Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
SAMMANFATTNING
Det här examensarbetet är vårt sista moment i civilingenjörsutbildningen Industriell
Ekonomi som vi studerat vid Linköpings Tekniska Högskola. Examensarbetet är
utfört på Scania med syfte att kartlägga och klassificera behoven av information och
kunskap i reparations- och serviceverkstäder. Syftet är även dels att förklara vad en
organisation kan göra för att tillfredsställa dessa behov och dels vad som möjliggör
detta för att kunna öka verkstädernas effektivitet. Vi har fokuserat på verkstäderna och
endast lastbilsverksamheten, men för att samtidigt ta hänsyn till helheten har vi även i
viss utsträckning studerat de delar av Scania som mest påverkar verkstädernas
situation. Bakgrunden till problemet är att Scanias närmare tusen serviceverkstäder i
Europa, som vi fokuserat på, behöver avancerad teknisk information och kunskap för
att kunna utföra sitt arbete. Men lastbilen utvecklas i snabb takt och det är svårt för
dokumentationen och utbildningen att hålla jämna steg vilket gör att mekanikerna
ställs inför okända problem. För att verkstäderna skall kunna vara effektiva och
spendera så lite tid som möjligt på problemsökning och problemlösning behövs en
välutvecklad struktur för att förse verkstäderna med relevant information och kunskap.
Som underlag för studien har vi genomfört en fältstudie där vi besökt verkstäder och
distributörer i Sverige, Norge, Holland och Frankrike, vilket vi gjorde under en vecka
per land.
I referensramen tog vi fram en modell baserad på olika teorier för att kategorisera olika
sorters kunskap samt problem relaterade till dessa olika kategorier. Teorin presenterar
olika sätt att lösa de olika problemen samt hur de olika kategorierna av kunskap
hanteras och styrs. Denna modell använde vi i analysen för att visa hur man kan lösa
de problem samt tillfredställa de behov vi kartlagt på Scania.
Slutsatserna kan sammanfattas i ett par punkter. Vad vi framförallt tycker saknas är ett
fungerande tillvaratagande av den enorma resurs av kunskap och information som
Scania besitter. Den information, kunskap och utbildning som finns är bra men för att
den ska tillfredställa de behov som finns måste det i större utsträckning finnas
möjlighet för användarna att lämna synpunkter och för de som producerar
informationen att tillvarata dessa synpunkter på ett effektivt sätt. Idag är
återkopplingen behovsstyrd utifrån vad Scania tror sig vilja veta. Vi saknar en
behovsstyrd återkoppling utifrån vad verkstäder och distributörer vill påverka.
Utbildning och lärande i allmänhet måste vara en naturlig del av arbetet för alla
anställda och detta ska planeras och styras strategiskt. En liten del i detta är ett utökat
nätverkande mellan anställda, dels inom Fabriken och dels mellan Fabriken,
verkstäderna och distributörerna. Dessa förändringar möjliggörs bland annat genom
ett ökat användande av IT och klarare definierade och kommunicerade roller i hela
organisationen.
1
Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
ABSTRACT
This report constitutes a master’s thesis in Economic Information Systems at
Linköping Institute of Technology in Sweden. The master’s thesis forms the
concluding part of a Master of Science in Industrial Engineering and Management, an
education attended by both authors. The purpose of this Masters Thesis is to map and
classify the needs of information and knowledge in repair and maintenance
workshops. The purpose is also to explain which courses of action an organization can
take to meet these needs, and also what enables these actions and how, in order to
increase the workshops’ efficiency. Our focus is on the repair and maintenance
workshops at Scania, and to regard a larger picture we also look at various parts of the
organization that the workshops are the most affected by in this context.
Looking at producers of technologically advanced products, the market support of
repairing these products demands advanced technical information about the product
and great skills from the people executing the task. Since reality today also involves
frequent product changes, it is difficult for the documentation and education to keep
up, and the employees are confronted with problems they have never seen before. For
the repair and maintenance process to be efficient, and to spend as little time as
possible solving technical problems, a well-developed system for providing relevant
information and knowledge is of great importance.
To map the workshop’s needs we visited distributors and workshops in four countries.
We also developed a model in our theoretical framework. This model describes nine
different categories of knowledge, each one with its own suggested managerial actions.
Applying this model on the situation at Scania we could categorize all the observed
needs for information and knowledge and find ways to manage them. The conclusions
from this can be summarized into a few main points of interest. The information to
the workshops provided by Scania is quite good already. However, it is not adapted to
the needs of the employees of the workshops, and it does not keep up with the rapidly
changing technology in the trucks. Furthermore, there is a lot of knowledge among the
employees of the workshops that could be made useful for the whole organisation.
What is needed is therefore ways for the workshop employees to influence the
information, knowledge and education that they receive, ways for them to share their
knowledge with others and a more efficient distribution of information. These matters
could be realized with knowledge management involving among other things an
increased use of information technology, routines and open channels to give feedback,
increased communication and more clearly defined roles and responsibilities in the
whole organization.
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Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
SAMMANFATTNING..................................................................................................................................1
ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................................................................2
1
INTRODUCTION..............................................................................................................................5
THE AUTHORS AND THE REPORT ....................................................................................................5
PROBLEM BACKGROUND .................................................................................................................5
GUIDELINES FROM SCANIA ..............................................................................................................7
PURPOSE..........................................................................................................................................7
FURTHER STRUCTURE OF THIS THESIS .............................................................................................7
Layout...................................................................................................................................................7
Helpful hints .........................................................................................................................................8
1.6
SCANIA ............................................................................................................................................8
1.7
CLARIFICATION OF THE RESEARCH PROBLEM ..................................................................................9
1.7.1 Clarification ............................................................................................................................10
1.7.2 Delimitations...........................................................................................................................10
1.7.3 Clarified Research problems...................................................................................................12
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
1.5
2
METHODOLOGY...........................................................................................................................13
HOW THE STUDY WAS CONDUCTED ...............................................................................................13
OUR APPROACH .............................................................................................................................14
2.2.1 The alignment of the study ......................................................................................................14
2.2.2 Collection of data....................................................................................................................15
2.3
THE QUALITY OF THE STUDY .........................................................................................................17
2.3.1 Validity & Reliability ..............................................................................................................17
2.3.2 Sources of error ......................................................................................................................18
2.1
2.2
3
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK..................................................................................................25
3.1
3.2
3.3
INTRODUCTION TO THE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK .....................................................................25
OUR MODEL OF FIVE PROBLEM SITUATIONS ...................................................................................26
KNOWLEDGE .................................................................................................................................28
3.3.1 Tacit Knowledge .....................................................................................................................29
3.3.2 Explicit Knowledge .................................................................................................................30
3.3.3 Learning ..................................................................................................................................31
3.3.4 Knowledge Management.........................................................................................................38
3.4
OUR KNOWLEDGE IDENTIFICATION MODEL ...................................................................................49
3.5
ENABLERS .....................................................................................................................................50
3.5.1 Glancing at a knowledge management firm............................................................................51
3.5.2 Presenting our enablers ..........................................................................................................51
3.5.3 Intention ..................................................................................................................................52
3.5.4 Resources ................................................................................................................................53
3.5.5 Information Technology ..........................................................................................................54
3.5.6 Culture & Organization ..........................................................................................................57
4
EMPIRICAL STUDY ......................................................................................................................63
4.1
4.2
4.3
INTRODUCTION TO THE EMPIRICAL STUDY.....................................................................................63
THE WORKSHOP PROCESS ..............................................................................................................63
KNOWLEDGE .................................................................................................................................65
4.3.1 Tacit Knowledge .....................................................................................................................65
4.3.2 Explicit Knowledge .................................................................................................................67
4.3.3 Learning ..................................................................................................................................76
4.4
ENABLERS .....................................................................................................................................85
4.4.1 Intention ..................................................................................................................................85
4.4.2 Resources ................................................................................................................................86
4.4.3 Information Technology ..........................................................................................................86
4.4.4 Culture & Organization ..........................................................................................................88
4.5
BENCHMARK .................................................................................................................................89
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Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
Phasing in the new system..................................................................................................................89
Problems ............................................................................................................................................90
Benefits...............................................................................................................................................91
5
ANALYSIS........................................................................................................................................93
5.1
5.2
INTRODUCTION TO THE ANALYSIS .................................................................................................93
COMBINING THEORY AND REALITY................................................................................................93
5.2.1 Recap of how the knowledge identification model works........................................................93
5.2.2 Applying the model on Scania.................................................................................................94
5.3
SUMMING-UP KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT .................................................................................111
6
CONCLUSIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS.............................................................................113
6.1
6.2
THE KNOWLEDGE IDENTIFICATION MODEL ..................................................................................113
RECOMMENDATIONS TO SCANIA .................................................................................................114
6.2.1 Education ..............................................................................................................................114
6.2.2 Networking ............................................................................................................................115
6.2.3 Feedback ...............................................................................................................................115
6.2.4 Information Technology ........................................................................................................117
6.2.5 Culture & Organization ........................................................................................................118
6.2.6 Intentions & Resources .........................................................................................................121
6.3
CAN WE GENERALIZE OUR CONCLUSIONS? ..................................................................................122
6.4
THE QUALITY OF OUR STUDY .......................................................................................................123
6.4.1 The knowledge identification model......................................................................................123
6.4.2 Structure................................................................................................................................123
6.4.3 Reliability & Validity ............................................................................................................124
6.5
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH AND STUDIES ......................................................124
7
REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................................126
LITERATURE ................................................................................................................................126
7.1.1 Books and articles .................................................................................................................126
7.1.2 Indirect references ................................................................................................................128
7.2
INTERVIEWS ................................................................................................................................129
7.2.1 Personnel at Scania CV AB...................................................................................................129
7.2.2 Personnel at Scania's Distributors & workshops..................................................................130
7.2.3 External Sources ...................................................................................................................131
7.1
APPENDICES
APPENDIX 1: QUANTIFYING THE VALUE OF SOME COSTS
APPENDIX 2: MEASURING FREQUENCY OF CAUSES OF PROBLEMS
APPENDIX 3: INTERVIEW GUIDE FOR DISTRIBUTORS
APPENDIX 4: INTERVIEW GUIDE FOR WORKSHOPS
APPENDIX 5: INTERVIEW GUIDE FOR BENCHMARK
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Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
1 INTRODUCTION
This chapter gives a brief introduction to the thesis. We describe the background to
the thesis, the problem situation and the task that Scania gave us, which leads us to
the purpose of the study. We continue with some helpful hints for you as a reader, a
short description of Scania, and we conclude by clarifying our research problem to
identify more concretely which question this thesis answers. After this, we hope that
the reader agrees with what we should do so that we can turn to how we did it and
why in Methodology.
1.1 THE AUTHORS AND THE REPORT
This report constitutes a master’s thesis in Economic Information
Systems at Linköping Institute of Technology in Sweden. The master’s
thesis forms the concluding part of a Master of Science in Industrial
Engineering and Management, an education attended by both authors.
1.2 PROBLEM BACKGROUND
If we look at producers of technologically advanced products, the market
support of repairing these products demands advanced technical
information about the product and great skills from the people executing
the task. Since reality today also involves frequent product changes, it is
difficult for the documentation and education to keep up, and the
employees are confronted with problems they have never seen before. For
the repair and maintenance process to be efficient, and to spend as little
time as possible solving technical problems, a well-developed system for
providing relevant information and knowledge is of great importance.
On a global market with tough competition, the efficiency of the
workshop is critical when it comes to keeping the customers. In
management literature and in an increasing number of industries we can
see a growing interest in customer relations management. The importance
of doing business focused on the customers is essential. Heavy-truck
producer Scania has a decentralized service network for their trucks of
around 1000 workshops in Europe. These workshops have a considerable
influence on customer satisfaction and customer retention as well as a
major impact on Scania’s brand image. Moreover, the customer demands
are increasing. The customers want longer opening hours, well educated
mechanics and high availability on parts and service. Good service is today
a prerequisite for selling. Furthermore, since more and more of sales come
from service contracts, the workshop efficiency has a big impact on
workshop costs. Consequently, the workshops are of crucial importance
for Scania’s profitability, which is good. According to Porter1, companies
1
Michael E Porter, 1990, The competitive advantage of nations, p. 73-75
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Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
gain advantage against the world’s best competitors because of pressure
and challenge. They benefit from having strong domestic rivals, aggressive
home based suppliers and demanding local customers. But, as he further
argues, once a company achieves competitive advantage through an
innovation, it can sustain it only through relentless improvement, which is
what we will address in this thesis.
The customers expect to get the service done quickly, correctly and at a
reasonable price. Hence the learning process turns out to be crucial; only a
skilled mechanic can do the job quickly and correctly. Therefore, we want
to put the term knowledge worker in a new focus. Traditionally it is applied
to management consultants and similar, but we think that the mechanics
are knowledge workers as well and that the workshop management needs
to learn and devote more of their attention to knowledge management,
that is managing this asset, knowledge, in a conscious way. As the Swedish
technical attachés maintain, the global competition puts great demand on
competence and the demands on organizations to have high flexibility
increases. They argue that the importance of the company-specific
knowledge increases and a steep curve of learning is essential for the
companies’ ability to compete and develop. 2 In addition, Penrose3 argues
that it is never resources themselves that are the inputs in the production
process, but only the services that resources can render. Services are a
function of the experience and knowledge accumulated within the firm,
and thus firm specific. In essence, the firm is a repository of knowledge.
These two, learning and knowledge, are thus two essential factors in our
thesis.
Given the big importance for both brand image and profitability, the
people at Scania need to find out how they can support their front line
people, the ones who meet the customers. There are several projects at
Scania aimed at changing the distribution of information to the
workshops, but not so many focusing on what kind of information, or
other support, the workshops really need. For this thesis we were assigned
by Scania to study how better information support can improve the
efficiency in their workshop processes, by visiting workshops and
mapping their needs. We accepted the assignment since we found it very
interesting and well worth exploring. We think that the problem at hand is
similar for other businesses with the same organizational structure as
Scania, that is centralized production and a decentralized service
organization and which also, like Scania, are producers of technologically
advanced and continuously changing products.
2
3
Sveriges tekniska attacheer, 1999, Knowledge Management, preface
Edith P Penrose 1959, The theory of the growth of the firm, referred to in Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995, p. 34
6
Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
We started with a rather vague problem description from Scania, but as
our work proceeded, with interviews at Scania and workshop visits, the
picture of what we really needed to study in order for Scania to enhance
the workshop efficiency grew clearer. We needed to take an all-embracing
grasp on the ones who have close contact with Scania’s customers, the
employees in the workshops. Since we are looking at technologically
advanced products, repairing these calls for advanced technical
information about the product and great skills from the people executing
the task. Today there are many sources and recipients of information and
knowledge, different carriers of this and varying channels. The department
responsible for producing technical information at Scania produces
information of their own, but the main input comes from the research and
development department and the production facilities. But if we widen the
horizon and look at the whole organization, are there more sources to be
found, and which infrastructure for feedback would that require?
1.3 GUIDELINES FROM SCANIA
Our original task from Scania was “to define areas where better
information support can improve the primary processes in our
workshops. Analyses of these areas should result in a broad action plan
and define critical success factors”. We should only consider trucks, not
buses or industrial and marine engines that are also Scania products.
Moreover, we were to concentrate on Europe although Scania is
established worldwide. But we were also given great freedom, which has
resulted in a slightly different purpose.
1.4 PURPOSE
The purpose of this Masters Thesis is to map and classify the needs of
information and knowledge in repair and maintenance workshops. The
purpose is also to explain which courses of action an organization can
take to meet these needs, and what enables these actions and how, in
order to increase the workshops’ efficiency. Our focus is on the repair and
maintenance workshops at Scania, and to regard a larger picture we also
look at various parts of the organization that the workshops are the most
affected by in this context.
1.5 FURTHER STRUCTURE OF THIS THESIS
LAYOUT
The remaining part of this report is arranged as follows:
1.6 Scania
A short description of the company Scania.
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Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
1.7 Clarification of the research problem
As the title suggests, we clarify the research problem by specifying our
direction and delimitations and then explain what exact questions we will
answer in this study.
2 Method
How we conducted the study and the possible consequences of that.
3 Theoretical Framework
What more erudite people have thought about the issues and results from
other studies concerning similar objectives.
4 Empirical study
What we have found during our field study, our interviews at Scania and
from written internal reports.
5 Analysis
Here we combine our theoretical framework with our empirical findings
in an analysis.
6 Conclusions and Recommendations
The cream on the mash! This is where we draw conclusions from our
analysis and present our recommendations to Scania.
HELPFUL HINTS
The name of the parent company is Scania CV AB, but in the report we
will only use the term the “Factory” when we mean Scania CV AB since
this is the in-house denotation. When we speak of any of Scania's
workshops, we simply refer to it as a workshop and likewise with dealers
and distributors, which will be explained below in the paragraph about
Scania.
We will continuously refer to our field study. With this we mean the four
weeks that we spent visiting workshops, dealers and distributors.
In the report we will not write both he/she, his/her and similar but only
he and his and so forth, for the sake of simplicity.
1.6 SCANIA
Scania was founded in 1891 and has since then been a producer of many
different kinds of vehicles. In one hundred years, they have delivered
more than one million trucks. Today the company is a producer of
industrial and marine engines, buses and heavy trucks. On the truck
market they are among the top ten companies in the world selling 46.000
trucks last year and with 36.000 trucks in Europe they share the second
place with Volvo after Mercedes. Scania is represented by national
distributors, of which they own 50 percent and the rest are independent, in
8
Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
approximately 100 countries. Worldwide there are more than 25.000
employees, whereof 22.000 in Europe.
Scania’s organization in Europe consists of the Factory in Södertälje and
national distributors in most countries. There are also production facilities
in Sweden, Denmark, Poland, the Netherlands and France. The
distributors support and co-ordinate the activities of the Scania dealers in
the respective countries. There are approximately 850 Scania dealers in
Europe who have one or more workshops each. This sums up to about
1000 workshops with roughly 10.000 mechanics and the same number of
administrative employees.4 The sizes of the workshops vary a lot, from 2
to over 30 mechanics plus other personnel.
Originally, most dealers were small family businesses. Today a national
distributor that is often owned by the Factory owns the majority of the
dealers. The philosophy of Scania is that they should only buy businesses
that need to improve, so that they can influence and change the business.
Therefore, they do not actively aim at buying all the dealers and all the
distributors.
As a result of the owner structure, the different entities of Scania’s
organization are quite independent. The Factory signs contracts with the
distributors, who sign contracts with the dealers, and these contracts are
the Factory’s way to influence the businesses of the distributors and the
dealers. Among other things in the contract, the dealers are committed to
work according to Scania’s Dealer Operating Standards. These standards
form a part of Scania’s Codes of Practice, guidelines that are aimed at
making all dealers and distributors work uniformly and reach up to a high
level of service. The Codes of Practice are rather new to Scania, but as
competition increases they have noticed that they need something to
ensure good service for the customers from the whole organization.
However, the use of Codes of Practice is still controversial for some
people at the Factory, who think that the Factory should not interfere
with the distributors and the dealers.
1.7 CLARIFICATION OF THE RESEARCH PROBLEM
To make the purpose of our study clearer we here present further
clarification of the problem that we are to study. Together with our
delimitations this leads to the clarified research problem where our
purpose has been decomposed into four specific questions that this thesis
will answer.
4
All figures come from Scania's information department, 2000-03-09
9
Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
1.7.1 CLARIFICATION
In the description of the problem background we stated that the
workshop employees need information and knowledge to work efficiently
and meet customer demands. However, there is an overflow of
information in an organization such as Scania, and many things to be
knowledgeable about. Our purpose with this study is to find out what the
needs of information and knowledge in a workshop really are and how
these needs can be met.
To meet the needs of knowledge and information one has to think about
the sources, recipients, channels and carriers, that is where the
information and knowledge comes from, who needs it and for what,
which way it is spread and by what means. Today technical information to
the workshops comes mainly from one source, the department for
technical information at the Factory. However, the information created
there originates from some other sources, mainly the research and
development department. In an organization with 25.000 employees there
must be an incredible amount of knowledge and information, and it is
easy to think that some of this knowledge and information could be of use
for others in the organization if spread. When it comes to technical
information, there are perhaps more sources to be found in the
organization than at the department for research and development. If so,
the organization needs to find a way to find and capture this information
and knowledge to be able to make use of it. However, it is not enough
only to capture the information and knowledge. To make good use of this
large amount of knowledge and information the organization also needs
to find ways of managing it appropriately.
1.7.2 DELIMITATIONS
OBJECTIVE DELIMITATIONS
We study how to support the process of repairing a continuously changing
product, and the situation on the market is changing in many ways just
like the demands on the employees. It would have been natural for us to
study the effects and management of change in an organization. However,
our purpose spans such a vast field that we have been forced to set some
matters aside, and change management is one of them.
Our focus in the workshops is on the mechanics. Although the people in
the spare parts warehouse and the customer receptionists are of crucial
importance for the workshop, we have not studied their problems as
closely as the mechanics’. For example, we have assumed that they are
capable of performing their routine tasks, while the tasks that the
mechanics are confronted with, routine or non-routine, and the
mechanics’ capabilities are factors that we have studied thoroughly.
10
Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
Furthermore we have not considered the special problems that can arise
in connection with field tests or trucks for demonstration.
Learning is an essential part of our study but we will not discuss theories
on cognitive learning or other theories related to modern psychology.
Furthermore, we will not consider e-learning, that is training provided on
the Internet, even though we know that it could probably be very
interesting for our purpose.
We have a focus on technical information in our study but we will not
delve into the specific content, rather the form and structure of it.
Our study includes distribution of information and information
technology. However, despite the fact that the scientists now even have
found a way to transfer data with quantum mechanics instead of
electrotechnology5, or the presence of important and more well known
enablers like XML, TCP/IP and Blue Tooth to name a few, we did not
have the time nor the knowledge to do this complex domain justice.
Instead we refer to the vast amount of technical literature that treats these
technical issues more closely.
We are looking at workshop efficiency and one obvious thing that would
increase this would be to give more attention to how a truck is repaired
and maintained already in the construction of the trucks. Today the focus
is on the manufacturing of the trucks to minimize the production time.
This leads to that some costs are cut while others are simply postponed
and amplified. But since we have not had the time to look into this matter
thoroughly we have decided to leave the issue for further studies.
Another problem is that the producers of information do not get the
information to the workshops on time when there are new products. One
reason for this is that if the information reaches the workshops and
dealers before the new truck is on the market, some workshops will have
the information long before the introduction since the introduction does
not take place simultaneously all over Europe. If the dealers have this
information it is likely that they will not sell the old truck or the old parts
to their customers but they will advice them to wait for the introduction,
while the Factory does not want the sales to go down on the old truck in
advance. Consequently they keep the workshops unaware on purpose, for
business reasons that are hard to get around. This is also an area we have
decided not to study thoroughly thus leaving the issue for further studies.
DELIMITATIONS DUE TO TIME AND COST REASONS
We have visited workshops and distributors in only four countries. This
number confines the degree to which we can generalize our findings to
5
Ny Teknik, issue 6, February 2000, p.25
11
Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
other countries. Nevertheless, we think that the problems that we have
identified are general and what separates different countries is how far
they have to go to reach what we propose.
Moreover, we have only studied one company, Scania, closely, and our
results are based on our findings in this company. This may limit the
generalization of the results primarily to other organizations. By
conducting a case study on one company, however, we hope to be able to
develop a thorough understanding of that company instead of vague
opinions of several organizations. Moreover, since we do want to
generalize our findings both for Scania’s global organization and also for
industries similar to Scania, we have interviewed other companies as well,
but these interviews constitute a very small part of our study and are not
the basis for our conclusions.
As a result of our study we have given suggestions on how the use of
information and knowledge can be improved, but we have not made so
many calculations on the benefits or the costs involved in the realization
of our suggestions. Our results would certainly have benefited from more
complex calculations but we have only been able to carry out a few minor
calculations within our time frame (see appendix 1). It is difficult to
determine the value of specific knowledge management initiatives in
monetary terms, and we did not feel that we were able to make larger
calculations convincing within the scope of the thesis without being out of
our depths.
1.7.3 CLARIFIED RESEARCH PROBLEMS
We have now given you the background to the problem at hand, defined
our purpose and accounted for the delimitations we have made. The
purpose of our study is now divided into five main sub-questions to
explain what we will do more concretely:
• Which kinds of information and knowledge do the employees in the
workshops need for our purpose?
• Which sources, channels and carriers of information and knowledge
should be used, and how can they support the workshops in the most
efficient way?
• How can the organization capture the information and knowledge that
stems from solving the problems encountered in workshops in
particular and in the rest of the organization in general?
• When captured, how can the organization manage and make use of
this information and knowledge in the learning process?
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Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
2 METHODOLOGY
Now the problem background is described, our purpose defined, the delimitations
accounted for and our research problem clarified. We hope that the reader agrees
with what we should do. Now we will describe how we did it and why. For the reader to
be able to judge our work, this chapter presents the method by which this study has
been conducted. Our approach and the quality of the study are described in detail,
discussing different sources of error. Following this chapter is the Theoretical
Framework where we discuss theories on the subject.
2.1 HOW THE STUDY WAS CONDUCTED
The time we had at our disposal for this study was twentyfour weeks. This
time can be divided into three parts, the first consisting of five weeks.
During this period we learned about the organization and tried to define
the problem we had to solve. The second part of the study consisted of
eleven weeks when we combined field studies with studies of existing
theories within our line of work and also continued to learn about the
processes of the studied organization. In all, we have spent four weeks “in
the field” during this period. Finally, the last eight weeks of our study have
been reserved for additional interviews inside and outside the
organization, and for the analysis of our work and the completion of the
documentation. All periods do overlap though, but to give a general idea,
this is how it was done.
It took us a long time to understand the situation and the problems we
had to study. In all, apart from our field studies, we interviewed more than
30 employees at the Factory. For about 10 weeks we were looking for the
questions to ask at the same time as we looked for the answers to these
same questions. Several times during the study we have stumbled into
areas completely unknown to us, but that we have thought to have an
importance for our study. In these cases we have had to search for ways
to learn about it, sometimes by finding experts to talk to and sometimes
through articles and literature.
Apart from the interviews at the Factory and the visits to different
distributors and workshops, we needed a deeper understanding within
different fields to be able to understand the processes at Scania, identify
the problems and propose changes. The companies we contacted were
Andersen Consulting and Cepro Management, with whom we discussed
Knowledge Management. Furthermore our understanding on how
modern technology enables information handling was important so we
spoke to KPMG about the Data Warehouse concept. In addition we
interviewed three other companies, Ericsson, SAS and Jungheinrich, that
have come further than Scania in implementing a computerized solution
of information distribution to their corresponding repair and maintenance
workshops. We will get back to this later in paragraph 4.4 Benchmark. We
13
Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
chose the companies from the criteria that we wanted to look at; large,
geographically dispersed producers, with centralized production and
decentralized repair and maintenance of constantly changing technically
advanced products. We contacted a few companies that we thought would
fit this description and that we thought would have come further than
Scania. Only in one case our guessing was wrong and then we contacted
another company. What might have been better would have been to have
taken the criteria, applied them on numerous companies and analyzed
which is the best company to study. But we did not want to spend that
amount of time on the benchmark and we think that our method was
sufficient.
2.2 OUR APPROACH
2.2.1 THE ALIGNMENT OF THE STUDY
We have done a qualitative case study. The difference between a
qualitative and a quantitative study, according to Lekvall and Wahlbin6 is
that in the qualitative one the author gathers, analyses and interprets data
that cannot be quantified in a meaningful way. In a quantitative study the
gathered material is expressed in numbers and analyzed quantitatively, and
this was not possible with our material.
What we could have done was to do a survey. We could have designed a
questionnaire, sent it out to a number of workshops and distributors and
presented our findings more in the form of statistics. However, we did not
find this method suitable for our purpose. The reasons for this are firstly
that it is a complex area and we wanted a deeper understanding of the
situation in workshops today. Our study should be focusing on the
workshops’ needs and this deeper understanding cannot be attained
without qualitative research within our time frame. Secondly, when we
started out we did not know all the aspects we should study. Hence we
were looking for answers at the same time as we looked for the
corresponding questions during the first part of our study. We would not
have found the questions without our field study, thus a questionnaire
would not have served our purpose. In addition, looking at the theories of
media richness (figure 2.1), it gives a rather clear explanation when a
questionnaire is suitable (low complexity of task) and when one needs to
conduct face to face interviews (high complexity of task).
6
Per Lekvall & Clas Wahlbin, 1993, Information för marknadsföringsbeslut, p. 141
14
Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
The richness of
the medium
Face to face
Video
conference
Efficient
communication
Telephone
E-mail
Letter
Numeric
material
Complexity of the task
Low
High
Figure 2.1: Media Richness
In the following paragraphs we will get back to the advantages of having
face to face interviews a number of times.
Our purpose is explanatory. We will clarify the connection between cause
and effect, how different factors are connected and how they affect each
other within the chosen area. According to Lekvall and Wahlbin (1993 p.
129), it is common that some possible explanatory factors are the focal
point of significance in a study with an explanatory purpose. In the
attempt to design such a study, they mean that it is of crucial importance
that one considers these factors carefully since the whole study can be
worthless without them. We tried to monitor this risk by not determining
which factors to study and which not to until we felt that we had grasped
the situation at the workshops.
2.2.2 COLLECTION OF DATA
We have collected two types of data; primary and secondary. The
secondary data was collected primarily in the beginning of the study, but
also continuously during our work. We studied a lot of material - travel
reports, project memos, the company’s intranet and other documents from the organization, to get a broad understanding of the problem we
were to solve. In addition, we have studied literature and articles in the
relevant field of research.
We have used personal interviews, telephone interviews and observations
to collect primary data. The interviews were conducted as semi-structured
interviews, using an interview guide (Appendices 3, 4 and 5), with only
one respondent and with groups of respondents. The character of these
interviews has depended largely on which part of the study we were in. In
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Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
the beginning we were trying to get an overview of our problem, and as
we learned more about it we could make more specific questions and our
interview guides evolved. During our fieldwork we combined the
interviews with observations. An observation can be open or hidden, and
the observer can participate actively or passively (Holme & Solvang7). We
conducted open observations, meaning that the people we observed knew
that we were there and why we were there, and we participated passively,
without influencing the observed groups actively. As observers we were
able to look, listen and ask questions, and this way learn about
connections between different actors in the workshops and reactions to
certain situations. We soon realized that the information we received
during the interviews could be contradicted as we were observing a certain
situation. However, by asking again and interviewing more people we
believe that we have always found the reason for the contradiction.
The people at the Factory have been very helpful in finding interesting
material for us to read and the right people for us to interview. But the
size of the organization, and the fact that our study affects many different
departments, has complicated our search for relevant information. Not
only in terms of finding it all, but also in terms of selecting out of the vast
source of information we encountered.
At the Factory our supervisor chose the respondents for our first few
interviews according to who he thought it would be useful for us to talk
to. At these interviews we received the names of more people to interview
about certain issues, and it continued like this during the whole study. As
we learned about the problems we were to study, and the factors affecting
them, we also learned who we could interview about these issues. We did
not have any problems of getting appointments with the people that we
wanted to interview, and they were all relaxed and took the time we
needed to talk to them.
During our field study we conducted some different kinds of interviews.
We talked mostly to technical experts and service managers at the
distributors’ and with all kinds of personnel in the workshops. With the
employees at the distributors the interviews were mostly like the
interviews at the Factory, sitting in an office or at a coffee table with
plenty of time to ask questions. With the employees at the workshops the
situation was often different and less calm. Normally we interviewed the
mechanics, one by one or several at a time, standing in the workshop next
to the trucks. Since we spent between two and five days in most of the
workshops we had the opportunity to interview the same persons on
multiple occasions.
7
I. Holme & B. Solvang, 1997, Forskningsmetodik – om kvalitativa och kvantitativa metoder, p. 111-116
16
Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
2.3 THE QUALITY OF THE STUDY
2.3.1 VALIDITY & RELIABILITY
Validity concerns whether the method for measuring the collected data is
in accordance with the researcher’s purpose of what should be measured
(Lekvall & Wahlbin, 1993, p. 211). It also concerns whether or not the
findings are applicable in other situations apart from the one studied, the
generality of the results. The reliability of a study has to do with its ability
to withstand the influences of chance (Lekvall & Wahlbin, 1993, p. 213).
A study has a high reliability if different and independent observations of
the same phenomenon give more or less the same results (Lekvall &
Wahlbin, 1993, p. 213 and Holme & Solvang, 1997).
To assure good validity and reliability in our study, we have interviewed as
many people as possible at various different functions in the studied
organization, both at management level and at the operational level. We
have also interviewed people from other organizations familiar with the
problems we have studied. Apart from just increasing the validity of the
study, this has also allowed us to understand both the strategic and the
operational factors that may influence our results and that our findings
might influence.
When it comes to the secondary data used for our study we can of course
not be sure to have found everything that concerns our work. There is a
vast amount of literature to chose from in this field of research, and we
cannot know if we have found the most relevant books and articles. Also,
when it comes to secondary data from Scania, the size of the organization
has complicated our search for relevant information as mentioned above.
