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Internet of Things adoption for reconfiguring decision-making processes in

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 Business Process Management Journal
Internet of Things adoption for reconfiguring decision-making processes in asset
management
Paul Brous, Marijn Janssen, Paulien Herder,
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Internet
Internet of Things adoption for of Things
reconfiguring decision-making adoption

processes in asset management

Paul Brous, Marijn Janssen and Paulien Herder
Technology, Policy and Management, Technische Universiteit Delft,
Received 28 November 2017
Delft, The Netherlands Revised 17 March 2018
Accepted 27 March 2018

Abstract
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Purpose – Managers are increasingly looking to adopt the Internet of Things (IoT) to include the vast
amount of big data generated in their decision-making processes. The use of IoT might yield many benefits
for organizations engaged in civil infrastructure management, but these benefits might be difficult to realize
as organizations are not equipped to handle and interpret this data. The purpose of this paper is to
understand how IoT adoption affects decision-making processes.
Design/methodology/approach – In this paper the changes in the business processes for managing
civil infrastructure assets brought about by IoT adoption are analyzed by investigating two case studies
within the water management domain. Propositions for effective IoT adoption in decision-making
processes are derived.
Findings – The results show that decision processes in civil infrastructure asset management have been
transformed to deal with the real-time nature of the data. The authors found the need to make organizational
and business process changes, development of new capabilities, data provenance and governance and the
need for standardization. IoT can have a transformative effect on business processes.
Research limitations/implications – Because of the chosen research approach, the research results may
lack generalizability. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the propositions further.
Practical implications – The paper shows that data provenance is necessary to be able to understand the
value and the quality of the data often generated by various organizations. Managers need to adapt new
capabilities to be able to interpret the data.
Originality/value – This paper fulfills an identified need to understand how IoT adoption affects
decision-making processes in asset management in order to be able to achieve expected benefits and mitigate risk.
Keywords Asset management, Internet of Things, IoT, Business process, Adoption
Paper type Case study

1. Introduction
1.1 Motivation
The Internet of Things (IoT) can be used to collect more and more data which can be used by
decision-makers to acquire the necessary insights in a timely fashion. IoT and data analytics
will transform complete supply chain processes (Kumar et al., 2016) and has the potential to
revolutionize management (Fosso Wamba et al., 2015). But developing and managing this
data to an acceptable level whereby the right information can be provided to the right people
at the right time is a complex undertaking.
Modern economies are supported by large infrastructures of transport systems, water
and waste disposal networks, and energy and telecommunications networks. As such, the
proper management and maintenance of the assets making up the infrastructure is vital to
prosperity. IoT has the potential to improve the management of these assets by providing
insight into the utilization of the infrastructure and the quality of the assets for

© Paul Brous, Marijn Janssen and Paulien Herder. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This
article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may
Business Process Management
reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and Journal
non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full Emerald Publishing Limited
1463-7154
terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode DOI 10.1108/BPMJ-11-2017-0328
 BPMJ maintenance and replacement strategies. Asset management as a type of business
process is highly dependent on large amounts of data from which relevant information
can be created and is used for decision-making during the life-cycle of assets.
Infrastructure assets are stationary systems (or networks) that serve society where the
system as a whole is intended to be maintained indefinitely to a specified level of service
by the continuing replacement and refurbishment of its components (Herder et al., 2008).
Asset management is generally understood to be the set of activities of a business
objective associated with: identifying what assets are needed; identifying funding
requirements; acquiring assets; providing logistic and maintenance support systems for
assets; and disposing or renewing assets so as to effectively and efficiently meet the
desired objective (Hastings, 2010; Woodhouse, 1997).
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1.2 Research problem, objective and approach

