This research addresses New Skies Satellites order driven processes and gives recommendations on the current Information Systems. The goal of this research is twofold. Firstly, it is the author’s final thesis for receiving the Master degree in Business Administration on the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. From this perspective the research is written with a scientific scope. Secondly, it is a practical research that supports New Skies Satellites MIS department in taking decisions with respect to order driven processes. From this point of view, the research contains practical and concrete suggestions on the current situation of the processes.

This research contains terms and definitions NSS employees are not familiar with. These terms and definitions are not introduced with the goal to be used in real-life, but have the purpose to bring aspects under attention that formally have not been recognized within the company. Within this research some aspects of the company are not described in detail, others are not mentioned at all. This is due to the scope of the research, not to their relevance.

This research could not have been completed without the support of some individuals. In the first place, I wish to thank Professor J. Wijngaard of the University of Groningen and R. Jansen and S.

van Delden of New Skies Satellites, for their input on this research. They provided the necessary feedback to carry out this research. I also wish to thank all NSS employees that helped me understanding the relevant processes and answered all my questions.

Berne Jansen

The Hague, February 2004

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Management Summary

This research is written on behalf of the MIS department of New Skies Satellites N.V. (NSS). The goal of the research is to do recommendations on NSS’ order driven processes for information technology purposes.

Diagnosis

The diagnosis consists of a description of NSS order driven processes and a problem analysis.

The goal of the diagnosis is to find the problem area within NSS in regard to order driven processes.

Description

For the description NSS order driven processes are divided in several stages. Each stage consists of a group of processes. The stages can be distinguished within the organization according to existing work orders, departments and cultural aspects. The following stages are found:

The quotation stage is the stage where new services are sold and proposals and contract requests are created.

The order stage is the stage where contract requests are issued, satellite capacity and ground equipment is assigned and financial and legal aspects are considered.

Within the after sales stage changes within an existing service are considered. An example of this is a Reconfiguration.

The line off stage is the stage in which the disconnection from the NSS network is handled.

The operations stage is the stage in which all line ups are issues for new and existing services.

For each stage, a description is made according to the PCI paradigm. This paradigm distinguishes the following elements:

Production System: refers to the on-hand process that add value to a process

Controlling System: refers to decision processes that do not add value to the process directly.

Information System: refers to the information technology support of the Production System and Controlling System.

Problem analysis

After the description, a problem analysis is done. Within the problem analysis, the following problems are found in regard to quality and timeliness:

The variety in the product mix negatively influence quality of the process Amount of revisions result in a lot of waste and harm timeliness of the process Customer variety delays the total lead-time of contract requests

The process Antenna Registration delays contract requests

Absence of activities for performance management leads to poor quality and timeliness Lack of overview of all processes harms process quality and timeliness

The way work orders are communicated through the organization harm process quality Absence of integral control leads to poor process quality and timeliness

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The conclusion of the diagnosis is that the found problem area for order driven processes at NSS is the Controlling System. Therefore, the design will focus on the control of processes and not on processes themselves.

.

Problem Statement

Within the problem statement, first the main research question is defined: “How can NSS improve control of its order driven processes?”

Thereafter, the term control is conceptualized through the COSO (Committee of Sponsoring Organizations) framework. The framework helps to categorize all found problems in only 4 basic causal fundamental elements. These four elements form the basis for the design. The design objective is:

Design a Controlling System that contains the following requirements:

Monitoring possibilities for setting performance criteria Clear control activities responsibilities

Consistent communication lines on an aggregate level and agile work orders

The use of risk assessment in such a way that it reduces uncertainty in the order stage with the final goal to improve quality and timeliness in regard to NSS order driven processes.

Design Monitoring

For the purpose of monitoring several monitoring suggestions are done. Furthermore, to make use of monitoring in a valid way, a change in the process is suggested where the Capacity Engineers tasks is moved stream upwards.

Control Activities

Control Activities concern the description and implementation of processes procedures and business rules. The design of control activities is done by devoting all control activities to a new department, called the Process & Control department. This department has the responsibility of integral control and work order coordination of all processes. The department is proposed to have authorities equal to the second management level within the organization.

Information and Communication

A design is presented that integrates all communication lines within NSS order driven processes on an aggregate level and separates integral and local control. The design is presented through a consistent communication framework. To increase the overview of processes, it is suggested that all processes fall within the boundaries of this framework.

The introduction of the framework has several consequences. It improves the overview of processes, it distincts integral and local control, and creates a possibility for agile work orders per department. Finally, the communication framework also causes a reduction in the total amount of activities by focusing on departments instead of department ànd processes.

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Risk Assessment

NSS currently does not make use of the possibility of risk assessment. Therefore, an ongoing process of standardization is proposed. This process contains a production split between Customized and Fill-in-the-Form, standard products. For this split, historical data of capacity rejections and customers are the basis for the production choice. The goal is to let as much contract requests as possible follow the process for standard products.

Conclusions

In the diagnosis it was found that NSS processes can be improved by focusing on “control”.

Therefore the design answers the question: ““How can NSS improve control of its order driven processes?” This question can be answered as follows: “NSS can improve control of its order driven processes by making use of the possibilities for valid monitoring, centralizing work order coordination to one department, keeping process overview on an aggregate level through a consistent communication framework, and creating a special ongoing process for standard products.”

Recommendations for the Information System

From the design, recommendations can be done for NSS’ Information System strategy. The following recommendations are done:

NSS should invest in monitoring systems and develop a way to centrally gather process data.

The memorization of processes like Expirations and Ramp ups should be done through an Information System.

Communication automation should be extended to the new-presented communication framework. Hereby, investments should be made in one central workflow system that automates all possible routings.

For automation and information projects, a more functional approach is preferred above a process-oriented approach. The current Ticketing System can function as an example for this approach.