Altogether we feel that we have a slightly confused picture of the
organization and its shortcomings and strengths. But in the vast amount
of information we have gathered, we have seen patterns clear enough to
work with and draw conclusions from.
Efforts have been made continuously during our study to secure a good
reliability in the results. As we will explain further in the following
paragraphs, both of us have always been present during the interviews to
eliminate variations due to different interviewers, and have conducted
deep interviews and asked the same questions to several people to avoid
the influence of chance. We have read internal reports on smaller studies
and interviewed many employees at the Factory. Their observations are
independent from ours and often from each other’s as well, but give in
many cases the same results as ours. In the cases we have found
differences, we have generally been able to explain where they have
originated, and thereby we believe that our observations are still reliable.
17
Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
2.3.2 SOURCES OF ERROR
Directly related to the questions of validity and reliability are the possible
sources of error. Lekvall & Wahlbin (1993, p.246) present five sources of
error occurring from the beginning of a research to the final analysis and
conclusion. Some of these errors are possible to eliminate, others can be
reduced and some are impossible to influence. In the following
paragraphs we discuss how these sources of error may have affected the
quality of our work.
DECISION OF ANALYSIS
Errors in the decision of analysis means that the purpose of the study has
been badly defined or incomplete, so that it does not correspond to the
problem situation that the study is aimed at. This may lead to that the
study does not answer the right questions even though it serves its
purpose. This kind of errors generally occurs if the analysis of the
problem situation is incorrect. It can also come from a misunderstanding
between the people the study is conducted for and the researcher. (Lekvall
& Wahlbin, 1993, p. 246)
In this study we have been given a lot of freedom when it comes to
defining the problem situation and the purpose. In the beginning the
scope of the purpose was quite vague, which lead us to spend a significant
amount of time specifying it. There is a risk that we have understood the
situation differently than it really is and thus got an incorrect angle of the
study. In an effort to avoid this type of errors we have had continuous
contacts with our supervisor and a reference group, seven people from
different positions at the Factory, and they have helped us focus on the
right things. We have also had extensive contacts with other interested,
and interesting, people within the Scania organization, who have pointed
out important aspects of the problem to us. There have been several
projects aimed at improving the information for the workshops and
developing an Intranet for them conducted parallel to our study.
Therefore the purpose of our study has been discussed with the involved
people to avoid duplicating work. Regular contacts with our supervisor at
the university have helped us find a reasonable scope and a scientific
correctness of the study, along with helping us with questions and making
us aware about areas we should look deeper into.
RESEARCH PROBLEM
Errors in the research problem are closely related to errors in the decision
analysis and mean that the clarification of the research problem has not
been made the right way or with too few details. The delimitations can be
wrong and some important questions can have fallen out of the study.
18
Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
Errors in the purpose most definitely lead to errors in the research
problem, just as a well-defined purpose decreases the risk for going in the
wrong direction or getting the wrong content of the research. Having
properly defined the purpose and the focus of the study through
continuous discussions about our work with our supervisor and reference
group, we feel that the risk of losing track of what we should do has been
minimized.
CHOICE OF METHOD
This type of error practically always appears when there is an interest of
generalizing the results of an investigation outside of the actual study.
Sources of error in the choice of method appear in three different shapes.
First of all, there might be errors in the frame of the investigated
population. The coverage might be too large or too small compared to the
target population. Secondly, the loss of chosen respondents might be too
large or the missed respondents could systematically differ from the
others in relevant questions. The third source of error is the error of
selection, meaning that the selection is non-representative for the targeted
population. (Lekvall & Wahlbin, 1993, p. 247)
The results of our study are meant to be generalized first of all for Scania’s
European market and secondly for their global market and other similar
organizations. Out of about one thousand Scania workshops in Europe
we have conducted an in-depth study of five workshops and a smaller
study on two workshops in four countries. It is difficult to say if this is
enough to draw any conclusions or not, but from what we have seen and
learned during these visits we feel that the amount of investigated
workshops has been sufficient, since more or less the same problems have
appeared in each place. However, it is important to note that we have only
visited countries in Western Europe. Although our study is supposed to
be generalized for at least the whole of Europe we would like to point out
that the conclusions we have come to are drawn only upon visits to
Western Europe where 96 percent of the sales on the European market
are. We have read reports and we have been told about the situation in
Eastern Europe, but as other internal information sources they give
fragments rather than a clear picture of the whole situation. We have the
impression that there are quite extensive differences between Eastern and
Western Europe on some issues. In Eastern Europe for example, one
must consider that new markets lack experienced mechanics to a large
extent. In the workshops we have visited the experienced mechanics are
an important source of knowledge and information to the rest of the
mechanics. Consequently, the mechanics on the emerging markets will to
an even higher degree be dependent on good technical information and
training. This particular aspect only leads to that our study is even more
important to them. Nevertheless, there are certainly aspects that we do
19
Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
not know about that can question the degree to which we can generalize
our study.
As a result of the delimitations of time and money we had to make a
selection of European workshops to study. Since we are not the ones with
all the experience in this matter, we have completely trusted our
supervisor and other involved people at the Factory to make this
selection. Their opinions of representative and/or interesting markets to
study have differed a lot. Finally, our own language skills and the
respective markets’ ability to receive us during a week, made us choose
four countries – Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and France – to
represent Europe. Whether the problem situations in these countries
correspond to some “general problem situation” or not is hard to say.
Reading other reports and talking to involved people we have tried to find
out as much as possible about other markets, to see if what we have found
is valid in other places as well. We have learned that some aspects of the
problem are specific to certain countries, and this knowledge will be used
in our analysis. Also, we feel that we have found that the main features of
the problem situation are the same in all workshops, regardless of country,
and we therefore hope that our selection of workshops can be considered
representative for all the others considering our purpose.
Something that can have affected our results is the fact that three of the
visited workshops are situated close to a distributor and/or a central
warehouse which are both important sources of information, both in a
formal and in an informal way. Hence, these workshops can be a bit better
off than other workshops in general, and since they exert great influence
on our study there is a risk that our results are not as general as we think.
It might be that we have underestimated the significance of the problems
we encountered and we might also not have encountered all the problems
we would have if we had visited other workshops as well.
Thanks to the large amount of time that we have spent in each workshop
we feel that the loss of respondents in this study has reached a minimum.
However, due to the limited time that we could spend in each place, it has
been impossible for us to meet exactly everyone that could have provided
us with interesting information.
COLLECTION OF DATA
For this study we have used both primary and secondary data. However,
the amount of secondary data used in our empirical study is very small
compared to the amount of primary data. Some problems that might
occur while using secondary data arise since the data has been collected at
a different time and with a different purpose from our particular study,
but due to the insignificant use of this type of data our work need not be
affected by it.
20
Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
Primary data, on the other hand, is the base for our study and was
collected through interviews and observations. The ideal situation would
be that our presence did not affect the people we observed and the
actions taken, but we have been aware at all times that this is not the case.
However, we have tried to get a casual and relaxed relation to the people
we have observed, to influence them to the least possible extent and as far
as we can judge, the information gathered has not been noticeably
affected by our presence.
According to Lekvall & Wahlbin (1993, p. 247-248) there are three
sources of errors in measurement while collecting data in interviews.
These are the respondent, the interviewer, and the instruments used.
The respondent
Errors originating from the respondent can appear if the respondent does
not want to, or is unable to, give the correct answers. The respondent can
also try to look good by giving the answers that he thinks the interviewer
wants. These errors depend a lot on the respondents’ will to co-operate,
his interest in the matters discussed and the time available for the
interview. There can also be misinterpretations due both to the
interviewer and the respondent. During our interviews with employees of
the workshop the respondents may have been affected by the way that the
interviews were conducted. Many times we interviewed more than one
mechanic at a time, and it is very likely that they affected each other’s
answers. We also conducted many of the interviews with the mechanics
standing in the workshop next the trucks, and another environment might
have given different answers. However, as we have already mentioned we
spent quite a lot of time in each workshop. This meant that we had the
opportunity to talk to the same persons several times, and not only
standing next to the trucks but also in a calmer environment at the coffee
or lunch table.
We have tried to decrease the influence of the above factors of the
respondents by informing each respondent of our study before the
interviews, and by making sure the respondent has had enough time to
talk to us. Another important matter is that we have tried to adapt our
questions to each respondent since many of them have been specialists
with a lot of knowledge within a limited field. Thanks to the loose
structure of our interviews, with only the interview guide (Appendices 3,4
and 5) to follow, our questions have developed while talking to the
respondents according to their particular interests and knowledge.
Naturally this has given us a lot of freedom, but it also brings out a risk of
giving too much importance to extreme aspects of our problem. This risk
we feel that we have monitored by the rather large number of interviews
we have done which we hope have given us the balance needed.
21
Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
The interviewer
One of the main disadvantages of interviews is the effect the interviewer
can have on the respondent. The interviewer can intentionally or
unintentionally influence the respondent (Lekvall & Wahlbin, 1993,
p.248). We have tried to minimize the effect of the interviewer the same
way that we tried to minimize the effect of the respondent, by being
prepared, having enough time and by keeping a loose structure of the
interviews to enable the respondents to speak freely. But of course, the
only way to completely eliminate the influence of the interviewer is by not
being present, which in our case is impossible.
One possibility is that the respondent sees the interviewer as a person
with particular interests or as an instrument for somebody. During our
interviews we often felt that the respondents, especially in the workshops,
were a bit suspicious, almost as if they felt threatened by us, since we
came from the Factory to “investigate them”. This situation normally
changed when we pointed out that we were students, not employed by the
Factory, conducting a study aimed at improving their situation. We believe
that the respondents perceived our position as external people as positive
since we could more easily be objective and open to different opinions.
Language and cultural differences can also influence the collected data.
Our study was conducted in four countries, leading to four different
language situations for the interviewers and the respondents. Naturally,
this has increased the risk of misunderstandings and lost information. We
believe that by being aware of this, and by sending back a report of our
notes to people in the studied workshops for confirmation and correction,
the risk for misinterpretations was kept low. An advantage of the
differences of language and culture is that we investigated some matters
more thoroughly just to make sure we got it right, than we would have if
the whole study were conducted in Sweden. Furthermore we would not
have encountered issues due to the different national cultures if we had
conducted the whole study in Sweden.
Answers can be interpreted differently by different interviewers and the
questions asked might have an unclear formulation and be asked
indistinctly. To avoid these problems both of us have been present at
every interview, and we feel that being face to face with the respondent
has made it possible to see if he misunderstood a question, felt
uncomfortable with it or did not understand it. This has given us a
possibility to explain the question or ask more questions on a certain
topic. We have also been able to ask the same questions to various people,
to verify the information. This has been very interesting since we have
often received different answers from different people to the same
22
Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
question, which has made us investigate these issues further which has led
to a deeper understanding of the issue at hand and what is behind it.
In order to remember everything the respondents said both of us took
notes that were transcribed shortly after each interview. To make sure we
did not misunderstand the respondents we sent a written report to the
distributors and workshops of how we had understood their answers for
comments and corrections. We have only received comments from the
workshop in Sweden that we then visited a second time to clarify some
unclear issues. We treated the interviews at the Factory differently. We
thought transcribing them all would take too much time compared to how
useful it would be. Instead we both took notes each time, and then we
discussed our interpretations after each interview. Since the material from
these interviews has been used to complete this final report, any differing
opinions have surfaced and been dealt with.
The instruments used
According to Lekvall & Wahlbin (1993, p. 248) errors due to the
instruments used come from badly formulated questions. This is an
important problem when using questionnaires. We did not have a detailed
questionnaire, instead we used the already mentioned interview guides
(Appendices 3, 4 and 5) to make sure we did not forget important matters.
They served as a support to keep the interviews on the right track rather
than containing specific questions, and we could keep reformulating our
questions until we obtained the desired information. As we have already
mentioned, these interview guides evolved as we learned more about the
situation in the workshop and at the Factory. This makes it easy to believe
that we may not have asked the right questions in the beginning of our
work, since our frame of reference was not big enough. However, most
interviews in the beginning were conducted at the Factory, so that we
have been able to check the information later on. In addition, we went
back to the first workshop that we spent a week in to confirm some
information and ask some additional question. To conclude, we do not
feel that this evolution of our interview guide has caused any errors.
ANALYSIS AND CONCLUSIONS
This type of error has to do with the problem of drawing conclusions
from the study and applying them to the general situation that is in fact
what we are really interested in. It is difficult to determine the possibilities
of errors in a qualitative analysis and conclusion. We have been influenced
by many different opinions, and the people who have participated in our
interviews have given us their subjective view of the problem situation. To
reduce the risk of errors originating from the analysis and conclusions of
our collected data we chose to go back and collect supplementary data
23
Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
after reaching some primary conclusions, before we did the final analysis
and conclusion.
ROUND-UP
For the reader to be able to judge our work we have now accounted for
how the study was conducted, how we collected the data used and which
alignment of the study we have chosen. Furthermore we have discussed
the validity and reliability of the study, possible sources of error and we
have also explained which results these errors can bring about.
In chapter 6, Conclusions and recommendations, we will present some further
criticism of our methodology and explain how it has affected our results.
Now we will present our Theoretical Framework.
24
Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
3 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
After clarifying our research problem, that is what we are studying and then
describing the methodology, how our work has proceeded and the implications of this,
we will now try to give a broader understanding of the areas we are focusing on by
having a discussion concerning the theoretical problem at hand. In the chapter
following this, we will present our empirical findings.
3.1 INTRODUCTION TO THE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
For the reader to be able to grasp all the pages of theories that more or
less end up in a model, we would first like to describe the structure of this
chapter.
First in 3.2 Our model of five problem situations, we present a general model
that in little or in large applies to any problem at hand, be it in a workshop
or selecting a birthday gift for your mother-in-law. The model shows how
problems are solved with sufficient knowledge or information or are not
solved efficiently due to a lack of sufficient knowledge or information.
The examples we use are all related to a workshop for obvious reasons,
but the model is applicable to any problem.
The next section, 3.3 Knowledge, covers large parts of our framework.
Since problems according to our model are solved with knowledge or
information, we define different kinds of knowledge and information
to create a common taxonomy in 3.3.1 Tacit knowledge and 3.3.2
Explicit knowledge.
After that we turn to 3.3.3 Learning. In that section we state why
learning is important and we look at the difference between
organizational and individual learning. We reflect on the difference
between single-loop learning and double-loop learning and we end the
section with knowledge creation. This part of the framework is meant
to explain different aspects of learning and knowledge creation since it
is closely related to knowledge and information.
The last part of the Knowledge section is 3.3.4 Knowledge Management,
where we first define the concept and some main issues related to it.
We continue with some issues of feedback and conclude with three
models that can map different kinds of knowledge or ignorance and
the managerial actions that apply in each case. This section is the
foundation of the next section where we create a composite model.
Section 3.4 Our knowledge identification model, is a combination of the three
models in the last section. Our model is a tool for mapping and
categorizing different kinds of knowledge and ignorance and thereby find
out which actions to take to solve the problems that occur in each case.
25
Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
Lastly, in section 3.5 Enablers, we present the enablers that we have found
important to support and put the above issues into practice.
There! We hope you are with us, and we start with presenting our first
model.
3.2 OUR MODEL OF FIVE PROBLEM SITUATIONS
In workshops problems arise and are solved continuously. However, the
method of solving a problem is affected by certain circumstances, for
instance the person responsible for solving it or the type of problem at
hand. Before we delve into the findings and writings of other authors and
scientists, we will describe our model, (Five P, figure 3.1) of five different
problem situations.
This model is developed through logic reasoning and can be applied to
most situations where there are problems. It describes five categories of
problems and what makes the problems in each category more or less
efficiently solvable. It also describes what is needed to move a problem
from one category to another with the help of increased knowledge or
information, but we have only depicted the six most common directions
of motion in the model. As stated earlier we are taking examples from a
workshop where the problem concerns an individual person. But on a
higher level the model is, like we have stated, general and thus also applies
to a whole workshop or to a whole organization. We will get back to this
later in the theoretical framework.
Three categories (3, 4 and 5) are undesirable and added knowledge or
information can move a problem into one of the two remaining
categories, which are desired. In repair for example, the desired case is
that the problem is solved efficiently, either completely due to the skills of
the mechanic (1) or thanks to enough information support (2). The
information needed could be everything from just a figure on tolerance, a
wiring diagram, or a comprehensive description of the method for
repairing the gearbox. But sometimes problems arise in the three
undesired categories. The worst case is when there is a lack of both
knowledge and information (5). The second undesired category is when
the mechanic has enough knowledge but there is a lack of information (4).
Maybe there is just a number missing that would resolve the whole
situation, but that number is impossible or very difficult to find. The third
undesired category is when there is information available but the
mechanic lacks enough knowledge about the problem (3). Either he is just
inexperienced or he lacks the proper training. In this case it does not
matter if there is thorough information available, the remedy to the
problem is learning.
26
Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
Everything is relative and here one can wonder were to draw the line
between the different categories. How little knowledge does the mechanic
have when there is a lack of knowledge? Is he simply inexperienced and it
was a while since he took the course on the subject so it takes him an
extra half-hour to solve the problem? Or is he searching for the problem
for hours without any luck, even with help from the other mechanics and
the technical expert from the distributor? What do we mean by “solving
something efficiently”?
When we talk about solving a problem efficiently, we mean that it is not
solved in more time than it should be. For example, to switch a light bulb on
a truck normally takes five minutes. If this takes ten minutes due to a lack
of information about how to remove the protective headlight glass for
example, it is not efficient. To switch a whole gearbox should take
approximately four to six hours. If this takes eleven hours since the
mechanic has not been trained enough it is not efficient either. In a
utopia, the reason for every problem would be found instantly and the
repair method would be known by all mechanics at all times. But ensuring
that all mechanics always possess the latest knowledge about the truck is
hardly cost efficient. So, where to draw the line between the different
categories is up to the ones using the model, in this case people at Scania.
They should draw the line where it is cost efficient to draw it. We will try
to help shed some light on this problem later by introducing reasonings, a
model and a matrix (see figure 3.9 and appendix 2).
Knowledge
1
4
2
5
3
Information
Figure 3.1: Our model “Five P”
In the model the circles can have different sizes depending on how
common the state is. We have chosen to keep them the same size for
simplicity. One wants to enlarge the areas 1 and 2 and eliminate the areas
3, 4 and 5.
With increased knowledge one can move a certain problem from 5 to 4, 3
to 2, 3 to 1 or 2 to 1. What is important to note here is that 1 is not always
27
Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
the aim, sometimes 2 is better. Take for example electrical problems. We
hardly want the mechanics to memorize every single wiring diagram and
solve the problem without having to use the technical information
provided, on the contrary, that would not be cost efficient at all. But in
the model it looks like 1 is better then 2 since it is higher up, but that is
consequently not always the case. Another problem that can arise if the
mechanics know everything by heart is that they risk missing new
information since they do not look in the information.
With increased and better technical information, the problems can go
from 4 to 2 or from 5 to 3. The problems cannot go from 4 to 1 since in 4
there is enough knowledge but not enough information. Receiving the
information would bring the problem to 2 since it is in this category that
the information is the main enabler. In 1, information is not needed,
instead knowledge is the main enabler.
Furthermore, one needs to acknowledge that an increase in information
for one mechanic can mean that the problem goes from 5 to 3. That is
still undesirable, but for another mechanic getting the same information
means getting from 4 to 2, since he is more knowledgeable to begin with.
What we have seen here is our model of how problems are solved, for
example in a workshop. We would like to see how this process can be
improved, that is, find out what is needed to move a problem from one
category to another in the model. This is, as stated earlier, done by
ensuring that the persons solving the problem possess enough knowledge
and information. Therefore, knowledge and information is the focal point
of the next section.
3.3 KNOWLEDGE
”An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” - Benjamin Franklin -
What is knowledge in the first place? Thomas Davenport, professor of
information management at the University of Texas, defines it as follows:
“Knowledge is information with the most value and is consequently the
hardest form to manage. It is valuable precisely because somebody has
given the information context, meaning, a particular interpretation;
somebody has reflected on the knowledge, added their own wisdom to it,
and considered its larger implications.” 8 We think it covers the essential
characteristics of knowledge, it is hard to manage and it is only valuable
since a person has given it meaning from their own experiences.
Nonaka and Takeuchi, two leading Japanese business experts, both
professors at Hitotsubashi University, have written “The knowledge
8
Thomas Davenport, 1997, Information Ecology, p. 9
28
Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
creating company” where they argue that creating knowledge will become
the key to sustaining a competitive advantage. They also classify human
knowledge into two kinds, drawing on Michael Polanyi’s9 distinction
between tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge. We have chosen to use
these classifications and we present them below.
3.3.1 TACIT KNOWLEDGE
“Interpretation is the process through which information acquires meaning” – Huber -
WHAT IS TACIT KNOWLEDGE?
Tacit knowledge can be defined as personal, context specific and hard to
articulate with formal language, which is what makes it difficult to
communicate or share with others10. Nonaka and Takeuchi maintain that
tacit knowledge exists symbolically in the human mind. It is personal
knowledge embedded in individual experience and involves intangible
factors such as subjective insights, belief, perspective and emotions. The
subjective and intuitive nature of tacit knowledge makes it difficult to
process or transmit in any systematic or logical manner. For tacit
knowledge to be communicated and shared within the organization, it has
to be converted into words or numbers that anyone can understand. It is
precisely during the time this conversion takes place – from tacit to
explicit and back again into tacit – that organizational knowledge is
created.
In everyday work there is a great opportunity for learning if the conditions
are right and this is important. While working with a technically advanced
product that is constantly evolving, there is no time for everyone to attend
courses covering it all, so people need to learn from each other. Many
things are best learned observing someone else doing something and then
trying for yourself. This is especially important with tacit knowledge.
Moreover, Jooste11 argues that if this knowledge can be extracted or
spread broadly in the organization it is likely to have a greater value. It is
also tacit knowledge that has been identified as the core source of
competitive advantage, so any way in which to spread it wider or make it
more accessible is likely to add value.
Michael Polanyi, 1966, The Tacit Dimension, referred to in Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995, The knowledge
creating company, 1995
10 Earl & Scott, 1998, Jooste, 1997, p. 81, Davenport, 1997, Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995, preface & p. 8-9
11 Jooste, Leveraging Knowledge for business performance, 1997, p. 81
9
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3.3.2 EXPLICIT KNOWLEDGE
WHAT IS EXPLICIT KNOWLEDGE?
Following the reasoning above, if tacit knowledge is unarticulated and
difficult to distribute, explicit knowledge is just the contrary. Explicit
knowledge is what we generally assimilate through formal learning (Earl &
Scott, 1998, p. 7). It is rather easy to articulate, capture and share in formal
language, words and numbers. This kind of knowledge can thus easily be
processed by a computer, transmitted electronically, or stored in
databases. (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995 preface and p. 8-9) For example,
“yellow pages”, like in a phone book, are common to identify who knows
what in a company. Davenport and Prusak (1998, p. 78-79) tell a story
about a company that reengineered a directory, their yellow pages, using
traditional listing categories of alphabetical last name, geography, and
division. The innovation was to list employees by what they did in their
jobs and presumably were knowledgeable about. For the first time, for
example, all C++ programmers were listed together. The book was a huge
success with employees, many of whom had never been able to find likeminded and skilled co-workers before it was created.
ROUND-UP
What then, have we learned? To put it simply, explicit knowledge could
for example be to describe how to mount a bell on a bike. Tacit
knowledge is to explain how to ride the bike! Now that we know the
difference, we can conclude that what we called information in Our model
Five P (figure 3.1) is actually explicit knowledge.
Tacit
Moreover, what we called just knowledge is a
combination of explicit and a lot of tacit knowledge.
Therefore, what is needed to move a problem from one
category to another in Five P is really a combination of tacit
Explicit
and explicit knowledge. But which of the two constitutes the
largest part of the entire knowledge? Polanyi contends that human beings
acquire knowledge by actively creating and organizing their own
experiences. Thus, knowledge that can be expressed in words or numbers
represents only the tip of the iceberg of the entire body of knowledge. As
Polanyi12 puts it, “We know more than we can tell”. In the next section we
will reflect upon learning, different modes of knowledge and knowledge
creation.
12
Polanyi, 1966, p. 4, referred to in Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995, p. 60
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3.3.3 LEARNING
“Learning is the process that is behind and that leads to change. Change is the child
of learning.” - F. Friedlander - (our translation)
WHY LEARNING
Having had the discussion on knowledge it seems obvious that learning is
rather important, what else should the organization do with all that
knowledge? As stated earlier, the complexity of jobs is increasing and so is
the speed of change. In a workplace today, you need not only know what
you knew yesterday, but also what is new on the agenda. One view we like
to agree with is that learning is closely attuned with productivity, or to be
more precise: “ The behaviors that define learning and the behaviors that
define being productive are one and the same. Learning is not something
that requires time out from being engaged in productive activity, learning
is the heart of productive activity.”13
One rather new perspective on a company’s assets is the division into
structural and intellectual assets. As Edvinsson (1997), Stewart (1997) and
Sveiby (1998) describe, the difference between a company’s book value
and theoretical market value is the intellectual assets14.
The way Sveiby divides a company’s assets is shown in figure 3.3. and it,
among other things, points out the issues we are reflecting upon in this
thesis; the competence of the personnel, internal structure and to some
extent customer relations.
Visible assets
The book value =
Assets – debts
Invisible assets
THE COMPETENCE OF
THE PERSONNEL:
education,
experience
INTERNAL STRUCTURE:
organization, management,
processes, methods, patents,
information in databases.
EXTERNAL STRUCTURE:
brand name, image,
customer & supplier
relations
Table 3.1: Free after Sveiby (1998)15
Accordingly, the company needs not only look after the book value but
also the invisible assets, amongst which learning is an essential part.
Moreover, we need to look at both individual and organizational learning,
which constitute our next paragraph.
INDIVIDUAL AND ORGANISATIONAL LEARNING
Many writers today talk about individual vs. organizational learning. The
concept of organizational learning has been taken from the concept of
13 Duffy,
1997, p. 22-24 & Jooste, 1997, p. 91, both referring to Zuboff 1988, p. 395
from Ahde & Beckmann, 1998, p. 24
15 from Ahde & Beckmann, 1998, p. 24
14
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individual learning since an organization consists of employees16.
Individual learning is therefore an important, necessary condition of
organizational learning.
In a strict sense, knowledge is created only by individuals. An organization
cannot create knowledge without individuals. The organization is capable
of learning independently of each single individual, but not independently
of all individuals. The organization supports creative individuals or
provides contexts for them to create knowledge. (Argyris & Schön17,
Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995, p. 59, Mueller and Dyerson18) An organization
can also be seen as knowing less than its members because of problems in
communication (Mueller & Dyerson, 1999).
Nevis, DiBella and Gould19 state that learning is a systems-level
phenomenon since it stays within the organization even if the individuals
change. They mean that organizations learn as they produce, and the
knowledge is stored in systems that make the organization independent of
its personnel. These systems are vital for the learning organization since
organizations do not have “brains” in the word’s usual meaning, but they
do have cognitive systems and memories at their disposal. Through these,
knowledge, information, certain modes of behavior, mental models,
norms and values are retained. Therefore, organizations are not only
influenced by individual learning, organizations also influence the learning
of individual members and store that which has been learned.20
Naturally, all organizations learn, whether consciously or not. The
difference is that some organizations try to stimulate learning whereas
others abandon such efforts which leads to that they reduce their learning
capacity21. There are as many definitions of organizational learning as
there are writers touching upon the subject. One definition that caught
our attention is:
“Learning organizations are organizations where people continually expand
their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and
extensive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set
free and where people are continually learning how to learn together.“ 22
Romme & Dillen, referring to Argyris & Schön, 1978; Huber, 1991; Bomers, 1989
Romme & Dillen, referring to Argyris & Schön, 1978
18 Frank Mueller, and Romano Dyerson, Expert humans or expert organizations?, Organization studies, 1999,
referring to Dodgson (1993), Kanter (1990:320), Argyris and Schön (1978) and Senge (1990).
19 Edward C. Nevis, Anthony J. DiBella and Janet M. Gould, Understanding organizations as learning systems,
1995, URL: http://learning.mit.edu/res/wp/learning_sys.html, 2000-02-08.
20 Romme & Dillen, referring to Hedberg, 1981
21 Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995, p. 125 & 128, Romme & Dillen, referring to Kim, 1993
22 Duffy, 1997, p. 34, referring to Senge, 1990, p. 3
16
17
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We like the essence of this definition since it highlights the importance of
the role of the individuals, but it does not say much about the
organization itself. Another definition covers both aspects:
“A learning company is an organization that facilitates the learning of all its
members and continuously transforms itself… in response to the needs,
whishes and aspirations of people, inside and outside.”23
Together we think they capture the essence of organizational learning. In
our problem discussion Porter talked about “relentless improvement” and
in the definitions above we can read “Continually expand their capacity”,
“continually learning how to learn together”, “continuously transforms
itself”, the idea of continuous improvement, known from Total Quality
Management, constitutes, as you can see, the backbone of organizational
learning. Change has become the norm, not the exception as Davenport
and Prusak argues (1998, p. 10). Therefore, the core of learning is the
ability to learn new things and unlearn old things, old information, models
or procedures that are no longer valid. Old knowledge can simply become
inaccurate. Some resistance to change can be explained by people not
realizing that their assumptions no longer apply24. What we cannot do is
go out and try to find the solution and then apply it. We need instead to
find an infrastructure that allows continuous change and that secures
continuous learning.
As we have concluded, an organization cannot learn if its individuals do
not learn. So, how do individuals learn? According to Nevis, DiBella and
Gould (1995) “Individual learning may take place in planned or informal,
often unintended ways.” Björn Axelsson (1997, p. 45)25 presents two types
of situations where individual learning occurs:
1. Through formal education, that is a consciously planned activity,
carried through at specific institutions internally at the company or at
external training centers. External education normally leads to
problems of transfer, i.e. problems of translating the acquired
knowledge to the practical situation at the company.
2. Through learning during practical work, i.e. learning in the shape of
gradual change of task, learning from colleagues inside or outside the
company. Outside the company can in this case mean during visits or
practice at other departments or through networks for exchanging
experiences. The common name for this kind of learning is “on-thejob-training”, and it will be discussed further in the chapter Single-loop
& Double-loop learning.
Duffy, 1997, p. 34, referring to Pedler, Burgoyne and Boydell 1991, p. 1
Cook, 1997, p. 55-63
25 Björn Axelsson, Kompetens för konkurrenskraft, 1997
23
24
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SINGLE-LOOP & DOUBLE-LOOP LEARNING
What Axelsson (1997) calls on-the-job training is widely considered to
consist of two kinds of activities. These two kinds of learning have been
referred to as “Learning I” and “Learning II”26 or “single-loop learning”
and double-loop learning”27. Both single-loop and double-loop learning
can occur at both the individual and the organizational level (Axelsson,
1997, p. 50).
Single-loop learning involves processes in which errors are tracked down
and corrected, it is obtaining know-how in order to solve specific
problems based upon existing premises, within the existing set of rules
and norms (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995, Romme and Dillen, 1997,
referring to Fiol and Lyles, 1985, Morgan, 1986). In other words, singleloop learning does not lead to a lasting change in the process, it only
corrects possible deviations (Axelsson, 1997, p. 50).
Act
Error/mistake
Change act
Figure 3.2: Single-loop learning, Jacobsen Thorsvik, (1995, p. 351-352)
Double-loop learning, on the other hand, is establishing new premises (i.e.
paradigms, mental models or perspectives) to override the existing ones
according to Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995). Argyris and Schön (1978)
mean that it involves changes in the fundamental rules and norms
underlying action and behavior. Argyris and Schön (1978) defined doubleloop learning as a process in which errors are tracked down and corrected
with the result that underlying norms, ideas and objectives become the
objects of discussion and, when necessary, change. (Romme & Dillen,
1997)
Controling
values
Error/mistake
Act
Change
values
Change act
Figure 3.3: Double-loop learning, Jacobsen & Thorsvik, 1995, p. 351-352
Nonaka & Takeuchi p. 44, referring to Bateson, 1973
Romme & Dillen, 1997, referring to Argyris and Schön, 1978, Bomers,1989; Duncan & Weiss, 1979;
Fiol & Lyles, 1985; Pedler et al, 1991, Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995
26
27
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In single-loop learning one simply changes one’s actions, but above we
can see that in double-loop learning one changes the valuation and
through that changes one’s actions. Therefore, double-loop learning leads
to a lasting change whereas single-loop learning only provides a temporary
change.
Both single-loop and double-loop learning require some kind of
information that the process needs to change to trigger the change. This
information can come from people working with the process, or from
someone who is affected by the results of it. The latter is often called
feedback, and it will be discussed more thoroughly later in its own
paragraph, The Feedback Process.
KNOWLEDGE CREATION
“The great end of knowledge is not knowledge but action” - Thomas Henry Huxley -
If companies will “train, train, train these workers, they will learn, learn,
learn,“ goes the popular thinking according to Nonaka and Takeuchi
(1995, p. 227). However they argue that this simplistic model will work
only if the company is concerned only with absorbing knowledge from
somewhere and passing it along to individuals within the organization.