The term, IoT refers to a network of physical objects that are able to communicate their data
over the internet (Hounsell et al., 2009; Ramos et al., 2008). IoT enables asset managers to
access remote sensor data and to monitor and control the physical world from a distance,
allowing many physical objects to act in unison, through means of ambient intelligence
(Ramos et al., 2008). IoT can benefit asset management organizations by providing enough
quality data to generate the information required to help asset managers make the right
decisions at the right time (Brous and Janssen, 2015b). For example, IoT can be used to
collect data to determine the position and length of traffic jams, and to redirect traffic or
offer alternative multi-modal forms of transport by using location sensors and analyzing
traffic flow. But IoT adoption can also impact the asset management organization in
unexpected ways. Automating processes often necessarily leads to changes to
organizational structures and cultures as tasks previously performed by people become
automated, whilst other tasks and responsibilities which previously did not exist become
apparent (Brous and Janssen, 2015a).
Technology and organization influence each other in many ways, and analytical
efforts to treat these as distinct conceptual units are increasingly being called into
question (Boos et al., 2013). As such, it is important to understand how IoT adoption
affects decision-making in asset management business processes in order to be able to
achieve expected benefits and mitigate known and unknown risk. This research fills that
gap by analyzing the changes in the business processes of maintaining civil infrastructure
assets brought about by IoT adoption. The research objective is to understand how
IoT adoption affects decision-making processes in asset management. As there is limited
knowledge in this field and deep insight into the field is needed, case study research is
used. Case study is a qualitative research method particularly suited to researching
contemporary phenomena that cannot be separated from the environment they are
embedded in (compared to laboratory experiments, for example) and that have not been
scientifically studied to a large extent so far (Benbasat et al., 1987). The case studies
comprise two organizations that have similar goals to reduce confounding effects in the
study. Two case studies of IoT adoption within the asset management domain are
presented in this paper. The cases have been made anonymous in the interests of privacy.
The first case, a water measurement network, is managed by a central government
organization. We refer to this case as case “X” in this paper. The second case study, a
pump management decision support system, is managed by a water board. We refer to
this case as case “Y” in this paper.
This paper read as follows: Section 2 presents the literature background; Section 3
describes the research methods in detail; and Section 4 describes the case studies background
and compares the cases. The case studies are discussed in Section 5 showing how business
processes need to be changed driven by IoT. Finally, conclusions are drawn in Section 6.
 2. Background Internet
According to Kabir et al. (2014), decision-makers are increasingly being faced with of Things
competing investment demands whilst needing to distribute limited resources so that the adoption
infrastructure systems can be maintained in the best possible condition. Kabir et al. (2014)
show that infrastructure management decisions are often based on multiple and
conflicting criteria/data that are subject to different levels and types of uncertainty, and
traditionally, these decisions incorporate engineering judgment and expert opinion.
However, in a data-driven world, many stakeholders are gaining increased access to
information about the asset and are often capable of arguing for opposing courses of
action in the face of unsubstantiated decisions. In this research we identify three main
decision-making processes of asset management, namely:
(1) decision-making for performance management (Archetti et al., 2015);
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(2) decision-making for managing how infrastructure services are perceived

(Hentschel et al., 2016); and
(3) decision-making for improving infrastructure services (Koo et al., 2015).

2.1 Decision-making for performance management

Decision-making processes with regards to maintaining current service levels are generally
focused on preventing malfunction or asset failure or to quickly assess damage to
infrastructure after an event such that maintenance procedures could be directed to the
areas that need immediate attention (Aono et al., 2016). As such, performance measurement
is required for corrective, preventive and predictive maintenance as well as other supportive
activities (Parida et al., 2015). According to Phares et al. (2004), routine inspections
are the traditional method of gathering information regarding the performance of
the infrastructure. Routine inspections are regularly scheduled inspections to determine the
physical and functional condition of infrastructure assets. Generally, a series of condition
ratings that describe the general condition of the asset are considered for performance
measurement. According to Phares et al. (2004), these condition ratings, consider both
the severity of deterioration and the extent to which it is distributed throughout each of the
components. The more often these inspections take place, the higher the granularity.
Often, traditional inspections are performed subjectively. In other words, inspectors visually
inspect the asset and makes an expert judgment based on what they see and their
past experience.

2.2 Decision-making for managing how infrastructure services are perceived

According to Parida et al. (2015), maintenance is often integrated into a production process
involving human factors. As such, although difficult to measure (Simões et al., 2011),
perception management of infrastructure services is an important aspect to the asset
management decision-making process as the effectiveness of the different facets of the
performance system is often dependent on the competency, training, and motivation of
people interacting with the infrastructure and the asset management systems (Ljungberg,
1998). For example, when planning maintenance on a busy section of highway it is
important to take into account how the maintenance will affect the public and how the
public will perceive the need for the maintenance. Decisions such as when to perform the
maintenance (at night or during the day), or how best to inform the public, for example to
provide alternative routes, are important aspects of infrastructure decision-making which
require large amounts of data. For example, IoT data can provide insight into such aspects
as the busiest times of day or night, or popular destinations ( for determining alternative
routes). Therefore, the relationship between the organization and the customer may be
 BPMJ critical due to the influence that service quality has on user satisfaction level and the fact
that people are involved in decisions related to maintenance and execution of tasks
(Ardalan et al., 1992).

2.3 Decision-making for improving infrastructure services

Traditional thinking about the strategic decision-making process rests on the belief that
actors enter a decision-making process with a known set of objectives, gather information
about these objectives and select an optimal alternative to achieve these objectives
(Eisenhardt and Zbaracki, 1992). However, Eisenhardt and Zbaracki (1992) also suggest that
whilst people may be rational, power tends to win battles of choice. For example, according
to Smith (2014), competing interests mean that managers increasingly embed poorly
managed tensions into their organization’s strategy which require ongoing responses rather
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than one-time resolutions. Despite this, Marquez and Gupta (2006) believe that having a
strategic perspective to asset management is a key factor for success. For example,
detections of damage or failure of critical public infrastructure may have significant societal
and economic impacts (Tien et al., 2016).

