Usability is one of the most important aspects of software. A multitude of methods and techniques intended to support the development of usable systems has been provided, but the impact on industrial software development has been limited. One of the reasons for this limited success is the gap between traditional academic theory generation and commercial practice. Another reason is the gap between usability engineering and established requirements engineering practice. This thesis is based on empirical research and puts a usability focus on three important aspects of requirements engineering: elicitation, specification and release planning. There are two main themes of investigation. The first is concerned with the development and introduction of a usability-oriented method for elicitation and specification of requirements, with an explicit focus on utilizing the skills of technical communicators. This longitudinal, qualitative study, performed in an industrial setting in the first half of the nineties, provides ample evidence in favor of a closer collaboration between technical communicators and system developers. It also provides support for the benefits of a task-oriented approach to requirements elicitation. The results are also reflected upon in a retrospective paper, and the experiences point in the direction of an increased focus on the specification part, in order to bridge the gap between usability engineering and established requirements management practice. The second represents a usability-oriented approach to understanding and supporting release planning in software product development. Release planning is an increasingly important part of requirements engineering, and it is complicated by intricate dependencies between requirements. A survey performed at five different companies gave an understanding of the nature and frequency of these interdependencies. This knowledge was then turned into the design and implementation of a support tool, with the purpose of provoking a deeper understanding of the release planning task. This was done through a series of cooperative evaluation sessions with release planning experts. The results indicate that, although the tool was considered useful by the experts, the initial understanding of the task was overly simplistic. As a result, a number of design implications are proposed. / On the day of the public defence the status of article VI was: Submitted.

For many products, the adaptation to customer specifications is essential and requires flexible product design and manufacture while maintaining competitive pricing. Engineering design is often concerned with striking a good balance between product properties, e.g. performance, and the resources required to manufacture and assemble the product. When different courses of action are to be evaluated, even seemingly small changes in customer requirements, product design, and manufacturing properties have to be handled with caution. Small changes can entail products with: low level of conformability with the manufacturing system, highly increased cost, and extended manufacturing lead-time. For most companies, the manufacturing system is a valuable asset that is more or less fixed and only minor adaptations are allowed. This implies that the product design has to be adapted to the manufacturing system to a large extent. Design for producibility (DFP) is the process in which a systematic method is used to reach the required functional properties of the product at the same time as good compliance with the manufacturing system is ensured. The DFP process usually needs to involve several persons simultaneously for the purpose of sharing information and knowledge. For many manufacturing companies, the collaboration between engineering design and production engineering is a critical issue and they have to improve their methods and tools for ensuring and enhancing producibility. This can be achieved by introducing computer-supported design for producibility. The present research is intended to contribute to the development and utilisation of different application systems that can be used as such computer support. The aim is to provide companies with support in application system development and to show how different application systems can be used in a systematic way as means to ensure and enhance producibility. The competitive advantages to gain from introducing computer-supported design for producibility are: product designs with high level of conformability with the production system, shortened manufacturing lead-time, and decreased manufacturing cost. This work contributes to the achievement of these advantages by introducing a framework with principles and models supporting application systems development. Three types of application systems are presented and their practical usefulness is examined, showing practitioners how producibility aspects can be assessed systematically. The main scientific and theoretical contribution of the work comprises: the descriptions concerning how to structure and describe the product and product-related information (manufacturing requirements, costs, process plans and production resources), the foundation of different information models, and the clarification of the models’ interrelationships. This is perceived as a contribution to a better understanding of the domains and how they relate to each other.Design for producibility (DFP) is the process in which a systematic method is used to reach the required functional properties of the product at the same time as good compliance with the manufacturing system is ensured. The DFP process usually needs to involve several persons simultaneously for the purpose of sharing information and knowledge. For many manufacturing companies, the collaboration between engineering design and production engineering is a critical issue and they have to improve their methods and tools for ensuring and enhancing producibility. This can be achieved by introducing computer-supported design for producibility. The present research is intended to contribute to the development and utilisation of different application systems that can be used as such computer support. The aim is to provide companies with support in application system development and to show how different application systems can be used in a systematic way as means to ensure and enhance producibility.