They mean that it will not work when the intent is to create knowledge,
not only at the individual level, but at the group as well as the
organizational level. Naturally, a company with a continuously evolving,
technically advanced product facing increased customer needs, has to
continuously create knowledge and not only rest on old. To explain
organizational knowledge creation we pick Nonaka and Takeuchi’s
definition (1995, p. 3), “the capability of a company as a whole to create
new knowledge, disseminate it throughout the organization, and embody
it in products, services and systems.” The value comes with the
embodiment. Like Dewey28 maintained, “ideas are worthless except as
they pass into actions which rearrange and reconstruct in some way, be it
little or large, the world in which we live”.
Knowledge is created all over organizations, but this is not always
appreciated and taken advantage of. Creating new knowledge is also not
simply a matter of learning from others or acquiring knowledge from the
outside. Knowledge has, like stated above, to be built on its own,
requiring interaction among members of the organization. According to
Nonaka and Takeuchi, knowledge creation takes place in the ontological
dimension at three levels: the individual, the group, and the organizational
levels. The interaction, between tacit and explicit knowledge and between
the individual and the organization, will then bring about four major
processes of knowledge creation: (1) from tacit to tacit - socialization, (2)
28
Dewey, 1929, p. 138 referred to in Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995, p. 27
35
Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
from tacit to explicit - externalization, (3) from explicit to explicit combination and (4) from explicit to tacit - internalization. (Nonaka &
Takeuchi, preface and p. 9 and p. 62-70)
Figure 3.4 shows the four modes of knowledge conversion.
Tacit
knowledge
Tacit
knowledge
To
Explicit
knowledge
Socialization
Externalization
Internalization
Combination
From
Explicit
knowledge
Figure 3.4: Knowledge conversion, Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995, p.62
Socialization is a process of sharing experiences and thereby creating
tacit knowledge such as technical skills and mental models. Apprentices
work with their masters and learn craftsmanship not through language but
through observation, imitation, and practice. The key to acquiring tacit
knowledge is experience. Without some form of shared experience, it is
extremely difficult for one person to project himself into another
individual’s thinking process.
Externalization is a knowledge-creation process in which tacit
knowledge becomes explicit, taking the shapes of metaphors, analogies,
concepts, hypotheses or models. The analogy for example helps us
understand the unknown through the known and bridges the gap between
an image and a logical model. The externalization mode of knowledge
conversion is triggered by dialogue or collective reflection in groups in the
workshop or in class during education for example.
Combination is a process of systemizing concepts into a knowledge
system and it involves combining different bodies of explicit knowledge.
Individuals exchange and combine knowledge through such media as
documents, meetings, telephone conversations, or computerized
networks. Reconfiguration of existing information through sorting,
adding, combining and categorizing of explicit knowledge can lead to new
knowledge. Knowledge creation carried out in formal education usually
takes this form.
Internalization is a process of embodying explicit knowledge into tacit
knowledge. It is closely related to learning by doing. For organizational
knowledge creation to take place the tacit knowledge accumulated at the
individual level needs to be socialized with others in the organization,
thereby starting a new spiral of knowledge creation. For example if an
experienced mechanic attends a course, he does not only learn what is in
36
Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
the training material, he also reflects upon what he reads, drawing on
earlier experiences.
All the four modes of knowledge creation will enable
problems to move from the undesired states in our model
to the desired ones.
Tacit
So, the company is creating knowledge. Well eventually
any organization ends up creating new knowledge.
Explicit
However, in most organizations this process is haphazard
and coincidental and therefore impossible to predict according to Nonaka
and Takeuchi. They mean that what distinguishes the knowledge creating
company is that it systematically manages the knowledge creation process.
Middle managers, they maintain, are playing an essential role in facilitating
the process of organizational knowledge creation. They work as a bridge
between the visionary ideals of the top and the often chaotic realities of
business confronted by front-line workers. Front-line employees are
immersed in the day to day details of particular technologies, products,
and markets. No one is more expert in the realities of a company’s
business than they are. Nevertheless, while these employees are deluged
with highly specific information, they often find it extremely difficult to
turn that information into useful knowledge. For one thing, signals from
the marketplace can be vague and ambiguous. For another, it can be
difficult to communicate the importance of that information to others.
(Ibid p. 125 & 128)
ROUND-UP
Until now, we have in our theoretical framework discussed what kind of
knowledge there is and where and how it can be created. There is a lot of
knowledge creation in organizations, but it needs to be mapped and
managed in an appropriate way depending on the type of knowledge and
the context in which it is created. We have also looked at different aspects
of learning. Knowledge and learning constitute a rather important part of
every organization, a part that needs to be managed. Managing knowledge
really permeates our thesis and it is the focal point in the following
discussion.
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Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
3.3.4 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
“When the wind of change is blowing, some build wind shelters while others build wind
mills.” – old saying -
WHAT IS KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
According to Jackson Grayson Jr. and O’Dell29 “knowledge is what people
in an organization know about customers, products, processes, mistakes
and successes; knowledge management is using this information to accomplish
the organization’s mission.” They mean that this includes both tacit and
explicit knowledge, and that the tacit part can represent as much as 80
percent of valuable organizational knowledge. Organizations today are
“awash in information, but until people use it, it is not knowledge”. We
think that it still is knowledge, and as we said earlier “ideas are worthless
except as they pass into actions”30. The most important part of managing
knowledge is to understand what knowledge is important to the
organization, and create processes to put this into action.
Why is knowledge management so important? Why is it needed? One
important reason is the globalization of business, which has made it
critical to get information and knowledge discovered in one part of the
globe to other parts of a business as quickly as possible. Another reason,
and perhaps the strongest, is that competition is accelerating the use of
knowledge to reduce costs, increase speed and meet customer needs.
Employees will always create new solutions to problems, but without a
knowledge management strategy they have no systematic means to alert
others to their solutions. Investing in computers and intranets is not
enough, since the greatest challenge is motivating people to take the time
to share what they know. Hence, organizations need to focus more on
people and less on information technology. (Jackson Grayson Jr. and
O’Dell, 1998)
But is it as simple as that? Manage all the knowledge and the organization
will profit? Peter G. W. Keen is the author of fifteen books on the link
between IT and business strategy, named by Information Week as one of the
top ten consultants in the world. He is a professor who has held positions
at Harvard, Stanford, MIT and Stockholm University. Keen writes that
most of the influential business books and rallying cries of the 1990s have
focused on process improvement. But each of these movements shows
how to get a particular kind of process right in a particular way. Most are,
according to Keen, based on the assumption that a business will improve
simply by refocusing on the customer’s needs and concerns those
operations that were originally designed to match the company’s own
29
30
Jackson Grayson Jr. and O’Dell, 1998, Mining your hidden resources, Across the board, p. 23-28
Dewey, 1929, p. 138, referred to in Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995, p. 27
38
Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
priorities and structures. This has led to the process paradox, the startling
paradox that businesses can decline and even fail at the same time as
process reform is dramatically improving efficiency by saving the
company time and money and improving product quality and customer
service. In an era of intense competition and rapid change, when trying to
protect the status quo is a losing proposition, transforming the
corporation is not just a dream but an urgent necessity. But it is important
to get the right process right. (1997, p. 1-15) This follows our reasoning
above when we were discussing our model, arguing that where to draw
the line between the different categories is up to the ones using the model,
but that they should draw the line where it is cost efficient to draw it. If
there is a process that would improve a situation in our model, it is thus
not certain that this process should be invested in.
Moreover, as perceived by the technical attachés of Sweden (1999, p. 1822), knowledge management can be described as a strive for turning tacit
knowledge into explicit and individual knowledge into organizational to be
able to manage it. Knowledge management rests according to Neil Duffy31
on the two main pillars learning people and IT. People create knowledge
and learn and IT helps capture, organize and access the knowledge. We
would also like to return to an earlier quote, “ideas are worthless except as
they pass into actions which rearrange and reconstruct in some way, be it
little or large, the world in which we live”32. It is not until knowledge is
used that it creates value33.
The technical attachés of Sweden have gathered a lot of experience from
their contacts all over the world. What they find interesting to note is that
a vast majority of companies all over the world emphasizes the
importance of organizational change and new views rather than
technology when one works with knowledge management. 34 Hence, the
largest challenge concerning knowledge management is not the technical
aspects but the cultural, that is to change the culture in an organization so
that people are willing to share their knowledge.35 In addition, Winslow
and Bramer (1994)36 remind us that technology on its own can never
deliver solutions. They mean that individual worker performance in the
knowledge age depends on the effective integration of individual ability
and motivation within an organizational, technological and process
context.
Leveraging knowledge for business performance, p. 36-37
Dewey, 1929, p.138 referred to in Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995, p. .27
33 Gartner Group, referred to in Ahde & Beckmann, further reference is missing
34 Sveriges Tekniska attacheér preface
35 Sveriges Tekniska attacheér p. 16-17
36 Referred to in Duffy, 1997
31
32
39
Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
Karl M. Wiig, has written a number of books and articles on knowledge
management and is widely acknowledged as a leading specialist in the
field. He notes that newcomers in the field focus on IT for knowledge
management support and are approaching the introduction of incentives
and other culture-changing measures haphazardly at best. Quinn et al
(1996) report that in only twenty percent of the organizations they studied
did management support major changes with reward and performance
measurement systems. Those that did not, most frequently met with
significant problems. Still, even though providing appropriate IT
infrastructure does not serve all needs, this aspect is quite important and
needs to be considered separately. (Wiig, 1997, p. 12) As we can see, there
is a focus on the people, with technology mainly considered as a tool.
THE FEEDBACK PROCESS
According to Keen, influential process movement literature defines a
process as a ”collection of activities that take one or more inputs and
create an output that is of value for the customer”, or ”a specific ordering
of work activities across time and space, with a beginning, an end, and
clearly identified inputs and outputs.” But Keen argues that these
definitions of processes can cause management to ignore other processes
that may be in dire need of improvement such as “soft” processes which
lack obvious inputs, outputs, and flow patterns. He suggests the
definition: “A process is any work that meets these four criteria: it is
recurrent; it affects some aspect of organizational capabilities; it can be
accomplished in different ways that make a difference to the contribution
it generates in terms of cost, value, service, or quality; and it involves coordination." The idea of co-ordination, he states, includes both the
sequencing of manufacturing steps and the back-and-forth interactions
between business team members. (1997, p. 17-19) What is missing in the
traditional definitions of processes is the importance of feedback, the way
processes should be circular and not linear.
We have already seen how processes need feedback to trigger change in
single- and double-loop learning, and as we discussed in the section
knowledge creation concerning the interaction between tacit and explicit
knowledge, it is a continuous process and not a linear one. We also, in the
same section, reflected upon the ontological dimension, where the process
is not just going in either direction, but in all directions simultaneously.
The function of feedback is to create a corrective mechanism and the
importance of feedback is as good as universal. The literature refers to the
issue in different ways. Senge for example talks about reinforcing and
balancing processes (1990, p. 68-126). Automatic control engineering is
another example where we can find feedback as an important ingredient:
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Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
input
process
output
feedback
Figure 3.5: Feedback, Glad & Ljung, 1989, p. 37-40
Why an example from automatic control engineering? The point we want
to make is that it does not matter so much whether we look at a process
in automatic control, or an organization manufacturing heavy trucks. They
both share the need for efficient feedback and the reason is similar for
both of them, a corrective mechanism to continuously improve the
outcome since you cannot know the best input at all times. With feedback,
the input can be changed and thus affect the output of the process.
Davenport argues that “in the past, providers of information have focused
almost exclusively on the production and distribution of information.
What the recipients have done with it upon receiving it has been nobody’s
business. Therefore, we have little idea of how to help individual workers
seek, share, structure, and make sense of information. And we also know
little about shaping or developing positive information cultures – those
broad patterns of information attitudes and behaviors that recur
throughout an organization.”37 To enable employees always having the
right information available in the right amount, on time, with the right
content and extent, the providers of information have to think twice.
There are many different needs to be satisfied, and we will look at how
this can be done. One thing that facilitates this is the infrastructure for
information. Today this is often represented by the Internet and the
companies’ intranets and extranets, which will be discussed later in the
chapter Information Technology.
Feedback can take on many forms. Not only can people actively push
information but they can also pull the information they need, actively
seeking what they need, and stealing ideas from others. British Petroleum
gives a ”Thief of the Year” award to the person who has ”stolen” the best
ideas in application development. They recognize that, when it comes to
organizational knowledge, originality is less important then usefulness.
Texas Instruments has created a ”Not Invented Here but I Did It
Anyway” award for borrowing a practice from either inside or outside the
company. The Spanish proverb ”Well stolen is half done” is sound
reasoning if you are in the knowledge business. (Davenport & Prusak,
1998, p. 53)
37
Davenport, 1997, p. 32
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Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
DIMENSIONS OF KNOWLEDGE
“We live on an island surrounded by a sea of ignorance. As our island of knowledge
grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.” - John A. Wheeler -
There are many dimensions of knowledge and many ways to categorize it.
One way is the division between tacit and explicit that we have already
discussed. Let us now present three other models where tacit and explicit
knowledge reappear but where also other dimensions are used. The first
comprises knowledge and ignorance, the second only ignorance and the
third only knowledge. Why do we want to divide knowledge into different
categories? It is because different types of knowledge should be handled
in different ways and if you do not know which type of knowledge you
have at hand, you may handle it the wrong way. The explicit form, for
example, is often suitable for storing in a database whereas tacit is not.
Also, Zack 38stresses the importance of determining which knowledge an
organization should make explicit and which it should leave tacit.
Furthermore, the two must be managed differently depending on if you
know what you know or if you do not. Like Jooste writes, “an asset which
is poorly located and which cannot be readily used tends to get reinvented
or recreated in multiple locations.”39
Knowledge & Ignorance – Earl & Scott
One categorization, done by Earl and Scott (1998), is presented in figure
3.9. They categorize knowledge along two dimensions: whether you hold
the knowledge in question or not (state of knowing), and whether you are
aware of it or not (state of knowledge). The model shows what it is you
know (explicit knowledge or tacit knowledge), or do not know (planned
ignorance or innocent ignorance). The model also shows how to find
these four states (inventorising, auditing, socializing and experiencing).
What you know
Knowing
State of
knowing
“Not knowing”
What you do not
know
State of
knowledge
Explicit Knowledge
&
Planned Ignorance
&
Tacit Knowledge
&
Innocent Ignorance
&
Inventorising
Socializing
Auditing
Experiencing
Figure 3.6: Knowing and knowledge, Earl and Scott, 1998, p. 8
Michael H. Zack, Managing Organizational Ignorance, URL:
http://www.cba.neu.edu/~mzack/articles/orgig/orgig.htm, 2000-03-04
39 Jooste, 1997, p. 81
38
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Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
Earl and Scott think that identifying what individuals and organizations
know, so that one can find out where, or to whom, to go for knowledge,
would be a sensible managerial ambition. Inventorising, mapping, recording
and providing a guide, yellow pages, to who knows what is a potential role
for knowledge management.
Another technique can be imagined for identifying what people think they
should know but do not know (planned ignorance). Here we can envisage
surveys or audits of knowledge, skills or competence gaps. Presumably,
knowledge management might then extend help to those who need to
remedy those gaps. Auditing could thus be a means of tackling planned
ignorance.
If tacit knowledge is unarticulated so that it is not necessarily “known” or
recognized by its owners, how do you manage it? It seems most likely that
such knowledge is drawn out, explicated and shared by social processes,
such as meetings, chance conversations or gossip. Thus, knowledge
management could become a matter of facilitating socializing through
creating events, enabling people to meet and even improving people’s
ability to converse. Earl and Scott do not explain what they mean by “Not
knowing”, so we have interpreted this state in a way that we think is the
most meaningful. In the state of “What you know” it only makes sense if
we ask how we do “not know”. This is because we believe that one can
possess tacit knowledge and be aware of it, but not be able to express it.
For example, an experienced mechanic can hear what is wrong with an
engine from listening to it, and he knows that he can, but he cannot
explain to his friend how to do it.
Addressing the problem of not knowing what you do not know, innocent
ignorance, may seem even more beyond the powers of formal knowledge
management, and the above reasoning no longer makes sense. Here we do
not ask how, since you do not even know what you do not know in this
state. However, innocent ignorance can be remedied through surprise
encounters – with problems, with observations or with people. Often, this
is where we learn from experience: from doing new things, from visits to
new places, or from handling unusual situations. So formal management
in this domain could involve creating experiences for individuals and teams.
Thus, both categories of ignorance contain both tacit and explicit
knowledge.
Using Earl and Scott’s model, an organization has to decide which
strategy to use, where to focus their knowledge management efforts,
depending on the results that they are looking for. One strategy is to make
all ignorance planned whereby it is easier to know on which people and
areas to focus new learning. Another strategy is to concentrate as much as
possible on explicit knowledge, trying to eliminate all the other three.
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Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
However, it may not be cost efficient for an organization to eliminate all
the planned ignorance. It can be more cost efficient to have some
organizational ignorance as long as they know “what they do not know”.
Another aspect that an organization needs to consider is that some
explicit knowledge may become tacit in time. For example, a mechanic
learns step by step how to repair a gearbox. He does not fully understand
each step to start with or why he does them or how they are connected.
However, eventually he understands, he can see a certain pattern, and he
learns cause and effect of what he is doing. This means that the explicit
knowledge has become tacit, and that some innocent ignorance has
become tacit knowledge as well.
Ignorance – Zack
When it comes to managing ignorance, Zack (1999) presents four
different situations of ignorance. He has chosen to name the categories as
follows:
1. Uncertainty: not having enough information;
2. Complexity: having to process more information than you can
manage or understand;
3. Ambiguity: not having a conceptual framework for interpreting
information;
4. Equivocality: having several competing or contradictory conceptual
frameworks.
The names are only headlines, if we take number 2, complexity is an
example, all that is complex does not fall under that category, but
complexity is a good name of what does fall under that category. This must
be understood to comprehend the model.
The first dimension they use to categorize knowledge is information and
knowledge. Information-processing problems deal with distinct and
quantifiable ideas and they are information oriented. Knowledgeprocessing problems are associated with resolving or managing situations
that require interpreting, creating, sharing and negotiating meaning. Using
the same terms as we have used so far we can say that informationprocessing problems are associated with explicit knowledge, whereas
knowledge- processing problems are associated with tacit knowledge.
The second dimension is acquisitive vs. restrictive processing. Uncertainty
requires acquisition of information and ambiguity requires acquisition of
knowledge or interpretive frames. Complexity on the other hand requires
restriction of information and equivocality calls for restriction of diverse
viewpoints or interpretations. Hence, this dimension represents solutions to
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Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
the problems whereas the first dimension represents which kind of ignorance
one is addressing.
Explicit
Uncertainty
Complexity
Acquisitive
Restrictive
Ambiguity
Equivocality
Tacit
Figure 3.7: Zack’s categories of ignorance
These four situations call for different ways of management, according to
Zack, which we will discuss now.
Uncertainty comes from not having enough information. It can be
managed by reducing it or by increasing the organization’s ability to
tolerate it. Ways of reducing it are acquiring additional information about
something or developing and improving the knowledge and ability to
predict or estimate well enough using incomplete information.
Uncertainty can be tolerated by using existing knowledge to estimate or
assume facts in place of missing information with some resulting level of
reliability. In a workshop this could be when there is a new component in
a truck that there is no information about. Then the mechanics may have
to estimate some values, maybe based on knowledge and information
about other components, to be able to repair it.
In a situation of complexity the variety of elements and relationships that
must be considered simultaneously is too large to process easily. The
number of different elements and relationships that can be considered at
the same time depends on what one knows, so what constitutes
manageable complexity varies by person and by organization. A novice
may have to deal with each element of a problem one by one, while an
expert instantly recognizes familiar patterns, perceiving the situation as a
whole. By bringing the appropriate level of knowledge and expertise to
bear on a situation, an organization can be helped to manage its
complexity. In highly complex situations, no individual or group can be
expected to hold all the required knowledge. For these situations, the
organization must have the capability to locate, develop and bring
appropriate expertise to bear on the issue. For a mechanic this situation
may arise when there is an electrical problem. It could be almost anything,
and the answer is probably somewhere in the workshop manual. But there
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Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
are just too many factors involved and too much information to consider
to be able to solve the problem.
Ambiguity means the inability to interpret and make sense of something
since events are perceived as so new and unfamiliar that one cannot even
make a vague guess about what is important or about what may happen,
regardless of the amount of information available about them. This
situation can occur in a workshop when there is a completely new
problem that the mechanics involved have never experienced before. “If
uncertainty represents not having answers, and complexity represents
difficulty in finding them, then ambiguity represents not even being able
to formulate the right questions.” (Zack) Ambiguity is resolved by
acquiring or creating explanatory knowledge. “Rich, interactive face-toface conversation among a socially familiar and well-connected yet
intellectually diverse set of individuals is the key organizational activity for
reducing ambiguity.” (Zack) Cross-unit interaction for example, fosters
the growth of expertise and advice networks that can be called upon when
needed. In the case of a new problem in a workshop it could be that a
technical specialist at the national distributor has seen the problem before,
and the mechanics only have to know how to contact him to get help.
Equivocality refers to multiple interpretations of the same thing.
Individually each interpretation may be understandable, but having several
interpretations that are mutually exclusive or in conflict, a problem
situation arises. Managing equivocality requires co-ordinating meaning
among members of an organization. “Unless equivocality is managed
interpretations tend to diverge over time. For example, in cases where
tacitly held knowledge cannot be clearly articulated or unambiguously
communicated to another person, multiple interpretations of how
something should be done emerge, resulting in no single best approach to
a process. In a particular workshop there can be a lot of inarticulated
knowledge about repairing damaged vehicles. One example could be that
this knowledge is not communicated or shared within the workshops
among the mechanics resulting in that each mechanic has his own
interpretation of the problem. If an inexperienced mechanic asks several
mechanics about this particular issue, he attains different, possible
contradictive interpretations.
Knowledge –Novins & Armstrong
The two authors Novins and Armstrong present other dimensions of
knowledge in the article “A blueprint for change”40. They start out saying,
“If you think the decisions that make or brake a company are those made
Peter Novins and Richard Armstrong, A blueprint for change, URL:
http://www.businessinnovation.ey.com/journal/issue1/features/choosi/loader.html, 2000-03-29
40
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Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
by strategists at the top, go back and re-read your Tolstoy. Whether in war
or in commerce, it’s the sum total of countless decisions made every day
at the front lines that determine the course of future events. Their
amassed weight can create a momentum – or a chaos – far beyond the
power of senior leaders to redirect.” Moreover, they maintain that the
most important thing top management can do to ensure success is to
empower people throughout the organization to make good decisions.
This is a question of equipping people with the knowledge required to make
good decisions.
However, as stated earlier, since different knowledge should be handled
differently it needs to be categorized. Therefore, Novins and Armstrong
have presented a matrix of four possible categories of knowledge, shown
in figure 3.8. The horizontal dimension is applicability (How broadly does
the knowledge apply?), and the vertical dimension is transferability (How
easy is it to impart the knowledge to others, and how difficult for them to
apply correctly?). The vertical extremes they use, programmable and
unique, can be compared to what we call explicit and tacit knowledge.
Therefore will we use the latter expressions in the model for a consistent
taxonomy.
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Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
Quick access knowledge
Explicit
Knowledge that is easily transferable
but not very broadly applicable, like
information about local customers. It is
best managed by placing it in an
accessible spot – for example in a
database.
Broad Based Knowledge
Knowledge that is both easily
transferable and broadly applicable, like
the organization’s personnel policies.
With broad based knowledge types, it
makes sense to broadcast to the
organization by distributing it
proactively.
Local
Global
One-off Knowledge
Complex Knowledge
Knowledge that is neither easy to
transfer nor broadly applicable. A
technical Help Desk often solves many
awkward problems and those particular
solutions are not broadly applicable.
Other types of one-off knowledge are
best supported by informal, specialinterest networks of people.
Knowledge that is broadly applicable but
not easily transferred. It is best transferred
through structured training efforts. Like
the knowledge how to manage a dealer,
basic mechanical knowledge etc.
Tacit
Figure 3.8: Four categories of knowledge, Novins and Armstrong, URL:
http://www.businessinnovation.ey.com/journal/issue1/features/choosi/loader.html, 2000-03-29
ROUND-UP
We have now defined knowledge management and reflected upon the
importance of feedback as a long-term corrective mechanism both at the
individual and organizational level. We have also described three different
models that gave us different dimensions of knowledge and ignorance. We
will in the next section combine these three models into one model, which
will constitute our tool in the analysis later.
But how does this all connect to our model Five P?
Tacit
The model Five P showed that problems are solved
either with tacit knowledge, explicit knowledge or both.
Two states in the model were efficient and desirable,
while we wanted to eliminate the other three. The three
Explicit
other models we have just presented takes this
discussion further. They have shown from different dimensions which
kinds of tacit and explicit knowledge are needed and how an organization
can satisfy those needs. Which are the managerial actions needed? The
next chapter
will also focus on this. We will create a tool for our analysis to enable us
48
Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
to present ways to eliminate the three undesired states in our original
model with the purpose of enhancing the efficiency in workshops.
3.4 OUR KNOWLEDGE IDENTIFICATION MODEL
In the previous paragraphs we presented three models. Earl and Scott’s
matrix recognizes two states: that of knowing and that of knowledge. It
also presents four domains to be managed differently, two of them
containing knowledge and the other two containing ignorance. Zack
describes four situations of ignorance and how they are best managed.
Finally, Novins and Armstrong’s model supplies us with a method to
categorize different types of knowledge based on applicability and
transferability. They also suggest how to manage each of these categories
suitably.
We place Novins and Armstrong’s model in the left column of Earl and
Scott’s model and Zacks model in the upper right corner of Earl and
Scott’s model. Combining the three models we attain a tool both for
categorizing knowledge and ignorance, and for knowing what to do with it
(figure 3.9). Since it does not seem logical to categorize ignorance that you
are not aware of the lower-right field of Earl and Scott’s model will be left
as it is and not categorized further.
State of
knowledge
What you know
What you do not know
Planned Ignorance
Explicit
Explicit knowledge
Knowing
5. Uncertainty
6. Complexity
Acquisitive
State
of
knowing
“Not
knowing”
1.Quick
access
knowledge
2. Broadbased
knowledge
Local
Restrictive
7. Ambiguity
8. Equivocality
Tacit
Global
3. One-off
knowledge
4. Complex
knowledge
Innocent Ignorance
Tacit knowledge
Figure 3.9: Our knowledge identification model
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Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
This model can be a useful tool when it comes to mapping the needs for
knowledge in certain situations, and suitable actions to improve the
support of this knowledge. However, there is another factor that is
interesting to consider when it comes to deciding how to manage
knowledge, and that is how often these needs occur. The more often there
is a need, the more necessary it is to take actions to improve it. The
frequency affects the value of the problem. If a problem is not at all
serious, it should not be treated the same way as serious problems. So in
some cases it can be relevant to take this factor, value, into consideration.
This model is aimed at creating categories, and although the four
categories of knowledge and the five categories of ignorance seem to
constitute each side of a coin that is knowledge versus ignorance, we
would now like to let go of that focus.
If we look at the four categories of knowledge as answers to a question,
those questions are different kinds of ignorance. Furthermore, if we look
at the five different kinds of ignorance as questions, there are five answers
in the form of knowledge to go with them. However, our categories of
knowledge are divided according to the dimensions: Local vs. Global and
Explicit vs. Tacit, whereas our categories of ignorance on the other hand
are categorized according to Tacit vs. Explicit and Restrictive vs.
Acquisitive. Since knowledge and ignorance have different dimensions, we
cannot simply let our four categories of knowledge answer our five
categories of questions, ignorance. Instead we now have nine categories,
period. These categories each correspond to problems and needs that we
will try to find solutions to. The problems and needs are all related to some
kind of ignorance, not necessarily our five, and the solutions are all related
to some kind of knowledge, not necessarily our four. Furthermore, since all
three models we have put together in our knowledge identification model
have the dimensions tacit and explicit, the nine categories will overlap to
some extent.
ROUND-UP
There! We have a model to categorize the different dimensions of created
knowledge we have found and we have discussed how to manage
knowledge. However, the picture is larger than that. There are factors that
could either enhance this work with knowledge, obstruct it or in the worst
case make it impossible. They are more or less prerequisites for this and
we have chosen to call them enablers. The enablers we have identified are
Intention, Resources, Information Technology and Culture & Organization.
3.5 ENABLERS
Before we present our enablers more closely, we will very shortly sum up
what we learned talking to Andersen Consulting. Since we are novices in
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Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
the area we are exploring we decided to talk to someone more at home in
the domain and thus turned to this consultant firm, experienced in
knowledge management.
3.5.1 GLANCING AT A KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT FIRM
Having a big experience on designing and implementing knowledge
management initiatives, Andersen Consulting has found multiple success
factors. First, a detailed plan and a knowledge strategy that identifies the
business goals and the vision one wants to reach is important.
Furthermore, the management’s full support is needed to establish a
knowledge sharing environment and ensuring that a critical mass of users
is established that understand and are willing to share and use the means
provided. This is enhanced with motivation and award systems to inspire
people to contribute and use the knowledge environment. Nevertheless,
you also need the underlying technical structure to support the sharing,
both from an architectural point of view and also importantly from a cost
efficient point of view. Moreover the organization needs to implement
continuous training and support to use the developed system and they
need to integrate it with daily activities so that it is not considered a
burden but rather an enabler. These aspects are all discussed below in the
chapter Enablers.
To understand where specific knowledge based solutions apply, Andersen
Consulting maintains that we must recognize that knowledge is treated
differently depending on the level of interdependence and complexity of
work. This corresponds to parts in our knowledge identification model
(figure 3.9), which strengthens our belief that the model actually works.
Consequently, what we have found important in theories considering the
situation at Scania, in large correspond to what Andersen Consulting
argues.
3.5.2 PRESENTING OUR ENABLERS
There are a number of authors who present various enablers. After a lot
of reading and considering our purpose and also the situation at Scania we
found “our” four enablers the best way to categorize the things we found
being more or less prerequisites for our mission. Our enablers are:
Intention, Resources, Culture & Organization and Information
Technology, which we motivate in the following paragraphs. The first
two, Intention and Resources, will not be described thoroughly, but one
wonders if the goal and means to operationalize the goal, is not
prerequisites for all organizations. We start with a table that gives an
overview of how we have categorized other authors’ enablers into our
four. The ones we have chosen to disregard are commented after the
table.
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JACKSON GRAYSON
JR. & O’DELL
NONAKA & TAKEUCHI
WIIG
OUR ENABLERS
Intention
-
Positive Cultural Factors,
Intention
Cultural impediments,
Infrastructure to support KM
Autonomy
-
Seems understood, but is not Resources
mentioned
Autonomy,
Fluctuation &
creative chaos,
Redundancy,
Requisite variety
Leadership, Culture Positive Cultural Factors,
Cultural impediments,
Incentives, Infrastructure to
support KM
Culture &
Organization
Requisite variety
Technology
Information
Technology
Infrastructure to support
KM, IT infrastructure
Table 3.2: Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995, Jackson Grayson Jr. & O’Dell, 1998, Wiig, 1997.
As shown in the table, the enablers we have chosen to consider cover
many of the enablers mentioned by other authors. However, we have
chosen to disregard factors from the surrounding environment. We have
neither covered Nonaka and Takeuchi's Fluctuation and creative chaos
entirely nor Measurement by Jackson Grayson Jr. & O’Dell.
3.5.3 INTENTION
“For human reality to be is to act…the act must be defined by an intention…Since the
intention is a choice of the end and since the world reveals itself across our conduct,
it is the intentional choice of the end which reveals the world.” - Jean-Paul Sartre “If you do not know where you are going, you can wind up somewhere else.” - Yogi
Berra, American baseball player -
WHY INTENTION?
Do we really need intention at all levels in the organization? Well yes, a
goal is often specified in goal-means hierarchies, which means that a goal
on one level becomes a means to reach a goal on a higher level, hence the
goal helps reaching the next goal41. To have an intention and to speak it
out loud, to make the goal clear, gives guiding principles for the work and
has a motivating effect on the people in the organization42. Why put one’s
shoulder to the wheel if the goal is unknown?
Furthermore, Duffy (1997, p. 22-24) maintains that among the challenges
for managers in this day and age are how to nurture systems thinking,
Jacobsen, Thorsvik referring to Weber 1971, Simon 1945, Drucker 1955, March & Simon 1958
Jacobsen & Thorsvik (1998), referring to Vroom & Deci (1992), Latham & Locke (1979), Luthans
(1995)
41
42
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Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
make people grow and build a shared vision of the future. Without an
intention, that is hard to achieve. Wiig (1997) states that if the employees
do not have a broad understanding of the direction of the enterprise they
interpret the manager’s efforts as just more work instead of a better way
to do work.