2.4 Effects of IoT adoption on asset management decision-making processes

Infrastructure systems consist of many different types of assets that could have long life
cycles. For example a bridge lasts for at least 30 years, however, regular maintenance might
be needed. Civil infrastructure assets need to be maintained to ensure their optimal value
over their entire (long) life cycles (Hassanain et al., 2003). As early as 2001 there were already
many software tools for asset management (Hassanain et al., 2003; Vanier, 2001), and since
then many data formats, data sources and pools of unstructured data have become available
over the years. At a high level, Hassanain et al. (2003) suggest that asset management
tooling should at minimum provide the following functionality:
• identification of assets;
• identification of performance requirements;
• assessment of asset performance;
• plan maintenance;
• manage maintenance operations;
• life-cycle costing analysis;
• life-cycle analysis and long-term service-life prediction; and
• central repository for asset information.
It is expected that IoT adoption will change performance measurement of infrastructure
services, like applying statistical learning (Archetti et al., 2015). Second, IoT adoption is
expected to change the perception of infrastructure services, like perceiving sudden changes
in temperature by which a fire could be detected (Hentschel et al., 2016), or the deterioration of
the quality of assets over time (Brous et al., 2017). Finally, IoT adoption is expected to change
business processes, for example through self-organizing resource planning (Zhang et al., 2015).
In the next sections, we discuss these effects of IoT on asset management.

2.5 IoT adoption expected to change performance management of infrastructure services

IoT services are knowledge intensive and require collection of appropriate data contents, data
analysis and reporting (Backman and Helaakoski, 2016). As such, statistical learning and
network science is expected to play a critical role in converting data resources into actionable
 knowledge (Archetti et al., 2015). Due to increasing pressure on budgets and personnel as well Internet
as increased utilization of civil infrastructure, public asset management organizations of Things
increasingly need to intelligently manage their infrastructure with fewer resources (Rathore adoption
et al., 2016). By managing and analyzing various IoT data, it should be possible to create new
services to achieve an efficient and sustainable civil infrastructure (Backman and Helaakoski,
2016; Hashi et al., 2015). IoT may bring an improved understanding of complex processes
which is expected to help improve the efficiency of transport management and infrastructure
services, and help with effective reporting (Kothari et al., 2015). IoT infrastructure could
potentially be used to reduce costs in terms of time and money (Aono et al., 2016), as traditional
methods of inspecting infrastructure, such as highway structures and bridges, for damage are
often reactive in nature and require significant amounts of time and use of costly equipment.
By specifying events (Hashi et al., 2015; Tao et al., 2014), it should be possible to obtain a set of
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data before and after an event to be used for analysis and evaluations, taking the effect of the
event into consideration.

2.6 IoT adoption expected to change perception of infrastructure services

Rathore et al. (2016) believe that smart management of traffic systems with the provision of
real-time information to the citizen based on the current traffic situation should enhance
decision-making. Jonoski et al. (2013) believe that an important potential of IoT adoption
may lay in developing applications for the broadest user base of individual citizens, not only
as recipients of information, but also as suppliers of data. As such, Jonoski et al. (2010)
suggest that a possible approach toward meeting this challenge may be the development
and deployment of information systems that integrate the operations of data collection, data
and model integration, and information dissemination such that organizations can work
together with the users of their information for mutual benefits. In this way, IoT is expected
to be able to provide users with information on costs, time, environmental impact and
perceived quality of services (Archetti et al., 2015).

2.7 IoT adoption expected to change business processes of infrastructure services

In order to keep civil infrastructure such as bridges safe and functioning, regular
inspections to determine the condition of the asset are a necessity (Ahlborn et al., 2010;
Neisse et al., 2016). For example, traditional inspections of bridges are usually visual
assessments by trained personnel where all the asset’s component conditions are observed
once every three to six years, and are summarized into one report (Phares et al., 2004).
After the inspection is done, asset managers must decide what maintenance interventions
are needed based on these inspection reports. However, inspection reports of bridges
can be biased by subjective judgments of the experts or by lack of information (Kallen and
van Noortwijk, 2005). IoT data may make it possible to remotely observe the condition of
objects and thereby enhance the available information on the current condition of public
infrastructure (Ahlborn et al., 2010) and their environments.

