SUPPORTING COLLABORATIVE PRODUCT DEVELOPMENTTHROUGH AUTOMATED INTERPRETATION OF ARTIFACTS

Matheus Hauder, Sascha Roth, Florian MatthesLehrstuhl fur Informatik 19 (sebis), Technische Universitat Munchen, Boltzmannstr. 3, 85748 Garching, Germany

{matheus.hauder,roth,matthes}@tum.de

Armin Lau, Heiko MatheisDITF Denkendorf, Centre for Management Research, Koerschtalstr. 26, 73770 Denkendorf, Germany

{armin.lau,heiko.matheis}@ditf-mr-denkendorf.de

Keywords: Product Development, Collaboration Model, Business Modeling, Business Process Coordination

Abstract: Small and medium-sized enterprises collaborate with partners to develop highly innovative and knowledge-intensive products. Collaboration models describe in detail how this goal can be achieved. These modelscan be supported by an implemented and executable version thereof. This paper describes an implementationof a collaboration model from the European research project SmartNets using an automated interpretation ofartifacts. We explain the collaboration model, describe the implementation and evaluate our proposed solutionby means of an example from one of the projects industrial networks.

1 INTRODUCTION

Increasing complexity of products and processes,condensed product life-cycles, quickly changing mar-ket requirements and globalized competition are ma-jor challenges that companies, and in particular Eu-ropean small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs),have to face. The key to mastering these challengesis an effective and efficient development, productionand marketing of new products, processes, and ser-vices. For many SMEs, due to their limited avail-ability of resources and their concentration on corecompetences and niche markets, it is very difficult toelaborate such innovations from the idea to the finalproduct completely on their own. Therefore, moreand more, SMEs collaborate with trusted partners inloosely coupled development networks to combinetheir knowledge and resources and to share the as-sociated risks (Mazzarol and Reboud, 2008). Eventhough there are several examples of success, the lackof appropriate methods and tools to support conjointinnovation within networks is still hampering the ef-fectivity and efficiency of such collaboration (Dooleyand O’Sullivan, 2007). The objective of the Europeanresearch project SmartNet is to develop and to evalu-ate methods and tools supporting collaborative devel-opment and production networks in the product de-velopment, in network coordination and in the trans-

formation from development to production1. For that,SmartNet follows the concept of the smart organiza-tion (Filos, 2006).

Social software solutions as information and com-munication technologies could play a crucial role asenabler for collaboration in future. They support theconjoint documentation, exchange and elaboration ofinformation, and with the help of appropriate ICT sys-tems, process models can be implemented and en-acted, promoting and supporting the use of these pro-cesses in the daily work. Although social softwareprovides manifold possibilities for a better support ofthese challenges, current research is mainly focusedon the use of social software for advertising and mar-keting purposes (van Osch and Coursaris, 2013). Weargue that social software can be used to endorse abetter support for collaborative product development.

In the following, the SmartNet CollaborationModel, a model for collaboration in developmentand production networks developed in the course ofSmartNet will be introduced. It will be demonstratedhow the model has been implemented on the projectscollaboration platform Tricia. Special attention willbe given to the SmartNet Navigator, a tool to assessthe process status of a development project. This pro-cesses status is automatically computed with an own

1https://www.smart-nets.eu/, last accessed Dec. 6, 2012

 Figure 1: Reference process - key element of the SmartNet Collaboration Model (Lau et al., 2012)

substitution language that is utilized to present thecurrent progress of the involved artifacts in an inter-active visualization. Its application in collaborativeproduct development will be evaluated with an exam-ple from a project dealing with the conjoint develop-ment of an innovative motorcycle helmet.

2 SMARTNET COLLABORATIONMODEL

In the operative planning, execution and control ofcollaborative innovation activities, there are severalquestions, which will continuously come up through-out the development. Six generalized key questionshave been identified which will emerge in one or an-other form (Lau et al., 2009):

• What do I have to do, and when shall I do it?

• How can it be done?

