2014;Chong & Elies, 2011;Rudi et al., 2014) It is difficult to satisfy all of the success factors at the same time because management practices always have to face limited resources such as money, manpower, time, and management efforts. Therefore, identification of a list of critical success factors is valuable for helping construction stakeholders and policymakers to be more focused in order to develop their competitiveness, but at the same time, working with limited resources (NYongtao, 2008). ...
This research focuses on the influence of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) on the construction industry of Cambodia, particularly to find out factors influence on the construction industry of Cambodia in AEC. The factors were identified from a literature review and investigation; however, no general agreement can be made. Five major groups of factors with a total of 41 factors were identified. The total samples collected were from concerned government officers and engineers. There were 463 samples which consisted of 237 from government officers working at various representative departments of concerned ministries, and 226 from engineers working at various private construction firms in Cambodia. A factors analysis was then conducted to find out the influence factors, and the results, showed that there were 14 factors which were categorized in three main groups, i.e., i) Soft infrastructure, ii) Construction investment policy, and iii) Construction organization management. Simply said, the total of 41 factors were inputted for factor analysis, and finally, 14 factors in three main groups were found after analysis.
... In sum, this still generates a lot of heterogeneity. Ontologies have been proposed to alleviate this problem [1,10]. Several ontologies (e.g., PPROC [5], LOTED2 [3], MOLDEAS [7], PCO [6]) have recently emerged, with different levels of detail and focus (e.g., legal, process-oriented, pragmatic). ...
The release of a growing amount of open procurement data led to various initiatives for harmonising the data being provided. Among others, the Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS) is highly relevant due to its high practical value and increasing traction. OCDS defines a common data model for publishing structured data throughout most of the stages of a contracting process. OCDS is document-oriented and focuses on packaging and delivering relevant data in an iterative and event-driven manner through a series of releases. Ontologies, beyond providing uniform access to heterogeneous procurement data, could enable integration with related data sets such as with supplier data for advanced analytics and insight extraction. Therefore, we developed an ontology, the “OCDS ontology”, by using OCDS’ main domain perspective and vocabulary, since it is an essential source of domain knowledge. In this paper, we provide an overview of the developed ontology.
... For e-procurement implementation success, managers are required to evaluate the progress of the projects carefully and to understand clearly the factors that lead to successful initiatives [42,43]. For any e-procurement initiative to be successful, there are some factors that an organization must critically consider [44]. ...
Electronic purchasing or e-procurement saves millions of dollars yearly in transaction costs. E-procurement helps to cut down the supplier base, promotes paperless transactions, and increases transparency and accountability in the procurement process. Nonetheless, studies report that around 80% of e-procurement initiatives have met with failure and failed to achieve the desired results. Although studies to better understand the Critical Success Factors (CSFs) of e-procurement implementation involving various industries have been on the rise, little is known about architecture engineering and construction (AEC) practices, which has led to limited development of pragmatic frameworks to uncover the factors. Thus, this study aims to identify those CSFs (predicting variables) which significantly contribute to e-procurement implementation success in the construction sector and to put forward for better implementation. Results from multiple regression analysis revealed five factors to be statistically significant predictors of success. Three factors were determined to be predictors of user satisfaction. Finally, internet online procurement frameworks were developed for the success of e-procurement implementation in the construction sector.
... In sum, this still generates a lot of heterogeneity. Ontologies have been proposed to alleviate this problem [1,10]. Several ontologies (e.g., PPROC [5], LOTED2 [3], MOLDEAS [7], PCO [6]) have recently emerged, with different levels of detail and focus (e.g., legal, process-oriented, pragmatic). ...
The release of a growing amount of open procurement data led to various initiatives for harmonising the data being provided. Among others, the Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS) is highly relevant due to its high practical value and increasing traction. OCDS defines a common data model for publishing structured data throughout most of the stages of a contracting process. OCDS is document-oriented and focuses on packaging and delivering relevant data in an iterative and event-driven manner through a series of releases. Ontologies, beyond providing uniform access to heterogeneous procurement data, could enable integration with related data sets such as with supplier data for advanced analytics and insight extraction. Therefore, we developed an ontology, the "OCDS ontology", by using OCDS' main domain perspective and vocabulary, since it is an essential source of domain knowledge. In this paper, we provide an overview of the developed ontology.
... he rapid development of procurement process has caused the increase of e-Procurement adoption trend in the last ten years [32]. E-Procurement is considered potential for improvement and efficiency of purchasing, administration, and market function [1]. Therefore, the United Nations (UN) e-Government survey in 2016 also found that 98 out of 193 countries have implemented a full-featured e-Procurement platform. ...
... Every year, over 250 000 public authorities in the EU spend around 14% of GDP on the purchase of services, works and supplies 1 . Therefore, improving effectiveness, efficiency, transparency and accountability of government procurement is of broad interest [1]. To this end, European Commission has put several relevant directives forward, i.e., for public sector information (e.g., Directive 2003/98/EC) and public procurement (e.g., Directive 2014/24/EU8), to improve public procurement practices. ...
Public procurement accounts for a substantial part of the public investment and global economy. Therefore, improving effectiveness, efficiency, transparency and accountability of government procurement is of broad interest. To this end, in this poster paper, we present our approach for integrating procurement data, including public spending and corporate data, from multiple sources across the EU into a semantic knowledge graph. We are aiming to improve procurement processes through supporting multiple stake holders, such as government agencies, companies, control authorities, journalists, researchers, and individual citizens.
... Free to use, reuse and redistribute, sharing the same license. In this context, the movement Open Government Data makes a great effort to spread this vision in public bodies around the world, with the objective of making information available to the public and of the creation of economies of scale due to data reuse and the creation, with the data, of more valued and enriched services (ALVAREZ-RODRÍGUEZ et al., 2014). It is the information policy that provides a particular structure in which the data sets that are produced by public institutions are destined for use by third parties. ...
Government Open Data (DAG) is free, open and available data by public organizations and can be used in projects or integrated with new products, applications or services. Research in the OGD area has grown substantially in recent years, addressing several different conceptual approaches and dimensions. It is important to understand the concept over time as a way to better conceive researches based on contemporary approaches. Therefore, the present study aims to review and categorize existing researches about OGD, identifying which approaches are being adopted, which are the research strategies used, how the concept evolves and which are the most referenced articles. This study analyzed and categorized researches about OGD through a systematic literature review covering 193 publications presented in the main databases. Papers were analyzed through content analysis, through the steps of reduction, display, conclusion and double blind verification. The researches were classified into seven dimensions and under ten different approaches. Concurrently with the development of OGD global initiatives, new scientific papers tend to direct their focus to issues such as data quality and accountability. Through the results of this research it is possible to identify widely discussed approaches and those that can be further explored, as well as the development of the OGD concept over time and its dimensions.
