0
Work design in smart manufacturing: How does
involving the process operator in the design process
affect the outcome of the design in light of smart
manufacturing technology?
Student name: Gijsbrecht Pierik
Student number: S3927003
University of Groningen Faculty of Economics and Business
Date: May 2020
1
Abstract
This research is aimed to answer the research question: How does involving the process operator in the design process of work design affect the outcome of the design in light of smart manufacturing technology? The method that is used in this research is a multiple-case study. Managers of 2 organisations are interviewed to gain insights to this subject. These interviews are transcribed and added to a coding tree to transform this raw data to information. The results of the research point in the direction that involving the process operator in the work design process has a positive influence on the final process. Employees can have a say in how they think work has to be organized which will generate ideas the organisation otherwise could not have thought of. This could lead to a more efficient process resulting in a higher quality process which will profit both the organisation and the employees.
Keywords: Work design, Smart manufacturing, process operator, industry 4.0, The fourth
industrial revolution
Supervisor: S. Waschull
2
Introduction
Smart manufacturing comes with opportunities and vulnerabilities that have to be taken into account to ensure a positive influence on the organisation and the employees within the organisation (Büchi, Cugno, & Castagnoli, 2020). When implementing smart manufacturing technology, processes often need to be redesigned to match the new technology. Whether work is detrimental or beneficial depends upon how the work is designed. The definition of work design is the content, structure, and organisation of one’s task and activities (Van den Broeck & Parker, 2017). Work design behaviour is defined as how individuals design others’ work (Parker, Andrei, & Van den Broeck, 2019). Therefore, Smart manufacturing has many opportunities and risks, among others for employees because it will affect their jobs. To reduce negative effects, managers can actively take decisions during the creation of work design. One decision is to involve employees in the work design that have the experience and knowledge of the initial process. Yet we see poor work design continuing to exist, which might become even more severe in the context of industry 4.0. The focus of this paper is to find out the effect of involving process operators when shaping work design.
Managers and system designers have a big influence and control over work design. This influence originates from several organisational and technological decisions (Washull, Bokhorst, Molleman, & Wortmann, 2020). In this field of research, there is a lot of ground that still needs to be uncovered. This is also true for employee involvement in the shaping of work design. It is well known that employees are an important cog in the machine during normal production times. But how important can the employees be when managers are shaping work design? It could be possible that by involving them in the shaping process of the work design, that their input affect the outcome of the work design. Will this be a desired or undesired outcome, and to what extent should the managers involve the employees in this process of creating work design? This will be the topic of investigation.
This research aims to increase our understanding of work design for implementing new technologies. Research question:
3 It is already known that some organisations use the input of their employees. In some organisations this happens by employee empowerment. Employee empowerment is defined as the ways an organisation offers its employees a certain degree of autonomy and control in their day-to-day activities (Yin Y. , 2020). Employee empowerment can be a powerful strategy when it is used properly. It can energize the culture of a company and one study shows that empowered employees are more satisfied. The study conducted over a thousand interviews with employees from 31 foundations and found that employees are more satisfied with their jobs when they feel empowered in their daily experience at work (Buteau & Gopal, 2012). So, by offering employees a certain degree of autonomy and control, employees feel more satisfaction when doing their jobs. Another researched topic that overlaps with the topic of this article is job crafting. Job crafting offers employees the opportunity to alter their jobs if they see fit. Because of their daily experience with the process, the employees know what could be better about the process. Studies show that job crafting brings numerous positive outcomes. These outcomes include job satisfaction, engagement, resilience, and thriving (Berg, Dutton, & Wrzesniewski, 2007). From the results of employee empowerment and job crafting it can be learned that employees feel more satisfied and engaged when they can use their knowledge and experience to change how they work on a daily basis. However, there is not much information on what outcomes it has of involving employees in the shaping process of work design in smart manufactures. The reason why this is interesting to investigate is that this might be an overlooked approach which could be valuable for organisations. In many cases of work design and technology implementation, work design is created somewhere at the top of the organisation, while missing out on the small details which can have a great impact. The information that the managers do not possess can be gained from the knowledge of the employees that have a lot of experience with that work. This being said, it is of great importance that more knowledge about employee involvement in shaping work design is gathered.
4 This paper consists of 5 chapters. The second chapter is the theoretical framework that will specify the research. The third chapter explains which method will be used to gather information. The fourth chapter will show the findings of the interview which will be discussed in chapter five. Asides of the discussion also the conclusion can be found in chapter 5. After the conclusion, the list of references and the appendices will be displayed.