Flextronics Design i Linköping tillverkar prototypskretskort till telekomindus-trin. Examensarbetet tog de fram eftersom de upplever att de har problem medolika områden inom den funktion där själva tillverkningen sker, SMA (SurfaceMount Assembly). De var inte säkra på exakt vilka problemen var men de vis-ste att de rör rutiner, kommunikation, samt materialtillförsel. Genom att i ettexamensarbete definiera och lyfta fram problemen samt ta fram åtgärdsförslag,hoppades företaget att vissa av problem skulle kunna uppmärksammas ochlösas och på det sättet skulle kvaliteten i processerna öka. Genom att förbättravissa områden hoppades de även kunna bli effektivare i sitt arbetssätt vilketi sin tur skulle kunna frigöra värdefull kapacitet, något som är mycket viktigtför Flextronics i Linköping, eftersom de har hög beläggning.Syftet med examensarbetet var att genom en kartläggning tydligt definieraproblemen och ta fram förbättringsområden. Fokus lades sedan på det om-råde som ansågs viktigast att ta tag i. Målet var att ta fram ett konkret åtgärds-förslag, som löser de mest angelägna problemen, och som kan implementeraspå företaget.Kartläggningen bygger främst på ett stort antal intervjuer som gjordes med oli-ka personer som är involverade i SMA och dess stödprocesser. Det visade sigatt det var inom områdena strategier, kommunikation och informationssprid-ning, ansvarsområden, materialrutiner samt personalfrågor som problemenfrämst finns. Inom dessa områden definierades ett stort antal problempunkter,som var och en kategoriserades efter vilket ursprungligt problem de härstam-mar ur, alltså vad som skulle behöva förbättras för att få respektive problem-punkt åtgärdad. Det resulterade i åtta olika förbättringsområden, nämligenåterrapportering, kommunikation, spårbarhet, spill, sårbarhet, plock check, SMA-fel och ansvarsfördelning.Det förbättringsområde som ansågs viktigast att ta tag i var återrapportering.För att kunna förbättra den, och lösa de problem som fanns knutna till detproblemområdet, låg fokus under andra halvan av examensarbetet på att tafram ett informationssystem. Först togs strategier för både utveckling och im-plementering fram och därefter utvecklades systemet med hjälp av program-varan Microsoft SharePoint. Resultatet av arbetet blev informationssystemetReFlex som kommer att implementeras och börja användas på företaget.Med hjälp av ReFlex finns nu möjligheten att effektivisera arbetet på en radpunkter. Tack vare en effektiv återanvändning av informationen kan de frånoch med nu på ett bra sätt utnyttja tidigare erfarenheter, vilket gör att misstaginte behöver upprepas. Problem kommer inte behöva lösas flera gånger, vilketsparar mycket värdefull tid och frigör kapacitet. Kvaliteten i processerna kanöka, då problem kan uppmärksammas på ett smidigare sätt och därmed åtgär-das snabbare. / Flextronics Design in Linköping is an Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS)company and manufactures printed circuit boards assemblies (PCBAs) for thetelecommunication industry. The site in Linköping is focused on prototypingPCBAs. They have problems regarding their SMA (Surface Mount Assembly)line, where the PCBAs are manufactured. The problems were not clearly de-fined in the beginning, but regarded routines, communication and materialsupply. By defining exactly where the major problems were and by solvingsome of these, they hoped that both the quality of their processes and the effi-ciency regarding their methods of working could improve. That could increasetheir capacity, something that would be valuable to Flextronics, since they areoften working above their capacity level.The purpose of this master thesis was to clearly define the problems through asurvey and suggest different ideas about which areas that should be improved.The area considered most important was then chosen for further work. Theobjective was to create a solution that solves as many problems as possible, asolution that could be implemented at Flextronics.The survey that was carried out is based on interviews with people involvedin the processes concerning SMA. The problems showed to involve strategies,communication and information sharing, management of responsibilities, rou-tines regarding material supply, and human resource issues. Within these ar-eas a large number of problem matters were defined. Each of these were cate-gorised based on what type of action that could solve that particular problem.The result was eight different action areas, that each could be the solution todifferent kinds of problems. The areas were; improving possibilities for report-ing and giving feedback, improving communication, improving traceability,decrease waste, decrease the vulnerability, improve routines for plock check,reduce the number of defect PCBAs due to SMA-problems and make the re-sponsibiliies more clear.The action area that was considered most important was increasing the possi-bilities for giving feedback. To make that happen, an information system wasdeveloped. First strategies for development and implementation was formu-lated and after that, the system was developed in Microsoft SharePoint. Thework resulted in the system ReFlex, that will be implemented at Flextronics.ReFlex will give the possibility to make work more efficient in many ways.Thanks to improved feedback possibilities they can now reuse information andtake advantage of prior experiences when starting a new build. The risk ofmaking the same mistake twice will decrease, which will save a lot of timeand thereby increase their capacity. The quality of the processes can also beincreased, since mistakes are more likely to be paid attention to and can therebybe solved faster.