2.8 Summary of effects of IoT adoption on the asset management decision-making process
The expectation is that IoT will be used for key decision-making in operational activities. It
is expected that IoT will be used in a variety of ways related both to the real-time
measurement and analysis of data as to trend analysis of historical data over time (Brous
and Janssen, 2015b). Expected benefits of IoT adoption for business processes include:
• self-organizing resource planning (Zhang et al., 2015);
• creation of new services to achieve a sustainable civil infrastructure (Backman and
Helaakoski, 2016);
 BPMJ • improving the efficiency of infrastructure services (Kothari et al., 2015) and thus
reducing costs in terms of time and money (Aono et al., 2016);
• automation of processes (Hentschel et al., 2016);
• timelier provision of information (Rathore et al., 2016) allowing for more accurate
inspections and analysis (Ahlborn et al., 2010);
• greater frequency of inspections (Neisse et al., 2016); and
• reduce or remove the need for physical, on-sight inspections (Ahlborn et al., 2010).
But adopting IoT also has consequences for asset management business processes.
Expected consequences for asset management business processes include:
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• requires understanding of the conditions and factors for effective and sustainable
adoption of new data sources (Brous and Janssen, 2015b);
• requires statistical learning and network science to convert data resources into
actionable knowledge (Archetti et al., 2015);
• requires the development and deployment of information systems that integrate the
operations of data collection, data and model integration and information
dissemination ( Jonoski et al., 2010); and
• requires defining events in terms of sensing (e.g. sound, light, etc.) for localized
events. For example, when is a loud noise an accident or simply a car back-firing?
(Hentschel et al., 2016).

3. Research approach
There is a void in literature in improving business processes by using the potential of big
data (Fosso Wamba and Mishra, 2017). The objective of this research is to understand how
IoT adoption affects decision-making processes in asset management. To this end, a
background of relevant literature was developed in order to place the research in context,
gain insight into the asset management decision-making process and identify expected
changes to the decision-making process that IoT adoption may bring. The case study
method was employed to examine how IoT adoption in real life settings have affected asset
management decision-making processes. Case study research was chosen as the main
research method because it allows the examination of the effects of IoT adoption in a
real-world context (Eisenhardt, 1989; Yin, 2003). The case studies were explorative in
method and descriptive in nature.
According to Eisenhardt (1989), a broad definition of the research question is important
in building theory from case studies. This research assumes that asset management
organizations need data to achieve their business goals, but that the traditional approach of
providing disparate systems for each information requirement is no longer adequate.
IoT has much potential for improving decision-making about assets, however, the impact
of IoT adoption on asset management business processes has not yet been investigated
systematically and remains largely anecdotal. This leads us to our main research question
which asks:
RQ1. How IoT adoption affects decision-making processes of asset management?
Following Ketokivi and Choi (2014), induction type reasoning was used in order to look for
both similarities and differences across the cases and proceed toward theoretical
generalizations. As with other multiple case study research (Otto, 2011; Pagell and Wu,
2009), the data analysis in this research contained both within and across case analysis
 (Miles and Huberman, 1994). Within case analysis helps us to examine the impact of IoT on Internet
asset management decision-making processes in a single context, while the across case of Things
analysis triangulates the constructs of interest between the cases. Within case analysis is a adoption
process of data reduction and data management (Miles and Huberman, 1994), and in this
research had five main components. First, we tried to make sense of the social fabric of these
asset management organizations and how IoT adoption affects the company’s business
culture. Second, we cross-referenced the organization’s asset management activities in
relationship to required skills and how these skills may change with adoption of IoT.
Third, we identified how organizational structures and policies are affected by IoT adoption.
Fourth, we identified how decision-making business processes are affected by IoT
adoption. Finally we considered how IoT adoption introduces decision-making changes
regarding the technology choices of an asset management organization. With regards to
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cross-case analysis, data reduction was primarily done through categorization. Table III
below is partly a result of this process. The end result of the within case analysis was an
inventory of effects of IoT on asset management decision-making processes.