Theoretical framework
In this chapter, the most important theories are elaborated. First, an explanation of what work design is. Second, what is involving the process operator? Third, smart manufacturing is explained. Fourth, the elaboration of the outcome of the design. Finally, a summary of the theory is given in the form of a conceptual model.
What is work design?
Work design is defined as the content, structure, and organisation of one’s task and activities (Van den Broeck & Parker, 2017). To elaborate, a closer look at this definition is needed. Content is defined as the things that are included in something. Here it aims at all the things that are included in one’s task and activities. Structure is defined as the way things are arranged. Organisation is the way in which something is done. Accordingly, someone has to think about how this content, structure, and organisation of one’s job should look like. In many cases, the manager is accountable for this process. During the creation process of work design, a manager has many decisions he has to make. These decisions vary from what machines are needed, what are the steps in the process, how many operators to place, where to place them, and many more. Because the expertise from the manager is managing its staff, and not operating on the shop floor, he does not possess all the information and details about the process. Because of this, the manager could overlook details in the work design that can make a big difference in the end.
5 Involving the process operator
A process operator is involved in the production of goods or looking after the processing of materials. Their tasks and activities vary based on the things they produce. This can include transportation of materials with the factory, operating machines and tools, measuring and mixing ingredients, packaging products, and maintaining records of the process.
When a process operator has a lot of knowledge and experience of a specific job, he could have interesting ideas about how the work design should look in a smart manufacturing organisation. Therefore, the individual that is shaping the work design can choose to involve one or more process operators in the shaping process. This could lead to insights that the individual on his or her own never could have seen. How much the process operators are involved in the creation of work design is up to the individual leading the creation. They could be involved by filling in a questionnaire, attending a meeting, actively provide ideas, and more.
Smart manufacturing
Smart manufacturing is the future way of producing. SM employs computer-integrated manufacturing, high levels of adaptability, quick changes in design, and IT (Davis, Edgar, Porter, Bernaden, & Sarli, 2012). These new technologies offer big opportunities for society and factories (Walsh & Strano, 2018). But potentially these technologies also hold certain risks. The risk that is being discussed the most of all is the increase in automation and the decrease in human labour (Frey & Osborne, 2017). But, there is no need to worry. Brynjolfsson et al. (2018) state that most jobs in every sector will have some tasks that can be done by smart technologies, but smart technologies will not fully replace humans because there are always tasks that cannot be done by a machine. Human labour actually plays a crucial role in more automated production lines and automated technical systems (Brynjolfsson, Mitchell, & Rock, 2018).
The outcome of the design
6 Conceptual framework
To summarize the theory, the theory is placed in a conceptual framework. This framework can be found below in figure 1 conceptual framework. Here we see the design process of work design being influenced by the involvement of a process operator and the influence of smart manufacturing technology. The design process has influence over the outcome of the design.
Figure 1 Conceptual model
Method section
Research Design
To answer the research question, a qualitative research design has been conducted. “The main objective of qualitative research is to create a methodology for approaching, understanding, analysing and explaining management phenomena at a social or company level (Delattre, Ocler, Moulette, & Rymeyko, 2009). The research strategy that is selected is a multiple case study. A case study is detailed research into a phenomenon or topic within a real-life setting (Yin R. , 2014). The reason why the multiple case study is particularly suitable for this research is that it enables the investigator to gather data from different representative cases for either theoretical or literal replication purpose (Saunders, Lewis, & Thornhill, 2016). Another reason why a
Smart manufacturing technology
Outcome of the design: Quality of work design Satisfaction of employees Satisfaction of manager
7 multiple case study is suitable is that there is little knowledge about the subject, there exists no numerical data, it is perfect to answer the how and why questions, and it holds various stakeholders.
Research Setting
The setting of this research was to gather data from different smart manufacturing organisations, so it gets a broad point of view. For this reason, the focus is not on a specific sector within the manufacturing industry.
In this study the managements of different SM organisations were interviewed. The selected organisations were chosen by the following criteria:
o The organisation implemented SM technologies or is planning to implement it. o The project that was or is being implemented involves process operators. o The project aims to improve the old process.