Although e-procurement uptake is slow amongst SMEs in developing countries, the introduction of web-based technologies in the 1990s and the creation of social media platforms and other e-commerce sites have currently revolutionized the way small and medium-sized enterprises operate businesses. Therefore, the purpose of this quantitative cross-sectional survey research was to examine the factors that drive the effective implementation of e-procurement systems among SMEs in the Republic of South Sudan. The study systematically sampled and surveyed 300 SMEs out of a total of 1215 and collected data using a survey questionnaire in Google Form format with a valid response rate of 71% (213). The background data were analysed using descriptive statistics such as frequency and percentage; and the variables were analysed using inferential statistics such as principal component analysis (PCA), relatively important index (RII), and analytical hierarchical process (AHP). Resultantly, the availability of experienced and skilled personnel; and the availability of government directives were ranked the highest drivers among the political and legal factors, followed by an increase in quality through benchmarking (market intelligence) and an increase in quality through improved communication due to competitive factors, cost reductions in terms of staffing, processing, transaction, and administrations for management factors. Future studies should evaluate the main factors that motivate SMEs to adopt procurement practices in emerging and developed countries, with the aim of promoting the adoption of e-procurement. Meanwhile, stakeholders could invest in skilled personnel, advocate for government directives and policies, improve communication channels, utilize market intelligence tools, focus on cost reduction strategies, promote training and awareness programs, collaborate with industry partners, and ensure legal compliance. This study proposed employing qualitative techniques to examine the drivers of e-procurement adoption by SMEs.
This study delves into the optimization of procurement processes with a dual focus on cost efficiency and financial control. The overarching objective is to identify strategies and practices that enable organizations to streamline their procurement operations while ensuring prudent financial management. Key areas of investigation include the identification of cost-saving opportunities within the procurement process, the enhancement of financial oversight mechanisms, and the streamlining of procurement procedures to minimize inefficiencies and wastage. Additionally, the study explores methods for improving supplier relationships to secure better terms and reliability, as well as strategies for mitigating supply chain risks to safeguard financial interests. Compliance with relevant regulations and policies is also emphasized to avoid legal repercussions and reputational damage. Finally, the study advocates for the implementation of continuous improvement practices within the procurement framework, promoting a culture of ongoing refinement to optimize efficiency and effectiveness. Through comprehensive analysis and practical recommendations, this study aims to provide valuable insights for organizations seeking to optimize their procurement processes for enhanced cost efficiency and financial control.
Perkembangan E-Commerce di Indonesia dapat dibagi menjadi fase Awal Mula (1990 - 2000), Pertumbuhan (2001 – 2006), Evolusi dan Penetrasi Pasar (2007 – 2020), Era Digitalisasi dan FinTech (2021 – Sekarang)
Untuk menavigasi pasar digital ini secara efektif, bisnis harus memahami elemen inti dari manajemen e-commerce, yang mencakup strategi yang digunakan dalam E-commerce Sisi Pembelian (Buy-Side E-commerce) dan E-commerce Sisi Penjualan (Sell-Side E-commerce), memastikan mereka memenuhi
bersamaan secara
permintaan konsumen sambil
mengoptimalkan efisiensi operasional E-commerce Sisi Pembelian (Buy-Side E-commerce) merujuk pada proses yang terlibat dalam memperoleh barang dan jasa untuk keperluan organisasi, memanfaatkan platform digital untuk merampingkan pengadaan dan meningkatkan hubungan dengan pemasok, yang pada akhirnya memungkinkan perusahaan mengurangi biaya dan meningkatkan efisiensi transaksi sesuai dengan tuntutan pasar yang kompetitif. Sebaliknya, E-commerce Sisi Penjualan (Sell-Side E-commerce) mencakup strategi dan proses yang digunakan oleh organisasi untuk menjual produk dan jasa mereka secara langsung kepada konsumen, menggunakan platform online untuk menjangkau audiens yang lebih luas, meningkatkan efektivitas pemasaran, dan meningkatkan keterlibatan pelanggan melalui pengalaman yang dipersonalisasi dan promosi yang ditargetkan, sehingga mendorong pertumbuhan penjualan dan membangun loyalitas merek dalam lingkungan yang semakin kompetitif, di mana kemampuan untuk beradaptasi dengan preferensi konsumen yang berubah menjadi penting untuk kesuksesan jangka panjang (Wardhana, et al., 2023; Wardhana, et al., 2022; Belvedere et al., 2021; Pan & Yang, 2021; Pekasa & Sanica, 2021; Aria & Fajriansyah, 2019; Yamada et al., 2018; Ajmal, 2017; Al‐ Aulkemeier et al., 2016; Zhang et al., 2011; Shanshan & Zou, 2010; Balocco et al., 2010; Bing, 2009; Fen & Forgionne, 2007; Mashari, 2002; Gunasekaran et al., 2002; Saha, 2002; Shin, 2002; King et al., 1999; Kambil, 1997).
The "Make or Buy" decision and the supplier selection are critical steps for the efficient operation of companies' supply chains. Safety and security are paramount considerations, especially in industries like logistics, where supply chains are vulnerable to external threats and disruptions. In this scientific article, we present a novel Artificial Intelligence (AI)-assisted supplier selection method that significantly enhances the safety and security of suppliers. During our research project, we have created an expert system and a corresponding knowledge base with the relevant rules to support supply chain decision-makers in selecting logistics service providers for warehousing services. The foundation of the AI-assisted supplier selection method is advanced data analytics and the application of expert systems, enabling companies to evaluate potential suppliers in detail from a safety and security perspective. The applied expert systems can identify potential risks and make predictions about supplier performance in the future. In the turbulent environment of the global supply chain, selecting long-term partners like warehousing services providers is critical for the success of the organization. A wrong supplier selection can hardly be reversed in warehousing services, as the cost of change is usually high. The article demonstrates the practical application of the expert system-assisted supplier selection method in a real-world supply chain environment and thoroughly analyzes the achieved results and advantages. The results show that the expert system-assisted method not only increases supplier safety and security but also contributes to improving the efficiency and sustainability of the supply chain. This article provides valuable guidance and solutions for companies looking to enhance their supplier selection using expert system technologies, thereby increasing the safety and security of their supply chains.
The research aims to improve the shipbuilding process by reducing the time required for building a vessel through adoption of lean in the procurement management process. The research identifies the AS-IS process for procurement, uses Value Stream Mapping to identify different actions, identifies the root causes for administrative lead time with the help of fish bone diagram and proposes a framework for e-procurement system. It was found that lack of proper communication and visibility between the processes can increase the lead time for purchase order creation for different materials. The use of a smart e-procurement system can improve the visibility of the process across various departments and with the suppliers. This can improve the efficiency of the shipbuilding process, reducing the time required for manufacturing a vessel.
