METIS: A quality-oriented multi-stage decision framework for IT tool-stack optimization

Abstract

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) frequently operate heterogeneous IT tool landscapes that evolve incrementally, resulting in fragmented digital work environments and limited support for integrated digital transformation. Existing tool selection approaches mainly evaluate isolated software solutions and rarely address system-level configuration or digital work quality. This paper proposes a human-centered Situation-Aware Digitalization Framework for systematic IT tool stack reconfiguration in collaborative product development. The framework combines CEAM-derived Engineering Collaboration Building Blocks (ECBBs) to standardize digital work activities, quality science–based prioritization to identify improvement needs, and a multi-stage multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) mechanism to generate situation-aware tool stack recommendations. Functional capability, user-perceived quality derived from crowdsourced ratings, and SME-specific digitalization targets are integrated into a unified scoring model. Two iterative strategies support either compact reconfiguration or incremental transformation. Implemented in the METIS application and validated in industrial workshops, the framework demonstrates feasibility and practical decision-support value for aligning IT tool environments with SME-specific digitalization objectives.

Keywords: IT Tool Selection, Digital Transformation, SME, MCDM, Human-centered Evaluation, Collaborative Product Dev., System Eng., Digital Work Quality

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1007783