EBAThe Design of EBA Business Fieldwork

Integrate IoT Resource in Japanese Industries andTalent in Asian Top Universities

EBA

oT

Masaki Umejima
Project Associate Professor, Graduate School of Media and Governance, Keio University

Supanuch Supanimittrakul
Senior Researcher, Keio Research Institute at SFC
F

Natawut Nupairoj
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Engineering, Chulalongkorn University

Chaodit Aswakul
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Engineering, Chulalongkorn University

Manoj Lohatepanont
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Engineering, Chulalongkorn University

Kultida Rokviboonchai
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Engineering, Chulalongkorn University

Abstract:

When addressing Internet of Things [IoT], two strategies are available: open
and closed. Home appliances to be key devices on IoT have adopted a closed
strategy for many years. However, we can observe the new aspects that 1) home
appliances with the open interface named ECHONET Lite make up Home Energy
Management System [HEMS] which enables peak demand control of energy
usage and 2) industry-academic cooperation in ASEAN plays the important role

46

The Design of EBA Business Fieldworkof spreading the open technologies such as ECHONET Lite through providing theplatform which facilitates the engineers at the higher educational institutions in
ASEAN.
In driving open technology, the role of university which educates engineers,
makes feasibility study to ensure interoperability of the entire system, and creates
regulations for social deployment of new technology, is important. The case of theinternet innovation in 1990s told that education and empirical study in university
were mandatory of increasing awareness to open technology such as TCP/IP andHTML.
EBA Business Fieldwork that we discuss on this paper has created theplatform which enables of cooperating among four different parties who are
motivated by IoT: student, university, company, and government. Throughreviewing EBA Business Fieldwork, we highlight the embryonic movement inwhich 1) universities support to deploy open technology on IoT and 2) companies
provide students with field work opportunities as same as scholarships.
n erne of ThingsoToTo e Energ

n ge en

se

E

E

E

A EA
ET

ie

A EA

T
T
EBA
oT

Keywords: oT l forenerg

infr s ru ure higher edu

ion A EAoTA EAKEIO SFC JOURNAL Vol.17 No.2 2017

47

EBA

1 Problem Identification
In ASEAN, Japanese home appliance giants such as Mitsubishi,
Panasonic, and DAIKIN have placed the important position of manufacturing
a hardware such as an air conditioner for many years. However, the position
as the manufacturing core in ASEAN has been descent as same as theinnovation is provoked by software and data driven approach.
In 2011, when the heavy earthquake and Tsunami made a serious
nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan, the Japanese government andindustrial liaison launched the new approach to provide a home appliancewith network access in adopting an open interface. That ambitious projectcalled ECHONET Lite was started with only 22 industrial participants in
2011. In five years passed, ECHONET Lite has become an international
standard at ISO/IEC and grown to the big project with getting participations
from over 250 companies, e.g. Toyota, Panasonic, Toshiba, NTT, Softbank,
Tesla motor [U.S.], SMA [Germany], and LG [Korea] (Fig.1).
On the other hand, EBA Consortium is a university consortium formed
in 2012 to pursue Evidence-Based Approach (EBA) that is the approach for

