Mood's In Control
In the spectrum of organizational change, which is the most radical type of change: automation, rationalization of procedures, business reengineering, or paradigm shifts? (you are expected to read an article about this question) .. at least 3000 words
Rationalization of procedures is the application of efficiency or effectiveness measures to an organization. Rationalization can occur at the onset of a downturn in an organization's performance or results. It usually takes the form of cutbacks intended to bring the organization back to profitability and may involve layoffs, plant closures, and cutbacks in supplies and resources. It often involves changes in organization structure, particularly in the form of downsizing. The term is also used in a cynical way as a euphemism for mass layoffs. Rationalization provides the easiest way of achieving an immediate action and plan to keep the company due to the fact that its factors are so easily reached. One’s the alarm is ringing (low sales), massive data gathering is done and reports are made to the higher level officials. Then the brainstorming follows for an algorithmic plan to follow. The usual thought of this phase is to keep sales(even though it’s low), assess the productivity of the company to maintain or improve current trend, halt the plunge, find ways to improve current situation(short term solutions) and lastly seek ways for long term plans and growth. The systematic approach due to it being a basic rule and the quick repercussions after the decisions are made make this very viable yet as mentioned above, it makes the employees prone to lay-offs. This cutback in workforce would save maintenance costs but would cut productivity especially for labor-intensive businesses. Usually, the company opts for quality rather than quantity produced. Quality raises the price and can be sustained with low production and costs till the company takes its stride back. Same can be said of closing plants for these add to productivity but drastically increases maintenance costs and supply costs. The company also keeps its pocket tight and will take less risky investments to for gain.
Business process reengineering (BPR) began as a private sector technique to help organizations fundamentally rethink how they do their work in order to dramatically improve customer service, cut operational costs, and become world-class competitors. A key stimulus for reengineering has been the continuing development and deployment of sophisticated information systems and networks. Leading organizations are becoming bolder in using this technology to support innovative business processes, rather than refining current ways of doing work. Reengineering recognizes that an organization's business processes are usually fragmented into subprocesses and tasks that are carried out by several specialized functional areas within the organization. Often, no one is responsible for the overall performance of the entire process. Reengineering maintains that optimizing the performance of subprocesses can result in some benefits, but cannot yield dramatic improvements if the process itself is fundamentally inefficient and outmoded. For that reason, reengineering focuses on redesigning the process as a whole in order to achieve the greatest possible benefits to the organization and their customers. This drive for realizing dramatic improvements by fundamentally rethinking how the organization's work should be done distinguishes reengineering from process improvement efforts that focus on functional or incremental improvement. This follows a cycle: design to be, test and implement to be, identify processes and review, update, analyze or as is. As the name implies, this method heavily involves innovation rather than refining of current ways. This starts as a design to be as a result of brain storming then put to test. If it passes and gives satisfactory results, it is implemented or the processes are reviewed for another round of testing. This is both capital and labor intensive due to the arduous tasks that it implies but unlike the rationalization method which gives immediate yet shaky results, this one gives short term results and opens the doors for long term solutions and radical changes if the test is successful. But the tests would have to be done during the contraction period or else, the company can’t take taking a risk during the trough or lowest point of sales stage. A pre-requisite of this method is a proper record of monthly sales volume, discernment of the company’s needs over wants and proper assessment of the company’s condition, maintenance and productivity costs. This method also involves expertise and proper leveling of the market platform, its ins and outs and the cohesive teamwork effort for a better furnished test and appreciated results.
Paradigm shift is a change from one way of thinking to another. It's a revolution, a transformation, a sort of metamorphosis. It just does not happen, but rather it is driven by agents of change. This is usually brought upon by a radical, a highly optimistic person whose personality pervades others to follow his lead. Paradigm shift is not an end result but a means that is continually changing. The radical person who introduced it would eventually be proven as obsolete as time passes, or as better processes or means become available. The factors that bring this one about vary from person to person due in fact to the person’s temperament, educational background, attitude, convictions or influences. Paradigm shifts can happen at any stage of the business cycle but great risk to chance is given because the primary person must have the sufficient attributes to bring this one change. Because paradigm shift brings drastic changes, major factors become resistant forces to it. The fear of the unknown is one thing. Most people rely on the traditional and the well proven old ways rather than starting again at the bottom to re-familiarize things that are new. Another thing is the hierarchy of business platforms. The radicals are usually the new blood or the newly employed and the hierarchy works against them due to the pride and responsibility and satisfaction that a higher position entails. These difficulties are just a few of the many things to be faced if you are a radical but the hardest is rejection of idea. Usually, the radical loses heart in pursuing his subject any further due to a number of conflicts brought upon him and the fear of losing his job if he doesn’t keep his trap shut.