Due to the strategic understanding of PSM, an intrinsic interest exists in researching one’s future of PSM. Recently, calls for more forward-looking, explorative, and futureoriented research in PSM have emerged. Researching the future is predominately conducted in the research field of ‘futures studies’ that deals with the scientific study of future developments to formulate reasonable assumptions of the future to influence today’s actions. In light of existing calls for more research, it is critical to question the extent to which core principles of ‘futures studies’ are already reflected in PSM. Following propositions from dedicated methodological frameworks from ‘futures studies’, a systematic literature review has been completed. This systematic literature review identifies and examines 75 contributions in the field of PSM and investigates possible hints on how to explore futures in PSM. Following the propositions on how to execute ‘futures studies’, it seems as if research in PSM mainly focuses on exploring potential assumptions for future developments and on analyzing and interpreting those assumptions in light of future developments. Research results seem loosely coupled in light of the applied framework on how to conduct ‘futures studies’. The first results indicate that studies and methodological insights on how to (scientifically) create and validateimaginable futures (including creating images of multiple futures) and how to transfer those indications from imaginable futures in today’s actions are missing. Although individual articles provide insight into a highly focused segment of the future, no holistic insight into the future exists. Consequently, PSM is missing an integrated approach of ‘futures studies’ to developing insights into the future. In other words, the subsequent question arises as to whether transferring methods from ‘futures studies’ to research in PSM can yield new insights.
Due to the strategic understanding of PSM, an intrinsic interest exists in researching one's future of PSM. Recently calls for more forward-looking, explorative, and future-oriented research in PSM have emerged. Researching the future is predominately conducted in the research field of 'futures studies' that deals with the scientific study of future developments to formulate reasonable assumptions of the future to influence to-day's actions. In light of existing calls for more research, it is critical to question the extent to which core principles of 'futures studies' are already reflected in PSM. Following propositions from dedicated methodological frameworks from 'futures studies' a systematic literature review has been completed. This systematic literature review identifies and examines 75 contributions in the field of PSM and investigates possible hints on how to explore futures in PSM. Following the propositions on how to execute 'futures studies', it seems as if research in PSM mainly focuses on exploring potential assumptions for future developments and on analysing and interpreting those assumptions in light of future developments. Research results seem loosely coupled in light of the applied framework on how to conduct 'futures studies'. The first results indicate that studies and methodological insights on how to (scientifically) create and validate imaginable futures (including creating images of multiple futures) and how to transfer those indications from imaginable futures in today's actions are missing. Although individual articles provide insight into a highly focused segment of the future, no holistic insight into the future exists. Consequently, PSM is missing an integrated approach of 'futures stud-ies' to developing insights into the future. In other words, the subsequent question arises as to whether transferring methods from' futures studies' to research in PSM can yield new insights.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) has received growing attention within the digital transformation as this cutting-edge technology automates human behavior and promises high potentials. However, the adoption in purchasing and supply management (PSM) is still in its infancy and has hardly been explored, particularly in the public sector. Based on a multiple case study including 19 organizations of the public and private sector, this paper narrows that gap and presents comprehensive insights into potentials, barriers, suitable processes, and best practices and components for RPA implementation. The findings indicate that adoption depends on the organizations’ digital procurement readiness and maturity. Application areas of RPA enlarge with increasing experience and range from transactional and operative tasks within the procure-to-pay process to more strategic use cases in sourcing and supply relationship management. Potentials mainly comprise employee reliefs, cost savings, and increased operational efficiency and quality. We uncover multiple technical, organizational, and environmental barriers related to IT infrastructure and human resources, internal communication, financial resources, top management support, organizational structures, supplier-related issues, and government regulations. Furthermore, our study indicates several differences between the private and public sectors for RPA implementation. We outline implications for the emerging research on RPA and pivotal directions for organizational practice.
The ultimate purpose of this chapter is to apply a holistic approach and analysis to the framework that governs electronic public procurements. This is a subject that has not been investigated to a large extent yet, and especially when it comes to the situation in Greece, no relevant study could be found until recently, in spite of the particular importance of the issue to the Greek economy, as well as the Greek public sector. The issue under investigation is approached, on the one hand, through literature review, and on the other hand, through primary qualitative research. Finally, it was found that electronic public procurements are characterized by higher transparency compared to previous years and contribute to enabling access to new markets. However, it is not easy for Greek small and medium enterprises to have access to online tenders, while the relevant terminology and legal framework should be simplified. Further, it is necessary to make the tendering procedures shorter, since it is noticed that the procedures currently take 1.5–3 months more, compared to the previous regime. The mandatory implementation of the electronic platform of the National System of Electronic Public Procurements (E.S.I.DI.S.) was introduced through the legal provisions of Law 4412/2016.
Purpose
This study aims to investigate digitalization as a performance driver in supply chains, especially the role of data analytics in the digitalization of procurement. The study investigates how digital procurement capabilities are linked to data analytics capabilities and supply chain operational performance and how this links to business success.
Design/methodology/approach
Using operational and dynamic capabilities as foundations for data analytics capabilities, this paper studied the digital procurement capabilities and proposed the conceptual model and hypotheses for empirical testing. The collected industry survey data and structural equation method are then applied to test the hypotheses.
Findings
The study confirms positive and significant relationships among digital procurement capabilities, data analytics capabilities and supply chain performance. Digital procurement capabilities mediate the positive relationship between external data analytics capabilities and supply chain performance.
Research limitations/implications
This study has some limitations that should be addressed. The empirical study was based on survey data from a questionnaire that was probably challenging for some respondent companies with low levels of digital procurement and data analytics. Also, it is necessary to adopt secondary data to measure business performance in future studies which reduces the effect of subjective bias.
Practical implications
From the managerial point of view, the findings highlight the importance of gaining knowledge from gathered data and digitalized processes. Managers must focus on data utilization capabilities to improve the operational performance expected from the digitalization of supply chain activities. In addition, managers need to consider exploiting of data through new creative approaches as part of standardized operations.
Originality/value
The present study contributes to existing knowledge by investigating the mediating role of data analytics capabilities between the digitalization of procurement and supply chain performance. The findings support a positive relationship between the data analytics capabilities and supply chain performance in digital upstream supply chain procurement processes. The present study also clarifies the impact and role of data analytics capabilities in digital supply chain development and success.
Small and medium-sized enterprises increasingly adopt electronic invoices and digitized purchase-to-pay processes. A purchase-to-pay process begins with making a purchase order and ends with completing the payment process. Even when organizations adopt electronic invoices, knowledge work in such processes is characterized by assimilating information distributed over heterogeneous sources among different stages in the process. By integrating such information and enabling a shared understanding of stakeholders in such processes, ontologies and knowledge graphs can serve as an appropriate infrastructure for enabling knowledge services. However, no suitable ontology is available for current electronic invoices and digitized purchase-to-pay processes. Therefore, this paper presents P2P-O, a dedicated purchase-to-pay ontology developed in cooperation with industry domain experts. P2P-O enables organizations to create semantic invoices, which are invoices following linked data principles. The European Standard EN 16931-1:2017 for electronic invoices was the main non-ontological resource for developing P2P-O. The evaluation approach is threefold: (1) to follow ontology engineering best practices, we applied OOPS! (OntOlogy Pitfall Scanner!) and OntoDebug; (2) to evaluate competency questions, we constructed a purchase-to-pay knowledge graph with RML technologies and executed corresponding SPARQL queries; (3) to illustrate a P2P-O-based knowledge service and use case, we implemented an invoicing dashboard within a corporate memory system and thus enabled an entity-centric view on invoice data. Organizations can immediately start experimenting with P2P-O by generating semantic invoices with provided RML mappings.