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Chapter 1 Corporate Overview

§1.1 Introduction

New Skies Satellites N.V. (AEX, NYSE: NSK) is a global satellite communications company offering video, Internet, voice and data communications services to a range of broadcasters, Internet service providers and telecommunications carriers around the world. With its network of six geostationary satellites, it is one of only four fixed satellite services companies with truly global satellite coverage.

New Skies is headquartered in The Hague, the Netherlands and has offices in Beijing, Washington D.C., Johannesburg, New Delhi, São Paulo, Singapore, and Sydney. The company began operations in November 1998 as a commercial spin-off from Intelsat.

§1.2 Services Offered

New Skies’ core business covers three main services: video distribution and contribution, Internet- related services, and telephony and other data applications, each contributing 37 percent, 30 percent, and 33 percent respectively to revenues in 2002. For offering these services, NSS makes use of two internal services. The first one is Space Only, which means that NSS sets up a carrier from an antenna of the customer to one of their satellites. Customers then can pick up the carrier from the second satellite using their own equipment. The second service is called Value Added Service. This means that, besides Space Only, NSS also provides equipment for sending and receiving the carrier and transforming the carrier into Internet packet’s (IP packets) or Video Broadcasting packets (DVB packets). For the second service, also ground equipment is required from NSS. A more specific explanation of the two internal services is given here.

§1.2.1 Space Only

Space Only is offered as a single carrier or communication line. For every Space Only service that is offered to the customer, a special carrier is set up. Figure 1 provides a schematic picture of a Space Only. Eventually, only the right to use a part of (one of the transponders of) the satellite is sold. This means, for Space Only service, NSS reserves capacity on the Satellite. It is the customer’s responsibility to send and receive information through this capacity. The identification of Space Only services goes through frequency identification.

Figure 1 – Space Only service

§1.2.2 VAS

Basically, a VAS exists of a Space Only service plus ground network communication. This means not only the customer antenna has to be able to communicate with the NSS Satellite, but also the ground network protocols have to be able to communicate with each other. Figure 2 provides a schematic overview of a VAS. As the reader can see, this picture is an extension of Figure 1 and also contains ground equipment. All ground equipment necessary to communicate is called a mediaport. Besides satellites, NSS also owns a worldwide network of mediaports to establish the

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communication of VAS’s. In Figure 2, the vertical lines differentiate the responsibilities of the customer and NSS. As can be seen, NSS has the responsibility to let the customer communicate between the worldwide network (in this case the Internet) and the customer’s antenna. The equipment related to this responsibility consists of the satellite as well as the mediaport. As can be seen in Figure 2, NSS has not the responsibility that the customer actually receives the right signal, and demodulates it into information.

Figure 2 – VAS Service

Figure 2 is an example of a DVB (Digital Video Broadcasting) service offered. As can be found in this figure, NSS is responsible for modulating the DVB signal in a satellite platform and sending it to the antenna of the customer through a satellite. This is called the outbound signal. When a return signal is needed (which is the case in the example in Figure 2), an inbound signal has to be received by an antenna of NSS through the satellite and demodulated again. This is called the inbound signal.

For setting up a VAS, besides the aspect of Space Only, also the ground network has to be enabled for the requested service. This means ground equipment has to be reserved, purchased and maintained and network communication protocols have to be able to communicate with each other.

§1.3 Strategy

NSS strategy is to focus on the client. The organization is totally shaped around the customer. In practice this means the organization has a relative large Sales department. Furthermore, everybody in the company has knowledge of the customers work customer-oriented. To achieve customer satisfaction, the company looks upon availability of their network as one of their core competences. The availability of NSS satellites is about 99,998 % in time.

Because of the strong focus on the client, it is useful to have some knowledge about NSS client base. NSS works in a Business-to-Business market. This means the company serves no individual end-users. NSS clients generally exist of the world largest Internet service providers (ISP’s), telecom-operators and video-broadcasters. Besides, the company also provides services to a lot of national governments. All these customers in turn provide their service to individual end-users. The total amount of New Skies’ customer base exists of more than 240 companies. Because of the

Ethernet

Router

NSS Mediaport

Outbound Inbound

IRD unit

Low Speed Modulator SSPA RF Unit

LNB

DVB Encapsulator

DVB Modulator

SCPC Demodulator Internet

Demarcation point 1

Demarcation point 2

NSS Responsibility Customer Responsibility

NSS

Router Customer

Network

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great amount of money involved in contracts offered by NSS, this client-base is not expected to grow a lot in the near future.

§1.4 Organization Structure

It is useful for the reader to have knowledge about the organization structure. This paragraph gives a short description of the different departments at NSS together with their functions. Figure 3 gives a summary of the organization chart of NSS per department. Most departments in this figure are physically located in The Hague, the Netherlands. Exceptions are the NOC (Manassas, USA), the regional sales offices (also Beijing, Washington, D.C., Johannesburg, New Delhi, São Paulo, Singapore and Sydney) and the part of the Network Implementation department that is situated at the mediaports.

CEO

Sales Engineering &

Operations Finance General

Counsel

Sales Engineering

Network Engineering &

Operations

Network Implementation

NOC

Capacity Management

Capacity Engineering

Capacity Assignment

Space Segment Operations

POC

Finance Billing

Finance Credit Check Regional

Sales Departments

MIS

Satellite Management

SOC

Figure 3 – Summary of organization chart of NSS

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Sales department

The Sales department contains 25 Sales Directors and 7 Sales Vice Presidents (VP’s). Sales Directors and Vice Presidents are used to having a lot of freedom within their task to sell the services to the customer. The Sales department functions as the interface between the client and the company. The Sales people are able to sell Space Only as well as VAS and operate on a geographical basis and are present at several locations all over the world, as mentioned earlier.

Sales people are responsible for all commercial issues regarding the offered service, including price negotiations and final promises about the service.

