Andrei Z. Morch

An ontological approach for eliciting and understanding needs in e-services

The lack of a good understanding of customer needs within e-service initiatives caused severe financial losses in the Norwegian energy sector, resulting in the failure of e-service initiatives offering packages of independent services. One of the causes was a poor elicitation and understanding of the e-services at hand. In this paper, we propose an ontologically founded approach (1) to describe customer needs, and the necessary e-services that satisfy such needs, and (2) to bundle elementary e-services into needs-satisfying e-service bundles. The ontology as well as the associated reasoning mechanisms are codified in RDFS to enable software support for need elicitation and service bundling. A case study from the Norwegian energy sector is used to demonstrate how we put our theory into practice.

Energy Services: A Case Study in Real-World Service Configuration

Current eCommerce is still mainly characterized by the trading of commodity goods. Many industries offer complex compositions of goods based on customers’ specifications. This is facilitated by a component-based description of goods, supported by a variety of product classification schemes, e.g., UNSPSC and eCl@ss. These focus on physical goods – wrongly referred to as products – rather than on services. Services are intangible products, for instance insurances, transportation, network connectivity, events hosting, entertainment or energy supply. Due to major differences between goods and services, product classification schemes cannot support automated service scenarios, such as a customer who wishes to define and buy a set of independent services, possibly supplied by multiple suppliers, via one website. To enable such eCommerce scenarios for services, a service ontology is required that supports a component-based structure of services. Defining a set of services is then reduced to a configuration task, as studied in the knowledge management literature. In this paper we use a case study from the Norwegian energy sector to describe how a component-based ontological description of services facilitates the automated design of a set of services, a so called service bundle.

Finding e-Service Offerings by Computer-Supported Customer Need Reasoning

We outline a rigorous approach that models how companies can electronically offer packages of independent services (service bundles). Its objective is to support prospective Website visitors in defining and buying service bundles that fit their specific needs and demands. The various services in the bundle may be offered by different suppliers. To enable this scenario, it is necessary that software can reason about customer needs and available service offerings. Our approach for tackling this issue is based on recent advances in computer and information science, where information about a domain at hand is conceptualized and formalized using ontologies and subsequently represented in machine-interpretable form. The substantive part from our ontology derives from broadly accepted service management and marketing concepts from business studies literature. In earlier work, we concentrated on the service bundling process itself. In the present chapter, we discuss how to ensure that the created bundles indeed meet customer demands. Experience of Norwegian energy utilities shows that severe financial losses can be caused when companies offer service bundles without a solid foundation for the bundle-creation process and without an in-depth understanding of customer needs and demands. We use a running case example from the Norwegian energy sector to demonstrate how we put theory into practice.

The Pan-European reference grid developed in ELECTRA for deriving innovative observability concepts in the Web-of-Cells framework

In the ELECTRA EU project, an innovative approach for frequency and voltage control is investigated, with reference to future power system scenarios characterized by massive amounts of distributed energy resources. A control architecture based on dividing the power system into a web of subsystems, the so-called cells, is proposed. Cells are individual control entities but also need to be coordinated together at system-wide level, in order to ensure secure and reliable overall operation (at Pan-European level). Task 5.4 in the ELECTRA project focuses on deriving novel observability concepts at system-wide scale. The methodology proposed in the task analyzes the system performance by investigating typical phenomena peculiar to each stability type and by developing observables necessary for the novel Web-of-Cells based control methods to operate properly at cell- and inter-cell level. Crucial aspects of angle, frequency and voltage stability are considered, according to the stability classification by CIGRÉ. In order to carry out the evaluations, a suitable test multi-cell grid model is developed. The paper aims at describing this reference model and at presenting the approach used in the task for assessing system stability in the developed WoC framework.

Identification of observables for future grids - The framework developed in the ELECTRA project

The main subject of this paper is the classification and identification of observables for present and future grids. In order to make an inventory of present and potentially new observables, a systematic classification and identification of observables for future grids is conducted. After first introducing some fundamental definitions for observables, observables are further classified by the characteristic time scale where they are used in the physical power system. For actual use in control loops, observables must be part of so-called “Control Triples” consisting of control aim, observable, and system input signal. A survey of existing and potential Control Triples was conducted among partners in the European ELECTRA project, resulting in a spreadsheet inventory. The main findings are presented and a few major observability needs for realising the so-called “vertical integration” of control schemes reinforced by “horizontal integration” of distributed control schemes in the future grid.