Seeing the Bigger Picture? Ramping up Production with the Use of Augmented Reality

PurposeThis study aims to provide an overall framework that connects and explains a macro-perspective of the findings from the five studies of this special issue. Through this, we aim to answer two main questions: How can Lean and Industry 4.0 be integrated, and what are the outcomes for workers from such integration?Design/methodology/approachThe special issue received 64 papers that were evaluated in multiple stages until this final sample of five papers that describe different facets of the integration between Lean and Industry 4.0 and their relationship with worker activities. In this introduction, we review the main findings of these five studies and propose an integrative view and associated propositions. A discussion provides directions to advance the field further.FindingsThe framework shows that when Lean and Industry 4.0 are integrated, companies will face two types of tensions, dialectical and paradoxical, which require different managerial approaches. By managing such tensions, the Lean-Industry 4.0 integration can help improve social performance, as well as develop systematic problem-solving and cumulative learning capabilities. Five important themes for this field of research are outlined: the importance of work routines, legitimation, competence, sense and mental flexibility.Originality/valueThis study brings a new theoretical perspective to the integration of Lean with Industry 4.0-related digital technologies. The results go beyond the usual view of improving operational performance and dig into the effects on workers. It also shows that the integration process relies on and can enhance human capabilities such as learning and problem-solving.

Section: Systematic Problem-solvingsupporting

confidence: 91%

“…This is consistent with the findings of Letmathe and Rößler (2022), Roscoe et al . (2019) and Wuttke et al . (2022), which showed that workers who use these technologies for work have difficulties remembering information and turning it into learning.…”

Section: An Overview Of the Studies Of The Special Issuementioning

confidence: 97%

Beyond Industry 4.0 – integrating Lean, digital technologies and people

Frank,

Thürer,

Godinho Filho

et al. 2024

“…pick support tools, with task complexity as a moderator). This is supported by a recent experiment by Wuttke et al. (2022), who showed that augmented reality (AR) tools can enhance learning significantly.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 74%

“…Another individual measure that might be adopted is to provide tools that aid the workers during job completion. One such tool is AR, which seems to affect the learning rate (at the cost of short-lasting, superficial learning, Wuttke et al. , 2022).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of monetary incentives and regulatory focus on worker productivity and learning in order picking

Sgarbossa

Glock

Grosse

et al. 2022

PurposeIn manual order picking systems, temporary workers are often employed to handle demand peaks. While this increases flexibility, it may hamper productivity, as they are usually unfamiliar with the processes and may have little experience. It is important for managers to understand how quickly inexperienced workers arrive at full productivity and which factors support workers in improving their productivity. This paper aims to investigate how learning improves the performance of order pickers, and how their regulatory focus (RF) and monetary incentives, as management actions, influence learning.Design/methodology/approachData was collected in two case studies in controlled field-lab experiments and statistically analysed. This allowed evaluating the validity of hypotheses through an ANOVA, the calculation of correlation coefficients and the application of regression models.FindingsA monetary incentive based on total order picking time and pick errors has a positive influence on order picking time, but not on pick quality. The incentive influences initial productivity, but not the learning rate. A dominant promotion-oriented RF increases the effect of the incentive on initial productivity, but it does not impact worker learning.Practical implicationsThis study contributes to behavioral and human-focused order picking management and supports managers in setting up work plans and developing incentive systems for learning and productivity enhancement, considering worker RF.Originality/valueThis work is among the few to empirically investigate the effect of monetary incentives on learning in interaction with RF. It is the first study to investigate these concepts in an order picking scenario.

“…Thus, companies invest significant time and energy to ensure that knowledge is transferred and retained successfully during a move. Practices adopted in the industry include, for example, creating standard operating procedures, structured codification (Kotlarsky et al ., 2014), the use of augmented reality devices (Wuttke et al ., 2022) or the “copy exactly” approach (McDonald, 1998). These practices create templates that allow firms to capture existing knowledge and then apply this knowledge to the new site to speed up the learning process during the production ramp-up.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of co-location on production knowledge transfer in collectivist and individualist cultures

Kent

Siemsen

Shao

2023

Purpose This paper enhances our understanding of how national culture impacts manufacturing performance (assembly speed, consistency between teams, etc.) during a production process move. The authors also investigate the efficacy of co-location as a strategy to enhance knowledge transfer from one organization to another.Design/methodology/approach To study the impact of national culture on production process moves, the authors develop and employ a team-based behavioral experiment within and between an individualist society (the United States) and a collectivist one (China). The authors also examine the impact of co-location on knowledge transfer effectiveness within and between these two unique cultures.Findings Interestingly, co-location has little impact on the performance of US recipient teams. Without co-location, Chinese recipient team performance lags significantly behind the US teams. However, firms can overcome these knowledge transfer challenges by co-locating source and recipient team members. These results suggest that firms should assess the national cultural context when considering co-location to manage their production move. There are contexts where co-location may be incredibly useful to facilitate an effective knowledge transfer (e.g. collectivist cultures like China) and contexts where this approach may not be as valuable (e.g. individualistic cultures such as the United States).Originality/valueThis research contributes to the academic literature in several ways. First, while past research demonstrates that national culture can be an essential barrier to information and knowledge sharing, this paper extends these findings showing that co-location may effectively overcome this barrier. After the authors offer and test the merits of co-location, they also establish the boundary conditions of this approach by showing that the effect of co-location on knowledge transfer is contingent on the cultural context. This contribution enhances our understanding of the relationship between national culture and knowledge sharing and has implications for managers developing approaches to transfer knowledge between cultures. Second, the authors develop and execute a novel cross-country experimental design. While cross-country experiments have been done before (e.g. Ozer et al. 2014, Kuwabara et al. 2007, etc.), it is still rare to see such experiments due to them being “technically difficult and costly” (Ozer et al. 2014, p. 2437). This research not only offer insights into how teams of people from individualist and collectivist societies send, receive and comprehend production knowledge. It also documents how these teams convert this knowledge into production results.