Frederik Schulte

On the Way to a Minimum Baseline in IT Governance: Using Expert Views for Selective Implementation of COBIT 5

Information Technology (IT) nowadays is integral part in most organizations and business models, putting Enterprise Governance of IT (EGIT) in focus of researchers and practitioners. A common approach for the implementation of EGIT in organizations is the use of best-practice frameworks, of which COBIT 5 is a very well-known example. However, recent studies show that COBIT 5, with its 37 EGIT processes, is often perceived as complex and organizations do not know where to start. To contribute to this concern, this papers reports on a Delphi study that was conducted to capture data on the perceived ease and effectiveness of specific COBIT 5 processes. Our results as such identify (perceived) effective and easy processes as a starting point for IT governance implementations. Experts view processes in the more strategic and governance area typical as more effective but less easy to implement. The more operational processes are typically experienced as easier to implement but also less effective. The result also reports that, according to experts, the most important process to start an EGIT implementation is the process around managing the IT related strategy.

Increasing Acceptance of Free-Floating Car Sharing Systems Using Smart Relocation Strategies: A Survey Based Study of car2go Hamburg

Rapid growth rates seem to indicate that recently introduced free-floating car sharing (FFCS) can mean a breakthrough for the car sharing idea. Like other vehicle sharing systems, FFCS systems face significant regional demand fluctuations. Thus, providers might have to reposition empty vehicles to not lose potential customers. However, this aspect has been hardly examined in research and practice. This study aims to investigate appropriate relocation strategies for this new type of car sharing systems regarding the case of car2go. For this purpose a survey based evaluation was conducted, new relocation strategies were developed, and a discrete-event simulation model for the evaluation with real time data from car2go was drafted. The results indicate that availability of cars is crucial for customer acceptance, but customers are open for smart relocation strategies. Furthermore, the developed simulation approach provides the basis for an in-depth analysis of various strategies with different objectives using a realistic demand forecast.

E-Business IT Governance Revisited: An Attempt towards Outlining a Novel Bi-directional Business/IT Alignment in COBIT5

In contrast to classical business, e-business highly depends on internet technologies. Business and IT naturally coalesce here. Thus, a customer-driven IT requirement may enforce an adjustment of a business model. This poses new challenges for researchers and practitioners as currently a business-driven alignment paradigm dominates in IT governance. We identify characteristics of e-business and examine how IT governance frameworks can integrate these characteristics under consideration of a bi-directional business/IT alignment process. We use COBIT 5 as a benchmark for our examination, and reveal a need for a modification of the framework to fully cover e-business requirements. Based on the COBIT 5 Goal Cascade, we propose a possible integration of a bottom-up requirements process. Our findings for e-business can build a basis for future research on different business models.

Reducing Port-Related Truck Emissions: Coordinated Truck Appointments to Reduce Empty Truck Trips

Port-related emissions are a growing problem for urban areas often located directly next to ports highly frequented by trucks and vessels. Empty truck trips are responsible for a significant share of these emissions. Truck appointment systems (TASs) allow scheduling of truck arrivals and enable collaboration among truckers. Though, TASs leveraging the potential to reduce avoidable emissions due to empty trips have hardly been studied. We aim to show how a TAS following this idea may be designed and evaluate the approach. We thus review requirements for a collaborative TAS and develop a discrete-event simulation model to assess coordinated truck appointments in a practical case of drayage. The results indicate that the approach effectively reduces port-related truck emissions, but might create congestion in the port. The considered case refers to drayage processes, but may also be transferred to the hinterland. The developed simulation model assumes a generic truck appointment process and may also serve to analyze diverse cases.

An Application of Late Acceptance Hill-Climbing to the Traveling Purchaser Problem

Late Acceptance Hill Climbing (LAHC) is a recent metaheuristic in the realm of local search based procedures. The basic idea is to delay the comparison between neighborhood solutions and to compare new candidate solutions to a solution having been current several steps ago. The LAHC was first presented at the PATAT 2008 conference and successfully tested for exam timetabling, the traveling salesman problem (TSP) and the magic square problem and the results seemed extraordinary. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the behavior of the method and to provide some extended understanding about its success and limitations. To do so, we investigate the method for a generalized version of the TSP, the traveling purchaser problem.

