SAMMANFATTNING - IDA · Slutsatserna kan sammanfattas i ett par punkter. Vad vi framförallt tycker saknas är ett fungerande tillvaratagande av den enorma resurs av kunskap och information

Knowledge Management – a tool for enhancing workshop efficiency at Scania.

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SAMMANFATTNING

Det här examensarbetet är vårt sista moment i civilingenjörsutbildningen IndustriellEkonomi som vi studerat vid Linköpings Tekniska Högskola. Examensarbetet ärutfört på Scania med syfte att kartlägga och klassificera behoven av information ochkunskap i reparations- och serviceverkstäder. Syftet är även dels att förklara vad enorganisation kan göra för att tillfredsställa dessa behov och dels vad som möjliggördetta för att kunna öka verkstädernas effektivitet. Vi har fokuserat på verkstäderna ochendast lastbilsverksamheten, men för att samtidigt ta hänsyn till helheten har vi även iviss utsträckning studerat de delar av Scania som mest påverkar verkstädernassituation. Bakgrunden till problemet är att Scanias närmare tusen serviceverkstäder iEuropa, som vi fokuserat på, behöver avancerad teknisk information och kunskap föratt kunna utföra sitt arbete. Men lastbilen utvecklas i snabb takt och det är svårt fördokumentationen och utbildningen att hålla jämna steg vilket gör att mekanikernaställs inför okända problem. För att verkstäderna skall kunna vara effektiva ochspendera så lite tid som möjligt på problemsökning och problemlösning behövs envälutvecklad struktur för att förse verkstäderna med relevant information och kunskap.Som underlag för studien har vi genomfört en fältstudie där vi besökt verkstäder ochdistributörer i Sverige, Norge, Holland och Frankrike, vilket vi gjorde under en veckaper land.

I referensramen tog vi fram en modell baserad på olika teorier för att kategorisera olikasorters kunskap samt problem relaterade till dessa olika kategorier. Teorin presenterarolika sätt att lösa de olika problemen samt hur de olika kategorierna av kunskaphanteras och styrs. Denna modell använde vi i analysen för att visa hur man kan lösade problem samt tillfredställa de behov vi kartlagt på Scania.

Slutsatserna kan sammanfattas i ett par punkter. Vad vi framförallt tycker saknas är ettfungerande tillvaratagande av den enorma resurs av kunskap och information somScania besitter. Den information, kunskap och utbildning som finns är bra men för attden ska tillfredställa de behov som finns måste det i större utsträckning finnasmöjlighet för användarna att lämna synpunkter och för de som producerarinformationen att tillvarata dessa synpunkter på ett effektivt sätt. Idag äråterkopplingen behovsstyrd utifrån vad Scania tror sig vilja veta. Vi saknar enbehovsstyrd återkoppling utifrån vad verkstäder och distributörer vill påverka.Utbildning och lärande i allmänhet måste vara en naturlig del av arbetet för allaanställda och detta ska planeras och styras strategiskt. En liten del i detta är ett utökatnätverkande mellan anställda, dels inom Fabriken och dels mellan Fabriken,verkstäderna och distributörerna. Dessa förändringar möjliggörs bland annat genomett ökat användande av IT och klarare definierade och kommunicerade roller i helaorganisationen.


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ABSTRACT

This report constitutes a master’s thesis in Economic Information Systems atLinköping Institute of Technology in Sweden. The master’s thesis forms theconcluding part of a Master of Science in Industrial Engineering and Management, aneducation attended by both authors. The purpose of this Masters Thesis is to map andclassify the needs of information and knowledge in repair and maintenanceworkshops. The purpose is also to explain which courses of action an organization cantake to meet these needs, and also what enables these actions and how, in order toincrease the workshops’ efficiency. Our focus is on the repair and maintenanceworkshops at Scania, and to regard a larger picture we also look at various parts of theorganization that the workshops are the most affected by in this context.

Looking at producers of technologically advanced products, the market support ofrepairing these products demands advanced technical information about the productand great skills from the people executing the task. Since reality today also involvesfrequent product changes, it is difficult for the documentation and education to keepup, and the employees are confronted with problems they have never seen before. Forthe repair and maintenance process to be efficient, and to spend as little time aspossible solving technical problems, a well-developed system for providing relevantinformation 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 ninedifferent categories of knowledge, each one with its own suggested managerial actions.Applying this model on the situation at Scania we could categorize all the observedneeds for information and knowledge and find ways to manage them. The conclusionsfrom this can be summarized into a few main points of interest. The information tothe workshops provided by Scania is quite good already. However, it is not adapted tothe needs of the employees of the workshops, and it does not keep up with the rapidlychanging technology in the trucks. Furthermore, there is a lot of knowledge among theemployees of the workshops that could be made useful for the whole organisation.What is needed is therefore ways for the workshop employees to influence theinformation, knowledge and education that they receive, ways for them to share theirknowledge with others and a more efficient distribution of information. These matterscould be realized with knowledge management involving among other things anincreased use of information technology, routines and open channels to give feedback,increased communication and more clearly defined roles and responsibilities in thewhole organization.


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SAMMANFATTNING..................................................................................................................................1

ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................................................................2

1 INTRODUCTION..............................................................................................................................5

1.1 THE AUTHORS AND THE REPORT ....................................................................................................51.2 PROBLEM BACKGROUND.................................................................................................................51.3 GUIDELINES FROM SCANIA..............................................................................................................71.4 PURPOSE..........................................................................................................................................71.5 FURTHER STRUCTURE OF THIS THESIS.............................................................................................7

Layout...................................................................................................................................................7Helpful hints .........................................................................................................................................8

1.6 SCANIA............................................................................................................................................81.7 CLARIFICATION OF THE RESEARCH PROBLEM..................................................................................9

1.7.1 Clarification ............................................................................................................................101.7.2 Delimitations...........................................................................................................................101.7.3 Clarified Research problems...................................................................................................12

2 METHODOLOGY...........................................................................................................................13

2.1 HOW THE STUDY WAS CONDUCTED ...............................................................................................132.2 OUR APPROACH .............................................................................................................................14

2.2.1 The alignment of the study ......................................................................................................142.2.2 Collection of data....................................................................................................................15

2.3 THE QUALITY OF THE STUDY .........................................................................................................172.3.1 Validity & Reliability ..............................................................................................................172.3.2 Sources of error ......................................................................................................................18

3 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK..................................................................................................25

3.1 INTRODUCTION TO THE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK .....................................................................253.2 OUR MODEL OF FIVE PROBLEM SITUATIONS...................................................................................263.3 KNOWLEDGE .................................................................................................................................28

3.3.1 Tacit Knowledge .....................................................................................................................293.3.2 Explicit Knowledge .................................................................................................................303.3.3 Learning..................................................................................................................................313.3.4 Knowledge Management.........................................................................................................38

3.4 OUR KNOWLEDGE IDENTIFICATION MODEL ...................................................................................493.5 ENABLERS .....................................................................................................................................50

3.5.1 Glancing at a knowledge management firm............................................................................513.5.2 Presenting our enablers ..........................................................................................................513.5.3 Intention ..................................................................................................................................523.5.4 Resources ................................................................................................................................533.5.5 Information Technology ..........................................................................................................543.5.6 Culture & Organization ..........................................................................................................57

4 EMPIRICAL STUDY ......................................................................................................................63

4.1 INTRODUCTION TO THE EMPIRICAL STUDY.....................................................................................634.2 THE WORKSHOP PROCESS ..............................................................................................................634.3 KNOWLEDGE .................................................................................................................................65

4.3.1 Tacit Knowledge .....................................................................................................................654.3.2 Explicit Knowledge .................................................................................................................674.3.3 Learning..................................................................................................................................76

4.4 ENABLERS .....................................................................................................................................854.4.1 Intention ..................................................................................................................................854.4.2 Resources ................................................................................................................................864.4.3 Information Technology ..........................................................................................................864.4.4 Culture & Organization ..........................................................................................................88

4.5 BENCHMARK .................................................................................................................................89


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Phasing in the new system..................................................................................................................89Problems ............................................................................................................................................90Benefits...............................................................................................................................................91

5 ANALYSIS........................................................................................................................................93

5.1 INTRODUCTION TO THE ANALYSIS .................................................................................................935.2 COMBINING THEORY AND REALITY................................................................................................93

5.2.1 Recap of how the knowledge identification model works........................................................935.2.2 Applying the model on Scania.................................................................................................94

5.3 SUMMING-UP KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT.................................................................................111

6 CONCLUSIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS.............................................................................113

6.1 THE KNOWLEDGE IDENTIFICATION MODEL ..................................................................................1136.2 RECOMMENDATIONS TO SCANIA .................................................................................................114

6.2.1 Education ..............................................................................................................................1146.2.2 Networking ............................................................................................................................1156.2.3 Feedback ...............................................................................................................................1156.2.4 Information Technology ........................................................................................................1176.2.5 Culture & Organization ........................................................................................................1186.2.6 Intentions & Resources .........................................................................................................121

6.3 CAN WE GENERALIZE OUR CONCLUSIONS? ..................................................................................1226.4 THE QUALITY OF OUR STUDY.......................................................................................................123

6.4.1 The knowledge identification model......................................................................................1236.4.2 Structure................................................................................................................................1236.4.3 Reliability & Validity ............................................................................................................124

6.5 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH AND STUDIES ......................................................124

7 REFERENCES...............................................................................................................................126

7.1 LITERATURE ................................................................................................................................1267.1.1 Books and articles .................................................................................................................1267.1.2 Indirect references ................................................................................................................128

7.2 INTERVIEWS ................................................................................................................................1297.2.1 Personnel at Scania CV AB...................................................................................................1297.2.2 Personnel at Scania's Distributors & workshops..................................................................1307.2.3 External Sources ...................................................................................................................131

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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1 INTRODUCTIONThis chapter gives a brief introduction to the thesis. We describe the background tothe thesis, the problem situation and the task that Scania gave us, which leads us tothe purpose of the study. We continue with some helpful hints for you as a reader, ashort description of Scania, and we conclude by clarifying our research problem toidentify more concretely which question this thesis answers. After this, we hope thatthe reader agrees with what we should do so that we can turn to how we did it andwhy in Methodology.

1.1 THE AUTHORS AND THE REPORT

This report constitutes a master’s thesis in Economic InformationSystems at Linköping Institute of Technology in Sweden. The master’sthesis forms the concluding part of a Master of Science in IndustrialEngineering and Management, an education attended by both authors.

1.2 PROBLEM BACKGROUND

If we look at producers of technologically advanced products, the marketsupport of repairing these products demands advanced technicalinformation about the product and great skills from the people executingthe task. Since reality today also involves frequent product changes, it isdifficult for the documentation and education to keep up, and theemployees are confronted with problems they have never seen before. Forthe repair and maintenance process to be efficient, and to spend as littletime as possible solving technical problems, a well-developed system forproviding relevant information and knowledge is of great importance.On a global market with tough competition, the efficiency of theworkshop is critical when it comes to keeping the customers. Inmanagement literature and in an increasing number of industries we cansee a growing interest in customer relations management. The importanceof doing business focused on the customers is essential. Heavy-truckproducer Scania has a decentralized service network for their trucks ofaround 1000 workshops in Europe. These workshops have a considerableinfluence on customer satisfaction and customer retention as well as amajor impact on Scania’s brand image. Moreover, the customer demandsare increasing. The customers want longer opening hours, well educatedmechanics and high availability on parts and service. Good service is todaya prerequisite for selling. Furthermore, since more and more of sales comefrom service contracts, the workshop efficiency has a big impact onworkshop costs. Consequently, the workshops are of crucial importancefor 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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gain advantage against the world’s best competitors because of pressureand challenge. They benefit from having strong domestic rivals, aggressivehome based suppliers and demanding local customers. But, as he furtherargues, once a company achieves competitive advantage through aninnovation, it can sustain it only through relentless improvement, which iswhat we will address in this thesis.The customers expect to get the service done quickly, correctly and at areasonable price. Hence the learning process turns out to be crucial; only askilled mechanic can do the job quickly and correctly. Therefore, we wantto put the term knowledge worker in a new focus. Traditionally it is appliedto management consultants and similar, but we think that the mechanicsare knowledge workers as well and that the workshop management needsto learn and devote more of their attention to knowledge management,that is managing this asset, knowledge, in a conscious way. As the Swedishtechnical attachés maintain, the global competition puts great demand oncompetence and the demands on organizations to have high flexibilityincreases. They argue that the importance of the company-specificknowledge increases and a steep curve of learning is essential for thecompanies’ ability to compete and develop. 2 In addition, Penrose3 arguesthat it is never resources themselves that are the inputs in the productionprocess, but only the services that resources can render. Services are afunction 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 ourthesis.Given the big importance for both brand image and profitability, thepeople at Scania need to find out how they can support their front linepeople, the ones who meet the customers. There are several projects atScania aimed at changing the distribution of information to theworkshops, but not so many focusing on what kind of information, orother support, the workshops really need. For this thesis we were assignedby Scania to study how better information support can improve theefficiency in their workshop processes, by visiting workshops andmapping their needs. We accepted the assignment since we found it veryinteresting and well worth exploring. We think that the problem at hand issimilar for other businesses with the same organizational structure asScania, that is centralized production and a decentralized serviceorganization and which also, like Scania, are producers of technologicallyadvanced and continuously changing products.

2 Sveriges tekniska attacheer, 1999, Knowledge Management, preface3 Edith P Penrose 1959, The theory of the growth of the firm, referred to in Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995, p. 34


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We started with a rather vague problem description from Scania, but asour work proceeded, with interviews at Scania and workshop visits, thepicture of what we really needed to study in order for Scania to enhancethe workshop efficiency grew clearer. We needed to take an all-embracinggrasp on the ones who have close contact with Scania’s customers, theemployees in the workshops. Since we are looking at technologicallyadvanced products, repairing these calls for advanced technicalinformation about the product and great skills from the people executingthe task. Today there are many sources and recipients of information andknowledge, different carriers of this and varying channels. The departmentresponsible for producing technical information at Scania producesinformation of their own, but the main input comes from the research anddevelopment department and the production facilities. But if we widen thehorizon and look at the whole organization, are there more sources to befound, and which infrastructure for feedback would that require?

1.3 GUIDELINES FROM SCANIA

Our original task from Scania was “to define areas where betterinformation support can improve the primary processes in ourworkshops. Analyses of these areas should result in a broad action planand define critical success factors”. We should only consider trucks, notbuses or industrial and marine engines that are also Scania products.Moreover, we were to concentrate on Europe although Scania isestablished worldwide. But we were also given great freedom, which hasresulted in a slightly different purpose.

1.4 PURPOSE

The purpose of this Masters Thesis is to map and classify the needs ofinformation and knowledge in repair and maintenance workshops. Thepurpose is also to explain which courses of action an organization cantake to meet these needs, and what enables these actions and how, inorder to increase the workshops’ efficiency. Our focus is on the repair andmaintenance workshops at Scania, and to regard a larger picture we alsolook at various parts of the organization that the workshops are the mostaffected by in this context.

1.5 FURTHER STRUCTURE OF THIS THESIS

LAYOUT

The remaining part of this report is arranged as follows:1.6 ScaniaA short description of the company Scania.


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1.7 Clarification of the research problemAs the title suggests, we clarify the research problem by specifying ourdirection and delimitations and then explain what exact questions we willanswer in this study.2 MethodHow we conducted the study and the possible consequences of that.3 Theoretical FrameworkWhat more erudite people have thought about the issues and results fromother studies concerning similar objectives.4 Empirical studyWhat we have found during our field study, our interviews at Scania andfrom written internal reports.5 AnalysisHere we combine our theoretical framework with our empirical findingsin an analysis.6 Conclusions and RecommendationsThe cream on the mash! This is where we draw conclusions from ouranalysis and present our recommendations to Scania.

HELPFUL HINTS

The name of the parent company is Scania CV AB, but in the report wewill only use the term the “Factory” when we mean Scania CV AB sincethis is the in-house denotation. When we speak of any of Scania'sworkshops, we simply refer to it as a workshop and likewise with dealersand distributors, which will be explained below in the paragraph aboutScania.We will continuously refer to our field study. With this we mean the fourweeks that we spent visiting workshops, dealers and distributors.In the report we will not write both he/she, his/her and similar but onlyhe 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 manydifferent kinds of vehicles. In one hundred years, they have deliveredmore than one million trucks. Today the company is a producer ofindustrial and marine engines, buses and heavy trucks. On the truckmarket they are among the top ten companies in the world selling 46.000trucks last year and with 36.000 trucks in Europe they share the secondplace with Volvo after Mercedes. Scania is represented by nationaldistributors, of which they own 50 percent and the rest are independent, in


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approximately 100 countries. Worldwide there are more than 25.000employees, whereof 22.000 in Europe.Scania’s organization in Europe consists of the Factory in Södertälje andnational distributors in most countries. There are also production facilitiesin Sweden, Denmark, Poland, the Netherlands and France. Thedistributors support and co-ordinate the activities of the Scania dealers inthe respective countries. There are approximately 850 Scania dealers inEurope who have one or more workshops each. This sums up to about1000 workshops with roughly 10.000 mechanics and the same number ofadministrative employees.4 The sizes of the workshops vary a lot, from 2to over 30 mechanics plus other personnel.Originally, most dealers were small family businesses. Today a nationaldistributor that is often owned by the Factory owns the majority of thedealers. The philosophy of Scania is that they should only buy businessesthat 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 thedistributors.As a result of the owner structure, the different entities of Scania’sorganization are quite independent. The Factory signs contracts with thedistributors, who sign contracts with the dealers, and these contracts arethe Factory’s way to influence the businesses of the distributors and thedealers. Among other things in the contract, the dealers are committed towork according to Scania’s Dealer Operating Standards. These standardsform a part of Scania’s Codes of Practice, guidelines that are aimed atmaking all dealers and distributors work uniformly and reach up to a highlevel of service. The Codes of Practice are rather new to Scania, but ascompetition increases they have noticed that they need something toensure good service for the customers from the whole organization.However, the use of Codes of Practice is still controversial for somepeople at the Factory, who think that the Factory should not interferewith the distributors and the dealers.

1.7 CLARIFICATION OF THE RESEARCH PROBLEM

To make the purpose of our study clearer we here present furtherclarification of the problem that we are to study. Together with ourdelimitations this leads to the clarified research problem where ourpurpose has been decomposed into four specific questions that this thesiswill answer.

4 All figures come from Scania's information department, 2000-03-09


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1.7.1 CLARIFICATION

In the description of the problem background we stated that theworkshop employees need information and knowledge to work efficientlyand meet customer demands. However, there is an overflow ofinformation in an organization such as Scania, and many things to beknowledgeable about. Our purpose with this study is to find out what theneeds of information and knowledge in a workshop really are and howthese needs can be met.To meet the needs of knowledge and information one has to think aboutthe sources, recipients, channels and carriers, that is where theinformation and knowledge comes from, who needs it and for what,which way it is spread and by what means. Today technical information tothe workshops comes mainly from one source, the department fortechnical information at the Factory. However, the information createdthere originates from some other sources, mainly the research anddevelopment department. In an organization with 25.000 employees theremust be an incredible amount of knowledge and information, and it iseasy to think that some of this knowledge and information could be of usefor others in the organization if spread. When it comes to technicalinformation, there are perhaps more sources to be found in theorganization than at the department for research and development. If so,the organization needs to find a way to find and capture this informationand knowledge to be able to make use of it. However, it is not enoughonly to capture the information and knowledge. To make good use of thislarge amount of knowledge and information the organization also needsto find ways of managing it appropriately.

1.7.2 DELIMITATIONS

OBJECTIVE DELIMITATIONS

We study how to support the process of repairing a continuously changingproduct, and the situation on the market is changing in many ways justlike the demands on the employees. It would have been natural for us tostudy the effects and management of change in an organization. However,our purpose spans such a vast field that we have been forced to set somematters aside, and change management is one of them.Our focus in the workshops is on the mechanics. Although the people inthe spare parts warehouse and the customer receptionists are of crucialimportance for the workshop, we have not studied their problems asclosely as the mechanics’. For example, we have assumed that they arecapable of performing their routine tasks, while the tasks that themechanics are confronted with, routine or non-routine, and themechanics’ capabilities are factors that we have studied thoroughly.


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Furthermore we have not considered the special problems that can arisein connection with field tests or trucks for demonstration.Learning is an essential part of our study but we will not discuss theorieson cognitive learning or other theories related to modern psychology.Furthermore, we will not consider e-learning, that is training provided onthe Internet, even though we know that it could probably be veryinteresting for our purpose.We have a focus on technical information in our study but we will notdelve into the specific content, rather the form and structure of it.Our study includes distribution of information and informationtechnology. However, despite the fact that the scientists now even havefound a way to transfer data with quantum mechanics instead ofelectrotechnology5, or the presence of important and more well knownenablers like XML, TCP/IP and Blue Tooth to name a few, we did nothave the time nor the knowledge to do this complex domain justice.Instead we refer to the vast amount of technical literature that treats thesetechnical issues more closely.We are looking at workshop efficiency and one obvious thing that wouldincrease this would be to give more attention to how a truck is repairedand maintained already in the construction of the trucks. Today the focusis on the manufacturing of the trucks to minimize the production time.This leads to that some costs are cut while others are simply postponedand amplified. But since we have not had the time to look into this matterthoroughly we have decided to leave the issue for further studies.Another problem is that the producers of information do not get theinformation to the workshops on time when there are new products. Onereason for this is that if the information reaches the workshops anddealers before the new truck is on the market, some workshops will havethe information long before the introduction since the introduction doesnot take place simultaneously all over Europe. If the dealers have thisinformation it is likely that they will not sell the old truck or the old partsto 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 inadvance. Consequently they keep the workshops unaware on purpose, forbusiness reasons that are hard to get around. This is also an area we havedecided 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. Thisnumber confines the degree to which we can generalize our findings to

5 Ny Teknik, issue 6, February 2000, p.25


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other countries. Nevertheless, we think that the problems that we haveidentified are general and what separates different countries is how farthey have to go to reach what we propose.Moreover, we have only studied one company, Scania, closely, and ourresults are based on our findings in this company. This may limit thegeneralization of the results primarily to other organizations. Byconducting a case study on one company, however, we hope to be able todevelop a thorough understanding of that company instead of vagueopinions of several organizations. Moreover, since we do want togeneralize our findings both for Scania’s global organization and also forindustries similar to Scania, we have interviewed other companies as well,but these interviews constitute a very small part of our study and are notthe basis for our conclusions.As a result of our study we have given suggestions on how the use ofinformation and knowledge can be improved, but we have not made somany calculations on the benefits or the costs involved in the realizationof our suggestions. Our results would certainly have benefited from morecomplex calculations but we have only been able to carry out a few minorcalculations within our time frame (see appendix 1). It is difficult todetermine the value of specific knowledge management initiatives inmonetary terms, and we did not feel that we were able to make largercalculations convincing within the scope of the thesis without being out ofour depths.

1.7.3 CLARIFIED RESEARCH PROBLEMS

We have now given you the background to the problem at hand, definedour purpose and accounted for the delimitations we have made. Thepurpose of our study is now divided into five main sub-questions toexplain what we will do more concretely:

• Which kinds of information and knowledge do the employees in theworkshops need for our purpose?

• Which sources, channels and carriers of information and knowledgeshould be used, and how can they support the workshops in the mostefficient way?

• How can the organization capture the information and knowledge thatstems from solving the problems encountered in workshops inparticular and in the rest of the organization in general?

• When captured, how can the organization manage and make use ofthis information and knowledge in the learning process?


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2 METHODOLOGYNow the problem background is described, our purpose defined, the delimitationsaccounted for and our research problem clarified. We hope that the reader agreeswith what we should do. Now we will describe how we did it and why. For the reader tobe able to judge our work, this chapter presents the method by which this study hasbeen conducted. Our approach and the quality of the study are described in detail,discussing different sources of error. Following this chapter is the TheoreticalFramework 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. Thistime can be divided into three parts, the first consisting of five weeks.During this period we learned about the organization and tried to definethe problem we had to solve. The second part of the study consisted ofeleven weeks when we combined field studies with studies of existingtheories within our line of work and also continued to learn about theprocesses of the studied organization. In all, we have spent four weeks “inthe field” during this period. Finally, the last eight weeks of our study havebeen reserved for additional interviews inside and outside theorganization, and for the analysis of our work and the completion of thedocumentation. 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 wehad to study. In all, apart from our field studies, we interviewed more than30 employees at the Factory. For about 10 weeks we were looking for thequestions to ask at the same time as we looked for the answers to thesesame questions. Several times during the study we have stumbled intoareas completely unknown to us, but that we have thought to have animportance for our study. In these cases we have had to search for waysto learn about it, sometimes by finding experts to talk to and sometimesthrough articles and literature.Apart from the interviews at the Factory and the visits to differentdistributors and workshops, we needed a deeper understanding withindifferent fields to be able to understand the processes at Scania, identifythe problems and propose changes. The companies we contacted wereAndersen Consulting and Cepro Management, with whom we discussedKnowledge Management. Furthermore our understanding on howmodern technology enables information handling was important so wespoke to KPMG about the Data Warehouse concept. In addition weinterviewed three other companies, Ericsson, SAS and Jungheinrich, thathave come further than Scania in implementing a computerized solutionof information distribution to their corresponding repair and maintenanceworkshops. We will get back to this later in paragraph 4.4 Benchmark. We


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chose the companies from the criteria that we wanted to look at; large,geographically dispersed producers, with centralized production anddecentralized repair and maintenance of constantly changing technicallyadvanced products. We contacted a few companies that we thought wouldfit this description and that we thought would have come further thanScania. Only in one case our guessing was wrong and then we contactedanother company. What might have been better would have been to havetaken the criteria, applied them on numerous companies and analyzedwhich is the best company to study. But we did not want to spend thatamount of time on the benchmark and we think that our method wassufficient.

2.2 OUR APPROACH

2.2.1 THE ALIGNMENT OF THE STUDY

We have done a qualitative case study. The difference between aqualitative and a quantitative study, according to Lekvall and Wahlbin6 isthat in the qualitative one the author gathers, analyses and interprets datathat cannot be quantified in a meaningful way. In a quantitative study thegathered material is expressed in numbers and analyzed quantitatively, andthis was not possible with our material.What we could have done was to do a survey. We could have designed aquestionnaire, sent it out to a number of workshops and distributors andpresented our findings more in the form of statistics. However, we did notfind this method suitable for our purpose. The reasons for this are firstlythat it is a complex area and we wanted a deeper understanding of thesituation in workshops today. Our study should be focusing on theworkshops’ needs and this deeper understanding cannot be attainedwithout qualitative research within our time frame. Secondly, when westarted out we did not know all the aspects we should study. Hence wewere looking for answers at the same time as we looked for thecorresponding questions during the first part of our study. We would nothave found the questions without our field study, thus a questionnairewould not have served our purpose. In addition, looking at the theories ofmedia richness (figure 2.1), it gives a rather clear explanation when aquestionnaire is suitable (low complexity of task) and when one needs toconduct face to face interviews (high complexity of task).

6 Per Lekvall & Clas Wahlbin, 1993, Information för marknadsföringsbeslut, p. 141


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Figure 2.1: Media Richness

In the following paragraphs we will get back to the advantages of havingface to face interviews a number of times.Our purpose is explanatory. We will clarify the connection between causeand effect, how different factors are connected and how they affect eachother within the chosen area. According to Lekvall and Wahlbin (1993 p.129), it is common that some possible explanatory factors are the focalpoint of significance in a study with an explanatory purpose. In theattempt to design such a study, they mean that it is of crucial importancethat one considers these factors carefully since the whole study can beworthless without them. We tried to monitor this risk by not determiningwhich factors to study and which not to until we felt that we had graspedthe situation at the workshops.

2.2.2 COLLECTION OF DATA

We have collected two types of data; primary and secondary. Thesecondary data was collected primarily in the beginning of the study, butalso continuously during our work. We studied a lot of material - travelreports, project memos, the company’s intranet and other documents -from the organization, to get a broad understanding of the problem wewere to solve. In addition, we have studied literature and articles in therelevant field of research.We have used personal interviews, telephone interviews and observationsto collect primary data. The interviews were conducted as semi-structuredinterviews, using an interview guide (Appendices 3, 4 and 5), with onlyone respondent and with groups of respondents. The character of theseinterviews has depended largely on which part of the study we were in. In

Efficientcommunication

Complexity of the task

The richness ofthe medium

Low High

Face to face

Videoconference

Telephone

E-mail

Letter

Numericmaterial


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the beginning we were trying to get an overview of our problem, and aswe learned more about it we could make more specific questions and ourinterview guides evolved. During our fieldwork we combined theinterviews with observations. An observation can be open or hidden, andthe observer can participate actively or passively (Holme & Solvang7). Weconducted open observations, meaning that the people we observed knewthat we were there and why we were there, and we participated passively,without influencing the observed groups actively. As observers we wereable to look, listen and ask questions, and this way learn aboutconnections between different actors in the workshops and reactions tocertain situations. We soon realized that the information we receivedduring the interviews could be contradicted as we were observing a certainsituation. However, by asking again and interviewing more people webelieve that we have always found the reason for the contradiction.The people at the Factory have been very helpful in finding interestingmaterial for us to read and the right people for us to interview. But thesize of the organization, and the fact that our study affects many differentdepartments, has complicated our search for relevant information. Notonly in terms of finding it all, but also in terms of selecting out of the vastsource of information we encountered.At the Factory our supervisor chose the respondents for our first fewinterviews according to who he thought it would be useful for us to talkto. At these interviews we received the names of more people to interviewabout certain issues, and it continued like this during the whole study. Aswe learned about the problems we were to study, and the factors affectingthem, we also learned who we could interview about these issues. We didnot have any problems of getting appointments with the people that wewanted to interview, and they were all relaxed and took the time weneeded 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 thedistributors’ and with all kinds of personnel in the workshops. With theemployees at the distributors the interviews were mostly like theinterviews at the Factory, sitting in an office or at a coffee table withplenty of time to ask questions. With the employees at the workshops thesituation was often different and less calm. Normally we interviewed themechanics, one by one or several at a time, standing in the workshop nextto the trucks. Since we spent between two and five days in most of theworkshops we had the opportunity to interview the same persons onmultiple occasions.

