scholarly journals Drivers of Automation and Consequences for Jobs in Engineering Services: An Agent-Based Modelling Approach

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hildegunn Kyvik Nordås ◽  
Franziska Klügl
Keyword(s):  
Software Development ◽  
Software Maintenance ◽  
Economies Of Scale ◽  
Business Models ◽  
Manufacturing Firms ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Base Line ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Software Model ◽  
Engineering Services

New technology is of little use if it is not adopted, and surveys show that less than 10% of firms use Artificial Intelligence. This paper studies the uptake of AI-driven automation and its impact on employment, using a dynamic agent-based model (ABM). It simulates the adoption of automation software as well as job destruction and job creation in its wake. There are two types of agents: manufacturing firms and engineering services firms. The agents choose between two business models: consulting or automated software. From the engineering firms’ point of view, the model exhibits static economies of scale in the software model and dynamic (learning by doing) economies of scale in the consultancy model. From the manufacturing firms’ point of view, switching to the software model requires restructuring of production and there are network effects in switching. The ABM matches engineering and manufacturing agents and derives employment of engineers and the tasks they perform, i.e. consultancy, software development, software maintenance, or employment in manufacturing. We find that the uptake of software is gradual; slow in the first few years and then accelerates. Software is fully adopted after about 18 years in the base line run. Employment of engineers shifts from consultancy to software development and to new jobs in manufacturing. Spells of unemployment may occur if skilled jobs creation in manufacturing is slow. Finally, the model generates boom and bust cycles in the software sector.

On the Maturity of Software Maintenance and Other IT Services

2011 ◽  
pp. 51-74
Author(s):  
Frank Niessink
Keyword(s):  
Service Quality ◽  
Software Development ◽  
Software Maintenance ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Technical Quality ◽  
It Services ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Functional Quality

In this chapter, we examine the differences between software maintenance and software development from a service point of view, and the consequences thereof for the maturity of software maintenance organizations. We argue that software maintenance can be seen as providing a service, whereas software development is primarily concerned with the development of products. Differences between products and services affect the way in which customers assess their respective quality. In particular, service quality is assessed in two dimensions: the technical quality — what the result of the service is — and the functional quality — how the service is delivered. Consequently, customers will judge the quality of software maintenance differently from that of software development. This in turn means that to deliver high quality results in software maintenance, both the functional quality and the technical quality dimension are important.

What Kind of Firms Has Investment Programs in the Crisis Times and What Kind of Barriers Do They Face?

2009 ◽  
pp. 100-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Yakovlev
Keyword(s):  
Manufacturing Firms ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Current Crisis ◽  
Doing Business

The paper considers the behavior of Russian enterprises during the current crisis using the data of the latest survey of 1000 manufacturing firms. Special attention is paid to features of firms planning big investment for the next 12 months. The links between current investment plans, previous investment in 2005-2008 and other factors are shown. Finally we analyze the most important barriers for doing business from the point of view of investors.

scholarly journals Relationship lending and the use of trade credit: the role of relational capital and private information

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierluigi Murro ◽  
Valentina Peruzzi
Keyword(s):  
Private Information ◽  
Business Models ◽  
Trade Credit ◽  
Banking Regulation ◽  
Manufacturing Firms ◽  
Soft Information ◽  
Relational Capital ◽  
Relationship Lending ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Italian Manufacturing Firms

AbstractUsing a unique sample of Italian manufacturing firms, we investigate the impact of relationship lending on firms’ use of trade credit. We find that firms maintaining close and long-lasting relationships with their main banks are associated with higher amounts of trade credit extended by suppliers. This result is robust to alternative measures of trade credit and relationship lending, and to different estimation techniques. We also analyze the mechanisms driving the association between relationship lending and the use of trade credit. Regression results suggest that the positive link between accounts payable and relationship lending is especially significant for firms that use to provide soft information to their lenders and for companies with greater relational abilities.Plain English Summary The existence of close and long lasting lending relationships positively affects the amount of trade credit manufacturing firms receive from their suppliers. By relying on the Survey on Italian Manufacturing Firms, we show that the positive link between relationship lending and the use of trade credit is driven by two channels: private information and relational capital. In a policy perspective, our findings reveal a need for banking regulation and supervision to encompass banking business models in evaluating banks. The current approach might not be suitable for local banks investing in soft information acquisition and could weaken SMEs’ chances to receive both bank financing and trade credit from suppliers. Moreover, from a managerial point of view, our results uncover the relevance of firms’ ability to create strong relationships with banks, suppliers, and other companies that may help alleviating financial constraints.

