Swedish Manufacturing Industry Research Articles

Strategizing organizational capabilities for industrial digitalization – exploring managers' technological frames

PurposeThis study draws on technological frames to provide an understanding of organizational processes of strategizing by exploring how strategizing organizational capabilities for industrial digitalization could be understood through managers' perceptions of digital technology applications. This study complements earlier research focused on industry outcomes by addressing technological frames to understand how strategizing organizational capabilities within industrial digitalization may provide insight into socio-cognitive aspects which may affect technology-induced organizational change.Design/methodology/approachThe single case study uses 14 in-depth interviews collected over two years (October 2020 to February 2022). The study follows an interpretative research design exploring managers' perceptions of industrial digitalization through a digitalization project.FindingsThe case study contributes to research by emphasizing socio-cognitive aspects through technological frames exploring how and why managers' perceptions of industrial digitalization affect strategizing organizational capabilities. The study contributes to practice by bringing attention to the disparate views of industrial digitalization. By illustrating how socio-cognitive aspects shape organizational capabilities, this study offers managers valuable insight into the relationship between an organization's capabilities, the individual and the shared structures affecting a digitalization project.Research limitations/implicationsThe case study is limited to Swedish manufacturing industries and is not aiming to be transferred or generalized to other industrial contexts or countries.Originality/valueThis study recognizes that strategizing organizational capabilities depends on managers' ability to illuminate the socio-cognitive aspects. Hence, the study contributes to practice by bringing attention to the disparate views among managers on the enhancement efforts made using digital technologies.

Lessons from adopting robotic in-line quality inspection in the Swedish manufacturing industry

The Zero-Defect Manufacturing (ZDM) movement has received increasing interest from practitioners and academics. However, despite the academic development of the field, the adoption of ZDM enablers such as robotic in-line quality inspection applications has not increased as expected. This article explores the state of adoption of robotic in-line quality inspection at five global Swedish manufacturing companies. Results show that contrary to the case companies’ beliefs, more people- and process-oriented challenges have been encountered compared with technological ones. Future work will focus on developing system design guidelines for robotic in-line quality inspection systems in the realm of ZDM.

The Dynamic Impact of Exporting on Firm R&D Investment

Abstract This article estimates a dynamic structural model of firm R&D investment in twelve Swedish manufacturing industries and uses it to measure rates of return to R&D and to simulate the impact of trade restrictions on the investment incentives. Export market profits are a substantial source of the expected return to R&D. R&D spending is found to have a larger impact on firm productivity in the export market than in the domestic market. Counterfactual simulations show that trade restrictions lower both the expected return to R&D and R&D investment level, thus reducing an important source of the dynamic gains from trade. A 10% tariff on Swedish exports reduces the expected benefits of R&D for the median firm by 18.6% and lowers the amount of R&D spending by 7.6% in the high-tech industries. The corresponding reductions in the low-tech industries are 20.6% and 5.5%, respectively. R&D adjustments in response to export tariffs mainly occur on the intensive, rather than the extensive, margin.

A dynamic analysis of industrial energy efficiency and the rebound effect: implications for carbon emissions and sustainability

Energy efficiency improvement (EEI) is generally known to be a cost-effective measure for meeting energy, climate, and sustainable growth targets. Unfortunately, behavioral responses to such improvements (called energy rebound effects) may reduce the expected savings in energy and emissions from EEI. Hence, the size of this effect should be considered to help design efficient energy and climate targets. Currently, there are significant differences in approaches for measuring the rebound effect. Here, we used a two-step procedure to measure both short- and long-term energy rebound effects in the Swedish manufacturing industry. In the first step, we used data envelopment analysis (DEA) to measure energy efficiency. In the second step, we use the efficiency scores and estimated a derived energy demand equation including rebound effects using a dynamic panel regression model. This approach was applied to a firm-level panel dataset covering 14 sectors in Swedish manufacturing over the period 1997–2008. We showed that, in the short run, partial and statistically significant rebound effects exist within all manufacturing sectors, meaning that the rebound effect decreased the energy and emission savings expected from EEI. The long-term rebound effect was in general smaller than the short-term effect, implying that within each sector, energy and emission savings due to EEI are larger in the long run compared to the short run. Using our estimates of energy efficiency and rebound effect, we further performed a post-estimation analysis to provide a guide to policy makers by identifying sectors where EEI have the most potential to promote sustainable economic growth with the lowest environmental impact.

