<p>Organisations tend to focus more and more on product and process development to increase their competitiveness. Several major organisations, among them ABB, have developed models aimed to more effectively control and manage product development processes. ABB is using its standardised model ABB Gate Model for this. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze how the introduction of ABB Gate Model has affected the outcome of decisions and also the decision-making in the product development process. The study is limited to elucidate the version of ABB Gate Model handling product development projects. No deeper study is conducted regarding the information used or the criteria for the gate decisions; instead, the focus is to findelements in basis for the decision- making that have a greater significance for the outcome at some gate or at specific types of gate decisions. The empirical data of the thesis has to a great extent been collected through interviews with respondents from both of the studied units and also the unit in charge of the implementation and development of ABB Gate Model. The study shows that ABB Gate Model does not to any significant extent affect the outcome of the decisions in the product development projects. In general, the same decisions are made as before and projects are seldom cancelled. The foremost effects of ABB Gate Model at the units are: increased clarity and support to the operational work, improved co- ordination between the units functional departments, and contributed to make essential aspects of the product development projects visible and taken into consideration.</p>

<p>Flextronics Industrialization Group (FIG) is an international company specialised in Industrialisation services for the mobile phone industry. Industrialisation services include everything that is done to prepare a product for high-volume manufacturing. This mainly involves developing production processes, production equipment, test processes and test equipment. The high-volume manufacturing is located in low-cost countries.</p><p>This study has been performed at FIG in Linköping, where the work is carried out as projects. In 2004, a new project model called the Product Development Process (PDP) was introduced at Flextronics worldwide. As the name implies, the PDP was originally created to support product development projects, which is why it has been hard to completely utilize the PDP at FIG. The PDP has so far been considered more trouble than support. This has lead to that project managers at FIG are working differently.</p><p>The purpose of this master thesis was to develop an application of the PDP suitable for the Industrialisation projects performed at FIG. During our work internal PDP documentation was studied and interviews with project managers and sub-project managers were performed. Review meetings were held frequently during the entire study and our solutions were revised several times.</p><p>Our work has above all resulted in new processes applicable for Industrialisation projects. To make these Industrialisation processes easy to follow we have produced a guideline. This guideline provides a framework for Industrialisation projects at FIG and explains the interconnection between the PDP and our new Industrialisation PDP application. It also includes detailed descriptions of the Industrialisation processes, checklists, decision structure, project organisation and project roles and responsibilities. Due to confidentiality reasons, our solutions could not be included in their entirety in this report.</p><p>We believe that the Industrialisation PDP application will improve the work at FIG. It will be easier to follow a working method that is adapted to the specific business. Using the same working methods will support the project work, improve the way of working and make it more efficient.</p>

I samband med systemutveckling och annat förändringarbete finns det behov av att göra en verksamhetsanalys för att utveckla kunskap om nuvarande och framtida verksamhet. Verksamheter är komplexa och ofta svåröverblickbara företeelser. För att hantera problemet med att skapa överblick bygger flera ansatser för verksamhetsanalys på Langefors teori om oöverblickbara system, vilken syftar till att reducera komplexitet genom att dela in verksamheter i olika nivåer av delsystem. Tillämpningen av denna teori resulterar ofta i ett fokus på verksamhetens organisatioriska funktioner och därmed ett alltför otillräckligt fokus på dem som verksamheten finns till för. Under 90-talet har ett antal processorienterade ansatser för verksamhetsutveckling lanserats som istället sätter kunden i fokus. Dessa ansatser bygger på en horisontell och flödesorienterad syn, där verksamheter betraktas som bestående av sekventiella delprocesser som transformerar input till output. Exempel på sådana ansatser finns inom Business Process Reengineering, Total Quality Management och Process Management. Problemet med att dela in verksamheter i delar återkommer även inom processorienterade ansatser. Det saknas kriterier för processbestämning, dvs grunder för att avgränsa och indela verksamhetsprocesser. En annan syn på process, vilket är en reaktion mot denna transormationsorientering, är den kommunikationsorienterade i vilken etablering, fullföljande och avslutning av åtaganden genom relatering av kommunikationshandlingar istället fokuseras. Enligt den kommunikationsorienterade synen på process betraktas aktörers kommunikationshandlingar inom och mellan organisationer som det essentiella, vilket leder till att transformationsaspekter undertrycks. I avhandlingen har grunder och arbetsstätt för processbestämning utvecklats. Detta har gjorts genom att tillämpa en teoridriven, induktiv och modelleringsbaserad forskningsansats. Kunskapsutvecklingen baseras empiriskt på processbestämningar genomförda i 13 verksamheter. Avhandlingens kunskapsbidrag är bland annat ett vidareutvecklat processbegrepp, vilket utvecklas genom en dialektisk ansats där motsättningarna mellan den transformationsorienterade och den kommunkationsorienterade synen på process övergryggas. Med utgångspunkt i det vidareutvecklade processbegreppet har sedan kriterier för processbestämning genererats, där produkter och aktörsrelationer identifierats som viktiga klasser för kriterier. Dessutom har avhandlingen resulterat i angreppssätt och arbetssätt för processbestämning, den sk teorin om oöverblickbara verksamhetssystem. Denna teori bygger på en annan dialektik och utgör en kunskapssyntes. Motsättningar överbryggas mellan systemtänkandet för indelning av verksamheter i delsystem och det rådande processtänkandet för att betrakta verksamheten som bestående av olika processer (huvudprocesser, delprocesser och aktiviteter). Att genomföra en verksamhetsanalys genom här föreslagen processbestämning innebär att kunskap om olika helheter med dess delar kan utvecklas. Dessa helheter och delar benämns processtyp, variantprocess, delprocess och social handling. Denna avhandling bidrar med kunskap om hur verksamheter kan uppfattas, avgränsas och indelas, i samband med processorienterad verksamhetsanalys.

