Business Requirements and Deployment of Supplier Information Exchange Systems: Case Wärtsilä Energy Solutions

Abstract

The objective of this thesis was to find out requirements and evaluate alternatives for collaboration solutions in Wärtsilä Energy Solutions. Many of the old collaboration methods start to be outdated and faster, more agile solutions are needed. The business is also moving towards the direction where collaboration in the supply chain has an increasingly important role in new product development and time to market. In addi-tion, lifecycle-thinking brings new requirements to the data involved in supplier col-laboration so new solutions with better traceability and lifecycle data are needed.

By interviews, requirements were collected from sourcing, R&D, design and project delivery organizations in Wärtsilä Energy Solutions. Use cases and sequence diagrams were modelled with UML to describe the cases. Requirements were analysed based on the theory of requirements management. Information security, revising files, data traceability, reliability and support for large files were identified as the most im-portant requirements. Three collaboration solutions were evaluated. Solution 1 has its strengths in PDM system connection so it is suitable for design. However, Solution 2 seems to cover the requirements best in other cases. Finally, deployment of these solu-tions was discussed. The results also show indications that competitive advantage can be reached, especially by better data quality and shorter communication times that col-laboration solutions can bring.

A limitation to this study was that there was no possibility for extensive testing of the different collaboration solutions so it was not possible to directly compare them be-tween each other. This thesis could however identify the main requirements and help with recommending the best solution for the current situation. The results can also be used as a basis for future collaboration development which could be closer connected to PLM/PDM systems in Wärtsilä.