scholarly journals From crowd to cloud: simplified automatic reconstruction of digital building assets for facility management

2022 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Srinimalan Balakrishnan Selvakumaran ◽  
Daniel Mark Hall

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the feasibility of an end-to-end simplified and automated reconstruction pipeline for digital building assets using the design science research approach. Current methods to create digital assets by capturing the state of existing buildings can provide high accuracy but are time-consuming, expensive and difficult. Design/methodology/approach Using design science research, this research identifies the need for a crowdsourced and cloud-based approach to reconstruct digital building assets. The research then develops and tests a fully functional smartphone application prototype. The proposed end-to-end smartphone workflow begins with data capture and ends with user applications. Findings The resulting implementation can achieve a realistic three-dimensional (3D) model characterized by different typologies, minimal trade-off in accuracy and low processing costs. By crowdsourcing the images, the proposed approach can reduce costs for asset reconstruction by an estimated 93% compared to manual modeling and 80% compared to locally processed reconstruction algorithms. Practical implications The resulting implementation achieves “good enough” reconstruction of as-is 3D models with minimal tradeoffs in accuracy compared to automated approaches and 15× cost savings compared to a manual approach. Potential facility management use cases include the issue and information tracking, 3D mark-up and multi-model configurators. Originality/value Through user engagement, development, testing and validation, this work demonstrates the feasibility and impact of a novel crowdsourced and cloud-based approach for the reconstruction of digital building assets.

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (6/7) ◽  
pp. 831-854
Author(s):  
Dina Elikan ◽  
Yves Pigneur

Purpose Being able to communicate a clear identity to different stakeholders is crucial for SMEs and startups in today’s world, which is characterised by accelerated innovation, growing competition and increasingly connected consumers. However, this can be a complex task for small organisations. The purpose of this paper is to propose a visual tool that supports entrepreneurs in SMEs and startups to collaboratively develop their identity communication strategy. Design/methodology/approach The paper follows a design science research approach. The authors propose the design of a tool as well as some preliminary qualitative evaluations. The authors conducted three iterations between design and evaluation, where the results of the evaluations are implemented in the design. Findings The authors demonstrate how to design strategic tools for allowing teams to co-design their identity communication strategy and present the tool. The authors also evaluate its use and find out through the preliminary evaluations that it could be easy to use and useful for practitioners. Originality/value The originality of this paper lays in the novelty of the tool and its development. Such a tool addressing identity communication strategy has not been developed with a scientific approach until now.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 231-243
Author(s):  
Chepkoech C. Kiptoo

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the use of crowdsourcing in the enhancement of an ontology of taxonomic knowledge. The paper proposes a conceptual architecture for the incorporation of crowdsourcing into the creation of ontologies. Design/methodology/approach The research adopted the design science research approach characterised by cycles of “build” and “evaluate” until a refined artefact was established. Findings Data from a case of a fruit fly platform demonstrates that online crowds can contribute to ontology enhancement if engaged in a structured manner that feeds into a defined ontology model. Research limitations/implications The research contributes an architecture to the crowdsourcing body knowledge. The research also makes a methodological contribution for the development of ontologies using crowdsourcing. Practical implications Creating ontologies is a demanding task and most ontologies are not exhaustive on the targeted domain knowledge. The proposed architecture provides a guiding structure for the engagement of online crowds in the creation and enhancement of domain ontologies. The research uses a case of taxonomic knowledge ontology. Originality/value Crowdsourcing for creation and enhancement of ontologies by non-experts is novel and presents opportunity to build and refine ontologies for different domains by engaging online crowds. The process of ontology creation is also prone to errors and engaging crowds presents opportunity for corrections and enhancements.


2016 ◽  
Vol 23 (5) ◽  
pp. 1054-1075 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonie Cassidy ◽  
John Hamilton

Purpose – Literature-identified website benchmarking (WB) approaches are generally time consuming, survey based, with little agreement on what and how to measure website components. The purpose of this paper is to establish a theoretical approach to WB. A comprehensive design science research methodology (DSRM) artifact facilitates the evaluation of the website against the universal set of benchmark components. This knowledge allows managers to gauge/reposition their websites. Design/methodology/approach – DSRM establishes a website analysis method (WAM) artifact. Across six activities (problem identification, solution objective, artifact design/development, artifact demonstration, artifact evaluation, results communication), the WAM artifact solves the DSRM-identified WB problem. Findings – The WAM artifact uses 230 differentiated components, allowing managers to understand in-depth and at-level WB. Typological website components deliver interpretable WB scores. Website comparisons are made at domain (aesthetic, marketing, technical) and/or functional levels. Research limitations/implications – New/emergent components (and occasionally new functions) are included (and redundant components removed) as upgrades to the DSRM WAM artifact’s three domains and 28 functions. Such modifications help keep latest benchmarking comparisons (and/or website upgrades) optimized. Practical implications – This DSRM study employs a dichotomous present/absent component approach, allowing the WAM artifact’s measures to be software programmed, and merged at three different levels, delivering a useful WB tool for corporates. Originality/value – DSRM identifies the benchmarking problem. Rough-cut set-theory and mutual-exclusivity of components allow the causal-summing of typological website components into an objective WAM artifact WB solution. This new, comprehensive, objective-measurement approach to WB thus offers comparative, competitive, and website behavioral implications for corporates.