Next to the Sales Directors and Sales Vice Presidents, the Sales department also contains RPM’s (Regional Program Managers). The RPM serves as liaisons between the internal departments in The Hague and the Sales Offices and supports and assists the Sales Vice Presidents and Sales Directors with the coordination of sales processes and account management activities in region.

Furthermore, the RPM implements and follows sales processes in order to achieve a smooth and prompt activation of services and prepares and coordinates the various forms required for a successful completion of the sales process and preparation of the sales contract.

Sales Engineering department

The Sales Engineering department can be seen as a supporting department for the Sales department. It consists of 12 Sales Engineers that support the Sales Directors and Sales VP’s on the technical issues for proposals. The Sales Engineers operate on a project and geographical basis and are present in several places all over the world. The Sales Engineers are responsible for all technical information on the contract as well as other technical information needed to connect to the client to the NSS network. All technical information of the customer is summarized in a so- called link budget. The Sales Engineer is therefore said to be responsible for the link budget calculations.

Engineering and Operations department

The Engineering and Operations department is the biggest department at NSS. It consists of Network Engineering and Operations, Capacity management and Space segment Operations.

Network Engineering and Operations is responsible for all VAS services. Within this department, Network Implementation consists of 10 people. These people are situated in the headquarters and at the mediaports all over the world. They are responsible for setting up the service, collecting the right data from the customer and assigning and keeping track of the right equipment to a requested service.

The NOC (Network Operations Center) is responsible for the network connection itself. They assign IP-addresses, switch the services on and record, report and repair all VAS-connections.

The NOC is situated in Manassas, USA and contains 14 people.

The Capacity Management department contains 8 people and holds Capacity Engineers, Capacity Assignment Managers, Satellite Managers and a secretary. This department issues all Space Only services and return carriers on VAS services. Furthermore, contract and process management is done in this department. The Capacity Engineers are responsible for all technical issues regarding Space Only services. The Capacity Engineers check the specification calculations done by the Sales Engineer and simulate the connection with the help of a software package. Furthermore, Capacity Engineers issue Reconfigurations (a change in the connections) and help customers having problems to connect with one of NSS satellites. The Capacity Assignment Managers keep track of the capacity availability of the satellites. They assign new services and, if necessary free up capacity by shifting and bundling services. The Satellite Managers keep track of all processes and contract management regarding all services (VAS as well as Space Only). This means making

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certain contracts are signed, billed and lined up, initiating Expirations (the end of a contract), and Ramp ups (contractual agreement that holds that the customer is allowed to use more bandwidth from a specific date). In this perspective, Satellite Managers maintain an agenda of all contracts and services. Until a few months ago, the Satellite Managers had their own department Customer Resources, which was part of Sales. For numerous reasons, Satellite Management today is part of Capacity Management department. One of the main advantages is that contact with Capacity Engineers is now much easier, since the Satellite Manager and Capacity Engineer are physically situated next to each other. The role of the Satellite Managers is important for the purpose of this research.

Finally, the secretary of Capacity Management keeps track of all registered customer antennas.

The registration of an antenna is necessary to send information to a satellite. This means all customers that want to have an inbound connection (also called a return channel) have to register their antenna at NSS.

Within the space segment operations, the POC (Payload Operation Center) contains 14 people and is responsible for the operational connection between all customer antennas and the Satellites. They are physically situated in a secured department in The Hague, in which all satellites can be remotely controlled and all connections can be checked. They report problems, outages and other issues to the company and initiate the final line up of the customer’s antenna to the satellite. For doing this, they have also access to the software that Capacity Assignment uses to register all physical connections. Within the company, the NOC and the POC are seen as the Operations departments. The difference between the NOC and the POC is important here.

Whereas the POC is responsible for the connection between customer antenna and NSS satellite the NOC is responsible for the final connection between the customer ground network and the Internet. The NOC makes sure ground equipment is available and the correct protocols are used, so the actual send data and received data are modulated and interpreted in the same way. For a VAS, a satellite connection as well as ground equipment communication is needed, i.e. the POC as well as the NOC are involved.

Besides the POC, the department of space segment operations also contains another department, called SOC (Space Operations Center). Although this department does not fall within the scope of this research, the department is important for the company. The department contains 15 people and its responsibility exists of controlling and maintaining the general position and connectivity of the NSS satellites. The department is physically located next to the POC, which means that the department is secured as well and not accessible to everyone else in the company.

Finance department

The finance department can be split roughly into two sub departments: Finance Billing (2 people) and Finance Credit Check (3 people). Finance Billing is responsible for sending out all invoices and for the General Ledger. Finance Credit check is responsible for an initial credit check of new customers to see if they are credit worthy. Furthermore, Finance Credit Check keeps track of all outstanding invoices and if necessary initiates a Suspension or Forced Termination of the service provided to the client upon non-payments.

General Counsel

This department contains 13 people and is responsible for all legal aspects, including the creation of contracts. The legal department is an important department for NSS, since a lot of legal issues and complexities exist within satellite business. All contracts have to be approved by this department. All Human Resource tasks also fall within the responsibility of this department.

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MIS department

This research is written for the MIS department. As can be seen from Figure 3, the MIS department is a staff department within the company. The MIS department is responsible for all information technology issues as well as all facility aspects within the company. The department consists of a VP MIS and 3 full-time internal employees. Furthermore the department is in charge of two to five external consultants.

Currently, most efforts within the MIS department are spent on the development, implementation and maintenance of a software package called Microsoft Business solutions Axapta: a business management software solution for mid-sized enterprises that supports the entire business. The package can be seen as a so-called ERP package. In the future, all company data and business processes should be reflected in this package. For this reason, the MIS department needs a clear overview of information requirements and business processes of the company. The MIS department formally is not responsible for business processes. However, to be able to automate (cross-functional) processes effectively, the department looks upon business processes as being partly their responsibility.