8 The second organisation is organisation B and this company is one of the largest wooden and plastic window frames and prefab walls manufacturer in the Netherlands. Since 2018 they only deliver B2B markets. Overall the company has 160 employees divided over 2 locations in the same area. The level of automation is still about 50% but has been increased and will be increased in the upcoming years. One of the new projects was the full-automatic CNC wooden window frame machine. With this machine, the CAD designer at the office can send the model to the machines and without the intervention of people the machine starts to saw. At the office, the progression of the process can be monitored. Also, on the work floor, everything is monitored by one operator. The total production line consists out of 5 machines that are interconnected and communicated with each other to optimise the production based on the input data. The first interviewee (B1) of this organisation is the head of the technical department and is Responsible for all technical processes within the company. The second interviewee (B2) is the CEO of organisation B. He is responsible for the overall strategy and processes of the company.
Data Collection
The data for this research was collected by conducting semi-structured interviews. In appendix A, the interview questions can be found. A semi-structured interview is necessary because it offers enough flexibility, but it is still consistent so that the interviews can be compared with each other (Barriball & While, 1994). 3 managers of organisations that have implemented work design have participated in this interview to gain insight into what roles managers play in shaping work design. The interviews are recorded and transcribed by listening to the recording and typing it out. This data will be the primary data of this research and can be found in appendix B.
Data Analysis
The data has been analysed by using a technique called coding. As Gibbs (2007) mentioned; “Coding is a way of indexing or categorizing the text in order to establisha framework of thematic ideas about it”. This is the process of identifying data in a raw text, finding concepts and their relations (Gibbs, 2007)
9 which they could be interpreted. These second order codes offered a closer perspective on the main topic regarding where the code belongs. lastly, it allowed us to design the third order codes in relation to the mentioned theory in chapter 2. This technique was used for all the 3 interviews and was designed in Excel (see appendix B).
In the end, a comparison was made between each interview to find between-case similarities and differences. The next chapters will handle the data that is recovered from the coding technique.
Table 1 Coding tree
Findings
The following section will discuss the results regarding what effect involving the process operator in the work design process and the outcome of the work design. Afterwards, the relationship between these concepts will be discussed.
Main code Definition
A A1 Inclusion Includes employee into the design
process
A2 Reason Why including employees in the design process?
A3 Which which type of employees are involved
A4 How how are the employees included
A5 When When were the employees
involved in the process?
A6 Importance it is important to include employee in the implementation
A7 Used Employees ideas are used
A8 Considered Employees ideas are considerd
B B1 Positive expierience positive effect of the
involvement of the employee B2 Negative expierience negative effect of the
involvement of the employee B3 Efficiency efficiency of the work better than
before
B4 Successfulness implementation was successful Theoretical background
10 involving the process operator
involving, or not?
When an organisation goes through the process of designing work, they have the option to include the process operator in the design process. Organisation 1 includes the employees in the process because the employees feel more responsible and are more accepting of the new technologies. Organisation 2 also includes its employees by spreading the information about which direction the organisation is heading. However, the manager of organisation 2 tells us that many of the employees do not have the required helicopter view, but they are asked to pay attention to the details. The reason organisation 2 includes their employees is that they have the knowledge and experience of the old line which is required to think along and because they will be the operator in the new production line.
Code Additional supporting data
Inclusion A1: “Absolutely and I also think that by making them co-responsible that they
commit to this new way of maintenance, just say that it already helps in thinking up, then you do not throw it into their lap. We came up with the idea together, that this actually fits best with their function and their role within the company.”
B1: “From the beginning we have involved the personnel of the machine and got
information in time. [..] When there were new things, they were communicated to the employees. When there were new things, they were presented from that side we go and there we sometimes got questions on why this and why.”
B2: “From the beginning, well, it is true that it is difficult to involve the
employees in everything. You also notice that the employees who are on the line with us, that they do not have the helicopter view. you should not expect from them. I and the project leader have to take care of that view, but that they pay special attention to small matters that are directly related to themselves and that they do not think about the entire process. small things that employees can influence. But not the big things like the number of machines."
Reason B2: “Actually because they were already working on the old line, but mainly
because they have the knowledge to be able to think along and also to be an operator for the new line”
11 Which, how, and when?
The type of employees that were concerned with the design process are operators, the maintenance engineers and the software engineers. Both organisations organized meetings to notify everyone who concerns it within the organisation. Organisation 1 also actively included the employees to discuss their ideas during the meetings. At one point during the work design process of organisation 2, they had three potential suppliers for the new technology. The managers and the employees visited the suppliers to take videos and notes about the equipment. According to manager 1 of organisation 2, the employees been closely involved during the end procedure. Manager 1 of organisation 1 wants employees to be actively involved to realize the implementation because he thinks it is important for the support base.
