Att skapa en välfungerande arbetsprocess Processutveckling på Ericsson i Katrineholm

Sammanfattning: In process oriented organizations, it is important to have well-functioning work processes to support the work being performed. In order to accomplish this, the organization has to make certain decisions regarding the design and usage of the processes. This master thesis is based on a case study of a work process that is being used for the industrialization of products at Ericsson in Katrineholm. The aim of the study is twofold. One aim is to improve the studied process by identifying improvement opportunities and carrying out the required adjustments. The other, more general, aim is to examine what aspects or factors an organization needs to take into consideration to be able to develop a well-functioning process. The pursuit of this aim includes taking both findings from the case study and relevant literature into account. Primary data has mainly been collected through qualitative interviews at Ericsson. An analysis of these data resulted in nine identified improvement opportunities for the industrialization process. Eventually, the work with carrying out adjustments was concentrated to the checklists being used as a facilitating tool for the management of the industrialization projects. The checklists were modified in several ways. The most radical change was a new checklist structure, in which the grouping of the checkpoints is based on the sub-processes of Ericsson’s generic industrialization process instead of idealized project functions. There are many advantages with the new structure. For example, the logical flow of the process becomes more visible and focus is shifted from who is going to perform the activity to a more holistic view of what should be done. On a general level, the study shows that it is reasonable to use processes as a means to transfer knowledge between projects. This especially applies to project environments made up of several similar projects whose content is fairly well-known beforehand. Furthermore, the study indicates that the following set of factors affect the supportive and quality-assuring function of a process: flexibility of the process , detail level of the process, minimized bureaucracy, functioning continuous improvement , priority on using the process, and the process as a coherent system . By taking these factors into consideration, an organization can increase its awareness of certain decisions that have to be made when working with process development.