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Collaborative Technologies for Mobile Workers and Virtual Project Teams
In a fast-moving, digitized, customer-centric world, the convergence of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning within CRM platforms serves as a potent agent of change. This paper presents the possibility of integrating Artificial Intelligence and machine learning models into Salesforce CRM for delivery of highly personalized customer experiences to enhance customer engagement. As businesses are fast embracing AIdriven solutions, it has become very critical to understand how these technologies shape customer relationships and, in turn, impact overall business success. The various machine learning techniques used within Salesforce, in particular, are investigated with a view to delivering personalized interactions that best resonate with customers: recommendation systems, clustering algorithms, and predictive analytics. Such AI-driven models are supposed to analyze large amounts of customer data to spot patterns and preferences that allow for tailoring communications, offers, and services to the particular needs of every customer. This in-depth analysis of case studies and real-world empirical data in the research reflects major improvements in the key customer engagement metrics, such as click-through rates, conversion rates, and customer satisfaction scores, right after the execution of AI-driven personalization strategies in Salesforce. It also covers some challenges and discussions for the deployment of AI in a CRM environment regarding keeping customers' data private, ethical concerns, and the need for transparency of AI decision-making processes. These results give very useful insight into an organization's future in effectively using AI within CRM strategy. With AI-driven personalization inside Salesforce, businesses will achieve a lot more in customer engagement and in building a strong relationship with customers for their businesses to grow and be competitive in the market.
This article concerns the study examining the use of collaborative
technologies (CTs) for the acquisition, creation, sharing, transfer, and
retention of knowledge by therapy team members (TTMs) in
psychiatric hospitals, and the determinants of the use of CTs as well
as how they relate to knowledge management (KM) practices. The
skills of the TTMs in the use of CTs were also investigated. Carried out
within the positivist and constructivist paradigms, a sample survey
was conducted among TTMs from two purposively selected
psychiatric hospitals in Southwest Nigeria. Quantitative data was
collected from self-administered questionnaires completed by 283
TTMs and was analysed using the Statistical Package for Social
Sciences (SPSS) 22. Qualitative data was collected from interviews
conducted with four heads of departments. The study showed that
the TTMs in the relevant hospitals used 26 different CTs for knowledge
acquisition, creation, sharing, transfer, and retention. The largest
proportion (84.5%) of the respondents confirmed that skill in the use
of CTs determined the use of CTs for KM practices. More than half
(54.3%) of the TTMs were highly skilled in the use of CTs for KM
practices. The findings suggested that the respondents were
positively inclined towards the use of CTs and that they were involved
in the use of various CTs to facilitate KM practices and processes. It
was found that task interdependence was characteristic of the TTMs’
work in the selected psychiatric hospitals, and that, to benefit from
the potential advantages of task interdependence and to effectively
employ CTs in operations and processes, TTMs’ skills in the use of CTs
should be developed. In addition, professional ties among experts in
different fields of specialisation should be encouraged.
Van Keulen and Korthagen introduce in this chapter the empirical study of 22 cases of digital tools which form a large and important part of this book. The authors indicate how the cases were selected based on different criteria such as diversity of institutional contexts and scales, geographical diversity and different types of citizen involvement. Each of the cases is described based on an evaluation framework for assessing the digital tools. The authors choose to put legitimacy and its key dimensions—input, throughput and output legitimacy—central in the framework. A logical choice since disengagement from the European democratic processes and distance of the European citizens from EU institutions remains a major problem. This short chapter explains furthermore how the data collection and analysis of the 22 cases have been done. Special attention is paid to explaining the method of Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA).
