IN
DEGREE PROJECT MECHANICAL ENGINEERING, SECOND CYCLE, 30 CREDITS
STOCKHOLM SWEDEN 2018,
IT solutions for end to end change and configuration management in organizations
A case study at VOLVO CE
FÉLIX CAMPOS VÁZQUEZ
IT SOLUTIONS FOR END TO END CHANGE AND CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT IN
ORGANIZATIONS - A CASE STUDY AT VOLVO CE
Table of Content
1 ABSTRACT ... 10
2 CHAPTER II: INTRODUCTION ... 11
2.1 BACKGROUND ... 11
2.2 CASE STUDY AT VOLVO CE ... 11
2.3 PURPOSE AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS ... 12
2.4 DELIMITATIONS ... 12
2.4.1 OBJECTIVE DELIMITATIONS ... 12
2.4.2 TIME DELIMITATIONS ... 13
3 CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY... 14
3.1 STUDY STRATEGY... 14
3.2 SELECTED APPROACH ... 15
3.3 COLLECTION OF DATA ... 15
3.3.1 KNOWLEDGE ... 16
3.3.2 USED TECHNIQUES ... 17
3.3.3 MODE OF OPERATION ... 18
3.3.4 STAKEHOLDER THEORY ... 22
3.4 VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY ... 23
3.4.1 SATISFYING VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY ... 24
3.5 CLOSURE ... 25
4 CHAPTER IV: THEORETICAL CONTEXT ... 26
4.1 INFORMATION SYSTEMS ... 26
4.2 PEOPLE MANAGEMENT DURING CHANGES ... 29
4.2.1 CHANGE MANAGEMENT ... 31
4.3 END-TO-END PERSPECTIVE ... 35
4.4 PRODUCT LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT ... 36
4.4.1 INTRODUCTION TO PLM ... 36
4.4.2 DATA AND INFORMATION ... 37
4.4.3 FEATURES AND CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT RELATION IN PLM SYSTEMS 38 4.4.4 PRODUCT STRUCTURE IN A PLM ... 39
4.4.5 BILL OF MATERIALS ... 40
4.4.6 RELATION BETWEEN PLM AND OTHER SYSTEMS ... 41
4.4.7 BUSINESS BENEFITS OF A PLM SYSTEM ... 42
4.5.1 INTRODUCTION TO SYSTEM ENGINEERING ... 43
4.5.2 METHODOLOGY OF SYSTEM ENGINEERING. ... 45
4.5.3 TECHNICAL PROCESSES OF THE VEE MODEL ... 51
4.6 CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT ... 53
4.7 CONFIGURATION CHANGE MANAGEMENT ... 57
4.7.1 DEFINITIONS AND CHANGE CATEGORIZATION ... 57
4.7.2 CONFIGURATION CHANGE MANAGEMENT PROCESSES AND FORMS ... 58
4.7.3 CONFIGURATION CHANGE MANAGEMENT CAPABILITIES ... 61
4.7.4 CHANGE KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT ... 65
4.8 PLM BENCHMARKING ... 66
4.8.1 ARAS PLM ... 66
4.8.2 SIEMENS PLM ... 67
4.8.3 PTC PLM ... 68
5 CHAPTER V: CASE STUDY ANALYSIS ... 70
5.1 PROCESSES ... 70
5.1.1 CHANGE INITIATION ... 70
5.1.2 CHANGE ANALYSIS ... 72
5.1.3 CHANGE PLANNING ... 74
5.1.4 CHANGE DESIGN IMPLEMENTATION ... 75
5.1.5 CHANGE INDUSTRIALIZATION IMPLEMENTATION ... 76
5.2 TOOLS ... 78
5.2.1 CHANGE INITIATION ... 79
5.2.2 CHANGE ANALYSIS AND CHANGE PLANNING ... 79
5.2.3 CHANGE DESIGN IMPLEMENTATION ... 80
5.2.4 CHANGE INDUSTRIALIZATION IMPLEMENTATION ... 81
5.2.5 OTHER IMPORTANT TOOLS ... 83
6 CHAPTER VI: DISCUSSION AND PROPOSALS ... 84
6.1 REQUIREMENTS MANAGEMENT ... 84
6.2 PRODUCT STRUCTURE ... 87
6.2.1 ARCHITECTURE ... 87
6.2.2 BOMs ... 93
6.3 CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT ... 96
6.4 CONFIGURATION CHANGE MANAGEMENT ... 98
6.4.1 INFORMATION INPUTS SCHEME, WORKFLOW, STATE FLOW ... 102
6.4.2 GENERIC IT TOOL’S CAPABILITIES SUGGESTIONS ... 113
6.4.3 PRODUCT MAINTENANCE PROCESS PROPOSAL ... 116
6.4.4 CHANGE MANAGEMENT CONCLUSIONS ... 117
6.5 AFTERMARKET CONCLUSIONS ... 118
6.5.1 LACK OF “AS-IS” ... 121
6.6 PEOPLE MANAGEMENT ... 121
6.6.1 OUTCOMES ... 123
7 CHAPTER VII: CONCLUSION ... 126
7.1 ACADEMIC CONCLUSION ... 126
7.2 PERSONAL CONCLUSION ... 128
8 APPENDIX ... 129
8.1 APPENDIX A: WORK BREAKDOWN STRUCUTURE ... 129
8.2 APPENDIX B: GANT CHART ... 130
8.3 APPENDIX C: BUDGET ... 131
8.4 APPENDIX D: INTERVIEW MODELS ... 133
8.4.1 INITIAL MODEL ... 133
8.4.2 MODIFIED MODEL ... 134
8.5 APPENDIX E: NUMERIC SURVEY ... 135
8.5.1 NUMERIC SURVEY MODEL ... 135
8.5.2 NUMERIC SURVEY RESULTS ... 135
8.6 APPENDIX F: PLM BENCHMARKING PICTURES ... 137
8.6.1 ARAS PLM ... 137
8.6.2 SIEMENS ... 139
8.6.3 PTC ... 140
8.7 REFERENCES ... 142
Figures Index
Figure 3.1: Knowledge pyramid [own creation] ... 16
Figure 3.2: Developed activities in different locations [own creation] ... 21
Figure 3.3: Locations in Sweden [own creation] ... 22
Figure 3.4: Interest/Power matrix for Stakeholder Management (PMI, 2013) ... 23
Figure 4.1: Information Systems common structure (Ralph Stair; George Reynolds, 2009) ... 27
Figure 4.2: Information systems general structure [own creation] ... 28
Figure 4.3: Internal and external forces able to trigger changes (Murthy, 2007) ... 32
Figure 4.4: Transition Management Model (McCalman and Paton, 2000) ... 32
Figure 4.5: Core processes for a standard company (Saaksvuori and Immonen, 2008) ... 37
Figure 4.6: System’s lifecycle (INCOSE, 2015b) ... 46
Figure 4.7: Waterfall model (Mooz and Forsberg, 2001) ... 48
Figure 4.8: Spiral model (Mooz and Forsberg, 2001) ... 48
Figure 4.9: Architecture development Vee (Mooz and Forsberg, 2006) ... 50
Figure 4.10: Entity Vee (Mooz and Forsberg, 2006) ... 50
Figure 4.11: Dual vees integration (Mooz and Forsberg, 2006) ... 51
Figure 4.12: Configuration Management Integration (Project Management Institute, 2007) ... 55
Figure 4.13: Change Process with 4 stages (Lee et al., 2006) ... 58
Figure 4.14: Change Process with 6 stages (Ullah, Tang and Yin, 2016) ... 59
Figure 4.15: Backward and Forward approach (Eckert, Clarkson and Zanker, 2004) ... 59
Figure 4.16: Change management in an automobile company (Lee et al., 2006) ... 60
Figure 4.17: Trace concept [own creation] ... 63
Figure 4.18: Items connection [own creation] ... 66
Figure 4.19: Aras CMII change management process (Patrick Willemsen, 2013) ... 67
Figure 5.1: ECN planner coordination [own creation] ... 76
