Organizational Learning at Shop Floor Level

Abstract

This thesis presents a longitudinal organizational learning study of Project-based Action Learning (PAL) implementation at the shop floor level in a case company, named APT, which is located in China.

Organizational learning (OL) and Learning organization (LO) have been researched into and discussed for several decades, but real life empirical and long term studies are still scarce in the literature. More than a decade ago, PAL was developed as an OL tool by several pioneers in City University of Hong Kong in collaboration with a case company (SAE).

This research sets out specifically to examine the factors that influence PAL implementation and effectiveness at the factory shop floor (or operator) level. It extends and complements the previous studies which focused at higher levels of an organization.

Although the definitions of OL and LO may vary from different people in different contexts, there are some common elements. This research discusses the common elements that had been built into the PAL concept and implementation framework. PAL concept and implementation method are reviewed and fine-tuned for this OL research at the shop floor level of the case company. The characteristics of shop floor operations related to OL and performance evaluation were discussed, which forms the basis for the development of the additional performance assessment tools needed for this research to measure the learning and working performance of the shop floor participants, which are not adequately covered by the existing PAL tools.

The PAL implementation in shop floor was carried out in a wave-like manner. The result of each wave was used to fine tune the setup strategy and method of next wave. A total of 20 PAL projects were launched and completed during the four waves of implementation over a period of three and a half year.

The first wave was also the pilot run. Further assessment tools were developed after this pilot run. It also gave newly trained facilitators a chance to practice the acquired skills. The second wave included changes introduced after the first wave pilot implementation. Continuous improvement (CI) programs for project identification and non-PAL group for comparison were added. The third wave implementation essentially repeated the second wave. Similar results were obtained in the second wave and third wave, except the post-PAL implementation changes. This led to the fourth wave implementation. It was a repeated implementation of the extended PAL framework and aimed to draw the final conclusion for this research.

The data collected were analyzed by graphical and statistical methods. The performance of non-PAL groups was used as comparison with the PAL groups. Significant measurable change (improvement) of performance has been found in PAL participants. The improvement measured in PAL group outperforms the non-PAL group.

The research has shown that PAL strategy with appropriate fine tuning and additional shop floor specific performance assessment tools designed and used is applicable to shop floor operation. The original PAL framework when applied to shop floor level needs to be slightly modified and strengthened by the introduction of enriched assessment package and the project identification method which uses methodology from continuous improvement (CI) programs.

Date of Award	2 Jan 2018
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	City University of Hong Kong
Supervisor	Kong Bieng CHUAH (Supervisor)