Digital transformation | EPFL Graph Search

Digital transformation is the process of adoption and implementation of digital technology by an organization in order to create new or modify existing products, services and operations. The goal for its implementation is to increase value through innovation, invention, improved customer experience and efficiency. Focussing on efficiency and costs, the Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply (CIPS) defines digitalisation asthe practice of redefining models, functions, operations, processes and activities by leveraging technological advancements to build an efficient digital business environment – one where gains (operational and financial) are maximised, and costs and risks are minimised. CIPS has also observed that "digital capability" can be used to support supply chain transparency and remote working. However, since there are no comprehensive data sets on the digital transformation at the macro level, the overall effect of digital transforma

A Digital Platform connecting Academia and Small Businesses: An opportunity for Knowledge Management Experiments

Quentin Adrien Cavillier

Digital transformation is one of the biggest phenomena of this decade. One enabler of this revolution was cloud computing. Today, software engineers can deliver software as a service (SaaS), which is accessible to users through the Internet. Slack, Shopify, and Dropbox are examples of successful SaaS. We are experiencing an emergence of numerous small web applications with easy-to-use features for specific domains such as project management, accounting, resources management, customer relationships, and so forth. Thus, SaaS has been recognised as particularly well suited for the digital journey of small enterprises. However, surveys conducted by governmental agencies reveal a low adoption rate of SaaS by small enterprises in traditional sectors such as construction, services, and dealership. Previous studies have highlighted a lack of top management support, a weak relative advantage perceived, and a lack of knowledge as the key reasons for this low level of adoption. Whilst academic research defines these critical factors, it has not found potential solutions to mitigate them. Thus, this thesis presents two exploratory studies to enhance the adoption of digital practices by small traditional enterprises (STEs). A first study explored the value of leading collaborative projects between students and STEs about the assessment of SaaS solutions. A secondary objective of this initiative was the design of a platform acting as an open innovation platform. A three-year study allowed the completion of thirty-nine projects and the testing of two different platform designs. The feedback from students demonstrated the value of a well-structured platform composed of different management models for each project phase. Furthermore, 67 per cent of the STEs involved on the platform acknowledged the value of such collaborative projects. However, the collaborations did not improve top management support, and projects tended to stagnate because of various organisational factors. A second study, using a mixed-methods research design, was performed to explore the relations amongst the organisational factors acting as enablers and barriers to the digitalisation of STEs. The objective was to improve understanding of TSEs' situation and devise a proposition to enhance top management support. An academic contribution of this study was the design and application of a conceptual framework combining organisational factors from the literature on dynamic capabilities, organisational inertia, and intellectual capital. The combination of the qualitative observations and quantitative results highlighted the importance of the sensing and leadership capabilities for STE directors. They also revealed the mediator effect of the relational capability on the development of these latter. Therefore, this thesis makes important contributions to the literature on open innovation by defining a new field for leading knowledge management experiments. It also contributes to develop a comprehensive overview of the organisational factors affecting STEs' adoption. A further major contribution is the potential value of the digital platform to innovate the services of practitioners, such as governmental agencies and consultants, that support STEs on their digital transformation journey. In conclusion, this research is valuable in opening the discussion about potential innovations that might reshape the relationship academia-business.

EPFL2019

Industry 4.0 Technologies and Customer-centricity for Digital Supply Chains

Rachel Agnès Laetitia Rosemonde Marie Lacroix

The last few years have experienced the emergence of Industry 4.0 (I4.0), ultra-customization, and the explosion of demand for ethical, fair trade, and sustainable consumption. Organizations have therefore started a digital transformation of their SCs and of their production. They have placed consumers at the center of their strategic agenda. In the context of ultra-customization, mass customization (MC) is gaining momentum, especially with the arrival of digital technologies like additive manufacturing (AM), also known as 3D-printing). Due to technological advances, AM is now very popular for the final part production in series, and on a large scale. SC performance is, among others, driven by operational excellence, information sharing, and trust between the different SC stakeholders. Looking at the second trend, which is focused on new consumption patterns, organizations are now encouraged to evaluate the potential of adopting new digital I4.0 technologies. The combination of Blockchain (BC) with the Internet-of-Things (IoT) seems promising to improve SC performance and meet customer demand. Despite the recognized potential of I4.0 technologies, and the transition toward digital SCs, organizations are struggling to adapt to the two trends. This is mainly due to the lack of decision support tools for the adoption of these new technologies and to the lack of user-centric approaches. In this thesis, we develop user-centric approaches from which we model and analyze the impact of three I4.0 digital technologies on the SC. First, we develop a new demand model, the HLB model, taking into account the individual demand of heterogeneous customers. This model is the first, to our knowledge, to model both the heterogeneity of customers and the evolution of their purchasing behavior over time. It couples the Bass diffusion and the Hotelling-Lancaster models. Then, building on the HLB model, we analyze, across the PLC, marketing and operations decisions that result from technology-switching scenarios. We formulate and solve an optimization problem by jointly deciding on: technology-switching times, inventory, production quantity, pricing, and product variety strategies. The goal is to maximize a manufacturer's profit while addressing the individual and evolving needs of customers. We use a sample average approximation for the numerical solutions of our non-convex optimization problem. Based on an adaptive inventory policy, we derive a closed-form solution for the production quantity decision. Our results demonstrate that the new usage of AM with MC, and a user-centric approach, can benefit a manufacturer. Significant profit improvements can be achieved with a hybrid AM-MC-AM technology-switching production scenario, under certain production capacity conditions. Second, we adopt a three-step approach to discover the BC IoT success conditions for lean and agile SCs: (i) a multivocal literature review (MLR), (ii) a topic modeling to categorize the success factors (SFs), and (iii) associate the categories of SFs to SC macro-processes for lean and agile SCs, respectively. Our findings are summarized into a conceptual framework and research propositions. This last study offers valuable insights into when and how the sweet spots for both SC types would materialize in practice, as well as their impacts with respect to the SC macro-processes performance.

EPFL2021

Problem structuring to enable innovation in business/IT projects

Tatiana Porté, Gil Regev, Alain Wegmann

In this paper, we present a problem structuring method in business and IT analysis illustrated with an example. The project describes an IT consulting case done for a Swiss medical society faced with a problem of change management and digital transformation. We show business analysis techniques of modelling actors’ behaviour, motivation, and information exchanged between them. We model business and IT services and structure case information in order to design a solution to the problem and its implementation requirements. We highlight how accommodation of different viewpoints enables business and IT alignment and removes hindrances to innovation.