Managing Information Exchange by Improving Information Flows in a Customer-to-Customer Process

Abstract

This thesis aims to manage information exchange at the case company by designing an information exchange map using a business process model for the customer-to-customer process, together with structuring team meetings and creating ground rules for efficient information exchange.

The Damper Division of ZF Friedrichshafen AG (case company), Schweinfurt (SCW) has recently decided to move the production of
its high running parts to its facility in Pune, India. The project is facing typical Supply Chain Management challenges like delay in serial production and delivery schedules, lack of information exchange, ambiguity over roles and responsibilities, and redundant communication between the two facilities SCW and Pune, thus incurring a high transaction cost and low coordination. The literature review about information flows, business processes and process integration provided four principles that help to integrate the information flow between processes. These principles are – accessibility, transparency, granularity, and timeliness. The analysis pointed that there are information gaps and interrelationship issues
between the stakeholders of the project. The issues identified were the need for an information exchange map which can be relied on by all of the stakeholders, timely information exchange, defined responsibilities and roles, and efficient communication. Standardization of information exchange with the help information exchange map together with information sharing rules emerged out as the main conceptual design. This was followed by a participatory design phase where the design was developed together with the stakeholders of the project.

Based on the final design with information sharing rules (meeting structure and ground rules), a set of recommendations (including an implementation plan) were laid out to help the managers steer the final design to the best of their use. Currently, the case company is about to implement the design together with the meeting structure and ground rules. It was recommended that the future objective of the company should be to achieve a control tower for central data collection and using the data to generate insights.