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The purpose of this paper is to answer two research questions: what are the ERP resources and organizational complementary resources (OCRs) required to achieve each group of benefits? And on the basis of its resources, when should an organization invest more in ERP resources and/or OCRs so that the potential value of its ERP is realised?

Studying 12 organizations in different countries and validating the results with 8 consultants.

ERP benefits realization capability framework is developed; it shows that each group of benefits requires ERP resources (classified into features, attached technologies and information technology department competences) and OCRs (classified into practices, attitudes, culture, skills and organizational characteristics) and that leaping ahead to gain innovation benefits before being mature enough in realising a firm’s planning and automation capabilities could be a waste of time and effort.

It is qualitative study. It needs to be backed by quantitative studies to test the results.

Although the “P” in ERP stands for planning, many academics and practitioners still believe that ERP applies to automation only. This research spotlights that the ability to invest in ERP can increase the innovation and planning capabilities of the organization only if it is extended and grown at the right time and if it is supported by OCRs. It is not cost effective to push an organization to achieve all the benefits at the same time; rather, it is clear that an organization would not be able to enjoy a higher level of benefits until it achieves a significant number of lower-level benefits. Thus, investing in higher-level benefit assets directly after an ERP implementation, when there are no organizational capabilities available to use these assets, could be inefficient. Moreover, it could be stressful to users when they see plenty of new ERP resources without the ability to use them. Although it could be of slight benefit to introduce, for example, business intelligence to employees in the “stabilizing period” (Badewi et al., 2013), from the financial perspective, it is a waste of money since the benefits would not be realised as expected. Therefore, orchestrating ERP assets with the development of organizational capabilities is important for achieving the greatest effectiveness and efficiency of the resources available to the organization. This research can be used as a benchmark for designing the various blueprints required to achieve different groups of benefits from ERP investments.

This research addresses two novel questions: RQ1: what are the ERP resources and OCRs required to achieve the different kinds of ERP benefits? RQ2: when, and on what basis, should an organization deploy more resources to leverage the ERP business value?

The purpose of this paper is to develop a technical product‐service systems (t‐PSS) for the BoX^® (Big OptiX) ultra precision free‐form grinding machine which has been designed and developed at Cranfield University. BoX is a new machine concept where advanced mass production and ultra precision technologies are combined.

This work utilises the machine as a demonstration case study to investigate t‐PSS for the machine tool providers. It develops three t‐PSS business models for the BoX machine: product‐, use‐ and result‐oriented.

The paper discusses the stakeholders' responsibilities, cash flows, application sectors, and consequently benefits and shortcomings of the three business approaches.

The enhancement of competition from low cost economies, vibrant market requirements and increasing customer demands cannot be addressed merely by the latest achievements in technology. As a response to this, the modern manufacturing industry is shifting its orientation towards t‐PSS. t‐PSS is an integrated product and service offering that delivers value in use.

The novelty of this paper lies in identifying and analysing the key implications of t‐PSS on machine tool industry using the BoX machine as an example case study.

This paper aims to thoroughly review the research literature concerning e‐service in the public sector (2000‐2009) for the purpose of summarising and synthesising the arguments and ideas of the main contributors to the development of e‐service research and explore the different perspectives. In addition, the paper attempts to identify the key characteristics of e‐service; and to gather conceptual perspectives on the nature, scope, and transformation to e‐service.

A classification of the relevant publications that are concerned with the theory and application of e‐service is presented together with potential future research areas.

Most of the literature has focused on the underlying perspectives of approaches to e‐service. It clearly acknowledges that contextual issues and factors influence e‐service. However, there is still no standard definition of the concept and vagueness about what exactly e‐service is, creating confusion and comparability issues, and making it difficult for researchers to build on each others' work. In addition, the key underlying theme throughout the literature is that e‐service in the public sector necessitates closer working relationships between government stakeholders.

By reviewing the relevant publications, the paper develops a clear articulation of the concept, nature, boundaries, components, and elements of e‐service which is significant in order to understand the e‐service research better and manage e‐service in the public sector. With a rapid growth in the volume of research output on the topic of e‐service, the paper considers different viewpoints, theories, and methods in e‐service research to date to draw conclusions about current status and possible future directions for e‐service in the public sector.