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Chapter 2 Research Design

§2.1 Research Methodology

For this research, de Leeuw’s¹ methodology for problem solving and design is used. De Leeuw makes a clear distinction between diagnosis and design. The goal of the diagnosis is to find a clear problem area. First, a diagnostic objective is set out, starting with the company objective.

Thereafter a pluriform description is done, according to a conceptual framework. After the description, an analysis is done through a problem analysis. The diagnosis ends with a conclusion.

In the conclusion found problems are summarized and a problem direction for the design is given.

After the diagnosis, the problem statement follows. Within the problem statement first a research question is set, according to the found problem area. Thereafter the found problem area is conceptualized further to come to a clear design objective. This means, within the problem statement a translation from research question to design objective is done.

The design focuses on achieving the design objective. Hereby several alternatives are proposed according to the requirements set in the problem statement.

After the designed alternatives, a conclusion is presented. Within the conclusions, logical consequences of the alternatives are summed up and a check is done whether the design objective is achieved through the proposed alternatives.

According to the methodology, a methodological framework can be set out. The methodological framework can be found in Figure 4. The rest of this research follows the steps set out in this figure. In this regard, Figure 4 can be seen as a schematic table of contents.

Conceptual Framework for

Description

Problem Analysis

Conceptual Framework for

Design

Design Objective

Design

Diagnostic Conclusions

Diagnosis Problem

Statement Design

Company Objective

Consequences

Conclusions

Main Research Question

Check

Figure 4 Methodological Framework

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§2.2 System Boundaries

In this paragraph, the boundaries for this research are set. The rest of this research falls within the system boundaries set here.

As stated before, this research focuses on NSS’ business processes. However, only processes that are customer driven are taken into account. This means only those activities are taken into account that add value directly to the company. These processes can also be regarded to as “the daily job of connecting a client and establishing a contract”. Activities that are not taken into account are for example investment decisions, equipment maintenance, human resources processes and procurement. Activities that are of concern here are for example assigning capacity, invoicing the client, connecting the client and responding to a customer request. The reason this research focuses on these processes is that these processes have most impact on customer satisfaction. As described earlier, NSS strategy is highly customer-oriented. Therefore, by focusing on these processes, the research is consistent with NSS’ strategy.

Within the customer driven processes, two types of contracts can be distinguished. The biggest amounts of services delivered are long-term contracts. Next to the long-term contracts, also Occasional Use contracts exist. These are contracts that vary in period from five minutes to one month. For the purpose of this research only the long-term contracts are discussed. Reason for this is that the vast majority of income stands from the long-term contracts and therefore, a focus on these contracts has most effect.

Within the customer driven processes for long-term contracts several kinds of flows can be differentiated. One of the flows is the order flow, which applies to all proposals and contract requests within the company. This research only focuses on the order flow, next to all other flows, like facility and cash flow. Reason for this is that this flow has most influence on customer satisfaction.

The customer order driven flow for long term contracts has several dimensions on which it can be evaluated and analyzed. A distinction can be made between quality, costs and timeliness. For the purpose of this research, the primary focus does lay on quality and timeliness. The advantage of this is that it makes the research easier to conduct. Costs are looked upon as an aspect that can be derived from quality and timeliness in a later stage by calculating the costs per error and the costs per hour.

§2.3 Ways of Data Collecting

For data collection, two dimensions can be distinguished: the difference between primary and secondary data collection and the difference between qualitative and quantitative data collection.

For this research a lot of interviews with NSS’ departments are held. Therefore most of the data acquired are primary data. For the data collection of these primary data, a bottom-up approach is used. First employees of the departments are interviewed. Thereafter, management is involved.

Secondary data used are mainly acquired through databases.

As a consequence of all the interviews held, this research is primary based on qualitative data.

However some quantities are derived as secondary data from databases.

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Chapter 3 Diagnosis

§3.1 Introduction

The goal of the diagnosis is to find a clear problem area for this research to set a design objective in the problem statement. The diagnosis follows the steps presented in the methodological framework in Figure 4. First the company objective is described and the expectations of the company of this research are set out. After the company objective, the conceptual framework for the diagnosis is set out. According to this conceptual framework, the description of NSS order driven processes takes place. After the description, a problem analysis is done. This means, from theory and interviews, problems are reasoned and explained. The diagnosis ends with a conclusion in which a problem area for NSS order driven processes is identified.

§3.2 Company Objective

NSS believes automation of processes can improve shareholder value. Therefore, the MIS department of NSS has done an analysis of all its processes two years ago. The result of this analysis resulted two years later in the implementation of Axapta. Since the analysis two years ago the company has changed a lot. A new service is provided to the customer (VAS) and a lot more people are involved in all processes. Because the implemented software solution is the result of a process analysis of two years ago, it does not seem to cover all potential possibilities. The thought exists that the current implementation of the software system is actually an automation of inefficient processes. Therefore this thesis functions as an evaluation of NSS’ business processes and does suggestions on how they can be improved. The goal of this document is to be a starting point for NSS’ business process improvement and to give suggestions on where the Information System department should focus on. From the above the following company objective is derived:

§3.3 Conceptual Framework for the Description

The description of NSS order driven processes takes place according to a conceptual framework.

For the description of this research, the PCI paradigm is chosen (Figure 5). This model is chosen for the following reasons:

It explains the relationship between processes and information infrastructure

It is simple to use. The PCI paradigm only distinguishes three elements. This makes it very easy to understand.

It looks upon information technology as an output and not as an identity on itself. This makes it congruent with the company objective.

Analyze NSS processes and give suggestions for improvement with the goal to help NSS Information System department to make

investment decisions

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It is process-oriented. Other models distinguish a lot more elements in an organization besides the three elements in the PCI-model. However since this research focuses on processes, it is preferred to use a model with elements that are all process-related.

It provides a methodology to describe NSS order driven processes in a structured way.