Davenport, De Long and Beers (1998) argue that one successfactor for a
knowledge management project would be that the purpose of the project
is clear, and the language that knowledge managers use in describing it is
framed in terms common to the company's culture. In Nonaka and
Takeuchi’s book “The knowledge creating company” they talk about a
knowledge spiral that creates knowledge. The knowledge spiral is driven
by organizational intention, which is defined as an organization’s
aspiration to its goals. Thus, these authors also stress the importance of
intention. As they put it, efforts to achieve the intention usually take the
form of strategy within a business setting. From the viewpoint of
organizational knowledge creation, the essence of strategy lies in
developing the organizational capability to acquire, create, accumulate, and
exploit knowledge. The most critical element of corporate strategy is to
conceptualize a vision about what kind of knowledge should be developed
and to operationalize it into a management system for implementation.
Organizational intention provides the most important criterion for judging
the truthfulness of a given piece of knowledge. If not for intention it
would be impossible to judge the value of information or knowledge
perceived or created. (Nonaka & Takeuchi, p. 74-75) Harley even claims
that if the business objective is not clear and properly defined, it will be
pointless to attempt to manage the knowledge assets.43
3.5.4 RESOURCES
“A catch-22 of the corporate world is that employees are too busy working to take
time to learn things that will help them work more effectively." -Davenport & Prusak-
WHY RESOURCES?
Well, this is of course obvious to everyone. If there are no resources, how
can anyone do anything? Correct. But as others44 and we have seen,
though obvious, managers still tend to set goals without dedicating
enough monetary resources, people or time to achieve them. When it
comes to the requirements for knowledge management and learning, both
managers, employees and public debaters, stress the importance of making
knowledge management and learning a strategic issue. Like marketing or
quality management, knowledge management needs to arise from a clearly
43
44
Harley, 1995, p. 157
Keen, Blomqvist & Guilotte, Johansson & Johansson
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Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
defined strategy that enables the mobilization of resources.45 Again, we
can see that both intention and resources are prerequisites for enabling
any organizational change.
3.5.5 INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
WHY IT?
What first needs to be accentuated, is the fact that IT is a tool. It can be a
great tool if used correctly but it is a tool and it is nothing without the
user. This is said repeatedly in the books that we have read and it cannot
be stressed enough.46 “Garbage at the speed of light” as quoted in Peters
(1994, p. 190, referred to in Jooste, 1997, p. 104) can be the result of an
overemphasis on technology and under-emphasis on people and their
needs. Davenport and Prusak argues that IT can radically lower
coordination costs and provide opportunities to develop new, internal
processes that are in fact firm specific. IT is now as much about
coordination as about information. But they stress that the human
dimension of processes and process investment is the most important
one. Employees involved at all levels need to be listened to, empowered,
educated, and rewarded. (p. 14 & 158-166)
Johansson and Johansson (1998) claim that the possibilities available in IT
today enable information and knowledge, at least explicit, to be captured
and distributed all over a global organization simultaneously. Arguing that
IT can enhance the process of storage and distribution of knowledge, we
mean mainly explicit knowledge like technical information in the form of
a workshop manual. Tacit knowledge is harder to distribute with the help
of IT since it is not easily articulated.
To put it simply, IT is a powerful tool that you have to make friends with.
It is not the answer to the problems but it can help in solving some.
Laurence Prusak, managing principal of the IBM Consulting Group in
Boston writes: “The only thing that gives an organization a competitive
edge – the only thing that is sustainable – is what it knows, and how fast it
can know something new”47. Using IT the right way, speed will not be
anything to worry about.
As we stated before, organizational learning is a continually evolving
process that results in the expansion and improvement of knowledge.
This knowledge can only be labeled organizational knowledge if it is
exchanged and accepted among the participants48. That process is helped
Sveriges tekniska attacheer
Jacobsen & Thorsvik, Davenport & Prusak, Johansson & Johansson etc.
47 Prusak referred to by Allee, 1997, The knowledge evolution: Expanding Organizational Intelligence
48 Romme & Dillen, referring to Duncan and Weiss, 1979; Walsh and Ungson, 1991; Ulrich et al, 1993;
Huber, 1991; Nonaka, 1991
45
46
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Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
by IT and to learn from others by sharing knowledge, for example over
the web, is the focal point of knowledge management, which we have
discussed earlier.
REMEMBER THE USER
Cook (1997, p. 53-54) argues that whenever a new technology is
introduced, people have to learn how to use it. Whenever new
information is provided by this technology, people have to be able to
accept and apply the technology. The implication of this is that without
human learning, IT would lack impact. Hence, as well as IT is an enabler
for learning, learning is a prerequisite for IT. When organizations invest in
IT systems they sometimes miss the aspect of enabling the users to learn
the system. Lack of education and experience can result in users simply
not using the system.49
As stated earlier, IT is a tool and nothing but a tool. Bark is of the opinion
that there generally seems to exist a certain blind faith in intranets among
managers, computer technicians and informants.50 IT is nothing without
the user and numerous writers51 warn for the trap which so many
companies walk into when developing an IT solution; insufficient
preliminary studies and no continuous involvement of end users in the
development. Listening to the ones the system is intended for and seizing
their opinions helps avoiding the trap. Furthermore, reading, or listening,
between the lines becomes important since the user does not always know
what he or she needs. What are the demands from the processes? And do
they mean the same thing in Stockholm as in Madrid or Eastern Europe?
As Cook (1997, p. 53-54) grasps the problem: “Given that the human
factor is a killer issue in the success of knowledge management, it is
astonishing how little attention is given to it when installing new
information systems. Perhaps this arises from the very human factor of
fear - those of us who are specialists in human behavior often fear the
technical realm of machines, while those of us whose area of expertise is
information technology often fear the mysterious world of personal and
interpersonal behavior.” Davenport (1997, p. 5) even renames the
phenomenon “information ecology” and wants to widen the narrow focus
on technology to instead comprise how people create, distribute,
understand and use information.
Johansson & Johansson, 1998, referring to Bark et al, 1997
Johansson & Johansson, 1998, referring to Bark et al, 1997, p. 113
51 Cook , Cepro IT, Ancona & Caldwell, Tallving, Johansson & Johansson, Wiig, Davenport & Prusak
etc.
49
50
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INFRASTRUCTURE FOR INFORMATION SHARING
The infrastructure for information sharing is important. Today this is
mainly represented by the Internet and the companies’ intranets and
extranets. They enable the different parts of the organizations to cooperate in processes and contribute with their unique share to the
entirety.52
Bark (1997, p. 10) claims that an intranet is a tool, a channel for
communication for management and employees, a way to seek
information, a support for processes and much more. It is also a tool for
shedding light on other parts of the organization and it is as important for
the management to understand the employees’ situation as it is for the
employees to gain insight into how the company is doing and what is
behind the different decisions made by the management53.
Initiating an intranet, or similar, entails many complications. It affects the
whole organization and it is easy to focus on a few crucial segments of the
system and oversee the whole picture. The literature on the issue is vast
and we have no intention of covering it all. However, we have done a
synthesis of factors, considering a list by Johansson & Johansson54, issues
that Bark (1997, p. 11-12) and Tallving (1998, p. 59-60) highlights, and a
lot of other reading on the matter. The reason for presenting these
fragmented issues and not more of the numerous amount of issues is that
these are what authors in general and we in particular worry about. They
are what many times disables the improvement aimed for, instead of
enabling the change that generally is the intention.
A general prerequisite and an organizational aspect is the management’s
full support. They need to communicate a clear intention and provide
sufficiently dedicated resources. There should be a co-operation between
the IT and the information departments and the plan must cover the
importance of education on the system for the users. A more specific
issue is the need for a well conducted need analysis to map the
organizations’ and the end users’ needs, which is done partly by using a
project group composed of representatives from different parts of the
organization. This must also be followed up by evaluations of the use and
the users’ attitudes to find out if the analysis proved right. For the system
to be used it is not enough with ensuring that the content is right, the
structure must be simple and the content must be dynamic and reflect
changes in the enterprise. A decentralized responsibility for publishing and
updating with clear areas of responsibility and assignments for the content
Cepro IT, Wiig
Tallving, 1998, Johansson & Johansson, referring to Eriksson, 1997
54 Johansson & Johansson, referring to Ang & Teo (1997), Saarinen (1993), Saarinen & Sääksjärvi
(1992), Bark et al (1997), Ptak (1998) and Wessberg (1997)
52
53
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Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
is recommended. Once implemented it is common with maintenance
problems. To keep a high degree of up-to-dateness is important, but of
course not as easy as it sounds. The villain of the piece is often a lack of
time. Putting up routines concerning when, by whom and how updates
and maintenance should be done, and making sure this is really done, is
important.
If an organization decides to design an information distribution solution
based on IT, they must also make sure that the end users have access to
the technology required to make use of the solution. There is a risk that a
gap occurs between those who have access to a computer and those who
do not, and the latter will have problems staying informed.55 There can be
many reasons to why a workplace lacks the technology. There can be
shortcomings in intention or in resources, previously discussed, or in the
culture, which we will turn to now.
3.5.6 CULTURE & ORGANIZATION
“Take a hard look at your culture before launching a knowledge initiative.” - Davenport
& Prusak -
WHY CULTURE AND ORGANIZATION?
Culture can mean many things. In this thesis we look upon organizational
culture which comprises norms, values, attitudes, rules and so on. We also
consider the fact that different countries have different cultures. Having
these discussions we also cover management culture and issues of
organization that influence the culture in a company.
NATIONAL CULTURE
“Heaven is where the police are British, the cooks are French, the mechanics German,
the lovers Italian, and it’s all organized by the Swiss. Hell is where the cooks are
British, the mechanics are French, the lovers Swiss, the police German and it’s all
organized by the Italians.” - Makridakis & Associates -
Claes Moberg and Gunnar Palm (1997, p. 131-135 & 145-146) have
studied intercultural communication and they mean that the importance
of knowledge about cultural circumstances when dealing with foreign
cultures cannot be stressed enough. There are many factors where the
culture and values are separated from one’s own. Not just the very
obvious such as language, religion, clothes and food habits but also the
view held on the individual compared to the group, man versus woman,
age, time, friendship and much more. In India for example the relation
between manager and worker are quite different from Sweden. It is
assumed in India that the manager takes all the initiatives and makes the
55
Johansson & Johansson, referring to Bark et al, 1997
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decisions. If the worker would do more than his position motivates, the
other personnel might look upon him with contempt.
A problem with culture is that we tend to compare with our own culture
as a base, derives from our own values and judge other cultures after these
too much. This is called ethnocentrism. The alternative to ethnocentrism
is empathy, the ability to put oneself in another person’s situation, to see
things from another person’s perspective. (Ibid)
How can we define culture? The culture expresses in concrete and
abstract terms the norms, values and internal relations of a society. The
culture of a country can be compared to an iceberg in such a way that only
10 percent of the culture is visible and 90 percent hidden under the
surface. The visible part, manifests itself in the form of clothing and
language amongst other things, whilst the invisible part constitutes of
attitudes, values and ideals. At the very bottom of the iceberg, we find the
deep cultural assumptions like the culture’s conception of the world or
philosophy of life. (Ibid)
Comparing to the iceberg is the theory of Wendy Hall (1995, p. 22-27)
that the culture has three main ingredients, the “ABCs”: Artifacts,
Behaviors & Core value.
Artifacts and etiquette are the visible concrete elements of culture.
Behaviors and actions are the way in which groups of individuals do the
things they do. Core values, morals and beliefs shared by groups of
individuals are the third ingredient of culture. These are invisible and the
hardest to understand.
But how does this come into the picture within the frames of our thesis?
Our goal was to present a very modest attempt to describe the importance
of keeping in mind the differences between cultures. When you are
dealing with a global organization, you do have to deal with different
cultures, which means that you do have to think about these things. You
need to be sensitive and humble and if you work with goals and objectives
and let the different markets reach the goal the way they want you avoid a
lot of treading on toes.
ORGANIZATIONAL ISSUES
Information and knowledge are stored in the organization in different
ways. One storage place is the culture of the organization. In the culture,
organizational knowledge about possible solutions to problems is stored.56
Furthermore, some authors mean that if we regard organizations as
information processing systems, there must be a sort of organizational
56
Romme & Dillen, referring to Schein, 1993 & Hofstede, 1991
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memory in which information can be stored57. One form of memory is
the organizational structure, as a framework for individual behavior. The
informal and formal structure defines individual roles as “manuals” for
carrying out certain activities, based on experiences and expectations.58
The way in which organizations develop collective interpretations is
influenced by the uniformity of frames of reference. If no uniform frames
of reference exist before information is distributed within the
organization, uniform interpretations will seldom arise.59 The culture
influences the way information is interpreted, but also how it is used and
shared, so for changes to be possible the culture itself should be changed
to be an enabler and not an impediment.
As written earlier, many organizations today have intranets as a part of
their IT environment. The intranet brings many advantages, and if used
correctly costs are cut and information can be reached more easily.
Nevertheless, since the goal often reaches beyond these advantages, to
enhanced information quality, management and productivity, one must go
further than a technical implementation. The organization must develop
an infrastructure for the organization as a whole and for the management.
The focus should lie on the processes that lead to the implementation of
the technology rather than on the technology itself. 60 This reasoning is in
line with our discussion in the paragraph above What is Knowledge
Management?. The outcome of these processes is heavily affected by the
organizational culture.
What is the general notion when it comes to searching for answers in the
technical information provided? Is it that you are ambitious and eager to
learn or is it that you are reading because you do not know your job well
enough and simply wasting precious work time? The two cultures
representing the different notions are both out there, but if they are not
located they cannot be managed.
The management on a workplace plays a crucial role for the local culture.
We have earlier argued how important learning is, that the employees
develop their knowledge and acquire new insights. But this view is not
held by each and everyone in organizations and when not held by the
manager, who should be the role model, influencing the learning process
for others there is a problem and the management culture is not the
enabler it could be.
Romme & Dillen, referring to Cyert and March, 1963; Hedberg, 1981; Argyris and Schön, 1978
Romme & Dillen, referring to Duncan and Weiss, 1979
59 Romme & Dillen, referring to Hedberg, 1981; Kim, 1993; Kolb et al, 1984; Weick, 1991
60 Johansson & Johansson, 1998
57
58
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To be able to learn one cannot simply rely on regular education, one has
to see to every-day learning in the workplace, where culture is of crucial
importance. The culture needs to encourage people to participate in the
process of creating and sharing knowledge. The basic prerequisite for
knowledge sharing is the creation of a climate where it is natural to
share.61 According to Axelsson (1996, p. 39) an individual’s competence
consists of three things: knowledge, skill and will. Without will, knowledge
and skill will neither evolve nor be fully used, and the individual’s will
cannot be activated without motivation and incentives.
What is more important, inner/emotional or outer/material rewards?
Monetary might be what first comes to mind but the inner rewards can be
as important as the outer when it comes to motivating the employees to
do their best for the organization to achieve its goals, which is confirmed
in most empirical studies according to Jacobsen & Thorsvik (p. 244-246).
Inner rewards that are closely related to independence and atmosphere on
the job are more important than a high salary. There is also a clear
connection between satisfaction on the job and good health, but none
between salary and health. (Lane 1991, referred to in Jacobsen &
Thorsvik) Also Petri62, who we talked to on the issue, argued that
incentives should neither be punishments nor monetary awards since such
a system is not durable in the long run. He claimed that it is better to
make efforts visible and give encouragement and credit.63
According to Jacobsen and Thorsvik (1995, p. 222) there are many studies
done on motivation (defined as performance) which builds on selfreported data about what one is willing to do or not. The problem with
these studies as they see it is that one neglects the factors that can affect
the relationship between the urge to perform and the actual performance.
For one thing, it could be that the individual wants to do something he
lacks the knowledge or experience for (Vroom, 1964). Another issue
could be that the resources needed are missing (Van Meter & Van Horn,
1975). Also, there could be different social rules and norms which are
influenced by culture and intention, which hinders the performance
(Mayo, 1949).
ROUND-UP
We would like to sum-up the theoretical framework by discussing how
well it covers the clarified research questions in chapter 1.7.3., which we
now look at one by one.
Dalin, 1997, Hall, 1990, referred to by Rehn & Westerberg, 1999
Carl-Johan Petri (previously called Carl-Johan Westin), interview in December 1999
63 Carl-Johan Westin, Cepro
61
62
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Which kinds of information and knowledge do the employees in the
workshops need for our purpose?
With our model (figure 3.1), we showed that a combination of tacit and
explicit knowledge (which we then called knowledge and information), is
needed to solve problems more efficiently. In the following sections we
discussed the difference between tacit and explicit knowledge and later we
discussed the dimensions of knowledge and also ignorance – a lack of
knowledge. With these discussions we have identified the different kinds
of knowledge that could be needed.
Which sources, channels and carriers of information and knowledge
should be used, and how can they support the workshops in the most
efficient way?
In the sections of Knowledge creation and Feedback we reflected on these
issues. We also considered them when we discussed Dimensions of knowledge,
where they are discussed together with each respective knowledge
dimension. In addition, we covered this further in our discussion of
Information Technology along with Culture & Organization in the section
Enablers.
How can the organization capture the information and knowledge
that stems from solving the problems encountered in workshops in
particular and in the rest of the organization in general?
When captured, how can the organization manage and make use of
this information and knowledge in the learning process?
In the section Knowledge Creation we discussed the levels of knowledge
creation and forms of knowledge interaction and in Learning we discussed
why and how organizational and individual learning takes place and we
also reflected upon single-loop and double-loop learning. In addition,
these issues were accounted for in the large section Knowledge Management.
Now we have seen that we have found a theoretical framework that
covers all our clarified research questions. We will now present our
findings in our empirical study on these same questions.
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Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
4 EMPIRICAL STUDY
After defining how we have worked throughout our thesis and discussed our
theoretical framework, we will now present our findings in our empirical study. This
will then lead to the analysis chapter, where we combine our findings with our
theoretical framework to find out what we think is needed to improve the efficiency
in Scania’s workshops when it comes to knowledge management.
4.1 INTRODUCTION TO THE EMPIRICAL STUDY
We will in this chapter account for what we have seen in the four
countries that we have visited. We would like to encourage the reader to
keep in mind that the workshops we have visited have only been a few,
not selected to be representative for the entire countries. In some
countries we had the opportunity to talk more to employees at the
distributor and in some less, which has also effected the content of this
chapter.
The structure of the chapter is somewhat similar to the one in the
Theoretical Framework. We start with describing what The workshop process
(4.2) is like and how problems are solved in a workshop. We continue
with Knowledge (4.3), where we discuss how tacit and explicit knowledge are
shared today in the workshop and in the whole organization and also
problems on this issue. We also discuss learning in the different countries
we have visited and the strategy from the Factory. After that comes a
section with our Enablers (4.4), where we reflect upon different aspects in
the organization today concerning Intentions, Resources, IT and Culture
& Organization. We conclude with a Benchmark (4.5). We have interviewed
three companies that have already implemented computerized solutions
for distribution and usage of information and in this section we describe
shortly how the three companies perceive their situation.
4.2 THE WORKSHOP PROCESS
The two activities in Scania’s workshops are repair and maintenance of
vehicles. The process of repairing or doing maintenance work on a truck
is more or less the same in all the workshops that we have visited in
Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and France for our study. We have
identified five steps each errand goes through and a general, simplified
process, which is depicted in figure 4.1, could be described as follows. The
driver is first received at a reception where a work order describing the
problem and the required services is written. Then the work order is given
to a mechanic who searches for the reasons to the problems. When these
are found the mechanic turns to the spare parts warehouse to pick up or
order the parts needed for the work. After the right parts have been
found, the mechanic can carry out the necessary repairs. When that is
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Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
finished some paperwork needs to be done, and then the driver can come
and fetch his truck.
Reception
Problem search
Spare parts
ordering
Repair and/or
maintenance
Order
follow-up
Figure 4.1: The repair and maintenance process
The aim for each workshop is of course that every phase in this process
runs as smoothly as possible. Nevertheless, problems may arise in every
phase and obstruct the process from being efficient. When there is a
problem, the method of solving it turned out to be very much the same in
all the workshops that we visited. But circumstances vary. Customers in
some countries for example are very bad at long-term planning which
naturally creates large problems in planning the work at the workshop,
whilst in other countries the customers are very good at scheduling their
maintenance and at booking repairs in advance, as far as circumstances
allow of course. To their help, all countries have a computerized dealer
system. Some are installing the one that the Factory recommends,
Automaster, and some have their own. The systems usually among other
things contain information about customers, vehicles, contracts, parts and
it handles work orders and invoicing. How well this system supports the
task also varies.
If we take the case a broken truck and look at the two steps problem search
and repair, the way a mechanic works is naturally quite individual.
Nevertheless, we have been able to distinguish a general pattern for
problem solving. When a mechanic receives a work order he normally
starts to investigate the problem to see if he can solve it by himself. This
can take quite some time, since there seems to be a threshold for many
mechanics when it comes to asking for help or looking for information in
the binders. If the mechanic concludes that he needs some help or
support to solve the problem, the most common thing to do is to ask a
co-worker or the foreman. The second most common thing is to look for
answers in the information available in binders. When none of these
actions give enough help to solve the problem, the foreman usually calls a
technical expert at the distributor.
The goal for each workshop is to minimize the time that the trucks stand
still due to repair and maintenance. This is important both to keep the
customers content and because the workshops are not always paid for the
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Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
time they spend searching for problems. According to the pattern
described above, the most efficient way to minimize this time would be to
make sure the employees of the workshop are as skilled as possible at
their work, that is that they have as much knowledge as possible. To
promote knowledge some conditions have to be fulfilled, for example
there has to be a positive attitude towards it. Just like before, we call these
conditions Enablers, and divide them into Intention, Resources, Information
Technology and Culture & Organization.
In the following section we will describe how the increase of knowledge
works in the workshops today, and what is done to enable it.
4.3 KNOWLEDGE
As we have already seen, the knowledge of the employees is a very
important factor for keeping the workshop process efficient. To assure
that the employees’ knowledge reaches the necessary level different
countries have different methods. In this chapter we will present the
factors that form the base for spreading knowledge and keeping the
process efficient in the European workshops today. Some countries have
apprentice programs, and there are different ways of promoting on-thejob-training, or of not promoting it. Apart from this, every country has its
own training system to formally train their employees, and the Factory has
one too. To support both training and everyday work there is technical
information produced at the Factory and at the national distributor. A
very important way to spread knowledge is through communication
between the different entities within the organization, and there are both
formal and informal structures to do so. We will now describe what we
have learned about these factors during our visits to the seven workshops.
4.3.1 TACIT KNOWLEDGE
As we have already described in the chapter of Theoretical Framework, tacit
knowledge is unwritten knowledge held in the heads of individuals or
teams. It includes subjective insights and intuitions, and it is gained
through action and therefore it comes with experience. The most
important way to assimilate tacit knowledge in the workshops today is
through every day work. Since the usual way to solve a problem is by
trying hard until it seems impossible, and only then ask someone else or
look in a binder with technical information, the employees of the
workshops naturally get a lot of their knowledge this way.
It is also common practice to let an employee, who lacks knowledge
within a certain area, work side-by-side with a more experienced
employee. A formalized way to do this is through the apprentice programs
that will be described further in the paragraph Learning where we also
discuss other formal training. If an apprentice system is in use or not, or if
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Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
the workshop uses a lot of side-by-side working or not, all depends on the
management of the national distributor or of the workshop itself. Many of
the mechanics that we met said that they prefer learning new things while
working to reading and learning things in a more theoretical way.
Normally there is at least one employee at each workshop who is very
knowledgeable that the others can turn to with their problems and
questions. This person is often, but not necessarily, the foreman or the
workshop manager. It depends on the size of the workshop whether the
workshop manager is more of a manager and less a mechanic or not. In all
the countries that we visited there are also some “technical experts” who
work for the national distributor. They travel around to the workshops
when there are technical problems, and they also answer questions over
the phone. Thanks to their contacts with many workshops they gather a
lot of both tacit and explicit knowledge, and their existence is in many
cases crucial when it comes to solving complicated problems. There is
also a help desk at the Factory in Södertälje where help is provided to the
distributors’ technical experts from all around the world when they have
problems.
Another way of sharing knowledge is tried in a workshop in Norway,
where competence groups of four to five mechanics are formed. Within
the group, different competencies are represented. The members of one
group may work on different vehicles but they are ready to assist each
other when there is a need for more competence within a certain area.
This is not meant to create experts but to enable the mechanics to interact
and learn more from each other. Moreover, it is not just a question of
sharing knowledge but to create knowledge as well since knowledge
creation takes place when knowledge is shared like this. Moreover, the
Dutch distributor for example lets all the employees take a driving license
for trucks in paid work time for free. In this way everyone can conduct
testing of vehicles and they get an even better understanding of the truck.
Since the greater part of the mechanics’ knowledge is tacit there is a
danger in creating experts within limited competencies in the workshops.
An expert is created when someone does the same type of work all the
time. This will make him an expert of this type of work, but he will not
learn anything else. Nearly all the employees distributing the work orders,
normally the receptionist or the foreman, told us that they try to be aware
of this. But they are also aware of the demands of the customers, and
since an expert works faster than the others the same types of jobs many
times end up going to the same mechanic each time. This is an important
impediment for the possibility for many mechanics to gain new experience
and thus create tacit knowledge.
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To profit from tacit knowledge you need communication and interaction
with other people. This is done in everyday work, at meetings and in those
moments in courses where the mechanics have practical training. Talking
to the mechanics at one workshop that never had meetings, we got a
unison wish that they wanted more meetings, preferably every month or
more where among other things the technical information could be
discussed. But many workshop managers feel that there is no time for
meetings during work time. Some argue that if the employees want
meetings, they should be held after work hours, which of course the
employees do not want to hear of. The Swedish distributor encourages the
workshops to keep weekly meetings or at least monthly, but the Swedish
distributor estimates that up to 10 percent of the workshop managements
do not inform anything at all to their employees and 65 percent do it too
seldom.
A study on dealer awareness was carried out last year to highlight the
problems with the increasing amount of information that overflows the
workshops. The report was in part a result of a study where the Area
Technical Managers64 gave their impressions after their regular visits to the
markets. A conclusion from the survey is that it is important that technical
experts from the distributor make regular visits to the dealers and
workshops. These visits are today the only way the Factory has to assure
that the information is passed on to the target group – the workshop
technicians. Regular dealer and workshop meetings on national level are
also an important tool in bringing out the information received at the
technical product meetings which are held at the Factory once a year.
4.3.2 EXPLICIT KNOWLEDGE
Explicit knowledge is, like described in the Theoretical Framework, the type
of knowledge that can be expressed in words and numbers. It is easily
communicated and shared, with or without human interaction. The
explicit knowledge that we have focused on during our visits to the
workshops is the technical information. Other types of explicit knowledge
needed at the workshops are for example information about warranties,
legal matters and information about the customers.
Workshops need technical information for many reasons. The mechanic
could be a novice, the problem could be new, the product itself could be
new, there could be some numbers needed or the problem could simply
be very difficult to solve without guidance.
Quite a few factors influence each repair and maintenance job. The product:
whether it is new or old; The problem: whether it is new or old, and whether
Area Technical Managers working for the Factory regularly visit “their” countries and they are
responsible for technical issues in these countries towards the Factory.
64
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Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
it is difficult or easy to solve; The mechanic: whether he is experienced or
not and whether he has had sufficient training or not. These factors
influence to what extent the mechanic needs additional information
besides the already held knowledge.
INFORMATION ON PAPER – CURRENT DIMENSIONS
Today, technical information for the workshops is produced at the
Factory mainly on paper. There is a large, and so far growing, series of 11
binders that contains the Workshop Manual. The Workshop Manual is
divided into 18 chapters and they include function descriptions and work
descriptions for the whole chassis. Sections of these chapters are
distributed to the workshops whenever one or more new sections are
produced at the Factory. Another binder contains the TIs (Technical
Information). The TIs normally consist only of one page describing some
specific information, for example that a new spare part is needed for
certain chassis numbers or recommended actions to be taken at certain
new failures. They too are distributed whenever the Factory needs to
communicate something like this. The number of TIs for the mechanic to
keep in mind is naturally growing and it is perceived as hard to remember
them all, but it is not an urgent problem, yet. Apart from the Workshop
Manual and the TIs there is paper information from the Factory to the
workshops about spare parts, and each country’s distributor distributes
information similar to the TIs.
INFORMATION ON PAPER – DIFFERENT NEEDS
One of the employees at the Factory’s department for technical
information maintained that their general impression is that simple things
are explained in detail, while more complicated issues are hardly explained
at all. At this department at the Factory they are also under the impression
that the mechanics generally want more pictures and less text, an
impression that was not completely confirmed during our visits at the
workshops. There are many different opinions about the quality of the
Workshop Manual and the TIs, and these differences do not seem to have
anything to do neither with the nationality nor with the size of the
workshop. More likely, it depends entirely on the competence, interests
and the attitude of the person who reads it. What was requested was
information on more then one level in certain chapters, both for the
mechanic who looks in the information for the very first time, and for the
more experienced one looking for more advanced information. Many
employees at the workshops think that the information does not seem to
be meant for a knowledgeable mechanic since they, just like the people at
the Factory, also think it explains simple things too thoroughly and
complex issues too little. They thought there ought to be more and better
images, both on very simple things to replace text and cross-section
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images for complex issues. On the other hand, some mechanics do not
think they need more information, but less. What we could conclude, is
that the needs for information and the ways to interpret it seem to be as
many as there are mechanics. However, everyone seemed to agree that the
information normally comes too late, that the amount of paper in the
binders is sometimes too great which makes it all fall out, and finally that
chapter 16 is a problem in many ways. The wiring diagrams get torn
because of their size and some mechanics find them poorly arranged and
very messy. On the other hand, other mechanics and foremen praised the
wiring diagrams since they provide such good information and that they
are so easy to read.
Some conclusions from the study on dealer awareness that we spoke
about earlier are in line with what we have found out. The Area Technical
Managers were of the opinion that the information depth is acceptable but
the amount is too great to be assimilated by the mechanics. There is too
much text and there needs to be more drawings. In addition there needs
to be more information on trouble shooting and improved product
information when the Factory changes parts. Furthermore, they had the
impression looking at the Workshop Manual that people at the Factory
underestimate the know-how of the mechanics. They therefore suggested
that the Factory should look at the Workshop Manual from Volvo, which
according to them is better than Scania’s in this perspective. Moreover
they thought that more accurate information and on a higher technical
level is needed, and that it often lacks the functional descriptions.
INFORMATION ON PAPER – A CHANGE FOR THE WORSE
According to many mechanics and technical instructors there were
changes for the worse in the Workshop Manual when the latest series of
trucks was introduced in 1995. The structure is better in the new
Workshop Manual, but some cross-references are lacking, most of the
cross-section images and all of the color pictures have been removed. This
is a large drawback since the remaining pictures are much harder to
understand. From many workshops there have also come complaints that
the function descriptions are now harder to understand since there are no
cross-section images. The described assembly process, which is also used
for teaching, was better with the earlier series of trucks. The function
description is considered a very important part of the Workshop Manual.
It is by understanding how things function that the mechanics can learn
how to find the source of the problem when something is not working.
But the mechanics are not the only ones who have different opinions
about the contents of the Workshop Manual. The technical instructors at
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the Factory want to teach as much as possible about the functioning of
the components of the truck: how a component acts normally, how it acts
when there is something wrong etc. But according to them the people at
the department responsible for writing the technical information do not
want to write these things. They mainly want to describe how to assemble
and to dismount things, something that a mechanic can normally do
without reading instructions.
INFORMATION ON PAPER – DISTRIBUTION
All the employees of the workshop agree that they often find changes and
new parts that they have never heard about when they start working on a
truck. The information about product news and product changes is
deficient. If it comes at all it comes too late to the workshops, when they
have already seen the change or the new product and have had to try to
solve the problems anyway. This goes for TIs describing solutions to new
problems too. However, the problems with late information are
decreasing. The workshops have started to notice that the Factory is trying
to speed up the information process.
The distribution of the information on paper from the Factory to the
workshops was a slow process that has recently been improved. Earlier,
the information was sent to the distributors along with the spare parts.
The distributors then had to distribute it to the workshops, which could
lengthen the distribution time considerably. During this step, some
distributors seized the opportunity to take away some of the information
that they did not want the employees of the workshops to read since,
among other reasons, they might have felt that some particular
information did not concern their market. So it was not only a slow
process, it also passed through a filter. During the time that we have
conducted this study there have been different projects in process at the
Factory aimed at rendering the distribution process more efficient and at
cutting leed time. One of them, that was implemented by the end of this
study, is to send the information by mail directly from the Factory to the
workshops. This way the distribution time is shortened and it solves the
problem with the distributor – filter.
The Dutch distributor thinks that the sales people should be informed
about new products first and then the technical instructors, since the sales
people need quite a lot of time to prepare for the sales and marketing and
the instructors need time to prepare course material. They should all have
the information before the product is on the market of course. They mean
that the Factory needs to establish a better connection between the two
flows of information, the one to the sales people and the one to the
mechanics. One of the Dutch instructors said that he would like to get
access to the lists that he knows exist in the Factory of product changes.
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One way to get information about product news is to look at Marketing
News on Outline – Scania’s extranet. But now, when a new engine is
about to be introduced, the password to this site has been changed and
the instructor who needs the information can no longer see it. In Norway,
the employees at the workshops complained about having to search for
information about product news and changes in the new chapters of the
Workshop Manual.
