Table 3 Overview of acceptance of... | Emerald Publishing

Table 3

Overview of acceptance of organisational paradoxes, internal drift and re-contextualising

Acceptance and embracement of organisational paradoxes	Internal drift towards imbalances	Re-contextualising
Performing Paradox	MYOPIA Drifting the performing paradox when production becomes too short-sighted and prioritise day-to-day production goals and KPI’s and neglects future goals DETACHED Drifting the performing paradox when changes in the organisation and new strategic initiatives is not anchored in the organisation	Pacing: Synchronising time horizons Patching: Aligning and connecting disparate knowledge elements
Current goals vs. future goals. Production vs. senior management/SP-team accepting the dynamics of working towards both short and long-term goals “I think what management needs to do is to be aware that if an organisation becomes too conservative, we will have a problem in the future. And if an organisation becomes too future focused we will have problem today. … As management you have to beware of the organisation ending up in one of these extremes. But where the optimum is I’m not quite sure if anyone ever can say it, and I think it actually shifts, so, I’m not even sure that we should try to find an optimum here. I’m just, I think as a management system, we have to avoid the extremes”. (LPS manager, Scania) “I think it’s a difference in time perspective, smart production looks ahead a number of years and perhaps decades. But within our operations, we’re looking at hours or minutes.” (Operations, Scania) Competing but potentially synergetic goals. LPS-team vs. SP-team recognising and accepting the complementary effects of digitalisation and the LPS in relation to overarching goals “It is important for the organisation to recognize that digitalisation and lean can walk hand in hand. You can do lean but if you miss digitalisation, you miss the opportunity to achieve great results. You can do digitalisation itself but miss what is the true problem we aim to solve. We need to recognize a problem first and then reflect about the methods that we have in lean today can solve this problem, but also to look at digitalisation and what it could help to gain even greater results”. (Smart production manager, Volvo CE)
Organising Paradox	TECHNICAL MONUMENTS Drifting the organising paradox when production experience a sense of push of new promising new technologies that, however, are not aligned with current ways of operating and doing improvement work in production MYOPIA Drifting the organising paradox when critical resources are not provided to support the possibilities for testing and integrating new technical solutions in production, which in the long run constrain production innovation	Empowering: Learning and competence development Patching: Aligning and connecting disparate knowledge elements Pacing: Synchronising time horizons Patching: Aligning and connecting disparate knowledge elements Pacing: Synchronising time horizons
Pull based on needs vs. push based on opportunities. Production vs. SP-team/LPS-team acceptance through being “just-in-time” to the experienced needs in production to alter the perception from a “sense of push” into a “sense of pull” and find the nexus of current and future production needs and digital technology affordances “If there is need and pull then the chances of a method/technology or whatever it could be used to a higher extent and more successful implementation than if it is a push.” (Smart production team, Volvo CE) “An example is the exoskeleton to improve ergonomics for staff. We put it down two years ago. Since then, there has been a demand from the logistics side, a person who really seems to be able to find the benefit of it, so all of a sudden there is a pull from the organisation in technology. We tried to push it out two years earlier, then there was no need” (Volvo CE, focus group) “And I think at the beginning there were maybe unreasonable expectations thinking that smart factory will change completely how Scania work nowadays. There are more reasonable expectations where they understand that it is a unit to support in development. But they cannot do everything themselves, so we cannot do everything ourselves. We need to all work together.” (Smart production manager, Scania) Using LP principles vs. implementation of new technology. LPS-team vs. SP-team anchoring decisions to implement new technologies by using the lean principles and identify root cause needs “I’m spending lot of money on AGVs but maybe the real solution is reducing the inventory instead of carrying parts from point A to B. “(Smart production manager, Volvo CE) “You know, implementing the technology itself, maybe the first thought wouldn’t be to follow the lean manufacturing core of push [meaning pull] production. So without LPS, I think we would be unstructured.” (Operations, Scania) Resource prioritisation current production vs. future smart production needs. Production vs. SP-team/LPS-team allocate resources to production staff to engage in smart production testing “Why is it so difficult to do a matchmaking between the needs and the possibilities … maybe people need time to work with this, the smart production team have had time, but people outside don’t.” (Smart production team, Volvo CE)