Code Additional supporting data
Which A1: “These are the mechanics and maintenance engineers who are also the
software engineers who have to program.”
How A1: “The maintenance engineers and software engineers sit around the table.” B1: “This was done at a meeting where the purpose of the project was
explained.”
When B1: “At one point we had three suppliers and at that time we sat down with
the operators who would be working on it. We then went to see what they thought. We had videos of everything and how it worked, and they also went to other companies where they already had similar machines. They were very closely involved during the final procedure.”
Importance A1: “I want it to be actively involved and to realize the implementation. I
think it is important that they are involved in this for support base.”
Table 3 Which, how, and when? Ideas of employees
12 the improvements in to the process. They think along what could work better and in which order should they be improved. This is because the operator has the day-to-day experience of the process to see room for improvement. Then the operators inform their manager which will find contact with the supplier to discuss the adjustments. Many of the improvements are software improvements.
Code Additional supporting data
Used B1: “Yes, especially the operator is making improvements. What could be
better and what is the order of the operations. They have a lot more insight into this than we do and if they come up with something, they call the supplier, or we make those adjustments. Many are software adjustments.”
Considered B1: “Without a doubt, before everything was ready, every staff member would
have had a chance to say something and things still change. It is not that you have a line down and that there are small things that will not improve you and does not. But that was also the intention to further develop and optimize it.”
Table 2 Ideas of employees Outcome of the design
effects of involving process operators in the design process
13 A noticeable negative effect for the employees is that because of the improving process, more specific maintenance will be done. This could lead to fewer tasks and less need for engineers solving problems. However, this will increase the efficiency of the organisation and decrease the total costs.
Code Additional supporting data
Positive A1: “The resistance is reduced and the ideas they have been also used during the
whole process. Also, so that they cannot complain about it afterwards. Or, this is something I want differently.”
B2: “You have so much more support base. We noticed from the past if that had
happened too little, that they then fell over, in our eyes, small things. But when a new machine was put up, there was dissatisfaction and they said: if they had asked us in advance it would not had happened. That now has its advantages.”
Negative A1: “What could be, is that by doing more specific maintenance and that you end
up with fewer people, you need fewer people, also because you will be doing fewer tasks.”
Table 3 Effect involving employees Outcome of work design
14
Code Additional supporting data
Efficiency B1: “They know exactly what needs to be made and also what orders there
are. In terms of hours, the machine is at its maximum. Because it runs continuously so the machines went out earlier in the afternoon break, but now they are running Just by.”
B2: “Yes, because the goals have been achieved. We are now doing more
parts. The quality has improved a lot, so yes it actually went very smoothly. You sometimes hear from other companies that it takes 2 or 3 years before they really reach the desired level. We actually were there after 2-3 months. We can now also do a lot, apart from the corona crisis, we are now able to grow. And we also have that ambition.”
Successfulness B1: “Yes, well I see that there is now a product coming out that requires
much less trading and that is simply much better in quality. Now we have to do much less finishing work. The product is really good quality and the numbers exceed expectations.”
Table 4 Outcome of the work design
Relationships between concepts
15
Conclusion
The following section includes the interpretation, critical reflection of the study, implications for theory and practice, and an overall conclusion.
Interpretation of results
In this research, we seek an answer to the question: How does involving the process operator in the design process of work design affect the outcome of the design in light of smart manufacturing technology?
Managers choose to involve process operators in the design process of work design. They do this because the process operators possess knowledge and experience that the managers do not have. The employees also feel more responsible when involved. The employees that are involved are process operators, maintenance engineers, and software engineers. During the design process of work design, the employees are consulted with their ideas. Afterwards, the process operators are the main source of ideas for improvement of the process. The positive effect of the involvement of the process operators in the design process is that the support base will be bigger, and the resistance will be lower. A potential negative effect could be that eventually less work needs to be done due to the higher efficiency, but this is speculation. The efficiency of the process has gone up because the machine now can run while the operators are on a brake. More products are produced per hour and the quality of the goods is also better.