7 I. Holme & B. Solvang, 1997, Forskningsmetodik – om kvalitativa och kvantitativa metoder, p. 111-116


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2.3 THE QUALITY OF THE STUDY

2.3.1 VALIDITY & RELIABILITY

Validity concerns whether the method for measuring the collected data isin accordance with the researcher’s purpose of what should be measured(Lekvall & Wahlbin, 1993, p. 211). It also concerns whether or not thefindings are applicable in other situations apart from the one studied, thegenerality of the results. The reliability of a study has to do with its abilityto withstand the influences of chance (Lekvall & Wahlbin, 1993, p. 213).A study has a high reliability if different and independent observations ofthe 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 asmany people as possible at various different functions in the studiedorganization, both at management level and at the operational level. Wehave also interviewed people from other organizations familiar with theproblems we have studied. Apart from just increasing the validity of thestudy, this has also allowed us to understand both the strategic and theoperational factors that may influence our results and that our findingsmight influence.When it comes to the secondary data used for our study we can of coursenot be sure to have found everything that concerns our work. There is avast amount of literature to chose from in this field of research, and wecannot know if we have found the most relevant books and articles. Also,when it comes to secondary data from Scania, the size of the organizationhas complicated our search for relevant information as mentioned above.Altogether we feel that we have a slightly confused picture of theorganization and its shortcomings and strengths. But in the vast amountof information we have gathered, we have seen patterns clear enough towork with and draw conclusions from.Efforts have been made continuously during our study to secure a goodreliability in the results. As we will explain further in the followingparagraphs, both of us have always been present during the interviews toeliminate variations due to different interviewers, and have conducteddeep interviews and asked the same questions to several people to avoidthe influence of chance. We have read internal reports on smaller studiesand interviewed many employees at the Factory. Their observations areindependent from ours and often from each other’s as well, but give inmany cases the same results as ours. In the cases we have founddifferences, we have generally been able to explain where they haveoriginated, and thereby we believe that our observations are still reliable.


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2.3.2 SOURCES OF ERROR

Directly related to the questions of validity and reliability are the possiblesources of error. Lekvall & Wahlbin (1993, p.246) present five sources oferror occurring from the beginning of a research to the final analysis andconclusion. Some of these errors are possible to eliminate, others can bereduced and some are impossible to influence. In the followingparagraphs we discuss how these sources of error may have affected thequality of our work.

DECISION OF ANALYSIS

Errors in the decision of analysis means that the purpose of the study hasbeen badly defined or incomplete, so that it does not correspond to theproblem situation that the study is aimed at. This may lead to that thestudy does not answer the right questions even though it serves itspurpose. This kind of errors generally occurs if the analysis of theproblem situation is incorrect. It can also come from a misunderstandingbetween 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 todefining the problem situation and the purpose. In the beginning thescope of the purpose was quite vague, which lead us to spend a significantamount of time specifying it. There is a risk that we have understood thesituation differently than it really is and thus got an incorrect angle of thestudy. In an effort to avoid this type of errors we have had continuouscontacts with our supervisor and a reference group, seven people fromdifferent positions at the Factory, and they have helped us focus on theright things. We have also had extensive contacts with other interested,and interesting, people within the Scania organization, who have pointedout important aspects of the problem to us. There have been severalprojects aimed at improving the information for the workshops anddeveloping an Intranet for them conducted parallel to our study.Therefore the purpose of our study has been discussed with the involvedpeople to avoid duplicating work. Regular contacts with our supervisor atthe university have helped us find a reasonable scope and a scientificcorrectness of the study, along with helping us with questions and makingus aware about areas we should look deeper into.

RESEARCH PROBLEM

Errors in the research problem are closely related to errors in the decisionanalysis and mean that the clarification of the research problem has notbeen made the right way or with too few details. The delimitations can bewrong and some important questions can have fallen out of the study.


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Errors in the purpose most definitely lead to errors in the researchproblem, just as a well-defined purpose decreases the risk for going in thewrong direction or getting the wrong content of the research. Havingproperly defined the purpose and the focus of the study throughcontinuous discussions about our work with our supervisor and referencegroup, we feel that the risk of losing track of what we should do has beenminimized.

CHOICE OF METHOD

This type of error practically always appears when there is an interest ofgeneralizing 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 investigatedpopulation. The coverage might be too large or too small compared to thetarget population. Secondly, the loss of chosen respondents might be toolarge or the missed respondents could systematically differ from theothers in relevant questions. The third source of error is the error ofselection, meaning that the selection is non-representative for the targetedpopulation. (Lekvall & Wahlbin, 1993, p. 247)The results of our study are meant to be generalized first of all for Scania’sEuropean market and secondly for their global market and other similarorganizations. Out of about one thousand Scania workshops in Europewe have conducted an in-depth study of five workshops and a smallerstudy on two workshops in four countries. It is difficult to say if this isenough to draw any conclusions or not, but from what we have seen andlearned during these visits we feel that the amount of investigatedworkshops has been sufficient, since more or less the same problems haveappeared in each place. However, it is important to note that we have onlyvisited countries in Western Europe. Although our study is supposed tobe generalized for at least the whole of Europe we would like to point outthat the conclusions we have come to are drawn only upon visits toWestern Europe where 96 percent of the sales on the European marketare. We have read reports and we have been told about the situation inEastern Europe, but as other internal information sources they givefragments rather than a clear picture of the whole situation. We have theimpression that there are quite extensive differences between Eastern andWestern Europe on some issues. In Eastern Europe for example, onemust consider that new markets lack experienced mechanics to a largeextent. In the workshops we have visited the experienced mechanics arean important source of knowledge and information to the rest of themechanics. Consequently, the mechanics on the emerging markets will toan even higher degree be dependent on good technical information andtraining. This particular aspect only leads to that our study is even moreimportant to them. Nevertheless, there are certainly aspects that we do


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not know about that can question the degree to which we can generalizeour study.As a result of the delimitations of time and money we had to make aselection of European workshops to study. Since we are not the ones withall the experience in this matter, we have completely trusted oursupervisor and other involved people at the Factory to make thisselection. Their opinions of representative and/or interesting markets tostudy have differed a lot. Finally, our own language skills and therespective markets’ ability to receive us during a week, made us choosefour countries – Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and France – torepresent Europe. Whether the problem situations in these countriescorrespond to some “general problem situation” or not is hard to say.Reading other reports and talking to involved people we have tried to findout as much as possible about other markets, to see if what we have foundis valid in other places as well. We have learned that some aspects of theproblem are specific to certain countries, and this knowledge will be usedin our analysis. Also, we feel that we have found that the main features ofthe problem situation are the same in all workshops, regardless of country,and we therefore hope that our selection of workshops can be consideredrepresentative for all the others considering our purpose.Something that can have affected our results is the fact that three of thevisited workshops are situated close to a distributor and/or a centralwarehouse which are both important sources of information, both in aformal and in an informal way. Hence, these workshops can be a bit betteroff than other workshops in general, and since they exert great influenceon 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 problemswe encountered and we might also not have encountered all the problemswe would have if we had visited other workshops as well.Thanks to the large amount of time that we have spent in each workshopwe 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 hasbeen impossible for us to meet exactly everyone that could have providedus 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 smallcompared to the amount of primary data. Some problems that mightoccur while using secondary data arise since the data has been collected ata 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 beaffected by it.


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Primary data, on the other hand, is the base for our study and wascollected through interviews and observations. The ideal situation wouldbe that our presence did not affect the people we observed and theactions 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 peoplewe have observed, to influence them to the least possible extent and as faras we can judge, the information gathered has not been noticeablyaffected by our presence.According to Lekvall & Wahlbin (1993, p. 247-248) there are threesources of errors in measurement while collecting data in interviews.These are the respondent, the interviewer, and the instruments used.

The respondentErrors originating from the respondent can appear if the respondent doesnot want to, or is unable to, give the correct answers. The respondent canalso try to look good by giving the answers that he thinks the interviewerwants. These errors depend a lot on the respondents’ will to co-operate,his interest in the matters discussed and the time available for theinterview. There can also be misinterpretations due both to theinterviewer and the respondent. During our interviews with employees ofthe workshop the respondents may have been affected by the way that theinterviews were conducted. Many times we interviewed more than onemechanic at a time, and it is very likely that they affected each other’sanswers. We also conducted many of the interviews with the mechanicsstanding in the workshop next the trucks, and another environment mighthave given different answers. However, as we have already mentioned wespent quite a lot of time in each workshop. This meant that we had theopportunity to talk to the same persons several times, and not onlystanding next to the trucks but also in a calmer environment at the coffeeor lunch table.We have tried to decrease the influence of the above factors of therespondents by informing each respondent of our study before theinterviews, and by making sure the respondent has had enough time totalk to us. Another important matter is that we have tried to adapt ourquestions to each respondent since many of them have been specialistswith a lot of knowledge within a limited field. Thanks to the loosestructure of our interviews, with only the interview guide (Appendices 3,4and 5) to follow, our questions have developed while talking to therespondents according to their particular interests and knowledge.Naturally this has given us a lot of freedom, but it also brings out a risk ofgiving too much importance to extreme aspects of our problem. This riskwe feel that we have monitored by the rather large number of interviewswe have done which we hope have given us the balance needed.


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The interviewerOne of the main disadvantages of interviews is the effect the interviewercan have on the respondent. The interviewer can intentionally orunintentionally influence the respondent (Lekvall & Wahlbin, 1993,p.248). We have tried to minimize the effect of the interviewer the sameway that we tried to minimize the effect of the respondent, by beingprepared, having enough time and by keeping a loose structure of theinterviews to enable the respondents to speak freely. But of course, theonly way to completely eliminate the influence of the interviewer is by notbeing present, which in our case is impossible.One possibility is that the respondent sees the interviewer as a personwith particular interests or as an instrument for somebody. During ourinterviews we often felt that the respondents, especially in the workshops,were a bit suspicious, almost as if they felt threatened by us, since wecame from the Factory to “investigate them”. This situation normallychanged when we pointed out that we were students, not employed by theFactory, conducting a study aimed at improving their situation. We believethat the respondents perceived our position as external people as positivesince 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 differentlanguage situations for the interviewers and the respondents. Naturally,this has increased the risk of misunderstandings and lost information. Webelieve that by being aware of this, and by sending back a report of ournotes to people in the studied workshops for confirmation and correction,the risk for misinterpretations was kept low. An advantage of thedifferences of language and culture is that we investigated some mattersmore thoroughly just to make sure we got it right, than we would have ifthe whole study were conducted in Sweden. Furthermore we would nothave encountered issues due to the different national cultures if we hadconducted the whole study in Sweden.Answers can be interpreted differently by different interviewers and thequestions asked might have an unclear formulation and be askedindistinctly. To avoid these problems both of us have been present atevery interview, and we feel that being face to face with the respondenthas made it possible to see if he misunderstood a question, feltuncomfortable with it or did not understand it. This has given us apossibility to explain the question or ask more questions on a certaintopic. We have also been able to ask the same questions to various people,to verify the information. This has been very interesting since we haveoften received different answers from different people to the same


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question, which has made us investigate these issues further which has ledto a deeper understanding of the issue at hand and what is behind it.In order to remember everything the respondents said both of us tooknotes that were transcribed shortly after each interview. To make sure wedid not misunderstand the respondents we sent a written report to thedistributors and workshops of how we had understood their answers forcomments and corrections. We have only received comments from theworkshop in Sweden that we then visited a second time to clarify someunclear issues. We treated the interviews at the Factory differently. Wethought transcribing them all would take too much time compared to howuseful it would be. Instead we both took notes each time, and then wediscussed our interpretations after each interview. Since the material fromthese interviews has been used to complete this final report, any differingopinions have surfaced and been dealt with.

The instruments usedAccording to Lekvall & Wahlbin (1993, p. 248) errors due to theinstruments used come from badly formulated questions. This is animportant problem when using questionnaires. We did not have a detailedquestionnaire, 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 ratherthan containing specific questions, and we could keep reformulating ourquestions until we obtained the desired information. As we have alreadymentioned, these interview guides evolved as we learned more about thesituation in the workshop and at the Factory. This makes it easy to believethat we may not have asked the right questions in the beginning of ourwork, since our frame of reference was not big enough. However, mostinterviews in the beginning were conducted at the Factory, so that wehave been able to check the information later on. In addition, we wentback to the first workshop that we spent a week in to confirm someinformation and ask some additional question. To conclude, we do notfeel 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 conclusionsfrom the study and applying them to the general situation that is in factwhat we are really interested in. It is difficult to determine the possibilitiesof errors in a qualitative analysis and conclusion. We have been influencedby many different opinions, and the people who have participated in ourinterviews have given us their subjective view of the problem situation. Toreduce the risk of errors originating from the analysis and conclusions ofour collected data we chose to go back and collect supplementary data


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after reaching some primary conclusions, before we did the final analysisand conclusion.

ROUND-UP

For the reader to be able to judge our work we have now accounted forhow the study was conducted, how we collected the data used and whichalignment of the study we have chosen. Furthermore we have discussedthe validity and reliability of the study, possible sources of error and wehave also explained which results these errors can bring about.In chapter 6, Conclusions and recommendations, we will present some furthercriticism of our methodology and explain how it has affected our results.Now we will present our Theoretical Framework.


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3 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKAfter clarifying our research problem, that is what we are studying and thendescribing 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 byhaving a discussion concerning the theoretical problem at hand. In the chapterfollowing 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 orless end up in a model, we would first like to describe the structure of thischapter.First in 3.2 Our model of five problem situations, we present a general modelthat in little or in large applies to any problem at hand, be it in a workshopor selecting a birthday gift for your mother-in-law. The model shows howproblems are solved with sufficient knowledge or information or are notsolved 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 orinformation, we define different kinds of knowledge and informationto create a common taxonomy in 3.3.1 Tacit knowledge and 3.3.2Explicit knowledge.After that we turn to 3.3.3 Learning. In that section we state whylearning is important and we look at the difference betweenorganizational and individual learning. We reflect on the differencebetween single-loop learning and double-loop learning and we end thesection with knowledge creation. This part of the framework is meantto explain different aspects of learning and knowledge creation since itis 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 threemodels that can map different kinds of knowledge or ignorance andthe managerial actions that apply in each case. This section is thefoundation of the next section where we create a composite model.

Section 3.4 Our knowledge identification model, is a combination of the threemodels in the last section. Our model is a tool for mapping andcategorizing different kinds of knowledge and ignorance and thereby findout which actions to take to solve the problems that occur in each case.


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Lastly, in section 3.5 Enablers, we present the enablers that we have foundimportant to support and put the above issues into practice.There! We hope you are with us, and we start with presenting our firstmodel.

3.2 OUR MODEL OF FIVE PROBLEM SITUATIONS

In workshops problems arise and are solved continuously. However, themethod of solving a problem is affected by certain circumstances, forinstance the person responsible for solving it or the type of problem athand. Before we delve into the findings and writings of other authors andscientists, we will describe our model, (Five P, figure 3.1) of five differentproblem situations.This model is developed through logic reasoning and can be applied tomost situations where there are problems. It describes five categories ofproblems and what makes the problems in each category more or lessefficiently solvable. It also describes what is needed to move a problemfrom one category to another with the help of increased knowledge orinformation, but we have only depicted the six most common directionsof motion in the model. As stated earlier we are taking examples from aworkshop where the problem concerns an individual person. But on ahigher level the model is, like we have stated, general and thus also appliesto a whole workshop or to a whole organization. We will get back to thislater in the theoretical framework.Three categories (3, 4 and 5) are undesirable and added knowledge orinformation can move a problem into one of the two remainingcategories, which are desired. In repair for example, the desired case isthat the problem is solved efficiently, either completely due to the skills ofthe mechanic (1) or thanks to enough information support (2). Theinformation needed could be everything from just a figure on tolerance, awiring diagram, or a comprehensive description of the method forrepairing the gearbox. But sometimes problems arise in the threeundesired categories. The worst case is when there is a lack of bothknowledge and information (5). The second undesired category is whenthe mechanic has enough knowledge but there is a lack of information (4).Maybe there is just a number missing that would resolve the wholesituation, but that number is impossible or very difficult to find. The thirdundesired category is when there is information available but themechanic lacks enough knowledge about the problem (3). Either he is justinexperienced or he lacks the proper training. In this case it does notmatter if there is thorough information available, the remedy to theproblem is learning.


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Everything is relative and here one can wonder were to draw the linebetween the different categories. How little knowledge does the mechanichave when there is a lack of knowledge? Is he simply inexperienced and itwas a while since he took the course on the subject so it takes him anextra half-hour to solve the problem? Or is he searching for the problemfor hours without any luck, even with help from the other mechanics andthe technical expert from the distributor? What do we mean by “solvingsomething efficiently”?When we talk about solving a problem efficiently, we mean that it is notsolved in more time than it should be. For example, to switch a light bulb ona truck normally takes five minutes. If this takes ten minutes due to a lackof information about how to remove the protective headlight glass forexample, it is not efficient. To switch a whole gearbox should takeapproximately four to six hours. If this takes eleven hours since themechanic has not been trained enough it is not efficient either. In autopia, the reason for every problem would be found instantly and therepair method would be known by all mechanics at all times. But ensuringthat all mechanics always possess the latest knowledge about the truck ishardly cost efficient. So, where to draw the line between the differentcategories 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 tryto help shed some light on this problem later by introducing reasonings, amodel and a matrix (see figure 3.9 and appendix 2).

Figure 3.1: Our model “Five P”

In the model the circles can have different sizes depending on howcommon the state is. We have chosen to keep them the same size forsimplicity. One wants to enlarge the areas 1 and 2 and eliminate the areas3, 4 and 5.With increased knowledge one can move a certain problem from 5 to 4, 3to 2, 3 to 1 or 2 to 1. What is important to note here is that 1 is not always

Knowledge

Information

1

2

3

4

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the aim, sometimes 2 is better. Take for example electrical problems. Wehardly want the mechanics to memorize every single wiring diagram andsolve the problem without having to use the technical informationprovided, on the contrary, that would not be cost efficient at all. But inthe model it looks like 1 is better then 2 since it is higher up, but that isconsequently not always the case. Another problem that can arise if themechanics know everything by heart is that they risk missing newinformation since they do not look in the information.With increased and better technical information, the problems can gofrom 4 to 2 or from 5 to 3. The problems cannot go from 4 to 1 since in 4there is enough knowledge but not enough information. Receiving theinformation would bring the problem to 2 since it is in this category thatthe 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 informationfor one mechanic can mean that the problem goes from 5 to 3. That isstill undesirable, but for another mechanic getting the same informationmeans 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, forexample in a workshop. We would like to see how this process can beimproved, that is, find out what is needed to move a problem from onecategory to another in the model. This is, as stated earlier, done byensuring that the persons solving the problem possess enough knowledgeand information. Therefore, knowledge and information is the focal pointof 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 ofinformation management at the University of Texas, defines it as follows:“Knowledge is information with the most value and is consequently thehardest form to manage. It is valuable precisely because somebody hasgiven 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 essentialcharacteristics of knowledge, it is hard to manage and it is only valuablesince a person has given it meaning from their own experiences.

Nonaka and Takeuchi, two leading Japanese business experts, bothprofessors at Hitotsubashi University, have written “The knowledge

8 Thomas Davenport, 1997, Information Ecology, p. 9


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creating company” where they argue that creating knowledge will becomethe key to sustaining a competitive advantage. They also classify humanknowledge into two kinds, drawing on Michael Polanyi’s9 distinctionbetween tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge. We have chosen to usethese 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 toarticulate with formal language, which is what makes it difficult tocommunicate or share with others10. Nonaka and Takeuchi maintain thattacit knowledge exists symbolically in the human mind. It is personalknowledge embedded in individual experience and involves intangiblefactors such as subjective insights, belief, perspective and emotions. Thesubjective and intuitive nature of tacit knowledge makes it difficult toprocess or transmit in any systematic or logical manner. For tacitknowledge to be communicated and shared within the organization, it hasto be converted into words or numbers that anyone can understand. It isprecisely during the time this conversion takes place – from tacit toexplicit and back again into tacit – that organizational knowledge iscreated.In everyday work there is a great opportunity for learning if the conditionsare right and this is important. While working with a technically advancedproduct that is constantly evolving, there is no time for everyone to attendcourses covering it all, so people need to learn from each other. Manythings are best learned observing someone else doing something and thentrying for yourself. This is especially important with tacit knowledge.Moreover, Jooste11 argues that if this knowledge can be extracted orspread broadly in the organization it is likely to have a greater value. It isalso tacit knowledge that has been identified as the core source ofcompetitive advantage, so any way in which to spread it wider or make itmore accessible is likely to add value.

9 Michael Polanyi, 1966, The Tacit Dimension, referred to in Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995, The knowledgecreating company, 199510 Earl & Scott, 1998, Jooste, 1997, p. 81, Davenport, 1997, Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995, preface & p. 8-911 Jooste, Leveraging Knowledge for business performance, 1997, p. 81


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Explicit

Tacit

3.3.2 EXPLICIT KNOWLEDGE

WHAT IS EXPLICIT KNOWLEDGE?Following the reasoning above, if tacit knowledge is unarticulated anddifficult to distribute, explicit knowledge is just the contrary. Explicitknowledge is what we generally assimilate through formal learning (Earl &Scott, 1998, p. 7). It is rather easy to articulate, capture and share in formallanguage, words and numbers. This kind of knowledge can thus easily beprocessed by a computer, transmitted electronically, or stored indatabases. (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995 preface and p. 8-9) For example,“yellow pages”, like in a phone book, are common to identify who knowswhat in a company. Davenport and Prusak (1998, p. 78-79) tell a storyabout a company that reengineered a directory, their yellow pages, usingtraditional listing categories of alphabetical last name, geography, anddivision. The innovation was to list employees by what they did in theirjobs and presumably were knowledgeable about. For the first time, forexample, all C++ programmers were listed together. The book was a hugesuccess with employees, many of whom had never been able to find like-minded and skilled co-workers before it was created.

ROUND-UP

What then, have we learned? To put it simply, explicit knowledge couldfor example be to describe how to mount a bell on a bike. Tacitknowledge is to explain how to ride the bike! Now that we know thedifference, we can conclude that what we called information in Our modelFive P (figure 3.1) is actually explicit knowledge.Moreover, what we called just knowledge is acombination of explicit and a lot of tacit knowledge.Therefore, what is needed to move a problem from onecategory to another in Five P is really a combination of tacitand explicit knowledge. But which of the two constitutes thelargest part of the entire knowledge? Polanyi contends that human beingsacquire knowledge by actively creating and organizing their ownexperiences. Thus, knowledge that can be expressed in words or numbersrepresents only the tip of the iceberg of the entire body of knowledge. AsPolanyi12 puts it, “We know more than we can tell”. In the next section wewill reflect upon learning, different modes of knowledge and knowledgecreation.

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 childof learning.” - F. Friedlander - (our translation)

WHY LEARNING

Having had the discussion on knowledge it seems obvious that learning israther important, what else should the organization do with all thatknowledge? As stated earlier, the complexity of jobs is increasing and so isthe speed of change. In a workplace today, you need not only know whatyou knew yesterday, but also what is new on the agenda. One view we liketo agree with is that learning is closely attuned with productivity, or to bemore precise: “ The behaviors that define learning and the behaviors thatdefine being productive are one and the same. Learning is not somethingthat requires time out from being engaged in productive activity, learningis the heart of productive activity.”13

One rather new perspective on a company’s assets is the division intostructural and intellectual assets. As Edvinsson (1997), Stewart (1997) andSveiby (1998) describe, the difference between a company’s book valueand 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 thisthesis; the competence of the personnel, internal structure and to someextent customer relations.

Visible assets Invisible assetsThe book value =Assets – debts

THE COMPETENCE OF

THE PERSONNEL:education,experience

INTERNAL STRUCTURE:organization, management,processes, methods, patents,information in databases.

EXTERNAL STRUCTURE:brand name, image,customer & supplierrelations

Table 3.1: Free after Sveiby (1998)15

Accordingly, the company needs not only look after the book value butalso 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. Theconcept 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. 39514 from Ahde & Beckmann, 1998, p. 2415 from Ahde & Beckmann, 1998, p. 24


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individual learning since an organization consists of employees16.Individual learning is therefore an important, necessary condition oforganizational learning.In a strict sense, knowledge is created only by individuals. An organizationcannot create knowledge without individuals. The organization is capableof learning independently of each single individual, but not independentlyof all individuals. The organization supports creative individuals orprovides contexts for them to create knowledge. (Argyris & Schön17,Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995, p. 59, Mueller and Dyerson18) An organizationcan also be seen as knowing less than its members because of problems incommunication (Mueller & Dyerson, 1999).Nevis, DiBella and Gould19 state that learning is a systems-levelphenomenon since it stays within the organization even if the individualschange. They mean that organizations learn as they produce, and theknowledge is stored in systems that make the organization independent ofits personnel. These systems are vital for the learning organization sinceorganizations do not have “brains” in the word’s usual meaning, but theydo 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 onlyinfluenced by individual learning, organizations also influence the learningof individual members and store that which has been learned.20

Naturally, all organizations learn, whether consciously or not. Thedifference is that some organizations try to stimulate learning whereasothers abandon such efforts which leads to that they reduce their learningcapacity21. There are as many definitions of organizational learning asthere are writers touching upon the subject. One definition that caughtour attention is:

“Learning organizations are organizations where people continually expandtheir capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new andextensive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is setfree and where people are continually learning how to learn together.“ 22

16 Romme & Dillen, referring to Argyris & Schön, 1978; Huber, 1991; Bomers, 198917 Romme & Dillen, referring to Argyris & Schön, 197818 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, 198121 Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995, p. 125 & 128, Romme & Dillen, referring to Kim, 199322 Duffy, 1997, p. 34, referring to Senge, 1990, p. 3


33

We like the essence of this definition since it highlights the importance ofthe role of the individuals, but it does not say much about theorganization itself. Another definition covers both aspects:

“A learning company is an organization that facilitates the learning of all itsmembers 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. Inour problem discussion Porter talked about “relentless improvement” andin the definitions above we can read “Continually expand their capacity”,“continually learning how to learn together”, “continuously transformsitself”, the idea of continuous improvement, known from Total QualityManagement, constitutes, as you can see, the backbone of organizationallearning. Change has become the norm, not the exception as Davenportand Prusak argues (1998, p. 10). Therefore, the core of learning is theability to learn new things and unlearn old things, old information, modelsor procedures that are no longer valid. Old knowledge can simply becomeinaccurate. Some resistance to change can be explained by people notrealizing that their assumptions no longer apply24. What we cannot do isgo out and try to find the solution and then apply it. We need instead tofind an infrastructure that allows continuous change and that securescontinuous learning.As we have concluded, an organization cannot learn if its individuals donot learn. So, how do individuals learn? According to Nevis, DiBella andGould (1995) “Individual learning may take place in planned or informal,often unintended ways.” Björn Axelsson (1997, p. 45)25 presents two typesof 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 atexternal training centers. External education normally leads toproblems of transfer, i.e. problems of translating the acquiredknowledge to the practical situation at the company.

2. Through learning during practical work, i.e. learning in the shape ofgradual change of task, learning from colleagues inside or outside thecompany. Outside the company can in this case mean during visits orpractice at other departments or through networks for exchangingexperiences. The common name for this kind of learning is “on-the-job-training”, and it will be discussed further in the chapter Single-loop& Double-loop learning.

23 Duffy, 1997, p. 34, referring to Pedler, Burgoyne and Boydell 1991, p. 124 Cook, 1997, p. 55-6325 Björn Axelsson, Kompetens för konkurrenskraft, 1997


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SINGLE-LOOP & DOUBLE-LOOP LEARNING

What Axelsson (1997) calls on-the-job training is widely considered toconsist of two kinds of activities. These two kinds of learning have beenreferred to as “Learning I” and “Learning II”26 or “single-loop learning”and double-loop learning”27. Both single-loop and double-loop learningcan occur at both the individual and the organizational level (Axelsson,1997, p. 50).Single-loop learning involves processes in which errors are tracked downand corrected, it is obtaining know-how in order to solve specificproblems based upon existing premises, within the existing set of rulesand norms (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995, Romme and Dillen, 1997,referring to Fiol and Lyles, 1985, Morgan, 1986). In other words, single-loop learning does not lead to a lasting change in the process, it onlycorrects possible deviations (Axelsson, 1997, p. 50).

