It is a truth, especially in Europe and the US, that with the emergence of new regulations such as eIDAS (EU 910/2014), the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR, EU 679/2016), and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), just to name a few, companies and organizations face the problem of accommodating different requirements and different domains in their everyday work. Such regulations luckily come with the implementation of more standards; thus, expertise is easily shared among different vendors.

However, every standards developing organization uses its own methodology to write standards, such as the SHALL language of the request for comments (RFC) system, International Organization for Standardization (ISO) clauses, and so on. Organizations often have to certify their adherence to standards and regulations, and the disparate knowledge and procedures make the auditing process cumbersome.

The authors tackle this problem with a use case from the food industry (“one of the most regulated in the world”). The study looks at a company that exports food all over the world, quoting the firm’s quality control manager: “we need a map or we will get lost in a jungle of regulations.”

The authors apply a canonical action research (CAR) approach in order to guarantee the soundness and scientificity of their process. They acknowledge that in this type of research “it is not possible to know every relevant variable”; thus, they carefully evaluate the entire process and the related threats. Their goal-oriented approach results in a positive outcome for the use case.

In conclusion, research and technology transfer in the field is really important, especially with the creation of highly digitized networks such as Industry 4.0.