The purpose of this paper is to present an integrative and detailed review of the critical factors that cause enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation failures, based on an in‐depth literature review (1997‐2009).

Keywords relating to the subject of this paper were defined, and used to search web engines and journal databases for papers on ERP implementation failures. These papers were further analysed and classified into various categories.

Nine factors are found to be critical in the failure of ERP implementations: excessive customisation, dilemma of internal integration, poor understanding of business implications and requirements, lack of change management, poor data quality, misalignment of IT with business, hidden costs, limited training and lack of top management support.

The paper proposes the development of a framework to address each ERP implementation failure factor in its entirety based on the frequency of its occurrence in industry, as a topic for future research.

The paper contributes to research in the ERP domain by highlighting ERP implementation challenges from a critical failure perspective and proportion of the failures, as opposed to presenting critical success factors. Failure factors with examples provides a clearer visibility of the costly damages that can be introduced into organisations in the event that these failures are ignored.

The aim of this research paper is to present the critical factors that constitute a successful implementation of lean manufacturing within manufacturing SMEs.

A combination of comprehensive literature review and visits to ten SMEs based in the East of the UK were employed in the study. The companies' practices were observed to highlight the degree of lean manufacturing utilisation within these companies. This was followed by interviewing of the relevant and key personnel involved in lean implementation. Results were analysed and validated through workshops, case studies and Delphi techniques.

Several critical factors that determine the success of implementing the concept of lean manufacturing within SMEs are identified. Leadership, management, finance organisational culture and skills and expertise, amongst other factors; are classified as the most pertinent issues critical for the successful adoption of lean manufacturing within SMEs environment.

Continued scepticism within SMEs about the benefits of lean to their business is one of the fundamental limitations this research faces. SMEs are, therefore, not very willing to provide useful information and data, timely for further investigation.

The novelty of this research project stems from the realisation of critical factors determining a successful implementation of lean manufacturing within SMEs environment. The results would provide SMEs with indicators and guidelines for a successful implementation of lean principles.

Numerous leanness assessment models were developed for both manufacturing and service sectors. However, little research effort was made to provide an instrument that can be used to measure the leanness level of the product-service system (PSS). This paper aims to propose an index to assess the leanness of PSS in a UK manufacturing company.

The development of the assessment model was carried out through an iterative process. Commencing from existing literature on lean manufacturing assessment and lean service assessment, the initial model for assessing PSS leanness was developed. This initial model was refined via two consecutive phases. The first one includes semi-structured interviews with academic researchers involved in lean projects where their comments were considered. In the second phase, semi-structured interviews with several experts working in different UK manufacturing industries and involved in lean and continuous improvement projects were conducted to reach the final assessment model. After developing the model, the next step was identifying a suitable company for applying the model. The case company was selected because of its commitment to implement lean practices and its ability to participate in this study. After that, data was collected from the case company and the PSS leanness index was calculated using a multi-grade fuzzy approach. Finally, areas for further improvement were identified and the results obtained were validated.

The PSS leanness index computed for the case company indicates that the service offering process provided by the company is generally lean. Areas for further improvement were identified.

This study focussed on a single case company and is based on the experts’ opinions; this may tend to be biased. However, future studies will be performed to multiple-case studies to enhance findings and more empirical research will be conducted to catch more insights into PSS leanness.

This paper provides guidelines to manufacturing companies’ managers for measuring the PSS leanness index and planning for the future. This index gives information regarding the degree of lean adoption in the service offering process and identifying the gap between the current PSS leanness level and the desired state.

The proposed model has been developed by the opinion of academicians and industry experts. The proposed model can provide guidelines and directions for managers for PSS leanness assessment.

The purpose of this paper is to present a multi‐expert system that can provide designers with suggestions for improvement. The multi‐expert system can analyse a design and provide designers with ideas for changes to designs at an early stage in order to improve assembly later in the manufacturing process.