Figure 1 ECHONET Lite

48

The Design of EBA Business Fieldwork

the problem-finding, analysis and problem-solving by combining the fieldbased observation and evidence-based analysis. An evidence-based approachis practiced in, for example, the evidence-based medicine, which is designed
to fuse broad medical research accomplishments with highly specialized
clinical knowledge. To be familiar with forming up EBA concept, neweducation in highlighting a fieldwork is necessary. The purpose of EBA is
to educate students to utilize the Big-Data (data collection, analyses, andvisualization) through fieldwork study and internship.
Consortium partner universities jointly design the EBA course
curriculum and offer courses in their own expertise to students from thepartner universities. The consortium is formed by 9 institutions in 7 countries:
KEIO UNIVERSITY in Japan, UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINESDILIMAN in Philippines, UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE and MALAYSIA
and UNIVERSITY OF MALAYA in Malaysia, CHULALONGKORN
UNIVERSITY in Thailand, INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY BANDUNG
and BRAWIJAYA UNIVERSITY in Indonesia, HANOI UNIVERSITYOF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY in Vietnam, and UNIVERSITY OFCOMPUTER STUDIES, YANGON [1] in Myanmar.
EBA Business Fieldwork was designed to form up cooperation among
students who studied a theoretical framework in universities and companies
who aimed at creating innovative services on IoT. Student participants
could learn 1) the theoretical framework that existed behind the latest IoT
movements on business and 2) observe business implementation or exercise
with new technologies through visiting the laboratories and the pilot study
sites.
When university designing a fieldwork in cooperating with a company,
proprietary technology is not suitable for securing the open accessenvironment to the technology for a student. In conclusion, the topic of EBA
Business Fieldwork was occupied by open technologies such as ECHONET
Lite, Hadoop, and Open Stack.
KEIO SFC JOURNAL Vol.17 No.2 2017

49

EBA

2 Theoretical Study
2.1 Modular Architecture and Open Strategy
How did EBA Business Fieldwork integrate IoT resource in Japaneseindustries and talent in Asian top universities? The organizationalarchitecture that EBA Business Fieldwork relied on was a platform theory ofenabling cooperation among multiple players in respecting autonomy in eachparticipant. This chapter discusses about the theoretical framework how aplatform designs cooperation.
An architectural concept is the enabler of describing the framework of
corporation and the product attributed by a system of cooperation. In details,
an architecture is defined as follows: a way to identify which modules are
the components of a system and how they work (Baldwin et al., 2000),
basic design ideas on how to divide whole product into components andprocesses, allocate product functions therein, and design interfaces between
parts and processes (Fujimoto, 2001), and the design of the role sharing andthe interface between subordinate systems in constructing a large system byassembling multiple subordinate systems (Kokuryo, 1999) (Kokuryo, 2008)(Fig.2).
The architecture is divided into integral and modular types. The integral

Figure 2 Architecture Design

50

Kokuryo, 2008

The Design of EBA Business Fieldworkarchitecture is complicated on the relationship of the functional group andthe parts group therein. Taking the car as an example, it is necessary that allparts such as the tire and the suspension to delicately adjust to each other for
making the function of the ride such as noise and vibration. The designerof each module performs a fine correction of the design to each other byworking closely with each other (Fujimoto, 2001).
A modular architecture builds a complex product and business processwith assembling small subsystems that can be independently designed andintegrated as a whole system. For example, the computer industry havechanged the market extensively with the introduction of inexpensive and fast
information processing capabilities. In a modular architecture, a complex
product or business process is built by integrating small subsystems that canbe independently designed and unified as a whole. The wide adoption of amodular architecture has dramatically driven the innovation (Baldwin et al.,2000).
In construct, the limit of human cognitive capacity is the determining
factor of the structure of an artifact. The information transmission by
the machine and the programmed processing power continue to growexponentially. The interdependences among modules are the parameterof designing a whole system. As a result of the situation in which human
information processing capacity becomes scarce value in the overall
economy, it is defined as a composite of how the design of each module isaffected by the design of other modules.
If the interdependences are high among each unit, the adjustment
must be made between the persons who are designing each unit. If theinterdependence is low, it eliminates the need of fitting. The complexity of
the whole system design can be reduced by collecting modules with highinterdependence. In the modular architecture, the whole system is completed
in complying with the design rules. Once the assembling rules as a visible
rule between modules are determined, the improvement of individual
KEIO SFC JOURNAL Vol.17 No.2 2017

51

EBA

modules has become autonomous. It is caused that the design and theimprovement of other modules are done independently, the improvement
and innovation of the system as a whole, even if not directed by a centralized
authority, can be created afterwards by assembling the autonomous
improvement of individual modules.
Aoki et al. (2002) discussed this situation as system innovationfrom the bottom based on the competition that creates innovation amongindividual modules. Kokuryo (2008) argued with the era of a small device
with a great power. The modular architecture is classified as the closed-type
in which use of the interface is exclusively restricted and the opened-type inwhich the interfaces among each module are socially opened to anyone forfree or charge.
A closed architecture product refers to the interface design rules
between modules that are essentially closed within one company. For
example, in the case of automobiles, the detailed design of each product may
be left to external suppliers, but the basic design part of interface design andfunctional design is completed by one company (Fujimoto, 2001) (Figure 3).
Open-architecture products break down into highly-independent