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 onesaccording to Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995). Argyris and Schön (1978)mean that it involves changes in the fundamental rules and normsunderlying action and behavior. Argyris and Schön (1978) defined double-loop learning as a process in which errors are tracked down and correctedwith the result that underlying norms, ideas and objectives become theobjects of discussion and, when necessary, change. (Romme & Dillen,1997)

Figure 3.3: Double-loop learning, Jacobsen & Thorsvik, 1995, p. 351-352

26 Nonaka & Takeuchi p. 44, referring to Bateson, 197327 Romme & Dillen, 1997, referring to Argyris and Schön, 1978, Bomers,1989; Duncan & Weiss, 1979;Fiol & Lyles, 1985; Pedler et al, 1991, Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995

Act Error/mistake

Change act

Act Error/mistake

Change act

Controlingvalues

Changevalues


35

In single-loop learning one simply changes one’s actions, but above wecan see that in double-loop learning one changes the valuation andthrough that changes one’s actions. Therefore, double-loop learning leadsto a lasting change whereas single-loop learning only provides a temporarychange.Both single-loop and double-loop learning require some kind ofinformation that the process needs to change to trigger the change. Thisinformation can come from people working with the process, or fromsomeone who is affected by the results of it. The latter is often calledfeedback, and it will be discussed more thoroughly later in its ownparagraph, 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 workonly if the company is concerned only with absorbing knowledge fromsomewhere 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 theorganizational level. Naturally, a company with a continuously evolving,technically advanced product facing increased customer needs, has tocontinuously create knowledge and not only rest on old. To explainorganizational knowledge creation we pick Nonaka and Takeuchi’sdefinition (1995, p. 3), “the capability of a company as a whole to createnew knowledge, disseminate it throughout the organization, and embodyit in products, services and systems.” The value comes with theembodiment. Like Dewey28 maintained, “ideas are worthless except asthey pass into actions which rearrange and reconstruct in some way, be itlittle or large, the world in which we live”.Knowledge is created all over organizations, but this is not alwaysappreciated and taken advantage of. Creating new knowledge is also notsimply a matter of learning from others or acquiring knowledge from theoutside. Knowledge has, like stated above, to be built on its own,requiring interaction among members of the organization. According toNonaka and Takeuchi, knowledge creation takes place in the ontologicaldimension at three levels: the individual, the group, and the organizationallevels. The interaction, between tacit and explicit knowledge and betweenthe individual and the organization, will then bring about four majorprocesses of knowledge creation: (1) from tacit to tacit - socialization, (2)

28 Dewey, 1929, p. 138 referred to in Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995, p. 27


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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.

Tacitknowledge To

Explicitknowledge

Tacitknowledge Socialization Externalization

From

Explicitknowledge

Internalization Combination

Figure 3.4: Knowledge conversion, Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995, p.62

Socialization is a process of sharing experiences and thereby creatingtacit knowledge such as technical skills and mental models. Apprenticeswork with their masters and learn craftsmanship not through language butthrough observation, imitation, and practice. The key to acquiring tacitknowledge is experience. Without some form of shared experience, it isextremely difficult for one person to project himself into anotherindividual’s thinking process.Externalization is a knowledge-creation process in which tacitknowledge becomes explicit, taking the shapes of metaphors, analogies,concepts, hypotheses or models. The analogy for example helps usunderstand the unknown through the known and bridges the gap betweenan image and a logical model. The externalization mode of knowledgeconversion is triggered by dialogue or collective reflection in groups in theworkshop or in class during education for example.Combination is a process of systemizing concepts into a knowledgesystem and it involves combining different bodies of explicit knowledge.Individuals exchange and combine knowledge through such media asdocuments, meetings, telephone conversations, or computerizednetworks. Reconfiguration of existing information through sorting,adding, combining and categorizing of explicit knowledge can lead to newknowledge. Knowledge creation carried out in formal education usuallytakes this form.Internalization is a process of embodying explicit knowledge into tacitknowledge. It is closely related to learning by doing. For organizationalknowledge creation to take place the tacit knowledge accumulated at theindividual level needs to be socialized with others in the organization,thereby starting a new spiral of knowledge creation. For example if anexperienced mechanic attends a course, he does not only learn what is in


37

the training material, he also reflects upon what he reads, drawing onearlier experiences.All the four modes of knowledge creation will enableproblems to move from the undesired states in our modelto the desired ones.So, the company is creating knowledge. Well eventuallyany organization ends up creating new knowledge.However, in most organizations this process is haphazardand coincidental and therefore impossible to predict according to Nonakaand Takeuchi. They mean that what distinguishes the knowledge creatingcompany is that it systematically manages the knowledge creation process.Middle managers, they maintain, are playing an essential role in facilitatingthe process of organizational knowledge creation. They work as a bridgebetween the visionary ideals of the top and the often chaotic realities ofbusiness confronted by front-line workers. Front-line employees areimmersed in the day to day details of particular technologies, products,and markets. No one is more expert in the realities of a company’sbusiness than they are. Nevertheless, while these employees are delugedwith highly specific information, they often find it extremely difficult toturn that information into useful knowledge. For one thing, signals fromthe marketplace can be vague and ambiguous. For another, it can bedifficult 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 ofknowledge there is and where and how it can be created. There is a lot ofknowledge creation in organizations, but it needs to be mapped andmanaged in an appropriate way depending on the type of knowledge andthe context in which it is created. We have also looked at different aspectsof learning. Knowledge and learning constitute a rather important part ofevery organization, a part that needs to be managed. Managing knowledgereally permeates our thesis and it is the focal point in the followingdiscussion.

Explicit

Tacit


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3.3.4 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

“When the wind of change is blowing, some build wind shelters while others build windmills.” – old saying -

WHAT IS KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

According to Jackson Grayson Jr. and O’Dell29 “knowledge is what peoplein an organization know about customers, products, processes, mistakesand successes; knowledge management is using this information to accomplishthe organization’s mission.” They mean that this includes both tacit andexplicit knowledge, and that the tacit part can represent as much as 80percent of valuable organizational knowledge. Organizations today are“awash in information, but until people use it, it is not knowledge”. Wethink that it still is knowledge, and as we said earlier “ideas are worthlessexcept as they pass into actions”30. The most important part of managingknowledge is to understand what knowledge is important to theorganization, and create processes to put this into action.Why is knowledge management so important? Why is it needed? Oneimportant reason is the globalization of business, which has made itcritical to get information and knowledge discovered in one part of theglobe to other parts of a business as quickly as possible. Another reason,and perhaps the strongest, is that competition is accelerating the use ofknowledge to reduce costs, increase speed and meet customer needs.Employees will always create new solutions to problems, but without aknowledge management strategy they have no systematic means to alertothers to their solutions. Investing in computers and intranets is notenough, since the greatest challenge is motivating people to take the timeto share what they know. Hence, organizations need to focus more onpeople and less on information technology. (Jackson Grayson Jr. andO’Dell, 1998)But is it as simple as that? Manage all the knowledge and the organizationwill profit? Peter G. W. Keen is the author of fifteen books on the linkbetween IT and business strategy, named by Information Week as one of thetop ten consultants in the world. He is a professor who has held positionsat Harvard, Stanford, MIT and Stockholm University. Keen writes thatmost of the influential business books and rallying cries of the 1990s havefocused on process improvement. But each of these movements showshow 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 improvesimply by refocusing on the customer’s needs and concerns thoseoperations that were originally designed to match the company’s own

29 Jackson Grayson Jr. and O’Dell, 1998, Mining your hidden resources, Across the board, p. 23-2830 Dewey, 1929, p. 138, referred to in Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995, p. 27


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priorities and structures. This has led to the process paradox, the startlingparadox that businesses can decline and even fail at the same time asprocess reform is dramatically improving efficiency by saving thecompany time and money and improving product quality and customerservice. In an era of intense competition and rapid change, when trying toprotect the status quo is a losing proposition, transforming thecorporation is not just a dream but an urgent necessity. But it is importantto get the right process right. (1997, p. 1-15) This follows our reasoningabove when we were discussing our model, arguing that where to drawthe 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. Ifthere is a process that would improve a situation in our model, it is thusnot certain that this process should be invested in.Moreover, as perceived by the technical attachés of Sweden (1999, p. 18-22), knowledge management can be described as a strive for turning tacitknowledge into explicit and individual knowledge into organizational to beable to manage it. Knowledge management rests according to Neil Duffy31

on the two main pillars learning people and IT. People create knowledgeand learn and IT helps capture, organize and access the knowledge. Wewould also like to return to an earlier quote, “ideas are worthless except asthey pass into actions which rearrange and reconstruct in some way, be itlittle or large, the world in which we live”32. It is not until knowledge isused that it creates value33.The technical attachés of Sweden have gathered a lot of experience fromtheir contacts all over the world. What they find interesting to note is thata vast majority of companies all over the world emphasizes theimportance of organizational change and new views rather thantechnology when one works with knowledge management. 34 Hence, thelargest challenge concerning knowledge management is not the technicalaspects but the cultural, that is to change the culture in an organization sothat people are willing to share their knowledge.35 In addition, Winslowand Bramer (1994)36 remind us that technology on its own can neverdeliver solutions. They mean that individual worker performance in theknowledge age depends on the effective integration of individual abilityand motivation within an organizational, technological and processcontext.

31 Leveraging knowledge for business performance, p. 36-3732 Dewey, 1929, p.138 referred to in Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995, p. .2733 Gartner Group, referred to in Ahde & Beckmann, further reference is missing34 Sveriges Tekniska attacheér preface35 Sveriges Tekniska attacheér p. 16-1736 Referred to in Duffy, 1997


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Karl M. Wiig, has written a number of books and articles on knowledgemanagement and is widely acknowledged as a leading specialist in thefield. He notes that newcomers in the field focus on IT for knowledgemanagement support and are approaching the introduction of incentivesand other culture-changing measures haphazardly at best. Quinn et al(1996) report that in only twenty percent of the organizations they studieddid management support major changes with reward and performancemeasurement systems. Those that did not, most frequently met withsignificant problems. Still, even though providing appropriate ITinfrastructure does not serve all needs, this aspect is quite important andneeds to be considered separately. (Wiig, 1997, p. 12) As we can see, thereis a focus on the people, with technology mainly considered as a tool.

THE FEEDBACK PROCESS

According to Keen, influential process movement literature defines aprocess as a ”collection of activities that take one or more inputs andcreate an output that is of value for the customer”, or ”a specific orderingof work activities across time and space, with a beginning, an end, andclearly identified inputs and outputs.” But Keen argues that thesedefinitions of processes can cause management to ignore other processesthat may be in dire need of improvement such as “soft” processes whichlack obvious inputs, outputs, and flow patterns. He suggests thedefinition: “A process is any work that meets these four criteria: it isrecurrent; it affects some aspect of organizational capabilities; it can beaccomplished in different ways that make a difference to the contributionit generates in terms of cost, value, service, or quality; and it involves co-ordination." The idea of co-ordination, he states, includes both thesequencing of manufacturing steps and the back-and-forth interactionsbetween business team members. (1997, p. 17-19) What is missing in thetraditional definitions of processes is the importance of feedback, the wayprocesses should be circular and not linear.We have already seen how processes need feedback to trigger change insingle- and double-loop learning, and as we discussed in the sectionknowledge creation concerning the interaction between tacit and explicitknowledge, it is a continuous process and not a linear one. We also, in thesame section, reflected upon the ontological dimension, where the processis not just going in either direction, but in all directions simultaneously.The function of feedback is to create a corrective mechanism and theimportance of feedback is as good as universal. The literature refers to theissue in different ways. Senge for example talks about reinforcing andbalancing processes (1990, p. 68-126). Automatic control engineering isanother example where we can find feedback as an important ingredient:


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Figure 3.5: Feedback, Glad & Ljung, 1989, p. 37-40

Why an example from automatic control engineering? The point we wantto make is that it does not matter so much whether we look at a processin automatic control, or an organization manufacturing heavy trucks. Theyboth share the need for efficient feedback and the reason is similar forboth of them, a corrective mechanism to continuously improve theoutcome 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 focusedalmost exclusively on the production and distribution of information.What the recipients have done with it upon receiving it has been nobody’sbusiness. Therefore, we have little idea of how to help individual workersseek, share, structure, and make sense of information. And we also knowlittle about shaping or developing positive information cultures – thosebroad patterns of information attitudes and behaviors that recurthroughout an organization.”37 To enable employees always having theright information available in the right amount, on time, with the rightcontent and extent, the providers of information have to think twice.There are many different needs to be satisfied, and we will look at howthis can be done. One thing that facilitates this is the infrastructure forinformation. Today this is often represented by the Internet and thecompanies’ intranets and extranets, which will be discussed later in thechapter Information Technology.Feedback can take on many forms. Not only can people actively pushinformation but they can also pull the information they need, activelyseeking what they need, and stealing ideas from others. British Petroleumgives a ”Thief of the Year” award to the person who has ”stolen” the bestideas in application development. They recognize that, when it comes toorganizational knowledge, originality is less important then usefulness.Texas Instruments has created a ”Not Invented Here but I Did ItAnyway” award for borrowing a practice from either inside or outside thecompany. The Spanish proverb ”Well stolen is half done” is soundreasoning if you are in the knowledge business. (Davenport & Prusak,1998, p. 53)

37 Davenport, 1997, p. 32

processinput output

feedback


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DIMENSIONS OF KNOWLEDGE

“We live on an island surrounded by a sea of ignorance. As our island of knowledgegrows, 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 alreadydiscussed. Let us now present three other models where tacit and explicitknowledge reappear but where also other dimensions are used. The firstcomprises knowledge and ignorance, the second only ignorance and thethird only knowledge. Why do we want to divide knowledge into differentcategories? It is because different types of knowledge should be handledin different ways and if you do not know which type of knowledge youhave at hand, you may handle it the wrong way. The explicit form, forexample, is often suitable for storing in a database whereas tacit is not.Also, Zack 38stresses the importance of determining which knowledge anorganization should make explicit and which it should leave tacit.Furthermore, the two must be managed differently depending on if youknow what you know or if you do not. Like Jooste writes, “an asset whichis poorly located and which cannot be readily used tends to get reinventedor recreated in multiple locations.”39

Knowledge & Ignorance – Earl & ScottOne categorization, done by Earl and Scott (1998), is presented in figure3.9. They categorize knowledge along two dimensions: whether you holdthe knowledge in question or not (state of knowing), and whether you areaware of it or not (state of knowledge). The model shows what it is youknow (explicit knowledge or tacit knowledge), or do not know (plannedignorance or innocent ignorance). The model also shows how to findthese four states (inventorising, auditing, socializing and experiencing).

What you knowState of

knowledgeWhat you do not

know

KnowingExplicit Knowledge

&Inventorising

Planned Ignorance&

AuditingState ofknowing

“Not knowing”Tacit Knowledge

&Socializing

Innocent Ignorance&

Experiencing

Figure 3.6: Knowing and knowledge, Earl and Scott, 1998, p. 8

38 Michael H. Zack, Managing Organizational Ignorance, URL:http://www.cba.neu.edu/~mzack/articles/orgig/orgig.htm, 2000-03-0439 Jooste, 1997, p. 81


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Earl and Scott think that identifying what individuals and organizationsknow, so that one can find out where, or to whom, to go for knowledge,would be a sensible managerial ambition. Inventorising, mapping, recordingand providing a guide, yellow pages, to who knows what is a potential rolefor knowledge management.Another technique can be imagined for identifying what people think theyshould know but do not know (planned ignorance). Here we can envisagesurveys or audits of knowledge, skills or competence gaps. Presumably,knowledge management might then extend help to those who need toremedy those gaps. Auditing could thus be a means of tackling plannedignorance.If tacit knowledge is unarticulated so that it is not necessarily “known” orrecognized by its owners, how do you manage it? It seems most likely thatsuch knowledge is drawn out, explicated and shared by social processes,such as meetings, chance conversations or gossip. Thus, knowledgemanagement could become a matter of facilitating socializing throughcreating events, enabling people to meet and even improving people’sability to converse. Earl and Scott do not explain what they mean by “Notknowing”, so we have interpreted this state in a way that we think is themost meaningful. In the state of “What you know” it only makes sense ifwe ask how we do “not know”. This is because we believe that one canpossess 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 anengine from listening to it, and he knows that he can, but he cannotexplain to his friend how to do it.Addressing the problem of not knowing what you do not know, innocentignorance, may seem even more beyond the powers of formal knowledgemanagement, and the above reasoning no longer makes sense. Here we donot ask how, since you do not even know what you do not know in thisstate. However, innocent ignorance can be remedied through surpriseencounters – with problems, with observations or with people. Often, thisis where we learn from experience: from doing new things, from visits tonew places, or from handling unusual situations. So formal managementin this domain could involve creating experiences for individuals and teams.Thus, both categories of ignorance contain both tacit and explicitknowledge.Using Earl and Scott’s model, an organization has to decide whichstrategy to use, where to focus their knowledge management efforts,depending on the results that they are looking for. One strategy is to makeall ignorance planned whereby it is easier to know on which people andareas to focus new learning. Another strategy is to concentrate as much aspossible on explicit knowledge, trying to eliminate all the other three.


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However, it may not be cost efficient for an organization to eliminate allthe planned ignorance. It can be more cost efficient to have someorganizational ignorance as long as they know “what they do not know”.Another aspect that an organization needs to consider is that someexplicit knowledge may become tacit in time. For example, a mechaniclearns step by step how to repair a gearbox. He does not fully understandeach 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 helearns cause and effect of what he is doing. This means that the explicitknowledge has become tacit, and that some innocent ignorance hasbecome tacit knowledge as well.

Ignorance – ZackWhen it comes to managing ignorance, Zack (1999) presents fourdifferent situations of ignorance. He has chosen to name the categories asfollows: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 anexample, all that is complex does not fall under that category, butcomplexity is a good name of what does fall under that category. This mustbe understood to comprehend the model.The first dimension they use to categorize knowledge is information andknowledge. Information-processing problems deal with distinct andquantifiable ideas and they are information oriented. Knowledge-processing problems are associated with resolving or managing situationsthat require interpreting, creating, sharing and negotiating meaning. Usingthe same terms as we have used so far we can say that information-processing problems are associated with explicit knowledge, whereasknowledge- processing problems are associated with tacit knowledge.The second dimension is acquisitive vs. restrictive processing. Uncertaintyrequires acquisition of information and ambiguity requires acquisition ofknowledge or interpretive frames. Complexity on the other hand requiresrestriction of information and equivocality calls for restriction of diverseviewpoints or interpretations. Hence, this dimension represents solutions to


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the problems whereas the first dimension represents which kind of ignoranceone is addressing.

Figure 3.7: Zack’s categories of ignorance

These four situations call for different ways of management, according toZack, which we will discuss now.Uncertainty comes from not having enough information. It can bemanaged by reducing it or by increasing the organization’s ability totolerate it. Ways of reducing it are acquiring additional information aboutsomething or developing and improving the knowledge and ability topredict or estimate well enough using incomplete information.Uncertainty can be tolerated by using existing knowledge to estimate orassume facts in place of missing information with some resulting level ofreliability. In a workshop this could be when there is a new component ina truck that there is no information about. Then the mechanics may haveto estimate some values, maybe based on knowledge and informationabout other components, to be able to repair it.In a situation of complexity the variety of elements and relationships thatmust be considered simultaneously is too large to process easily. Thenumber of different elements and relationships that can be considered atthe same time depends on what one knows, so what constitutesmanageable complexity varies by person and by organization. A novicemay have to deal with each element of a problem one by one, while anexpert instantly recognizes familiar patterns, perceiving the situation as awhole. By bringing the appropriate level of knowledge and expertise tobear on a situation, an organization can be helped to manage itscomplexity. In highly complex situations, no individual or group can beexpected to hold all the required knowledge. For these situations, theorganization must have the capability to locate, develop and bringappropriate expertise to bear on the issue. For a mechanic this situationmay arise when there is an electrical problem. It could be almost anything,and the answer is probably somewhere in the workshop manual. But there

Explicit

Tacit

RestrictiveAcquisitive

Equivocality

ComplexityUncertainty

Ambiguity


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are just too many factors involved and too much information to considerto be able to solve the problem.Ambiguity means the inability to interpret and make sense of somethingsince events are perceived as so new and unfamiliar that one cannot evenmake a vague guess about what is important or about what may happen,regardless of the amount of information available about them. Thissituation can occur in a workshop when there is a completely newproblem that the mechanics involved have never experienced before. “Ifuncertainty represents not having answers, and complexity representsdifficulty in finding them, then ambiguity represents not even being ableto formulate the right questions.” (Zack) Ambiguity is resolved byacquiring or creating explanatory knowledge. “Rich, interactive face-to-face conversation among a socially familiar and well-connected yetintellectually diverse set of individuals is the key organizational activity forreducing ambiguity.” (Zack) Cross-unit interaction for example, fostersthe growth of expertise and advice networks that can be called upon whenneeded. In the case of a new problem in a workshop it could be that atechnical 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 severalinterpretations that are mutually exclusive or in conflict, a problemsituation arises. Managing equivocality requires co-ordinating meaningamong members of an organization. “Unless equivocality is managedinterpretations tend to diverge over time. For example, in cases wheretacitly held knowledge cannot be clearly articulated or unambiguouslycommunicated to another person, multiple interpretations of howsomething should be done emerge, resulting in no single best approach toa process. In a particular workshop there can be a lot of inarticulatedknowledge about repairing damaged vehicles. One example could be thatthis knowledge is not communicated or shared within the workshopsamong the mechanics resulting in that each mechanic has his owninterpretation of the problem. If an inexperienced mechanic asks severalmechanics about this particular issue, he attains different, possiblecontradictive interpretations.

Knowledge –Novins & ArmstrongThe two authors Novins and Armstrong present other dimensions ofknowledge 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

40 Peter Novins and Richard Armstrong, A blueprint for change, URL:http://www.businessinnovation.ey.com/journal/issue1/features/choosi/loader.html, 2000-03-29


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by strategists at the top, go back and re-read your Tolstoy. Whether in waror in commerce, it’s the sum total of countless decisions made every dayat the front lines that determine the course of future events. Theiramassed weight can create a momentum – or a chaos – far beyond thepower of senior leaders to redirect.” Moreover, they maintain that themost important thing top management can do to ensure success is toempower people throughout the organization to make good decisions.This is a question of equipping people with the knowledge required to makegood decisions.However, as stated earlier, since different knowledge should be handleddifferently it needs to be categorized. Therefore, Novins and Armstronghave presented a matrix of four possible categories of knowledge, shownin figure 3.8. The horizontal dimension is applicability (How broadly doesthe knowledge apply?), and the vertical dimension is transferability (Howeasy is it to impart the knowledge to others, and how difficult for them toapply correctly?). The vertical extremes they use, programmable andunique, can be compared to what we call explicit and tacit knowledge.Therefore will we use the latter expressions in the model for a consistenttaxonomy.


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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 theimportance of feedback as a long-term corrective mechanism both at theindividual and organizational level. We have also described three differentmodels that gave us different dimensions of knowledge and ignorance. Wewill in the next section combine these three models into one model, whichwill constitute our tool in the analysis later.But how does this all connect to our model Five P?The model Five P showed that problems are solvedeither 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 threeother models we have just presented takes thisdiscussion further. They have shown from different dimensions whichkinds of tacit and explicit knowledge are needed and how an organizationcan satisfy those needs. Which are the managerial actions needed? Thenext chapterwill also focus on this. We will create a tool for our analysis to enable us

Tacit

Broad Based KnowledgeKnowledge that is both easilytransferable and broadly applicable, likethe organization’s personnel policies.With broad based knowledge types, itmakes sense to broadcast to theorganization by distributing itproactively.

Quick access knowledgeKnowledge that is easily transferablebut not very broadly applicable, likeinformation about local customers. It isbest managed by placing it in anaccessible spot – for example in adatabase.

Complex KnowledgeKnowledge that is broadly applicable butnot easily transferred. It is best transferredthrough structured training efforts. Likethe knowledge how to manage a dealer,basic mechanical knowledge etc.

One-off KnowledgeKnowledge that is neither easy totransfer nor broadly applicable. Atechnical Help Desk often solves manyawkward problems and those particularsolutions are not broadly applicable.Other types of one-off knowledge arebest supported by informal, special-interest networks of people.

Explicit

Local Global

Explicit

Tacit


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to present ways to eliminate the three undesired states in our originalmodel 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’smatrix recognizes two states: that of knowing and that of knowledge. Italso presents four domains to be managed differently, two of themcontaining knowledge and the other two containing ignorance. Zackdescribes four situations of ignorance and how they are best managed.Finally, Novins and Armstrong’s model supplies us with a method tocategorize different types of knowledge based on applicability andtransferability. They also suggest how to manage each of these categoriessuitably.We place Novins and Armstrong’s model in the left column of Earl andScott’s model and Zacks model in the upper right corner of Earl andScott’s model. Combining the three models we attain a tool both forcategorizing knowledge and ignorance, and for knowing what to do with it(figure 3.9). Since it does not seem logical to categorize ignorance that youare not aware of the lower-right field of Earl and Scott’s model will be leftas it is and not categorized further.


knowledge What you do not know

Knowing

Planned Ignorance

Stateofknowing

“Notknowing”

Innocent Ignorance

Figure 3.9: Our knowledge identification model

Explicit

Tacit


8. Equivocality

6. Complexity5. Uncertainty

7. Ambiguity

4. Complexknowledge

2. Broad-basedknowledge

1.Quickaccessknowledge

3. One-offknowledge

Explicit knowledge

Tacit knowledge

GlobalLocal


50

This model can be a useful tool when it comes to mapping the needs forknowledge in certain situations, and suitable actions to improve thesupport of this knowledge. However, there is another factor that isinteresting to consider when it comes to deciding how to manageknowledge, and that is how often these needs occur. The more often thereis a need, the more necessary it is to take actions to improve it. Thefrequency affects the value of the problem. If a problem is not at allserious, it should not be treated the same way as serious problems. So insome cases it can be relevant to take this factor, value, into consideration.This model is aimed at creating categories, and although the fourcategories of knowledge and the five categories of ignorance seem toconstitute each side of a coin that is knowledge versus ignorance, wewould 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 lookat the five different kinds of ignorance as questions, there are five answersin the form of knowledge to go with them. However, our categories ofknowledge are divided according to the dimensions: Local vs. Global andExplicit vs. Tacit, whereas our categories of ignorance on the other handare categorized according to Tacit vs. Explicit and Restrictive vs.Acquisitive. Since knowledge and ignorance have different dimensions, wecannot simply let our four categories of knowledge answer our fivecategories of questions, ignorance. Instead we now have nine categories,period. These categories each correspond to problems and needs that wewill try to find solutions to. The problems and needs are all related to somekind of ignorance, not necessarily our five, and the solutions are all relatedto some kind of knowledge, not necessarily our four. Furthermore, since allthree models we have put together in our knowledge identification modelhave the dimensions tacit and explicit, the nine categories will overlap tosome extent.

ROUND-UP

There! We have a model to categorize the different dimensions of createdknowledge we have found and we have discussed how to manageknowledge. However, the picture is larger than that. There are factors thatcould either enhance this work with knowledge, obstruct it or in the worstcase make it impossible. They are more or less prerequisites for this andwe have chosen to call them enablers. The enablers we have identified areIntention, Resources, Information Technology and Culture & Organization.

3.5 ENABLERS

Before we present our enablers more closely, we will very shortly sum upwhat we learned talking to Andersen Consulting. Since we are novices in


51

the area we are exploring we decided to talk to someone more at home inthe domain and thus turned to this consultant firm, experienced inknowledge management.

3.5.1 GLANCING AT A KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT FIRM

Having a big experience on designing and implementing knowledgemanagement initiatives, Andersen Consulting has found multiple successfactors. First, a detailed plan and a knowledge strategy that identifies thebusiness goals and the vision one wants to reach is important.Furthermore, the management’s full support is needed to establish aknowledge sharing environment and ensuring that a critical mass of usersis established that understand and are willing to share and use the meansprovided. This is enhanced with motivation and award systems to inspirepeople 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 costefficient point of view. Moreover the organization needs to implementcontinuous training and support to use the developed system and theyneed to integrate it with daily activities so that it is not considered aburden but rather an enabler. These aspects are all discussed below in thechapter Enablers.To understand where specific knowledge based solutions apply, AndersenConsulting maintains that we must recognize that knowledge is treateddifferently depending on the level of interdependence and complexity ofwork. 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 thesituation at Scania, in large correspond to what Andersen Consultingargues.

3.5.2 PRESENTING OUR ENABLERS

There are a number of authors who present various enablers. After a lotof reading and considering our purpose and also the situation at Scania wefound “our” four enablers the best way to categorize the things we foundbeing more or less prerequisites for our mission. Our enablers are:Intention, Resources, Culture & Organization and InformationTechnology, which we motivate in the following paragraphs. The firsttwo, Intention and Resources, will not be described thoroughly, but onewonders if the goal and means to operationalize the goal, is notprerequisites for all organizations. We start with a table that gives anoverview of how we have categorized other authors’ enablers into ourfour. The ones we have chosen to disregard are commented after thetable.


