1,721,077 research outputs found
Cost Benefit Analysis in Product Configuration Systems
Full text linkCompanies’ reports indicate a mixture of success and failure in Product Configuration Systems (PCS) projects. Moreover, the attention paid to PCS across different industries is increasing. Therefore, more studies are needed to analyze risks,costs, and benefits of PCS. This paper uses real case projects to demonstrate the cost-benefit analysis of PCSs in real industrial setups. Hence, this article quantifies savings in terms of reduced working hours, and the cost implications with reference to development, implementation, and maintenance. The study fills the gap in previous research by addressing what the influence of other factors on gained cost-benefits from PCSs are likely to be. This study aims to explain why some PCS projects are more cost effective than the others. While there are a number of factors affecting the cost-benefit analysis in PCS, the focus of this study remains mainly on the number of users and complexity of the project. The comparison in the case studies revealed that both factors have a positive direct correlation with the gained cost benefits from PCSs can be forecasted. Aiming to investigate these effects, thefollowing propositions were developed:Proposition 1. The higher the number of users in PCSs, thehigher Return on Investment (ROI) and cost-benefits.Proposition 2. The higher the complexity in PCSs, the higherROI and cost-benefits.Firstly, we calculate the cost of three different projects duringtheir last four years. Secondly, we calculate the cost-benefits during the last four years. In this research, we focus on the saved man-hours in calculating the ROI on multiple case projects in one case company, while investigating different factors influencing the ROI. Then, the data related to the number of users in the last year and the complexity of PCSs is retrieved. Finally, based on the knowledge in the literature and our research propositions, we demonstrate the results using graphs and discuss the findings
Group Recommender Systems: An Introduction
No full textThis book presents group recommender systems, which focus on the determination of recommendations for groups of users. The authors summarize different technologies and applications of group recommender systems. They include an in-depth discussion of state-of-the-art algorithms, an overview of industrial applications, an inclusion of the aspects of decision biases in groups, and corresponding de-biasing approaches. The book includes a discussion of basic group recommendation methods, aspects of human decision making in groups, and related applications. A discussion of open research issues is included to inspire new related research. The book serves as a reference for researchers and practitioners working on group recommendation related topics
A Fully Open-Source Approach to Intelligent Edge Computing: AGILE’s Lesson
Full text linkIn this paper, we describe the main outcomes of AGILE (acronym for “Adaptive Gateways for dIverse muLtiple Environments”), an EU-funded project that recently delivered a modular hardware and software framework conceived to address the fragmented market of embedded, multi-service, adaptive gateways for the Internet of Things (IoT). Its main goal is to provide a low-cost solution capable of supporting proof-of-concept implementations and rapid prototyping methodologies for both consumer and industrial IoT markets. AGILE allows developers to implement and deliver a complete (software and hardware) IoT solution for managing non-IP IoT devices through a multi-service gateway. Moreover, it simplifies the access of startups to the IoT market, not only providing an efficient and cost-effective solution for industries but also allowing end-users to customize and extend it according to their specific requirements. This flexibility is the result of the joint experience of established organizations in the project consortium already promoting the principles of openness, both at the software and hardware levels. We illustrate how the AGILE framework can provide a cost-effective yet solid and highly customizable, technological foundation supporting the configuration, deployment, and assessment of two distinct showcases, namely a quantified self application for individual consumers, and an air pollution monitoring station for industrial settings
Configuring Release Plans
Full text linkRelease planning takes place (1) on the strategic level where the overall goal is to prioritize (high-level) requirements and (2) on the operational level where the major focus is to define more detailed implementation plans, i.e., the assignment of requirements to specific releases and often the assignment of stakeholders to requirements. In this paper, we show how release planning can be represented as a configuration task and how re-configuration tasks can be supported. Thus we advance the state-of-the-art in software release planning by introducing technologies that support the handling of inconsistencies in already existing plans.Peer reviewe
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