Another problem is that the spare parts employees often do not get access
to the TIs. So when there is a TI about some new product they do not
order it since they do not know that it exists. They only find that out
when a mechanic comes to ask for the new part. Only then can they order
the part and the affected truck will have to wait.
In addition, there is an organizational problem at the Factory. There is
one department (RI) that is responsible for creating the technical
information and some software for the workshops, parts assortment and
also for creating work methods. Another department (RQ) is responsible
for the follow-up of technical field quality and the failure report system,
FRAS. Yet another department (YD) is responsible for dealer
development, that is how to manage a workshop and a dealer. They are
also responsible for co-ordinating repair and maintenance contracts, for
the technical helpdesk and they are commercially responsible for parts.
These are the most closely related issues concerning the workshops but
they are separated in different departments and buildings. According to
representatives from all three, the communication between them is rather
poor. This leads to duplication of work and frustration in not having a
clear view of the whole picture.
COMPUTERIZED INFORMATION – A GOAL
Although the process of distribution of information on paper has been
improved, it may only be a temporary solution for the distribution of
technical information. The Factory’s goal is to completely stop sending
the information physically and instead providing it on the Internet. By the
end of 1999 they implemented a website with links to the Workshop
Manual and the TIs in ten languages in PDF format. It also contains
Training Packages – material in english, which the distributors’ instructors
can use for their courses. A user name and a password are acquired to
access this site, and they have been sent out in a TI.
COMPUTERIZED INFORMATION – ATTITUDE
Generally, the employees at the workshops seemed positive when we
talked to them about finding information in a computer instead of in
binders. Especially the mechanics were interested. Some of the managers
were more skeptical to this new idea, particularly in France. They did not
think that the mechanics would be able use a computer, and they were
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also worried about some practical matters. For instance, what will happen
if more than one mechanic at a time needs to search for information? And
what will they do when they need to bring the information with them to
the truck? We told them that the new information system would require a
printer to enable the mechanics to make printouts of the information, but
still some were not convinced. The mechanics on the other hand, did not
perceive the issue of using printouts as a problem. In the Netherlands
there were some worries about what would happen to the older
mechanics who have no knowledge whatsoever about computers, and
who are probably not willing to learn either. The TI that we mentioned
above containing the password for the website with links to the
Workshop Manual, TIs and Training Packages, is one piece of
information that the Dutch distributor has chosen not to distribute to the
workshops because they do not want the workshops to access the Internet
until the distributor’s intranet has been developed. Another general
argument against having the information on-line is the access time, which
can be long if the Internet connection is bad. That argument however
should be gone within five years according to a web-manager at the
Factory. Moreover, today there are not enough computers in the
workshops for the mechanics to use.
Although the workshop employees were mostly positive to the idea of
getting information from a computer, many of them mentioned some
pieces of information that they would still like to receive on paper. On of
them were the small service data booklets that are very appreciated by the
mechanics. They would no longer serve their purpose if it is was not
possible to keep them in the pocket. Other information that many
mechanics want to keep on paper is the wiring diagrams, since they are
considered too big to fit suitably on a computer screen.
COMPUTERIZED INFORMATION – MULTI
Apart from the information on paper the Factory produces and distributes
some explicit knowledge in the form of software. There is one program,
Multi, which is used to find the right spare parts to a certain chassis. It is
meant to replace the microfiches that have been used so far. The
workshops and the distributors, have the possibility to connect it to their
own databases. Thereby they are able to see the prices of the parts, if the
part is in stock and the time it will take to do the repair. It is also possible
to see the PDF version of the Workshop Manual in Multi. In the first
versions, Multi contained many errors. For example, it did not show the
right parts for the right chassis number, something that made the program
rather useless. Lately it has improved a lot, but the bad reputation is still
there. Of the seven workshops we visited, none use Multi as a tool for the
mechanics to find information. In the Netherlands and Norway, they use
Multi along with microfiches to find spare parts. The spare parts people
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told us that they like Multi and that it is easy to use, but that they often
still find the information they need faster in the microfiches since they are
more used to them. Some of the persons who had tried Multi had a few
wishes for improvements. They wanted a better linkage between the spare
parts catalogue and the Workshop Manual, which would mean that you
would not have to search for information twice. Some mechanics also
asked for better linkage generally between closely related things. For
example, if you read in one place about how to change the oil it should be
linked to information about how much oil that is needed.
The workshops we visited were on different levels when it comes to IT.
One of the Norwegian workshops had come rather far and was going to
install two “computer stations” with PCs and printers out in the
workshop to make the mechanics use Multi. In France and in Sweden
only a manager had access to Multi, and they did not use it a lot. What we
can conclude though is that the mechanics in all countries are enthusiastic
about the possibility to use computers in their work. The few that had had
the possibility to try Multi for example thought it would be a very helpful
tool as long as the errors in it are taken care of.
COMPUTERIZED INFORMATION - DIAGNOS & PROGRAMMER
Other software produced at the Factory is Scania Diagnos & Scania
Programmer (SD/SP). They are used on laptops that can be connected to
the truck’s control unit, to view and manipulate some parameters of the
truck’s vast and growing electronic system. In the workshops, most
mechanics know how to use this program, and they are all very optimistic
about it. For some of them, using SD/SP has been their first contact with
a computer while others have a PC and an Internet connection at home.
The software is distributed on CD-ROMs four times a year through the
same process as the paper information. It can also be downloaded from
the Internet. The Factory has recently (March 2000) implemented the
function of partial updating of new chassis information, which means that
information about new chassis can be downloaded from the Internet into
Multi once a week. However, just as the paper information the CD-ROMs
with new versions of the programs often come too late to those who do
not have access to the Internet. With SD/SP this can cause very big
problems. A new control unit in a truck can only be used with the
corresponding version of SD/SP. With older versions it is not even
possible to connect to the control unit. When so happens - that a new
truck comes in to the workshop before the software does - all there is to
do is to wait for the new version. In Norway, the distributor downloads
the new versions as soon as they are on the Internet. Then they make
copies on CD-ROM and distribute them to the workshops. This way they
save one month that they would have had to wait for the CD-ROMs from
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the Factory. With Multi the problems are similar to the problems with
SD/SP, however less serious. If the chassis number for a new truck is not
in Multi the mechanic and the spare parts person just have to trust other
sources of information, like microfiches, or Multi without the filter, and
their own intuition, to find the right parts. If the workshop has access to
the Internet they can also find information about the chassis in a chassis
database on the intranet.
COMPUTERIZED INFORMATION - DEALER SYSTEMS
Like we described above, every country that we visited has its own dealer
system. A dealer system consists of software used to make the work
orders, keep information about the customers, chassis, repair and
maintenance contracts, warehouse levels, and sometimes the information
about warranties and guarantee of payment. The different dealer systems
have many things in common although they are all unique and contain
different types of information. They are also more or less integrated with
the different systems at the Factory, for example the system for failure
reports (FRAS) and the system for repair and maintenance contracts
(RAMAS). During our visits to the workshops and to the distributors’ we
encountered many people who were annoyed at all the different systems
and at the fact that they are not integrated. Like we have said, the Factory
has recently introduced a recommended dealer system called Automaster
that will be integrated with Multi and the other systems. At the visited
workshops, nobody had heard of this system, and they all said that the
Factory should have introduced that kind of system a long time ago. Now
many distributors have developed and started to use their own systems,
and they are not interested in changing them.
A common wish of the receptionists is that they would like to be able to
see the repair history of the trucks in the dealer system. In Norway this is
possible already, at least when it comes to Norwegian trucks, while the
workshops in the other countries only have information about their own
local customers. Another wish is that the dealer system should signal if a
certain TI affects a certain chassis or if the chassis is affected by a
campaign. A campaign is something that is sent out from the Factory for
example when a certain part needs to be changed on all chassis that carry
it. If a dealer has customers who have trucks that carry this part, the
customer has to be contacted so that he can bring his truck to the
workshop, or the part is replaced when the customer comes to the
workshop for something else. There are three kinds of campaigns,
depending on how serious the problem is. If there is a risk for accidents
the customers have to be contacted directly. So, it would make things
easier if it were possible to see if a chassis is affected by a campaign
directly when a customer comes in to the workshop reception for repair
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or maintenance, instead of having to call the customer back later to make
a new appointment.
COMPUTERIZED INFORMATION - DEALER AWARENESS SURVEY
Returning to the dealer awareness survey we have spoken about, it asserts
that with an accumulated number of close to 800 technical papers that
should be considered during the repair and maintenance of Scania’s
vehicles, it is easy to see the difficulties for the employees of the
workshops. At the majority of the European as well as the overseas
dealers and workshops the mechanics do not have access to computers,
let alone Internet connections. The report was as we have said in part a
result from a study where the Area Technical Managers gave their
impressions and some further conclusions were that there is too much
information released in an unstructured way. They mean that the Factory
must find ways to highlight important information. Moreover they meant
that it also is a good idea to have the information – Workshop Manual
and TIs - available on a PC platform with a search mode for easy and user
friendly access. The present design structure is not easy to use for Scania’s
average mechanic.
OTHER TYPES OF EXPLICIT KNOWLEDGE
Video is another way of spreading information. The Factory used to
distribute videotapes, Scania Service Channel, with technical information
about repairs and product news. In the Swedish workshop we were told
that they used to have meetings when they watched the new videotape
together and discussed it afterwards. Four years ago the Factory stopped
producing these videos, but now they are considering starting it up again.
However, they will not distribute videotapes this time. Instead, they will
put links to digital film sequences with the TIs on the Internet. The
downloading time will be minimized using streaming technology, a
technology that enables viewing and downloading simultaneously. When
we asked around at the workshops and at the distributors’ what they
thought about information on video we got many different opinions.
Some think it is the best way they can imagine to receive information,
while others think it is worthless and childish.
Moreover, the help desk at the Factory is very appreciated. Everyone is
content with them and thinks that they give rather fast answers although
there have been dissatisfied opinions about their opening hours. But the
most important information, according to the technical experts at the
Norwegian distributor, is the one they receive through communication
with their informal contacts at the Factory. With this communication we
do not mean structured meetings or formal information. Instead it is a
result of the personal contacts that have been established during for
example training or visits at the Factory. When they need help to solve a
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problem, the technical experts call their contacts at the Factory. In many
cases these contacts have access to a lot more information than the
distributor and they can get it faster then the help desk this way. In
Norway the technical experts keep the faxes with this “secret”
information in a binder called “The Ten Commandments”. Managers and
technical experts in the other countries also agree that it is very important
to have the right connections within the Factory to get some information
about product news, changes and solutions.
ROUND-UP
As we have argued, tacit knowledge is unwritten knowledge held in the
heads of individuals or teams. To profit by tacit knowledge you need
communication and interaction with other people. This is done in
everyday work, at meetings and in training. Explicit knowledge on the
other hand is the type of knowledge that can be expressed in words and
numbers. It is easily communicated and shared. There are several issues
with tacit and explicit knowledge that needs to be addressed. Simple
things for example are explained in detail, while more complicated issues
are hardly explained at all in the literature, and there is a vast amount of
information to consider for the employees of the workshops. Some of this
knowledge is suitable for storing and some is not. Whichever the case,
learning is a fundamental issue in the workshops, which is the subject
dealt with in the following paragraph.
4.3.3 LEARNING
As we have discovered, the knowledge of the employees is one of the
main assets of the workshops today. Their knowledge is both tacit and
explicit. The tacit part comes with experience and can be hard to
influence. The explicit part on the other hand is easier to influence but
both can be increased with formal training, and we have seen many
different examples of how this learning can be accomplished. This,
learning from formal training and trying to increase the tacit and explicit
knowledge of the mechanics, is what we will describe in this chapter.
However, the individuals are not the only ones who need to augment their
knowledge. Therefore, we will also explain how the Factory learns as an
organization today.
THE FACTORY’S LEARNING STRATEGY – TRAIN THE TRAINERS
A project leader for dealer development at the Factory said that the speed
of product development is increasing, which leads to problems occurring
more often and the organization must meet these increasing demands.
Hence, he argues, the Factory must not release the education from the
enterprise. Instead it should be a part of business development. At the
Factory in Södertälje there is a growing awareness of the increasing need
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for skill development at the dealer level. During 1999, staff at the Factory
and a reference group of distributors revised the whole training system,
and in 2000 a new concept will be introduced. This concept is called
Scania Dealer Training. The goal with this new concept is to have an
efficient organization and avoid duplication of work. The base for this
concept is that most distributors have their own training centers and their
own instructors. Therefore, it is sufficient for the Factory to train the
instructors who then can bring the knowledge with them to their
respective countries. Among other things, they encourage the trainers to
involve the mechanics more since they are the ones with the most contact
with the customers and therefore they too are salesmen in one way.
This training takes place during Train The Trainer (TTT) conferences in
Södertälje. At a TTT conference the instructors receive training material
that they can use directly in their own courses with only minor market
specific changes. Until now, the instructors have made most of the
training material themselves. So this change will save them a lot of time
according to the Factory’s Dealer Training Process Manager. The
distributors’ instructors are encouraged by the Factory to share their own
material with the rest of the organization if they have something that
might be of interest to others. The instructors at the Factory want to
develop the training system in close co-operation with the distributors.
The Factory is also looking at how they can rewrite the contracts used
with the dealers to be able to direct the business more.
Different departments within the Factory are responsible for different
kinds of training; three main groups are sales training, dealer training and
technical training. To co-ordinate these there is the function Training
Support. Their task is to co-ordinate the training and to support the
distributors around the world with knowledge about the courses, training
material and instructors for the countries that do not have any of their
own.
The goal is to have two technical TTT conferences each year, in
connection with the concentrated introductions of new products or
product changes. However, this is not always the case. Recently there
where two years between conferences. A conference lasts for at least 2
days, and gives the participating instructors a presentation of the news and
of the latest training material. They receive binders with information only
for instructors, and also exercises ready to use with the mechanics. This
material is also available on Scania Outline for distributors, the Factory’s
extranet. The goal, according to the technical instructors at the Factory, is
to have the TTT conferences a month before a concentrated introduction
to enable the instructors to start training mechanics on time. This goal is
hardly ever reached. The instructors at the Factory mean that they are
demanded to do this, but that they are never in a position to meet this
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goal. They do not get the information on time themselves to prepare a
TTT conference. One instructor at the Factory told us that it is difficult to
get more resources for training since it is so hard to show some numbers
of the return on investment. According to the Dealer Training Process
Manager, it takes about one to two years before the consequences of poor
training are visible. This means that it is easy to cut back the investments
on training when there is a short-term need to cut costs.
The technical instructors at the Factory say that they have very close
contacts with the distributors’ technical instructors since it is a relatively
small group. To develop the training and the TTT conferences they have
an even smaller reference group of instructors from different countries.
The members of this group meet twice a year, and the members rotate.
THE FACTORY’S LEARNING STRATEGY - SCANIA MASTER TECHNICIAN
A Scania Master Technician system that has been slumbering for some time
is being renewed at the Factory and in co-operation with a reference
group of distributors to create a global system for competence levels for
the mechanics. The system will be defined in 2000 and implemented in
2001. It will probably consist of three modules with different courses.
Every module corresponds to a certain competence level: General
Technician, Service Technician and Master Technician. The purpose of
this system is both to make the training global, which enables comparison
among different markets and different workshops so that the customers
know that they get the same service in all countries, and to give the
mechanic profession a higher status. It is a part of the actions needed to
meet the fast technical development of Scania’s trucks and to make the
organization less vulnerable. Since education is expensive, among other
things because of logistics and accommodation, one intention with this
master technician system is that at times when the workshop is not so
busy, a master technician should be able to teach certain things to the
other mechanics in the workshop.
THE FACTORY’S LEARNING STRATEGY - SCANIA PROFESSIONAL
Another kind of training that is interesting for our definition of workshop
efficiency is Scania Professional. It is a long term, strategic training, aimed at
developing both the individual and the organization. The target group for
Scania Professional is staff with some kind of managing function. This
includes workshop managers, receptionists, master technicians and parts
staff. By mixing people from different functions the instructors at the
Factory hope to increase communication and co-operation between the
departments at the dealers’. The training consists of 6 modules. A group
of people from different markets and different functions is formed for the
first module, and then they continue together with one new module every
6 months for 3 years. Between the meetings the different Area Sales
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Managers66are responsible for the follow up. The subjects in the modules
are for example Dealer staff & organization and Workshop management &
administration. At the end of each module the participants get some
homework that they have to present at the beginning of the next module.
Both homework and tests are in the form of implementing changes in the
participants’ workshops. Only instructors from the Factory currently hold
Scania Professional. But in the summer of 2000 there will be a TTT
conference to enable instructors at the distributors’ to hold this training
themselves.
Thus the Factory has a lot going on when it comes to learning, but so do
the distributors. The responsibility for education in the different countries
ultimately lies on each market. The following paragraph addresses
examples we have seen during our field study in Europe.
EDUCATION IN EUROPE
Having visited workshops and distributors in Sweden, Norway, the
Netherlands and France, we have seen many different ideas concerning
the formal education of the employees. Every country has its own training
system. In Norway for example, the distributor really values well-trained
personnel, at same time as they feel it is getting harder to recruit new
mechanics. This is why a lot of energy has been put into the development
of a good educational system. In this system, they are focusing on
education instead of on courses. The difference is that they want to take a
comprehensive grasp on each mechanic’s education so that he gets a
number of courses which constitute a thought through educational
program and not only a collection of individual courses. It is good for the
mechanics to know that they are getting a proper education, and it is a
good argument when it comes to recruiting new employees. A
professional educational system is also a vital component in the marketing
towards the external customers.
The employees of the Norwegian workshop follow a ”marked path” of
modules consisting of a number of courses. To move to a higher level of
modules it is necessary to pass an exam on the lower level. Mechanics
who have a lot of experience but not the formal education can take the
tests without attending the courses to see if they have enough knowledge
to pass on to the next level of modules. This educational system is quite
new, and right now it is marketed internally. The distributor helps the
workshops to plan the education for the mechanics strategically so that
the workshop management bears both the mechanics and the workshops
best in mind while setting up the plans for education. The goal is that each
workshop should have an educational plan for each employee. To point
out the need for education for the workshop and dealer management, the
employees from the distributor’s educational department have visited all
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the workshops in the country and mapped out the available competencies
of each and every one. Each workshop employee has answered 120
questions divided into eight competence areas. The results from these
questionnaires make the competence profile of the workshop visible to
the management, and together with the distributor they put up an
educational strategy for the workshop. The test is saved, and it is
supposed to be used every year by the workshops to map the evolving
competence profile of each mechanic and the workshop as a whole.
The education is very appreciated by most mechanics. One source of
criticism is the length of the courses. In Norway they last four days
compared to one day in the Netherlands. The reason for this is that the
cost of transporting mechanics to and from the place of the training is of
course much higher in Norway due to the vast distances compared to the
Netherlands. To get away from this problem the Norwegian instructors
also give courses on the spot at distant workshops. In the Netherlands
there are two training centers for the whole country, and mechanics can
come to attend one-day courses. According to the Dutch instructors a
shorter course is more efficient than a longer one, since the mechanics do
not stay concentrated for so long.
Many mechanics told us that the best thing about a course is the time
when they do not have class so that they get the opportunity to chat with
the other mechanics at the course. Normally they discuss things related to
work and they learn from each other’s experiences. According to them
they sometimes learn more from these discussions than from the course
itself. During a four-day course in Norway there is a lot of time to talk to
the other mechanics. A Dutch one-day course misses this opportunity.
A problem experienced by many mechanics, and also acknowledged by
the management, is that they seldom get to practice their newly won
knowledge in the workshop after a course. This decreases the possibilities
to get maximum profit from the training. One reason for this is that some
courses are aimed at such particular problems that they seldom appear in a
workshop. Another reason is, as we explained in the paragraph about tacit
knowledge, that the person distributing the work orders prefers to give a
job to someone who has a lot of experience of this particular job.
However, the majority of the ones we talked to said that they are aware of
this and that they try to let the mechanics practice what they have learned
as much as possible.
Another issue that is varying over time and countries is whether they get
to keep the literature after a completed course or not. Some countries
have realized the importance of enabling the mechanics to continue to
repeat the course at home and to use the literature as reference books in
daily work. In one workshop in France there was a whole library with
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Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
course literature. Everyone who had attended a course could put his
books there after the course so that all the mechanics could use them. In
Sweden the mechanics do not get to keep any literature after the courses.
According to the Swedish mechanics this is very bad, since they can never
go back and check any information that they are unsure about after a
course.
Apart from all the differences, there are some similarities among the
countries as well. One similarity is the method used for the training. All
the countries that we visited use a combination of theory and practice to
teach the mechanics about new things. They all have access to classrooms
and workshops where they can do practical work. The practice is
supposed to be as realistic as possible so that the mechanics get to try to
solve problems that can occur in their own workshops. According to one
of the Dutch instructors it is also very important that they get familiarized
with the literature at hand, that is the Workshop Manual, so that they
know where to find necessary information whilst back on the job. It is
hard to comment on the quality of the training but many mechanics that
we asked thought that the training is generally too easy. The degree to
which the instructors follow up the tests vary between different countries.
In some the consequence of not taking a test is non-existent while in
others there is a requirement that the test or the entire course is taken
again.
The person responsible for educational issues in Norway has started to
work on material of organizational psychology and management. This is
believed to be very important since some workshop managers really have
no formal education in how to manage a workshop and employees.
According to one technical expert at the Norwegian distributor, it is
common that employees in smaller workshops lack incentive and
encouragement from their management. There are also workshop
managers who consider training a waste of time, and prefer to have their
mechanics working all the time. They do not realize that they would
probably work more efficiently if they were properly trained. To avoid
these problems the distributors in the Netherlands and in France take an
active role in influencing the managers to invest in knowledge and from
what we could see they have managed to establish a good educational
culture. In their organization you get educated whether you like it or not.
Both managers and employees consider training a natural part of work.
The Norwegian distributor has started to create an education on
organizational psychology and management to ensure that workshop
managers are running the workshop in a modern conscious way, which is
not always the case today there either.
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Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
FEEDBACK
There is a lot of experience and knowledge among Scania’s workshop
employees in Europe. But there are enormous differences between
workshops. We saw in both Norway and in the Netherlands how one
particular workshop can be an “expert workshop” that other workshops
turn to for help. The two expert workshops that we visited are both quite
big and situated close to main roads which leads to that they experience
many new problems early since many vehicles pass by. A lot of knowledge
is created there that other workshops, and many times the Factory in
Södertälje too, could make use of. When we visited the workshops we
were very interested in how this works, how knowledge is shared within
the organization.
Most distributors seem to find these issues, feedback and knowledge
sharing, very important. Many thoughts are discussed and projects are
under way. The Norwegian distributor for example has started two
different forums for communication throughout the country. One where
eight persons ranging from mechanics to salesmen from all over the
country meet six times a year, where each person only can attend twice.
The other forum is one where technical experts from the distributor meet
with workshop managers and mechanics. This kind of meeting will be
held once or twice a year with all dealers.
Generally, the opinion in the workshops and at the distributors’ in all the
countries that we visited is that there is no good structure for sharing
solutions with other workshops or with the Factory. Some, of course,
have not reflected much upon the issue at all and therefore do not have
any complaints. Today the only way to spread knowledge is through
formal or informal contacts, normally eye to eye or by phone, between
people in the organization. Sometimes written information is created at
the distributors’ and distributed throughout the national organization as a
result of these contacts, sometimes not. The current system for knowledge
sharing seems to be based more on coincidence than on routine.
As mentioned above, the distributors are the ones who have the most
contacts with the Factory, the workshops normally only talk to their
distributor. According to the people we talked to at the distributors’ they
often feel that the people at the Factory do not listen to them.
Furthermore, it is often difficult to know who to contact at the Factory. It
is not clear to the employees at the distributors’ who is responsible for
what at the Factory and where to find or report information on a certain
issue. Many people at the distributors’ rely entirely on their informal
contacts, for example people that they have met during training. When
solutions or suggestions are sent to the Factory, there is often no
response. Then sometimes a year and a half later there is a TI describing
exactly the solution that they sent in. Due to the informal contacts
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Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
information does not always reach the person who can actually do
something with it. Instead it ends up on somebody’s desk unattended.
At the Norwegian distributor, they are working on a system that will allow
the workshops to send in solutions or ideas, which are then checked by
the distributor to ensure that the safety is not tampered with and that the
propositions are not illegal. When cleared, the solutions are presented on
an intranet. The project had been tried out for six months when we were
there (15-19 November 1999) and the reactions were very positive. Some
mechanics that had not had the opportunity to see the system asked for
something just like it. They meant that the problem search today in
workshops take far too much time and that it could be shortened if only
they could see how others have solved the problem and share their own
solutions with others. The Dutch distributor is also working on a similar
system. It is of course frustrating for us to know that the Norwegian
distributor is already testing a system like this and that the two are not
communicating on the matter. The Dutch distributor has also been
working on a Troubleshooting Database for three years according to the
workshop manager. Such a system would be very useful, especially for
electrical problems according to several mechanics.
A similar way for distributors to share solutions is Importers Helping
Importers (IHI), a site on Scania Outline. (Earlier the distributors were
called importers, thus the name Importers Helping Importers instead of
Distributors Helping Distributors.) On IHI it is possible to write down
solutions to particular problems and explain how it is done with text and
images. Generally the employees at the distributors’ think that this kind of
site is a good idea, but it has to be maintained and kept up to date and
today that is not the case. The technical manager at the French distributor
on the other hand does not like the concept at all. He said that the
solutions provided by other distributors are often of a very low quality
and that they work only temporarily. Being a part of a large
technologically advanced organization one can expect more than that.
According to him it is up to the people at the Factory to provide
solutions, not the distributors.
FAILURE REPORTS
One source of communication between the workshops, the distributors
and the Factory is the failure report system. Every time when something is
wrong or broken on a vehicle a failure report should be written. But not
when it is regular maintenance, like worn out tiers or similar. The statistics
from these reports have a major impact on decisions and prioritization at
the Factory. But the report frequency is low. An estimation by the
technical group at the Norwegian distributor is that 60 percent of all
errors do not get reported and in Sweden the statistics from 1998 were:
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Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
Amount of
failure reports
sent in per
year…
80
60
20-40
10-20
<10
…by a number of
workshops
1
1
8
6
23
Generally it is the workshop manager or the foreman at a workshop who
writes the failure reports and sends them to the distributor. The
distributor then fills in the information in the Factory’s Failure Report
System. A few foremen and workshop managers are very keen on
reporting failures, while others hardly report at all, and this explains the
statistics. During our visits to the workshops we did not meet one single
foreman or workshop manager who writes failure reports regularly, even
though most of them know that they should. They said that it takes too
much of their time and they do not feel that they benefit from doing it.
Most of the time they do not even get any feedback on their reports.
Another problem is that they have to write one failure report for each
failure. It is not possible to write one report saying that a certain failure
has occurred 10 times for example in one month. Moreover the
workshops generally wait with reporting a failure until it has occurred a
couple of times, which is unfortunate since one failure report does not
weigh anything like three or four. They also generally consider a failure
“known” when they have reported it a few times, and therefore they stop
reporting it. At the Factory on the other hand, they think that the problem
has disappeared when there are no more failure reports.
At least one of the instructors we spoke to encourages the mechanics to
report errors or problems with the technical information to him, and he
later reports it to Training Support. But he hardly ever gets any feedback
on these reports. He feels it is very important to get feedback when
someone has reported something to see that it makes a difference, and he
thinks that an agreement on how to deal with these matters is needed.
In the Factory’s Failure Report System it is possible to see all the failure
reports and what is being done to them at the Factory. The distributors
have access to this system and they can look into it and then tell the
workshops that wonder what has happened with their reports. One of the
Norwegian distributor’s product technicians thinks that the workshops
should have access to the Factory’s Failure Report System too. That way
they would not need feedback from the Factory or from the distributor,
since they could look into the system for themselves. We asked a
Norwegian foreman about this, and he did not agree. He thought that
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Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
there would be too much information. He said that he would prefer to
receive replies only to his own failure reports.
The distributors play an important part also when it comes to failure
reports, and our contact at the Swedish distributor gave us three
important reasons to why the distributor should handle them:
1. Since all the notes in the Failure Report System must be done in
English and some dealers do not master that language, the distributor
needs to translate.
2. The failure reports the distributor receives from workshops
sometimes concerns issues already solved, but that the workshop do
not know about yet. An issue like that should of course not be entered
in the failure report system.
3. The failure reports are from time to time incorrect or incomplete and
in these cases the distributor returns it for correction/completion.
We have now addressed different issues about the Factory’s learning
strategy and different examples of education in Europe. We looked at the
presence, or rather absence, of feedback in the organization and some
problems with failure reports. Conducting this empirical study, we have
found four factors that seem to be the enablers, or disablers, for the
organization to address the discussed issues in a desirable way which we
will give further details about in the next section.
4.4 ENABLERS
Now we have come to the part where we will describe what is done to
enable the creation and efficient use of knowledge in the workshops
today. We have categorized the factors we have found into four groups:
Intention, Resources, Information Technology and Culture & Organization.
4.4.1 INTENTION
From reading project goals and talking to people at the Factory, there are
a lot of good intentions when it comes to supporting workshop efficiency.
One example is the effort in co-ordinating the training systems and the
use of reference groups from the distributors for the development of this
system. Our thesis can be seen as one of these intentions too: to find out
what the situation is really like in the workshops today, how they work
and what they need.
Unfortunately, the distributors and the workshops are not always aware of
these good intentions. Many people in both workshops and at
distributors’ have told us that the Factory’s intentions are unclear, that
they change too often. There are always new things starting up in a grand
fashion, and after a while it ebbs away and it gets quiet. One example is
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when the Factory started to distribute information on video. The
workshops had just about accepted it and invested in both televisions and
video players when the Factory stopped making videos. Examples like this
are given as reasons to why the distributors and the workshops on many
matters seem to distrust the Factory. They do not think that the intentions
are very consistent, if they know about them at all. The chapter about
Information Technology describes one of these unknown intentions.
4.4.2 RESOURCES
As we have already described in the chapter about Learning, it can be
difficult to get resources for training. According to the Dealer Training
Process Manager, training gets a lot more space in conferences than in the
budget. There is a lot of talking about how important it is, but there are
hardly any resources to improve it. The different parts of Scania's
organization are somewhat characterized by being too independent and
not enough co-ordinated. This has sometimes led to that parts of the
organization can be cost efficient, while the organization as a whole can
be sub-optimized. This also obstructs the creation of common knowledge
and information sources like a Dealer Portal. The problem of suboptimizing does not only concern the Factory. To calculate the total
effects of certain actions for the whole organization, one has to include
the distributors and the dealers as well, which is hardly done at all today
by the people at the Factory. There is a positive leverage to take advantage
of, where the resources put into education and improved information and
knowledge sharing generate a larger amount in the long run than the
amount originally invested.
4.4.3 INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
“The same attributes that make computer-based information easy to load into the
computer, and easy to manage once there, make it less valuable to humans” - Thomas
Davenport -
People at the Factory are looking at a common European Customer and
Chassis Data Base. In a draft67 on the issue, they maintain that the dealers
all need PC’s and access to the Internet. They also recognize the need for
a culture, which is the next enabler in this chapter, where the Factory
needs to establish incentives for dealers to share information, “what’s in it
for me”. The draft also recognizes the need for IS/IT to enable technical
knowledge to support the repair and maintenance process and thus create
value for customers and enhance customer loyalty.
The Factory’s intention when it comes to distributing information is to
stop distributing paper and only distribute information on-line or on CD67
Common European Customer and Chassis Data Base, draft by Anders S Nilsson, 1999-08-21
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Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
ROM. A Dealer Portal for Scania Outline is under development, and it will
contain links to all the information a dealer might need, including training
and technical information. The dealer portal is intended to constitute a
platform for Internet communication between Factory, distributor, dealer
and workshops. This enables faster distribution, makes it easier to change
information and minimizes paper and transport costs. The Dealer Portal
will also contain links to the distributor in the respective country. For
example, a Spanish dealer can thereby find information from the Factory
and from the Spanish distributor in the same portal. The portal is under
construction and workshops in Sweden have been given the opportunity
to give their opinions on the structure and content. It is currently being
tested by workshops in Italy and Sweden. Late last year, the Factory
investigated the Internet access at Scania dealers and found that the vast
majority has access to the Internet.
The distributors that we have visited have all started their own intranet
projects. They feel that the Factory works too slowly, and that they cannot
wait for their solutions to come. It is the same thing as with the dealer
systems where the Factory has recently introduced a recommended system
when many distributors have already developed their own.
At the Dutch distributor they are working on an intranet and a problem
database for the mechanics, but it is not yet decided when this is going to
be ready, probably in the first half of 2000. Today their Internet policy is
that no workshop can have access to the Internet, but that they can when
the company intranet is ready. The distributor on the other hand has
access to the Internet, and in general they think it is difficult to find
information there. They like to get all the information on the Internet but
they would like to receive messages when there is some new information,
or when something in their area of interest has been updated, so that they
do not have to look for it. They also feel a need for a policy on the use of
e-mail, faxes, phone, ordinary mail, etc., since there is a risk of
information overflow.