Production System

Information System Controlling

System Controlling

System

Timeliness Quality

Figure 5 The PCI Paradigm

Production System Controlling System Information System

Situation on-hands Decisions Data and dataflow

How do we produce a certain amount of contracts with a certain amount of people?

What are we doing on extra checks to ensure a certain amount of quality and timeliness?

How is the support of the Production System?

How do we reduce the number of errors in the process?

How do we coordinate and communicate all processes?

How is the support of the Controlling System?

How do we decrease the reaction time on customers?

How do we model our processes for project

management and task division?

What is the best order to produce?

How do we plan our production?

Table 1 Subjects per element of the PCI paradigm

The PCI paradigm (see Figure 5), created by Bemelmans² makes a distinction between three elements: the Production System, Controlling System and Information System. The Production System considers all activities necessary to come to the demanded output. Production System subjects regard often to efficiency, operational quality and lead-time. In terms of Porter’s Value

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Chain³, the Production System considers all activities that add value to the process. Issues considering the Production System are about on-hands activities and can be found in Table 1.

Because a formal description of the Production System was absent, for this research a great amount of time is spent on the description of it. Detailed flowcharts of the Production System and their descriptions can be found in the Appendices of this research.

The second element of the PCI paradigm is the Controlling System. The Controlling System supports the Production System and applies to the internal control and all decisions about the Production System. Subjects concerning the Controlling System are planning, modeling and coordinating processes. Activities of the Controlling System do not add value to the process directly and often consider hand-off or control activities.

The last element of the PCI paradigm, the Information System, considers the information technology infrastructure that supports the Production System and the Controlling System.

According to the PCI methodology, the Information System is a consequence of the Production System and Controlling System and has no value on itself. Subjects relating to the Information System are data modeling and data flow automation.

As can be seen in Figure 5, the goal for all three elements is to achieve highest quality and timeliness. The definition of these two terms is as follows:

Quality: an accurate translation of the customer’s requirements into a product specification Timeliness: realization of the product specification for a customer order within the agreed throughput time

§3.4 Description

§3.4.1 Introduction

In this paragraph, the description of NSS order driven processes is done through the PCI paradigm. For doing this, first a general overview is given of all processes. This overview explains how the processes are related within the current configuration. The general overview of all processes is relevant, because it sets the tone for the rest of the research.

After having described the general overview, a more detailed description is given of the several stages of the identified overview.

§3.4.2 General overview

To understand the elements of the PCI paradigm from an aggregate level, it is important to understand which groups of order driven processes the company itself distinguishes. In other words, it is important to answer to question: “How does NSS make a distinction among the order driven processes?” This is important to know because the distinction of process groups on an aggregate level sets the boundaries for the allocation of processes on a lower level. Processes that are split on an aggregate level often are coordinated, communicated an automated separately as well. Furthermore, this distinction can be used for a decomposition of the description of all processes for this research.

It is found that five groups of processes can be distinguished at NSS. The several identified process groups are called stages for the purpose of this research. An overview of all stages and their relation within the organization is schematically given in Figure 6. Because, the distinction is not recognized formally within the company, no definitions or names are derived from the current situation for the different stages. However, to be able to describe the stages, names are given to them here. In real life, these terms are never used among the company. Figure 6 functions as the basis for this research and plays a significant role for the rest of this research.

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The distinction between the several stages is an outcome of several factors. Firstly, for the identification of the stages, the company’s culture has played an important role. The hereunder- identified stages are the way in which a lot of NSS employees implicitly distinct several processes.

Secondly, the ways processes are communicated through the company have played a significant role for the identification of the stages. The communication of processes is done through work orders. Work orders are the physical presence of processes and therefore play a role in the way people think about processes. Thirdly, the distinction between departments and their physical presence is seen as important for defining the stages.

Quotation Stage

Line off Stage After Sales Stage

Order Stage

Operati ons Stage

Dep. 1 Dep. 2 Dep. 3 Dep. 4 Dep. 5

Process group 1

Process group 2

Process group 3

Figure 6 Schematic overview of NSS order driven process stages

The identified stages are the quotation stage, the order stage, the operations stage, the after sales stage and the line off stage. The quotation stage is referred to everything that has to do with the initial sale of a service. This stage is an outcome of the physical presence of NSS Sales offices all over the world. A lot of NSS employees have no detailed knowledge about processes in this department.

The order stage is currently called the CSR (Contract Service Request) process and applies to all activities taking place to the order of a service. The departments concerning the order stage are situated next to each other at NSS headquarters. Furthermore, a special work order covers most of this process stage.

The after sales stage concerns all processes that relate to activities of a customer requirement in an existing contract. The main work order for the after sales stage is the “pink CSR”. The departments involved in this stage are the same as for the order stage. However, NSS employees look different upon processes in this stage.

The operations stage is involved with everything that happens within the Operations departments.

A special stage is devoted to activities taking place in these departments, since the physical presence of these departments is different then for the other stages. Due to ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations), no people are allowed to enter the Operations departments. Because these departments control the NSS satellites and ground network directly, they are situated on a secured floor. This isolation of these departments makes it difficult to have an overview of operations activities for the other departments.

Finally, the line off stage contains several processes that refer to a disconnection of the client from the NSS network. The operations activities for the line off stage belong to the line off stage itself, since a lot of communication is established between the Operations departments and the other departments for this stage. The reasons, a special stage is devoted to all processes concerning line off is due to NSS culture. A second reason is no analysis of line off processes is done before.

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The above distinction between several stages is used for the description and analysis of this research. As can be seen from the overview in Figure 6, processes at NSS are distinguished among the company per process group and per department.