Figure 3 Position of Each Product in an Architecture Perspective (Fujimoto, 2011)52

The Design of EBA Business Fieldwork

modules based on a design rule (architecture) that is a widely sharedsystem, a product or business process with inherently complex functions.
Open-architecture products employ a corporate strategy that combines
information transmitted by a variety of principals by connecting with asocially shared open interface with ensuring versatility as a whole system.
In fact, while the interface is proprietary and the entire system is closed, thesystem is integrated only within the same corporate or the corporate groupsharing the interface, even if it is a modular system. Once the interface isopen, the modules developed by a small company can be integrated in afree combination. A small company with excellent engineers develops andinvests in the specific area and a combination of the best complementary
technologies that exist at that time can create a new and innovative productas a whole system (Kokuryo, 1999).
Aoki et al. (2002) highlighted a network system that the scale of
network is observed in addition to the scale of merit. The open-interface,which the scale of network is prioritized than the scale of merit, is theenabler of designing a whole network created by highly independent andversatile subjects.
The economy of scale and the economy of network are different
concepts, and argued that they could have the opposite effect on the market
structure. Specifically, the pursuit of scale merit in demand for the purposeof obtaining network effect does not necessarily lead to the formation of
the monopoly or the oligopoly by a giant enterprise in the production scene(Shinozaki, 2011).
2.2 Platform as an Organizational Theory
Platform has been spreading rapidly since the 1980s when open
system was popular on the information system such as the Internet.
Before the open system coming to the market, the closed system thatthe industry supplies the peripheral devices such as software and
KEIO SFC JOURNAL Vol.17 No.2 2017

53

EBA

printers without separating the main body of a computer was common.
The open system on the modular architecture that the big integrated
system is divided into the small and multiple autonomous systems
with an open interface is the enabler that the software developed by asmall startup is operated on a big giant’s machine such as Microsoft.
For now, the operating system (OS) became a platform, and almost
everything in the personal computer software industry has come to develop on
a common platform such as Microsoft. As a result, many software vendors andhardware vendors were free to combine them on the common platform of OS.
As the OS example shows, the platform has a tendency to occupy amonopoly position in the platform itself. Conversely, in the industrial world,
businesses that hold the platform will be able to boast an overwhelming
advantage. A platform-based operator can continue to maintain its
predecessor in development by allowing the industry to use the standardof an interface with its own platform and peripheral products as a virtual
standard (de facto standard). It can be said that platform supremacy becomes
an important point in the business strategy, and the recognition to theplatform is increased.
The Internet now connects billions of people allowing vast exchange
of information including personal information. While it offers wide rangeof benefits to the people, it also increased the threat of privacy violation
enormously. Such applications on the Internet as social networks ande-commerce platforms became databases that may, if inadequately used, tomonitor and manipulate users.
A collaborative interaction is necessary across disciplinary borders,
including philosophy, theology, engineering, economics and law. Design
and the construction of such platforms should thus be at the core of efforts tocreate a healthy Human-IT ecosystem in which societies and technology can
co-evolve sustainably. Development of institutions that operates the platform
will also be a focal target of the development of Human-IT ecosystem.

54

The Design of EBA Business Fieldwork

In the design of the platform, five parameters are considered: 1)
communication patterns, 2) role of each participant, 3) incentives, 4) trust,and 5) management of internal change (Kokuryo et al., 2011). In those
five parameters, incentive design is the most important of maintaining
sustainability of a platform (Umejima, 2011).