The computer will become a tool like any other in the workshops,
according to one of the technical instructors at the Factory. It is important
that the employees get a chance to learn how to use a computer. Most
mechanics in Sweden, Norway and in the Netherlands said that they
would like to look for information in a computer instead of in binders, but
they also said that a printer is indispensable for the occasions when they
have to bring information with them to the truck. The managers of the
workshops and the employees at the distributors’ in these countries also
seem optimistic to the idea of more computers in the workshops. In
Norway an employee from the distributor’s IT department said that the
level of computer knowledge in the workshops is, or will be, sufficient as
long as the Factory allows them a transitory period before they stop
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Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
distributing information on paper. One problem is that the workshops
and the distributors generally do not know about the plans and intentions
of the Factory, so it is hard for them to prepare.
In France both the people from the distributor and the workshop
managers that we met were more negative to computers and IT than their
colleagues in the other countries. The technical manager from the French
distributor said that computers are good as long as they make things
easier. He feels that so far they have only made his work more
complicated. He also said that the Factory does not take full advantage of
the possibilities with IT. One example is that the Workshop Manual in
Multi only consists of copies of the paper version in PDF format, which
makes it more difficult to use than the binders. Moreover, the French
workshop managers that we met do not think that it is a good idea to let
the mechanics search for information in a computer. They said that it is a
good idea to distribute it from the Factory this way, but that they would
print everything and put it in binders in the workshop. The reasons for
this is that they do not believe that the mechanics have enough interest
and knowledge in computers to be able to use them and that they do not
think it would be practical. If many mechanics need to search for
information at the same time someone will have to wait, and there will be
printouts lying around in the workshop.
In Norway, the employees at the distributor are working on a server
where they can keep all the software and disc space that the workshops
might need. They will only have to download new versions of programs
once, and all the workshops will get access to them instantaneously. The
workshops will only need terminals since they will be online with the
server all the time. The Dutch distributor is looking at installing a similar
system.
4.4.4 CULTURE & ORGANIZATION
Culture is a very important enabler for the sharing and creation of
knowledge. Not only the national culture, but more importantly the
company culture. During our visits to workshops, distributors and the
Factory we have found very shifting attitudes towards learning and the
sharing of knowledge. And from what we have seen and heard this
attitude has great impact on the work.
Competence for example can be divided into knowledge, individual
capacity and attitude. Of these three, attitude can be the largest barrier
according to a project leader for dealer development at the Factory, and
therefore, the culture that shapes attitudes is of crucial importance.
At one workshop that we visited in Sweden a mechanic who looks for
information in the binders is sometimes made fun of by the other
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Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
mechanics. At many other workshops the foremen and the workshop
managers encourage their mechanics to look for information themselves
instead of asking them for help.
In Norway we saw two interesting examples of two completely different
workshops. One of them has a workshop manager who does not want to
share information. When some new information arrives he keeps it to
himself, and he does not like for his mechanics to attend courses. The
mechanics at this workshop seemed almost afraid to talk to us. The other
workshop on the other hand has a workshop manager who has many
ideas on how to motivate the employees to take pride in their work and to
search for more knowledge. He wants the mechanics to feel that they take
part in an entirety, and he wants them to feel good about themselves and
their work. This, he argues, can be achieved by keeping them informed
about what is happening to the workshop, economically and if there are
some changes, and by making them take part in decisions and act like a
team. It is also important that the working environment is pleasant, with
good light, air and noise control. The mechanics at this workshop seem
very content with their work, and many of them are very interested in
learning more about the trucks and solving problems. The workshop
manager at the latter workshop in Norway also encourages training. He
said that it is important to listen to the mechanics, to their needs and
wishes. It is also important that Scania has a good brand image. It must be
better to work for Scania than for a competitor.
Moreover, the mechanics at one workshop had a box for suggestions to
improve the general situation in the workshop and the ones implemented
rendered economical rewards. But after a while the mechanics were
content with just being able to affect their workplace and did not need
other rewards to be motivated.
4.5 BENCHMARK
We have primarily studied Scania, but since we thought we could
generalize our results we wanted to interview representatives of a few
other companies as well. We spoke to Ericsson that repairs its AXEswitches, SAS that repairs airplanes and Jungheinrich that manufactures
forklifts. They all have continuously changing and technologically
advanced products and an after market with repair and maintenance
workshops.
PHASING IN THE NEW SYSTEM
At Ericsson the organization’s information was primarily on paper until
1995/96. It was not until then that the intranet was settling. The
technicians, both on the field and the in-house ones, today mainly use the
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computer. The transition was welcomed and most people saw the benefits
with the new solution.
At the SAS workshop we contacted they do large 48 hours maintenance
and small repair on Boeing 737, SAS MD 80 and DC9. More then a year
ago they started to use a PC instead of microfiche. This was done
overnight – literally – and only one or two mechanics per shift (25 people)
had been given education on the PC, which led to problems. They receive
CD-ROMs regularly with the aircraft maintenance manual and the parts
catalogue.
Jungheinrich has in the past year implemented and phased in a
computerized solution for their workshop manual, parts catalogue and for
the handling of work orders. The technical information is distributed
three times a year on CD-ROM, thereafter it self-destructs. The binders
they used to use are still around but are being phased out. The technicians
are very positive to the change and think that things have improved,
despite the teething troubles it has caused. Among other things, the
printers are temperature sensitive and since they are sometimes in cold
environments, this has been a problem.
Jungheinrich and Ericsson both meant that things work slowly in the
beginning. People are afraid of changes mainly because they want to
master their job and if they do not think they can handle computers, of
course they will not welcome the change with open arms. But with
education and information, this is not a big problem. Once they know
where to click and how to browse through the information, the new
system will be superior to the binders, but the employees need to be given
the opportunity to sit down a lot and practice.
PROBLEMS
At Ericsson the hard part was getting the company to rethink the way they
distributed information. Instead of pushing it out, they needed to let people
pull the information they needed. This has not worked very smoothly and
one problem that has emerged is that the e-mailing system has become
somewhat of a document handling system. The distributors of
information used to type something, put it with a distribution list or
letting a secretary copy and distribute it. Today they do not feel certain
that they reach out just by putting something on the intranet, subsequently
they first put it on the intranet and then they attach the document to an email and send it to everyone that might be interested. This is of course
double work and it takes up a lot of disc space.
Both Ericsson and SAS argued that a big responsibility lies on the
management. A clearer direction and control from the top is essential,
otherwise, every little department develops their own solution and it is
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Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
impossible for a person in one department to find information in another
department. At SAS there is no lack of intention, quite a few very good
projects have been initiated over the last ten years, but the vast majority of
these projects have never been implemented. When it comes to resources,
there seems to be a problem, although they seem to have the resources to
start-up all these projects.
The technicians at both SAS and Jungheinrich were less happy about the
follow-up on the jobs. They need to write everything down in the PC,
which takes a lot of time, and this is hardly the core competence of these
people. It leads to a lot of frustration and that they do their job worse.
BENEFITS
Looking at what the change has meant for the technicians, Ericsson’s,
Jungheinrich’s and SAS’ technicians are all pleased with the computers.
The person we spoke to at Ericsson thought it would make more sense to
speak of quality rather than efficiency when it comes to the activity
“finding and reading information”. The user can be certain that it is the
latest information he is looking at and no pages are missing due to
carelessness or disorder. The efficiency is reached at a higher level when
we come to information creation, storage and distribution. But the person
we spoke to at SAS thought that it is easier to find the information on the
PC than browsing through a binder and that it does save valuable time.
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Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
5 ANALYSIS
We have described our empirical findings and will now analyze them together with our
theoretical framework. We will now apply our knowledge identification model on
Scania, to map their problems and needs and suggest solutions. This will then lead us
to our conclusions & recommendations in the next chapter.
5.1 INTRODUCTION TO THE ANALYSIS
We have discussed different kinds of knowledge: tacit, explicit, individual
and organizational knowledge ranging from technical information to
know-how. As we stated in the problem background we would address
how a company that achieves competitive advantage through an
innovation can sustain it (only) through relentless improvement68. Scania
can through, among other things, a structure that enables continuous
feedback relentlessly improve the enterprise and turn more of the
organization’s tacit knowledge into explicit, more individual into
organizational and more intellectual assets into structural, to continue
being competitive on the truck arena. We will now analyze how this can
be done.
In this chapter we will leave the structure used earlier in this report where
we had tacit and explicit knowledge, learning and enablers as headlines.
Instead we will use the knowledge identification model which sheds light
on the different kinds of knowledge that arise in an organization.
Different kinds of knowledge need to be managed differently and we will
now see how Scania can enhance the workshop efficiency by mapping its
different knowledge assets, using this model to help categorize it, and
determine how to manage it.
5.2 COMBINING THEORY AND REALITY
5.2.1 RECAP OF HOW THE KNOWLEDGE IDENTIFICATION MODEL
WORKS
The knowledge identification model (figure 5.1) describes nine different
categories, four of knowledge and five of ignorance. Associated with each
category are some suggested managerial actions, which we described
earlier in the Theoretical Framework, chapter 3. This means that we through
the categorization will get an idea of what needs to be done. As we have
pointed out, we would now like the reader to think of each of the nine
categories as associated with both knowledge and ignorance. These
categories each correspond to problems and needs at Scania that we will
try to find solutions to. The problems and needs are all related to some
68
Porter, 1990, p. 73-75
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Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
kind of ignorance, and the solutions are all related to some kind of
knowledge. Furthermore, since all three models we have put together in
our knowledge identification model have the dimensions tacit and explicit,
the nine categories will overlap to some extent.
What you know
State of
knowledge
What you do not know
Planned Ignorance
Explicit
Explicit knowledge
Knowing
5. Uncertainty
6. Complexity
Acquisitive
State of
knowing
1.Quick
access
knowledge
2. Broadbased
knowledge
Local
“Not
knowing”
Restrictive
7. Ambiguity
8. Equivocality
Tacit
Global
3. One-off
knowledge
4. Complex
knowledge
Innocent Ignorance
Tacit knowledge
Figure 5.1: The knowledge identification model
5.2.2 APPLYING THE MODEL ON SCANIA
With our theoretical framework in mind, and remembering our empirical
study, we will now try to apply this model on Scania to first map their
problems and needs and then explain how these problems can be solved
and how the needs can be met. It is rather high-and-mighty to say that we
have a solution for all the problems, but we have humble suggestions that
can help solve the problems. Naturally, all or at least a vast majority of our
findings are not news to Scania. At least some persons in scattered groups
discuss these issues, but we have tried to get an overview of the whole
situation since it is easy for people to focus too much on their own
department, not taking the whole picture into account. Moreover, we have
not verified all our suggested solutions, if they are planned or already exist
at Scania.
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Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
The knowledge identification model might seem quite complicated to
understand at first. The basic structure of it is taken from Earl and Scott’s
model (figure 3.6), and then we have combined it with two more models
presented in chapter 3 (figures 3.7 and 3.8). This means that the two fields
in the left column now contain 2 categories each, while the
State of
upper field in the right column contains 4 categories and the knowledge
lower only one. We will present our analysis
State of
following the structure of Earl and Scott’s model,
knowing
describing one of the four fields at a time. With
each field we also present the respective categories
that come from applying the other models. Above you can see a small
model, a simplified version of the knowledge identification model, which
will follow us through this chapter with the field in question highlighted.
Our model Five P will not follow us through in visible form, but the
problems and solutions are all connected to it.
Tacit
Whenever the sharing of tacit knowledge or the
elimination of tacit ignorance takes place we are
moving upward in the model, enlarging the desired
states and limiting the undesired states. Accordingly,
Explicit
whenever that is done with explicit knowledge or
ignorance, we are moving to the right, also enlarging the
desired states and limiting the undesired states.
THE LEFT COLUMN
We start by describing the left column of the model. There we have the
terms global and local. Applying the model on Scania we
State of
knowledge
define local as one workshop and most of the time
global as the “workshop organization” including
State of
all workshops, dealers and distributors either in
knowing
one country or in all countries. However,
sometimes it is also meaningful to define global as Scania’s entire
organization and local as the Factory itself. For example when we consider
knowledge that is needed only at a specific department at the Factory,
then that knowledge is not broadly applicable. When one of the latter
definitions is used it will be specified in each case.
The upper-left field of the model contains two categories of explicit
knowledge, Quick Access knowledge (local) and Broad
State of
knowledge
Based knowledge (global). For each of the two
categories of knowledge we first explain the
State of
category briefly, then we mention the actions
knowing
suggested by our theoretical framework. After
that we describe one or more problem situations that we have observed in
our empirical study, each with its own title, the need associated with this
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situation and (a) possible solution(s). Another dimension, value, will only
be mentioned when it is meaningful to do so. Furthermore, the problem
situations are not presented in any particular order of importance.
1- QUICK ACCESS KNOWLEDGE
EXPLANATION: This is explicit knowledge with local applicability.
SUGGESTED ACTIONS: Inventorising and making it accessible – for example in a
database.
WHO KNOWS WHAT IN A WORKSHOP
Problem situation: Since the employees in a workshop cannot know
everything, they need to know who knows what in the workshop. Also the
vast amount of information to consider is grasped more by some and less
by others. This concerns both technical knowledge and knowledge about
customers.
Need: Efficient distribution of information and knowledge within a
workshop.
Solution: What is needed here is explicit knowledge that should be easily
accessed by a group of local users, which is the definition of Quick access
knowledge. As suggested by the theoretical framework, the information
about customers can very well be stored in a database, perhaps a local
extension of the dealer system. However, in the case of technical
knowledge, it does not seem efficient to put this information in a database
since it concerns only one workshop. Meetings, and an overall enhanced
communication in the workshops, encouraged by the workshop
management and enterprising mechanics, are good ways to spread this
kind of knowledge.
FAILURE REPORTS
Problem situation: (defining the Factory as local) When there is something wrong
with a component there are a thousand potential workshops to experience
problems with this component. But this is not reported, for a number of
reasons. If a TI is sent out, the workshops consider the fault as known,
and decide not to report for that reason. If they send in a report they do it
after the problem has occurred a few times. Before that they donot
perceive the problem as worth reporting. Also, after sending in a report,
they think the problem is known by the Factory since they have reported
it and do not send in a report the next time it occurs. Another reason is
the lack of feedback. The workshops do not feel there are any incentives
to take the time to fill out the report. When solutions are sent to Scania,
there is often no response at all. In exceptional cases, when a solution is
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sent from a workshop to the Factory, a TI with the solution that was sent
in comes half a year later.
Another reason for not sending in the failure reports is the aged system.
The reports are filled out by hand or typed, faxed to the distributor who
sends the report into Scanias system for failure reports (FRAS).
Need: The Factory needs to get statistics and information about failures
through failure reports.
Solution: The knowledge needed in this situation is needed only by the
Factory, which is therefore defined as local. This knowledge is very
suitable for being stored in quick access databases containing not only
text, but also images and video sequences. The workshops and the
distributors are the providers of this knowledge. Almost all the
information needed for a failure report is already in the computer in the
workshop and all that is needed really is the functionality which enables
the possibility to simply push a button, create failure report, and the necessary
data is gathered. That would save a lot of time, and the only thing that
remains is a comment and then the failure report can be sent to the
distributor where the standardization of terms enables automatic
translation of most of the report which saves them time as well. To
motivate people to use the system, the purpose of the failure reports
needs to be communicated much more clearly than what is done today. If
the people at the workshops do not know why they should send in one
report for each vehicle and do not know the consequences for not doing
it, they will probably still not use the system. Along with this the Factory
together with the distributors should look at how they can enhance the
feedback. Scania needs also to acknowledge the creators of the solutions.
This would work as an incentive for sharing more of their solutions.
PRODUCING THE RIGHT INFORMATION
Problem situation: (defining the Factory as local) The producers of technical
information do not know exactly the structure, the contents and the
amount of information that the workshops need. Some mechanics are
very interested in their work and want to read all the information they can
find and more, while others do not want to read anything more than what
is strictly necessary. A lot is differing depending on the skill. Skilled
mechanics can assimilate more advanced information than others, less
skilled mechanics. Some like pictures, and some like text, and some even
prefer video while others find that childish. Another thing that the
producer of technical information does not know is if the information
reaches the recipient intended or if the people needing the information are
intended recipients. For example, the people in the spare parts warehouse
are not intended recipients of the workshop manual and the TIs, only the
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mechanics are. This is a problem since the people in the spare parts
warehouse do not receive information on product news and other changes
to the necessary extent.
Need: Continuous communication between the users and the producers of
technical information to ensure that the right information is produced.
Solution: Just like in the previous problem knowledge is needed by the
Factory and provided by the workshops and the distributors. The people
at the Factory who produce information for the workshops need a quick
access database where they can gather and find information about “their
customers”, their opinions of the produced information. One way to solve
this could be by using routine feedback from the workshops to the
Factory through the portal via the distributors who filter and synthesize
the information into a manageable amount. When the information is
distributed on the Internet it is easy to provide a possibility to give
feedback on it directly when you read it. A hyperlink should be available at
each document to enable the person reading the information to give
comments on it directly to the author of the information. Then the
technical information can be adapted to the readers’ wishes. IT makes it
easy to provide many different kinds of information, and it also makes it
easy for the reader to choose what he wants to see since related issues can
be linked together. There can be different levels of the same information
for the different readers.
MECHANICS’ KNOWLEDGE USEFUL IN CONSTRUCTION
Problem situation (defining the Factory as local): The people designing,
constructing and producing the truck are all skilled at their task, but they
lack some of the knowledge about how the vehicle behaves after a certain
time on the road and how the mechanics do when they repair the vehicle
etc.
Need: Feedback from the mechanics to, among other departments, the
construction department.
Solution: Just as in the case of the producers of information, the
constructors should be interested in the mechanics’ opinions on their
products, the trucks. People at the Factory should create a structure for
routine feedback where all the workshops can come with ideas on
proposed production and design changes on the vehicles etc. The
construction department should encourage suggestions and creative
thinking from the mechanics to be able to make use of the suggestions.
The suggestions could be stored in a quick access database available for
the constructors via the portal.
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A VAST ORGANIZATION
Problem situation: (defining each department in the Factory as local) The
organization of Scania is vast and the 6.000 people at the Factory have a
hard time keeping track of what other people are doing that affects their
own work. Today there is no good organizational overview to who does
what. This leads to duplication of work, but also a lower quality of work
since the parts affecting eachother are not co-ordinated to a desired
extent. The department responsible for educating sales people for
example (Y) has its own register for this purpose, which is of the same
sort as the register that the department producing technical information
(RI) has. These two should be co-ordinated.
Need: Getting just the information one needs from 6.000 people in more
or less separated departments.
Solution: A better, easier use of the part of the portal only aimed at the
Factory. Information about ongoing and planned projects and activities
should be easily accessed by everybody who are concerned by it. It is not
possible to keep track of what 6.000 people are doing, but this knowledge
must at least be easy to find when you need it. Therefore it needs to be
inventorised and presented, for example in the portal.
2- BROAD BASED KNOWLEDGE
EXPLANATION: This is explicit knowledge that is broadly applicable
SUGGESTED ACTIONS: Inventorising and proactive distribution.
FASTER DISTRIBUTION OF INFORMATION
Problem situation: Technical information and software normally arrives at
the workshops some time after it is first needed. This includes
information about new products.
Need: Workshop manuals, TIs, product news, software and other
necessary information need to be distributed throughout the entire
organization quickly, faster than today.
Solution: The information needed in this case is broadly applicable
throughout the workshop organization. The Factory could make all this
information available in the dealer portal, which enables a much faster
distribution than information printed on paper. For this solution to work
all workshops, and preferably all mechanics, must have access to
computers and the Internet and the employees must be educated on how
to use the computers.
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Value: Reduced costs for distributing paper and from reduced time
searching for unknown problems and waiting for new software, see
appendix 1.
OTHER SOURCES OF INFORMATION
Problem situation: The Factory cannot foresee all possible problems, and
they have a hard time keeping up with distributing information in the
same pace as new products are entering the market and in the same pace
as new problems appear.
Need: The workshops need more, or different, information than the
Factory can supply. They therefore need information from another
source.
Solutions: Solutions to new problems are found continuously in the
workshops. The knowledge about these new solutions is certainly
applicable globally, and as long as it is also explicit it is broad based. The
dealer portal can be an excellent channel for distributing this kind of
information. It could include a country-specific part with technical
information, FAQs, a discussion forum and similar where the employees
could write questions, solutions or technical tips that they want to share,
similar to the two projects under way in Norway and Holland we
accounted for in the empirical study. The portal could also include a
global part in english where these sources of information from all the
country-specific counterparts are gathered and structured. The countryspecific parts should be maintained by the workshops and distributors
themselves and the global part could be maintained by the Factory, with
help from the distributors. By keeping an eye on the discussions and tips
on these websites the people at the Factory have a chance to inventorise
the knowledge available in the organization. One thing about this solution
is that it requires a culture that encourages knowledge sharing to motivate
people to use it. To motivate mechanics, rewards are not the best way.
Giving them the possibility to affect their own situation is a better way to
encourage changes. It is up to each particular workplace to decide how to
use a solution like this one, but one idea for the workshops could be to
have one or some persons in each workshop responsible for writing the
contributions to the portal. An absolute prerequisite for this to work is
also maintenance. If not kept alive and up to date, it looses in trust and
will not be used. Today on Scanias intranet (Inline), there are 11 FAQs
concerning technical problems and 14 that concern parts. We do not
believe that Scanias global organization, selling up to 50.000 trucks a year
and having 25.000 employees does not render more than 25 FAQs.
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MANY SOLUTIONS TO THE SAME PROBLEM
Problem situation: The same problems are solved many times throughout
Scania’s organization. For example if there is a problem with the gearbox
on a number of chassis, the problem will be solved differently at a number
of workshops, leading to no single best practice.
Need: Better communication and a well-defined structure to spread
solutions to problems in the organization.
Solution: This problem is closely connected to the previous problem. If
there are many solutions to the same problem, and they are all presented
in the portal, it will be very difficult for a mechanic who reads it to know
which solution to trust. Managing this knowledge requires a lot from the
culture of the organization. There must be clearly identified roles and
responsibilities, to enable co-ordination between units to articulate and
share knowledge and co-ordinate meaning. For example, there must be
someone responsible for checking and securing the quality of the tips in
the portal. Preferably there should only be one solution to each problem
to avoid problems of uncertainty, so if there are more than one they must
be compared and evaluated to see which one is the most appropriate.
Inventorising and proactive distribution, the solutions suggested by the
theoretical framework, are important but as we can see very dependent on
organizational and cultural issues as well. On their own, inventorising and
proactive distribution could create more problems than they solve in this
case.
INFORMATION ABOUT CUSTOMERS AND THEIR TRUCKS
Problem situation: Scania has a large number of customers who all want
good and fast service, and there is a lot of information about these
customers and their vehicles to keep track of. Today a lot of time is
wasted while waiting for information about Guarantee of Payment for
example.
Need: Something to support the workshops to structure the vast amount
of information about all the customers it sums up to considering the
whole organization.
Solution: A well thought through dealer system that is integrated with other
useful systems and software. This dealer system should make it possible to
find all the necessary information in the same interface, and not only
information about the particular dealer’s own customers. Since many
trucks are driven across many countries the information about these
trucks and their owners needs to be accessible from all countries, so it is
definitely broad based.
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VEHICLE-SPECIFIC INFORMATION
Problem situation: Up to 50.000 trucks a year are sold worldwide and, as we
have already mentioned, the trucks are driven across nations as well as
continents. They can receive both repair and maintenance in many
different workshops, in many different countries, and sometimes the
original configuration of the chassis is changed. The driver does not
necessarily keep track of what has been done to his truck, so why a certain
vehicle behaves in a certain way or how it is configured etc is not easily
found out for the workshops. This information is often needed to know
what is wrong with a truck and to avoid doing redundant maintenance.
Sometimes when a truck is in a workshop for a repair some maintenance
is done to it even if it is not necessary. Maybe the truck had the very same
maintenance done only a week ago, but the driver does not know. He
probably thinks that it is better to get as much done as possible while he is
at a workshop anyway, instead of having to stop later, and if he has a
maintenance contract he does not even pay for it.
Need: An easy way to store and access information about each of these
vehicles, even after it is sold and re-built with a new configuration.
Solution: Vehicle specific information could be kept in a database at the
Factory, so that it can be accessed from all countries in the dealer systems,
just like the information in the previous problem. Another alternative is
that this kind of information could be kept in the vehicle, like a digital logbook, which could be connected to the owner or home dealer for backup
regularly in case of disc failure.
Value: Heavily reduced costs for repair and maintenance contracts, see
appendix 1.
Now we have described the problem situations in the upper-left field of
the knowledge identification model, and it is time to describe the lowerleft field. Here we find the two categories of tacit
State of
knowledge
knowledge: One-off knowledge (local) and Complex
knowledge (global). They will be described in
State of
the same way as the earlier categories,
knowing
beginning with a reminder of what we learned
about these categories in the theoretical framework.
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3- ONE-OFF KNOWLEDGE
EXPLANATION: This is tacit knowledge that is not very broadly applicable.
SUGGESTED ACTIONS: Socializing and special-interest networks of people.
HELP WITH NEW PROBLEMS
Problem situation: All failures are new and unknown the first time they
appear, and it is impossible for one workshop to possess knowledge about
all failures. With the increasing amount of electronic parts in the trucks
the time spent searching for the reasons to problems increases as well.
Need: Someone to contact and get help when unknown failures appear.
Solution: Technical experts from the distributors’ visiting various
workshops and the technical helpdesk at the distributors’ and at the
Factory can spread this kind of knowledge. The job they are doing is very
important, especially in sparsely-populated areas. It is common that new
problems appear first in workshops near important roads at large cities.
Then the technical experts can learn about the problem in one of those
workshops and then spread his knowledge to smaller workshops. If we
look at Norway for example, a large workshop in Oslo repairs to 97
percent Scania trucks. In a smaller workshop in the northern part of the
country the amount can be less than 10 percent. The rest is other brands,
snowmobiles etc. The differences in enterprises leads to that the
experience and knowledge of the mechanics differ and the presence of the
technical experts becomes important. In one of the problem situations of
broad based knowledge we described how solutions to new problems
could be presented in the dealer portal by the workshop that found it. To
be able to present knowledge this way it needs to be explicit. In the
situation we have here the knowledge is tacit, and human interaction,
socialization, is therefore needed.
FADING KNOWLEDGE
Problem situation: Fading knowledge, knowledge that becomes less and less
useful but which from time to time is needed. For example, the
knowledge about the three-series trucks will “die out” as the need for the
knowledge vanishes.
Need: A way for the organization to allow the knowledge to decay but also
enable the less knowledgeable on the subject to come in contact with the
few who have the wanted knowledge.
Solution: Special-interest networks of people. To inform the rest of the
organization about the people and the tacit knowledge available in these
networks there could be “Yellow pages” in the portal, since that is broad
based knowledge, saying who knows what. These Yellow pages would be
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like the yellow pages in phone books, showing where to find information
on certain issues.
REFERENCE GROUPS
Problem situation: (defining local as the Factory itself) There are a million things
that the Factory needs to know about just about everything, for example
technical problems. The answer is out there in the organization, but asking
25.000 employees is not manageable.
Need: A way to reach out to all sorts of employees but not all employees.
Solution: This problem situation is similar to some of the problems of
quick access knowledge, that can be solved gathering information in
databases. However, here the problems concern tacit knowledge, that
needs socialization to be shared. One way to do this is by increasing the
use of reference groups with people from different countries and different
positions in the organization, or even just different positions at the
Factory, in matters that concern these employees. Today reference groups
are used in for example the development of technical training. The
technical instructors at the Factory meet with a reference group consisting
of instructors from five countries twice a year to discuss the development
of the Master Technician program. One manager at the Factory suggested
a “Golden Club”, a network for a few chosen members from all over
Europe, not only technical experts from the distributors’, but also
enterprising mechanics. This group would discuss issues that concern the
activities in the workshop, and share and activate knowledge and
experiences, and also bring important issues from the workshops to a high
level in the organization quickly. Making use of the employees’ creativity
and knowledge this way enables both socialization and the conversion of
tacit knowledge to explicit, and turning more of individual knowledge into
organizational or at least individual for more people.
4- COMPLEX KNOWLEDGE
EXPLANATION: This is tacit knowledge that is broadly applicable
SUGGESTED ACTIONS: Socializing, training and apprenticeship
TRAINING THE MECHANICS
Problem situation: Trucks are not easily repaired. Being a mechanic today
requires a lot of technical knowledge.
Need: People need to learn.
Solutions: Formal training with practical exercises. Working in groups at the
workshop, learning from eachother. Apprenticeships. These are, as we
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have seen in the theoretical framework, the best ways to gain knowledge.
Naturally, a mechanic does not only need tacit knowledge, he also needs a
great deal of explicit knowledge, which he will probably also gain with the
solutions mentioned above. However, the explicit knowledge can also be
acquired without socializing and training, perhaps just by looking in a
binder. This is not the case with tacit knowledge. This same reasoning
goes for the two following problems as well.
Value: The frequency is high, the average truck has 6-7 breakdowns a year.
This means heavily reduced costs for repair and maintenance contracts,
see appendix 1.
TRAINING THE DEALERS
Problem: Managing a dealer is not easy and the terms, conditions and
prerequisites change all the time with a globalizing economy, increasing
competition and demands of efficiency.
Need: The workshop and dealer managements need to learn how to run
the business and get continuous support.
Solution: Dealer development training for dealers at the distributors’. Area
Technical Managers that follow up the training. Networking between
distributors and dealers for socialization, learning from eachother.
TRAINING THE INSTRUCTORS
Problem: There are about 10.000 workshop employees in Europe who need
training.
Need: To be able to train the workshop employees in all countries national
instructors are needed and they must get trained themselves first, before
they can start training others.
Solution: The Train The Trainer system described in chapter 4 does exactly
this; it makes it possible for the distributors’ technical instructors to
acquire tacit knowledge first, so that they can go home and train their
mechanics.
THE RIGHT COLUMN
Now that all the categories in the left column have been
described we have come to the right column. It
includes two fields with different kinds of
State of
knowing
ignorance, knowledge you lack, or “what you do
not know”.
State of
knowledge
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We start by describing the categories in the upper-right field of the
model. Here we combine Earl and Scott’s planned ignorance, that is
ignorance that you are aware of, with Zack’s four situations
State of
knowledge
of ignorance; uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity and
equivocality. Here we will describe situations in a
State of
workshop when there is a lack of knowledge,
knowing
often referring to the four categories of
knowledge in the left column.
5- UNCERTAINTY - PLANNED IGNORANCE
EXPLANATION: This is explicit knowledge that you know that you are lacking. The
problem is that you do not have enough information.
SUGGESTED ACTIONS: Auditing and reducing uncertainty or increasing the
organization’s ability to tolerate it.
NOT HAVING ENOUGH INFORMATION
Problem situation: There is no or not enough information about a specific
part or a specific matter in the workshop, or for example SD/SP (the
software for the truck’s electrical system) does not work for some reason.
Need: Acquire, develop or improve the knowledge and ability to predict or
estimate sufficiently well using incomplete information.
Solution: This situation calls for well developed conceptual frameworks to
be able to estimate a new solution based on an old one, or the possibility
to get in touch with someone who knows more. Increased complex
knowledge, acquired through formal training or on-the-job-training by
working in groups at the workshop and learning from colleagues and
apprenticeships can help develop the conceptual framework. Information
about where to find a person with knowledge about a certain issue can be
available in “yellow pages” in the broad based knowledge provided by the
portal. The technical experts at the distributors’ can also provide
additional information. As we can see here, more than one category of
knowledge can be used to help solve this situation.
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6- COMPLEXITY - PLANNED IGNORANCE
EXPLANATION: This is explicit knowledge that you know that you are lacking. The
problem is that you have more information than you can manage or understand.
SUGGESTED ACTIONS: Auditing and bringing the appropriate level of knowledge
and expertise to bear on the situation.
TOO MANY FACTORS TO CONSIDER
Problem situation: For example, a mechanic is confronted with something
that he recognizes as an electrical problem, but there are too many factors
involved for him to be able to find a solution.
Need: Something to help the mechanic sort out the importance and
meaning of each involved factor.
Solution: A trouble-shooting guide could be a solution to this problem.
This could be in the shape of questions with different alternatives, each
alternative leading to a new question and so forth, until a possible reason
to the problem is found, or at least some reasons are eliminated. These
questions could very well be a part of the Workshop Manual, broad based
knowledge. However, this is only one solution. Another solution that also
agrees with the actions suggested by the theoretical framework is to
contact a technical expert, either at the distributors’ or a more
knowledgeable colleague. So, just as in the previous problem there is more
than one way to acquire the appropriate knowledge to solve the problem.
TOO MUCH INFORMATION
Problem situation: The truck grows more and more complex and the
information about it likewise. One example is the growing amount of TIs.
Need: Something to support the workshops to structure the vast amount
of information about all the components of the truck it sums up to
considering it all.