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NONAKA & TAKEUCHIJACKSON GRAYSON

JR. & O’DELL

WIIG OUR ENABLERS

Intention - Positive Cultural Factors,Cultural impediments,Infrastructure to support KM

Intention

Autonomy - Seems understood, but is notmentioned

Resources

Autonomy,Fluctuation &creative chaos,Redundancy,Requisite variety

Leadership, Culture Positive Cultural Factors,Cultural impediments,Incentives, Infrastructure tosupport KM

Culture &Organization

Requisite variety Technology Infrastructure to supportKM, IT infrastructure

InformationTechnology

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 covermany of the enablers mentioned by other authors. However, we havechosen to disregard factors from the surrounding environment. We haveneither covered Nonaka and Takeuchi's Fluctuation and creative chaosentirely 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 theintention 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.” - YogiBerra, American baseball player -

WHY INTENTION?Do we really need intention at all levels in the organization? Well yes, agoal is often specified in goal-means hierarchies, which means that a goalon one level becomes a means to reach a goal on a higher level, hence thegoal helps reaching the next goal41. To have an intention and to speak itout loud, to make the goal clear, gives guiding principles for the work andhas a motivating effect on the people in the organization42. Why put one’sshoulder to the wheel if the goal is unknown?Furthermore, Duffy (1997, p. 22-24) maintains that among the challengesfor managers in this day and age are how to nurture systems thinking,

41 Jacobsen, Thorsvik referring to Weber 1971, Simon 1945, Drucker 1955, March & Simon 195842 Jacobsen & Thorsvik (1998), referring to Vroom & Deci (1992), Latham & Locke (1979), Luthans(1995)


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make people grow and build a shared vision of the future. Without anintention, that is hard to achieve. Wiig (1997) states that if the employeesdo not have a broad understanding of the direction of the enterprise theyinterpret the manager’s efforts as just more work instead of a better wayto do work.Davenport, De Long and Beers (1998) argue that one successfactor for aknowledge management project would be that the purpose of the projectis clear, and the language that knowledge managers use in describing it isframed in terms common to the company's culture. In Nonaka andTakeuchi’s book “The knowledge creating company” they talk about aknowledge spiral that creates knowledge. The knowledge spiral is drivenby organizational intention, which is defined as an organization’saspiration to its goals. Thus, these authors also stress the importance ofintention. As they put it, efforts to achieve the intention usually take theform of strategy within a business setting. From the viewpoint oforganizational knowledge creation, the essence of strategy lies indeveloping the organizational capability to acquire, create, accumulate, andexploit knowledge. The most critical element of corporate strategy is toconceptualize a vision about what kind of knowledge should be developedand to operationalize it into a management system for implementation.Organizational intention provides the most important criterion for judgingthe truthfulness of a given piece of knowledge. If not for intention itwould be impossible to judge the value of information or knowledgeperceived or created. (Nonaka & Takeuchi, p. 74-75) Harley even claimsthat if the business objective is not clear and properly defined, it will bepointless 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 taketime 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, howcan anyone do anything? Correct. But as others44 and we have seen,though obvious, managers still tend to set goals without dedicatingenough monetary resources, people or time to achieve them. When itcomes to the requirements for knowledge management and learning, bothmanagers, employees and public debaters, stress the importance of makingknowledge management and learning a strategic issue. Like marketing orquality management, knowledge management needs to arise from a clearly

43 Harley, 1995, p. 15744 Keen, Blomqvist & Guilotte, Johansson & Johansson


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defined strategy that enables the mobilization of resources.45 Again, wecan see that both intention and resources are prerequisites for enablingany 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 agreat tool if used correctly but it is a tool and it is nothing without theuser. This is said repeatedly in the books that we have read and it cannotbe 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 anoveremphasis on technology and under-emphasis on people and theirneeds. Davenport and Prusak argues that IT can radically lowercoordination costs and provide opportunities to develop new, internalprocesses that are in fact firm specific. IT is now as much aboutcoordination as about information. But they stress that the humandimension of processes and process investment is the most importantone. 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 ITtoday enable information and knowledge, at least explicit, to be capturedand distributed all over a global organization simultaneously. Arguing thatIT can enhance the process of storage and distribution of knowledge, wemean mainly explicit knowledge like technical information in the form ofa workshop manual. Tacit knowledge is harder to distribute with the helpof 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 inBoston writes: “The only thing that gives an organization a competitiveedge – the only thing that is sustainable – is what it knows, and how fast itcan know something new”47. Using IT the right way, speed will not beanything to worry about.As we stated before, organizational learning is a continually evolvingprocess that results in the expansion and improvement of knowledge.This knowledge can only be labeled organizational knowledge if it isexchanged and accepted among the participants48. That process is helped

45 Sveriges tekniska attacheer46 Jacobsen & Thorsvik, Davenport & Prusak, Johansson & Johansson etc.47 Prusak referred to by Allee, 1997, The knowledge evolution: Expanding Organizational Intelligence48 Romme & Dillen, referring to Duncan and Weiss, 1979; Walsh and Ungson, 1991; Ulrich et al, 1993;Huber, 1991; Nonaka, 1991


55

by IT and to learn from others by sharing knowledge, for example overthe web, is the focal point of knowledge management, which we havediscussed earlier.

REMEMBER THE USER

Cook (1997, p. 53-54) argues that whenever a new technology isintroduced, people have to learn how to use it. Whenever newinformation is provided by this technology, people have to be able toaccept and apply the technology. The implication of this is that withouthuman learning, IT would lack impact. Hence, as well as IT is an enablerfor learning, learning is a prerequisite for IT. When organizations invest inIT systems they sometimes miss the aspect of enabling the users to learnthe system. Lack of education and experience can result in users simplynot using the system.49

As stated earlier, IT is a tool and nothing but a tool. Bark is of the opinionthat there generally seems to exist a certain blind faith in intranets amongmanagers, computer technicians and informants.50 IT is nothing withoutthe user and numerous writers51 warn for the trap which so manycompanies walk into when developing an IT solution; insufficientpreliminary studies and no continuous involvement of end users in thedevelopment. Listening to the ones the system is intended for and seizingtheir opinions helps avoiding the trap. Furthermore, reading, or listening,between the lines becomes important since the user does not always knowwhat he or she needs. What are the demands from the processes? And dothey mean the same thing in Stockholm as in Madrid or Eastern Europe?As Cook (1997, p. 53-54) grasps the problem: “Given that the humanfactor is a killer issue in the success of knowledge management, it isastonishing how little attention is given to it when installing newinformation systems. Perhaps this arises from the very human factor offear - those of us who are specialists in human behavior often fear thetechnical realm of machines, while those of us whose area of expertise isinformation technology often fear the mysterious world of personal andinterpersonal behavior.” Davenport (1997, p. 5) even renames thephenomenon “information ecology” and wants to widen the narrow focuson technology to instead comprise how people create, distribute,understand and use information.

49 Johansson & Johansson, 1998, referring to Bark et al, 199750 Johansson & Johansson, 1998, referring to Bark et al, 1997, p. 11351 Cook , Cepro IT, Ancona & Caldwell, Tallving, Johansson & Johansson, Wiig, Davenport & Prusaketc.


56

INFRASTRUCTURE FOR INFORMATION SHARING

The infrastructure for information sharing is important. Today this ismainly represented by the Internet and the companies’ intranets andextranets. They enable the different parts of the organizations to co-operate in processes and contribute with their unique share to theentirety.52

Bark (1997, p. 10) claims that an intranet is a tool, a channel forcommunication for management and employees, a way to seekinformation, a support for processes and much more. It is also a tool forshedding light on other parts of the organization and it is as important forthe management to understand the employees’ situation as it is for theemployees to gain insight into how the company is doing and what isbehind the different decisions made by the management53.Initiating an intranet, or similar, entails many complications. It affects thewhole organization and it is easy to focus on a few crucial segments of thesystem and oversee the whole picture. The literature on the issue is vastand we have no intention of covering it all. However, we have done asynthesis of factors, considering a list by Johansson & Johansson54, issuesthat Bark (1997, p. 11-12) and Tallving (1998, p. 59-60) highlights, and alot of other reading on the matter. The reason for presenting thesefragmented issues and not more of the numerous amount of issues is thatthese are what authors in general and we in particular worry about. Theyare what many times disables the improvement aimed for, instead ofenabling the change that generally is the intention.A general prerequisite and an organizational aspect is the management’sfull support. They need to communicate a clear intention and providesufficiently dedicated resources. There should be a co-operation betweenthe IT and the information departments and the plan must cover theimportance of education on the system for the users. A more specificissue is the need for a well conducted need analysis to map theorganizations’ and the end users’ needs, which is done partly by using aproject group composed of representatives from different parts of theorganization. This must also be followed up by evaluations of the use andthe users’ attitudes to find out if the analysis proved right. For the systemto be used it is not enough with ensuring that the content is right, thestructure must be simple and the content must be dynamic and reflectchanges in the enterprise. A decentralized responsibility for publishing andupdating with clear areas of responsibility and assignments for the content

52 Cepro IT, Wiig53 Tallving, 1998, Johansson & Johansson, referring to Eriksson, 199754 Johansson & Johansson, referring to Ang & Teo (1997), Saarinen (1993), Saarinen & Sääksjärvi(1992), Bark et al (1997), Ptak (1998) and Wessberg (1997)


57

is recommended. Once implemented it is common with maintenanceproblems. To keep a high degree of up-to-dateness is important, but ofcourse not as easy as it sounds. The villain of the piece is often a lack oftime. Putting up routines concerning when, by whom and how updatesand maintenance should be done, and making sure this is really done, isimportant.If an organization decides to design an information distribution solutionbased on IT, they must also make sure that the end users have access tothe technology required to make use of the solution. There is a risk that agap occurs between those who have access to a computer and those whodo not, and the latter will have problems staying informed.55 There can bemany reasons to why a workplace lacks the technology. There can beshortcomings in intention or in resources, previously discussed, or in theculture, 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 organizationalculture which comprises norms, values, attitudes, rules and so on. We alsoconsider the fact that different countries have different cultures. Havingthese discussions we also cover management culture and issues oforganization 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 areBritish, the mechanics are French, the lovers Swiss, the police German and it’s allorganized by the Italians.” - Makridakis & Associates -

Claes Moberg and Gunnar Palm (1997, p. 131-135 & 145-146) havestudied intercultural communication and they mean that the importanceof knowledge about cultural circumstances when dealing with foreigncultures cannot be stressed enough. There are many factors where theculture and values are separated from one’s own. Not just the veryobvious such as language, religion, clothes and food habits but also theview held on the individual compared to the group, man versus woman,age, time, friendship and much more. In India for example the relationbetween manager and worker are quite different from Sweden. It isassumed 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, theother personnel might look upon him with contempt.A problem with culture is that we tend to compare with our own cultureas a base, derives from our own values and judge other cultures after thesetoo much. This is called ethnocentrism. The alternative to ethnocentrismis empathy, the ability to put oneself in another person’s situation, to seethings from another person’s perspective. (Ibid)How can we define culture? The culture expresses in concrete andabstract terms the norms, values and internal relations of a society. Theculture of a country can be compared to an iceberg in such a way that only10 percent of the culture is visible and 90 percent hidden under thesurface. The visible part, manifests itself in the form of clothing andlanguage amongst other things, whilst the invisible part constitutes ofattitudes, values and ideals. At the very bottom of the iceberg, we find thedeep cultural assumptions like the culture’s conception of the world orphilosophy 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 thethings they do. Core values, morals and beliefs shared by groups ofindividuals are the third ingredient of culture. These are invisible and thehardest 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 importanceof keeping in mind the differences between cultures. When you aredealing with a global organization, you do have to deal with differentcultures, which means that you do have to think about these things. Youneed to be sensitive and humble and if you work with goals and objectivesand let the different markets reach the goal the way they want you avoid alot of treading on toes.

ORGANIZATIONAL ISSUES

Information and knowledge are stored in the organization in differentways. 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 asinformation 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 isthe organizational structure, as a framework for individual behavior. Theinformal and formal structure defines individual roles as “manuals” forcarrying out certain activities, based on experiences and expectations.58

The way in which organizations develop collective interpretations isinfluenced by the uniformity of frames of reference. If no uniform framesof reference exist before information is distributed within theorganization, uniform interpretations will seldom arise.59 The cultureinfluences the way information is interpreted, but also how it is used andshared, so for changes to be possible the culture itself should be changedto be an enabler and not an impediment.As written earlier, many organizations today have intranets as a part oftheir IT environment. The intranet brings many advantages, and if usedcorrectly costs are cut and information can be reached more easily.Nevertheless, since the goal often reaches beyond these advantages, toenhanced information quality, management and productivity, one must gofurther than a technical implementation. The organization must developan infrastructure for the organization as a whole and for the management.The focus should lie on the processes that lead to the implementation ofthe technology rather than on the technology itself. 60 This reasoning is inline with our discussion in the paragraph above What is KnowledgeManagement?. The outcome of these processes is heavily affected by theorganizational culture.What is the general notion when it comes to searching for answers in thetechnical information provided? Is it that you are ambitious and eager tolearn or is it that you are reading because you do not know your job wellenough and simply wasting precious work time? The two culturesrepresenting the different notions are both out there, but if they are notlocated 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 employeesdevelop their knowledge and acquire new insights. But this view is notheld by each and everyone in organizations and when not held by themanager, who should be the role model, influencing the learning processfor others there is a problem and the management culture is not theenabler it could be.

57 Romme & Dillen, referring to Cyert and March, 1963; Hedberg, 1981; Argyris and Schön, 197858 Romme & Dillen, referring to Duncan and Weiss, 197959 Romme & Dillen, referring to Hedberg, 1981; Kim, 1993; Kolb et al, 1984; Weick, 199160 Johansson & Johansson, 1998


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To be able to learn one cannot simply rely on regular education, one hasto see to every-day learning in the workplace, where culture is of crucialimportance. The culture needs to encourage people to participate in theprocess of creating and sharing knowledge. The basic prerequisite forknowledge sharing is the creation of a climate where it is natural toshare.61 According to Axelsson (1996, p. 39) an individual’s competenceconsists of three things: knowledge, skill and will. Without will, knowledgeand skill will neither evolve nor be fully used, and the individual’s willcannot 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 beas important as the outer when it comes to motivating the employees todo their best for the organization to achieve its goals, which is confirmedin most empirical studies according to Jacobsen & Thorsvik (p. 244-246).Inner rewards that are closely related to independence and atmosphere onthe job are more important than a high salary. There is also a clearconnection between satisfaction on the job and good health, but nonebetween salary and health. (Lane 1991, referred to in Jacobsen &Thorsvik) Also Petri62, who we talked to on the issue, argued thatincentives should neither be punishments nor monetary awards since sucha system is not durable in the long run. He claimed that it is better tomake efforts visible and give encouragement and credit.63

According to Jacobsen and Thorsvik (1995, p. 222) there are many studiesdone on motivation (defined as performance) which builds on self-reported data about what one is willing to do or not. The problem withthese studies as they see it is that one neglects the factors that can affectthe relationship between the urge to perform and the actual performance.For one thing, it could be that the individual wants to do something helacks the knowledge or experience for (Vroom, 1964). Another issuecould be that the resources needed are missing (Van Meter & Van Horn,1975). Also, there could be different social rules and norms which areinfluenced by culture and intention, which hinders the performance(Mayo, 1949).

ROUND-UP

We would like to sum-up the theoretical framework by discussing howwell it covers the clarified research questions in chapter 1.7.3., which wenow look at one by one.

61 Dalin, 1997, Hall, 1990, referred to by Rehn & Westerberg, 199962 Carl-Johan Petri (previously called Carl-Johan Westin), interview in December 199963 Carl-Johan Westin, Cepro


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Which kinds of information and knowledge do the employees in theworkshops need for our purpose?

With our model (figure 3.1), we showed that a combination of tacit andexplicit knowledge (which we then called knowledge and information), isneeded to solve problems more efficiently. In the following sections wediscussed the difference between tacit and explicit knowledge and later wediscussed the dimensions of knowledge and also ignorance – a lack ofknowledge. With these discussions we have identified the different kindsof knowledge that could be needed.

Which sources, channels and carriers of information and knowledgeshould be used, and how can they support the workshops in the mostefficient way?

In the sections of Knowledge creation and Feedback we reflected on theseissues. We also considered them when we discussed Dimensions of knowledge,where they are discussed together with each respective knowledgedimension. In addition, we covered this further in our discussion ofInformation Technology along with Culture & Organization in the sectionEnablers.

How can the organization capture the information and knowledgethat stems from solving the problems encountered in workshops inparticular and in the rest of the organization in general?

When captured, how can the organization manage and make use ofthis information and knowledge in the learning process?

In the section Knowledge Creation we discussed the levels of knowledgecreation and forms of knowledge interaction and in Learning we discussedwhy and how organizational and individual learning takes place and wealso 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 thatcovers all our clarified research questions. We will now present ourfindings in our empirical study on these same questions.


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4 EMPIRICAL STUDYAfter defining how we have worked throughout our thesis and discussed ourtheoretical framework, we will now present our findings in our empirical study. Thiswill then lead to the analysis chapter, where we combine our findings with ourtheoretical framework to find out what we think is needed to improve the efficiencyin 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 fourcountries that we have visited. We would like to encourage the reader tokeep in mind that the workshops we have visited have only been a few,not selected to be representative for the entire countries. In somecountries we had the opportunity to talk more to employees at thedistributor and in some less, which has also effected the content of thischapter.The structure of the chapter is somewhat similar to the one in theTheoretical Framework. We start with describing what The workshop process(4.2) is like and how problems are solved in a workshop. We continuewith Knowledge (4.3), where we discuss how tacit and explicit knowledge areshared today in the workshop and in the whole organization and alsoproblems on this issue. We also discuss learning in the different countrieswe have visited and the strategy from the Factory. After that comes asection with our Enablers (4.4), where we reflect upon different aspects inthe organization today concerning Intentions, Resources, IT and Culture& Organization. We conclude with a Benchmark (4.5). We have interviewedthree companies that have already implemented computerized solutionsfor distribution and usage of information and in this section we describeshortly how the three companies perceive their situation.

4.2 THE WORKSHOP PROCESS

The two activities in Scania’s workshops are repair and maintenance ofvehicles. The process of repairing or doing maintenance work on a truckis more or less the same in all the workshops that we have visited inSweden, Norway, the Netherlands and France for our study. We haveidentified five steps each errand goes through and a general, simplifiedprocess, which is depicted in figure 4.1, could be described as follows. Thedriver is first received at a reception where a work order describing theproblem and the required services is written. Then the work order is givento a mechanic who searches for the reasons to the problems. When theseare found the mechanic turns to the spare parts warehouse to pick up ororder the parts needed for the work. After the right parts have beenfound, the mechanic can carry out the necessary repairs. When that is


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finished some paperwork needs to be done, and then the driver can comeand fetch his truck.

Figure 4.1: The repair and maintenance process

The aim for each workshop is of course that every phase in this processruns as smoothly as possible. Nevertheless, problems may arise in everyphase and obstruct the process from being efficient. When there is aproblem, the method of solving it turned out to be very much the same inall the workshops that we visited. But circumstances vary. Customers insome countries for example are very bad at long-term planning whichnaturally creates large problems in planning the work at the workshop,whilst in other countries the customers are very good at scheduling theirmaintenance and at booking repairs in advance, as far as circumstancesallow of course. To their help, all countries have a computerized dealersystem. Some are installing the one that the Factory recommends,Automaster, and some have their own. The systems usually among otherthings contain information about customers, vehicles, contracts, parts andit handles work orders and invoicing. How well this system supports thetask also varies.If we take the case a broken truck and look at the two steps problem searchand repair, the way a mechanic works is naturally quite individual.Nevertheless, we have been able to distinguish a general pattern forproblem solving. When a mechanic receives a work order he normallystarts to investigate the problem to see if he can solve it by himself. Thiscan take quite some time, since there seems to be a threshold for manymechanics when it comes to asking for help or looking for information inthe binders. If the mechanic concludes that he needs some help orsupport to solve the problem, the most common thing to do is to ask aco-worker or the foreman. The second most common thing is to look foranswers in the information available in binders. When none of theseactions give enough help to solve the problem, the foreman usually calls atechnical expert at the distributor.The goal for each workshop is to minimize the time that the trucks standstill due to repair and maintenance. This is important both to keep thecustomers content and because the workshops are not always paid for the

Reception Problem search Spare partsordering

Repair and/ormaintenance

Orderfollow-up


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time they spend searching for problems. According to the patterndescribed above, the most efficient way to minimize this time would be tomake sure the employees of the workshop are as skilled as possible attheir work, that is that they have as much knowledge as possible. Topromote knowledge some conditions have to be fulfilled, for examplethere has to be a positive attitude towards it. Just like before, we call theseconditions Enablers, and divide them into Intention, Resources, InformationTechnology and Culture & Organization.In the following section we will describe how the increase of knowledgeworks 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 veryimportant factor for keeping the workshop process efficient. To assurethat the employees’ knowledge reaches the necessary level differentcountries have different methods. In this chapter we will present thefactors that form the base for spreading knowledge and keeping theprocess efficient in the European workshops today. Some countries haveapprentice programs, and there are different ways of promoting on-the-job-training, or of not promoting it. Apart from this, every country has itsown training system to formally train their employees, and the Factory hasone too. To support both training and everyday work there is technicalinformation produced at the Factory and at the national distributor. Avery important way to spread knowledge is through communicationbetween the different entities within the organization, and there are bothformal and informal structures to do so. We will now describe what wehave 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, tacitknowledge is unwritten knowledge held in the heads of individuals orteams. It includes subjective insights and intuitions, and it is gainedthrough action and therefore it comes with experience. The mostimportant way to assimilate tacit knowledge in the workshops today isthrough every day work. Since the usual way to solve a problem is bytrying hard until it seems impossible, and only then ask someone else orlook in a binder with technical information, the employees of theworkshops naturally get a lot of their knowledge this way.It is also common practice to let an employee, who lacks knowledgewithin a certain area, work side-by-side with a more experiencedemployee. A formalized way to do this is through the apprentice programsthat will be described further in the paragraph Learning where we alsodiscuss other formal training. If an apprentice system is in use or not, or if


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the workshop uses a lot of side-by-side working or not, all depends on themanagement of the national distributor or of the workshop itself. Many ofthe mechanics that we met said that they prefer learning new things whileworking to reading and learning things in a more theoretical way.Normally there is at least one employee at each workshop who is veryknowledgeable that the others can turn to with their problems andquestions. This person is often, but not necessarily, the foreman or theworkshop manager. It depends on the size of the workshop whether theworkshop manager is more of a manager and less a mechanic or not. In allthe countries that we visited there are also some “technical experts” whowork for the national distributor. They travel around to the workshopswhen there are technical problems, and they also answer questions overthe phone. Thanks to their contacts with many workshops they gather alot of both tacit and explicit knowledge, and their existence is in manycases crucial when it comes to solving complicated problems. There isalso a help desk at the Factory in Södertälje where help is provided to thedistributors’ technical experts from all around the world when they haveproblems.Another way of sharing knowledge is tried in a workshop in Norway,where competence groups of four to five mechanics are formed. Withinthe group, different competencies are represented. The members of onegroup may work on different vehicles but they are ready to assist eachother 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 interactand learn more from each other. Moreover, it is not just a question ofsharing knowledge but to create knowledge as well since knowledgecreation takes place when knowledge is shared like this. Moreover, theDutch distributor for example lets all the employees take a driving licensefor trucks in paid work time for free. In this way everyone can conducttesting of vehicles and they get an even better understanding of the truck.Since the greater part of the mechanics’ knowledge is tacit there is adanger in creating experts within limited competencies in the workshops.An expert is created when someone does the same type of work all thetime. This will make him an expert of this type of work, but he will notlearn anything else. Nearly all the employees distributing the work orders,normally the receptionist or the foreman, told us that they try to be awareof this. But they are also aware of the demands of the customers, andsince an expert works faster than the others the same types of jobs manytimes end up going to the same mechanic each time. This is an importantimpediment for the possibility for many mechanics to gain new experienceand thus create tacit knowledge.


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To profit from tacit knowledge you need communication and interactionwith other people. This is done in everyday work, at meetings and in thosemoments in courses where the mechanics have practical training. Talkingto the mechanics at one workshop that never had meetings, we got aunison wish that they wanted more meetings, preferably every month ormore where among other things the technical information could bediscussed. But many workshop managers feel that there is no time formeetings during work time. Some argue that if the employees wantmeetings, they should be held after work hours, which of course theemployees do not want to hear of. The Swedish distributor encourages theworkshops to keep weekly meetings or at least monthly, but the Swedishdistributor estimates that up to 10 percent of the workshop managementsdo not inform anything at all to their employees and 65 percent do it tooseldom.A study on dealer awareness was carried out last year to highlight theproblems with the increasing amount of information that overflows theworkshops. The report was in part a result of a study where the AreaTechnical Managers64 gave their impressions after their regular visits to themarkets. A conclusion from the survey is that it is important that technicalexperts from the distributor make regular visits to the dealers andworkshops. These visits are today the only way the Factory has to assurethat the information is passed on to the target group – the workshoptechnicians. Regular dealer and workshop meetings on national level arealso an important tool in bringing out the information received at thetechnical 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 typeof knowledge that can be expressed in words and numbers. It is easilycommunicated and shared, with or without human interaction. Theexplicit knowledge that we have focused on during our visits to theworkshops is the technical information. Other types of explicit knowledgeneeded at the workshops are for example information about warranties,legal matters and information about the customers.Workshops need technical information for many reasons. The mechaniccould be a novice, the problem could be new, the product itself could benew, there could be some numbers needed or the problem could simplybe 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

64 Area Technical Managers working for the Factory regularly visit “their” countries and they areresponsible for technical issues in these countries towards the Factory.


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it is difficult or easy to solve; The mechanic: whether he is experienced ornot and whether he has had sufficient training or not. These factorsinfluence to what extent the mechanic needs additional informationbesides the already held knowledge.

INFORMATION ON PAPER – CURRENT DIMENSIONS

Today, technical information for the workshops is produced at theFactory mainly on paper. There is a large, and so far growing, series of 11binders that contains the Workshop Manual. The Workshop Manual isdivided into 18 chapters and they include function descriptions and workdescriptions for the whole chassis. Sections of these chapters aredistributed to the workshops whenever one or more new sections areproduced at the Factory. Another binder contains the TIs (TechnicalInformation). The TIs normally consist only of one page describing somespecific information, for example that a new spare part is needed forcertain chassis numbers or recommended actions to be taken at certainnew failures. They too are distributed whenever the Factory needs tocommunicate something like this. The number of TIs for the mechanic tokeep in mind is naturally growing and it is perceived as hard to rememberthem all, but it is not an urgent problem, yet. Apart from the WorkshopManual and the TIs there is paper information from the Factory to theworkshops about spare parts, and each country’s distributor distributesinformation similar to the TIs.

INFORMATION ON PAPER – DIFFERENT NEEDS

One of the employees at the Factory’s department for technicalinformation maintained that their general impression is that simple thingsare explained in detail, while more complicated issues are hardly explainedat all. At this department at the Factory they are also under the impressionthat the mechanics generally want more pictures and less text, animpression that was not completely confirmed during our visits at theworkshops. There are many different opinions about the quality of theWorkshop Manual and the TIs, and these differences do not seem to haveanything to do neither with the nationality nor with the size of theworkshop. More likely, it depends entirely on the competence, interestsand the attitude of the person who reads it. What was requested wasinformation on more then one level in certain chapters, both for themechanic who looks in the information for the very first time, and for themore experienced one looking for more advanced information. Manyemployees at the workshops think that the information does not seem tobe meant for a knowledgeable mechanic since they, just like the people atthe Factory, also think it explains simple things too thoroughly andcomplex issues too little. They thought there ought to be more and betterimages, 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 notthink they need more information, but less. What we could conclude, isthat the needs for information and the ways to interpret it seem to be asmany as there are mechanics. However, everyone seemed to agree that theinformation normally comes too late, that the amount of paper in thebinders is sometimes too great which makes it all fall out, and finally thatchapter 16 is a problem in many ways. The wiring diagrams get tornbecause of their size and some mechanics find them poorly arranged andvery messy. On the other hand, other mechanics and foremen praised thewiring diagrams since they provide such good information and that theyare so easy to read.Some conclusions from the study on dealer awareness that we spokeabout earlier are in line with what we have found out. The Area TechnicalManagers were of the opinion that the information depth is acceptable butthe amount is too great to be assimilated by the mechanics. There is toomuch text and there needs to be more drawings. In addition there needsto be more information on trouble shooting and improved productinformation when the Factory changes parts. Furthermore, they had theimpression looking at the Workshop Manual that people at the Factoryunderestimate the know-how of the mechanics. They therefore suggestedthat the Factory should look at the Workshop Manual from Volvo, whichaccording to them is better than Scania’s in this perspective. Moreoverthey thought that more accurate information and on a higher technicallevel 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 werechanges for the worse in the Workshop Manual when the latest series oftrucks was introduced in 1995. The structure is better in the newWorkshop Manual, but some cross-references are lacking, most of thecross-section images and all of the color pictures have been removed. Thisis a large drawback since the remaining pictures are much harder tounderstand. From many workshops there have also come complaints thatthe function descriptions are now harder to understand since there are nocross-section images. The described assembly process, which is also usedfor teaching, was better with the earlier series of trucks. The functiondescription is considered a very important part of the Workshop Manual.It is by understanding how things function that the mechanics can learnhow to find the source of the problem when something is not working.But the mechanics are not the only ones who have different opinionsabout 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 ofthe components of the truck: how a component acts normally, how it actswhen there is something wrong etc. But according to them the people atthe department responsible for writing the technical information do notwant to write these things. They mainly want to describe how to assembleand to dismount things, something that a mechanic can normally dowithout reading instructions.