Have you ever been frustrated with that IT system at work that does not behave the way you expect it to? Or had problems with using the features on your new mobile phone? When systems and appliances do not support us in what we are doing, and do not behave the way we expect them to, then usability is neglected. Poor usability may be frustrating and irritating when trying out your mobile phone, but in a critical work situation poor usability may be disastrous. In this thesis, user-centred systems design (UCSD) is advocated as an approach for facilitating the development of usable interactive systems. Systems that suit their intended use and users do not just “emerge”. They are the result of a UCSD process and a user-centred attitude during the development. This means in short that the real users and their needs, goals, context of use, abilities and limitations, drive the development – in contrast to technology-driven development. We define UCSD as: a process focusing on usability throughout the entire development process and further throughout the system life cycle. I argue that this definition along with a set of key principles do help organisations and individual projects in the process of developing usable interactive systems. The key principles include the necessity of having an explicit focus on users and making sure that users are actively involved in the process. The thesis provides knowledge and insights gained from real-life situations about what UCSD is and how it can be put into practice. The most significant results are: the proposal of a clear definition of UCSD and a set of key principles encompassing UCSD; a process for usability design and the usability designer role. Furthermore, design cases from different domains are provided as examples and illustrations.

The basic objective in bulk electrical system planning is to determine the necessary generating facilities required to ensure an adequate and economic supply of electrical energy and the development of an adequate transmission network to transport the generated energy to the customers. Quantitative adequacy assessment is a basic task in achieving this objective. An important requirement in this task is the ability to forecast the system load requirements at specific times in the future. These forecasts must also recognize the inherent uncertainty in predicting the future load demands.<p> The primary focus of the research described in this thesis is to examine the effects and implications of load forecast uncertainty on the load point and system adequacy indices of a composite generation and transmission system. This thesis considers two techniques to incorporate the inherent uncertainty associated with future load forecasts in the adequacy assessment of bulk electrical systems. Base case and factor analyses are performed on a number of power system configurations to identify and address the relative contributions to the load point and system indices due to load forecast uncertainty. A transmission reinforcement option and a number of generation system expansion options are presented to examine the system reliability response due to load forecast uncertainty.<p> The actual magnitudes of the changes due to load forecast uncertainty in the load bus and system risk indices and in the percentage change values are different for each generation expansion scenario. The topology and parameters of the system are different in each of the studied power system configurations. The effect of load forecast uncertainty on the system and load point adequacy can be quantified and utilized in the decision-making process associated with system generation and transmission planning. Load forecast uncertainty has important impacts on the system and load point indices that can only be appreciated by conducting comprehensive bulk system adequacy assessment. The actual effects are a complicated function of the system topology and parameters, and the system load curtailment philosophy.

Ett problem med elektroniska patientjournalsystem är att arkitekturen för patientjournalerna inte är gemensam vilket försvårar automatiskt utbyte av patientdata. En arkitektur har skapats inom ett projekt som heter openEHR. Förhoppningen är att denna arkitektur ska klara av automatiskt utbyte av patientdata mellan elektroniska patientjournalsystem. I openEHRs arkitektur används något som kallas arketyper. Arketyper är återanvändbara modeller för att begränsa, strukturera och förklara vad som lagras i elektroniska patientjournaler som bygger på denna arkitektur. Istället för att områdesspecifik information, som vad ett blodtryck är, skapas i systemet flyttas den och annan liknande kunskap ut från systemarkitekturen och in i arketyperna. Arketyper kan skapas och redan existerande arketyper förändras utan att några ändringar i systemarkitekturen behöver göras. Huvudproblemet i examensarbetet har varit att hitta en metod för att generera ett grafiskt gränssnitt utifrån en elektronisk patientjournal som är konstruerad med hjälp av arketyper. För att lösa detta behövdes det först skapas arketyper och ett system för att generera journaler utifrån dessa. Därefter har en webbportal utvecklats där det går att logga in och läsa de skapade patientjournalerna. Metoden för att generera gränssnittet i webbsidorna använder sig av en rekursiv funktion för att samla in information ur patientjournalerna. Funktionen lagrar den insamlade information i en objektstruktur som följer designmönstret Composite. Utifrån denna struktur går det sedan att generera ett grafiskt gränssnitt. Webbportalen kan användas för att demonstrera hur ett system kan se ut där både patienter och behörig personal får tillgång till och möjlighet att läsa inlagda journaler som bygger på openEHRs arkitektur. / One problem with electronic health record systems is that the health records are not built on a common architecture. This makes automatic exchange of patient data difficult. openEHR is a project that has developed an architecture that tries to solve this problem. The openEHR architecture uses something called archetypes. Archetypes are reusable models that limit, structure and explain what will be stored in the electronic health record that is built on this architecture. The main goal of this master thesis has been to find a method to generate a graphical user interface from an electronic health record created using archetypes. To solve this problem first archetypes and a system that generates health records from these had to be created. Then a Web portal has been developed that displays the generated health records. The Web portal can be used to demonstrate the graphical user interface of a system where both patients and authorized personnel can read patient records that are bases on the openEHR architecture.

The basic objective in bulk electrical system planning is to determine the necessary generating facilities required to ensure an adequate and economic supply of electrical energy and the development of an adequate transmission network to transport the generated energy to the customers. Quantitative adequacy assessment is a basic task in achieving this objective. An important requirement in this task is the ability to forecast the system load requirements at specific times in the future. These forecasts must also recognize the inherent uncertainty in predicting the future load demands.<p> The primary focus of the research described in this thesis is to examine the effects and implications of load forecast uncertainty on the load point and system adequacy indices of a composite generation and transmission system. This thesis considers two techniques to incorporate the inherent uncertainty associated with future load forecasts in the adequacy assessment of bulk electrical systems. Base case and factor analyses are performed on a number of power system configurations to identify and address the relative contributions to the load point and system indices due to load forecast uncertainty. A transmission reinforcement option and a number of generation system expansion options are presented to examine the system reliability response due to load forecast uncertainty.<p> The actual magnitudes of the changes due to load forecast uncertainty in the load bus and system risk indices and in the percentage change values are different for each generation expansion scenario. The topology and parameters of the system are different in each of the studied power system configurations. The effect of load forecast uncertainty on the system and load point adequacy can be quantified and utilized in the decision-making process associated with system generation and transmission planning. Load forecast uncertainty has important impacts on the system and load point indices that can only be appreciated by conducting comprehensive bulk system adequacy assessment. The actual effects are a complicated function of the system topology and parameters, and the system load curtailment philosophy.

In the earlier period, large enterprise, developed its management reports system based on files system and the 3rd-generation language. The managers of several departments access management information from the reports system. Because competition stress increasing quickly and information requirement changing frequently, the legacy system could not satisfy the information need of managers. The maintainability of legacy system is decreasing, and the cost is growing up. How to solve the difficulties on system maintenance ? System reengineering is commonly used as a solution. How to choose a good migration strategy is also a big issue. This research focuses on finding a migration strategy for the legacy systems and a methodology of developing EIS based on users¡¦ needs via current new information technologies. The methodology is applied to implement a EIS for a large enterprise in order to verify the feasibility of the methodology. A questionnaire investigation among the users of the new system has clearly shown a fairly good users¡¦ satisfaction.

With the globalization era, software companies around the world not only have to face competition in the domestic industry, as well as the subsequent challenge of large international companies. For this reason, domestic software companies must to upgrade their own software quality. Domestic government agencies and non-governmental units together promote Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI). Hope to improve their quality of software development process through internationalized professional evaluation. Towards the high-maturity software development process, software development process should be estimated quantitatively in CMMI Level 4. There are frequently used statistical process control (SPC) methods, including control charts, fishbone diagram, pareto charts ... and other related practices. Its goal is to maintain stability of overall software development process, so the output performance can be expected. Primitive SPC applied in manufacturing industry, successfully improving the quality of their products. But some characteristics of software, such as software development is human-intensive and innovative activities. It increases not only variability of control, but also difficulties of implementation. In this study, collate and analyze the operational framework of SPC and CMMI Level 4 through study of literature and case study with the case company-A company's practices. It contains two points, one is organization point of view, the other is methodological point of view. Organizational point of view includes stage of CMMI Level 4 and SPC implemented in the software industry, as well as how to design the organizational structure. Methodological point of view includes the steps to run SPC¡Buseful methods and tools. Methodological point of view also uses control theory to collate relevant control mechanisms. Finally, we illustrate how to integrate SPC into the company's system development life cycle. The framework can provide a reference for domestic software companies of longing for implementing CMMI Level 4 and SPC.

<p>Abstract</p><p>In order to stay competitive in today’s changing business world, companies need to manage</p><p>the increased complexity as they evolve. To be able to handle this complexity, many companies</p><p>chose to implement an ERP system. Investing in an ERP system is not something that</p><p>is made in a trice but is a large investment which together with today’s low-profit margins in</p><p>companies makes it essential to keep the costs as low as possible. More than half of the total</p><p>cost for an ERP investment is said to be related to costs for the system’s maintenance and</p><p>support. Documentation is one of the factors which affect this cost, and if it is not made satisfactorily</p><p>it is said to result in a considerable increase of the system’s total cost. This is why</p><p>it is important not to overlook the documentation as a part of ERP system development</p><p>project.</p><p>The purpose with this thesis is to investigate the existing documentation routines in ERP</p><p>system development projects at AB Volvo’s subsidiary Volvo IT, in order to find suggestions</p><p>of improvement for future projects. In order to fulfill the purpose of the study, we formed a</p><p>research question with three sub-questions and through a deep analysis of the empirical material</p><p>we presented the answers to these questions as the conclusions of this thesis.</p><p>Our study is based on an inductive research approach using a case study to gain deeper and</p><p>more helpful qualitative knowledge and data. The empirical data was analyzed using the</p><p>template analysis method where we divided the collected data into appropriate categories.