Figure 5.2: As-is tool scheme from Aftermarket side [own creation] ... 83
Figure 6.1: Structure illustration on a common architecture model (Reinés, 2017) ... 89
Figure 6.2: System View (Bruun, Mortensen and Harlou, 2014) ... 90
Figure 6.3: Module view (Bruun, Mortensen and Harlou, 2014) ... 91
Figure 6.4: BOM distribution [own creation] ... 94
Figure 6.5:Configuration of a machine (DeereConstruction, no date) ... 95
Figure 6.6: Different product views [own creation] ... 96
Figure 6.7: UML suggestion [own creation] ... 98
Figure 6.8: Change Management forms allocated in the Vee model [own creation] ... 103
Figure 6.9: Proposed workflow for the Change Management process [own creation] ... 105
Figure 6.10: Proposed Status flow [own creation] ... 106
Figure 6.11: “Change BOM” and proposed forms [own creation] ... 115
Figure 6.12: PM scheme proposal [own creation] ... 116
Figure 6.13: Power/Interest stakeholder matrix [own creation] ... 124
Figure 8.1: Change Report ... 137
Figure 8.2: Engineering Change Request ... 137
Figure 8.3: Engineering Change Notice ... 138
Figure 8.4: Express Engineering Change Order ... 138
Figure 8.5: Siemens ECN I (Siemens PLM, 2003) ... 139
Figure 8.6: Siemens ECN II (Siemens PLM, 2003) ... 139
Figure 8.7: Siemens ECN III (Siemens PLM, 2003) ... 140
Figure 8.8: PTC Problem Identification (PTC, no date) ... 140
Figure 8.9: PTC Problem Investigation (PTC, no date) ... 141
Figure 8.10: PTC Change Planning (PTC, no date) ... 141
Tables Index
Table 3.1: Implied roles in the interview process ... 18Table 3.2: Implied departments in the interview process ... 19
Table 4.1: Main features for a PLM system (Saaksvuori and Immonen, 2008) ... 38
Table 5.1: PM classification ... 72
Table 5.2: Tool λ information ... 82
Table 6.1: Interface examples ... 91
Table 6.2: Proposed Change Management forms ... 103
Table 6.3: Information in a PR or CR ... 107
Table 6.4: Information on an ECN (requirements) ... 109
Table 6.5: Information on an ECN (V&V methods) ... 110
Table 6.6: Information on an ECN (Parts) ... 111
Table 6.7: Information on an ICN ... 112
Table 6.8: Different statements, reasons and possible solutions for stakeholder model ... 125
Acronyms
AMT: Advanced Manufacturing Technologies
BOM: Bill Of Materials CAD: Computer Aided Design
CAM: Computer Aided Manufacturing CBIS: Computer-based Information System CCB: Change Control Board
CIA: Change Impact Analysis CMMI: Capability Maturity Model Integration
DSM: Design Structure Matrix eBOM: engineering Bill Of Materials EC: Engineering Change
ECP: Engineering Change Proposal ECR: Engineering Change Request ECN: Engineering Change Notice EDM: Engineering Data Management ERP: Enterprise Resource Planning FMS: Flexible Manufacturing Systems GUI: Graphical User Interface
HLD: High Level Design HW: Hardware
ICT: Information and Communication Technology
IID: Incremental and Iterative Development
IS: Information Systems IT: Information Technology
ITIL: Information Technology Infrastructure Library
LML: Lifecycle Modeling Language mBOM: manufacturing Bill Of Materials NPD: New Product Development PDM: Product Data Management PLM: Product Lifecycle Management PM: Product Maintenance
PMI: Project Management Institute PR: Problem Report
RE: Requirement Engineering RM: Requirement Management RQ: Research Questions
sBOM: service Bill Of Materials SCN: Specification Change Notice SE: Systems Engineering
SOI: System Of Interest SoS: System of Systems SW: Software
UML: Unified Modeling Language V&V: Validation and Verification
1 SAMMANFATTNING
Att bedriva produktionsplanering speciellt i stora organisationer är komplicerat nu för tiden. Marknaderna blir alltmer komplexa; organisationerna behöver uppfinna på nytt, tillämpa nya strategier, och tillägna sig kunskap om flexibla tillvägagångssätt för att kunna bibehålla sin prestationsförmåga och
konkurrenskraft. I detta sammanhang fyller ”System Engineering” koncept såsom ”Configuration” eller ”Change Management” viktiga roller som stödfunktioner.
I denna undersökning kombineras rön från litteratur med en fallstudie för att analysera dagens system och föreslå några IT-lösningar som kan implementeras i existerande organisationer. Andra viktiga begrepp som kravhantering,
produktarkitektur eller PLM-system ligger också inom ramen för detta arbete.
Personliga intervjuer, träningssessioner, expertmöten och annan
informationssökningsteknik har även använts under de sex månaderna för att erhålla önskade resultat. Dessa resultat har både ett akademiskt och ett
organisatoriskt värde, vilket ökar betydelsen av examensarbetet..
1 ABSTRACT
Engineering Management activities in big organizations are especially complicated nowadays.
Markets are becoming more complex; organisations need to reinvent, adopt new strategies, and acquire agile approaches to maintain a competitive character. Because of that, System Engineering concepts like Configuration or Change Management play an essential role to support companies´ performance. In this investigation, existent literature is combined with a case study to analyse the current systems and propose certain IT solutions that can be implemented in real organisations. Other important concepts like Requirement Management, Product Architecture or PLM systems are also under the scope of the research. Personal interviews, training sessions, expert meetings, and other information finding techniques were used during six months to obtain the desired outcomes. These results have both an academic and an organisational validity, increasing the significance of the master thesis.
