We use a behavioral experiment to examine whether the use of templates facilitates or hinders a faster production ramp‐up after a process move. If the environment in which a template is applied closely resembles the environment in which the template was developed, template use promotes knowledge transfer, resulting in increased performance while ramping up the process. However, when the environments at the origin and destination of the template differ, these benefits do not occur. We further show that making the template too rigid, i.e., not allowing any changes to the template after a production start, decreases its performance benefits. These findings help characterize when and how the encoding of existing knowledge through a template is a worthwhile investment of time and resources to facilitate a production process move.

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