Servitization of Industry: New Evidence

2021 ◽  
Vol 65 (8) ◽  
pp. 22-30
Author(s):  
V. Kondrat’ev ◽  
G. Kedrova ◽  
V. Popov
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
Business Models ◽  
Manufacturing Firms ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
New Economic Policy ◽  
Firm Level ◽  
Policy Regime ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
New Business ◽  
Use Of Services

A significant increase in the use of services is observed for some industries in GVCs (Global Value Chains). The paper has shed light on important dimension of the servitization which is the sale and export of services by manufacturing firms, often bundled together with goods. Firm-level data confirm that many firms are involved both in the production of goods and services and that there are complementarities between these activities. Not only manufacturing firms are involved in the distribution, transport and logistics services needed for their international operations in GVCs but also, they provide installation, maintenance, repair services as well as a variety of other business support and complementary services that increase value for their customers. The servitization has important policy implications, particularly when taking into account the fact that trade in services is generally more restricted than trade in goods. As the lines between goods and services are blurred, economic policy today might be more challenging than in the past, particularly for companies moving to new business models that imply more interactions with customers and a more intensive use of digital technologies. Services themselves are split into different modes of supply for which there are different levels of economic policy. A closer look at the mechanisms of value creation in the case of services suggests that there are still the needs of new economic policy addressed at business models described as value networks or value shops. As technologies become more disruptive and more companies move to ‘servicified’ GVCs, the need for a more consistent international economic policy regime, particularly at the multilateral level, will become more urgent.

scholarly journals Measuring Models

2009 ◽  
pp. 147-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Monperrus ◽  
Jean-Marc Jézéquel ◽  
Joël Champeau ◽  
Brigitte Hoeltzener
Keyword(s):  
Quality Assurance ◽  
Software Development ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Specific Information ◽  
Model Driven Engineering ◽  
Text Documents ◽  
Model Driven ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
Wide Range

Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) is an approach to software development that uses models as primary artifacts, from which code, documentation and tests are derived. One way of assessing quality assurance in a given domain is to define domain metrics. We show that some of these metrics are supported by models. As text documents, models can be considered from a syntactic point of view i.e., thought of as graphs. We can readily apply graph-based metrics to them, such as the number of nodes, the number of edges or the fan-in/fan-out distributions. However, these metrics cannot leverage the semantic structuring enforced by each specific metamodel to give domain specific information. Contrary to graph-based metrics, more specific metrics do exist for given domains (such as LOC for programs), but they lack genericity. Our contribution is to propose one metric, called s, that is generic over metamodels and allows the easy specification of an open-ended wide range of model metrics.

scholarly journals Dependability Modeling and Assessment in UML-Based Software Development

2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simona Bernardi ◽  
José Merseguer ◽  
Dorina C. Petriu
Keyword(s):  
Software Development ◽  
Formal Model ◽  
General Purpose ◽  
Software Modeling ◽  
Model Driven ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
Software Model ◽  
Software Models ◽  
Assessment Approach ◽  
System Properties

Assessment of software nonfunctional properties (NFP) is an important problem in software development. In the context of model-driven development, an emerging approach for the analysis of different NFPs consists of the following steps: (a) to extend the software models with annotations describing the NFP of interest; (b) to transform automatically the annotated software model to the formalism chosen for NFP analysis; (c) to analyze the formal model using existing solvers; (d) to assess the software based on the results and give feedback to designers. Such a modeling→analysis→assessment approach can be applied to any software modeling language, be it general purpose or domain specific. In this paper, we focus on UML-based development and on the dependability NFP, which encompasses reliability, availability, safety, integrity, and maintainability. The paper presents the profile used to extend UML with dependability information, the model transformation to generate a DSPN formal model, and the assessment of the system properties based on the DSPN results.

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