2 CHAPTER II: INTRODUCTION
2.1 BACKGROUND
In today’s environment it is crucial to develop new strategies. Globalization and exponential technology development originate new requirements and challenges that companies have never faced before. Organizations are forced to develop agile and constant adaptation strategies if they want to remain competitive in today’s market. Therefore, the way in which changes are guided becomes essential for an effective result. New products, regulations, technologies, processes, markets, or clients imply further needs and requisites to be fulfilled.
Most important ideas regarding changes, product lifecycle, and other industrial matters are explained on the present report. In this master thesis, theoretical content is mixed and combined with a real case study. After an initial knowledge acquisition period, all the studied concepts were placed into practice by realizing an investigation in Volvo Group Company.
2.2 CASE STUDY AT VOLVO CE
This master thesis is developed in collaboration with VCE and Volvo IT. Both organisations are business areas inside the well-known Volvo Group Company. Even though the main focus was VCE, whole company’s intranet was available, its huge information gathering possibilities can be noticed on the results.
Volvo Group is a Sweden based company founded in 1927 by Assar Gabrielsson and Gustaf Larson. By that time, company main focus was the car industry. Different business areas were developed within the first ten years (trucks in 1928 or buses in 1934, for instance). Once the cars division was sold to Ford Motor in 1999, a new strategy centred on commercial automotive industry was elaborated. Nowadays, its main production line is the trucks sell, maintenance and service. However, Volvo is also responsible for some other business areas like buses, construction equipment (main division for the thesis), industrial engines, IT (also involved in the thesis) and Financial Services. Through its history, Volvo has always been distinguished for its products quality and safety. Despite its headquarters are in Gothenburg, Volvo Group operates in more than 190 markets, has production facilities in 18 countries and employs about 100.000 people around the globe.
Meanwhile, Volvo CE was created in 1950 after the association with the Swedish company AB Bolinder-Munktell (active since 1832). Therefore, it can be said that VCE has more than 185 years of experience developing premium construction equipment. Based in Eskilstuna (Sweden), Volvo CE has more than 14.000 employees working on their variated product lines: excavators, haulers, wheel loaders, demolition equipment, pavers, compactors, pipelayers or forestry equipment. Nowadays, they are one of the largest companies in the industry with locations and production plants distributed all around the world (Sweden, France, Belgium, US, India, Brazil, China, Korea…).
2.3 PURPOSE AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS
The project was directly proposed by Volvo, due to this particular thesis character, objectives can be differentiated between a generic academic goal and a specific mission into Volvo organisation.
The academic goal for this master thesis consists on mapping and understanding some of the most important management concepts on the industry. System Engineering, Requirements Management, Configuration Management, Change Management and Product Data Management are the disciplines reviewed in depth.
Referring to the particular purpose of Volvo Group, the objective is a most ambitious one. It consists in analysing the information flow throughout the product lifecycle. Once the main problems and weakest connections have been identified, the research focuses on proposing solutions that can be solved through IT tools to enable seamless information flow in a near future. The proposals seek to build a new framework for Product Lifecycle Management, implementing new tools with specific settings, particular capabilities, and a holistic integration.
To pursue such objective was essential to understand all the processes, communication channels, roles or methodologies inside Volvo CE, to obtain a clear image of the organisation.
In order to clarify the objective and guide the investigation, 4 research questions were formulated:
• Which are the main Configuration management difficulties in an organization handling complex products?
• How is the information flow when implementing proper configuration change management?
• Which IT tools and information techniques should be used throughout the product lifecycle to enhance communication efficiency?
• Which capabilities make IT tools suitable for change management processes?
2.4 DELIMITATIONS
This master thesis uses the company as mainstay. Apart from the wide literature reviewed, the case study was stablished as the principal source of conclusions. This implies a clear delimitation, Volvo CE has been the only organisation reviewed on the investigation. However, it is rational to assume that Volvo CE behaves likewise other industrialized organizations. Therefore, the thesis’ results can be considered representative for any industry handling complex products.
2.4.1 OBJECTIVE DELIMITATIONS
As it was said, there are more than 14.000 employees at Volvo CE working on different product lines. The amount of processes, positions and connections throughout the entire lifecycle is extremely big. Thus, it was necessary to delimitate the boundaries of the project since the beginning. The research focuses on Wheel Loaders product line and avoids the marketing side of the product lifecycle. This approach was the best option to narrow down the topic without losing the desired End-to-End perspective.
2.4.2 TIME DELIMITATIONS
In order to be able to conduct the thesis, it was necessary to understand the company itself.
Procedures, methodologies, or organizational charts were crucial aspects to control when interviewees or paths were selected. Therefore, in a company like Volvo, performing these tasks consumed much time. The schedule for the investigation was limited to 6 months, including the literature review, and the report composition. This fact reduced the amount of time dedicated to the analysis, for example, interviews with stakeholders located out of Sweden were done through skype or telephone, losing what a face to face meeting methodology provides.
3 CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY
3.1 STUDY STRATEGY
The present report constitutes a master thesis on different sides of Management Engineering field. The two authors of the study, Félix Campos and Miguel Doncel, are master students from
“Universidad Politecnica de Madrid”. Both of them received a scholarship to study abroad, being their Swedish universities, “Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan” and “Linköping Universitet”
respectively, the main academic centres responsible for the research. It represents the concluding part of a two years program in Industrial Engineering.
The project was supervised by 5 tutors from “Linköping University”, “Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan”, “Universidad Politécnica de Madrid”, “Volvo Construction Equipment”, and “Volvo Group IT”.
This master thesis has been developed during the second semester of 2017/2018 course. The total time available for the project realization was 22 weeks. Organization is such an important parameter when the study field is as wide as the one studied here. Therefore, the general structure was decided at the beginning and followed during the period. It can be divided into three main activities: “theoretical context”, “As-is analysis within the company” and “Solution suggestion and validation”.
During the initial weeks of the thesis, that includes February and March, the principal task was to acquire a generic view about the topic and the company. Configuration Management and Change Management were unknown disciplines and they require a lot of transversal knowledge.
That is to say, other concepts like Systems Engineering, Concurrent Engineering, People Management, etc., were studied to find the thesis main ideas. After that, a deep analysis of the company itself was developed. It was needed to understand the business areas, work methodology, systems used, roles in different departments, and specially, how to use the Volvo internal interface. We were patience with this specific task because we knew that we could gather a lot of useful information through that way.
In the middle part of the study, that includes from week 5 to 12 approximately, the case analysis was developed. It was the main period for interviews and internal analysis. All the pain points identification, miscommunications, communication methodologies, used software, etc., took place during this phase. It was clearly the toughest part. It required a lot of trips to the different offices, workshops or factories, and many skype meetings to cover the whole lifecycle perspective and maintain the needed holistic view. It can be considered as a problem identification stage.