Abstract For those who teach methodology within social science departments, notably sociology, the mixing of quantitative and qualitative methods presents an ongoing problem. Recent developments in the philosophy of science have argued that the two traditions should not have a separate-but-equal status, and should instead interact. By reviewing three positions about this issue ('empiricist',constructionist , and realist) the chapter offers a review of the sociological approach now known,as triangulation. The chapter refers to several empirical examples that illustrate the realist position and its strengths. The conclusion of the chapter is a more abstract review of the debate over pluralismin methodology. Triangulation, I argue, is not aimed merely at validation but at deepening and widening one'sunderstanding. As a research aim,this one can be achieved either by a person or by a research teamor group. Triangulation and pluralismboth tend to support interdisciplinary research rather than a strongly bounded,discipline of sociology. (For a copy of thisbook, you may contact Causeway Press on 01695 576048, email causeway.press@btinternet.com, ISBN1902796829.) ,1 Biographical Note Wendy Olsen Wendy Olsen grew up in Indiana and moved atage 18 to Beloit College in Wisconsin, where she studied economics and politics in a liberal arts degree. She moved to Britain in 1981 to study at Oxford University, where she received a masters and doctoral degree in economics. Her doctoral research was based on extended fieldwork in southern Indian villages and was inter-disciplinary. She now works at Manchester
This article examines five common misunderstandings about case-study research: (a) theoretical knowledge is more valuable than practical knowledge; (b) one cannot generalize from a single case, therefore, the single-case study cannot contribute to scientific development; (c) the case study is most useful for generating hypotheses, whereas other methods are more suitable for hypotheses testing and theory building; (d) the case study contains a bias toward verification; and (e) it is often difficult to summarize specific case studies. This article explains and corrects these misunderstandings one by one and concludes with the Kuhnian insight that a scientific discipline without a large number of thoroughly executed case studies is a discipline without systematic production of exemplars, and a discipline without exemplars is an ineffective one. Social science may be strengthened by the execution of a greater number of good case studies.
This article was published in the Journal of Information Technology in Construction (ITcon) and is also available at: http://www.itcon.org/2008/30 The objective of the work reported in this paper was the development of an XML based standard which would enable project data, such as contacts, drawings, documentation, instructions and emails, to be transferred between collaborative systems provided by different software vendors and used by construction organisations. The primary aim being to create a transfer mechanism which would allow project data transfer without modification of existing collaborative system deployed by vendors. This paper discusses the business and technological needs for such a transfer capability between collaborative systems, by examining the current use of these tools and related problems encountered by clients. It sets out the main components that underlie the majority of construction specific collaborative systems which forms the basis of the generic collaborative system model which has been developed, contrasting this with previous data exchange efforts. This paper shows how the XML Schema was developed and the procedures undertaken to ensure that it could be utilised by the maximum possible set of vendors. It sets out the best practice procedure for implementations by vendor organisations and the required testing to confirm a successful transfer. The paper also highlights some of the practical problems that were encountered when transferring projects between heterogeneous systems during the project and in subsequent deployments of the solution. Finally, the paper concludes with methods of taking the work forward as a foundation to allow for greater interoperability between systems in the future. Published
The use of email and project collaboration websites for construction project communications is now relatively common. However, these communications generally operate without contractual support, resulting in a number of potentially serious legal implications—such as validity of contract notices, ownership of data and intellectual property rights. This paper reports on findings from eLEGAL, an EU-funded research project to enable the legally admissible use of information and communication technology in construction projects.
The construction industry's drive towards using information and communications technology to enhance collaborative working seems to have left site staff behind. This paper examines the information needs of site staff and shows there are several technology solutions currently available to support them. Based on a recent site trial, it also shows that, contrary to general perceptions, site staff are more than ready to adopt modern technology and should be included in all future strategies for collaboration systems.
A recent study of major civil engineering design firms in the US and Europe reveals a massive growth in cross-company and cross-border working. Jim Paton of Infrasoft reports on the findings and concludes there is a real need for better collaborative IT systems.
Much of the Web's success can be attributed to its simplicity. It offers a straightforward means by which static information could be published and interconnected on a global basis. The Web Services initiative effectively adds computational objects to the static information of yesterday's Web and as such offers a distributed services capability over a network. Web Services have the potential to create new paradigms for both the delivery of software capabilities and the models by which networked enterprises will trade.
