Dornberger, Rolf
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Using feedback systems thinking to explore theories of digital business for medtech companies
The rapid innovation of digital technologies poses a significant challenge to the healthcare sector. Digital technologies are transforming stakeholder relationships among established industry actors, including those of manufacturers, hospitals, and patients. To be ahead of competitors and to maintain profitability, medical device technology manufacturers (medtech companies) are urged to shift their business focus from product to customer excellence and thus invest in service offerings, focusing on the costs of alternative value delivery and patient outcomes. Such investments require a systemic and holistic understanding of how these changes in strategy affect the external and internal competitive environment. In this chapter, we propose the use of feedback systems thinking to explore the intended and unintended consequences of shifts in strategy, from sequential value chains to platform-oriented thinking. Taking the perspective of a medtech company in the value chain, we highlight challenges arising from hidden limits to growth that prevent the realization of intended achievements. Based on this, we develop hypotheses for the intended and unintended consequences of investing in digital service offerings. We conclude with a discussion of how systems thinking and modeling can support digital strategy development.
Co-Robots from an Ethical Perspective
Cooperation and collaboration robots work hand-in-hand with their human colleagues. This chapter focuses on the use of these robots in production. The co-robots (to use this parent designation) are defined and classified, and application areas, examples of applications and product examples mentioned. Against this background, a discussion on moral issues takes place, both from the perspective of information and technology ethics as well as from business ethics. Central concepts of these applied ethics are consulted and transferred to the areas of application. In moral terms, the use of co-operation and collaboration robots involves both opportunities and risks. Co-robots can support workers and save them from strains and injuries, but can also displace them in certain activities or make them dependent. Machine ethics is included at the margin; it is about whether and how to improve the decisions and actions of (partially) autonomous systems in terms of moral. Cooperation and collaboration robots are a new and interesting subject for it.