From week 13 to 19, the full analysis and conclusions were developed, leaving some final weeks for the report and details review. During this last part, we brought all the information together and we thought about possible solutions for the existing problems. We suggested certain settings and configurations for the tool, as it will be showed in discussion section of this document. Before introducing the solution on the report, we needed to verify their feasibility
and functionality with the IT Group. Consequently, close communication with Volvo IT employees was performed, including face-to-face meetings, training programs, and more skype appointments.
3.2 SELECTED APPROACH
We have been conducting an investigation with a lot of interpretive research influences. In recent years the increase of interpretive research is evident. More a more researchers utilize this type of approach according to Klein and Myers (Myers, 1999). Interpretive researches do not have pre-determined criteria applied mechanically, but there is not an ungoverned methodology without standards at all either. This balance between proposed principles and interpretivism make the interpretive research the best way to tackle the master thesis.
The foundation of this thesis are social construction methods such as language, consciousness, shared meanings, documents, tools, and other artefacts. Information systems research can be classified as interpretive if phenomena are understood through the meanings that people assign to them (Kaplan and Maxwell, 1994).
With the selected approach, the context acquires a superlative importance. Multiple principles exist for an Interpretive Field Research as Myers stated on his study(Myers, 1999). These are the main ones related with this particular case.
• The principle of contextualization: The subject matter need to be placed in its social and historical context, so the audience can see how the current investigation emerged. A big organisation like Volvo CE is constantly changing, people and technology are not fixed patterns, so they can’t be considered in the way that positivism studies do.
• The principle of dialogical reasoning: It tries to maintain the researcher aware for the possibility of contradictions between the theoretical preconceptions and real findings.
Current Information Systems at Volvo CE does not follow the best practices states on theory so any type of prejudice would affect negatively the research.
• The principle of Multiple Interpretations: Different participants can find different conclusions after the same sequence of study. It is important to not ignore the possibility of the social context conditioning human actions; especially when the research is conducted by two students as in this case. This is also stated at Ricoeur’s work, the conflict of Interpretations (Ricoeur, 2007) where revisions of the researcher’s preconceptions may be the outcome.
3.3 COLLECTION OF DATA
In this section the different data collection methods and types of knowledge involved are presented.
3.3.1 KNOWLEDGE
There are many different ways of classifying knowledge. One of the most common one is to differentiate between explicit, tacit and embedded knowledge (Frost, 2010).
• Explicit: This is the type of knowledge formalized and codified. It is easy to identify, store and retrieve. Because of that, it is considered simple in nature and it can be found in databases, reports, documents, etc.
• Tacit: It refers to intuitive and experience-based knowledge. Its communication is founded on action, commitment, and involvement. It can be assumed as a more complex constitution and it is found at beliefs, values, attitudes, capabilities, etc.
• Embedded: It is defined as the knowledge locked in processes, products, culture, routines, or structures. It can be considered as a mix between previous types if embedded knowledge is written down. It is quite important in this investigation but its management is a demanding question.
Figure 3.1: Knowledge pyramid [own creation]
Interpretive researches are always directly related with qualitative studies. Despite they can’t be assumed as synonyms, both concepts share the main idea. Researchers analyses, interprets, and gather data that can’t be quantified in a meaningful way. As it will be explained later in this section, face to face interviews are the most used way of collecting data. This method provides only qualitative data. However, when discussing the methodology selection at the beginning of the project, it was decided that adding a basic numeric survey could be a good procedure to find the so called quantitative knowledge.
This numeric questionnaire has 7 questions and it was presented at the end of each face to face interview. The timing for the survey was also a matter of discussion at the beginning of the thesis. Finally, it was decided to ask for the numeric value once the interviewee had covered the complete interview. This way, the numeric response could be influenced by all the responses and thoughts developed during the interview and not by instinctive and predefined judgment.
The 7 questions present on the survey (showed at the appendix E) seek a general interviewee profile definition in the first question. The other five cover the complete investigated topic.
The well-known five-point Likert scale was the used model to represent the result. This type of scale consists on the selection from 1 (completely disagree) to 5 (totally agree) the presented statements. The choice of the five point scale, instead of the 6 points or 10 points scale, gives the interviewee the possibility of choosing a neutral attitude with the rate 3 selection (B Robbins, Naomi; M Heiberger, 2011). It is common on Likert charts to end up summarizing the results and creating group of items (Allen, Elaine and Seaman, 2007). Nevertheless, it was decided not to include that on the investigation, developing an individual analysis for each response and considering no numeric relation between them.
3.3.2 USED TECHNIQUES
Theoretical data collection has followed the classic methodology. Configuration Management, Systems Engineering, Information Systems and many other concepts have been studied from written sources like papers or books, from online sources like articles, reports or information web pages and oral sources like supervisors and experts face to face meetings or skype appointments.
The data collection related to the case study was compelling. During the first week of the thesis development, Volvo provided two internal employee’s accounts. With the user IDs we were able to access all the interfaces, sharing points, libraries and internal documents. These were the main information sources during the first month in the investigation process. Past projects, training courses, theoretical framework, and current tools and processes have been the most reviewed knowledge through the research.
However, building theories from a case study requires much more than just checking already developed documents. According to Eisenhardt (Eisenhardt, 1989) theory-building researches typically combine multiple data collection where interviews, observation, and archival sources are the most suitable ones. Because of that, the main information source during the case study data collection was employee’s interviews. As stated in Eisenhardt and Graeber’s paper (Eisenhardt and Graebner, 2007), interviews represent a highly effective data collection method especially for empiric and complex information. However, one big challenge of interviews is to demonstrate that the study is not impression based. It is important to present the results as a source of true and accurate information, influencing the reader´s conception.
The problems associated with the interview method is considered since the beginning, so we have conducted our study according to that. Some techniques and exercises have been performed as they are explained in the upcoming section. The fact of having two investigators
increase the creative potential. Also, the convergence of observations provides more reliable findings. In most of the cases both attended to the interview and hold the same role. However, in other occasions we divided the role as Eisenhardt & Bourgeois state in their article (Eisenhardt and Bourgeois, 1988). One was the interviewer handling the formalised questions, having a more personal interaction with the informant while the other was responsible of reviewing the notes and asking questions within the context.
3.3.3 MODE OF OPERATION
Due to the type of research developed and following the recommendation of the supervisors, the interview standpoint methodology was selected from the beginning. After one month of theoretical study and initiation activities, we started with the face-to-face meetings. We were free to create our own research path in terms of participant’s selection. We decided to follow a flexible plan, deciding the next proper candidate after the previous interview analysis. That is to say, our supervisor in Volvo provided 5 initial names and then, the interviewees contributed with their own contact suggestions. This way, the investigation was guided by a combination of researchers, participants and supervisor’s considerations. However, some interviewees were directly contacted by the researchers. Consequently, a subjective and prejudiced character for the selection method was avoided.
