NFC-based Smartwork Service Model Design (NFC 기반의 스마트워크 서비스 모델 설계)
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- Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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- v.19 no.2
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- pp.157-175
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- 2013
Since Korean government announced 'Smartwork promotion strategy' in 2010, Korean firms and government organizations have started to adopt smartwork. However, the smartwork has been implemented only in a few of large enterprises and government organizations rather than SMEs (small and medium enterprises). In USA, both Yahoo! and Best Buy have stopped their flexible work because of its reported low productivity and job loafing problems. In addition, according to the literature on smartwork, we could draw obstacles of smartwork adoption and categorize them into the three types: institutional, organizational, and technological. The first category of smartwork adoption obstacles, institutional, include the difficulties of smartwork performance evaluation metrics, the lack of readiness of organizational processes, limitation of smartwork types and models, lack of employee participation in smartwork adoption procedure, high cost of building smartwork system, and insufficiency of government support. The second category, organizational, includes limitation of the organization hierarchy, wrong perception of employees and employers, a difficulty in close collaboration, low productivity with remote coworkers, insufficient understanding on remote working, and lack of training about smartwork. The third category, technological, obstacles include security concern of mobile work, lack of specialized solution, and lack of adoption and operation know-how. To overcome the current problems of smartwork in reality and the reported obstacles in literature, we suggest a novel smartwork service model based on NFC(Near Field Communication). This paper suggests NFC-based Smartwork Service Model composed of NFC-based Smartworker networking service and NFC-based Smartwork space management service. NFC-based smartworker networking service is comprised of NFC-based communication/SNS service and NFC-based recruiting/job seeking service. NFC-based communication/SNS Service Model supplements the key shortcomings that existing smartwork service model has. By connecting to existing legacy system of a company through NFC tags and systems, the low productivity and the difficulty of collaboration and attendance management can be overcome since managers can get work processing information, work time information and work space information of employees and employees can do real-time communication with coworkers and get location information of coworkers. Shortly, this service model has features such as affordable system cost, provision of location-based information, and possibility of knowledge accumulation. NFC-based recruiting/job-seeking service provides new value by linking NFC tag service and sharing economy sites. This service model has features such as easiness of service attachment and removal, efficient space-based work provision, easy search of location-based recruiting/job-seeking information, and system flexibility. This service model combines advantages of sharing economy sites with the advantages of NFC. By cooperation with sharing economy sites, the model can provide recruiters with human resource who finds not only long-term works but also short-term works. Additionally, SMEs (Small Medium-sized Enterprises) can easily find job seeker by attaching NFC tags to any spaces at which human resource with qualification may be located. In short, this service model helps efficient human resource distribution by providing location of job hunters and job applicants. NFC-based smartwork space management service can promote smartwork by linking NFC tags attached to the work space and existing smartwork system. This service has features such as low cost, provision of indoor and outdoor location information, and customized service. In particular, this model can help small company adopt smartwork system because it is light-weight system and cost-effective compared to existing smartwork system. This paper proposes the scenarios of the service models, the roles and incentives of the participants, and the comparative analysis. The superiority of NFC-based smartwork service model is shown by comparing and analyzing the new service models and the existing service models. The service model can expand scope of enterprises and organizations that adopt smartwork and expand the scope of employees that take advantages of smartwork.
Most domestic companies, with the exclusion of major firms, are reluctant to implement a supply chain management (SCM) network into their operations. Most small- and medium-sized enterprises are not even aware of SCM. Due to the inherent total-systems efficiency of SCM, it coordinates domestic manufacturers, subcontractors, distributors, and physical distributors and cuts down on cost of inventory control, as well as demand management. Furthermore, a lack of SCM causes a decrease in competitiveness for domestic companies. The reason lies in the fundamentality of SCM, which is the characteristic of information sharing, process innovation throughout SCM, and the vast range of problems the SCM management tool is able to address. This study suggests the contemplation and reformation of the current SCM situation by analyzing the SCM strategic plan, discourses and logical discussions on the topic, and a successful case for adapting SCM; hence, the study plans to productively "process" SCM. First, it is necessary to contemplate the theoretical background of SCM before discussing how to successfully process SCM. I will describe the concept and background of SCM in Chapter 2, with a definition of SCM, types of SCM promotional activities, fields of SCM, necessity of applying SCM, and the effects of SCM. All of the defects in currently processing SCM will be introduced in Chapter 3. Discussion items include the following: the Bullwhip Effect; the breakdown in supply chain and sales networks due to e-business; the issue that even though the key to a successful SCM is cooperation between the production and distribution company, during the process of SCM, the companies, many times, put their profits first, resulting in a possible defect in demands estimation. Furthermore, the problems of processing SCM in a domestic distribution-production company concern Information Technology; for example, the new system introduced to the company is not compatible with the pre-existing document architecture. Second, for effective management, distribution and production companies should cooperate and enhance their partnership in the aspect of the corporation; however, in reality, this seldom occurs. Third, in the aspect of the work process, introducing SCM could provoke corporations during the integration of the distribution-production process. Fourth, to increase the achievement of the SCM strategy process, they need to set up a cross-functional team; however, many times, business partners lack the cooperation and business-information sharing tools necessary to effect the transition to SCM. Chapter 4 will address an SCM strategic plan and a case study of LG Electronics. The purpose of the strategic plan, strategic plans for types of business, adopting SCM in a distribution company, and the global supply chain process of LG Electronics will be introduced. The conclusion of the study is located in Chapter 5, which addresses the issue of the fierce competition that companies currently face in the global market environment and their increased investment in SCM, in order to better cope with short product life cycle and high customer expectations. The SCM management system has evolved through the adaptation of improved information, communication, and transportation technologies; now, it demands the utilization of various strategic resources. The introduction of SCM provides benefits to the management of a network of interconnected businesses by securing customer loyalty with cost and time savings, derived through the consolidation of many distribution systems; additionally, SCM helps enterprises form a wide range of marketing strategies. Thus, we could conclude that not only the distributors but all types of businesses should adopt the systems approach to supply chain strategies. SCM deals with the basic stream of distribution and increases the value of a company by replacing physical distribution with information. By the company obtaining and sharing ready information, it is able to create customer satisfaction at the end point of delivery to the consumer.
