Richard G. Mathieu

Examining RFID applications in supply chain management

Technology infrastructure, business process, and managerial issues must be addressed by IT practitioners as they adapt to the business changes associated with the diffusion of RFID technology in the supply chain.

Evaluating the performance of open source software projects using data envelopment analysis

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a model of the relative performance of open source software (OSS) projects.Design/methodology/approach – This paper evaluates the relative performance of OSS projects by evaluating multiple project inputs and multiple project outputs by using a data envelopment analysis (DEA) model. The DEA model produces an efficiency score for each project based on project inputs and outputs. The method of producing an efficiency score is based on the convex envelopment technology structure. The efficiency measure quantifies a “distance” to an efficient frontier.Findings – The DEA model produced an index of corresponding intensities linking an inefficient project to its benchmark efficient project(s). The inefficiency measures produced an ordering of inefficient projects. Eight projects were found to be “efficient” and used as benchmarking projects.Research limitations/implications – This research is limited to only security‐based OSS projects. Future research o...

Earned value management in a data warehouse project

Purpose – Sets out to examine earned value management (EVM), a project management technique that relates resource planning to schedules, technical costs and schedule requirements.Design/methodology/approach – Provides an example of how EVM can be implemented in a data warehouse project and how it can be used as a tool to diagnose and solve problems.Findings – EVM is based on the belief that the value of the project increases as tasks are completed and therefore the earned value of a project is a measure of the real progress of that project.Originality/value – Offers a significant analysis of EVM, its benefits and pitfalls.

A New Mission for the Information Systems Discipline

The information systems (IS) discipline is concerned with the information that computer systems provide and with the corresponding business processes that enable information technology to bring economic value to the enterprise. IS professionals consider both organizational and technical factors as they plan, coordinate, and facilitate the firms computer-related activities. Ultimately, these professionals serve as a bridge between the organizations technical and management communities. Today, the IS discipline stands at a crossroads. Despite a strong global demand for IS graduates and a growing demand for unbiased research relevant to the application of information technology within the firm, the IS discipline faces declining university enrollments, engages in scholarly debates about the relevance and identity of IS research, and seeks remedies to address the needs of the global IT worksforce.

Research in Information Systems Education: Scope and Productivity

Information systems (IS) education research is an integral part of the IS academic community. Research on timely issues such as techniques for innovative teaching, methods for addressing the recent enrollment crisis, and revisions to the IS curriculum are vital to the IS discipline. This paper defines the scope of information systems education research and identifies the top research journals that publish research related to information systems education. Ultimately, this paper reports on research productivity in information systems education at both the institutional and individual faculty levels for the period 2005-2010. The results of this paper suggest that IS education research is global in nature with several leading institutions outside of North America including universities in Australia, Belgium, Greece, Hong Kong, Israel, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom. In addition, several universities prominent in overall IS research productivity were also prominent in IS education research.

Identifying how determinants impact security-based open source software project success using rule induction

Open Source Software (OSS) projects permit users the freedom to use their software code for any purpose. The code can be studied, modified and freely redistributed. Even though OSS is free, the profit potential of OSS projects is becoming very attractive to software development companies. The potential financial gain for a developer lies in the support/maintenance and proprietary add-on features they can provide for their product. While there is extensive academic literature on Information System (IS) success, there are no empirical studies identifying the determinants of OSS project success. The contribution of this research is a model for the success of security-based OSS projects based on a rule induction approach. This empirical study is based onthe analysis of publicly available data from a repository of OSS project data (SourceForge.net).

Artificial neural networks for predicting the optimal number of kanbans in a JIT manufacturing environment

Current techniques for predicting the number of kanbans needed at a workcenter typically use only efficient factory data to develop a predictive model that maps relationships between inputs (shop operating conditions) and a desired output (number of kanbans). The paper presents a methodology that uses autoassociative neural networks to determine if a proposed number of kanbans will result in a starved, efficient, or saturated factory, based on a given set of factory conditions.