Information är något som i dagens samhälle ständigt expanderar och utökas varje dag. För mycket information kan ofta leda till komplexa förhållanden i verksamheter, framförallt när det kommer till hantering av produktinformation. Syftet med denna studie är att ta reda på vilka utmaningar och möjligheter verksamheter ställs inför vid ett införande av ett Product Information Management (PIM)- system, ett system som litteraturen säger krävs i en verksamhet för att bemästra komplexa förhållanden som ofta uppstår vid en omfattande hantering av produktinformation. Genom en kvalitativ datainsamling med induktiv ansats genomfördes fyra intervjuer med personer på ett företag som idag har en relativt komplex lösning för hantering av produktinformation. Undersökningen utgick ifrån två teman, utmaningar och möjligheter, för att ta reda på informanternas åsikter kring ett införande av ett PIM-system i verksamheten. Resultatet visade på en relativt enad bild bland informanterna över vilka utmaningar och möjligheter som företaget står inför vid ett införande av ett PIM-system. Studiens teoriområden kunde sedan styrka det resultat som framkommit utifrån empirin och påvisade att utmaningar och möjligheter representerades av totalt fem faktorer. Utmaningar utgjordes av språk och förändring medan möjligheter utgjordes av innehåll, central källa för information samt spårbarhet/navigering. / Information is something that in society is constantly expanding every day. Too much information can often lead to complex business conditions, especially when it comes to managing product information. The purpose of this study is to find out which challenges and opportunities businesses face when introducing a Product Information Management (PIM) system, a system that the literature say is required in an effort to master complex conditions that often arise in a comprehensive handling of product information. Through a qualitative data collection with an inductive approach, four interviews were conducted with individuals at a company that today has a relatively complex solution for managing product information. The investigation was based on two themes, challenges and opportunities, to find out the informants' views on the introduction of a PIM system in the business. The result showed a relatively united image among the informants on the challenges and opportunities that businesses face when introducing a PIM system. The theoretical areas of this study could then strengthen the result that emerged from empirics and demonstrate that challenges and opportunities were represented by a total of five factors. Challenges consisted of language and change while opportunities consisted of content, central source of information as well as traceability/navigation.

E-commerce has grown rapidly in the last couple of years and has gotten more demanding customers that want better and more consistent product information. With more products on the market than ever, spreadsheets are not enough. Product Information Management (PIM) systems have been developed to meet those needs. Because these systems contain a lot of different processes and handles a lot of data, they can be complex and contain usability problems. The purpose of the study is to understand and explain the usability of the PIM system process of enriching products. The study answers the research questions: “How do the users experience the usability in the process of enriching products in PIM systems?” and “What are the main usability problems in the enrichment process in an existing PIM system?”. The result shows that the overall usability in the enrichment process is good and the investigated PIM system is easy to use and is flexible. The analysis shows that the main usability problems are the lack of functionality and efficiency. The two problems are connected to each other as the users need to do workarounds because the lack of certain functions. The efficiency would be improved if the missing functions were added. These usability attributes can be difficult to evaluate before the system has been used for a while because it can take time for the users to discover problem regarding them.

Aus der Motivation "In der Produktentwicklungsphase führen die zunehmende Nutzung externer Engineeringleistungen und die Erstellung domänenspezifischer Modelle vermehrt zu heterogenen Datenbeständen. Diese sind häufig auf verschiedene Verwaltungsebenen und -systeme verteilt. Mitunter befinden sich diverse Produktdatenmanagementsysteme parallel im Einsatz. In der Betriebsphase verursachen unterschiedliche Informationsquellen, darunter Sensoren und eingebettete Systeme, verteilte und ebenfalls heterogene Datenbestände. Stetig komplexer und intelligenter werdende Produkte sowie deren Vernetzung im Kontext von Industrial Internet of Things führen zu einem rasanten Anwachsen der Datenmenge. Ein gemeinsames Management von Produkt- und Maschinendaten zwischen der Entwicklungs- und der Betriebsphase existiert nicht. Insbesondere ist kein barrierefreier und konsistenter Informationsaustausch möglich. Vorwiegend organisatorische und sicherheitsrelevante Defizite verhindern derzeit einen koordinierten, multidirektionalen und reproduzierbaren Austausch von Produktinformationen. In dem Zusammenhang besitzen Maschinenhersteller keinen Zugriff auf die Informationen realer Maschinen. Maschinenbetreibern fehlt der Zugang zum Produktmodell und zu den damit verbundenen Entwicklungsergebnissen und den aktuellsten Änderungen. ..."

