Measuring Technology Maturity


Book Description

Till Albert presents a machine learning based approach to harnessing information contained in big data from different media sources such as patents, scientific publications, or the internet. He shows how this information can be used for automated maturity evaluation of yet unknown technologies. Elaborate patent based indicators contain very useful information on technological aspects of maturity but lack for others such as social, economic, ecological, or political factors. The approach presented in this book is able to incorporate these other factors and provide a firm basis for robust technology maturity and speed of maturity evaluation.




Ensuring Sustainability


Book Description

This book presents a selection of the best papers given at the XXIV International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Industrial Management. The conference is promoted by ADINGOR (Asociación para el Desarrollo de la Ingeniería de Organización) and organized by the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. It took place at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (Leganés, Spain) in July 2020. Ensuring Sustainability embodies the latest advances in research and cutting-edge analyses of real case studies in industrial engineering and operations management from diverse international contexts. It also identifies business applications for the latest findings and innovations in operations management and the decision sciences.




Measuring the Digital Transformation A Roadmap for the Future


Book Description

Measuring the Digital Transformation: A Roadmap for the Future provides new insights into the state of the digital transformation by mapping indicators across a range of areas – from education and innovation, to trade and economic and social outcomes – against current digital policy issues, as presented in Going Digital: Shaping Policies, Improving Lives.




Did I Ever Tell You about the Whale?


Book Description

Foreword by: James W. Bilbro Technology maturity: What is it, and why is it important? For more than ten years, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has criticized federal agencies for a history of cost and schedule overruns on a significant portion of their procurement programs. GAO has repeatedly reported that the use of immature technologies in programs is a primary cause for these overruns. In spite of these repeated reports, the problems in government procurement have not improved. In fact, recent reports indicate that the problems are getting worse. One cause of this worsening situation might be that, while GAO identified lack of technology maturity as a problem, they did not tell how to measure technology maturity, or conversely, its lack. This groundbreaking work attempts to fill this gap by examining the current state of technology maturity measurement, pointing out strengths and weaknesses of available measures, and proposing a complete technology maturity assessment as a potential solution. The book also includes a discussion of risk during technology development.




Software Measurement


Book Description

Software developers are faced with the challenge of making software systems and products of ever greater quality and safety, while at the same time being faced with the growing pressure of costs reduction in order to gain and maintain competitive advantages. As in any scientific and engineering discipline, reliable measurement is essential for talking on such a challenge. "Software measurement is an excellent abstraction mechanism for learning what works and what doesn't" (Victor Basili). Measurement of both software process and products provides a large amount of basic information for the evaluation of the software development processes or the software products themselves. Examples of recent successes in software measurement span multiple areas, such as evaluation of new development methods and paradigms, quality and management improvement programs, tool-supporting initiatives and company wide measurement programs. The German Computer Science Interest (GI) Group of Software Metrics and the Canadian Interest Group in Software Metrics (CIM) have attended to these concerns in the recent years. Research initiatives were directed initially to the definition of software metrics and then to validation of the software metrics themselves. This was followed by more and more investigation into practical applications of software metrics and by critical analysis of the benefits and weaknesses of software measurement programs. Key findings in this area of software engineering have been published in some important books, such as Dumke and Zuse's Theory and Practice of Software Measurement, Ebert and Dumke's Software Metrics in Practice and Lehner, Dumke and Abran's Software Metrics.




Measuring Value and Efficiency


Book Description




Defense Acquisitions: Measuring the Value of DoD¿s Weapon Programs Requires Starting with Realistic Baselines


Book Description

In 2006, the cumulative cost growth in DoD¿s portfolio of 96 major defense acquisition programs was $296 billion and the average delay in delivering promised capabilities to the warfighter was 22 months. These are very poor outcomes. The auditor has used metrics to review the mgmt. and health of these programs from within the framework of best practices. This testimony discusses: (1) ¿knowledge metrics,¿ used to determine how well programs manage tech., design, and manufacturing risks; (2) outcome metrics -- concerning cost, schedule, and capability -- that serve as ¿health indicators¿ of how well programs are being executed in terms of predicted outcomes; and (3) the prerequisites that must be met in order for a program¿s plans and goals to be realistic.




Offshore Renewable Energy


Book Description

Wave, tidal and offshore wind technologies have long held the promise of seemingly limitless energy supplies. In practice, while offshore wind is growing relatively rapidly, all three sectors have lagged behind expectations. This book, from the International Energy Authority Renewable Energy Technology Deployment implementing agreement (IEA-RETD), examines the reasons for this and suggests how barriers to deployment might be overcome. Beginning with an assessment of the marine energy resource, it provides a detailed introduction to the main technologies currently being employed to harness wind, tidal and offshore wind power. It then examines the types of policies which are used to encourage deployment around the world, and progress towards meeting targets. The economics of offshore energy projects are discussed, along with risks that projects face and the types of finance which are available. A final section turns to barriers - both technical and non-technical (including environmental, health and safety, skill related, supply chain and more) - and in all cases suggests how to mitigate and remove these barriers. Highly illustrated in full colour, this is an indispensable resource for anyone - whether in industry, policy or academia - looking to learn more about how deployment of offshore renewable energy technologies can be encouraged.




Transforming Performance Measurement


Book Description

Performance improvement thought leader Dean Spitzer explains why performance measurement should be less about calculations and analysis and more about the crucial social factors that determine how well the measurements get used. Transforming Performance Measurement presents a breakthrough approach that will not only significantly reduce those dysfunctions, but also promote alignment with business strategy, maximize cross-enterprise integration, and help everyone to work collaboratively to drive value throughout your organization. Spitzer’s "socialization of measurement" process focuses on learning and improvement from measurement, and on the importance of asking such questions as: How well do our measures reflect our business model? How successfully are they driving our strategy? What should we be measuring and not measuring? Are the right people having the right measurement discussions? Performance measurement is a dynamic process that calls for an awareness of the balance necessary between seemingly disparate ideas: the technical and the social aspects of performance measurement. This book gives you assessment tools to gauge where you are now and a roadmap for moving, with little or no disruption, to a more "transformational" and mature measurement system. The book also provides 34 TMAPs, Transformational Measurement Action Plans, which suggest both well-accepted and "emergent" measures (in areas such as marketing, human resources, customer service, knowledge management, productivity, information technology, research and development, costing, and more) that you can use right away. Transforming Performance Measurement tells you not only what to measure, but how to do it -- and in what context -- to make a truly transformational difference in your enterprise.




Software Process Improvement and Capability Determination


Book Description

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Software Process Improvement and Capability Determination, SPICE 2017, held in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, in October 2017. The 34 full papers presented together with 4 short papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 65 submissions. The papers are organized in the following topical sections: SPI in agile approaches; SPI in small settings; SPI and assessment; SPI and models; SPI and functional safety; SPI in various settings; SPI and gamification; SPI case studies; strategic and knowledge issues in SPI; education issues in SPI.