IDL Seminar – Supply chain visibility in Virtual Organistion

Writing about web page https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AXyNLSM3P91FZGZkdG1mM3ZfNjlnMzQ1dzJjdg&hl=en_GB

2009-2010 Digital Lab Keynote Seminar

Tuesday February 23rd

12.00-1.00pm

IDL Auditorium

Xin Wang

International Digital Lab, Warwick Manufacturing Group,

University of Warwick.

Supply Chain Visibility in Virtual Organisation(Download)

Abstract:

The key European business research project, Ecolead predicts: ‘in ten years, in response to fast changing market conditions, most enterprises and specially the SMEs will be part of some sustainable collaborative networks that will act as breeding environment s for the formation of dynamic virtual organisation.’ Visibility in the virtual organisation enable SMEs have a clear view of their supply chain status and make the right decision based on the right information. We believe Supply Chain visibility is a solution for the virtual organisation to achieve a LeAgle supply chain – ‘Cheaper, Faster and Better’ supply chain. A role playing simulation was created based on a typical supply chain. The effects of demand visibility and operational visibility were then explored with different configurations for information sharing among the supply chain partners. Performance was measured in terms of stock levels (leanness) and service level (agility) achieved. In the seminar, the results of the simulation will be presented. And further experiments with different supply chain configurations are planned to further test the general applicability of the results.

Bio:

Xin is a current PhD student and a member of Dr. Jay Bal’s research team. He has been at Warwick University for many years. He got his MSc degree in WMG in 2008. His current research is about supply chain visibility which is a part of West Midlands Collaborative Commerce Marketplace (www.wmmccm.co.uk) project. WMCCM is a business ecosystem which can quickly breed demand driven virtual organisations to target the regional opportunities based on the competences of the organisations rather than their product or services. These new virtual organisations are then assisted in enveloping their products or services in secure collaborative spaces and a supply chain visibility module helps them to monitor delivery. His work in this project looks at the design and operation of the Supply Chain Visibility module to help these new virtual organizations to achieve their opportunities.

Xin Wang : 25 Feb 2010 11:34 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Nokia N810 Tablet —— The Gadget Lab Review (Part One)

Nokia N810 Tablet ------ A Powerful Mobile Internet Device

The Nokia N810 Tablet is the newest Linux-based Nokia’s N-series handheld which integrates some popular services and functions such as Internet access, Email, making video calls, navigation and most of the functions of Netbook to attract a small group of customer.

System specifications:

CPU	400MHz Texas Instruments OMAP2420
OS	Internet Tablet OS2008 (Maemo Linux)
Memory	128MB RAM, 256MB Flash
Storage	2GB internal memory
Expansion	MiniSD card slot (supports up to 32GB) Compatible with miniSD and microSD (with adapter)
Supported file formats	Audio: AAC, AMR, M4A, MP2, MP3, WAV, WMA Video: 3GP, AVI, H.263, H.264, MPEG-4, RV, ASF, WMV9 Photo: BMP, GIF, ICO, JPG, PNG, SVG Tiny, TIFF, WBMP Optional applications support DivX, XviD, Ogg Vorbis, etc.
Wireless	802.11b/g, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, GPS
Display	4.13" touchscreen (800 x 480, 65K colors)
Size	5.04" x 2.83" x 0.55"
Weight	226g
Battery	Nokia Battery BP-4L
Other characteristics	Ambient light sensor Integrated VGA web camera Integrated desk stand High quality stereo speakers and sensitive microphone 3.5 mm stereo headphone plug Smooth slide with integrated QWERTY keyboard

What’s in box?

The Nokia N810 Internet Tablet comes in a simple package with a picture of the device displayed on it. Inside the box, the Nokia N810 is on the top layer and the bottom layer includes the standard accessories:

Nokia Battery BP-4L

Nokia Stereo Headset HS-48

Nokia Travel Charger AC-4

Nokia Car Holder CR-89

Pouch CP-223

Nokia Connectivity Cable CA-101

Get started guide

Safety, warranty, and other product information booklet

The main function of Nokia N810

Web experience:

The well design Mazilla Brower for N810, which includes Adobe Flash 9 plug-in and AJAX functionality to support interactive web applications, will provide a fast and user-friend web 2.0 experiences with the support of the full QWERTY keyboard and the high-resolution 4.13 inches widescreen.

The following pictures are taken from Nokia website, youtube and goolge UK in order to testing the performance of Mazilla Brower.

Nokia UK: N810

YouTube: What is WMG?

Google Document:

As a result, with the help of Adobe® Flash® 9 plugin, the Mazilla supported the video and audio perfectly. One surprising function is the Nokia N810 can fully support the Google Document, which is much better than other portable devices (Mobile, Ipod) which only can open and edit Google Document as a sample list.

Performance rate: 10/10

Communications:

Although the N810 is not a mobile phone, it's still a powerful communications device. Let’s begin from the communication menu of N810.