How industrial maintenance managers perceive socio-technical changes in leadership in the Industry 4.0 context

Innovations and advancements in technology create new opportunities to run and maintain manufacturing plants, which we refer to as digitalised manufacturing. This development is recognised as a socio-technical system (STS) change, where a change in the production system’s goals, technology, processes, people, or environment may lead to ripple effects between those sub-systems. Despite this, technology development and technology use cases account for most of the research within digitalised manufacturing, while little attention has been devoted to leadership practices considering digitalised manufacturing from a socio-technical perspective. This paper focuses on the maintenance organisation, whose mission in a company is to keep production systems functional. We aim to describe leadership in industrial maintenance from an STS perspective. This is a unique interview study where twenty maintenance managers from Swedish manufacturing industry offer their perspective on the changing leadership within maintenance, providing a unique insight into the challenges facing leaders of maintenance in digitalised manufacturing. We frame the empirical findings using an STS framework and propose an overall consideration model for leadership that supports the development of a functional maintenance organisation in the face of pervasive digitalisation.

Is industrial energy inefficiency transient or persistent? Evidence from Swedish manufacturing

Energy inefficiency in production implies that the same level of goods and services could be produced using less energy. The potential energy inefficiency of a firm may be linked to long-term structural rigidities in the production process and/or systematic shortcomings in management (persistent inefficiency), or associated with temporary issues like misallocation of resources (transient inefficiency). Eliminating or mitigating different inefficiencies may require different policy measures. Studies measuring industrial energy inefficiency have mostly focused on overall inefficiencies and have paid little attention to distinctions between the types. The aim of this study was to assess whether energy inefficiency is transient and/or persistent in the Swedish manufacturing industry. I used a firm-level panel dataset covering fourteen industrial sectors from 1997 to 2008 and estimated a stochastic energy demand frontier model. The model included a four-component error term separating persistent and transient inefficiency from unobserved heterogeneity and random noise. I found that both transient and persistent energy inefficiencies exist in most sectors of the Swedish manufacturing industry. Overall, persistent energy inefficiency was larger than transient, but varied considerably in different manufacturing sectors. The results suggest that, generally, energy inefficiencies in the Swedish manufacturing industry were related to structural rigidities connected to technology and/or management practices.

Briefing: Calling for a norm-critical perspective of digitalisation

A question that becomes important as the level of digitalisation increases in society and businesses is accounting for how one interprets digitalisation. There are positive examples of digitalisation in relation to gender, age and physical ability and how digital technologies can positively enhance a workplace, although the norm-critical perspective is seldom represented. A more dynamic perspective such as the norm-critical is needed to depict potential limiting structures or assumptions interpreted by digitalisation. This briefing paper takes on an interpretative approach using the Swedish manufacturing industry as a case to illustrate the perspectives related to gender, age and physical ability relative to digitalisation. The norm-critical perspective has formed the narrative and viewpoints presented in this paper. The aim is to highlight the norm-critical perspective as a potential analytical lens among researchers and industry professionals alike to understand how digitalisation is negotiated and given value and how digitalisation is manifested and interpreted to that given value.

