Service Data Management : How data around services can help to manage services internally - a case study at the Volvo Group

Abstract: Traditional manufacturing firms today are on the way to extend their product portfolio with services in order to broaden their offering and to strengthen the relation to their customers. New services are being developed, old services are substituted and replaced and existing services adapted, while the amount of services tends to increase in total. As the number of services increases, so does the administrative work and complexity that comes along with services. This thesis aims at investigating how to handle the rising amount of data internally created around services and which service data need to be managed to describe a service. The objective is to find a way that allows Volvo to focus on the development and adaptation of services and not being distracted with work on administration of data around services, but rather focus on value-creating work. Different types of metadata are identified that describe a service along its lifecycle, e.g. versions, lifecycle stages, dependencies to other services, etc. The way is summarized in a framework that illustrates which data are needed and how this information can be managed. Besides the literature study, a benchmarking study is conducted within three other, global operating companies that have made their way from a manufacturer to a service provider or are still on the way to become one. The objective is to analyze their way on handling service data and to compare those to the one of Volvo and use the gathered information to provide a recommendation that suits Volvo’s way of working. The benchmarking study aimed at investigating the current status and future objectives of the firms through interviews with service experts. The results show that there is a great variation among the firms, including Volvo. While the third benchmarking firm has a mature way of dealing with services in their administration, Volvo and the benchmarking firm 2 are at an early stage in the servitization process. However, benchmarking firm 1 has an intermediate state that is strongly supported by an existing ERP system that is capable of registering service data. The Volvo Group acts in a strong competitive market that demands fleet management services, maintenance agreements and repair contracts in addition to the product offering. A lean way of service data management with high efficiency allows Volvo to compete in this market successfully. Services can be developed quicker by reuse of existing modules, a tracking of changes allows users to see the evolution of a particular service and the impact of a change can be estimated with the right system that considers dependencies among services. A solution to improve in the service data management is presented in the developed framework of this thesis. It is one way to account for the growing number of data and services and to simplify the daily work with services with a software-based solution. It can help to approach the growing number of services and to structure them in a daily work environment as well as from a more holistic portfolio management perspective.