The Transition Industry 4.0 workshop is a two hours workshop developed to stimulate a mindset of change in firms, with focus on building strategies for the industry 4.0 business future.
During this workshop, suggestions and dreams related to industry 4.0 in de firm are harvested. By working together on industry 4.0 exercises, consensus is built and team collaboration stimulated. By acknowledging the individual fear for change, anxiety for the new can be overcome and resistance to change reduced.
In the workshop the perspective is on the future and showing the bigger picture of businesses with a need to thrive in industry 4.0. By imagining the future new knowledge and insights are gained by participants and used to start concrete actions in the present. By collecting individual ideas on industry 4.0 and having group discussions on how industry 4.0 impacts functions, roles and competencies of workers and indeed leaders, a positive and sharing mindset is created.
The workshop is built on theories on motivation, communication and behavior and futures studies related to anticipation on future change. The design is based on ‘Technology of Participation’ (TOP) facilitation methods to stimulate an atmosphere of trust and unfold the individual wisdom of participants and bring them into the group process.
Target audience:
The workshop is intended for SME with 5-150 employees.They can be start-ups and growing firms, both not yet automated or in the process of automation.
The workshop can be specifically followed by:
- either HR/Strategic/Sales/Marketing/Operations managerial leaders within the firm or diverse managerial leaders from various firms. Goal is to share knowledge and trends on industry 4.0 and develop impactful industry 4.0 strategies for the near future. In a group of managers from various firms, networking and sharing ideas is boosted as well.
- production workers. Goals are to overcome resistance in firms (intended) industry 4.0 technological development, share practical knowledge and ideas on industry 4.0 technologies and provide input for strategy development.
Effort needed:
The workshop takes roughly two hours. It can be offered ‘in house’ and implemented by the HR manager. The estimated preparation time is circa six hours.
It is also possible to hire external experts or facilitators to implement the workshop. The external expert must co-design the workshop with the firms management to formulate a focal question related to Industry 4.0 and align the specific industry 4.0 needs to the workshop exercises.
Involvement of external experts includes cost, estimated 500 – 1.500 euros.
Status:
The Transition Industry 4.0 workshop is ready for implementation and the Handbook is available on this website. Currenty the Hanze UAS University is working on new workshops related tot the ‘Future of Work’.
The Transition workshop was a best practice in our project and received very good till excellent evaluations. On a scale from 1-10 the workshop received grades between 8 up to 10.
The workshop was held at Score BV, in the Netherlands. This firm gave us the opportunity to conduct the Transition Industry 4.0 Workshop for production workers. In two workshops 25 production workers were actively involved and engaged in bringing forward industry 4.0 ideas for the firm.
Seproma, the initiator of the business platform ‘Production Platform Friesland’, organized a networking meeting with 12 managerial leaders of regional firms in the Netherlands. The workshop was successfully held, industry 4.0 ideas and best practices shared.
And at Resideo the workshop was presented with 12 production workers in casting and machinery to align current industry 4.0 developments with an eye on job competency development in the near future.
All participants praised the interactive exercises and comfortable setting of the workshop. Production workers valued the ‘time being together’ and be involved in the strategic decision process, while managers from various firms highly valued the sharing of industry 4.0 ideas and best practices together.