A Visualization Approach for Reducing the Perceived Complexity of COBIT 5

COBIT 5 is positioned in the market as a de-facto standard for enterprise governance of IT. Relevant literature and management experience, however, indicate that the adoption of the framework is challenging due to its perceived complexity. In this paper we present a software prototype aiming to promote the understanding of COBIT 5, its components and their relationships by means of information visualization, thus facilitating its usage and adoption in scientific and practical context. The current state of evaluating the prototype is outlined.

Open Data Evolution in Information Systems Research: Considering Cases of Data-Intensive Transportation and Grid Systems

Open data (OD) use and the opening of data have become major strategic objectives in different communities. Nevertheless, the potential of OD is still not leveraged in many areas. In this work, we focus the OD impact information systems research. We review the respective literature for different domains of OD research and analyze cases of data-intensive decision support systems in transportation as well as open research grid systems. The resulting changes, challenges, and opportunities that OD causes are categorized according to different OD activities in IS research. Hence, they may serve as an agenda to foster OD practices, platforms, and administration in the area.

IT Governance for Cyber-Physical Systems: The Case of Industry 4.0.

Recent developments in the manufacturing industry are linked to the systematical adoption and deployment of cyber-physical systems (CPS) that monitor and synchronize information between the physical factory floor and the cyber-computational space providing advanced information analytics. While it is widely recognized in literature that the related trend of transforming the manufacturing industry, the so-called industry 4.0, leads to distinct interventions in operations of businesses and public organizations, appropriate governance practices still need to be established. This paper uses a detailed overview on changes going along with the emergence of CPS and industry 4.0 to point out requirements for IT governance approaches supporting the adoption of CPS. The observations are illustrated for an example using the COBIT 5 governance of IT framework.

Empty container management at ports considering pollution, repair options, and street-turns

International trade imbalances make the management of empty containers within shipping networks an important economic and ecological problem. While import-dominated ports accumulate large amounts of empty containers, export-dominated ports need them as transport resources, requiring a repositioning transportation of empty containers on the sea and land side. Acknowledging the importance of the problem, plenty of respective literature has appeared. Since periodic review inventory management systems allow to model the inherent stochasticity of empty container transportation, they have emerged as a major solution approach in the domain. Nevertheless, existing approaches often omit crucial economic and ecological real world conditions determining the success of empty container management. Pollution, repair options, and street-turns are important aspects in this context. In this work, we present new stochastic review policies incorporating a realistic allocation scheme for empty container emissions, realistic maintenance, and repair options as well as street-turns. We analyze the optimality of the proposed polices and evaluate them in a simulation model with metaheuristic parameter search based on extensive real-world data from a major global shipping company operating in Latin America. Results provide insights for academics and practitioners about the economic and ecological impact of the distinct empty container management polices within a shipping network.

Significance of Line Length for Tablet PC Users

This paper presentsi¾?keyi¾?findings about on-screen optimal line length for tableti¾?personal computers PCs.i¾?It examines the effects of four different line lengths on the reading speed and reading efficiency. Seventy participants ranging between the ages of 20 and 40 participated in this study. They read four different texts with an average length of 2000 characters. The texts contained substitution words, which were to be detected by the subjects to measure reading accuracy. Moreover, the subjects were asked to subjectively vote on their reading experience in the context of subjective measures like reading speed and accuracy. The results of the study revealed that 90 characters per line CPL were preferred by most of the participants. Nonetheless, some participants falling between the ages of 35 and 40 years preferred 60 CPL. The findings presented in this paper are quite worthwhile as the Tablet PC are extensively used for e-reading.i¾?In essence, this studyi¾?suggestsi¾?optimal line length for reading on screen using Tablet PC and eventuallyi¾?benefitingi¾?people who use Tablet PC for reading,i¾?hailingi¾?from everyi¾?walk of life.