Tools to Aid in Cultural Transformation

Abstract

The Ideal Plant Culture project was a highly interactive process engaging our research group, the research sponsors and advocates, and the study participants. We shared what we were learning with the newly appointed plant manager of the greenfield plant and his Joint Leadership Team. In exchange, we received feedback and new directions for the research, which was compatible with a community-based participatory research approach¹ in which researchers and manufacturing-community members are partners in the research. As the feedback process intensified, our research group began developing prototypes of applications, or tools, that could assist manufacturing leaders in conceptualizing and planning for the culture of the new plant. The development of these tools, or “actions,” was aligned with the tradition of action anthropology.² Manufacturing leaders from both the greenfield plant and from a senior group of U.S.-based manufacturing managers worked with us intensively to test and implement the tools.