</p><p>The knowledge created through this study is of exploratory, normative, predictive and categorical</p><p>nature.</p><p>After having analyzed the results from our case study we found several suggestions of improvements</p><p>for Volvo IT to use in future projects. For other companies involved in ERP</p><p>system development projects of their own, the conclusions of this thesis will work as valuable</p><p>issues to take into consideration for upcoming projects. We have concluded that the</p><p>main reason behind lacking quality of documentation in the development projects is not the</p><p>unawareness of its importance, but the absence of concrete evidence of high quality documentation’s</p><p>positive effects on a system’s total cost. We believe that in order to achieve documentation</p><p>of high quality, there needs to be a change of attitude to documentation as a</p><p>work task and the task itself must be higher prioritized in the projects. Another important</p><p>suggestion is that a control of the conducted documentation’s quality must be done, not only</p><p>a control of the existence of the right kind of documents. We are of the opinion that a company</p><p>should not allocate resources to create a method of documentation before the importance</p><p>of high quality documentation is clarified. Ultimately, we believe that the system development</p><p>process should be focused around the customer, because of the more frequent use</p><p>of custom made solutions and to help the people in the project to set the right level of abstraction</p><p>on the documentation.</p> / <p>Sammanfattning</p><p>För att företag ska kunna behålla sin konkurrenskraft i näringslivet, behöver de hela tiden utvecklas.</p><p>Men med utveckling kommer en ökad komplexitet som måste hanteras på något</p><p>sätt. Många företag väljer då att investera i ett affärssystem (s.k. ERP-system), vilket inte är</p><p>något som görs lättvindigt utan är en ansenlig investering. Detta faktum tillsammans med</p><p>dagens låga vinstmarginaler i företag gör att det är väsentligt att hålla kostnaderna så låga</p><p>som möjligt. Mer än hälften av kostnaderna för ett ERP-system sägs vara relaterat till underhålls-</p><p>och supportverksamhet. En av de faktorer som påverkar denna stora kostnad är dokumentationsaktiviteter,</p><p>vilken ifall de inte är utförd på rätt sätt kan leda till en ansenlig ökning</p><p>av ett systems totala kostnad. Det är därför väldigt viktigt att inte förbise dokumentationen</p><p>som en del av ett ERP-systemutvecklingsprojekt.</p><p>Syftet med vår studie var att undersöka existerande dokumentationsrutiner i ERPsystemutvecklingsprojekt</p><p>hos Volvo AB’s dotterbolag Volvo IT, för att sedan presentera</p><p>förbättringsförslag för framtida projekt i företaget. För att kunna uppfylla syftet med uppsatsen,</p><p>tog vi fram en forskningsfråga med tre följdfrågor och genom en grundlig analys av det</p><p>empiriska materialet kommer vi att presentera svaren på dessa frågor som våra slutsatser.</p><p>Vi har valt att genomföra en fallstudie med en induktiv ansats, för att införskaffa oss djupare</p><p>kunskap och därmed kunna generera ny kunskap inom området. Det empiriska materialet</p><p>analyserades utifrån en given modell där insamlad data delades in i lämpliga kategorier. Kunskapen</p><p>genererad från vår studie är av följande kunskapsform; kategoriell, förklarande, förutsägande</p><p>och normativ.</p><p>Efter att ha analyserat resultatet av vår fallstudie kan vi presentera ett flertal förbättringsförslag</p><p>för Volvo IT’s användning i framtida projekt. För andra företag, involverade i ERPsystemutvecklingsprojekt,</p><p>kan dessa fungera som värdefulla förslag att ta i beaktande. Vi</p><p>kom fram till att den främsta anledningen till bristande dokumentation inte är omedvetenheten</p><p>om dess betydelse, utan avsaknaden av konkreta bevis på dess positiva effekter på ett systems</p><p>totala kostnad. Vi anser att det krävs en attitydförändring kring dokumentation som</p><p>arbetsuppgift för att uppnå dokumentation som är av hög kvalitet och att arbetsuppgiften</p><p>som sådan behöver få högre prioritet i projekten. Ett annat viktigt förbättringsförslag vi fann</p><p>var att en kontroll av den producerade dokumentationens kvalité måste utföras, och inte</p><p>bara en kontroll av att den rätta sortens dokument finns. Vi anser att ett företag inte bör allokera</p><p>resurser till att skapa en metod eller modell över hur man ska dokumentera förrän vikten</p><p>och effekten av hög kvalitetsdokumentation är klargjord. Till sist anser vi att systemutvecklingsprocessen</p><p>bör fokuseras kring den framtida användaren, dels på grund av dagens</p><p>ökade användning av skräddarsydda system men också för att det minskar risken för en oönskad</p><p>effekt på projektets omfattning samt att det ökar kvaliteten på den slutgiltiga dokumentationen.</p>