Dynamic Development of BusinessProcesses and Digital Tools : A Specification of an Advanced Monitoring Tool SupportingDecision-Making within a Material Acquisition Workflow

Sammanfattning

In make-to-order (MTO) environments, timely and efficient information sharing is crucial tomeet the demand of customized customer orders. While facing challenges relating to product specific material needs, MTO companies compete with short lead times and advanced planningand scheduling abilities. Digital transformation acts as a key driver in enhancing advancedplanning abilities. Therefore, the aim of this study has been to analyse how the material acquisition process in an MTO company can be improved and in what way a digital material requirement planning (MRP) monitoring tool can be designed to contribute to increase process performance. The study is of qualitative nature, where data were collected from semi-structured interviews from departments regarding product design, logistics, procurement, and quality control. The data was analysed by creating diagrams over current business processes and IT system design, in turnproviding a basis to support design decisions for future workflows and system design. The studywas conducted as a case study at Company X, to analyse one MTO company's challenges andoutline an example of how business processes and information systems interrelate and could be designed to support improved process performance. As Company X is a young enterprise that is ramping up their production, their business processes and IT systems are currently underdevelopment. The interplay between data collection, data quality, and system design has been the central focus point during the analysis. To illustrate system design constraints and requirements,an activity and information view mapping the logical components has been developed, andworkflows with an integrated tool have been designed. The findings revealed that the current material acquisition workflow in Company X can be characterised by manual interventions, information redundancy, tacit knowledge, anddecentralised information sharing. The workflow can be described by considering the interdependencies between IT systems, workflow actors, and information flows. Moreover, the findings include five planning objectives which should be supported by the business processes and the tool to enhance workflow efficiency. Lastly, the findings include that an advanced MRP monitoring tool should be designed using a modular approach, where information visibility anddata traceability is increased. We recommend that Company X should implement the advancedplanning tool to support material planning as this leads to streamlined decision-making and increased workflow efficiency, where internal lead times are reduced and information distortions are mitigated.