Internet messaging and calling with video: VOIP video call (Skype or other VOIP service providers),

Instant Messenger:

With the help of the applications Pidgin and Gizmo, you can easily access into the most popular instant messengers such as MSN, Google Chat, Nokia chat, Yahoo messenger, ICQ, QQ, AIM, MyspaceIM, etc. This is fantastic, you don’t need to install each one; the only thing is to input your login account and press “next”

Email application and web-based email support:

The email application of Nokia N810 supports most of the mail service providers such as googlemail, hotmail, O2, Vodafone, orange, BT, AIM, AOL, yahoo, mac, tesco…

You also can set up your Warwick email easily through POP3 or check your email anytime through web Brower. One problem is you can’t synchronize your emails with your Outlook.

Bluetooth function (Bluetooth headset and data transfer):

To transfer data to and from the Nokia N810, Bluetooth is available. Just hold the pen for seconds on a file, you can choose to transfer the file via email or Bluetooth.

Performance rate: 09/10

Entertainment:

In-built media player for viewing and listening to downloaded, transfered or streamed media content and easy-on-device management of media library

Direct access to shared media over Universal Plug and Play (UPnP)

Supported video formats: 3GP, AVI, WMV, MP4, H263, H.264, MPEG-1, MPEG-4, RV (RealVideo)

Supported audio formats: MP3, WMA, AAC, AMR, AWB, M4A, MP2, RA (RealAudio), WAV

Supported playlist formats: M3U, PLS, ASX, WAX, WVX, WPL

A sensitive integrated microphone and integrated stereo speakers are standard. Optional Bluetooth headphones and an FM transmitter for playing music through a car radio are also available.

The music player and video player

Photo: BMP, GIF, ICO, JPG, PNG, SVG Tiny, TIFF, WBMP

Image viewing with slideshow

Popular media applications are also available: Internet radio, Canola, Mediabox (Mobile TV), Youtube, Mplayer, Maemo Recorder, camera, Mplayer……

Based on the powerful and extendible Linux-based application, Nokia N810 can support the most of current media formats, which is better than Archos media player and IPod Touch. But, there are still some improvements need to be taken like the interface could be much better, not just looks like a windows mobile style. About the photo viewing, IPod touch could be the best portable device at the moment. The quality of Nokia N810 is impressive, but the speed is very slow, and extremely slow when opens the high resolution image.

Performance rating: 7/10

Navigation

Build-in GPS receiver, Nokia Maps with pre-loaded maps including points of interest,

Premium services available on purchase including Wayfinder navigation

If you actually want to use the Nokia N810 as a navigation system with the aid of these maps and the built-in GPS receiver, you have to purchase a licence for the Wayfinder application. This licence will also offer spoken navigation on the Nokia N810. There are various licences available, for example; the licence for the whole of Western Europe costs 90 Euros for one year. The screen and built-in loud speaker serve well for navigating.

I never have a chance to try the navigation (You know, it is costlyL ); there is a demonstration video on YouTube from thoughtfix. But according to the previous experiences of Nokia N95, the performance of N-series wasn’t that good. TOMTOM is much better than it.

Performance rate: 05/10

Utilities

The Nokia N810 provides many useful and effective applications and tools; and you can download more apps via applications manager. See following examples:

Scientific Calculator

N810 integrates a very useful scientific calculator, and it is much enough for the daily usage.

Calendar

You may find the calendar of N810 is very familiar if you are using Nokia symbian S60 3^rd OS. It provides four different views: daily view, weekly view, monthly view and events view. You won’t miss any event or date because all your events will be displayed in the right bottom. And you also can set a reminder just in case. Another amazing function is it can synchronize with your Google calendar via a small plug-in which is downloadable in apps manager.

World clock

The world clock is very interesting. It will automatically set your current time zone as your home. Then you can check the time in different cities or countries by pointing to the right place in the world map. The map includes all of the major cities of the world. The clock function is also available.

Notes, Maemopad+, Checklist

I have to say the note function is impressive. Firstly, it has four different fonts and supports the font size from 6 to 32. You also can edit the word by Bold, Italic, underline, even customize you own color.

Secondly, it provides word suggests when you input.

Thirdly, providing the sketch function for a quick note or drawing

At last, you won’t believe it but it’s true. You can use some of the windows commands like Ctrl+A, Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, Ctrl+T …

PDF Reader

Reading a PDF file is not a problem if you carry N810 with you. It can fully display both the text and picture without delay. However, you can’t edit it at the moment.

File manager

RSS Reader

Application manager

Like the apple store, N810 can download and install many apps via its own Application manager. The well organized category will help you choose the right application quickly. The categories of application manager include accessories, communication, email, games, graphics, internet, business, finance, media, office, network, support, utilities, system tools, even programming.

Handwriting

Another interesting character is the handwriting recognition. You can add your own writing style to improve the accuracy of input.

Overall, the performance of N810’s utilities is impressive. You may feel you are using a small computer rather than a tablet device. However, some of the apps need take seconds to respond which will drive you crazy. And until now, I have not found any applications which can work with the Microsoft office.

Performance rate: 7/10

To be continued

Xin Wang : 24 Nov 2009 15:52 |  Tags: N810 Nokia Tablet |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem