Beyond lean production practices and Industry 4.0 technologies toward the human-centric Industry 5.0

3.2.1 Interviews

Purposive sampling was applied to select and reach interview informants engaged in initiatives for I4.0 digitalization and/or implementation of LP practices. This choice of sampling was strategically made to capture informants’ perceptions and understanding of the phenomena studied (Bell et al., 2019). To identify further informants and to reach saturation of the number of informants (Saunders et al., 2018), snowball sampling (Bell et al., 2019) was applied. Snowball sampling means that one informant recommends the second who refers to the third and so on as a dynamic social process conveyed over time (Olsson et al., 2020). The phenomena investigated are elusive and can be difficult to grasp and thus require a sampling technique that allows the finding of hidden, hard-to-reach and conflicting groups of informants (Atkinson and Flint, 2001). All interviews followed a semi-structured interview guide including the themes of questions on analog and digital production planning and control; I4.0 technologies; organizational change, structure and leadership. All interview informants were given the same questions, though the semi-structured interview guide enabled capturing additional viewpoints. The interview study incorporates 18 interviews with 19 respondents. The main part of the interviews, i.e. the Informant IDs 1–14, were performed for nine months (October 2020–June 2021). However, an additional four interviews, i.e. the Informant IDs 15–18, took place in the beginning of the year (February 2023). The choice of additional interviews was made strategically from the methodological point of view to fill two purposes: collecting data on the most recent development at the company and as there have been a fluctuation of turnovers of employees it was important to capture new voices, thus adding four complementary interviews. The interview part of the case study comprises 18 in-depth interviews with management, production planners, production team leaders, quality control and corporate service functions such as human resources (HR) and business administration. The selection of informants aims to get an encompassing understanding from different functions. In one of the interviews, two informants took part (11a and 11b); thus, 19 informants were interviewed. All interviews were recorded with informed consent, and they were digitally conducted both due to restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic and for easy recording, storing and analyzing. Table 1 shows the total overview of interviews and informants.

3.2.2 Focus groups

The choice of focus group as complementary method meant that a large range of functions from CC could be included in the case study, and as such, the range of functions can give perspectives of different production improvements such as digitalization initiatives (Authors, ND; Authors, ND). Focus groups give voice to participants’ views and offer rich opportunities to gather data as participants share, jointly reflect and build on their interpretations of a context or phenomenon (Rutledge et al., 2021). All focus groups were planned with the same design to capture participants’, here employees from different functions and levels at CC, interpretations of initiatives for LP and I4.0. CC supported sampling of participants from all functions, considering a range of gender, employed time and work tasks to reflect the distribution of the company. The participants were divided by function to limit power differences and restrictions to socially acceptable comments (Smithson, 2000). The focus groups explore the journey through implementing LP practices and digital initiatives to understand the handling of their coexistence in the manufacturing company CC. An essential strength of this approach is the possibility for participants to reflect and develop ideas together and construct individual and group opinions that may change and develop during the group’s duration (Smithson, 2000).

The case incorporated five focus groups and was performed over 10 months (April 2022–January 2023), with 25 participants from different job functions to encompass the entire organization: shop floor team leaders, shop floor operators; support functions including. Supply Chain Manager (SCM), technical management and manufacturing engineers. Table 2 shows the total overview of focus groups and participants. In the focus groups Support functions including. SCM (F3) and Technical management (F4) there is a 100% overlap of participants that also have participated in interviews. However, the focus groups Shop floor team leaders (F1), Shop floor operators (F2) and Manufacturing engineers (F5) do not have any overlaps between participants from interviews. Some overlap between interview informants and focus group participants is viewed as advantageous as this allowed to follow how CC evolved over time.

Aiming to capture both present and retroactive perspectives, all focus groups were designed inspired by the history wall approach (Karanasios, 2018). The focus groups were run in a workshop format where participants together created a history wall, i.e. a visual representation of activities in the organization over time (Wheeler and Thomas, 2011). All participants were asked to consider what initiatives had occurred, either directed towards increased digitalization or towards lean production or organizational changes between the years 2015–2023. The reason for choosing the year 2015 as starting point was based on previous studies at CC (Authors ND; Authors ND), where results indicated that from 2015 and onwards, various digital initiatives, lean production practices, as well as organizational changes took place. During the 1.5-2-hour focus group sessions, participants sat in a half circle around a table and wrote activities on a long rolled-out paper that all participants could reach and write on, i.e. a history wall, overlooking participants’ interpreted activities. The focus group leader, one of the researchers, circled the table and moderated the workshop to limit the risk of single participants dominating the discussions. The other researchers focused on notetaking and video and audio recording (with informed signed consent), occasionally breaking in with follow-up questions.

