Optimizing Scanias Fleet Management softwarelifecycle and version management for the future

In the haulage business customers are constantly requesting new features. Hence thedevelopment department must constantly update their system which ultimatelyresults in a variety of versions of the system. The large number of versions creates acomplexity which often reduces product quality and extends the developmentlifecycle time. The work on the following thesis has taken place at Scania’s Fleet Managementdepartment, which develops tools for hauliers to track their vehicle fleet in real time. The purpose of this thesis was to examine how Scania can handle an increasedamount of versions of the Fleet Management System which Scania expect will be seenin the future. The investigation was conducted by preparing a number of differentscenarios that formed the basis for a discussion of what these different scenarioswould mean for different parts of Scania’s business. A benchmarking was made with anumber of different companies with similar problems in order to find suggestions tohandle the complexity of many versions. This investigation together with ourtheoretical studies was then used to provide suggestions for how the future can bemanaged.The study shows that replacing hardware quickly becomes an expensive process withmany trucks on the market. It would be more profitable for Scania to keep thenumber of versions low by using wireless updates in the future. By an earlierinvolvement of end customers and with more frequent customer visits, the number ofiterations in the development process can be reduced, thereby decreasingdevelopment time. The introduction of a maintenance organization would alsosignificantly reduce the time it takes to solve lower priority issues