Today's Web Services technology, useful though it is, will be enhanced over the next 2-5 years by the harnessing of Semantic Web technology to deliver a step change in capability. Web Services provide an easy way to make existing (or indeed new) components available to applications via the Internet. However, currently, Web Services are essentially described using semi-structured natural language mechanisms, which means that considerable human intervention is needed to find and combine Web Services into an end application.
The Semantic Web will enable the accessing of Web resources by semantic content rather than just by keywords. Resources (in this case Web Services) are defined in such a way that they can be automatically ‘understood’ and processed by machine. This will enable the realisation of Semantic Web Services, involving the automation of service discovery, acquisition, composition and monitoring. Software agents will be able automatically to create new services from already published services, with potentially huge implications for models of eBusiness.
Having identified limitations in current Web Services technology, this paper will survey existing research in Semantic Web Services, most notably USA's DAML-S initiative and the European WSMF work, and describe BT's research into creating a set of tools to support next-generation Semantic Web Services.
Complexity in civil engineering projects has increased over the years, which has led to an increase in the number of organizations involved in those projects. In today's environment, these organizations operate in different parts of the world requiring their personnel to be geographically distributed. However, current project management practices require project personnel to be geographically collocated and, thus, are unable to provide the infrastructure to support geographically distributed project management teams. In addition, current project management practices require access to personal computer (PC) based resources for project information, which is not always a feasible alternative for on-site project personnel, as it requires certain hardware and office configurations. Thus, alternatives to PC-based resources such as personal digital assistants (PDA) or phones are needed for information access. Moreover, once project information has been conveyed to all project personnel, the system should aid them in terms of providing data analysis tools and presenting technical or management solutions to the problems encountered by the project personnel. This paper presents a collaborative project management system with a knowledge repository, analysis resources, and multiple device access to support the infrastructure of distributed project management teams in complex architecture/engineering/construction projects. The primary goal for such a system would be to provide a platform where project information can be effectively shared with any of the project management personnel from anywhere and with a very few limitations on the computing device.
With the advent of Web technology and the proliferation of Web enabled systems in the last few years, remote computer aided facilities management (CAFM) and computer integrated facilities management (CIFM) are starting to assume a more significant role. Computerised asset management (AM) has been widely discussed and various conceptual models, benchmarking and best practice principles have been proposed in the past. However, the vast majority of case studies involved private corporations as well as public sector institutions, with the majority using single-site studies, but very little dealt with the education sector spread on multi-sites. The effective management of assets forms an integral part of the management of the University of Sydney’s (USYD) overall resources in order to achieve its goals towards excellence in teaching and research. Reviews the current, more or less, manual centralised AM system at USYD and proposes a framework for a more decentralised, Web-based AM system built on the existing CIFM system used by the Facilities Management Office. Further examines the strengths and weaknesses of the current and proposed systems and the possible application of the proposed system to a range of AM scenarios outside the context of the university environment.
From the Publisher:Even if every Web site could afford a usability expert (which they can't), there just aren't enough of us to go around. So I tried to boil down what I've learned over the years (principles like "Don't make me think" and "Get rid of half the
words on each page, then get rid of half of what's left") into a short, profusely illustrated book-one that even the guy who signs the checks (the one who looks at the site when it's ready to launch and says "I hate green. And there should be more big pictures.") might read.
Providing a complete portal to the world of case study research, the Fourth Edition of Robert K. Yin's bestselling text Case Study Research offers comprehensive coverage of the design and use of the case study method as a valid research tool. This thoroughly revised text now covers more than 50 case studies (approximately 25% new), gives fresh attention to quantitative analyses, discusses more fully the use of mixed methods research designs, and includes new methodological insights. The book's coverage of case study research and how it is applied in practice gives readers access to exemplary case studies drawn from a wide variety of academic and applied fields.Key Features of the Fourth Edition Highlights each specific research feature through 44 boxed vignettes that feature previously published case studies Provides methodological insights to show the similarities between case studies and other social science methods Suggests a three-stage approach to help readers define the initial questions they will consider in their own case study research Covers new material on human subjects protection, the role of Institutional Review Boards, and the interplay between obtaining IRB approval and the final development of the case study protocol and conduct of a pilot case Includes an overall graphic of the entire case study research process at the beginning of the book, then highlights the steps in the process through graphics that appear at the outset of all the chapters that follow Offers in-text learning aids including 'tips' that pose key questions and answers at the beginning of each chapter, practical exercises, endnotes, and a new cross-referencing tableCase Study Research, Fourth Edition is ideal for courses in departments of Education, Business and Management, Nursing and Public Health, Public Administration, Anthropology, Sociology, and Political Science.