Purpose
This study aims to understand the impact of professionalism (PR) of the workplace learning support team on learning outcomes. The context of this study is an e-procurement system implementation. Management provides initial formal training (TR) to potential users of the system and also arranges informal learning support by deploying the support team for technical guidance/resolving issues on day-to-day basis for successful implementation. Learning outcome has been measured in terms of perceived ease of use (PEU) by employees and also in terms of the actual use (AU) of the system. This study also explores the role of timely and appropriate initial TR on learning outcomes.
Design/methodology/approach
An empirical study has been conducted by collecting survey data from 167 employees using an e-procurement system from India. SPSS 22.0 with add-in Process Macro v3.4 developed by Hayes has been used for statistical analysis.
Findings
The results indicate that the PR of the workplace learning support team positively influences employee’s PEU of the system and also the final required outcome in terms of the AU of the system. This study also found that the employee’s PEU of the system mediates the relationship between the PR of the workplace learning support team and the AU of the system. The result also indicates that higher is the user perception of the appropriateness of initial TR, higher is the effect of PR of the workplace learning team on user learning outcome.
Originality/value
This study is an attempt to investigate the unexplored aspect of workplace learning. This paper contributes by studying for the first time, the impact of PR of the workplace learning support team and appropriate initial TR in enhancing the learning outcome in the context of e-procurement implementation.
This study aims to understand the impact of professionalism of the workplace learning support team on learning outcomes. The context of the study is an e-procurement system implementation. Management provides initial formal training to potential users of the system and also arranges informal learning support by deploying the support team for technical guidance/resolving issues on day to day basis for successful implementation. Learning outcome has been measured in terms of perceived ease of use by employees and also in terms of the actual use of the system. The study also explores the role of timely and appropriate initial training on learning outcomes.
An empirical study has been conducted by collecting survey data from 167 employees using an e-procurement system from India. SPSS 22.0 with add-in Process macro V 3.4 develop by Hayes has been used for statistical analysis.
The results indicate that the professionalism of the workplace learning support team positively influences employee’s perception of ease of using the system and also the final required outcome in terms of the actual use of the system. The study also found that the employee’s perceived ease of using the system mediates the relationship between the professionalism of the workplace learning support team and the actual use of the system. The result also indicates that higher is the user perception of the appropriateness of initial training, higher is the effect of professionalism of the workplace learning team on user learning outcome.
This study is an attempt to investigate the unexplored aspect of workplace learning. The article contributes by studying for the first time, the impact of professionalism of the workplace learning support team, and appropriate initial training in enhancing the learning outcome in the context of e-procurement implementation.
No contexto de construção e disponibilização de serviços do Governo Eletrônico – eGov – é importante avançar na modelagem de alto nível, buscando a representação do conhecimento sobre este domínio. O problema se apresenta como uma questão de generalidade e independência dos conceitos envolvidos. Na busca por soluções, diversas iniciativas acadêmicas e governamentais buscam o consenso sobre os processos de governo e a definição de suas entidades básicas. Para que os modelos ontológicos e artefatos de sistemas possam ser usados de modo razoavelmente independente de fronteiras geográficas, é preciso a definição e aceitação de todos os envolvidos. Visando a consecução de tal objetivo é necessário haver um amplo consenso entre os projetistas, facilidade de uso e flexibilidade de reuso e particularização. O objetivo deste trabalho é efetuar uma Revisão Sistemática da Literatura sobre este assunto e, apresentando seus achados, direcionar as futuras pesquisas. Foram identificados 236 trabalhos e, após aplicação de critérios de exclusão, foram analisados 24 artigos. Concluiu-se que há um número razoável de modelos que podem ser reusados, por encontrarem-se em bom nível de aceitação e utilização internacional.
Procurement has evolved during the last decades and has been transformed recently by electronic procurement systems, with the introduction of latest internet and IT based applications. The main objective of this study is to identify the critical success factors for implementation of e-procurement system and moreover to highlight its perceived benefits and key challenges in the context of United Arab Emirates. This research was conducted using a qualitative approach, analyzing the findings of semi-structured face-to-face interviews. The interviews were conducted with 15 procurement professionals experienced in implementation of e-procurement system in UAE. Thematic analysis was performed to gain insight and better understanding of the topic. This study identifies the critical success factors of e-procurement implementation such as system integration, users' acceptance and management's commitment. The perceived benefits of e-procurement system have been highlighted as effective communication, process visibility, and process mapping while the key challenges of e-procurement implementation are system integration and users' acceptance besides other factors in the context of UAE as highlighted in this study. ii Acknowledgement
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to understand the process through which external diffusion of business-to-business (B2B) e-procurement impacts firm performance. The research model has been developed to empirically examine the role of information transparency and supply chain coordination in improving the firm financial performance by external diffusion of e-procurement.
Design/methodology/approach
The survey is conducted in India with a target population of purchasing professionals working on the B2B e-procurement platform. The measurement model was first tested by using confirmatory factor analysis for reliability and validity, then structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the hypotheses of the research model using AMOS 22. The phantom model approach has been used for testing multiple mediators.
Findings
The result of the study highlights the importance of information transparency and supply chain coordination in enhancing the firm financial performance by external diffusion of e-procurement. The results establish the role of information transparency in enhancing firm performance by improving supply chain coordination. The results also indicate that supply chain coordination mediates the relationship between external diffusion of e-procurement and firm financial performance.
Originality/value
This is the first study that has focused on the external diffusion of e-procurement and its impact on firm performance. Also, this study attempted to understand the process through which external diffusion of e-procurement impacts the firm financial performance.
Drawing on prior research, the value of scenario planning as a methodology for future research on the future of purchasing and supply management (PSM) is explored. Using three criteria of research quality – rigour, originality and significance – it is shown how developing scenarios and analysing their implications present new, important research opportunities for PSM academics, practitioners, and leaders of the profession. Researching the future of PSM supports the identification of uncertainties and anticipates change across many units and levels of analysis of interest to PSM scholars and practitioners, such as the profession/discipline, markets/sectors, or organizations. Scenarios are particularly effective for: considering how the complex interaction of macro-environmental factors affects the PSM context; avoiding incremental thinking; surfacing assumptions and revealing significant blind spots. PSM research using scenarios aligns with Corley and Gioia’s (2011) call for prescience-oriented research in which academics aim for more impactful research, enhancing sense-giving potential and theoretical relevance to practice to better perform their adaptive role in society.
The present paper introduces and reviews existing technology and research works in the field of scientific programming methods and techniques in data-intensive engineering environments. More specifically, this survey aims to collect those relevant approaches that have faced the challenge of delivering more advanced and intelligent methods taking advantage of the existing large datasets. Although existing tools and techniques have demonstrated their ability to manage complex engineering processes for the development and operation of safety-critical systems, there is an emerging need to know how existing computational science methods will behave to manage large amounts of data. That is why, authors review both existing open issues in the context of engineering with special focus on scientific programming techniques and hybrid approaches. 1193 journal papers have been found as the representative in these areas screening 935 to finally make a full review of 122. Afterwards, a comprehensive mapping between techniques and engineering and nonengineering domains has been conducted to classify and perform a meta-analysis of the current state of the art. As the main result of this work, a set of 10 challenges for future data-intensive engineering environments have been outlined.
