Municipalities face many challenges in maximizing the value of the assets they provide to their citizens and in being at the forefront of resilience and sustainability concerns. The use of technology, digital processes and initiatives can help cities improve planning, optimize works and provide better services to citizens. However, this approach implies a possible digital transformation of the municipal organization and its asset management activities. Municipalities are struggling to keep pace with the transformative changes needed to align their operations with this evolving new digital age. This longitudinal research aims to frame the digital transformation within cities and municipalities.
The research builds understanding of the city, its components and the connection between them, and identifies technological approaches, processes and tools that can assist in sound life cycle management of urban infrastructure assets.
Barriers and challenges to municipal digital transformation as well as existing digital transformation frameworks are determined through a systematic literature review. This literature review leads to the development of a framework to help cities improve their asset management while having a structured digital transformation. This theoretical framework was validated by workshops in two major Canadian cities (Poirier & Lafioune, 2021). At the same time, further work has been undertaken to operationalize, extend and further validate the framework. Thus, a survey was conducted among 44 Quebec municipalities and interviews were conducted with 13 municipalities of different sizes. The framework developed was adapted to the particular context of the city of Beaconsfield.
The results of these studies highlight the need for a digital transformation framework dedicated to municipalities due to their particular context, role and proximity to citizens. The theoretical framework developed comprises 22 elements which are divided into 6 categories. Through its application, the framework acts as a guide and an analytical tool that helps to identify and target, reduce and/or eliminate the main problems hindering the digital transformation of municipalities. The framework aligns the activities of asset management and the digital transformation of cities. The results show that data management is the main issue. In fact, cities remain reluctant to a structured digital transformation and this reluctance leads to fragmented initiatives. The low level of digital maturity is increasing. The thesis highlights the lack of human resources, expertise and appropriate training to support the digital transformation of cities.
| Date | 7 Apr 2023 |
|---|
| Original language | French |
|---|
| Awarding Institution | - École de technologie supérieure
|
|---|
| Supervisor | Michèle St-Jacques (Supervisor) & Érik Andrew Poirier (Co-supervisor) |
|---|
Lafioune, N. (Author),
St-Jacques (Supervisor) & Poirier (Co-supervisor),
7 Apr 2023Student thesis: Doctoral thesis › Doctorate in Engineering: Engineering