The impact of Industry 4.0 technologies and the soft side of TQM on organisational performance: a multiple case study analysis on manufacturing organisations
{"title":"The impact of Industry 4.0 technologies and the soft side of TQM on organisational performance: a multiple case study analysis on manufacturing organisations","authors":"Emanuele Gabriel Margherita, A. M. Braccini","doi":"10.1108/tqm-01-2022-0022","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"PurposeThe purpose of this study is to explore how Industry 4.0 (I40) technologies support workers' engagement in soft total quality management (TQM) practices for organisational performance.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conducted a multiple case study of six Italian manufacturing organisations that operate with I40 production and implement TQM practices. The authors concentrated on the relationship between I40 technologies and soft TQM aspects.FindingsI40 technologies provide two forms of engagement with workers. Workers can act as machine supervisors and expert assembly operators. Organisations use five soft TQM practices to involve and develop workers for TQM that vary according to automation levels. The five soft TQM practices are top management design around workers, incremental trials with I40 technologies, worker empowerment, I40 sociotechnical collaboration and individual feedback systems.Originality/valueIn the literature that focusses primarily on how I40 technologies support the hard side of TQM by creating a data-driven and automated quality management system, the authors illustrate how the workforce can be engaged in I40 with five soft TQM practices to improve organisational performance. Thus, the authors complement the theory of hard and soft TQM aspects for I40 production systems.","PeriodicalId":40009,"journal":{"name":"TQM Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.8000,"publicationDate":"2022-12-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"TQM Journal","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1108/tqm-01-2022-0022","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"MANAGEMENT","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
PurposeThe purpose of this study is to explore how Industry 4.0 (I40) technologies support workers' engagement in soft total quality management (TQM) practices for organisational performance.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conducted a multiple case study of six Italian manufacturing organisations that operate with I40 production and implement TQM practices. The authors concentrated on the relationship between I40 technologies and soft TQM aspects.FindingsI40 technologies provide two forms of engagement with workers. Workers can act as machine supervisors and expert assembly operators. Organisations use five soft TQM practices to involve and develop workers for TQM that vary according to automation levels. The five soft TQM practices are top management design around workers, incremental trials with I40 technologies, worker empowerment, I40 sociotechnical collaboration and individual feedback systems.Originality/valueIn the literature that focusses primarily on how I40 technologies support the hard side of TQM by creating a data-driven and automated quality management system, the authors illustrate how the workforce can be engaged in I40 with five soft TQM practices to improve organisational performance. Thus, the authors complement the theory of hard and soft TQM aspects for I40 production systems.
TQM JournalBusiness, Management and Accounting-Business, Management and Accounting (all)
CiteScore
9.10
自引率
0.00%
发文量
114
期刊介绍:
Commitment to quality is essential if companies are to succeed in a commercial environment which will be virtually unrecognizable in less than a decade. Changing attitudes, changing perspectives and changing priorities will revolutionise the structure and philosophy of future business practice - and TQM will be at the heart of that metamorphosis. All aspects of preparing for, developing, introducing, managing and evaluating TQM initiatives.