16 Critical reflection of theory
Even though this research has led to similar results, the number of interviewees is too little to say that this conclusion goes up for all organisations. This is due to the fact that none organisations are the same and not every strategy is suitable for every organisation. In addition, the interviewees were involved in work design in smart manufacturing. However, the employees which are working for the organisation are neglected. No information about their point of view is gathered and this is the place future investigators should go. This will give interesting points of views about how they experience new work design and what their opinion is about the matter. Therefore, future investigators should conduct a higher number of interviews which will also include process operators of the focal organisation.
Another interesting topic is to compare organisations with similar work design projects whereas one organisation includes its employees in the design process and the other organisation does not include their employees in the work design process.
Implications for theory
This study contributes by extending the knowledge about what effect it has to include employee in the work design process. At the beginning of this paper, it was mentioned that managers play an important role, but no research was done on how involving employees in the work design process affected the outcome. According to this study, a positive effect is noticed when involving employees in the design process. Based on these results questions arise. What is the optimal amount of involvement an employee should have? How many employees should be consulted for an optimal outcome? Is there a turning point where the number of employees will have a negative effect on the final process? To get an answer to all these questions, more extensive research is required.
Implications for practice
18
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1
Appendix A: interview questions
Interview script Theme 1B – Subgroup 2
Subgroup 2: H. J. Bunk A. Eisen J. Rougoor G. Pierik R. Marteijn
Section 0: Some notes on conducting the interviews:
• Introduce yourself, the research, and the purpose of the research.
• Outline the structure of the interview, and its duration.
• Explain the follow-up procedure (interview will receive a copy if required)
• Refer to informed consent form outlining (see example on google drive):
• Describe the purpose of the interview
• Indicate the confidentiality of the interview
• Participation is voluntary, may stop interview or not answer any question
• No foreseeable risk
• Get their signature, printed name, and date send to supervisor
Section 1: Background information
*Depending on if the discussed smart manufacturing project is in development, being implemented or implemented, you have to rephrase some of the questions listed below in the correct tense, e.g. question 2.3.
1. What is your role in the company, and your responsibilities? 2. What is your previous working experience?
3. Could you briefly describe your company in terms of:
• Industry
• Products and services
• Types of market served (B2B/B2C)
• Number of employees
• Type of production processes
2 5. How do you characterize the overall organisational culture and manager-employee
interaction inside the company?
Section 2: Information on the smart manufacturing project
1. Could you describe the smart manufacturing project/program, and the implemented technologies?
2. What were the main project activities?
3. *What is/was your role, and your daily tasks in the project?
4. Who else is/was involved in the design or implementation, what are/were their roles? Who has/had what responsibility?
5. Have you had any previous training and experience regarding the implementation of such technologies?
6. What was the main reason for the choice of the technologies adopted/implemented? 2.4. Which were/are the main objectives and motivations for the project?
2.7. Do/did you have all the resources necessary to make the project a success?
8. Where there any constraints/hurdles that you faced during the project, if so, could you elaborate?
Section 3: Unwrapping mindset and work design behaviour
3.1. How do you judge a good design and/or implementation of the (smart manufacturing) technology?
3.2. What are the ultimate criteria for success (of the implementation)? How do you meet these? (you could take each criterion in turn and probe how its achieved to see if work design is mentioned)
3. To ensure the technology helps enhance productivity, what else needs to be in place, beyond technology that works?
3.4. What is your general ‘vision’ or perspective on the role of humans in the factory? 3.5. What ‘human’ considerations have you made in the project?
3.6. What have you done to take into account the perspective of employees, can you name examples?
3.7. Who was responsible for the consideration of human factors (their work, tasks, skills) during the project?
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3.9.a Questions to ask in case of designers of a technology: What considerations have you made about how the technology will be used in the work? What processes do you have for thinking about how the system will actually work when implemented?
3.9.b Question to ask in case of implementors of a technology: What role/staffing issues does the new technology give rise to? What skill requirements? Will people work in the same way as now? If not, what will be different?
3.10. What functions do you/did you allocate to a person rather than a machine/software? How do you make these decisions?
3.11. What human considerations have you made/ are you making during this project to ensure engaged and motivated workers? What are you doing to ensure maximum productivity? 3.12. (If human factors are not considered): Why are human factors not considered?
Section 4: Work design changes
4.1. What employee group was/is most affected by the implementation?
When the discussed technology is not yet implemented then ask:
4.2. When the technology is finally in place, how might their work design change? Per change, inquire about the underlying motive for the change:
-why did it change?
4.3. Will people work in the same teams in the same roles/ different?
4.4. If more detail is needed, ask more specific questions:
Will levels of autonomy change? What control will the person have relative to the machine? Will the person get feedback from the machine/system?