INFORMATION ON PAPER – DISTRIBUTION

All the employees of the workshop agree that they often find changes andnew parts that they have never heard about when they start working on atruck. The information about product news and product changes isdeficient. If it comes at all it comes too late to the workshops, when theyhave already seen the change or the new product and have had to try tosolve the problems anyway. This goes for TIs describing solutions to newproblems too. However, the problems with late information aredecreasing. The workshops have started to notice that the Factory is tryingto speed up the information process.The distribution of the information on paper from the Factory to theworkshops 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 couldlengthen the distribution time considerably. During this step, somedistributors seized the opportunity to take away some of the informationthat they did not want the employees of the workshops to read since,among other reasons, they might have felt that some particularinformation did not concern their market. So it was not only a slowprocess, it also passed through a filter. During the time that we haveconducted this study there have been different projects in process at theFactory aimed at rendering the distribution process more efficient and atcutting leed time. One of them, that was implemented by the end of thisstudy, is to send the information by mail directly from the Factory to theworkshops. This way the distribution time is shortened and it solves theproblem with the distributor – filter.The Dutch distributor thinks that the sales people should be informedabout new products first and then the technical instructors, since the salespeople need quite a lot of time to prepare for the sales and marketing andthe instructors need time to prepare course material. They should all havethe information before the product is on the market of course. They meanthat the Factory needs to establish a better connection between the twoflows of information, the one to the sales people and the one to themechanics. One of the Dutch instructors said that he would like to getaccess 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 MarketingNews on Outline – Scania’s extranet. But now, when a new engine isabout to be introduced, the password to this site has been changed andthe instructor who needs the information can no longer see it. In Norway,the employees at the workshops complained about having to search forinformation about product news and changes in the new chapters of theWorkshop Manual.Another problem is that the spare parts employees often do not get accessto the TIs. So when there is a TI about some new product they do notorder it since they do not know that it exists. They only find that outwhen a mechanic comes to ask for the new part. Only then can they orderthe part and the affected truck will have to wait.In addition, there is an organizational problem at the Factory. There isone department (RI) that is responsible for creating the technicalinformation and some software for the workshops, parts assortment andalso for creating work methods. Another department (RQ) is responsiblefor the follow-up of technical field quality and the failure report system,FRAS. Yet another department (YD) is responsible for dealerdevelopment, that is how to manage a workshop and a dealer. They arealso responsible for co-ordinating repair and maintenance contracts, forthe technical helpdesk and they are commercially responsible for parts.These are the most closely related issues concerning the workshops butthey are separated in different departments and buildings. According torepresentatives from all three, the communication between them is ratherpoor. This leads to duplication of work and frustration in not having aclear view of the whole picture.

COMPUTERIZED INFORMATION – A GOAL

Although the process of distribution of information on paper has beenimproved, it may only be a temporary solution for the distribution oftechnical information. The Factory’s goal is to completely stop sendingthe information physically and instead providing it on the Internet. By theend of 1999 they implemented a website with links to the WorkshopManual and the TIs in ten languages in PDF format. It also containsTraining Packages – material in english, which the distributors’ instructorscan use for their courses. A user name and a password are acquired toaccess this site, and they have been sent out in a TI.

COMPUTERIZED INFORMATION – ATTITUDE

Generally, the employees at the workshops seemed positive when wetalked to them about finding information in a computer instead of inbinders. Especially the mechanics were interested. Some of the managerswere more skeptical to this new idea, particularly in France. They did notthink 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 happenif more than one mechanic at a time needs to search for information? Andwhat will they do when they need to bring the information with them tothe truck? We told them that the new information system would require aprinter to enable the mechanics to make printouts of the information, butstill some were not convinced. The mechanics on the other hand, did notperceive the issue of using printouts as a problem. In the Netherlandsthere were some worries about what would happen to the oldermechanics who have no knowledge whatsoever about computers, andwho are probably not willing to learn either. The TI that we mentionedabove containing the password for the website with links to theWorkshop Manual, TIs and Training Packages, is one piece ofinformation that the Dutch distributor has chosen not to distribute to theworkshops because they do not want the workshops to access the Internetuntil the distributor’s intranet has been developed. Another generalargument against having the information on-line is the access time, whichcan be long if the Internet connection is bad. That argument howevershould be gone within five years according to a web-manager at theFactory. Moreover, today there are not enough computers in theworkshops for the mechanics to use.Although the workshop employees were mostly positive to the idea ofgetting information from a computer, many of them mentioned somepieces of information that they would still like to receive on paper. On ofthem were the small service data booklets that are very appreciated by themechanics. They would no longer serve their purpose if it is was notpossible to keep them in the pocket. Other information that manymechanics want to keep on paper is the wiring diagrams, since they areconsidered too big to fit suitably on a computer screen.

COMPUTERIZED INFORMATION – MULTI

Apart from the information on paper the Factory produces and distributessome 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 ismeant to replace the microfiches that have been used so far. Theworkshops and the distributors, have the possibility to connect it to theirown databases. Thereby they are able to see the prices of the parts, if thepart is in stock and the time it will take to do the repair. It is also possibleto see the PDF version of the Workshop Manual in Multi. In the firstversions, Multi contained many errors. For example, it did not show theright parts for the right chassis number, something that made the programrather useless. Lately it has improved a lot, but the bad reputation is stillthere. Of the seven workshops we visited, none use Multi as a tool for themechanics to find information. In the Netherlands and Norway, they useMulti 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 oftenstill find the information they need faster in the microfiches since they aremore used to them. Some of the persons who had tried Multi had a fewwishes for improvements. They wanted a better linkage between the spareparts catalogue and the Workshop Manual, which would mean that youwould not have to search for information twice. Some mechanics alsoasked for better linkage generally between closely related things. Forexample, if you read in one place about how to change the oil it should belinked 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 toinstall two “computer stations” with PCs and printers out in theworkshop to make the mechanics use Multi. In France and in Swedenonly a manager had access to Multi, and they did not use it a lot. What wecan conclude though is that the mechanics in all countries are enthusiasticabout the possibility to use computers in their work. The few that had hadthe possibility to try Multi for example thought it would be a very helpfultool as long as the errors in it are taken care of.

COMPUTERIZED INFORMATION - DIAGNOS & PROGRAMMER

Other software produced at the Factory is Scania Diagnos & ScaniaProgrammer (SD/SP). They are used on laptops that can be connected tothe truck’s control unit, to view and manipulate some parameters of thetruck’s vast and growing electronic system. In the workshops, mostmechanics know how to use this program, and they are all very optimisticabout it. For some of them, using SD/SP has been their first contact witha computer while others have a PC and an Internet connection at home.The software is distributed on CD-ROMs four times a year through thesame process as the paper information. It can also be downloaded fromthe Internet. The Factory has recently (March 2000) implemented thefunction of partial updating of new chassis information, which means thatinformation about new chassis can be downloaded from the Internet intoMulti once a week. However, just as the paper information the CD-ROMswith new versions of the programs often come too late to those who donot have access to the Internet. With SD/SP this can cause very bigproblems. A new control unit in a truck can only be used with thecorresponding version of SD/SP. With older versions it is not evenpossible to connect to the control unit. When so happens - that a newtruck comes in to the workshop before the software does - all there is todo is to wait for the new version. In Norway, the distributor downloadsthe new versions as soon as they are on the Internet. Then they makecopies on CD-ROM and distribute them to the workshops. This way theysave 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 withSD/SP, however less serious. If the chassis number for a new truck is notin Multi the mechanic and the spare parts person just have to trust othersources of information, like microfiches, or Multi without the filter, andtheir own intuition, to find the right parts. If the workshop has access tothe Internet they can also find information about the chassis in a chassisdatabase on the intranet.

COMPUTERIZED INFORMATION - DEALER SYSTEMS

Like we described above, every country that we visited has its own dealersystem. A dealer system consists of software used to make the workorders, keep information about the customers, chassis, repair andmaintenance contracts, warehouse levels, and sometimes the informationabout warranties and guarantee of payment. The different dealer systemshave many things in common although they are all unique and containdifferent types of information. They are also more or less integrated withthe different systems at the Factory, for example the system for failurereports (FRAS) and the system for repair and maintenance contracts(RAMAS). During our visits to the workshops and to the distributors’ weencountered many people who were annoyed at all the different systemsand at the fact that they are not integrated. Like we have said, the Factoryhas recently introduced a recommended dealer system called Automasterthat will be integrated with Multi and the other systems. At the visitedworkshops, nobody had heard of this system, and they all said that theFactory should have introduced that kind of system a long time ago. Nowmany 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 tosee the repair history of the trucks in the dealer system. In Norway this ispossible already, at least when it comes to Norwegian trucks, while theworkshops in the other countries only have information about their ownlocal customers. Another wish is that the dealer system should signal if acertain TI affects a certain chassis or if the chassis is affected by acampaign. A campaign is something that is sent out from the Factory forexample when a certain part needs to be changed on all chassis that carryit. If a dealer has customers who have trucks that carry this part, thecustomer has to be contacted so that he can bring his truck to theworkshop, or the part is replaced when the customer comes to theworkshop for something else. There are three kinds of campaigns,depending on how serious the problem is. If there is a risk for accidentsthe customers have to be contacted directly. So, it would make thingseasier if it were possible to see if a chassis is affected by a campaigndirectly 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 makea new appointment.

COMPUTERIZED INFORMATION - DEALER AWARENESS SURVEY

Returning to the dealer awareness survey we have spoken about, it assertsthat with an accumulated number of close to 800 technical papers thatshould be considered during the repair and maintenance of Scania’svehicles, it is easy to see the difficulties for the employees of theworkshops. At the majority of the European as well as the overseasdealers and workshops the mechanics do not have access to computers,let alone Internet connections. The report was as we have said in part aresult from a study where the Area Technical Managers gave theirimpressions and some further conclusions were that there is too muchinformation released in an unstructured way. They mean that the Factorymust find ways to highlight important information. Moreover they meantthat it also is a good idea to have the information – Workshop Manualand TIs - available on a PC platform with a search mode for easy and userfriendly access. The present design structure is not easy to use for Scania’saverage mechanic.

OTHER TYPES OF EXPLICIT KNOWLEDGE

Video is another way of spreading information. The Factory used todistribute videotapes, Scania Service Channel, with technical informationabout repairs and product news. In the Swedish workshop we were toldthat they used to have meetings when they watched the new videotapetogether and discussed it afterwards. Four years ago the Factory stoppedproducing these videos, but now they are considering starting it up again.However, they will not distribute videotapes this time. Instead, they willput links to digital film sequences with the TIs on the Internet. Thedownloading time will be minimized using streaming technology, atechnology that enables viewing and downloading simultaneously. Whenwe asked around at the workshops and at the distributors’ what theythought 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 iscontent with them and thinks that they give rather fast answers althoughthere have been dissatisfied opinions about their opening hours. But themost important information, according to the technical experts at theNorwegian distributor, is the one they receive through communicationwith their informal contacts at the Factory. With this communication wedo not mean structured meetings or formal information. Instead it is aresult of the personal contacts that have been established during forexample 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 manycases these contacts have access to a lot more information than thedistributor and they can get it faster then the help desk this way. InNorway the technical experts keep the faxes with this “secret”information in a binder called “The Ten Commandments”. Managers andtechnical experts in the other countries also agree that it is very importantto have the right connections within the Factory to get some informationabout product news, changes and solutions.

ROUND-UP

As we have argued, tacit knowledge is unwritten knowledge held in theheads of individuals or teams. To profit by tacit knowledge you needcommunication and interaction with other people. This is done ineveryday work, at meetings and in training. Explicit knowledge on theother hand is the type of knowledge that can be expressed in words andnumbers. It is easily communicated and shared. There are several issueswith tacit and explicit knowledge that needs to be addressed. Simplethings for example are explained in detail, while more complicated issuesare hardly explained at all in the literature, and there is a vast amount ofinformation to consider for the employees of the workshops. Some of thisknowledge is suitable for storing and some is not. Whichever the case,learning is a fundamental issue in the workshops, which is the subjectdealt with in the following paragraph.

4.3.3 LEARNING

As we have discovered, the knowledge of the employees is one of themain assets of the workshops today. Their knowledge is both tacit andexplicit. The tacit part comes with experience and can be hard toinfluence. The explicit part on the other hand is easier to influence butboth can be increased with formal training, and we have seen manydifferent examples of how this learning can be accomplished. This,learning from formal training and trying to increase the tacit and explicitknowledge of the mechanics, is what we will describe in this chapter.However, the individuals are not the only ones who need to augment theirknowledge. Therefore, we will also explain how the Factory learns as anorganization today.

THE FACTORY’S LEARNING STRATEGY – TRAIN THE TRAINERS

A project leader for dealer development at the Factory said that the speedof product development is increasing, which leads to problems occurringmore often and the organization must meet these increasing demands.Hence, he argues, the Factory must not release the education from theenterprise. Instead it should be a part of business development. At theFactory 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 Factoryand a reference group of distributors revised the whole training system,and in 2000 a new concept will be introduced. This concept is calledScania Dealer Training. The goal with this new concept is to have anefficient organization and avoid duplication of work. The base for thisconcept is that most distributors have their own training centers and theirown instructors. Therefore, it is sufficient for the Factory to train theinstructors who then can bring the knowledge with them to theirrespective countries. Among other things, they encourage the trainers toinvolve the mechanics more since they are the ones with the most contactwith the customers and therefore they too are salesmen in one way.This training takes place during Train The Trainer (TTT) conferences inSödertälje. At a TTT conference the instructors receive training materialthat they can use directly in their own courses with only minor marketspecific changes. Until now, the instructors have made most of thetraining material themselves. So this change will save them a lot of timeaccording to the Factory’s Dealer Training Process Manager. Thedistributors’ instructors are encouraged by the Factory to share their ownmaterial with the rest of the organization if they have something thatmight be of interest to others. The instructors at the Factory want todevelop the training system in close co-operation with the distributors.The Factory is also looking at how they can rewrite the contracts usedwith the dealers to be able to direct the business more.Different departments within the Factory are responsible for differentkinds of training; three main groups are sales training, dealer training andtechnical training. To co-ordinate these there is the function TrainingSupport. Their task is to co-ordinate the training and to support thedistributors around the world with knowledge about the courses, trainingmaterial and instructors for the countries that do not have any of theirown.The goal is to have two technical TTT conferences each year, inconnection with the concentrated introductions of new products orproduct changes. However, this is not always the case. Recently therewhere two years between conferences. A conference lasts for at least 2days, and gives the participating instructors a presentation of the news andof the latest training material. They receive binders with information onlyfor instructors, and also exercises ready to use with the mechanics. Thismaterial is also available on Scania Outline for distributors, the Factory’sextranet. The goal, according to the technical instructors at the Factory, isto have the TTT conferences a month before a concentrated introductionto enable the instructors to start training mechanics on time. This goal ishardly ever reached. The instructors at the Factory mean that they aredemanded 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 aTTT conference. One instructor at the Factory told us that it is difficult toget more resources for training since it is so hard to show some numbersof the return on investment. According to the Dealer Training ProcessManager, it takes about one to two years before the consequences of poortraining are visible. This means that it is easy to cut back the investmentson training when there is a short-term need to cut costs.The technical instructors at the Factory say that they have very closecontacts with the distributors’ technical instructors since it is a relativelysmall group. To develop the training and the TTT conferences they havean 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 timeis being renewed at the Factory and in co-operation with a referencegroup of distributors to create a global system for competence levels forthe mechanics. The system will be defined in 2000 and implemented in2001. It will probably consist of three modules with different courses.Every module corresponds to a certain competence level: GeneralTechnician, Service Technician and Master Technician. The purpose ofthis system is both to make the training global, which enables comparisonamong different markets and different workshops so that the customersknow that they get the same service in all countries, and to give themechanic profession a higher status. It is a part of the actions needed tomeet the fast technical development of Scania’s trucks and to make theorganization less vulnerable. Since education is expensive, among otherthings because of logistics and accommodation, one intention with thismaster technician system is that at times when the workshop is not sobusy, a master technician should be able to teach certain things to theother mechanics in the workshop.

THE FACTORY’S LEARNING STRATEGY - SCANIA PROFESSIONAL

Another kind of training that is interesting for our definition of workshopefficiency is Scania Professional. It is a long term, strategic training, aimed atdeveloping both the individual and the organization. The target group forScania Professional is staff with some kind of managing function. Thisincludes workshop managers, receptionists, master technicians and partsstaff. By mixing people from different functions the instructors at theFactory hope to increase communication and co-operation between thedepartments at the dealers’. The training consists of 6 modules. A groupof people from different markets and different functions is formed for thefirst module, and then they continue together with one new module every6 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 modulesare for example Dealer staff & organization and Workshop management &administration. At the end of each module the participants get somehomework that they have to present at the beginning of the next module.Both homework and tests are in the form of implementing changes in theparticipants’ workshops. Only instructors from the Factory currently holdScania Professional. But in the summer of 2000 there will be a TTTconference to enable instructors at the distributors’ to hold this trainingthemselves.Thus the Factory has a lot going on when it comes to learning, but so dothe distributors. The responsibility for education in the different countriesultimately lies on each market. The following paragraph addressesexamples we have seen during our field study in Europe.

EDUCATION IN EUROPE

Having visited workshops and distributors in Sweden, Norway, theNetherlands and France, we have seen many different ideas concerningthe formal education of the employees. Every country has its own trainingsystem. In Norway for example, the distributor really values well-trainedpersonnel, at same time as they feel it is getting harder to recruit newmechanics. This is why a lot of energy has been put into the developmentof a good educational system. In this system, they are focusing oneducation instead of on courses. The difference is that they want to take acomprehensive grasp on each mechanic’s education so that he gets anumber of courses which constitute a thought through educationalprogram and not only a collection of individual courses. It is good for themechanics to know that they are getting a proper education, and it is agood argument when it comes to recruiting new employees. Aprofessional educational system is also a vital component in the marketingtowards the external customers.The employees of the Norwegian workshop follow a ”marked path” ofmodules consisting of a number of courses. To move to a higher level ofmodules it is necessary to pass an exam on the lower level. Mechanicswho have a lot of experience but not the formal education can take thetests without attending the courses to see if they have enough knowledgeto pass on to the next level of modules. This educational system is quitenew, and right now it is marketed internally. The distributor helps theworkshops to plan the education for the mechanics strategically so thatthe workshop management bears both the mechanics and the workshopsbest in mind while setting up the plans for education. The goal is that eachworkshop should have an educational plan for each employee. To pointout the need for education for the workshop and dealer management, theemployees from the distributor’s educational department have visited all


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the workshops in the country and mapped out the available competenciesof each and every one. Each workshop employee has answered 120questions divided into eight competence areas. The results from thesequestionnaires make the competence profile of the workshop visible tothe management, and together with the distributor they put up aneducational strategy for the workshop. The test is saved, and it issupposed to be used every year by the workshops to map the evolvingcompetence profile of each mechanic and the workshop as a whole.The education is very appreciated by most mechanics. One source ofcriticism is the length of the courses. In Norway they last four dayscompared to one day in the Netherlands. The reason for this is that thecost of transporting mechanics to and from the place of the training is ofcourse much higher in Norway due to the vast distances compared to theNetherlands. To get away from this problem the Norwegian instructorsalso give courses on the spot at distant workshops. In the Netherlandsthere are two training centers for the whole country, and mechanics cancome to attend one-day courses. According to the Dutch instructors ashorter course is more efficient than a longer one, since the mechanics donot stay concentrated for so long.Many mechanics told us that the best thing about a course is the timewhen they do not have class so that they get the opportunity to chat withthe other mechanics at the course. Normally they discuss things related towork and they learn from each other’s experiences. According to themthey sometimes learn more from these discussions than from the courseitself. During a four-day course in Norway there is a lot of time to talk tothe other mechanics. A Dutch one-day course misses this opportunity.A problem experienced by many mechanics, and also acknowledged bythe management, is that they seldom get to practice their newly wonknowledge in the workshop after a course. This decreases the possibilitiesto get maximum profit from the training. One reason for this is that somecourses are aimed at such particular problems that they seldom appear in aworkshop. Another reason is, as we explained in the paragraph about tacitknowledge, that the person distributing the work orders prefers to give ajob 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 ofthis and that they try to let the mechanics practice what they have learnedas much as possible.Another issue that is varying over time and countries is whether they getto keep the literature after a completed course or not. Some countrieshave realized the importance of enabling the mechanics to continue torepeat the course at home and to use the literature as reference books indaily work. In one workshop in France there was a whole library with


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course literature. Everyone who had attended a course could put hisbooks there after the course so that all the mechanics could use them. InSweden the mechanics do not get to keep any literature after the courses.According to the Swedish mechanics this is very bad, since they can nevergo back and check any information that they are unsure about after acourse.Apart from all the differences, there are some similarities among thecountries as well. One similarity is the method used for the training. Allthe countries that we visited use a combination of theory and practice toteach the mechanics about new things. They all have access to classroomsand workshops where they can do practical work. The practice issupposed to be as realistic as possible so that the mechanics get to try tosolve problems that can occur in their own workshops. According to oneof the Dutch instructors it is also very important that they get familiarizedwith the literature at hand, that is the Workshop Manual, so that theyknow where to find necessary information whilst back on the job. It ishard to comment on the quality of the training but many mechanics thatwe asked thought that the training is generally too easy. The degree towhich the instructors follow up the tests vary between different countries.In some the consequence of not taking a test is non-existent while inothers there is a requirement that the test or the entire course is takenagain.The person responsible for educational issues in Norway has started towork on material of organizational psychology and management. This isbelieved to be very important since some workshop managers really haveno formal education in how to manage a workshop and employees.According to one technical expert at the Norwegian distributor, it iscommon that employees in smaller workshops lack incentive andencouragement from their management. There are also workshopmanagers who consider training a waste of time, and prefer to have theirmechanics working all the time. They do not realize that they wouldprobably work more efficiently if they were properly trained. To avoidthese problems the distributors in the Netherlands and in France take anactive role in influencing the managers to invest in knowledge and fromwhat we could see they have managed to establish a good educationalculture. 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 onorganizational psychology and management to ensure that workshopmanagers are running the workshop in a modern conscious way, which isnot always the case today there either.


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FEEDBACK

There is a lot of experience and knowledge among Scania’s workshopemployees in Europe. But there are enormous differences betweenworkshops. We saw in both Norway and in the Netherlands how oneparticular workshop can be an “expert workshop” that other workshopsturn to for help. The two expert workshops that we visited are both quitebig and situated close to main roads which leads to that they experiencemany new problems early since many vehicles pass by. A lot of knowledgeis created there that other workshops, and many times the Factory inSödertälje too, could make use of. When we visited the workshops wewere very interested in how this works, how knowledge is shared withinthe organization.Most distributors seem to find these issues, feedback and knowledgesharing, very important. Many thoughts are discussed and projects areunder way. The Norwegian distributor for example has started twodifferent forums for communication throughout the country. One whereeight persons ranging from mechanics to salesmen from all over thecountry meet six times a year, where each person only can attend twice.The other forum is one where technical experts from the distributor meetwith workshop managers and mechanics. This kind of meeting will beheld once or twice a year with all dealers.Generally, the opinion in the workshops and at the distributors’ in all thecountries that we visited is that there is no good structure for sharingsolutions with other workshops or with the Factory. Some, of course,have not reflected much upon the issue at all and therefore do not haveany complaints. Today the only way to spread knowledge is throughformal or informal contacts, normally eye to eye or by phone, betweenpeople in the organization. Sometimes written information is created atthe distributors’ and distributed throughout the national organization as aresult of these contacts, sometimes not. The current system for knowledgesharing seems to be based more on coincidence than on routine.As mentioned above, the distributors are the ones who have the mostcontacts with the Factory, the workshops normally only talk to theirdistributor. According to the people we talked to at the distributors’ theyoften 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. Itis not clear to the employees at the distributors’ who is responsible forwhat at the Factory and where to find or report information on a certainissue. Many people at the distributors’ rely entirely on their informalcontacts, for example people that they have met during training. Whensolutions or suggestions are sent to the Factory, there is often noresponse. Then sometimes a year and a half later there is a TI describingexactly the solution that they sent in. Due to the informal contacts


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information does not always reach the person who can actually dosomething with it. Instead it ends up on somebody’s desk unattended.At the Norwegian distributor, they are working on a system that will allowthe workshops to send in solutions or ideas, which are then checked bythe distributor to ensure that the safety is not tampered with and that thepropositions are not illegal. When cleared, the solutions are presented onan intranet. The project had been tried out for six months when we werethere (15-19 November 1999) and the reactions were very positive. Somemechanics that had not had the opportunity to see the system asked forsomething just like it. They meant that the problem search today inworkshops take far too much time and that it could be shortened if onlythey could see how others have solved the problem and share their ownsolutions with others. The Dutch distributor is also working on a similarsystem. It is of course frustrating for us to know that the Norwegiandistributor is already testing a system like this and that the two are notcommunicating on the matter. The Dutch distributor has also beenworking on a Troubleshooting Database for three years according to theworkshop manager. Such a system would be very useful, especially forelectrical problems according to several mechanics.A similar way for distributors to share solutions is Importers HelpingImporters (IHI), a site on Scania Outline. (Earlier the distributors werecalled importers, thus the name Importers Helping Importers instead ofDistributors Helping Distributors.) On IHI it is possible to write downsolutions to particular problems and explain how it is done with text andimages. Generally the employees at the distributors’ think that this kind ofsite is a good idea, but it has to be maintained and kept up to date andtoday that is not the case. The technical manager at the French distributoron the other hand does not like the concept at all. He said that thesolutions provided by other distributors are often of a very low qualityand that they work only temporarily. Being a part of a largetechnologically advanced organization one can expect more than that.According to him it is up to the people at the Factory to providesolutions, not the distributors.

FAILURE REPORTS

One source of communication between the workshops, the distributorsand the Factory is the failure report system. Every time when something iswrong or broken on a vehicle a failure report should be written. But notwhen it is regular maintenance, like worn out tiers or similar. The statisticsfrom these reports have a major impact on decisions and prioritization atthe Factory. But the report frequency is low. An estimation by thetechnical group at the Norwegian distributor is that 60 percent of allerrors do not get reported and in Sweden the statistics from 1998 were:


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Amount offailure reportssent in peryear…

…by a number ofworkshops

80 160 120-40 810-20 6<10 23

Generally it is the workshop manager or the foreman at a workshop whowrites the failure reports and sends them to the distributor. Thedistributor then fills in the information in the Factory’s Failure ReportSystem. A few foremen and workshop managers are very keen onreporting failures, while others hardly report at all, and this explains thestatistics. During our visits to the workshops we did not meet one singleforeman or workshop manager who writes failure reports regularly, eventhough most of them know that they should. They said that it takes toomuch 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 eachfailure. It is not possible to write one report saying that a certain failurehas occurred 10 times for example in one month. Moreover theworkshops generally wait with reporting a failure until it has occurred acouple of times, which is unfortunate since one failure report does notweigh anything like three or four. They also generally consider a failure“known” when they have reported it a few times, and therefore they stopreporting it. At the Factory on the other hand, they think that the problemhas disappeared when there are no more failure reports.At least one of the instructors we spoke to encourages the mechanics toreport errors or problems with the technical information to him, and helater reports it to Training Support. But he hardly ever gets any feedbackon these reports. He feels it is very important to get feedback whensomeone has reported something to see that it makes a difference, and hethinks 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 failurereports and what is being done to them at the Factory. The distributorshave access to this system and they can look into it and then tell theworkshops that wonder what has happened with their reports. One of theNorwegian distributor’s product technicians thinks that the workshopsshould have access to the Factory’s Failure Report System too. That waythey would not need feedback from the Factory or from the distributor,since they could look into the system for themselves. We asked aNorwegian foreman about this, and he did not agree. He thought that


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there would be too much information. He said that he would prefer toreceive replies only to his own failure reports.The distributors play an important part also when it comes to failurereports, and our contact at the Swedish distributor gave us threeimportant 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 distributorneeds to translate.

2. The failure reports the distributor receives from workshopssometimes concerns issues already solved, but that the workshop donot know about yet. An issue like that should of course not be enteredin the failure report system.

3. The failure reports are from time to time incorrect or incomplete andin these cases the distributor returns it for correction/completion.

