Information Systems: The Achilles Heel of Job Redesign?
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb055362 |
| Date | 01 March 1978 |
| Pages | 5-11 |
| Published date | 01 March 1978 |
| Author | Chris Clegg,Mike Fitter |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
Information Systems: The Achilles
Heel of Job Redesign?
Chris Clegg
Research
Officer,
MRC
Social
and Applied
Psychology
Unit,
University
of Sheffield
Mike Fitter
Research
Officer,
MRC Social and Applied
Psychology
Unit,
University
of Sheffield
Introduction
In the considerable literature on the use of information
systems in organisations there are occasional discussions of
issues broadly relevant to the area of job redesign.
Hedberg,[l] for example, has pointed to the potential of
such systems for facilitating organisational change, advo-
cating what he termed 'participative management informa-
tion systems'. Attention has also been paid to the influence
that computers and information systems have on different
forms of employee participation (see for example Mumford
and Sackman[2]). But very few writers have specifically
considered the impact of information systems on attempts
at redesigning people's jobs. Of the few acknowledging the
centrality of these systems, Wilkinson[3] has stated that
'a careful analysis and some redesign of the information
systems .. . seems to be one of the most important aspects
of redesigning jobs', and Birchall[4] in his statement that
'information systems must make available all the data
required for execution of decision-making duties', has
intimated why this may be necessary. More recently Sime
and Fitter[5] have discussed the information needs of
those responsible for making decisions, commenting that
these needs are likely to change if decision-making is
devolved by job redesign exercises.
But even those considering this specific area have largely
omitted to explain in detail why the 'old' information sys-
tems may no longer be appropriate to new forms of work
organisation, how changes in such systems may be under-
taken, or the sorts of difficulty these alterations may
involve. This paper addresses these issues using a case study
to illustrate that:
1 Reorganising work to introduce semi-autonomous
work groups necessitates changes both in the inform-
ation system and the uses to which it is put;
2 The new system should provide information in a form
suitable for operational decision-making — that is, it
should match the decision-makers conceptual model
of the work process;
3 These necessary changes are difficult to design (they
are certainly not self-evident) and probably even harder
to implement.
By information systems we mean those procedures by
which departments have their workloads planned and
scheduled, through which they are monitored, controlled
and evaluated, and which provide feedback on their
performance.
The project a was undertaken in a single department in a
medium-sized, partially unionised confectionery factory in
the North of England. The particular department (herein-
after referred to as 'HB') produced and packed in excess of
40 different lines of hard-boiled sweets and was organised
in two rooms separated by a partition. In one room men
produced the sweets and, in the other, women packed them.
Each room had its own supervisor responsible to the HB
manager who reported directly to the factory manager. The
two supervisors held rigid control over the production and
packing processes, allocating people to jobs, deciding the
timings of breaks, determining priorities and standing in for
people who needed a personal break. Above all, the produc-
tion supervisor set the pace of work for both rooms by
fixing the cooker speeds at the beginning of the process.
Production in HB is organised on a batch system which
Woodward[6] characterised as less amenable than other
production systems to delegation and decentralisation, but
more likely to have the functions of planning, execution
and control separate from each other. The technology itself
is old-fashioned in that almost all the plant in HB is over
ten years old. Usually two product lines are made concur-
rently for a whole day each (although changes during the
day are sometimes necessary).
The management information systems
The information systems operating in the firm were fairly
conventional and followed Woodward's predictions regarding
separation. Thus production was planned, controlled and
assessed with the help of three functions: work study,
production planning and management information. Work
study determined the manning levels and standard times
appropriate for each product line. Production planning used
sales forecasts to determine the demands on the department
and then used work study figures to set a daily production
plan for the current week, at the same time indicating the
numbers of operating staff that would be needed. The HB
manager and his supervisors (especially the one responsible
for production) adapted this plan to meet their circum-
stances, bearing in mind which product lines could and
could not be made concurrently, the stock levels of
materials that would be required, and any 'urgent' demands
by the marketing function. It was their responsibility to
draft in any extra staff that might be needed, or to transfer
a This project is based on
a
job redesign field experiment carried out
by Toby Wall and Chris
Clegg.
Dr Wall's contribution to this paper is
also gratefully acknowledged.
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