RTD in Information Technologies

Domain 7: Technologies for Business Processes

Proposal title:

ELKD - ELectrical Knowledge Development

Summary of the ELKD proposal

The aim of the ELKD project is the transformation of key business processes for two major European electricity supply companies the Greek Public Power Corporation (P.P.C.), one of the largest Electricity Companies in Europe and the Swedish Vattenfall, the largest Electricity supplier in Scandinavia. The overall project objectives are:

* to develop business models of the current processes underpinning the`customer service` of P.P.C. and the `strategic planning` business areas of Vattenfall, develop models suggesting alternative functioning according to new business objectives, and evaluate these alternatives

* to use these business models as the basis for a new generation of IT support infrastructure for both companies and to demonstrate such a support through the use of two information systems demonstrators and

* to develop generic business models for the two functions, which can be subsequently transferred to other European companies within the electricity supply sector.

To achieve these objectives, the project will use a structured and formal method to business transformation based on an advanced approach, known as the Enterprise Knowledge and Requirements Development (EKRD) method. To this end, the two electricity supply companies are joined by the developers of the EKRD method to assist them with the development and assessment of alternative business scenarios and a technology supplier to assist them in the development of information system demonstrators supporting the proposed business transformation.

Both P.P.C. and Vattenfall are large organisations with complex business procedures. They have strong needs for optimising these procedures in order to improve their competitiveness.

A key business objective of P.P.C is to improve customer service and achieve large cost reductions in the way that they currently provide such a service. According to a study made by P.P.C., it is estimated that if customer billing is reduced from 20 days to 5 days an immediate saving of approximately 30 MECU will be achieved. The same study indicated that the provision of a formal and I.T. supported functional work flow to the customer department can yield a 30% cost reduction in supporting office activities aimed at servicing customers. With the aim to achieving, in the long term, such dramatic improvements, the business objective of P.P.C. in the ELKD project is the reduction of processes in customer service from the current 4 layers of the operational structure to a target of 2 layers.

One of the main business objective of Vattenfall currently is to improve the management and dissemination of knowledge and information, internal as well as external to Vattenfall. Strategic planning and decision making are heavily dependent on access to internal information about Vattenfall (historical as well as current) as well as external information. Such information concerns experiences about particular business situations, how problems were solved, what mistakes were made etc. In Vattenfall, much of this information is either never recorded or lost in a multitude of different media and locations. The business objective of Vattenfall in the ELKD project is to introduce a set of processes, which would be supported by an information system, for the capture, management and dissemination of technical and scientific information on how to solve certain engineering problems, e.g. repairs, etc. This focused objective will provide the springboard for other tasks of business transformation, outside the scope of the ELKD project within the broad scope of strategic planning.

Whilst the need for making improvements in these areas is well accepted and the benefits from such a transformation formally quantified by both user companies, they both believe that current commercial approaches to business process re-engineering fall short of their expectations.

Their involvement in this project is based on their belief that the EKRD approach offers an opportunity for aligning their IT operations to their business needs. A major advantage of the EKRD method is that it offers appropriate models, techniques and tools for formally progressing from vague business objectives to IT specifications that can support the business processes underpinning these objectives. In this sense it directly supports the needs and expectations of P.P.C. and Vattenfall in their attempt to improve their operations within the two chosen business areas. Improvements in the operations of the two business areas chosen by P.P.C. and Vattenfall will yield substantial benefits, in the short term, as formally estimated by both companies. Furthermore, the development of generic business models within the two business areas will provide further opportunities for exploitation in the wider market of the electricity supply sector.

The Consortium

The project consortium is a strongly cohesive consortium in terms of the functional roles of each participant. In summary, the consortium is made up of :

* Public Power Corporation (P.P.C.), Greece

* Vattenfall AB, Sweden

* Singular S.A., Greece

* SYSLAB at the Department of Computer and Systems Sciences, KTH/SU, Sweden

* UMIST, Manchester, UK

* Centre de Recherche en Informatique (CRI), University of Paris 1 - Sorbonne

Roles of partners are as follows:

(a) Two user organisations, P.P.C. and Vattenfall, from within the electricity supply industrial sector. Their role is to provide the business environment for transforming specific business processes, to apply this transformation in their organisation and to further exploit a set of generic business models in the electricity supply sector.

(b) One technology provider, Singular S.A.. The role of this participant is to provide the environment (personnel. techniques and tools) for the implementation of the transformation of the chosen business processes.

(c) The developers of the EKRD method, SYSLAB, UMIST and PARIS-I Sorbonne. The EKRD method as a single entity has been developed collaboratively by three academic groups. These three groups, for the purpose of using the EKRD method in this project, ought to be considered as a single functional unit. The role of this unit is to transfer the EKRD knowledge and experiences to P.P.C., Vattenfall and Singular.

The project will be co-ordinated by one of the user participants, P.P.C..