A Survey On Virtual Organizations

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A Survey OnVirtual Organizations

• Information Systems Integration Research Lab.
• Graduate School of Management
• Ahn Hyung Jun

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Contents

• 1. Introduction
• - Concept of virtual organization
• 2. AI and Virtual Organizations
• - Computer science aspects
• 3. Virtual Enterprise
• - Business domain aspects
• 4. Virtual Education Environment
• - Education domain aspects
• 5. Conclusion

Review of Research Papers
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1. Introduction

• Definition of Organization(Organizational Theory)
• An organization is a tool used by people
  individually or in groups to accomplish a wide
  variety of goals.
• Goal People
• ex) Business organization, education
  organization, and etc
• Virtual organization
• Not a whole-new organization
• The word Virtual is from Virtual Reality
  paradigm, but the technology is far from being
  applied to virtual organizations.
• Traditional organization Information Technology
• Information Technology CMC(Computer Mediated
  Communication), Database, Agent technology, and
  etc.

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• The birth of Virtual Organization
• Need-driven Global competition, distributed
  business environment
• Technology-driven CMC, WWW, Agent, Database,
  and etc.
• Virtual Organization Concept(Mowshowitz, 1997)
• Dynamic allocation of resources to satisfiers
• Switching
• Enabled by information technology(IT lowers the
  switching cost)
• Example of virtual constructs
• Virtual memory, network switching, virtual team,
  virtual reality

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2. AI and Virtual Organization

• OLeary and et.al, Communications of the ACM,
  Jan. 1997
• Virtual Organization
• Not a new concept
• Developed with the rapid growth of IT
• WWW and AI technologies.
• WWW as an information exchange infra.
• AI as a resource brokering tool
• Brief introduction on
• Virtual organization, virtual laboratories,
  virtual offices, virtual manufacturing
  organizations, concurrent engineering projects,
  virtual classroom, and virtual training
  environment.

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2-1.Virtual Organizations

• Virtual Organizations(Companies)
• Agile Cable Production Service(ACaPS) Lockheed
• Using WWW, improve quality and reduce cycle time
  between delivery and order
• CommerceNet, Part.net Electronic Commerce
• Supporting commerce by virtual organizations
• Virtual Laboratories
• Sharing remote research information
• NVL(National Virtual Laboratory), VILAN(Virtual
  Lab. Notebook)
• VILAN
• Data source wrapper agent - encapsulating various
  heterogeneous data
• Broker agent - brokers requests from users to
  data source agents

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2-2. Virtual Office Systems

• Virtual Office Systems
• To support business processes covering boundaries
  of vendors, customers, intermediary
  organizations.
• Procurement process
• Typically, steeped in bureaucracies of
  interlinking departments and companies
• Long chains of approvals. Long delays
• Just-in-time and Just-enough-inventory systems
  require better procurement system
• SmartProcurement system
• Autonomous intelligent agent
• Developed in conjunction with CommerNet
• An automated brokering process between purchaser
  and provider
• RFQ(Request for Quotation) -gt Bid list from
  vendors -gt Bid selection -gt Notification

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2-3. Concurrent Engineering Projects

• Concurrent Engineering Projects
• Concurrent engineering
• For virtual teams that are loosely coupled and
  widely distributed
• MADE(Manufacturing Automation and Design
  Engineering)
• Next generation design environment
• PACT(Palo Alto Collaborative Testbed)
• Cooperative research and knowledge sharing
• KQML(Knowledge Query Manipulation Language),
  KIF(Knowledge Interchange Format)
• SHADE(SHAred Dependency Engineering)
• Information sharing, extending some of the work
  in PACT
• Intelligent broker between consumers and
  providers of information
• Shared ontology development within accepted and
  formally defined representations and vocabularies
• MADE,PACT, SHADE provides means for organizations
  to develop agent-based virtual organizations
  (ARPA)

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2-4. Virtual Manufacturing Organizations

• Virtual Manufacturing Organizations
• Problem
• Resource utilization is hard to make because of
  the variation in manufacturing demand
• AIMS(Agile Infrastructure for Manufacturing
  Systems)
• Enterprise Integration Technology, Lockheed,
  General Motors, and Texas Instruments
• Using SHADE and MADE approach
• Internet based infrastructure to enable companies
  share complementary resources
• Information Agent, Aggregator agent, User
  Programmable Agent, Engineering Database Agent
• Manufacturing process Procurement Process