• Who can do it?

• How can I do what, and when?

• What shall I do when and with whom?

• How can I collaborate with whom?

The SmartNet Collaboration Model provides answersto these questions by connecting three key elements ofcollaborative development: process model for devel-opment and production, internal and external actors,innovation management methods and techniques (Lauet al., 2009). Each element is described in detail withnumerous instances, e.g. with a list of roughly eighty

actual methods and forty-eight process activities. Fig-ure 1 shows the complete reference process, to whichwe will refer later on when discussing the particularpart of the SmartNet Navigator.

The relations between these three elements will beattributed with values indicating support potential, i.e.for which step in the process, which kind of actor isbest suited to be involved (Lau et al., 2012). A ded-icated processing model is provided which explainshow these structures can be applied in the practice ofcollaborative networks (Lau, 2012).

2.1 Implementation of the model on acollaboration platform

We implemented the above-described collaborativeprocess utilizing the Hybrid Wiki extension (cf.e.g. (Matthes et al., 2011)) of the Enterprise 2.0 plat-form Tricia. Hybrid Wikis are based on a non-rigidtyped system. They allow users to alter respectivemodels at runtime by modifying the contained dataon which it is based. Attributes and entities can beadded or removed by end-users in such an intuitivemanner that the actual process of modeling, steps intothe background and users are first and foremost con-cerned about their data (data first, schema second).

2.1.1 Tricia - Hybrid Wiki for enterprisecollaboration

With Hybrid Wikis, collaborative work that is com-monly based on a model in particular can profit fromthe lightweight modeling approach. Hybrid Wikis do

not require a special syntax for modeling or contribut-ing data, i.e. everyone may add and manage infor-mation/knowledge, which is commonly referred to ascrowd sourcing. Besides the typical unstructured con-tent, a Hybrid Wiki page also includes structured con-tent consisting of key value pairs (e.g. managementactivity type and process phase in Figure 2). By de-fault, an attribute added by an end-user is of the typestring.

The type can also be assigned to a value explic-itly, which can be regarded as the schema definition.A small icon appears to indicate that this is a type de-fined by a so-called type definition. The actual typeassignment of a wiki page is as simple as adding ordi-nary tags to a web 2.0 page. By assigning such a TypeTag, the type definition refers to this concept (here:activity type). In such a definition, each attribute maybe assigned a type, i.e. string, number, date, enumer-ation, or a link to another page. In the latter case, alsothe type of the target page can be specified. With thesetype definitions, Hybrid Wikis cover the range fromnot at all typed to strictly typed (mandatory attributeswith cardinalities) meta-models as in common rela-tional database systems. Once defined, the type defi-nition is applied to all instances of this type of pages.

 

 

Figure 2: Attributes of the activity type

2.1.2 Elements of the collaboration platform onTricia

For the implementation of the SmartNet Collabora-tion Model the extended functionalities of Hybrid

Wikis are essential. These above described func-tionalities enable a contextualization of simple pagesto combine textual descriptions of process activities,methods and actors and relations between these enti-ties. The implementation of the collaboration modelwas started with the reference process in Figure 1 be-cause of its guideline characteristic. Every single ac-tivity that is mentioned in this process is implementedas a page of a special type, which is called activitytype. All activity types consist at least of an explana-tion on what this activity is about and its position inthe reference process. The position in the referenceprocess is described by the process phase to which anactivity belongs and by its management activity typefrom other activity types to identify possible previoussteps in the process. Accordingly, reverse relationsthat can be found under Incoming Links in Figure 2point out potential following steps. The storage ofthat information enables the implementation of a kindof workflow to suggest possible next steps on the ba-sis which activity types were already finished. Thiskind of structuring allows adapting the reference pro-cess very flexibly to specific needs of different fieldsof application. Due to the fact that these activity typesare one of the key elements of the collaboration modelthese adaptations affect all other derived tools like theSmartNet Navigator, which is deeply related to thereference process. The second element of the col-laboration model, which is already implemented onTricia, is a methodology to support the developmentand the collaboration in the networks. In a first step,around eighty methods - suitable for the applicationin enterprise networks and across companys borders- were identified and described on the project plat-form. These descriptions consist of basic informationabout the methods with strengths and weaknesses andapplication guidelines to support the project partnerin implementing the methods into their developmentprojects. Also actors are implemented in a similar ap-proach as type tag with various attributes, identifyingmostly their positioning in the supply chain. By this,it will be possible to extract information about actorsfrom models of the network topology of the projectnetworks. Finally, the relations between the key el-ements of the collaboration model were built. Forthat, more information is required. For example, todescribe methods sufficiently, it is necessary to iden-tify:• Which results can be reached by applying the

