Storage for metal raw material information

Abstract

In the production of wiring accessories, multiple metal components are used in the product to conduct electricity to achieve a certain function. Poor availability of compatible raw materials leads to reduced production of essential metal components. The goal for the thesis is to improve the management and available information about the raw materials, by creating a new metal raw material information storage that is easily accessible with an intuitive user interface. The new storage will be created for approximately 30 to 40 employees at ABB Oy Wiring Accessories-department. The access to such information allows for a faster process if a material needs to be replaced, solving a problem that has occurred to the product during the quality test phase, or during the design phase of a new modification to a component, when dimensions of the raw material need to be considered depending on the machinery that produces the component. A literature review of material properties, information management, and information security was done, along with a qualitative study in the form of interviews with personnel from different departments in the company, and from Busch-Jaeger Elektro GmbH. The objective of the interviews was to build a foundational level of understanding on what raw material information was needed for the new system. The information was deducted and modified to fit company needs and the new raw material information storage was created. The platform was chosen to be SharePoint, where information can be easily added and there are multiple ways to manipulate the information. The SharePoint list was integrated to Power BI to create a report where the information will mainly be presented to the employees. The Power BI report was created by an employee with previous experience with creating reports with the software and was instructed on the design choices for the report layout. The results from testing and comparing the old methods of metal raw material retrieval to the new showed that the participants performed better with the new system, with a success rate of 100% to find the requested information, compared to 20% success rate with the old methods. A successful information retrieval was defined by finding the information without the need for help. It was concluded that the new raw material information storage achieved the goal of the thesis, if it is successfully integrated in the company, and the rest of the excluded raw material information along with improvements for filter options are included.