The Office of the Future
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb057261 |
| Pages | 30-32 |
| Date | 01 May 1982 |
| Published date | 01 May 1982 |
| Author | Nicholas Stephens |
| Subject Matter | Economics,Information & knowledge management,Management science & operations |
The Office of the Future
by Nicholas Stephens
Incorrectly implemented, the Office of the Future will
restrict industrial production and warehousing to work
regimes that suit only the convenience of the company
secretary and other executives who appear but rarely on
the factory floor. On the other hand, correctly im-
plemented, new technology will put the Office of the
Future in its proper place: that is, serving and assisting the
wealth-producing centres. Indeed, the office in a physical
sense will diminsh and instead become dispersed
throughout an organisation via computer terminals.
OOF,
as it is bound to become known, or to give it its
other name, Integrated Electronic Office, may sound as if
it has little to do with the goings on along the production
line.
But on the contrary, industrial management must be
just as active in its initiation as management in the service
sector. Put simply, OOF brings together data processing,
word processing and an electronic message system in an in-
tegrated system relevant to all kinds of companies and ac-
tivities.
OOF is not a revolution but an evolution. It begins with
any one of the three component areas above and is
developed by a company in stages. No industrial manager
under the age of 60 can afford to ignore it. OOF is not a
tool for his successors. The technology was developed
some time ago, it is on sale today, it is being implemented
now, and within five years most major UK companies will
have something of it.
Before looking at the hardware let's look first of all at
OOF at work for the industrial manager. Let's begin with
orders received. The OOF-equipped manager wishes to
schedule production in the light of the latest order posi-
tion. At his visual display unit (VDU) he will be able to call
up all orders outstanding, including those taken the day
before, and analyse them by delivery dates, by delivery
location and by item. Using the computer system he can
allocate stock and work-in-progress to those orders. Based
on previous years' results he can project the order trend,
compare with forecasts and decide his own materials buy-
ing needs. Using the system's word processing capability
he can then call up an order form, insert into it the items
and quantities and the name of the supplier, and have the
computer print it for posting or dispatch it electronically if
the supplier is suitably equipped.
On the factory floor the line managers will be able to call
up on their VDUs the day's production requirements.
Finished goods will pass an optical character recognition
(OCR) device which will update the computer stock
record.
In the warehouse, the warehouse manager will call up on
his VDU the dispatches scheduled for that day. He tells the
computer to print the dispatch notes and these are used as
picking documents. If for any reason, the order cannot be
fulfilled entirely the amended information is fed back into
the computer. The computer now produces the invoice,
pricing in accordance with the program for that particular
customer or category of customer.
Meanwhile, up in his office, the company's financial
controller calls up a list of ageing debts. Company X, he
sees,
has exceeded its credit limit. He calls up the
customer's order record and sees that a delivery is schedul-
ed. He keys in a memo that all dispatches are to be
withheld until a cheque has been received and he sends the
30 INDUSTRIAL MANAGEMENT + DATA SYSTEMS
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