Despite, some of the contacted Volvo CE employees did not find the time for the appointment;
most of the stakeholders had a proactive attitude about it. The complete interview process involved 30 employees, covering all the product lifecycle stages. A total of 15 different departments participated on the process providing the desired End-to-End perspective. The following list shows the profiles of the interviewed people:
Table 3.1: Implied roles in the interview process
Position
Product Development Phase (PPD)
Product Structure Leader Technical Project Leader
Simulation Engineer Functional Developer Solution Process Developer Product Verification Director
Product Manager Chief Project Manager
Design Engineer Product Architect
Production (OtD) ECN Planner
ECN Coordinator ECN Manager PDM Configurator Process Developer
Aftermarket (DtR)
Business Support Manager Project Managers Ascendum IT manager
Process Support
Business System Manager and Support IT Solution Architect
Solution Leader
Product Maintenance Manager Project Manager External Consultant Application Developer
Table 3.2: Implied departments in the interview process
Department
Product Development Phase (PPD)
Product Architecture Electric and Electronic Simulation Engineering
Strategy and Systems Validation and Verification
Hydraulics
Production (OtD)
Process and IT Planning and Inventory
Projects Engineering
Aftermarket (DtR)
Dealer Parts Engineering Business Support Projects Office
Process Support
Product Maintenance External Consultant
IT Group
Quality and Customer satisfaction
It is important to realise that some of the interviewees belonged to the same departments or had the same positions. As a consequence, answers could be compared.
Appointments can be divided in 3 different types depending on the implied stakeholder.
− Regular interview. This was the most repeated procedure. It was used for regular employees, directly or indirectly related to the topic. An interview guide proposed questions and interesting topics to talk about. However, the interviewee was encouraged to add their own questions and thoughts.
The guide (showed on appendix D) is divided in six differentiated parts.
I. Employee’s background. First part is an introduction to the topic and the employee’s background (position, department, time at Volvo CE, etc.).
II. Current processes situation. Then, we asked for the “As-is” process on the company. We discussed about the used IT tools, activities, stakeholders, etc.
III. Problem identification. Here employees were able to talk about main difficulties on their daily work, identifying pain points, hard process to implement, miscommunication, etc.
IV. Possible solutions. We asked about perspectives and most suitable future scenarios.
V. Employee’s feelings and attitudes. Here we talked about the way of handling changes in term of people management, wrong procedures and possible best practices.
VI. Contact suggestion. As explained earlier in this section, we asked the interviewees to provide names or roles who could add some value to the investigation.
Apart from the fixed guide, every interview had its own specific part with questions related with the position. 2 or 3 extra questions were usually added when doing the preceding interview analysis. The meetings were recorded for further examination. In less than one week after the meeting, the voice record was listened and main conclusions were reported in a document (confidential and only available for the researchers) in order to have a quick and organized source of information.
− Expert meeting. During these types of appointments, we did not use the mentioned interview model. These were meetings with stakeholders working with the investigated tools and processes. They weren’t just regular employees but experts on the topic. The method of operation was a spoken dialogue addressing the most relevant points for the study.
− Training sessions. We had the opportunity to participate in several training programs developed by external Volvo consultants. We considered having a better tool knowledge
as clear advantage. We were able to choose which tools to investigate. Our Volvo supervisor provided access to them.
Main activities were developed at Volvo CE headquarters in Eskilstuna. However, there were some other important locations involved. Next figures show all the locations where contacted people are based.
Figure 3.2: Developed activities in different locations [own creation]
Figure 3.3: Locations in Sweden [own creation]
3.3.4 STAKEHOLDER THEORY
In this master thesis where interviews were the main source of information, it is important to consider the universal stakeholder theory. According to Freeman`s “Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach” (Freeman and McVea, 2001), the central task on the stakeholder theory is to manage and integrate the relationships and interests depending on the particular employee, customer, supplier or department. This approach emphasizes active management, distinguishing involved people and adapting the behaviour for each stakeholder.
It represents an important concept in our analysis. As it will be explained in the results part, the answers and personal opinion about certain topics was hardly influenced by the type of stakeholder. Due to the diversity of studied lifecycle stages (from Product Development to Aftermarket), departments (Hydraulics, software, product maintenance, validation and verification…) and roles (project managers, regular employees, solution leaders…) the stakeholder model benefits notably the outcomes and it allows to take advantage of this wide range of investigation. Performed strategies were taken from literature of previous master courses like project management or organizational structure (Daft, 2010). Some of the most used techniques in our analysis are the following ones:
• Stakeholder identification: before the interview, it was necessary to investigate about the stakeholder, adapt the interview according to it and anticipate certain attitudes to be able to guide accordingly.
• Stakeholder prioritization: not all the involved people on a project have the same importance and influence on it (Ortiz, 2016). One good tool to classify the stakeholders and manage them is represented on the power/interest matrix.
Figure 3.4: Interest/Power matrix for Stakeholder Management (PMI, 2013)
• Self-questions: before any contact, ask yourself some questions to clarify possible disjunctives like: What interest do they have? What information do they expect from you? What motivates them? What communication channel do they prefer?
• Stakeholder differentiated analysis: once the interview is done and answers are recorded, it is time to analyse them from a stakeholder theory perspective. There are not right and wrong answers in our investigation. However, the answers from one employee to another differ prominently to the exact same question as it will be shown at the discussion part. Here is where the researcher needs to apply the stakeholder model and considerate the reasons why it occurred, take conclusions and act in consequence (Buysse and Verbeke, 2003).
3.4 VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY
Validity and reliability are two concepts considered as fundamental cornerstones to assure that researches satisfy the scientific method. There are some tips and activities helping the compliance of these two ideas, the ones used during this master thesis realization will be explained later in this section.
Reliability can be defined as the property of the research to be equally measured and repeatable under consistent conditions. That is to say, other researchers must be able to perform exactly the same experiment and obtain the same results. Reliability is an essential prerequisite to any research to be accepted as a scientific truth.
Validity concerns whether the results meet all the requirements on the scientific research method. Data needs to be in accordance with the researcher’s purpose of what should be measured.
3.4.1 SATISFYING VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY
− Overlapping: One technique utilized during the study to add some validity to the method is the overlapping explained on Eisenhardt article (Eisenhardt, 1989). Overlapping consists on analysing the data at the same time it is being collected. The level of overlapping in the investigation was high due to the need of creating the study path along the research period. Some exercises developed to help the overlapping were:
write down all the feelings and impressions, ask yourself some questions (what are we learning? How this interview differs from the previous one? Etc.) or even adjust the question and the interview content. This last exercise is significantly important according to Leonard Barton (Leonard-Barton, 1988). She states that it is legitimate to alter and even add data collection methods during a study in a theory-building research.