3 The Case of Open Strategy in a Home Appliance
Architecture: ECHONET Lite
In 2011, Trade and Industry’s Industrial Structure Council of Ministryof Economy, Trade and Industry in Japan held architecture-level discussions
to decide an appropriate framework on Home Energy Management Systems(HEMS) which enables peak demand control in every household. In Japan,
energy price is decided by peak demand measured by Kw and total usages
measured by kwh. In that sense, HEMS is aiming at bringing energy cost
reduction as same as reducing energy consumption.
In general, an energy management system is a system that implements
Demand Side Management (DSM) to improve the efficiency with whichenergy is used at the customer side. In Japan, there were discussions on thesubject of whether the system architecture should be vertically integrated
with a closed interface, or should be horizontally specialized with an open
interface.
Those architecture-level discussions with a lively debate reached
a new principle of which new entries should be encouraged on HEMS
business, emphasis should be placed on increasing the potential for addedvalue creation, and the interface design of HEMS should be opened as theinternational standard (Fig.4).
ECHONET is a home network communication protocol createdby the ECHONET Consortium, which was founded in 1997 by agroup mainly comprised of Japanese manufacturers of consumer
electrical products with the aim of standardizing the implementation
KEIO SFC JOURNAL Vol.17 No.2 2017

55

EBA

Figure 4 Position of Each Product in an Architecture Perspective in this Researchof home automation. The distinguishing feature of this protocol is that
it facilitates detailed control of Japanese consumer electrical products.
On the other hand, since it defines interfaces for everything from aphysical media to an application software, it is unable to adapt to theglobal trend towards the increasing use of IP at the network layer.
In particular, the enforcement of ECHONET addresses, which areintended to facilitate seamless connections to various physical layers,presents a major barrier to the formation of an international strategy. In
response to requests from the public and private sectors, the ECHONET
Consortium investigated the idea of eliminating ECHONET addresses andswitching to a new communication protocol consisting of the ECHONET
protocol placed an ordinary IP address on a physical layer.
This culminated in ECHONET Lite, which was released by the
ECHONET Consortium in July 2011. This specification has a new interface
definition that does not define the physical layer and only defines parts ofapplications and the command systems of domestic electrical appliances andfacilities (Fig.5).

56

The Design of EBA Business Fieldwork

Type

Name of specificationJapan

ECHONET Lite

U.S.

SEP

Europe KNX

Summary
IP-based. Compatible with XML, etc. Defined for over 80 different
devices. Allows detailed control
IP-based. Predominantly offers superficial access to crude controls
Considerable experience of implementations in places on a larger
scale than residential buildings

Figure 5 The Leading Smart House Interfaces used in Japan and Overseas

The two changes made by the ECHONET Consortium to thetechnical specifications (synchronizing with IP and leaving the physicallayer unspecified) have presented a major impact. This is the enabler ofcooperating with other protocols that have already been deployed andachieved international standardization. It could also be said that thesechanges made the protocol easier for new businesses and overseas businesses
to use.
Although ECHONET Lite is sometimes criticized for being a Japanonly specification, this is not actually true. There are still many things that
could be improved — for example, there are no training systems in place(even for engineers) and no SDK or software development environmenthas been set up. However, it would be incorrect to call ECHONET Lite
less international. First, it has been ratified as IEC standard. ECHONET
Lite is participating in some working groups in ISO/IEC in order to adjust
with the trends in international standardization and engage in consultations
with experts from around the world. It is the main accomplishmentthat ECHONET Lite specification has become ISO/IEC14543-4-3 as acommunication standard. Second, the ECHONET Lite specification is an
open standard. The ECHONET Lite specification, which is the uniqueintellectual property of the ECHONET Consortium, also plays a large rolein open standard decision-making. All the technical specifications can beobtained via the ECHONET Consortium’s web.
Third, ECHONET Lite synchronizes with the direction of international
M2M network maintenance. And fourth, it is being used in a growing number
KEIO SFC JOURNAL Vol.17 No.2 2017

57

EBA

of implementations. The number of devices compatible with ECHONET
Lite is continuing to grow steadily. For now, the properties [demand] forover 90 different types of home appliances, e.g. air conditioners, lighting,photovoltaic solar cells, fuel cells, and storage batteries, have been defined.
Commercial products are on the market in Japan and ASEAN.
By using ECHONET Lite to bring a network access to home appliances,Home Energy Management System (HEMS) has become the open system inwhich students can create application services through learning in university.