3.1 Case selection

Whilst single cases are recommended where the case represents a critical test of existing
theory, or where the case is a unique event, or where the case serves a revelatory purpose, a
limited number of case studies is considered to be more successful with regards to theory
formulation and testing (Yin, 2003). Using more than one case study provides us with the
opportunity to build the theory irrespective of an organization, which improves the
argument for generalization. The evidence from multiple cases is often considered more
compelling and the research more robust (Herriott and Firestone, 1983). We followed a
similar approach to that employed in studies conducted by Pagell and Wu (2009) and
Wilhelm et al. (2016) and selected two different organizations by applying a number of
criteria. Two organizations tasked with maintaining infrastructure were selected. Case X
operates at the national level, whilst case Y operates at the regional level. This enables us to
compare differences between the levels to determine possibilities for generalization. Any use
of multiple-case designs should follow replication logic to guarantee external validity. For
this reason, we defined the following criteria which were used to select the different cases:
(1) The case must be a complex functioning unit.
(2) The primary processes supported by the case must be focused on the management
of civil infrastructure.
(3) Asset management processes must be supported by the asset management data
infrastructure, evidenced by the existence and monitoring of key performance indicators.
(4) People operating within the case must be willing to cooperate in the research and
must be willing to provide access to the information required for the research.
(5) The case environment should be “data-rich.” This means that the organization
should produce, manage and maintain at least 5 large data sets as well as a more
than twenty small to medium data sets.
(6) The asset management data infrastructure must include at least one use case
of IoT adoption.
The research studies the impact of IoT adoption on business processes in asset management
data infrastructures. The cases of IoT adoption to be investigated were selected based on
the criticality of their use and their importance to the organization. To avoid confounding
effects, the study was limited to the examination of cases of IoT adoption in asset
management according to specific criteria as specified above.
 BPMJ 3.2 Data collection
It is not only generalization that presents challenges when adopting the case study
methodology; the reliability aspect should also be taken into consideration (Yin, 2003).
Reliability refers to the demonstration that the operation of a study, such as the data collection
procedures, can be repeated with the same results (Yin, 2003). Yin (2003) recommends
employing a well thought out research protocol to ensure reliability. According to Yin (2003), a
case study protocol is a formal document which describes the set of procedures involved in the
collection of data for a case study. The protocol used in this research follows the advice from
Yin (2003) and included the problem statement, a delineation of the unit of analysis, the steps
(including the altering of the steps) to be taken, the procedures for contacting key informants
and making field work arrangements, reminders for implementing and enforcing the rules for
protecting (the privacy of ) human subjects, a detailed line of questions, and a preliminary
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outline for the final case study report. The protocol used in the case studies includes a variety
of data collection instruments including documentation, individual interviews and group
discussions as suggested by Choi et al. (2016). The use of multiple research instruments is
encouraged to ensure construct validity through triangulation, taking different angles toward
the studied object (Runeson and Höst, 2008), which provide a stronger substantiation of our
propositions (Eisenhardt, 1989). At the start of the research, in June 2015, group discussions
were held with staff directly involved in the exploratory use cases or who were tasked with
managing and maintain the systems. Between October 2015 and June 2017, individual
interviews were held with personnel in the organizations under study. Internal documentation
was selected which dealt with issues faced by the adopting projects. All interviews were
documented in writing. The documents were then analyzed and transferred into an integrated
case document (one for each case). The first versions of this document were then sent to the
interview participants for feedback and clarification of open points. Once all the additional
information feedback had been incorporated, the final version was reviewed and discussed
with the main contacts at the organizations under study. Table I gives an overview of the
sources used in the case studies.

4. Case studies background

The exploratory cases were chosen as being representative of organizations at the national,
and regional levels, respectively, in compliance with the principles outlined in Section 2.
The cases are described in the following order, first, case X and then case Y. At the end of
the section, a comparison of the cases is provided.

4.1 Case X
The first case, the automatic measurement of water data, case X, is managed by a central
government organization. Case X is a facility that is responsible for the acquisition, storage
and distribution of data for water resources. Case X provides a complete technical
infrastructure for the gathering and distribution of water data and delivers the data to
various stakeholders within and outside the organization such as, hydro-meteorological
centers, municipal port companies, flood early warning services and other private parties.
Case X was created from the merging of three previously existing monitoring networks and
also includes data from third parties, including water data from foreign countries and other
public organizations such as the shipping and transport industry, logistics, harbor
management, meteorology, regional and local water management, and international water
management. Case X has approximately 640 data collection points using a nationwide system
of sensors. The data are then processed and stored in the data center and is made available to a
variety of systems and users. Case X collects data regarding water levels, wind speed, wave
heights, water temperature, astronomical tides, water currents, salt content, etc. These data are
aggregated and calculated within models to accurately predict water levels and water quality.
 Data sources type Data sources: Case X Data sources: Case Y
Internet
of Things
Interviews June 2015: Group discussion June 2015 – June 2016: adoption
Department Head Senior Policy Advisor Data Management
Enterprise Architect Project Manager Asset Management
Service Delivery Manager Asset Data Manager
Data Manager Manager Asset Management
Senior Manager
Senior Manager
October 2015: Individual Interviews
Enterprise Architect
Senior Advisor
Enterprise Architect
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Enterprise Architect
Data Manager
January 2017: Individual interviews
Strategic Advisor
Solution Architect
Process Manager
Project Manager
Service Delivery Manager
Documents Websites Asset management plans
System audit reports Data management plans
Tender documents Quality compliancy reports Table I.
Market consultation documents Functional designs Data Sources of
Expert presentations the case studies

Based on these models, decisions are made to close storm surge barriers, close swimming areas,
send out messages to shipping, etc. As such, we can classify case X services as being
collaborative aware services (Gigli and Koo, 2011), as case X services are used to make
decisions, and based on those decisions, to perform an action. Case X services have
“terminal-to-terminal” communication, as well as “terminal-to-person” communication.

