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This report provides an overview of the program, discussions, and outcomes of Dagstuhl Seminar 15091 "Smart Buildings and Smart Grids", which took place from 22-27 February 2015 at Schloss Dagstuhl - Leibniz Center for Informatics. The main goal of the seminar was to provide a forum for leading Energy Informatics (EI) researchers to discuss their recent research on Smart Buildings and Smart Grids, to further elaborate EI research agenda and methods, and to kick-start new research projects with industry. The report contains abstracts of talks that were held by the participants and the outcomes of several discussion sessions on the focal topics of the seminar (e.g., information technology driven developments in building and power system management, as well as cross-cutting topics, such as computer networks, data management, and system design.

Diese Dissertation beschäftigt sich mit den Auswirkungen der Radiofrequenzidentifikation (RFID) auf das Lieferkettenmanagement. Wir entwickeln mehrere ökonomische Modelle zur quantitativen Evaluation der RFID-Technologie und den strategischen Implikationen ihres unternehmensübergreifenden Einsatzes. Dabei wenden wir uns insbesondere folgenden Forschungsfragen zu: (i) Welcher ökonomische Wert kann durch den Einsatz von RFID entlang der Lieferkette realisiert werden? (ii) Welche ökonomische Anreize haben die Teilnehmer von Lieferketten, RFID gemeinsam zu nutzen? (iii) Welche innovativen Praktiken im Bereich des Lieferkettenmanagements wird RFID ermöglichen und was ist der jeweilige Nutzen? Im Gegensatz zu früheren Untersuchungen konzentrieren wir uns auf die Bestimmung des Informations- bzw. Transformationsnutzens von RFID auf der Einzelteilebene in der Lieferkette bestimmter Konsumgüter. Das erste Kapitel der Dissertation enthält die notwendigen Hintergründe über die Möglichkeiten der RFID Technologie und ihr erwarteter Einfluss auf das Lieferkettenmanagement. Das zweite Kapitel untersucht die strategischen Konsequenzen der Möglichkeit, den Güterfluss in Lieferketten auf der Einzelteilebene zu überwachen. Im dritten Kapitel veranschaulichen wir den Wert der durch RFID ermöglichten Sichtbarkeit von Produkten in Einzelhandelsfilialen wenn die logistischen Prozesse durch verschiedene Fehlerarten, speziell Fehlplatzierungen, Schwund und Transaktionsfehler, beeinflusst werden. Im vierten Kapitel quantifizieren wir den Wert von Bestandsreallokationen zwischen Einzelhandelsfilialen – eine Praktik, die durch den Einsatz von RFID auf der Einzelteilebene ermöglicht werden könnte. Das fünfte Kapitel beschäftigt sich mit der Rolle des Austauschs von Logistikinformationen im Kontext der Vorwärtsintegration. Kapitel sechs beschließt die Dissertation und bietet Hinweise für weitere Forschungsvorhaben im Bereich des Wertes von RFID und entsprechender Einführungsstrategien an., This dissertation investigates the impact of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) on supply chain management. We develop several economic models that allow for a quantitative evaluation of RFID’s value and the strategic implications resulting from its inter-organizational use. Although the ongoing hype about RFID has lead to a high availability of general literature on RFID technology as well as numerous value propositions, the amount of quantitative research about RFID’s business value is still small. We address this research gap by investigating three research questions: (i) What economic value can be realized by deploying RFID along the supply chain? (ii) What economic incentives have supply chain participants to use RFID cooperatively? (iii) What innovative supply chain practices will RFID enable and what is their economic value? In contrast to earlier research, we constrain our research focus to the determination of the information and transformation value of item-level RFID in the supply chain of certain "high-impact" consumer products. The first chapter of this dissertation provides the necessary background about RFID’s capabilities and expected impact on supply chain management. The second chapter analyses the strategic consequences of being able to monitor the flow of goods in a supply chain on the item-level. The third chapter demonstrates the value of RFID-enabled visibility in retail stores if logistical operations are subject to certain kinds of error, in particular misplacements, shrinkage, and transaction errors. The fourth chapter investigates the value of item-level transshipments between retail stores – a practice that could be enabled by the use of item-level RFID. The fifth chapter deals with the role of logistical information sharing practices in the context of vertical integration strategies. Chapter six concludes the dissertation and provides hints for further research on RFID value and strategy.

Despite the astounding success of the fast fashion retailers, the management practices leading to these results have not been subject to extensive research so far. Given this background, we analyze the impact of information sharing and vertical integration on the performance of 51 German apparel companies. We find that the positive impact of vertical integration is mediated by information sharing, i.e. that the ability to improve the information flow is a key success factor of vertically integrated apparel supply chains. Thus, the success of an expansion strategy based on vertical integration critically depends on effective ways to share logistical information.

This work contributes to the ongoing debate on the productivity paradox by considering CIOs’ perceptions of IT business value. Applying regression analysis to data from an international survey, we study how the adoption of certain types of enterprise software affects the CIOs’ perception of the impact of IT on the firm’s business activities and vice versa. Other potentially important factors such as country, sector and size of the firms are also taken into account. Our results indicate a more significant support for the impact of perceived IT benefits on adoption of enterprise software than vice versa. CIOs based in the US perceive IT benefits more strongly than their German counterparts. Furthermore, certain types of enterprise software seem to be more prevalent in the US.