3.2.3 Summary of data collection

Figure 1 summarizes the data collection, including timeline, of the qualitative methodology longitudinal case study approach. The case study incorporates 14 interviews (Dec. 2020–Jun. 2021) with 15 informants, after that, followed the focus group study with 25 participants (Apr. 2022–Jan. 2023) and additionally four complementary interviews (Feb. 2023). Further, to the left side of Figure 1, the retrospective direction of the history wall approach stretching back to 2015 is shown.

3.3.1 Data analysis and findings from the mind-map approach

An explorative mind-mapping approach guided the analysis of the interview and focus group data sets. This analytical approach was appropriate to provide structures and mental models that support information understanding of the two data sets (Fearnley, 2022; Wheeldon and Faubert, 2009). Mind-mapping may further be applied as an interdisciplinary tool to identify, illustrate and analyze perspectives, relationships and differences across qualitative datasets (Fearnley, 2022). The visual representation provided extended ways of representing the data and, in turn, the categories and sub-categories that emerged from the data are visualized in mind-maps. The mind-mapping approach followed an analytical process of six steps: verbatim transcripts, familiarizing with data, coding scheme as mind-map analysis, selection of excerpts, analyzing and categorizing of excerpts, mind-map categories and sub-categories.

First, all collected data were transcribed verbatim. Then, the multi-disciplinary group of authors familiarized themselves with the transcripts, and after that, the data was analyzed in several rounds, jointly by all authors, in an iterative approach. The transcriptions from all 18 interviews and all 5 focus groups were read and scanned for excerpts concerning LP and digitalization initiatives. The excerpts were structured and analyzed further in several iterations using Excel software. The analysis resulted in the final number of 123 excerpts from the interviews and 81 excerpts from the focus groups, i.e. a total of 204 excerpts are included in the study. The two data sets were analyzed in parallel, creating two mind-maps, see Figure 3. Most of the interviews took place before the focus group, though four of the interviews complementing the study were done at the end of the study to follow up latest developments at CC and to incorporate more recent employees, see Figure 1. The advantages with the interviews are that the data collected goes deeper, informants may feel more trust, are allowed to act more personally and more easily owns the work and speak up, thus there may be more critical answers in the individual interviews (Bell et al., 2019). On the other hand, the focus groups allowed joint reflection among participants, which may lead to further aspects being unveiled as discussions evolve (Rutledge et al., 2021; Smithson, 2000). Further, the focus groups differ from the interviews as they were designed inspired by the history wall approach (Karanasios, 2018) and sought to capture both present and retroactive perspectives.

The categorization and the application of the mind-map approach supports the inductive stepwise thematic data analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2012) towards reaching a deeper understanding of what challenges that manufacturing companies encounter when searching for a coexistence between LP and I4.0, i.e. research question 1. The mind-map in Figure 2 represents the analysis of the interview study and the mind-map in Figure 3 represents the analysis of the focus groups. Both mind-maps are centered on Initiatives, which include all activities and changes that the employees bring forth as impacting the organization towards increased digitalization or implementation of LP practices. However, there is also a flora of other initiatives that take place continuously within CC, impacting organizational development. To summarize there are five sub-categories of Initiatives, Digital coordination, Digital initiative, Lean coordination, Lean production practice and Organizational change, are shared between the two mind-maps, in the focus groups the additional sub-category New machinery was identified. The next iteration of the inductive analysis generates two further sub-categories: areas of improvement, Focus of improvement and assess employees’ interpretation of whether the initiatives were a success or resulted in implementation challenges, Success or Challenge. The numbers in the mind-maps in Figure 3 show the amount of the excerpt from the analysis representing each category or sub-category. The categories and sub-categories are described and discussed in further detail in section.