4.2 Case Y
Case Y is a decision support system for water management. Traditional water level
measurement is performed using a level scale in fresh waterways such as ducts and locks.
This is placed during construction of the asset and indicates the depth related to the soil
(usually) a plurality of centimeters. Case Y automates this process with IoT measurements.
The main pumping stations regulate the water levels in the region. Case Y manages
approximatelyW3,500 km of polder ditches,W130 automated polder pumping stations,W20
automated inlets, W100 automated weirs,W100 remote level loggers,W80 smaller pumping
stations,W200 smaller pumping stations,W3,000 fixed weirs andW2,000 fixed inlets. Case Y
involves the regulation of the water level in streams, lakes, ditches, moats and canals. This is
vital for industrial development, agricultural businesses, environmental management and
recreation. The height at which the water level of an area is set depends on the use and
function of that area. For example, although water levels in wildlife areas often fluctuates,
farmers tend to prefer a relatively low water level to prevent their land from becoming too wet.
In the process screen of case Y, IoT measurements are displayed from telemetry,
supplemented by estimations from the system itself. These include inland water levels,
meteorological information and volumetric flow rate. The system reads precipitation
from rainwater measuring stations every 15 min and water levels on the reservoirs which
is measured at the polder mills. In addition, the system receives weather forecasts every
15 min via FTP. These are three files with 1 h, 3 h and 24 h forecasts of precipitation, wind
 BPMJ and evaporation. The relevant level manager indicates which target level should be used
and whether a precipitation protocol is active. The system in case Y then calculates the
desired deployment of each reservoir mill for the next 24 h and makes a “request” for the use
of pumping stations for the required time. As such, we can classify the services in case Y as
being collaborative aware services (Gigli and Koo, 2011), as the services are used to
make decisions, and based on those decisions, to perform an action. The services have
“terminal-to-terminal” communication, as well as “terminal-to-person” communication.

4.3 Comparison of the case studies

Both cases are involved in water management in the public sector, and the number of
measuring stations is similar. Significant differences are in the levels and how the systems
are governed. Case X is a national system, which means that the sensors are spread over a
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wide geographical region and the asset management processes can affect large numbers of
people. Case Y, on the other hand, is regional and has a mix of publicly and privately owned
sensors. As such, the risk of poor system maintenance may be higher, but the geographical
region is much smaller and there are far fewer people affected, significantly reducing the
impact of risks involved. Table II demonstrates how IoT adoption affects asset management
business processes and specifically how these effects are manifested in the cases.
As seen in Table II, all effects as expected in the literature were found in both cases.
As such, we may infer that IoT adoption impacts the asset management process in a variety
of ways, which will be discussed in the next section.

5. Discussion: changes to decision-making processes in asset management

The literature background and case studies provided valuable insight into which asset
management decision-making processes are affected by IoT adoption, but more research
should be conducted into specifically how IoT adoption affects these processes. Business
processes for decision-making are executed by people working in organizations having a
social culture and supported by technology. In this research we found that all these aspects
of business processes needed to be reconfigured to benefit from IoT. Table III groups the
aspects of business processes needing to be reconfigured in order to benefit from IoT.
Building theory from cases is a strategy resulting in proposition derived from empirical
evidence (Eisenhardt, 1989). In this section these changes are discussed in further detail
from organizational through to technical, respectively, in the order described in the list
above. For each of the areas a generic and testable proposition is derived which is deeply
grounded in empirical evidence. The propositions are consistent with both cases:
P1. IoT adoption requires organizational changes to process and make use of the data.
Organizational changes brought by IoT adoption may be identified in the way that
ubiquitous sensing enabled by Wireless Sensor Network technologies cuts across many
areas of modern day living (Gubbi et al., 2013). Gubbi et al. (2013) believe that IoT provides
the ability to measure, infer and understand environmental indicators, and the proliferation
of these devices in a communicating–actuating network creates the IoT wherein sensors and
actuators blend seamlessly with the environment around us, and the information is shared
across platforms in order to develop a common operating picture. For example, in case X,
sensors installed in buoys in countrywide network of sensors monitor the water levels in
rivers and in the sea. The system automatically sends reports to storm surge barriers and to
their managers if water levels exceed the defined thresholds. Data analytics are needed to
analyze the data generated by IoT devices. New people were hired and a separate
department is introduced to deal with the IoT data and make decisions. Early predictions of
rising water levels can be made and the storm surge barriers can be automatically closed to
prevent major flooding. Utilities and independent power providers can reduce operating
 Expected effects of IoT on asset
Internet
management business processes Case Effects of IoT adoption on the cases of Things
adoption
IoT data expected to change Case Adoption of IoT has introduced more detailed and accurate
performance measurement of X predictive analysis for management of water levels and
infrastructure service water quality of major waterways. Case X collects,
Adoption of IoT has introduced more aggregates and models data to accurately predict water
detailed and accurate predictive levels and water quality. Based on these models, decisions
analysis for management of water levels are made to close storm surge barriers, close swimming
and water quality of waterways areas, send out messages to shipping, etc.
Case Adoption of IoT has introduced more detailed and accurate
Y predictive analysis for management of water levels in
regional waterways. Case Y calculates the desired
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deployment of each reservoir mill for the next 24 hours and