Learning Paradox	TECHNICAL MONUMENTS Drifting the learning paradox when smart production is perceived as “good in itself” and not necessary in any identified need from production DOGMA Drifting the learning paradox when basic assumptions of lean and the LPS become axiomatic and not seen as principles that continuously needs to be adapted DETACHED Drifting the learning paradox when senior management does not share the same pace in learning as smart production/LPS and cannot make informed decisions on future investments and implementation of technologies	Empowering: Learning and competence development Leveraging: Exploring and transforming Empowering: Learning and competence development Patching: Aligning and connecting disparate knowledge elements
Exploitation vs. Exploration. Production vs. management vs. SP-team vs. LPS-team maintain continuous learning and competence development to embrace new digital capabilities “We have daily production meetings and we talk about what happened yesterday, I would prefer that we talk about what happen next week or next of tomorrow and combining data on that. What is coming is disruptive change, that we need to produce our heritage and we need to produce electrical machines and products–that will be disruptive change and it is challenging when people have built same things for 20 years”. (Smart production team, Volvo CE) “Not all new ideas are good ones, actually. Most new ideas are bad ones, giving the current context, but the context changes so nothing is static, and we still need to evolve.” (LPS manager, Scania) Specialisation vs. Generalisation. Production vs. SP-team vs. LPS-team connecting production staff with different specialist functions and knowledge to extend the knowledge base for smart production “Connecting Smart factory with the processes–it is a sort of dialogue. But it could be much more organized than it is … // … We need people that serves as bridges and that sort of has a foot in both worlds. Right now, I believe that we are a bit too specialised; you’re working either with future development or you’re trying to survive in an operation.” (LPS manager, Scania) “And I have been working in the past three years a little bit like, uh, you would say like a proxy between the smart factory and the production units. So it’s a little bit of a mix of” (Smart production, Scania) “We have a small lab environment where we can meet … that’s where the team actually sit and work … for us, I think that has been very good … Also, we’ve had good competence in the organisation with it … I mean, we’ve had almost or every competence that we need locally … Yeah. So that has also been a good prerequisite that we aren’t too dependent on specialists or global support or external support” (Smart production manager, Volvo CE)
Belonging Paradox	TECHNICAL MONUMENTS Drifting the belonging paradox when production operators become alienated and lose a sense of agency in the continuous improvement work	Patching: Aligning and connecting disparate knowledge elements
Integration vs. autonomy. LPS-team vs. production vs. SP-team sense of being integrated and aligned with shared goals for digitalisation/LPS, vs. sense of autonomy and empowerment in improvement work “What I would hope for in the future is that you have an exchange of people. People from operations work for a brief time, six months or a year within smart factory, and people from smart factory work for sometimes within the operations itself. Get a network of people you know. They know they can trust you. You can trust them” (LPS manager, Scania) “For maintenance area, no one outside maintenance should push. People from maintenance gets lot of questions from other functions (logistics, quality) etc about if they have heard about predictive maintenance, and of course they have heard about it … It needs to come from inside, maintenance are best to drive out waste from maintenance and then they need to see if they can use digital tools” (Smart production team, Volvo CE)