4.1.1 Initiative

The central category, Initiative, captures activities or changes that have been introduced at CC including digital, LP practices and other initiatives related to production or organization. The scope includes initiatives related to production and other areas of the companies, giving an encompassing view of initiatives throughout the CC organization. Six sub-categories of initiatives have been surfaced during the analysis: Digital coordination, Digital initiative, Lean coordination, Lean production practice, New machinery and Organizational change.

The digital coordination category focuses on challenges between overarching digital infrastructure and shopfloor operators struggling with using and accessing shop-floor computers. That is, what kind of hardware currently exists within CC and what might be necessary to reach the desired object of either I4.0 or LP practices. When informants spoke of hardware, most discussions related to the need for Internet access and digital support functions. Digital initiative came to span between software applications for administrative tasks, such as Microsoft Teams and financing software, to digital warehouse technologies, advanced production planning systems and IoT solutions. Findings revealed a great span between technological applications due to the cross section of data sets displaying a combination of functions and, more importantly, interpretations of LP practices and I4.0 technologies. Acknowledging the broad variety of perceptions of what digital initiatives potentially encompass in relation to the manufacturing features is imperative. Lean coordination relates to a higher overarching practice guiding the philosophy of the company. Indicating that all employees of the company must engage and that lean principles permeate the whole organization. In the findings fragmented perceptions of lean initiatives are shown. This concurs with (Eriksson et al., 2022; Sousa-Zomer et al., 2020) stating that contradictory actions within the organization are common and sometimes hard to overcome. For example, CC management does not speak of a tuned strategic initiative or related actions. This also means when Lean production practices are initiated, employees lack a shared understanding of Lean, making it challenging to maintain lean initiatives such as lean production flow boards and 5S-principles. New machinery was a category unique to the focus groups, particularly the shop floor operators spoke of new machinery in relation to digital initiatives. Shop floor operators spoke fondly of implementing new machinery and wished for further development of machinery. Organizational change was a recurring topic across data sets. For example, informants/participants, speak of organizational change as both an opportunity and disturbance of balance within the company. The digital initiatives are closely related to each phase of the organizational changes. Especially in relation to changes of management, but also changes in the shop-floor operator turnovers including consultants/short-term staff. It could be argued that this affects the organizational ability to implement LP practice and I4.0 technologies as it adds additional parameters to the already complexity in organizational changes (Janoski and Lepadatu, 2021; Maware and Parsley, 2022; Tortorella et al., 2019).

4.1.2 Focus of Improvement

This second category, Focus of Improvement, identifies what areas within CC that have been chosen for improvement related to the different initiatives in the category Initiative. The scope includes initiatives related to production and other areas of the companies, giving an encompassing view of initiatives throughout the CC organization. Focus of Improvement was analyzed to consist of eight sub-categories: Communication, Digital infrastructure, Financing and Purchasing, Human resource, Production process, Production planning and control, Production visualization and Warehousing.

Communication is critical for handling changes in organizations and findings specifically show the use/practice of video conferences with communication platforms as a reoccurring theme. There is also mention of an internal communication platform which borders social media and internal communication channels. In general, administrative staff are pleased with the usage of various communication platforms. Meanwhile, other functions find the usage and access of communication platforms challenging to prioritize as it is interpreted to be time-consuming and interfering with their workflow. Hence, platforms and channels must be suitable with the intent of communication. In other words, the Digital infrastructure must match both the intended communication and employees’ access to digital technologies. This shows that a functional digital infrastructure is required, linking both the structuring of hardware and software. Regarding Financing and purchasing, there are few examples of digital initiatives related to the topic. However, there are two cases related to digital payment solutions which both were successfully implemented. Human resource relates to a high degree of turnovers either planned, part of an overarching strategy, or unplanned. In discussions it becomes clear that CC has a high degree of consultants on both administrative tasks and in the various shop floor related tasks. There is a consensus among informants and focus group participants that CC has undergone multiple organizational changes to structure responsibility and management. The organizational changes combined with a high degree of consultants in various functions throughout CC has created a challenging environment for long-term strategic planning. As informants and focus group participants highlight, consultants come and go and act as a safety net for full-time employees and full-time employees change positions. This is a way of dealing with the fluctuating environment, but it also leads to uncertainty in the strategic work as human resources are continuously adjusting to new employee constellations and adjusting competence gaps (Alieva and Powell, 2022; Antony et al., 2023a; Carlsson et al., 2022). Production process holds a broader perspective of production development beyond I4.0 technologies and lean practices such as new machinery, strategic recruitments for shopfloor and implementations of off-the-shelf software. Production planning and control focuses on digital initiatives and Lean practices focused implementation to improve the production flows. Tortorella et al. (2019) describe that it is advantageous to dually work with I4.0 technologies and LP practices if the organization already has an implemented lean production practice. Informants and focus group participants witness the challenges of simultaneously introducing lean production practices and digital initiatives. It could be argued that LP practices are more static in nature in contrast to the fast-paced changes that digital initiatives are argued to respond towards (Hoellthaler et al., 2018; Rossini et al., 2021). Production visualization relates to digital and LP practice implementation in the sense of visualizing the work for coordinating and planning. Informants and focus group participants give examples of visualizing the production and production orders, warehousing and blueprints through various digital solutions. Various forms of visualization are discussed: digital and non-digital flow boards, TV-screens and padlets. The focus is on visualizing the production rather than how to improve the production efficiency. When informants and focus group participants speak of Warehousing, they relate it to the wish for an improved procedure for storage space including a digital warehouse solution to avoid manually searching for material and components.

