Technical documentation processes in paper mill life cycle: PaperIXI Project Report D1.1

In this paper is presented some preliminary findings from a research project (e-Business Supporting Paper Production Line Life-Cycle) ongoing within a paper mill industry. This study involves a highly complex, extra-organisational collaboration problem that is costing a great deal of money. On the surface, the losses are the result of an apparent inability of the organisations to exchange technical information smoothly with each other. At a deeper level, the losses appear to be the result of poor co-ordination between the companies involved in product development, service, and other technical information support functions. In addition, these co-ordination difficulties are being compounded by a number of reinforcing, feedback loops, which appear to be having an increasingly frustrating, impact on collaboration. Here are reported on efforts to model and
analyse the business processes in question. A distinguishing feature of this modelling approach is that the focus is very much on usage of standard data model, factory model that could be used by involving companies.