The emergence of new themes is used to improve the result in a flexible and opportunistic way.
− Proper sampling: The theoretical sampling of cases can’t be random or stratified as stated on Eisenhardt and Graebner paper (Eisenhardt and Graebner, 2007). Chosen roles, employees or departments for our interviews need to be wisely chosen to represent the most suitable ones for adding value to our research. It is important to consider that big amount of cases not always result on better theory. It is true that more cases bring a most robust and complete theory but sometimes not choosing the right sampling mean a hardest approach to find pattern, relationships and other important attributes for reliable investigations.
− Research questions: It represents a methodological technique consisting on creating a number of questions with the aim of answering them during the investigation development. This methodology helps both the researcher and the reader to create a more valid and reliable study. The research question must be accurately defined and clearly stated. Research Questions have two main objectives:
o Determine the type of research.
o Define the specific goals that the study will address.
They must be identified before the beginning of the investigation and once the type of study is decided. Perfect research question does not exist; however, the Seffield Hallam University provides some tips (Baker, 2004) to formulate appropriate research questions.
▪ Manageable: the sources of data answering that question have to be accessible and understandable. Keep the objective real and affordable.
▪ Substantial and original: it is useful to find the perfect match between imaginative abilities and existing literature to support the study.
▪ Clear and simple: do not try to reach conclusions that you are not able to. This way the topic will satisfy the initial purpose and it can be detailed later if necessary.
▪ Relevant: the answer to the research question needs to be of academic and intellectual interest so plan them according to that.
− Searching for cross-case patterns and iterative process: Another commonly used activity when developing this kind of investigations is the cross-case patterns findings. It consists on looking the data in many different ways with the objective of mitigate the poor human being capacity of processing information (Eisenhardt, 1989). Because of that, investigators tend to reach premature and even false conclusions. One tactic is to select categories or dimensions and analyse them individually. Another tactic would be the study of previous cases in history and compare them with the current one. The overall idea of these cross-case searching is to force investigators to go beyond initial impressions and provide the investigation with a pure iterative character.
Researchers must always compare theory and data focusing on aspects like: what is similar, what contradicts theory and why does it happen. This iterative process often results on a research with stronger internal validity, wider generalizability and higher conceptual level (Leonard-Barton, 1988).
The combination of all the previous techniques results on a suitable interview process in which , apart from the research questions, we asked about previously commented topics. This means that every interesting point found on a certain interview was discussed on the following one in order to confirm its validity. When the finding was not clearly defined, or it was stated in two different ways for each employee, we utilized the stakeholder model approach (explained before) to analyse the issue or we directly classified the finding as non-reliable or non-valuable, being dismissed from the investigation.
3.5 CLOSURE
The iterative process character, previously explained, and the undeniable wide nature of the topic make the closure a challenging process. When to stop adding cases and when to stop iterating between theory and data has an apparently easy answer. The closure should be reached when the added value for the next case is minimum, that is to say, when the iterative process contribute with a not enough amount of information (Mintzberg, H., & Waters, 1982).
For the master thesis, time was playing an essential role on reaching closure. The theory- empirical results comparison was carried out during the whole master thesis process and the number of possible employees to interview was particularly big, so we had to decide the closure moment wisely. Not too soon, when the cases were still adding relevant value, but not too late to have enough time to analyse the entire data and perform a good report.
4 CHAPTER IV: THEORETICAL CONTEXT
4.1 INFORMATION SYSTEMS
In this section, Information system definition and classification is stated. It serves as a preamble to explain the IT tool concept that will be extensively used along the thesis.
An Information System (IS) can be considered as a set of interrelated components that collect, manipulate and store data and information. Before getting too deep into IS characteristics and capabilities, it is important to define the two keywords on the definition itself, data and information. The difference between them can be easily stated as the “Fundamentals of Information Systems” book does (Ralph Stair; George Reynolds, 2009).Data consists in raw facts, real world things that can be represented in different ways (alphanumeric data, image, audio or video). Meanwhile, Information is the transformed data after experiment a process of applied knowledge, manipulation, guidance and processing. Nevertheless, both concepts are used indistinctly on a daily basis.
In this period of exponential technology growth and social media utilization, “Information is power” statement has become very popular. From a business perspective (the one analysed in this research) this sentence acquires a lot of sense with certain clarification. The objective of information, and consequently of information systems, is to help the organisation to achieve its goals. The reception and analysis of information is used as a feedback to adapt the company behaviour and perform tasks more efficiently and effectively. Therefore, the popular phrase can be true, information is power but only if the contained data is correct and it is managed in the proper way.
The value of information is directly related to how it helps decision makers to achieve the company’s objectives. As a way of illustration, Ralph stair and George Reynolds (Ralph Stair;
George Reynolds, 2009) show some properties for distinguish valuable information. Most representative ones are:
• Accessible: information should be easily accessible in the right format at the right time.
• Accurate: information or more precisely, data fed into the transformation process need to be error free.
• Complete: information should contain all the important data required. It can’t be partially finished.
• Relevant: the value depends on the usefulness of that information. Adding non-relevant data could even distort the proper one.
• Reliable: it is directly related with the data collection method discussed during methodology section. Information needs to be trusted by users.
• Secure: valuable information is secure against unauthorized users.
• Simple: overly complex data bring difficulties to the information process.
• Verifiable: information should be able to be demonstrable by any user who wants to use it.
Depending on the variety of needed data, some of the previous quality attributes becomes more important than others.
There are many types of Information Systems, and all of them share a common structure. It is showed in the following figure:
Figure 4.1: Information Systems common structure (Ralph Stair; George Reynolds, 2009)
▪ The input process represents the data gathering. It only considers the collection activity.
▪ Processing cover all the data manipulation, from calculations to comparisons or storage for future use. It implies the transformation from raw data to useful information. It can be done manually or with computer assistance as it will be explained below.
▪ The Output process involves the production of information. Creation of documents or reports is some of the most usual forms for the Output activity. It is also called data dissemination and it can be used as an input for another Information System or for the same one (feedback process).
▪ The feedback activity is used to benefit the IS. It is used to make changes and help the development of the system for future inputs.
There are other important concepts related to Information Systems that have been constantly used during the master thesis realization. Some of them like Computer-Based Information System (CBIS), Information Communication and Technology (ICT) or IT tools, will be presented in this section.
A computer-based information systems (CBIS) is an IS where the data is mostly collected, stored and processed by a computer in digital format. Both inputs and outputs represent computerized processes. Nowadays, the majority of IS are computer based, specially related with the business field which usually requires heavy data management. CBIS provides fast, centralized access to
The set of shared CBIS resources (hardware, software, databases, telecommunications, people and procedures) is known as business’s technology infrastructure (Mandic and Pelemis, 2012).