Acceptance and embracement of organisational paradoxes	Internal drift towards imbalances	Re-contextualising
Performing Paradox	MYOPIADrifting the performing paradox when production becomes too short-sighted and prioritise day-to-day production goals and KPI’s and neglects future goalsDETACHEDDrifting the performing paradox when changes in the organisation and new strategic initiatives is not anchored in the organisation	Pacing:Synchronising time horizonsPatching:Aligning and connecting disparate knowledge elements
Current goals vs. future goals. Production vs. senior management/SP-team accepting the dynamics of working towards both short and long-term goals“I think what management needs to do is to be aware that if an organisation becomes too conservative, we will have a problem in the future. And if an organisation becomes too future focused we will have problem today. … As management you have to beware of the organisation ending up in one of these extremes. But where the optimum is I’m not quite sure if anyone ever can say it, and I think it actually shifts, so, I’m not even sure that we should try to find an optimum here. I’m just, I think as a management system, we have to avoid the extremes”. (LPS manager, Scania)“I think it’s a difference in time perspective, smart production looks ahead a number of years and perhaps decades. But within our operations, we’re looking at hours or minutes.” (Operations, Scania)Competing but potentially synergetic goals. LPS-team vs. SP-team recognising and accepting the complementary effects of digitalisation and the LPS in relation to overarching goals“It is important for the organisation to recognize that digitalisation and lean can walk hand in hand. You can do lean but if you miss digitalisation, you miss the opportunity to achieve great results. You can do digitalisation itself but miss what is the true problem we aim to solve. We need to recognize a problem first and then reflect about the methods that we have in lean today can solve this problem, but also to look at digitalisation and what it could help to gain even greater results”. (Smart production manager, Volvo CE)
Organising Paradox	TECHNICAL MONUMENTSDrifting the organising paradox when production experience a sense of push of new promising new technologies that, however, are not aligned with current ways of operating and doing improvement work in productionMYOPIADrifting the organising paradox when critical resources are not provided to support the possibilities for testing and integrating new technical solutions in production, which in the long run constrain production innovation	Empowering:Learning and competence developmentPatching:Aligning and connecting disparate knowledge elementsPacing:Synchronising time horizonsPatching:Aligning and connecting disparate knowledge elementsPacing:Synchronising time horizons
Pull based on needs vs. push based on opportunities. Production vs. SP-team/LPS-team acceptance through being “just-in-time” to the experienced needs in production to alter the perception from a “sense of push” into a “sense of pull” and find the nexus of current and future production needs and digital technology affordances“If there is need and pull then the chances of a method/technology or whatever it could be used to a higher extent and more successful implementation than if it is a push.” (Smart production team, Volvo CE)“An example is the exoskeleton to improve ergonomics for staff. We put it down two years ago. Since then, there has been a demand from the logistics side, a person who really seems to be able to find the benefit of it, so all of a sudden there is a pull from the organisation in technology. We tried to push it out two years earlier, then there was no need” (Volvo CE, focus group)“And I think at the beginning there were maybe unreasonable expectations thinking that smart factory will change completely how Scania work nowadays. There are more reasonable expectations where they understand that it is a unit to support in development. But they cannot do everything themselves, so we cannot do everything ourselves. We need to all work together.” (Smart production manager, Scania)Using LP principles vs. implementation of new technology. LPS-team vs. SP-team anchoring decisions to implement new technologies by using the lean principles and identify root cause needs“I’m spending lot of money on AGVs but maybe the real solution is reducing the inventory instead of carrying parts from point A to B. “(Smart production manager, Volvo CE)“You know, implementing the technology itself, maybe the first thought wouldn’t be to follow the lean manufacturing core of push [meaning pull] production. So without LPS, I think we would be unstructured.” (Operations, Scania)Resource prioritisation current production vs. future smart production needs. Production vs. SP-team/LPS-team allocate resources to production staff to engage in smart production testing“Why is it so difficult to do a matchmaking between the needs and the possibilities … maybe people need time to work with this, the smart production team have had time, but people outside don’t.” (Smart production team, Volvo CE)
Learning Paradox	TECHNICAL MONUMENTSDrifting the learning paradox when smart production is perceived as “good in itself” and not necessary in any identified need from productionDOGMADrifting the learning paradox when basic assumptions of lean and the LPS become axiomatic and not seen as principles that continuously needs to be adaptedDETACHEDDrifting the learning paradox when senior management does not share the same pace in learning as smart production/LPS and cannot make informed decisions on future investments and implementation of technologies	Empowering:Learning and competence developmentLeveraging:Exploring and transformingEmpowering:Learning and competence developmentPatching:Aligning and connecting disparate knowledge elements
Exploitation vs. Exploration. Production vs. management vs. SP-team vs. LPS-team maintain continuous learning and competence development to embrace new digital capabilities“We have daily production meetings and we talk about what happened yesterday, I would prefer that we talk about what happen next week or next of tomorrow and combining data on that. What is coming is disruptive change, that we need to produce our heritage and we need to produce electrical machines and products–that will be disruptive change and it is challenging when people have built same things for 20 years”. (Smart production team, Volvo CE)“Not all new ideas are good ones, actually. Most new ideas are bad ones, giving the current context, but the context changes so nothing is static, and we still need to evolve.” (LPS manager, Scania)Specialisation vs. Generalisation. Production vs. SP-team vs. LPS-team connecting production staff with different specialist functions and knowledge to extend the knowledge base for smart production“Connecting Smart factory with the processes–it is a sort of dialogue. But it could be much more organized than it is … // … We need people that serves as bridges and that sort of has a foot in both worlds. Right now, I believe that we are a bit too specialised; you’re working either with future development or you’re trying to survive in an operation.” (LPS manager, Scania)“And I have been working in the past three years a little bit like, uh, you would say like a proxy between the smart factory and the production units. So it’s a little bit of a mix of” (Smart production, Scania)“We have a small lab environment where we can meet … that’s where the team actually sit and work … for us, I think that has been very good … Also, we’ve had good competence in the organisation with it … I mean, we’ve had almost or every competence that we need locally … Yeah. So that has also been a good prerequisite that we aren’t too dependent on specialists or global support or external support” (Smart production manager, Volvo CE)
Belonging Paradox	TECHNICAL MONUMENTSDrifting the belonging paradox when production operators become alienated and lose a sense of agency in the continuous improvement work	Patching:Aligning and connecting disparate knowledge elements
Integration vs. autonomy. LPS-team vs. production vs. SP-team sense of being integrated and aligned with shared goals for digitalisation/LPS, vs. sense of autonomy and empowerment in improvement work“What I would hope for in the future is that you have an exchange of people. People from operations work for a brief time, six months or a year within smart factory, and people from smart factory work for sometimes within the operations itself. Get a network of people you know. They know they can trust you. You can trust them” (LPS manager, Scania)“For maintenance area, no one outside maintenance should push. People from maintenance gets lot of questions from other functions (logistics, quality) etc about if they have heard about predictive maintenance, and of course they have heard about it … It needs to come from inside, maintenance are best to drive out waste from maintenance and then they need to see if they can use digital tools” (Smart production team, Volvo CE)

Source(s): Authors' own creation