Institute for Information Systems
We shape digital change.
The Institute for Information Systems (IWI) has over 50 employees who actively shape digital transformation and support society and our research and practice partners in managing future challenges. In our nine areas of expertise we investigate, research, teach and shape digital change in the business world and society. Our key competence lies in managing complex systems and in the interplay between humans, data, information, knowledge and processes – with artificial intelligence whenever and wherever appropriate.
- Our research activities
- Our consulting offers
- Our continuing education products
- Our commitment to undergraduate education
Competence Centres
The cloud is no longer just a way to save costs but a driving motor for the company’s innovation. Also, cloud is an enabler for the digital transformation and a central part of the modernisation of the IT-landscape and the core business applications.
The same way, as we entered a new age as a result of industrialisation, we are now entering a new age as a result of digitalisation. Management as we know it today is an answer to the industrialisation. But where are the answers to the digitalisation?
The competence center "Digital Economy & Business Agility" summarises answers to questions that arose in the context of customer projects, combines the answers into a consistent management picture for the Digital Age and regularly expands this picture as soon as further answers are given that are relevant innovative and responsible managers in a networked and dynamic world.
All answers are supported by transparent visualizations: As simple as possible. As detailed as necessary.
Contact: Dino Schwaferts, dino.schwaferts@fhnw.ch
The centre for Supply Chain is the central contact point in Northwestern Switzerland for the digital transformation of supply chain, distribution and logistics. Medicine, omni-channel-commerce or Industry 4.0—digitally connected added value over the entire life-cycle shapes a new basis for the success of industries in Northwestern Switzerland and abroad. The centre for Supply Chain emerged as an initiative of the economy in Northwestern Switzerland. Together, we will establish the new, digital competencies in supply chain and logistics and will implement innovative solutions.
Contact: Joachim Ehrenthal, joachim.ehrenthal@fhnw.ch
The Digital Trust competence center is committed to research and education in the fields of cybersecurity & resilience, data privacy, governance, risk & compliance (GRC), ethics as well as related new technologies, such as blockchain, artificial intelligence or quantum computing. We are an academic partner for interested stakeholders, reaching from managers to technology and industry experts as well as researchers aiming to share knowledge and best practices. In the past, we have successfully led and conducted applied research projects resulting in impactful artifacts for academia and practice. We have extensive experience with a diverse range of projects, including fundings from InnoSuisse, Horizon Europe, Erasmus+, Hasler, or Movetia.
Contact: Petra Asprion petra.asprion@fhnw.ch; Bettina Schneider, bettina.schneider@fhnw.ch
Creating added value across organisations using business concepts from e-procurement and business software to electronic invoicing and e-commerce – this is the task of the e-business team.
We support enterprises in the conceptualisation and realisation of solutions that involve networked systems as well as interdisciplinary tasks and, in so doing, prioritise the perspective of responsible management.
The Competence Center for E-Business works on research projects, delivers services and publishes its results primarily for readers from practice and undergraduate education. Our key topic areas include IT supported business concepts across organisations, e-business in customer-supplier relationships (B2B), e-commerce and the eXperience initiative.
Contact: Ralf Wölfle
Artificial intelligence (AI) is much more than just machine learning from large amounts of data. In intelligent systems, the experience and expertise of employees remains indispensable. Especially in cases where decisions have farreaching consequences, it is people who ultimately have to take responsibility. Some areas are highly regulated and require strict compliance. This knowledge cannot be learned automatically, but can be represented and used by knowledge-based systems.
Contact: Knut Hinkelmann, knut.hinkelmann@fhnw.ch
Digital change is not just about technology. The digital transformation is largely shaped, lived and claimed by people. For this reason, a systemic perspective is important, which considers in particular the mutual organisational and social impact of digital transformation. The team of the Competence Center Technology, Organisation & People explores connections between digital technologies, social and cultural perspectives as well as business and society. The aim of our work is to successfully shape the development of sustainable organisations.
Contact: Rolf Dornberger, rolf.dornberger@fhnw.ch
The economic and technical challenges faced by the energy sector, such as the integration of decentralised renewable energy sources, call for approaches to solutions that intelligently combine both economic and technical aspects. The field of business information systems is predestined to carry out this task and provides support in the transformation of the energy sector to prepare it for future challenges.
To support the transformation of the energy sector and prepare enterprises for future challenges in this area, the Competence Center Smart Energy Systems is researching and developing solutions in the areas of Smart Grids, Smart Markets, new business models in the energy area as well as Smart Home.
Contact: Holger Wache, holger.wache@fhnw.ch
The Competence Center Systems Engineering addresses complex issues from industry and business as well as public administration and society. We use clever algorithms, software technical solutions and/or new IT infrastructure. We adopt state-of-the-art methods from the fields of modelling, data analysis, simulation and optimisation to answer this question.
We focus on modelling and developing software systems. In terms of content, the topics of software and web engineering, programming and the development of tailored algorithms are central in our research, consulting and continuing education projects. For complex problems, methods from the field of computational intelligence can be employed that, for example, support pattern recognition, modelling processes or finding optimal solutions.
Contact: Thomas Hanne, thomas.hanne@fhnw.ch
Two of the driving trends in digital transformation are the rapid developments of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and novel robotics hardware. Their combination enables new, socio-technical forms of human-machine interaction. Beyond such human-robot systems, complex intelligent systems can also be found in a wide variety of areas of technology, economy, and society. Using biology-inspired and AI-derived methods, Computational Intelligence (CI) presents a valuable approach to researching such systems, e.g., supply chain optimization, self-driving vehicles, or cooking robots. In the meantime, research of complex intelligent systems goes beyond individual intelligent systems as it also deals with the environment and interactions of intelligent systems according to the complexity theory. As intelligent systems are more frequently and deeper integrated into our society, e.g., in chat systems or social robots, we are increasingly confronted with complex intelligent systems. The next competence centre at the Institute of Information Systems will therefore be called "Complex Intelligent Systems" and will deepen research in AI, CI, complex intelligent systems, and meta-intelligence.
Contact: Rolf Dornberger, rolf.dornberger@fhnw.ch
Social Media Institute for Information Systems FHNW
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