Text by Reiko Imamura
In 2003, Hitachi launched an ethnography team centered around members specializing in psychology and cultural anthropology. In the upstream zone of production and system development, the team investigates the actual situations and potential needs of business operations by observing the behavior of users. They already implemented more than 200 ethnographic research projects in development such as railroad command centers, power plants, medical systems, and financial systems. Furthermore, in recent years, an increasing number of companies are voicing an interest in utilizing this method not only to improve operational efficiency but also to address the challenges of revitalizing their organizations.
Hitachi Transport System has long been working on improving warehouse equipment and business processes. On the other hand, on-site, where a huge volume of shipment is executed in a fixed amount of time, many people, including both employees and temporary workers, recognize each other’s faces without ever having conversed. There were very few opportunities to pass on the knowledge of skilled workers to the younger generation, and some people cited the weakness of human relationships as a cause of employee turnover. Based on this situation, Hitachi proposed “human-centered interactive community activities.” The background idea is that “the organizational culture needs to be recreated by the initiative of the people themselves at Hitachi Transport System.”
What the team practiced on site during three years of collaboration with Hitachi Transport was Logistics OPEX (Operational Excellence). This is a community activity that refines work performance while enjoying deep dialogue and sharing know-how or creating new ideas with the logistics warehouse workers.
For instance, in a dialogue workshop between a warehouse manager and workers, participants view a prerecorded video of experts’ knowhow and then present their current level in comparison. As working years increase, people tend to cease to look back upon themselves. Based on the theory of experiential learning, the first thing one should do is to view oneself objectively.
Next, they all come up with ideas for improving the on-site situation, with the warehouse manager acting as the facilitator. They will practice scenarios prepared by the OPEX designer who starts up the community together and proceed with the workshop; they acquire skills of having light banter and deep dialogue with other workers.
Employees who were not adept at communicating would gain the ability to liven up dialogue with other workers as they become accustomed to it. For the first 10 minutes or so, the expressions of the participants are stiff, but gradually the laughter and chatter become unstoppable because this workshop is a complimenting scenario no matter what. When having an enjoyable conversation, participants feel like they want to evolve, and improve the department together with their colleagues.
This is exactly an effort to instill design thinking in the logistics field, which, however, is not important to workers and warehouse managers working in the field. The aim of this activity is to form and nurture an organizational culture, not an educational program. Rather than understanding it with one’s head, the awareness one acquires through an enjoyable experience is much stronger and deeper.
The need for community activities has increased in the last year or two. Rather than leading from the top-down, more and more managers think that each person in the field should think autonomously to become an organization that can design operations, solutions, and visions. In response to these voices, Hitachi will continue to strengthen its proposals for community design based on ethnography.