In the following paragraph a description is done of each stage separately. Before describing the different stages in more detail, overviews are given first of each stage in flowcharts. The overviews can be found in Figure 7, Figure 8, Figure 9, Figure 10 and Figure 11. A bigger picture of the overviews is given in Appendix 1 – Overviews. It is useful to use this Appendix for the rest of this chapter because the overviews are a graphical summary of the description of this chapter. The overviews are given on a highly aggregate level but are given in such a way, so relevant parts for this research are provided. For the creation of the overviews, it is chosen to focus on VAS instead of Space Only services. Reason for this is that for VAS’s all possible process steps are walked through. In the overviews, the elements belonging to the Production System are drawn as a blue square, whereas decisions belonging to the Controlling System are drawn as a grey diamond and as a grey document. The elements of the Information System can be identified as well in the figures and are drawn as a big grey square.

The relationship between the several stages is described above and can be found in Figure 6.

Within the overviews, these relations can be identified as well and are symbolized through rounded blue boxes.

Information System

Commercial Sales

Technical Sales

Capacity Check

Send Antenna

form

Approval

CSR Request Release Create

Contract Request

Order Stage

Figure 7 Overview of quotation stage

Information System Information System

Equipment

Assignment Carrier

Assignment Billing

Antenna registration Send

Contract

Receive contract

Netimp Mediaport

Setup

Receive deposit Credit

Check

Capacity Block Assignment

Check Legal issues

Carrier request release

CSR release Check

Operations stage

Quotation Stage Quotation

Stage

Figure 8 Overview of order stage

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Information System Information System

Equipment Assignment

Carrier Assignment

Billing Netimp

Mediaport Setup

Capacity Block Assignment

Line up request Pink CSR

release Check

Ramp up

Pink CSR Request Release After Sales

Operations Stage Ramp up

reminder

Reactivation Reactivation

trigger

Figure 9 Overview of after sales stage

Non Payment

Notification financial process

Notification Netimp equipment

Notification Capacity

Notificaion Sales

Notification financial process

Notificaiont Netimp equipment

Notification Capacity

Notificaion Sales

Clear Network equipment Stop Billing

Clear capacity Block + carrier?

Red flag

Termination release

Termination release Non-

payment notification

release

Line off

Capacity Retrieval

Carrier

Retrieval ^Yes

Expiration notification

Figure 10 Overview of line off stage

Information System

Ticketing system release Order stage

After Sales stage

Line up

Figure 11 Overview of operations stage

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§3.4.3 The quotation stage Production System

As already mentioned, the quotation stage refers to all activities relating to the initial sale of a service. During this stage, all specifications agreed upon with the customer are designed and filled in by the Sales Director and by the Sales Engineer. The quotation stage is a quite informal stage.

By working this way, the Sales Director and Sales Engineer keep their freedom of work. Most important for the purpose of this research is the end of the quotation stage. In the end of the quotation stage all specifications have to be filled in. The accent during this stage lays on achieving the right data and making a proposal that actually works in practice as well as on achieving customer satisfaction. In other words: a balance has to be found between customer and operational satisfaction. From the overview of the quotation stage several steps can be identified:

Commercial Sales. These are the activities of the Sales Director. These commercial activities can refer to the creation of a proposal or the creation of a contract request. It is important here that all commercial specifications are decided upon. Examples of these are the price per month, a free period, billing type, contact information, start date, end date and expected revenue.

Technical Sales. The technical sale refers to all activities belonging to the Sales Engineer.

This means all technical specifications have to be made clear. Examples of these are the bandwidth, mediaport specification, customer antenna specifications and link budget calculations. Technical Sales can also refer to a proposal as well as to a contract request.

Capacity Check. The Sales Director is doing a rough capacity check during the quotation stage to see if any capacity is available on the satellite at that time.

Create Contract Request. When a proposal is accepted, a contract request is done. This means, according to the Sales Director and the Sales Engineer, the order stage can be started.

Send Antenna Form. When the customer wants to make use of an inbound channel (data from the customer to NSS) its satellite has to be registered. A form is send to the customer to fill in and register its satellite.

The quotation stage is described in more detail in Appendix 2 – The quotation stage.

Controlling System

To ensure quality during the quotation stage one extra controlling decision is identified: the overalls check of a proposal by the RPM. This check can be regarded as a quality check. The RPM checks whether all data are filled in and if they are filled in right before a proposal goes to the internal departments. The quotation stage ends with a work order release. This release is called CSR Request and goes to the Satellite Manager.

Information System

As can be seen from the overview, for the coordination of the quotation stage use is made of an Information System for archiving and communicating the request for proposals and request for contracts. The information System supports the workflow from the creation of the proposal to the verification of it and finally to the contract request. The Information System also functions as a database and keeps track of history of contracts and proposals. The Information System supporting the quotation stage is the earlier mentioned solution Axapta. Within this solution, a special module exists for the quotation stage. Axapta is able to help controlling this stage and transfers proposals into contract requests upon demand of the RPM. The Information System does support document handling as well, but does not control this. This means no verification of for

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example existence of the Antenna registration form takes place. For this reason, an (already described) manual check by the RPM still takes place for control.

§3.4.4 The order stage Production System

The order stage is called the CSR Process or Axapta Process at NSS and follows up the quotation stage. It starts with a quality check by the Satellite Manager and ends with the customer paying the invoices to Finance Billing and the line up request to the Operations departments. The order stage is an important stage at NSS, because during this stage contract specifications are actually signed upon. Although it is inconvenient, during the order stage changes can still be made to the contract.

If one of the departments wants to make a change to the contract, the contract proposal should be rejected, and the change should be made. Thereafter all departments have to approve the new contract proposal again.

From Figure 8 the stage steps are derived and described here.

Credit Check. The first step is a credit check, done by the Finance Credit Check department.

During this check, it is checked whether the customer is credit worthy. This means it is estimated whether he is able to pay future invoices.

Equipment Assignment. This regards to the assignment of ground equipment from inventory, done by the Network Implementation department. This is done in a straightforward way. The Network Implementation Manager checks whether equipment is available in an Excel sheet and, if necessary, orders it. Thereafter the contract request is approved.