4 The Case of the Platform to Empower an Open Strategy:
EBA Business Fieldwork
4.1 Platform Design for EBA Business Fieldwork
EBA Business Fieldwork is a short-term fieldwork emphasized on
industrial participation with the aim to bring the opportunity where students
could interact with the academic-industrial researchers with the related topics
and its empirical studies such as Energy Management and entrepreneurship.
Unlike regular internship programs that students work for one company,
students could visit many companies and learn the various solutions from
more than two partner companies in one EBA Business Fieldwork.
In implementing EBA Business Fieldwork, the new platform wasformed by four different participants: student, university, company, andgovernment (Fig.6).
Student and university joined or observed empirical studies on IoT
that a company addressed at many areas in Asia and Japan. That was the
incentive for students and universities to stay at the platform.
In a company, the interactions with young engineers who are theusers of open technology become a driver to join the platform. In a home
appliance architecture whose technology was proprietary for many years,
it was less necessary that the engineers in Japanese industry giants such as
Panasonic and Toshiba hear the voice of external engineers in university.

58

The Design of EBA Business Fieldwork

Engineer training had loved top-down approach within a company. The
training program edited by the mother factory in Japan was transferred to
the factories in ASEAN countries. It was the big contrast to the internetthat industry communicated well with the external engineers outside thecompany. In open architecture, the use of engineering resource outside thecompany is necessary for the company growth.
In addition, the student-company interaction on the platform created theadded value that a company suggests a job offer to a student.
In the participation of government, the platform received financial
support by Re-Inventing Japan Project of Ministry of Education, Culture,
Sports, Science and Technology of Japan (2012-2016). The policy inJapanese government is to increase a student overseas who is interested inworking in Japanese company and studying in the higher education in Japan.

Figure 6 Platform Design of EBA Business Fieldwork
KEIO SFC JOURNAL Vol.17 No.2 2017

59

EBA

For the process, participating universities nominated students throughan assessment such as interview or business plan/application contest.
Student participants have online preparation courses such as theme-related
assignment, and onsite workshops (energy management, Internet of things,
data analysis and visualization) before visitation to companies. After
broadening their knowledge by observation of real business solutions atcompany, the most important is presentation and intensive discussion withlecturers, industrial experts to identify suitable solutions for theme-related
issues (See the process in the below figure (Fig.7)) .

Figure 7 Process of EBA Business Fieldwork

Fieldwork content is the combination of topics related to policy,
business, and technology. Workshops and activities are based on Data
Driven Approach (data collection, analysis, and visualization). Activities
should involve multidisciplinary professionals not only academic experts(professors, researchers) but also industrial participants for students tounderstand how to use a technology in real business.
The roles and responsibilities of the participants are as follows.
Professor should have long-term research collaboration with industrial
partners. University-industrial relationship supported it by making a goodawareness from industrial experts. Pre-training of basic knowledge help
students to achieve the expected outcome, which is a business plan orprototype design, even if students have less study background related to thefieldwork.
A selection process that evaluates right participants with transparent

