Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

The contribution of biofuels to the total consumption of energy in Sweden must increase to 49 % in order to meet the goals for the year 2020 set by the European Union. In order to do so, improved information systems are needed to support the business processes within delivery scheduling between customers and suppliers.

Enterprise Architecture (EA) is a concept to enable the alignment of Business processes and Information Systems. EA is the framework for the architectures of business, information and applications. With a comprehensive view of the architectures, an Information System aligned with the Business processes can be enabled. The first step in the development of an Information System is documenting the business processes.

The goal of this study is to clarify a generic sequence of activities performed within the delivery scheduling process and the information needed to perform the activities.

Data for the study was collected through qualitative interviews, first through a meeting with the respondent and after that a following telephone interview with in total 5 suppliers and 6 customers of biofuels. The initial interviews focused on the sequence of activities performed within the process. The following telephone interviews focused on the information needed to carry out the activities. The results of the study have shown one generic IDEF0- model for suppliers and two generic models for customers. A Process-/Information-matrix (CRUD-matrix) for the information usage has been formulated based on the IDEF0-models. The matrix clarifies the information usage of the activities.

The results of this study show that identical activities are performed by both the supplier and the customer respectively. The information used in the completion of activities varies, which can lead to decisions based on very different principles. A customer with a short time-period coverage of supply estimates the need for biofuel every week, whereas a customer with a long time-period coverage of supply estimates the need for biofuel on a monthly basis. Customer service is a parameter to consider in supplier evaluation, where the importance of customer service increases with the lack of time-period coverage of supply.