An E-Procurement system allows organizations to automate and streamline the internal procurement processes and also allow them to integrate and share information with their suppliers and customers for better business results. Despite these and other benefits promised by E-Procurement systems, their adoption remains a challenge in most organizations in developing countries, and in Africa in particular. This could be partly because of the fact that the phenomenon has not received sufficient attention in Africa, and as a consequence, adoption is enacted in a manner that is exclusive of contextual challenges the organizations face. It is also not clear whether E-Procurement benefits in literature do translate into actual benefits by African public organizations. The purpose of this study is therefore to identify the perceived benefits and contextual challenges posed during the implementation of an E-Procurement system in the Lesotho electricity sector. Following an interpritivist approach, grounded in the study context; the study identified two key perceived benefits of efficiency and transparency. The challenges faced includes the organizational lack of adequate training, system failure, employee resistance and lack of project management skills by top management. There were consistent reports of a lack of expertise from the external market to address implementation issues and that perceived knowledgeable agents such as consultants were not able to deliver what was tasked of them.
Purpose:
Government e-Procurement systems are generating tender level process event data which has not being analysed much. This paper presents a data visualization tool to benchmark the government tendering process. This tool collects, collates and presents e-Procurement process data in a meaningful way that enables comparisons and benchmarking leading to insights for process improvements and identification of the best practices. This tool is accessible on the website of South Asia’s first public procurement observatory (www.procurementobservatoryup.com) founded by the authors.
Design/methodology/approach:
We started with an initial set of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) based on extant literature and existing practices. We got them verified by various relevant stakeholders through a series of formal and informal discussions. Some of them were dropped due to observed variations or their inability to offer insights to arrive at the final set of KPIs.
In this paper, we use actual process level data. Government of India’s National Informatics Centre (NIC) has implemented e-procurement portals for various states and public enterprises (PEs) in India which provide tender wise detailed e-tendering process data. We designed a web crawler that collects this data in a tabular format which allows easy analysis and comparison to measure and compare government tendering process performance for the last five years for the two large PEs. We also engaged in discussions with the procurement executives of the two PSEs to derive meaningful managerial insights from the results obtained.
Findings:
Using the public procurement data visualization tool, we compare the procurement process of two of the largest Indian PEs, Coal India Limited and Indian Oil Corporation on the developed KPIs and draw insights. The results show significant difference in their procurement process performance due to different practices followed by them. Through interaction with the procurement managers of these two organizations, we identify few good procurement practices that can be applied to improve public procurement process.
Research limitations/implications:
This paper uses actual process level data which can be used not just to identify improvement opportunities but also to gauge the impact of any process level change. It presents a data visualization tool to generate insights from data generated by procurement / tendering system. Such visualization and benchmarking can uncover better procurement practices and provide an impetus towards data driven policy formulation. Apart from the two PEs as reported in this paper, this tool has also been applied on public procurement data of eight India states.
Practical implications:
The KPIs presented in this paper are aligned with various dimensions of public procurement’s objectives. The visualization tool presented in this paper is based on Open Contract Data Standard and has a universal application.
Social implications:
Use of technology and open data sharing as enablers of benchmarking and process improvements helps in establishing a dynamic competitive environment leading to both financial savings, better services to citizens and proper use of taxpayers’ money.
Originality/value:
This paper presents an original work carried out under the aegis of South Asia’s first Procurement Observatory at IIM Lucknow. The benchmarking tool presented in this paper uses open contract data standard and can be applied in most of the public procurement processes. This paper takes the discussions on e-procurement to the next level, where the concern is no longer restricted to adoption and assimilation issues, but also on how to make use of the data that these e-Procurement systems generate.
In this chapter, an electronic model of Public Administration's operation using an ontology as a means to a formalized representation of knowledge is presented. According to the proposed model, every public administration procedure is viewed as a service offered to some external entity and is represented as a (Semantic) Web service, semantically annotating its functional parameters, profile, and workflow. The modeling of public administration services/procedures involved the commonly used IOPE (Inputs - Outputs - Preconditions - Effects) model of OWL-S for Semantic Web Service description. This chapter also presents a specific use case about the Human Resource Management department of the Region of Central Macedonia. In order to do so, certain extensions/adaptations of the general methodology were needed. In this chapter the authors fully present and justify these adaptations that were deployed in order to turn the general methodology into a really flexible and re-usable tool to model any public administration procedure. Furthermore, the authors describe the full knowledge engineering cycle for developing the ontology of this department's business processes.
Enterprises are harnessing the many benefits that Cloud Computing can give them. Yet the lack of standards, the integration with legacy systems and the numerous Cloud Service Providers available are obstacles to this adoption. Cloud Service Brokerage is a new trend in Cloud Computing. This tool plays an important role in solving these problems, by intermediating between many Providers and other Services/Systems, increasing security and privacy, and selecting which Provider meets one's objectives (cost reduction, reliability, etc.). This paper presents a survey on important attributes of Cloud Service Providers for Governments and relates those results to the SMI Framework.
The term Linked Data refers to a set of best practices for publishing and connecting structured data on the Web. These best practices have been adopted by an increasing number of data providers over the last three years, leading to the creation of a global data space containing billions of assertions-the Web of Data. In this article we present the concept and technical principles of Linked Data, and situate these within the broader context of related technological developments. We describe progress to date in publishing Linked Data on the Web, review applications that have been developed to exploit the Web of Data, and map out a research agenda for the Linked Data community as it moves forward.
This paper identifies and defines standards required for successful e-commerce (EC) platforms. It presents an ontology of standards and applications that can be used to evaluate any EC platform. Current platforms are limited in usefulness and development economy by lack of standards. We describe how the development and use of such standards could help improve EC platforms. We examine the current and emerging platforms and technologies in relation to the proposed ontology including electronic data interchange, e-procurement systems, business-to-business hubs, company WeWeb b sites, electronic business eXtensible markup language, Web services, the semantic Web, and universal business language. We conclude that no individual platform or technology provides complete support for every level of the ontology, and we suggest that combinations of features from various platforms and technologies may be of most value. We conclude that research is needed in three areas: the discovery phase of EC, participant incentives for standardization, and methods of combining useful aspects from different standards bodies.
The increasing publication of linked data makes the vision of the semantic web a probable reality. Although it may seem that the web of data is inherently multilingual, data usually contain labels, comments, descriptions, etc. that depend on the natural language used. When linked data appears in a multilingual setting, it is a challenge to publish and consume it. This paper presents a survey of patterns to publish Multilingual Linked Data and identifies some issues that should be taken into account. As a use case, the paper describes the patterns employed in the DBpedia Internationalization project.