schedules use of pumping stations for the current time
IoT data expected to change perception Case Adoption of IoT has allowed greater transparency of
of infrastructure service X conditions in the waterways and an increased trust in the
Adoption of IoT has allowed greater substantiation of decision-making. The functional
transparency of conditions of requirements of case X are based on the information needs
waterways and an increased trust in of the primary process. However, the data is also used by
asset management, risk-based decision- other users such as
making Professional users like other government agencies,
engineering agencies, universities and professional services
The general public such as sailors, surfers, etc.
Case Adoption of IoT has allowed greater transparency of
Y conditions in the waterways and an increased trust in the
substantiation of decision-making. The height at which the
water level of an area is set depends on the use and function
of that area. For example, although water levels in wildlife
areas often fluctuates, farmers tend to prefer a relatively low
water level to prevent their land from becoming too wet.
Case Y allows the organization to accurately communicate
reasons for decisions regarding water levels
IoT data expected to change Case IoT adoption has allowed asset managers access to greater
improvement processes of X levels of up-to-data information regarding the state of
infrastructure service waterways and has greatly increased efficiency in the
IoT adoption has allowed asset collection of this data, making the decision-making less
managers faster access to data with subjective. For example, the information about the state of
higher levels of granularity regarding objects from case X contains real-time information about
the state of waterways which has pump rotation times, lift heights, valve positions, operating
allowed decision-making to become time and spray times
partially automated, and allows for
greater certainty as to when and which
action needs to be taken
Case IoT adoption has allowed asset managers access to greater
Y levels of up-to-data information regarding the state of the Table II.
regional waterways and has greatly increased efficiency in Comparison of how
the collection of this data, making the decision-making less IoT is used in the
subjective. For example, this means greater insight into cases and the effect of
which preventive measures should be taken regarding water IoT on the asset
pollution if severe rainfall is expected management process

expenditure and cut costs associated with maintenance and manpower through real-time
fault monitoring capabilities provided by IoT solution, improving the day-to-day grid
effectiveness and capacity planning with detailed reporting and intelligence:
P2. IoT adoption requires people to adopt new skills.
 BPMJ Types of changes Aspects of business processes needing to be reconfigured

Social changes Higher levels of trust in the data required as data is provided by new stakeholders
Higher levels of trust in the system is required (the decisions do not change unless the
people making them change their way of thinking)
Changing social dynamics in the organization as data analytics experts gain greater
visibility and status
New business culture from physical inspection to data-driven
People changes New skills required, e.g. asset managers need to become more aware of the possibilities
provided by data analysis, and data analysts need a greater understanding of business
processes
New ways of thinking required, as asset managers need to describe events in sensing
terms in order to be able to link sensor data to events. What are critical variables and
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how can they be sensed? (the decisions do not change unless the people making them
change their way of thinking)
Critical view on the limitations of data
Organizational Greater levels of automation means that new organizational structures and policies are
changes required with regards to data governance
Greater levels of data sharing and varying types of data usage mean that new forms of
data governance need to developed in order to ensure accountability for compliancy
regulations such as privacy and security
Business process Greater levels of automation means that many operational decisions can be automated,
changes Data need to be traced for its origin and quality (data provenance)
Table III. People made decisions are lifted to more strategic level
Aspects of business Data governance processes need to be (re)defined
processes needing to Technical changes Incorporation of new hardware and software requiring new protocols and routines for
be configured making use of them