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2-5. Virtual Classrooms

• Virtual Classrooms and Individualized Learning
• CAETI(Computer Assisted Education and Training
  Initiative)
• Supports individualized learning regardless of
  the availability of local resources as well as
  enhancing group training and education through
  multiuser environments and simulation
• EAGIL(Expert Associates Guide to Individualized
  Learning)
• student progress control, individualized learning
• CAPER(Collaborative Applications for
  Project-based Education Resources)
• Authentic multimedia, synthetic environments
• SNAIR(Smart Navigators to Access and Integrate
  Resources)
• Agent-based information navigation and search
  tool for students and teachers

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2-6. Virtual Environments for Training

• Virtual Environment for Training(VETs)
• Integration of virtual reality and intelligent
  tutoring
• Orbital mechanics, pilot training, and etc.

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3. Structural and Managerial Aspects of Virtual
Enterprise

• A Working Paper
• Frank-O.Zimmerman 1997.
• Cost engineering -gt Revenue engineering
• Cost engineering Reengineering,
  Process-orientation, TQM
• Revenue engineering The issue of gaining
  strategic competitive advantages with the
  existing resources.
• Virtual enterprise
• Create new markets
• Offers new products(value added)
• Assure flexibility

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• Birth of virtual enterprise
• 1) Changing market condition
• 2) Enabling IT developments
• Virtual Enterprise is not
• A complete novelty
• Rather a IT-induced business reconfiguration
• A ready-made solution for every entrepreneurial
  problem
• Suitable only if the characteristics of virtual
  enterprise are demanded.

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3-1. Five-Layer model of IT-induced Business
reconfiguration
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3-2. Perspectives of Organizational development
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3-3. Views to Virtual enterprise

• Institutional view
• Legally independent units
• Complemental best-of-class competencies
• Temporary
• Resource,knowledge,risk sharing
• Use of IT
• No competition/common business purpose
• No governance, control/Based on trust

• Functional view
• Attribute of every organization
• external and internal constituencies
• Assembling required critical competencies
• Requires learning and adaptive orientation
• Superior information processing capabilities
• Value-adding business processes

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3-4. Concept of Virtual Enterprise
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3-5. Life-cycle of Virtual enterprise
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4. An Electronic Infrastructure for a Virtual
University

• Ramnath, Anitesh, and Andrew, Commnucations of
  the ACM, Sep. 1997
• E3(Electronic Education Environment) at
  University of Texas at Austin to support
  processes in VU(Virtual University)
• Virtual University
• Instead of campus, professors offices, or a
  library
• Electronic workspaces and global libraries
• Not a terminal degree program
• Providing contents by customizing massive
  resources
• E3 consists of
• Collaboratory, payment system, document filtering
  system and etc.

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• Virtual organization model from Mowshowitz.
• the management of goal-oriented activity is
  independent of the means for its realization
• Independence of demand from supply
• Switching to combination of resources that best
  meets current demand requirements
• Similar concepts to VU

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4-1.

• E3 infrastructure in practice
• 1) Internet surveys to determine demand for
  various types of content
• 2) Search for content providers with software
  agents
• 3) Preliminary check of contents by
  administration
• 4) Reviewers review contents and attach comments
• 5) Administration interacts with content
  providers regarding acceptance and compensation
• 6) When student registers, one or more
  instructors are automatically assigned
• Implementation on
• WWW, Commercial DBMS(Oracle), Internet
  conferencing systems

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5. Conclusion
- Comparison of VR and VO
Virtual Reality Virtual Organization
- High-presence
- Organizational efficiency - Organizational
competitiveness
Goal
- CMC - WWW - Agent - DBMS
- Computer graphics - Computer animation - HCI
Technology
- Business organization - Manufacturing
organization - Educational organization
- Entertainment - Training - Demonstration
Application Domain
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Virtual Reality
Virtual Organization
- CSCW(Computer Supported Collaborative Work) -
Concurrent Engineering(design) - Tele-operation
for Virtual manufacturing - Networked VR
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• At this point, there exists a gap b/w virtual
  reality and virtual organization.
• With the development of Networked VR and
  Collaborative VR, the relationship b/w VR and
  Virtual Organization will get closer.
• In the aspect of Moshowitzs model
• Rich incorporation of resources into virtual
  organization
• Lower cognitive cost to switching than current
  CMC.