Many companies use supply chain models for designing the flow of goods and services from their suppliers all the way up to the final customers. Over the past 15 years, the Supply Chain Operations Reference Model (SCOR) has become a widespread modeling technique for designing such supply chains and sharing design information with supply chain stakeholders. However, neither the syntax nor the semantics of SCOR are well defined. This limitation has important consequences for its usage: Supply chain models may be ambiguous and their correctness cannot be verified. We address this problem by mapping SCOR supply chains onto graphs and formalize the semantics of SCOR. The mapping is driven by constructs from the supply chain management literature. The proposed artifact is a supply chain grammar, which we apply to a set of SCOR models taken from industry sources. We show the grammar's usefulness by verifying the correctness of these models using analytical techniques.
This paper aims to describe a public procurement information platform which provides a unied pan-european system that exploits the aggregation of tender notices using linking open data and semantic web technologies. This platform requires a step-based method to deal with the requirements of the public procurement sector and the open government data initiative: 1) modeling the unstructured information included in public procurement notices (contracting authorities, organizations, contracts awarded, etc.), 2) enriching that information with the existing product classication systems and the linked data vocabularies; 3) publishing relevant information extracted out of the notices following the linking open data approach; 4) implementing enhanced services based on advanced algorithms and techniques like query expansion methods to exploit the information in a semantic way. Taking into account that public procurement notices contain information variables like type of contract, region, duration, total amount, target enterprise , etc. dierent methods can be applied to expand user queries easing the access to the information and providing a more accurate information retrieval system. Nevertheless expanded user queries can involve an extra-time in the process of retrieving notices. That is why a performance evaluation is outlined to tune up the semantic methods and the generated queries providing a scalable and time-ecient system. Moreover, this platform is supposed to be especially relevant for SMEs that want to tender in the European Union (EU), easing their access to the information of the notices and fostering their participation in cross-border public procurement processes across Europe. Finally an example of use is provided to evaluate and compare the goodness and the improvement of the proposed platform regarding to the existing ones.
The present paper introduces the ONTOSPREAD frame-work for the development, conguration, customization and execution of the Spreading Activation technique over graph-based structures more specically over RDF graphs and ontologies arising from the Semantic Web area. This technique has been used to the ecient exploration and querying of large and heterogeneous knowledge bases based on seman-tic networks in the Information and Document Retrieval domains. ON-TOSPREAD implements the double process of activation and spreading of concepts in ontologies applying dierent restrictions of the original model like weight degradation according to the distance or others com-ing from the extension of this technique like the converging paths reward. This technique provide a whole framework to ease the information ac-cess, common required feature in the exploitation of new and existing digital libraries. Finally, in this work an evaluation methodology and an example using the Galen ontology are provided to validate the goodness, the improvement and the capabilities of this framework applied to digital libraries.
As governments search for the best ways to restyle their services, the E-Government field continues to attract interest from public administrators, politicians, academics, and citizens. As a result, new topics such as e-procurement have become core factors in public sector development by providing way to better serve citizens and businesses in our digital economy. E-Procurement Management for Successful Electronic Government Systems enhances the understanding and collaboration in e-government and the role of information technologies in supporting the development of improved services for citizens. By analyzing recent developments in theory and practices as well as providing fresh ideas and research, this reference source aims to bridge the gap between academia, industry, and government.
In this paper, we analyze the potential impact of e-commerce software packages on the diffusion of markup for structured data on the Web. We argue that such an analysis must focus on the product detail pages, i.e. the “deep links” to individual items, rather than the pure number of shop sites, for assessing the potential. Based on (1) a systematic analysis of the popularity of 56 software packages for e-commerce sites among the Alexa list of the one million most popular Web sites, we (2) estimate the number of product detail pages for the respective shops and then (3) project the potential lever of each e-commerce package for the adoption of structured markup, assumed that adding support for structured data can be made a readily available feature of a respective software. Our results indicate that by adding a structured markup component to as little as seven popular e-commerce systems, we could instantly deploy structured data markup on nearly 90 % of the product detail pages among the one million most popular Web sites.
This paper describes the methodology of a European research project on e-catalog standards and presents its major findings by formulating recommendations for future standardization work. The comparative analysis of 14 standards was conducted within the CEN/ISSS Workshop eCAT that aims at setting the basis for harmonized e-catalog standards. As part of this workshop, we present a framework and a complementing set of criteria for assessing the quality of ebusiness standards. Eventually, we apply this methodology to our object of interest. The findings can be regarded as an assessment of the state of the art in e-catalog standardization. By identifying problems and obstacles that hinder a broader acceptance and diffusion of standards, we argue on more suitable, harmonized standards.
This chapter presents the ARNEIS framework, i.e., an architecture enabling intelligent Web-based repositories of descriptions of software products and services. ARNEIS exploits Semantic Web technologies in order to support the interaction between ICT companies offering software solutions for business automation, and small-to-medium sized enterprises looking for technological support to their business. In particular, the authors chose Customer Relationship Management (CRM) as a field for the evaluation of the framework, and thus in this chapter, they describe how the ARNEIS framework enables a Web-based service that supports an intelligent matching between supply and demand for CRM-related tools. After presenting the background of the project and discussing related work, the chapter describes the ARNEIS framework, starting from its architecture and user interaction flow. The domain analysis of the CRM field and role of ontologies is then discussed. The chapter then focuses on the user interfaces and matching between semantic descriptions of offers and needs. A brief discussion of future challenges concludes the chapter.
Using Semantic Web technologies for e-business tasks, like product search or content integration, requires ontologies for products and services. Their manual creation is problematic due to (1) the high specificity, resulting in a large number of concepts, and (2) the need for timely ontology maintenance due to product innovation; and due to cost, since building such ontologies from scratch requires significant resources. At the same time, industrial categorization standards, like UNSPSC, eCl@ss, eOTD, or the RosettaNet Technical Dictionary, reflect some degree of consensus and contain a wealth of concept definitions plus a hierarchy. They can thus be valuable input for creating domain ontologies. However, the transformation of existing standards, originally developed for some purpose other than ontology engineering, into useful ontologies is not as straightforward as it appears. In this paper, (1) we argue that deriving products and services ontologies from industrial taxonomies is more feasible than manual ontology engineering; (2) show that the representation of the original semantics of the input standard, especially the taxonomic relationship, is an important modeling decision that determines the usefulness of the resulting ontology; (3) illustrate the problem by analyzing existing ontologies derived from UNSPCS and eCl@ss; (4) present a methodology for creating ontologies in OWL based on the reuse of existing standards; and (5) demonstrate this approach by transforming eCl@ss 5.1 into a practically useful products and services ontology.
We observe that "LOD hubs" are emerging. They provide well-managed reference identifiers that attract a large share of the incoming links on the Web of Data and play a crucial role in data integration within communities of interest. But connecting to such hubs as part of the Linked Data publish-ing process is still a difficult task. In this paper, we explore several approaches to the implementation of reconciliation services that allow third-party publishers to link their data to LOD hubs as part of the data publishing process. We evaluate four approaches using the OAEI Instance Match-ing Benchmark, and describe their implementation in an ex-tension to the popular data workbench application Google Refine.