With all this background, it is time to present one of the key concepts in the research, Information Technology (IT). IT can be defined as the combination of hardware, software, databases and telecommunication of the computer-based IS. IT is referred to both IS and a big amount of Advanced Manufacturing Technologies (AMT) like Computer Aided Design/Manufacturing (CAD/CAM), computer numerically-controlled (CNC) machines or flexible manufacturing systems (FMS)
Advances in IT imply lots of improvements to the business side. The level of IT in an organization is normally related with its internal efficiency and effectiveness, at least in Information Management. IT affect every stage in the product lifecycle. Design, marketing, development, and manufacturing management must abandon traditional industrial mind-sets to fully realize the new technologies strategic benefits, and that is of course a challenging task.
IT tools are the system and utensils used to convert the raw information into useable knowledge.
They are just enabling factors; it requires other organisational changes to take full advantage of their potential (Kangas, 2003).
Another interesting concept for this research is the extensional term for IT which stresses the role of unified communication and computers known as Information and Communications Technology (ICT). It refers to any product that will store, retrieve, manipulate, transmit or receive information in a digital form and facilitate the communication between them. The definition is similar to IT in some extent but ICT also covers the convergence of audio-visual, telephone with those computer networks (Murray, 2011).
Figure 4.2: Information systems general structure [own creation]
The cost, velocity or capabilities of the IT tools keep improving rapidly and they have created a wide range of new opportunities for organizations.
There exist many researches about the company’s profitability for IT investments, especially during the first decade of the XXI century when IT was experimenting its major growth as it is explained on the book “IT and the productivity paradox” (Henry, 2000). Nowadays, the IT development inside organizations is not only considered as beneficial but necessary to satisfy the market needs. This is the reason why ITs are directly related with the Change Management and they need to be properly faced not to disappear as many other companies did in the Technology transition.
The use of IT tools in the right way adds value to the organization and it can provide a significant competitive advantage. Therefore, to build or maintain a successful information system, it is necessary that system users, business managers and IS professionals work together to achieve the result.
The term Technology Revolution was popular to define the time period where all the IT became one of the mainstays at almost any big company in the market. After the Technology Revolution, companies use IT tools as a new source of energy for processing and accessing information.
Some contributions from IT to the business industry are presented in the “IT strategic decision making” book (Lucas, 2005). These are the most considerable ones:
✓ Creates new ways to design organisations structures, workflows, workgroups, procedures, services or communication.
✓ Formulates new relationships between suppliers and customers, partnerships and alliances.
✓ Originates E-commerce (with all its marketing and selling implications).
✓ Provides huge efficiency improvements in production and service industries (just-in- time, lean manufacturing, …)
✓ Make it possible to capture employees concerns in an easier way.
✓ Helps the employees´ own development and knowledge.
✓ Provides numerous new ways of communication and supervision.
✓ Allows a more globalized market and provides information and commerce opportunities for all companies, no matter the size or the operation region.
As it will be illustrated with the case study, IT development inside the company is one of the most important subjects to get success. Its management in terms of used IT tools, IT maintenance, IT structure integration, etc., represents a tremendous challenge now and in the future.
4.2 PEOPLE MANAGEMENT DURING CHANGES
Due to the company related character of this master thesis, it is interesting to talk about the people conforming organizations before explaining the engineering theoretical concepts. On this section, people’s importance in organizations and best practices and models for people management during change situations are treated.
The definition of “company” can be stated as a group of people working together to accomplish a certain objective. A good management in interpersonal relations, employee’s feelings and motivations represent a key point on a successful organization. Accomplishment comes from customer satisfaction and this is strictly related to the job of encouraged people. There are no fixed patterns to conduct people; every sector, company or group requires different activities to find success. However, some useful techniques will be explained in this section.
Especially when talking about changes in organizations, people management is crucial. By nature, human beings have an opposed attitude for changes. Even for small variations, employees usually show an adverse behaviour which lead into obstacles and difficulties when a change is implemented.
In this master thesis, people management is precisely focused on that change situation process.
There are many other aspects like conflict management, efficiency, individual development, code of conduct…, but all of them are included when a change management procedure takes place.
There exist some key points to take into account when a change wants to be introduced.
Especially, when it affects significantly the daily way of working, these aspects need to be cautiously implemented. The Harvard professor John P Kotter in his book Leading Change (Kotter, 1995) and Pat Wellington in Effective People Management (Wellington, 2017) explain some viewpoints to take into account when implementing a change in an organization:
− Adapt the behaviour. Depending on the nature of the change, people attitude can vary.
One of the properties with higher influence on human reaction is the change origin or trigger. If the change is forced by an external source, people usually respond in a more negative way than changes coming internally from the own organization. Change management need to be aware of this and act accordingly. (Some of the internal/external forces triggering changes are depicted on Figure 4.3)
− Create a guiding team to enable change. Every change must be managed by a prepared team. They should lead the project with sufficient authority, energy, drive and skill sets to move things forward. Mental or emotional health is also an important attribute.
There is a need for a leading profile with the proper attitude and temperance as the next aspect says.
− Managers resolution. Change leaders need to show a positive attitude and a clear vision when implementing the change. They are visible head and need to act like that.
Employees must feel secure and focused during the process.
− Clarify the purpose. Employees need to visualize the final aim for the change, they need to conceive the goal, so they can work and help to achieve it. Communicate the vision
and making people at every level in the organization realize the need for change. It might be presented as an improvement and not just as a modification. Managers need to keep change stakeholders motivated and working in the same direction.
− Values and missions. Especially during changes, company’s philosophy needs to be present. These are well defined, and people need to feel part of them. The ability to put these beliefs into practice is crucial. Continually look to identify and remove obstacles to change. Encourage creativity and risk taking.
− Proper allocation. Change needs to be developed and managed in a way that people are engaged in meaningful tasks. Organization must fit work to people, not the other way around.
Taking all the previous aspects into consideration and understanding the power of the people in the company success, it is time to explain the change management itself (still from a people management perspective).
4.2.1 CHANGE MANAGEMENT
This section talks about the concept of change management as it is normally used. The configuration change management (one of the key subject in the research) will be explained later.
Every process where a function, practice or item becomes different from what it is at present or what it was in the past can be considered as a “change”. Changes represent transitions or transformations in a bigger or smaller scale and they are inevitable and necessary at any company (Murthy, 2007).
Needs, requirements or regulations vary continuously and the ability of adaptation from the companies implies a key factor to success. Along the history there are many cases where companies didn’t recognize the importance of the change and they were seriously injured or even forced to disappear. It can be a lack of vision, wrong strategy or simply a change management. Companies like Nokia or Kodak, in the technology sector, didn’t face the change as it required and in a small amount of time they lost the entire market share forged during decades (DiSalvo, 2011). These are just particular and famous cases but there exist many other organizations where changes decided the prosperity of the firm.