60

The Design of EBA Business Fieldwork

and tangible criteria such as required skills related to the theme, high selfmotivation, ability to learn, and initiative. For students, self-study before
coming to Japan is recommended to take initiative to ask question when notunderstanding anything during visitation at companies.
It is necessary for partner companies to identify their objectives suchas educational purpose, recruitment, joint research, or getting idea for
global expansion. For fruitful discussion, a company should provide enoughinformation including project background and necessary knowledges forrunning a fieldwork.
The role of government is important as same as an industrial
participation. Together with partner companies, a governmental participation
secures the position of EBA fieldwork and a governmental financial support
to cover educational parts supports to create good awareness about adiplomatic relation in an academic revel.
Facilitator plays the role of running the collaboration among four
participants: University, Student, Industry, and Government. In providing
pre-workshop or pre-assignment to student participants, a facilitator helps
students to understand the method to achieve the expected outcomes by
providing related materials, and examples. To help them focus on fieldwork,
it is necessary to provide guidance about daily life including transportation,
meals, and local language.
With the above definition, three EBA Business Fieldworks were
implemented from 2013-2016. In this paper, three fieldworks are highlighted:
Big Data Management Fieldwork, Energy Management Fieldwork, and DataManagement and Energy Fieldwork.
4.2 Big Data Management Fieldwork
The participants of Big Data Management Fieldwork were sevenIndonesian Electrical Engineering students, who are the winner ofapplication contest, were nominated by their professor at Institute of
KEIO SFC JOURNAL Vol.17 No.2 2017

61

EBA

Technology, Bandung (ITB). At the contest day, students had to present theirplan together with a prototype. The content of the presentation included a
project background, a target outcome, and cost estimation. After passing thepresentation that had a role of the selection process, that group of students
participated in 10-day fieldwork in July 2015.
Main activities are lectures by lecturers from Keio University(Japanese language, Energy management, Data analysis). Data Visualization
workshops is taught by EBA researchers, and Twitter Analysis hands-on
practices was implement with engineers from partnering company, NTT
DATA Corporation.
At the final day, industrial representative impressed that students could
present solutions. Students’ outcomes were mainly prototypes of Twitter
data analysis and visualization such as traffic accident detection, and citizen
daily report.
4.3 Energy Management Fieldwork
Keio University in Japan and Chulalongkorn University in Thailand
have done the joint online entrepreneurship course. Based on that longterm collaboration, an online interview placed at the selection process was
conducted by a senior researcher at Keio University, five Thai engineering
students passed it and visited Home Energy Management System Test
Center by ECHONET, and Panasonic’s R&D center in January 2016. Afterobserving the business implementations in Japan, students developed abusiness plan that aimed at deploying HEMS for Thailand market.
4.4 Data Management and Energy Fieldwork
The participants of Data Management and Energy Fieldwork were eightstudents passed the selection by lecturers in their universities, and completed
assignment a month before coming to Japan in October 2017 for 10 days.
In addition of lectures and workshops, students had several online and a62

The Design of EBA Business Fieldwork

face-to-face presentation to share their idea after learning about the latest
technology and business solutions at Smart House at Mitsubishi Electric
factory, Smart City Center at Toshiba. Moreover, almost daily discussion
with industrial experts helped them brushed up and specified their businessidea related to IoT and energy management.
4.5 Feedback by the Industry Participants to Business Fieldwork
The biggest impact was seen at the fieldwork in October 2016 because
the fieldwork led to the recruitment opportunity and this means EBA could
increase talent mobility and enhance technological collaboration and create
meaningful career path for student participants.
In detail, Japanese Human Resource Department manager fromDAIKIN Corporation mentioned his feedback towards participating offieldwork in October 2016, as below:“Impression of students are as expected from top universities inSoutheast Asia. They have logical communication skills, flexible mindset,
high motivation in learning, taking initiative, independent, and have potential
for further development.”
He shows strong interest to recruit engineering students from EBA
partner universities. As a spin-off of fieldwork, DAIKIN and EBA jointly
conducted internship for recruitment from March to September 2017. Asof October 2017, 2 interns passed a pre-selection test, internship, and job
interview. They accepted job offer and will become a full-time employee ofthe company from April 2017.
4.6 Feedback by the Student Participants to Business Fieldwork
EBA Business Fieldwork participants mainly mentioned that 1)
Workshops and lectures are brief and informative, 2) Company visitation
is an eye-opening opportunity to see real technology trends and business
innovation, 3) Learning how Japanese industries collect, analyze, and
KEIO SFC JOURNAL Vol.17 No.2 2017

63

EBA

visualize massive data that HEMS collects for the purpose of optimizing
energy flow and demand help to consider how to solve the problem likeenergy shortage.
In addition, when discussing about a career plan, more than half ofstudent participants are strongly interested to continue their future career inJapan either continuing higher education or pursuing working at companies
that participated in the fieldwork.