This paper aims to describe a public procurement information platform which provides a unified pan-European system that exploits the aggregation of tender notices using linking open data and semantic web technologies. This platform requires a step-based method to deal with the requirements of the public procurement sector and the open government data initiative: (1) modeling the unstructured information included in public procurement notices (contracting authorities, organizations, contracts awarded, etc.); (2) enriching that information with the existing product classification systems and the linked data vocabularies; (3) publishing relevant information extracted out of the notices following the linking open data approach; (4) implementing enhanced services based on advanced algorithms and techniques like query expansion methods to exploit the information in a semantic way. Taking into account that public procurement notices contain different kinds of data like types of contract, region, duration, total amount, target enterprise, etc., various methods can be applied to expand user queries easing the access to the information and providing a more accurate information retrieval system. Nevertheless expanded user queries can involve an extra-time in the process of retrieving notices. That is why a performance evaluation is outlined to tune up the semantic methods and the generated queries providing a scalable and time-efficient system. Moreover, this platform is supposed to be especially relevant for SMEs that want to tender in the European Union (EU), easing their access to the information of the notices and fostering their participation in cross-border public procurement processes across Europe. Finally an example of use is provided to evaluate and compare the goodness and the improvement of the proposed platform with regard to the existing ones.
We describe an approach to retrieval of documents that contain of both free text and semantically enriched markup. In particular, we present the design and implementation prototype of a framework in which both documents and queries can be marked up with statements in the DAML+OIL semantic web language. These statements provide both structured and semi-structured information about the documents and their content. We claim that indexing text and semantic markup together will significantly improve retrieval performance. Our approach allows inferencing to be done over this information at several points: when a document is indexed, when a query is processed and when query results are evaluated.
The GoodRelations ontology (http://purl.org/goodrelations/) is one huge success story of applying Semantic Web technology to business challenges. In this tutorial, we will (1) give a comprehensive overview and hands-on training on the conceptual structures of the GoodRelations ontology, including patterns for ownership and demand, (2) present the full tool chain for producing and consuming GoodRelations-related data, (3) explain the long-term vision of linked open commerce, (4) describe the main challenges for future research in the field, and (5) discuss advanced topics, like access control, identity and authentication (e.g. with WebID); micropayment services (like Payswarm), and data management issues from the publisher and consumer perspective.
Linked Data promises that a large portion of Web Data will be usable as one big interlinked RDF database against which structured queries can be answered. In this lecture we will show how reasoning --- using RDF Schema (RDFS) and the Web Ontology Language (OWL) --- can help to obtain more complete answers for such queries over Linked Data. We first look at the extent to which RDFS and OWL features are being adopted on the Web. We then introduce two high-level architectures for query answering over Linked Data and outline how these can be enriched by (lightweight) RDFS and OWL reasoning, enumerating the main challenges faced and discussing reasoning methods that make practical and theoretical trade-offs to address these challenges. In the end, we also ask whether or not RDFS and OWL are enough and discuss numeric reasoning methods that are beyond the scope of these standards but that are often important when integrating Linked Data from several, heterogeneous sources.
The combination of Semantic Web technologies with Web 2.0 application design patterns gave rise to a new and exciting social-semantic web, also referred to as Web 3.0. Semantic Web technologies are initially designed before the rise of the Web 2.0 methods for managing large-scale socially contributed content. Two extremely interesting infrastructure elements that enable Semantic Web application on top of existing or new services implemented according to the popular REST pattern. The first element, the Semantic Bridge for Web Services, enables Semantic Web developers to execute SPARQL queries against existing web services and the second element, Semantic REST, is a protocol intended for new Semantic Web applications that need to support REST-style access to query and data manipulation functionality. The specialized extensions for handling semantic and structured information have been added to existing Wiki platforms, such as the popular MediaWiki software that powers Wikipedia.
In this paper the authors present an approach for the semantic annotation of RESTful services in the geospatial domain. Their approach automates some stages of the annotation process, by using a combination of resources and services: a cross-domain knowledge base like DBpedia, two domain ontologies like GeoNames and the WGS84 vocabulary, and suggestion and synonym services. The authors' approach has been successfully evaluated with a set of geospatial RESTful services obtained from ProgrammableWeb.com, where geospatial services account for a third of the total amount of services available in this registry.
An increasing amount of structured data on the Web has attracted industry attention and renewed research interest in what is collectively referred to as semantic search. These solutions exploit the explicit semantics captured in structured data such as RDF for enhancing document representation and retrieval, or for finding answers by directly searching over the data. These data have been used for different tasks and a wide range of corresponding semantic search solutions have been proposed in the past. However, it has been widely recognized that a standardized setting to evaluate and analyze the current state-of-the-art in semantic search is needed to monitor and stimulate further progress in the field. In this paper, we present an evaluation framework for semantic search, analyze the framework with regard to repeatability and reliability, and report on our experiences on applying it in the Semantic Search Challenge 2010 and 2011.
Interoperability is defined as the ability for two (or more) systems or components to exchange information and to use the information that has been exchanged. There is increasing demand for interoperability between individual software systems. Developing an interoperability evaluation model between software and information systems is difficult, and becoming an important challenge. An interoperability evaluation model allows knowing the degree of interoperability, and lead to the improvement of interoperability. This paper describes the existing interoperability evaluation models, and performs a comparative analysis among their findings to determine the similarities and differences in their philosophy and implementation. This analysis yields a set of recommendations for any party that is open to the idea of creating or improving an interoperability evaluation model.
The present paper introduces a technique to deal with coporate names heterogeneities in the context of public procurement metadata. Public bodies are currently facing a big challenge trying to improve both the performance and the transparency of administrative processes. The e-Government and Open Linked Data initiatives have emerged as efforts to tackle existing interoperability and integration issues among ICT-based systems but the creation of a real transparent environment requires much more than the simple publication of data and information in specific open formats; data and information quality is the next major step in the pubic sector. More specifically in the e-Procurement domain there is a vast amount of valuable metadata that is already available via the Internet protocols and formats and can be used for the creation of new added-value services. Nevertheless the simple extraction of statistics or creation of reports can imply extra tasks with regards to clean, prepare and reconcile data. On the other hand, transparency has become a major objective in public administractions and, in the case of public procurement, one of the most interesting services lies in tracking rewarded contracts (mainly type, location, and supplier). Although it seems a basic kind of reporting service the truth is that its generation can turn into a complex task due to a lack of standardization in supplier names or the use of different descriptors for the type of contract. In this paper, a stepwise method based on natural language processing and semantics to address the unfication of corporate names is defined and implemented. Moreover a research study to evaluate the precision and recall of the proposed technique, using as use case the public dataset of rewarded public contracts in Australia during the period 2004-2012, is also presented. Finally some discussion, conclusions and future work are also outlined.
