Smart Enterprise Project Cockpit

Hürlimann, Pascal and Steiger, Lukas (2019) Smart Enterprise Project Cockpit. Bachelor thesis, HSR Hochschule für Technik Rapperswil.

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Abstract

Initial Situation
Monitoring projects is a challenging task for a global company like Siemens. Project leaders, quality & product management, business administration, and top management all have different needs regarding project insights. To address these needs, a Siemens internal tool called VCR (Visualization, Controlling & Reporting) has been in use for more than ten years. VCR holds all project management related information such as schedules, key figures, risks, progress and various other metadata. So far, more than 1700 projects have been handled in VCR, whereby the individual projects differ greatly in terms of project size, duration, scope, and the business process they are based on. Today, architecture, usability, performance, and technology no longer meet current demands. There is certain unused functionality, and some processes are performed outside of the tool, even though they would perfectly fit into VCR. In addition, a fundamental revision of the architecture failed some years ago due to inherent complexity and size. In the foregoing research thesis—NextGen Project Management Tooling—the project management ecosystem at Siemens has been analyzed and a simple prototype was developed.

Objective
Siemens wishes to replace VCR step by step with a new, modern solution. Within the scope of this bachelor thesis, a first workflow is to be replaced and, if possible, transferred into operation. This workflow—the milestone approval process—is an important process in which the tools VCR, Excel, Email, and manual data maintenance are equally involved. The new tool should implement this process and serve as a basis for porting further functionality from VCR to the new solution in the coming years. The evaluation and implementation of a reliable approach for a consistent data exchange mechanism between the two is also part of this thesis. In order to achieve these goals, it is crucial that the students closely collaborate with the project partner.

Result
Building on the foundations laid by the results of the research thesis, a replacement was developed using a modern but proven technology stack. Several shortcomings of the previous solution have been addressed, especially concerning usability and performance improvements. Now, depending on their role, people involved in a milestone approval will be able to monitor and control the progress of such an approval using a single tool. This is a great improvement over the clumsily connected pieces of software present before. For the end users joy, the responsive web application can be used on mobile devices, permitting new usage scenarios. These user facing improvements are complemented by a continuous and reliable way to exchange data between the old and new systems. As data consistency is of utmost importance when dealing with crucial business data, we can guarantee a common data source with this approach. The new milestone approval tool allows for more consistent data handling and tighter control of project progress, while providing the same core functionality as the previous solution. The students were able to demonstrate that singling out a particular workflow and creating a replacement is possible. The problem-solving approach used here is a great example that gradually modernizing an application is a feasible approach, when making sure to keep the legacy and new applications operating in parallel during the time of transition.

Item Type: Thesis (Bachelor)
Subjects: Topics > Software > Refactoring
Topics > Internet Technologies and Applications > Visualization
Technologies > Programming Languages > C#
Technologies > Programming Languages > Java Script
Technologies > Frameworks and Libraries > .NET
Technologies > Frameworks and Libraries > ASP.NET
Technologies > Databases > MS SQL Server
Divisions: Bachelor of Science FHO in Informatik > Bachelor Thesis
Depositing User: OST Deposit User
Contributors:
Contribution
Name
Email
Thesis advisor
Keller, Daniel
UNSPECIFIED
Date Deposited: 30 Sep 2019 18:18
Last Modified: 30 Sep 2019 18:18
URI: https://eprints.ost.ch/id/eprint/807

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