methods,• The activity types for which the methods are suit-

able, and• Their contribution to knowledge management, in-

cluding required and created knowledge.

Figure 3: Meta-model of the described SmartNet collaboration model

All this information was documented using the hy-brid attributes of the Tricia system either by buildingrelations to other information (e.g. for the differentdegrees of suitability), using prepared enumerations(e.g. to categorize the method type and the build-ing blocks of knowledge management (Probst et al.,1998)) or normal text (e.g. to specify input and outputknowledge). By using all this data it will be possibleto answer the six key questions presented in Section 2in future.

2.1.3 SmartNet Navigator - Tool for automatedstatus analysis

The automated status analysis is performed using asubstitution language developed within the HybridWiki project that can be used to query the data (at-tributes) of the collaboration model. Their compu-tation is based upon a meta-model that is shown inFigure 3. The collaboration model consists of sev-eral meetings that are part of a development project.Meetings can contain activity types that might requirepreceding activities as input. They can also be relatedwith a management activity type, e.g. project man-agement, network management, and a developmentphase, e.g., production and marketing.

An example instance for an activity type is shownin Figure 2. Result pages are used to document thefindings from different activity types in a develop-ment project. Activity types also contain tasks that areassigned to respectively by users. Every task containsa starting date and a deadline until the task has to befinished. The progress of the status is tracked with

an attribute task status. In addition, a developmentproject can have several users who are responsible forthe project.

Figure 4 shows an example for the computation ofstates for the process phase. Variable allStati is com-puted containing all states from a particular processphase by selecting all activitiy types from this phase.The state of an activity is retrieved with a functioncalled statusOfActivityType. In the second variablevalid combinations for the visualizations of the result-ing state are stored. Only in case both values are fi-nalized (or open) the aggregated value is finalized (orin-progress). In case the variable allStati is empty, theprocess phase is regarded as finalized. Alternatively,the variable is not empty and a higher-order functionis used to compute the aggregated value of all con-taining activities.

3 PRACTICAL APPLICATION

The SmartNet Navigator is applied in all three indus-trial networks of the SmartNet Project. From the be-ginning of the project all partners started document-ing their development activities such as meetings andtasks by using the Tricia platform. Using the possibil-ities of the hybrid attributes, provided by the platform,enables the industrial partners to extend the basic in-formation with additional data as for instance start-ing date and deadline for tasks and participants andlocation for meetings. In addition to this very con-tent specific information they related all their devel-opment activities on the one hand to certain develop-

  statusOfProcessPhase 1: let allStati = find("activity type", "Process phase", ph) 2: .select(?(at) (this.statusOfActivityType(at))) in 3: 4: let combine = ?(s1,s2) ( 5: s1.equals("finalized").and(s2.equals("finalized")) ? "finalized" 6: : s1.equals("open").and(s2.equals("open")) ? "open" : "in-progress") in 7: 8: allStati.isEmpty() ? "finalized" : 9: allStati.aggregate(combine, allStati.first()) statusOfActivityType

10: let meetingStatus = this.statusOfMeetings(at) in 11: let taskStatus = this.statusOfTasks(at) in 12: 13: this.noResultsForActivityType(at) ? ( 14: meetingStatus.equals("open").and(taskStatus.equals("open")) ? "open" 15: : ( meetingStatus.equals("finalized") 16: .and(taskStatus.equals("finalized")) ? "finalized" : "in-progress") 17: ) : "finalized"

Figure 4: Code listing computing states of the process phase executed when loading the SmartNavigator

ment projects and on the other hand to activity types.The following chapters give an exemplary view of

the situation in one of the industrial networks with ashort description of the network and the targeted prod-uct and the realization of the SmartNet Navigator.

