APU’s International Partnerships Drive Comprehensive Product Development for Digital Transformation

Under the theme "Anyone Can Model" and with the primary goal of imparting practical insights into the implementation of digitisation across diverse professional backgrounds, APU recently conducted an Enterprise Modeling Lecture & Workshop series in collaboration with the University of Vienna, Austria.

Taking place from September 15th to 29th, 2023, and spanning over 25 hours, the series garnered participation from 20 academic staff members representing eight different schools, along with two Ph.D. students.

The lectures were presented by Prof. Ir. Eur. Ing. Ts. Dr. Vinesh Thiruchelvam, APU's Chief Innovation and Enterprise Officer, covering 36 theoretical and case study topics. The sessions provided a comprehensive overview of the ADOXX modelling platform and its applications, with a focus on Digital Leadership. Topics ranged from User Requirements and Design Thinking to No-coding Approaches for Business Logic Modeling, Integrating Decision Models, Semantic Interoperability, Ontology-based Enterprise Modeling for Human and Machine Interpretation, Process-oriented Quality Management for Environmental Sustainability, and Data Asset Monetization.

The accompanying masterclass workshop featured hands-on segments, with the first part dedicated to developing concept models and coding practice in ADOXX, led by Mr. Mohamad Firdaus Che Abdul Rani, Senior Lecturer of the School of Computing (SoC). The second part focused on coding for connectivity using Raspberry Pi and Arduino, guided by Ts. Suresh Gobee, Senior Lecturer of the School of Engineering (SoE).

All participants were awarded certificates of participation, contributing to their Continuous Professional Development.

This collaboration stems from a longstanding technical relationship aimed at cultivating Digital Leaders between Prof. Vinesh and Prof. Dimitris Karagiannis, a full professor at the Department of Knowledge Engineering, Institute of Computer Science and Business Informatics, University of Vienna, Austria.

Initiated in 2016, this collaboration laid the foundation for Conceptual Modeling in Digital Innovative Ecosystems. Complementing this partnership is APU's decade-long industry-academia relationship with HILTI International. Senior leaders from HILTI, including Dr. Martin Nemetz (Senior Vice President), Patrick Mayer (Head of Supply Chain Management IT), Martin Schroeder (Head of Product IT), and Wai-Meng Lee (Head of IT Asia), have consistently supported the upskilling of APU academic staff and talent acquisition.

In 2023, HILTI extended a grant to APU for the development of skilled ADOXX Modelers through an upskilling exercise delivered in collaboration with OmiLabs, University of Vienna. This grant follows a previous offering in 2016.

Expressing his thoughts on the workshop, APU's Ph.D. candidate Krishna Ravinchandra mentioned that, as an engineer, the programme provided him with exposure to Business Modeling, enabling him to oversee the entire spectrum of digital development within an Industry 4.0 context.

Similarly, Ms. Tham Hoong Ching, a Senior Lecturer at the School of Computing (SoC), remarked, "The ADOXX tool generates very beautiful modelling GUIs and offers advanced configuration capabilities, allowing immediate changes to the graphical representation of a meta-class."