On Remanufacturing Readiness Level - An introduction to a Remometer™

Linear material flows dominate in the Swedish manufacturing industry, and knowledge on remanufacturing as a value-retention process remains limited. Today, only a limited amount of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) for consumer goods (that are acquired for personal use), such as laptops and mobile phones, are remanufactured in Sweden. More support is needed to enhance the remanufacturization (a shift towards remanufacturing) of manufacturing industries by targeting manufacturers that have prerequisites and/or show interest in implementing remanufacturing on their products (later called developing remanufacturing industries). One way to support the developing remanufacturing industries could be by providing a tool to assesses manufacturers’ potential with remanufacturing. The aim of this paper is to introduce such a tool, called the Remometer™, and to present this approach to measure a company’s remanufacturing readiness level (RRL). The data was collected through a literature study and semi-structured interviews to fulfill the aim of this paper. The authors’ research on lean remanufacturing, in collaboration with EEE, automotive, heavy equipment and machinery manufacturers, service/maintenance providers and retailers, laid the basis for developing the Remometer™ tool. By assessing 15 subjects shared between four critical to remanufacturing areas, namely, business model, production system, product and customer, manufacturers can measure their remanufacturing readiness level and a gap towards a world-class remanufacturer. However, neither RRL nor a gap is a purpose of the Remometer™ tool, but a useful measure to communicate to top managers on a manufacturer’s potential to become more circular through remanufacturing. Remometer™ is developed to support the remanufacturization of a Swedish EEE manufacturer of consumer goods and can be applied at other developing remanufacturing industries.

Environment Versus Jobs: An Industry-Level Analysis of Sweden

The aim of this paper was to investigate whether the environment and employment compete with each other in Swedish manufacturing industry. The effect of a marginal increase in environmental expenditure and environmental investment costs on sector-level demand for labor (employment) was studied using a detailed firm-level panel dataset for the period 2001–2008. The results showed that the sign and magnitude of the net employment effects ultimately depend on the aggregate sector-level output demand elasticity. If the output demand is inelastic, these costs induce small net improvements in employment, while a more elastic output demand suggests negative, but in most sectors relatively small, net effects on demand for labor. Hence, the results did not generally indicate a substantial trade-off between jobs and the environment. The general policy recommendation that can be drawn from this study is that, in the absence of empirically estimated output demand elasticities, a careful attitude regarding national environmental initiatives for sectors exposed to world market competition should be adopted.

The Model-Driven Decision Arena: Augmented Decision-Making for Product-Service Systems Design

The shift towards Product-Service Systems (PSS) stresses the need to embed new and unique capabilities in Decision Support Systems, with the aim of helping the engineering team in handling the pool of information and knowledge available during decision events. Emerging from a multiple case study in the Swedish manufacturing industry, this paper describes the development of the Model-Driven Decision Arena (MDDA), an environment for collaborative decision-making that focuses on the early design phases of PSS. Based on the findings from multiple case studies, this paper illustrates the main goals of the MDDA, detailing its main functions, its physical environment, and its software architecture and models. This paper demonstrates the use of the MDDA in a case study related to the development of an asphalt compactor, presenting and discussing the results of verification activities conducted with industrial practitioners on the current MDDA prototype.

A Dynamic Analysis of Industrial Energy Efficiency and the Rebound Effect

Energy efficiency improvement (EEI) is generally known to be a cost-effective measure for meeting energy, climate and sustainable growth targets. Unfortunately, behavioral responses to such improvements (called energy rebound effects) may reduce the expected savings in energy and emissions from EEI. Hence, the size of this effect should be considered to help set realistic energy and climate targets. Currently there are significant differences in approaches for measuring rebound effect. Here, we used a two-step procedure to measure both short- and long-term energy rebound effects in the Swedish manufacturing industry. In the first step, we used data envelopment analysis (DEA) to obtain energy efficiency scores. In the second step, we estimated energy rebound effects using a dynamic panel regression model. This approach was applied to a firm-level panel dataset covering all 14 sectors in the Swedish manufacturing industry over the period 1997–2008. We showed that, in the short run, partial rebound effects exist within most of manufacturing sectors, meaning that the rebound effect decreased, but did not totally offset, the energy and emission savings expected from EEI. The long-term rebound effect was smaller than the short-term effect, implying that within each sector, energy and emission savings due to EEI are larger in the long run compared to the short run.