Mediaport setup. After the Equipment Assignment, contact is made with the Network Engineer to configure the mediaport such that the customer is able to communicate through it. This is a complex step where often customer contact is necessary.

Capacity Block Assignment. This step also follows up the Equipment Assignment and regards the assignment of satellite capacity by the Capacity department. This step is called Capacity Block Assignment, because a block is put in a software package to indicate that a certain frequency is reserved.

Check Legal issues. When the above-mentioned departments have approved, a contract is created by the Legal department.

Send Contract, Receive Contract, Receive deposit. After the contract is made, it is sent to the customer by the Satellite Manager. The Satellite Manager then waits until the customer has sent the signed contract back and paid the first invoice and the deposit.

Billing. The Satellite Manager then will communicate to the Finance Billing department that further invoices can be created and the contract can be activated.

Carrier Assignment. The Satellite Manager asks the Capacity Engineer to do a simulation of the connection. The Capacity Engineer also checks whether the customer has registered its antenna. The customer has received the registration form during the quotation stage. All activities of the Capacity Engineer together are called Carrier Assignment, because the main responsibility of the Capacity Engineer is a simulation of the carrier in a software package in order to be certain that the calculations made by the Sales Engineer are correct and work in real-life. The Carrier Assignment ends with a line up request to the Operations departments.

The whole CSR stage is described as a result of a great amount of interviews with NSS employees. The result can be found in Appendix 3 – Order stage.

Controlling System

For the control of the order stage, several elements can be identified. Firstly, on receipt of the contract request, the Satellite Manager checks whether all data are filled in and are filled in

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correctly. Furthermore, two work orders coordinate all steps in this stage. The work order called CSR (Contract Service Request) is the main trigger for the order stage. The CSR is communicated through all relevant departments. This work order is digitized, which has a positive effect on the quality of the order stage. The second work within the order stage applies to one single department and is the communication with the Capacity Engineers, called Carrier Request for the purpose of this research. The communication of this is done through e-mail and triggers Carrier Assignment.

For control reasons, the Capacity Engineers measure the lead-time of a simulation. This means timeliness and quality seem to be in control for Carrier Assignment.

Information System

During the last two years, a lot of time is spent on analyzing the order stage. The stage is currently automated and formalized. The order stage follows up the quotation stage. The Information System of the order stage is therefore linked to the Information System of the quotation stage as well. Contracts can be approved in the software solution Axapta. This is why the process is also called the Axapta process. For control support, Axapta supports the workflow from contract request until contract (see also Figure 8). All departments are automatically involved through the system by e-mail. Also the billing of contracts can be done through the system. Invoices are automatically generated once a month.

Since the system takes care that all required information is gathered, quality of the process is insured. Although the System does give times of occurrences of actions, it does not collect these data, nor does it make calculation with these data. This means an Information System for the support of the Controlling System of the order stage is absent.

§3.4.5 The after sales stage Production System

The after sales stage applies to changes in a service that can occur after a contract is signed, the disconnection from the NSS network not included (these processes belong to the line off stage and are described hereafter). Processes belonging to the after sales stage are called Reconfigurations and apply to a change in a service within the bandwidth of the contract. These changes can be a shift in the used frequency, a change of transponder or a total Reconfiguration of the service. The after sales stage is looked upon as a sequential process, as is the case with the order stage.

Reconfigurations are often referred to as Pink CSR processes. This is because, in the past, a pink piece of paper went through the company as a work order.

The steps in the after sales stage are really similar with the steps in the order stage and are therefore not described again. The biggest difference with the order stage is that for the after sales stage, the activities of Capacity Block Assignment, Equipment Assignment and Carrier Assignment do not happen per se but are optional. This means that not all steps in Figure 9 have to be followed. The choice which processes to follow is made by the Satellite Manager and is dependent on the request from the customer and the Sales person. The same counts for billing: some changes in a service are not for free and for those changes the Satellite Manager must have the possibility of billing. Another difference between the order stage and the after sales stage is that contractual issues like a check by the Legal department and dispatching and signing off the contract do not have take place.

Besides Reconfigurations some other processes belong to the after sales stage. These can also be found in Figure 9. The first one is the reconnection of the client to the NSS network after a Suspension. This reconnection is initiated by Finance Credit Check, after the customer has paid its outstanding amounts. Furthermore, also Ramp ups and outages belong to this stage. Ramp ups consist of a contractual agreement that a service bandwidth is decreasing or increasing on a

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certain point in time. Like reconnections, Ramp ups also exist of the last two steps of the after sales stage: the Carrier Assignment and the line up request to the Operations departments.

A detailed description of all processes belonging to the after sales stage can be found in Appendix 4 – After Sales stage.

Controlling System

Control of the after sales stage also overlaps the control of the order stage. However, three different work orders can be identified. The first one is the work order called “pink CSR” and is used for all processes that apply to a change in a service. This work order is created by the Sales department and communicated through the whole company, as is the case with the (normal) CSR work order. Currently efforts are spent on the automation of the “pink CSR”. The second work order is a Reactivation trigger that is used upon a reactivation after a Suspension. This trigger is given by the Finance Credit Check department after having received the outstanding amounts. The third work order is the work order for Ramp up. This work order is just a calendar. The Satellite Managers have to keep track of this calendar to view whether services need ramped up. When a service needs to be ramped up, according to the specifications agreed upon in the contract, this is communicated to the Operations departments (see operations stage).

For the decision to bill a change in existing service, no formal control criteria exist. In practice this means customers are often not billed for changes in an existing service.

Information System

The need for an Information System for the after sales stage is recognized within NSS. Currently, efforts are spent on the automation of the workflow of this stage. Figure 9 already contains parts of the Information System that are expected to be used in the near future. The automation approach of the after sales stage is a total difference approach than the (already finished) approach of the order stage. This emphasizes that the order stage and after sales stage are looked upon as different stages within NSS.