Though Cloud computing itself has many open problems, researchers in the field have already made the leap to envision Inter-Cloud computing. Their goal is to achieve better overall Quality of Service (QoS), reliability and cost efficiency by utilizing multiple clouds. Inter-Cloud research is still in its infancy and the body of knowledge in the area has not been well defined yet. In this work, we propose and motivate taxonomies for Inter-Cloud architectures and application brokering mechanisms. We present a detailed survey of the
state of the art in terms of both academic and industry developments (20 projects) and we fit each project onto the discussed taxonomies. We discuss how the current Inter-Cloud environments facilitate brokering of distributed applications across clouds considering their non-functional requirements. Finally, we analyse the existing works and identify open challenges and trends in the area of Inter-Cloud application brokering.
Cloud Computing and Service Oriented Architectures have seen a dramatic increase of the amount of applications, services, management platforms, data, etc. gaining momentum for the necessity of new complex methods and techniques to deal with the vast heterogeneity of data sources or services. In this sense Quality of Service (QoS) seeks for providing an intelligent environment of self-management components based on domain knowledge in which cloud components can be optimized easing the transition to an advanced governance environment. On the other hand, semantics and ontologies have emerged to afford a common and standard data model that eases the interoperability, integration and monitoring of knowledge-based systems. Taking into account the necessity of an interoperable and intelligent system to manage QoS in cloud-based systems and the emerging application of semantics in different domains, this paper reviews the main approaches for semantic-based QoS management as well as the principal methods, techniques and standards for processing and exploiting diverse data providing advanced real-time monitoring services. A semantic-based framework for QoS management is also outlined taking advantage of semantic technologies and distributed datastream processing techniques. Finally a discussion of existing efforts and challenges is also provided to suggest future directions.
The present paper introduces a method to promote existing controlled vocabularies to the Linked Data initiative. A common data model and an enclosed conversion method for knowledge organization systems based on semantic web technologies and vocabularies such as SKOS are presented. This method is applied to well-known taxonomies and controlled vocabularies in the business sector, more specifically to Product Scheme Classifications created by governmental institutions such as the European Union or the United Nations. Since these product schemes are available in a common and shared data model, the needs of the European e-Procurement sector are outlined to finally demonstrate how Linked Data can address some of the challenges for publishing and retrieving information resources. As a consequence, two experiments are also provided in order to validate the gain, in terms of expressivity, and the exploitation of this emerging approach to help both expert and end-users to make decisions on the selection of descriptors for public procurement notices.
The present paper introduces a context-aware recommendation system for journalists to enable the identification of similar topics across different sources. More specifically a journalist-based recommendation system that can be automatically configured is presented to exploit news according to expert preferences. News contextual features are also taken into account due to the their special nature: time, current user interests, location or existing trends are combined with traditional recommendation techniques to provide an adaptive framework that deals with heterogeneous data providing an enhanced collaborative filtering system. Since the Wesomender approach is able to generate context-aware recommendations in the journalism field, a quantitative evaluation with the aim of comparing Wesomender results with the expectations of a team of experts is also performed to show that a context-aware adaptive recommendation engine can fulfil the needs of journalists daily work when retrieving timely and primary information is required.
The growing number of cloud services has made service selection a challenging decision-making problem by offering wide ranging choices for cloud service consumers. This necessitates the use of formal decision making methodologies to assist a decision maker in selecting the service that best fulfills the user’s requirements. In this paper, we present a cloud service selection methodology that utilizes quality of service history of cloud services over different time periods and performs parallel multi-criteria decision analysis to rank all cloud services in each time period in accordance with user preferences before aggregating the results to determine the overall rank of all the available options for cloud service selection. This methodology assists the cloud service user to select the best possible available service according to the requirements. The multi-criteria decision making processes used for each time period are independent of the other time periods and are executed in parallel.
Given the sustained growth that we are experiencing in the number of SPARQLSPARQL endpoints available, the need to be able to send federated SPARQL queries across these has also grown. To address this use case, the W3C SPARQLSPARQL working group is defining a federation extension for SPARQL 1.1 which allows for combining graph patterns that can be evaluated over several endpoints within a single query. In this paper, we describe the syntax of that extension and formalize its semantics. Additionally, we describe how a query evaluation system can be implemented for that federation extension, describing some static optimization techniques and reusing a query engine used for data-intensive science, so as to deal with large amounts of intermediate and final results. Finally we carry out a series of experiments that show that our optimizations speed up the federated query evaluation process.
The purpose of this paper is to review the literature on the applications of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) in operations management and suggest possible gaps from the point of view of researchers and practitioners. This paper systematically categorises the published literature from 1990 to 2009 in 291 peer reviewed journals articles (searched via Emerald, Ingenta, MetaPress, ProQuest, and ScienceDirect) and then reviews and analyses them methodologically. Our analysis has revealed that a significant number of AHP applications are found when problems require considerations of both quantitative and qualitative factors (e.g., socioeconomic operations decisions). AHP has been largely applied to macro (complex and real) and people (managerial–subjective) oriented problems. The most addressed decision themes are product and process design and, managing the supply chain. A majority of AHP applications are application or case study oriented and only a few papers aimed at contributing to AHP modelling before applying to practical problems. Our review has found that significant research gap exists in the application of AHP in the areas of forecasting, layout of facilities and managing stocks. This paper presents a comprehensive listing of AHP applications in operations management and develops a framework for identifying the decision areas that have better research gaps to be studied by future researchers.
Cloud computing is revolutionizing the IT industry by enabling them to offer access to their infrastructure and application services on a subscription basis. As a result, several enterprises including IBM, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon have started to offer different Cloud services to their customers. Due to the vast diversity in the available Cloud services, from the customer’s point of view, it has become difficult to decide whose services they should use and what is the basis for their selection. Currently, there is no framework that can allow customers to evaluate Cloud offerings and rank them based on their ability to meet the user’s Quality of Service (QoS) requirements. In this work, we propose a framework and a mechanism that measure the quality and prioritize Cloud services. Such a framework can make a significant impact and will create healthy competition among Cloud providers to satisfy their Service Level Agreement (SLA) and improve their QoS. We have shown the applicability of the ranking framework using a case study.
Most ontologies used in e-commerce are nowadays taxonomies with simple structure and loose semantics. One exception is the OPDM collection of ontologies, which express rich information about product categories and their parameters for a number of domains. Yet, having been created by different designers and with specific bias, such ontologies could still benefit from semi-automatic post-processing. We demonstrate how the versatile PatOMat framework for pattern-based ontology transformation can be exploited for suppressing incoherence within the collection and for adapting the ontologies for an unforeseen purpose.
Governments around the globe are opening up public spending data in order to promote transparency and citizen awareness. However, data openness by itself is not enough to guarantee that the data is consumed efficiently and in meaningful ways. In this work public spending data from seven governments, both local and national, with total value almost 1,5 trillion euro, are processed, cleansed and converted to Linked Open Data, following best practices. Namely, the cases of Greece, the UK, the US federal government, Australia, the city of Chicago and the states of Alaska and Massachusetts are considered. Furthermore, the resulting Linked Data are interlinked with external resources and made accessible on a public SPARQL endpoint. A web portal application with several functionalities is deployed in order to make the data mashups understandable and easily consumable.