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Needs for new competences and knowledge arise as industry 4.0 evolves in increasingly digitalized production. This development entails that job transformations and future skills need attention from the perspective of industry 5.0, where human and machine find ways of working together to improve production performance. Facing this perspective, one challenge is a growing need for novel lifelong learning initiatives, to meet emerging and altering occupations for the fulfilment of future skill requirements. This challenge is addressed here by portraying a case where three Swedish universities have formed a distinctive collaboration to develop a flexible (i.e. blended) course for professionals, in the subject of Digitally-enabled production. The purpose is to develop a sustainable collaboration between the universities and create a course format on master level addressing lifelong learning for the increasingly digitalized production. The ambition is to increase the impact of the universities respective efforts by sharing resources and utilizing individual specialized expertise to develop a practical and relevant course that can reach a larger target group. The course encompasses industry 4.0 readiness on three levels of production systems; plant-, production cell-, and component level; to adopt a holistic view of digitalization in production. We followed an action research approach for continuously collecting and documenting our experiences during the course development, implementation, and dissemination of the course. Within the frame of action research, an explorative case study describes and analyzes the initiative. The results highlight challenges and opportunities for succeeding with this form of co-produced course. The joint course gives professionals possibilities to work on cases from their own companies with expert supervision from three manufacturing levels to address complex challenges in industry 4.0 implementation. To conclude, the importance of lifelong learning in relation to the human-centric approach of industry 5.0 is emphasized as a future direction.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore how different determinants impact specific information quality (IQ) dimensions of shared demand-related information in dyadic supply chain relationships. Design/methodology/approach: Through a qualitative case study of three manufacturer–supplier dyads in the European automotive industry, a range of methods are used to collect data about 168 possible IQ deficiency situations. IQ deficiencies are identified in 50 situations and determinants thereof are explored. Findings: Findings show how inter-organisational collaboration, intra-organisational process support and composite information sharing directly impact five pragmatic IQ dimensions (relevance, accessibility, credibility, understandability and ease of operation) – at times beneficially, detrimentally, varyingly and conflictingly. Furthermore, the findings show how the determinant impact on ease of use-related IQ dimensions is moderated by information sharing facets. Research limitations/implications: The paper extends previous research by showing how information sharing acts as both a determinant and moderator of pragmatic IQ. It furthermore details previous research by showing how previously examined determinants of IQ impact specific IQ dimensions. Practical implications: The generated propositions of how determinants impact pragmatic IQ can guide managers to identify key drivers of successful information sharing. Originality/value: Since IQ mediates the linkage between information sharing and performance, this research helps explaining conflicting results regarding the value of information sharing. It also guides several strands of future research, such as hypothesis testing and exploratory and conceptualising studies.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how different delivery schedule characteristics affect the quality of shared delivery schedule information and, in turn, how deficiencies in quality affect a supplier’s production scheduling process. It describes a case study conducted in the Swedish automotive industry involving a supplier that operates as the first-, second- and third-tier supplier to an original equipment manufacturer. The study reveals how four delivery schedule characteristics–namely, receiving frequency, planning period, frozen period and demand variation–create information quality (IQ) deficiencies in five dimensions of IQ: completeness, conciseness, reliability, timeliness and credibility. At the same time, it demonstrates how such deficiencies affect the supplier’s production scheduling process by requiring additional rescheduling, reworking and follow-up activities as well as additional capacity problems, safety time, safety stock and backlogs. In effect, the paper extends previous IQ-related research by considering IQ in delivery schedules.

How to share and use information in a supply chain to improve operations planning and control (OPC) in the automotive industry is explored from the viewpoint of suppliers. The purpose is to investigate how context characteristics from portfolio models can be used for information sharing purposes and explore how intended usage of shared information at a supplier is connected to context. Case research of five suppliers revealed context characteristics that define the intention to use shared supply chain information. Information sharing differentiation through supplier relations clustering is presented as propositions and can be empirically tested in further research. 

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to define supply chain information utilisation and explore how its antecedents impact shared information utilisation in information receiver’s planning processes. Design/methodology/approach: The analysis is based on a literature review and exploratory case study of three supplier dyads of original equipment manufacturers. This study presents a four-phase model of supply chain information utilisation, and identifies how information sharing, information quality, and intended information usage are antecedents of actual usage of information shared in supply chains. In the dyads, 35 potential information utilisation situations are analysed. Findings: Inter- and intra-organisational factors are antecedents of information utilisation, by their effects on the four phases of utilisation. Composite information sharing, social network governance, human process involvement, and formal planning processes are important antecedents, which are not much emphasised in the literature. Research limitations/implications: The study focusses on routinised sharing of formal demand-related planning information in supply chain dyads. The analysis is based on three case dyads which are chosen to be complementary in several respects, and where there is access to rich data. Practical implications: Understanding phases and antecedents could support managers in developing information sharing strategies. Originality/value: The literature does not explicitly consider information utilisation, or related antecedents or effects. However, by defining information utilisation and proposing a multi-phase utilisation model, this study can explain the performance effect of information sharing. In addition, the composite information variable is defined. This is the first attempt to conceptualise and explore antecedents of information utilisation in supply chains.