Study II: Children require less gait kinematic adaptations to pull a trolley than to carry a backpack

“Sequence jumping” pervaded many enacted procedures in WestIndia. Here, for the sake of convenience, I describe a simplified procedure. Consider the enactment of the steps from customer order arrival to starting of production (see Table 4.2, next page).

10 Material lead-time: It is the period between the time the purchase order for a material is placed and the time it is received at the Store.

Figure 4.3 (read with table 4.2) shows the expected enactment as per the ISO

document¹¹. Employees were expected to strictly adhere to this sequence, which has a linear flow. Compare this with the actual enactment in figure 4.4.

11 There are a few more simultaneous steps, which are avoided for the sake of simplicity.

Connection Activities

a Order arrival

a-b Order firming up (Sale manager)

b-c Posting firm order to Production (Sale Manager)

c-d BOM preparation & Control plan preparation (Sales Engineer) d-e Transfer of BOM and control plan to Production (Sales Engineer) e-f Preparation of Material list and transfer to Stores (Production

Engineer)

f-g Issue of material to shopfloor (Store staff)

f-f’ Re-check for man-machine availability (Production staff) g Start production

a

b c d

f1

e

g f

FIGURE 4.3: EXPECTED ENACTMENT: LINEAR SEQUENTIAL FLOW AND EXPECTATION OF SEQUENCE ADHERENCE

TABLE 4. 2: LIST OF WESTINDIAN ACTIVITIES

Browsing figure 4.4 (read with table 4.2), in actual enactment we can see two (or more) tasks done simultaneously along with skipping of some steps. This results in a network flow of tasks (as opposed to a linear flow). I describe how it usually occurs in WestIndia. The manager1 who sat next to the production manager would tell him that a customer order arrived and the changes the manager1 would make in the control plans (no posting of firm orders and no control plan prepared). From this conversation the production manager would guess the change in the materials to be issued (no BOM prepared). Immediately, the production manager would dictate the material

requirements to the engineer sitting next to him. The engineer would prepare the material list and would post it to EIS at his convenience but usually within a day.

Simultaneous with the posting, the engineer sends an operator to pick up the materials.

Usually, the engineer did not expect the operator to return with the material within a strict time period such as an estimated standard time for such movements. Instead if the operator returned within a “reasonable time period” that varied from twenty minutes to an hour, it was considered normal. Interestingly, there were no standard time estimates available for such transportation movements. The operator who goes to

FIGURE 4.4: ACTUAL ENACTMENT: NETWORK FLOW &

SKIPPING OF STEPS (LACK OF SEQUENCE ADHERENCE)

c d e

b

a

f1

g f

the store chats with the employees at the store and returns with no signal of haste.

Once the materials are on the shopfloor, without any recheck of man/machine availability, the production would start. Meanwhile the Sales manager confirms the order and posts it to production. Sometimes, the BOM and new control plans would not be prepared at all. Thus, activities c-d and f-f1 are skipped. We can see the sequence jumping, which was a normal practice, evident in other examples that I describe later

One may think that sequence skipping is merely an issue of change of (or deviation from) the order in which tasks are to be done (or spaced). But, adherence to sequence or sequence fixing, when it is ordering the activities carried out has temporal orders (Schriber & Gutek, 1987; Zerubavel, 1981) since activities encapsulate time. By fixing the sequence, the activity gets fixed both in space (i.e. its position in the sequence), and in turn, in time (i.e. the following activity can occur only after the previous activity is finished¹²) (Giddens, 1984; Sahay, 1997). While the sequence skipping avoids a linear imposition of temporal order, the adherence to sequential pattern of procedural action imposes a linear temporal order (Kallinikos, 2004). By fixing the position, the possible pattern of activity occurrence in time (for example, at any time A will always follow B) is also fixed and made easily predictable and controllable. Put differently, time is bound (time boundedness) and made controllable through binding space.

In sum, in the enactment of WestIndia’s local practices, time was perceived flexible, negotiable, non-linear or networked, and less bound (e.g. lack of timely recording).

12 This is particularly applicable in this case since there are no portions of activities done in parallel.

The enactments of these temporal norms were schedule slippages, simultaneous execution of two or more tasks, lack of adherence to sequential pattern of action, and lack of time bound action. These temporal norms, to a significant extent, reflect the historically salient temporal norms in Indian society as they have been depicted in the literature.

4.2.2 Historically salient temporal norms in India

In this section, I go through the historically claimed¹³ so-called “traditional” Indian temporal norms (as opposed to the so-called Western temporal norms). Agreeing with the critique of the cognitive-cultural dichotomization of time as Indian vs. Western (see Munn, 1992), I do not claim the traditional temporal norms or assumptions as the only way Indians perceived and correspondingly enacted time. Instead, based on the literature available, I assume that the traditional temporal norms were made more salient (from a possible set of all temporal norms that Indians had been practicing).

Perhaps such traditional temporal norms were more predominant among the powerful (e.g. Brahmins) of the Indian society at that point in time.

Here I give only a brief description of the traditional assumptions based on Sahay’s (1998) detailed account. In religious Hindu¹⁴ literature, time is symbolized as an unending stream of life and death. Paniker (1976) describes the vision of time in India to vary according to whether it is treated as power, the self, or a divinity. In Vedic literature, time is discussed as the fruit of ritual action. The unfolding of time was something which man created (as opposed to an objective view) in close collaboration

13 I put it as a claim since what is projected as Indian tradition is a Brahministic tradition, which was traditionally the most influential cast in Hindu religion.

14 Hindu (including its variants) is the major religion in India (80.5 %). Other major religions are Muslim (13.4.%), and Christian (2.3%) (see: http://www.india-travel-agents.com/india-guide/religion.html)

with the Gods. Another view of time is one based on the absolute principle of fate.

Quoting from the Vedas, Paniker (1976) describes this view of time as eternal and non-controllable. In this view all reality depends on time, one that cannot be controlled--an uncontrollable fate. In a similar vein, while discussing fatalism in India, De Reincourt (1960) argues that the key to an understanding of Indian culture lies in realizing its indifference towards history and the very process of time. This indifference, De Reincourt (1960) suggests, eliminates the concern for immediate time, and thus the study of eternity takes precedence over the present. In addition, Indians often deal with cosmic, astronomical time that takes time as transcendental and goes to abolish the present, empirical time. Transcendental time tends to dominate immediate or empirical time where it is often the deed, the human or divine action, which determines the structure of time. In short, historically in the Indian Hindu tradition -- the predominantly practiced tradition in India-- time is assumed to be eternal, uncontrollable, and transcendental. This is in contrast with the so-called Western assumptions about time that conceptualizes time more as transient,

controllable, non-negotiable, rigid, and immediate or empirical (Sahay, 1998). In the following section, analyzing the fundamental processes embedded in ERP software, I argue that ERP embodies the so-called Western temporal norms that normally an ERP user has to enact when the user uses the software. Acknowledging the contested nature of the term “Western”, I use the label global instead (which means globalized through ERP or claimed to be global by ERP promoters).