Toward the 24-Hour Knowledge Factory

Abstract

The term "24-Hour Knowledge Factory" connotes a globally distributed work environment in which members of the global team work on a project around the clock; each member of the team works the normal workday hours that pertain to his or her time zone. At the end of such a workday, a fellow team member located in a different time zone continues the same task. This creates the shift-style workforce that was originally conceived in the manufacturing sector. A globally distributed 24-hour call center is the simplest manifestation of this paradigm. The true example of the 24-hour factory paradigm discussed in this paper involves groups working together to accomplish a given set of deliverables, such as a software project, and transcending conventional spatial and temporal boundaries.

Modeling distributed product development processes in Small and Medium Enterprises

“…This arrangement initially started in manufacturing and nowadays is prevalent in software development (Gupta & Seshasai, 2004). …”

Tacit Knowledge Sharing in Geographically Distributed Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP) Implementation: An Exploratory Multi-Site Case Study

“…Especially the use of ICT tools to simulate the face-toface interacting situations is recommended. Some of these activities could be also divided as it has been accomplished by the 24 h knowledge factory model (Gupta and Seshasai, 2004), which advocates continuous work on the knowledge sharing tasks by team members located in time zones that allow for 24 h knowledge sharing. Accordingly, the team members who are remotely located work on the knowledge sharing around the clock.…”

The Use of Information Systems in Collocated and Distributed Teams: A Test of the 24-Hour Knowledge Factory

“…By employing this methodology both within the development of IS tools to facilitate the model as well as within organizations producing the information systems, it becomes possible to consider offshoring in a broader perspective where the interests of workers in high-income economies are aligned with workers in other countries and customers worldwide. We introduce and test the 24-hour knowledge factory model (Gupta and Seshasai 2004), which advocates continuous work on knowledge-based tasks by individuals located in time zones that allow for 24-hour engagement.…”

“…Ideally, this structure allows for an efficient design process with faster turnaround time, which is one of the major potential benefits of distributing work across time zones (Gupta and Seshasai 2004;Treinen and Miller-Frost 2006; see also Eppinger and Chitkara 2006;Majchrzak et al 2000).…”

“…Future studies should test the effect of incorporating additional time zones on the performance of a 24-hour knowledge factory. The original model (Gupta and Seshasai 2004) proposed three sequential 8-hour work shifts distributed across time zones around the globe. While additional work shifts are generally predicted to accelerate productivity relative to fewer shifts or relative to a collocated team (essentially, one shift per day), a larger number of shifts necessitates a larger number of hand-offs between shifts, which will require additional transition time between shifts in order to document progress and update the next shift on developments during the previous shift.…”