Solution: Here the knowledge needed is broad based, and the way of
presenting it is crucial for it to be useful. One way to do this is to continue
developing Multi. A good IT structure with the different information
sources linked to eachother in a useful way to enable the mechanics to
browse through one part and then find links to all interrelated pieces of
information on the issue would make it easier to find the right
information. Education on the mentioned solutions will be needed to be
able to deal with the vast amount of information it still is.
Value: The frequency is rather high and hence so is the value. 10.000
mechanics spending valuable time searching more than what should be
necessary cost. See appendix 1.
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7- AMBIGUITY - PLANNED IGNORANCE
EXPLANATION: This is tacit knowledge that you know that you are lacking. The
problem is that you lack a conceptual framework to interpret information.
SUGGESTED ACTIONS: Auditing and acquiring or creating explanatory knowledge.
WHO KNOWS WHAT IN A WORKSHOP
Problem situation: An employee in a workshop is confronted with a problem
that he does not know the solution to, but he knows that someone in the
workshop must know it.
Need: The employees need to know who knows what in the workshop to
be able to locate necessary knowledge.
Solution: This situation is quite similar to the problem in category 1, “Who
knows what in a workshop”. It is also similar to category 5, “Not having
enough information”, except that in this case tacit knowledge is needed
instead of explicit. If this knowledge exists in the workshop it can be used
to solve the problem. In a small workshop it should not be a problem to
know what all the mechanics are good at, but in a bigger workshop it can
be difficult. Some ways to make the mechanics aware of the skills of their
colleagues are by working in teams like in Norway, work rotation,
meetings and communication in general. It is a kind of quick access
knowledge, except that a database is not needed, as we suggested in the
first problem situation in category 1.
WHO KNOWS WHAT IN THE ORGANIZATION
Problem situation: Similar to the above problem, but in a larger context than
only one workshop: An employee in a workshop is confronted with a
problem that he does not know the solution to, but he knows that
someone in the national organization must know it. Or, a technical expert
at a distributor is confronted with a problem that he does not know the
solution to, but he knows that someone in the global organization has the
solution.
Need: The employees at all levels need to know where to find the
appropriate knowledge in the organization.
Solution: In this case broad based knowledge is more suitable than quick
access knowledge since it is no longer local. Therefore a database,
organizational “yellow pages” with information about special-interest
networks in the portal, would be a good solution. The knowledge needed
to solve the problem may be tacit, but the knowledge about how to find a
person who is knowledgeable in this matter is explicit.
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REQUIRING NEW INFORMATION
Problem situation: The product is developing fast and new parts are
continuously on the market. It happens rather often that a mechanic looks
under the cabin of a truck and does not recognize some new parts.
Need: Information about product news.
Solution: Broad based knowledge that can be found in the portal,
preferably before the mechanics see the parts in a truck the first time so
that they do not need to wonder what they are.
REQUIRING NEW KNOWLEDGE
Problem situation: The product develops and people lack the new knowledge
about for example some electrical part of the vehicle.
Need: People need to learn, the information does not suffice, they need
tacit knowledge.
Solution: The solution to this problem is complex knowledge acquired
through formal training or working side by side with someone more
knowledgeable. One possibility to spread this tacit knowledge about new
things is to make sure that the Master Technicians are always the ones
who receive training about new things first, and then they can teach their
colleagues.
8- EQUIVOCALITY - PLANNED IGNORANCE
EXPLANATION: This is tacit knowledge that you know that you are lacking. The
problem is that you have several competing or contradictionary conceptual
frameworks.
SUGGESTED ACTIONS: Auditing and co-ordinating meaning among members of an
organization.
LACK OF STRUCTURE
Problem situation: Scania has a large, complex organization and today
departments are not as co-ordinated as needed. In addition, the same
information is stored in many different databases that do not get updated
simultaneously.
Need: The organization needs a better structure since the lack of it causes
equivocality and the organization need to deal with, or rather eliminate,
conflicting information sources.
Solution: Organizationally there needs to be clearly identified roles and
responsibilities, co-ordination between departments to articulate and share
knowledge and co-ordinate meaning. Technically there needs to be a
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better information management, single point of access for the information
as well as single point of storage. This is a rather generally needed solution
which affects many of the other problems we have identified as well.
Now we have described the problem situations in the upper-right field of
the knowledge identification model, and it is time to
State of
knowledge
describe the lower-right field which is perhaps the one
that is the most difficult to understand since it
State of
contains ignorance that you are not aware of. We
knowing
did not find it meaningful to categorize something
that you are not aware of, so we did not apply Zack’s four ignorances
here. However, we have been able to distinguish some problems of
innocent ignorance that we will present below.
9- INNOCENT IGNORANCE
EXPLANATION: This is tacit knowledge that you are not aware of that you are lacking.
SUGGESTED ACTIONS: Experiencing.
LACK OF COMMUNICATION
Problem situation: The sometimes watertight barriers between distributors,
between workshops and between departments at the Factory result in
uncertainty. For example the Norwegian system we have talked about that
will allow the workshops to send in solutions which are presented on an
intranet, the Dutch distributor is also working on a similar system but the
two distributors are not aware of each other’s projects.
Need: An enhanced sharing of information without information overflow.
Solution for distributors: A better distributors-helping-distributors site in the
portal, where they can see what is going on and also a structure for
networking between distributors. By using the site or the network,
distributors can learn how other distributors have gone through with
projects and hence they will not have to invent the wheel once again!
Solution for workshops: A workshops-helping-workshops part of the portal
with FAQs and discussion forums etc. Networking between workshops.
Solution for departments at the Factory: Cross-unit interaction with reference
groups, coordination between departments etc.
INFORMATION ABOUT THE TRUCKS ON THE MARKET
Problem situation: Due to a poorly designed process, with lack of suitable
IT-solutions and incentives, the failure reporting is not working well,
leading to that the people at the Factory do not have a clear picture of
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what is going on with the trucks in that part of the organization. This
problem is related to the issue “Failure Reports” in category 1.
Need: A better process that makes the administration easier and that gives
the workshops incentives to make failure reports.
Solution: Integrate the failure reports with the dealer systems to enable the
user to just click to generate a failure report from the work order.
Communicate to the people in the workshops why the failure reports are
needed and how they are used at the Factory so that they realize the need
for themselves. Also, create a manageable feedback system on the reports
so that the people feel that their reports make a difference.
KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE SITUATION AT THE WORKSHOPS ETC.
Problem situation: People at the Factory do not have a clear picture of what
is going on at workshops, dealers and distributors to the extent they need.
Also, the amount of information that the people at the Factory try to
consider is large but they lack the time to sort out what is the truth or
rather what is important in a specific issue.
Need: Ways to create the conceptual framework for interpreting
information and the ability to know what clarifying questions to ask and
ways to sort this out and get knowledge about the actual situation.
Solution: More first-hand information by travelling more, by co-ordinating
different departments more, by enhanced use of reference groups and a
clearer structure on who does what and why. The people at the Factory do
not only need to be given the time to travel, but also the importance needs
to be communicated clearer. In that way more people will prioritize
visiting workshops, dealers and distributors.
5.3 SUMMING-UP KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
Using the knowledge identification model we have now shed some light
on the different kinds of knowledge that are needed in Scania’s global
organization and how these different kinds should be managed. Also, our
enablers followed along with the discussion, explaining how can they help
put all these issues into practice. Let us return to the quote from Dewey
(1929), he said “ideas are worthless except as they pass into actions which
rearrange and reconstruct in some way, be it in little or large, the world in
which we live.” We have now done an attempt to show how the
enormous resource that all the minds in the Scania organization
constitute, can be passed into actions, to influence and improve, both in
little and in large, the situation for the workshop employees in particular
and the other employees of Scania in general. Customers are demanding
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people and those demands need to be met with a powerful tool,
knowledge management.
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6 CONCLUSIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS
After the analysis it is now time to present the conclusions of our study. First we
discuss how we have used the knowledge identification model and the rest of our
theoretical framework in the analysis, and then we present our recommendations to
Scania. Following this we discuss whether our conclusions are valid in a general
perspective and if the knowledge identification model can be used in other
organizations. We will also discuss the quality of our study at this stage, and suggest
some issues that would be suitable for further research. To finish the report we
present a list of references following this chapter.
6.1 THE KNOWLEDGE IDENTIFICATION MODEL
During this study we have come across many theories and writings
regarding knowledge management, whereof some are presented in our
theoretical framework. We think that we could gather the essence of these
theories in our knowledge identification model, which is made up by three
other models, three different ways of categorizing and managing
knowledge and ignorance. This model has had great influence on the way
we conducted the analysis of the observations in our empirical study.
Therefore it is important to consider whether this model has been useful
or not.
By combining the three models we get more detailed categories, and more
specific ways of managing them. Our model consists of nine categories of
knowledge and ignorance. For each category the theoretical framework
suggests actions for managing the particular kind of knowledge. However,
combining different models also leads to that some categories overlap to a
certain extent.
Apart from the theories that build up the knowledge identification model
we presented four enablers for knowledge management in the Theoretical
Framework and also some theories about learning, feedback and the
creation of knowledge.
In the analysis chapter we used the knowledge identification model to
map the problem situations that we observed at Scania, to see if reality can
be fit into the model. Nine categories turned out to be enough to map all
the problems that we had found, problems of existing knowledge as well
as problems of missing knowledge, ignorance. The managerial actions
suggested for each category by the theoretical framework also turned out
to be relevant. In addition, we found these actions strongly influenced by
the enablers.
When we look at the suggested managerial actions, the theoretical ones
and ours, for each category of knowledge, we can see that the same
solutions appear several times, such as the dealer portal, integrated
information systems, the technical experts, the use of networks and
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reference groups, a clearly defined organizational structure, motivation,
responsibility and different kinds of training. Accordingly, a small number
of managerial actions can influence all kinds of knowledge. Hence, each
category of knowledge does not require a specific way of management.
Moreover, all of these actions are supported by our four enablers and by
our theories in learning. Thus, not only the three models we combined,
but also the other parts of the theoretical framework proved to be
prerequisites for successful knowledge management. We can thereby
conclude that the theories that we presented in the theoretical framework
were useful and important in the analysis and by applying them on real
situations we found that it is actually easier to describe the management of
reality than the management of theory, that is the model and the theories
look complex, but once applying them on reality, it turned out less
complex.
We will now present our conclusions from the analysis as
recommendations to Scania on the needs for information and knowledge
in the workshops in order to increase their efficiency. Together with these
we describe what the organization can do to meet these needs and manage
information and knowledge. These conclusions come from regarding all
the problem situations in the nine categories of knowledge described in
the analysis. As we concluded, there is a small number of managerial
actions that can be used to manage all kinds of knowledge, and they are all
fitted below the headlines of the following paragraph.
6.2 RECOMMENDATIONS TO SCANIA
Scania is a company that easily impresses. It is one of the world leaders in
its field and all the minds in the Scania organization constitute an
enormous resource. What we think is lacking to some extent is the
management of this resource. We have mapped different kinds of
knowledge that need to be managed differently and we now sum-up our
analysis and present our recommendations to Scania.
6.2.1 EDUCATION
Learning more about the trucks and how to repair them must be a natural
part of work. Otherwise it will be impossible to provide good service for
the customers, considering the rapid changes in the product. However,
the mechanics are not the only ones who need training. Workshop
managers for example must be educated to be able to run the workshops
efficiently and among other things understand the importance of training
their employees. All employees at all workshops must have access to
training, different duties at work call for different needs for education, but
they all need education.
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As we could see in the theoretical framework there are two ways for an
individual to learn, through formal education and in everyday work. When
it comes to explicit knowledge, much can be learned in formal training.
However, it is also important to learn where to find the explicit knowledge
in case it is needed. Tacit knowledge can very well be spread through
practical exercises in formal training. But in this case on-the-job training is
even more important, working with more experienced colleagues or using
apprenticeships. It is important in this case too, to learn where to find the
tacit knowledge in case it is needed.
6.2.2 NETWORKING
Networks of different kinds of professionals should be encouraged,
within the Factory through an increased use of reference groups, within
the distributors through networks and interest groups and within the
workshops through more meetings and work groups. But also between
them all, through the portal and through networks. These networks can
enhance the spreading of both tacit and explicit knowledge, and they can
serve as a source of information to contact when there is a problem. Tacit
knowledge requires socialization to be spread, and this knowledge is
extremely important for the workshop employees. Hence all kinds of
interaction between employees should be encouraged. But interaction
takes time and the reason some workshops do not have any meetings at all
is the cost. There is no general answer on how to prioritize the resources,
how often a workshop should have meetings or when the Factory should
include representatives from the workshops and distributors in reference
groups. The only sound recommendation is to make people aware of the
importance of networks, meetings and reference groups. In a workshop,
the mechanics should be allowed to have meetings if they feel they need it,
in the Factory, projects should decide in their pre-study if it would be wise
to include people from other departments in the Factory or
representatives from the distributors and workshops. Making an effort to
spread the knowledge to people it concerns should always be worth while.
6.2.3 FEEDBACK
At the Factory many people have been very interested in our field study,
and we have been asked to find out different things. Also, when we have
come back, we have received many questions about our observations and
experiences. There is a lot of interest among the people at the Factory to
learn more about the situation in the workshops, but not so many
possibilities to do this. They do receive information through contacts with
people who travel a lot, like the area technical managers, and through
more or less regular contacts with people at the different distributors’, but
there is no established infrastructure for feedback.
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As we have seen in the theoretical framework and in the analysis, it is very
important to have the possibility to change and improve the output of a
process by changing the input. For the Factory to be able to support the
workshops in the best possible way they need to do three things. Firstly,
they need to let the employees of the workshops and the distributors give
feedback on the Factory’s processes on their terms, when they want to.
The infrastructure for feedback must handle information from the market
to the Factory even in moments when people at the Factory are not asking
for it. Secondly, this could amount to more information than the Factory
can handle, but then again maybe not. The different scenarios must be
taken into account whilst developing the technical and organizational
structure for feedback. Thirdly, people at the Factory need a structure for
a continuous flow of information from the market so that when they need
information, it can be easily found. Without that, the people at the Factory
have no reasonable possibility to be as close to the market as they need to
be. Today a more static approach is used, finding a solution or an answer
and applying it. But there is not one perfect solution that can be applied
and that will last. What is needed is instead to find an infrastructure that
allows a continuously changing solution, and that secures continuous
learning and unlearning about the market needs.
By an appropriate use of feedback both individuals and the whole
organization can learn and improve their actions continuously. The goal
with feedback should be to achieve not only a short-term corrective
mechanism, single-loop learning, but also fundamental, long-term change,
double-loop learning. The organization should to a greater extent share
both tacit and explicit knowledge. The tacit via feedback in networks and
the explicit via a better managed web site within the portal with FAQ, tips,
discussion forums and more. Different countries’ creativity should be
taken better care and advantage of to avoid inventing solutions to the
same problems over and over again.
To give an example, technical information is important and necessary for
the work in the workshops. However, to be useful the available
information must correspond to the users’ needs. As we stated in the
analysis, there should be ways for the users to express their opinions on
the information, and a structure that enables the producers of information
to consider these opinions when they work. The Factory should seize the
opportunity to receive as much feedback from the users as possible! Many
mechanics are very interested in their work and would gladly give more
opinions and suggestions to the people at the Factory if they had the
chance.
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6.2.4 INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
“Computers are incredibly fast, accurate and stupid; humans are incredibly slow,
inaccurate and brilliant; together they are powerful beyond imagination.” - Albert
Einstein –
Scania should increase the use of information technology for many
reasons. One serious problem in the workshops today is that the
information and the software needed is not available on time due to
multiple delays and the people the information is intended for do not
always receive it. As we showed in the analysis, these problems can be
reduced to a very great extent by distributing information and software
online. Clearly, all workshops would have to invest in computers and
printers to be able to use this, but from what we have heard, most
workshop managers are positive and think that this is the future, and the
mechanics are even more optimistic. They are only waiting for the Factory
to clearly communicate what they will start doing on the issue and what
work they have already initiated.
Information technology provides a lot of opportunities to improve the
distribution of information between the Factory and the workshops. The
planned dealer portal seems to be a very good idea. Also, it is very
important not to focus too much on the technology itself, but also on the
intended users and their needs. This was the most stressed message from
the theories on this subject that we presented in the theoretical
framework. There is a need for involvement of end users in projects, or
there is a great risk that the investment is done in vain. While finishing
this report we received the information that reference groups of both
mechanics and salespeople are being used to develop the interface of the
portal to make it easy to use and understand. We do not know to which
extent, but the effort is very good and the project seems to be on the right
track! During this study we have seen that most workshop employees are
positive to the idea of searching for information in a computer instead of
in binders. However, the people at the Factory have to be careful not to
take the efforts in IT too far, and always remember that it is only a tool. It
may not be good use of skilled mechanics to have them sitting by
computers, so they should not be forced to use a computer more than
necessary and certainly not without the appropriate training.
It is also important to keep in mind that not all information is suitable for
a computerized format. One example is the small service data booklets
that the mechanics can keep in their pockets. They provide quick access,
explicit knowledge, such as numbers of pressure, moments etc, that is
needed frequently, and it is a lot more useful to have printed booklets
than to look for this information in a computer. Furthermore, it is not
efficient to write down everything as we stated in the theoretical
framework and showed in the analysis. Some information, for example
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information that is rarely needed, can very well be distributed from a
technical helpdesk. The important thing is that people are provided with
either the knowledge itself or the information about where to find the
knowledge needed.
Another possibility with IT that Scania does not use very much today is
the technique of linking related issues to each other. Today the workshop
manual is available in PDF-format in Multi and on the Internet. This
format does not make use of the possibilities with IT since it presents
computerized copies of the paper version of the workshop manual. It
would be better to adapt the workshop manual, and other information as
well, to the new medium. A suitable format to use would be XML, a meta
language that has the at Scania otherwise appreciated modular structure
which among other things enables the TIs to be linked to the workshop
manual and different sections of the workshop manual to be linked
together.
When it comes to the actual supply and distribution of information,
Scania needs to minimize the risk for information overflow. Instead of
sending the information to everyone or letting everyone search for
themselves in the vast amount of information, the end users should only
subscribe to the information that the parts they are interested in have
been updated. Another way to reduce the risk of information overflow
and help in finding just the right information is to link more different
types of information together and make relevant information accessible
through the same website. For example, Multi could be online, connected
to the dealer system, a chassis database and warranty information. Then it
would be possible to type a chassis number and find all the relevant
technical information, TIs, campaigns and customer information via the
same interface, and spend less time searching for information.
6.2.5 CULTURE & ORGANIZATION
CULTURAL ISSUES IN THE ORGANIZATION
All the things we have mentioned earlier, education, networking, feedback
and information technology need a supporting culture to be successful. It
does not matter how good the information or the dealer portal is if for
example the attitude towards using it is bad. The workshop management
plays an important role for keeping a good attitude among the employees,
and the workshop management can get motivated by the distributor who
in turn gets motivated by the Factory. So the good attitude and
organizational culture must start at the top and encourage continuous
development, not only of products but also of people, communication
and working towards a common goal. Being at the Factory and doing our
field studies since early October last year we would like to stress that there
is a great culture already! People are positive and helpful within their
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workplace. What is missing is the active role from the top and down to
enhance the feeling of unity throughout the whole organization. As we
told in the empirical study and stated in the frames of reference, feedback
works as a motivating factor and to promote the sharing of solutions the
employees must be motivated in some way, not necessarily with monetary
recompense. Many times it is more rewarding to see that someone listens
and makes use of one’s own solution. It improves the positive attitude
towards sharing. Within workplaces people get feedback instantly, but
with the distance comes the lack of feedback that should not be the case.
The failure reports are examples of lack of feedback. Many workshop
managers do not feel that anyone cares about their failure reports, and
they do not see any meaning in making them since they do not receive any
feedback. There is simply no incentive. Giving feedback on reported
matters ought to be a natural part of a reporting system such as the failure
report system. Furthermore, the culture is just as important when it comes
to receiving the information and actually making use of it. There cannot
be a “not invented here”-mentality, that some people believe there is at
the Factory.
Another example where the culture is crucial is the attitude to learning. If
we look at dealer development for example, the course has been a cost if
they do not implement what they have learned during the course. But if
they change the way they do things, improving the workshop, the course
has been an investment. The course is just like any other product. If it
does not bring value after purchase you should not buy it. People argue
that they cannot invest time in learning, but if they do not have that time,
then how much time are they wasting working inefficiently?
ORGANIZATIONAL ISSUES AT THE FACTORY
To enable feedback you need a structure, an infrastructure that connects
you with the right people. The Factory needs a clearer organization for
this. One important problem with the organization at the Factory is that it
seems to lack problem owners, or at least the problem owners are
unknown to people outside the Factory. The consequence of this is that it
is hard to know whom to contact. And when problem owners are not
clearly defined it leads among other things to projects starting up but not
being continuously worked with, and it makes it difficult to find or share
information with the right people. The organization at the Factory must
look into this and clearly define roles and responsibilities. If the structure
is clear, it should be clearly communicated through yellow pages on the
intranet for example, which should contain information about who to
contact on certain issues in the whole organization, as suggested by the
theoretical framework. It must be easy to find the right information or
knowledge quickly and everyone must know their responsibility to ensure
that matters do not end up in no man’s land.
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LOOKING BEYOND SÖDERTÄLJE
Scania is a profitable and successful company, and there is as we just
stated a good atmosphere among the employees. The company consists of
many departments and they are represented in many countries, and each
department works quite independently. They are optimized individually,
but they are not optimized as a whole. One position cut at the Factory
might mean ten new at the distributors’ for example. Traditionally the
Factory does not want to interfere too much with the distributors’ work,
since they are independent. However, as we showed in the analysis, cooperation is valuable. Also, as we learned during our visits to distributors
and workshops, they want more directives from the Factory on many
issues, and closer co-operation with the Factory as well. For example,
when speaking about how Scania needs to develop the use of IT in the
workshops, the common argument is “why should we when the market is
not ready to receive it anyway”. The analogy to the hen and the egg comes
to mind. The market will probably not invest in PCs and such if they are
not sure they will need them to receive information that way. The
responsibility here lies on the Factory to start the process.
To come to terms with problems, there are the obvious economical
reasons. Scania owns more and more of the distributors and workshops,
hence their costs are Scania’s costs. In addition, the number of repair and
maintenance contracts is also increasing, which results in Scania not only
bearing the costs of the truck up until it is sold, but during the whole
lifecycle. So cutting costs at the distributors’ and at the workshops’ ought
to be considered meaningful work, and the people at Scania need to look
beyond Södertälje to a much greater extent than what is done today.
Examples of quantified costs that can be cut are found in appendix 1.
THE DISTRIBUTOR’S ROLE
The fact that the distributors’ existence is questioned could partly be due
to a lack of structure on behalf of the Factory. It is the Factory’s
responsibility to make sure that the distributors are devoting themselves
to their core competence. If there are activities that would be better
managed at the Factory, then let the Factory take over those activities, but
to think that Scania would optimize its enterprise without the distributors
is wrong in our opinion. The distributors still play an important role for
the spreading of knowledge among workshops and between the
workshops and the Factory. With an increased use of information
technology their role might change, but not vanish. Today most
workshops have very good contacts with the distributors, and these
personal contacts are important for the unity of the organization.
However, we have also seen that some distributors act as filters for
information. A good dealer portal is a way to get away from this problem.
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One example of the distributors’ role is the technical experts. We have
argued that the organization needs to transform individual knowledge into
organizational knowledge and we persist in our opinion. Furthermore we
have said that an organization should transform intellectual assets into
structural assets to protect itself from knowledge loss in case someone
quits their job. This is only partly true. A large amount of the knowledge
that needs to be shared among workshops is tacit and hence hard to
transform into structural capital. Consequently, as we showed in the
analysis, the technical experts at the distributors’ constitute a very
important part of the knowledge management at Scania. They spread the
knowledge horizontally visiting workshops, but also vertically since they
are employed by the distributor and talk to people there as well.
6.2.6 INTENTIONS & RESOURCES
It is important that the Factory communicates its intentions clearly and
firmly throughout the organization. The people at the Factory talk about
Codes of Practice and that the customers should receive the same service
independently of which Scania workshop they come to. If this is the goal
and the intention, it must be communicated. Everyone in the organization
should know what they work for and aim at. It is not wrong to make the
co-ordinated independence a little more co-ordinated and a little less
independent. Communicating clearer guidelines and putting harder
pressure on certified Scania workshops is needed, and sometimes even
requested by the workshop employees, to guarantee the level of service
Scania claims they have. Also, the intentions must be communicated
earlier. Today the intentions tend to be communicated in the very last
phase of processes. This leads to that similar initiatives are taken by the
distributors, who are unaware of the Factory’s intentions, which in turn
leads to duplication of work and solutions that are not as good as they
could have been if the Factory and the distributors had worked together.
One example of this is IT. The Factory must communicate its intentions
clearly and present a plan with times for when the changes they are
planning will occur to enable the workshops and distributors to prepare.
And then they need to stick to the plan and go through with it as far as
possible. If they have to change the plans this needs to be communicated
too. What we mean with this is that sometimes goals are set, intentions
spoken, but then there are no resources in terms of time and people to
actually implement a lasting solution. The importers-helping-importers
and the FAQ part of the intranet that we have mentioned in the empirical
study and the analysis are two examples of ideas that have not been given
enough resources to be fully implemented. Another example of an
intention that is not clearly spoken and actions not fully taken is the fact
that relatively few workshops use Multi on a regular basis. As long as
microfiches that they are more used to are being distributed, most
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workshop managers see no reason in using Multi that they are not as used
to. However, we do not think that Scania should do like SAS, and throw
out all the microfiches overnight. The workshops need some time to
prepare and educate their employees, but they do need to know that the
change is actually coming and when.
One way to show everyone in the organization what the goals are is to
give certain issues more resources in the form of time, money and people
for example. If these issues are really important it is not enough only to
talk about them. For example, if the organizational goal is that ten percent
of the European mechanics should be trained on some new products at
the time for the market introduction, the instructors at the Factory must
be given a chance to train the distributors’ instructors on time.
Again, as we stated in the section feedback above, there is no general
answer to where to put the resources and to what extent. As we stated in
the theoretical framework it is important to get the right process right. This
can only be done by some kind of measurement. Measuring the profit and
return on investing in education for example is hard, but assuming it is
not profitable, or failing to invest enough, will show in time.
6.3 CAN WE GENERALIZE OUR CONCLUSIONS?
In order to formulate some recommendations to Scania, we searched for a
theoretical framework that could support us in fulfilling the purpose of
the study. This led to the development of the knowledge identification
model, based on theories for general problem solving and knowledge
management. Accordingly, this model can be used to map knowledge in
any organization. Furthermore, we conducted some benchmarking to
learn how other companies, with repair and maintenance activities similar
to Scania’s, work with these issues. Doing this, we found similarities that
allow us to believe that the problem situations at Scania are not unique.
Therefore, comparing what we have found at Scania to the literature and
our general knowledge on the issue, we believe that the problems Scania is
experiencing are rather general, and accordingly our recommendations can
be generalized. We think that our findings are at least general for any large
producer, with centralized production and decentralized and
geographically dispersed repair and maintenance of constantly changing,
technically advanced products. Naturally some organizations matching the
description have come further than Scania, not experiencing all the
problems or not to the same extent, while others have not come as far as
Scania, experiencing more problems or to a greater extent.
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6.4 THE QUALITY OF OUR STUDY
6.4.1 THE KNOWLEDGE IDENTIFICATION MODEL
What do we think about our model after using it at Scania? Well, both
praise and blame. We took three models with four categories each. Since
they all had Tacit and Explicit knowledge as dimensions, it summed up to
eight dimensions of nine categories of knowledge and ignorance. The
dimensions are; Tacit & Explicit; State of knowledge & State of knowing;
Local & Global; Acquisition & Restriction. Had we chosen other models
with other dimensions, the categories would consequently have turned out
differently. We have not tried multiple models to see which one worked
out the best, but we simply took three of the ones we had encountered
and tried them. We cannot comment whether our analysis would have
benefited from a combination of other models or not, but after using the
model on Scania we feel that it serves our purpose rather well. Examples
of dimensions we could have used are: General issues (class) vs. Specific
issues (individual) or technical aspects vs. aspects of human relations. We
hope that we have covered these issues although they were not
represented by unique dimensions.
This being so, the model fills the purpose we intended, but following the
reasoning above, we cannot tell how well it would have worked if we had
chosen other models and other dimensions. Maybe better, maybe worse.
What we would have liked to clarify more distinctly in this context are
mainly two things. First, what procedures an organization should
undertake to identify which processes to start with. Like we have stated, it
is important to get the right process right. Since few organizations have
limitless resources, they need to find out where to first put their resources.
We are confident that all our solutions, if managed cautiously and not
taken too far, will generate resources, not consume them, but naturally
they call for initial investments. Second, we wish that we had come further
with specific, more detailed suggestions for implementing our solutions.
Not having these is a weakness of the report.
Would we recommend anyone else to use our Knowledge Identification Model?
Yes we would! But we would also encourage anyone pursuing a task
where our model can be used to be clear on what the goal is. Are the
dimensions we have used suitable or would others work better? The
model can be modified rather easily. Simply exchange dimensions and it
will result in new categories.
6.4.2 STRUCTURE
A problem we have had with our analysis in particular, and the Theoretical
Framework and Empirical Study in general, is the structure. Everything is
closely connected and interrelated which has made it hard to know how to
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Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
structure the different issues. We ended up choosing the one that we felt
communicated what we wanted to say to the reader in the best way. If we
had chosen another structure we would maybe have presented our work
from another angle, leading to slightly different recommendations in the
end.
6.4.3 RELIABILITY & VALIDITY
As we stated in our methodology chapter reliability has to do with a
study’s ability to withstand the influences of chance (Lekvall & Wahlbin,
1993, p. 213). As we have finished this study and our report, we believe
that conducting another study with the focus we now have presented
would render roughly the same results. As we stated earlier, there are
many projects undertaken at Scania aiming at improving the issues we
have studied, consequently another study would be examining a slightly
different organization than the one we encountered and hence the results
would be according to those changes. Apart from that we are also aware
of how strongly influenced we are by the people we have interviewed and
the places we have visited. The amount of interviews we have made and
places we have seen lets us believe that our study has high reliability. But
at the same time, Scania has 25.000 employees and is represented in 100
countries, and in that perspective it is not for us to say that interviewing
other people and visiting other countries had not led to a different result.
Our lack of cultural differences in the empirical study for example is more
likely a result of visiting only four countries rather then an indication that
there are no differences in Scanias vast organization.
Validity concerns whether the method for measuring data is in accordance
with the researcher’s purpose of what should be measured (Lekvall &
Wahlbin, 1993, p. 211). Hence, has the literature we have studied, the
people we talked to and the choices of countries to visit rendered
information and knowledge to reach our purpose? It is impossible to be
certain of this since we have not studied any other literature or talked to
another set of people to compare. But we believe that we have reached
our purpose with our choice of method. Also, we have continuously
consulted people at the Factory and our mentor and examiner at the
University, which we think supports our belief.
6.5 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH AND STUDIES
There are several issues that we would have liked to investigate further,
but since we have had a limited time to our disposal, and our purpose was
wide enough already, we have had to confine ourselves strictly within our
delimitations. However, we do have some ideas of how to continue our
work, or rather certain aspects of our work.
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Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
In this chapter we have presented our conclusions, that in many cases are
quite general and lack depth and detail. One of these solutions would be
particularly interesting to find out more about, and this solution is
feedback. We have concluded that Scania, and an organization in general,
need to encourage and use feedback to be able to improve its processes.
Scania needs to find out more about what the employees of the
workshops need, and also to find a structure to make use of all the
knowledge that exists among them. It would be interesting to study what
would be a good structure for feedback, both from a technical point of
view using information technology, and from an organizational point of
view. If there is a technical structure for feedback, and the workshop
employees are motivated to share their knowledge, what kind of
organization would then be needed at the Factory or at the distributors’ to
deal with all the feedback? Would there be a need for quality controls to
assure that solutions presented by employees on the company website are
not illegal or hazardous for example? Perhaps there would be a need for
employees working only with knowledge management? And how is this
solution made cost efficient?
Another interesting issue is to investigate whether our solutions are
applicable on other markets than Western Europe. Is it possible to
generalize our conclusions, first of all to Eastern Europe, and then to the
rest of the world?
Another very important matter that we have found, but that could not be
included in this study, is to study how the optimizing of costs in
production affects the costs of repair and maintenance of the trucks. Now
that Scania sells an increasing amount of service contracts, expensive
repairs come to affect the company’s profitability in a different way. And
the customers calculate the life-cycle cost when they decide which truck to
buy. Many mechanics have told us that the trucks are not made to make
their work easy. Assembly methods that save time, space and
consequently money in the production of the trucks can result in more
complicated repair and maintenance work, and that the trucks have to
spend more time in the workshops than what is acceptable. The
mechanics have many ideas of how to change the trucks to make their
work easier. Therefore it could perhaps be interesting to open a channel
for communication for the mechanics and the people at the construction
department at the Factory. It would be crucial in such a study to calculate
the savings in production and compare with some estimated unnecessary
costs in repair and maintenance to find out how to optimize both the
production and repair and maintenance processes, making sure that
neither one of the processes is optimized individually and that they
together waste resources. The whole must be taken into account.