Will job demands change?
Will the person need to develop new skills? Did the job complexity change?
What about social interaction, will people interact more or less with others? ….
Only ask when the discussed technology is already implemented:
4.5. a. How did the work design change of X due to the implementation of the technology? b. How were these changes communicated to the involved stakeholders/ employees? Per change, inquire about the underlying motive for the change:
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4.6. Do people work in the same teams, and in the same roles or different ones? 4.7. Were any of these changes unexpected?
4.8. If more detail is needed, ask more specific questions:
Will levels of autonomy change? What control will the person have relative to the machine? Will the person get feedback from the machine/system?
Will job demands change?
Will the person need to develop new skills? Did the job complexity change?
What about social interaction, will people interact more or less with others?
Section 5: Individual influences
Demographics
5.1. What is the average age in your department? (AE) 5.2. What is your age and sex (male/female)?
5.3. What is the distribution of male/female in your department? (AE)
5.4. Do you consider yourself as a person open to change, conservative or somewhere in the middle?
Workload
5.5. How do you generally feel in terms of the workload that you have when not in the implementation process? (e.g. high, low, cognitive, physical, emotional)
5.6. Did your workload change when your got involved in implementing the smart manufacturing technology? (physical, cognitive, emotional). If yes, in what way?
5.7. Was this change in workload reversed when the implementation process was completed? 5.8. Do you think that you would spend more time to think about the change in task/job characteristics when your workload decreases?
Personality characteristics
5.9. How would you describe your own personality and actions in a working environment in terms of: (If applicable please provide an small example to point it out)
1. Conscientiousness (Dutch: zorgvuldig, georganiseerd)
a. Are you aware of your actions and are you motivated to achieve ambitious goals? b. Are you tidy, planned and well organized?
5 . Can you work in a stressed, emotional situation and how do you handle this?
a. Are you quickly fearful that things don’t work as you want to? 3. Extraversion (Dutch: Extravert, sociaal)
. Are you spontaneous, looking for interaction between people? a. Do you enjoy meeting new people?
4. Agreeableness (Dutch: Betrouwbaar, aardig, sensitief) . Are you involved with your employees?
a. Are you sensitive, trustworthy/do employees trust you and are they willing to tell their concerns/ work problems?
5. Openness (Dutch: Nieuwsgierig, creatief)
. How approachable are you for others, can you listen well to others?
a. Do you like new technical innovation and are you always looking for new opportunities?
b. Are you creative/ imaginative and do you have some unconventional ideas and beliefs? 5.10 Can you rate yourself from 1 till 5 on each of these five factors?
1= Not applicable; 3= Neutral ;5=Fully applicable (Please encircle the number) Conscientiousness 1 2 3 4 5
Neuroticism 1 2 3 4 5
Extraversion 1 2 3 4 5
Agreeableness 1 2 3 4 5
Openness 1 2 3 4 5
5.11 Do you think that your personality has an influence in the way you contribute in the decisions-making on work design choices? (Can you give an example?)
Including the process executer
5.11. Did you include the process executer (the technology user) during the development/implementation of the technology?
5.12. Why did or did you not do this?
5.13. From experience, what do you think the effect will be of including the process executer in the design process?
What is your opinion on designing a process and then never changing the process?
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Empowerment (encouraged by the manager)
5.14. Did the operators improve or attain new competences after the implementation of the smart technology?
5.15 Are the operators currently (after the implementation of the new technology) challenged to fully utilize the skills they possess and why so?
5.16 a) Do you share goals, information-processing and problem-solving activities with operators? (after the implementation of new technology)
b) If the above is the case (or partly), How do you facilitate and communicate this to the operators?
5.17 How do you monitor the operator’s participation/involvement regarding this goal. 5.18 Do you check whether the operators feel involved and how?
5.19 Do you recognize improvement contributions made to the new implementation by operators?
5.20 a) Did you facilitate team development, to the operators, when the new technology was in the implementation phase?
b) how did you facilitate team development? and do you still facilitate this?
5.21 How do encourage self-management and group decisions autonomy to operators since the implementation of the new technology?
5.22 a) did you facilitate employee training and skill development during the implementation?
b) Do you still facilitate this and do you play an encouraging role in development and training of the operators?
.I have adjusted the questions accordingly
Wrapping up the interview
5.23. Do you consider the implementation a success and why? 5.24. What were negative outcomes of the project?
