Personnel Management
Outline
1. Conventional Manufacturing Systems and
CIM
Systems.
- Key Characteristics
- Workers’ Role
- Managerial Aspects
2. Impact of CIM Environment on Personnel
- A new culture
- New attitude
3. Human Resource Strategy in a CIM Environment
4. Job Design in CIM Environment
- Behavioral Considerations
- Specialization of work
- Sociotechnical systems approach
- Job enlargement
- Job enrichment
- Job rotation
5. Re- engineering: Human Aspects
Lecture Notes
1. The Conventional Manufacturing System.
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Key Characteristics
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Repetitive manufacturing – products are assembled in volume from standard
options
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Feeding processes (fabrication) are performed by job shop manufacturing
(work centers)
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A job shop – a department or a work center which is formed by grouping
similar machines together. A work center produces different items usually
in large lots.
-
Assembly is done on assembly line.
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A large work-in-process inventory – to absorb changes in production
variables
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Push manufacturing approach – the first work station starts an order and
it has no relation to what is needed in the following work station
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Workers’ Role
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Objective: Efficiency.
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Primary tool: Division of work (Taylor’s theory)
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Work specialization- high level
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Jobs’ content- very simple (do not need much skills), very short cycles
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Effects:
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Labor cost- low
-
Workers’ have limited training and understanding of the production process
(focused on their own work center)
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Lack of interest, involvement and commitment
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Managerial Aspects
Managers don’t need to think and to be involved in designing, planning,
organizing the operations (there is already a division of all ! )
CIM’s Key Characteristics
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A new environment, a real- time environment that moves faster
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A technological change. It deals with Flexible Manufacturing Cells and
Systems, a hierarchy of controls that tie everything together, and the
Management Information Systems.
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Increase manufacturing flexibility.
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Variations in routing, operations, machines, and operators.
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All three functions of management are affected: planning, implementation
and control. Change is required throughout the organization.
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The absence of large inventory. Cycle stock is small. Safety stock is not
used
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Pull manufacturing approach – producing the EXACT quantity only WHEN needed
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Workers’ Role
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Objective: To produce in high quality
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The primary tool: Team-based technology
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Degree of freedom- used in controlling the system and to react to unpredictable
events: machine failures, absence of operators, changes in the workshop
environment
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Multifunctional workers (trained in different skills) Involved in the process
control; have responsibilities and authority to make decisions on quality
issues
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Effects:
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Understanding the total production system.
-
Flexibility
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Higher quality
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Higher morale
2. Impact of CIM Environment on Personnel
Restructuring and downsizing. Lay off
Both unskilled workers & middle management positions are affected
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Changing skills, to higher skills
Additional skills in part programming
Jobs of expediters are being eliminated
Reading inspection instruments is less demanding
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Undergoing a cultural change
Management’s role for a NEW CULTURE: Decision- making to be a group
activity.
Team building
Recognition & Reward system
Instilling a culture of continuous improvement, for TQM &Reengineering
Stretch goals & "Out- of- the box" thinking
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New attitudes
President & CEO must believe in CIM
Specialists need to generalize more & Generalists need to specialize
more
Manufacturing Engineers & Designers have to interact: Designers
have to know more about manufacturing, inspection, packaging
First line supervisors have to interact with operators
Maintenance staff need to work as a team, with expertise in
electronics, computers, hydraulics, and pneumatics
3. Human Resource Strategy in a CIM environment
has to be related to:
(a) HR being efficiently utilized within the constraints
of operations decisions
(b) work life quality (management has respect for its employees
and their contribution to the firm)
The three dimensions of HR strategy:
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Manpower planning (employment stability and work schedules)
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Job design (tasks, elements, micro- motions)
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Labor standards
4. Job Design in CIM Environment.
- Behavioral Considerations
- Specialization of labor
- Sociotechnical systems approach (interaction "technology- work group")
- Job enlargement (Present job + Task 2
+
Task 3)
- Job enrichment (Present job + Planning
+
Control). More responsibilities and a sort of managerial power (Stop
the line!)
- Job rotation- a version of job enlargement
- Effects:
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Reduced turnover
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Reduced tardiness and absenteeism
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Improved quality
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Improved productivity
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High direct cost labor
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Reduced costs in recruiting and training
5. Approaching a Reengineering Project with Human
and Organizational Enabler
(a) Identify human and organizational aspects to be fundamentally,
radically, and dramatically changed
(b) Rules’- breaking
(c) Focus on people’s values and beliefs
(d) Try to make reengineering happen from the top to bottom
Main characteristics of the Reengineered Workplaces:
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work units change from functional departments to process teams
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jobs change from simple tasks to multidimensional work
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values change – from protective to productive
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focus on performance measures and compensation shift from activity to results
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organizational structure change – from hierarchical to flat
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executive change – from scorekeepers to leaders