Periodic Reporting for period 2 - RailActivation (ACTIVATING INCLUSIVE GROWTH IN RAILWAY SMES BY WORKPLACE INNOVATION)
Berichtszeitraum: 2021-03-01 bis 2021-08-31
Railway industry competitiveness and productivity growth are based, among other factors, on the capacity of the company to innovate, being railway research a key driver for maintaining Europe at the competitive edge of technical development. In recent years, new business models and commercial strategies are being implemented, offering railway companies new technological possibilities, thus accelerating the innovation (European Commission, 2019). The digital revolution is happening, transforming the way we move and produce. Some sectors such as aerospace or automation have experienced fast and disruptive changes to maintain their competitiveness. However, the railway sector did not experience such fast-disruptive change as other transport modes regarding digitalization, automation and innovation in the whole system. Success in the digital revolution means that the rail industries need to use the best available technologies focusing on people. The managerial and organizational practices adopted by railway entities have considerable significance for Railway's ability to succeed in global competition. One of the challenges for railway entities is to deliver innovative products, offering quickness and flexibility to respond to changing demands from their customers. Non-technological innovations and especially Workplace innovation, have a key role to play in the digitalization and acceleration of technological developments, therefore in the railway sector competitiveness. This draws attention to the importance of innovation climate and employees' commitment aiming at improving staff motivation and working conditions, thereby enhancing labor productivity, organizational performance, innovation capability, reactivity to market change, and consequently business competitiveness. As with any emerging opportunity, there is no established path to follow to activate inclusive growth in railway SMEs to uptake Workplace innovation. To address these issues, RailActivation project develops and tests a research model that covers individual behavior, organizational practices, and process practices of innovation among employees, analyzing the impact of Workplace Innovation on firm performance.
The aim of WP2 was to look and analyse the existing tools to support the uptake of Workplace Innovation. As part of the mapping phase an analysis of the practices, tools, mechanisms and schemes was made, in order to identify the challenges for Workplace Innovation practices in Rail Sector. The data used for this research was collected in a survey designed by RailActivation consortium and administered online to workers of the EU railway sector. This information has been the basis for the development of a targeted Workplace Innovation Pilot Scheme for rail sector and the definition of RailActivation mechanisms and tools for the scheme. These areas deal with the design of the organisation, the design of management tasks, and the design of jobs with the objective of simultaneous improvement of organisational performance and quality of working life. Piloting in real condition. The WP aimed to test the Pilot Scheme in 20 SMEs, building the internal capabilities and process required to deliver exceptional experiences for years to come. During the first annual period the RailActivation Open Call was defined and launched establishing the conditions of access to the call for proposals. During the project implementation period, 2 Interregional Communities of Practice (ICoP) were defined with the aim of setting a general framework of the activities (Innovation Way Community and User Community), and 18 Community of Practices has been organised. RailActivation has had a practical ICoP implementation framework which addressed the key questions surrounding Workplace Innovation (WI) and other critical activities in each ICoP domain with a structured approach. Starting from the analysis of the context of SMEs, and studying the potential causes that generate critical issues related to innovation in small and medium-sized companies, QUINN created the suite of Innovation Way® workshops. The objectives of the workshops were pursued through practical applications of the tools directly in the classroom and on the participating companies (following the Experience-Based learning model). During the implementation phase of RailActivation Project, the SMEs benefited from the capacity building workshop and follow up support to test the RailActivation Pilot Scheme. During the first annual period (from 1st September 2019 to 28th February 2021) the RailActivation Scheme was suggested, a specific Scheme for the rail sector, and no need for finetuning it was identified. However, during the second reporting period, companies have been questioned again with specific details and what it observed was that innovation and communication might need to be more visible in the Pilot Scheme, so a new horizontal block on innovation and communication was added focusing on innovation and communication. WP3 aimed to create an Interregional Network for railway sector and suggest recommendations for future actions. The uses cases of the Piloting were used to turning them into recommendations to guide future researches, policymakers and organisations interested in Workplace Innovation. From a methodological point of view a combination of surveys and case studies were taken in order to understand the barriers organisations face when considering Workplace Innovation and whether there are effective combinations of interventions. The network aimed to ensure a sound implementation of the Pilot scheme, working among all the stakeholders that supports the RailActivation project. For the awareness raising part of the project, during the final phase of the project a set of policy recommendations were developed, linking policy and practice in Workplace Innovation that could serve as a Framework for future research and policy. The Policy recommendations are focused on companies and policy makers and are based on the results obtained in the different stakeholder consultations that took part in the research. The project has been supported by an Advisory Board. The results of the RailActivation project have been exploited in 3 open access publications.
RailActivation project fosters the improvement and motivation and working conditions for employees, both men and women, which leads to increased labour productivity, innovation capability, market resilience and overall business competitiveness. Thanks to the combination of interregional network creation, digital technologies and social innovation approaches, the action opened up for new production modes able to embed and endorse mechanisms supporting the uptake of Workplace Innovation by railway SMEs. The project contributes to the impacts defined above in the following ways: Impact 1: New Context based mechanisms supporting uptake of Workplace Innovation by SMEs, Impact 2: More SMEs take advantage of the opportunities offered by Workplace Innovation., Impact 3: New, context-based forms of Workplace Innovation are created, Impact 4: Improved framework conditions for the uptake of new technologies, Impact 5: Better skilled workforce and more resilient companies.