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Depending on the load the flux‐density distribution inside power transformers core shows significant local variations due to stray fluxes which enter the transformer core. As saturation of the core has to be avoided the flux‐density distribution has to be determined early in the design stage of the transformer. This paper seeks to address these issues.

To determine the load dependent flux‐density distribution the operating point of the transformer is calculated considering linear and non‐linear material properties. The operating point is determined using a linearised lumped parameter model of the transformer under various load conditions. Considering non‐linear material properties the inductance matrix depends on the operating point and will be extracted by means of the FEM whenever the magnetic energy within the transformer changes notably.

This paper presents a numerical stable approach to calculate the operating point of a transformer by using the magnetic flux linkage as state variable for the coupled field problem.

The proposed approach uses a fixed time‐step to update the lumped parameters by means of the FEM. This results in long simulation times. In further research it is planned to implement an adaptive time‐step method based on the change of the magnetic energy.

A numerical stable approach to calculate the operating point of a transformer by using the magnetic flux linkage as state variable for the coupled field problem is proposed. The methodology is applied to a 2D model of a three‐phase transformer. However, it also can be applied to 3D FE models. Based on the calculated operating point, the flux‐density distribution can be determined and several post‐processing methods can be executed (e.g. determination of core losses, …).

A fundamental disadvantage of three‐dimensional finite element (FE) simulations is high computational cost when compared to two‐dimensional models. The purpose of this paper is to present an approach to minimize the computation time by achieving the same simulation accuracy.

The applied approach for avoiding high computational cost is the multi‐slice method. This paper presents the adoption of this method to a tubular linear motor.

It is demonstrated that the multi‐slice method is applicable for tubular linear motors. Furthermore, the number of slices and thereby computation time is minimized at the same accuracy of the simulation results.

The results of this paper offer a faster computation of skewed linear motors. At this juncture, the results are independent from the deployed FE solver.

The methods developed and proved permit a faster and more accurate design of tubular linear motors.

The purpose of this paper is to explore scenario development (SD) as a method for engaging known challenges in collaborative research projects, i.e. SD is the construct under investigation.

Criticism of the dominant, rational approach to project management (PM) and its underlying hypotheses highlights a considerable PM research gap for research projects (research problem). The authors undertake a six-step constructive research approach to investigate if SD (the construct) constitutes a fruitful method to support the management of collaborative research projects. A two-part literature review summarizes known challenges in collaborative research projects and introduces the history and application of SD methodology. The work includes participatory action research (PAR) in two case studies, constituting a qualitative research method.

The authors found the SD method to be useful for structuring and analyzing intuitive project processes. However, using SD in the management of single projects presents some fundamental challenges. SD, like PM, struggles with issues related to myopic decisions, a “predict and provide” attitude with clear aspects of path dependency in the project front-end as well as inconsistent and/or missing identification of success criteria among different stakeholders.

This paper does not provide any comprehensive, normative account of scenario techniques or compare SD with other foresight and future studies methods. Although PAR is in itself a research method that demands systematic description and execution, the focus of this paper is the overall constructive research approach.

The paper offers a broadened repertoire of methods to describe and analyse project stakeholder situations (collaborative aspects) and to structure and balance the need for both rational and intuitive project processes (research aspects). The SD method also supports development of graphical storylines and facilitates the use of influence diagrams, event trees and cost/benefit analysis.

Although PM literature contains several references to SD, the practical application of SD at single-project level has, to the authors’ knowledge, never been described in the PM literature.

To measure the success of corporate social software (CSS), interviews, surveys, content and usage data analysis have been commonly used in practice. While interviews and surveys are only capable of making perceived use and benefits transparent, usage data analysis reveals many objective facts but does not allow insights into potential user-benefits. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to link both perspectives to advance CSS success measuring.

The research case is References+, a Corporate Social Software developed at Siemens to facilitate worldwide sharing of knowledge, experiences, and best practices since 2005. References+ currently has around 15,000 registered members located in more than 80 countries. This paper evaluates results from a user survey with nearly 1,500 responding employees and links all survey results to the corresponding participant’s data on platform use to generate additional insights.

The paper generates findings on how CSS is used in practice and how it is perceived by employees of a large-scale enterprise. Furthermore, it explores how a combination of subjective and objective evaluation methods can be applied to advance the state-of-the-art in measuring use and benefits. By linking CSS usage data to corresponding survey data, the paper provides results on what type of use of CSS may create what type of benefit.

This study encourages practitioners to take advantage of a variety of instruments for measuring the benefits of CSS. It generates numerous arguments for practitioners on how to make the benefit of CSS more transparent to financial-oriented decision-makers to successfully defend knowledge management projects against shrinking IT budgets.

This paper is one of the first attempts to explore the relationship between “perceived use” and “perceived benefits” measured by surveys and “factual use” measured by CSS usage statistics for knowledge management research. The findings of this paper may empower the role of user surveys in generating additional insights on use and benefits.

The technological innovation of Software as a Service-Enterprise Resource Planning (SaaS-ERP) opens several relative advantages, which may be realized by choosing the proper operation mode. Thus a company looking for a new ERP system faces the question: When and under what conditions does it make sense to choose a SaaS-ERP system? The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The relative advantage criterion of the diffusion of innovation theory, derived as operation mode differences, determine the conditions under which SaaS- or On-Premise-ERP is preferable: a classification of all main systemic operation mode differences between SaaS and On-Premise for the more complex ERP systems is presented. The systemic differences were identified by analytic generalization using triangulation between a literature review and a multiple case study with four ERP producers.

The most significant decision factors between ERP operation modes are flexibility, customization, cost, and operation and maintenance. General strategies have been derived by bringing the theoretical reasons together with the operation mode difference criteria. Typical criteria for selecting SaaS-ERP are a lack of IT-capacity or capabilities, as well as high need for flexibility, due to business development, seasonality, growth, collaboration and/or expansion. On-Premise-ERPs should be selected if specific or strategic resources would be outsourced or when major customization is a need.

Case research is limited in that it reveals only ERP producers’ view and omits outlying cases.

The findings implicate that ERP selecting customers should consider and expand their criteria for ERP selection by operation mode criteria.

The classification of the most essential operation mode differences allows, for the first time, ERP selecting customers to design selection strategies. ERP selecting companies should strategically favor the operation mode that best suits their respective organizational characteristics so as to obtain the best possible support from the ERP operation modes.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the status quo with regards to business process management (BPM) and collaboration and to show potential fields of future research in the area of collaborative BPM.

To obtain results, authors employ the method of a systematic literature review using relevant existing guidelines. They not only search leading journals and conferences in the fields but also in ISI web of knowledge's web of science. Subsuming, 39 relevant articles are selected and analyzed with regards to concepts identified upfront.

The paper finds that collaborative BPM is a growing trend in information systems research, but that there still exist significant research gaps. Hence, it proposes a research agenda consisting out of five action fields pointing at potentially fruitful directions for future research.

First, this paper provides an overview of the status quo in the field of collaborative BPM to young scholars. Second, it identifies five distinct research gaps that could be worth studying. However, this paper may be limited by the choice of dimensions and the selection of relevant articles.

This paper informs practitioners about the status quo of research on collaborative BPM. Here, especially the analysis in the dimensions collaboration partner and BPM goals can help to evaluate the practitioner's strategy.

The results of this paper present the status quo of collaborative BPM literature. Hence, it also identifies research gaps and derives a research agenda.