François Chung, Ph.D.

Tag: 2015

VWFS México

VWFS México

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Sofico project @Puebla, Mexico (2015). In this project, we are gathering and analyzing both business processes and requirements expressed by Volkswagen Financial Services (VWFS) México for the implementation of Miles, which is a flexible software for automotive finance, leasing, fleet and mobility management. This requirement gathering and analysis (RGA) phase is a necessary step to determine the needs, or conditions to meet, for a customized implementation of Miles in Mexico.

In practice, the RGA phase consists in workshops in which both gaps and possible conflicting requirements of the various stakeholders are taken into account, analyzing, documenting, validating and managing business requirements. At VWFS México, main stakeholders are the different departments (e.g. pricing, IT, cash collection and accounting), as well as Volkswagen headquarters. As for the requirements, they are not only driven by stakeholders, but also by market needs and legal aspects specific to Mexico.

During the workshops, Sofico and Volkswagen met to discuss business processes in various functional domains, such as:

  • Accounting;
  • Contract management;
  • Credit scoring;
  • Incident management;
  • Invoicing;
  • Products and pricing;
  • Quoting;
  • Relation management;
  • Repair, maintenance and tires;
  • Vehicle ordering and delivery.

Within the team of software implementation consultants, my role consists in discussing, clarifying and taking note of the requirements expressed during the workshops by the various stakeholders with respect to their business processes. These requirements are then analyzed and documented at the office and finally validated through video conference with the stakeholders.

References

Related article

Miles software (Sofico project)

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Miles
VWFS México – Volkswagen Financial Services
Sofico

Introduction to Scrum

Introduction to Scrum

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iLean training, Belgium (2015). This classroom training introduces Scrum, which is an iterative and incremental software development methodology used for product development. This training, which combines theoretical concepts, practical exercises, games, discussions and real-life examples, explains how Scrum maximises product value, while minimizing software development-related risks, by iteratively delivering small increments to allow fast feedback.

Day 1: General introduction

Main topics:

  • Adaptive approach;
  • Scrum methodology;
  • Sprint: planning, review and retrospective;
  • Product backlog;
  • Kaizen approach: inspect and adapt;
  • Planning poker.

Day 2: Product Owner

Main topics:

  • Estimating and planning;
  • Expectation and feedback;
  • Swarm intelligence;
  • T-shape profiles;
  • Story mapping;
  • Large Scale Scrum (LeSS).

References

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Scrum
iLean

Miles functional training

Miles functional training

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Sofico training, Belgium (2015). This internal classroom training consists in a five-day session that focuses on the main functional procedures in Miles, which is a scalable, adaptive and flexible end-to-end software for automotive finance, leasing, fleet and mobility management. This training given to new Miles users explains how to manage the entire lifecycle of contracts and provides high-level information about the major functional domains by combining theory and exercises.

Day 1

Main topics:

  • Introduction;
  • Relation management.

Day 2

Main topics:

  • Relation management;
  • Quotations.

Day 3

Main topics:

  • Vehicle order and delivery;
  • Contract activation;
  • Third-party services;
  • Incident management.

Day 4

Main topics:

  • Short-term rental;
  • Maintenance and periodic servicing;
  • Incoming invoicing;
  • Customer billing;
  • Payment management;
  • Contract modification.

Day 5

Main topics:

  • Contract termination;
  • Vehicle sale;
  • Business process (workflow);
  • Document management.

References

Related articles

Miles software (Sofico project)
Miles configuration training (Sofico training)

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Miles
Sofico

Introduction to operations management

Introduction to operations management

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Coursera training, MOOC (2015). Given online by The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (US), this training introduces the management skills required to run operations (e.g. to run a restaurant or a hospital). Specifically, the training explains how to improve productivity, increase responsiveness, provide more choice to the customer and deliver higher quality standards. The aim is to provide strategic analyses and solutions to improve business processes.

Module 1: Process analysis

Main topics:

  • Find a bottleneck;
  • Compute throughput;
  • Apply Little’s Law;
  • Compute inventory turns;
  • Deal with multiple flow units.

Module 2: Productivity

Main topics:

  • Understand the sources of waste;
  • Balance a line and compute Takt time;
  • Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) analysis;
  • Key Performance Indicator (KPI) tree.

Module 3: Variety

Main topics:

  • Determine the impact of set-ups on capacity;
  • Analyze set-ups;
  • Single-Minute Exchange of Die (SMED);
  • Strategies to deal with variety;
  • Limitations to variety.

Module 4: Responsiveness

Main topics:

  • Waiting time analysis;
  • Map out the customer journey;
  • Predict customer loss rates.

Module 5: Quality

Main topics:

  • Analyze processes with yield losses;
  • Toyota production system;
  • Six Sigma;
  • Statistical Process Control (SPC).

Reference

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Coursera

Miles software

Miles software

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Sofico project @Ghent, Belgium (2015). Miles is a flexible end-to-end software for automotive finance, leasing, fleet and mobility management provided by Sofico. Main customers are leasing companies, car brands and banks. Software delivery projects consist of several phases: preparation, definition (i.e. analysis of the requirements), implementation (i.e. translation of requirements into a solution), system integration and user acceptance testings, go-live and post go-live.

In practice, Miles handles complex business processes and activities, as well as particular and often unique requirements in terms of workflow, functionality and data exchange with other systems. Miles also offers frameworks for mobile use (Miles Mobile) and online use (Miles Web), as well as a business intelligence system (Miles BI).

Here are some of the lease industry-specific functionalities:

  • flexible product range (e.g. financial products, services, flex matrix);
  • on-board vehicle data, through an automated interface;
  • underwriting capabilities (e.g. credit scoring, self-funding, third-party funding);
  • contract management (e.g. dull contract history, mileage-based costing capability);
  • end of contract, with settlement options specific to the various products;
  • accounting (e.g. analytical follow-up, general ledger accounting, asset management);
  • fleet operator (e.g. price lists, flexible invoice rules, exceptions reporting);
  • car policy support, capturing the rules and budgets of the different fleet operators;
  • brokerage and commissions in case of indirect sales;
  • third-party service management.

As a Consultant in Software Implementation, my main tasks are related to both business consulting (e.g. functional analysis and reporting) and the technical aspects of Miles implementation (e.g. batch processing, interface, security, data mapping, testing).

References

Related articles

VWFS México (Sofico project)
Miles configuration training (Sofico training)
Miles functional training (Sofico training)

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Miles
Sofico

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