Use Cases with Inter-organizational Focus

OEPI is using four business-driven use cases to guide the team through-out the project, from requirements management through design and development into testing:

• Sustainable procurement
• Design for environment
• Network deployment & circuit provisioning
• Corporate communications

For each of these areas, we are investigating how to integrate Environmental Performance Indicators (EPIs) into the respective process to best empower business users and customers with the necessary visibility and decision support. OEPI will specify and evaluate the business concepts that enable the integration of EPIs in daily operations, including necessary processes modifications. The business-driven use cases will shape the underlying technology.

Sustainable Procurement

This use case integrates the concept of (supplier-dependent) material EPIs into the procurement process. The goal is to enable the users responsible for sourcing and procurement to benchmarking different suppliers of the same material or product component with regards to specific EPIs. The result is a reduction of product and supply chain environmental impacts.

Design for Environment

This use case provides product engineers with the concepts and tools to see the environmental impact of their design decisions on the whole product life cycle. This is achieved by integrating EPIs into the design optimization process. The result is a faster evaluation of design alternatives with lower overall environmental footprint.

Network Deployment and Circuit Provisioning

OEPI will enable users in the Telecom industry and their customers with the tools to integrate EPIs into their current processes, especially during network deployment and circuit provisioning. The different stakeholders will benefit from increased process transparency and better management of environmental impact, e.g. circuit energy consumption.

Corporate Communications

Corporate communication departments carry out their daily work without real-time visibility into the environmental impacts and improvements of the company. OEPI will provide a single point of access for finding and communicating recent corporate sustainability successes to external stakeholders.

Business Outcome

For each of the application scenarios, OEPI will provide a concept specification that outlines the user requirements and process changes needed to integrate EPIs into today’s business scenarios. The research will also deliver use case descriptions including the respective actors, systems, and use case steps. A validation phase will be conducted to ensure the business feasibility and the environmental value of the developed concepts. Finally, OEPI will provide guidelines to practitioners on how to leverage the developed concepts in their environments, thus realizing the promised benefits.