Mid Sweden University

The configuration management (CM) of products has a long tradition but among practitioners the benefits of CM are not clearly expressed. Our empirical study shows example of benefits of CM (process related) and PCI (information related) that not have been identified in earlier research. Hence we suggest that a model of benefits related to CM really should be including benefits related to both CM and PCI. The model is a contribution since practitioners can use it order to strengthen CM’s position in the organization.

While information technology enables us to access more material than ever before, we need to come to grips with the disagreeable fact that data is not information. Sharing data without safeguarding comprehension may lead to confusion at best and disaster at worst. The issue at hand is one of ensuring semantic interoperability between actors from disparate contexts. Research into this problem is plentiful, but typically focused around specific subject matters, limiting its appeal to a limited range of scholars and practitioners. Based upon a literary study, we identify two extreme approaches to managing semantic interoperability. These are denoted top-down and bottom-up. We illustrate real world instances of these approaches using the TFI-model based on a case study encompassing two organizations. Our theoretical model is found to be a viable lens through which to generalize and interpret issues pertaining to semantic interoperability between human actors. We therefore see a need for further research into human-based on semantic interoperability.

Long-term preservation of organisational knowledge gives the business opportunities to reuse stored knowledge. This preservation of knowledge is present both in the organisation as such, found explicitly in the organisational stock, and also in the individual workers, implicit in their flow of action. Theoretically have the reuse of knowledge been named organisational memory and also been addressed in knowledge management. In a single case-study of a manufacturing company, the authors study the utilisation of product configuration information (PCI) and its role in meeting requirements on long-time preservation of product-related knowledge. This structured and standardised information is used throughout the organisation, serving as a base for both organisational and individual knowledge for the entire company. Since the information has been used in the same way for decades it is a part of the organisation´s culture and influences structures and procedures connected to the information base. The result of the study implies that usage of PCI grants the individual worker a high degree of task-related freedom as well as intra-organisational mobility. The downside for the individuals is the long time period it takes to get familiar with PCI due to its complexity. For the organisation as such, PCI provides a stable stock of knowledge which is available over extended periods of time, drastically reducing dependence upon individual workers.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine what happens with the internal view an organisation has on information management when a holistic view is diminished into a blinkered view and the consequences it conveys for the customer. The customer consequences are divided into two parts – creation of external customers’ values and creation of value for the internal customer explored in terms of efficiency.

Methodology/approach – Interviews with both outsourced co-workers and project leaders still in the organization.

Findings – The organisations lack of listening to the external customer affects all three areas lifted in the analysis. The studied organisations have great opportunities for developing their process for producing TI, both regarding their mutual relationship as well as in regards to the external customer with the help of Lean and by applying a more holistic view on the production of Technical Information.

Keywords – Information management, Lean, Customer value, Technical Information, Efficiency

Paper type – Case study

Seeking out and understanding the benefits of information are essential to an organization. Internal in an organization it is important to understand created benefit in order to communicate, prioritize and increase or decrease prioritization in strategically important business areas. In modern society digitalized information is an area that is on the increase in enterprises, as is the knowledge that information is of importance. Therefore there should be a demand for understanding and measuring the beneficial factors that information gives an organization. In this study, empirical material was collected in a literature study from journals highly ranked in the Information Systems Area and with special focus on the benefit of information. The perspective of the study has been intra organizational. The purpose is to derive found benefit factors and use them as a basis to discuss and problematize on the nature of benefit of information and hereby give organizations help to understand this area.