We have now addressed different issues about the Factory’s learningstrategy and different examples of education in Europe. We looked at thepresence, or rather absence, of feedback in the organization and someproblems with failure reports. Conducting this empirical study, we havefound four factors that seem to be the enablers, or disablers, for theorganization to address the discussed issues in a desirable way which wewill 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 toenable the creation and efficient use of knowledge in the workshopstoday. 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 area lot of good intentions when it comes to supporting workshop efficiency.One example is the effort in co-ordinating the training systems and theuse of reference groups from the distributors for the development of thissystem. Our thesis can be seen as one of these intentions too: to find outwhat the situation is really like in the workshops today, how they workand what they need.Unfortunately, the distributors and the workshops are not always aware ofthese good intentions. Many people in both workshops and atdistributors’ have told us that the Factory’s intentions are unclear, thatthey change too often. There are always new things starting up in a grandfashion, 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. Theworkshops had just about accepted it and invested in both televisions andvideo players when the Factory stopped making videos. Examples like thisare given as reasons to why the distributors and the workshops on manymatters seem to distrust the Factory. They do not think that the intentionsare very consistent, if they know about them at all. The chapter aboutInformation Technology describes one of these unknown intentions.

4.4.2 RESOURCES

As we have already described in the chapter about Learning, it can bedifficult to get resources for training. According to the Dealer TrainingProcess Manager, training gets a lot more space in conferences than in thebudget. There is a lot of talking about how important it is, but there arehardly any resources to improve it. The different parts of Scania'sorganization are somewhat characterized by being too independent andnot enough co-ordinated. This has sometimes led to that parts of theorganization can be cost efficient, while the organization as a whole canbe sub-optimized. This also obstructs the creation of common knowledgeand information sources like a Dealer Portal. The problem of sub-optimizing does not only concern the Factory. To calculate the totaleffects of certain actions for the whole organization, one has to includethe distributors and the dealers as well, which is hardly done at all todayby the people at the Factory. There is a positive leverage to take advantageof, where the resources put into education and improved information andknowledge sharing generate a larger amount in the long run than theamount originally invested.


“The same attributes that make computer-based information easy to load into thecomputer, and easy to manage once there, make it less valuable to humans” - ThomasDavenport -

People at the Factory are looking at a common European Customer andChassis Data Base. In a draft67 on the issue, they maintain that the dealersall need PC’s and access to the Internet. They also recognize the need fora culture, which is the next enabler in this chapter, where the Factoryneeds to establish incentives for dealers to share information, “what’s in itfor me”. The draft also recognizes the need for IS/IT to enable technicalknowledge to support the repair and maintenance process and thus createvalue for customers and enhance customer loyalty.The Factory’s intention when it comes to distributing information is tostop distributing paper and only distribute information on-line or on CD-

67 Common European Customer and Chassis Data Base, draft by Anders S Nilsson, 1999-08-21


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ROM. A Dealer Portal for Scania Outline is under development, and it willcontain links to all the information a dealer might need, including trainingand technical information. The dealer portal is intended to constitute aplatform for Internet communication between Factory, distributor, dealerand workshops. This enables faster distribution, makes it easier to changeinformation and minimizes paper and transport costs. The Dealer Portalwill also contain links to the distributor in the respective country. Forexample, a Spanish dealer can thereby find information from the Factoryand from the Spanish distributor in the same portal. The portal is underconstruction and workshops in Sweden have been given the opportunityto give their opinions on the structure and content. It is currently beingtested by workshops in Italy and Sweden. Late last year, the Factoryinvestigated the Internet access at Scania dealers and found that the vastmajority has access to the Internet.The distributors that we have visited have all started their own intranetprojects. They feel that the Factory works too slowly, and that they cannotwait for their solutions to come. It is the same thing as with the dealersystems where the Factory has recently introduced a recommended systemwhen many distributors have already developed their own.At the Dutch distributor they are working on an intranet and a problemdatabase for the mechanics, but it is not yet decided when this is going tobe ready, probably in the first half of 2000. Today their Internet policy isthat no workshop can have access to the Internet, but that they can whenthe company intranet is ready. The distributor on the other hand hasaccess to the Internet, and in general they think it is difficult to findinformation there. They like to get all the information on the Internet butthey would like to receive messages when there is some new information,or when something in their area of interest has been updated, so that theydo not have to look for it. They also feel a need for a policy on the use ofe-mail, faxes, phone, ordinary mail, etc., since there is a risk ofinformation 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 importantthat the employees get a chance to learn how to use a computer. Mostmechanics in Sweden, Norway and in the Netherlands said that theywould like to look for information in a computer instead of in binders, butthey also said that a printer is indispensable for the occasions when theyhave to bring information with them to the truck. The managers of theworkshops and the employees at the distributors’ in these countries alsoseem optimistic to the idea of more computers in the workshops. InNorway an employee from the distributor’s IT department said that thelevel of computer knowledge in the workshops is, or will be, sufficient aslong as the Factory allows them a transitory period before they stop


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distributing information on paper. One problem is that the workshopsand the distributors generally do not know about the plans and intentionsof the Factory, so it is hard for them to prepare.In France both the people from the distributor and the workshopmanagers that we met were more negative to computers and IT than theircolleagues in the other countries. The technical manager from the Frenchdistributor said that computers are good as long as they make thingseasier. He feels that so far they have only made his work morecomplicated. He also said that the Factory does not take full advantage ofthe possibilities with IT. One example is that the Workshop Manual inMulti only consists of copies of the paper version in PDF format, whichmakes it more difficult to use than the binders. Moreover, the Frenchworkshop managers that we met do not think that it is a good idea to letthe mechanics search for information in a computer. They said that it is agood idea to distribute it from the Factory this way, but that they wouldprint everything and put it in binders in the workshop. The reasons forthis is that they do not believe that the mechanics have enough interestand knowledge in computers to be able to use them and that they do notthink it would be practical. If many mechanics need to search forinformation at the same time someone will have to wait, and there will beprintouts lying around in the workshop.In Norway, the employees at the distributor are working on a serverwhere they can keep all the software and disc space that the workshopsmight need. They will only have to download new versions of programsonce, and all the workshops will get access to them instantaneously. Theworkshops will only need terminals since they will be online with theserver all the time. The Dutch distributor is looking at installing a similarsystem.


Culture is a very important enabler for the sharing and creation ofknowledge. Not only the national culture, but more importantly thecompany culture. During our visits to workshops, distributors and theFactory we have found very shifting attitudes towards learning and thesharing of knowledge. And from what we have seen and heard thisattitude has great impact on the work.Competence for example can be divided into knowledge, individualcapacity and attitude. Of these three, attitude can be the largest barrieraccording to a project leader for dealer development at the Factory, andtherefore, the culture that shapes attitudes is of crucial importance.At one workshop that we visited in Sweden a mechanic who looks forinformation in the binders is sometimes made fun of by the other


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mechanics. At many other workshops the foremen and the workshopmanagers encourage their mechanics to look for information themselvesinstead of asking them for help.In Norway we saw two interesting examples of two completely differentworkshops. One of them has a workshop manager who does not want toshare information. When some new information arrives he keeps it tohimself, and he does not like for his mechanics to attend courses. Themechanics at this workshop seemed almost afraid to talk to us. The otherworkshop on the other hand has a workshop manager who has manyideas on how to motivate the employees to take pride in their work and tosearch for more knowledge. He wants the mechanics to feel that they takepart in an entirety, and he wants them to feel good about themselves andtheir work. This, he argues, can be achieved by keeping them informedabout what is happening to the workshop, economically and if there aresome changes, and by making them take part in decisions and act like ateam. It is also important that the working environment is pleasant, withgood light, air and noise control. The mechanics at this workshop seemvery content with their work, and many of them are very interested inlearning more about the trucks and solving problems. The workshopmanager at the latter workshop in Norway also encourages training. Hesaid that it is important to listen to the mechanics, to their needs andwishes. It is also important that Scania has a good brand image. It must bebetter to work for Scania than for a competitor.Moreover, the mechanics at one workshop had a box for suggestions toimprove the general situation in the workshop and the ones implementedrendered economical rewards. But after a while the mechanics werecontent with just being able to affect their workplace and did not needother rewards to be motivated.

4.5 BENCHMARK

We have primarily studied Scania, but since we thought we couldgeneralize our results we wanted to interview representatives of a fewother companies as well. We spoke to Ericsson that repairs its AXE-switches, SAS that repairs airplanes and Jungheinrich that manufacturesforklifts. They all have continuously changing and technologicallyadvanced products and an after market with repair and maintenanceworkshops.

PHASING IN THE NEW SYSTEM

At Ericsson the organization’s information was primarily on paper until1995/96. It was not until then that the intranet was settling. Thetechnicians, 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 benefitswith the new solution.At the SAS workshop we contacted they do large 48 hours maintenanceand small repair on Boeing 737, SAS MD 80 and DC9. More then a yearago they started to use a PC instead of microfiche. This was doneovernight – literally – and only one or two mechanics per shift (25 people)had been given education on the PC, which led to problems. They receiveCD-ROMs regularly with the aircraft maintenance manual and the partscatalogue.Jungheinrich has in the past year implemented and phased in acomputerized solution for their workshop manual, parts catalogue and forthe handling of work orders. The technical information is distributedthree times a year on CD-ROM, thereafter it self-destructs. The bindersthey used to use are still around but are being phased out. The techniciansare very positive to the change and think that things have improved,despite the teething troubles it has caused. Among other things, theprinters are temperature sensitive and since they are sometimes in coldenvironments, this has been a problem.Jungheinrich and Ericsson both meant that things work slowly in thebeginning. People are afraid of changes mainly because they want tomaster their job and if they do not think they can handle computers, ofcourse they will not welcome the change with open arms. But witheducation and information, this is not a big problem. Once they knowwhere to click and how to browse through the information, the newsystem will be superior to the binders, but the employees need to be giventhe opportunity to sit down a lot and practice.

PROBLEMS

At Ericsson the hard part was getting the company to rethink the way theydistributed information. Instead of pushing it out, they needed to let peoplepull the information they needed. This has not worked very smoothly andone problem that has emerged is that the e-mailing system has becomesomewhat of a document handling system. The distributors ofinformation used to type something, put it with a distribution list orletting a secretary copy and distribute it. Today they do not feel certainthat they reach out just by putting something on the intranet, subsequentlythey first put it on the intranet and then they attach the document to an e-mail and send it to everyone that might be interested. This is of coursedouble work and it takes up a lot of disc space.Both Ericsson and SAS argued that a big responsibility lies on themanagement. 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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impossible for a person in one department to find information in anotherdepartment. At SAS there is no lack of intention, quite a few very goodprojects have been initiated over the last ten years, but the vast majority ofthese projects have never been implemented. When it comes to resources,there seems to be a problem, although they seem to have the resources tostart-up all these projects.The technicians at both SAS and Jungheinrich were less happy about thefollow-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 thesepeople. 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 tospeak of quality rather than efficiency when it comes to the activity“finding and reading information”. The user can be certain that it is thelatest information he is looking at and no pages are missing due tocarelessness or disorder. The efficiency is reached at a higher level whenwe come to information creation, storage and distribution. But the personwe spoke to at SAS thought that it is easier to find the information on thePC than browsing through a binder and that it does save valuable time.


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5 ANALYSISWe have described our empirical findings and will now analyze them together with ourtheoretical framework. We will now apply our knowledge identification model onScania, to map their problems and needs and suggest solutions. This will then lead usto our conclusions & recommendations in the next chapter.

5.1 INTRODUCTION TO THE ANALYSIS

We have discussed different kinds of knowledge: tacit, explicit, individualand organizational knowledge ranging from technical information toknow-how. As we stated in the problem background we would addresshow a company that achieves competitive advantage through aninnovation can sustain it (only) through relentless improvement68. Scaniacan through, among other things, a structure that enables continuousfeedback relentlessly improve the enterprise and turn more of theorganization’s tacit knowledge into explicit, more individual intoorganizational and more intellectual assets into structural, to continuebeing competitive on the truck arena. We will now analyze how this canbe done.In this chapter we will leave the structure used earlier in this report wherewe had tacit and explicit knowledge, learning and enablers as headlines.Instead we will use the knowledge identification model which sheds lighton the different kinds of knowledge that arise in an organization.Different kinds of knowledge need to be managed differently and we willnow see how Scania can enhance the workshop efficiency by mapping itsdifferent knowledge assets, using this model to help categorize it, anddetermine how to manage it.

5.2 COMBINING THEORY AND REALITY

5.2.1 RECAP OF HOW THE KNOWLEDGE IDENTIFICATION MODELWORKS

The knowledge identification model (figure 5.1) describes nine differentcategories, four of knowledge and five of ignorance. Associated with eachcategory are some suggested managerial actions, which we describedearlier in the Theoretical Framework, chapter 3. This means that we throughthe categorization will get an idea of what needs to be done. As we havepointed out, we would now like the reader to think of each of the ninecategories as associated with both knowledge and ignorance. Thesecategories each correspond to problems and needs at Scania that we willtry to find solutions to. The problems and needs are all related to some

68 Porter, 1990, p. 73-75


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kind of ignorance, and the solutions are all related to some kind ofknowledge. Furthermore, since all three models we have put together inour knowledge identification model have the dimensions tacit and explicit,the nine categories will overlap to some extent.


knowledge What you do not know

Knowing

Planned Ignorance

State ofknowing

“Notknowing”

Innocent Ignorance

Figure 5.1: The knowledge identification model

5.2.2 APPLYING THE MODEL ON SCANIA

With our theoretical framework in mind, and remembering our empiricalstudy, we will now try to apply this model on Scania to first map theirproblems and needs and then explain how these problems can be solvedand how the needs can be met. It is rather high-and-mighty to say that wehave a solution for all the problems, but we have humble suggestions thatcan help solve the problems. Naturally, all or at least a vast majority of ourfindings are not news to Scania. At least some persons in scattered groupsdiscuss these issues, but we have tried to get an overview of the wholesituation since it is easy for people to focus too much on their owndepartment, not taking the whole picture into account. Moreover, we havenot verified all our suggested solutions, if they are planned or already existat Scania.

Explicit

Tacit


8. Equivocality

6. Complexity5. Uncertainty

7. Ambiguity

4. Complexknowledge

2. Broad-basedknowledge

1.Quickaccessknowledge

3. One-offknowledge

Explicit knowledge

Tacit knowledge

GlobalLocal


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State ofknowledge

State ofknowing

State ofknowledge

State ofknowing

Explicit

Tacit

State ofknowledge

State ofknowing

The knowledge identification model might seem quite complicated tounderstand at first. The basic structure of it is taken from Earl and Scott’smodel (figure 3.6), and then we have combined it with two more modelspresented in chapter 3 (figures 3.7 and 3.8). This means that the two fieldsin the left column now contain 2 categories each, while theupper field in the right column contains 4 categories and thelower only one. We will present our analysisfollowing the structure of Earl and Scott’s model,describing one of the four fields at a time. Witheach field we also present the respective categoriesthat come from applying the other models. Above you can see a smallmodel, a simplified version of the knowledge identification model, whichwill follow us through this chapter with the field in question highlighted.Our model Five P will not follow us through in visible form, but theproblems and solutions are all connected to it.Whenever the sharing of tacit knowledge or theelimination of tacit ignorance takes place we aremoving upward in the model, enlarging the desiredstates and limiting the undesired states. Accordingly,whenever that is done with explicit knowledge orignorance, we are moving to the right, also enlarging thedesired states and limiting the undesired states.

THE LEFT COLUMNWe start by describing the left column of the model. There we have theterms global and local. Applying the model on Scania wedefine local as one workshop and most of the timeglobal as the “workshop organization” includingall workshops, dealers and distributors either inone country or in all countries. However,sometimes it is also meaningful to define global as Scania’s entireorganization and local as the Factory itself. For example when we considerknowledge that is needed only at a specific department at the Factory,then that knowledge is not broadly applicable. When one of the latterdefinitions is used it will be specified in each case.The upper-left field of the model contains two categories of explicitknowledge, Quick Access knowledge (local) and BroadBased knowledge (global). For each of the twocategories of knowledge we first explain thecategory briefly, then we mention the actionssuggested by our theoretical framework. Afterthat we describe one or more problem situations that we have observed inour 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 onlybe mentioned when it is meaningful to do so. Furthermore, the problemsituations 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 adatabase.

WHO KNOWS WHAT IN A WORKSHOP

Problem situation: Since the employees in a workshop cannot knoweverything, they need to know who knows what in the workshop. Also thevast amount of information to consider is grasped more by some and lessby others. This concerns both technical knowledge and knowledge aboutcustomers.Need: Efficient distribution of information and knowledge within aworkshop.Solution: What is needed here is explicit knowledge that should be easilyaccessed by a group of local users, which is the definition of Quick accessknowledge. As suggested by the theoretical framework, the informationabout customers can very well be stored in a database, perhaps a localextension of the dealer system. However, in the case of technicalknowledge, it does not seem efficient to put this information in a databasesince it concerns only one workshop. Meetings, and an overall enhancedcommunication in the workshops, encouraged by the workshopmanagement and enterprising mechanics, are good ways to spread thiskind of knowledge.

FAILURE REPORTS

Problem situation: (defining the Factory as local) When there is something wrongwith a component there are a thousand potential workshops to experienceproblems with this component. But this is not reported, for a number ofreasons. 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 itafter the problem has occurred a few times. Before that they donotperceive the problem as worth reporting. Also, after sending in a report,they think the problem is known by the Factory since they have reportedit and do not send in a report the next time it occurs. Another reason isthe lack of feedback. The workshops do not feel there are any incentivesto 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 sentin 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 whosends the report into Scanias system for failure reports (FRAS).Need: The Factory needs to get statistics and information about failuresthrough failure reports.Solution: The knowledge needed in this situation is needed only by theFactory, which is therefore defined as local. This knowledge is verysuitable for being stored in quick access databases containing not onlytext, but also images and video sequences. The workshops and thedistributors are the providers of this knowledge. Almost all theinformation needed for a failure report is already in the computer in theworkshop and all that is needed really is the functionality which enablesthe possibility to simply push a button, create failure report, and the necessarydata is gathered. That would save a lot of time, and the only thing thatremains is a comment and then the failure report can be sent to thedistributor where the standardization of terms enables automatictranslation of most of the report which saves them time as well. Tomotivate people to use the system, the purpose of the failure reportsneeds to be communicated much more clearly than what is done today. Ifthe people at the workshops do not know why they should send in onereport for each vehicle and do not know the consequences for not doingit, they will probably still not use the system. Along with this the Factorytogether with the distributors should look at how they can enhance thefeedback. 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 technicalinformation do not know exactly the structure, the contents and theamount of information that the workshops need. Some mechanics arevery interested in their work and want to read all the information they canfind and more, while others do not want to read anything more than whatis strictly necessary. A lot is differing depending on the skill. Skilledmechanics can assimilate more advanced information than others, lessskilled mechanics. Some like pictures, and some like text, and some evenprefer video while others find that childish. Another thing that theproducer of technical information does not know is if the informationreaches the recipient intended or if the people needing the information areintended recipients. For example, the people in the spare parts warehouseare 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 partswarehouse do not receive information on product news and other changesto the necessary extent.Need: Continuous communication between the users and the producers oftechnical information to ensure that the right information is produced.Solution: Just like in the previous problem knowledge is needed by theFactory and provided by the workshops and the distributors. The peopleat the Factory who produce information for the workshops need a quickaccess database where they can gather and find information about “theircustomers”, their opinions of the produced information. One way to solvethis could be by using routine feedback from the workshops to theFactory through the portal via the distributors who filter and synthesizethe information into a manageable amount. When the information isdistributed on the Internet it is easy to provide a possibility to givefeedback on it directly when you read it. A hyperlink should be available ateach document to enable the person reading the information to givecomments on it directly to the author of the information. Then thetechnical information can be adapted to the readers’ wishes. IT makes iteasy to provide many different kinds of information, and it also makes iteasy for the reader to choose what he wants to see since related issues canbe linked together. There can be different levels of the same informationfor 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 theylack some of the knowledge about how the vehicle behaves after a certaintime on the road and how the mechanics do when they repair the vehicleetc.Need: Feedback from the mechanics to, among other departments, theconstruction department.Solution: Just as in the case of the producers of information, theconstructors should be interested in the mechanics’ opinions on theirproducts, the trucks. People at the Factory should create a structure forroutine feedback where all the workshops can come with ideas onproposed production and design changes on the vehicles etc. Theconstruction department should encourage suggestions and creativethinking from the mechanics to be able to make use of the suggestions.The suggestions could be stored in a quick access database available forthe constructors via the portal.


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A VAST ORGANIZATION

Problem situation: (defining each department in the Factory as local) Theorganization of Scania is vast and the 6.000 people at the Factory have ahard time keeping track of what other people are doing that affects theirown work. Today there is no good organizational overview to who doeswhat. This leads to duplication of work, but also a lower quality of worksince the parts affecting eachother are not co-ordinated to a desiredextent. The department responsible for educating sales people forexample (Y) has its own register for this purpose, which is of the samesort 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 moreor less separated departments.Solution: A better, easier use of the part of the portal only aimed at theFactory. Information about ongoing and planned projects and activitiesshould be easily accessed by everybody who are concerned by it. It is notpossible to keep track of what 6.000 people are doing, but this knowledgemust at least be easy to find when you need it. Therefore it needs to beinventorised and presented, for example in the portal.

2- BROAD BASED KNOWLEDGE

EXPLANATION: This is explicit knowledge that is broadly applicableSUGGESTED ACTIONS: Inventorising and proactive distribution.

FASTER DISTRIBUTION OF INFORMATION

Problem situation: Technical information and software normally arrives atthe workshops some time after it is first needed. This includesinformation about new products.Need: Workshop manuals, TIs, product news, software and othernecessary information need to be distributed throughout the entireorganization quickly, faster than today.Solution: The information needed in this case is broadly applicablethroughout the workshop organization. The Factory could make all thisinformation available in the dealer portal, which enables a much fasterdistribution than information printed on paper. For this solution to workall workshops, and preferably all mechanics, must have access tocomputers and the Internet and the employees must be educated on howto use the computers.


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Value: Reduced costs for distributing paper and from reduced timesearching for unknown problems and waiting for new software, seeappendix 1.

OTHER SOURCES OF INFORMATION

Problem situation: The Factory cannot foresee all possible problems, andthey have a hard time keeping up with distributing information in thesame pace as new products are entering the market and in the same paceas new problems appear.Need: The workshops need more, or different, information than theFactory can supply. They therefore need information from anothersource.Solutions: Solutions to new problems are found continuously in theworkshops. The knowledge about these new solutions is certainlyapplicable globally, and as long as it is also explicit it is broad based. Thedealer portal can be an excellent channel for distributing this kind ofinformation. It could include a country-specific part with technicalinformation, FAQs, a discussion forum and similar where the employeescould write questions, solutions or technical tips that they want to share,similar to the two projects under way in Norway and Holland weaccounted for in the empirical study. The portal could also include aglobal part in english where these sources of information from all thecountry-specific counterparts are gathered and structured. The country-specific parts should be maintained by the workshops and distributorsthemselves and the global part could be maintained by the Factory, withhelp from the distributors. By keeping an eye on the discussions and tipson these websites the people at the Factory have a chance to inventorisethe knowledge available in the organization. One thing about this solutionis that it requires a culture that encourages knowledge sharing to motivatepeople 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 toencourage changes. It is up to each particular workplace to decide how touse a solution like this one, but one idea for the workshops could be tohave one or some persons in each workshop responsible for writing thecontributions to the portal. An absolute prerequisite for this to work isalso maintenance. If not kept alive and up to date, it looses in trust andwill not be used. Today on Scanias intranet (Inline), there are 11 FAQsconcerning technical problems and 14 that concern parts. We do notbelieve that Scanias global organization, selling up to 50.000 trucks a yearand 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 throughoutScania’s organization. For example if there is a problem with the gearboxon a number of chassis, the problem will be solved differently at a numberof workshops, leading to no single best practice.Need: Better communication and a well-defined structure to spreadsolutions to problems in the organization.Solution: This problem is closely connected to the previous problem. Ifthere are many solutions to the same problem, and they are all presentedin the portal, it will be very difficult for a mechanic who reads it to knowwhich solution to trust. Managing this knowledge requires a lot from theculture of the organization. There must be clearly identified roles andresponsibilities, to enable co-ordination between units to articulate andshare knowledge and co-ordinate meaning. For example, there must besomeone responsible for checking and securing the quality of the tips inthe portal. Preferably there should only be one solution to each problemto avoid problems of uncertainty, so if there are more than one they mustbe compared and evaluated to see which one is the most appropriate.Inventorising and proactive distribution, the solutions suggested by thetheoretical framework, are important but as we can see very dependent onorganizational and cultural issues as well. On their own, inventorising andproactive distribution could create more problems than they solve in thiscase.

INFORMATION ABOUT CUSTOMERS AND THEIR TRUCKS

Problem situation: Scania has a large number of customers who all wantgood and fast service, and there is a lot of information about thesecustomers and their vehicles to keep track of. Today a lot of time iswasted while waiting for information about Guarantee of Payment forexample.Need: Something to support the workshops to structure the vast amountof information about all the customers it sums up to considering thewhole organization.Solution: A well thought through dealer system that is integrated with otheruseful systems and software. This dealer system should make it possible tofind all the necessary information in the same interface, and not onlyinformation about the particular dealer’s own customers. Since manytrucks are driven across many countries the information about thesetrucks and their owners needs to be accessible from all countries, so it isdefinitely broad based.


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VEHICLE-SPECIFIC INFORMATION

Problem situation: Up to 50.000 trucks a year are sold worldwide and, as wehave already mentioned, the trucks are driven across nations as well ascontinents. They can receive both repair and maintenance in manydifferent workshops, in many different countries, and sometimes theoriginal configuration of the chassis is changed. The driver does notnecessarily keep track of what has been done to his truck, so why a certainvehicle behaves in a certain way or how it is configured etc is not easilyfound out for the workshops. This information is often needed to knowwhat is wrong with a truck and to avoid doing redundant maintenance.Sometimes when a truck is in a workshop for a repair some maintenanceis done to it even if it is not necessary. Maybe the truck had the very samemaintenance done only a week ago, but the driver does not know. Heprobably thinks that it is better to get as much done as possible while he isat a workshop anyway, instead of having to stop later, and if he has amaintenance contract he does not even pay for it.Need: An easy way to store and access information about each of thesevehicles, even after it is sold and re-built with a new configuration.Solution: Vehicle specific information could be kept in a database at theFactory, so that it can be accessed from all countries in the dealer systems,just like the information in the previous problem. Another alternative isthat this kind of information could be kept in the vehicle, like a digital log-book, which could be connected to the owner or home dealer for backupregularly in case of disc failure.Value: Heavily reduced costs for repair and maintenance contracts, seeappendix 1.

Now we have described the problem situations in the upper-left field ofthe knowledge identification model, and it is time to describe the lower-left field. Here we find the two categories of tacitknowledge: One-off knowledge (local) and Complexknowledge (global). They will be described inthe same way as the earlier categories,beginning with a reminder of what we learnedabout 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 theyappear, and it is impossible for one workshop to possess knowledge aboutall failures. With the increasing amount of electronic parts in the trucksthe 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 variousworkshops and the technical helpdesk at the distributors’ and at theFactory can spread this kind of knowledge. The job they are doing is veryimportant, especially in sparsely-populated areas. It is common that newproblems appear first in workshops near important roads at large cities.Then the technical experts can learn about the problem in one of thoseworkshops and then spread his knowledge to smaller workshops. If welook at Norway for example, a large workshop in Oslo repairs to 97percent Scania trucks. In a smaller workshop in the northern part of thecountry the amount can be less than 10 percent. The rest is other brands,snowmobiles etc. The differences in enterprises leads to that theexperience and knowledge of the mechanics differ and the presence of thetechnical experts becomes important. In one of the problem situations ofbroad based knowledge we described how solutions to new problemscould be presented in the dealer portal by the workshop that found it. Tobe able to present knowledge this way it needs to be explicit. In thesituation 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 lessuseful but which from time to time is needed. For example, theknowledge about the three-series trucks will “die out” as the need for theknowledge vanishes.Need: A way for the organization to allow the knowledge to decay but alsoenable the less knowledgeable on the subject to come in contact with thefew who have the wanted knowledge.Solution: Special-interest networks of people. To inform the rest of theorganization about the people and the tacit knowledge available in thesenetworks there could be “Yellow pages” in the portal, since that is broadbased 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 informationon certain issues.

REFERENCE GROUPS

Problem situation: (defining local as the Factory itself) There are a million thingsthat the Factory needs to know about just about everything, for exampletechnical problems. The answer is out there in the organization, but asking25.000 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 ofquick access knowledge, that can be solved gathering information indatabases. However, here the problems concern tacit knowledge, thatneeds socialization to be shared. One way to do this is by increasing theuse of reference groups with people from different countries and differentpositions in the organization, or even just different positions at theFactory, in matters that concern these employees. Today reference groupsare used in for example the development of technical training. Thetechnical instructors at the Factory meet with a reference group consistingof instructors from five countries twice a year to discuss the developmentof the Master Technician program. One manager at the Factory suggesteda “Golden Club”, a network for a few chosen members from all overEurope, not only technical experts from the distributors’, but alsoenterprising mechanics. This group would discuss issues that concern theactivities in the workshop, and share and activate knowledge andexperiences, and also bring important issues from the workshops to a highlevel in the organization quickly. Making use of the employees’ creativityand knowledge this way enables both socialization and the conversion oftacit knowledge to explicit, and turning more of individual knowledge intoorganizational or at least individual for more people.

