A paperless office is not only environmentally friendly but also advantageous in many aspects. The digitalisation of documents and corresponding processes saves time, reduces mistakes and therefore realizes cost savings for companies. This time can be invested in better customer management. Real estate companies work with thousands of rented apartments and as many customers and thus have to maintain and manage a lot of customer related data. IT has already created manifold remedies with Enterprise-Resource-Planning (ERP) and CustomerRelationship-Management (CRM) systems and models, but there is still plenty of development potential to be exploited by integrating mobile solutions into the IT architecture. The main challenge thereby is not the programming of an app but the seamless integration into customer processes and the creation of customer acceptance and thus value. Therefore, it is investigated how mobile applications can better control customer processes and whether such an implementation is profitable. For this purpose, typical work and customer processes of real estate companies must be analysed, understood and transferred to appropriate mobile solutions. This paper examines the details which need to be considered in such projects.
The internet of things, digital twins of smart connected products, and thereby enabled smart services are topics of great interest and have been gaining traction for many years. However, many questions concerning the application-oriented usage of digital twins still need to be scrutinized. Therefore, this paper examines the question of an application-oriented framework for value creation with digital twins using design science research approaches. A conceptual reference framework is presented based on earlier research and iteratively developed within workshops with three companies. The framework incorporates primary dimensions of external and internal value creation and data resources. Further, it discusses the product life cycle, the real-world counterpart, value creation in the ecosystem, and the generational aspect of the digital twins. Furthermore, applying the framework to a use case with an industrial research partner helps to show the contributions to the industrial sector. The framework provides utility to practitioners as a means of creating a common sense in interdisciplinary teams, communicating digital twin projects to internal and external stakeholders, and as a toolbox for specific challenges concerning digital twins. In addition, the framework distinguishes itself from existing approaches by including the service ecosystem and its actors while considering the principles of product life cycle management. Therefore, using the framework in other use cases will test the approach on different industries and products. Furthermore, there is a need to develop approaches for implementing and developing an existing case.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.