Any organization is exposed to changes during its lifecycle, the nature or the forces triggering the change come from a broad range of context and environments. Figure shows in an internal/external differentiated way the most common forces originating changes.
Figure 4.3: Internal and external forces able to trigger changes (Murthy, 2007)
There are no exact route maps for change management; however, there exist some procedures and recommendations to consider.
Time is always one of the most important parameters; therefore, having a proactive view allows predicting the behaviour and taking appropriate decisions for that. Being ahead of the change could be the key for success in some of the cases. This proactive posture is directly related with the perpetual transition management model explained at the Paton and McCallman Change Management book (McCalman and Paton, 2000). It states that changes are not isolated processes. They are interconnected and interrelated and the threat or change possibilities are there every day of the company lifetime. It allows the employees on the organization to recognize the change as a constant feature in modern organizations, not just an isolated case.
Figure 4.4: Transition Management Model (McCalman and Paton, 2000)
According to the model, changes must be faced in four different layers:
I. Trigger layer: it concerns the identification phase, what is causing the need of the change
II. Vision layer: it covers the vision and communication of the change. Future plan, where is the organization heading
III. Conversion layer: it is related with the support into the organization. It covers the process to gaining recruits for the change. It requires detailed explanation so previous two faces need to be clearly developed.
IV. Maintenance and renewal layer: once the change is defined and the team is stablished, it is necessary to reinforce the particular case and avoid generalization and tradition.
This perpetual transition model only divides the change into phases for the manager to have a complete vision, but it does not cover the steps or procedures on change management. That part will be covered later in this section.
Before defining any possible strategy for change management, it is necessary to identify the change itself, study its nature, classify it, recognize the “owner” of the problem, etc. There exist several ways of doing it. As a way of illustration, TROPICS technique could be one of the tools used to identify its nature. TROPICS states for: Time scale, Resources, Objectives, Perceptions, Interest, Control, Source.
With the analysis of the mentioned factors and its relations, the nature of the change becomes a better know parameter and it can be classified. A simple and popular way to classify the nature of the change is between “hard” and “soft” changes. It is referred as a hard change when it has a mechanistic character. It is placed in a reasonably static environment with clear objectives, immediate implications. Meanwhile, a soft change could have unclear goals, dynamic environments, subjective performance measures, etc. Changes will never be classified as 100%
hard or 100% soft, however, this analysis can provide an initial idea about how to face the challenge (McCalman and Paton, 2000).
When the change is mostly soft, messy and apparently difficult to implement, it is important to see the system, the change and the context as a whole picture.
→ Intervention Strategy Model (ISM)
All the previous content is used to identify the change and to position it in some way. But it says nothing about how to carry an efficacious implementation. As it was said in the beginning, there are no exact guides for that. Nevertheless, some models like the Intervention Strategy Model (ISM) explained in detail in the Effective Guide for Change Management (McCalman and Paton, 2000) , can help to define the strategy and reach the better possible solution using a system thinking. It doesn’t mean that an organization can get a successful result by only applying this methodology, but it is useful to have at least some patterns to work with.
ISM is a hybrid model firmly based on the union between traditional investigative techniques and operational and system managements. It is divided into different phases that need to be followed in the correspondent order even though iteration is one of the most important principles of ISM.
▪ Definition phase
I. Problem/System specification. This is the very first stage of the process, so it covers the basic understanding of the situation. Tasks like identify the stakeholders, the affected systems, the complexity level or the representative environment are presented in this stage.
II. Formulation of success criteria. Setting the objectives and the constraints for the change are the main activities here. It is useful to create objectives trees and enumerate and priories the goals to be easily identifiable. Constraints come later, and they need to be traceable to all the systems and cultures affected.
III. Identification of performance measures. Costs, savings, volume, labour or time values are connected to each objective defined at stage 2. With this procedure, a general idea about where to focus at is created and it will be very useful during the next phase.
▪ Evaluation phase
IV. Generation of options and solutions. It is now time to think about possible solutions.
Viable procedures to manage the change and obtain successful results. However, this stage is just the generation of those ideas, a brain storming process where many possible solutions will emerge. Their consideration and evaluation will appear later in this phase.
V. Selection of appropriate evaluation technique and option editing. This stage defines the tools, strategies, models and analysis that will be used to evaluate the possible solutions. Physical and computer simulations, investment analysis, project management techniques, environmental impact analysis, strategic and cultural studies and so on are just some examples utilized in this stage.
VI. Option evaluation. All the techniques used on stage 5 are now evaluated and suitable solutions are determined. Tabular format is the most visual and understandable way to compare different solutions. Even though this is inside the evaluation phase; objectives (phase 1) and implementation (phase 3) play a significant role in the option decision.
▪ Implementation Phase
VII. Development of implementation strategies. When change is completely identified, objectives are clear, and options are selected and reviewed, it is time to introduce the changes to the system. During this stage, the real impact of the change is discovered.
There exist many different strategies and guides depending on the change itself but all of them share a common pattern, the importance of commitment and communication.
VIII. Consolidation. The change has been already implemented but the process is not over yet. It is necessary a detailed and close guidance process. Skilful communication and adequate support are completely necessary during this stage.
Again, feedbacks are essential. The ISM has a remarkable iterative character and it is important to put it into practice. It is necessary to be patient and try not to skip stages even though they look clear enough.
Now that generic definitions have been presented, it is time to explain the engineering area in which this particular master thesis is developed.
4.3 END-TO-END PERSPECTIVE
End-to-End concept will be used through the whole master thesis. It is one of the main ideas of the study and it plays a fundamental role to understand the final purpose.
In product development, an End-to-End perspective can be defined as the process where all the stages are considered, from the very first activity to the very last one with no exception. That is to say, not only inputs and outputs matter but all the phases and stakeholders in between (Francis, 2014).
For this particular master thesis, an End-to-End view consists on taking into account all the product lifecycle phases, studying the behaviour of the product and the involved people without opting for any specific process or role.
Our view migrates from the classic function by function perspective to End-to-End process management. This choice implies a wider and complex analysis. However, it shouldn’t be confused with just a boundary extension, it involves more than that. Process sequences, flow, control, resources, interrelationships, orientation, and many other concepts acquire a different standpoint when the End-to-End management is selected. This is especially important for being able to see the connections and dependencies between departments, functions and stakeholders (Harry Maddern, Philip Andrew Smart, 2012).
End-to-End strategy will imply a higher commitment, a more complex analysis and a bigger investigation scope. However, the acquisition of this holistic view will be well represented in the complete lifecycle efficiency. That is the main reason why End-to-End is followed through the entire case study.