2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 529-543 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jong Seok Lee ◽  
Richard Baskerville ◽  
Jan Pries-Heje

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to suggest that translating a design theory (DT) into practice (e.g. creating an instance design artifact (IDA)) is hardly straight-forward and requires substantial creativity. Specifically the authors suggest that adopting a DT embodies a creativity passdown effect in which the creative thinking of a team of design theorist(s) inherent in DT invokes a creative mind of a team of artifact instance designer(s) in creating an IDA. In this study, the authors empirically investigate the creativity passdown effect through an action case in which a DT (DT nexus) was applied in creating an IDA (multi-outsourcing decision-making tool). Design/methodology/approach – The case methodology applied here is described as an action case. An action case is a hybrid research approach that combines action research and interpretive case approaches. It combines intervention and interpretation in order to achieve both change and understanding. It is a form of soft field experiment with less emphasis on iteration and learning and more on trial and making. The approach is holistic in philosophy, and prediction is not emphasized. The intervention in the case was that of an instance designer team introducing a previously published DT as a basis for creating an IDA. Findings – The experience in the action case suggests that using a DT in creating an IDA may encourage design thinking, and in certain way increase its power and practical relevance by fostering the creative mind of instance designers. Indeed, DTs provide a scientific basis for dealing with an instance problem, and this evokes the creativity mind of instance designers. Without such a scientific basis, it is a lot more challenging for instance artifact designers to deal with instance problems. Research limitations/implications – This study contributes to the literature concerning design science research, as it challenges the notion that adopting scientific design knowledge limits creativity inherent in creating IDA by illustrating creative elements involved in adopting DT as a basis for creating IDAs. Practical implications – This study offers implications to practice, as it provides new insights regarding how DT can be used in instance design activities. Originality/value – A report of this research previously appeared as a conference paper. However, the attached journal version has been completely rewritten to additionally contribute to the literature concerning design science research beyond the conference version. More specifically, in this version, the authors conceptualize adopting a DT to build an IDA as a theoretical basis, and the authors challenge the notion that adopting scientific design knowledge limits creativity inherent in creating IDA by illustrating creative elements involved in executing DT as a basis for creating IDAs.


Author(s):  
Jan Pries-Heje ◽  
Lene Pries-Heje

An interview study focusing on online collaboration in geographically distributed IT development teams in Danske Bank revealed seven problem areas. To cope with the problems the authors applied a design science research approach to construct a conceptual framework for improving online collaboration. The conceptual framework combines a six-phase teambuilding model with six elements of social capital. Thus, in each phase of teambuilding, the online collaborators aim at building up all six elements of social capital. The complete six-by-six framework was successfully tried and diffused throughout Danske Bank. This chapter gives an account of the framework content and the results from the evaluation.


Author(s):  
Muhammad Nazrul Islam ◽  
Franck Tétard

Interface signs are the communication cues of web interfaces, through which users interact. Examples of interface signs are small images, navigational links, buttons and thumbnails. Although intuitive interface signs are crucial elements of a good user interface (UI), prior research ignored these in UI design and usability evaluation process. This chapter outlines how a design science research (DSR) approach is used to develop a Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) artifact (semiotic framework) for design and evaluation of user-intuitive web interface signs. This chapter describes how the principles and guidelines of DSR approach are adopted, while performing the activities of the DSR process model to construct the artifact.


2016 ◽  
pp. 1453-1471
Author(s):  
Katja Lehmann ◽  
Matthias Söllner ◽  
Jan Marco Leimeister

Universities face increasing numbers of students leading to increasingly large lectures, and decreasing interaction and feedback, which are important factors for individual learning success and satisfaction. The use of IT can help in overcoming this challenge by increasing the interaction in large-scale lectures without massively increasing the workload of lecturers. This paper presents the design, use and evaluation of a mobile-learning application aiming to increase the interaction in large-scale lectures and the success of learners. For designing the application, the authors follow a design science research approach. The authors rely on insights from interaction theory as well as requirements gathered from lecturers and students in a focus group workshop. With the implementation, large-scale lecture related limitations can be overcome and the results help lecturers to face the according challenges. The results emphasize the potential of IT for university teaching and provide transferable insights for practical use in other learning scenarios.


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