31.5.2013

Social Collaboration Tools at Fastems

Ville Kilkku (@VilleKilkku)

Lean Manager

Fastems Oy Ab

31.5.2013

Fastems in brief• Factory automation supplier and integrator: FMS, robot cells,

tools

• Offices in 10 countries, around 450 employees

Theoretical basis (1/3): connecting people• Improving the cooperation of strong ties

• Utilizing and increasing the number of weak ties

• Potential for utilizing absent ties (prediction markets, not used at Fastems as of yet)

Mark Granovetter, The Strength of Weak Ties, American Journal of Sociology, 1973, Vol. 78, Issue 6, 1360-80

Andrew McAfee, Enterprise 2.0: New Collaborative Tools for Your Organization's Toughest Challenges, 2009

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Theoretical basis (2/3): part of work vs additional work• In-the-flow – wiki is the tool (memos, plans etc. are created within

the wiki)

• Above-the-flow – wiki is extra work (knowledgebases, Wikipedia)

Michael Idinopulos, In-the-Flow and Above-the-Flow, blog post26.12.2007http://michaeli.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/12/in-the-flow-and.html

Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li, Groundswell, 2008 (revised edition 2011)

• Both can be used, but it is more difficult to get people to contribute to above-the-flow applications

Theoretical basis (3/3): Motivation• Self-determination theory

– Possibility to affect own work and environment (autonomy)

– Possibility to develop and show expertise (mastery)

– Possibility to connect with other employees (relatedness)

– Possibility to do work that is meaningful (purpose)

Popularization of the theory:http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.htmlDaniel H. Pink, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, 2011(original research, e.g. Edward L. Deci, Richard M. Ryan)

Motivation

Autonomy

Mastery Relatedness

Purpose

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Social collaboration tool• The platform

(Confluence) was purchased to be a tool

• HR and communications departments were not involved in the original implementation

• Nowadays the platform is Fastems’ social intranet and a home to multiple business processes

• Some use cases on next pages

Social feedback system• Internal feedback freely available throughout the

organization: improved lead times (people participate spontaneously) and improved results (problem-solving suggestions from a wider audience).

• Also a process and responsible persons => ensures handling even when social aspect does not contribute

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Customer complaint handling• Main responsible persons

for complaint handling are local service managers

• This application provides them with a better communication channel to engineering and R&D, both for solving the issues and for future development needs

• Also ensures consistent documentation of complaints

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Integrated management system• ISO 9001, ISO 14001, OHSAS

18001 (not certified)

• Wiki fulfills most of ISO 9001 4.2.3 (Control of documents) requirements out of the box

• Editing and approvals can be restricted, if needed (at Fastems everything is done via instructions)

• Processes and instructions can be discussed about

• Process charts are drawn directly via web interface (Gliffy)

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Ideas and innovation• Same basic idea as

with internal feedback: visibility, discussions

• ”Like” functionality

• Front-end of innovation made more transparent and open

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R&D projects• Everyone at Fastems

has full access to all R&D materials– Project goals

– Design drivers

– Project status

– Project results

• ”Traffic light” indicates what can be shared outside the company

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Delivery projects• Transparency

throughout the organization

• Analysis of current status

• Decision-making

• Roles of data systems:

ERP

• Financial data

• Purchasing

• Manufacturing

• Invoicing

PDM

• CAD models

• Specifications

• Test reports

Intra (wiki)

• ”Soft data”

• Change management

• Risk management

• Memos

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Knowledgebases (engineering, service)• Information easy to

find, easy to update

• Challenge is getting people to create new content: knowledgebase is something extra, whereas most of our other applications are simply tools where the actual work is done (it is difficult to get people to do extra work)

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Marketing and communications• Organizing of events

• Commenting on marketing materials

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Well-being at work• Fastems supports the

employees’ well-being at work

• Internal ”hobby clubs”– Golfers, scubadivers,

poker players etc.

– Open to everyone

– Fastems provides funding, but only if the club activities are reported on the internal platform

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Internal phone book, with pictures• Everyone has a profile

– Picture

– Contact information

– Some people include job descriptions or competencies, but this is not mandatory

• More information on people than in a traditional phone book

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Conclusions• Applications are developed for the platform for processes and

functions: first there is a business need, then we create a solution

• Social collaboration tools can improve many processes!

• Some benefits become greater as the number of users increases (more people become exposed to information) – this is why it is important to also have general use cases, some perhaps not directly business-related (phone book, hobby clubs, second-hand market)

• Social collaboration tools require an open, transparent corporate culture – however, using them also shapes the corporate culture towards transparency, so systematic management decisions can create this culture over the years if it does not exist yet

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www.fastems.com

Thank you!