People related changes by IoT adoption may be seen in the way people themselves have to
adapt to new technologies. New capabilities, skill sets and new ways of thinking are required
to be able to leverage the full benefits of IoT and adopt a data-drive decision-making process.
It has become clear that combining information from devices and other systems using
expansive analysis, may provide new insights for managers of public infrastructure. For
example, it is possible to embed wireless sensors within concrete foundation piles to ensure
the quality and integrity of a structure. These sensors can provide load and event monitoring
for the projects construction both during and after its completion. This data, combined with
data from load monitoring sensors designed to measure weights of freight traffic, may provide
managers of physical infrastructure with new insights as to the maintenance requirements of
the infrastructure. The managers need to have understanding of what the data means to use
them for decision-making. For this they were educated to develop new skills:
P3. IoT adoption requires data provenance and governance.
Quality of decision-making processes in asset management are directly linked to the quality of
the data and being generated within the business processes. As such, with regards to
organizational related changes brought about by IoT adoption, the importance of data
provenance and data quality for IoT infrastructures and the persisting requirement for manual
intervention suggests the need for instituting strong data governance procedures as data
quality issues are often do not arise from existing business rules or the technology itself, but
from a lack of sound data governance (Thompson et al., 2015). Data governance is the exercise of
authority, control, and shared decision-making over the management of data assets. It provides
organizations with the ability to ensure that data and information are managed appropriately,
aligns the data infrastructures with business requirements, ensures a common understanding of
the data, and ensures compliancy to laws and regulations (Brous et al., 2016). In addition to the
 resolution of data quality issues, data governance may also assist IoT adoption in other ways as Internet
data governance provides both direct and indirect benefits. Direct benefits of data governance of Things
for business processes can be linked to efficiency improvements (Hripcsak et al., 2014), adoption
reductions in privacy violations (Tallon, 2013), and increased data security (Panian, 2010):
P4. IoT adoption requires changes in business processes to collect and use data from
multiple sources.
Business process related changes can be found in aligning complex data structures.
As such, other changes are often related to changes in the asset management business
process. For example, traditional processes are often performed by people. When business
processes become automated, people assume new or different roles and people-made
decisions are often elevated to more strategical levels. This also often means changes in the
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organization as people are asked to perform other tasks in changing social and cultural
environments and often in changing organizational structures. However, automating
business processes is challenging, as aligning semantics or ontology between different IoT
eco-systems is a complex task and interoperability and convergence with regards to
visibility of processed data at the level of applications remains an issue (Mihailovic, 2016).
This barrier has hampered IoT data sharing. According to Cao et al. (2016), sharing of IoT
data will only reach its full potential if data can be collected by multiple sources such as if
people are able to share their data related to different events by leveraging the sensing
capabilities of their smartphones (Cao et al., 2016). The business processes should ensure
that data from multiple sources will be integrated and can be used in decision-making
processes. Some of the data collected may contain sensitive information such as the location
data of the owners when using smart phone data. Compliancy to privacy and security
regulations is therefore imperative and this need to be embedded in the business processes:
P5. IoT adoption requires standardization of technology.
Technical changes brought by IoT adoption may be seen in the introduction of new technologies
which creates large amounts of data. The technical changes are therefore not only in the
introduction of new hardware, but also with regards to new protocols for data transport and
security, new ways to store data and new ways to analyze the data and turn it into useable
information. These technologies need to be standardized to avoid fragmentation and lack of
interoperability. The confluence of sensor-driven data, cloud computing and mobility is driving
a need within asset management in which assets themselves become active participants in the
various stages of their own lifecycles. This covers a range of technologies, such as data capture,
barcode printing and RFID, but it also involves advanced analytics and machine-learning
techniques that bring greater flexibility and dynamism to the multitude of data points that IoT
architectures engender. Many asset management organizations are exploring IoT technology as
an asset management tool, simply because the complexity and size of their infrastructure forces
a new way of gathering data and monitoring systems (Hua et al., 2014; Lee, 2014).

6. Conclusions
Following Eisenhardt (1989) theory was built, developing five propositions for effective IoT
adoption in decision-making processes. We found the need to make organizational and business
process changes, development of new capabilities, data provenance and governance and the need
for standardization. This research has shown that in seeking to adapt to changing circumstances,
asset managers develop rules that anticipate the consequences of certain responses.
Currently, organizations are experimenting with new data sources and there is a general
expectation that IoT will provide significant added value to asset management decision-making.
Organizations can effectively and sustainably adopt these new data sources in their
decision-making if the data that are measured can monitor the important factors of the
 BPMJ asset itself. The propositions have practical implications for organizations and show that IoT
adoption can result in far-reaching changes. Adoption of IoT allows for more detailed and
accurate predictive analysis, increasing trust in the asset management process and allowing for
greater predictability in risk-based decision-making. This has allowed decision-making to
become partially automated due to the greater certainty as to when and which action needs to be
taken. Business processes for decision-making need to be reconfigured to allow IoT generated
data to be included and to ensure data provenance so decision-makers can interpret the
limitations and potential of the data and ensuring security and privacy is accounted for.
Furthermore, the people in the business processes need to learn new skills to be able to
understand and interpret the data. Decision-makers need to become more at home with data and
data analytics. The culture needs to be changed to move from physical to data-based inspection
of assets. Asset management organizations need to change their cultures to adopt IoT so that is
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ingrained throughout organization rather than being lost in departmental silos. Adoption of IoT
requires an IT infrastructure that can facilitate the new data sources and requires a good
understanding of the data collected and its quality aspects. Adoption of IoT needs appropriate
management of the data to ensure compliancy to laws and regulations. Sound data governance
is required to ensure that IoT can provide trusted data for decision-making. The results show
that decision processes have been changed to deal with the real-time nature of the data, and
managers need to adapt and develop new skills and capabilities to be able to interpret the data.

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Corresponding author
Paul Brous can be contacted at: p.a.brous@tudelft.nl

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