People and Technology in the Workplace (1991) / Chapter Skim
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A Case History of Organizational Change: People and New Technology
A Case History of Organizational Change: People and New Technology
Pages 102-118
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From page 102... ...
This case study describes the process by which IBIS increased its productivity by more than 30 percent and reduced its costs of operation through organizational change and the concurrent introcluction of centralized process control technology. The company has three manufacturing locations—Kingstree, South Carolina; HaTebank, United Kingdom; and Brugges, Belgium.
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From page 103... ...
The shift supervisor received the brunt of the blame associated with the disruption and, paradoxically, had more work in directing people in the new assignments. Overall plant performance was considered satisfactory.
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From page 104... ...
A traclitional text was used to introduce basic supervisory concepts. As an outgrowth of Quality Circle exposure and supervisory concepts, the first-level supervisors undertook a project to develop an operator performance appraisal system in 1984.
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From page 105... ...
The basic management knowledge gained by the supervisors helped them begin the transition from direct control of workers to becoming a "resource" with multiple roles. In 1985 the department shift supervisors were replaced by one plant superintendent who rotated with the shifts to be available as a "resource." This permitted the work groups to evolve into teams while freeing former shift supervisors to carry out their new assignment as team resources.
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From page 106... ...
Although layoffs are certainly undesirable and can generally be attributed to poor management, the cyclical nature of the business in 1985 required a temporary work force reduction. Without performance appraisals, some of the most capable operators would have been lost and the new organizational efforts wouIc3 have been jeopardized.
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From page 107... ...
interpersonal skills and knowledge are as important as the core job skills and knowledge of the process. Sunshine Concept The administrative roles evolved into the Sunshine Concept [Figure 21.
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From page 108... ...
The people ray especially distinguishes the Sunshine Concept from unsupervised work groups or teams under the direction of a team leader. The people ray carries out routine administrative responsibilities such as coordinating vacation, overtime, training schedules, and time sheets.
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From page 109... ...
Insic3le/Outsicie Concept For more than 20 years, large petrochemical and refinery installations have operated integrated processes from central control rooms. An inside operator directs activities of field workers.
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From page 110... ...
The regular routine includes equipment checks in the field according to a schedule established by the resource and production ray members. Outside operators check the water level in cooling towers and the oil temperature of compressors and monitor other field instruments and activities that are not included on the inside operator's console.
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From page 111... ...
The team determines the shift staffing level following the guidelines. Current production teams consist of six members, with some overtime required.
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From page 112... ...
A third organizational type—an ac~hocracy—illustrates an organization's readiness to accept boundary adjustments to facilitate innovation and change. The effort goes into implementing change and not dealing with organizational resistance to overcome inertia.
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From page 113... ...
contribution are important and are recognized by the significant work and administrative responsibilities each team member has as both a ray and a key decision maker in the manufacturing process. As the role of the supervisory technical resources evolved, they were initially reluctant to intervene, feeling much more comfortable with coordinating, observing, coaching, facilitating, and training.
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From page 114... ...
TECHNOLOGY The 1984 baseline study iclentifiecT potential advantages of installing a PC network to improve information flow and using manu
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From page 115... ...
Members included representatives from customer service, order entry, accounting, accounts payable, accounts receivable, purchasing, warehouse, production planning, project engineering, ancl maintenance. After a cursory screening, two vendors provided software for a week-Ion" evaluation by the potential users.
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From page 116... ...
An automation plan was designed for integration by stages to match IBIS's capital budgets and resources, and Combustion Engineering Corporation proposed a shared-risk/shared-benefit venture tBlickley, 19871. After a detailed engineering study of costs and savings, a distributed process control system, MOD 300@, was installed.
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From page 117... ...
The results of this approach are periodically brought into focus when airline pilots and flight controllers threaten to "go by the book." In nearly any location, when one goes strictly by the book, using the old paradigm, effectiveness and productivity suffer. Innovation is restricted if not eliminated.
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From page 118... ...
Thirteenth Annual Advanced Control Conference, Purdue University, September 28-30.
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