4.1.3 Success or challenge

This category explains, either the success of initiatives or the challenges occurring in relation to the different initiatives, weather related to digital initiatives, LP practices or other areas of improvement. The analysis of this category resulted in the identification of nine sub-categories: Successful implementation, Incomplete implementation, Ambivalence btw analog vs digital, Ambivalence btw push vs pull, Lack of access to digital tool, Lack of financial resources, Lack of maintenance, Ratio of short vs long-term employees, Strategic change of employees and Unplanned employee turnover.

The in-depth data analysis, findings and discussion of the sub-categories within the third category Success or Challenge is presented in Tables 3–5. The sub-categories are explained and exemplified with excerpts from both the interviews and focus groups. The sub-categories are divided into three tables. In total Tables 3–5 incorporates 34 excerpts from either the interview or the focus groups, selected excerpts have been chosen to illustrate and exemplify the success factors or challenges occurring when moving forward with LP and I4.0 in organizations going through changes.

Table 3 addresses the wide-ranging sub-categories successful implementation and incomplete implementation. The excerpts about successful implementation demonstrate that certain initiatives have been successfully implemented at CC. However, there are no examples of successful implementations of typical I4.0 technologies, e.g. IoT or digital twins. Instead, the excerpts identified relates to digital infrastructure (laptop computers), communication tools (Teams) and financing software, or being forces to change system because of a coincidental accident. Further, it should be noted that the LP tool Value Stream Mapping (VSM) is considered implemented and continuously used. The excerpts about implementation bring out initiatives of LP practices and I4.0 technologies that have not been followed through. This shows the difficulties in reaching full application of initiatives.

Table 4 focuses on the ambivalence between analog and digital and the ambivalence between push and pull, specifically highlighting challenges occurring when navigating among and searching for a coexistence of LP practices and I4.0 technologies. The excerpts regarding ambivalence show the perceived struggle between traditional analog LP practices and digital options. Analog approaches are also mentioned as being more reliable, though it is emphasized that physical boards need human intervention. Traditional analog VSMs have the advantage of facilitating teambuilding, whereas digital approaches are not viewed as appropriate for teambuilding. The excerpts demonstrate that CC struggles with the push versus pull principles. The importance of this lean characteristic is realized but viewed as difficult to turn the situation around.

Table 5 illustrates and exemplifies other challenges relating to informants and participants perceptions of what may affect novel initiatives, whether LP practices or I4.0 technologies. Table 5 thus includes the sub-categories lack of access to digital tool, lack of financial resources, lack of maintenance, ratio of short vs long-term employees, strategic change of employees, unplanned employee turnover. Excerpts show that CC employees are searching for digital solutions to improve work practice. Financing and resources are brought forward as obstacles. The difficulties of keeping technology up to date and maintaining it for continuous use are mentioned. Further, infrastructure and support for IT- and digital solutions are imperative. There is an added complexity of old technique/machinery still being in use. Short-term employee contracts impact the organization and further, knowledge and competence are important.