As Taiwanese consumers¡¦ economic ability grew up and pursuing for housing quality expanded in the recent years, their high-quality furniture purchasing behavior has increased gradually .The current research mainly studied the relation between the stage of purchase process and the need for various product information as consumers purchase the high-quality furniture. The examples for the research were 60 students from the National Sun Yat-sen University. The current research applied a 3¡Ñ2 factorial experiment design. Where the purchasing three decision stages were: problem recognition, alternative evaluation and purchase decision, and the furniture category option were sofa of living room and bedding set of bedroom, general data regarding consumer¡¦s information search behavior on furniture purchase were collected in the process of the experiment. Important findings of the current are summarize as follows: (1) Among different purchasing stages, there was significant difference in information needs in terms of category and particular item. But no significant difference in preference for information sources between various furniture items neither among decision stages. (2) Furniture category was found to be a nonsignificant variable to information need and information source. (3) The interaction effect on information needs was found for the variable of decision stage and furniture category.

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During the past two decades, as internet has spread across the world, bringing people and businesses closer, e-commerce has been on a rapid expansion. To be a part of the expanding market, businesses have put a lot of effort to understand consumer behavior online, and to adapt. E-commerce differs drastically from traditional stores in the way that consumers are able to browse commercial web shops in search for the desired product, without outside influence. To understand how customers behave when purchasing a product, the Dewey model, customer buying process, is used. This process consists of five steps, which are: need recognition, information retrieval, information evaluation, buying decision and evaluation. However, within e-commerce, the web shops are the only platform where the business have the opportunity to affect the customers, as there are no salespersons to affect customers’ decisions as in traditional stores. As the web shop is platform for communication within e-commerce, it increases the importance for businesses to understand how their visitors react to features on their web shops. Visual features of websites, such as color and layout, can be crucial when a potential customer makes a purchase. The purpose of this study is to see how several visual features affect the purchasing behavior throughout Dewey’s model, customer buying process.The findings and analysis shows that some features are valued higher from each other, some are dependent on each other, and some are being taken for granted. First impression, product information and purchase methods, are among the crucial moments throughout the buying process. Our test conducted shows that the different features have different impact throughout the buying process.

Problem: Although modern people are more aware than ever about the environment and responsible sourcing of raw materials, a gap exists between consumers’ preferences on eco-friendly products and their actual purchasing behaviour. Companies operating in the electronic mobile device industry have been unable to bridge this value-action gap and relatively little research has been conducted on this industry.   Topic & Purpose: This paper aims to investigate and discover the preferences and purchasing behaviour of young Swedish consumers operating in the electronic mobile device industry. This paper will focus on purchasing intentions, willingness to pay, and identify which consumption values have the highest effects on these consumers’ intent to purchase eco-friendly mobile devices.   Method: A descriptive strategy and a deductive approach were applied in order to understand the impact of consumption values, CSR, brand image, and product information on young Swedish consumers. Eight hypotheses were developed to test the influence of each of these factors. The empirical study was was based on a quantitative approach and the data collection was made through an online survey and face-to-face interviews targeted towards young Swedish consumers between the ages of 18 and 28. The data analysis was conducted by using the SPSS program in order to gain numerical values which could be used to analyse the validity of each hypothesis.   Conclusion: This study discovered two out of five consumption values to have a clearly higher impact on young Swedish consumers’ purchasing intentions towards eco-friendly mobile devices. These values were emotional and conditional value, indicating that environmental awareness and situational factors have the highest influence on shaping the consumption values of these consumers. In addition, brand image was seen to be an influential factor for these consumers, as opposed to CSR, or product information. Based on these findings, suggestions for further research were presented.

