Implementation of Dynamic Customer Product Information for a Network Router Product

Abstract: When a telecommunication company delivers a product to a customer, three main pieces are included: software, hardware and Customer Product Information (CPI). The CPI can be thought of as the “user manual” for the product. The CPI is important to most companies. It is important not only that the final product really corresponds to the needs of the customer, but also that the customer in an easy manner can learn how to install, configure and subsequently use the product. To provide this information to the customer, a correct content and a good information structure of the CPI is crucial. To ensure this, the studied company has developed a “Customer Product Information Life Cycle Process” to enhance the understanding of the customer needs in terms of documentation and training material about the product and comply with customer needs.  Part of this thesis consists of a study which makes an evaluation of the development parts of the CPI process. This is done in order to find a method and tool to be able to improve the structure, content and usability of the CPI used in a product called Gateway GPRS support Node (GGSN). The conclusions from the study are implemented with a Content Management System (CMS). One important aim is to use a wiki-type tool where the customer can make local adaptation to the delivered CPI and add information about their own network, configurations and handling; in this way they will be able to make the CPI structure more users friendly and used more efficiently by the customer’s staff. As part of this thesis, a test was carried out to suggest a new model to improve the current CPI model used at the company. The test was based on a methodology, tool-independent CMS called Drupal. Drupal was used to create test documents in the GGSN-MPG CPI environment. The quality of the CPI made with the Drupal tool was examined after the change. The results clearly demonstrate that a new portal platform, based on a Drupal-like tool achieves a far more flexible structure and would greatly improve the CPI capabilities. It is preferable to use a Drupal-like portal platform rather than a website when implementing a new CPI structure.