Practical selection and implementation

Selection of the integrated IT infrastructure

We collected information from all participants of the four different teams, in order to have the best approach of their needs, followed the selection process described below, and built a minimal system in order to put as soon as possible a prototype in production to see if the benefits of the technology after six months of being used, could fulfill the work group needs, the objectives of the process, and the interest of the company. Therefore, the intention of this study is to describe in detail how those objectives could be met successfully.

The mission statement and concept generation, user needs, and requirements were followed according to the models and suggested practices presented in the work, Product Design and Development, and additional references like: IEEE Recommended Practice for Software Requirements and Specifications, IEEE Guide for Developing System Requirements Specifications, and IEEE Recommended Practice for Software Design Descriptions.

The customization of the selection process includes the following steps: mission statement, gathering information from users, interpret information in terms of user needs, concept generation, establishing requirements, evaluation, and selection of the collaborative tools. We adapted and followed up this six step process where it allowed us to be focused and keep consistency, where we could have the requirements as objectives for this project that finally gave us the direction for the evaluation and selection of the integrated IT infrastructure.


Mission statement

The mission statement presented below (Table 1), summarizes the direction followed by the project team, and includes some of all of the following information: the product vision or brief description of the product, key business goals, target market for the product, assumptions and constraints, that guides the development effort from the stakeholders. The mission statement belongs more to the product planning phases, but is presented here as a base and initial phase for the selection process.

Mission Statement: Selection and Implementation of an Integrated Web-based IT Infrastructure for a virtual work group collaboration in a manufacturing process.
Product Description Integrated and web-based collaborative IT infrastructure using dashboard’s functionality (cycle time, aging, and product inventory’s levels on hold), with workflow management, and parts’ tracking operations.
Key Business Goals Provide effective communication and collaboration.
Improve the compromise and responsibility between participants.
Collect historic information to perform further analysis.
Primary Market Current manufacturing process for the company of this study.
Secondary Markets Free open source worldwide community.
Assumptions and Constraints The system will be accessed by a web browser where in the same window the user will interact with all different functionalities required to follow up tasks and parts during the process. Have coordination between participants of the different groups. Execute all steps of the replacement process. And monitor the levels of the Key Process Indicators (KPIs).
Stakeholders/Teams Warehouse.
Test.
Quality.
Material’s planning.

Table 1. Mission statement.


Gathering information from users

The gathering information was performed by having contact with users and participants through interviews, brainstorming sessions, and observing the areas where the system will be used. Also, the project team belongs to those areas, and this helps to understand and better identify the different teams' needs.


Interpret information in terms of user needs

The information is organized according to the participant's comments and user's feedback, then the information is interpreted in terms of user needs. In this sense, user needs are expressed as written statements and are the result of interpreting the need underlying the raw data gathered from the users.


Concept generation

A product concept is an approximate description of the technology, working principles, and form of the product. It is a concise description of how the product will satisfy the customer's needs. The degree to which a product satisfies customers and can be successfully commercialized, depends to a large measure on the quality of the underlying concept. Good concept generation leaves the team with confidence that the full space of alternatives has been explored. The concept generation of this project was developed in four fully-explored steps: mission statement (as input), technological review, market (business unit) analysis, and generating the concept (in an iterative and spiral approach).


Establishing requirements

Establishing requirements takes an additional importance and is substantially more challenging when developing a highly complex product, consisting of multiple subsystems designed by multiple development teams. In such a context, specifications are used to define the development objectives of each of the subsystems, as well as the product as a whole. This step allowed us to reflect user needs and concept generation in terms of product requirements.


Evaluation and selection of the collaborative tools

Evaluating the collaborative tools depends on many factors, where previous works of research have discussed the need to consider all different aspects that impacts the virtual teams performance. For our case and due the nature characteristics and needs of the virtual teams, the manufacturing process itself, the project's objectives, the current capabilities, and the intention to measure all steps in the process in order to look for the continuous process improvement. The workflow, dashboards, and parts' tracking system, were the most appropriate tools to use and integrated in the infrastructure.