A Doctoral Thesis. Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of Philosophy of Loughborough University. In the increasingly competitive business environment reduced project cost, improved time-to-market, better quality products, and customer involvement are becoming the key success factors for any product development process. Many organisations within different industries are now focusing on Concurrent Engineering (CE) to bring improvements to their product development process in order to keep pace with the competitive environment. The adoption of CE has shown positive effects on project quality, cost, lead time, schedule, and customer satisfaction. For a targeted and effective implementation, it is recommended to carry out a readiness assessment of an organisation prior to the adoption of CE. This thesis discusses the adoption of CE within the construction industry, reviews existing CE readinessa ssessmentto ols used in other industry sectors,a nd assessesth eir applicability to construction. It then presentsa new developedC E readinessa ssessmentto ol for construction called the 'BEACON Model', its associated questionnaire, and an associated software. Description and results of CE readiness assessment case studies, which were conducted within five sectors of the construction industry, are then presented. At the end of the thesis, CE implementation strategiesa nd considerationsa re presentedb asedo n the assessmenrte sults, followed by conclusions, recommendations and future work. The most important conclusion, which could be drawn from the research, is that the construction industry as a whole still needs improvements in most of the critical areas identified by the BEACON Model in order to adopt CE effectively.
A Doctoral Thesis. Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of Philosophy of Loughborough University. The Interdisciplinary Conceptual Design of Buildings Design activity during the conceptual phase of building projects is dynamic, vibrant and as a result, chaotic in appearance. This problem is compounded by the fact that iterative, or cyclic, design progression is often criticised, with the concept of 'going round in circles' being one that is discouraged. However, designbis a learning activity and, owing to the complexity of contemporary building projects,it is often only by moving ahead to improve knowledge, before taking a step back to re-address a problem with improved understanding, that the design process can progress. Today's design professionals are being urged to undertake early design activity in a more programmable, and thus manageable fashion. As such, it is becoming increasingly apparent that designers have little, if any, shared understanding of what conceptual design actually involves, let alone a deeper knowledge of the structure of iterative progression. This can, and is, causing problems for the industry, as the lack of both common understanding and synchronisation in interdisciplinary thinking is resulting in design team fragmentation and adversarial relationships. By modelling design activity it is possible to simplify, and thus ease understanding of, its complexities. The development and trialling of a generic framework of design phases and activities has allowed a simple graphical means of recording and displaying patterns of design progression to be devised. The models produced have been used to study and analyse the patterns of iterative working, the output of which has enabled a clarification of conceptual design practice to be achieved. A web-based design system has been developed from the paper-based framework. This accords well with the richly iterative and often non-linear process which design typically follows and is intended to encourage creativity without imposing a rigid procedure. The tool offers alternative routes through conceptual design, and contains 'Team Thinking Tools' to help designers widen the solution space, set priorities and evaluate options. In addition, it promotes effective teamwork practices to help teams deal with social interactions. Also, at the user's option, the system can be used to capture, store and retrieve decisions made, and the reasoning behind them. This is of key importance in improving the performance of the industry as a whole, for it is only by understanding how the final product is influenced by early design activity, that the design process can be adapted to take account of these issues on future projects.
A step-by-step approach to: defining and communicating system requirements; understanding the application domain in which the user operates; integrating the data and process models; analyzing and specifying systems using self-contained partitioning; gaining leverage through explicit representation of commonality; applying a consistent underlying representation for analysis; and accommodating families of systems.