Is Industrial Energy Inefficiency Transient or Persistent? Evidence from Swedish Manufacturing

Energy inefficiency in production implies that the same level of goods and services could be produced using less energy. The potential energy inefficiency of a firm may be linked to long-term structural rigidities in the production process and/or systematic shortcomings in management (persistent inefficiency), or associated with temporary issues like misallocation of resources (transient inefficiency). Eliminating or mitigating different inefficiencies may require different policy measures. Studies measuring industrial energy inefficiency have mostly focused on overall inefficiencies and have paid little attention to distinctions between the types. The aim of this study was to assess whether energy inefficiency is transient and/or persistent in the Swedish manufacturing industry. I used a firm-level panel dataset covering fourteen industrial sectors from 1997–2008 and estimated a stochastic energy demand frontier model. The model included a four-component error term separating persistent and transient inefficiency from unobserved heterogeneity and random noise. I found that both transient and persistent energy inefficiencies exist in most sectors of the Swedish manufacturing industry. Overall, persistent energy inefficiency was larger than transient, but varied considerably in different manufacturing sectors. The results suggest that, generally, energy inefficiencies in the Swedish manufacturing industry were related to structural rigidities connected to technology and/or management practices.

The Dynamic Impact of Exporting on Firm R&D Investment

This article estimates a dynamic structural model of firm R&D investment in twelve Swedish manufacturing industries and uses it to measure rates of return to R&D and to simulate the impact of trade restrictions on the investment incentives. R&D spending is found to have a larger impact on firm productivity in the export market than in the domestic market. Export market profits are a substantial source of the expected return to R&D. Counterfactual simulations show that trade restrictions lower both the expected return to R&D and R&D investment level, thus reducing an important source of the dynamic gains from trade. A 20 percent tariff on Swedish exports reduces the expected benefits of R&D by an average of 32.2 percent and lowers the amount of R&D spending by 13.9 percent in the high-tech industries. The corresponding reductions in the low-tech industries are 30.4 and 8.9 percent, respectively. R&D adjustments in response to export tariffs mainly occur on the intensive, rather than the extensive, margin.

TFP change and its components for Swedish manufacturing firms during the 2008\u20132009 financial crisis

A driving force of economic development is growth in total factor productivity (TFP). Manufactured goods are, to a large extent, exports, and represent an important part of the economy for many developed countries. Additionally, a slowdown in labour productivity has been observed in many OECD countries since the financial crisis of 2008–2009. This study investigates TFP change and its components for the Swedish manufacturing industry, compared with the private service sector, during the years 1997–2013, centering on the financial crisis. Stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) is used to disentangle persistent and transient efficiency from firm heterogeneity and random noise, respectively. In addition, technical change (TC), returns to scale (RTS) and a scale change (SC) component are also identified. Along with the empirical analysis, an elaborative discussion regarding TC in SFA is provided. The persistent part for manufacturing (service) is 0.796 (0.754) and the transient part is 0.787 (0.762), indicating improvement potentials. Furthermore, TFP change is substantially lower between the years 2007–2013, compared to 1997–2007. This occurs due to a lower technological progress. Policy should, therefore, target interventions that enhance technology. However, care needs to be taken so that policies do not sustain low-productive firms that otherwise would exit the market.

The future shop-floor operators, demands, requirements and interpretations

The evolution of the manufacturing industry reveals continuous progress and development throughout the years. This evolution not only includes production methodologies and the production equipment, it also includes the working environment of the shop-floor operators. The demands faced by the shop-floor operators have developed from strictly controlled, simple and monotonic tasks to self-controlled team work requiring a holistic approach that aims at continuous improvements and achieving a high degree of flexibility, adaptability and initiative.This paper describes the evolution of the shop-floor operator, according to the research literature and interviews with manufacturing managers and human resources specialists. In addition, the paper presents the response of future Swedish shop-floor operators, today’s high-school students, to a description of their possible future work as shop-floor operators. The Swedish manufacturing industry competes, to a large extent, on and responds to the international market. The findings made in this paper are thus also interesting for other industries and countries acting on the international market.