4- COMPLEX KNOWLEDGE

EXPLANATION: This is tacit knowledge that is broadly applicableSUGGESTED ACTIONS: Socializing, training and apprenticeship

TRAINING THE MECHANICS

Problem situation: Trucks are not easily repaired. Being a mechanic todayrequires a lot of technical knowledge.Need: People need to learn.Solutions: Formal training with practical exercises. Working in groups at theworkshop, learning from eachother. Apprenticeships. These are, as we


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State ofknowledge

State ofknowing

have seen in the theoretical framework, the best ways to gain knowledge.Naturally, a mechanic does not only need tacit knowledge, he also needs agreat deal of explicit knowledge, which he will probably also gain with thesolutions mentioned above. However, the explicit knowledge can also beacquired without socializing and training, perhaps just by looking in abinder. This is not the case with tacit knowledge. This same reasoninggoes 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 andprerequisites change all the time with a globalizing economy, increasingcompetition and demands of efficiency.Need: The workshop and dealer managements need to learn how to runthe business and get continuous support.Solution: Dealer development training for dealers at the distributors’. AreaTechnical Managers that follow up the training. Networking betweendistributors and dealers for socialization, learning from eachother.

TRAINING THE INSTRUCTORS

Problem: There are about 10.000 workshop employees in Europe who needtraining.Need: To be able to train the workshop employees in all countries nationalinstructors are needed and they must get trained themselves first, beforethey can start training others.Solution: The Train The Trainer system described in chapter 4 does exactlythis; it makes it possible for the distributors’ technical instructors toacquire tacit knowledge first, so that they can go home and train theirmechanics.

THE RIGHT COLUMNNow that all the categories in the left column have beendescribed we have come to the right column. Itincludes two fields with different kinds ofignorance, knowledge you lack, or “what you donot know”.


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State ofknowledge

State ofknowing

We start by describing the categories in the upper-right field of themodel. Here we combine Earl and Scott’s planned ignorance, that isignorance that you are aware of, with Zack’s four situationsof ignorance; uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity andequivocality. Here we will describe situations in aworkshop when there is a lack of knowledge,often referring to the four categories ofknowledge in the left column.

5- UNCERTAINTY - PLANNED IGNORANCE

EXPLANATION: This is explicit knowledge that you know that you are lacking. Theproblem is that you do not have enough information.SUGGESTED ACTIONS: Auditing and reducing uncertainty or increasing theorganization’s ability to tolerate it.

NOT HAVING ENOUGH INFORMATION

Problem situation: There is no or not enough information about a specificpart or a specific matter in the workshop, or for example SD/SP (thesoftware for the truck’s electrical system) does not work for some reason.Need: Acquire, develop or improve the knowledge and ability to predict orestimate sufficiently well using incomplete information.Solution: This situation calls for well developed conceptual frameworks tobe able to estimate a new solution based on an old one, or the possibilityto get in touch with someone who knows more. Increased complexknowledge, acquired through formal training or on-the-job-training byworking in groups at the workshop and learning from colleagues andapprenticeships can help develop the conceptual framework. Informationabout where to find a person with knowledge about a certain issue can beavailable in “yellow pages” in the broad based knowledge provided by theportal. The technical experts at the distributors’ can also provideadditional information. As we can see here, more than one category ofknowledge 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. Theproblem is that you have more information than you can manage or understand.SUGGESTED ACTIONS: Auditing and bringing the appropriate level of knowledgeand expertise to bear on the situation.

TOO MANY FACTORS TO CONSIDER

Problem situation: For example, a mechanic is confronted with somethingthat he recognizes as an electrical problem, but there are too many factorsinvolved for him to be able to find a solution.Need: Something to help the mechanic sort out the importance andmeaning 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, eachalternative leading to a new question and so forth, until a possible reasonto the problem is found, or at least some reasons are eliminated. Thesequestions could very well be a part of the Workshop Manual, broad basedknowledge. However, this is only one solution. Another solution that alsoagrees with the actions suggested by the theoretical framework is tocontact a technical expert, either at the distributors’ or a moreknowledgeable colleague. So, just as in the previous problem there is morethan one way to acquire the appropriate knowledge to solve the problem.

TOO MUCH INFORMATION

Problem situation: The truck grows more and more complex and theinformation about it likewise. One example is the growing amount of TIs.Need: Something to support the workshops to structure the vast amountof information about all the components of the truck it sums up toconsidering it all.Solution: Here the knowledge needed is broad based, and the way ofpresenting it is crucial for it to be useful. One way to do this is to continuedeveloping Multi. A good IT structure with the different informationsources linked to eachother in a useful way to enable the mechanics tobrowse through one part and then find links to all interrelated pieces ofinformation on the issue would make it easier to find the rightinformation. Education on the mentioned solutions will be needed to beable to deal with the vast amount of information it still is.Value: The frequency is rather high and hence so is the value. 10.000mechanics spending valuable time searching more than what should benecessary cost. See appendix 1.


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7- AMBIGUITY - PLANNED IGNORANCE

EXPLANATION: This is tacit knowledge that you know that you are lacking. Theproblem 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 problemthat he does not know the solution to, but he knows that someone in theworkshop must know it.Need: The employees need to know who knows what in the workshop tobe able to locate necessary knowledge.Solution: This situation is quite similar to the problem in category 1, “Whoknows what in a workshop”. It is also similar to category 5, “Not havingenough information”, except that in this case tacit knowledge is neededinstead of explicit. If this knowledge exists in the workshop it can be usedto solve the problem. In a small workshop it should not be a problem toknow what all the mechanics are good at, but in a bigger workshop it canbe difficult. Some ways to make the mechanics aware of the skills of theircolleagues are by working in teams like in Norway, work rotation,meetings and communication in general. It is a kind of quick accessknowledge, except that a database is not needed, as we suggested in thefirst problem situation in category 1.

WHO KNOWS WHAT IN THE ORGANIZATION

Problem situation: Similar to the above problem, but in a larger context thanonly one workshop: An employee in a workshop is confronted with aproblem that he does not know the solution to, but he knows thatsomeone in the national organization must know it. Or, a technical expertat a distributor is confronted with a problem that he does not know thesolution to, but he knows that someone in the global organization has thesolution.Need: The employees at all levels need to know where to find theappropriate knowledge in the organization.Solution: In this case broad based knowledge is more suitable than quickaccess knowledge since it is no longer local. Therefore a database,organizational “yellow pages” with information about special-interestnetworks in the portal, would be a good solution. The knowledge neededto solve the problem may be tacit, but the knowledge about how to find aperson 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 arecontinuously on the market. It happens rather often that a mechanic looksunder 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 sothat they do not need to wonder what they are.

REQUIRING NEW KNOWLEDGE

Problem situation: The product develops and people lack the new knowledgeabout for example some electrical part of the vehicle.Need: People need to learn, the information does not suffice, they needtacit knowledge.Solution: The solution to this problem is complex knowledge acquiredthrough formal training or working side by side with someone moreknowledgeable. One possibility to spread this tacit knowledge about newthings is to make sure that the Master Technicians are always the oneswho receive training about new things first, and then they can teach theircolleagues.

8- EQUIVOCALITY - PLANNED IGNORANCE

EXPLANATION: This is tacit knowledge that you know that you are lacking. Theproblem is that you have several competing or contradictionary conceptualframeworks.SUGGESTED ACTIONS: Auditing and co-ordinating meaning among members of anorganization.

LACK OF STRUCTURE

Problem situation: Scania has a large, complex organization and todaydepartments are not as co-ordinated as needed. In addition, the sameinformation is stored in many different databases that do not get updatedsimultaneously.Need: The organization needs a better structure since the lack of it causesequivocality and the organization need to deal with, or rather eliminate,conflicting information sources.Solution: Organizationally there needs to be clearly identified roles andresponsibilities, co-ordination between departments to articulate and shareknowledge and co-ordinate meaning. Technically there needs to be a


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State ofknowing

better information management, single point of access for the informationas well as single point of storage. This is a rather generally needed solutionwhich affects many of the other problems we have identified as well.

Now we have described the problem situations in the upper-right field ofthe knowledge identification model, and it is time todescribe the lower-right field which is perhaps the onethat is the most difficult to understand since itcontains ignorance that you are not aware of. Wedid not find it meaningful to categorize somethingthat you are not aware of, so we did not apply Zack’s four ignoranceshere. However, we have been able to distinguish some problems ofinnocent 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 inuncertainty. For example the Norwegian system we have talked about thatwill allow the workshops to send in solutions which are presented on anintranet, the Dutch distributor is also working on a similar system but thetwo 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 theportal, where they can see what is going on and also a structure fornetworking between distributors. By using the site or the network,distributors can learn how other distributors have gone through withprojects and hence they will not have to invent the wheel once again!Solution for workshops: A workshops-helping-workshops part of the portalwith FAQs and discussion forums etc. Networking between workshops.Solution for departments at the Factory: Cross-unit interaction with referencegroups, coordination between departments etc.

INFORMATION ABOUT THE TRUCKS ON THE MARKET

Problem situation: Due to a poorly designed process, with lack of suitableIT-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. Thisproblem is related to the issue “Failure Reports” in category 1.Need: A better process that makes the administration easier and that givesthe workshops incentives to make failure reports.Solution: Integrate the failure reports with the dealer systems to enable theuser to just click to generate a failure report from the work order.Communicate to the people in the workshops why the failure reports areneeded and how they are used at the Factory so that they realize the needfor themselves. Also, create a manageable feedback system on the reportsso 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 whatis going on at workshops, dealers and distributors to the extent they need.Also, the amount of information that the people at the Factory try toconsider is large but they lack the time to sort out what is the truth orrather what is important in a specific issue.Need: Ways to create the conceptual framework for interpretinginformation and the ability to know what clarifying questions to ask andways to sort this out and get knowledge about the actual situation.Solution: More first-hand information by travelling more, by co-ordinatingdifferent departments more, by enhanced use of reference groups and aclearer structure on who does what and why. The people at the Factory donot only need to be given the time to travel, but also the importance needsto be communicated clearer. In that way more people will prioritizevisiting workshops, dealers and distributors.

5.3 SUMMING-UP KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

Using the knowledge identification model we have now shed some lighton the different kinds of knowledge that are needed in Scania’s globalorganization and how these different kinds should be managed. Also, ourenablers followed along with the discussion, explaining how can they helpput 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 whichrearrange and reconstruct in some way, be it in little or large, the world inwhich we live.” We have now done an attempt to show how theenormous resource that all the minds in the Scania organizationconstitute, can be passed into actions, to influence and improve, both inlittle and in large, the situation for the workshop employees in particularand 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 & RECOMMENDATIONSAfter the analysis it is now time to present the conclusions of our study. First wediscuss how we have used the knowledge identification model and the rest of ourtheoretical framework in the analysis, and then we present our recommendations toScania. Following this we discuss whether our conclusions are valid in a generalperspective and if the knowledge identification model can be used in otherorganizations. We will also discuss the quality of our study at this stage, and suggestsome issues that would be suitable for further research. To finish the report wepresent a list of references following this chapter.

6.1 THE KNOWLEDGE IDENTIFICATION MODEL

During this study we have come across many theories and writingsregarding knowledge management, whereof some are presented in ourtheoretical framework. We think that we could gather the essence of thesetheories in our knowledge identification model, which is made up by threeother models, three different ways of categorizing and managingknowledge and ignorance. This model has had great influence on the waywe conducted the analysis of the observations in our empirical study.Therefore it is important to consider whether this model has been usefulor not.By combining the three models we get more detailed categories, and morespecific ways of managing them. Our model consists of nine categories ofknowledge and ignorance. For each category the theoretical frameworksuggests actions for managing the particular kind of knowledge. However,combining different models also leads to that some categories overlap to acertain extent.Apart from the theories that build up the knowledge identification modelwe presented four enablers for knowledge management in the TheoreticalFramework and also some theories about learning, feedback and thecreation of knowledge.In the analysis chapter we used the knowledge identification model tomap the problem situations that we observed at Scania, to see if reality canbe fit into the model. Nine categories turned out to be enough to map allthe problems that we had found, problems of existing knowledge as wellas problems of missing knowledge, ignorance. The managerial actionssuggested for each category by the theoretical framework also turned outto be relevant. In addition, we found these actions strongly influenced bythe enablers.When we look at the suggested managerial actions, the theoretical onesand ours, for each category of knowledge, we can see that the samesolutions appear several times, such as the dealer portal, integratedinformation 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 numberof managerial actions can influence all kinds of knowledge. Hence, eachcategory of knowledge does not require a specific way of management.Moreover, all of these actions are supported by our four enablers and byour theories in learning. Thus, not only the three models we combined,but also the other parts of the theoretical framework proved to beprerequisites for successful knowledge management. We can therebyconclude that the theories that we presented in the theoretical frameworkwere useful and important in the analysis and by applying them on realsituations we found that it is actually easier to describe the management ofreality than the management of theory, that is the model and the theorieslook complex, but once applying them on reality, it turned out lesscomplex.We will now present our conclusions from the analysis asrecommendations to Scania on the needs for information and knowledgein the workshops in order to increase their efficiency. Together with thesewe describe what the organization can do to meet these needs and manageinformation and knowledge. These conclusions come from regarding allthe problem situations in the nine categories of knowledge described inthe analysis. As we concluded, there is a small number of managerialactions that can be used to manage all kinds of knowledge, and they are allfitted 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 inits field and all the minds in the Scania organization constitute anenormous resource. What we think is lacking to some extent is themanagement of this resource. We have mapped different kinds ofknowledge that need to be managed differently and we now sum-up ouranalysis and present our recommendations to Scania.

6.2.1 EDUCATION

Learning more about the trucks and how to repair them must be a naturalpart of work. Otherwise it will be impossible to provide good service forthe customers, considering the rapid changes in the product. However,the mechanics are not the only ones who need training. Workshopmanagers for example must be educated to be able to run the workshopsefficiently and among other things understand the importance of trainingtheir employees. All employees at all workshops must have access totraining, different duties at work call for different needs for education, butthey all need education.


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As we could see in the theoretical framework there are two ways for anindividual to learn, through formal education and in everyday work. Whenit comes to explicit knowledge, much can be learned in formal training.However, it is also important to learn where to find the explicit knowledgein case it is needed. Tacit knowledge can very well be spread throughpractical exercises in formal training. But in this case on-the-job training iseven more important, working with more experienced colleagues or usingapprenticeships. It is important in this case too, to learn where to find thetacit 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, withinthe distributors through networks and interest groups and within theworkshops through more meetings and work groups. But also betweenthem all, through the portal and through networks. These networks canenhance the spreading of both tacit and explicit knowledge, and they canserve as a source of information to contact when there is a problem. Tacitknowledge requires socialization to be spread, and this knowledge isextremely important for the workshop employees. Hence all kinds ofinteraction between employees should be encouraged. But interactiontakes time and the reason some workshops do not have any meetings at allis the cost. There is no general answer on how to prioritize the resources,how often a workshop should have meetings or when the Factory shouldinclude representatives from the workshops and distributors in referencegroups. The only sound recommendation is to make people aware of theimportance 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 wiseto include people from other departments in the Factory orrepresentatives from the distributors and workshops. Making an effort tospread 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 havecome back, we have received many questions about our observations andexperiences. There is a lot of interest among the people at the Factory tolearn more about the situation in the workshops, but not so manypossibilities to do this. They do receive information through contacts withpeople who travel a lot, like the area technical managers, and throughmore or less regular contacts with people at the different distributors’, butthere is no established infrastructure for feedback.


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As we have seen in the theoretical framework and in the analysis, it is veryimportant to have the possibility to change and improve the output of aprocess by changing the input. For the Factory to be able to support theworkshops in the best possible way they need to do three things. Firstly,they need to let the employees of the workshops and the distributors givefeedback on the Factory’s processes on their terms, when they want to.The infrastructure for feedback must handle information from the marketto the Factory even in moments when people at the Factory are not askingfor it. Secondly, this could amount to more information than the Factorycan handle, but then again maybe not. The different scenarios must betaken into account whilst developing the technical and organizationalstructure for feedback. Thirdly, people at the Factory need a structure fora continuous flow of information from the market so that when they needinformation, it can be easily found. Without that, the people at the Factoryhave no reasonable possibility to be as close to the market as they need tobe. Today a more static approach is used, finding a solution or an answerand applying it. But there is not one perfect solution that can be appliedand that will last. What is needed is instead to find an infrastructure thatallows a continuously changing solution, and that secures continuouslearning and unlearning about the market needs.By an appropriate use of feedback both individuals and the wholeorganization can learn and improve their actions continuously. The goalwith feedback should be to achieve not only a short-term correctivemechanism, single-loop learning, but also fundamental, long-term change,double-loop learning. The organization should to a greater extent shareboth tacit and explicit knowledge. The tacit via feedback in networks andthe explicit via a better managed web site within the portal with FAQ, tips,discussion forums and more. Different countries’ creativity should betaken better care and advantage of to avoid inventing solutions to thesame problems over and over again.To give an example, technical information is important and necessary forthe work in the workshops. However, to be useful the availableinformation must correspond to the users’ needs. As we stated in theanalysis, there should be ways for the users to express their opinions onthe information, and a structure that enables the producers of informationto consider these opinions when they work. The Factory should seize theopportunity to receive as much feedback from the users as possible! Manymechanics are very interested in their work and would gladly give moreopinions and suggestions to the people at the Factory if they had thechance.


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“Computers are incredibly fast, accurate and stupid; humans are incredibly slow,inaccurate and brilliant; together they are powerful beyond imagination.” - AlbertEinstein –

Scania should increase the use of information technology for manyreasons. One serious problem in the workshops today is that theinformation and the software needed is not available on time due tomultiple delays and the people the information is intended for do notalways receive it. As we showed in the analysis, these problems can bereduced to a very great extent by distributing information and softwareonline. Clearly, all workshops would have to invest in computers andprinters to be able to use this, but from what we have heard, mostworkshop managers are positive and think that this is the future, and themechanics are even more optimistic. They are only waiting for the Factoryto clearly communicate what they will start doing on the issue and whatwork they have already initiated.Information technology provides a lot of opportunities to improve thedistribution of information between the Factory and the workshops. Theplanned dealer portal seems to be a very good idea. Also, it is veryimportant not to focus too much on the technology itself, but also on theintended users and their needs. This was the most stressed message fromthe theories on this subject that we presented in the theoreticalframework. There is a need for involvement of end users in projects, orthere is a great risk that the investment is done in vain. While finishingthis report we received the information that reference groups of bothmechanics and salespeople are being used to develop the interface of theportal to make it easy to use and understand. We do not know to whichextent, but the effort is very good and the project seems to be on the righttrack! During this study we have seen that most workshop employees arepositive to the idea of searching for information in a computer instead ofin binders. However, the people at the Factory have to be careful not totake the efforts in IT too far, and always remember that it is only a tool. Itmay not be good use of skilled mechanics to have them sitting bycomputers, so they should not be forced to use a computer more thannecessary and certainly not without the appropriate training.It is also important to keep in mind that not all information is suitable fora computerized format. One example is the small service data bookletsthat the mechanics can keep in their pockets. They provide quick access,explicit knowledge, such as numbers of pressure, moments etc, that isneeded frequently, and it is a lot more useful to have printed bookletsthan to look for this information in a computer. Furthermore, it is notefficient to write down everything as we stated in the theoreticalframework and showed in the analysis. Some information, for example


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information that is rarely needed, can very well be distributed from atechnical helpdesk. The important thing is that people are provided witheither the knowledge itself or the information about where to find theknowledge needed.Another possibility with IT that Scania does not use very much today isthe technique of linking related issues to each other. Today the workshopmanual is available in PDF-format in Multi and on the Internet. Thisformat does not make use of the possibilities with IT since it presentscomputerized copies of the paper version of the workshop manual. Itwould be better to adapt the workshop manual, and other information aswell, to the new medium. A suitable format to use would be XML, a metalanguage that has the at Scania otherwise appreciated modular structurewhich among other things enables the TIs to be linked to the workshopmanual and different sections of the workshop manual to be linkedtogether.When it comes to the actual supply and distribution of information,Scania needs to minimize the risk for information overflow. Instead ofsending the information to everyone or letting everyone search forthemselves in the vast amount of information, the end users should onlysubscribe to the information that the parts they are interested in havebeen updated. Another way to reduce the risk of information overflowand help in finding just the right information is to link more differenttypes of information together and make relevant information accessiblethrough the same website. For example, Multi could be online, connectedto the dealer system, a chassis database and warranty information. Then itwould be possible to type a chassis number and find all the relevanttechnical information, TIs, campaigns and customer information via thesame interface, and spend less time searching for information.


CULTURAL ISSUES IN THE ORGANIZATION

All the things we have mentioned earlier, education, networking, feedbackand information technology need a supporting culture to be successful. Itdoes not matter how good the information or the dealer portal is if forexample the attitude towards using it is bad. The workshop managementplays an important role for keeping a good attitude among the employees,and the workshop management can get motivated by the distributor whoin turn gets motivated by the Factory. So the good attitude andorganizational culture must start at the top and encourage continuousdevelopment, not only of products but also of people, communicationand working towards a common goal. Being at the Factory and doing ourfield studies since early October last year we would like to stress that thereis 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 toenhance the feeling of unity throughout the whole organization. As wetold in the empirical study and stated in the frames of reference, feedbackworks as a motivating factor and to promote the sharing of solutions theemployees must be motivated in some way, not necessarily with monetaryrecompense. Many times it is more rewarding to see that someone listensand makes use of one’s own solution. It improves the positive attitudetowards sharing. Within workplaces people get feedback instantly, butwith the distance comes the lack of feedback that should not be the case.The failure reports are examples of lack of feedback. Many workshopmanagers do not feel that anyone cares about their failure reports, andthey do not see any meaning in making them since they do not receive anyfeedback. There is simply no incentive. Giving feedback on reportedmatters ought to be a natural part of a reporting system such as the failurereport system. Furthermore, the culture is just as important when it comesto receiving the information and actually making use of it. There cannotbe a “not invented here”-mentality, that some people believe there is atthe Factory.Another example where the culture is crucial is the attitude to learning. Ifwe look at dealer development for example, the course has been a cost ifthey do not implement what they have learned during the course. But ifthey change the way they do things, improving the workshop, the coursehas been an investment. The course is just like any other product. If itdoes not bring value after purchase you should not buy it. People arguethat 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 connectsyou with the right people. The Factory needs a clearer organization forthis. One important problem with the organization at the Factory is that itseems to lack problem owners, or at least the problem owners areunknown to people outside the Factory. The consequence of this is that itis hard to know whom to contact. And when problem owners are notclearly defined it leads among other things to projects starting up but notbeing continuously worked with, and it makes it difficult to find or shareinformation with the right people. The organization at the Factory mustlook into this and clearly define roles and responsibilities. If the structureis clear, it should be clearly communicated through yellow pages on theintranet for example, which should contain information about who tocontact on certain issues in the whole organization, as suggested by thetheoretical framework. It must be easy to find the right information orknowledge quickly and everyone must know their responsibility to ensurethat 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 juststated a good atmosphere among the employees. The company consists ofmany departments and they are represented in many countries, and eachdepartment works quite independently. They are optimized individually,but they are not optimized as a whole. One position cut at the Factorymight mean ten new at the distributors’ for example. Traditionally theFactory does not want to interfere too much with the distributors’ work,since they are independent. However, as we showed in the analysis, co-operation is valuable. Also, as we learned during our visits to distributorsand workshops, they want more directives from the Factory on manyissues, and closer co-operation with the Factory as well. For example,when speaking about how Scania needs to develop the use of IT in theworkshops, the common argument is “why should we when the market isnot ready to receive it anyway”. The analogy to the hen and the egg comesto mind. The market will probably not invest in PCs and such if they arenot sure they will need them to receive information that way. Theresponsibility here lies on the Factory to start the process.To come to terms with problems, there are the obvious economicalreasons. Scania owns more and more of the distributors and workshops,hence their costs are Scania’s costs. In addition, the number of repair andmaintenance contracts is also increasing, which results in Scania not onlybearing the costs of the truck up until it is sold, but during the wholelifecycle. So cutting costs at the distributors’ and at the workshops’ oughtto be considered meaningful work, and the people at Scania need to lookbeyond 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 dueto a lack of structure on behalf of the Factory. It is the Factory’sresponsibility to make sure that the distributors are devoting themselvesto their core competence. If there are activities that would be bettermanaged at the Factory, then let the Factory take over those activities, butto think that Scania would optimize its enterprise without the distributorsis wrong in our opinion. The distributors still play an important role forthe spreading of knowledge among workshops and between theworkshops and the Factory. With an increased use of informationtechnology their role might change, but not vanish. Today mostworkshops have very good contacts with the distributors, and thesepersonal contacts are important for the unity of the organization.However, we have also seen that some distributors act as filters forinformation. 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 haveargued that the organization needs to transform individual knowledge intoorganizational knowledge and we persist in our opinion. Furthermore wehave said that an organization should transform intellectual assets intostructural assets to protect itself from knowledge loss in case someonequits their job. This is only partly true. A large amount of the knowledgethat needs to be shared among workshops is tacit and hence hard totransform into structural capital. Consequently, as we showed in theanalysis, the technical experts at the distributors’ constitute a veryimportant part of the knowledge management at Scania. They spread theknowledge horizontally visiting workshops, but also vertically since theyare 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 andfirmly throughout the organization. The people at the Factory talk aboutCodes of Practice and that the customers should receive the same serviceindependently of which Scania workshop they come to. If this is the goaland the intention, it must be communicated. Everyone in the organizationshould know what they work for and aim at. It is not wrong to make theco-ordinated independence a little more co-ordinated and a little lessindependent. Communicating clearer guidelines and putting harderpressure on certified Scania workshops is needed, and sometimes evenrequested by the workshop employees, to guarantee the level of serviceScania claims they have. Also, the intentions must be communicatedearlier. Today the intentions tend to be communicated in the very lastphase of processes. This leads to that similar initiatives are taken by thedistributors, who are unaware of the Factory’s intentions, which in turnleads to duplication of work and solutions that are not as good as theycould have been if the Factory and the distributors had worked together.One example of this is IT. The Factory must communicate its intentionsclearly and present a plan with times for when the changes they areplanning 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 aspossible. If they have to change the plans this needs to be communicatedtoo. What we mean with this is that sometimes goals are set, intentionsspoken, but then there are no resources in terms of time and people toactually implement a lasting solution. The importers-helping-importersand the FAQ part of the intranet that we have mentioned in the empiricalstudy and the analysis are two examples of ideas that have not been givenenough resources to be fully implemented. Another example of anintention that is not clearly spoken and actions not fully taken is the factthat relatively few workshops use Multi on a regular basis. As long asmicrofiches 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 usedto. However, we do not think that Scania should do like SAS, and throwout all the microfiches overnight. The workshops need some time toprepare and educate their employees, but they do need to know that thechange is actually coming and when.One way to show everyone in the organization what the goals are is togive certain issues more resources in the form of time, money and peoplefor example. If these issues are really important it is not enough only totalk about them. For example, if the organizational goal is that ten percentof the European mechanics should be trained on some new products atthe time for the market introduction, the instructors at the Factory mustbe given a chance to train the distributors’ instructors on time.Again, as we stated in the section feedback above, there is no generalanswer to where to put the resources and to what extent. As we stated inthe theoretical framework it is important to get the right process right. Thiscan only be done by some kind of measurement. Measuring the profit andreturn on investing in education for example is hard, but assuming it isnot 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 atheoretical framework that could support us in fulfilling the purpose ofthe study. This led to the development of the knowledge identificationmodel, based on theories for general problem solving and knowledgemanagement. Accordingly, this model can be used to map knowledge inany organization. Furthermore, we conducted some benchmarking tolearn how other companies, with repair and maintenance activities similarto Scania’s, work with these issues. Doing this, we found similarities thatallow us to believe that the problem situations at Scania are not unique.Therefore, comparing what we have found at Scania to the literature andour general knowledge on the issue, we believe that the problems Scania isexperiencing are rather general, and accordingly our recommendations canbe generalized. We think that our findings are at least general for any largeproducer, with centralized production and decentralized andgeographically dispersed repair and maintenance of constantly changing,technically advanced products. Naturally some organizations matching thedescription have come further than Scania, not experiencing all theproblems or not to the same extent, while others have not come as far asScania, 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, bothpraise and blame. We took three models with four categories each. Sincethey all had Tacit and Explicit knowledge as dimensions, it summed up toeight dimensions of nine categories of knowledge and ignorance. Thedimensions are; Tacit & Explicit; State of knowledge & State of knowing;Local & Global; Acquisition & Restriction. Had we chosen other modelswith other dimensions, the categories would consequently have turned outdifferently. We have not tried multiple models to see which one workedout the best, but we simply took three of the ones we had encounteredand tried them. We cannot comment whether our analysis would havebenefited from a combination of other models or not, but after using themodel on Scania we feel that it serves our purpose rather well. Examplesof dimensions we could have used are: General issues (class) vs. Specificissues (individual) or technical aspects vs. aspects of human relations. Wehope that we have covered these issues although they were notrepresented by unique dimensions.This being so, the model fills the purpose we intended, but following thereasoning above, we cannot tell how well it would have worked if we hadchosen other models and other dimensions. Maybe better, maybe worse.What we would have liked to clarify more distinctly in this context aremainly two things. First, what procedures an organization shouldundertake to identify which processes to start with. Like we have stated, itis important to get the right process right. Since few organizations havelimitless resources, they need to find out where to first put their resources.We are confident that all our solutions, if managed cautiously and nottaken too far, will generate resources, not consume them, but naturallythey call for initial investments. Second, we wish that we had come furtherwith 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 taskwhere our model can be used to be clear on what the goal is. Are thedimensions we have used suitable or would others work better? Themodel can be modified rather easily. Simply exchange dimensions and itwill result in new categories.

