A Model of Creative Heritage for Industry: Designing New Rules While Preserving the Present System of Rules

Abstract

In industry, there is at once a strong need for innovation and a need to preserve the existing system of production. Thus, although the literature insists on the necessity of the current change toward Industry 4.0, how to implement it remains problematic because the preservation of the factory is at stake. Moreover, the question of the evolution of the system depends on its innovative capability, but it is difficult to understand how a new rule can be designed and implemented in a factory. This tension between preservation and innovation is often explained in the literature as a process of creative destruction. Looking at the problem from another perspective, this article models the factory as a site of creative heritage, enabling creation within tradition, i.e., creating new rules while preserving the system of rules. Two case studies are presented to illustrate the model. The paper shows that design in the factory relies on the ability to validate solutions. To do so, the design process can explore and give new meaning to the existing rules. The role of innovation management is to choose the degree of revision of the rules and to make it possible.

Industry 4.0 Management: Preliminary Design Implications

“…For this reason, we can assume that design theory is the right solution to go beyond quantitative and qualitative studies carried out so far on Industry 4.0. Second, design theory may help firms to increase Industry 4.0 adoption and to reach higher performance, overcoming the recurrent tension between preservation and innovation (Harlé, Le Masson, and Weil, 2021). In fact, design theory shows that innovation can be incremental/disruptive/a compromise.…”

“…In this direction, it is possible to identify four strategies for implementing an innovation. An innovation can: (i) adapt to previous rules; (ii) require new rules; (iii) adapt to existing rules only in single domains; or (iv) require an extension of existing rules through new perspectives (Harlé, Le Masson, and Weil, 2021). In the case of Industry 4.0, literature verifies that it adapts differently in SMEs and in large companies.…”

“…However, in addition to 4.0 technologies adoption, Industry 4.0 requires a reorganization of the factory in a more integrated one, creating the so called 4.0 environment, or smart factory (Braccini and Margherita, 2021). The smart factory requires new lenses to read the existing rules, in order to accomplish the compromise between innovation and status quo (Harlé, Le Masson, and Weil, 2021). This new kind of factory is expected to be efficient, flexible and automated leading to six main categories of performances: production flexibility; speed of serial prototypes; greater output capacity; reduced set-up costs and fewer errors and machine downtimes; higher product quality and less rejected production; customers' improved opinion of products (Dalenogare et al, 2018;Chauhan, Singh, and Luthra, 2021).…”

Renovating Engineering Departements’ Creation Heritage to Meet Contemporary Challenges: Frugal Validation Patterns and Constructive Proof Logics for New Engineering Rules

“…Some works tell us that the design of a new proposition of rule can take quite sophisticated forms, namely, not a proposition of a new design, in fact, but a proposition of a new design in such a way that it is consistent with the previous rule set. For this purpose, the model of new rule design within the tradition (Harlé et al, 2021) is used to analyse our cases.…”

“…On the other hand, it could be possible to implement attempts at optimization or readjustment of performance choices which can be financed but imply trade-offs with the rules of engineering. For a system to be reliable, it must be consistent with the set of engineering rules (Harlé et al, 2021). The latter is supposed to guarantee reliability and technical homogeneity; therefore, going beyond the rules of the art implies a validation, which in this context needs to be inexpensive.…”