Until recently, as we recognize the significance of sustainable growth and competitiveness of small-and-medium sized enterprises (SMEs), governmental support for tangible resources such as R&D, manpower, funds, etc. has been mainly provided. However, it is also true that the inefficiency of support systems such as underestimated or redundant support has been raised because there exist conflicting policies in terms of appropriateness, effectiveness and efficiency of business support. From the perspective of the government or a company, we believe that due to limited resources of SMEs technology development and capacity enhancement through collaboration with external sources is the basis for creating competitive advantage for companies, and also emphasize value creation activities for it. This is why value chain network analysis is necessary in order to analyze inter-company deal relationships from a series of value chains and visualize results through establishing knowledge ecosystems at the corporate level. There exist Technology Opportunity Discovery (TOD) system that provides information on relevant products or technology status of companies with patents through retrievals over patent, product, or company name, CRETOP and KISLINE which both allow to view company (financial) information and credit information, but there exists no online system that provides a list of similar (competitive) companies based on the analysis of value chain network or information on potential clients or demanders that can have business deals in future. Therefore, we focus on the "Value Chain Network System (VCNS)", a support partner for planning the corporate business strategy developed and managed by KISTI, and investigate the types of embedded network-based analysis modules, databases (D/Bs) to support them, and how to utilize the system efficiently. Further we explore the function of network visualization in intelligent value chain analysis system which becomes the core information to understand industrial structure ystem and to develop a company's new product development. In order for a company to have the competitive superiority over other companies, it is necessary to identify who are the competitors with patents or products currently being produced, and searching for similar companies or competitors by each type of industry is the key to securing competitiveness in the commercialization of the target company. In addition, transaction information, which becomes business activity between companies, plays an important role in providing information regarding potential customers when both parties enter similar fields together. Identifying a competitor at the enterprise or industry level by using a network map based on such inter-company sales information can be implemented as a core module of value chain analysis. The Value Chain Network System (VCNS) combines the concepts of value chain and industrial structure analysis with corporate information simply collected to date, so that it can grasp not only the market competition situation of individual companies but also the value chain relationship of a specific industry. Especially, it can be useful as an information analysis tool at the corporate level such as identification of industry structure, identification of competitor trends, analysis of competitors, locating suppliers (sellers) and demanders (buyers), industry trends by item, finding promising items, finding new entrants, finding core companies and items by value chain, and recognizing the patents with corresponding companies, etc. In addition, based on the objectivity and reliability of the analysis results from transaction deals information and financial data, it is expected that value chain network system will be utilized for various purposes such as information support for business evaluation, R&D decision support and mid-term or short-term demand forecasting, in particular to more than 15,000 member companies in Korea, employees in R&D service sectors government-funded research institutes and public organizations. In order to strengthen business competitiveness of companies, technology, patent and market information have been provided so far mainly by government agencies and private research-and-development service companies. This service has been presented in frames of patent analysis (mainly for rating, quantitative analysis) or market analysis (for market prediction and demand forecasting based on market reports). However, there was a limitation to solving the lack of information, which is one of the difficulties that firms in Korea often face in the stage of commercialization. In particular, it is much more difficult to obtain information about competitors and potential candidates. In this study, the real-time value chain analysis and visualization service module based on the proposed network map and the data in hands is compared with the expected market share, estimated sales volume, contact information (which implies potential suppliers for raw material / parts, and potential demanders for complete products / modules). In future research, we intend to carry out the in-depth research for further investigating the indices of competitive factors through participation of research subjects and newly developing competitive indices for competitors or substitute items, and to additively promoting with data mining techniques and algorithms for improving the performance of VCNS.