ICT and e-Business in the Pulp, Paper and Paper ... - empirica

Pulp, paper and paper products
ICT and the transparency of business processes
An important aspect of the ICT impact on work organisation is that the increasing use of
ICT in all business areas (not only in B2B trade, but also internally) has effects on the
transparency of business processes. The first of the following two case studies, about
Rexcell a manufacturer of tissue and airlaid paper in Sweden, describes how a company
uses ICT for quality management by meticulously documenting all business processes in
a system.
A very important side effect of this innovation is that factory workers are now in a much
better position to understand how business processes are linked to each other, for
example how marketing activities by sales people in the organisation are linked to the
delivery of the products they are manufacturing. This transparency and knowledge has
strengthened the 'team-spirit' and company culture, as every employee has a concrete
understanding of what is their individual role and contribution to the company's work.
Improving supply chain management
In the e-Business Survey 2006, enterprises representing about 20% of employment in the
P&P industry said that they used a Supply Chain Management (SCM) system (see
Exhibit 3-27, Section 3.5.2). Among large companies, about 40% said so. Thus, the P&P
industry is among the leading SCM user sectors.
The second case study featured in this section ("ICT for New Production Tracking")
describes the innovative e-business activities of a large European producer of office
paper in the area of SCM. The case study clearly illustrates the impact of ICT on work
organisation, but from a different focus. It demonstrates effects of introducing systematic
SCM on work processes, skills requirements and organisational performance. The case
study shows that the requirements for complementary skills were initially met with some
resistance, but that the use of ICT – with a focus on an RFID-supported SCM system–
eventually translated into significant efficiency gains. The state-of-play of RFID use in the
P&P industry is then discussed in more detail in Section 4.3.
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