Transferring knowledge in the relocation of manufacturing units

Abstract

Purpose -The global spread of production makes companies relocate their manufacturing units frequently. Not only equipment, systems, and facilities, need to be moved, but the transfer of operational knowledge and experience seem to be a major challenge. However, discussions on knowledge transfer are derived predominantly from a cognitive perspective and normally focus on the organizational level and are rarely linked with outsourcing. Thus, from the perspective of operations management, the purpose of this paper is to explore how to transfer production know-how on the shop-floor level when manufacturing units are relocated and indicate which means can be used to support this intra-firm transfer process. Design/methodology/approach -Four cases are identified from research in three Danish companies. Observations and 77 semi-structured interviews have been made over a time period of two years. Surveys of documents, questionnaires, and the Delphi method have been used to supplement the research. Findings -Four cases are analyzed from four aspects. By doing so, different relocation situations are identified; different types of transferred knowledge are recognized; and different groups of means for knowledge transfer are introduced and classified according to their usage. Practical implications -A framework is summarized to integrate all the elements discussed in this paper, which provides strong support and clear directions to industrial managers when they need to transfer knowledge in the relocation projects. Together with the framework, a process to help managers implement their knowledge transfer is also proposed. Originality/value -Besides the framework and process, this paper also indicates that absorptive capacity of a production unit depends not only on the level of technical competence at its site, but also on whether real manufacturing environment has already existed or not. Two means for establishing virtual manufacturing environment are suggested.

Supply capability creation process: Key milestone criteria and activities

“…Nevertheless, the earlier research has separately covered the business processes involving NPD (Cooper, 2001;Ulrich & Eppinger, 2008;Liker 2004) and SC (Su & Gargeya, 2012;Cheng et al, 2010). The need for the better integration of NPD and SC proce sses in the product development phase has, however, been identified before (Van Hoek & Chapman, 2007).…”

The relationship development aspect of production transfer

“…Because of the organisational reconfiguration following the physical transfer and start-up, a production transfer is not only a question of relocating hardware, such as equipment, systems, or facilities. To utilise effectively the transferred hardware, the new location must also receive knowledge, explicit as well as tacit (Cheng et al, 2010;Salomon and Martin, 2008;McBeath and Ball, 2012). Furthermore, according to a production transfer can be seen as consisting of four parts: physical, knowledge, administrative and supply chain.…”

Future Internet-based Collaboration in Factory Planning

“…In detail, knowledge related to personal skills, that cannot be formulized easily because of its tacit nature must be considred. This knowledge can hardly transfered without direct personal interaction [38]. Even if some projects have been initialized, a comprehensive approach to support spatially distributed manufacturing planning by means of immersive, collaborative VR is still not available [3].…”

“…Hence, features supporting the cognitive tasks of engineers and other stakeholders must be provided by distance collaboration tool; social interaction beyond the data visualization must be enabled [42,43]. In detail tacit knowledge which is hardly transferable without direct personal interaction, must be considered [38]. Therefore the capability to achieve and support user-user interaction must be integrated into the VirCA NET.…”