Automation is the use of control systems (such as numerical control, programmable logic control, and other industrial control systems), in concert with other applications of information technology (such as computer-aided technologies [CAD, CAM, CAx]), to control industrial machinery and processes, reducing the need for human intervention. In the scope of industrialization, automation is a step beyond mechanization. Whereas mechanization provided human operators with machinery to assist them with the muscular requirements of work, automation greatly reduces the need for human sensory and mental requirements as well. Processes and systems can also be automated. Automation plays an increasingly important role in the world economy and in daily experience. Engineers strive to combine automated devices with mathematical and organizational tools to create complex systems for a rapidly expanding range of applications and human activities. Many roles for humans in industrial processes presently lie beyond the scope of automation. Human-level patter recognition, language recognition, and language production ability are well beyond the capabilities of modern mechanical and computer systems. Tasks requiring subjective assessment or synthesis of complex sensory data, such as scents and sounds, as well as high-level tasks such as strategic planning, currently require human expertise. In many cases, the use of humans is more cost-effective than mechanical approaches even where automation of industrial tasks is possible.
Specialised hardened computers, referred to as programmable logic controllers (PLCs), are frequently used to synchronize the flow of inputs from (physical) sensors and events with the flow of outputs to actuators and events. This leads to precisely controlled actions that permit a tight control of almost any industrial process. Human-machine interfaces (HMI) or computer human interfaces (CHI), formerly known as man-machine interfaces, are usually employed to communicate with PLCs and other computers, such as entering and monitoring temperatures or pressures for further automated control or emergency response. Service personnel who monitor and control these interfaces are often referred to as stationary engineers. Automation gives a variety of solutions depending on how it is utilized. Automation is the name and game of today’s generation. Many things that are thought of as impossible dreams are now being achieved. Automation also gives more satisfactory results due to the fact that it uses mathematical precision in its production. It also induces quicker production of goods and lesser errors due to the fact that human intervention is at minimal. It also gives more variability due to the wide options that it gives and greater control.
I, for my personal viewpoint after expounding on the four main points choose automation as the most radical type of change in an organization. The business cycle involves all four but differs them widely. The rationalization method is usually done during the lowest point of the monthly sales report to provide immediate result. But as expounded above, it usually just keeps the funds in tight check and the resources well managed but the production falls due to lay offs of the workforce/employees. Rationalization also works in just a short time to halt or put a brake on the slide the company incurred but on taking back the stride of the company, it won’t fair well. Business reengineering, on the other hand can not be done during the low periods due to the high risk that the experimenting period entails. It also involves extreme fund management to make the best out of the experiment and filter the results to analyze and finalize to be implemented. It also involves radical tinkering of the organization at large making displacements and changes that could make or break the company in taking the long run. Re-engineering also takes on stakeholder meetings or higher level men to confer with one another. Differences should be set aside and a single goal should be put forward but more often than not, re-engineering brings stakeholders to change stands and buy or sell portions of the company depending on the effect and finality of the decisive result made. Paradigm shift is offset due to the fact that it doesn’t necessarily provide a solution, only a dose of motivation to find better ways. Paradigm shift, out of the four runs more serious opposing forces because it plays mainly on the person’s viewpoint and temperament. Background and understanding of the problem at hand alters its effect from situation to situation. Automation on the other hand gives wider choices and has long term effects even if it is done during the organization’s lowest sales month. Automation involves capital but unlike business re-engineering, it has more credible results and brings a better yield. It also takes on the “limited resources” problem like rationalization but it doesn’t compromise productivity unlike rationalization that gives up the workforce. Automation requires maintenance but better than employees, it limits “human error” which becomes the main reason of faulty work by employees making the maintenance worth the pay. It only takes one presentation for automation to take the field unlike paradigm shift which most people are hesitant of. This era also supports the automation clearly by advanced marketing strategies and more sophisticated application due to technological advancements. And the current era of technological advancements make it obvious that the world is getting interconnected and we need technologies to harness such trend to keep up with this unprecedented change. Due to this automation, becomes a necessary tool to improve current economic standing and give the necessary stride to keep abreast with the changing economic platform. In terms of long term solutions, automation greatly increases market survivability and is a great help in advancing its own due to the fact that technology builds on itself for it to increase in capacity.
References:
http://www.quickmba.com/econ/macro/business-cycle/
http://dictionary.bnet.com/definition/rationalization.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automation