The increased demand from citizens for efficient service delivery from public sector organizations has implications for the information that underpins those services. Robust and effective information management is required. Information is looked upon as a resource that can give organizations a competitive edge if it is well leveraged. To address the need for more services and for more efficient service delivery, the Swedish government has promoted e-government initiatives and the two municipalities that are the subjects of this research have responded by engaging in e-service development and provision. e-Government has at its core the use of information and communication technology (ICT).  The municipalities have embarked on the analysis and automation of their business processes and hence the use of information systems.  Web-based technologies have created a two-way communication flow which has generated complex information for the municipalities to address. This development calls for stronger information and records management regimes. Enterprise Content Management is a new information management construct proposed to help organizations to deal with all their information resources. It promotes enterprise-wide information management. There is, however, little knowledge and understanding of ECM in the Swedish public sector. Further, how e-government developments have affected the management of information is an issue that has not been explored. Traditionally Swedish public authorities have employed records management to address the challenges of managing information. Records management has been used for the effective and systematic capture of records and the maintenance of their reliability and authenticity. While information helps with the daily running of business activities, records carry the evidentiary value of the interactions between the citizens and the municipalities. This research critically examines the interface between Enterprise Content Management (ECM) and records management as information/records management approaches. This has meant examining what the similarities and the differences between the two approaches are.  The research instrumentally used the lens of the Records Continuum Model (RCM), which promotes the management of the entire records’ continuum, a proactive approach, combines the management of archives and records and supports the pluralisation of the captured records. The research further highlights the information management challenges that the municipalities are facing as they engage in e-government developments.    Keywords: Enterprise Content Management, Records Management, E-government, Long-term Preservation, Business Process Management, Enterprise Architecture. / Centre for Digital Information Management

Organisations tend to focus more and more on product and process development to increase their competitiveness. Several major organisations, among them ABB, have developed models aimed to more effectively control and manage product development processes. ABB is using its standardised model ABB Gate Model for this. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze how the introduction of ABB Gate Model has affected the outcome of decisions and also the decision-making in the product development process. The study is limited to elucidate the version of ABB Gate Model handling product development projects. No deeper study is conducted regarding the information used or the criteria for the gate decisions; instead, the focus is to findelements in basis for the decision- making that have a greater significance for the outcome at some gate or at specific types of gate decisions. The empirical data of the thesis has to a great extent been collected through interviews with respondents from both of the studied units and also the unit in charge of the implementation and development of ABB Gate Model. The study shows that ABB Gate Model does not to any significant extent affect the outcome of the decisions in the product development projects. In general, the same decisions are made as before and projects are seldom cancelled. The foremost effects of ABB Gate Model at the units are: increased clarity and support to the operational work, improved co- ordination between the units functional departments, and contributed to make essential aspects of the product development projects visible and taken into consideration.

This study aims to investigate the outsourced design management implementations along the alliances that are established between firms and design consultancies in Turkey, which have been analysed in a limited sense in the past. Within this context / information on, &lsquo / why and how design is outsourced&rsquo / and &lsquo / how the design process is managed&rsquo / are derived through semi-structured interviews in conjunction with structured questionnaire conducted with managers from a sample selection of design and manufacturing firms with the aim of comparing the expectations and offerings of the parties that engaged the alliances in Turkey. The findings of the field study indicate that design management implementations in their current form of application exhibit several issues to discuss. Context of outsourced design service, corporate level strategic utilization of the design expertise, evaluation of final outputs, business initiation practices and design process management practices are important factors to consider in management of design alliances.

