Abstract:
Shop-floor employees play a key role in manufacturing innovation. In some companies, up to 75% of all productivity gains are the result of bottom-up employee ideas. In this paper, we examine how employee interplant assignments—short problem-solving jobs at other manufacturing plants within the same firm—influence employee-driven manufacturing innovation. Using unique idea-level data from a large European car parts manufacturer, we show that interplant assignments significantly increase the value of employees’ improvement ideas due to the short-term transfer of production knowledge and long-term employee learning. Both effects are amplified by assignments to plants that are functionally similar (i.e., plants producing similar products using similar processes and machinery). The implication is that, for the purpose of employee-driven manufacturing innovation, assignments between peripheral plants are more effective than assignments to and from central plants. These findings are robust to several econometric tests. Our study provides novel and detailed empirical evidence of manufacturing innovation, and goes beyond previous research on the learning curve (learning by doing) by investigating how interplant assignments affect the value of employees’ improvement ideas (learning by moving).
Biography:
Dr Bilal Gokpinar is an Associate Professor at UCL School of Management, University College London. He is also the head of of Operations & Technology and Marketing & Analytics subject groups. Bilal’s research interests are in the design, management and improvement of work processes and operational decision making in technology intensive and knowledge driven organisational settings. His recent work has examined operational challenges and opportunities in a wide range of such contexts including fluid healthcare teams, crowdfunding, mobile app development, ride-hailing platforms, among others.
Bilal’s research has been published in leading management journals such as Management Science, MSOM and Production and Operations Management. He is currently an Associate Editor for the Journal of Operations Management. He has also served as a co-investigator on a major research grant from UK’s Technology Strategy Board (total value £1.2 million) to develop decision support tools for emerging cell therapy projects.
Bilal received his PhD from Northwestern University, and his BSc in Industrial Engineering (with minors in Economics and Mathematics) from Purdue University with distinction. In addition to UCL, he has taught in the MSc and MBA programmes at various institutions including LSE, HEC Paris and Peking University, and his industry experience includes working with General Motors R&D and Strategic Planning.