How smart cities transform operations models: a new research agenda for operations management in the digital economy

Abstract

The notion of smart cities is growing in prominence in the digital economy. The integration of urban infrastructures with information and communication technologies enables the development of new operations models. Digitised infrastructures offer opportunities for public and private organisations to design and deliver more customer-centric products or services, particularly for those that require geographical proximity with consumers in the online to offline (O2O) context. A framework is developed and used to analyse three case examples. These cases illustrate the emergence of new operations models and, demonstrate how smart cities are redefining the characteristics of operations models around their scalability, analytical output and connectivity. We also explore the feasibility, vulnerability and acceptability of each new operation. This paper contributes to our understanding of how smart cities can potentially transform operational models, and sets out a research agenda for operations management in smart cities in the digital economy.

Keywords:

• Smart city
• big data
• operations model
• online to offline (O2O)
• digital economy
• transformation

Acknowledgement

The authors acknowledge the UK Research Council for their financial support [grant number EP/K039857/1], and the anonymous reviewers and editors for their valuable feedbacks.

Funding

This work was supported by the Research Councils UK [grant number EP/K039857/1].

Notes

1. The IoT is enabled through instrumentation, defined as the ‘integration of live real-world data through the use of sensors, kiosks, meters, personal devices, appliances, cameras, smart phones, implanted medical devices, the web and other similar data acquisition systems, including social networks as networks of human sensors’ (Chourabi et al. 2012). The speed in which citizens are engaging with Internet-enabled technologies is transforming the professional services landscape, with a greater appreciation of the value in being able to participate in the design and delivery of services (Vredenburg and Bell 2014).

2. See the Digital Agenda for Europe. A Europe 2020 Initiative: http://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/smart-cities.

3. Big data is not a term uncommon to the current day business parlance. Generated through a plethora of sources (from Internet movements and purchase transactions, mobile applications, social media, sensors or sales enquiries), George, Haas, and Pentland (2014, 321) state that big data can ‘meaningfully complement official statistics, surveys, and archival data sources that remain largely static, adding depth and insight from collective experiences –and doing so in real time, thereby narrowing both information and time gaps’.