In this thesis we have described the role of meetings in software development and their impact on process improvement. We have investigated some factors; which could be used to improve organization process e.g. strategic management, understanding of business and its processes, learning and evaluation of resources. A survey has been conducted with the help of a questionnaire to analyze the meeting practices in the small and medium scale software companies. A process model and a simulation have been designed to measure the impacts of meetings on the productivity of organizations which claim the utilization of agile process. The designed model is an extension of Hamid &amp; Madnick’s process model and the simulation is a newly developed web based application that performs meeting scheduling. The application is developed with the concept of Software As A Service (SAAS) by using the Framework Symfony and programming languages PHP and MySQL.

There is a research about the essences and processes of Total Quality Management (TQM) implementation and its effects on organization performance. The results from the research report indicate that the adoption of TQM in China is extensive (Yusuf, Gunasekaran &amp; Guo, 2007). Although many Chinese manufacturing firms began to implement TQM from 1978 onwards, China still lacks effective TQM systems and applications at the business level (Zhao, 1995). TQM is an effective method to improve business performance. It is expected that quality management will help quality people in manufacturing firms and industries, not only in China but also in other developing countries. This thesis aims to identify differences between Chinese and French companies regarding three of five cornerstones of TQM. They are customer focus, process focus and continuous improvement. The aim is to explain why differences exist and also examine how the companies are performing in TQM aspects as well. In this thesis the authors follow a research design and collect data from interviews and documentation to provide the theoretical framework and obtain empirical evidence for the thesis. Based on the findings, the authors compared the two companies regarding the three cornerstones. The reasons why there are the differences between the two companies are mainly social policies and the companies’ development stages. From the study, the authors raised some new ideas of cornerstones. Compared with Gauttam (2010), who gave an idea of The Four Pillars of TQM, the authors think that the processes are as significant as the customers. Thus, the authors made a new theory model to state their understanding of the relationship between TQM cornerstones, which is a contribution to theoretical framework.

Flextronics Industrialization Group (FIG) is an international company specialised in Industrialisation services for the mobile phone industry. Industrialisation services include everything that is done to prepare a product for high-volume manufacturing. This mainly involves developing production processes, production equipment, test processes and test equipment. The high-volume manufacturing is located in low-cost countries. This study has been performed at FIG in Linköping, where the work is carried out as projects. In 2004, a new project model called the Product Development Process (PDP) was introduced at Flextronics worldwide. As the name implies, the PDP was originally created to support product development projects, which is why it has been hard to completely utilize the PDP at FIG. The PDP has so far been considered more trouble than support. This has lead to that project managers at FIG are working differently. The purpose of this master thesis was to develop an application of the PDP suitable for the Industrialisation projects performed at FIG. During our work internal PDP documentation was studied and interviews with project managers and sub-project managers were performed. Review meetings were held frequently during the entire study and our solutions were revised several times. Our work has above all resulted in new processes applicable for Industrialisation projects. To make these Industrialisation processes easy to follow we have produced a guideline. This guideline provides a framework for Industrialisation projects at FIG and explains the interconnection between the PDP and our new Industrialisation PDP application. It also includes detailed descriptions of the Industrialisation processes, checklists, decision structure, project organisation and project roles and responsibilities. Due to confidentiality reasons, our solutions could not be included in their entirety in this report. We believe that the Industrialisation PDP application will improve the work at FIG. It will be easier to follow a working method that is adapted to the specific business. Using the same working methods will support the project work, improve the way of working and make it more efficient.

In 1993, Michael Hammer and James Champy advanced the Business Process Reengineering theory, which had promoted the enterprises overall achievement, therefore, raises the Enterprise managers to think carefully of the Business Process Reengineering and the Business Process Management (BPM) software. The BPM provides a consolidated end-to-end perspective of all the processes within the enterprise, and to resolve the problem of the Enterprise Resource Planning system. The Business Architecture Management (BAM) software is to map out the business structure of the enterprise, and make the business process integrated with the business structure closely, the purpose is to build business structure and business process in one unity. This model will support the enterprise managers to see, analyze and control the information technology and system integrations. Via the BAM model, we realize that the Business Architecture contains more views than Business Process. Therefore, the advantage of the BAM software is to have the business structure integrated with business process. In contrast, the disadvantage of the BPM software is to separate the business structure from the business process. The study is based on the scientific logic principle and to create a model of the BAM software. Using the Backus-Naur Form grammar and the graphical language, we define the BAM software model, and list three steps: the first step is to construct structure elements and operations which from the business structure. The second step is to derive the business process from the business structure. The third step is to integrate the business structure with and the business process. An example of Securities Transaction Platform software is developed via the BAM model. In this study, we also compare the BPM with BAM. We conclude that the BAM software will assist the enterprise managers to analyze and control the information technology and system integrations easily. Beside the above conclusion, this study also provides many useful references and suggestions to aid entrepreneurs and system managers to create BAM software.