A dissertation thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the degree Doctor of Engineering (EngD), at Loughborough University. The quest towards sustainable development, both nationally and globally, puts the construction industry in the foreground as the main consumer of natural resources. The industry has profound economic, social and environmental impacts. Sustainable construction is one of the most important challenges faced by the construction industry today. In the UK, sustainability is being driven and enforced by the government through stringent fiscal policies and regulations, voluntary initiatives combined with naming and shaming strategies. Stakeholders are becoming more aware of the global challenges and are using their power to exert pressure on companies. Increasingly, construction clients are demanding that their business partners submit: their corporate sustainability policies with tender packages to demonstrate their performance in dealing with opportunities and risks stemming from economic, environmental and social aspect of sustainability. However, the lack of understanding of the concept and its practical application has been a recurrent problem. The conceptual confusion; its vagueness and ambiguity, the complexity of the myriad of challenges and fluidity of the sustainability concept, compounded with the myopic attitude of the industry, lack of clear-cut and practical framework are causing frustration in the construction industry. Consequently, a number of sustainability management frameworks have been proposed. There are probably more than one hundred frameworks for sustainable business strategy. However, the majority of these are either complicated to implement or lack sound theoretical base, effective change management and completeness. These, therefore, do not make the situation any easier. Many are still baffled as to what they should do and how they should go about affecting change. Corporate sustainability in the construction industry is a challenge to many companies. The industry is still under-performing in each of the key themes of sustainable construction and this has lead to a 'blame culture’ where each sector of the industry allocates responsibility for its current failings to others (CIRIA C563, 2001). Such a situation poses a need for a comprehensive, practical and easy to use tool that would aid the implementation and management of sustainability at the core of business process. The tool will complement the existing frameworks, which breaks down the strategic and management issues into manageable components. This will enable companies to focus on individual areas and identify actions needed to facilitate change. The problem is that such a tool is virtually non-existent. The main focal point of this research is the development of a tool to facilitate the implementation, management and integration of sustainability issues at the strategic level and promote wider uptake of the concept in the construction industry. This requires a thorough understanding of the concepts of sustainable development, sustainable construction and related issues as well as drivers, benefits, barriers and enablers for achieving corporate sustainability. It also demands an examination of existing management frameworks and collation of case studies from the early adopters to establish critical factors for strategic and management issues involved in achieving corporate sustainability. Through, diverse research epistemologies (quantitative, qualitative and triangulation methods), the research established four main critical factors and thirty-six sub-critical factors for achieving corporate sustainability. These factors underpinned the development of a web-based prototype software (ConPass). This thesis presents the development and evaluation ConPass Model and the prototype software.
A dissertation thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the Engineering Doctorate (EngD) degree, at Loughborough University. In recent years, the construction industry has been compelled to explore all possible options for improving the delivery of their products and services. Clients are now expecting a better service and projects that meet their requirements more closely. This has challenged the industry to become more efficient, integrated and more attractive, with benefits for its potential workforce and for society as a whole. Information and communication technologies (ICT) are an enabler to facilitate the improvements required for modernisation. However, due to the geographically dispersed and nomadic nature of the construction industry’s workforce, many people are prevented from efficiently and effectively using the ICT tools adopted to date. Mobile technologies providing the ‘last mile’ connection to the point-of activity could be the missing link to help address the ongoing drive for process improvement. Although this has been a well-researched area, several barriers to mainstream adoption still exist: including a perceived lack of suitable devices; a perceived lack of computer literacy; and the perceived high cost. Through extensive industry involvement, this research has taken the theoretical idea that mobile IT use in the construction industry would be beneficial, a step further; demonstrating by means of a state of the art assessment, usability trials, case studies and demonstration projects that the barriers to mainstream adoption can be overcome. The findings of this work have been presented in four peer-reviewed papers. An ongoing dissemination programme is expected to encourage further adoption.
