Colloquia

Summary

Within the manufacturing industry, digitalisation is emerging as one of the driving forces for industrial development, often being viewed as one of the core components of the industry 4.0 revolution. In the past decade, both industry and academia have shown a growing interest in digitalisation. Scania Production Zwolle has been trying to develop its manufacturing operations through the implementation of digitalisation within its own manufacturing processes. Defined projects and initiatives were found to systematically receive less resources and have a lower success rate compared to other investment projects within the organisation.

This thesis explores how the added value of the digitalisation of business processes within the manufacturing industry can be proven, so that management teams are more willing to invest. By combining insights from literature and Scania’s own operations, a research-by-design methodology is employed to develop a fitting solution that helps Scania’s project managers better define the added value of digitalisation projects during the project definition phase.

The developed Digitalisation Project Approach consists of three elements, guiding principles for application, a digitalisation project framework, and strategic and operational one-pagers. Together, these elements help project managers systematically connect digitalisation project outcomes to organisational strategy and translate strategic goals into defined, value-adding projects. Verification through expert interviews and validation through practical case studies show that the DPA systematically improves project clarity, enables strategic alignment between project managers and management, and increases management confidence in digitalisation project investments.