The whole system consists of four expert systems: computer‐aided design (CAD) expert, automated assembly expert, manual assembly expert and design analysis expert. The design analysis expert includes a sub‐system to collate the information from the assembly experts and to provide costs and advice.

The paper finds that the approach and the systems can reduce manufacturing costs and lead times.

A knowledge‐based reckoning approach to design‐for‐assembly automation is used. The approach and systems can reduce manufacturing costs and lead times. The system can estimate assembly time and cost for manual or automatic assembly and select suitable assembly techniques.

The system can estimate assembly time and cost for manual or automatic assembly and select a suitable assembly technique.

The new system models assembly, product and process design using a natural approach for capturing intelligence. The new approach categorised automated assembly and manual assembly into separate individual experts. Intelligence and knowledge from each is captured and embedded within the individual expert that represented the process. This approach enabled greater flexibility and made the sub‐systems easier to modify, upgrade, extend and reuse.

The purpose of this paper is to present an artificial intelligent (AI) system for estimating the construction cost of water and sewer rehabilitation projects.

To develop the proposed system, data pertaining to 54 sewer and water rehabilitation projects was collected. The collected data were analyzed using Pareto analysis technique to identify the most important factors that contribute positively to the cost estimation process. These factors were then utilized to develop a neural network (NN) model that estimates the construction cost of this class of projects.

The study reveals a set of 23 factors that highly impact the construction cost of water and sewer network rehabilitation projects and presents a NN model that predicts the cost of these projects with high accuracy.

The proposed system was developed using information obtained from the city of San Diego, California, USA. The cost of these projects ranged from $800,000 to $7 million. The diameter of pipes installed in these projects ranged from 1 in. to 36 in. and their length was up to about 2.7 miles.

The developed system saves time, improves the accuracy of the estimates and prevents problems that are usually associated with inaccurate estimates. The system will not only help funding authorities to ensure maximum utilization of resources, but will also help cities to manage their expenditures in a manner that assures satisfactory performance of their buried assets. Furthermore, the developed system is also believed to assist cities in comparing alternatives and the go/no‐go decision making process.

The purpose of this paper is first, to develop a methodological framework for conducting a comprehensive literature review on an empirical phenomenon based on a vast amount of papers published. Second, to use this framework to gain an understanding of the current state of the enterprise resource planning (ERP) research field, and third, based on the literature review, to develop a conceptual framework identifying areas of concern with regard to ERP systems.

Abstracts from 885 peer‐reviewed journal publications from 2000 to 2009 have been analysed according to journal, authors and year of publication, and further categorised into research discipline, research topic and methods used, using the structured methodological framework.

The body of academic knowledge about ERP systems has reached a certain maturity and several different research disciplines have contributed to the field from different points of view using different methods, showing that the ERP research field is very much an interdisciplinary field. It demonstrates that the number of ERP publications has decreased, and it indicates that the academic interest in ERP is driven by an interest in an empirical phenomenon rather than that ERP is a new research discipline. Different research topics of interest are identified and used in developing a conceptual framework for “areas of concern” regarding ERP systems. Finally the usefulness of the framework is confirmed by analysing one specific aspect of ERP research; business process reengineering (BPR) to establish which theories different authors and journals have used in their efforts to explore BPR and ERP.

The findings of the literature study, the structured methodological framework for comprehensive literature review and the conceptual framework identifying different areas of concern are believed to be useful for other researchers in their effort to obtain an overview of the evolution of the ERP research field and in positioning their own ERP research.

The paper provides guidance for researchers with insight into what has been published, where to publish ERP‐related research and how to study it, and in positioning their own interest in ERP systems in the interdisciplinary research field. Access to the EndNote database containing bibliographical data of more than 880 papers can be used in future research and literature analysis. For managers, the conceptual framework can be useful in increasing their understanding of the complexity and areas of concern with regard to the ERP system.

The paper presents a structured methodological framework for analysing a vast amount of academic publications with an interest in an empirical phenomenon, demonstration of how academic interdisciplinary interest in ERP has evolved over time and reached a certain amount of maturity and a conceptual framework of areas of concern with regard to ERP systems.