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Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
7 REFERENCES
7.1 LITERATURE
7.1.1 BOOKS AND ARTICLES
Ahde, Carl-Johan & Beckmann, Johan, 1998, Kunskapshantering i den svenska
bankbranschen, master’s thesis, LiTH-IDA-Ex 98/53, Linköping
Ancona, Deborah G. & Caldwell, David F., 1990, IT and work groups, a
copied chapter from the book: Intellectual Teamwork, social and technological
foundations of cooperative work, course literature in IT-Korg, LiTH, 98/99,
Linköping
Axelsson, Björn, 1997, Kompetens för konkurrenskraft, SNS Förlag,
Stockholm
Bark, Mats, 1997, Intranät i Organisationens Kommunikation, Uppsala
Publishing House AB
Blomqvist, Daniel & Guilotte, Mattias, 1999, Enhancing Information and
knowledge utilisation through Intranets and Knowledge Management, master’s
thesis, LiTH-IDA-Ex 99/16, Linköping
Cepro Management Report, 1998, IT i det framtida företagandet, Stockholm
Cook, Jonathan, 1997, Leveraging Knowledge for Business Performance, Wits
Business School, South Africa
Cortese, Amy, 1996, Here comes the intranet, Cover story from Business
week 960226
Davenport, Thomas & Prusak, Laurence, 1998, Working Knowledge,
Harvard Business School Press
Davenport, Thomas H., De Long, David W., Beers, Michael C. 1998,
Sloan management review, winter,
http://mitsloan.mit.edu/smr/past/1998/smr3924.html, 000309
Davenport, Thomas H., 1997, Information Ecology, Oxford University Press
Duffy, Neil, 1997, Leveraging Knowledge for Business Performance, Wits Business
School, South Africa
Earl, Michael & Scott, Ian, 1998, What on earth is a CKO?, London
Business School
Glad, Torkel & Ljung, Lennart, 1989, Reglerteknik, grundläggande teori,
Studentlitteratur, Lund
Hall, Wendy, 1995, Managing Cultures, John Wiley & Sons
Harley, George A., 1997, Leveraging Knowledge for Business Performance, Wits
Business School, South Africa
126
Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
Hellriegel, D. et al, 1992, Organizational Behavior, Seventh edition, West
Publishing Company, St Paul
Holme, I. & Solvang, B., 1997, Forskningsmetodik – om kvalitativa och
kvantitativa metoder, Studentlitteratur, Lund, Sweden
Höij, Magnus, Kunskap är viktigt, men får det kosta något?, article in
Computer Sweden, 991125
IDG News, Globala standardsystem kräver kulturskifte, article in Computer
Sweden, 991125
Jackson Grayson Jr., C. and O´Dell, Carla S., 1998, Mining your hidden
resources, Accross the Board, April, p. 23-28
Jacobsen, Dag Ingvar & Thorsvik, Jan, 1998, Hur Moderna Organisationer
fungerar, Studentlitteratur, Lund
Johansson, Lars & Johansson, Pär, 1998, Framgångsfaktorer för Intranät, Dthesis, LiU IDA-D--98/4--SE, Linköping
Jooste, Adrian, 1997, Leveraging Knowledge for Business Performance, Wits
Business School, South Africa
Keen, Peter G. W., 1997, The process edge, Harvard Business School Press
Lekvall, Per & Wahlbin, Clas, 1993, Information för marknadsföringsbeslut,
IHM Förlag AB, Göteborg, Sweden
Moberg, Claes & Palm, Gunnar, 1997, Internationell Ekonomi,
Studentlitteratur
Mueller, Frank & Dyerson, Romano, 1999, Expert humans or expert
organizations?, Organization Studies, 20/2, p. 225-256
Nevis, Edward C., DiBella, Anthony J. and Gould, Janet M., Understanding
organizations as learning systems, 1995, URL:
http://learning.mit.edu/res/wp/learning_sys.html, 2000-02-08.
Novins, Peter & Armstrong, Richard, A blueprint for change, URL:
http://www.businessinnovation.ey.com/journal/issue1/features/choosi/l
oader.html, 2000-03-29
Nonaka, Ikujiro & Takeuchi, Hirotaka, 1995, The Knowledge Creating
Company, Oxford University Press, Inc.
Ny Teknik, issue 6, February 2000, p.25
Porter, Michael E, 1990, The competitive advantage of nations, Harvard
Business Review, March/April, p. 73-75
Rehn, Henrik & Westerberg, Martin, 1999, Kunskapsspridning, Masters
thesis, företagsekonomiska institutionen LiU, Linköping
127
Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
Romme, G & Dillen, R, 1997, Mapping the landscape of organizational
learning, European Management Journal, vol 15, no 1
Sach, Stephen R., 1997, Software engineering with Java, Irwin/McGraw-Hill
Senge, Peter M., 1990, The Fifth Discipline, Doubleday/Currency
Svensson, Björn, Förändringsmotstånd, en myt, article in Computer Sweden,
991125
Sveriges Tekniska Attachéer, 1999, Knowledge Management –
kunskapsarkivering eller kunskapsaktivering, Nordisk Bokindustri AB
Tallving, Mats, 1998, Intranätutveckling från idé till vardagsrutin, Tekniska
Litteratursällskapet
Viedge, Conrad, 1997, Leveraging Knowledge for Business Performance, Wits
Business School, South Africa
Wiig, Karl M, 1997, Leveraging Knowledge for Business Performance, Wits
Business School, South Africa
Zack, Michael H., 1999, Managing Organizational Ignorance, URL:
http://www.cba.neu.edu/~mzack/articles/orgig/orgig.htm, 2000-03-04
7.1.2 INDIRECT REFERENCES
Argyris, Chris & Schön, Donald, 1978, Organisational learning, Reading,
MA.: Addison-Wesley, referred to by Mueller & Dyerson, 1999, Romme
& Dillen, 1997
Crawford, Richard, 1991, In the era of Human Capital, New York: HarperCollins Publishers, sid 3, referred to by Duffy, 1997
Dalin, Å., 1997, Den lärande organisationen - Kompetensutveckling i arbetslivet”,
Studentlitteratur, Lund, referred to by Rehn & Westerberg, 1999
Dewey, J., 1929, The Quest for Certainty, New York: G. P. Putnam, referred
to by Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995
Dodgson, Mark, 1993, Organisational learning: A review of some
literatures, Organisation Studies, 14/3, p. 375-394, referred to by Mueller &
Dyerson, 1999
Hall, J., 1990, Kompetens i Organisationen, Studentlitteratur, Lund, referred to
by Rehn & Westerberg, 1999
Kanter, Rosabeth Moss, 1990, When giants learn to dance, New York, Simon
& Schuster, referred to by Mueller & Dyerson, 1999
Latham & Locke 1979, Goal Setting – A Motivational Technique That
Works, Organizational Dynamics, 8, referred to by Jacobsen & Thorsvik,
1998
128
Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
Luthans, F., 1995, Organizational Behavior, New York: McGraw Hill,
referred to by Jacobsen & Thorsvik, 1998
Polanyi, M, 1966, The Tacit Dimension, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul,
referred to by Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995
Penrose, Edith P., 1959, The theory of the growth of the firm, Oxford: Basil
Blackwell, referred to by Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995
Prusak referred to by Allee, Verna, 1997, The Knowledge Evolution: Expanding
Organizational Intelligence, Butterworth-Heinemann, referred to by Ahde &
Beckmann, 1998
Vroom, V.H. & Deci, E.L., 1992, Management and Motivation,
Harmondsworth: Penguin, referred to by Jacobsen & Thorsvik, 1998
Zuboff, Shoshana, 1988, In the Age of the Smart Machine, New York, Basic
Books Inc., referred to by Duffy, 1997
7.2 INTERVIEWS
7.2.1 PERSONNEL AT SCANIA CV AB
1. Ax, Åsa, IS/IT-support
2. Arvidsson, Rikard, IS/IT strategy and coordination, member of our
reference group
3. Björklund, Anette, manager for workshop information and technical
training
4. Brodin, Ann-Sofie, marketing strategy and planning, member of our
reference group
5. Carlsson, Jenny, warranty issues
6. Ceder, Ulf, IS/IT strategy and coordination, project leader for the
Dealer Portal
7. Edstam, Mikael, Automaster
8. Forsstöm, Fredrik, Multi, member of our reference group
9. Fredriksson, Lars, Automaster
10. Gustavsson, Tomas, product manager Multi
11. Harju, Rolf, manager for the department for Technical Information,
member of our reference group
12. Isaksson, Kjell, field quality manager
13. Johansson, Göran, repair methods manager
14. Johansson, Lars, technical instructor, educational issues
15. Jörlin, Sverker, codes of practice
16. Lindkvist, Anders, technical instructor, educational issues
17. Ljungdahl, Mats, dealer development, project manager Scania
Professional
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Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
18. Nilsson, Anders, manager for IS/IT strategy and coordinaton,
member of our reference group
19. Orre, Sigvard, dealer training process manager
20. Oscarsson, Lars, technical service manager, member of our reference
group
21. Pehrsson, Anna, Automaster
22. Persson, Sten Åke, technical instructor, educational issues
23. Pettersson, Birger, repair methods, SD/SP development
24. Simonsson, Johan, Automaster
25. Sjöberg, Hans, manager for part preparation, our supervisor and
member of our reference group
26. Sporre, Johan, technical service, area technical manager for the
nordic countries
27. Strand, Siw, manager for the translation and administration of
technical information
28. Torgrip, Monica, project manager for parts information process
29. Vinger, Jan, part catalogue manager
30. Waldekrantz, Mats, dealer development
31. Welander, Klas, technical service, area technical manager for
Southern Europe
32. Westerholm, Jan, chassis information
33. Åström, Pontus, IS/IT-support, web-manager
7.2.2 PERSONNEL AT SCANIA'S DISTRIBUTORS & WORKSHOPS
In addition to the people listed below, we have spoken to a great number
of people at the different workshops. They are mechanics, foremen,
service managers, workshop managers, spare parts people, customer
receptionists and customers.
SWEDEN
Thurin, Maria, technical expert
FRANCE
Favray, Lionel, service manager/technical expert
Remondet, Philippe, technical expert
NORWAY
Bjerke, Pål, product technician
Dalland, Odd, service manager
Gisleberg, Kjell-Erik, technical expert
Isaksen, Finn, technical instructor
Jacobsen, Roar, product technician
Lund, Rickard, education manager
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Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.
Lauvstad, John, information manager and workshop manager at Furuset
workshop
Rastad, Pål, technical expert
THE NETHERLANDS
During, Rob, parts issues
Fleck, Peter, central warehouse manager
Heppener, Ruud, technical expert
Meijer, Piet, technical instructor
Molenaar, Aris, technical expert
Poot, Wim, service manager
Snelderwaard, Chris, warranty issues
7.2.3 EXTERNAL SOURCES
Arthursson, Per, Jungheinrich, Workshop Manager
Högfeldt, Magnus, KPMG, consultant
Johansson, Svante, SAS, foreman and mechanic
Liander, Karl, Andersen consulting, manager for Knowledge Management
and research
Lillhannus, Per-Erik, Ericsson, project leader for strategic information
handling
Westin, Carl-Johan, Cepro Management, consultant
131
Appendix 1: Quantifying the value of some costs
APPENDIX 1: QUANTIFYING THE VALUE OF SOME COSTS
To indicate that our solutions not only take resources to implement but
also save money and give a positive surplus, we will in this appendix give a
few examples. We want to stress three things.
1. Some figures are real, taken from Scania, some are estimated by us and
some have been estimated for us by people at the workshops. It is
hopefully always clear which is the case.
2. We are aware of that the solutions are not as simple as depicted, the
figures are only meant to give indications.
3. Saving money by increasing the pressure on the necessary job the
mechanics do is probably not efficient. However, eliminating the
unnecessary work that they do is likely to render considerable
amounts. The six examples presented below sum up to approximately
800.000.000 SEK, and one has to consider that these are only six
examples of many possible.
NUMBERS
Some real numbers that we use in the examples, taken from Scania are:
• The labor rate for Scania in South Africa 185 SEK and in Italy 286
SEK. In Sweden it is 437 SEK. The technical experts probably have a
higher salary but we use the same amount for all employees in our
examples and we always take two examples with 185 SEK and 437
SEK as outer limits.
• The average truck has 6-7 breakdowns a year.
• Scania compensates their customers after 24 hours of breakdown with
a tenth of a Swedish basis-amount (basbelopp) per 24 hours. A basisamount is currently 36.000 SEK, hence the compensation is 150
SEK/hour after 24 hours.
• The customer price for an L-service is approximately 12.000 SEK.
This is 13 hours of work and it includes material. This is a large service
that is conducted once a year. The price applies to a long haulage
truck, but the price varies due to specification, discounts etc.
• The average service contracts are worth between 0,2 and 0,6 SEK per
kilometer.
• A long haulage truck normally drives 150.000-230.000 kilometers a
year.
• There are approximately 500.000 Scania trucks on the roads in Europe
and 70 percent of these, 350.000, are long haulage trucks.
132
Appendix 1: Quantifying the value of some costs
• 25% of the customers in Europe have R&M contracts
• There are approximately 1000 workshops and 10.000 mechanics in
Europe.
INFORMATION
One rather large workshop in France claimed that 2-3 times a month they
have big problems finding the information they need to find or solving a
problem, and the technical expert is also unfamiliar with the problem. If
this happens approximately 8-12 times a year in the average workshop,
considering that some are smaller, searching for a fault many times takes
two whole workdays for two mechanics and let us say the technical expert
in average puts in another four hours. This would mean between
80.000.000 and 230.000.000 SEK for Scania.
(8h*2days*2people*185SEK+3600+4h*185SEK)*(8times/year)*1000
workshops=
=82.080.000
(8h*2days*2people*437SEK+3600+4h*437SEK)*(12times/year)*1000
workshops=
=231.984.000
KNOWLEDGE
Trucks are not easily repaired. Being a mechanic today requires a lot of
technical knowledge. Not having enough knowledge can lead to that more
time is required to solve the problems. The average truck has 6-7
breakdowns a year and saving ten minutes on only half of all repairs
would render between 50.000.000 and 130.000.000 SEK a year for Scania.
6times*250.000trucks*185SEK*(10/60)=46.250.000
7times*250.000trucks*437SEK*(10/60)=127.458.330
SERVICE CONTRACTS
Trucks are driven across nations as well as continents. Sometimes when a
truck is in a workshop for a repair some maintenance is done to it even if
it is not necessary. Maybe the truck had the very same maintenance done
only a week ago, but the driver does not know. He probably thinks that it
is better to get as much done as possible while he is at a workshop
anyway, instead of having to stop later, and if he has a maintenance
contract he does not even pay for it (25 percent of Scania's customers in
Europe have contracts). So, if the case of redundant service happens to
only 10 percent of the long haulage trucks (not even considering the other
150.000 vehicles) only one time each year with an L-service (it might be
less common, but there are a number of services we have not taken into
133
Appendix 1: Quantifying the value of some costs
account) this means an unnecessary cost of 100.000.000 SEK for Scania
and a worsen economy for the customers without contracts of
310.000.000 SEK a year.
350.000trucks*0,1*0,25*12.000SEK=105.000.000
350.000trucks*0,1*0,75*12.000SEK=315.000.000
MULTI
To find the right parts, workshops sometimes use Multi. This works
mostly well, but sometimes Multi gives too many choices of parts. At a
workshop in Holland they argued that they about once a week do not find
the right part with Multi and that the division of parts in different chapters
is sometimes very illogical. If every workshop spends one extra hour on
searching once a week, this could mean between 10.000.000 and
20.000.000 SEK a year for Scania.
185*52w*1000workshops=9.620.000
437*52w*1000workshops =22.724.000
PARTS
In a Dutch workshop we learned that approximately three times a month
each mechanic finds themselves in the situation that the spare part they
have ordered is the wrong spare part although it says in the information
that that part was the right one. But if this happens to only a third of the
mechanics in Europe and it results in an extra hour for them and the spare
parts people, this would mean between 20.000.000 and 50.000.000 for
Scania each year
36times*(10.000mechanics/3)*185=22.200.000
36times*(10.000mechanics/3)*437=52.440.000
NEW PRODUCTS
Sometimes the product comes before the information and Diagnos. We
learned at a Dutch workshop that this results in problems about two-three
times a year. Estimating an extra workday for a mechanic and two hours’
help from the help desk or the technical expert and also estimating 2-3
days of downtime for the truck this example generates a cost of between
10.000.000 and 30.000.000 for Scania each year.
2ggr*(8*185+1*3600+185*2)*1000 workshops=10.900.000
3ggr*(8*437+2*3600+437*2)*1000 workshops=34.710.000
134
Appendix 2: Measuring frequency of causes of problems
APPENDIX 2: MEASURING FREQUENCY OF CAUSES OF
PROBLEMS
We want to give the workshops a tool to identify and quantify the reasons
for the problems in the process. That way the workshops can focus on the
big problems, and optimize the resources by using them where they are
needed the most.
In section 3.2 Our model, we presented a model with 5 different
categories of problems, three of which were undesired and these
were when you lack enough knowledge to solve the problem
efficiently (k), when you lack enough information to solve the
problem efficiently (i) and when you lack both (b). We earlier
depicted these categories 3,4 and 5 but now we use k, i and b.
Explicit
The tool contains two parts, a matrix and a few questions, which should
enable easy statistics by accompanying the work order on the computer in
the dealer system in XML69 format.
THE MATRIX
The matrix should be filled out every time something takes longer time
then it should, due to a lack of information or knowledge in the respective
part of the process. This way, the workshop manager can measure both
problems and enhancements and easier manage the change.
Below, we give an example of what a matrix could look like. Each column
in the matrix corresponds to a vehicle were one or more parts of the
repair and maintenance process has not been performed efficiently due to
lack of knowledge or information. In the first case for example, there were
problems with the information while searching for the problem, we will
give an example on this later.
If he process runs smoothly, there is no need to fill out the form.
Customer
reception
Problem
search
Parts
Repair &
maintenanc
Order
follow-up
69
Extended Markup Language, a meta language to manage information in a structured way.
135
Appendix 2: Measuring frequency of causes of problems
THE QUESTIONS
Each time there is a problem, the employee can choose between the
questions below only by clicking next to the corresponding line and leave
a comment when necessary.
During our field study we spoke to a mechanic and a technical expert who
searched for the problem with a vehicle. When we spoke to them they had
exceeded 100 hours of searching. This costs the workshop in terms of
labor rate and 3600 SEK per 24 hours after the first 24 hours that the
customer has the right to claim. We learned later that the problem had
been that the functional description of a component in the workshop
manual did not contain enough information and that Diagnos determined
the wrong problem. Taking this example, form could have been filled out
as follows:
LITERATURE/SOFTWARE
The literature/software used was Diagnos & workshop manual
The literature/software gave help but it took time to find it. (structure) ___________
√
The literature/software gave help but it took time since the information was not good
enough. (content) functional description bad
The literature/software did not give help. (missing or structure) ______________
√
Other: Diagnos determined the wrong problem
KNOWLEDGE
There was a lack of knowledge, mainly due to that the product is new
_______________________
course _
There was a lack of knowledge, mainly due to that the person did not yet attend a specific
There was a lack of knowledge, mainly due to that the person is not experienced enough
________
Other
________________________________________________________________________
KNOWLEDGE SHARING
The person asked for help and got it ________________________________
√
The person asked for help but they could not help the technical expert tried
Other ________________________________________________________
TIME ESTIMATION
It was estimated that the job/activity should have taken 45 minutes, but it took 110*60 minutes
instead.
This particular case would render an (i) in the above matrix in the row for
problem search like the first case above in the matrix. It would also
increase the sum of unnecessary work during problem search with 109,25
hours that month which we depict below.
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Appendix 2: Measuring frequency of causes of problems
STATISTICS
Summing up the problems each month, the workshop can find out where
they have the most problems. See example on the next page:
Customer
reception
January: ∑ k=1, ∑ i=2, ∑ b=0, ∑ time: 2 hours
Problem
search
January: ∑ k=9, ∑ i=21, ∑ b=1, ∑ time: 127
hours
Parts
January: ∑ k=0, ∑ i=1, ∑ b=0, ∑ time: 1 hour
Repair &
maintenan
January: ∑ k=6, ∑ i=19, ∑ b=2, ∑ time: 23hours
Order
follow-up
Total
this
month
January: ∑ k=0, ∑ i=1, ∑ b=0, ∑ time: 3 hours
Reason for problem
k = lack of knowledge
i = lack of information
b = lack of both
January: ∑ time: 156 hours
January: ∑ labor cost: 68.172 SEK* ∑ customer compensation: 12.900 SEK**
* using the labor rate in Sweden, 437 SEK/hour
** assuming the example we gave took 110 hours, and no other cases that month took more than 24 hours
137
Appendix 3: Interview guide for distributors
APPENDIX 3: INTERVIEW GUIDE FOR DISTRIBUTORS
The interview guide is built up by specific questions. These questions have been used
as main points of discussion to explore areas of interest, using the respondents’
answers to explore further.
ORGANIZATION & MARKET
Is the distributor owned by the Factory or is it independent?
How many dealers and workshops are there and how many are owned by
the distributor?
Which is the position on the national market?
How are the customers? Changing demands? Increasing demands?
Effects?
Is the number of customers increasing or decreasing? Why?
What can the Factory do to get closer to the market and the customers?
INFORMATION IN GENERAL
Which information is distributed from the Factory to the workshops via
the distributor? Is the information sometimes changed? Which do they
change?
Which information do you receive, but reduce before passing it on or not
passing it on at all?
Which information is created at the distributor?
Does the distributor need to control the information? Why?
Why should the distributor be an information intermediary at all?
Is the level of relevance on the technical information good? How could it
be made better?
Does the distributor receive the information from the Factory on time?
Can the distributor distribute it in time? If not, consequences? Solutions
to the problem?
What is the distributor's view of sharing information with workshops?
Do the workshops generally have internal meetings to distribute
information?
What could be done to the driver’s manual? Could it be improved to make
things easier for the workshops?
What does the workshops want the drivers to do for themselves / keep
track of for themselves / have access to for themselves? Are they
generally well prepared?
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Appendix 3: Interview guide for distributors
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, SOFTWARE & HARDWARE
Does the distributor have an extranet/intranet? Do they use E-mail,
Internet? For what? Functionality? Used only at the distributor or at
dealers and workshops as well?
How is Scania’s Internet site perceived?
How well are the workshops equipped with PCs and printers?
Are people at the workshops used to computers in general?
What are the plans within this area?
Which dealer system is in use? Old, new? Works well?
What is the perception about Multi? SD/SP?
FEEDBACK, NETWORKING, CONTACTS WITH THE FACTORY & THE
WORKSHOPS
How often does the distributor visit the workshops and how often are
representatives from the workshops invited to the distributor for meetings
and similar?
If the distributor has meetings, forums for people at the workshops, who
is invited, what is on the agenda and what is the purpose of the meetings?
What works well and what does not?
How does the failure reporting work? What is good / bad? How many
workshops report - how much? How would the distributor like the system
to work? Would it be good if the workshops had access to FRAS? Why?
Are there any incentives for the workshops to send in solutions, ideas and
failure reports? Do they? To what extent? How would the distributor like
this to work? What is the general wish from the workshops?
The Area Technical Managers are the distributor’s connection to the
Factory, how does that work?
How do you know whom to contact at the Factory? How is the contact
with the Factory perceived? Lack of conformity? What is positive /
negative?
LEARNING
GENERAL
Which actions are taken to recruit new employees?
Which are taken to keep the ones you have?
Which demands does the distributor put on the workshops when it comes
to knowledge, learning and information?
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Appendix 3: Interview guide for distributors
What does the distributor do to transform tacit knowledge into explicit?
Individual to organizational?
Do the workshops use work rotation?
How does an inexperienced mechanic work compared to an experienced?
Apprenticeship?
Which kinds of mechanics does the distributor strive for, generalists or
specialists?
Which is the distributor's view on the learning processes on the
workshops? Do they create any incentives? Contests? Monetary awards?
How is the quality thinking of the mechanics? Of the workshop
managers?
EDUCATION
Which is the strategy for education?
How is the quality of education? If a test is failed, how is that followed
up?
Does the distributor take any responsibility for educating and developing
the workshop managers? Foremen?
After a course, does the employee get to practice what he has learned?
Do the mechanics working with damage repairs receive any training?
Visits to the assembly line?
Has the distributor considered other systems of education?
Transportation and accommodation for the employees must be
expensive?
Do the mechanics get to learn how to search for information?
Does the distributor have a system for evaluation?
Does the distributor have an educational plan for each workshop /
mechanic?
Can the individual mechanic affect his educational plan?
Do the workshops have to pay the distributor when they send employees
to courses?
CULTURE
Is the distributor aware of the differences in culture between different
workshops? Which actions are taken to improve the situation on the less
fortunate workshops? Learning from the better ones?
How does the distributor try to create an atmosphere to enhance the
willingness to share knowledge, the caring for the job and the company?
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Appendix 3: Interview guide for distributors
Hierarchy? Between workshops and the distributor and the Factory?
Within workshops? What works well, what does not?
Does the question about being owned / independent affect the culture?
REFLECTION UPON OUR IDEAS
What does the distributor think about…
Networking between workshops
Feedback to the factory
Workshops helping workshops, lessons learned and best practice
…and which enablers / disablers are there?
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Appendix 4: Interview guide for workshops
APPENDIX 4: INTERVIEW GUIDE FOR WORKSHOPS
The interview guide is built up by specific questions. These questions have been used
as main points of discussion to explore areas of interest, using the respondents’
answers to explore further.
ORGANIZATION
How many workshops does the dealer own?
Which operations are done on the workshop? (repair, maintenance,
damage repairs, washing etc.)
How many employees? Doing what?
THE WORKPROCESS
What is the process in the customer reception like? Which dealer system is
used?
Does the workshop keep track of when different customers’ trucks need
maintenance and call them to make an appointment or is it up to the
customer?
What does the receptionist do if he cannot establish what is wrong with
the truck?
Does the mechanic get any hints with the work order about applicable
TIs?
What is the repair process like?
Does the workshop have an emergency vehicle? Is there any information
in the car?
Would you like to have a PC in the car?
Is Scania assistance used?
What is the spare parts process like?
Do you only sell Scania parts, or cheaper alternatives as well?
Can the workshop keep track of the stock levels in both their own spare
parts warehouse and other workshops’ as well?
Are the customers often present in the workshop? Good? Bad?
Do you use the spare parts catalogue on microfiche?
What do you think about warranties? How does it work?
INFORMATION IN GENERAL
From who and how does the workshop receive new information and how
is it distributed within the workshop?
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Appendix 4: Interview guide for workshops
To which extent are the notice boards used? Other ways of informing the
personnel?
Does the workshop have internal meetings to distribute information?
Is there any information on video? Would you like more? If so, which
information?
How is the structure of the TIs perceived?
Who uses which technical information? Quick reference catalogue,
workshop manual, TIs etc. What is good / bad, what is missing /
redundant?
What is the workshop manual mainly used for?
What do you think about the level of relevance on the technical
information?
Does the information come on time? Always/often/seldom/never? How
late is it?
What does the workshop think about product news? Sufficient? On time?
Should any of the information sources contain more pictures?
Where is the technical information placed? Who has access to it?
What could be done to the driver’s manual? Could it be improved to make
things easier for the workshop?
What does the workshops want the drivers to do for themselves / keep
track of for themselves / have access to for themselves? Are they
generally well prepared?
Is there a problem with mechanics borrowing chapters from the binders and
not returning them or putting them back in the wrong place?
Does all the mechanics have the service data booklets? Good - bad?
How do mechanics generally approach and solve the problems? (For
example: try, try, try, ask, try, try, ask, try, ask, try, ask, try, read in the
binder)
How does the foreman/workshop manager feel about sharing
information with the mechanics?
How does the workshop document when the configuration of a truck is
changed?
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Appendix 4: Interview guide for workshops
FEEDBACK & CONTACTS WITH THE FACTORY, DISTRIBUTOR &
OTHER WORKSHOPS
How often does the distributor visit the workshops and how often are
representatives from the workshops invited to the distributor for meetings
and similar?
If the distributor has meetings, forums for people at the workshops, who
is invited? What is on the agenda? What is the purpose of the meetings?
What works well and what does not?
How does the failure reporting work? What is good / bad? Why? How
would the workshop like the system to work? Feedback?
Are there any incentives for the workshops to send in solutions, ideas and
failure reports? Do they? To what extent? How would the workshop like
this to work?
How is the contact with the distributor perceived? Lack of conformity?
What is positive / negative? Do they listen?
To which extent does the workshop turn to the dealer’s technical expert
for help? To the distributor’s technical expert? To the distributor’s help
desk? To the Factory’s help desk?
How is the relation between information about what has already
happened or is already decided versus what is going to happen in the
workshop? Do the employees have an opportunity to affect decisions?
Does the workshop have any contact with other workshops?
LEARNING
GENERAL
Which actions are taken to recruit new employees?
Which are taken to keep the ones you have?
Do the workshops use work rotation?
How does an inexperienced mechanic work compared to an experienced?
Apprenticeship?
Which kinds of mechanics do the workshop strive for, generalists or
specialists?
Does the distributor create any incentives for learning? Contests?
Monetary awards?
How is the quality thinking of the mechanic?
Is there any encouragement from the workshop managment to share
knowledge or search information?
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Appendix 4: Interview guide for workshops
How much time is wasted on what?
EDUCATION
Do the employees of the workshop get any education?
How is the quality of education? If a test is failed, how is that followed
up?
Do the workshop management feel that they get any education? Support?
After a course, does the employee get to practice what he has learned?
Do the mechanics working with damage repairs get any training? Do they
want to? Do they get to visit to the assembly line?
Do the mechanics get to learn how to search for information?
Does the workshop management have a system for evaluation of the
knowledge in the workshop?
Does the workshop management have an educational plan for each
mechanic?
Can the individual mechanic affect his educational plan?
Does the workshop management have any goals with education? How do
they plan? To which extent can the mechanic choose which courses to
attend? Is the education perceived as good? Do the employees get to go to
courses frequently enough? Is the education qualified enough?
Can the mechanics keep the literature after the courses?
Do the courses come on time when there is a new product on the market?
WWW, HARDWARE & SOFTWARE
Does the distributor have an extranet/intranet? Do you use e-mail,
Internet? For what? Functionality? Used only by the manager or by others
as well? By whom?
How is Scania’s Internet site perceived?
How well is the workshop equipped with PCs and printers?
Are people in the workshop used to computers in general?
What are the plans within this area?
Which dealer system is in use? Old, new? Works well?
What is the perception of Multi? SD/SP? Who uses it, for what and how
much?
What would you think about getting all the information from a computer?
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Appendix 5: Interview guide for benchmark
APPENDIX 5: INTERVIEW GUIDE FOR BENCHMARK
The interview guide is built up by specific questions. These questions have been used as
main points of discussion to explore areas of interest, using the respondents’ answers
to explore further.
INTRODUCTION
Who is the respondent? Work duties, experience, title?
The following questions concern the mechanics in repair and maintenance workshops who
use technical information to search for faults, repair and do maintenance on the products.
THE PRODUCT
For what kind of a product is the workshop conducting repair and
maintenance? How does it evolve? Is it a technically complex product that
is constantly changing? How often does new versions of the product, or
parts of the product, come?
TECHNICAL INFORMATION
• When did the company go from a paper solution to a computerized
solution when it comes to distributing and using technical information?
Intranet, Internet, CD-ROM?
• Over how long time did the company phase in this solution and phase
out the old? Is the old solution still around?
• What does the solution look like? Is it on an intranet or distributed on
CD-ROM or…? Text, pictures, photos, film? (Word, PDF, HTML,
XML, DVD?)
• Which were the reactions when the new system was implemented? What
does the mechanics think about it now? What is good/bad, what do they
want to change and why? Which mechanics think it is good/bad, is there
a pattern, young vs. old, experienced/skilled vs. inexperienced/less
skilled etc.?
• Has the change made the work easier? Is time being saved?
• Is it easier to find the information one wants and is it found faster?
• Is it possible to estimate how many hours a week the average mechanic
spends searching for and reading information? Is it also possible to
estimate the same thing imagining that the company had not
implemented the new solution?
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Appendix 5: Interview guide for benchmark
FEEDBACK
• Is it possible for the mechanics to affect the system? Can they reach the
producers of the information and give feedback?
• Does the company make use of the knowledge created in the workshop?
The producers of the product are doubtlessly skilled at their craft but
they cannot know everything and the mechanics probably many times fill
those gaps. Is there any structure/process to capture this knowledge?
How does this structure/process look like? Is it working well? How
would you like it to work?
• If the company receives feedback, how do they solve the problem that it
is a large company and the large amount of mechanics that might want
to express themselves cannot all do that? How does the company
synthesize and filter all ideas/wishes/knowledge to a manageable
amount without loosing the essence?
147