Although efforts are spent on an Information System for the support of the Production System, no focus is current laid on the Controlling System support. For example, no efforts are currently spent to support the control decision to bill a customer for a change in existing service.

§3.4.6 The line off stage Production System

Most industries do not deal with a process for the end of a service. Nevertheless, for a service providing company like NSS, it is essential to control the stage in which the customer is disconnected from the NSS network. Different line off processes can be distinguished at NSS:

Suspensions, Forced Terminations and Expirations. A Suspension can be defined as a temporary disconnection of a VAS because of non-payment of the service. A Forced Termination follows up a Suspension and is the structural termination of the client, due to non-payment. On a Forced Termination, the client is put on a blacklist as well and will not be able to request services from NSS anymore. An Expiration can be defined as a normal ending of a contract.

Figure 10 gives an overview of the line off stage. The figure can be seen as a summary of Forced Terminations as well as (normal) Expirations. For Suspensions, the retrieval of capacity and equipment should be neglected. The different steps in Figure 10 are described here.

Non Payment. Suspensions and Forced Terminations start at the Credit Check department noticing that a customer is in arrears of payment.

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Notification. For all processes in the line off stage, notifications are sent to the Finance department, Network Implementation department, Capacity department and Sales department Line off. Upon receipt of the notification, the Capacity department makes sure that the Operations department disconnects the client from the network (this is called line off for the purpose of this research).

Capacity Retrieval, Carrier Retrieval. When the Operations department has lined off the client, the Operations department retrieves the capacity and deletes the carrier in the software.

Notification. When the Operations department has lined off the client, notifications are sent to the Finance department, Network Implementation department, Capacity department and Sales department

Stop Billing. Upon notification from the Operations department, Finance Billing stops billing Clear Network Equipment. Upon notification from the Operations department, Network Implementation retrieves the ground equipment

All these steps are described in more detail in Appendix 5 - Line off stage

Controlling System

For the line off stage, several elements of control can be distinguished. The first is the work order

“Expiration notification” to initiate Expirations. This is an informal telephone call that is used for expired contracts. The Expiration is triggered by the Satellite Manager or by the Sales department.

Most often, the Satellite Manager reminds a Sales Director about the fact that a contract is going to expire and asks whether there is going to be a renewal or not. Since this process is quite informal and responsibilities are not clearly identified, quality as well as timeliness is absent for this process.

The second work order is the Credit Check department, sending a non-payment notification release to all internal departments to let them know what clients are going to be suspended and forced terminated.

The third element is a quality check in the form of a meeting, called the “Red Flag” meeting and following up a non-payment notification release. The Red Flag meeting is used for decisions whether to suspend or forced terminate a client. The meeting is triggered by Finance. During these meetings, a cross-functional decision is made whether it is legitimate to disconnect a client. All people that might have something to do with a certain client are present at this meeting. This way it is prevented that clients are disconnected while they agreed upon a solution with one of NSS employees. A red flag meeting is held on a weekly basis. Because of this periodical occurrence and because of the presence of several departments, quality of this process is high. This means, rarely decisions made in accordance to the Suspension or Forced Termination are wrong. The lead-time is partly known. Since meetings are held every week, the lead-time of a Forced Termination or Suspension varies from one day to a week.

The fourth work order is called “Termination”. This work order is used for internal notifications about the status of Suspensions, Forced Terminations and Expirations after the red flag meeting is held. It is just e-mail with a fixed layout, sent to a fixed e-mail group, and called the Termination group. The Termination work order triggers the retrieval of satellite and equipment capacity. As can be seen in Figure 10, the Termination work order is released twice during the line off stage.

The last element of control for the line off stage is an extra check for satellite capacity retrieval.

Upon notification from the Operations department, the Capacity department checks whether the Operations department has retrieved capacity already in the software. If this is not done yet, the capacity is retrieved and the carrier deleted.

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Information System

As can also be seen in Figure 10, no Information System support exists for the line off stage. This accounts for Production System support as well as for Controlling System support.

§3.4.7 The operations stage Production System

The operations stage is the stage in which the customer is connected to the NSS network or in which an operational change is made to an existing service. As described previously, departments involved in the operations stage are the POC for Space Only services and the POC and NOC for VAS’s. The operations stage follows up the order stage (for new contracts) or the after sales stage (for changes in existing contracts).

Controlling System

For the operations stage, a work order exists for communication and triggering of activities for the Network Operation Center (and for the Payload Operation Center in the near future). A special work order system is built for this. The work order is a database form called the “Ticketing System”. In the Ticketing System, all communication with the NOC is established. The user can specify what kind of “process” it wants the NOC to start. The Ticketing System also keeps track of the status of a ticket, to make sure all tickets are issued. Furthermore, every work order can contain a priority status, which indicates what time frame is allowed to elapse, before the ticket has to be issued. The Ticketing System is built in a way, work order coordination and release is kept away from the Operations departments, so that these departments only have to bother with those activities that are of concern for them. In practice this means the Ticketing System only shows the information relevant for the Operations departments. In practice the use of the Ticketing System works well at NSS. Processes for the Operations departments are in control of quality as well as lead-time. This means processes are almost always taken care of correctly, and finished in the set time frame.

Information System

As described before, the Ticketing System is the Information System that establishes all communication with the Operations departments. The control of the operations stage is covered by this system. Also clear business rules exist for the use of this system. This means people know the rules how to use this system. The Ticketing System is a special module in the solution Axapta as is the case with the module for the quotation stage and order stage. The difference between this module and the modules for the order stage and after sales stage is that this module is not process-oriented but is departmental-oriented.

Table of contents

I I mp m p ro r o ve v em me en nt t o of f NS N SS S o or rd d e e r r d d r r iv i ve en n

p p ro r oc ce es ss se es s

Preface

Management Summary