Jari Partanen

Fast production for order fulfillment: Implementing mass customization in electronics industry

Abstract Modern means to improve efficiency in manufacturing are quite diverse. However the traditional cornerstones are those still to pursue. Scale, cost, quality and time in a row are the targets and also paradigms where business is managed. Mass customization is one of these modern means to achieve these goals. It is customizing product to individual customers and producing those with principles of mass production. The key issue in it is customer focus. Fast production means delivering products to customer faster than the lead-time of the whole manufacturing process in order to satisfy customers. This can be achieved utilizing standardized methods and modularized product structure. This paper addresses to review elements of mass customization for fast productions systems. Based on theoretical cornerstones a model is created. It is generated from Finish electronic industry based on large development project entity with several manufacturing companies.

Experiences and Insights from Applying GQM+Strategies in a Systems Product Development Organisation

Aligning software-related activities with corporate strategies and goals is increasingly important for several reasons such as increasing the customer satisfaction in software-based products and services. Several approaches have been proposed to create such an alignment. GQM+Strategies is an approach that applies measurement principles to link goals and strategies on different levels of an organisation. In this paper, we describe experiences from applying GQM+Strategies to elicit, link, and align the goals of an integrated systems product development organisation across multiple organisational levels. We provide insights into how GQM+Strategies was applied during a five-month period. The paper presents the enacted application process and main lessons learnt. In addition, related approaches are described and an outlook on future work is given.

Systematic piloting of agile methods in the large: two cases in embedded systems development

Deploying agile methods in a large, diverse, geographically distributed setting is a challenging task. In this paper, we propose that systematic piloting is to be used in order to build experience and to overcome the most common challenges of agile deployment, such as resistance to change. We approach this by developing a method for piloting agile. This method is developed based on multiple-case study in a large embedded systems company. Based on two cases, we describe a method that transcends the encountered challenges and can help meld an agile method with a plan-driven organization.

Data-Driven Requirements Engineering in Agile Projects: The Q-Rapids Approach

Requirements identification, specification and management are key activities in the software development process. In the last years, many approaches to these activities have emerged, based on the exploitation of huge amounts of data gathered from software repositories and system usage. The Q-Rapids project proposes the collection and analysis of such data and its consolidation into a set of strategic indicators as product quality, time to market and team productivity. These indicators are visualized through a dashboard designed to support decision-makers. In this paper, we present the ongoing research undertaken in this project. We use the concept of blocking situation to exemplify the Q-Rapids approach.

Requirements Engineering and Continuous Deployment

This article summarizes the RE in the Age of Continuous Deployment panel at the 25th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference. It highlights two synergistic points (user stories and linguistic tooling) and one challenge (nonfunctional requirements) in fast-paced, agile-like projects, and recommends how to carry on the dialogue.

Towards Predictable B2B Customer Satisfaction and Experience Management with Continuous Improvement Assets and Rich Feedback

Modern high-performing software product development organizations are nowadays more and more often transforming their operations towards continuous higher-level ends. In general, customer satisfaction (CS) is such a goal. This paper presents an approach of gauging and improving customer satisfaction in an industrial B2B product development project organization for continuous customer experience (CX) management. In order to do that, the Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI) used in the company was systematized with an applied impact analysis technique. The resulting artifact (called CSI Impact Mapping Grid) combines a set of satisfier improvement strategies derived from our initial work with the GQM+Strategies method coupled with the company assets (capabilities) and insights. It is furthermore aimed to be integrated with rich online measurement inputs for real-time predictive feedback. Such transparency across the whole organization enables employees to realize and insightfully support − even proactively in real time − the various cause-effect relationships of the CS/CX.

Data-Driven Elicitation, Assessment and Documentation of Quality Requirements in Agile Software Development

Quality Requirements (QRs) are difficult to manage in agile software development. Given the pressure to deploy fast, quality concerns are often sacrificed for the sake of richer functionality. Besides, artefacts as user stories are not particularly well-suited for representing QRs. In this exploratory paper, we envisage a data-driven method, called Q-Rapids, to QR elicitation, assessment and documentation in agile software development. Q-Rapids proposes: (1) The collection and analysis of design and runtime data in order to raise quality alerts; (2) The suggestion of candidate QRs to address these alerts; (3) A strategic analysis of the impact of such requirements by visualizing their effect on a set of indicators rendered in a dashboard; (4) The documentation of the requirements (if finally accepted) in the backlog. The approach is illustrated with scenarios evaluated through a questionnaire by experts from a telecom company.

Towards Continuous Customer Satisfaction and Experience Management: A Measurement Framework Design Case in Wireless B2B Industry

Customer satisfaction (CS) is continuously important in modern industrial business environments. However, it is inherently affective even in B2B contexts and thus not directly controllable. Satisfaction impacting customer experiences (CX), respectively, can be managed by the supplier company. The company should first define its strategic CX vision, and then set the value-based CX goals accordingly. The goals have to be made transparent to the entire organization for producing the experiences with their current status and projected progress. A transparent measurement system is thus needed. In this research work, we have investigated how satisfying experiences (chiefly UX) can transparently be gauged in a B2B case company. Following our prior research approach, instead of attempting to cover all possible experience touchpoints in customer-supplier relationships, we focus on the main experience factors of the case company. A real-time predictive CS/CX measurement framework design is proposed. A use case is illustrated for initial evaluation.

Variability Management Strategies to Support Efficient Delivery and Maintenance of Embedded Systems

Software intensive organisations that are able to efficiently handle product variability can reach competitive advantage by shorter development lead times, improved customer satisfaction, and reduced costs of product management. Improved reusability and flexibility, combined with variability strategies can provide companies mechanisms to offer new product variants fast to customers. Especially for long living embedded systems, it is essential to effectively maintain the delivered systems and keep maintenance costs at reasonable level. This paper describes a case study in which three industrial product development projects were studied in order to understand which variability strategies were implemented in their specific variability context. Results indicate that variability challenges and selected variability strategies depend both on the product platform maturity, as well as, the project development model. However, variability strategy needs continuous evaluation during the product lifecycle.

Applying Agile and Lean Elements to Accelerate Innovation Culture in a Large Organization – Key Learnings After One Year Journey

This paper describes how lean elements have been applied in a large company to change existing agilean culture towards innovation culture. Innovation concentrates on radical, new business innovations but covers product and process innovations as well. The main motivation and need to build the innovation culture was an assumption that the company has a lot of competence and innovation potential not utilized. The final goal is to measure if the actions taken really have an impact to the amount and quality of new, radical innovations and business growth of the company. This paper is limited to the intermediary results achieved after the first year being (1) ideas-to-innovations value stream established (2) idea flow and positive pull created among personnel and (3) group of perfection practices has been stabilized for continuous improvement. We plan to describe, measure and analyze concrete examples of radical innovations in the future