Drivers and barriers of reshoring in the Swedish manufacturing industry

The purpose of this study is to explore reshoring drivers and barriers in the Swedish manufacturing industry. The research is based on case research including five case companies from the Swedish manufacturing industry with experience of manufacturing reshoring. The empirical findings are compared to the existing literature to identify any potential gaps between the existing literature and the Swedish manufacturing context. The findings suggest that quality related issues, an increased degree of automation, and improved cost performance at the home base are the strongest reshoring drivers for Swedish manufacturing companies. The identified drivers and barriers are transferable and have the potential to be building blocks for researchers and practitioners to better understand the reshoring phenomena. The findings also show that further research should focus on reshoring drivers and barriers in relation to specific reshoring characteristics (e.g., ownership, scale of production being reshored, and position in the supply chain).

From organic to fossil and in-between: new estimates of energy consumption in the Swedish manufacturing industry during 1800–1913

ABSTRACTIn this article, new estimates of energy consumption in the Swedish manufacturing industry during 1800–1913 are used for interpreting the Swedish industrialisation process from an energy economic perspective. For one we conclude that the revision of previous estimates is substantial when it comes to manufacturing. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the increase of coal consumption, the expansion of the fossil or mineral energy system, to a high degree can be explained by the increased use of steam engines in manufacturing and the transport sector. Finally, we conclude that overall energy intensity patterns is largely determined by assumptions on household firewood consumption. A narrative interpretation of the interplay between energy system transformation and the industrialisation in Sweden concludes the article.

Maintenance in digitalised manufacturing: Delphi-based scenarios for 2030

Despite extensive research on future manufacturing and the forthcoming fourth industrial revolution (implying extensive digitalisation), there is a lack of understanding regarding the specific changes that can be expected for maintenance organisations. Therefore, developing scenarios for future maintenance is needed to define long-term strategies for the realisation of digitalised manufacturing. This empirical Delphi-based scenario planning study is the first within the maintenance realm, examining a total of 34 projections about potential changes to the internal and external environment of maintenance organisations, considering both hard (technological) and soft (social) dimensions. The paper describes a probable future of maintenance organisations in digitalised manufacturing in the year 2030, based on an extensive three-round Delphi survey with 25 maintenance experts at strategic level from the largest companies within the Swedish manufacturing industry. In particular, the study contributes with development of probable as well as wildcard scenarios for future maintenance. This includes e.g. advancement of data analytics, increased emphasis on education and training, novel principles for maintenance planning with a systems perspective, and stronger environmental legislation and standards. The scenarios may serve as direct input to strategic development in industrial maintenance organisations and are expected to substantially improve preparedness to the changes brought by digitalised manufacturing.

Drivers and barriers of reshoring in the Swedish manufacturing industry

The purpose of this study is to explore reshoring drivers and barriers in the Swedish manufacturing industry. The research is based on case research including five case companies from the Swedish manufacturing industry with experience of manufacturing reshoring. The empirical findings are compared to the existing literature to identify any potential gaps between the existing literature and the Swedish manufacturing context. The findings suggest that quality related issues, an increased degree of automation, and improved cost performance at the home base are the strongest reshoring drivers for Swedish manufacturing companies. The identified drivers and barriers are transferable and have the potential to be building blocks for researchers and practitioners to better understand the reshoring phenomena. The findings also show that further research should focus on reshoring drivers and barriers in relation to specific reshoring characteristics (e.g., ownership, scale of production being reshored, and position in the supply chain).

Evaluating the Management System Approach for Industrial Energy Efficiency Improvements

Voluntary environmental management systems (EMS) based on the international standard ISO 14001 have become widespread globally in recent years. The purpose of this study is to assess the impact of voluntary management systems on energy efficiency in the Swedish manufacturing industry by means of objective industrial energy data derived from mandatory annual environmental reports. The study focuses on changes in energy efficiency over a period of 12 years and includes both ISO 14001-certified companies and non-certified companies. Consideration is given to energy improvement efforts in the companies before the adoption of ISO 14001. The analysis has been carried out using statistical methods for two different industrial energy parameters: electricity and fossil fuel consumption. The results indicate that ISO 14001 adoption and certification has increased energy efficiency regarding the use of fossil fuel. In contrast, no effect of the management systems has been found concerning the use of electricity. The mixed results of this study are only partly in line with the results of previous studies based on perceptions of company representatives.