Les systèmes PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) permettent une traçabilité de l'information et facilitent la réduction du cycle de développement des produits. Ils ont vocation à fédérer l'ensemble des données techniques nécessaires à l'élaboration de nouveaux produits et contribuent aussi à l'amélioration des processus de l'entreprise.Nos travaux de thèse proposent une méthodologie globale de déploiement d'un système PLM qui intègre la dimension spécifique de la capitalisation des connaissances. A partir d'une formalisation des processus métier, des éléments de connaissance sont extraits et permettent d'enrichir le modèle de données. Ce modèle s'articule autour de deux axes: un axe "information" et un axe "connaissance". Chaque axe est composé de quatre étapes : identifier, modéliser, utiliser et évaluer. L'étape d'identification permet de définir le modèle de données du système et de repérer les activités nécessitant des connaissances métier particulières. La phase de modélisation consiste à paramétrer le système pour intégrer le modèle défini dans le PLM mais également formaliser les connaissances tacites extraites. l'utilisateur intervient ensuite dans le cadre de l'utilisation du système paramétré. Enfin, nous proposons d'évaluer le système d'un point de vue de la modélisation Produit, Process, Organisation mais également d'un point de vue des connaissances générées au sein du système.L'étude de cas d'un processus d'appel d'offre de l'entreprise Marmillon SAS, sous-traitant de rang 2 dans le secteur de la plasturgie et spécialiste des processus d'injection et d'extrusion pour des pièces du secteur automobile, a permis de valider notre démarche. / PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) Systems allow traceability of information and facilitate the reduction of products development cycle. Besides the aspect related to information management, they aim at bringing together all technical data needed to develop new products and also they contribute to improve business processes. Our PhD work define a methodology of PLM system deployment that incorporates the knowledge capitalization dimension. Based on a business processes formalization, elements of knowledge are extracted and used to enrich the data model. This model revolves around two axes: an "information" axis and a "knowledge"axis. Each axis is devided into four steps: identify, model, use and evaluate. The identification stage is to define the data model of the system and activities requiring specific business knowledge. The modeling phase is to configure the system to integrate the defined model in the PLM system but also to formalize extracted tacit knowledge. Then comes the user through the use of the system. Finally, we propose to evaluate the system from product, process and organization modeling but also from generated knowledge within the system. The case study of a process of bidding for the Marmillon SAS company which is a subcontractor in the field of plastics, specialist of injection and extrusion processes for automotive parts allow to validate our approach.

Denna studies syfte är att beskriva hur elektronisk Word of Mouth i ett onlineforum påverkar besökares köpval. Tidigare studier har fokuserat på att identifiera potentiella faktorer som kan ha en påverkan på köpval inom onlineforum. Men det har ej undersökts hur besökare av onlineforum uppfattar effekten på köpval. Därmed fanns det en kunskapslucka för denna studie att undersöka. För att ta reda på detta gjordes en enkät tillgänglig för besökare av ett onlineforum. Onlineforumet som valdes heter Swedroid och är inriktade på elektronikprodukter. Den information om produkter som existerar på onlineforumet klassificeras som elektronisk Word of Mouth. Resultaten från enkäten visar att en klar majoritet av respondenterna anser att onlineforumet innehåller relevant information om produkter, vilket kan användas för att stödja ett köpval. Dock ansåg en lägre andel att informationen i forumet har varit en avgörande faktor för köp. I analysen framkom det två möjliga anledningar till detta. Informationen som en besökare har kommit i kontakt med kan ha varit otillräcklig. Informationen kan ha varit negativ, vilket leder till besökaren ej vill köpa produkten. Slutsatsen från detta är därmed att elektronisk Word of Mouth inom ett onlineforum påverkar besökares köpval genom att de kommer i kontakt med trovärdig och relevant information, men dess effekt på köpval påverkas av informationens innehåll. / The purpose of this study is to describe how electronic Word of Mouth within an online forum influence visitors purchase decision. Previous studies about electronic Word of Mouth within online forums have focused on identifying potential factors that can influence visitors purchasing decisions. But they have not investigated visitors own perception of the effect of electronic Word of Mouth. Therefore there is a knowledge gap for this study to explore. A survey was made available to visitors of an online forum. The online forum that was chosen is called Swedroid and has a focus on consumer electronics. The information about products available in the online forum is classified as electronic Word of Mouth. The results from the survey show that a clear majority of respondents believe that the online forum contains relevant product information, which can be used to support a purchase choice. However, a lower proportion of the information in the forum is considered a decisive factor in purchasing. The analysis show two possible reasons behind this. The information that repsondent have come in contact with could be insufficient for making a purchase decision. Or information may have been negative, which causes the visitor to not buy the product. The conclusion is that electronic Word of Mouth within an online forum influences visitors purchasing choices by visitors getting in contact with credible and relevant information, but its effect on purchasing choices is influenced by the content of the information.

Product Information Management (PIM) is a field that deals with the product master data management and combines into one base the experience and the principles of data integration and data quality. Product Information Management merges the specific attributes of products across all channels in the supply chain. By unification, centralization and standardization of product information into one platform, quality and timely information with added value can be achieved. The goal of the theoretical part of the thesis is to construct a picture of the PIM, to place the PIM into a broader context, to define and describe various parts of the PIM solution, to describe the main differences in characteristics between the product data and data about clients and to summarize the available information on the administration and management of knowledge bases of the PIM data quality relevant for solving practical problems. The practical part of the thesis focuses on designing the structure, the content and the method of filling the knowledge base of the Product Information Management solution in the environment of the DataFlux software tools from SAS Institute. The practical part of the thesis further incorporates the analysis of the real product data, the design of definitions and objects of the knowledge base, the creation of a reference database and the testing of the knowledge base with the help of specially designed web services.