3.1 Introduction to the InnovativeHelmet Network

The Innovative Helmet Network (IHN) mainly con-sists of three SMEs that are supported by a researchorganization and a consultancy. Together they aredeveloping a new motorcycle helmet, which will bemade out of completely new materials with specialproperties. This new helmet will reach a new level inprotection and will give more freedom to the designerespecially in shape and size. Besides the developmentof this new helmet, the network also develops newproduction technologies and processes to increase theeffect of the new material.

To handle the arising challenges, the core of thenetwork consists of a chemical company which is re-sponsible for the development of the material and itsprocessing, a product engineering and manufacturingcompany which has a lot of experience in the develop-ment and production of protection gears for differentfields of application and which will be the manufac-turer of the final helmet.

The third partner in the network is an engineer-ing consultancy with main focus on technical de-sign, which supports both other partners and co-ordinates the collaboration during the developmentphases. Both associated partners support the networkin general issues, e.g., management and protection ofintellectual property rights (IPRs), the application ofinnovation management methods and the SmartNetCollaboration Model.

3.2 SmartNet Navigator supporting thedevelopment network

Product development is a complex and challengingtopic in particular in networks of several enterprises.

In this network context the enterprises need somespace where they are able to collaborate, share knowl-edge and information, document and coordinate theirwork with each other. For this specific network thatparticipates in the SmartNet Project the partners usethe project collaboration platform ’Tricia’ to face allthese issues.

Typically for the industry sectors, documentationwill only be done if it is either recommended or re-quired due to quality or risk assurance or the enter-prises really can benefit from it. Thus, the SmartNetNavigator has to consolidate the documentation of alldevelopment activities to show the current status ofthe collaborative development project. This automat-ically interpreted status supports the coordination ofthe collaborative product development project.

For the IHN this means that all meetings, tasks andresults that were documented on the project platformare related to activity types and to the developmentproject they contribute to. Based on the rules exem-plarily described in Section 2.1.3 the SmartNet Nav-igator application calculates the current status of thedevelopment project and visualizes (cf. e.g. (Hauderet al., 2012)) the result as shown in Figure 5.

This example shows that the IHN has collectedand formulated their ideas (M2 is finalized; coloredgreen) on how this new motorcycling helmet shouldprotect its bearer. They are currently working on theprocessing of the new material to set up several proto-types of the complete helmet. Parts of it like the innershell have already been tested against the homologa-tion criteria (see Prototype test (α-test) in Figure 5).

Obviously, the SmartNet Navigator in Figure 5reveals several open (grey) or in-progress (orange)modules and activity types owing to insufficient docu-mentation or switching between several activities andforgetting to finalize or start them. In both cases theSmartNet Navigator reminds the team on the one handto finalize the activities and on the other hand to col-lect all information they may need in later activitieswhen it is easy to get them. A second big advantagefor the network or single decision makers is to get aquick overview on the current status of the develop-ment.

 

Figure 5: The SmartNet Navigator of the Innovative Helmet Network with an automated interpretation of artifacts

4 CONCLUSIONS

The SmartNet Navigator helps enterprises acting incollaborative networks to identify states of develop-ment projects. Network partners highly esteemed thisaggregated view, as it gives a good overview at a sin-gle glance and serves as a nice instrument to evaluatethe information basis. The information about the cur-rent state will be used for further implementation oftools supporting the application of the collaborationmodel itself, e.g. by using the information to proposemethods and techniques of innovation management tothe users or to recommend network partners.

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