6.4.2 STRUCTURE

A problem we have had with our analysis in particular, and the TheoreticalFramework and Empirical Study in general, is the structure. Everything isclosely connected and interrelated which has made it hard to know how to


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structure the different issues. We ended up choosing the one that we feltcommunicated what we wanted to say to the reader in the best way. If wehad chosen another structure we would maybe have presented our workfrom another angle, leading to slightly different recommendations in theend.

6.4.3 RELIABILITY & VALIDITY

As we stated in our methodology chapter reliability has to do with astudy’s ability to withstand the influences of chance (Lekvall & Wahlbin,1993, p. 213). As we have finished this study and our report, we believethat conducting another study with the focus we now have presentedwould render roughly the same results. As we stated earlier, there aremany projects undertaken at Scania aiming at improving the issues wehave studied, consequently another study would be examining a slightlydifferent organization than the one we encountered and hence the resultswould be according to those changes. Apart from that we are also awareof how strongly influenced we are by the people we have interviewed andthe places we have visited. The amount of interviews we have made andplaces we have seen lets us believe that our study has high reliability. Butat the same time, Scania has 25.000 employees and is represented in 100countries, and in that perspective it is not for us to say that interviewingother people and visiting other countries had not led to a different result.Our lack of cultural differences in the empirical study for example is morelikely a result of visiting only four countries rather then an indication thatthere are no differences in Scanias vast organization.Validity concerns whether the method for measuring data is in accordancewith the researcher’s purpose of what should be measured (Lekvall &Wahlbin, 1993, p. 211). Hence, has the literature we have studied, thepeople we talked to and the choices of countries to visit renderedinformation and knowledge to reach our purpose? It is impossible to becertain of this since we have not studied any other literature or talked toanother set of people to compare. But we believe that we have reachedour purpose with our choice of method. Also, we have continuouslyconsulted people at the Factory and our mentor and examiner at theUniversity, 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 waswide enough already, we have had to confine ourselves strictly within ourdelimitations. However, we do have some ideas of how to continue ourwork, or rather certain aspects of our work.


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In this chapter we have presented our conclusions, that in many cases arequite general and lack depth and detail. One of these solutions would beparticularly interesting to find out more about, and this solution isfeedback. 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 theworkshops need, and also to find a structure to make use of all theknowledge that exists among them. It would be interesting to study whatwould be a good structure for feedback, both from a technical point ofview using information technology, and from an organizational point ofview. If there is a technical structure for feedback, and the workshopemployees are motivated to share their knowledge, what kind oforganization would then be needed at the Factory or at the distributors’ todeal with all the feedback? Would there be a need for quality controls toassure that solutions presented by employees on the company website arenot illegal or hazardous for example? Perhaps there would be a need foremployees working only with knowledge management? And how is thissolution made cost efficient?Another interesting issue is to investigate whether our solutions areapplicable on other markets than Western Europe. Is it possible togeneralize our conclusions, first of all to Eastern Europe, and then to therest of the world?Another very important matter that we have found, but that could not beincluded in this study, is to study how the optimizing of costs inproduction affects the costs of repair and maintenance of the trucks. Nowthat Scania sells an increasing amount of service contracts, expensiverepairs come to affect the company’s profitability in a different way. Andthe customers calculate the life-cycle cost when they decide which truck tobuy. Many mechanics have told us that the trucks are not made to maketheir work easy. Assembly methods that save time, space andconsequently money in the production of the trucks can result in morecomplicated repair and maintenance work, and that the trucks have tospend more time in the workshops than what is acceptable. Themechanics have many ideas of how to change the trucks to make theirwork easier. Therefore it could perhaps be interesting to open a channelfor communication for the mechanics and the people at the constructiondepartment at the Factory. It would be crucial in such a study to calculatethe savings in production and compare with some estimated unnecessarycosts in repair and maintenance to find out how to optimize both theproduction and repair and maintenance processes, making sure thatneither one of the processes is optimized individually and that theytogether waste resources. The whole must be taken into account.


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7 REFERENCES

7.1 LITERATURE

7.1.1 BOOKS AND ARTICLES

Ahde, Carl-Johan & Beckmann, Johan, 1998, Kunskapshantering i den svenskabankbranschen, master’s thesis, LiTH-IDA-Ex 98/53, LinköpingAncona, Deborah G. & Caldwell, David F., 1990, IT and work groups, acopied chapter from the book: Intellectual Teamwork, social and technologicalfoundations of cooperative work, course literature in IT-Korg, LiTH, 98/99,LinköpingAxelsson, Björn, 1997, Kompetens för konkurrenskraft, SNS Förlag,StockholmBark, Mats, 1997, Intranät i Organisationens Kommunikation, UppsalaPublishing House ABBlomqvist, Daniel & Guilotte, Mattias, 1999, Enhancing Information andknowledge utilisation through Intranets and Knowledge Management, master’sthesis, LiTH-IDA-Ex 99/16, LinköpingCepro Management Report, 1998, IT i det framtida företagandet, StockholmCook, Jonathan, 1997, Leveraging Knowledge for Business Performance, WitsBusiness School, South AfricaCortese, Amy, 1996, Here comes the intranet, Cover story from Businessweek 960226Davenport, Thomas & Prusak, Laurence, 1998, Working Knowledge,Harvard Business School PressDavenport, Thomas H., De Long, David W., Beers, Michael C. 1998,Sloan management review, winter,http://mitsloan.mit.edu/smr/past/1998/smr3924.html, 000309Davenport, Thomas H., 1997, Information Ecology, Oxford University PressDuffy, Neil, 1997, Leveraging Knowledge for Business Performance, Wits BusinessSchool, South AfricaEarl, Michael & Scott, Ian, 1998, What on earth is a CKO?, LondonBusiness SchoolGlad, Torkel & Ljung, Lennart, 1989, Reglerteknik, grundläggande teori,Studentlitteratur, LundHall, Wendy, 1995, Managing Cultures, John Wiley & SonsHarley, George A., 1997, Leveraging Knowledge for Business Performance, WitsBusiness School, South Africa


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Hellriegel, D. et al, 1992, Organizational Behavior, Seventh edition, WestPublishing Company, St PaulHolme, I. & Solvang, B., 1997, Forskningsmetodik – om kvalitativa ochkvantitativa metoder, Studentlitteratur, Lund, SwedenHöij, Magnus, Kunskap är viktigt, men får det kosta något?, article inComputer Sweden, 991125IDG News, Globala standardsystem kräver kulturskifte, article in ComputerSweden, 991125Jackson Grayson Jr., C. and O´Dell, Carla S., 1998, Mining your hiddenresources, Accross the Board, April, p. 23-28Jacobsen, Dag Ingvar & Thorsvik, Jan, 1998, Hur Moderna Organisationerfungerar, Studentlitteratur, LundJohansson, Lars & Johansson, Pär, 1998, Framgångsfaktorer för Intranät, D-thesis, LiU IDA-D--98/4--SE, LinköpingJooste, Adrian, 1997, Leveraging Knowledge for Business Performance, WitsBusiness School, South AfricaKeen, Peter G. W., 1997, The process edge, Harvard Business School PressLekvall, Per & Wahlbin, Clas, 1993, Information för marknadsföringsbeslut,IHM Förlag AB, Göteborg, SwedenMoberg, Claes & Palm, Gunnar, 1997, Internationell Ekonomi,StudentlitteraturMueller, Frank & Dyerson, Romano, 1999, Expert humans or expertorganizations?, Organization Studies, 20/2, p. 225-256Nevis, Edward C., DiBella, Anthony J. and Gould, Janet M., Understandingorganizations 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/loader.html, 2000-03-29Nonaka, Ikujiro & Takeuchi, Hirotaka, 1995, The Knowledge CreatingCompany, Oxford University Press, Inc.Ny Teknik, issue 6, February 2000, p.25Porter, Michael E, 1990, The competitive advantage of nations, HarvardBusiness Review, March/April, p. 73-75Rehn, Henrik & Westerberg, Martin, 1999, Kunskapsspridning, Mastersthesis, företagsekonomiska institutionen LiU, Linköping


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Romme, G & Dillen, R, 1997, Mapping the landscape of organizationallearning, European Management Journal, vol 15, no 1Sach, Stephen R., 1997, Software engineering with Java, Irwin/McGraw-HillSenge, Peter M., 1990, The Fifth Discipline, Doubleday/CurrencySvensson, Björn, Förändringsmotstånd, en myt, article in Computer Sweden,991125Sveriges Tekniska Attachéer, 1999, Knowledge Management –kunskapsarkivering eller kunskapsaktivering, Nordisk Bokindustri ABTallving, Mats, 1998, Intranätutveckling från idé till vardagsrutin, TekniskaLitteratursällskapetViedge, Conrad, 1997, Leveraging Knowledge for Business Performance, WitsBusiness School, South AfricaWiig, Karl M, 1997, Leveraging Knowledge for Business Performance, WitsBusiness School, South AfricaZack, 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, 1997Crawford, Richard, 1991, In the era of Human Capital, New York: Harper-Collins Publishers, sid 3, referred to by Duffy, 1997Dalin, Å., 1997, Den lärande organisationen - Kompetensutveckling i arbetslivet”,Studentlitteratur, Lund, referred to by Rehn & Westerberg, 1999Dewey, J., 1929, The Quest for Certainty, New York: G. P. Putnam, referredto by Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995Dodgson, Mark, 1993, Organisational learning: A review of someliteratures, Organisation Studies, 14/3, p. 375-394, referred to by Mueller &Dyerson, 1999Hall, J., 1990, Kompetens i Organisationen, Studentlitteratur, Lund, referred toby Rehn & Westerberg, 1999Kanter, Rosabeth Moss, 1990, When giants learn to dance, New York, Simon& Schuster, referred to by Mueller & Dyerson, 1999Latham & Locke 1979, Goal Setting – A Motivational Technique ThatWorks, Organizational Dynamics, 8, referred to by Jacobsen & Thorsvik,1998


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Luthans, F., 1995, Organizational Behavior, New York: McGraw Hill,referred to by Jacobsen & Thorsvik, 1998Polanyi, M, 1966, The Tacit Dimension, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul,referred to by Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995Penrose, Edith P., 1959, The theory of the growth of the firm, Oxford: BasilBlackwell, referred to by Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995Prusak referred to by Allee, Verna, 1997, The Knowledge Evolution: ExpandingOrganizational Intelligence, Butterworth-Heinemann, referred to by Ahde &Beckmann, 1998Vroom, V.H. & Deci, E.L., 1992, Management and Motivation,Harmondsworth: Penguin, referred to by Jacobsen & Thorsvik, 1998Zuboff, Shoshana, 1988, In the Age of the Smart Machine, New York, BasicBooks Inc., referred to by Duffy, 1997

7.2 INTERVIEWS

7.2.1 PERSONNEL AT SCANIA CV AB1. Ax, Åsa, IS/IT-support2. Arvidsson, Rikard, IS/IT strategy and coordination, member of our

reference group3. Björklund, Anette, manager for workshop information and technical

training4. Brodin, Ann-Sofie, marketing strategy and planning, member of our

reference group5. Carlsson, Jenny, warranty issues6. Ceder, Ulf, IS/IT strategy and coordination, project leader for the

Dealer Portal7. Edstam, Mikael, Automaster8. Forsstöm, Fredrik, Multi, member of our reference group9. Fredriksson, Lars, Automaster10. Gustavsson, Tomas, product manager Multi11. Harju, Rolf, manager for the department for Technical Information,

member of our reference group12. Isaksson, Kjell, field quality manager13. Johansson, Göran, repair methods manager14. Johansson, Lars, technical instructor, educational issues15. Jörlin, Sverker, codes of practice16. Lindkvist, Anders, technical instructor, educational issues17. Ljungdahl, Mats, dealer development, project manager Scania

Professional


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18. Nilsson, Anders, manager for IS/IT strategy and coordinaton,member of our reference group

19. Orre, Sigvard, dealer training process manager20. Oscarsson, Lars, technical service manager, member of our reference

group21. Pehrsson, Anna, Automaster22. Persson, Sten Åke, technical instructor, educational issues23. Pettersson, Birger, repair methods, SD/SP development24. Simonsson, Johan, Automaster25. Sjöberg, Hans, manager for part preparation, our supervisor and

member of our reference group26. Sporre, Johan, technical service, area technical manager for the

nordic countries27. Strand, Siw, manager for the translation and administration of

technical information28. Torgrip, Monica, project manager for parts information process29. Vinger, Jan, part catalogue manager30. Waldekrantz, Mats, dealer development31. Welander, Klas, technical service, area technical manager for

Southern Europe32. Westerholm, Jan, chassis information33. Åström, Pontus, IS/IT-support, web-manager7.2.2 PERSONNEL AT SCANIA'S DISTRIBUTORS & WORKSHOPS

In addition to the people listed below, we have spoken to a great numberof people at the different workshops. They are mechanics, foremen,service managers, workshop managers, spare parts people, customerreceptionists and customers.

SWEDEN

Thurin, Maria, technical expertFRANCE

Favray, Lionel, service manager/technical expertRemondet, Philippe, technical expertNORWAY

Bjerke, Pål, product technicianDalland, Odd, service managerGisleberg, Kjell-Erik, technical expertIsaksen, Finn, technical instructorJacobsen, Roar, product technicianLund, Rickard, education manager


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Lauvstad, John, information manager and workshop manager at FurusetworkshopRastad, Pål, technical expertTHE NETHERLANDS

During, Rob, parts issuesFleck, Peter, central warehouse managerHeppener, Ruud, technical expertMeijer, Piet, technical instructorMolenaar, Aris, technical expertPoot, Wim, service managerSnelderwaard, Chris, warranty issues7.2.3 EXTERNAL SOURCES

Arthursson, Per, Jungheinrich, Workshop ManagerHögfeldt, Magnus, KPMG, consultantJohansson, Svante, SAS, foreman and mechanicLiander, Karl, Andersen consulting, manager for Knowledge Managementand researchLillhannus, Per-Erik, Ericsson, project leader for strategic informationhandlingWestin, Carl-Johan, Cepro Management, consultant

Appendix 1: Quantifying the value of some costs

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APPENDIX 1: QUANTIFYING THE VALUE OF SOME COSTSTo indicate that our solutions not only take resources to implement butalso save money and give a positive surplus, we will in this appendix give afew 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 ishopefully always clear which is the case.

2. We are aware of that the solutions are not as simple as depicted, thefigures are only meant to give indications.

3. Saving money by increasing the pressure on the necessary job themechanics do is probably not efficient. However, eliminating theunnecessary work that they do is likely to render considerableamounts. The six examples presented below sum up to approximately800.000.000 SEK, and one has to consider that these are only sixexamples 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 286SEK. In Sweden it is 437 SEK. The technical experts probably have ahigher salary but we use the same amount for all employees in ourexamples and we always take two examples with 185 SEK and 437SEK as outer limits.

• The average truck has 6-7 breakdowns a year.

• Scania compensates their customers after 24 hours of breakdown witha tenth of a Swedish basis-amount (basbelopp) per 24 hours. A basis-amount is currently 36.000 SEK, hence the compensation is 150SEK/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 servicethat is conducted once a year. The price applies to a long haulagetruck, but the price varies due to specification, discounts etc.

• The average service contracts are worth between 0,2 and 0,6 SEK perkilometer.

• A long haulage truck normally drives 150.000-230.000 kilometers ayear.

• There are approximately 500.000 Scania trucks on the roads in Europeand 70 percent of these, 350.000, are long haulage trucks.


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• 25% of the customers in Europe have R&M contracts

• There are approximately 1000 workshops and 10.000 mechanics inEurope.

INFORMATION

One rather large workshop in France claimed that 2-3 times a month theyhave big problems finding the information they need to find or solving aproblem, and the technical expert is also unfamiliar with the problem. Ifthis happens approximately 8-12 times a year in the average workshop,considering that some are smaller, searching for a fault many times takestwo whole workdays for two mechanics and let us say the technical expertin average puts in another four hours. This would mean between80.000.000 and 230.000.000 SEK for Scania.(8h*2days*2people*185SEK+3600+4h*185SEK)*(8times/year)*1000workshops==82.080.000(8h*2days*2people*437SEK+3600+4h*437SEK)*(12times/year)*1000workshops==231.984.000

KNOWLEDGE

Trucks are not easily repaired. Being a mechanic today requires a lot oftechnical knowledge. Not having enough knowledge can lead to that moretime is required to solve the problems. The average truck has 6-7breakdowns a year and saving ten minutes on only half of all repairswould render between 50.000.000 and 130.000.000 SEK a year for Scania.6times*250.000trucks*185SEK*(10/60)=46.250.0007times*250.000trucks*437SEK*(10/60)=127.458.330

SERVICE CONTRACTS

Trucks are driven across nations as well as continents. Sometimes when atruck is in a workshop for a repair some maintenance is done to it even ifit is not necessary. Maybe the truck had the very same maintenance doneonly a week ago, but the driver does not know. He probably thinks that itis better to get as much done as possible while he is at a workshopanyway, instead of having to stop later, and if he has a maintenancecontract he does not even pay for it (25 percent of Scania's customers inEurope have contracts). So, if the case of redundant service happens toonly 10 percent of the long haulage trucks (not even considering the other150.000 vehicles) only one time each year with an L-service (it might beless common, but there are a number of services we have not taken into


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account) this means an unnecessary cost of 100.000.000 SEK for Scaniaand a worsen economy for the customers without contracts of310.000.000 SEK a year.350.000trucks*0,1*0,25*12.000SEK=105.000.000350.000trucks*0,1*0,75*12.000SEK=315.000.000

MULTI

To find the right parts, workshops sometimes use Multi. This worksmostly well, but sometimes Multi gives too many choices of parts. At aworkshop in Holland they argued that they about once a week do not findthe right part with Multi and that the division of parts in different chaptersis sometimes very illogical. If every workshop spends one extra hour onsearching once a week, this could mean between 10.000.000 and20.000.000 SEK a year for Scania.185*52w*1000workshops=9.620.000437*52w*1000workshops =22.724.000

PARTS

In a Dutch workshop we learned that approximately three times a montheach mechanic finds themselves in the situation that the spare part theyhave ordered is the wrong spare part although it says in the informationthat that part was the right one. But if this happens to only a third of themechanics in Europe and it results in an extra hour for them and the spareparts people, this would mean between 20.000.000 and 50.000.000 forScania each year36times*(10.000mechanics/3)*185=22.200.00036times*(10.000mechanics/3)*437=52.440.000

NEW PRODUCTS

Sometimes the product comes before the information and Diagnos. Welearned at a Dutch workshop that this results in problems about two-threetimes a year. Estimating an extra workday for a mechanic and two hours’help from the help desk or the technical expert and also estimating 2-3days of downtime for the truck this example generates a cost of between10.000.000 and 30.000.000 for Scania each year.2ggr*(8*185+1*3600+185*2)*1000 workshops=10.900.0003ggr*(8*437+2*3600+437*2)*1000 workshops=34.710.000

Appendix 2: Measuring frequency of causes of problems

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APPENDIX 2: MEASURING FREQUENCY OF CAUSES OFPROBLEMS

We want to give the workshops a tool to identify and quantify the reasonsfor the problems in the process. That way the workshops can focus on thebig problems, and optimize the resources by using them where they areneeded the most.In section 3.2 Our model, we presented a model with 5 differentcategories of problems, three of which were undesired and thesewere when you lack enough knowledge to solve the problemefficiently (k), when you lack enough information to solve theproblem efficiently (i) and when you lack both (b). We earlierdepicted these categories 3,4 and 5 but now we use k, i and b.The tool contains two parts, a matrix and a few questions, which shouldenable easy statistics by accompanying the work order on the computer inthe dealer system in XML69 format.

THE MATRIX

The matrix should be filled out every time something takes longer timethen it should, due to a lack of information or knowledge in the respectivepart of the process. This way, the workshop manager can measure bothproblems and enhancements and easier manage the change.Below, we give an example of what a matrix could look like. Each columnin the matrix corresponds to a vehicle were one or more parts of therepair and maintenance process has not been performed efficiently due tolack of knowledge or information. In the first case for example, there wereproblems with the information while searching for the problem, we willgive an example on this later.If he process runs smoothly, there is no need to fill out the form.

69 Extended Markup Language, a meta language to manage information in a structured way.

Explicit

Orderfollow-up

Repair &maintenanc

Parts

Problemsearch

Customerreception


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THE QUESTIONS

Each time there is a problem, the employee can choose between thequestions below only by clicking next to the corresponding line and leavea comment when necessary.During our field study we spoke to a mechanic and a technical expert whosearched for the problem with a vehicle. When we spoke to them they hadexceeded 100 hours of searching. This costs the workshop in terms oflabor rate and 3600 SEK per 24 hours after the first 24 hours that thecustomer has the right to claim. We learned later that the problem hadbeen that the functional description of a component in the workshopmanual did not contain enough information and that Diagnos determinedthe wrong problem. Taking this example, form could have been filled outas 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_______________________

There was a lack of knowledge, mainly due to that the person did not yet attend a specificcourse _

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 minutesinstead.

This particular case would render an (i) in the above matrix in the row forproblem search like the first case above in the matrix. It would alsoincrease the sum of unnecessary work during problem search with 109,25hours that month which we depict below.


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STATISTICS

Summing up the problems each month, the workshop can find out wherethey have the most problems. See example on the next page:

* 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

k = lack of knowledge

i = lack of information

b = lack of both

Reason for problem

Totalthismonth

Orderfollow-up

Repair &maintenan

Parts

Problemsearch

Customerreception

January: ∑ k=0, ∑ i=1, ∑ b=0, ∑ time: 3 hours

January: ∑ k=6, ∑ i=19, ∑ b=2, ∑ time: 23hours

January: ∑ k=0, ∑ i=1, ∑ b=0, ∑ time: 1 hour

January: ∑ k=9, ∑ i=21, ∑ b=1, ∑ time: 127hours

January: ∑ k=1, ∑ i=2, ∑ b=0, ∑ time: 2 hours

January: ∑ time: 156 hours

January: ∑ labor cost: 68.172 SEK* ∑ customer compensation: 12.900 SEK**

Appendix 3: Interview guide for distributors

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APPENDIX 3: INTERVIEW GUIDE FOR DISTRIBUTORSThe interview guide is built up by specific questions. These questions have been usedas 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 bythe 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 viathe distributor? Is the information sometimes changed? Which do theychange?Which information do you receive, but reduce before passing it on or notpassing 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 itbe made better?Does the distributor receive the information from the Factory on time?Can the distributor distribute it in time? If not, consequences? Solutionsto the problem?What is the distributor's view of sharing information with workshops?Do the workshops generally have internal meetings to distributeinformation?What could be done to the driver’s manual? Could it be improved to makethings easier for the workshops?What does the workshops want the drivers to do for themselves / keeptrack of for themselves / have access to for themselves? Are theygenerally well prepared?


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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 atdealers 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 & THEWORKSHOPS

How often does the distributor visit the workshops and how often arerepresentatives from the workshops invited to the distributor for meetingsand similar?If the distributor has meetings, forums for people at the workshops, whois 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 manyworkshops report - how much? How would the distributor like the systemto 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 andfailure reports? Do they? To what extent? How would the distributor likethis to work? What is the general wish from the workshops?The Area Technical Managers are the distributor’s connection to theFactory, how does that work?How do you know whom to contact at the Factory? How is the contactwith 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 comesto knowledge, learning and information?


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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 orspecialists?Which is the distributor's view on the learning processes on theworkshops? Do they create any incentives? Contests? Monetary awards?How is the quality thinking of the mechanics? Of the workshopmanagers?

EDUCATION

Which is the strategy for education?How is the quality of education? If a test is failed, how is that followedup?Does the distributor take any responsibility for educating and developingthe 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 beexpensive?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 employeesto courses?

CULTURE

Is the distributor aware of the differences in culture between differentworkshops? Which actions are taken to improve the situation on the lessfortunate workshops? Learning from the better ones?How does the distributor try to create an atmosphere to enhance thewillingness to share knowledge, the caring for the job and the company?


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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 workshopsFeedback to the factoryWorkshops helping workshops, lessons learned and best practice

…and which enablers / disablers are there?

Appendix 4: Interview guide for workshops

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APPENDIX 4: INTERVIEW GUIDE FOR WORKSHOPSThe interview guide is built up by specific questions. These questions have been usedas 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 isused?Does the workshop keep track of when different customers’ trucks needmaintenance and call them to make an appointment or is it up to thecustomer?What does the receptionist do if he cannot establish what is wrong withthe truck?Does the mechanic get any hints with the work order about applicableTIs?What is the repair process like?Does the workshop have an emergency vehicle? Is there any informationin 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 spareparts 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 howis it distributed within the workshop?


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To which extent are the notice boards used? Other ways of informing thepersonnel?Does the workshop have internal meetings to distribute information?Is there any information on video? Would you like more? If so, whichinformation?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 technicalinformation?Does the information come on time? Always/often/seldom/never? Howlate 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 makethings easier for the workshop?What does the workshops want the drivers to do for themselves / keeptrack of for themselves / have access to for themselves? Are theygenerally well prepared?Is there a problem with mechanics borrowing chapters from the binders andnot 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? (Forexample: try, try, try, ask, try, try, ask, try, ask, try, ask, try, read in thebinder)How does the foreman/workshop manager feel about sharinginformation with the mechanics?How does the workshop document when the configuration of a truck ischanged?


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FEEDBACK & CONTACTS WITH THE FACTORY, DISTRIBUTOR &OTHER WORKSHOPS

How often does the distributor visit the workshops and how often arerepresentatives from the workshops invited to the distributor for meetingsand similar?If the distributor has meetings, forums for people at the workshops, whois 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? Howwould the workshop like the system to work? Feedback?Are there any incentives for the workshops to send in solutions, ideas andfailure reports? Do they? To what extent? How would the workshop likethis 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 expertfor help? To the distributor’s technical expert? To the distributor’s helpdesk? To the Factory’s help desk?How is the relation between information about what has alreadyhappened or is already decided versus what is going to happen in theworkshop? 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 orspecialists?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 shareknowledge or search information?


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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 followedup?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 theywant 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 theknowledge in the workshop?Does the workshop management have an educational plan for eachmechanic?Can the individual mechanic affect his educational plan?Does the workshop management have any goals with education? How dothey plan? To which extent can the mechanic choose which courses toattend? Is the education perceived as good? Do the employees get to go tocourses 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 othersas 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 howmuch?What would you think about getting all the information from a computer?

Appendix 5: Interview guide for benchmark

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APPENDIX 5: INTERVIEW GUIDE FOR BENCHMARKThe interview guide is built up by specific questions. These questions have been used asmain points of discussion to explore areas of interest, using the respondents’ answersto explore further.

INTRODUCTION

Who is the respondent? Work duties, experience, title?The following questions concern the mechanics in repair and maintenance workshops whouse 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 andmaintenance? How does it evolve? Is it a technically complex product thatis constantly changing? How often does new versions of the product, orparts of the product, come?

TECHNICAL INFORMATION

• When did the company go from a paper solution to a computerizedsolution 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 phaseout the old? Is the old solution still around?

• What does the solution look like? Is it on an intranet or distributed onCD-ROM or…? Text, pictures, photos, film? (Word, PDF, HTML,XML, DVD?)

• Which were the reactions when the new system was implemented? Whatdoes the mechanics think about it now? What is good/bad, what do theywant to change and why? Which mechanics think it is good/bad, is therea pattern, young vs. old, experienced/skilled vs. inexperienced/lessskilled 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 mechanicspends searching for and reading information? Is it also possible toestimate the same thing imagining that the company had notimplemented the new solution?

Appendix 5: Interview guide for benchmark

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FEEDBACK

• Is it possible for the mechanics to affect the system? Can they reach theproducers 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 butthey cannot know everything and the mechanics probably many times fillthose gaps. Is there any structure/process to capture this knowledge?How does this structure/process look like? Is it working well? Howwould you like it to work?

• If the company receives feedback, how do they solve the problem that itis a large company and the large amount of mechanics that might wantto express themselves cannot all do that? How does the companysynthesize and filter all ideas/wishes/knowledge to a manageableamount without loosing the essence?

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