As information technology has grown in power and ubiquity, companies have come to view it as ever more critical to their success; their heavy spending on hardware and software clearly reflects that assumption. Chief executives routinely talk about information technology's strategic value, about how they can use IT to gain a competitive edge. But scarcity, not ubiquity, makes a business resource truly strategic--and allows companies to use it for a sustained competitive advantage. You only gain an edge over rivals by doing something that they can't. IT is the latest in a series of broadly adopted technologies--think of the railroad or the electric generator--that have reshaped industry over the past two centuries. For a brief time, as they were being built into the infrastructure of commerce, these technologies created powerful opportunities for forward-looking companies. But as their availability increased and their costs decreased, they became commodity inputs. From a strategic standpoint, they became invisible; they no longer mattered. that's exactly what's happening to IT, and the implications are profound. In this article, HBR's editor-at-large Nicholas Carr suggests that IT management should, frankly, become boring. It should focus on reducing risks, not increasing opportunities. For example, companies need to pay more attention to ensuring network and data security. Even more important, they need to manage IT costs more aggressively. IT may not help you gain a strategic advantage, but it could easily put you at a cost disadvantage. If, like many executives, you've begun to take a more defensive posture toward IT, spending more frugally and thinking more pragmatically, you're already on the right course. The challenge will be to maintain that discipline when the business cycle strengthens.
Rethinking Construction Innovation and Research Research Methods for Construction
- J Fairclough
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- A M M Liu
Fairclough, J., 2002. Rethinking Construction Innovation and Research, London: DERR
Fellows, R. F., and Liu, A. M. M., 2008. Research Methods for Construction. 3 rd ed. Oxford:
Blackwell Publishing Limited. ISBN 9781405177900
Development of an Information Support System for Estimating and Tendering in Construction Proceedings of The World IT Conference for Design and Construction
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Stephenson, P. & Conheeney, K., 2004. Development of an Information Support System for
Estimating and Tendering in Construction. Proceedings of The World IT Conference for
Design and Construction, Ed. Peter Brandon et al, pp. 469-474, ISBN 9832724171
The Big Switch : Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google
- N G Carr
Carr, N.G., 2008. The Big Switch : Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google. New York:
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. ISBN 9780393062281
Management Update: The Outlook for Application Service Providers in 2002
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Chamberlin, T., 2002, Management Update: The Outlook for Application Service Providers
in 2002" Gartner Article, 13 February 2002.
Mobile Solution for Facilities Management: Mobile Solution Business Case
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Russell, P., 2004. Mobile Solution for Facilities Management: Mobile Solution Business
Case. [Internal Taylor Woodrow Construction Report] April 2004. Watford: Taylor Woodrow
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Understanding I.T. in Construction
- M Sun
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Sun, M. & Howard, R., 2004. Understanding I.T. in Construction. London: Spon Press. ISBN
0414231906
Constructing the Best Government Client: Pilot Benchmarking Study
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Get Enabled. Premises and Facilities Management Journal
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Shelton, C. 2003. Get Enabled. Premises and Facilities Management Journal, September
2003, pp 69-71.
Mobile Communications Worldwide: Methodology and Definitions
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Gartner Dataquest Guide, 2004. "Mobile Communications Worldwide: Methodology and
Definitions". Published 16 March 2004
What You Need To Know About RFID In
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Walker, J., Spivey Overby, C., Mendelsohn, T., & Wilson, C. P., 2003. "What You Need To
Know About RFID In 2004", Forrester WholeView TechStrategy Research, December 2003
The Strategic Phase of Privately Financed Infrastructure Projects
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Thesis, School of Civil Engineering, University of Leeds, November 2000
Which Kind of Collaboration Is Right for You? Harvard Business Review
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Towards Wireless Web-based Facilities Management
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McAndrew, S. T., Anumba, C. J., Hassan, T. M., Duke, A. K., Hughes, M. (2003) "Towards
Wireless Web-based Facilities Management", Proceedings of the Second International
Conference on Construction in the 21 st Century -Sustainability and Innovation in
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529-534, ISBN 9889737019