5 Conclusion and Challenges
As we discussed on this paper, EBA Business Fieldwork has created theplatform with aiming at integrating IoT resource in Japanese industries andtalent in Asian Top universities (Fig.8).
Empirical study of three cases in EBA Business Fieldwork haveconcluded that the newly designed platform is the enabler of cooperation
among four different parties: student, university, company, and government.
On the other hand, three challenges are remaining; communicational
challenge, incentive challenge, and operational challenge.
Firstly, communication challenge is how the platform organizer creates
intensive to the interactions among the participants who are from different
countries in different field of studies. Most of students do not have business

Figure 8 Photos of EBA Business Fieldwork

64

The Design of EBA Business Fieldwork

experience and the local language proficiency. In that sense, it is essentialthat the platform organizer prepares the suitable environment where fruitfulinteraction can be done. To increase communication, creating trust among all
participants is necessary. In EBA Business Fieldwork, the platform organizer
pays priority to transparency within the organization. In an example,
the disclosure of the following items such as research themes, expected
outcomes, and required skills was actively done by industries.
Secondly, incentive challenge is to provide meaningful incentive topartner companies (sponsors). Not only providing the matching with young
engineers in university, the platform delivered the enough incentive to thecompany who want to have a linkage to recruitment process in contrast to
the general fieldwork which was always seen as a mere academic activity.
Thirdly, operational challenge is time management. During theduration of EBA Business Fieldwork, time should be wisely managed by theorganizer because schedule is quite tight to cover all lectures, workshops,
field activities, group work, and presentation of students’ accomplishment.
In addition, guidance for students is necessary because most of participants
have never had experience outside a home country. Participating fieldwork is
the first oversea experience for them.
After successful cooperation on EBA Business Fieldwork, ECHONET
Consortium, who has maintained an open interface for a home appliance,
launched a research center at Chulalongkorn University in Thailand. It
has been placed as the part of a research project of Computer Engineering
Faculty at Chulalongkorn University.
In looking back when the platform for implementing EBA Business
Fieldwork was launched, it was unpredictable outcome that Japanesecompany developed a research center at the university in ASEAN withaiming at spreading open technology in ASEAN. In addition to creating
university-industry collaboration research, EBA platform produced
one master thesis research, whose title was “Development of RealKEIO SFC JOURNAL Vol.17 No.2 2017

65

EBA

Time Interworking between IEEE1888 and ECHONET Lite Standards
for Building Energy Management System” with the supervision by Dr.
Chaodit. Later on, that research was presented at the national conferencein Electrical Engineering (EE-CON39) and invited for a special issue
at the Engineering Journal of Faculty of Engineering, Chulalongkorn
University.
EBA Business Fieldworkthat we discuss on this paper
has created the platform whichenables of cooperating amongfour different parties: student,
university, company, and government.
In t he poin t of view a t
u niversit y ed ucation, it has
explored the new opportunity
where a company participates in

Figure 9
HEMS Research Center at
Chulalongkorn University in Thailand

university education in the context of executing a corporate strategy, not insocial contribution.
In driving open technology, the role of university which educatesengineers, makes feasibility study to ensure interoperability of the entire
system, and creates regulations for social deployment of the new technology
deployment, is important. It was learning from the internet innovation. In theera of driving IoT, that lesson is valid.
In conclusion, EBA Business Fieldwork as same as the newly designed
platform has performed well by integrating IoT resource in Japaneseindustries and talent in Asian top universities in respect to the past study inthe internet innovation.

66

The Design of EBA Business Fieldwork

End Note[1]

UNIVERSITY OF COMPUTER STUDIES, YANGON is an associate member at EBA
Consortium.

References

Baldwin, C.Y., and Clark, K.B., Design Rules: The Power of Modularity, Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 2000.

KEIO SFC JOURNAL Vol.17 No.2 201767