Understanding data governance requirements in IoT adoption for smart ports – a gap analysis

Maritime shipping is considered the backbone of the global supply chain. It is expected that future fully automated smart ports will be data-driven, harvesting power from advanced analytics and artificial intelligence. Under the hood, Internet of Things (IoT) technologies are considered as an enabling foundation of new data sources for innovations and high-level automation. Thus, enterprise data management becomes critical when implementing IoT projects. However, the implementation of data management needs to be governed. Although the IoT adoption in smart ports receives significant interest from the port authority, the effectiveness of the IoT adoption lacks proper evaluation and support of comprehensive data management policy and guidelines. By using the systematic literature review and a case study to analyze the current gaps in IoT data governance research, this research shows that IoT data governance still needs to catch up in smart ports. In particular, compared to other industries, data lifecycle management and data quality management are two key data governance areas that should receive increasing attention from the port authorities. It is believed that with adequate data governance, smart ports can truly harvest the power of IoT to improve operational efficiency and sustainability with an increasing level of automation.